Balancing any game, let alone a fighting game, can be a very difficult thing to do. Just trying to get two sides in any multiplayer game–where the sides aren’t exactly the same–to be “balanced” is hard enough. Fighting games however, with their large casts of characters, each with unique moves and properties, present an even bigger challenge.

With how challenging balancing can be, it’s interesting to see how developers try to go about doing so, especially with new games. This year in particular saw new installments of two major fighting game franchises hit store shelves. Capcom’s Street Fighter V hit in mid-February, while SNK’s The King of Fighters XIV launched in August. Now, while there were other fighting game releases this year, these two have been singled out because they seem to represent opposing philosophies when it comes to balance.

Make Them Strong, or Rein Them In–Two Different Approaches to Balance

The balancing philosophy for The King of Fighters XIV’s is easy enough to figure out. SNK’s Hidetoshi “Neo_G” Ishizawa has gone on record that he prefers to make the characters as strong as possible and balance them out from there. Considering that Neo_G’s previous works (when he was at Capcom) included games such Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Capcom vs. SNK 2, and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, the fact that this philosophy is being applied to KoFXIV shouldn’t be surprising.

For Street Fighter V on the other hand, Capcom hasn’t really been forthcoming with any sort of similar philosophy when it comes to the game’s balance. That said, taking a look at the properties of the moves in the game, combined with how the game itself changed during last year’s beta testing, it seems that Capcom wants to do the opposite of what SNK is doing. They want to make sure that no character becomes too strong. A lot of tools that were a bit on the strong side were adjusted in each iteration of the beta before release. This can be further seen in how the DLC characters lack certain things that the launch characters have, such as meterless invulnerable reversals, and two-stock V-Gauges.

The differences in philosophy is something that permeates every bit of the design of these games, and can easily be observed by players who know what to look for. One of the more subtle differences can be felt in the range of the characters’ normal punches and kicks. The King of Fighters XIV, in general, has more generous hit boxes and characters pokes tend to hit further out, while Street Fighter V tends to have stubbier pokes, especially for crouching normals. You can see examples of this difference in the slides below.

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Other noticeable examples include Street Fighter V generally only allowing dive kick style moves off a forward jump, while The King of Fighters XIV allows them from both neutral and back jumps.

System Knowledge vs. Match-Up Knowledge–Why Each Philosophy Works for Its Game

Now with both teams going for the same goal–a balanced game–the question then is: why go for two differing philosophies? The answer may lie in the nature of the games in question.

In any competitive fighting game, character match-ups–how one character’s tools stack up against others in actual combat–are what define its balance. Street Fighter as a franchise in particular tends to put a high emphasis on the knowledge of these match-ups, thanks to its focus on character tools over universal system tools. Street Fighter V is no exception with its unique V-System making it so that each character has a unique set of sub-systems (their V-Skill and V-Trigger). It’s highly likely then, that Capcom decided to balance the game the way they did to avoid having very uneven match-ups.

Now this isn’t to say that match ups aren’t important in The King of Fighters XIV–they are. However The King of Fighters franchise has also made itself known for a series of unique systems and mechanics. Aside from helping define the series, these mechanics–such as hops, rolls, and more–help characters deal with the strong tools of other characters and mitigate bad match-ups. This has allowed The King of Fighters XIV to have things like a very strong zoning game, while still retaining the fast, aggressive rushdown that the series is known for.

In practice, this means that there is a premium placed on learning how to use and how to deal with these universal mechanics.

Patches and Edge Cases–Dealing With Problematic Characters Post-Release

Another reason for why these companies went with the balance philosophy that they did may have to do with how they fit into their plans for future balance patches. As part of this, they’re also likely considering the kind of edge cases–problematic characters that may need to be fixed–that tend to arise from either.

Capcom’s plans for balance patches to Street Fighter V revolve around having major changes happen in between Capcom Pro Tour seasons. This is both to keep players from having to deal with large shifts in balance patches, as well as to please older fans who prefer giving the game time to grow, like the old arcade titles, instead of the more aggressive patching schedules of modern games. SNK on the other hand isn’t limited by such; while they do want to allow characters to be strong, they are willing to step in to address any edge cases when it comes to balance.

Speaking of edge cases, despite the best efforts of both sides, problematic characters that may either too strong or too weak can still pop up. While it launched with decent balance, with a large portion of the cast sitting in the middle to upper tiers, The King of Fighters XIV did have some characters who were deemed a bit too strong at the start. Nakoruru with her invulnerable bird companion was one of these. Meanwhile K’, with his easy damage from safe pressure, was arguably the best character in the game–and was nearly a constant presence in top tournament teams. Both were eventually addressed, alongside a few other issues in a recent patch.

Street Fighter V, on the other hand, seems to have the opposite issue. While the game does seem to have a clearly defined top tier, none of these, not even Chun-Li, are really true edge cases. Instead, the edge cases seem to be in the bottom of the tier list. F.A.N.G seems to struggle in tournaments, with only a select group of players able to be competitive with him. Meanwhile, Zangief has seen some of his most ardent character loyalists, such as Red Bull’s Snake Eyez, switch to other characters despite having used him for years in previous games.

In a way, however, having the edge cases be in the bottom works out more in Capcom’s favor than if it were the other way around. These edge cases are much more noticeable when they happen to be strong characters, simply because players and spectators alike see more of them. On the other hand, a weak character may not garner as much attention when there’s a decent-sized pool of viable characters in competitive play.

In SNK’s case however, whether or not top characters like Nakoruru, K’, and Mature were really that dominant or not (something that really couldn’t have been judged off a month of play) didn’t seem to matter as much as the fact that they were highly visible. These characters being strong caught the eye of many, making them much more noticeable than if they had been problematic for being weak. Not having to stick to a set, seasonal balance schedule definitely helped them in this regard as they were able to address these edge cases as soon as possible.

Fun and Freedom–The Subjective Reasons Why One Balance Philosophy May be Better Than the Other

With two opposing philosophies when it comes to balance, the question that is begging to be asked is, which one is better? The answer to this isn’t really clear cut, and is quite subjective–depending what a player enjoys.

The key word when trying to see who or what kind of player would enjoy one or the other balance philosophy is “freedom.” Both games are trying to emphasis a certain kind of freedom.

Street Fighter V seems focused on giving players the freedom to choose almost any character that they like, and have a good chance at doing well competitively. Yes, it does have a few edge case characters who struggle, but for the most part a good number of the cast are perfectly viable.

More importantly, the top tiers don’t really have any really oppressive tools that allow them to totally dominate the rest of the cast. Compare this to certain past installments, where strong tools made certain characters nearly mandatory for winning a tournament. For example, Chun-Li may be the best character in the game, but she’s nowhere near as dominant as in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike where she would win almost every tournament. In fact, Street Fighter V has a large pool of characters who have proven to be reliable tournament winners.

However, despite the large number of tournament-viable characters, there are some players who state that Street Fighter V feels “boring.” In a way, they do have a point: strong tools that players must learn to beat before they can even win a match can make for interesting match-ups. This is the cost of the kind of freedom that Street Fighter V’s balancing brings.

The King of Fighters XIV, on the other hand, promotes a different kind of freedom. It allows players the freedom to find, use, and even abuse strong, dominating tools, strategies and tactics across the game’s 50-character cast. Even a character considered to be mid-tier like Mian has something that can be hard to deal with, in this case, her seemingly endless dive kicks. Meanwhile the former top tiers who were nerfed in the 1.03 patch have still retained some of their tools. Nakoruru still has invulnerability on her bird cling, while Love Heart still has the generous hit box on her crouching heavy punch.

The cost of this kind of freedom–as explained before–is that games balanced this way tend to have their “problematic” characters at the top of the tier list. However, competitive fighting game history has shown that games with dominant top tiers can thrive in the tournament circuit. Games such as Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, which had noticeable balance issues, thrived simply because the games were interesting and fun enough, despite the issues brought on by this kind of freedom–or maybe even because of them.

With this in mind, perhaps there really shouldn’t be a question of which balancing philosophy is better. Each individual player is bound to find one or the other method more interesting and fun to play.

The fighting game genre has always been full of different games and different developers each doing their best to express their own philosophies–about not just fighting game balance, but of mechanics, aesthetics, character design, and the like. This has led to a surprising amount of diversity in the fighting games available.

It’s this diversity of games, and of philosophies and ideas on fighting game design and balance, that has led to the genre as we know it today. With various styles and sub-genres of games that different people enjoy and compete in, depending on their tastes and preferences. What Capcom and SNK have done with Street Fighter V and The King of Fighters XIV is simply just a continuation of this.