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)
3s clearly has a whole lot of 8-2 matchups and two characters that dominate. This is obvious that I can't believe it's even the subject of a debate here. To put it another way, if 3s were in development but not yet released and preliminary tournaments showed chun and yun dominating this much, obviously you would correct the problems before release if given the chance. How is this even a question.
The only interesting question was whether to do anything about it 10 years later, not *whether* there are huge balance problems to begin with. The tournament results and tier lists all point to that, it's obvious. Kuroda being an exception doesn't "disprove tier lists" or 8-2 matchups. blah.
Kuroda also never won anything with q, to win he picks akuma, who is like 6th on the list and is ok
"Why SHOULD we rebalance 3s? It's not like it's going to suddenly bring millions of new players to the fold."
I agree. I question the value of re-releasing it at all, honestly. I was only interested in any arguments on why rebalanced 3S would be a less entertaining game, since I don't understand that perspective. You didn't seem to have any.
"3s clearly has a whole lot of 8-2 matchups and two characters that dominate. This is obvious that I can't believe it's even the subject of a debate here. To put it another way, if 3s were in development but not yet released and preliminary tournaments showed chun and yun dominating this much, obviously you would correct the problems before release if given the chance. How is this even a question.
The only interesting question was whether to do anything about it 10 years later, not *whether* there are huge balance problems to begin with. The tournament results and tier lists all point to that, it's obvious. Kuroda being an exception doesn't "disprove tier lists" or 8-2 matchups. blah."
The balance problems are only as big as you make them. I won't deny that it's hard work being a Hugo or Remy (the latter of which I am) player in 3s, but I also disagree that Yun and Chun are as bad as everyone makes them out to be. I'd rather face a Yun or Chun than a good Yang or Ken myself, And ST has some pretty lopsided matches for a game that got FOUR revisions (five counting your own) to SF3's 2. Marvel has even bigger balance problems and people still love that game. But it just occurred to me that you might be looking at this from more of a designer's perspective, one I don't really understand myself since I'm not a designer. In that case, I can see why any balance issues would get to you.But as a player who knows that no game is perfect, and that the game was like this long before I started playing it 4 years ago, I'm over it.
"I agree. I question the value of re-releasing it at all, honestly. I was only interested in any arguments on why rebalanced 3S would be a less entertaining game, since I don't understand that perspective. You didn't seem to have any."
I gave you an answer you weren't satisfied with because you seem to think the answer is equivalent to the answer to the meaning of life. It's not. People still play the game and wanted to be able to play a legit release of it without having to dig out PS2's and PS2 sticks. They wanted to play the game they've enjoyed for years, not someone's idea of what would be "better." That's it. Get over yourself. And learn to read, because seriously, all the answers you're looking for have been posted by me and other people within these pages.
People still play the game and wanted to be able to play a legit release of it without having to dig out PS2's and PS2 sticks.
And here we are, back at my first question. What sort of corrections to 3S's balance would make you unhappy, and why? Why is 3S with buffed Q and nerfed Chun (for example) illegitimate? Previously, you wandered off onto a tangent about Revolver; I don't see how it's relevant. Revolver's lo-fi sound is something people actually appreciate, and autotune has a distinct sound many people don't enjoy. Many current bands go to a lot of effort to have that sort of "dirty" sound, but very few asymmetrical competitive games are badly-balanced by design. Are you saying that you similarly enjoy 3S's terrible balance, and feel that it is an essential part of the game's experience?
You then make some already addressed arguments. You suggest that because perfect balance is impossible, any effort to balance is pointless. This is silly, there's no reason to make the perfect the enemy of the good. You also suggest that the game is old and obscure and not worth updating; I agree, but bear in mind that this argument also works for arguing that the game shouldn't have been rereleased on current platforms at all!
And learn to read, because seriously, all the answers you're looking for have been posted by me and other people within these pages.
This is rather amusing, since I've been arguing from the beginning that a revamped 3S wouldn't be a great idea. Anyway, back to the main point:
They wanted to play the game they've enjoyed for years, not someone's idea of what would be 'better.'
Obviously, you feel the changes would be detrimental to the game, but you haven't yet been able to suggest any sort of changes that would be detrimental, even when asked directly.
What sort of balance changes would make you unhappy, and why? Or are you merely opposed to all change?
I've been playing Twelve as my main in 3S for years. I love his playstyle and even the uphill battle. However after a 4 hour gaming session I get severe wrist pain from having to IAD (instant air dash) so much. And while I can almost always put up a good fight against seasoned players, it sure would be nice to not lose like 80 percent life from one yun combo. I don't want my character changed to play differently, but it's seriously a joke when you go up against the top tier played by those with their BNBs down and a very basic employment of mix ups. Some matches play out so fast as twelve,(even the best twelves) it looks like combo practice.
"A Man In Black stuff"
Im really struggling to find examples you can understand since its obvious that you dont play the game nor really give a shit about it. To put it succinctly, I don't want anything that will change the gameplay. If HDR had just updated the graphics and sound and left the gameplay the same it would have been much better received. People just wanted ST. Capcom is one of the few companies that actually listens to it's fans and that also is why 3SO exists: because there was a demand for it. I don't know how hard that is to understand or how much simpler I could explain it. Do I, as a Remy player wish my character were better in the grand scheme of things? Sure. But if I want to totally blindside people, I pick Ken. But don't be misled, I can rape people all day with Remy, top tier or not. It's made me a better, more skillful player, and for that reason alone, I'm glad they didn't nerf/buff anyone. There are top tiers and low tiers in EVERY game no matter HOW balanced. GET OVER IT!
Perfect balance IS impossible but I never said it was silly to try to make the game as balanced as possible. You invented that.
I'll say it once more: No gameplay changes. No gameplay changes. No gameplay changes. Japan still plays the game almost exclusively in the arcade and if 3s is, in it's own a way to break the language barrier between us, a rebalanced version of the game just puts another wall up between us. No gameplay changes. Got it?
The question isn't whether you want no gameplay changes (you don't). The question isn't whether the 3s community wants no changes (they don't). The question is why settle for so little--actually, why demand so little, when you could ask for more. Actively demanding nothing be fixed when serious problems are readily apparent is pretty backwards. Then you say that it would split the community. Then we are back at "why would ANYONE want the worse version?" Then you talk about how it wouldn't come out in japan. Then we say ok, so the real demand is that the game be improved and have a real system of distribution to reach everyone.
I think there is no point in DoctaMario rehashing the very same attitude mentioned in the original post that started it all: you don't want any improvements even though glaring balance problems are apparent. Oh, and in case you say I don't play 3s or something, the glaring problems are exactly as apparent whether I play 3s or not. So it seems we should move on since no progress has been made in the discussion.
But don't be misled, I can rape people all day with Remy, top tier or not. It's made me a better, more skillful player[...]
Okay, so you do enjoy that it's badly balanced. Weird.
"Actively demanding nothing be fixed when serious problems are readily apparent is pretty backwards. Then you say that it would split the community. Then we are back at "why would ANYONE want the worse version?" Then you talk about how it wouldn't come out in japan. Then we say ok, so the real demand is that the game be improved and have a real system of distribution to reach everyone."
David, would you actually demand that a woman you were married to get some sort of cosmetic surgery because there was something about her you'd always felt was "imperfect?" Do you see the point I'm trying to make? This constant need to tinker with things is why fighting games won't be played on as deep a level as they once were. Because all you'll have that WON'T be able to be patched out or rebalanced will be fundamentals.
And unless this new version were to replace all the arcade 3s machines in Japan, yes, it would splinter the community. And to do that, you'd have to convince Capcom to replace or upgrade the machines and convince arcade owners to pay for these machines, much less the fans themselves who have been playing for years. Did you learn nothing from the HDR fiasco?
And @Man In Black, if that's what you got out of what I wrote, then be my guest. I'm done.
If your point is that the distribution of an updated version should reach everyone, as opposed to not reaching everyone, I think that's an obvious point that anyone would agree with. It's also beside the point about whether to fix things at all. I mean assume that distribution reaches everyone, of course.
Also, it's shallower, not deeper, to play a game with tons of 8-2 match ups and only a few tournament-viable characters. It's deeper to fix those problems and have more valid gameplay choices. Comparisons to a woman are obviously off the mark.
I don't agree that it's beside the point if the updated version is very unlikely to reach probably almost half of whatever community is left. It's a stumbling block if nothing else. How many Japanese players are going to bother entering 3s tournaments over here if they know that the version they'll be playing is the one that no one plays in their home country?
Again, do I wish that every character in Third Strike were viable? Sure. But that isn't the case, and as it is, there are at least 8-10 characters who ARE viable, which, in a cast of 20 is pretty good. How many other pre-SF4 fighting games (and even POST-SF4 games) can you say that half the cast is viable in? I can think of a couple but not many.
I respect you as a thinker and a writer David, but you and all the pro-rebalancing crowd have not done a very good job defending your positions outside of "Well, it would be BETTER!" Comparisons to a woman are only off the mark if you continue, as you have, to evade any logic that doesn't run concurrent to your own.
But I agree, this discussion has not, and probably will not make any progress, so unless you or someone else has something convincing to offer up, this will probably be my last post. But thank you for weighing in in regards to the issue. It's at least interesting to take a critical look at a game that I love, especially through the eyes of people who may or may not be members of its community. Cheers!
Actually, the reason that comparisons to a woman are off the mark is that the situation of loving a woman and the situation of improving the clearly problematic balance of a game that is changeable are materially different. If we are talking about the balance of a multiplayer competitive game, we should talk about THAT and not bring in crazy outside things like love of women. Stay on point.
Balance being better self-evidently makes the balance better. There is just no way to explain it further than that, it's a tautology. If you think that better balance makes the overall game worse, that is quite a strange statement, not supported by anything. I mean it make starcraft better. It made puzzle fighter better. If you're claiming ALL possible balance improvements make the game worse, that is so far off the deep end that there is nothing more to say. But surely you won't make such a crazy statement. A reasonable statement would be that there exist some changes that improve the balance AND make the game overall better, or least not less fun. It doesn't really make any sense that you're against improving balance in a situation where the game at least as fun. It makes less sense to claim no such possible change could be devised. In fact, such changes are extremely easy to devise, as all you have to do is make a couple characters barely worse and/or buff some bottom tiers.
It's really clear we're getting nowhere. I respectfully request you stop posting about this. Just continue to be against improvements, and I can only hope for the world's sake, that more people are, uh, in favor of things being better. Amazing that I have to take a "pro-things-being-better" stance, and that it would be even the slightest big controversial.
Don't listen to casual players.
Also, why would you even say that top 2 tiers in 3S are too strong. It's just not true. Good Ryu, Oro, Remy, Necro, etc are dominating against top tiers. People see Necro losing vs Chun and complain how Chun is broken, but they never question Necro's performance. No love for top tiers I guess :\
I gotta quote Daisuke Ishiwatari on balance topic:
"Sometimes however I think a little imbalance is healthy. If all the characters were perfectly balanced would this make a game more fun? I don’t think it would. There is something to be enjoyed in using a ‘weaker’ character to defeat an opponent who is using a ‘stronger’ character – I think that kind of battle can be fun."
Your quote says that A LITTLE imbalance is ok. Yes, I agree and so does everyone else. But we're not talking about a little, we're talking about more imbalance than in any other fighting game that's actually played. Just look at the tier lists and tournament results in the US, and you can see the game is worse off than just about any other game with how many 8-2 match ups there are and how dominating the top 2 characters are. Almost all their match ups are advantaged, with hardly any that are *even*, and the number of 8-2s in there just isn't healthy. This isn't minor stuff, it's a crisis of balance.
Can you even imagine if Yomi or Puzzle Strike had such hideously poor balance as that? That would be a major problem that would require immediate, urgent attention by the developer, and rightly so. It's sad to see you apologizing for the problems as it just contributes to developers thinking that it's ok to not fix problems (as long as those problems are old enough??).
I still think that top 2 tiers in 3S are not as broken as you say. I don't watch US tournaments for 3S, just Japanese, so that's where low and mid tiers are beating top tiers. You can't say that 3S has "more imbalance than in any other fighting game" just by watching US matches. Gap between US and Japanese 3S play is very big. Alex Valle: "The hardest matches are against the Japanese in 3S, lol. They’re just too good at that game! "
Don't get me wrong, I have plenty ideas on how to re-balance 3S. All fighting games can be balanced further. But 3S is not as bad as you say it is. I saw Sean being picked on Japanese tournament few times. He won against Chun, Yun, Ken, which are top 3 characters on tier list.
It's actually shocking to me that you'd think an entire country of players showing tournament results and tier lists for 10 years isn't enough for you. Newsflash: there are major problems with the balance and yes it really is worse balanced than any other fighting game. I mean...what would be worse balanced? I literally cannot even name one game. That you mention someone has picked Sean in Japan makes me thing you are just trolling. That someone picked a terrible character with just about the worst possible matchup chart a character can have does not address the fundamental issue that that character is absurdly weak.
Also, you're taking the discussion away from the original point. Let's say, for argument's sake, that the game is exactly as badly balanced as I'm saying. Oh and to be clear, it has nothing to do with me saying it, so I should say "exactly as badly balanced as it clearly is based on tournament results and matchup charts." In that case, where it's really tons of 8-2 characters, a huge roster of trash characters, and two dominant god tiers...would it maybe possibly make sense to fix some things instead of not fix them? That is the question.
If you want to take an end-run around the entire question by claiming there is no balance problem, then a) that is crazy and wrong and b) it's avoiding the point I was making, so whatever, who cares. We all agree that if the balance was great, the balance doesn't need fixing. But when faced with overwhelming evidence that there's a major problem, I'd think you'd be rooting for fixes instead of rooting for the jaw-dropping matchup chart that currently exists. I mean...someone link it. LOOK at it. If we can't even play a tournament in our entire country without 2 characters dominating vs a bunch of trash guys, maybe there is more than 0 problem. Or look at the chun, chun, yun, yun results from Evolution over the years. James Chen was correct in his list.
I sort of wonder how terrible balance has to be before you realize there's a problem. Like if the entire game was 9-1 match ups, would that be a point where you realize it? What if it was all 8-2? Maybe that is still ok to you? This just can't be your actual stance.
I mentioned Sean because, if you say that there are God tiers in 3S, then there's no way such a trash character could defeat them. But never mind, it doesn't take away the fact that Chun and Yun are much stronger than Sean. I know Evo results, but still, it's hard for me to call Chun and Yun best characters in the game. It's different for you, you probably didn't spend much time playing 3S.
Tier list debate was always tiresome. Evo tournament results are undeniable, but when you see low/mid tier beatings on top tier a lot of times, you can't still feel the same about top tiers. Obviously, they are not God tiers (but Gill is).
Anyway, while it's far from perfect, I'm pretty satisfied with 3S balance. Believe this, if TM (Q), Pierre (Remy), Vanao (Ryu), RX (Urien), Kuroda (Any character) would enter next Evo and play against US players, Evo results would be greatly changed.
A small handful of players doing well with low tier characters is not indicative of a games balance, pony zangief is a god at SSF2T but even he gets beat out by high tier characters.
Chun and Yun are god tier compared to the rest of the cast, they have no bad match ups and they have the ability to destroy the rest of cast with ease. I'm not trying to knock the Japanese here cause thats one hell of a mountain to climb and some skill to make your character not worthless but if you look at the match ups there really isnt a reason to play anyone but yun or chun
I'd probably have preferred a tweaked 3S, personally. I like the game in general, and my biggest problems with it seem to come from matches being fairly lopsided in quite a few cases, so it would benefit my enjoyment of the game to have those elements altered. All that really means is that I'm not the target audience for 3SO. The target audience for 3SO are the people who love the game as it has been for 10 years, and want a means to play that game online, on current consoles.
I think a big fear for the 3S community has been the potential for an ST/HDR-effect on the game's following, with fans of the original not adopting the rebalanced game, and fans of the rebalanced game not wanting to go back to the original, splitting the community. It's unfortunate that it works that way, but it's a completely valid concern. Granted, the game doesn't have much of a competitive following anymore, so tournament representation isn't really the concern, but with such a small community, I could see the risk of fracturing it dissuading a rebalanced mode. The other side of that is that a rebalanced mode might have pulled in substantially more players as well, and made bigger fans of people like me, who have a hard time really becoming interested in 3S.
None of that really matters now though. There is an audience for 3S as it is. That audience got the game they wanted. I'm genuinely happy for them.