Competitive Balance: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:CBalance 2050.jpg|frame|Coming to a theater near you, "[[The Good, the Bad and the Ugly|The Balanced]], [[The Munchkin]], and the [[Lethal Joke Character]]."]]
{{quote|''You know what does equal power? Power. Power equals power. Crazy, huh? But the type of power? Doesn't matter as much as you'd think. It turns out, [[Leaning on the Fourth Wall|everything is oddly balanced]]. Weird, but true.''
|'''Xykon''', ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'' }}
In any game that offers the player a selection of multiple options to play as (whether it be characters in fighting games, cars in racing games, [[Faction Calculus|factions in strategy games]], or whatever), '''Competitive Balance''' comes into play. Since these options are meant to compete directly against each other, they need to be roughly equally powerful, or else you run into the problems with [[Character Tiers]]. For each advantage, a balanced character will have a [[Necessary Drawback]].▼
▲{{quote|''You know what does equal power? Power. Power equals power. Crazy, huh? But the type of power? Doesn't matter as much as you'd think. It turns out, [[Leaning on the Fourth Wall|everything is oddly balanced]]. Weird, but true.''|'''Xykon''', ''[[The Order of the Stick|Order of the Stick]]'' }}
▲In any game that offers the player a selection of multiple options to play as (whether it be characters in fighting games, cars in racing games, [[Faction Calculus|factions in strategy games]], or whatever), Competitive Balance comes into play. Since these options are meant to compete directly against each other, they need to be roughly equally powerful, or else you run into the problems with [[Character Tiers]]. For each advantage, a balanced character will have a [[Necessary Drawback]].
Many types of these characters are based on their performance in various areas:
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* ''[[Virtual On]]'', a [[Vehicular Combat]] game with [[Humongous Mecha]].
** More specifically, one can generally find the [[Jack of All Stats]] in the Temjin and Apharmd lines, with the former being simply well balanced and the latter being absolutely brutal at close range. Representing the [[Fragile Speedster]] are the Viper and Fei-Yin series, both of which are smaller and agile, but can't take hits very well. In early games, the Belgdor and succesors offer examples of [[Glass Cannon]] designs, being somewhat fragile but possessing great hitting power. Bal series are [[Squishy Wizard]], with overall low stats but have nasty trick for those who can master their [[Attack Drone]] ([[The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard|including AI]]). Finally, the Raiden and Dorkas are clear [[Mighty Glacier]] most of the time, being among the largest and most powerful but least maneuverable designs in the series.
* The ''[[Armored Core]]'' series sees just about every possible facet of this system, and (at least, after a bit of trial-and-error with regulations files) it generally avoids [[Game
** However, in 4 and FA, just about every AC can be considered a [[Lightning Bruiser]] in comparison to previous games due to the fact that they typically have at least two or three times the AP of their predecessors, much more powerful weapons, and ridiculous speed (this was taken to [[Super Robot Genre]] heights in FA).
== [[Puzzle Game]] ==
* [[Mr. Driller]] has a total of 7 characters, each one with their own stats; it varies from characters with slow speed but slow air cost, to speedsters with fast air cost rate.
* The (currently) 40 usable planets in ''[[Meteos]]'' differ in nearly every aspect, from the types and quantity of [[Falling Blocks]] present and the speed they fall to playing field width and quantity of garbage blocks both sent and received. There are many more differences dealing with game mechanics specific to the series, but suffice to say that separate strategies are needed playing as and against each planet. Each game to date has illustrated this by having the blocks take different appearances for each planet. In the original DS game, for instance, [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World|Freaze's]] blocks look normal but are frozen over, while [[Death World|Gigagush]] takes on an 8-bit style with animated blocks resembling [[Space Invaders]]. By ''Meteos Wars'', every planet has been pretty well balanced with a few exceptions, under normal circumstances.
== [[Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game|MMORPG]]s ==
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has ten character classes with three talent trees each, making for a total of 30 builds to balance against each other in small group PvE, large group PvE, arena PvP, and battleground PvP, across 85 levels and 12+ tiers of gear, and this doesn't even count variant builds and racial bonuses. That this task is impossible is mitigated only by Blizzard's determination to try, and balance has consistently improved over time despite the protests of the fanbase. Dueling, or one-on-one PvP, is the sole place they've disclaimed attempts to provide perfect balance, as that would inevitably lead to all classes being the same.
* Scout [Ken/Nuri] and Hana [Erika/Hana] in ''[[Pangya]]'' - The Mario and The Ken (appropriately enough) as they are the starting characters for male and female players.
== [[Real Time Strategy]] ==
* ''[[
* ''[[Impossible Creatures]]'' has 127,392 possible "characters", but these are simply specific combinations of 2 creatures, from a pool of 75. Of the creatures, many fit into a character tier:
** Cheetahs are the [[Fragile Speedster]].
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** [[Game Breaker]] - Moose. To put it in perspective, nearly every army fields some sort of moose combo by level 5 (while mammoths and elephants are [[The Ken]] to moose, so they might be used). Those that don't use moose combo either have a unit meant to kill the more common moose-lobster or moose-gorilla hybrids, and it's not unheard of for an evenly matched player to send an army of ''[[Badass Normal|normal]]'' moose to war against genetic mutants. Their [[Game Breaker]] status is only balanced by the fact that they cost a lot to summon, and it takes 10 minutes to reach the tech level to send out a moose hybrid even if you forgo base defense. But by this point, a single moose-lobster could take down most armies that a player would be using by the 10-minute mark.
== [[Role
* While ''[[Pokémon]]'' is an RPG, the standard battle only has one [[Mon]] per side at a time, and tends to have a cross between these and [[An Adventurer Is You|the ones for RPG]].
** Plus in the [[Metagame]], all Pokemon are sorted into several [[Character Tiers]], with teams composed of Pokemon of the same tier being balanced against each other - and [[Curb Stomp Battle|utterly destructive]] against those of lower tiers. Most commonly used tier ("over used") is actually a second tier, falling behind the "uber" tier, containing [[Purposefully Overpowered]] legendaries (and a couple of less dignified [[Game Breaker]]s).
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=== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ===
* [[Lady of War|Erza Scarlet]], [[Fairy Tail]]'s resident [[Magic Knight]], uses her magic like this by swapping out various types of armors [[Crazy Prepared|according to whatever the situation calls for.]] So far we've seen [[Lightning Bruiser]] armor ([[Shock and Awe|literally]] at one point), [[Mighty Glacier]] armor, [[Fragile Speedster]] armor, and [[Stone Wall]] armor.
* The Servants of ''[[Fate/stay night]]'' are balanced in principle, but it's generally acknowledged that Knight-class Servants are a bit ''better'' balanced. Mages find ways to stack the deck in their favor, particularly the Einzberns, who are consumed with Heaven's Feel preparations for decades.<ref>This example could go under video games, if there are enough examples in the genre to warrant the category.</ref>
=== [[Live-Action TV]] ===
* The multiple forms of Heisei-era [[Kamen Rider]]s (and the various Riders summoned by ''[[Kamen Rider Decade]]'') work this way in a [[Live Action Television]] version of this trope.
* ''[[The Amazing Race]]''. The early seasons heavily favored physically strong teams, however, as the producers have gotten much better at designing courses, the Race is now much more balanced, even slightly favoring intelligent teams [[Muscles Are Meaningful|(though most fans still tend to think that the big, strong teams have a huge advantage)]].
=== [[Tabletop Games]] ===
* ''[[Dungeons
** In terms of actual balance though this falls apart very quickly depending on the edition. In 3.5 the archetypes are quite well represented, but mean nothing because the Wizard, Archivist and Erudite classes exist relegating everything else to the role of porters. In 4th edition the archetypes were the basis for the class system's design, which lead to everything being equal in balance, but a loss in the diversity of classes being based on: Melee guy who chops, melee guy who gets chopped, Guy at Range With Weapon, Guy at Range With Magic, Healbot.
=== [[Western Animation]] ===
* The four bending arts in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' work this way according to [[Word of God|numerous]] [[All There in the Manual|sources]].
** [[Fragile Speedster]]: Airbending
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** [[Lightning Bruiser]]: Optimus Prime, Megatron and Skyquake (the latter two being generally kept out of fights by various plot devices due possessing [[Game Breaker]] level strength)
=== [[Real Life]] ===
* [[Truth in Television]]: Equipment and fighting styles in Roman [[Gladiator Games|gladiator matches]] were highly regulated to ensure an entertaining fight, and it was very common for a gladiator of one school to go against one of another—provided the two were compatible. For example, a common matchup had a retiarius—a [[Fragile Speedster]] armed with a trident and net—up against a secutor—a [[Mighty Glacier]] with a huge shield and small sword.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Power At a Price]]
[[Category:Useful Notes/Fighting Game]]
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[[Category:Video Game Characters]]
[[Category:Index]]
▲[[Category:Competitive Balance]]
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