Does Sakurai know what he's doing with character balance?

[Senario]

I was more referring to his inclusion of the technique as a way for CPU players to cheat. Obviously it would be unfair to have a special AI-only move like that, so he simply added a very precisely-timed command under the assumption that players wouldn't be able to pull it off reliably. Except, lo and behold, they did.

Well what he intended it be used for doesn't really matter, it is how it turned out. Combos in Street fighter if I remember had a very very short window of frames to execute in the first game and that didn't stop players from executing them. This eventually evolved into one of the more popular fighting games out there, the developers clearly didn't think that esports would be a thing. There was no concept of esports back then. Just because something is hard to do doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done, what the move is used for is what is important rather than the developer intention. Dante bold cancel in UMvC3 was meant to make traditionally unsafe moves like stinger safe by jumping into the air for a follow up combo. But instead players found out you could bold cancel into a ground move if you did it fast enough because you canceled the move but haven't left the ground yet. This was completely allowed in the game because it allowed dante to still be viable in that game despite his multiple nerfs from the first game. He isn't the best out there since he is very hard to touch of death with but he sure is fun, and hence popular.

And again, if you can do it in a game it is ok to use by competitive play's standards in most fighting games. They rarely ban things which is why initially they looked down at the smash community because we had to ban the party aspects to get to the fighting game aspects.

 

[LancerStaff]

Well what he intended it be used for doesn't really matter, it is how it turned out. Combos in Street fighter if I remember had a very very short window of frames to execute in the first game and that didn't stop players from executing them. This eventually evolved into one of the more popular fighting games out there, the developers clearly didn't think that esports would be a think. There was no concept of esports back then. Just because something is hard to do doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done, what the move is used for is what is important rather than the developer intention. Dante bold cancel in UMvC3 was meant to make traditionally unsafe moves like stinger safe by jumping into the air for a follow up combo. But instead players found out you could bold cancel into a ground move if you did it fast enough because you canceled the move but haven't left the ground yet. This was completely allowed in the game because it allowed dante to still be viable in that game despite his multiple nerfs from the first game. He isn't the best out there since he is very hard to touch of death with but he sure is fun, and hence popular.

And again, if you can do it in a game it is ok to use by competitive play's standards in most fighting games. They rarely ban things which is why initially they looked down at the smash community because we had to ban the party aspects to get to the fighting game aspects.

Combos were found, but completely unintended. Being a competitive game already, combos fit in. Wavedashing and L-canceling are incongruous with the rest of SSB, and were subsequently taken out because of it. The developer has full right to fix glitches and cut unfair moves.

 

[Senario]

Combos were found, but completely unintended. Being a competitive game already, combos fit in. Wavedashing and L-canceling are incongruous with the rest of SSB, and were subsequently taken out because of it. The developer has full right to fix glitches and cut unfair moves.

Problem is you can't argue that street fighter 1 was already a competitive game by definition. It was a new IP at that point and had no basis for competition, it was simply a new genre of game called "fighting game". L cancelling was intended and at worst wavedashing was an exploit. You are free to believe otherwise but don't say with absolute certainty that it was a glitch when really it wasn't. You CANNOT mess up coding so bad that a single button press is half lag on EVERY AIR MOVE. It had to be intended from a coding standpoint otherwise it would have been really inconsistent and definitely not work on everything.

 

[LancerStaff]

Problem is you can't argue that street fighter 1 was already a competitive game by definition. It was a new IP at that point and had no basis for competition, it was simply a new genre of game called "fighting game". L cancelling was intended and at worst wavedashing was an exploit. You are free to believe otherwise but don't say with absolute certainty that it was a glitch when really it wasn't. You CANNOT mess up coding so bad that a single button press is half lag on EVERY AIR MOVE. It had to be intended from a coding standpoint otherwise it would have been really inconsistent and definitely not work on everything.

The very point of the game was to capture the sense of competition when fighting with martial arts. Certainly wasn't about smashing cars.

Duh, L-canceling was intentionally put in, but so CPUs could cheat. You have no proof of anything more.

 

[mygamecube]

I feel that L-Cancelling was absolutely intentional and Wavedashing was a physics/glitch exploit, not intentional.

...Just my two cents.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Well the thing is besides ice climbers (who can wobble on anybody) the Sheik had chain grabs based on reads. You had to predict where your opponent was going to tech so you can chase them, it is entirely different than being truly inescapable because that is based on skill. I wish I could say you should just take my word for it but I personally play Roy for fun and have several friends who like messing around with link and they don't really have chain grabs that are too crazy. It may seem that way esp for marth vs spacies but that actually balances out the matchup between marth and fox in it's own odd way. There aren't many chaingrabs from ganon from what I remember he just hits hard.

And it is in the smash 64 manual, there is a PDF of it if you google it. It is a little bit hidden though, you look under controls and look at the Z button and it has very specific text saying something along the lines of "press this button to resume your fighting stance". It isn't direct but it is there. And it is still an intended mechanic because you cannot mess up coding so bad that you play entire separate animations for a move by pressing a single button, they are separate files.

I've tried playing Roy competitively and being a mini Sethlon. Now Roy is bad, I'm not gonna dispute that, with or without the CG stuff he would have issues.

The CG stuff on him just makes it even worse like rubbing salt in wounds. Melee CGs require a bit more knowledge and skill comparable to Brawl ones, but it's not that much harder to get this stuff with Shiek and such. And Roy isn't the only one who suffers from this either. Shiek would still win these MUs either way, unlike D3 with him having the CG makes or breaks some match-ups.

For the 64 thing, idk if that is what it was talking about, I thought that was refering to being "launched" and then hitting the ground, so teching when I read that way back when.

 

[Sethlon]

Sheik isnt even Melee Roy's worst matchup IMO =/ Samus, Jiggs, Ice Climbers and Luigi are all even harder.
/offtopic

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Sheik isnt even Melee Roy's worst matchup IMO =/ Samus, Jiggs, Ice Climbers and Luigi are all even harder.
/offtopic

Why Luigi?

 

[KieRanaRan]

Of course he knows what he's doing with balancing.

What a stupid question.

 

[Sethlon]

Why Luigi?

Because he crouch cancels just as hard as some of the others that body Roy for that, he's difficult to combo/fight from underneath since he has nair and dair, he's difficult to edgeguard (since Roy doesn't have aerial kill moves he can hit him out of sideB endlag with), and he hits and combos hard enough to destroy Roy when he touches him.

 

[DevaAshera]

Because he crouch cancels just as hard as some of the others that body Roy for that, he's difficult to combo/fight from underneath since he has nair and dair, he's difficult to edgeguard (since Roy doesn't have aerial kill moves he can hit him out of sideB endlag with), and he hits and combos hard enough to destroy Roy when he touches him.

May I just say that I love that your avatar happens to be Roy while you're explaining all this?

 

[Sethlon]

<3 Check out my join date. I've been a Roy main since the dawn of time!

 

[DevaAshera]

<3 Check out my join date. I've been a Roy main since the dawn of time!

Indeed you have. I've always liked Roy, but I settled on Marth since my brother wanted Roy to himself lol

Since I don't see him coming back for Super Smash Bros. though as part of the initial roster, its part of why I'm really hoping for DLC Characters or a DLC Expansion so we could possibly get all of the original veterans back (aside from Pichu who no one really cares about or Young Link because..well..Toon Link is a renamed Young Link as far as I'm concerned).

Alternatively..maybe a Project M style thing will be possible without modding the console again :3

 

[31gma]

No.

And that's because his focus is balancing multiple game modes. If he balanced the game primarily on one game mode rather than a broad category, he would be on the right track. There's too much variations to go about (i.e. Sonic's speed gives him the edge with items on, particularly with the Smash ball)

It's like marketing, your target audience should cater to a specific group. For Sakurai's case, he has the choice between casual and competitive players; attempting to broaden your target audience (or please everyone per se) is a comically bad marketing practice that will yield question marks on the competitive community.

I'm completely fine with Sakurai's balancing philosophy though, casual gamers represent the main portion of the gaming population and allow people like Sakurai to let their plans come to fruition. I know this game will be moddable in a few months after its release if the presumed patches disappoint so there's the possibility of Sm4sh+ or Project M2.

 

[Anthuhny]

I understand how you can balance a 4-player FFA without items, just give characters aoe attacks and such. But I just don't understand how you can balance a 4-player game with items. For example, if a heart spawns on one of the players in a 4-player match, how is that fair? How can that be fixed?

 

[Ulevo]

 

[Deleted member 245254]

A single imbalanced character does not imply he doesn't know how to balance, given the massive historical variety of Smash rosters. One could link A big picture of Fox all the same mostly in regards to Melee.

 

[xxEliteAlicexx]

Off topic, why the hell is everyone writing paragraphs? Lol I love you guys but really?

 

[Tristan_win]

Off topic, why the hell is everyone writing paragraphs? Lol I love you guys but really?

~shrugs~ Sometimes it takes more then 2-3 sentence to explain a elaborate idea or concept.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

Off topic, why the hell is everyone writing paragraphs? Lol I love you guys but really?

I don't get it, are you trying to imply that it's "uncool" wherever you reside from to be literate or articulate?

 

[Hydde]

The fact that he let Cpt. Falcon and Ganon suck so much in Brawl convinced me. He has no diea whats he is doing.

He just put ut random numbers and hopes for the best. Also, he cannot know whats good and whats bad since Sakurai is not a pro smasher hmiself.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

The fact that he let Cpt. Falcon and Ganon suck so much in Brawl convinced me. He has no diea whats he is doing.

He just put ut random numbers and hopes for the best. Also, he cannot know whats good and whats bad since Sakurai is not a pro smasher hmiself.

No...he only made the game with his bare hands. No biggie.

 

[Comeback Kid]

No...he only made the game with his bare hands. No biggie.

The guy most likely supervises other people who do all the hard work of programming with their bare hands while he makes all the project management decisions, playtests things and decides what ultimately goes into the game.

There are other ways to show Sakurai is a good guy making good decisions than exaggerating what he does as a singular effort for effect.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

The guy most likely supervises other people who do all the hard work of programming with their bare hands while he makes all the project management decisions, playtests things and decides what ultimately goes into the game.

There are other ways to show Sakurai is a good guy making good decisions than exaggerating what he does as a singular effort for effect.

Yeah that's why he incurred a disease in his hand during his development of smash games, because he sat and watched everyone else play.

 

[Comeback Kid]

Playtests things = plays the game a lot. Doesn't really say anything about skill level though. You can play a ton with a casual mindset and end up being a casual player.

More time playing doesn't necessarily equal being an expert at the game. It all depends how you play to exploit things to your advantage not only on the sheer hours spent playing the game.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

Playtests things = plays the game a lot. Doesn't really say anything about skill level though. You can play a ton with a casual mindset and end up being a casual player.

More time playing doesn't necessarily equal being an expert at the game. It all depends how you play to exploit things to your advantage not on sheer hours of playtime.

Professionals have an absurd amount of time sunk. They are as much better than him at the game likely in ratio to the amount of time they get to practice. At least he's making millions playing Smash unlike the pros...at the end of the day Sakurai is only real professional Smasher.

 

[Tristan_win]

If there's one thing I know to be absolutely true about playing smash seriously/competitively is that the better you get the more you realize how bad you really are. One of the main reasons for this is because your understanding of the game has expanded as you are starting to understand new concepts that you never notice before. This is why so many smashers want to see Sakurai play in a serious setting so we would be able to gauge his understanding of the game while at the same time expose him to the competitive style of play.

You could argue that Sakurai or his team could watch competitive matches to learn how the game is played but depending on their level they might not even be able to see what is really happening in front of them.

=) Luckily we got NB to help balance and from the sounds of thing they have some understand of competitive scenes although not ours.

Professionals have an absurd amount of time sunk. They are as much better than him at the game likely in ratio to the amount of time they get to practice. At least he's making millions playing Smash unlike the pros...at the end of the day Sakurai is only real professional Smasher.

Is Sakurai really making millions?

Also I'm pretty sure if you are able to make a living off playing a sport then you are consider a professional, there is nothing more 'real' then that.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

If there's one thing I know to be absolutely true about playing smash seriously/competitively is that the better you get the more you realize how bad you really are. One of the main reasons for this is because your understanding of the game has expanded as you are starting to understand new concepts that you never notice before. This is why so many smashers want to see Sakurai play in a serious setting so we would be able to gauge his understanding of the game while at the same time expose him to the competitive style of play.

You could argue that Sakurai or his team could watch competitive matches to learn how the game is played but depending on their level they might not even be able to see what is really happening in front of them.

=) Luckily we got NB to help balance and from the sounds of thing they have some understand of competitive scenes although not ours.


Is Sakurai really making millions?

Also I'm pretty sure if you are able to make a living off playing a sport then you are consider a professional, there is nothing more 'real' then that.

That's like 3 Smashers.

It's also debateable as to whether an e-sport is an actual "sport" by definition.

You don't think he's making millions?

 

[Tristan_win]

Professionals have an absurd amount of time sunk. They are as much better than him at the game likely in ratio to the amount of time they get to practice. At least he's making millions playing Smash unlike the pros...at the end of the day Sakurai is only real professional Smasher.

That's like 3 Smashers.

It's also debateable as to whether an e-sport is an actual "sport" by definition.

You don't think he's making millions?

So that's three professionals which is a start.


Some e-sports are already consider a sport, even in the USA
http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/ne...a-sport-by-us-government.html#~oMx93CI8W086DE

Well I really don't know, I've never seen how much money Sakurai makes or seen any signs of his extensive wealth.

 

[xxEliteAlicexx]

That's like 3 Smashers.

It's also debateable as to whether an e-sport is an actual "sport" by definition.

You don't think he's making millions?

Lol It was a joke, but I kinda forgot this was SmashBoards where everyone wants to nitpick a simple sentence and speculate the meaning of it. Welcome to SmashBoards, also, can you leave people alone including myself. No need to respond to everyone's message like you were tagged in it. Lol gg

 

[Deleted member 245254]

So that's three professionals which is a start.


Some e-sports are already consider a sport, even in the USA
http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/ne...a-sport-by-us-government.html#~oMx93CI8W086DE

Well I really don't know, I've never seen how much money Sakurai makes or seen any signs of his extensive wealth.

Technically you can't consider them professionals either because what they do presents no inherent benefit to society nor is it intertwined to a matter of public interest.

I wouldn't consider just League of Legends as "some e-sports".

 

[xxEliteAlicexx]

Technically you can't consider them professionals either because what they do presents no inherent benefit to society nor is it intertwined to a matter of public interest.

I wouldn't consider just League of Legends as "some e-sports".

See, this is what I'm talking about ^ Lol. Anyways, I kinda tagged you in the wrong post because you were just all over the place, so ya. I was trying to respond to what ever you said towards me. o3o

 

[D-idara]

No.

And that's because his focus is balancing multiple game modes. If he balanced the game primarily on one game mode rather than a broad category, he would be on the right track. There's too much variations to go about (i.e. Sonic's speed gives him the edge with items on, particularly with the Smash ball)

It's like marketing, your target audience should cater to a specific group. For Sakurai's case, he has the choice between casual and competitive players; attempting to broaden your target audience (or please everyone per se) is a comically bad marketing practice that will yield question marks on the competitive community.

I'm completely fine with Sakurai's balancing philosophy though, casual gamers represent the main portion of the gaming population and allow people like Sakurai to let their plans come to fruition. I know this game will be moddable in a few months after its release if the presumed patches disappoint so there's the possibility of Sm4sh+ or Project M2.

I just love how you choose to ignore the fact that 90% of the demo characters were on even ground, so however his philosophy works, it's working.

 

[josh bones]

A single imbalanced character does not imply he doesn't know how to balance, given the massive historical variety of Smash rosters. One could link A big picture of Fox all the same mostly in regards to Melee.

The 5 best players in melee all choose diffrent characters, while most of the best brawl players are mk mains

 

[topspin1617]

The 5 best players in melee all choose diffrent characters, while most of the best brawl players are mk mains

The fact remains that Melee isn't really any more well-balanced than Brawl. Meta-Knight aside, both games have a very small selection of viable characters. On the other hand, the balance in the demo for Smash 4 has left me very hopeful that many characters will be viable this time around.

 

[Ulevo]

A single imbalanced character does not imply he doesn't know how to balance, given the massive historical variety of Smash rosters. One could link A big picture of Fox all the same mostly in regards to Melee.

There are way more imbalanced characters in Brawl then Meta Knight.

 

[Second Power]

Perfect balance in a large cast of characters is impossible unless you have years to work on it post release. Making everyone viable in a competitive enviroment, on the other hand, is a pretty feasible goal for release. That's what I'm hoping for (I know it isn't gonna be reached cause Zelda, but that's normal for a smash game).

 

[Defile]

Does anyone else think that the developers' attempts to "balance" Olimar have been unsuccessful? The fact that Olimar can now only keep three Pikmin out at a time means nothing since he can pluck them in a specific order instead of randomly. Olimar mains are just gonna camp, pluck Pikmin, and throw all of their non-purples away. The character has been buffed, not balanced.

How exactly do they not understand this? It's like they have no grasp of the competitive mindset whatsoever...

 

[LancerStaff]

Best set in KIU wouldn't even compare to Melee Fox TBH.

 

[josh bones]

Best set in KIU wouldn't even compare to Melee Fox TBH.

Yeah, no, is the clear dominant brawl character., while being the best is very much debated.