Does anyone else find Smash Bros to be imbalanced/broken?

[PCHU]

There like 5 characters that are really stronger than the other 45 vharacters.

In reality, people don't care a crap the other guys, heck I ALMOST WIN in a tourment with Olimar bacause nobody how olimar play Smash 4, some people even have trouble or even rage quit with Olimar in Smash 4. That was my Olimar, so is a experience that I got. Even people hate olimar, not because there play, because people look him very ugly and not very interesting character.
People just rage because they don't know Olimar was good in the game.
Heck, I was beaten by a Peach because that guy did something soo meta with her to break my shield with just down air. Because I don't peach well, I don,t khow how she fight.
That the problem with the rooster. people think about the character they most show. It sad that people are ignoring MOST of the Old veterans from brawl that were bad to good.

With need more people with variety. The more we learn, the more we adapt, just like all players did with melee.

Smash Bros. is very HARD to compare to other figthing because is the most unique and diverse from other, So feeling the game is balanced is Way harder to describe.

You need to see each smash game has is own META.

But to me, Smash 4 is most balanced Smash yet, Compared to Melee and Brawl. I got problem with Sheik no air lagging, Diddy many kills move,speed and hoo-aah and Rosalina incredible Luma with little Mac strenght everywhere is put.

I have a lot of trouble fighting Olimar because most of my moves are slow and I have no approach option, not to mention Olimar is capable of doing DoT, which I am not.
Olimar also has a pretty good grab as well as near guaranteed followups from that grab.
If he chooses not to approach me, I can't really do anything; even capitalizing on mistakes in and of itself is tedious because of how small he is and how specific my hitboxes can be.
The same problem everyone had against Olimar in Brawl are similar to the problems they have with him here; he's like a tiny mobile fortress.

I'm pretty certain that any character with any sort of real zoning potential is in the cut above the rest; it doesn't matter how wide my attacks are if I get flat-out beaten every time or clash (which is downright awful in this game; there's no reason I should be stuck in a second of hitstun for that).

I'm not saying it's impossible to beat these characters (even MK wasn't impossible, remember?), but it is irritating knowing that they don't care to improve the characters that need buffs, not to mention the neutral actually hurts these lower characters more so now that more attacks send characters farther away and multihit moves are harder to break out of; heavies need to stay on top of their opponent to be truly effective, but when the match is being broken up every few seconds, it's tough.

 

[Tino]

Honestly, this game is perhaps the most balanced in any Smash Bros. game by far. Definitely way better than Brawl, but I still had lots of fun with that one.

 

[Juken]

Smash Bros wasn't made to be balanced, just to be fun. If you want balance go to Project M or traditional fighters or something where their focus is on the competitive scene and even grounds.

This game's Lucario, Brawl's Meta-knight in comparison to Ganondorf, 0 to deaths in 64, and a number of the worthless characters in Melee should be enough to answer your question of if the series is balanced.

I'm not saying this as a troll or hater either, and I'm not saying the games are terrible because of balance issues, just that they're not very balanced. I've played every Smash game and spend a bunch of time modding my Project M build.

 

[link2702]

smash 4 has slowly shown how imbalanced it is since it first released....

with that in mind it *IS* still the best balanced of all the smash bros games so far....so think about that for a bit. if the OP was around during when brawl was still relevant and saw every year how Metaknight dominated all tournaments to the point where special rules were put in place just to nerf him....and yet he still continued to dominate, he'd be thankful for what balance smash4 does have.

Smash bros games will just never be seriously balanced, least as far as competitive 1v1's or team matches go.

 

[DavemanCozy]

This is the only smash game I've seen where counterpicking and having pocket characters is actually a good idea

Play M2K in Melee and get back to me on that.

 

[Alses]

The biggest imbalance in Sm4sh that I hate are the items. That ore club needs to be nerfed and the size of that three part laser reduced because those two items (despite the second needing to collect three separate parts). Character-wise I can handle myself well enough. Except for Sonic because of how quickly he can cancel his specials into dodges making his specials unpunishable and forcing me to wait for an opening instead of going in on the offensive.

Despite all of these problems we can all agree that this is the best balanced official Smash game to date. Unfortunately I played with a lot of hacked brawl and thus this game is somewhat disappointing in gameplay.

 

[Juken]

smash 4 has slowly shown how imbalanced it is since it first released....

with that in mind it *IS* still the best balanced of all the smash bros games so far....so think about that for a bit. if the OP was around during when brawl was still relevant and saw every year how Metaknight dominated all tournaments to the point where special rules were put in place just to nerf him....and yet he still continued to dominate, he'd be thankful for what balance smash4 does have.

Smash bros games will just never be seriously balanced, least as far as competitive 1v1's or team matches go.

One thing I feel about Smash 4 is that it seems to have sacrificed some unique character attributes for its better balance. Making almost all of the back-airs kill, giving a bunch of characters throw setups, and adding lag to things like Falco's down-air, etc. Its rubbed me the wrong way.

 

[Frostav]

at least in smash you can move. games like Injustice have stupid matchips/tiers

lol Injustice, really? The kusoge barely anyone plays because it's terrible?

Try looking at Japan-developed fighters like Guilty Gear or Arcana Heart.

 

[Blazing Ambition]

Yeah, the game's a little unbalanced. That's what happens when you have 40+ characters with unique movesets, movement speeds, recoveries, etc. Granted, some characters could use a few improvements, but the only way to make all of the characters equally viable would be to make them the same, which wouldn't be any fun.
The best part of smash is pitting your character's strengths (as well as your own skill) against an opponent to see who can capitalizes on the other's weakness.

 

[PCHU]

Yeah, the game's a little unbalanced. That's what happens when you have 40+ characters with unique movesets, movement speeds, recoveries, etc. Granted, some characters could use a few improvements, but the only way to make all of the characters equally viable would be to make them the same, which wouldn't be any fun.
The best part of smash is pitting your character's strengths (as well as your own skill) against an opponent to see who can capitalizes on the other's weakness.

Your thought process is very similar to Sakurai's, which is understandable, but rather general and simplistic.
You're right in saying that the only way to make everyone equal is to make everyone the same, but that's a rather poor excuse for not actually attempting to look at the characters' strengths and weaknesses and work accordingly.
When you've got characters that are all-around good (Mario, Yoshi, Sheik) vs characters that are alright, but not amazing (WFT, Charizard, Ganondorf), there's a bit of an issue.

This Smash is the most balanced yet (not counting Project M), but it's still flawed.
As far as capitalizing on strengths and weaknesses, that's prevalent in nearly every fighting game; as a former Tager main in BlazBlue: CT, CS, and CS:Ex, I definitely understand exploitation of mechanics both working for me and against me (people aiming to zone me, people trying to run the clock, people using Tager-specific combos and loops).
While I believe characters should be unique, characters in general should be well-enough equipped to deal with most that comes their way, which I see in Project M and it really makes me happy despite the mod not being as popular as it once was.

I'm not saying that you're wrong in your way of thought, but it's a bit too easy to write off something like this by saying "It's difficult".
I've never made a game, but I've seen people devote time to games they're making and I've seen people who actually care about the people playing their game.
No, the game isn't meant for "us", but balance affects everybody; nobody wants to use a bad/boring character.

 

[TeddyBearYoshi]

The OP claims to play other fighting games but as someone who plays a lot of fighting games I don't really believe him. Smash 4 is very balanced.

Name a multiplayer game that is balanced

Halo 3.

 

[LancerStaff]

No, the game isn't meant for "us", but balance affects everybody; nobody wants to use a bad/boring character.

Nobody wants to deal with OP characters in other modes either. WFT is a character that thrives on being ignored, and DDD is designed to take advantage of the chaos in a FFA. Buffing either's A moves in general would make them overpowered in a FFA.

Customs prove this point quite nicely. Bowser, Ike, and Ganondorf almost never die with customs on in FFAs, and yet they're only just usable in 1v1s. The only way to balance Smash much further is overbalancing, which would be terrible in a game that prides itself on roster variety.

 

[PCHU]

Nobody wants to deal with OP characters in other modes either. WFT is a character that thrives on being ignored, and DDD is designed to take advantage of the chaos in a FFA. Buffing either's A moves in general would make them overpowered in a FFA.

Customs prove this point quite nicely. Bowser, Ike, and Ganondorf almost never die with customs on in FFAs, and yet they're only just usable in 1v1s. The only way to balance Smash much further is overbalancing, which would be terrible in a game that prides itself on roster variety.

Who said anything about overbuffing?
And I know you generally know what you're talking about, but in my experience (as a pretty decent Dedede main that wins a good deal of 8-player matches), these characters get juggled around so easily in chaos the power doesn't really do much for them.
All I want are decent aerials/normals, and if I'm limited to either asking for CORRECT hitboxes or faster moves for the sake of not overbuffing, so be it, but I'm not wrong for wanting my character to be a bit better so as to keep up with characters that are already fine the way they are (Mario, Kirby sort of, Luigi, Sheik, CF).

While I do enjoy showing pride in the developers' prowess, I also can think for myself and judge accordingly based on what's in front of me; the game is not perfect and no amount of saying it is will make it so.
We're at the exact same debate we've been going at for quite some time, and I guess nothing's gonna change that.

On a side note, I don't see how Dedede would be any more OP than Bowser or DK in a FFA; both have better normals overall and faster/more effective aerials, not to mention Dedede's own projectile works against him more often than not because it's so easy to reflect, especially in chaos.
He isn't bad, he's just not good, like WFT and to a lesser extent Dr. Mario.

 

[Rexcalibr]

Confession:FGC-Oni and I post on a different forum together and I actually made this thread there, so he decided to post it here to see what kind of reaction it would get. I still think the game is imbalanced, but not as much as I thought when I initially made this thread. I still think Diddy and Rosalina are broken but I've definitely gotten better at the game and would say that I didn't think it's as imbalanced as I thought when I first made this thread.

 

[A10theHero]

@ PCHU I just wanted to give my two cents. Our metagame revolves around 1 v 1. But there are other modes in Smash. While some characters like Ganondorf can't do as well as, say, Diddy Kong in 1 v 1, they have the advantage in other modes. Have you played Target Blast before? Cuz Ganondorf does great in that game mode while Diddy Kong has more difficulties with it. Thus, the characters are more balanced than we think them to be. It's just that we have look at the game as a whole to understand that.

Anyways, let's ignore that point and assume that Sakurai agrees to balance our metagame. The game is still young, so we're likely to still discover new advanced techniques and stuff. As soon as somebody discovers one, the game will be unbalanced again. What will happen then is that Sakurai will have to keep balancing and rebalancing the game, and this process could last until the game has been completely exhausted. Honestly, I feel like Sakurai would view this as wasted time. He already made his creation as intended and introduced it to the world, so why does he have keep working on an already finished project? In that time that he spent on Smash 4, he could've focused more on newer projects--if I were in Sakurai's shoes, I would want that more than dwelling on Smash 4. We'd be stifling Sakurai with Smash 4 if we made him work on rebalancing the game.

You could argue that maybe then somebody else could work on Smash 4 and work on rebalancing it, but that would never happen. Smash is Sakurai's creation. He wouldn't give it up so easily. If that were possible, he would've stopped after Melee and/or Brawl. (He intended for these games to be the final installment in the series, but he's still developed the sequels in the series. This suggests that he is willing hold on to his own brainchild with all his might.)

I understand how you feel. I'm actually kinda hoping for a balance patch when the Mewtwo DLC comes out. I don't always agree with Sakurai's opinions either, but I respect him for his decisions. And I try to accept them. We didn't have something such as balance patches in the previous installments, and they turned out fine. Perhaps we should try to just live with what we have and do the best we can. I know that it feels like a waste when Nintendo has the power to patch a game and they don't choose to use it, but that's kinda how they roll. It's what's unique about Nintendo. They try to give you the full and complete game when you buy it from the shelves. DLC is used only sparingly, and it's not usually anything significant enough to alter the gameplay experience (like a balance patch would be).

I hope my extremely long post was helpful in some way.

 

[PCHU]

I hope my extremely long post was helpful in some way. [/USER]

I know Sakurai's got a lot on his plate, don't get me wrong, and I know there's a lot to account for.
I was in a similar boat in Brawl, except there were numerous characters I had a lot of fun with, and in this game, I just don't feel that (partially because everyone I liked got nerfed in some way).
I was willing to accept Brawl and I was actually kinda looking forward to this Smash even if it -was- just another Brawl, since a balanced Brawl was really all I wanted, but after all the hype, it's a bit disappointing.
I've accepted that Smash 4 is the way it is, but I'm also willing to be proven wrong by whatever new discoveries are made since there's no reason for me to be upset with improvement.

Who knows, maybe the Mewtwo patch will make some changes to the system that'll make a lot of people happy.
I just don't want this to be a meh game (in my eyes); I've managed to enjoy every other Smash, and I really do want to like this one.

 

[Aphistemi]

lol Injustice, really? The kusoge barely anyone plays because it's terrible?

Try looking at Japan-developed fighters like Guilty Gear or Arcana Heart.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Injustice has been played by over thousands, Injustice has been in Winter brawl, KIT, EVO, and many more majors with 10k money pot, It's more relevant than a lot of these other fighters, They even have 2 forums dedicated to this game, its fundenemtals, and matchups.

Don't tell me this game is barely played.

 

[Xermo]

I have no idea what you're talking about. Injustice has been played by over thousands, Injustice has been in Winter brawl, KIT, EVO, and many more majors with 10k money pot, It's more relevant than a lot of these other fighters, They even have 2 forums dedicated to this game, its fundenemtals, and matchups.

Don't tell me this game is barely played.

Frost has already established they only play weeb fighters, otherwise they'd recognize how horribly imbalanced fighters typically are.

 

[LancerStaff]

Who said anything about overbuffing?
And I know you generally know what you're talking about, but in my experience (as a pretty decent Dedede main that wins a good deal of 8-player matches), these characters get juggled around so easily in chaos the power doesn't really do much for them.
All I want are decent aerials/normals, and if I'm limited to either asking for CORRECT hitboxes or faster moves for the sake of not overbuffing, so be it, but I'm not wrong for wanting my character to be a bit better so as to keep up with characters that are already fine the way they are (Mario, Kirby sort of, Luigi, Sheik, CF).

While I do enjoy showing pride in the developers' prowess, I also can think for myself and judge accordingly based on what's in front of me; the game is not perfect and no amount of saying it is will make it so.
We're at the exact same debate we've been going at for quite some time, and I guess nothing's gonna change that.

On a side note, I don't see how Dedede would be any more OP than Bowser or DK in a FFA; both have better normals overall and faster/more effective aerials, not to mention Dedede's own projectile works against him more often than not because it's so easy to reflect, especially in chaos.
He isn't bad, he's just not good, like WFT and to a lesser extent Dr. Mario.

8-player is just for giggles. Especially with garbage stages like Yoshi's Island... But you won't get juggled around so much in 4-player. Bowser practically can't land in FFA with decent players compared to DDD. DDD is the only one of the fatty trio to even have a typical projectile, and it kills. Again, it's for taking advantage of the situation.

Bowser and DK are relatively similar, basically with Bowser having the power while DK has reach. DDD is a much more extreme heavyweight, having power and reach and an absurd recovery. Of course he'll have drawbacks. DDD, DK and Bowser are pretty much even in FFA the way I see it, and from experience they win equally.

Sakurai already said that every character wasn't going to be especially viable in 1v1s. Rather then asking for unreasonable demands, why don't you pick a better character? I've seen you complain about the lack of a learning curve too... Honestly, DDD doesn't exactly sound like a character you'd ever pick in the first place. There's characters with everything you want from the game, and yet you stick with the fatty penguin. I just don't understand...

 

[LunarWingCloud]

I wanna go back to the point I made about fighting games lacking balance in general. Several characters in Marvel VS Capcom are clearly more capable fighters than others. You have the whole Akuma problem in early Street Fighter. In Tekken 6 there's a character that can ram you and sit at waist level out of range of upper-body hitting attacks from several characters (a friend of mine demonstrated this). Dragon Ball Z has it bad and I think the epitome of it is when I went online as Cell in Tenkaichi 3 and some random Hercule managed to lock me into hitstun with his present move and I couldn't do jack **** until he killed me. That's just the tip of the iceberg, feel free to add more to this.

Fighting games are not about balance. They're about finding a style you like and mastering it regardless of how "good" or "bad" it is referred to be.

 

[UnownLegend]

All characters can be viable with customs.
Smash 4 is balanced enough that you can use any character and not run into a 7-3 matchup very often.

The nice thing about this game is that all characters can be viable even without customs, sure customs help certain characters quite a bit, but this game just doesn't have any trash or amazeballs characters, certainly no pichus or brawl mks.

Yes, diddy performs really really well vs almost every character in the game, and characters like zelda and gannon have to work harder to succeed, but they are still viable

 

[diglett]

I decided to delete this because it probably comes off as trollish

 

[Sylverblack]

I'm pretty pleased with the balancing of Sm4sh. Yes, Diddy may be a bit too strong, but at least it's not Brawl where Meta-Knight was literally defining the Meta.

 

[JapanGuy]

Of course there are stronger characters than others. But at the end of the day no character is useless. You have to learn your characters match-ups, and from there, you become stronger as a player.

 

[DigitalAtom6]

Maybe a bit off topic, but it seems likely to me that either the nerfing of extremely good characters and buffing of ones who are poor in the patches will just make the whole thing go in a loop if it continues, unless they turn it into a giant rock-paper-scissors thing. So either one or two characters will dominate or certain matchups will determine the outcome of the match.
I don't really like that prospect, so I think people should pick their main based on the characters themselves, their playstyle and their backstory, instead of how 'good' they are in the metagame. That way every character has some representation and it'll be easier to come close to a complete balance. After all, perfection is both impossible and wrong, so it's best to be close to it instead of reaching it.

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

This game was unbalanced in the beginning in version 1.00 when we had characters lie destroying the entire cast. However this game is now much more balanced due to patches. People like to say that this game is well balanced however I believe they mean versions that are not 1.00 on 3ds. We cannot compare smash 4 in it's current state to other games because all other versions of smash are in their 1.00 state not 1.08. However as it currently stands this version of smash is patch able allowing for it to be more balanced then the others, although at the top level of smash, their are only a few characters who actually can take a national/major.

 

[Ravine]

Other than Rosalina, because that Luma is too good, I think the only problems are the unnecessary cool-downs.

Why don't they give the lower tier characters the tools necessary to combat the higher tiers instead of taking away from what makes the higher tiers great?

Is maintaining a balance between competitive mechanics VS character canons really that hard?

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

The sad part is the no matter how hard you try to balance the game, there are still going to be fighters who will heavily struggle against certain opponents. This is especially true for Ganondorf, since his sluggish mobility, lack of a projectile, AND no reflector means that he's often in trouble against the projectile spammers.

 

[Mobes]

Is maintaining a balance between competitive mechanics VS character canons really that hard?

I have some experience with balancing for an online character game, and yes.

 

[Silxer]

Name a multiplayer game that is balanced

That's what I was thinking, I don't remember playing any multiplayer game with a variety of weapons/characters/classes/abilities/upgrades/etc. that is considered perfectly balanced there and will always be that one thing that people will consider too good.

And much like any other multiplayer game I doubt Sm4sh will become perfectly balanced, but compared to the previous smash games Sm4sh is pretty good since all of the characters are viable with or without customs.

 

[Dark Phazon]

While I don't believe this game is well balanced to, say, see a Ganondorf win a national, I do think this game is the best balanced Smash game to date.

Dude! Ganondorf is not bad in this game..stop talking trash about my main bruh.

 

[DavemanCozy]

Dude! Ganondorf is not bad in this game..stop talking trash about my main bruh.

Even with Ray_kalm taking Ganon far (he's mad talented, got 4th last weekend), I don't think he's good enough to win a tournament alone. Anyone who mains Ganon is going to need a secondary to patch his hardest matchups, all of which are top tiers.

He's not bad, but he's not good enough to be a solo main. Look at his matchup against Sheik, it looks unwinnable.
See Ray_Kalm vs Yoh:
https://youtu.be/L654Jqi8-IU

 

[CyberHyperPhoenix]

Even with Ray_kalm taking Ganon far (he's mad talented, got 4th last weekend), I don't think he's good enough to win a tournament alone. Anyone who mains Ganon is going to need a secondary to patch his hardest matchups, all of which are top tiers.

He's not bad, but he's not good enough to be a solo main. Look at his matchup against Sheik, it looks unwinnable.
See Ray_Kalm vs Yoh:
https://youtu.be/L654Jqi8-IU

This makes me hope for a Ganon main to come out and win EVO lol XD

 

[ChikoLad]

It's the most balanced Smash game IMO. It still could be better, but it's a lot better than past iterations.

Like, Rosalina is one of the best in the game (THE best IMO, though I'd still put Sheik above her on a tier list since more people use her and she is much easier to get into), but she's also one of the most intricate characters if you want to master absolutely every aspect of how her and Luma play.

IMO the best characters in the game should be hard to use, and the ones who are inherently a little worse due to archetype or whatever should be easy to use. I think that's one way a tier list can be balanced out.

That being said, the game wasn't made with high level play in mind, regarding how it's balanced.

 

[Tenchi Boom]

Like what everyone else is saying; I find it to be the most balanced Smash game to date. The only character I personally feel that is useless is Palutena, and she's my second main.

I like trying to win with characters that blatantly aren't great.

 

[Putuk]

Honestly, DDD doesn't exactly sound like a character you'd ever pick in the first place. There's characters with everything you want from the game, and yet you stick with the fatty penguin. I just don't understand...

Let me educate you:

Spoiler

In short:

Dedede's character design is grand: you can tell the people designing him were having fun. He's a fat, blue penguin, wearing a robe over a robe, a goofy hat, a sash across his large belly and wields a massive mallet. His color scheme is also very easy on the eye and works well. There is so much joy in this design.
I aspire to one day design characters on this level.

He is a self-proclaimed king and "tyrant", his evil deeds including him stealing all the food from his own kingdom, preventing everyone from having bad dreams and doing nothing. He seems to have trouble making friends, and that's really what would stop him from being such a ****.

To top it off, he isn't a pretty-boy animé character.

No character on the roster could replace a king this marvelous.
Not to mention his playstyle gives me much joy.

 

[ChikoLad]

Still disappointed we never got Right Back At Ya's VA for Dedede in Smash 4.

 

[Kneutronic]

To be completely honest, I do not see any particular inbalance in Smash Bros. Really, the way I see it, it all depends or your overall skill level in the game. Sure, most top-tier characters rely on speed and overwhelming foes with their quick attacks and combos, but I do think there are other characters that have potential. Captain Falcon is a good example of the former point, but he is flawed in dealing with certain targets and him lacking a projectile. A character like Charizard is an example of the latter point; some people think he has no real potential, but he does have some neat qualities, especially as of the 1.0.8 update. If you ask me, all the characters are pretty evenly balanced. However, in the end, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but this is just what I think.

 

[Dark Phazon]

Even with Ray_kalm taking Ganon far (he's mad talented, got 4th last weekend), I don't think he's good enough to win a tournament alone. Anyone who mains Ganon is going to need a secondary to patch his hardest matchups, all of which are top tiers.

He's not bad, but he's not good enough to be a solo main. Look at his matchup against Sheik, it looks unwinnable.
See Ray_Kalm vs Yoh:
https://youtu.be/L654Jqi8-IU

Its true.

 

[Dark Phazon]

It's the most balanced Smash game IMO. It still could be better, but it's a lot better than past iterations.

Like, Rosalina is one of the best in the game (THE best IMO, though I'd still put Sheik above her on a tier list since more people use her and she is much easier to get into), but she's also one of the most intricate characters if you want to master absolutely every aspect of how her and Luma play.

IMO the best characters in the game should be hard to use, and the ones who are inherently a little worse due to archetype or whatever should be easy to use. I think that's one way a tier list can be balanced out.

That being said, the game wasn't made with high level play in mind, regarding how it's balanced.

Tbh Rosa has the most Bull* broken hitboxes in the game even more so than Link i despise Rosa more than any char in smash history..even if you are my own blood brother i have 0 respect for any1 that plays this char....she so Full of Bull*** that it doesnt even matter how slow she moves or how slow her moves are...
And she is absurdly powerful...with great range...im sorry but i cant stand this character becacuse its complete bull* all over...i rather any other mario rep or her being removed for no one.

Atleast sheik is a fast ninja which makes sense to have little to no end lag plus she has always had a playstyle like that still not fair i agree but atleast not complete cheap Bull*