Sakurai's column from Famitsu issue of November 21st, 2013

[Pazzo.]

He simply realizes that 100% balance is impossible, so he's going somewhere else.
Even Melee wasn't even close to be 100% balanced. Nothing new in the world of fighting games and nothing to worry about.

*Whew*

Glad you came and said that. I was getting worried reading that interview. Thanks Simon!

 

[LiteralGrill]

Some people should check this out, it explains why perfect balance is bad in it's own way. It does need it's flavor, I just hope it's not at the expence of really bad balance. and more like perfect imbalance.

 

[RomanceDawn]

When he says if they aim for complete fairness there won't be any personality to it that is a very legit comment. The characters themselves are so varied in their animations and abilities to have perfect balance would really reduce their unique qualities. I'm pretty sure that's what he means.

For the most basic of examples, Bowser will probably always have 3 jumps while PIt gets as much as 5 or more. That's fine by me and always will be. With such a varied cast keeping everyone on the same EXACT level is difficult, I just hope he doesn't let another Meta Knight or Snake through again, while guys like Link, Yoshi and Ganondorf get the shaft. The distance between them at a competent level shouldn't be so great.

 

[mygamecube]

Some people should check this out, it explains why perfect balance is bad in it's own way. It does need it's flavor, I just hope it's not at the expence of really bad balance. and more like perfect imbalance.

Awesome response and perfect video. That basically got across what I said much better.

 

[Kaye Cruiser]

Some people should check this out, it explains why perfect balance is bad in it's own way. It does need it's flavor, I just hope it's not at the expence of really bad balance. and more like perfect imbalance.

Gonna have to just disagree with the entirety of this, honestly.

My beliefs and sense of fun are just different. Sorry.

 

[roxolid]

Interesting video, capps. I sure am glad Smash Bros is more fluid and dynamic than chess! I am not dissing chess nor its players, I hold high respect for them; I am only saying that I personally like the idea of a game with still-changing strategies than one with thousands of plays set in stone (like chess).

Then again, Smash hasn't been around for centuries. Who knows, in a couple hundred years...

 

[Morbi]

First of all, he's a workaholic. He already has health issues and with this lifestyle, it can only get worse. He seems kind of insane in that regard because he doesn't seem to realize it at all. Worrisome.
There's also the fact that he originally planned to not do all the balancing on his own, he went out of his way to say this in an interview so he must know that that was probably one of the biggest burdens during previous Smashs' developments.

And here he is again, doing it all himself. I understand the logic behind it, it seems reasonable from a game quality standpoint, but at the same time I feel like he probably hates doing it but would go crazy if someone else were to touch it. Literally insane.

It's also funny because I do think he actually has a wife, at least he had one in the Sora days. But every few years he's moving for 2-3 years, leaving his wife/family behind (he already moved during Brawl development for the same reasons). I'd love for him to talk about that, is that just normal for them, is it just "well that's how our life is, no big deal"?

And stop worrying about his balance comments. He balances based on 4 players free for all matches with items on. Always did. So the end result is completely unpredictable.
And even if he tried to balance according to what the competetive scene wants, you can't guarantee balance.
He actually might even fail if he were to try to make it imbalanced on purpose. It's just out of his hands, ESPECIALLY the way he does it.
Hundreds of enthusiasts dissecting the game for YEARS will always create a product the developers did not intend because they have neither infinite amount of time, nor as many people. There are awful characters and there are very dominating characters in every game no matter what, so props to him not freaking out over it (even though he's probably not as aware of the whole situation in the way I'm describing here, different perspectives and all).

I'm not saying "ignore balance", but neither is he.



I do not keep up with P:M much, but at what cost is it trying to achieve close to perfect balance (I assume that's what you're getting at)?
They release new versions relatively often, making slight or not so slight adjustments every time, partially based on feedback from the community (again, I assume it does have some influence) for ... as long as they want?

This is not an option for Sakurai or any huge official game like Smash.

This. This has always been the case. Metaknight is hardly broken in FFA and Ganon isn't bottom, if our tier list was based on FFA we might actually be surprised by how consistent the characters actually are.

 

[NintendoKnight]

No one said the balancing was being done in free-for-alls, or even with items on. Sakurai just plays free-for-alls for fun during his lunch break, just because he can.

 

[Erimir]

Gonna have to just disagree with the entirety of this, honestly.

My beliefs and sense of fun are just different. Sorry.

I mean, maybe if you like chess as one of your favorite games.

Anyway, what you think of that quote depends completely on what is meant by "complete fairness".

Meaning 1: If Sakurai means that in any character match up, on any stage, equally skilled players will have equal chances of winning, then I agree with him. That shouldn't be the case. Mario shouldn't do equally well against Donkey Kong, Link, Mega Man, Jigglypuff and Ganondorf. Some characters should be countered by others (although I'd prefer not hard-countered...). Some characters should be better on some stages and worse on others.

Meaning 2: If by "complete fairness" he means that all characters, when matched up with an equally skilled player using a random opponent on a fair stage (wacky stages can be fun but I don't care as much about balance on them), will have an equal chance of winning, well, personally I would disagree. I think that should be the goal. Fox, Metaknight, Samus and Ganondorf might do better against some characters and worse against others, but I'd prefer it if they were equally viable choices against a random opponent.

Some deviation from that is acceptable, of course. Winning with a "bad" character is more pleasing for some people. But the deviation shouldn't be anywhere near as large as it was for Metaknight or Ganondorf in Brawl or Fox in Melee.

I hope he simply meant that not all match ups should be even or even simply that 100% balance is impossible for meaning 2 (simply for practical reasons of not being able to foresee all strategies, collect enough data, etc.).

And if patches for balance are a real thing, I think they'll address any Metaknight or Ganondorf-level blunders.

 

[Morbi]

No one said the balancing was being done in free-for-alls, or even with items on. Sakurai just plays free-for-alls for fun during his lunch break, just because he can.

You would have to be seriously deluded to insinuate that the game is balanced otherwise. The discrepancies are fairly overt. It isn't for fun based on the article, he just implied that it was for work. Trust me, if you were developing this game, if you had the problems that Sakurai had, you would not be playing Smash for the fun of it. It is work related.

 

[NintendoKnight]

You would have to be seriously deluded to insinuate that the game is balanced otherwise. The discrepancies are fairly overt. It isn't for fun based on the article, he just implied that it was for work. Trust me, if you were developing this game, if you had the problems that Sakurai had, you would not be playing Smash for the fun of it. It is work related.

Sakurai usually gets to the office by 10 a.m. and takes his lunch break in the studio cafeteria at 12:30. The second half of his lunch hour is spent doing the same thing every day: 4-player Smash Bros. matches.
"At this point," he said, "the new Smash Bros. is fun, more so than Melee or Brawl. However, we have to work to keep things dynamic and not over-fine-tune the balance. If we aim for complete fairness, there won't be any personality to it. By the way, I almost always win in these battles. I'm no wimp at this by now, apparently."

You see, the fun comment actually goes along with the balancing comment.

 

[PadWarrior]

I trust Sakurai. This will be another great Smash game in the lineup.

 

[Mastafaxa]

When he says he wins all of his matches I cant help but wonder if that isnt due to being the boss that no one wants to piss off.

I dont personally believe that a game can't be both balanced and fun, but I can understand the sentiment. A game with more moving parts, and/or many very disparate moving parts will become unwieldily to balanced and test. The more unwieldily it is the more time it will have to take to balance, and it comes with less assurance that the balance will be true. So in order to make the game more balanced the easiest thing to do is include fewer new elements, or be conservative with the new elements you do include. In the face of a deadline you really would have to make a choice as to which one you wanted to insure most.

 

[Morbi]

You see, the fun comment actually goes along with the balancing comment.

Indeed, I had almost forgotten that standard PR quotes/statements to promote the game were relevant. He is just doing it for fun... it has nothing to do with his job.

 

[NintendoKnight]

Indeed, I had almost forgotten that standard PR quotes/statements to promote the game were relevant. He is just doing it for fun... it has nothing to do with his job.

*pats your shoulder*

It's okay, Morbid. You'll get him next time.

 

[Erimir]

This. This has always been the case. Metaknight is hardly broken in FFA and Ganon isn't bottom, if our tier list was based on FFA we might actually be surprised by how consistent the characters actually are.

Personally, I would want the balance to be primarily based on 1-on-1 matches with no items.

But I think it would be bad if this made it so that certain characters were very overpowered in item-matches or in FFA matches. So they could unbalance 1-on-1 a bit to compensate for that if necessary. But like I said... nowhere near to the point where characters are as good as Metaknight or as bad as Ganondorf in 1-on-1. I don't think balance is as necessary in FFA, item matches, since there are more strategies to try in FFA even if your character is generally at a disadvantage, and item usage adds a lot of randomness that masks the advantages and disadvantages of characters. Maybe Sonic is really good because he can get items much more easily... well, then, nerfing him a little bit is fine. Balance shouldn't only be for competitive 1-on-1 no item matches.

Even if you're fairly casual, you know that 1-on-1 at least is the way of settling who's better. If you only ever play FFA matches with items, you probably don't care about balance anyway (as long as it's not ridiculously out of whack). 1-on-1 matches are where people care about balance the most, because the reason for your victory or defeat is most transparent (in a FFA or with items there's more ability to chalk it up to luck).

I'm not always sympathetic to the hyper-competitive players' arguments, but balance is one area where I'm pretty much in agreement.

 

[B!ggad]

Not with that attitude, you can't.

It'll always be impossible with that attitude.

The attitude card seems out of place here.

I understand his comments might have come off as a bit extreme, but you can't even objectively measure balance to that point unless every character is exactly the same/there is just 1 character so how do you achieve it if you can't even measure it.

No one said the balancing was being done in free-for-alls, or even with items on. Sakurai just plays free-for-alls for fun during his lunch break, just because he can.

Wasn't referring to the quote from this interview here. I also remember another interview where he basically said that he watches his staff play (who most likely aren't competetive players/are "bad" at this game) and makes balancing decisions based on that.
Certainly interesting, but not what I would imagine balancing to work like, you obviously cannot draw concrete conclusions from that for several reasons.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Sakurai has discussed how he does balance before. 1v1 no items flat stage is the starting point, but before he's done he's considered all of the unique aspects of smash and tried to integrate them all to make a balanced package as a whole.

Also, his comment on balance makes sense from a game design standpoint. Obviously you have as much balance as possible when it comes with no sacrifice, but at some point the only road you can see forward to increase balance is to homogenize the cast. Let's say in some build Bowser is low tier, and you've tweaked his power all you can to help him out without breaking some match-ups. Well, you can either accept he's going to be low tier or you can speed him up. Speeding him up defies the purpose of the character; he's a heavyweight who is supposed to be slow, and pushing him toward speed just moves him toward the middle of the cast. This is not always the wrong choice, but when you make this sort of choice routinely you end up with a game that is very homogenous and boring. Sakurai obviously has no intention of allowing that, and his previous work has already shown he doesn't ascribe to that sort of philosophy at all.

I also trust Sakurai to do balance for the most part; the main thing I hope he gets help with is finding those gimmicky abusable tactics since honestly his track record for catching those isn't too good. Chaingrabs, grab release, jab locks, all the things you can do with a wall... If all this stuff gets fixed, I think the rest of the balance will fall into place well enough.

 

[Kamikazek]

The balancing comment is about 90% vague and I honestly think it tells us approximately nothing.
It could very well be his paraphrasing of the age old fighting game adage, "a perfectly balanced fighting game is a fighting game with one character", which is a phrase I've heard brought up in about every community I've seen in response the ultra hardcore insane balance junkies. The kind of people who would call Project M an unbalanced mess just because the characters are varied. Because that is totally a group of people that exists and that could be what he's addressing.

Or he could be saying that he's decided balance is like, totally a drag man, and the game would be funner if it wasn't balanced as stringently as even Brawl was, and that's the direction he wants to go this time.

Stuff is vague man .

Oh god I sound like Hyperfalcon.

 

[TheKmanOfSmash]

The balancing comment is about 90% vague and I honestly think it tells us approximately nothing.
It could very well be his paraphrasing of the age old fighting game adage, "a perfectly balanced fighting game is a fighting game with one character", which is a phrase I've heard brought up in about every community I've seen in response the ultra hardcore insane balance junkies. The kind of people who would call Project M an unbalanced mess just because the characters are varied. Because that is totally a group of people that exists and that could be what he's addressing.

Or he could be saying that he's decided balance is like, totally a drag man, and the game would be funner if it wasn't balanced as stringently as even Brawl was, and that's the direction he wants to go this time.

Stuff is vague man .

Oh god I sound like Hyperfalcon.

After reading this comment and rereading the quote, I do agree that Sakurai's comment was very vague and could be interpreted in a number of different ways like you and others have described. I just assumed with all the anti-competitive decisions he's made in the past, a comment like that wouldn't mean much else in my eyes. But if he's talking from like a general game designer standpoint then yeah, what he actually meant by that could be up in the air.

I do not keep up with P:M much, but at what cost is it trying to achieve close to perfect balance (I assume that's what you're getting at)?
They release new versions relatively often, making slight or not so slight adjustments every time, partially based on feedback from the community (again, I assume it does have some influence) for ... as long as they want?

This is not an option for Sakurai or any huge official game like Smash.

P:M tries to make a game where all the characters are competitively viable and one's skill in the game isn't limited overall by his/her character. Now a truly "perfectly" balanced game would be like Kamikazek described where it'd just be a game with just one character. That's not what P:M tries to do at all. The character variety is there, meaning every character has their own, unique way of interacting with the game and in certain matchups. It's just that every character actually has a chance to do that against most of the cast, unlike in previous Smash games where 80:20 and some 90:10 MUs exist. As for a cost for making the game, the only cost I could see is if they get a cease and desist order from Nintendo lol

And yes, they do release patch updates from time to time based on community feedback and further playtesting. I don't expect Smash4 to have DLC for this purpose and it doesn't have to. I just feel that Sakurai should reevaluate the concept of a fun game with balance and solid gameplay fundamentals. With a work like Melee and how many people loved that, I don't see why he has to DRASTICALLY change his approach in ways that many people didn't even request for *coughtrippingcough*.

That's not to say the ideal game is Melee. If I want that, I'll play P:M. It's just that I get frustrated at Sakurai's reasoning behind some of his game development decisions in what could otherwise be a game with a whole ton of both casual and competitive potential, instead of just one or the other.

However if what Sakurai meant in his comment is similar to the perfect imbalance vid that Capps posted, then I'm all for that, actually. Because of the nature of P:M, truly perfect MUs aren't really feasible because the character variety is so vast that character and playstyle counters (but rarely hard-counters) are inevitable. Some people in the P:M community see this as a chance to "buff" or "nerf" a character, but I see it as a chance to take advantage of the perfect imbalance and allow players to adapt to those countered MUs and find ways to evolve the metagame. That makes playing P:M more engaging, when I'm playing an MU that's slightly below my favor. I have to come up with creative ways to win rather than attempting to fight Brawl MK with Ganon or Melee Sheik with Ness, wondering why I even bother with that MU at all due to lack-luster game design. If Sakurai was designing Smash4 around an idea like that, I'd actually be all for it, though some might not agree.

Still, at this point, we can only speculate as to what this game will become. So I shall wait in anticipation like I've been doing...

 

[Big-Cat]

I hope he does it better than Brawl.

I'm still damn curious how those hitboxes happened or how giving Meta Knight transcendent priority on his attacks was a good idea. I really want to think that was not entirely his fault.

I think by that quote, Sakurai means that some characters will have an advantage over other characters and not that a character will have an advantage over every character or most characters.

It is alright if characters have bad match-ups and good match-ups. Bowser looks like he will have one hell of an uphill battle against Wii Fit Trainer and Megaman. But from the footage, The Villager might have trouble fending off the drop-kicking goliath.

I think you hit the nail on the head with this one. The only way to have true balance is if everyone played like Mario or some other character. Better sense of balance would be if a character has an equal number of good, bad, and neutral matchups.

I'm want to know about these NB tools for streamlining the fine tuning. This could change a lot of things.

 

[FlamingForce]

Gonna have to just disagree with the entirety of this, honestly.

My beliefs and sense of fun are just different. Sorry.

I'm dying to hear the explanation and/or argumentation behind this one.

 

[link2702]

confirmed...new smash's character balance will be just as bad as brawls if not worse....

oh well....just go back to project M i suppose.

 

[iHook]

I am not worried at all. I mean, c'mon people! They play friendly 4 player free-for-alls EVERY DAY after lunch! They will have all the kinks knocked out in no time. /sarcasm.

 

[Awaji66]

I just hope it's balance better than Melee and Brawl or no character/s is too OP.

 

[mimgrim]

Some people should check this out, it explains why perfect balance is bad in it's own way. It does need it's flavor, I just hope it's not at the expence of really bad balance. and more like perfect imbalance.

In my mind a lot discussed in that video isn't imbalanced. For example the "Chanmpion A" and "Champion B" example they used make the so called imbalanced balanced. In my mind imbalances aren't just small advantages as anyone with a glimmer of sense should know it is impossible for a imperfect creature, humans, to make a perfectly 100% balanced game. Not even chest is perfectly 100% balanced but it is one of the most balanced games in existence. In any game made by humans there will always be small advatadges for stuff no matter how hard you try, even in a 1 character fighting game X move will be better then Y move, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to get as close as possible. Using the 2 most popular currently released Smash games. Brawl is a good example of imbalance in a game, in my mind anyway, MK is by far the best character in the game in that he doesn't have a single bad match-up at all and is consistently seen winning top tournaments while Ganondorf is the worst character in the game with no positive match-ups at all and never seen to make it to the top of a tournament, that right there is what I consider in balance not the fact that each characters are different but hat the advantages and disadvantages are far to skewered. Now in my mind I find Melee to be a good example of a balanced game, it's best character, Fox, actually has some bad match ups and in all of Melee history has actually not won that many high level tournaments while it's worst character doesn't have all bad match-ups though it still doesn't top. Melee isn't perfectly balanced, that much is obvious however the advantages and disadvantages are much smaller minute then what they are in Brawl. So a lot of what they call imbalance in that vid I find to actually be balance. But maybe that's just me.

Disclaimer - I am not trying to start a Melee VS Brawl thread here, it was the best example I could think of.

 

[Snakeyes]

Regarding his balance comment; calm down people, he's totally right. A truly diverse roster will always have characters that are stronger than others in some aspects of the game. Balance things out too much, and the metagame could become dull.

Some of the best and long-lived fighting games are unbalanced. Even those seen as the most balanced in the genre have clearly defined tiers.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

Regarding his balance comment; calm down people, he's totally right. A truly diverse roster will always have characters that are stronger than others in some aspects of the game. Balance things out too much, and the metagame could become dull.

Some of the best and long-lived fighting games are unbalanced. Even those seen as the most balanced in the genre have clearly defined tiers.

This is true. Take Street Fighter 3: Third Strike for example, the game has a clearly defined tier list, but every character has the potential to win tournaments due to it's intuitive mechanics.

 

[Warp Star Lover]

I dont personally believe that a game can't be both balanced and fun

Worms Armageddon is one of the best examples. Addictive as heck, and if it got any more balanced every match would be a draw.

Non-gameplay patches have kept its community alive since 1999. That's ONE game - no sequels, no expansion packs. Chances are you can still run it on old Windows 95 machines, even with the new patches. Crazy stuff!

However, it's a much different game than Smash - 2D turn-based strategy with randomly generated maps (static maps can also be used), three times as many settings, and no single preferred way to play (although the default "Intermediate" gametype is probably the most balanced/hardcore). Smash is about many different UNIQUE fighters going at each other - seems to me it would be harder to strike a balance between gameplay and variety in a game like that than with a game where two (or more!) matching teams are fighting.

In fact, WA is pretty much chess on steroids.

 

[Big-Cat]

This is true. Take Street Fighter 3: Third Strike for example, the game has a clearly defined tier list, but every character has the potential to win tournaments due to it's intuitive mechanics.

Actually, a better example is Guilty Gear. Along with an array of universal defensive mechanics, the roster is incredibly diverse and balanced. Sure, the knockdown game is one of the largest parts of the game, but it doesn't affect the diversity that much from what I've seen.

 

[Snakeyes]

Actually, a better example is Guilty Gear. Along with an array of universal defensive mechanics, the roster is incredibly diverse and balanced. Sure, the knockdown game is one of the largest parts of the game, but it doesn't affect the diversity that much from what I've seen.

I was gonna say exactly that, haha. 3S is one of the worst examples of a balanced fighter, ever. But even 3S still gets a lot of play in the arcades 15 years since its release.

 

[Medaka444]

Regarding his balance comment; calm down people, he's totally right. A truly diverse roster will always have characters that are stronger than others in some aspects of the game. Balance things out too much, and the metagame could become dull.

Some of the best and long-lived fighting games are unbalanced. Even those seen as the most balanced in the genre have clearly defined tiers.

They say that Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 is the primary sport of New York City. It has four characters (all Marvel) who are clearly better than all the rest, as well as plenty of characters (mostly Capcom) who can do barely anything. Still popular, mostly due to the SHEER NUMBER of glitches and exploits.

SF4 is often used as the poster-child for roster balance. Bring a low-tier character to a tournament and people will barely notice. Some players have even said that they still organize it into tiers because that's what Fighting game fans do.

 

[majora_787]

SF4 is often used as the poster-child for roster balance. Bring a low-tier character to a tournament and people will barely notice. Some players have even said that they still organize it into tiers because that's what Fighting game fans do.

Well that certainly is a level of balance taking place.

 

[PikaJew]

Holy **** people on this site are always so quick to assume the worst.

 

[Renji64]

Sakurai says smash 4 is more fun than brawl and melee. More fun than brawl kinda of a given more fun than melee idk about that one. Not gonna take the word of the guy who thought tripping was a great idea

 

[Renji64]

Holy **** people on this site are always so quick to assume the worst.

That is because brawl happened.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Holy **** people on this site are always so quick to assume the worst.

But surely Ridley will be playable!

 

[Terrazi Terrajin]

Today on misinterpret Sakurai: This thread!

 

[CardiganBoy]

Sakurai on how once he completes work on damage rates and hitboxes for a character, they’ll already fairly playable at that point…
“Characters’ in-game balance and features are something that I’m thinking about from the start while coming up with motions. If I left that to someone else midway, that’d make things more difficult. It’s faster and more accurate to just input the numbers myself than try to explain it in words to somebody.”
.

This a good point, and i have to agree with that. Lets say, Maybe his balance in the last game wasnt the best, but what if he leave it completely to other persons, maybe it could be better or maybe it could end very messed up, it like having a dream and trying to describe it to another person who will make a paint of it, but at the end the result its a painting no even near to what you described.

 

[BlitznBurst]

I really don't understand how people can look at Melee and say "That right there is a wonderfully balanced game," because for all the things Melee did better than Brawl, balancing was not one of them (Meta Knight notwithstanding)