Addressing Slips's points



1.



“I know back in the MvC2 days this would be a valid argument because she'd have a counter and that is his sense of balance “





If it was just one character, fine. But Tempest KL did well against her also, seemed like it was a better match than Sub's match against her. Some Tanya players previously complained about Scorpion and Ermac. Personally I thought those complaints weren't warranted but eh, what do I know. She'd been out less than a month before the nerf bat whacked her upside the head. As I've already shown you, it takes years to actually know what a matchup is going to look like at high level. Who's to say what the matchups actually would have ended up being. And think about it, most people only had access to her for a couple weeks before the pre-CEO nerf. Did the best Scorpion and Ermac players in the world play the match out against the best Tanyas yet? What if some of her dominance was just general unfamiliarity and people would have figured it out in time? Again I point out that she was only generally available for THREE WEEKS before she was deemed the greatest and most dangerous thing ever. You don't know what would have happened with her if she was allowed to breathe and now we never will know that.



“Balance is being able to pick whatever character you want and have a reasonable chance to beat any character picked against you “



I'd like that too. I'd also like a pony and an ice cream cone.



It's unrealistic and childish to think any fighting game can achieve that. It's just not possible. SFAE2012 was is possibly the best balanced modern fighting game ever and still had a handful of characters generally assumed to be useless (lucky me, I played Blanka and Dee Jay, 2 out of the bottom 4). By your definition that game wasn't balanced. That's why your definition is ridiculous. Incidentally as I pointed out in my first post, Dudley was in that group until Smug came along. So I mean...



Also it's bad game design to prioritize character balance over strategic balance. History has shown us that people will put up with games with mediocre or even horrendous character balance as long as there's balance among strategic styles. By the percentages, MvC2 is one of the worst balanced games of all time. Sentinel beats about 40 out of 56 characters just by flying backwards and hitting buttons. It's also one of the most beloved fighting games ever because there's so much you can do in the game with a rich strategic balance. The fact that Hayato/Roll/Amingo can't compete means nothing to the players.



2.



“I'm not sure how or why Viscant can say the patching strategy failed at CEO. Yea, Tanya was nerfed previously before CEO and she still dominated the tournament. So we should've left Tanya the way she was? Even MORE broke and that would've proven patches are fine? Wouldn't she have just dominated even more? I don't even understand how that argument makes sense. “



You don't know what would have happened in a patchless environment. Would a fully powered Hellfire Scorpion have done well against her? I don't think so, I thought the Tanyas complaining about the Scorpion matchup were just whining but I really don't know. The non nerfed Grandmaster Sub would have done better, but again, I just think that, I don't know that. You don't know either.



What we DO know is that the version we got was the least interesting to watch of the majors we've had so far, most of which have been tremendous. I think I enjoyed the top 32 MKX at Combo Breaker more than any other game featured and it was a fantastic tournament from start to finish. CEO's was not as good. Denying that the patch cycle played a part in this is naivete at best, willful ignorance in order to prove a point being much more likely.



3.

“Viscant mentions how Fisticuffs Johnny got nerfed and he believes the reason was because NRS didn't want people to laugh at their game. Or, maybe it was nerfed because it really was too powerful. It was looked into. Some characters who didn't have good armor, slow pokes and had a beefy hitbox could do next to nothing to get out of his b12121 in the corner. Characters like Quan Chi, Erron Black, Takeda, ect. literally had to block about ten b12's and at any point Cage could stagger them, reset the spacing to do 10 more, an overhead that launches or a low that would also reset the b1212 guessing game”



I don't even know where to begin here.



This argument would hold a whole lot more water if what prompted the nerf (DJT vs. SonicFox) didn't end up going SonicFox's way.



“Maybe 3 years from now we'll find a glitch where you can use a just frame block breaker with no meter on the 13th frame of block stun that the devs didn't know about and it'll all be ok. Lets wait and see”



3 years? It took SonicFox roughly 90 minutes real time without any training mode or coaching to go from “it looks like I have no idea what to do against this” to “beating DJT's Cage to the point where he had to switch Kung Lao at the end of grand finals”. All with a character that YOU YOURSELF said “could do next to nothing” in that matchup. Something's not adding up here!



See this is what I'm talking about. I don't want to come across as disrespectful or (gasp) arrogant here but this is the worst kind of reaction. It's not just knee jerk in reaction to an event that just happened, it's not just presumptive assuming that since people couldn't deal with it now that they'd never figure it out, it's not even supported by actual events!



And hey maybe you're right. Maybe Johnny Cage was going rise in the ranks and become a strong character based around this strategy (even though all the other top tiers don't seem to have any trouble dealing with him). Maybe. But we'll never know now.



4.

“Injustice and MK9 didn't die because they were awful games”



Didn't say they were. I respected both of those games and played them casually and then semi-competitively for a bit. That's actually the opposite of my point. NRS makes fine games, how come they die off so quickly?



“Actually, MK9 still had a decent following deep into Injustice's lifespan”



Stream numbers, entrant numbers and community interest at live events tell otherwise. It's like you think I didn't have occasion to monitor these things.



“Yes, UMvC3 and SFIV are still being played. They are still going. Why? Because there aren't any sequels to them released yet”



Injustice was as much a sequel to MK9 as MvC3 was to SF4. SF4 was 2.5 years deep into its lifespan when Marvel came out. SF4 carried on just fine. SF4 WAS a sequel to 3s/CvS2 but 3s carried on semi-competitively and even somewhat seriously in Japan. MvC3 took a lot of interest away from MvC2 but MvC2 still gets played in exhibition situations. Going to an even more apples to apples comparison, Soul Calibur 2 didn't kill off interest in Tekken 4 (you were there, you know that maybe it even should have, I sincerely regret the time I spent on T4). MvC2, 3s, GGAC all have a healthier scene now than Injustice does now despite those games being further away from their heyday than Injustice. Now either you think Injustice is an awful game (which you just said you didn't) or we're going to have to seriously consider why Injustice tailed off as hard as it did.



5.



“Viscant says he tries and keep her at the tip of Sonya's f2 range because if she got in range of D'Vorah's f1 she'd be in trouble. How has that changed? D'Vorah still gets the advantage after f1 on block, we still have to guess”



Not necessarily. What's guaranteed on block after the wasp cancel is lower. Overhead no longer jails. Hard before, impossible now (note, I'm going off the numbers on the 6/23 patch). So this changes the calculus of the match. Whereas before it was a guess now the option select that I was using against people who weren't on perfect timing (low block OS into backdash) is now a functioning OS against an immediately timed action. In theory. Obviously the D'Vorah can blow that up just by altering their timing but OS's like that are a useful tool especially to someone like me who can't reliably count on making a reaction block. Also this opens up the possibility of OS ing leg slam instead of back dash. I'm not quite sure if the situation is scary enough to warrant the use of a meter, which I feel like I have to guard carefully in this matchup. These are things that have to be worked out through match play against other strong players, not training mode and MS Excel.



If I'm not scared of F1 and the followup options then that means I don't have to rely on whiff punishing as my primary way of generating damage which is an uncomfortable way of playing Sonya against good players since it's the equivalent of hanging a sign around my neck saying “I'M LOOKING TO WHIFF PUNISH YOU WITH DIVEKICK, IF YOU COULD CO-OPERATE AND GET WILD THAT WOULD BE GREAT”. It's more a strategy borne out of necessity than any great desire to play like that. It means I can go back to the game I'm most comfortable with, mindless violence.



Nobody's making this out like it's a bad matchup now. I said myself that the matchup got better even if I still kinda sorta think D'Vorah is still ahead in the matchup. But it means I have to relearn a matchup. If it turns out that the most optimal way to play Sonya/D'Vorah now is rushdown and that I don't have to be as afraid of F1 and followup options because I can defend them reliably then playing a whiff punishing game is sub-optimal strategy and I am giving away positioning, attacker's advantage and possibly in the end, games and matches.



The patch has definitely forced a period of evaluation and possibly a fundamental change in the tenor of the match. That is what I'm saying and I don't think you can deny that. The problem is that because I studied that match a month ago, I'm actually WORSE OFF right now than if I had only studied it casually because what was “smart play” (theoretically--I've been criticized by strong players for being overly passive in that match even though I was winning those matches) before is now sub-optimal play.



You don't see a problem with that because of your ideology and affiliation. The overwhelming majority of competitive fighting gaming disagrees. Try to understand.



“I love how says he saw a Quan Chi uppercut in between KL's mb hat into a string and asked, 'Can Sonya do that? I don't know,' like it's gonna be the next segment on Robert Stack's Unsolved Mysteries. Well that's what training mode is for dude. It will literally take 3 minutes or less to answer that question. But I guess it's easier to never look into it, lose to someone in a tournament and blame NRS for patching something that actually made it easier on you. For someone who says they are trying to play our game seriously, that's incredibly lazy and is evidence he's clearly not“



Holy assumptions and projections Batman!



I threw out the uncertainty because I genuinely didn't know the answer as of that time. When I come across something interesting gameplay wise or something I don't fully understand I write it down in Excel and tackle things in order. Most important things, things pertaining to main character and sub character, overall gameplay mechanics, etc. All that stuff goes on the top worksheet and gets dealt with first. Combo video stuff, stuff for characters I don't play and out of the current tournament rotation go on lower sheets, etc. The system works fine, it got me through Marvel, one of the most homework intensive games I've ever tried to play.



And yes the situation takes about 5 minutes to fully flesh out, just to set up the situation and test responses. The reason that I didn't know the answer offhand even though it's clearly a top worksheet kind of question?



Because I'm still not done dealing with the backlog in the patch before that! I still had substantive homework from 6/23's patch, handling matchups, oki setups (spent a lot of time trying to salvage my F+2, 124 setup—it didn't go well) and the changes to Scorpion since I like that character and was considering subbing him.



This is the entire reason this whole thing started. I'm not done exploring the old changes at anything above a casual “oh I guess this does this now” level and I have new changes dumped into my lap. And this is supposed to be OK? It's not OK with me, let the damn game breathe.



6.

“I am grateful for these changes. That stupid broke- *ahem* I mean "Top Tier meta" is not fun to play against and is the type of stuff that makes people not want to play because of how insane it is. We should be THANKING Paulo for making these changes. Not crucifying him. The game is better, more fun and more balanced because of them.”



And here we're getting to the crux of this.



The tone has changed from “this can never be beaten and must be changed because nobody will ever stop it” to “playing against top tier isn't fun for me, nerf plz k thx bbl”. Also it's hypothetical that people quit if the game isn't patched. It's factual that people quit if the game is overpatched.



This is immediately followed up by.



“For some reason we have a higher work ethic than the great Viscant “



“But if we know our favorite character's are useless in tournament play we would stop playing “



lol, I don't even need to say anything here just...lol



“Sorry our standard for balance is higher than theirs.”



Your standard as previously defined in your own words has yet to be reached in this game. Or any previous NRS game. Or any fighting game in 25 years. Maybe it's time for a new standard.





You have a personal (and I'm not exposing anything anyone doesn't already know by pointing out that you at one time had a professional) interest in NRS and their games. So I don't expect to change your mind. I'm not sure you read, digested or understood my examples about how older and newer games showed dramatic balance changes after months and years because after those posts you haven't changed your tune or your tone one bit. You either don't understand that or don't want to understand that and I don't care enough at this point to figure out which.



You're also not going to change my mind. I'm giving up this game because the patch cycle is simply out of control. To repeat what I said earlier, I wasn't even close to done with my homework from 6/23 when an entirely new patch came out. That's not acceptable. I don't want to have to constantly re-evaluate critical matchups every 2 or 3 weeks because something was changed. I don't want to deal with random stealth changes not listed on the patch notes and lose a match because something was changed from -10 to -6 and I'm now doing the wrong punish.



So I mean in a lot of ways this argument is pointless and I don't see much need to respond again, especially if I'm going to get my account screwed with again.



So I'll just close with this.



You stated yourself, this is your passion. This is love for you. Great. No really, no sarcasm, no kappa. Great. Glad you're happy. This is why you put up with the patch system and convince yourself that it's what's best, this passion and this love.



But you need to understand that a big part of what you love is also what drives other people away. I'm far from an NRS hater, I liked MK9 quite a bit before the patch cycle got started and gave Injustice a chance also (Scorpion nerf basically killed the game for me and I never played seriously again). NRS makes good games and they also manage to damage their games through the patch cycle. People don't like having their hard work wasted.



MKX at one time had a chance to be the biggest fighting game in America and to topple SF4. Secretly I was kind of hoping that would happen. Despite being painted as a Capcom fanboy here, I'm mostly ambivalent towards SF4, it's a really well made game that always brings the goods in tournaments and all but I'm tired of it and eagerly looking forward to something new. If MKX had handled patching better then maybe it could have been that game. But it's probably already too late.



This game has averaged a patch or a hotfix about 2 weeks since the first major patch on 4-21. (4-21, 5-14, 5-20, 6-1, 6-23, 7-2). Some minor, some major. And this train is not slowing down any time soon, IIRC there's another one coming next week, making for an absurd 3 patches in 3 weeks unless the 7-2 one replaced it. You're OK with this. This is love to you.



But it isn't to the rest of us. And that's why the numbers are dropping and why they look to drop even further still. NRS makes great games, I just wish they'd treat them better and not drive the playerbase away.