Random food for thought question about fighting games in comparison to other competitive genres.
I've been playing fighting games for a long time, and gotten pretty decent at them.
One of the things I've noticed however, as someone who plays a lot of PvP oriented games, is that they rarely even encroach on having both deep and balanced gameplay, even rivaling a random movie spinoff fighting game, or most obscure fighting games.
What do I mean by that?
Well take some recent examples I've played Dark and Darker, Hunt Showdown, For Honor, and more; I've put 1000s of hours into these games and they all have glaringly HUMONGOUS like planet size balance issues.
Dark and Darker for example rogues at high elo will wait behind doors in stealth anywhere from 5-15 minutes waiting for a solo to pass by, and that backstab for an insta-kill or near one (2 hits) with no counterplay.
Theres loads of unbalanced builds, and strats that keep you from even playing the game.
Hunt Showdown high elo is just camping and never moving holding an angle for 20+ minutes.
I'm not going to go into more detail but my question is why do competitive games suffer from so much design balance issues, while random literal who fighting games; while having unfair characters and broken shit, never encroach anywhere near that trajectory?
I dont get how players who primarily play fightan, or even arena fps, and RTS can "branch out" to these random competitive games and redflags cannot be shooting off in their head about how disgusting the gameplay and balance is. Maybe its just me.

TL;DR

>>715894958
The tldr is why are random nobody fighting games so well balanced, and competitively designed to popular mainstream comp games like hunt showdown, dark and darker, for honor, ect.

I love Tooru so much it's unreal

>>715894907 (OP)
Because some players are not fighting gamers some are just pvp players. I play alot of pvp games and alot are indeed broken. But compared to the time and energy it take to get good at a fighting game id rather play the unbalanced game for a bit.

Though i do think some games pass my limit for bullshit like dead by daylight is gross for anyone who has not played the game for 10 years and no im not fucking playing yugioh

>>715894907 (OP)
wut. Dude fighting games and RTS are infamously poorly balanced.

I meant Jobin but somehow I typed Tooru instead. This must be some form of calamity.

>>715895357
cool stand design, awful character

>>715895349
Dead by Daylight is an interesting example, because I was going to bring that game up to.
For the first 70% of the games life cycle it was disgustingly unbalanced in favor of survivors, to the point one could waste an entire killers time from start to finish if played correctly, withholding nurse.
The games gotten a lot better but its still an unballanced mess, albeit having a pretty high skill ceiling.

>>715895493
filtered

>>715895350
If you think that relative to the aforementioned comp games you have no idea what the hell you are talking about, if you mean what they could be under idealistic circumstances than I'll throw you a bone.

JoJo stops being good after part 7

I typed up a long explanation for why other games are so imbalanced, but then I remembered that unless there's a meta that's so overbearing that the entire game revolves around it, balance does not matter as long as it's still fun
Johnathan best Jojo

>>715895621
Fuck up retard, you've clearly never played heritage for the future, 3rd strike, any KOF or brood war.

why did ASBR have to die bros
why can’t anime game just have good netcode

>>715896367
You're resorting to non-starter arguments that have nothing to do what I'm talking about.

fighting games are extremely balanced compared to the other games you listed because both players are in the same position as each other at almost all times, with the exception of the ever present corners (which arcsys seems to want to destroy for some reason between Strive and Tokon and then Strive still somehow exacerbate the issue)
of course there is still the fact that each character has different kits, obviously some of them are stronger than others, but current devs especially have an obligation to make sure characters have sufficient universal tools or certain ways to deal with mega bullshit. you'll find when there's no way to deal with something reliably or if player agency gets stripped out that fighting game players will get extra loud about it, like with Tekken 8 Season 2

>>715896472
all of that is true, but even obscure fighting games seem to do balance 100x better than mainstream comp games. Also add to the fact that fightan games will always be asymmetrical in nature, yet are better balanced than comp games more symmetrical than them.

>>715896449
Because you're just rambling, you have no argument or evidence

>>715895513
>For the first 70% of the games life cycle it was disgustingly unbalanced in favor of survivors
Has it gotten any better? How survivor sided is the game currently? Do SWFs still dominate with literally nothing the killer can do about it?

>>715894907 (OP)
a pvp game like tarkov has major balance issues (spawns especially), is highly competitive, but doesn't suffer from the rank issue like Hunt showdown (or Tekken even), where people do the same shit over and over to try to win, making the game unfun unless you win.

Counter strike and call of duty used to be competitive without those ranked modes. People's obsession with ranking now ruined pvp games and introduced more cheaters, even in fighting games.

I wouldn't go as far as to say ranked modes ruined fighting games but some games don't need extreme balance if the game provides more options in gameplay style, possibilities for unique scenarios, or rapid changes in meta (to avoid everyone picking one character for eternity)

>>715894907 (OP)
because balance≠fun and the average player is, by definition not experiencing these games at a high level. this is the same reason why pretty much all the most popular fighting games had severe balance issues but still massively eclipsed more fundamentally well designed games
also for a battle royale or extraction game, the unfairness is partially the point, that is you're going into a dog eat dog world and managing to come out even with the odds stacked against you. also unfairness is better for ego shielding because it lets casuals brush of losses rather than being constantly exposed by pure skill & knowledge checks
>>715901649
fighting games were never designed to be mmr grindfests, they were designed to be played against a small handful of friends or regulars at your arcade. ranked mode was a band aid to compensate for the loss of locals but the vast majority of complaints people have about fighting games are actually just complaints about ranked

Part 9 is so much better than the pile of shit that part 8 was it's honestly not even funny just sad

>>715896878
Fighting games just have way fewer variables to deal with than other genres
You're comparing 1v1 games with no customization beyond your character choice and moment to moment gameplay decisions, that all follow roughly the same gameplay template for decades, to games with lots of build options and that have to be designed around both coordinated team play and random pubs

>>715902985
>balance≠fun
While this is true, poor balance doesn't automatically equal fun either
Poor balance just leaves the competitive viability of the game up to chance, either the game ends up brilliant or completely unplayable trash, people just cherry pick the few evergreen titles

>>715903721
Basically balance isn't necessarily the issue so much as games that become worse the higher the level of play becomes

>>715903057
It's "better" but I wouldn't say much. The cast are all straight-up despicable and the plot is still rock nonsense just in a different flavor.

>>715904448
I would empty my balls in Dragona's femboy butthole thoughever

>>715904448
>The cast are all straight-up despicable
They're already an objectively much better main cast than part 8, 6 and 4's, even if their designs are a bit stupid. Unless you're unironically moralfagging over their status as petty criminals in which case that's just silly

>>715905221
>>715904448
>>715903057
How does Part 7 compare to 8 and 9

>>715906186
It's very often considered to be the best part in the franchise, so a lot better.

Shooters suck.

>>715906186
It's the best one

Next game, he's locked in.

>>715895258
>Tooru
You mean Jobber

>>715906186
way better

>>715906186
GO!GO!

>>715906484
you suck

>>715895173
Well it's easier to design balance when most factors are simple to begin with. Even from a location based example, most fighters do not do anything unique with stages, tending to leave them as backgrounds for the most part, with only MK, Tekken, DOA and a couple others, mostly 3D fighters experimenting.

That also leads into discussion that because everyone is forced into an equal playing field, everyone can perform to the best of their abilities without worrying about if something gets in the way or hinders their progress. Because most time something blocks you or gets in your way, that's a tool the other player used well rather than a natural occurrence that impeded you unfairly.

And whilst there is examples of unbalanced fighters, Kusoge, even bad matchups in well balanced fighters can be mismatched based on simple design strengths and weaknesses that adds variety. Whilst there are examples of strats that can be toxic to deal with for some characters, alot of the time, it's a players lack of knowledge or skill that is the deciding factor on how to deal with those problems.

It also helps that as you said, some games can kill in 1 or 2 hits, whilst there are fighters that can kill in 2 combos or less, you still have to put in the work and knowledge to memorize and pull off combos in situations on the fly. This mixed with strong defense in fighters, compared to other games lacking it almost entirely, leads to fighters being strong learning tools for not rushing and carefully watching what your opponent does.

because barely anyone gives a shit about fighting games in the modern sense, the only ones that take off are the ones made by companies that have been doing this song and dance for decades and generally have a semblance of balance to start, and get refined. When there's a big balance issue (see:tekken 8) the game implodes. What was an insanely popular return to popularity for a dwindling franchise got fucking kneecapped because they decided to introduce a bunch of extremely imbalanced fagshit.

The anime arena fighters have never, are not, and will never be balanced, they're not DESIGNED to be. They're just fun fanservice-y romps. You can see it really well in sparking zero (despite the other issues with content), and the naruto games.
naruto has a long legacy of it's games having infinites and shit. narutimate hero 1-3 had shino exploits, 4/5 had deidara exploits, the PSP games had itachi tsukiyomi combos, UNS had sakura in 1, deidara/shino in 2, IA flicks (for infinite awakening meter at 0 cost for eligible characters, including resets to allow infinites) in 3, generations was a total mess, 4 was actually pretty good from what I remember but I didn't play it near as much as 3.

Jojo HFTF is literally one of the most infamously busted anime fighters, there are multiple characters that are straight up loaded to the gills with infinites or broken hitboxes, to a point no tournament lets you play petshop, but it's still popular because you can just ban that character and have fun with the rest.

Modern "competitive games" are usually not competitive for the fun of competition, but for money, and that imparts a LOT more severity, minmaxing, and that cultivates a different community that demands a lot more.

But imbalance exists everywhere, you're just only seeing games where people take it too seriously and minmax the fun out of a potentially B tier game. Fighting games are never that popular and tend not to see it as bad, though make no mistake, it is there.

>>715905221
>objectively much better main cast than part 8, 6 and 4's
How can anyone come to this conclusion? They're ugly and their motivation sucks.