Uhh weird formatting

I have no idea why my last post was formatted so weird, but here's hoping it goes back to normal. :P

Revelator 2 balance discussion

With all of the chat about Revelator 2's balance having issues, I decided to do a quick writeup on my thoughts about it. Okay, maybe a medium size one.

I think they did some things right, and a couple of things wrong. I'll break it down into two sections.

Okay, so first off, what I feel they did RIGHT:

-You can basically be a character loyalist.

Yes, you need to work harder with, say, Potemkin, but as people like Shine and FAB show, it's possible. This is more than several fighters. If you like someone, you can play them. If you're a longtime player of X, you don't have to drop them. I can genuinely say Rev2 is a 'play who you want' game, IMHO.

-There is a lot of character variety in top 8s and top 16s.

While you do see some usuals, it's because of the player, not the characters, IMO. Sin shows up a lot because Kizzie is a strong player. Raven shows up a lot because Dogura, a strong player, mains him. Chipp shows up because of people like Samitto and Bears. But when you go back through some of the varied top 8's and top 16's, you see a fairly nice variety all told. You even see lower tier characters like Slayer and Potemkin showing up, and mid tiers like Kum, Jack-O and Jam. It's possible to stick with who you like, though some people choose to play high tiers(which will happen in any game, even balanced ones.) But if you hunt through some of the past top 8's and 16's-KSB, sai, CB, CEO-there is a pretty nice representation of characters there. Hell, the top 24 of CB literally had every character but Potemkin represented. ('So is he terrible?' Well Shine just won the last two TSBs, which tend to feature some of the strongest players on the East Coast. So no, I don't think he is terrible.)

-The game is, IMO, one of the mostly solidly balanced in the current crop of fighters. No one is OP, and no one is woefully underpowered.

Tying into the character loyalist section, as I mentioned, there aren't too many fighting games right now that reaches Rev2's balance. NRS games are heavily tier skewed, as is Smash. SFV, as mentioned, has some trouble with the bottom 6 or so(though dare I say the roster isn't god-awful.)

Yeah, people at the wrong end of 'da blenda' or one of Johnny's or Sin's combos might fight me on this, but I will stick by it. No one is busted. We don't have any Eddie tiers or Sign Elphelts in this bunch. Sure, yeah, maybe Chipp didn't need Exebeast, but generally speaking no one is off the hook. Likewise, even the bottom tiers, if you're good, are viable, even if some people have to work pretty hard to do it. It's, again, better than a lot of games out there. Right now I feel the only games that match Rev2 in balance are Tekken 7(and even then the lowest tier players tend to grab a pocket Jack or something), KI(which, to be fair, I don't really play more than casually, so I can't speak for it's strongest balance, but that I've seen, there is lots of variety, and I don't hear too many complaints right now), and, well, VF5FS which is sort of old and only gets played in side tournaments(and even VF has it's SS tier Akira.)

If someone comes up to me and says 'Can I play Potemkin?' I'll tell them that you need some damned good fundamentals, but yes you can, and I'll point them in the direction of FAB and Shine to check out. If someone asked me about playing, say, an SFV low tier, I'd say 'maybe you'll want to see some mid+'s if you plan on getting serious.'

Now, for the other half. What I feel they did WRONG:

-They took a step back from Rev 1.

Rev 1, IMO, was probably the tightest GG has been balanced(let's face it, AC/+R was not balanced, Sign was crazy, and the older games were like what. The oldest were 'balanced' in the way that everyone was busted. But Rev1 was quite solid. No, not perfect, but while the character loyalty thing was maintained, it felt like everything was a little more even-ish for the most part. Or maybe not even that; it might be that Rev2's balance is very similar to Rev1, it's just that they ended up making some characters more actively fun than others.

They felt like they had a better idea for some. Like, with Raven, they knew they wanted his Excitement to mean more, so they built him around it; he is, on paper, nerfed at level 1 excitement. He's roughly the same as he was in Rev1 at level 2, and he's buffed at level 3. (Raven mains contend where exactly he stands. Some feel he was better when he wasn't as dependent. I feel he's better now, as do some others, but I don't want to dismiss the others who feel he was better when he was less 'parabola' like.)

They wanted Millia to rely on her pin more, so they built around it(and there are people who feel she has more potential now but they haven't labbed her enough yet, and there are others who feel she was better before-again, contended.) They wanted Sin to have to rely more on his food meter, so they did it. But with other characters, it felt like they just gave flat tweaks to, and flat tweaks can feel boring(I'm reminded of MMORPG balance here; how technically buffing X and Y moves by 5/10% are buffs, but they're boring compared to the other class who got a couple of their moves tweaked to interact differently, even if it net maybe a 5% buff for them.) I think the characters they had good ideas for came out much more fun(IMO, as a Raven main, he's much more fun than Rev1), but the ones they didn't just sorta feel like more of the same, maybe with some slight buffs. (And some fans just seem polarized and can't decide how their character feels, which can be normal, but maybe it's not the best thing.)

This brings me to...

-They were too conservative with a lot of characters.

This is fairly connected to the first. Now I can't say why this is, but the lower and mid tiers, it felt like they just were a bit too light with them. Like they were almost afraid to give them too much. Now I understand that sometimes it's better to go too conservative than too crazy with design, or else you end up with Sign Elphelt.

Which...you know, could have been part of the issue. Sign's balance was pretty bad, and perhaps they wanted to avoid this? They also seem to handle some characters(Potemkin comes to mind) with kid gloves. Ram was hit a little too hard and not given much. Notice a pattern here-Pot had his broken time, and they went conservative. Jam was a bit crazy in the old days, conservative. Slayer was extremely good at one point, conservative. Chipp seems to be the only character who doesn't follow this(and I reckon they figure it's because he's flimsy.) Millia I think was the only character that got adjusted to be still balanced and more interesting, and even then some Millia fans seem a bit unhappy.

It's sometimes hard to say how far one should go, though. Perhaps they thought it better to ease into some of the mid-tiers(buffing first, then waiting a few months, adding more if necessary), which truth be told isn't a bad way of doing it(better than accidentally overbuffing), but perhaps it feels off for some people since some characters got 'cool stuff' right out of the gate.

This is why I feel the buffs feel 'uneven.' They simply had better ideas for some than others. But at the same time, should you wait until you have equal ideas for a whole cast? That could take several months. I don't think it's a bad idea to trickle changes in, but there's no doubt it probably leads it to feel a bit uneven. Hell, this may explain why it felt like they 'focused too much on the top tiers.' Maybe, as weird as it sounds, they simply had better ideas at the time for them.

Again, this doesn't change the fact that some characters still feel lackluster, and they probably could have afforded to drop a couple more buffs on the likes of Slayer, Potemkin and the like without breaking them.

--

Alright, so that breaks down my school of thought. Now, how can they fix this, to make it even better than Rev1?

IMO just look at the low and mid tiers and maybe tweak them some more. Maybe spice up their gameplay a bit with some different aspects. I understand changing playstyles can be risky(it can chase off previous fans), but maybe for some characters it's worth shaking things up a bit. I feel the top tiers are fine where they are, and if the lower and mid get some love, things may feel better for people. In fact, I sort of think some of the 'stronger mid tiers' can get away without big buffs and can do just fine with some gameplay tweaks to make them more interesting. But I definitely think the low and the lower mids could use some love.

(I tend to believe in 'buff low' instead of 'nerf high', though I think in some games with extremes-stuff like NRS games whose top tiers can get ridiculous, or the current BBCF with some of its ridiculous SS-tiers, you do need to nerf. I don't think Rev2 is that game.)

Perhaps take a look at a few of the more egregious moves(which, well, are going to vary depending on who you ask and what side of the bed they got up on this morning, so here I feel they should trust actual testers with low amounts of bias, which yeah, might be hard to find, or at least people who can keep their bias in check), and trim them if necessary. I don't think there are too many here.

Really that's about it. I feel the biggest issue is the unevenness of how people were given workovers. Fix that and I think Rev2 will feel even better than Rev 1.

...

Oh yeah, quit nerfing AA's. Like that's to ALL freaking 2D fighters right now. Really what's wrong with fighting games nowadays wanting to nerf AA's. Remember when jumping in used to be risky? :P

Guilty Gear: Revelator vs. Tekken 7, Roster Cuts. Who did it better?

So I do see debate often on Tekken 7's roster cuts. Same with Guilty Gear, but I see it more with Tekken 7. And I was really trying to figure out why. I mean it could boil down to different fanbase, but both fanbases oddly enough have their penchant for character loyalty. So I'm really not sure what it is, to be frank.

So I decided to take a critical look on how both games snipped rosters, and see if maybe one stood out as 'better'(since a lot of T7 people critical of their cuts cite GG as doing it 'right'...but I see an awful lot of similarities.

Okay so first off; we're leaving Tag 2 clones out. So not really discussing, say, Sebastian here. Miharu has been a long time clone, but she is a clone still. Likewise, while he's not a TOTAL clone, I'll leave Forest Law out, since he is clone-y enough that having a smaller roster, he and his dad together would have been really too same-y. The reason why I'm not using Tag 2 is because it is a non canon installment; a sort of 'best of', so I feel it's more fair to use the previous numbered installment.

What I'll be looking at are the rosters of each previous game; so +R for GG, and T6 console for Tekken. I'll also discuss how GG has added characters over time since Sign(T7 is still too new right now for console, but I'll touch on 7.0 vanilla too, comparing it to vanilla Sign pre-DLC.

So going from +R to the base Sign, the following cuts were made from its roster of 25:

ABA, Anji, Baiken, Bridget, Dizzy, Jam, Johnny, Justice, Kliff, HOS, Robo-Ky, Testament, Zappa(13)

Sign added Sin, Ramlethal, Elphelt, Leo and Bedman. 3 of these(Sin, Elph, Leo) were DLC, totaling 17.

Going from T6 to 7.0, the following cuts were made from its roster of 40:

Anna, Armor King, Baek, Bob, Bruce, Christie/Eddy*, Marduk, Ganryu, Julia, Lee, Lei, Mokujin**, Nina, Kuma/Panda***, Raven, Roger, Wang, Zafina. (See notes on Jin, Devil Jin, Jack and Yoshimitsu.)

7.0 added Claudio, Shaheen, Lucky Chloe and Katarina as new characters on release. As 'Time Release'(I suppose you could sort of slot this with Sign's added DLC), they added Gigas, Josie, and Kazumi(New), and Devil Jin, Jin, Jack and Yoshimitsu. After the time releases(these did not take long to implement the gang), 7.0's roster was totaling 27.


*they were two separate slots, but essentially clones.
**A mimic, though quintessential enough that I'll count him as Tekken has had a mimic since T3.
***Still swaps in those days, oddly enough they seemed to trade places with Eddy/Christie now but I'll get to that.


Now to be fair, both Sign and 7.0 received hefty criticism each. They really did hit things hard. Both games had some fairly edgy fans after these cuts and they did let social media know it. Both games did snip longtime folks, though Tekken 7.0 quickly added a few of the classics, like Jin, back in via time release.


Moving on, what I'll do is fast forward to Revelator 2 and FR, to give the complete rosters that we ended up on console with. Then I'll proceed to list some similarities of missing characters.

Revelator 2 now has as its current roster:

Axl, Bedman, Chipp, Elphelt, Faust, I-No, Ky, Leo, May, Millia, Potemkin, Ramlethal, Sin, Slayer, Sol, Venom, Zato, Dizzy, Jack-O, Jam, Johnny, Haehyun, Raven, Baiken and Answer(25 total, or as much as +R had.)

Still Missing: Anji, Bridget, Testament, HOS, Robo-Ky, Zappa, Kliff, Justice, ABA.

New Characters Introduced between +R and Rev2: 7. 9 if you want to count Raven and Sin, but they were in Overture so were not technically new to the series, just new to the fighting games.

(Some of these appear in story mode, or are mentioned, but are not playable.)

Tekken 7 on consoles roster now looks like:

Alisa, Asuka, Bob, Bryan, Devil Jin, Eddy, Eliza, Feng, Heihachi, Hwoarang, Jin, Kazuya, King, Kuma, Lars, Lee, Leo, Lili, Ling, Law, Miguel, Nina, Panda*, Paul, Dragunov, Steve, Yoshimitsu, Akuma, Claudio, Gigas, Jack, Josie, Katarina, Kazumi, Chloe, Master Raven, Shaheen. (Total: 38, or 2 less than T6.)

Still Missing: Anna, Armor King, Baek, Bruce**, Christie***, Marduk, Ganryu, Julia, Lei, Mokujin, Raven****, Roger, Wang, Zafina.

New Characters introduced between T6 and console T7: 10. You could knock this down to 9 if you factor in that Eliza actually debuted in Tekken Revolution.

*In the odd thing, sort of like how they had Eddy and Christie separate slots in 6, they made Kuma and Panda separate in 7. I kinda think Eddy/Christie could have been clone slots in 6 and the bears in 7, but that'll be discussed later.
** Sorta-kinda replaced by Josie but they are not clones. She has a couple of his moves.
***Using this due to what IMO could be clone status
****Replaced by Master Raven, an essential clone, though worth mentioning for those who liked Blade

Whew, a lot of ***'s there, but so be it.

Now, I do need to make one allowance for Tekken here, and that's the ever-hilarious famous shadow of Jun Kazama. Despite only being in a single canon game(T2), and the rest only non-canon games(Tag, etc), fans get really damn salty about bringing her back. So while she's not on the list, not mentioning this fact would be pretty dumb of me. So yeah, Jun is forever a mention here.

Alrighty! Now that we have the breakdown, let's look at it more technically.

Both games added almost a similar percentage of new characters. 7 to Guilty Gear(7 out of 25 is 28%, not counting the previously featured Raven and Sin), and 9-10 out of 38 to Tekken which factors out to between 23-26%(chopping off decimals, let's not get too crazy here ;P) technically giving GG the higher percentage of replaced characters.

Both games cut classic, iconic, and story-important characters, without a doubt. On the GG side, Testament had been fairly tied into the Gear story, and was pretty iconic anyway; Bridget is a long-time icon of the GG series as well to say the least. Over on the Tekken side, the cut characters had a bit less story importance, though Lei and Anna were tied into things somewhat. Both games had folks with their own stories.

Playstyle wise, unique was cut in both cases, though this is hard to compare since in GG, everyone is very unique, where in Tekken there is a bit more 'crossover', so I don't want to be unfair there and say GG sorta 'wins' this straight up; it's the nature of the games. But to pick out some of the more unique on the Tekken side, once again Lei, and also Marduk and Zafina were quite unique in their styles(Marduk was not like King in grappling.) Ganryu was fairly unique as well. Really both sides had unique(Tekken's Roger had a mishmash of moves, Christie was a clone), but again, hard to compare.

Both sides cut older and newer characters. Testament, Kliff and Justice(okay, granted, the latter two are kinda dead but hey, it's a fighting game, you can asspull if you want) were all around in the first game and then some. Anji came in soon after, and Bridget was around '02. Likewise Tekken cut several older; the only newer characters cut were Zafina(Marduk is T4 which IS fairly old now remember.)

So yeah. We now have the lineup. Both sides cut very similar amounts(in terms of percentage), types, and styles of characters. Both sides added similar amounts of new characters. Both sides have fans that are known loyalists. Yet Tekken gets more harshly criticized. Maybe because it's a bigger audience? Simply 'bigger audience=more voices?'

One thought I had was that Tekken's new characters didn't have the 'oomph' to some as the older new folks, and thus it made them miss older ones more, where with GG's new characters, they're much more overall well liked. (Twitch whining about Raven's oki aside. ;P) It also could be the story; perhaps GG's story, and how the new characters tie in, being a bit more well received helped? Can't say since I doubt the cut characters would have made a huge story difference either way in Tekken(I think in GG they would have had more impact, though Lei as the cop narrator in Tekken would have been excellent.)

I mean, I'm sympathetic. While I got lucky in Tekken(even 7.0 had my main and three of my main subs safe, and I got most of the rest of people I cared about in FR, save for two dabble characters, plus I am fairly keen on Shaheen and Claudio gameplay wise these days), in GG, I came in with Sol. Yeah, I had no Testament, no Anji, no HOS, no Bridget. But Sol at least WAS my main so I had that, I just really didn't have any subs I much cared about. (Raven took over my main slot.) And gods know I was out favorites in the past too; in SFIV, I had no Alex, no Urien, and none of the EX characters I liked either of course. I mean it's interesting since I don't recall characters like Lei, Anna or Marduk being particularly played by gaggles of people(though social media may seem like it.)

There are characters on both sides with the 'We may not play them a lot but we like them on the roster' sense. Lei, Anna over on the Tekken side, and folks like say Zappa and Bridget(the latter sort of a GG mascot) on the GG side. They don't have the highest played percentages, but people miss them. Each game dropped a couple of characters who were played more too. Testament was popular, HOS was popular. Others were more just average. I think on Tekken's side Jaycee/Julia and Armor King were the two most popular(More the latter than the former-Jules was more maybe top 1/3 to half, but AK was played a more IIRC last I checked). Actually, AK was one of THE most played online in Tag 2(King/Armor King was a very popular team among more casual players.) So there is that. I guess you can say AK fills the Testament slot in terms of popular, well played, didn't make it in spot(though Testament had a bit more story importance.)

One thought I had deals with the fact that social media amplifies voices(making it seem like there is a lot of complaints when there are few), and perhaps because Tekken is a bit bigger, there are a few more voices by proxy...but I could swear I see a bigger percentage complaining too.

I guess again, my confusion is simply why Tekken gets the flack more. I guess the only thing I can come up with is that the fans are more attached? Did that extra 3 years or so that Tekken's been out over GG  make that much difference? Was it the new characters after all? Is it just social media at work= I wish, after this extensive breakdown, I could tell you but I think this is something I'll have to leave open to the crowd to answer.