Competitive Balance: Difference between revisions

[[File:CBalance_2050.jpg|frame|Coming to a theater near you, "[[The Good, the Bad Andand Thethe 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 Onon the Fourth Wall|everything is oddly balanced]]. Weird, but true.''|'''Xykon''', ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|Order of the Stick]]'' }}

*** 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 ''[[Street Fighter II (Video Game)|Street Fighter II]]'' and his mystical "Magic Throw" and "handcuffs" glitches, not to mention his insane range and priority; Zangief could also apply, with his extremely powerful throws). Akuma, for instance, is actually fairly fragile, taking the most damage of any of the characters in most of the games where he's a standard character. This is especially prevalent in games such as [[Tekken]], where tournament play is the general focus: In [[Tekken Tag Tournament]], while Ogre and True Ogre might be bosses of death, they're still balanced enough that you can generally beat them with anyone you know how to use correctly. The only exceptions to balance appear at the lower levels of skill, where certain characters are easier to use than others (try using Guile as a beginning player, without a good grasp of charging; and after THAT, you need to learn how to do jump in combos in order to really use him).

* The plots of Type Moon's ''[[Melty Blood (Video Game)|Melty Blood]]'' [[Fighting Game|Fighting Games]] are driven by the reality-warping Night of Wallachia. This crazy phenomenon is used to justify Miyako's leap from martial arts student to prime ''[[Street Fighter]]'' candidate. More amusing is Kohaku and Hisui's transformation from simple maids into [[Martial Arts and Crafts]] masters capable of fighting [[Half-Human Hybrid|half-demons]] and ancient vampires.

* ''[[Marvel vs. Capcom]]'': On one side, you have a [[MegamanMega Man Legends|Servbot]], and on the other, you have [[The Hulk]]. Not to mention guys like Blackheart and Shuma-Gorath.

* 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 ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'''s Scout and Heavy, for instance), with classes in between (Both BF Heroes's and TF2's Soldier, arguably.)

** ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'' in particular seems so have a class for every one of these types. The Soldier is the [[Jack of All Stats]], the Scout is the [[Fragile Speedster]], the Heavy is the [[Mighty Glacier]], the Engineer is the [[Stone Wall]], the Sniper and Spy are [[Glass Cannon|Glass Cannons]], the Medic is the [[Squishy Wizard]] and Demoman and Pyro are both [[Lightning Bruiser]]. Pyro's weakness is limited range while Demo's weapons are hard to master.

* The ''[[Armored Core (Video Game)|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 Breakers]].

** [[Magic Knight]] - Chimps and porcupines can fight back if engaged at close range, and poison dart frogs [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|poison enemies on contact]].

* While ''[[Pokémon (Franchise)|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]].

* In [[One Piece (Manga)|One Piece: Unlimited Adventure for the Wii]], there exists a 2p battle mode where characters can fight each other. The game is straightforward about who is the strongest, with the character tiers being ranked from 1 to 5 -- however, the game's "competitive balance" is off. Usopp is only a 3, yet he's the only major character to have ranged attacks, close attacks, a useful "run away attack" (where he runs and drops [[Spikes of Doom]]), AND two unusually powerful ultimate attacks, making him a VERY lethal joke character if you're good enough with him and great for boss battles. We've also got [[Lightning Bruiser]] Luffy himself, who's an unmatched [[Game Breaker]] in Gear Second, and possibly the straightest [[Mighty Glacier]] EVER, Monster Chopper -- he has just 3 incredibly powerful attacks but can only walk deathly slow. Finally, while not intentional, some characters who are meant to be weak can actually deal alot of damage, making several characters a [[Glass Cannon]] (Nami, aforementioned Usopp, Chopper, Bon Clay, etc.).

* The Servants of ''[[Fate/stay Stay Nightnight]]'' 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>

* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (Tabletop Game)|Dungeons and Dragons]]'': generally clerics are stone walls, fighters are almighty glaciers, rogues are fragile speedsters, and sorcerers and wizards are squishy wizards. Outside of the four "basic" classes barbarians and monks are lightning bruisers, paladins and rangers are magic knights, and bards and druids are jacks-of-all-stats (and masters of none) to different extents. There's quite a bit of room for customization in there though.

* The four bending arts in ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender (Animation)|Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' work this way according to [[Word of God|numerous]] [[All There in the Manual|sources]].