With the exception of the case where all characters are identical in every way (and what fun is that?) every fighting game roster will naturally organize into a hierarchy where certain fighters have advantages over others. While by no means fair this is the reality we live in and it can have its perks, but does inevitably lead to sour and frustrated feelings as soon as someone perceives they’re being trounced by a character with numerous advantages over their own.
What can come across as odd about all this is the fact that players tend to be more content with certain types of characters being top tier over others. In one of his more recent videos MC Mura takes a closer look at the idea of what makes a top tier character more or less acceptable.
This is mostly rooted in the concept of fairness, the lack thereof we have a certain buffer zone or allotment for. We’re okay with a certain amount of disparity as the vacuums that’re created can be filled with things like player skill, character charisma, or perhaps the fact that a character might struggle in one particular match, but have many advantages in others.
It’s one thing when you’re comparing two fighters who operate in primarily the same way (being of the same archetype) but once you start introducing more mechanics and a wider breadth of special moves, it can easily begin feeling like you’re playing a different game depending on whom you choose to use.
The fighting game community (as well as we here on EventHubs) have long wrestled with and discussed what the not so obvious parameters for “acceptable” top tiers might be. This varies from game to game according to established expectations, but one phrase you’ll often hear some form of goes something like “grapplers shouldn’t be top tier because they’ll break the game if they are.”
The idea here is that the grappler archetype is so different from the more standard ones (this is especially true within the expectations of Street Fighter) that balancing them within the context of one another becomes difficult (perhaps impossibly so) when you get down to more intricate details.
Another way of thinking about this might be to consider: how do you make a fireball balance with a command grab? You can tweak surface level aspects like damage output and speed, but the apples and oranges nature of this predicament becomes quickly apparent.
At some point if grapplers are too strong the game will become grappler-centric and thus appeal primarily to a niche group of the potential player base. Thus, you can include characters like Zangief or R. Mika, but you tend to want to err on the side of them not being trend-setting top tiers as they threaten to alter the game’s meta in a direction the majority of Street Fighter players haven’t signed up for.
Mura takes this concept to an interesting place within the confines of Street Fighter 6, which now has a fairly established collection of top and bottom tiers, as he brings up game-specific points that may thwart more traditional ways of traversing these waters.
For instance, he notes how Ken, who is a shoto and thus part of the traditionally accepted class of top tiers, doesn’t really play like a traditional shoto. Is that a deal breaker?
Check out his full video below and chime into the comments with your thoughts and reactions.