|
I have no experience with the Street-Fighter scene, but I am pretty sure I understand the SC2 scene's preoccupation with balance. When two players start a game, there is the assumption that the winner will be the one who has put in more practice hours, thinks more fluidly, and plays more solidly. If the winner is the other player, there is a feeling of falseness to the competition. We feel cheated. That is the whole (theoretically) reason for balance debate in the first place. In theory we do not care about equal win-rates between the races so much as we care about the best player winning. If you doubt the desire of spectators and players to see the competitor(s) win that desire it most, just note that almost all major tournaments for chess, hockey, baseball, and even SC2 all use several game series. If one side wins because it got lucky, then the victory means nothing. Basically, we strive for balance because we want our wins to have meaning.
EDIT:
I just thought of why balance debate is met with so much anger by the SC2 scene. If someone claims that race X is overpowered, then they are basically claiming that all of the wins by that race are hollow. That is, if IdrA says that P is imbalanced right now, that means that Huk's victory in Dreamhack means nothing because he did not deserve his wins. That sucks, so we say IdrA is stupid and needs to grow up and that there are things that Z isn't trying and whatever, but I think the underlying reason is that we want to love Huk for being a gosu nerd baller. (That was just an example, Huk and IdrA are both amazing.)
|
Although there are only 3 races, there are much more units, and unit combinations in SC2 (especially factoring in upgrades/maps) than in SF4. Which makes it impossibly hard to be truly balanced, but also extremely difficult to tell whats really imba. IMO we don't discuss balance because (as has been stated) it is such a slight margin that player skill in macro/micro, and all of the million other variables in a single match plays a much larger role in determining who wins. One unit may be OP but it still has a counter, so with good scouting and the proper counter even an OP unit wouldn't guarantee a win. If any unit was OP to the extent that it changed the outcome of games often, it would be extremely obvious by now.
Though in light of the topic, I do wish we could at least entertain the idea that, on certain maps, in certain match-ups (for example the 1/1/1 TvP push which has had great success lately ) some unit/unit compositions etc... are OP in the sense that they put an unfair amount of pressure on a player and force them into a certain unique position - usually to get a very specific comp to counter their opponents comp. And it may be that it is a much greater commitment to counter their opponents comp than for their opponent to even have it in the first place. To me that is OP.
I believe that in a conversation about these unique positions, while discussing all the possible options to handle them, it doesn't hurt to consider that they are perhaps 'Overly Powerful' positions for a race to be able to put another race into. However that is not an excuse for a race to just give up, because SC2 just has too many variables, there is no doubt 'Overly Powerful' positions - in the sense that I have defined them - for each race to impose upon other races, that have not been discovered. (personally I'm rooting for the nydus worm play)
tl;dr SC2 is too complicated to say that one entire race is OP. If we entertain the idea that some very specific comps, in certain match-ups, on certain maps, are in some sense OP, we can then begin to discuss how it would/could be possible to avoid getting ourselves into these specific situations. Shifting the metagame/evolving new strategies
|
Starcraft 2 is an extremely complex game. There are thousands of different ways match-ups can unfold and I have yet to see 1 game resemble another.
Solid game-play for a vast majority of players, regardless of race, will win you games.
|
IMO I just don't think this is an apple-to-apple comparison. SC2 with SF4? SC2 community with SF4 community? The point is that they don't need to be the same.
Edit: Balance in SC2 is not something that is constant. For example, last June (based on TL stats) SC2 seemed balanced. But in July, based on the stats, it seems SC2 is not yet balanced even though the latest patch couldn't have affected the balance. SC2 is a game that has so many things to explore and discover that until all those things have been discovered there will always be times when the game is balanced and then not and then balanced and so on. SF4 is small (few characters, etc.) compared to SC2 that's why it is very easy to see when the game is balanced and not.
|
From liquidpedia:
Overpowered (often abbreviated to OP) - a unit or ability that is the best choice in a disproportionate number of situations (marginalising other choices) and/or excessively hard to counter by the opponent compared to the effort required to use it. For example, the 1 supply/2 armor/15hp regen Roach from early Beta was overpowered in many ZvT and ZvP scenarios.
It's like a UFC figher beating up some child on the street. Or a heavyweight beating on a lightweight. What's challenge in that? They wouldn't sell any tickets thats for sure since most of us don't like imbalance. We like a challenge and evenly matched pieces where better moves/player shows it. SC2 works the same way. See above. If it's no challenge for one tactic and almost impossible to defend that's imba and bad for sport. Bad for esport as well.
|
I would say the answer lies in the difference between the games and what they are trying to accomplish. Some of this has already been mentioned in the thread, but sometimes obliquely:
Players can accept the fact of imbalance in SF4 because it's roster is so large. It does not need for every one-on-one pairing of the 30 something characters to be balanced to provide players and spectators with exciting matches, strategic depth and variety. Also, no one would believe them if they claimed that they could achieve that balance and would ridicule them for being insane if they tried. Even if they could somehow achieve that balance, it might very well be detrimental to players and spectators both: how do you get good at a game in which you have to prepare against 30 some odd match ups, each of which is different and each just as hard as every other one and is it worth your time to try? is a spectator willing to put in the time to get a decent grasp of that many matchups so they can actually understand (and as a result, enjoy) what's going on?
Starcraft needs the perception of balance much more badly than SF4. It only has 3 races, if one race were perceived to be weak and people played it less, fully half of the matchups would be at risk (e.g. zerg is weak, then of the 6 matchups, ZvZ, ZvP, and ZvT would fall in frequency). Starcraft is also at the forefront of e-sports, and desires to achieve the kind of prestige that is normally associated with traditional athletic sports. However, those sports are symmetric (the court or field is mirrored, or the 2 sides take turns) whereas one of the selling points of starcraft is 3 distinct sides. Thus starcraft 2 and it's fans are much more sensitive to perceptions of balance or imbalance; not only is balance more important to the game, but because that game has an entire social movement behind it yearning for legitimacy.
Short version: SF4 does not need the perception of balance because it's roster is so large. Sc2 needs the perception of balance because its roster is small and because it desires the prestige of traditional sports.
edit: grammar
|
Wow, you people are wasting your time to begin with.
Anyone can say the game is imbalanced, it's not going to prove that it is or isn't unless you use some hardcore science.
Where did you even begin to compair a fighting game to an RTS, why, and why about it's "community," what's the point in thinking about it in depth and writing a wall of text about it...?
|
I am not familiar with SF4, but I do play a lot of SSBM, and we have our own ideas of balance which might be similar to other fighting games.
Believe it or not, most Melee players consider the game, which has more than 25 characters, is balanced. Obviously, in the sense that balance is defined in starcraft (every race has an equal chance of beating ever other race) is impossible. Here, 'balance' means that a relatively large percentage of the cast has a reasonable chance of winning tournaments. A tier lists of course exists for Melee, as one does for any fighting game, and the top 5-10 members are considered to be tournament viable. The reason that this many are viable, and not just 1 or 2, is because the characters 'counter' each other in specific matchups, so no one character is always favored against every other. For example, Fox get pillared nonstop by Falco, who is extremely vulnerable to the edge game and rest combos of Jigglypuff, who cannot easily get inside the extreme range of Marth, who is quickly smashed off the stage by knee combos from Captain Falcon, who finds difficulty dealing with the speed and power of Fox. Any tourney-goer needs to pick two or three characters to master to ensure that they cannot just get countered by the right person, yet none of these matchups is unwinnable by any means. Each character has its own strengths and weaknesses and is as such considered balanced.
Balance means something entirely different in starcraft, that EVERY matchup is 50/50. In a game with only 3 cast members, this is clearly a necessity, since a rock-paper-scissors setup would just be silly and devolve into endless counterpicking in a tight circle. Yet we have seen how hard it is to truly achieve balance in a game with just 3 races, and warcraft 3, with its 4 selections, never got there. It is absurd to expect that all 45 non-mirror matchups in a game with 10 characters be 50/50, and that comes nowhere near the cast size of most fighters. So we define balance differently because it is the only reasonable solution for a game like starcraft, while the definiton of balance in ssbm is used because it makes sense in that context. If starcraft 2 had 15 races it would look a whole lot more like sf4.
|
On August 13 2011 11:17 mprs wrote:
Saying the game is imbalanced implies that you have tried every possible thing, and there is no way to win. This hasn't happened yet. Until it happens, it is not called imbalance and it is called giving up.
THIS. EXACTLY THIS.
Seriously. There are a HUGE number of options for early / mid / lategame, so it is hardly possible to say "this unit is imbalanced" When there about 1000 other openings you could do to defend against it. There are also tons of styles to play with, tons of unit compositions, so it's really really hard to call imbalance.
It's the metagame, new styles arising, new builds. This month, Zerg might do great against Protoss because of Destiny's ling/Infestor style, and next month, it might be fine, but no patch was made. This sort of thing has been happening since release, and even in SC1.
And if the optimal build order, unit positioning, building positioning and micro have not been found or executed, then how can someone say X race can't beat X unit composition? Does that make sense? I dunno.
I think Blizzard has taken care of the things in this game that just sway outcomes really stupidly like HT Amulet upgrade. That was straight up wrong.
But people discard Idra's claims because he's known to be like that. If you go to BW threads (EX. TSL2 Map Imbalance thread) you can see that he has always claimed imbalance. I mean, he can certainly justify it, and I don't blaim him for getting angry or calling imbalance, but he's known for being such a 1 way street player. He is a macro player now, he was a macro player in BW, so there are ways to exploit him and metagame him, which will affect the balance for playing against him (lol?).
|
6 pages and no one mentioned the double negative.
|
My skills and experience lie neither in RTS or fighting games (though I have played both), so I can't offer any particulars about why balance is regarded differently in their respective communities, but I think it is worth thinking about with more fighting games than just SF4, even if it is the biggest one right now.
I think it might be good to take a look at a couple of fighting games whose tiers are considered to be relatively balanced in two rather different ways. The first is the Virtua Fighter series, a game with a Brood War-like (outside of Korea) reputation, a very difficult game that is considered by its proponents to be more exquisitely refined than any other fighting game out there. According to this, the tier list for the latest iteration, VF5: Final Showdown comes out as the following:
“S: Akira
A: Lau, Jacky, Taka, Lion
B: Everyone else
That's quite close! Even if one character is considered by far the best, no one is considered to have anything close to a "failing grade." The message from this tier list is indeed "Imbalances exist in this game but it's close enough that anybody can win with anyone." Also perhaps important to note is that VF is considered a series where you do not have time to master more than one character because of how complex they can be. This might mean that, like SC2, switching characters/races is considered to be too time-consuming to be worth it.
Let's look at another game's tier list: Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star).
S++ : Rei
S+ : Toki - Juda
S : Raoh
A : Kenshiro / Thouther / Shin / Mamiya / Heart
B : Jagi
While there are now 5 ranks instead of 3, rather than call Jagi "D" tier and Rei "S" tier, they give the distinction of having them be "B" and "S++." The distinction here is that while some characters are good, others are GREAT. The reason why HnK's tiers are the way they are is that every character in this game has 100% combos and infinites. In any other fighting game, they would be brutally S-rank. However, in HnK, the top characters simply have more 100% combos and more ways to successfully land them. It is considered so imbalanced that it is balanced.
When talking to people who have played both of those games, I find that the main thing they have in common for why they are considered to be as balanced as they are is that all of the characters always have a good amount of options at any point in the fight. There is always more than one way to win. In a fighting game then, a character with consistently few options is always at a distinct disadvantage unless there is something else to greatly counterbalance that.
I think that the key difference between the Real Time Strategy and the Fighting Game, and why in the former the community is quick to say "things are unexplored" and in the latter people are eager to immediately lock in "tier lists," is how time factors into the strength of your race/character. Consider that, outside of super meter, in SF4 a character's strengths and weaknesses at 1 second into the match are about the same as in 50 seconds into the match. A character still has the same tools no matter where you place them in time. In SC2 however, time plays an enormous factor. Building your 10th SCV earlier rather than later does different things to the strength of your army. Losing a single SCV early on is much more detrimental than losing a single SCV in the mid or late game. Building particular units at different times affects the strength of a race tremendously, as does attacking with them. Options fluctuate tremendously based on when decisions are made, and an early disadvantage can ripple forward in time. This is often referred to as a "slippery slope," where once one starts falling behind it becomes tremendously difficult to make it back.All the same though, that disadvantage can be potentially mitigated by a different timing altogether.
So the difference between having a constant, unchanging set of options and one that changes over time based on your own decisions are why I think that "balance" is approached differently by the fighting game community and the RTS community. Fighting game players can look at the tools a character has and determine how they will do at any point in the fight, and from there they can determine tiers and even be comfortable with the idea of imbalance, even early on in the game's life. RTS players though have to factor in the timing of their decisions affecting the very strength of their army itself (and the ability to sustain that army), and that added variable is what makes the game feel so "unexplored" and difficult to determine the balance of.
|
Take a statistic math and you will see how many composition you can put together for each race. Combine all 3 races we could have so many builds and composition. That's the beauty of RTS and SC. You can't compare them with 1v1 fighting game, it's just 1v1, which is much easier to nerf one character.
In SC, you nerf 1 single unit it could affect the whole match up, ie. you nerf colossus badly, it make the entire protoss composition unreliable cuz storms could die to EMPs easily and too slow + immobilize.
|
Guns are overpowered in a knife fight.
On an serious note, imbalance implies that there is no way around a certain problem; that you literally look at a unit or combination of units and go "Yep I've done literally every way of engagement, unit combination, etc. to try and deal with this, and I still can't." This, unless you spend 12+ hours a day on the game, isn't true.
Figure it out, stop whining. (I play Protoss, and I know that my race isn't underpowered, I just play like shit)
|
I think it because in SF4 its widely accepted how strong something is while in SC2 everyone thinks their own race is UP and everything else is OP.
Also I think that for example if someone has atrocious PvZ like me, which probably holds down your ranking, and better PvT and PvP, it seems like PvT and PvP is balanced but PvZ is imbalanced.
Also there is the metagame..
I know for myself I can find a huge mistake which led to me losing in every losing replay of mine, and progamers can probably see it in their replays.
|
On August 13 2011 16:36 Mortal wrote:
Guns are overpowered in a knife fight.
On an serious note, imbalance implies that there is no way around a certain problem; that you literally look at a unit or combination of units and go "Yep I've done literally every way of engagement, unit combination, etc. to try and deal with this, and I still can't." This, unless you spend 12+ hours a day on the game, isn't true.
Figure it out, stop whining. (I play Protoss, and I know that my race isn't underpowered, I just play like shit)
As someone who plays both, there's an important aspect of tiers the OP left out:
Tier lists in fighting games are never taken as 100% fact. As long as there is a competitive community, the tier least is still changeable, because new strategies and information could be found out. Saying ZvP is imbalanced or that it tends to favor zerg right now does not mean that the matchup has been solved and will never change.
Another important distinction that not many people here are getting is that "imbalanced" doesn't mean one character or race wins 100% of the time. If Protoss wins 70% of the time on a map, that map is imbalanced, but it doesn't mean other races can't win or that a better player can't succeed.
Really interesting to see the current gsl / tournament trends of mass terran with this in mind.
|
Tier rankings are only about the real top players. I'm a Gen player and crush soooo many ppl online because they dont know the match up. in street fighter are a lot of important factors to win a match. Its probably easier to win with a good character like Yun now or sagat in vanilla but if you play against someone who knows how to zone em etc. you will win for sure.
|
"it's not the game that is imbalanced, it's the maps"
when in doubt - repeat it like a mantra
|
You're absolutely right. The game is not balanced. It never will be and we shouldn't want it to be. We want it to be somewhat fair in a competetive sense. But never perfectly balanced. The goal for blizzard should be to give all the races several tools to deal with each other and then make it up to map makers to balance maps after current trends and with those tools in mind.
|
I guess it actually is the number of playable characters/races more than anything. There are two thoughts I have about this.
When you have three races, you expect them to be balanced in a certain way. At least you'd expect a balance of rock/paper/scissors. For 30+ characters there is obviously no way you can make every single character play exactly the same way, so balance is out of question -- some matchups will be much harder than others.
Also, with fighting games it's easier to switch characters when needed. Fighting games are much more about general game sense and execution than about practicing very tight builds and timings for hundreds of hours. So an imbalanced matchup just means you have the opportunity to counterpick your opponent with a character that HE would have trouble dealing with, if you learned that character beforehand. You see EGJustinWong for example counterpick at some times, he plays several characters at a very high level. It helps that most characters have a similar move set, too.
This is obviously not possible for SC2, as learning a new race involves learning new hotkeys, new units, new unit placements, new unit skills, and spend hundreds of hours learning the builds and timings.
|
??? am i the only one who laughed at the thread title?
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
