ShadowCollector
[09] Warrior
I doubt it >_> Give ezio players a month and I guarantee he will get banned XP
Soulcalibur: Balanced or Not?
- Thread starter Cahin
- Start date
I doubt it >_> Give ezio players a month and I guarantee he will get banned XP
Fuzzieviking
[13] Hero
I feel like this game IS unbalanced to the point where we do have characters like Hilde who are banned because they are too good and/or have tools that often render certain characters obsolete (algol vs talim) And then you have the characters like Rock or Yoda who are not very good at all and lose to most other characters when skill is equal.
I think the place where all characters should fall is mid tier. Characters like Xianghua, Cassy, SF and what not are very balanced imo and can handle themselves well against the top tier characters and the fights aren't usually too one sided against the low tier characters.
Soul calibur will never be perfectly balanced because there will always be one character that is considered the best. The game as it stands in soul calibur 4 is an unbalanced mess compared to a perfectly balanced game, but with all things considered, having only two banned characters, and low and mid tier characters coming in first and second in some tournys I think the game is in a great place.
I think the place where all characters should fall is mid tier. Characters like Xianghua, Cassy, SF and what not are very balanced imo and can handle themselves well against the top tier characters and the fights aren't usually too one sided against the low tier characters.
Soul calibur will never be perfectly balanced because there will always be one character that is considered the best. The game as it stands in soul calibur 4 is an unbalanced mess compared to a perfectly balanced game, but with all things considered, having only two banned characters, and low and mid tier characters coming in first and second in some tournys I think the game is in a great place.
d3v
[10] Knight
Having characters within the same tier level is wishful thinking - at least if you want a game to thrive with mutiple, interesting matchups. There will always be good characters and bad characters. Idealy, what a game should strive for is what some folks would call "meta-balance."
To quote from EVO founder and GGPO creator Tony Cannon's old Domination 101 article on it.
To quote from EVO founder and GGPO creator Tony Cannon's old Domination 101 article on it.
ShadowCollector
[09] Warrior
Lizardman = Sophitia = Cassandra?
Siegfried = Nightmare?
Seong-mi-na = Kilik?
Amy = Raphael?
Astaroth = Rock?
Yun and Yang are so similar in gameplay it makes Ryu and Ken look unique. Not to mention the terrible amount of shoto clones and terrible amount of Nerfs/Re-balance. However this is SCV so let's not get off topic with articles for other games.
Fundamentally you can't apply Meta-Balance to SCIV by quoting a SSF2T article. It just can't work. The game itself like Fuzzie said lacks so much balance outside mid tiers and high tiers.
What tourneys are this? When have you ever seen a Mitsu/Taki/Zas/Raph/Rock/Talim player win a tournament or even hit semi-finals in a major?
Fuzzieviking
[13] Hero
ShadowCollector
[09] Warrior
I don't know about yoshi.
I feel he's an Upper-mid and even possible slightly high tier in his own way.
Either way he's much better in SCIV than tekken 6.
In tekken 6 he's at the bottom of the list like Rock is (Next to zafina and the bears.)
IvyFanboy
[11] Champion
Yeah I need to shoot this down as well point by point:
MvC3 balance:
Besides Phoenix, no character is overly powerful or totally useless in that game. Due to it's team mechanics even 'bad' characters can fulfill niche roles that allow them to work. An Example would be Captain America used at EVO, normally a bad character but with Sent assist he was VERY effective and did well. I would say except for Phoenix and some exploits such as DHC glitch the roster isn't bad, there's actually a lot of variety if you really look at it. You may see certain characters as staple components, but when I look at all 3 I see different ideas all the time do well.
SC4 Yoda:
Yoda is often misinterpreted as cheap by casual players...the truth? He's actually the worst character in the game probably. While he can't be thrown as is small, if you know what to do Yoda can't win because he can't side step and has poor movement. Simply zone him and he loses to EVERYONE. Ivy vs Yoda is an 8 to 2 match.
Cheap characters:
SC4 only has 3 characters that ever really come up when talking about 'cheap' or 'overpowered' and that's Amy, Algol, and Hilde. Any other complaints are oversights of a casual player not knowing an answer or a small aspect of a characters game (Ivy SW a+bA+B glitch is cheap...but not enough to cry about the character as a whole). But even among these characters the only one that really stands out is Hilde and is largely agreed upon as the most broken character (though some people like to fuss about Amy more).
Balance as a whole:
SC4 is fairly balanced, tho not perfect. The only real outliers are Hilde as too good and Mina/Rock/Yoda as unwinnable in high level. All the other characters can do well in the right hands at high level and we've seen it done (Talim, Zas, Apprentice). The game could do for more balance curving, but all in all most of the roster is completely viable, just some characters need more work like Maxi and Raph.
MvC3 balance:
Besides Phoenix, no character is overly powerful or totally useless in that game. Due to it's team mechanics even 'bad' characters can fulfill niche roles that allow them to work. An Example would be Captain America used at EVO, normally a bad character but with Sent assist he was VERY effective and did well. I would say except for Phoenix and some exploits such as DHC glitch the roster isn't bad, there's actually a lot of variety if you really look at it. You may see certain characters as staple components, but when I look at all 3 I see different ideas all the time do well.
SC4 Yoda:
Yoda is often misinterpreted as cheap by casual players...the truth? He's actually the worst character in the game probably. While he can't be thrown as is small, if you know what to do Yoda can't win because he can't side step and has poor movement. Simply zone him and he loses to EVERYONE. Ivy vs Yoda is an 8 to 2 match.
Cheap characters:
SC4 only has 3 characters that ever really come up when talking about 'cheap' or 'overpowered' and that's Amy, Algol, and Hilde. Any other complaints are oversights of a casual player not knowing an answer or a small aspect of a characters game (Ivy SW a+bA+B glitch is cheap...but not enough to cry about the character as a whole). But even among these characters the only one that really stands out is Hilde and is largely agreed upon as the most broken character (though some people like to fuss about Amy more).
Balance as a whole:
SC4 is fairly balanced, tho not perfect. The only real outliers are Hilde as too good and Mina/Rock/Yoda as unwinnable in high level. All the other characters can do well in the right hands at high level and we've seen it done (Talim, Zas, Apprentice). The game could do for more balance curving, but all in all most of the roster is completely viable, just some characters need more work like Maxi and Raph.
d3v
[10] Knight
You're missing the point by focusing on the fact that the article cited a specific game. The point is you can't have a game with that type of "everyone is in the same tier" level of balance without turning it into something where everyone plays exactly the same (which defeats the point of having multiple characters and is therefore quite boring).
Super Turbo is simply used as an example since it does have an interesting case of "meta-balance" where even a dominant character like O.Sagat still has match-ups against his favor (almost half the cast), same with the rest of the Top Tiers bringing us to a point where none of the top tiers totally dominate the rest of the cast because they all have characters where they have to adjust and compromise their gameplan due to the match-up.
All I'm saying then is that SCV should go for this type of balance, especially since it's borrowing alot of 2D/SF style mechanics (including what seem to be a number of characters with a good amount of projectile/space control based gameplay). Even if it ends up having a set of tournament viable characters, the matchups between those characters should be varied and interesting enough to sustain the game competitively.
P.S. Even something like SSFIV AE has some level of meta-balance, why do you think some Japanese players (like kindevu) keep a "pocket Cammy" for dealing with the twins?
IvyFanboy
[11] Champion
Could it just be we have amazing Ivy players?
In the US: Ramon, Mick, S-U, MTFighter, I could go on.
In the EU: Keysona, Pantocrator, Kayane, Belial, Jag, Saitoh, Kira, Keev, Belial I could go on.
So these guys aren't amazing?
ShadowCollector
[09] Warrior
I disagree. Hsien-ko without Hyper-armor assist is fairly underpowered along with Felicia, MODOK, etc. MvC3 tournaments are dominated by Wesker, Doom, Magneto, Wolverine, Dormmamu, and sometimes She-hulk. The game also has an absurd amount of Chip damage compared to any 2d Fighting game which makes zoning terribly good.
Agreed. Yoda is the worst character in the game. His A's and B's can ring himself out even if you don't 4g. Not to mention his force meter moves aren't that great and are easily predictable. Just because he is immune to grabs doesn't mean he's cheap. He's just an annoying little green troll.
I'm one of those players who argue about Amy more than Hilde. However I rage more about Siegfried and Ivy than amy ironically. Ivy is way too good in SCIV regardless of a Casual or Professional players viewpoint. As for siegfried. I just freaking hate the guy in general and NOTHING will change my opinion on him. Ivy and Amy have a few balance issues that need fixing in general.
I'd say 65% of the cast is viable in tournaments. If that. Online and Casual play I would say 100%. As for balance curving I agree. It should be applied to Amy and Kilik players more than most.
In general SCIV is unbalanced (Not even fairly if you take into account how many characters are put in mid tier). However It's still playable. Majority of the cast is either Bottom/Mid tier which hurts the chances for tournament level play outside 2-5 characters. Either way it's still a great game and I wasn't expecting a flawless perfectly balanced game. Just balanced enough for the tournament scene to have some variety instead of the same 2-3 characters that are constantly picked.
TerminatorCortez
[10] Knight
I think what makes SC fun is the tier difference well when there NO GOD TIER LMAO its always great to see players such as Omega with his Zas and keev with his nighty proving that even if your character is not the best one, you work hard to master him and learn the faws of the others to get better. IDC everything in life is unbalanced and SC is no exception.
ShadowCollector
[09] Warrior
Play STD's amy before shouting there is no God tier.
She isn't. Yeah she's a bitch to deal with - most of the cast can still compete with her though. Even the best Amy's don't always win - look at what Woahhzz did to Thugish.
Same in Europe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw49bf3Xw8k&feature=channel_video_title
Satisfying as fuck for us Siegfrieds. =3
TerminatorCortez
[10] Knight
i met to say that tiers in Soul Calibur make it fun but with characters such has algol, hilde and almost Amy and Ivy they destroy this fun tier system because they are part of a GOD TIER which break the game à:P
d3v
[10] Knight
There's a good deal of bandwagoning involved there however (i.e. idiots who'll play whoever Justin or Viscant or Tokido plays). Most MvC3 pros agree that the game is pretty balanced outside of Dark Phoenix (who by design, needs to be somewhat broken to actually be useful). There' nothing wrong with having a handful of characters who aren't really viable (at least until we discover teams for them) is fine especially considering that MvC2 had 40/56 characters who were useless (thank goodness that were was more depth in the top 16 than in most other fighters).
ShadowCollector
[09] Warrior
Never said she couldn't be beaten. It's just not fun fighting her :(
Gah siegfried players. I hate him so much even though siegfried players still have to earn their wins as much as any other mid tier character >_<. I miss the times where siegfried was nightmare and he had a fairly good moveset. Then SCIII came and
ShadowCollector
[09] Warrior
Depends. Even if you use a character only for assist (X-23, Modok, Viper, Morrigan, Trish) they will still get stomped by Taskmaster or Wesker mix-ups. Or worse, Wolverines Incredibly safe Dive kick.
If you actually look at which characters are good ASSIST wise compared to PLAYABLILTY wise. It would make the MvC2 cast blush in terms of uselessness.
Sure MvC2 had a crap ton of clones (Akuma, Charlie, Ken, Sabretooth) and crappy characters (Servbot, Roll, Iceman, Silver Samurai, Son-Son) but damn it the game was fun to play with outside tournaments.
TerminatorCortez
[10] Knight
I'm sorry to disagree but I'm happy that they separated both of them, I hated nightmare before SCIII but the way he's fighting style has evolved since II is remarkable :P I hate siege he dosent move enough i love nightmare because he's constantly at your face looking for the one opening and than bammm your either RO or against a wall with him beating you. Nightmare is a grabbing machine, RO KING and evil that makes him the best :D
ShadowCollector
[09] Warrior
Fixed for you.