Balancing the Cast One Change at a Time

[Minor Pandemic]

I'd like it if we could use this thread to generate ideas for making a character as close to "balanced" (whatever you choose that to mean) as possible with just a single change. The proposed changes and ensuing discussion would have the added benefit of helping people like me who are still learning the ins and outs of the cast to better understand where the weaknesses and strengths of each character lie.

Example: CF's Raptor Boost should ignore shields the way Ganon's Choke does for x reason, solving y problem the character has, and getting him to proper balance. (I just made something up, this isn't supposed to be an actual suggestion)

 

[a vehicle]

Sonic should be removed.

Did i win?

 

[XalchemistX]

Make the entire roster Luigi

 

[Wrestlemania]

While there are definitely characters that are not as good as others, they also have not had as much high level play as they could, and it is hard to suggest how to balance a character when we just need to play the game more and let the metagame grow.

Overswarm's character ranking list is actually a pretty useful tool, not necessarily for finding out which characters are good and bad, but which characters are seeing a lot of high level use. For example, Armada has a pretty fantastic Pit, however, on Overswarm's list he is in the D rank. Some of these characters just need some time to come into the limelight.

I mean yes there are things that I would like to see changed, like Ganondorf's Utilt, I think C.Falcon needs to be looked at again, etc. These characters are still good character though, and tournament viable, and those are my opinions. I feel suggestions like that should be left for the PMBR work out, as we do not need to create yet another thread to witch and moan.
But, to satisfy the OP, if there was a character that needed some slight tweaks, I think it would be King Dedede.

 

[Minor Pandemic]

I understand, I just kinda wanted to see what people might suggest :X.

 

[V-K]

The first hit of Falcon's nair should have a bigger hitbox so it can hit spacies.

 

[ClinkStryphart]

Sonic should be removed.

Did i win?

Sadly be prepared to see more of sonic in the coming smashbros series. Nintendo bought the rights to the his mascot. Hence why the new Sonic that is coming out is only going to be on Nintendo Wii U and Nintendo 3ds.

 

[trash?]

Slightly faster aerials on luigi.

That's it, honestly. I'm real satisfied with how snake plays, but luigi's combo game just barely falls short of justifying his off-kilter everything else. I absolutely love that off-kilter everything else, though, so I'd rather not that be changed. Let me do goofier combos, and he'll be best character until the end of time.

 

[ClinkStryphart]

woops forgot to add to my post but for balance wise maybe give falcon a better grab range or something? I understand that he has tech chasing and pivot grabbing. Its just his grab range when getting right next to the other player/npc his grab range while standing is like T-Rex arms. Falcon is amazing 2.5b its just it feels like other characters walk right over him.

 

[standardtoaster]

Its just his grab range when getting right next to the other player/npc his grab range while standing is like T-Rex arms.

 

[Kink-Link5]

So what, a single change to a single move, or any number of changes to a single move?

Because I just want 2.1 Charizard Nair back.

 

[ZIngaZ]

Fix squirtle. That mofo is broken and needs some buffs

 

[JOE!]

With the glasses on, all Squirtle's moves deal 5% more per hit.

 

[Kink-Link5]

For an actual suggestion for Squirtle, I feel like either his side B having transcendent priority on top of its very light armor, or his fair not causing his body to transition and having a meatier sweetspot would be most beneficiary. Fair and Bair feel like you have to go super deep to land already, and them losing any semblance of priority after such a short timeframe is asinine. Compare to Falcon's fair that can be vaguely tossed out and land so long as he's partially overlapping the enemy, Squirtle's seems like you have to be absurdly precise for substantially less reward.

The former suggestion is on the grounds that if I'm understanding Side-B's design basis, it is meant to: Provide a further mobility tool, provide protection for Squirtle from light projectiles and weak swats, and allow an opening for the momentum to shift in Squirtle's favor on hit. More often than not though, the armor doesn't even get a chance to work, since the move just clanks with the moves it's meant to pass through. I mean, I think Squirtle has quite a few areas that could be adjusted to make him more user-friendly, but that's the most prominent thing to stand out as being a more blatant fault in the move's design.

ZSS has a similar issue with her narrow hitboxes on her kick moves, but more than anything, her whip hitboxes just make no sense. U-smash doesn't even link its hits into one another with no DI half the time.

 

[Aenglaan]

Here are a few changes I'd personally like to see:

Bowser:
Decrease the hit boxes, duration and damage on his forward tilt. It feels too easy to punish opponents with the move.

Squirtle:
Increase the hit box on down b and pretty much every other move. Completely change his n-air. Make Water Gun (b) useful.

Ivysaur
Make the player able to control the speed of razor leaf (side b) when thrown. Like with Squirtle, change the n-air completely.

Lucario:
Give him larger hit boxes on his jabs, d-tilt, and side B. He shouldn't have this done overkill like in 2.1, but as he is currently feels weaker in this regard than he should be (his moves don't seem to take good advantage of the "on-hit cancel").

Snake:
As with Lucario, give him larger hit boxes to his jabs and f-tilt. Furthermore, the Nikita (side B) should be nerfed in damage and knock back. Snake's side B is pretty OP in 4 player matches.

Zero Suit Samus
Fix the hit boxes on her side-b and standard attacks. These moves are far too difficult to pull off successfully.

Sheik:
Decrease the hit boxes and perhaps slightly decrease the priority on some of her moves (jab, f-air, n-air). Sure she's supposed to be punishing, but it feels like she's better here than in Melee. Also, give her the ability to tether recover with her side b.

Those are all the changes I can come up with right now. May add some later...

 

[\Apples]

I hope you realize that in asymmetrical multiplayer games, you'll most often find that it creates a much more interesting game if you design the game to be slightly imbalanced. It's a concept of game design known as "perfect imbalance", here's a great video on the topic.

EDIT: On a more serious note, I suggest Wario be given the ability to slowfall. Just like fastfalling, press up in the air to slow your descent. Imagine him like briefly assuming the nairplane position to like slow himself, lol. Now let the mind games sink in. (Ignore the absurd recovery buff that ensues.)

 

[Wrestlemania]

Here are a few changes I'd personally like to see:

Squirtle:
Increase the hit box on down b and pretty much every other move. Completely change his n-air. Make Water Gun (b) useful.

Making Water gun useful is a pretty good idea, but larger hitbox on Bubble? It already covers a huge area, we don't need it easier to trip people.

EDIT: On a more serious note, I suggest Wario be given the ability to slowfall. Just like fastfalling, press up in the air to slow your descent. Imagine him like briefly assuming the nairplane position to like slow himself, lol. Now let the mind games sink in. (Ignore the absurd recovery buff that ensues.)

I don't play Wario but I think this is a cool idea, however this would cause him overthrow Jigglypuff as king of the air, if he still retained his horizontal movement other than what ever momentum he already had.

 

[The_NZA]

I hope you realize that in asymmetrical multiplayer games, you'll most often find that it creates a much more interesting game if you design the game to be slightly imbalanced. It's a concept of game design known as "perfect imbalance", here's a great video on the topic.

EDIT: On a more serious note, I suggest Wario be given the ability to slowfall. Just like fastfalling, press up in the air to slow your descent. Imagine him like briefly assuming the nairplane position to like slow himself, lol. Now let the mind games sink in. (Ignore the absurd recovery buff that ensues.)

That video was super silly. It tried to outline a philosophy of "perfect imbalance" when in reality, their observations about chess and starcraft had nothing to do with them being "too balanced" at all. Chess is "stale" and figured out largely because the metagame is hundreds of years old and the options both players have to explore are minimal (everyone is playing the same "character", whose moveset includes 2 bishops, rooks, knights, 1 king, 1 queen, and pawns). Starcraft gave every individual person three races with insane asymmetry, and the only reason there is a working framework of the optimum strategies of play is because it is also over a decade old with many players playing it on a competitive level.

It isn't about balance and imbalance. It is about maximizing the amount of options and scenarios for players, giving the metagame and number of strats available a greater dynamism. Really, EVERY GAME boils down to viable and unviable strategies, and the more BALANCED a game is while maximizing different gameplays means more strategies are available and more people can be involved in figuring out the metagame as it evolves. The reason League and MtG have a uniquely evolving metagame that everyone can contribute to has less to do with the inherent imbalances and more to do with the fact that the game constantly has new characters/cards being added in, contributing to the longevity of a fresh metagame.

tl:dr
asymmetry and options are important. Not imbalances.

 

[Kally Wally]

Yeah, I like Extra Credits a lot, and they do make good points most of the time, but that episode always struck me as not being very well thought out.

 

[Kink-Link5]

That video is absurdly idealistic. Claims are made about what players do and how they think when it reflects the thoughts of no person I've dealt with. It reflects the concept that there is a predetermined middle ground, or "Jedi Curve" in any given game, when it's really only true for a few cases, and building around that Curve would require largely theory craft on the side of the developers. If a game is made so character B clearly beats character A, it is less of an interesting an evolving metagame and more a game where the result is predetermined before the game even starts. Fighting games aren't designed with a base line vanilla character build, but with consideration that there really can never be a perfect approach of strategy to be found even in what should be a clearly advantageous matchup and that regardless of the matchup, the game is more player vs player than character vs character.

At least it isn't quite as bad as the "Foo strategy" video.

 

[Rarik]

Three things Kink.

1.) A game where character B clearly beats character A isn't an example of perfect imbalance, that's just imbalance, and isn't at all what the video talks about. The video talks about character B having some sort of an advantage over Character A, despite everyone thinking that character A is better than everyone else (Why hello there, Fox). The video does fail to mention that if character A is actually a good or well designed character, and not just a gimmick on a stick, it can find different ways to play against character B in order to minimize the disadvantage.

2.) A game doesn't have to be designed with a jedi curve in mind in order to have perfect imbalance, it's just a tool that would allow developers to more easily achieve it. I will gladly make the claim that within the top 6 (possibly top 7 or 8) characters of Melee there is perfect imbalance, and that you could create a jedi curve for that group. It would, of course, have to be created with the consideration that there isn't a perfect approach and simply serve as a model of what a good character looks like, and new characters would need to be diverse enough from this to prevent staleness. In other words you would define what makes a character good, and then create a unique character that has enough of those aspects in order to still be able to compete.

3.) Of course it's idealistic, it said chess was perfectly balanced, and didn't account for the fact that chess has a couple hundred year old metagame.

 

[Vashimus]

Not to mention in chess, the white player always begins the game with a small advantage by virtue of having the first move.

 

[JOE!]

At the same time, by near definition chess is balanced in that you and the opponent have the exact same tools.

Each game of chess is essentially a mirror match lol.

 

[Vashimus]

At the same time, by near definition chess is balanced in that you and the opponent have the exact same tools.

Each game of chess is essentially a mirror match lol.

Not necessarily. While you do start off with the same 16 pieces, I wouldn't consider chess to be 100% symmetrical, but it's pretty damn close. Since white moves first, it sets the tempo at which black reacts, which is huge. White wins the majority of games at high-level, and there are even entire strategy books written about how to play just the black side. Only when you look at the grand scope of things do both sides in chess seem identical compared to two races in Starcraft, two characters in Street Fighter, or two decks in Magic: the Gathering.

 

[JOE!]

At the same time, if chess were to be "patched" in that white doesn't always move first, would it not be mirrored thus essentially balanced?

Anywho, on the topic of the vid itself of course it is idealistic: it's what you'd -want- to shoot for in design. The A vs B vs C is something seen in all healthy metagames, we even saw it in P:M as people went around playing bowser, trying to counter bowser, countering fox, playing Ike, countering ike, countering the ike counter, and so on.