Competitive Balance: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{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
|'''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]].▼
▲[[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''', ''[[Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|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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Note that most of these tropes have uses outside the scope of
This is especially important to encourage diversity in a game with loads of characters and different types to choose from without making all the characters just flat-out clones of each other. Not to mention from a development standpoint this is often hard to do and needs to be ''constantly'' readjusted to make sure players don't just spam the same character(s) and make almost every match a [[Mirror Match]].
{{examples
== [[Driving Game]] ==
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== [[Fighting Game]] ==
* ''[[Super Smash Bros.]], [[Street Fighter]]'', and every other [[Fighting Game]] ever.
** ''[[Street Fighter]]'' has a pretty big power gap between the low-end and high-end characters too (Akuma is capable of sinking an entire island and sending people to Hell, for example), but at least the weakest characters in those games are still stronger than the average human!
*** In game, however, there's really not all that much of a balance gap (though occasionally you get some accidentally broken characters, such as Guile in ''[[
* The plots of Type Moon's ''[[
* ''[[Marvel vs. Capcom]]'': On one side, you have a [[
* In the ''[[Deadliest Warrior]]'' game, you have Guerillas (e.g. Ninja and Apache) who can't get into a direct fight and have to use their agility to survive, Berserkers (e.g. Pirate and Viking) who have a deadly offense, but less in the way of defense, and Balanced fighters (e.g. Knight and Spartan) who can dish out a lot of damage and take it, but won't move very quickly.
== [[First
* In most [[FPS]] games with class systems, such as ''[[Battlefield Heroes]]'', sneakier and faster classes will be weaker than slower, more brutish classes (Heroes's Commando to its Gunner, and ''[[
** ''[[
== [[Third
* ''[[Monday Night Combat]]'''s six classes are pretty evenly distributed. The Assault is the [[Jack of All Stats]], being mobile but not too mobile, powerful but not too powerful, etc. The Tank is the [[Mighty Glacier]], existing to slowly plod his way through the level to the enemy base and then break stuff, which he does incredibly well. The Support is the [[Squishy Wizard]], being a combination [[The Engineer|engineer]] and [[The Medic|medic]] with some [[The Turret Master|turret and bot buffs]] thrown in. The Assassin is the [[Fragile Speedster]], having a frightening run speed and an absolutely ''brutal'' backstab attack. The Gunner is the [[Stone Wall]], designed to shred enemy players that wander too close. Finally, the Sniper is the [[Glass Cannon]], built around picking off enemies before they get into attacking range.
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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 ''[[
** 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
== [[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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** Dragonflies are [[Glass Cannon]] all the way.
** Bombardier Beetles are the [[Squishy Wizard]], but if combined with larger creatures, they can shoot poison up to 90 metres. Unlike most other ranged units, though, they don't have anything to fall back on if attacked at close range.
** [[Magic Knight]] - Chimps and porcupines can fight back if engaged at close range, and poison dart frogs [[Exactly What It Says
** [[The Ken]] - a few creatures are described as <blank> with higher stats and <ability>. Mountain lions, for example, are slightly tougher and slower cheetahs. Panthers are slightly larger cheetahs, lions are larger panthers that get bonuses for attacking in a group, etc.
** [[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 ''[[
** 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
** It's worth noting that not only are they based on stats, Tiers (at least in Gen IV) are worked out based on how resistant or weak an individual Mon is to Stealth Rock and their movepool. Pokemon like Charizard and Articuno, whilst still powerful, are considered some of the bottom of their tiers due to taking 50% damage from Stealth Rock. Although Pokemon like Moltres and Yanmega have the same degree of weakness to Rock-type attacks due to their typing, Moltres is considered as one of the top threats of its tier and it's one of the suspects (Pokemon discussed for a ban from its respective tier) of UU. Yanmega is already banned from UU. Pokemon like [[Olympus Mon|Ho-oh]] and Volcarona from Gen. V are in an entirely different class thanks to their nice movepools and appropriately-placed stats.
* ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' games have most or all of the main character types, with the challenge being creating a team that has the best mix for the current level.
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== [[Adventure Game]] ==
* In [[One Piece
=== [[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
=== [[Live-Action TV]] ===
* The multiple forms of Heisei-era [[Kamen Rider
* ''[[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 ''[[
** [[Fragile Speedster]]: Airbending
** [[Mighty Glacier]]: Earthbending
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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
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Power At a Price]]
[[Category:Useful Notes/Fighting Game]]
[[Category:Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]
[[Category:Video Game Characters]]
[[Category:
▲[[Category:Trope]]
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