X-ism.com is the latest website to get a Seth Killian interview. In this piece they talk a lot about the ins and outs of Street Fighter, including tier lists, character balance and more.X-ism: Anyone who lurks around the Capcom Unity boards knows that the general consensus amongst Street Fighter fans is “more characters = better game”. Many fantasize about one day playing a Street Fighter game that features every single character from every Street Fighter game ever made. If my memory serves me correctly the most characters to ever be featured in a main Street Fighter game is 38. Super Street Fighter IV has 35. is there a breaking point where adding more characters becomes detrimental to the gameplay as far as balance and competitiveness go?
Seth Killian: I don’t think more characters are necessarily detrimental, but they do create a greater challenge as far as balance and competitiveness. Adding one more character to SSFIV would add 35 new matchups to consider, so the extra work adds up really quickly. I think Super SFIV has a great character count, but its also true that having too many can water down your focus on the characters as a player–you just don’t know every character as intimately if there are too many. Capcom Vs SNK 2 had 50+ characters with 6 very different versions of each one, and that led to some of them simply not being played. I played a lot of that game, but I don’t think I’ve ever squared off against a P-groove Nakoruru, so at a certain point I think they don’t all make as much of an impact.
As long as Seth's favorite characters are added, of course it would be illogical to add anymore. Anyone who's new main has been added has that same douche-bag mentality. If this was a game with 35 characters we've never seen before, I could understand what he's implying, but when characters are being added from the past and its based on the dev team's fav's, then who the hell would expect the gamers to be satisfied.
#1, i would like to say most FPSs are fairly UNBALANCED. Most people find a certain combination or gun that would completely kill an enemy extremely fast. Also there is leveling up in most FPSs, so that those that are good @ the game can unlock other weapons and skills to make them pwn noobs harder.
@3
Dude, look at the good fps's on the market. And no i dont mean that pos call of duty where u can stab people from 50 yards because u have some a-hole perk. Halo 3 is one of if not the most balanced shooter out there. Every weapon servers its purpose and now of them dominate, and the all around weapon the battle rifle(which is basicly what ryu is supposed to be) is pound for pound the best all around weapon in the game but still will be at a dis advantage versus some of the other specialized weapons, ie the shot gun and sniper rifle.
As for the whole leveling thing, bad company 2 proves it can be done. Out the box each class has a good weapon that is still a valid option even after u unlocked everything(i still find myself switching between scar and ump), so most of the 99 percent of the time u choose a weapon is because it feels better on a paticular map or just because of personal prefernce. So if ur geting killed by higher levels in bc2 it isnt because of "uber" weapons.
I can name a bunch more shooters with better balance but just compare sf4 to the two games i mentioned. In halo,bc2 mostly all the weapons are valid and have there advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation(aka balance), but in sf4 picking certain characters pretty much promises u that the advantage will always be in ur favor(ie sagat/ryu), and the only real time u lose that is if u just screw up, meaning by default the fight is urs to lose forceing me to really outplay u.
And yes i play a hell of alot of fps,sf and multi player games in general, and the only game that can be played against a another person that is more balanced then halo 3 is chess.
I think Seth is awesome, and a superior human being to be able to deal with the level of BS that gets thrown his way. He outright said he wasn't opposed to new characters, but made some very salient points regarding how more characters means more match-ups which inevitably means that some characters just fall by the wayside.
"Why do you think World of Warcraft is doing so well?"
Don't mean to bring topic on this, but i'ts well known that MMO are volontary permanently unbalanced, to advantage on class amongs others. The balance adjustment, is always, to change the class to be over the others... Then every player can have his glory moment (depending on the class he plays).
@#2/Amar:
Yeah, after a long time in many gaming communities I've learned that most people only really believe that "less is more" as long as the "less" doesn't exclude features they themselves want. Still, I'm not sure why you think which characters make it in is all about dev fav's. All of the old characters in SSFIV seem to have solid justifications for their inclusion.
@11 The fans wanted Rolento, the dev team decided they liked Adon better. The dev team is full of BS especially when they just love to buff the phuk out of fan favorites or any character they like. It's clear who they spend and have spent the most time on Sagat and Ryu according to their popularity and they had something to prove with Rufus who they liked so they gave him more and more tools. and for someone like Vega, with his designing they were just trying to get it over with. I speak of SF4 there of course. But look at Dudley and Ibuki for super. They clearly had the highest demand.
@5
Im not sure about Halo 3 being balanced, Ive played and played that game but it just seems that the Battle Rifle completely outweighs every gun aside from the Sniper and the Shotgun. It actually possibley could be better than a Sniper at mid range, but it is more balanced than COD.
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Im just thankful they did the rebalancing, there were a few overlooked things in SF4 that were heavily abused. I use Vega so its always an uphill fight for me, but I did try every single character in the game and expierienced just how much easier it was to win with certain ones. Poking, comboing, zoning, and knowing the match ups are all key to a fighting game, but you have to stop and think about how much work it takes to make a single character playable to a point. Theres always going to be someone bitching about how a character is but I think everyone in this game is very playable, hell even Dan is close to Vega in the Tiers.. not so sure if thats a good thing but since I can win fairly often with Vega it just goes to shows how balanced this game is.
Capcom vs Snk 2 had way too many unused characters due to slight imbalancement, but Im highly doubtful that SSF4 will follow the same road. Its probably because the easy comeback system (ultra) but its still really well done despite not everyone having their little favorite character included.
@6 It's not like he gets a final say in anything about the DLC. Seth has done a great job informing the community about SF4. I hate how people biatch and whine about everything when a few years ago you couldn't even find any information on the game until it was released. Everything he has done is a bonus IMO but, everyone's a what have you done for me lately kind of person. Sometimes we as consumers can get so spoiled and want everything to our liking.
Less characters more balance IMO. Americans are VERY big on balance. That is why FPS are big here. Everyone is the same and thus no imbalance. (I'm not a fps fan btw)
For fighting games to break into the limelight (SF4 has done an amazing job) the focus needs to be on AGGRESSIVE balancing. Why do you think World of Warcraft is doing so well? Even though the game has its pvp imbalances they aggressively make changes every patch to rectify it.
We are in a new age, and customers expect products to be improved even after they purchase it.