What is "A Love Letter to the Community?"
Thursday, August 25, 2011 at 10:56AM Saying that SF3:3s would be better if it was better balanced has resulted in a lot of personal attacks and hatred directed toward me. Not about the stated idea, but about me personally. That's sad to see after all the support I've given fighting games over the years, from helping running tournaments to working on the games themselves. Not real encouraging, you know. There's also a really strange claim that I only want 3s to be better because I don't like the game. As hard as it is to wrap your mind around that, let's think about it.
Street Fighter Alpha2
What would a love letter to the players of Street Alpha2 look like? I really like this game. Is the reason I like it because of the balance? No, it's because of the gameplay system. Regarding the balance, there's a top tier of ken, ryu, chun li, rose and they're pretty solid all around. I mean maaaaaybe chun li's Custom Combo does a bit too much damage (or maybe it's ok), but these top characters don't really need fixing. Zangief and Sakura are just below them, within striking distance, and they happen to have an unusually interesting match against each other. Probably don't want to mess with that. It is kind of annoying that Sakura's main combo is ducking short, short, stand short, dragon punch and that it overlaps with her near-useless triple hop move that gets you killed. Probably should make that a non-overlapping input, but the fun and balance are both ok here.
And then there's Birdie. Birdie is terrible and literally the worst character in the game, worse than Dan. Yes, really. If you write a love letter to me as a fan of the game, would it involve giving me the known-bad quantity of Birdie, a character who I can't really reasonably pick, or would this "love letter" give me what I liked about the game originally AND a pickable Birdie? Well, because I love the game, I would love to have a new choice in it, so of course I'd rather have reasonable Birdie instead of worthless Birdie. I played Birdie a bit in SF Alpha1, even, and he was stronger there but not even that good. It's not to hard to adjust him back up to at least be half-decent.
Adon is another example. He doesn't have much going for him, and just making his stand roundhouse half a decent hitbox and frame stats would be at least something. One of the very few good things he has is a good low strong, and interestingly that was actually *redrawn* and made worse in SFA2 Gold. So uh, that is not a love letter. A love letter would be fixing up Birdie, Adon, and a few other things with some of the worst characters. As I outlined above, there isn't really a problem with the first and second tiers.
Puzzle Fighter
I love Puzzle Fighter! Is the reason I love it because of the game balance? No. (There's a strawman argument I see all the time that I think balance is the only important quality in a game. It just happens to be an easier one to quantify than general fun.) Anyway, what a great game, but there's only two characters you can pick. Would a love letter to me give me 2 characters I can pick and the entire rest of the cast worthless, or would a love letter give me a whole cast to actually enjoy? To give me just those 2 guys playable when you know full well all the problems seems pretty sloppy to me, so yes please do something about that. There's a lot of reasonably playable characters in Puzzle Fighter HD, and I don't think anyone sees that as "bad."
Super Turbo
Another great game. Is the reason I like this game because of the balance? No. It has to do with how the game system works, how attacking is rewarded so much, how fast it is, etc. As far as fighting games go, the balance here is pretty good. It does have problem matchups and it could be better, so as "controversial" as it is, a love letter to me about this game would give some low tiers a little help, like maybe let Cammy's cannon drill be safer.
Ok now here's the plot twist for you. Street Fighter HD Remix does *not* really fit into this list very well. My original proposal at the start of development was to fix a few balance things amongst the low tiers, and it was like less than 10 things total. Maybe like 5 or something, I forget. Capcom said they would prefer that instead of changing a couple things, that it actually be a new version of the game, like a sequel, and that it also include the original game. There wasn't even going to be any old music or any way to see the old sprites. Luckily we *were* able to add support for those anyway later on in development (business people said it was too costly to include the correct implementations of the old backgrounds though). Anyway, the point is a new game. Very surprising to me, but sure ok let's do it. In that case, more drastic changes are on the table, like fixing all sorts of overlapping motions and the randomness involved in input detection. Remaking characters entirely like Fei Long and Sagat. So even though I think HD Remix turned out great, that it's more accessible, has improved balance, and has more fun (example: boring OP O.Sagat vs more mobile, fair Remixed Sagat), it doesn't fit into the list in this post very well because it's a sequel. It's not fixing a few things, it's a new game.
Street Fighter 2: Hyper Fighting
I really, really like this game. Some people think it's even better than ST, and I won't really take sides on that but I think it's on par, at the least. Is it because of the balance? Again, no, it's about the gameplay. How is the balance though? It happens to be pretty fantastic. The top tier of about 5 characters are all solid, and not there due to some degenerate strategy. The second tier, and actually--almost the entire cast--is reasonably pickable. Wow!
And then there's Vega and Bison. These poor guys stand out as weaker than the rest, and they really could use some help. Poor neutered Vega. And Bison, who was way too good in the previous version of the game, really got overnerfed here. A love letter to me about this game would do something about these two guys. I really like the game, and the game plus a decent Vega and Bison would be even better. The only two other things that come to mind are the bug allowing low short to chain into fierce (that should probably be fixed...) and maybe something about throw softening. I like that throws are good, but it's a bit harsh that they do huge damage and can't even be softened. That one's negotiable though. Basically fix up Vega/Bison and show that you cared enough and I'd be happy.
SF3:3s
In the comments section for my last post on this, someone suggested disabling parrying in the air and parrying of projectiles. The reason would be to increase the importance of zoning. I think that is likely to lead to more interesting gameplay, but that is a real big change. It sounds more like a sequel to me. A "love letter to fans" would be more like everything else in my list above. You love the game because of the gameplay system (not because of the balance), so you'd want that intact. But if you could play that game with a decent Q or Twelve or whoever, that would be quite a love letter. It would show that someone cared enough to fix the very well-known balance problems with the game, and hopefully they'd leave most things how you liked them unless it was an actual sequel to the game, like HD Remix. In the games I listed above, I didn't mention changing any of the top tier characters. Often it's a good idea to leave those, but in the special case of 3s, such a love letter might slightly weaken the two best characters because the gap happens to be so large.
Puzzle Strike
You might think a love letter means intentionally leaving known-problems unfixed, but to me it means treating those with care and doing something about it. I also noticed some people are offended(???) by my mention of my own games in a post on my own website. I think bringing up Puzzle Strike is very relevant to this discussion actually, and not as some sort of marketing plug (though if it had been a marketing plug--which it wasn't really--I don't see the problem there either). I mentioned it before because the issues were talking about here aren't just theoretical. I have to deal with them all the time, for real, in my actual work. We've found that Puzzle Strike has some balance problems, so what should we do about it? The most common answers in traditional board games are to do nothing or to release an expansion that addresses whatever the issue was while leaving the first game in a problem-state. Well, I don't really like those answers. That isn't a love letter to the community in my opinion, and I think I have sort of an obligation to address the balance issues that have been shown in tournaments after the game's release. If someone likes Puzzle Strike, I think they'd like it more with the worst couple guys reasonable to play and the best couple guys not dominating all the tournaments. Same for 3s, same for Puzzle Fighter the video game, and so on.
So if someone said that a love letter to fans about Puzzle Fighter involved making sure that *only* Ken and Donovan are good enough to pick, and that true-love means keeping the other characters in a sorry state, I'd be pretty mad as a player. It would ruin the much better love letter of giving fans the game they love with, say, 6 or 8 real characters instead of 2.
Reader Comments (103)
As someone who hasn't played enough Third Strike to really get good at it, I can't comment on the specific balance issues, but I have to wonder at some of you, why the mouth-frothing anger at suggested changes?
It's not as if a game designer can snap their fingers and instantly incorporate every change. Let's say Sirlin here was put in charge of an SF3 Fourth Strike port, and approached it much like SF2 HD Remix.
It would take a while to design and program. Playtesters would check things while changes were being made, and there would be a hundred cases of "Hey, this change is pretty neat" mixed with the "Well, this completely shattered the game into twenty-seven pieces. Let's undo it." Things would be tried. Experiments would be performed. Everything would be tested, and many of the initial ideas would find themselves dropped while new ones sprung up. The windows would glow eerily at night and dull explosions would echo from inside the office.
Point is, suggested changes are just that, suggestions, not demands. So calm the [REDACTED] down.
I see these kinds of passionate debates on forums for every competitive game. Quake, Starcraft, etc. This is a classic example of how passion often gets ahead of clear comprehension. These readers are attacking viciously (and blindly) at the *suspicion* that Sirlin might be saying something they disagree with.
On the bright side, it shows how passionate people are. It's good to be passionate! On the dark side, it becomes a major barrier to the progression of a game as an esport when those passions become almost dogmatic. It's interesting that video balancing can create ideological disparities so strong they remind us of political controversies. Can we see the liberal and conservative struggle within this forum? It very much seems so :)
Funkenstein: I'm just repeating myself here (repeating the original post, which I'm not sure you read?), but it doesn't matter if I'm the best 3s player in the world, the worst 3s player, if i love 3s, or if I hate 3s. All of that is stuff about attacking the messenger. 3s balance is really bad, and I'm not saying it *because* I dislike the game, I'm just reporting what is well known. That one statement alone shouldn't get you mad, it would be unreasonable if it did. The part you are mad about is the next part, what to do about the problem.
Your comment is assuming that me liking/disliking or being good/bad at the game would somehow change the nature of the message. But the original post I wrote here goes into long and excruciating detail about games I know a lot about and love, showing that A2 + non-terrible Birdie sounds better than A2 to me. I actually don't have to be good at A2 or like A2 to make that statement either (I happen to be, whatever). So if you responded with "You only want a non-terrible Birdie in A2 because you love A2 and know a lot about it!" it would be just as off base as "You only want a non-terrible Q because you hate 3s and don't play it!" The reason I want a non-terrible Birdie is so there's another choice instead of fewer choices, that's it. You're really getting bound up with attacking the messenger if you think my personal skill at A2 matters for that statement or my love/dislike of A2 matters, either.
I am willing to bet that part of what you're really mad about is the very poorly named thread title on SRK that I did not choose or endorse. I'm not against "3s players," I'm just saying that when you love a thing, it would make more sense to want blatant problems in the thing you love fixed, and having that attitude will lead to companies listening.
The title didn't say you were against "3S players," it said you put "3S purists" on blast. I agree that it mischaracterizes the article to an extent, but I wasn't confident in "The Anti-Progress Attitude" getting as many views.
I don't think getting a lot of views is a very good goal. You just increased the number of people who showed up to insult me with a title like that. I mean I can't even post there anymore, it's that hostile.
The way I read I, the original article had nothing against this release of Third Strike - he agreed with all design decisions that went into it, and I'm pretty sure David's not actually opposed to unlockable artwork. What he did attack was the attitude of some players that tweaking an unbalanced game into a balanced one was a net loss. At no point was it hinted that the original balance shouldn't be part of the release, or even that a rebalanced mode should have been in: he just said he feels the proper reaction is "too bad they didn't have time/budget to add it, but that's life!", rather than "thank god we didn't get a rebalanced mode selectable at the title screen, that would have ruined everything!"
Archon Shiva's post is exactly right. Maybe repost that comment periodically so that it gets noticed.
I am amused that the "cover" image for Third Strike Online features Chun Li prominently in color in the foreground, and all the other characters in the back in black and white.
Why couldn't you use a modern game as an example for your antiprogress and antibalance topic? Why did you make the re-release of Third Strike and the playerbase who wanted it arcade perfect the epitome of antiprogress?
What is wrong with wanting the game as we remembered it? I don't see any articles saying SEGA should've rebalanced their old games for Sonic's Mega Genesis Collection.
We play other games that do get balanced and don't scream about leaving the game alone forever and just wanted to play the Third Strike we remember as we remember it and that you're opinion of a love letter isn't necessarily fact nor is it right. Why did you choose to villainize people who wanted an old game? It's like you're saying we shouldn't like Third Strike at all.
If Capcom wanted to make a new SF3 game, they can go ahead but we asked for Third Strike not a "fixed" Third Strike. It's a re-release of an arcade game that we wanted, that's it. Saying we should've wanted it fixed is like telling people who want Pulp Fiction re-released that they should want the scenes in the order events happened instead of the way they are in the original movie. We just wanted the game we like and to share it with the world. Rebalancing means you want to make it a new game to explore, so just make a new SF3.
Saying "when you love a thing, it would make more sense to want blatant problems in the thing you love fixed" is a awful thing to say. If you fell in love with something, you fell in love with how it is before and after you got to know it. If you get deeper into the game and find out you don't like it or want to change it, you don't love it. We don't love it despite its flaws, we love it and love its flaws. Chun and Yun is like a weird laugh on a girl, some find it annoying and want it changed, others think it's cute and makes her unique and only adds to her.
I have come in half way to a lot of this debate regarding the lack of changes to the 3S system. I personally love the fact the game remains unchanged only because I do not play on a competitive level, it is still the same game I always loved. However, I also respect other points of view and I am sad that the debate has moved to insults. I just wanted to share that regardless of what people say, it would be a hard job for anyone to try updating Street Fighter with so many contrasting idea's. Do not let people get to you about Street Fighter ST, be happy you had the opportunity to be involved in something so great.
My post was because the reviewer said if there were even the smallest of balance changes [in a game that badly needs them] that he [and the rest] would consider it "inferior." I'm not debating that he wouldn't play it or that others would think it's inferior. But I'm pointing out that you really shouldn't be against "the slightest balances changes" so strongly that you dismiss it out of hand and actually *congratulate* no fixes.
There's nothing that special about using 3s as the example. I just happened to see that attitude in the 3s review. And it's easier to call it out than most games because 3s happens to be worse balanced than most games. (And yes I know that worse-balanced is a separate concept of if it's fun, but the point still stands.)
The best example of a modern game and rebalancing is KOFXIII, which is getting a fairly substantial rebalance for console.
The thing is, outside of SRK/the Capcom community, Sirlin's philosophy is widely accepted. Why is it that Capcom fans are different?
What's wrong with saying if the arcade port was rebalanced/fixed it would be the inferior port? It would no longer be Third Strike, it would be some half way attempt at making a new SF3 game, which wasn't what was heavily requested. It's 10+ years old, we wanted THAT game and we are not against a new SF3 game.
It would've been more appropriate to use a modern game and its community that shows this mindset, not a 10+ year old game and small playerbase where the people left playing it truly enjoy the game as is and are like "wish we could play an arcade perfect port of Third Strike on PS3/360 with my Madcatz Tournament Edition Fightstick over GGPO netcode".
And I think your lack of knowledge or Haunts's on 3rd Strike Online Edition is showing since Derek Neal admitted to fixing game breaking bugs and Yang's Senei Enbu SA not deactivating when another character uses an SA, the latter might have a slight effect on balance.
Why shouldn't we congratulate Capcom for finally giving us a 99% arcade perfect port of a game we love? PS2 and emulators were just lesser substitutes, not alternatives. We finally got Third Strike (Arcade) with GGPO, which is what we asked for, what's wrong with wanting the re-release of a classic to actually be that classic game we remember?
You're free to your opinion, I just think it's a damaging one. It would have caused Puzzle Fighter to remain a game with 2 characters instead of all the pickable characters it has now. So fans of Puzzle Strike would be worse off if you're attitude was applied there. Fans A2 will be worse off if your attitude is applied there in the future. There is nothing specific about 3s that makes it different from those examples, or any other examples, except that 3s is more in need of help than most other games due to how dominating the top 2 characters are.
When you mention my "lack of knowledge about 3S:Online," I will guess that you're attempting to make me look bad, rather than make a substantive point. I'm pretty sure that you know that fixing edge case bugs like the ones you mentioned doesn't really have an effect on the point here. We're talking about how two characters dominate, and the bugs you mentioned being fixed or unfixed, and whether I knew that or didn't know that has no real bearing on that matchup list. Chun Li and Yun are going to be just as dominant, and the review in question still wants "not even slight balance changes," calling even those slight improvements (even theoretically terrific ones) "inferior." If you brought up the few bugs for a reason other than trying to attack the messenger, and you think this somehow(??) is a substantive issue, you could explain that.
I think we've reached the end of the road though. You have clearly stated that you want the game you like to have 2 real characters and a bunch of other too-weak characters. And I'm stating I think that's a bad idea. And that's that. Not much else to say, imo. I just hope games I like will get better instead of not better. I mean imagine if you were demanding spawning pool not be fixed in Starcraft 1.0. The whole world would lose the better game of Starcraft we have today if people claimed "we love starcraft, and a more expensive spawning pool is a *different game*."
The Capcom Community isn't against balance, stop spreading misinformation.
Rarely do I see these people who say "leave it alone forever" for modern fighters, I see people saying "it's too early", "nerf the top", "buff the bottom" and "I hope Capcom makes changes for the better".
Why are so many people upset at the thought of wanting a classic title unchanged? I want the Zone of Enders collection for PS3 because I enjoyed those titles as they were. I don't want a different version of ZoE1 and 2 and I hope I don't attacked or used as an example for holding whatever genre ZoE is back because I want to play the old games on my PS3 and would love a ZoE3.
You're article is making people think we're antiprogress for wanting a classic title preserved and brought to modern consoles as it is in the arcade. Even if you didn't intend for this, this is the result. We already get hate for 3S being so different from traditional SF games, and now you made the army on your site come at us for thinking we're against change.
Who is against a new SF3 game?
And why is it harmful to want a classic re-released? Because it's the same game?
I'm really confused by your post. First you said I am spreading misinformation by saying "The Capcom Community" (who is that?) is against balance. I'm saying that the attitude of not wanting to ever fix things is bad. I'm not saying that 1% of the community says that or that 100% says it. I'm saying it's a dangerous attitude to have that you *require* no fixes to something, and I gave Puzzle Fighter as example of what we *wouldn't* have fixed with that attitude.
If you don't see the attitude "never fix things" in modern games, then that's great. You and I would both agree it's great, and you and I would both agree that if this attitude of "don't ever fix things" became even more prevalent, that we'd all lose.
Then you brought up Zone of the Enders, but we're talking about multiplayer competitive games here, so why would you bring that up when you know it's materially different.
Then you ask who is against a new SF3 game? I don't know, no one I guess? Why ask the question?
Then, "why is it harmful to want a classic-rereleased?" Ok now THERE is the question. It's restating the thing we've been round and round about for dozens of posts now. You're re-asking the original question. A better phrasing is "Why would you reject even the slightest improvements to a game that is in extremely bad shape balance-wise? And why would you reject them out of hand, no matter what they are? And why would you reject them even if the original game were included too?" It's extremely draconian to demand that no one improvements to a thing that badly needs them.
I'm going to make a different argument here, and claim that having more viable characters actually can be a negative thing.
Let's imagine a game for a second with 3 characters. We'll call them "John", "Paul", and "Ringo". Imagine that all 6 possible matchups are 5-5 even. With only 6 matchups, and with any "main" only experiencing 3 of them (for instance, you could play John and only know JvJ, JvP, and JvR), everyone will get a chance to explore all of their character's matchups in great depth.
Now, lets say that we make a new version of this game comes out, with 30 new characters. Even if every single new matchup is 5-5 even, with each character needing to know a whole lot more matchups, it's impossible to know every one as in-depth as it is in the 3-character version of the game. As a result, adding characters has actually served to *remove* depth from the game!
I don't play 3S, but as I understand it, it's essentially a 3-character game (Chun Li, Yun, Ken). There may be other boxes on the character select screen, but it's essentially the 3 character game I described in my first paragraph. Buffing the bottom tier might turn it into the game in my second paragraph, and for the sort of players that would rather have a smaller number of matchups with more known depth (which I would imagine describes anyone playing 3S at this point), this would be a negative.
Capcom Community comment was directed at Alstein
"The thing is, outside of SRK/the Capcom community, Sirlin's philosophy is widely accepted. Why is it that Capcom fans are different?"
I bring up ZoE re-release because you brought up 3S re-release. All they are are re-releases of old games that people want to enjoy once again on PS3/360. That's it. Just because it's a fighting game means it can't be re-released in it's original form?
Because it stops being Third Strike when you remove the flaws.
Because it stops being Third Strike when you remove the flaws. If Yun and Chun didn't tear me a new one, it would be a different game, would it not?
Because if they want to make a new game, they should go the whole 9 yards with it instead of some half way attempt of.
I think our opinions differ in that I think the time of opportunity to rebalance Third Strike has passed and you don't and that I think that if they want to rebalance Third Strike, they should go the whole way like MvC3 and just make a new SF3 game and you think it's fine to go half way, just fix the old game.
And no I wasn't making you look bad, you put in quotes "slightest balance changes" and you didn't say to whom so I pointed out that Yang's SA doesn't turn off anymore which makes that SA better. This is a slight change that no one is against.
"And why would you reject [balance changes] even if the original game were included too?"
The best reason I've seen is that it splits a tiny, hardcore community, without bringing new people in.
HDR had some hope to attract a new audience other than the ST hardcore, because lots of people played SF2 back in the day, including many people who aren't part of the "FGC" (either having left it or never cared even a whit about it). 3S, on the other hand, is only well-regarded or considered with nostalgia by the people who are actually playing it now. The audience for "3SO but fixed" would be tiny, even if 3S's fanbase weren't hopelessly hidebound by nature and even if the changes were the Second Coming Of Laser Rocketship Jesus.
For any online game to work, you need a critical mass of players to actually be able to find matches. Even if the changes are the Second Coming etc., part of the 3S fanbase is going to prefer the original, making finding a match for either 3S Vanilla or 3S Turbo that much harder. It'd be worth it if the balance fixes were going to bring in any significant number of people, but it's not, because, well, it's Third Strike.
3SO is not like Starcraft because Starcraft 1.0 all but went away when it was patched, because the patch wasn't optional. New fighting games are dissimilar because a new box on the shelf brings in a new flood of players, offsetting any split. HDR was dissimilar because there wasn't really anything else for fighting games on the market at the time, so it might've brought in enough of an audience to matter (had it been released in Japan, arcades, etc.)
Call this fatalist or anti-progress or what you will, but it's a fair argument that 3SO with a split online match pool is less valuable than 3SO HD Remix.