Balance issues and constructive suggestions

[MUSOLINI]

personally id be more worried about bugs and glitches because of them.

[Rex Dart]

I think SNKP will definitely rebalance some of the characters in the actual XIII cast, so I'm not that worried about them. I know they will, because they are most likely to adding new characters to the game with all this time. What I'm most worried is that any of the new characters will be either OP or really weak in fear of making them OP. If this happens, I really hope SNKP puts time to make a rebalance/bug-fix patch for the new characters a few months after.

My worry is a repeat of the KOF XI console version.

That was basically a perfect console port. They added a rebalanced mode and seven extra characters. But because people didn't like all the changes they made, and some of the console-exclusive characters were over-powered, everyone just continued to play on arcade settings with arcade characters. A real waste, if you ask me. The arrange mode may have removed some of the craziness from XI, but I do think it was more balanced overall.

By the way, SNK's big Kula nerf for XI arrange was:

"The range on Crow Bites is decreased. Suffers from longer start-up and the opponent can now quick recover from it."

Which I wouldn't mind seeing in XIII's console version. If nothing else, her long crow bites (DC) EX ray spin combos should be corner-only.

[SilverPhoenix]

This question is coming from a somewhat ignorant perspective about KoFXIII's balance, so please bear with me?

What would be easier overall? Nerfing, Buffing, or is the best option a combination of both? Because if it is the latter, then maybe the conversation shouldn't be concentrated on just depowering the top tiers, but on how to powering up everyone who needs it?

Of course, I'm also not naive enough to believe that optimal (not perfect) balance is easy, but I think striving towards it would be a worthwhile experiment. Even if the game needs multiple patches.

Just my 22 cents. If I'm thinking about this in the wrong way, it'll be a great eye-opener to know why.

[DarKaoZ]

This question is coming from a somewhat ignorant perspective about KoFXIII's balance, so please bear with me?

What would be easier overall? Nerfing, Buffing, or is the best option a combination of both? Because if it is the latter, then maybe the conversation shouldn't be concentrated on just depowering the top tiers, but on how to powering up everyone who needs it?

Of course, I'm also not naive enough to believe that optimal (not perfect) balance is easy, but I think striving towards it would be a worthwhile experiment. Even if the game needs multiple patches.

Just my 22 cents. If I'm thinking about this in the wrong way, it'll be a great eye-opener to know why.

Well there been both talks of Nerfing the top (Elizabeth, Raiden, K and Kula) just a notch to bring them from their S tier to A tier. Then we have also discussed buffing some characters damage or adding some extra moves to bring them up the tier list a bit (Vice, Goro, Terry, Clark and maybe others), some of these characters just need 1 more move added to their moveset to help them out better.

I might not be the best to talk about this, since I have yet to play the game, but this is what I have seen based on players feedbacks and videos.

[Rex Dart]

This question is coming from a somewhat ignorant perspective about KoFXIII's balance, so please bear with me?

What would be easier overall? Nerfing, Buffing, or is the best option a combination of both? Because if it is the latter, then maybe the conversation shouldn't be concentrated on just depowering the top tiers, but on how to powering up everyone who needs it?

Of course, I'm also not naive enough to believe that optimal (not perfect) balance is easy, but I think striving towards it would be a worthwhile experiment. Even if the game needs multiple patches.

Just my 22 cents. If I'm thinking about this in the wrong way, it'll be a great eye-opener to know why.

The easiest thing for SNK to do would be to do nothing. I'd be disappointed, and I think the game may suffer for it in the long-term, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. Recent Japanese matches featured some Goro and K' fights (i.e. bottom-tier vs. top-tier). While Goro was mostly out-matched, he was at least able to keep up with K'. In competent hands, every character has potential.

The next easiest thing would be to simply nerf the S+ tier: K' and Raiden. What would be even better would be if they could tone down the S- tier: Kula and Elizabeth. If they did that, in my opinion, it would be the most balanced KOF ever.

Personally, I'm against adding moves for the home version. Of course, some of the lower-tier characters could benefit from them, but even one move, if poorly balanced, can radically change the game (i.e. the drop kicks). I'd prefer the console version to be a refinement, not a reinvention.

[arstal]

I think the best policy is to nerf the top tier

buff/nerf combo characters who aren't top tier, but have an over-reliance on really lame gimmicks (these chars are rare- SF4 Gen with his comboing and not a whole lot else might be a good example of such a character)

buff the lower-mid and below chars.

[solidshark]

The easiest thing for SNK to do would be to do nothing. I'd be disappointed, and I think the game may suffer for it in the long-term, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. Recent Japanese matches featured some Goro and K' fights (i.e. bottom-tier vs. top-tier). While Goro was mostly out-matched, he was at least able to keep up with K'. In competent hands, every character has potential.

As things stand, I'm more for this. Letting the players who use the cast versatily balance things out by exposing everyone's potential. My goal for instance is to take Hwa Jai up a few pegs; hopefully I can show some things that will make more people take notice.

[Eripio69]

As I mentioned in another thread no balance should be made on K', liz, Kula etc cause other tiers will just rise. If they nerf K', Kula and Liz I am 100000% sure that people will start complaining about shen. The only one who needs to be fixed is raiden cause he is broken.

[MUSOLINI]

you dont seem to understand jhon, shen, iori and kyo are ok as high tiers as they dont matter that much. k & them are too overpowered. theres a difference between high tier and just being plain wrong and too damn overpowered. andf thats what the top 4 represent, theyre just too damn much.

[jinxhand]

I don't think they should do anything just yet. Sure, there are some really strong characters, but they're beatable, and I personally don't think that people are really willing to try and figure that out themselves... It's like the top tier characters in any other game, they might be damn near impossible to beat, but its not impossible to beat them...

Just wait out on the whole balancing act-- at least til after console release.

[t3h mAsTarOth...!]

K' and Raiden as characters are fine... just nerf drop kicks... Raiden doesn't even need drop kicks to be a good character... and for K' just make some of his moves a bit more unsafe... like Narrow Spike and f+D follow-up from Iron Trigger... so he at least thinks before throwing out moves...

[Remzi]

Nerf the fireball that K' has, reduce the priority. It's sort of stupid when you can combo out of 236C into 2B.
Raiden needs a dropkick and tackle nerf, along with his 6321463214 command grab, which can grab you out of absolutely ANYTHING on reaction.

And, reduce the generalized damage output for those two characters. They'd still be extremely high damage, and extremely flexible.

[Kane317]

...along with his 6321463214 command grab, which can grab you out of absolutely ANYTHING on reaction.

It's a standard "kof" grab DM, nothing wrong with it IMO.

[Homies Over Shotos]

Nerf Raiden so his drop kick only does half the damage it normally does and make it so it needs to be EX'd to do a double Drop kick.  That way I can do this to all the raiden players.  Hell remove a hell of priority from Elizabeth and K' so I can really do this everywhere I go.

[MUSOLINI]

...along with his 6321463214 command grab, which can grab you out of absolutely ANYTHING on reaction.

It's a standard "kof" grab DM, nothing wrong with it IMO.

indeed, no reason to take the kof out of kof, lol. try dp'ing, he wont grab you out of it.