In Masahiro Sakurai’s latest video, he discussed the importance of amplifying strengths and weaknesses as a way to balance games. Of course, he often used Super Smash Bros. Ultimate as an example since, despite problem characters such as Minecraft’s Steve, the game is actually fairly well balanced for having a roster of 86 fighters.
During the video, Sakurai noted how the development team often opted to tone down strengths while evening out weaknesses to compensate. Though Sakurai noted how there will be times in which there is no other choice but to implement this as the “obvious solution,” Sakurai went on to state that doing this too much will lead to a game’s downfall.
“The more similar you make different fighters’ abilities, the more they’ll start to feel like the same character,” declared Sakurai. “That’s simply not fun.”
“Unlike when players intentionally choose the same fighters in a bout, making different fighters similar gives the whole game a bland feel,” continued Sakurai.
Sakurai also mentions how it’s important for players to want to settle which characters are better in actual matches. Of course, it’s become increasingly more difficult for this to happen due to the nature of how tier list opinions spread on the internet.
Regardless, Sakurai would then continue to emphasize the importance of having variety within the fighters as well as other options. Essentially, it sounds as though it’s fine to have some imbalances within the game rather than trying to make everything perfectly balanced.
Check it all out below: