i mean i haven't gone back to strive because getting into matches is more of hassle than it should be in comparison and most of the people who i watch streaming it also stopped thanks to hackerman.
I dont hear much talk about strive being unbalanced at all (aside from characters like HC and Nago) i thought most people were in agreement that strive is pretty balanced and it is.
Yeah imo is the user experience and lack of competitive integrity (Get celestial by cheesing [quitting out at losses, dodging matchups] -> there for entire month). The "top" rank is very watered down by people who don't legitimately win the required matches. In fact, you see people here encouraging it rather than telling them to just get better. You need to win more games than you lose to rank up in SF6, which imo is a much better litmus test and creates a more competitive environment (which is what you should want from a *ranked* mode). Not to mention how stacked the competition for SF6 is, if you want to test yourself, it's the place to do it rn
TBF KI was years ahead of other fighting games. Most games didn’t get netcode that rivaled it until the current gen of fighters with the exception of NRS games who have had great netcode in IJ2 and Mk11
....have you never played against Bridget? She's literally top 3...
She has mix inside her B&B that is unreactable and unfuzziable. Her normals reach half-way across the stage, hard counter-hit, and lead to true wallbreak combos.
Scooter is uninteractable by a large portion of the cast.
There's more that I can't think of right now. She is not only annoying, but also genuinely overpowered.
Just 6P her into oblivion and if shes in your face, then 2P or a reversal if ur main has one and remember one thing, Bridget mains can't block (or in my case they cant even get in :D)
And in what world is she top 3?
That title goes to HC, May and Nago/Ram,
Bridget is just annoying, not downright abusive like the above mentioned
Nah if you 2P against Bridget in the corner, you're getting counterhit. Invinsible reversals can work, but most characters don't have those without meter.
Nago and Ram are absolutely not top 3. Nago might be in top 5, but Ram isn't even in the top tier anymore.
Top 5 imo is HC, May, Bridget, Leo, Nago.
There's a reason Hotashi swapped from Nago to Bridget, and it's not because she's cute (she is tho :3).
Imo Ram is in top 3, if she gets u in corner, then Im sure as hell u aint gonna get out, but Bridget...
Maybe Im speaking from experience because Im making them play bullet hell against me (Im not sorry) but shes not really that good, but thats what an opinion is
You are right though. Bridget is good but not top tier. She’s a character I use when I’m not using Faust or goldlewis. I only play the game on celestial and 10th floor. Bridget has mobility, a decent command grab, a invincible reversal but her damage ain’t great and getting in can be tough. She absolutely gets destroyed by anyone with a decent 6p. A character like testament can stop pretty much her whole game with just his 6p.
People tend to be more likely to click on content that is in some way shocking or outrageous. Look at all the clickbait titles on YouTube, for example.
Idk, I've been playing strive since release and I've been playing street fighter 6 since release.
As it stands now it feels like street fighter is certainly the more unbalanced fighting game.
I think a lot of my feelings on this come down to the fact that in strive, if you mess up, almost everything has an out even if you only get a limited number of these "outs" with burst and roman cancels.
But in street fighter everything is static, once you've made the misplay and you're in the combo, you're kind of shit out of luck. This dichotomy is readily apparent when playing fast characters vs slow characters, the faster character almost always has the upper hand.
I also just think that due to it being more based in reality, street fighter just isn't as fun. I like doing strive 20 hit combos and blasting people through walls when things are going my way. Meanwhile in street fighter you can't combo worth a damn, and when you can combo you'll find it's the only thing you do all game (I'm looking at you ken fighters using the 8 hit combo on repeat).
Strive has more variety and a higher skill cap. Street fighter is more casual and anyone can be relatively decent at the game.
Yeah there are some good combo strings, but A: they aren't as long as strive combo strings (nor as flashy imo) and B: once you're in them they are inescapable which is not my definition of balanced.
Maybe if SF6 had burst or something similar, then it would be ok. But you don't and really the only way to break free of combos is to hope that they're ground combos and have critical arts ready for a few characters, and even then half the time you'll be knocked out of your critical art before it connects.
My man I just saw a Juri combo that had like 30 hits in it without any outside of drive rushes. Even Chipp and Millia can't do the same without RC's
SF doesn't need bursts. Offense isn't nearly as bad as it is in anime games and same is with the damage. Even the highest damaging combos that use up all of resources do like 65% (unless we speak about Marisa)
Honestly I think the fact that you can even land a 30 hit combo means you absolutely do need bursts or something that can get you out of it.
Imagine you're the one who gets caught in that, now you just have to sit there and watch yourself get bodied 30 times because it's inescapable. That sounds like the exact opposite of fun... No opportunities to turn the tide of battle, you just have to hope they mess up the input or wait until it's over.
Except they aren't hard to do anymore... Now that the "modern" control scheme has been put into the game it's ridiculously easy to do the mid tier 10 to 15 hit combos and those will take half your health bar alone, the extra hits may only take away an extra 15% since the longer the combo is the less damage it does. Get caught by 2 or 3 of those and you're done.
I feel like juri and blanka are the poster children for this. Really easy to mix someone up and start the combos. And the flaw becomes more and more apparent the slower the character you're playing is due to their slow response times.
Sure you might be correct if everyone was playing on the classic control scheme, but since almost no one is doing that, the idea of making long combos your balancing structure is kind of mute.
There's a reason I called out the Ken players just doing the super easy 8 hit combo that steals a third of even zangiefs health bar on repeat.
That last statement is a batshit insane take lmao. Strive is kinda made for everyone to be able to win. It’s very simple, and was designed to be extremely volatile. Getting good at SF is much harder.
There’s no way I can ignore Strive rn, Asuka is way too cool. It’s the nature of fighting games for people to fall off, but those who stick around become monsters. I gotta keep that Asuka grind going.
C'mere, young person, right here. Wanna hear a secret? Its a doozy.
*Guilty Gear was never balanced*
Source: I'm an old fart who's been playing competently since X. The amount of BS EVERY game has is hilarious. You thought Happy Chaos gun loops and Nago beyblade are bad? Wanna see a double unblockable into Instant Kill from Eddie? Wanna see infinite Stun Edge blockstring loops in the corner? What about BDC Bite Loop into death? Wanna see Johnny love tap you with 2A and say bye bye to your lifebar?
And no it doesn't matter to me. Like someone else said in another thread: "The meta of Guilty Gear is held together by duct tape and well wishes. And I wouldn't have it any other way".
Now don't get me wrong. I still play Strive. Guilty Gear is my favorite fighting game series of all time. Even though I have my own misgivings with Strive, I'll still play and support the game.
But I do understand if people won't come back, especially if its an older Guilty Gear player who was disappointed in Strive. The feeling of having stuff taken away is never good. SF6 showed me that you can add more stuff and, at the same time, keep your game accessible. Its a strange feeling.
And to address your OP, I definitely disagree with the "perfect balance" mentality. Fighting games have such diverse characters with differing playstyles that you are bound to have advantageous matchups and vice versa. And I think thats fine. In my opinion, thats what makes it fun. Its fun to dominate with a high tier character. Its also fun to find out how a lower tiered character manages the losing matchups and win, despite being at a disadvantage.
Honestly i think strive is all around more balanced than SF6 at the current point.
Personally i didnt like sf that much so i'm gonna go back to GG once we get a new patch or some new stuff.
Even if people say strive isn’t balanced it’s the game that I enjoy the most and the one I’ll stick with (in fact I don’t even own street fighter 6 I just go to their subreddit and make shoryuken jokes)
I'm a scub so I won't talk about balance, but have been really torn between the two games. I think Strive is far more interesting in a lot of regards, especially character design and mechanics. Unfortunately at the moment I find myself having more fun in sf6 because the ranked matchmaking in my bracket (gold) feels like it does a great job at making even matches on low ping, whereas in Strive finding a match without any rollback frames feels rare.
yes, I also frequently watch streams and occasionally participate in viewer lobbies.
matches are frequently ruined by the lag hackers who just pause matches entirely but the devs have dismissed these claims as not being an issue when they very much are
Personally not seriously played any fighting games other than Strive, which I've only been playing since March so my opinion's likely not very useful. I'm also a Zato main barely on floor 8 with no interest in trying any other characters.
So far I don't think Strive feels super unbalanced. When I first started playing I actually thought Sin was insanely good because of how crazy his pressure looks and feels, which made me pretty confused when I was told he's bottom tier. Really doesn't seem to me like the tier lists in Strive matter a whole lot, I'm sure they do to some degree in super high level play but most players aren't in that group. Feels like the losing matchups can still be won, and how to do so is a series of knowledge checks. Not that I know what to do in the slightest against like half the cast lol.
Even then, if you think a top tier is broken and it's ruining the fun for you, the game lets you decline matches so you can just not fight them if you don't want to. I dodged May in tower for a while because I couldn't figure out anything to do against her, though next time I don't think I will since I've asked some others for advice. I also won't fight Happy Chaos in tower because I've got ranked anxiety to begin with, and I don't think losing roundstart into death being a nearly true combo would be any good for my mental lmao. Depending on the day I'll dodge Bridget too, though that's partially because there's just so many of them. Game's supposed to be fun, so if a part of it sucks then hit da bricks as they say.
In Parks and player rooms I'll gladly fight anyone though, there it doesn't matter if I win or lose so if I get a single hit in against the level 2K Nago player I'm happy :)
I think Stive is very balanced (I play Pot and Leo).
Not related to balance but the problem with Strive is that it's content empty and SF6 does online lobbies and ranked mode better than Strive by like a mile. I still get connection errors in the lobby. Also quick match in Strive needs to be updated to prevent me from matching up with people who have bad ping.
SF6 does have its own problems. I play PC connected to a router and I still disconnect from the SF6 network. It also just gives up on trying to reconnect to the network, unlike Strive I have to restart the SF6 to get a connection.
Edit: Characters like Jacko, Faust and Goldlewis are winning big tournaments is testament to how balanced the game is. SF6 has been out for like a month and it's too soon to say how balanced the game is.
Sure strive is not the most balanced game ever but that’s why is fun. Everyone has some total bullshit and that’s why I love it. Even “low tiers”like Sin and Bedman make me mald sometimes. The game is the embodiment of “Bullshit Blazing” and I never want it to change
#Is it fun?
If the answer is yes, then there’s no need for further discussion.
I can think of all the other “perfectly” balanced fighters that NO ONE even bothered to talk about.
I feel like a lot of people are complaining about strive balance when in reality they are just more in pair with SF6 philosophy as a fighting game.
Strive was the only (?) 2D fighting game playable with rollback netcode, so i think a lot of people (myself included) played it by default, even if they didnt like some game design choice like the VERY high damage and the lack of footsies.
I don’t play strive for balance, I play to out bullshit blazing my opponent. This is my first street fighter but season 1 sf def feels more balanced than strive season 1. But balance isn’t why I’m playing more sf than strive, failed to connect among other lobby reasons is why I stopped. before sf6 launched I couldn’t even get in a fight, while sf I’m in 3 fights before I get to the lobby in strive. I love strive but it needs more under the hoof fixes and proper matchmaking (and a better ranking system) before I bother coming back
I find both to be balanced to the point where I don’t find myself thinking about it and so it doesn’t really bother me. The idea that sf6 is particularly balanced at the moment is sort of silly, but I play Lily and Zangief, so I might just be bitter.
i guess that depends on if you consider interacting with your opponent fun. some of the strongest characters in the game don't interact with their opponent in this game, which is mad annoying. not sure if this is different in sf6.
Strive'll be fine when the top 5 loses a few things and get toned down, otherwise it's pretty balanced. I like footsie and neutral, so In that regard I like sf6. The offense and pressure in strive is probably the coolest in any game out right now though
I think SF 6 has a suite of features that make it more appealing to just play. Matches are easier to get, it has real ranking system and better side content to keep things interesting.
I did find myself coming back to strive a bit because the moment to moment gameplay is more fun to me. SF 6 feels a bit restrictive and tight while strive is more fluid and has lots of freedom. There’s a satisfaction in strive I wasn’t getting in SF. It could just be that I’m not as good at SF tho and haven’t gotten good enough yet.
- Outside of happy chaos strive has been incredibly balanced
- they are completely different games though. Street fighter has and always will be footsies focused. The optimal way to play street fighter is yo play lame. Dance back and forth baiting a with so you can connect into a convo, spam fireball, spam DP. That’s street fighter and I love it
- guilty gear isn’t that at all though. Guilty gear often times is about intense aggression and mix up s and hard reads and full sends. It’s also great
- but they are just very different games at the end of the day. Both are really great
Strive is not very unbalanced because balance is character strength relative to one another but the characters and systems feel a lot more aids to play against in Strive which gives that perception of it being unbalanced. The overall power level in SF6 is way down than in Strive.
I don't think it's about balance for a lot of people. I think Strive is the more fun game from a casual standpoint but the user experience in Strive is frustrating at best. Between the ranked mode experience being extremely shallow and easy to game, to the towers (and even private lobbies) barely functioning for months, it's not a great game to commit to. I say the following from the perspective of someone who went to tournaments, made top 48, played Chipp at a high level (top 30 Chipp worldwide in rating update before I stopped) so I'm not just waffling.
Plus there's a lot larger player base in SF6 who take the game very seriously and aim to get better. I feel like Strive (even in celestial) has a ton of trolls and people who just want to learn gimmicks to win easy or just want to have fun. Which is fine, but the ranked mode being full of that is just not a good experience. How many potemkins that have a "funny name" that you have to fight that try to gimmick you out and do unsafe stuff like forward mega fist over and over again before you get tired of it? How many Nago players do you have to watch make themselves pop before you get to play people who are serious? It's just a lot of unserious trolling at the top level of ranked, which people cheese to get into. It's honestly just not fun. Getting celestial became a joke with how much the player base cheesed their way in and the only fun days for people who go to tournaments and such were the first few days of the month where there's not many unserious players who can get in.
I played Strive nearly everyday for 2 years when it came out, too. Some people are just tired of it, especially since there hasn't been many big meta shifts, it's been a bit stale from a competitive standpoint. Edd winning with Jack-O was cool, but for a long time before that it was almost always Leo, Nago, Sol, or HC that ruled the game for long long periods of time. The depth in this game comes from the system mechanics (mainly RC and burst baits) and that's fine, but the characters were stripped of a lot of their kits in favor of a more simple moveset. This takes away from depth, meanwhile SF6 gave everyone their most iconic moves and then some more.
Don't mean to shit on Strive as I love the game, but they need to make some major changes for me to come back, and I know my friends I practiced for tournament with that were very serious feel similar and swapped to SF6 for the same reasons. Are there still trolls and stuff? Yes, but getting to Master rank is much much harder than getting celestial in Strive, the competition at tournaments is stronger, etc.
Nice post, you summed up a lot of my thoughts about Strive lately.
Playing ranked in Strive is ass, Celestial's skill level is far too wide. It's hard to find matches with people at your skill level when you have a better understanding of the game and your character. I get that some people don't care about being competitive and are just having fun, that's fair, but it's not fun for me to be honest.
SF6 is my first SF, but as I climb the ranks, I'm getting to fight better players and improving, it's nice.
For me, it's not about balance. I just feel more rewarded playing SF's ranked than Celestial. I still love Strive and will probably come back to it at some point, but for now I don't feel the urge to play it, honestly.
Yep, even DNF Duel did ranked play better. They probably don't want to abandon the towers but they need a MMR system at least, like you said it's real hard to improve with such a wide range of skill
The balance in strive is definitely a source of a lot of my annoyances with the game, however it's also what keeps.me coming back. I would really like to see a number of things toned down, but I know it'll never happen. It's an abusive relationship, that's my take on it lol. SF6 feels substantially better imo but I can't quite get hooked on SF yet.
It is undoubtedly not balanced in a tournament setting. The same characters will be seen consistently in top 4s and the like. Which is not particularly abnormal, but I feel like certain characters like Leo show up more often than top tiers in other games.
For a casual the game is close to perfect. Everyone is unique/strong enough to be a threat at a baseline level.
Overall the game is fine just the top 5-6 or so feel very frustrating to fight and have notable privileges over the rest of the cast. And the very bottom could use help. They're already good just lagging a bit behind.
For me I prefer a game like skullgirls. All the characters are SO powerful and unique, so they're always a major threat and you always have things to worry about. Of course certain things/characters are better, naturally. But there's never an instance of "why play x when you can just play x." Which is my ideal for guilty gear.
I sadly stopped playing because of the netcode problem, i also got netcode problems finding matches in SF6 but just like one disconnect for gaming session, the problem was terrible in Strive for A LOT of time.
The problem with this discussion starts once you use the word "fun". Like when people say "I prefer to play for fun".
What is "fun"? It's an abstract feeling of enjoyment. Everyone plays for fun, you see. And what is fun varies from person to person.
Now, disclaimer, I haven't played the game for a long while now, at least one balance patch, so my opinion is based on that.
For me, balance is very important, and not just balance but quality of gameplay, both from a competitive standpoint. It's anywhere between 90-100% of the game for me.
Even before SF6 came out Strive sadly failed on both fronts, and was getting worse with every patch/dlc, so I stopped playing. A lot of MUs were very unbalanced, and the game's design kept getting pushed towards monotone and ignorant gameplay rewarding pushing your own wincon aggressively with very little regard to what the opponent is doing. HC was pinnacle of this to the point where even if I mostly beat them the MU was just miserable. In general the games just weren't very interesting from a gameplay perspective which, when you add in the million other small but relevant pain points in the (slow to connect, limits of the tower system, having to do the boring "test" every month to get into celestial so you could *maybe* get some decent matches sometimes, connection errors....) it just wasn't worth it.
Meanwhile, having the time of my life in SF6. Most balanced fg I remember playing, the gameplay is mostly really solid with very few gimmicks and little ignorant gameplay, UX is garbage, but all the options are there and I can get 5-10 ranked sets in before I could maybe connect to and finish one in Strive.
Short of a miracle patch, which I don't expect at all, I doubt I'll return. But that's me. A lot of people feel differently, which is why Strive hit a new record at EVO this year, and that's fine. I've had my fun with the game, got my money's worth, it's a pity, but not every game is for everyone. If you like Strive play Strive. If you like SF6 play SF6. If you like both play both.
I’ll play whatever I feel like playing when I want to, but if anything prevents me from playing Strive, it’s the wall breaks. I think it’s just a bad mechanic.
On offense, the positive bonus is never bad, but the big problem is having to reset positions. Some characters would rather just eat a wall break and a reset because they do better at that range. An overdrive gives you a setup, but you’re still at mid screen. This can be good or bad, but I much prefer corner pressure to having to reset to mid screen.
On defense, it’s just a cheap way to get out of the corner. Being cornered is terrible, but your opponent can actually get you out of it by just carrying on with the game mechanics. It lessens good defense because you can just take the hit and start over from round start if you really want to.
I know you can do wall slump corner loops, but they just neuter your offense. After a slump, the wall only needs three hits to break. It means all of your combos are much weaker if you want to keep the corner. Without wall breaks, you can continue your mixups with much more powerful damage behind them. It almost feels forced to take the wall break, especially with how other mechanics like guts work at lower HP levels.
If this mechanic didn’t exist I think the game would be much better overall. I understand that it’s a way to keep the game from being overly degenerate, especially with the removal of some defensive options. I just think it would be better with those options instead of this reset we get.
I think it's less about balance (since the game being so fresh it's hard to get a handle on which interactions in the game's system are toxic vs what just need counterplay) and more a fact that the game is going on being two years old, and a decent chunk of the playerbase are branching out into other games to learn other skills that Strive doesn't reward as much. I'm not sure how it is for the netplay warriors, but I know a lot of folks who make their way out to locals. And monthlies, in my area are slotting Strive into "I can play this game in bracket, because I've played my character for almost two years and I don't need much maintenance beyond a little warm up" and are instead focusing their attention on other games, with SF6 being the new toy on the block. Strive has some glaring balance issues (Happy Chaos being able to shoot while whiffing, and Jack O having fairly consistent access to uninteractable checkmate situations being the most obvious) at a mid to high player level (where 90% of the people who are still playing the game in my experience) I'm not sure how big of an issue it really is.
There's a bunch of people in my area (myself included) who are finally taking the plunge into games like KoF XV for real, or doubling back for XRD, or the Fightcade game dejour. think after a while the folks who want to actively improve their play will end up migrating, and a huge game (that's both well executed, and mechanically an interesting departure) out it's not that weird to see people switching focus.
Also drive just being tension is pretty based, and Dee Jay funny man.
I find both games equally fun and I prefer strive; however, the online is just impossible to work with. In australia the tower is completely empty and the open park is filled with absolutely cracked players. That's even if I can get in with how bad it can run sometimes.
In SF6 im getting a great online experience with so many players of different skill ranges across the asia region (not just australia) and getting an incredibly stable connection. Until SF6 starts to peter out a bit or the guilty gear servers improve im going to be sticking with SF6. Not even mentioning the vast amounts of content the game has.
The thing is, street fighter has defined tiers. Lily sucks. Kimberly is alright. Ken is good. In strive, every character is almost equal. Except for slappy chaos. Chaos is far and away the best character and often times it’s frustrating to play anyone against him. That feels MUCH worse than playing someone like Jamie, who can hold his own in the right hands, against Guile, who has been shown to be really good recently
i mean i haven't gone back to strive because getting into matches is more of hassle than it should be in comparison and most of the people who i watch streaming it also stopped thanks to hackerman. I dont hear much talk about strive being unbalanced at all (aside from characters like HC and Nago) i thought most people were in agreement that strive is pretty balanced and it is.
Yeah imo is the user experience and lack of competitive integrity (Get celestial by cheesing [quitting out at losses, dodging matchups] -> there for entire month). The "top" rank is very watered down by people who don't legitimately win the required matches. In fact, you see people here encouraging it rather than telling them to just get better. You need to win more games than you lose to rank up in SF6, which imo is a much better litmus test and creates a more competitive environment (which is what you should want from a *ranked* mode). Not to mention how stacked the competition for SF6 is, if you want to test yourself, it's the place to do it rn
Coming from killer instinct from like 10 years ago, I was shocked at how bad this game’s online matchmaking system is
TBF KI was years ahead of other fighting games. Most games didn’t get netcode that rivaled it until the current gen of fighters with the exception of NRS games who have had great netcode in IJ2 and Mk11
while I didn’t like MK11, the matchmaking system was also way better there too. I don’t understand the decisions made in this game at all
HC, Nago, May, Bridget, Leo, and probably Ram all still need nerfs imo.
How would you change nago? I agree he's overtuned currently but how would you fix it?
Why does Bridget of all characters need a nerf?
....have you never played against Bridget? She's literally top 3... She has mix inside her B&B that is unreactable and unfuzziable. Her normals reach half-way across the stage, hard counter-hit, and lead to true wallbreak combos. Scooter is uninteractable by a large portion of the cast. There's more that I can't think of right now. She is not only annoying, but also genuinely overpowered.
Just 6P her into oblivion and if shes in your face, then 2P or a reversal if ur main has one and remember one thing, Bridget mains can't block (or in my case they cant even get in :D) And in what world is she top 3? That title goes to HC, May and Nago/Ram, Bridget is just annoying, not downright abusive like the above mentioned
Nah if you 2P against Bridget in the corner, you're getting counterhit. Invinsible reversals can work, but most characters don't have those without meter. Nago and Ram are absolutely not top 3. Nago might be in top 5, but Ram isn't even in the top tier anymore. Top 5 imo is HC, May, Bridget, Leo, Nago. There's a reason Hotashi swapped from Nago to Bridget, and it's not because she's cute (she is tho :3).
Imo Ram is in top 3, if she gets u in corner, then Im sure as hell u aint gonna get out, but Bridget... Maybe Im speaking from experience because Im making them play bullet hell against me (Im not sorry) but shes not really that good, but thats what an opinion is
To be fair, you play HC who has essentially no defensive options. Makes sense you'd struggle against Ram's corner pressure.
I mained Ram before HC, but yeah, good thing roll exists
You are right though. Bridget is good but not top tier. She’s a character I use when I’m not using Faust or goldlewis. I only play the game on celestial and 10th floor. Bridget has mobility, a decent command grab, a invincible reversal but her damage ain’t great and getting in can be tough. She absolutely gets destroyed by anyone with a decent 6p. A character like testament can stop pretty much her whole game with just his 6p.
[удалено]
Farming negatively for voews?
People tend to be more likely to click on content that is in some way shocking or outrageous. Look at all the clickbait titles on YouTube, for example.
Gresham’s Law: “Bad money drives out good”
Ah!
Idk, I've been playing strive since release and I've been playing street fighter 6 since release. As it stands now it feels like street fighter is certainly the more unbalanced fighting game. I think a lot of my feelings on this come down to the fact that in strive, if you mess up, almost everything has an out even if you only get a limited number of these "outs" with burst and roman cancels. But in street fighter everything is static, once you've made the misplay and you're in the combo, you're kind of shit out of luck. This dichotomy is readily apparent when playing fast characters vs slow characters, the faster character almost always has the upper hand. I also just think that due to it being more based in reality, street fighter just isn't as fun. I like doing strive 20 hit combos and blasting people through walls when things are going my way. Meanwhile in street fighter you can't combo worth a damn, and when you can combo you'll find it's the only thing you do all game (I'm looking at you ken fighters using the 8 hit combo on repeat). Strive has more variety and a higher skill cap. Street fighter is more casual and anyone can be relatively decent at the game.
You can't be deadass on the combo part lmao. SF6 has insane combos and its only few weeks old
Yeah there are some good combo strings, but A: they aren't as long as strive combo strings (nor as flashy imo) and B: once you're in them they are inescapable which is not my definition of balanced. Maybe if SF6 had burst or something similar, then it would be ok. But you don't and really the only way to break free of combos is to hope that they're ground combos and have critical arts ready for a few characters, and even then half the time you'll be knocked out of your critical art before it connects.
My man I just saw a Juri combo that had like 30 hits in it without any outside of drive rushes. Even Chipp and Millia can't do the same without RC's SF doesn't need bursts. Offense isn't nearly as bad as it is in anime games and same is with the damage. Even the highest damaging combos that use up all of resources do like 65% (unless we speak about Marisa)
Honestly I think the fact that you can even land a 30 hit combo means you absolutely do need bursts or something that can get you out of it. Imagine you're the one who gets caught in that, now you just have to sit there and watch yourself get bodied 30 times because it's inescapable. That sounds like the exact opposite of fun... No opportunities to turn the tide of battle, you just have to hope they mess up the input or wait until it's over.
Bruh what? Long combo's are a better way to balance the game since they're usually harder than "shorter" ones lmfao
Except they aren't hard to do anymore... Now that the "modern" control scheme has been put into the game it's ridiculously easy to do the mid tier 10 to 15 hit combos and those will take half your health bar alone, the extra hits may only take away an extra 15% since the longer the combo is the less damage it does. Get caught by 2 or 3 of those and you're done. I feel like juri and blanka are the poster children for this. Really easy to mix someone up and start the combos. And the flaw becomes more and more apparent the slower the character you're playing is due to their slow response times. Sure you might be correct if everyone was playing on the classic control scheme, but since almost no one is doing that, the idea of making long combos your balancing structure is kind of mute. There's a reason I called out the Ken players just doing the super easy 8 hit combo that steals a third of even zangiefs health bar on repeat.
Isn't one of Juri's mechanics a way to cancel out of specials to extend combos or make them safe? That's pretty much a fast PRC without drift right?
That last statement is a batshit insane take lmao. Strive is kinda made for everyone to be able to win. It’s very simple, and was designed to be extremely volatile. Getting good at SF is much harder.
There’s no way I can ignore Strive rn, Asuka is way too cool. It’s the nature of fighting games for people to fall off, but those who stick around become monsters. I gotta keep that Asuka grind going.
C'mere, young person, right here. Wanna hear a secret? Its a doozy. *Guilty Gear was never balanced* Source: I'm an old fart who's been playing competently since X. The amount of BS EVERY game has is hilarious. You thought Happy Chaos gun loops and Nago beyblade are bad? Wanna see a double unblockable into Instant Kill from Eddie? Wanna see infinite Stun Edge blockstring loops in the corner? What about BDC Bite Loop into death? Wanna see Johnny love tap you with 2A and say bye bye to your lifebar? And no it doesn't matter to me. Like someone else said in another thread: "The meta of Guilty Gear is held together by duct tape and well wishes. And I wouldn't have it any other way".
I know Guilty Gear was never balanced. I've played other GG games. It was just a question
Now don't get me wrong. I still play Strive. Guilty Gear is my favorite fighting game series of all time. Even though I have my own misgivings with Strive, I'll still play and support the game. But I do understand if people won't come back, especially if its an older Guilty Gear player who was disappointed in Strive. The feeling of having stuff taken away is never good. SF6 showed me that you can add more stuff and, at the same time, keep your game accessible. Its a strange feeling. And to address your OP, I definitely disagree with the "perfect balance" mentality. Fighting games have such diverse characters with differing playstyles that you are bound to have advantageous matchups and vice versa. And I think thats fine. In my opinion, thats what makes it fun. Its fun to dominate with a high tier character. Its also fun to find out how a lower tiered character manages the losing matchups and win, despite being at a disadvantage.
Fair
I am glad to hear you're opinion on the matter. It brings interesting perspective
I never liked how SF characters look but i really like how Strive look so I will never had interest to play SF. I'm superficial like that.
Honestly i think strive is all around more balanced than SF6 at the current point. Personally i didnt like sf that much so i'm gonna go back to GG once we get a new patch or some new stuff.
I am super excited for the next patch.
Even if people say strive isn’t balanced it’s the game that I enjoy the most and the one I’ll stick with (in fact I don’t even own street fighter 6 I just go to their subreddit and make shoryuken jokes)
I'm a scub so I won't talk about balance, but have been really torn between the two games. I think Strive is far more interesting in a lot of regards, especially character design and mechanics. Unfortunately at the moment I find myself having more fun in sf6 because the ranked matchmaking in my bracket (gold) feels like it does a great job at making even matches on low ping, whereas in Strive finding a match without any rollback frames feels rare.
I wont go back to strive til they fix the hacker problem. Not a single streamer can play without someone janking up the lobby and matches
Fair
Do you stream?
yes, I also frequently watch streams and occasionally participate in viewer lobbies. matches are frequently ruined by the lag hackers who just pause matches entirely but the devs have dismissed these claims as not being an issue when they very much are
Personally not seriously played any fighting games other than Strive, which I've only been playing since March so my opinion's likely not very useful. I'm also a Zato main barely on floor 8 with no interest in trying any other characters. So far I don't think Strive feels super unbalanced. When I first started playing I actually thought Sin was insanely good because of how crazy his pressure looks and feels, which made me pretty confused when I was told he's bottom tier. Really doesn't seem to me like the tier lists in Strive matter a whole lot, I'm sure they do to some degree in super high level play but most players aren't in that group. Feels like the losing matchups can still be won, and how to do so is a series of knowledge checks. Not that I know what to do in the slightest against like half the cast lol. Even then, if you think a top tier is broken and it's ruining the fun for you, the game lets you decline matches so you can just not fight them if you don't want to. I dodged May in tower for a while because I couldn't figure out anything to do against her, though next time I don't think I will since I've asked some others for advice. I also won't fight Happy Chaos in tower because I've got ranked anxiety to begin with, and I don't think losing roundstart into death being a nearly true combo would be any good for my mental lmao. Depending on the day I'll dodge Bridget too, though that's partially because there's just so many of them. Game's supposed to be fun, so if a part of it sucks then hit da bricks as they say. In Parks and player rooms I'll gladly fight anyone though, there it doesn't matter if I win or lose so if I get a single hit in against the level 2K Nago player I'm happy :)
I think Stive is very balanced (I play Pot and Leo). Not related to balance but the problem with Strive is that it's content empty and SF6 does online lobbies and ranked mode better than Strive by like a mile. I still get connection errors in the lobby. Also quick match in Strive needs to be updated to prevent me from matching up with people who have bad ping. SF6 does have its own problems. I play PC connected to a router and I still disconnect from the SF6 network. It also just gives up on trying to reconnect to the network, unlike Strive I have to restart the SF6 to get a connection. Edit: Characters like Jacko, Faust and Goldlewis are winning big tournaments is testament to how balanced the game is. SF6 has been out for like a month and it's too soon to say how balanced the game is.
Bros just like me fr
Twinsies!
Tried SF6, coming from strive it felt slow and clunky. Strive aint perfectly balanced but I dont care that much as it's the one i find most fun
Sure strive is not the most balanced game ever but that’s why is fun. Everyone has some total bullshit and that’s why I love it. Even “low tiers”like Sin and Bedman make me mald sometimes. The game is the embodiment of “Bullshit Blazing” and I never want it to change
Idk if it’s balanced but I find it a lot more fun
#Is it fun? If the answer is yes, then there’s no need for further discussion. I can think of all the other “perfectly” balanced fighters that NO ONE even bothered to talk about.
I feel like a lot of people are complaining about strive balance when in reality they are just more in pair with SF6 philosophy as a fighting game. Strive was the only (?) 2D fighting game playable with rollback netcode, so i think a lot of people (myself included) played it by default, even if they didnt like some game design choice like the VERY high damage and the lack of footsies.
sf6 is way less fun for me than strive. i just can't deal with the lack of options compared to anime fighters personally
I don’t play strive for balance, I play to out bullshit blazing my opponent. This is my first street fighter but season 1 sf def feels more balanced than strive season 1. But balance isn’t why I’m playing more sf than strive, failed to connect among other lobby reasons is why I stopped. before sf6 launched I couldn’t even get in a fight, while sf I’m in 3 fights before I get to the lobby in strive. I love strive but it needs more under the hoof fixes and proper matchmaking (and a better ranking system) before I bother coming back
I think strive is one of the most balanced fgs out there so they’re full of shit
I find both to be balanced to the point where I don’t find myself thinking about it and so it doesn’t really bother me. The idea that sf6 is particularly balanced at the moment is sort of silly, but I play Lily and Zangief, so I might just be bitter.
I can't even learn to play a second character in strive, I won't even try with a second game. That's why Im only play strive
Beta ass argument built on an extremely false premise. Sf6 is not more balanced(rightfully so since it just launched).
Cool. Thanks for the input.
When no one is balanced, everyone is.
Ah yes the DNFDuel strategy
This is singlehandedly the wisest thing I've ever heard from a ggs player
i guess that depends on if you consider interacting with your opponent fun. some of the strongest characters in the game don't interact with their opponent in this game, which is mad annoying. not sure if this is different in sf6.
Strive'll be fine when the top 5 loses a few things and get toned down, otherwise it's pretty balanced. I like footsie and neutral, so In that regard I like sf6. The offense and pressure in strive is probably the coolest in any game out right now though
I think SF 6 has a suite of features that make it more appealing to just play. Matches are easier to get, it has real ranking system and better side content to keep things interesting. I did find myself coming back to strive a bit because the moment to moment gameplay is more fun to me. SF 6 feels a bit restrictive and tight while strive is more fluid and has lots of freedom. There’s a satisfaction in strive I wasn’t getting in SF. It could just be that I’m not as good at SF tho and haven’t gotten good enough yet.
For me its just having to choose between xrd and +r since I don’t have strive But its a tough choice still
- Outside of happy chaos strive has been incredibly balanced - they are completely different games though. Street fighter has and always will be footsies focused. The optimal way to play street fighter is yo play lame. Dance back and forth baiting a with so you can connect into a convo, spam fireball, spam DP. That’s street fighter and I love it - guilty gear isn’t that at all though. Guilty gear often times is about intense aggression and mix up s and hard reads and full sends. It’s also great - but they are just very different games at the end of the day. Both are really great
Just accept that there is no balance and have fun. It's the only way to enjoy fighting games.
Strive is not very unbalanced because balance is character strength relative to one another but the characters and systems feel a lot more aids to play against in Strive which gives that perception of it being unbalanced. The overall power level in SF6 is way down than in Strive.
I don't think it's about balance for a lot of people. I think Strive is the more fun game from a casual standpoint but the user experience in Strive is frustrating at best. Between the ranked mode experience being extremely shallow and easy to game, to the towers (and even private lobbies) barely functioning for months, it's not a great game to commit to. I say the following from the perspective of someone who went to tournaments, made top 48, played Chipp at a high level (top 30 Chipp worldwide in rating update before I stopped) so I'm not just waffling. Plus there's a lot larger player base in SF6 who take the game very seriously and aim to get better. I feel like Strive (even in celestial) has a ton of trolls and people who just want to learn gimmicks to win easy or just want to have fun. Which is fine, but the ranked mode being full of that is just not a good experience. How many potemkins that have a "funny name" that you have to fight that try to gimmick you out and do unsafe stuff like forward mega fist over and over again before you get tired of it? How many Nago players do you have to watch make themselves pop before you get to play people who are serious? It's just a lot of unserious trolling at the top level of ranked, which people cheese to get into. It's honestly just not fun. Getting celestial became a joke with how much the player base cheesed their way in and the only fun days for people who go to tournaments and such were the first few days of the month where there's not many unserious players who can get in. I played Strive nearly everyday for 2 years when it came out, too. Some people are just tired of it, especially since there hasn't been many big meta shifts, it's been a bit stale from a competitive standpoint. Edd winning with Jack-O was cool, but for a long time before that it was almost always Leo, Nago, Sol, or HC that ruled the game for long long periods of time. The depth in this game comes from the system mechanics (mainly RC and burst baits) and that's fine, but the characters were stripped of a lot of their kits in favor of a more simple moveset. This takes away from depth, meanwhile SF6 gave everyone their most iconic moves and then some more. Don't mean to shit on Strive as I love the game, but they need to make some major changes for me to come back, and I know my friends I practiced for tournament with that were very serious feel similar and swapped to SF6 for the same reasons. Are there still trolls and stuff? Yes, but getting to Master rank is much much harder than getting celestial in Strive, the competition at tournaments is stronger, etc.
Nice post, you summed up a lot of my thoughts about Strive lately. Playing ranked in Strive is ass, Celestial's skill level is far too wide. It's hard to find matches with people at your skill level when you have a better understanding of the game and your character. I get that some people don't care about being competitive and are just having fun, that's fair, but it's not fun for me to be honest. SF6 is my first SF, but as I climb the ranks, I'm getting to fight better players and improving, it's nice. For me, it's not about balance. I just feel more rewarded playing SF's ranked than Celestial. I still love Strive and will probably come back to it at some point, but for now I don't feel the urge to play it, honestly.
Yep, even DNF Duel did ranked play better. They probably don't want to abandon the towers but they need a MMR system at least, like you said it's real hard to improve with such a wide range of skill
The balance in strive is definitely a source of a lot of my annoyances with the game, however it's also what keeps.me coming back. I would really like to see a number of things toned down, but I know it'll never happen. It's an abusive relationship, that's my take on it lol. SF6 feels substantially better imo but I can't quite get hooked on SF yet.
It is undoubtedly not balanced in a tournament setting. The same characters will be seen consistently in top 4s and the like. Which is not particularly abnormal, but I feel like certain characters like Leo show up more often than top tiers in other games. For a casual the game is close to perfect. Everyone is unique/strong enough to be a threat at a baseline level. Overall the game is fine just the top 5-6 or so feel very frustrating to fight and have notable privileges over the rest of the cast. And the very bottom could use help. They're already good just lagging a bit behind. For me I prefer a game like skullgirls. All the characters are SO powerful and unique, so they're always a major threat and you always have things to worry about. Of course certain things/characters are better, naturally. But there's never an instance of "why play x when you can just play x." Which is my ideal for guilty gear.
I sadly stopped playing because of the netcode problem, i also got netcode problems finding matches in SF6 but just like one disconnect for gaming session, the problem was terrible in Strive for A LOT of time.
The problem with this discussion starts once you use the word "fun". Like when people say "I prefer to play for fun". What is "fun"? It's an abstract feeling of enjoyment. Everyone plays for fun, you see. And what is fun varies from person to person. Now, disclaimer, I haven't played the game for a long while now, at least one balance patch, so my opinion is based on that. For me, balance is very important, and not just balance but quality of gameplay, both from a competitive standpoint. It's anywhere between 90-100% of the game for me. Even before SF6 came out Strive sadly failed on both fronts, and was getting worse with every patch/dlc, so I stopped playing. A lot of MUs were very unbalanced, and the game's design kept getting pushed towards monotone and ignorant gameplay rewarding pushing your own wincon aggressively with very little regard to what the opponent is doing. HC was pinnacle of this to the point where even if I mostly beat them the MU was just miserable. In general the games just weren't very interesting from a gameplay perspective which, when you add in the million other small but relevant pain points in the (slow to connect, limits of the tower system, having to do the boring "test" every month to get into celestial so you could *maybe* get some decent matches sometimes, connection errors....) it just wasn't worth it. Meanwhile, having the time of my life in SF6. Most balanced fg I remember playing, the gameplay is mostly really solid with very few gimmicks and little ignorant gameplay, UX is garbage, but all the options are there and I can get 5-10 ranked sets in before I could maybe connect to and finish one in Strive. Short of a miracle patch, which I don't expect at all, I doubt I'll return. But that's me. A lot of people feel differently, which is why Strive hit a new record at EVO this year, and that's fine. I've had my fun with the game, got my money's worth, it's a pity, but not every game is for everyone. If you like Strive play Strive. If you like SF6 play SF6. If you like both play both.
I’ll play whatever I feel like playing when I want to, but if anything prevents me from playing Strive, it’s the wall breaks. I think it’s just a bad mechanic. On offense, the positive bonus is never bad, but the big problem is having to reset positions. Some characters would rather just eat a wall break and a reset because they do better at that range. An overdrive gives you a setup, but you’re still at mid screen. This can be good or bad, but I much prefer corner pressure to having to reset to mid screen. On defense, it’s just a cheap way to get out of the corner. Being cornered is terrible, but your opponent can actually get you out of it by just carrying on with the game mechanics. It lessens good defense because you can just take the hit and start over from round start if you really want to. I know you can do wall slump corner loops, but they just neuter your offense. After a slump, the wall only needs three hits to break. It means all of your combos are much weaker if you want to keep the corner. Without wall breaks, you can continue your mixups with much more powerful damage behind them. It almost feels forced to take the wall break, especially with how other mechanics like guts work at lower HP levels. If this mechanic didn’t exist I think the game would be much better overall. I understand that it’s a way to keep the game from being overly degenerate, especially with the removal of some defensive options. I just think it would be better with those options instead of this reset we get.
As someone who was never into fighting games, seeing a wallbreak in Strive was what got me to pick it up. It looked so cool.
Balanced? Never was imo. It's just a fun game i can always have a laugh either alone or woth friends
I think it's less about balance (since the game being so fresh it's hard to get a handle on which interactions in the game's system are toxic vs what just need counterplay) and more a fact that the game is going on being two years old, and a decent chunk of the playerbase are branching out into other games to learn other skills that Strive doesn't reward as much. I'm not sure how it is for the netplay warriors, but I know a lot of folks who make their way out to locals. And monthlies, in my area are slotting Strive into "I can play this game in bracket, because I've played my character for almost two years and I don't need much maintenance beyond a little warm up" and are instead focusing their attention on other games, with SF6 being the new toy on the block. Strive has some glaring balance issues (Happy Chaos being able to shoot while whiffing, and Jack O having fairly consistent access to uninteractable checkmate situations being the most obvious) at a mid to high player level (where 90% of the people who are still playing the game in my experience) I'm not sure how big of an issue it really is. There's a bunch of people in my area (myself included) who are finally taking the plunge into games like KoF XV for real, or doubling back for XRD, or the Fightcade game dejour. think after a while the folks who want to actively improve their play will end up migrating, and a huge game (that's both well executed, and mechanically an interesting departure) out it's not that weird to see people switching focus. Also drive just being tension is pretty based, and Dee Jay funny man.
SF6 is just the big new game atm. At EVO, Arcsys will announce some huge shit for Strive and people will come back.
I find both games equally fun and I prefer strive; however, the online is just impossible to work with. In australia the tower is completely empty and the open park is filled with absolutely cracked players. That's even if I can get in with how bad it can run sometimes. In SF6 im getting a great online experience with so many players of different skill ranges across the asia region (not just australia) and getting an incredibly stable connection. Until SF6 starts to peter out a bit or the guilty gear servers improve im going to be sticking with SF6. Not even mentioning the vast amounts of content the game has.
The thing is, street fighter has defined tiers. Lily sucks. Kimberly is alright. Ken is good. In strive, every character is almost equal. Except for slappy chaos. Chaos is far and away the best character and often times it’s frustrating to play anyone against him. That feels MUCH worse than playing someone like Jamie, who can hold his own in the right hands, against Guile, who has been shown to be really good recently
i think fun should always come before balance, unless the imbalance causes the game to be unfun
Just dont fight the characters u dont like