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Hello TL. Before posting, please read the whole post! So many people not reading it 
EDIT: OH MY GOD READ THE WHOLE POST. It's not the usual balance complaint. Excuse the topic name, I couldn't find any better one. And Mods, if there are something you don't like about this post, please help me change it instead of remove it, I spent a pretty long time on this text.
ADDITION: 1. This thread is not about if the game is balanced or not or if there are people who are arguing balance when they don't know anything about the game. This thread is only about the two different approaches the SC2 and Street Fighter 4 community has about balance.
2. I know that it's harder to balance a game to the same level when one game has like 30 characters and the other game only have 3 races, but a big part of the sc2 community was saying that the game was balanced only a few months after release when the street fighter community after years and 2 MAJOR patches (like expansions sized patches) are 100% agreed on that the game isn't balanced. Even if there are differences between the games, there is an (even bigger) difference in how the two communities look at balance. Isn't there another reason than the whole mass character thing?
I've been playing SC2 since Beta, have played TONS of games, but most importantly I have been an active member of this community over a year back. I have pretty much been living in Starcraft2 (and SC1 to some degree as well), and have been active in several SC2-forums on different sites outside of TL. Over the last months I have been searching for a new game with a huge community since I'm not that interested in playing SC2 anymore, which led to me finding the Street Fighter 4 community. After reading on forums and a lot of sites about the game, I have seen a pretty interesting difference between SC2 and SF4: The community's approach to game balance.
I've been visiting a swedish computer forum for a long time, which since SC2 Release has got a sub-forum dedicated 100% to SC2. The majority (9/10?) of the people posting there all agrees on that "the game is pretty much perfectly balanced". If someone says anything else there are immediately people all over him convincing him that he is wrong. Balance complainers are the people you can criticize, they are the minority that cannot speak out loud without being hacked to pieces.
IdrA, the one who is the (as incontrol put it) "Representative for the Zerg Complainers", has been the 'Villain' of SC2 for a long time. People have been criticizing him to the max for his bad manner, but also for his complaints about balance. The first one is of course understandable and could be the main reason IdrA has gotten this role in the SC2 community. I would argue though that it's also because he is one of the very few (If not lone) professional starcrafters who are very active in stating that there is big imbalances in the game on shows like SOTG and Inside The Game and also in interviews. He has gotten A LOT of complaints/comments about this, and you could say he is one of the outsiders of SC2.
One of the first things I heard about Street Fighter 4, was that there were different Tiers. 'Tiers' is essentially a list showing which characters are the strong ones, which one are the weak ones and the ones in the middle (Which ones are OP and not). The most famous SF-player is called Daigo, he has been dominating the scene pretty much, and recently switched his main character to someone high-tier (from a mid-tier character I think?). It's pretty much the equivalent of switching races in SC2 because you think the other race is the stronger one. In chats and forums he is sometimes called a "Tier-whore" (translation to SC2: balance-obsessed), and a lot of people are sad about that he switched because they wanted to see him play his old character instead. They are all accepting his choice though, they know that the new character is stronger.
What SF4 has is an updated list of how the balance in the game looks like. It's concept is pretty much the same as the TL Power Rank, except for that it ranks characters instead of players (Sc2 translation: It ranks Races instead of players). It ranks from 1-10 how big of a chance you have to win a certain matchup (like PvZ = 3/10, PvT = 6/10 = 9 points total for Protoss).
Here's a link to it if you want to check it out:
http://www.eventhubs.com/guides/2008/oct/17/street-fighter-4-tiers-character-rankings/
I found this very interesting. If IdrA would have switched to Terran or Protoss, he would have been called silly and naive. People wouldn't be very sad about that he is switching, I believe most people will think that he finally will understand that the game isn't as imbalanced as he thinks it is. In the Street fighter world, about the same thing happened to Daigo, but his choice was OK for most people since they understood that the new character (race) is easier to win with. The vast majority of the SF4-community agrees on that the game is imbalanced, they just take that for granted.
Pretty much the only balance-discussions in SF4 is about if the "Tier-list" is accurate, people understands that the character Daigo plays with will get a higher rank in the tiers (he will show everybody how strong this and that character is, just like MC showed how strong stargate play can be etc.). However, the SF4-community is almost 100% agreed (At least what I've read) on that the game isn't balanced, while the SC2-community is not.
I would like to hear your opinions on this. Why does the two communities think so different about balance?
Please don't bring up the argument "Because SC2 is balanced while SF4 apparently isn't". Only some months after releasing the game most people have been arguing that the game (SC2) is close to 100% balanced. Starcraft Broodwar was after 1 expansion pack and tons of years finally concidered balanced. Warcraft 3 has been out for a very long time, has gotten an expansion pack and years of patching as well, and is still concidered imbalanced. To say that SC2 isn't balanced only a few months after release isn't stupid. SC2 may very well be balanced, but the possibility that it isn't balanced exists. And please don't say that "The winrate in tournaments is close to 50% for all matchups", because winrate in tournaments is for the most part a very very bad way of measuring balance, even if you would rely purely on statistics to measure balance.
There is not really much statistics proving that "Even though the game is so fresh and new the game is pretty much balanced", there are some statistics showing that some races are having an easier time winning than others. For example, look at GSL code S right now. There are like above 50% terrans. The last season (July) there was two Zergs in the top, one of them who barely lost a game in the whole season. Last season you could both argue that zerg is OP, this season you can argue that Terran is OP. I'm sure you can argue that Protoss is OP in some ways as well (IdrA on Inside the Game for example). My point is that there are no clear evidence of that the game is balanced, and I'm very sure the characters in SF4 isn't fully figured out as well, so the tiers may very well be completely wrong. Saying that the game (SF4) is imbalanced is definitely something not 100% sure either. I want to make sure that before I post I am not here to convince you that SC2 isn't balanced, I'm only interested in why the two communities are taking two completely different approaches to balance in the game, when they are in pretty much the similar spot. Both games are about guessing games. There are hidden information in both games so you have to guess and mindgame the opponent a lot in SF4 as well. Both games also require mechanical skill and tons of gamesense.
I also wanted to note that SF4 isn't a mindless console game without balance patches. The expansion to SF4 (Super Street Fighter 4, SSF4) has changed a lot (the ranks in the tier list were tossed around), and the other "expansion" (Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition, SSF4:AE) also made some significant changes to the game. There is also another patch incoming (just a patch though, no new game, this time it's free), so Capcom is actually updating the balance in the game. The second "balance patch" didn't include new characters (I believe?) but changed the stats of the characters (damage reduced, cooldown increased etc), and the third one will be another pure balance patch, without introducing new chars and without resetting the metagame knowledge, so they are pretty similar to actual balance changes (They have both been pretty big, they are like 5-10 patches each).
EDIT: I KNOW that when practicing, it's best to leave the balance thinking out of it. Otherwise you are crippling yourself. And yes, balance complaints isn't the fun to listen to all the time. But SF4 are still taking a different approach to the whole balance discussion even if these two factors are strong in that game as well.
TL;DR: REMOVED! (forgot I wanted people to read the whole post  )
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You tell us not to say what is really the most appropriate answer...
Starcraft 2 is relatively balanced and there's really no point in complaining about balance on this forum because all it does is take away from the wins of the players.
There's no point in shitting on someone's success by citing imbalance, particularly in a game where imbalance is nowhere near clear cut. Players have been able to adjust to most strategies that have seemed imbalanced at first, unlike Street Fighter, there is a lot more strategy and theory crafting involved in the game and there isn't really any race that overtly more powerful than another race.
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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.
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Because this is a STRATEGY game.
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Because admitting theres imbalance just gives losing players a reason to bitch about their losses.
The only place where the slight imbalances sc2 contains come into play are in top8 master, gm, and pro where certain scenarios force a situation where you literally cant win.
But then once this is admitted diamond players come on the forum to spam about their most recent loss and how they played perfectly but lost to imba noob shit
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From the perspective of a more competitive SF player, I'll tell you that in SF the match ups can be so unbearable (ie.Dhalism vs Ryu). The difference is that Daigo switched to one of the best characters in the entire game only because the nerf was too big on zoning that he was forced to switch.
People want a balanced game to prevent messed up match ups where you would have to literally be 10 levels above your opponent to win. That's also why I like playing StarCraft so much better as well.
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On August 13 2011 11:17 AlBundy wrote:
Because this is a STRATEGY game.
You're pretty ignorant if you think there isn't some serious strategy and mind gaming going on in SF4.
With meter management, its essentially a RTS with perfect information as opposed to having a fog of war.
edit : emphasis added to qualifier for people who are dumb enough to take that sentence literally
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There are only 3 races, so if one were simply to weak to be played then the diversity of high level games would be dramatically reduced.
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Fighting games can never be balanced because of how many characters there tends to be, whereas StarCraft has only 3 races. It's also A LOT easier to play a different character than it is to play a different race.
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I somewhat agree with you OP. The TL community is quite "closed-minded" when it comes to balance. Almost all attempts at balance discussions are shot down as "mere whining". While this is better than letting pathetic whiners run rampant I think people need to realize that some discussion of balance can be constructive. As always with masses of people, moderate opinions are hard to adopt as crowds seems to only buy into one extreme or the other.
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On August 13 2011 11:21 HyperLimen wrote:You're pretty ignorant if you think there isn't some serious strategy and mind gaming going on in SF4. With meter management, its essentially a RTS with perfect information as opposed to having a fog of war.
Yeah let's compare Sc2 to SF4. Good idea.
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No matter what anybody tells you, the game is NOT fully balanced. However, like with all new games: with time, balance changes will be made, and players will continue to learn strategies to combat any situation that may be called "imbalanced". Take for example the TvP 1/1/1 marine tank banshee allin. I would define this push as exceedingly difficult to defend, and time will tell if better strategy and positioning can help or if a balance change needs to be made.
On a non-balance related note, there needs to be more units that are microintensive, blink stalkers and stimmed terran bio units are very exciting to watch, and sc1 had many units that could benefit from greater micromanagement.
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On August 13 2011 11:21 HyperLimen wrote:You're pretty ignorant if you think there isn't some serious strategy and mind gaming going on in SF4. With meter management, its essentially a RTS with perfect information as opposed to having a fog of war.
And you're out of your mind if you think that the strategic depth of SF4 is in any way comparable with Starcraft 2. The game is much more mechanical as opposed to strategic, there are mind games and tactics but it's not a strategy game.
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The majority of the community is lower level players and even those in master leagues still have improvements that would affect their play more than, say, a 5% nerf/buff to a certain unit or strategy. The imbalance of the game is so slight right now (except perhaps in Korea) that only those very high in master league, in GM, or pros could really attribute the majority of a loss to a certain imbalance. Pros, who it affects most, are generally professional enough to not whine about it because it makes them and their team look bad. Many people also trust in Blizzard's ability to balance the game and believe that over time it will be balanced out.
TL;DR:
1. It is so balanced that it doesn't majorly affect most of the playerbase
2. Pros are professional enough not to whine about it
3. Trust in blizzard to see the job through
4. Generally the metagame will evolve faster than blizzard would patch an issue, so it is more effective to create a new strategy than try to influence the often non-responsive balance team.
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Not a good idea to bring up fighting games, most people outside of the fighting game community actually think it's just people mashing.
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On August 13 2011 11:21 HyperLimen wrote:You're pretty ignorant if you think there isn't some serious strategy and mind gaming going on in SF4. With meter management, its essentially a RTS with perfect information as opposed to having a fog of war.
That is a pretty big stretch to call SF4 an RTS.
My feelings are in SF4 you have several characters to choose from. However, in a game with only three races, balance is much more important in nature.
StarCraft would never be a successful game if Zerg was at Roll tier.
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look at your street fighter ranking page. even the MOST EXTREME imbalance is a 70-30% split with the majority being 60-40%. i would argue that even in your 'imbalance whining' game the majority of games are solved by someone playing bad or making mistakes.
the logical conclusion to believing you lost due to imbalance is to not play until a patch. which means you cant win anything, and you are out of practice, making your situation worse. if you really just lost because of a mistake you are digging yourself a bigger ditch
the logical conclusion to believing you lost due to bad play is the play more, practice harder and analyse your replays. even if the game is imbalanced you will still improve your chances.
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I think the main difference is that in fighting game tournaments its more accepted to switch your character for a certain match up which your other character would get trashed in. In sc2 how many pro players regularly switch their race based on the matchup? Off the top of my head I can only think of Morrow when he plays against zerg.
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Chess is imbalanced... In a "perfect" world, white is playing for a win, black is playing to draw. White is always ahead a move unless he makes some sort of mistake. However, in order to offset it, people playing black try for, at the time, rather obscure ideas. First time you show a player the Sicilian, they'll look at you as if you are crazy.
I agree with mprs.
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Because Starcraft as a franchise to me has always been about balance and simplicity, it is the allure of the game.
3 Races, each vastly different in appearance, lore, mechanics, and style. This differs from other rts games where you might have 7 or more different races (or countries, factions, etc.) to choose from which are all basically the same on a fundamental level but with different appearances and slight tweaks ( spear throwers instead of archers,etc. ).
The impressive thing about BW (and now SC2) was that there was 3 races, and no one was a direct counter to the other ( much like a rock-paper-scissor affect that other games have had ), you had ( have ) relatively just as good of a chance to beat anyone of equal skill irregardless of race.
I have some experience with fighting games, and if we're being honest, I don't think anyone expects them to be balanced. You have games with dozens of characters, how would you possibly make it so that every character was balanced to every other character. One character could be completely balanced but have a fundamental advantage over a specific character.
From a somewhat ignorant standpoint, It would be easier for them to balance the ''tiers'' of units. That way competitive players ( which is a small % in fighting games ) can work on playing only the other top tier characters.
I also think this comes from the roots of the games, fighting games have ALWAYS had a couple characters that were clearly abusive, I think now they try harder to make it balanced because people are playing competitively whereas the first Street Fighter, they weren't.
SC2 players are spoiled from the BW days, where everything was balanced and perfect.
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