Can someone explain Balancing to me?

[WwwWario]

Alright, before we start, let me get one thing clear: This is NOT a rant post. I'm not coming from a rage-quitted match or anything :D I'm in a really good mood, but I'm bored, so I wanted to get some info on balancing that I personally don't understand

So, I often judge Smash characters too critically. For example, I often find myself to say, for example, that the Villager and Robin is "OP" xD The reason I think this is because, well, I think to myself: "What are their weaknesses?"

Take Villager. Well, he's decent fast, he has great range on his attacks, his attacks are powerful (Dtilt and Utilt...!). He has the slingshot which is really fast, good range and has great knockback. His pocket is like a reflector you can use whenever you want. His Loyd Rocket can be used both as a great recovery, or you can send it out and run inside it. His timber is good if you use it correctly. His recovery is beyond amazing. So... great range, great power, great recovery, decent fast, has the slingshot.. what are his downsides?

And Robin... well, he's slow, yes, but he has a sword which gives him good range to begin with. When he uses the Lewin Sword (or however you spell it, haha!), his areals and smashes get REALLY powerful. He has one of the best Special choices in the game, with Thunder and Arc Fire. He also has a very high recovery, which even is a projectile O.o I mean, with GREAT specials, good range, good recovery and strong attacks - is him being slow his only downside?

Just some examples. Again, please don't take this as a rant post It's just that I personally don't fully understand balancing on some characters, so if someone could explain for example Villager and Robin, or characters in general, that'd be great! ^^



...By the way, for life.

 

[Aphistemi]

Alright, before we start, let me get one thing clear: This is NOT a rant post. I'm not coming from a rage-quitted match or anything :D I'm in a really good mood, but I'm bored, so I wanted to get some info on balancing that I personally don't understand

So, I often judge Smash characters too critically. For example, I often find myself to say, for example, that the Villager and Robin is "OP" xD The reason I think this is because, well, I think to myself: "What are their weaknesses?"

Take Villager. Well, he's decent fast, he has great range on his attacks, his attacks are powerful (Dtilt and Utilt...!). He has the slingshot which is really fast, good range and has great knockback. His pocket is like a reflector you can use whenever you want. His Loyd Rocket can be used both as a great recovery, or you can send it out and run inside it. His timber is good if you use it correctly. His recovery is beyond amazing. So... great range, great power, great recovery, decent fast, has the slingshot.. what are his downsides?

And Robin... well, he's slow, yes, but he has a sword which gives him good range to begin with. When he uses the Lewin Sword (or however you spell it, haha!), his areals and smashes get REALLY powerful. He has one of the best Special choices in the game, with Thunder and Arc Fire. He also has a very high recovery, which even is a projectile O.o I mean, with GREAT specials, good range, good recovery and strong attacks - is him being slow his only downside?

Just some examples. Again, please don't take this as a rant post It's just that I personally don't fully understand balancing on some characters, so if someone could explain for example Villager and Robin, or characters in general, that'd be great! ^^



...By the way, for life.

The Villager is not an easy character to use. he needs to plan everything out. i.e setups, without setups he is kinda weak character. you also need great reading, his down and up smashes don't K.O, you need to do a risky uptilt that leaves you opened, it has bad frames. and his forward smash can be reflected, alot of his moves can be reflected.

he is also slow on the startup frames, the axe leaves him opened once he uses it. making great punish opportunities, alot of his moves make great punish opportunities. his Loyd Rocket can be reflected sending him the opposite direction. almost instantly K.Oing him (if he jumps off it counts as recovery so yea... he is pretty much dead).. Fox beats Villager in the matchup by at least 6-4 in fox favor.

Robin, its almost the same story but a little less effort in the setups, his setups are simple. his up recovery leaves him opened for meteor smashes, he can be edge guarded pretty easily, and alot of his moves can be reflected as well. his smashes leave him opened alot more than other fighters making punish opportunities really good. he has range and good damage but he can be outzoned if the opponent has a chargable shootng move. pressure him with speed and he is done for. Fox also beats him in the matchup by 6-4

 

[_gold_]

I think it just comes down to Sakurai either giving newcomers too much or too little power. Creating a new fighter from scratch and then implementing them with 30+ vet fighters, and still trying to keep them balanced with everyone else... that's no small task.
For example, the ones you mentioned, Robin and Villager, clearly got the jump on Little Mac and Wii Fit Trainer.

 

[Sodo]

I think it just comes down to Sakurai either giving newcomers too much or too little power. Creating a new fighter from scratch and then implementing them with 30+ vet fighters, and still trying to keep them balanced with everyone else... that's no small task.
For example, the ones you mentioned, Robin and Villager, clearly got the jump on Little Mac and Wii Fit Trainer.

Exactly. Especially when the game evolves over time and people discover new techs or strategies that perhaps weren't intended by the creators.

 

[EmblemCrossing]

In my terms.

Balancing- the act or attempt to equalize characters in relative terms to the rest of the cast; taking individual characters and designing them, giving inherit flaws in order to compensate for their strengths

Balancing can be done between the cast, or in a character in itself. For example (Strong ground game, pitiful air) (Dominant aerials, weak ground game). A character may seem to be initially balanced, however as a character is learned and explored, discoveries can be made that lead a character to be "overpowered" (cough cough, hoo-hah).

When balancing in comparison to a cast, a dev team needs to look at the cast as a whole, in effort to make sure that no one character is too powerful. With the ability to patch the game, this means balance will be able to change over time, meaning we won't have the same situation as in Brawl, with Meta Knight being dominant.

 

[Raijinken]

Villager is very prone to reflectors, is fairly light, and most of his kill moves are either short-range or very slow on startup. i.e. the Bowling Ball has virtually no coverage and takes forever, on top of being reflectable.

For Robin, he's slow, not very heavy, his recovery has no protective functions (you can just spike him out of it), ALL of his specials have a usage limit, his smashes have a usage limit (and for that matter, his smashes don't really kill much earlier than most characters'), and unlike everyone else who can gradually charge spells, if he's forced to cancel, he drops back to his previous charge level (for instance, if you start on Arcthunder, charge for half the time it takes to Thoron, shield out of it, and resume, then when you resume, you'll still have the full time to Thoron remaining). Additionally, his range with the Bronze Sword is atrocious for a sword wielder, and the thing won't kill on a Dsmash til about 170. And of course, the endlag on all of his attacks is seriously lacking, especially on his specials.

As for balancing in general, it's a lot harder than simply assigning point values to a character and making the totals all equivalent.

Someone with 5 speed, 5 damage, 5 knockback, 5 weight, 5 size, and 5 endlag will not necessarily be balanced with someone with 10 speed, 2 damage, 2 knockback, 10 weight, and 6 size. The emergent strategies and techniques play a strong role in balance like that. In Smash4, for instance, there are generally two valid types of combat: Speed-based, and defensive. Sheik, Diddy, Fox, Mario, Captain Falcon, Yoshi, etc are based on speed. Rosalina, Olimar, Robin, ROB, etc are based on defense. Others, like Bowser or Ness, have some other tricks (combos, sheer power, whatever) that can make them manageable, they generally can't take advantage of the combo and approach powers of speed based characters, or the damage racking and spacing powers of defensive characters. In some cases, a character who doesn't fit those categories can prove theirself quite capable (for instance, Jigglypuff in Melee, or Luigi in Smash4) through other abilities.

In all cases, it's a difficult task for the developer to balance potential playstyles. A good start is removing any sort of glitching or infinites or bugs that allow unexpected advantages (like the footstool infinite, and the regrab timer implementation). Past that, it's hard to tell how (or even if) Smash4 will proceed. Without regular balance patches, it's very likely that over time, some, or even many, characters will fall out of favor. If we get a periodic balance patch that can address character shortcomings without changing their design, that'd be even better, though. For instance, Luigi had very little going for him pre 3DS1.04 ver. After that update, though, he gained some improvements to hitboxes and range on several attacks. Most of these didn't significantly improve his actual play, but they brought him into the spotlight faster than natural experimentation does.

Basically, balance is hard, patches are good, gotta go fast.

 

[stancosmos]

Alright, before we start, let me get one thing clear: This is NOT a rant post. I'm not coming from a rage-quitted match or anything :D I'm in a really good mood, but I'm bored, so I wanted to get some info on balancing that I personally don't understand

So, I often judge Smash characters too critically. For example, I often find myself to say, for example, that the Villager and Robin is "OP" xD The reason I think this is because, well, I think to myself: "What are their weaknesses?"

Take Villager. Well, he's decent fast, he has great range on his attacks, his attacks are powerful (Dtilt and Utilt...!). He has the slingshot which is really fast, good range and has great knockback. His pocket is like a reflector you can use whenever you want. His Loyd Rocket can be used both as a great recovery, or you can send it out and run inside it. His timber is good if you use it correctly. His recovery is beyond amazing. So... great range, great power, great recovery, decent fast, has the slingshot.. what are his downsides?

And Robin... well, he's slow, yes, but he has a sword which gives him good range to begin with. When he uses the Lewin Sword (or however you spell it, haha!), his areals and smashes get REALLY powerful. He has one of the best Special choices in the game, with Thunder and Arc Fire. He also has a very high recovery, which even is a projectile O.o I mean, with GREAT specials, good range, good recovery and strong attacks - is him being slow his only downside?

Just some examples. Again, please don't take this as a rant post It's just that I personally don't fully understand balancing on some characters, so if someone could explain for example Villager and Robin, or characters in general, that'd be great! ^^



...By the way, for life.

People use the term OP WAaaaaay too liberally. If he doesn't ever win or even really rank in any tournaments, than the character isn't OP. both robin and villager are hard to combo with, they are both prone to wonky hitboxes. Robin's specials are good, but it doesn't totally make up for how slow he runs and how slow most of his A attacks are. The fact that his sword can break can be a game changer. Villager requires you to plan most of your moves ahead of time, and he has a hard time punishing. Personally i think players should rely less on the stats of each character and just watch how they perform in matches. Even if a character has the worst recovery in the game, he can have 1 or 2 easy attack combos that will throw him back to the top tier. That being said, tier lists only serve as guidelines, winning a match has much more to do with the player than the character chosen.