Balancing Smash characters.

[ShadeStrider]

So,  Super Smash Bros Ultimate is going to have a competitive meta, and it seems that this game is going to be a lot more competitively focused. This means Sakurai and his team are most likely going to focus on having a balanced roster this time around.

 

But no fighting game is ever going to have a completely balanced roster. However, we can take steps to ensure that every character has a fighting chance through patches. Patches are useful in ensuring competitive balance. So Sakurai and his team should take advantage of this. This post is basically how I would do it.

 

It is also worth mentioning that Sakurai might intend for every character to be able to compete, even a "Joke Character" like Pichu. It seems through the footage we've seen, Pichu's range has been buffed. That was one of the things holding him back in Melee. So Sakurai even intends for Pichu to be able to compete.

 

I'd first start by not having any balance patches at all, unless something turns out to be unbelievably overpowered, like Bayonetta before the Patch or Brawl Meta Knight. Or if the Hitboxes end up being placed poorly, like Roy's Sword hitboxes in Melee. Or if the Icies get another Infinite. Otherwise, let the game's meta develop as it is. Let the community at least develop a tier list, which may not be 100% accurate, but it gives a general Idea of where each character is at.

 

The next thing I would do would actually be to set a benchmark on the Tier list. Say for example, the A tier. Now every character that gets buffed will be buffed so that they can compete around the A+, A, or A- tier. Characters above this will be nerfed, while characters below will be buffed.

 

Next, you want to take each character individually. Listen to the community regarding the character. Each character will undoubtedly have strengths. But for Unviable characters, those strengths are difficult to access because of how the metagame is built and how the metagame works against them. Make sure to watch footage of competitive Smash as well. (I can see Sakurai is already doing that with that new Online system, what was it called again?)

 

Now you start the actual patching. Your goal with patches should be to give lower tier characters more options, so that their strengths can be suited to the meta, and thus they can at least be around the A mark. Take each character individually. Some characters have ridiculously frustrating matchups against others, such as Ness/Lucas and Rosalina.  These should also be addressed when buffing characters.

 

Nerfing characters is just as important as buffs. Just like with low tier characters, you want to nerf the high tiers so that they can fight on even ground with A tiers. Sometimes your nerfs have to be drastic, like Bayonetta not being able to act out of Witch Twist. There isn't really a way to nerf a character without drastically changing how the character feels to play as, because a lot of their good options are what draw players to that character in the first place. I'd therefore suggest that you set your benchmark high so that you don't have to nerf much.

 

Finally, when you've got all the characters with their buffs and nerfs, upload the patch. Then observe the metagame again, and repeat the process. If someone turns out to be too overpowered due to a buff you made, fix it when you repeat the process. You will never get a perfectly balanced game, but each time you repeat the process, you should come closer and closer.

 

Note that I didn’t go into specifics on the basics of actually buffing and needing characters. Just the basic process of what you generally want to do. I’ll go into the specifics, like better recovery, faster attacks, ending lag, etc. in another post.

 

[Wolfox]

just add a little speed to Ike and give him his Brawl Range back (and maybe his brawl power?) and I'll be happy

[Commander]

I'm not afraid of anyone calling out on my bullshit so I'm not afraid to do the same to others. This pretty much is just someone who is just stating what they pretty much are doing, but making it sound like they know what they're saying and that Sakurai's team isn't doing their job. It's just a load of ignorance. I'll say bluntly I have no idea on how to balance stuff or the metagame and I definitely will not step on the line because it is not one meant for me to even say what should happen or suggest.

 

Sm4sh had a bunch of tweaks to try and boost variety in online matches and while some may be nonsensical such as nerfing Greninja to death, others did make since and improve the game. I've heard from many people Marth greatly improved over time. These guys add and make changes for the game to try and make it more fun and add a lot of variety. They took a ton of notes when designing the Ultimate characters and even at every demo Sakurai was making notes on what needed tweaked or changed. These guys are going above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to tweaking these characters for both better and for worse. The main issue was getting data to make good decisions which elite mode helps trim the fat for the competitive aspect. It's a smart move on top of trying to get people to be better at the game for bragging rights.

 

We now live in a world where we can fix things and patch them out so balance patches aren't something you simply say shouldn't happen. There's pros and cons towards it, but at the end of the day it has promoted more character usage vs the very limited tech focus Melee had to offer. A shifting meta is one which characters often stay high ranked, but others can rise to the challenge allowing for those better at adapting to changes have more chances of reaching the top over those with experience and reaction times. I'm not going to say if all these changes are for the best because I'm not a competitive smash player. We have a few and they'd give better opinions on it.

 

And one last piece of advice: tier lists are subjective and for the most part are unhelpful when thinking about changes or adjustments. Ninetales is PU therefore it should get huge buffs because it's worthless (I'm the guy who used it quite effectively despite that). Things to look for are issues with moves. Let's say a character has a move that's hard to counter or avoid with most characters and it's often the most effective method to win matches easily. You could shorten the range so while it still is useful, players can counter if they rely on it too much. Sakurai is really good at Smash so I hope to god he'd have more knowledge and insight over a couple guys who have been at it for a year or two. Players can give a lot of insight devs do not think about, but nobody has a surefire or perfect way to spectate or know what the best thing to change is or even focus on.

 

I'm going to flip this scenario a bit: Every change is going to have backlash and every new character is going to have backlash. I hope you have the spine to cope with people constantly hating your product and think you're an idiot or dumb person. There are people who think Sakurai is a terrible game dev and should step down and have someone else do it. Let's say you do this system and constantly it ends up failing and making the game progressively worse to the point some characters are now no longer usable and old characters and now the most broken and dominating the meta more than the game was originally. Going back to how it was before is not an option. Tell me, how are you going to fix this?

 

Edit: I reread the OP and I do think I overreacted but then begs the question why is this here? Honestly, I am tired and have no idea what the OP is even trying to say or convey. Like is this saying they are doing a good job or a bad job and why do you think that your way is better? Just ignore little ole me as I have no idea what's going on anymore.

[ShadeStrider]

12 hours ago, Commander said:

I'm not afraid of anyone calling out on my bullshit so I'm not afraid to do the same to others. This pretty much is just someone who is just stating what they pretty much are doing, but making it sound like they know what they're saying and that Sakurai's team isn't doing their job. It's just a load of ignorance. I'll say bluntly I have no idea on how to balance stuff or the metagame and I definitely will not step on the line because it is not one meant for me to even say what should happen or suggest.

 

Sm4sh had a bunch of tweaks to try and boost variety in online matches and while some may be nonsensical such as nerfing Greninja to death, others did make since and improve the game. I've heard from many people Marth greatly improved over time. These guys add and make changes for the game to try and make it more fun and add a lot of variety. They took a ton of notes when designing the Ultimate characters and even at every demo Sakurai was making notes on what needed tweaked or changed. These guys are going above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to tweaking these characters for both better and for worse. The main issue was getting data to make good decisions which elite mode helps trim the fat for the competitive aspect. It's a smart move on top of trying to get people to be better at the game for bragging rights.

 

We now live in a world where we can fix things and patch them out so balance patches aren't something you simply say shouldn't happen. There's pros and cons towards it, but at the end of the day it has promoted more character usage vs the very limited tech focus Melee had to offer. A shifting meta is one which characters often stay high ranked, but others can rise to the challenge allowing for those better at adapting to changes have more chances of reaching the top over those with experience and reaction times. I'm not going to say if all these changes are for the best because I'm not a competitive smash player. We have a few and they'd give better opinions on it.

 

And one last piece of advice: tier lists are subjective and for the most part are unhelpful when thinking about changes or adjustments. Ninetales is PU therefore it should get huge buffs because it's worthless (I'm the guy who used it quite effectively despite that). Things to look for are issues with moves. Let's say a character has a move that's hard to counter or avoid with most characters and it's often the most effective method to win matches easily. You could shorten the range so while it still is useful, players can counter if they rely on it too much. Sakurai is really good at Smash so I hope to god he'd have more knowledge and insight over a couple guys who have been at it for a year or two. Players can give a lot of insight devs do not think about, but nobody has a surefire or perfect way to spectate or know what the best thing to change is or even focus on.

 

I'm going to flip this scenario a bit: Every change is going to have backlash and every new character is going to have backlash. I hope you have the spine to cope with people constantly hating your product and think you're an idiot or dumb person. There are people who think Sakurai is a terrible game dev and should step down and have someone else do it. Let's say you do this system and constantly it ends up failing and making the game progressively worse to the point some characters are now no longer usable and old characters and now the most broken and dominating the meta more than the game was originally. Going back to how it was before is not an option. Tell me, how are you going to fix this?

 

Edit: I reread the OP and I do think I overreacted but then begs the question why is this here? Honestly, I am tired and have no idea what the OP is even trying to say or convey. Like is this saying they are doing a good job or a bad job and why do you think that your way is better? Just ignore little ole me as I have no idea what's going on anymore.

No need to be so... aggressive. I am not judging Sakurai’s way of doing things. I am simply stating how I would go about balancing the game. Taking each character individually, and making them suitable for competitive play. And I mean each character Should be considered for every patch. Even those who haven’t been used competitively. This is to ensure that Jigglypuff mains don’t get screwed over again, like in Smash 4.

 

If something becomes too broken, then it will undoubtedly be reflected in the next Meta. However, I think Sakurai and his team are intelligent enough to know how to reasonably buff and nerf characters. I think this was reflected when He nerfed Cloud’s range and put a timer on Cloud’s Limit break.

 

And characters that are able to compete at the Benchmark don’t really need to be buffed or nerfed that much. However, they should at least be considered.

 

I don’t claim to be better at balancing than Sakurai. I’m just stating the process I would use. That’s it.

 

Also, a note about Tier lists: I agree that they aren’t always the most accurate. But they always have reasons behind each character’s placing. There are reasons why Jigglypuff is considered Unviable, and why Pit and Greninja are considered Mid Tier. And with Smash bros, a lot of them are accurate, especially Melee. Your example with Ninetales: you’ve used it effectively, but have you considered that there are other Pokémon that could do its job better? I don’t know how to compare this to Smash, as one is a turn based RPG and the other is a fighting game. So this is a rather flawed example. But this is my take: Some Pokémon are good competitively, others are not. You can’t balance all 8 hundred something of them. But you can balance 75 Smash characters.

 

Truth be told, I think anyone who can be bothered to play and learn the matchup instead of complaining when a character seems broken, and who knows the basics of character attributes, such as hitboxes, frame data, all that stuff, and has basic reasoning ability is qualified to have input on the game’s competitive balance. But I really wouldn’t leave it to one person alone, as others would disagree. Really, we would need input from many different players.

 

You tired? Good, because I am too.

[Commander]

2 hours ago, ShadeStrider said:

I am not judging Sakurai’s way of doing things. I am simply stating how I would go about balancing the game. Taking each character individually, and making them suitable for competitive play. And I mean each character Should be considered for every patch. Even those who haven’t been used competitively. This is to ensure that Jigglypuff mains don’t get screwed over again, like in Smash 4.

Okay, this probably should have been one of the first things you did. When someone doesn't explain why they are doing something, it's hard to really understand what people are trying to say or convey because we don't know what issue you have with the current patch system.

 

While you can say it's for fun, there probably was some reason you wanted to do this. Are you tired of constant patches? Or is it simply that the changes are too little in your eyes? Maybe you wanted to go in depth on how you think they are doing patches and why it's good or bad.

 

And I think it's great to judge how someone does do something and have your take on it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it and it's boring if you don't at least go into it a bit.

 

Also, the spacing and how I wrote it this way was intentional as it's so hard to read this way. I'll likely edit it tomorrow so it's easier to read. Mobile it looks fine, but on PC it's so easy to lose track where you're at. I can barely read your post, let alone analyze any of your posts. Gonna stop doing this before it drives me up the wall.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

2 hours ago, ShadeStrider said:

And characters that are able to compete at the Benchmark don’t really need to be buffed or nerfed that much. However, they should at least be considered.

Why is it critical that characters who don't meet this benchmark need buffed or nerfed? And why do ones that fit the criteria need to be considered? If they meet the criteria, then they shouldn't even be looked at since that more or less means they are fine. A benchmark pretty much is just a way to filter who to not bother looking at as much or even at all. You talk about how 75 characters is not that many, but that's way, way higher than most fighting games have especially when many of them are very unique and way more varied then pretty much any fighting game. We've doubled Brawl which had a ton of characters at the time. There's not too much else to talk about for me saying how much time should be placed in since that's a thing you should talk about, but I can at least go into characters who do not meet the benchmark.

 

Low tier characters are a good thing. I'm a Ganondorf main and I still use the Jiggly so yes, I know what bottom of the barrel characters feel like. The thing about low tiers doesn't mean the character is bad or not fun to play as, but the fact they aren't able to handle well in most matchups. Buffing characters will not simply solve this issue and most people realize that. Jiggly's main problem is that she cannot combo as well which if that was fixed she'd be top tier and a issue...just like in Melee. Do you want Jiggly to dominate the meta? I'm pretty sure most people don't. I'll say it again for good measure: being low tier does not mean the character is bad. With Ultimate, I personally think having 12 or even 15 characters who don't meet the benchmark would be a good and healthy meta letting low tier characters face low tiers...which Ultimate even thought about with the ranking system. Matchups should be more evenly matched compared to Sm4sh.

 

High tier characters are a different story. Anyone with a brain would tell you a low tier character isn't going to dominate the meta, but Melee Fox is the king of Smash. He and Brawl Meta Knight rule supreme as the best fighters in Smash history. Bayonetta is now the strongest current Smash fighter and it seems she's been worked on...but she'll still be top tier no matter what. But from the looks of it, Sm4sh's Meta is much healthier than any of the previous Smash games (unless you count no MK Brawl) so if the S tiers got nerfed slightly, it'd be a very, very healthy meta. Nerfing 3 characters would be easier than trying to buff 40. A set of 5 or 6 characters ruling over everyone else isn't a bad thing either. So long as they don't eclipse all other fighters, it lets them stand out and for people to practice and prepare for them more. It'd be nice to get rid of the S and G (or whatever the bottom is) tiers but everything else in Sm4sh looks pretty good in my eyes. ZSS is not an S tier but she still manages to do quite well. So how important is that tier? By the way, Greninja is still pretty good even after all the nerfs.

 

And we go back to where we are now. Sm4sh in terms of competetive is great and the balance patches made it better for most people to even get into the competitive. I'm not big on it and I've done online matches quite a bit for the heck of it. They took what was a really good system and quite successful and made it better. Ultimate has so many good thing going for it and so many things to talk about, but it is not flawless. You didn't even talk about all of that stuff simply saying what you would do giving very vague whys. Why does the game need to be more balanced? So many characters are fun to use and we've seen many highlights from all the tiers including a funny Ganon disrespect. Why do you think this system would make the game more enjoyable and how much experience with the meta do you have? We were presented in the last direct from a man with many years of experience learning from his mistakes present something improved of a good product and the reasons behind it are more sound. Of course I'm going to side with that when you've given me no reason not to.

 

And I don't make these long posts to piss people off (that's more of a side effect which is sometimes fun to see angry people), but sometimes as a way to try and help make yourself come across more clearly. You don't have to make nightmare to read posts like I do, but it is nice to follow people's logic, even if you don't agree with it. For all I know, you're just angry about Smash Ultimate because you can be given all the posts before. And yeah, you can throw an idea out for fun, but certainly there had to be some basis of creating it. Without that, I'll stick with my stance that this is somebody who has no idea what they're talking about and stating and using obviously basic information to create a discussion. Good day.

[ShadeStrider]

2 hours ago, Commander said:

Okay, this probably should have been one of the first things you did. When someone doesn't explain why they are doing something, it's hard to really understand what people are trying to say or convey because we don't know what issue you have with the current patch system.

 

While you can say it's for fun, there probably was some reason you wanted to do this. Are you tired of constant patches? Or is it simply that the changes are too little in your eyes? Maybe you wanted to go in depth on how you think they are doing patches and why it's good or bad.

 

And I think it's great to judge how someone does do something and have your take on it. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it and it's boring if you don't at least go into it a bit.

 

Also, the spacing and how I wrote it this way was intentional as it's so hard to read this way. I'll likely edit it tomorrow so it's easier to read. Mobile it looks fine, but on PC it's so easy to lose track where you're at. I can barely read your post, let alone analyze any of your posts. Gonna stop doing this before it drives me up the wall.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Why is it critical that characters who don't meet this benchmark need buffed or nerfed? And why do ones that fit the criteria need to be considered? If they meet the criteria, then they shouldn't even be looked at since that more or less means they are fine. A benchmark pretty much is just a way to filter who to not bother looking at as much or even at all. You talk about how 75 characters is not that many, but that's way, way higher than most fighting games have especially when many of them are very unique and way more varied then pretty much any fighting game. We've doubled Brawl which had a ton of characters at the time. There's not too much else to talk about for me saying how much time should be placed in since that's a thing you should talk about, but I can at least go into characters who do not meet the benchmark.

 

Low tier characters are a good thing. I'm a Ganondorf main and I still use the Jiggly so yes, I know what bottom of the barrel characters feel like. The thing about low tiers doesn't mean the character is bad or not fun to play as, but the fact they aren't able to handle well in most matchups. Buffing characters will not simply solve this issue and most people realize that. Jiggly's main problem is that she cannot combo as well which if that was fixed she'd be top tier and a issue...just like in Melee. Do you want Jiggly to dominate the meta? I'm pretty sure most people don't. I'll say it again for good measure: being low tier does not mean the character is bad. With Ultimate, I personally think having 12 or even 15 characters who don't meet the benchmark would be a good and healthy meta letting low tier characters face low tiers...which Ultimate even thought about with the ranking system. Matchups should be more evenly matched compared to Sm4sh.

 

High tier characters are a different story. Anyone with a brain would tell you a low tier character isn't going to dominate the meta, but Melee Fox is the king of Smash. He and Brawl Meta Knight rule supreme as the best fighters in Smash history. Bayonetta is now the strongest current Smash fighter and it seems she's been worked on...but she'll still be top tier no matter what. But from the looks of it, Sm4sh's Meta is much healthier than any of the previous Smash games (unless you count no MK Brawl) so if the S tiers got nerfed slightly, it'd be a very, very healthy meta. Nerfing 3 characters would be easier than trying to buff 40. A set of 5 or 6 characters ruling over everyone else isn't a bad thing either. So long as they don't eclipse all other fighters, it lets them stand out and for people to practice and prepare for them more. It'd be nice to get rid of the S and G (or whatever the bottom is) tiers but everything else in Sm4sh looks pretty good in my eyes. ZSS is not an S tier but she still manages to do quite well. So how important is that tier? By the way, Greninja is still pretty good even after all the nerfs.

 

And we go back to where we are now. Sm4sh in terms of competetive is great and the balance patches made it better for most people to even get into the competitive. I'm not big on it and I've done online matches quite a bit for the heck of it. They took what was a really good system and quite successful and made it better. Ultimate has so many good thing going for it and so many things to talk about, but it is not flawless. You didn't even talk about all of that stuff simply saying what you would do giving very vague whys. Why does the game need to be more balanced? So many characters are fun to use and we've seen many highlights from all the tiers including a funny Ganon disrespect. Why do you think this system would make the game more enjoyable and how much experience with the meta do you have? We were presented in the last direct from a man with many years of experience learning from his mistakes present something improved of a good product and the reasons behind it are more sound. Of course I'm going to side with that when you've given me no reason not to.

 

And I don't make these long posts to piss people off (that's more of a side effect which is sometimes fun to see angry people), but sometimes as a way to try and help make yourself come across more clearly. You don't have to make nightmare to read posts like I do, but it is nice to follow people's logic, even if you don't agree with it. For all I know, you're just angry about Smash Ultimate because you can be given all the posts before. And yeah, you can throw an idea out for fun, but certainly there had to be some basis of creating it. Without that, I'll stick with my stance that this is somebody who has no idea what they're talking about and stating and using obviously basic information to create a discussion. Good day.

Fair enough. You have different design philosophies than I do. Good day.

 

Also, I got over my anger. 

[Lorisaur]

I have a different pilosophy about this so I want to give my idea and what I would personally patch - and why that would be useless

 

First of all: Smash Ultimate is the second smash game in which developers thought much about competitive play. Smash4 had its flaws, but it was overall well-balanced and even characters like Little Mac or Samus could take very good games at high level (shoutout to Esam and to the LM main who has defeated Tyrant's Meta Knight).

 

However, now they are expert at this: Little Mac, Shulk, Mii Gunner, Pichu and many other low tiers lost many of their most notable flaws. Sakurai wants every character to be competitively viable and I'm pretty sure that he succeded. Nevertheless, there's one true thing

 

Creating the perfectly balanced game is IMPOSSIBLE. Seriously, there will ALWAYS be one of the 80 character stronger than the others, or another one who is worse in competitive play. Additionally, they have to build something that is perfectly balanced in MANY DIFFERENT METAGAMES. They have to create something that is good for top level play, as well as doubles as well as childish metagame. Seriously... if Ridley's downB was faster children would have always used him (and I'm pretty sure he'll be one of the most popular characters among the under 12, while they will find Greninja and Sheik pretty bad. Better buff Sheik?)

 

Assuming that it is impossible to create the perfectly balanced game, some games are more balanced than others and Smash Ultimate is so good. 

However, it WILL have flaws and there will be of course patches for that. DR. Mario is way worse than Mario? Slight buffs. Diddy's Hoo Ha is back and better than before? Nerfhammer. The game will get more balanced but still not perfect

 

However, we might guess who the low tier characters will be. For example, did they need to nerf so much Samus' dash attack?? Probably the character was too good at lower level play. Think about it. It's not so easy as it sounds.

 

There are a few changes I would personally make, but... I'm not sure it's the best for the game

[Godot]

Samus, Bowser, and Lucas didn’t deserve their nerfs. I understand why they did it, I just don’t agree with it.

[ShadeStrider]

12 minutes ago, G'doots said:

Samus, Bowser, and Lucas didn’t deserve their nerfs. I understand why they did it, I just don’t agree with it.

There is no way to nerf a character without drastically changing their feel. That’s why we should buff more rather than nerf.

[Godot]

I don’t entirely agree with that.  Samus, Bowser, and Lucas’s nerf was that they had a major part of their character completely taken from them, not adjusted.  They were given other things to make up for it.  But what they got was not enough.  What they lost was what made them high tier counterpicks.  

They did it so that they wouldn’t be Dash Attack/Up Throw/Down Throw the character and strengthened their other options.  But it’s lame that they went the route of complete removal rather then tweak and buff.

[Shanco]

In the case of Bowser and Lucas, their nerfs were perfectly justified. In a game like Smash Bros., it's less about what makes a character too good overall, more about what makes a character just not fun to fight against. With Bowser, it was the boring-ass grab confirms when another character existed who did largely the same thing. Bowser had that on top of some of the game's best footsies. With Lucas, it wasn't really exciting to have to always compete against the playstyle of spamming PK fire until they could fish for a grab and get a full combo off of it. It was way too linear and boring to go up against no matter the outcome of the fight. This same "balance philosophy", for lack of a better term, also explains why Sonic, Corrin and Luigi got slapped just as hard, as opposed to the other top tier picks like Sheik.

 

That being said I really don't know why Samus got nerfed.