3 Things you LOVE and HATE about most 2D fighting games.

[JetSetDizzy]

Eh, it's all relative.It's always better to have more characters viable but only if you can make them viable while making their playstyle unique. To make a game have perfect balance you would have to give all characters the exact same toolset which would eliminate any need to have more than one character. You really just have to balance viability with interesting playstyles and sometimes it doesn't pay off.

 

[LP]

Better is subjective. You can't base fact off something that isn't fact.

 

[SoNG-Of-SiLeNCe]

And I'm pointing out how history has shown that breaking things in a fighting game usually results in the game getting better. That's not opinion, that's fact (with actual historical data to back it up).

I think we're talking about two different things here.
You're talking about something that Sirlin said too;
'Fact is that "cheap" is good because it makes the game meta evolve.' <~ To this I agree.
I'm talking about the inability of 40 out of 43 characters to be any viable and the top2 being utter bullshit, the third being impossible to beat by the other 40 as well but not as good as the top 2, and there being no amount of practice one can exert before one can beat A tier with B tier.
Typical example of this is MK9 where there are 6 tournament-viable characters all in all, Kabal and Kenshi being broken, and nobody in C tier ever standing a chance by raw matchup data to achieve even a 6-4 out of 10. Kitana is B tier and she still struggles 2-8 against Kenshi because that character is utter shit and admittedly an unpatched dlc.

Matchup data will be consistently inconsistent and "balance" is hard to achieve.

MY argument is that there is no need for the 30 characters if not only do they struggle uphill but end up in matchups 7-3 or worse. 6-4 is workable. 7-3 is bullshit. 8-2? Gotta be kidding me.

Yet again, because I know that most people don't like long text these days, my argument is that fewer characters work for better balance and do not give people the illusion of choice, BUT, the moderate opportunity for choice comes with success in effort.

 

[d3v]

4 top tier characters is still all you really need, no matter the size of the roster.

From SonicHurricane.com - "What Does Unbalanced Mean"

To be clear, it doesn’t matter how many squares there are on the character select screen. Who cares whether five useless portraits remain in the game or fifty? Percentage-based breakdowns are meaningless. Only two factors count when considering balance: whether there are four or more characters in top tier, and whether the matchups between them measure up to our high standards. When either of these criteria ceases to be true, that’s when we should stop playing the game.

Until then, there’s nothing to complain about. You simply can’t expect much more than this. Yes, you may have to switch characters to accomodate the realization that your original choice can’t compete against top tier. However, if you enjoy the core game and you have four diverse characters to choose from, just pick one and continue enjoying it.

And in any case, since tiers are based on matchups, you still have cases where low tiers will beat out top tiers (e.g. vanilla SF4 where Cammy was 6:4 against Akuma despite being low tier). Counterpicking is part of the game.

 

[Juez]

I remember in BB:CT the Nu/ Tager match-up was 10-0 Nu and the Nu/Haku match-up being like 9/8- 1/2 Nu. That is the highest level of bullshit ever.