Fuzzy Camel Chews On: Balance

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Cade: welcome everyone to the fuzzy camel. chews on game design podcast. Our first episode I'm Cade.

Kristoff: And I am Kristoff.

Cade: And we are fuzzy Camel studios currently working on ozone a party game about octopuses. and this is our new podcast. So we're going to be talking about game design, different topics within game design, different games, our opinions on them, our ideas. Our hot takes perhaps too. And we'll just be discussing all of these things that we are pretty passionate about and pretty interested in.

so it should be a good time, just deep diving into games and what goes on behind the scenes, to make them fun. today's topic, we're going to be chewing on. Balance. this is something that I've been thinking about a lot recently. actually, and I know we've talked about it a bit already, Christophe, but in particular, we've been playing a lot of super smash bros melee with, the rolling out of slipping net play, which is roll back.

NetCode, which has really just revolutionized the way that people play the game, but [00:01:00] it's also brought a lot of attention towards it. And I think it's an interesting, kind of case of balance. And I just want to take a deep dive into it. but first off, balance predates Malay, by a lot by, or rather Malay net play by a lot, bounce has been a topic for a long time.

I'm sure there's. countless examples of games where balance has been a big focus, anything from card games, like Hearthstone, or magic, the gathering, to MOBAs like league of legends and Dota to RTS is like StarCraft or Warcraft. and anything in between balances, always a topic. Whenever you have people, especially when people are competing against each other, really is when it really comes into the limelight.

But people are just obsessed with balance and, I'm sure, some examples of it as well, Christoph, but stuff like people using the term, Oop or tearless, people online just seem to be fascinated by balance.

Kristoff: I completely agree with that. I think a long with tearless or Oop, you, a common phrase you hear is buff or Nerf, and that's in the context [00:02:00] of often in making something either stronger or weaker. My character is not doing as much damage. I feel weak compared to my friend. I want to perform better, but I can't because my class isn't balanced properly.

There's a lot of excuses that I don't know if excuses is the right word, but there's a lot of situations where characters aren't satisfied with how they are performing. And a lot of times they attribute that to the game. And I think that's an interesting discussion to have, because. The cases, a lot of the cases that you just described in my mind describe competitive games.

These are games where typically you have a player versus another player, and the intent is to win. You mentioned StarCraft, you mentioned Hearthstone. You mentioned league, you mentioned melee. Players wants to feel as though they can beat the other player. I think something that a lot of people don't acknowledge that they should is [00:03:00] the fact as to why they play video games in the first place.

And something really unique about video games compared to normal sports is how video games give people an equal playing field. Let's use super smash brothers melee. As an example, I can pick Fox. And the person next to me, the person next to me can also pick Fox. We can have the same skillset, the same abilities, the same capabilities, and it all comes down to execution in real life.

I'm always going to be six, two, and an NBA player is always going to be seven foot. there's a clear discrepancy in terms of what I can do and what he can do. Whereas in video games, people like to feel as though they're equal to other people, which is where I think balance comes into effect, especially with competitive games.

Cade: Yeah, I think that's super true. definitely. I think that also gets back to something else that I was thinking about, which is the people along with having just the general fascination and interest at balance. it was also being really interested in finding the best possible options in [00:04:00] any given game.

Now that could be characters, it could be weapon choice, or cards or decks, or the class you play if it's like Hearthstone. but the people really want to find those best options because, I think that is what can give you that leg up. And there's a lot of games too, where not only is it execution based, but I'm very strategic.

And part of that strategy is picking your options and being smart about which ones you use. sometimes that can devolve into just tearless, which I would argue are not the most strategic. Thing in the world, but some more nuanced examples can be like decks, in a card game where it's a little less clear cut necessarily.

there's not generally like dactylitis, at least as far as I'm aware, whereas there is more with like character choices in some games, but. All that is to say, I think that people really care in video games about trying to find the best option. And people are really interested in who is the best character, even if people don't play that character, people want to know, or they want to be able to say for sure, [00:05:00] who is the best, I think in games where it's less clear, I think that people can get frustrated with that or.

Or just blatantly go in the face of it and say that there is a best character, even the known agrees, or making like some kind of hot take like that. I think people like those extremes, they like to know as best I like to know is worse than that. It's just it gives people a bit of a compass when they're playing a game.

but that brings me to my main point and what I mainly want to discuss today, not to digress too much. But I really in particular, focusing in on a subset of the games you're talking about, and we can zoom back out and talk about, more genres as well. But for this specific example, I've been thinking a lot about, three games in particular.

ultimate. Which has a really big cast overall pretty well balanced as a lot of characters and, in most TLS listed to mid tier, For whatever that's worth. there's a lot of characters that people see as high to your characters. A lot of characters are quote, unquote viable, meaning that they can actually compete.

And big tournaments and at pro levels, overall, very balanced. And [00:06:00] if you're playing with your friends casually, you'll probably never notice a character being worse than another one that maybe that's going a little too far, but I genuinely believe it's pretty much all scale at that point, Malay, which I would say that's less the case.

There's definitely a big, discrepancy and the strength of the characters, a character like Bowzer. Is basically seen as a meme for being so bad, whereas a character like Fox is like the epitome of a strong character in a game, to a lot of people. And then rivals is the other one I wanted to talk about, which I think is ultra balanced.

you sometimes see people call out specific characters in that game for being bad, but overall the community doesn't really seem to agree on that too much. And there isn't really any agreed upon tier list either. And people in that community actually don't even seem very interested. In tearless, I've seen a lot of people from that community.

Talk about there being no value because of how balanced the game is.

Kristoff: Yeah. And that's rivals of eight there just in case anybody doesn't [00:07:00] know what rivals

Cade: Oh, Dan, I'd say the full name. I thought I

Kristoff: I think you said, I think it's all right. It's all good. I. I understand you. one thing I want to notice that you pointed out is you mentioned the term casual and we've been talking a lot about competitive, and I think there is a clear divide in terms of the experience you're going to get, depending on which version of the game you play.

Yes. Super smash brothers, ultimate competitive and super smash brothers. Ultimate casual to me are two different games. Oftentimes with competitive, the, the rule sets change, right? So when a lot of fighting games, for example, the stages, the tools that you can use, they change. For example, there's no items.

That's a big thing that Nintendo has been putting into a lot of the recent fighting games and super smash brothers. To note recently, and you can't even use that aspect of the game. One of the jokes that I have when we play the game is that we play the most boring version of the game. I'm a big, [00:08:00] I play a lot of the competitive side of melee and super smash brothers.

And a lot of times it's the same thing over and over again, without much variation. And it's designed to be that way so that people can have that level playing field, which we're talking about. When you talk about casual balance is a pretty different beast. I would say. That my, if I was to design a casual game, casual meaning outcome doesn't really matter.

The stakes aren't that high. Maybe it's a bit of a shorter game, less mechanics. It's more designed for kind of the overall player, rather than the most skill intensive player I would design around fun and not around basically the complexity of mechanics or the. a common word used in game design is homogenization meaning kind of the equal capabilities of talking about a character.

So I wouldn't want to have all my characters be able to do the same thing. I would want people to do different things and it's okay. If person X is different than person Y and a whole host of different ways, as long as they're [00:09:00] fun. That's what I think the, Oh, go on.

Cade: That actually segues really well into what I wanted to talk about for the most part for this episode. before I get into that one little note, I want to add too. When I mentioned casual, I actually meant more, like casual. competitive, like the kind of ultimate that we play, where we do play with competitive rule set, but we're just playing at home.

It's not like we're competing at a super major level or anything like that. I think that there is like those three tiers where there is the people who play completely casually and are probably ignorant that approa scene exists. There's the people who play like us who are more competitive.

But, still casual skill level wise, like w we're better than the complete casuals, but not as good as the professionals. and then, true competitive. and that actually segues me into my main point. Were you gonna say something first?

Kristoff: Nope. I just think you did a good job, distinct to find the different tiers in terms of how a game can be played. Like I said, it's the same game, [00:10:00] but ultimately it's actually, there's actually many different experiences that you can get based on your mindset, who you're playing with while you're playing the game where you're playing the game.

There's a lot of different factors outside the game, which influence the game itself.

Cade: Yeah, absolutely. that's so true. And that's something I feel like, especially with a multiplayer game, you can never take away. Like you can never take away that aspect of whether you're like trying really hard, sweating quote unquote, or, Playing just cheerly for fun. I really don't care.

there's so many factors that go into that you have no control over as a game designer, I think, which is another very interesting topic for another time. but my main idea that I've been postulating theorizing about, recently playing melee and I've just been fascinated by this.

I think it's such a cool discussion to have, and it's hard right before I go into this, I would do want to say game balance is difficult. And even with me trying to say, I think I have a particular opinion on how game balance should be done. It doesn't mean that I necessarily could even execute on it, as a person.

And it's still very [00:11:00] hard within games, even if you know what you're going for, it can still be hard. Like even if you are trying to make every single character equal skill or equal strength levels, it's still very hard to actually execute that. but my general argument and what I want to pose and, get Kristoff's feedback, on and.

Have a further discussion on is, Basically my opinion on game balance. So this comes back to what a lot of people say about tearless and stuff. When a character is seen as really bad. And I think a really strong example of this, that I'm going to return to a few times, this little Mac and, smash brothers, ultimate.

who is it? For anyone who is unfamiliar with that game, it was basically seen as like the worst character in the game by a decent margin. sure. There's other bad characters, but people always listed him as the worst. and he's seen as completely unbiased, in any competitive sense, some people have done okay with him, but he's never going to win any significant tournament, or even generally smaller tournaments as well as seen as a pretty bad character.

and People usually complain about [00:12:00] this, right? There's a lot of people on Reddit or other places online who, when they see to your list, criticizing Nintendo or call out Nintendo, for having such a bad character, come on into no buff, this character, I want little Mac to be better or a patch comes out and they don't buff him.

And people are like, Oh, great. little max bottom tier again, what are you doing? Nintendo? Just fix the character. He's clearly bad. Just fix them. there's probably more going on here that I'm getting at, but I think this is true with me. The games, just replaced with whatever the volunteer characters in another game.

same situation, or if it's not a character, if it's a gun, whatever it may be. and people see that as a bad thing, people want every character to be equal skill level. Equally, if there's a character that's really good. people hate that, like a really extreme version of that as Mehta night, in bra and super smash brothers brawl, who was a character that was so good that, the vast majority of pro players played him.

cause he was that good. and That obviously is probably not a very good example of game balance, but people see that is a negative thing. And that's [00:13:00] basically my point, like when there's a disparity and strength level, people see that as a bad thing. My whole theory, that I took 10 minutes just not to get to, is that okay?

Every character does not need to be equally good for a game to be well balanced. and I actually think that having, discipline and those strengths strength levels also does not make a game poorly balanced. and again, obviously within reason, if you have a med nights situation, And it's actively making people have less fun because that's the only character you can even play in the game.

then that's probably too far. but I actually do think that there's a strong case to be made for characters being better than other characters. and I have a few points I want to run through on that. I have a few reasons why I think that's the case, but before I do, I just want to hear your initial thoughts, Krista, what do you think about, there being a reason to have certain characters better than other ones, certain characters, worse than other ones and actively trying to make that the case, or at least not over [00:14:00] worrying about making them all equal.

Kristoff: Yeah. So I think that's a, I think that's a really good, kind of synopsis on what you think. I actually tend to agree and before our audience overreacts or hates me for us, I want to give you a good example. So Kate mentioned Metta Knight and little Mac. I want to mention one of my favorite characters.

And all the smash bros and Nintendo. And that's the Luigi. So for you guys who haven't played the games before, Luigi is essentially a monster, a complete monster on the stage. Okay. Let me tell you this man is a terror. You do not want to get near him and melee. He slides around and ultimately shoots you with the vacuum.

Okay. Now the second you get him off the stage, he turns into a wimp. Like he cannot do anything. He's very good in the sense that. He's slow. He's floating, meaning he's in the air for a longer amount of time. And he doesn't have as many tools as a lot of other characters do. Now, as you just heard me say, he has really high highs and he also has really low lows.

He's not balanced in the sense that other characters [00:15:00] are better than him on the stage and are better than him off the stage. That's just a fact. But to me, the reason why I like Luigi and this can be shown with other characters as well. Is because he has really clearly defined strengths and weaknesses.

He has a personality. He's fun to play. He's got cool. cool gameplay. That's it's a little bit of a niche I would say. And it doesn't matter to me if he doesn't do as much damage as somebody else. If my combos are as good or if I'm better than someone else. To me. I like to, it depends how I feel while I play that character.

Now, another character which I play in super smash brothers, ultimate exclusively is Luciana. Luciana. Luciana is a, what you would call a kind of a cookie cutter character, an all well-rounded character. Who's the opposite in as Luigi in the sense that she's good at everything. Everything she has is good.

And I also like playing her because I do like the feeling that she gives me when I play her. I don't feel guilt in the sense that I'm not as good as someone else. And that's where the [00:16:00] interesting point in balance comes in. Because as I said earlier, having this kind of a sense of equal opportunity or equal capability as another person does feel good, but I don't think that's it's, I don't think it's essential.

And I don't think you should design for that because I think it's impractical, if not impossible to do that. And as you mentioned with rivals of eighth or specifically, a lot of characters lose their unique value, the more you make them similar to one another.

Cade: yeah.

Kristoff: If every character can do the same thing, then no characters really doing anything.

You know what I mean? I want each character. If I was designing, I would do my best, my absolute best to give them some sort of sauce or some sort of special component, which makes them interesting. A good example is in Malay, Falco shoots these lasers and one of the lasers do they stunned people. It makes them really good on the stage and you can shoot people off the stage to interrupt them.

Luigi's really slighty. Picchu is really small. Bowser's really big, these certain things that you can twist, there's little knobs that you can twist and turn that are more than just, [00:17:00] okay, do they have a good recovery? Can they hit really hard? Do they die? Are they hard to kill? You know what I mean?

I it's really hard to do that. And the second you do that, every character starts to look the same.

Cade: And that's actually one of my main points that I wanted to talk about. I'm glad you hit on it. And specifically with rivals of ether, which to clarify, it was a game that I enjoy and I think it's a good game. but I do think that there is a strong case to be made that those characters feel a lot more similar to each other than especially ultimate.

which is a game as of recently, this year is fighter pass, which is their DLC, characters that they've been releasing are off the charts. Unique. these are characters that literally break the fundamental gameplay mechanics of the game to be so unique. It's mind blowing what the developers are willing to do.

cute recent example, being Minecraft, Steve being added to the game and actually being able to place blocks. you can mind the stage to get resources, to build new tools, [00:18:00] and a number of other things relating to that, but doing things that no other character has ever been able to do, and they actually had to completely rework how their stages are programmed to even accompany that character.

That's how different it was. They had to completely go through all of them, which is mind blowing. And it created so many bugs in the game that they've released like four patches now. Fixing them, which is funny, but, that's just one example and there's been several other characters I won't get into that also do very similar things, insanely uniquely in that game.

And you can really tell in that game that Minecraft, Steve feels different than Luigi or Luciana like very different. there's no way. You could even do the same stuff. you get your muscle memory built up. You learn with a certain character in that game. Oh, I want to use this move in this situation.

Oh, they're off stage. I really like to use down there, which is a type of in, smash brothers, on them when they're off stage. And that works really well for me when your sister on their character and, and, smash brothers. That [00:19:00] probably won't work anymore. There's a very good chance that won't work anymore.

There are exceptions with characters that are similar, but for the most part, like it was such a reminder of Steve and you're really used to using his anvil, which is down there. And then you play Luigi and use his down air. It's going to be very different, right? Like they have completely different properties and it probably won't work in the same situations necessarily.

Whereas with rivals of ether, I think that's actually not true. I think that a lot of those situations will actually be the same. Now, if you're playing very high-level competitively, I'm sure that's not the case. Every character has their own combos, but what it does lead to is this feeling where you can do the same thing and a lot of situations, no matter what character you're playing and it's really easy to switch between them, but it also makes you feel less attached to a character.

I think even with each of us, each of our friends who play that game, having characters, we prefer. I would bet that none of us feel super loyal to any of those characters, as much as you do to Luigi and smashed by this because you identify so strongly with that gameplay.

[00:20:00] Kristoff: I, I agree with that. And. I want to clarify as well. I enjoy rivals of ether. I think the gameplay is fine. I'm not trying to bash the game at all. I think it's a well-made game. I just think the characters blend in for me. And if I were to make a game as we are doing ozone right now, one of our goals is to make the characters do the same thing ish.

And what do I mean by that? It's interesting. in terms of what a character can do and how he, how they look and like what they can do in terms of making it the same or different, depending on what genre of game you're playing melee, for example is often like a competitive fighter. It's pretty hardcore.

It's very technical, very fast. Whereas the game like ozone. Which is a party game meant to be very accessible to people. The characters are going to be different. For example, in ozone, every character is gonna have their melee attack. Every character is going to have their range attack, which essentially are the same and re-skin for every character.

But the difference for each [00:21:00] character is going to be their special. And it's going to be some unique element, which this is the important part plays off their theme. So the way we're making characters different and ozone, for example, which is why Luigi stands out so much to me is the personality, right?

Luigi's this scared plumber from Brooklyn and who his brother gets all the same. he doesn't even have a bride. You know what I mean? Like he's got to anyways, like coward and he cleans up, goes and has a vacuum to me. All those are really fun elements. Which kind of set him aside and make him unique regardless of what his move set is.

And we're trying to replicate that in ozone. And a lot of that can be done through animation can be do through story visuals, things like that. I will give credit to rivals though. Their characters do look different and they do have personality, but to me, every character is just so good. Every character feels like they can do the same thing.

And to me, I'm not a big fan of

Cade: and yeah, actually I'd love to hop in there too. Cause you're starting to hit on something else I wanted to [00:22:00] talk about, which is another kind of big topic within this big topic of bounced characters. There's actually a lot of people who don't want to play the best character. And I'd actually say that may even be the majority.

I already have people, in fact, a lot of times tends to be, yeah. especially, if you look at ultimate, which is a game that I've played for, a pretty good amount of time in my life now, definitely a couple of years, at least, I play a character. Villager who isn't considered.

Very good. He's generally like true mid like absolute average, which isn't very good, not a super strong character and that character, it doesn't have any impressive results competitively. So people generally don't think very much of them. but there's a discord that I'm in of. tons of people who may not character love that character only played that character.

And they are also complaining about that character not being better, but you know what? They don't do stop playing that character. People complain a lot about their character, not being the [00:23:00] best, but they still don't stop playing that character. And I'd actually argue that they still really enjoy that character.

And that balance is not enough. To push them away from them. It wasn't for me, I knew that the character wasn't the best and I knew there was better characters, but I liked the way the gameplay loop felt on that character so much that it didn't matter. That isn't true for everybody. But I do believe that the majority of people latch on more to a play style than a strength level.

And so I think in that manifests in a lot of different ways in a lot of different games, but I think even when you do have tier lists, even if it's a tier list that everyone agrees on like a melee, whether it's like literally an official tier list and, people might have their discrepancies, but overall, mostly agree with it.

a lot of people play Fox. Sure. But there's also a lot of people who play other characters. And even if you look at the top 10, competitive players in melee, it's actually characters all across the board in the top 10, I could list them out, but there's even characters that people have thought would be like lower tier characters in the past.

[00:24:00] But people like ax who plays Pekichu in that game latched onto that character. He wasn't dissuaded and quit Pekichu to play Fox. he played Pekichu and, stuck with that character because he likes that character, And I think that bond to that play style to the personality like you talked about is something stronger than balance.

Kristoff: Yeah. It's not so much what they can do. It's who they are. how did they feel in terms of their gameplay? You referenced villager for those of you who haven't played him. He's basically, in my opinion, Kate may not like this. He's a camping character who plays a very degenerate gameplay style, especially when you play Luigi against

Cade: we call it.

Kristoff: to be honest with you

Cade: It's the that's the PC term is a zoner.

Kristoff: anyways. A lot of people like that, a lot of people who perhaps aren't as skillful at the game, or, there's a lot of, controversy, but. It's the people don't play villager because he is a zoner people play villager because he's [00:25:00] villager. And a lot of those tools come with them.

I think a lot of people are attached and super smash brothers is a great example because it's pretty much the ultimate collaboration of gaming in terms of the amount of characters and the breadth of availability. Minecraft, Steve and Mario are in the same game. Do I have to say anymore? You know what I mean?

I think especially with that type of game, the people latch onto the character and it's not, it doesn't really matter what they can do. It's who they are.

Cade: and for me, actually, I think the example of this, like why did I start playing village here? I started playing village here because of tree. There's a move that he has in the game where you, the first time you use it, you plant a little sapling. The next time you use the movie water and it grows into a big tree and that tree can kill people by the way, when it grows.

and then the third time you use it, you pull out an ax. What'd you can chop the tree down with, and if you chop the tree down, someone it's a really strong move that can kill them. And that was just so funny to me that I loved it. And I started doing, I [00:26:00] started using that character as a joke because they just thought that was hilarious.

I was never intending to play the game as seriously as I did, but I just, I started learning the character and I liked it and I just stuck with them. It wasn't because. He was good. Cause he's not good, but it was just because I liked that move. And then I got familiar with them and I grew up real bond with that character, like in a weird way, you get it attached to these characters and you feel connected to them.

I like how you do with Luigi. especially since you play them across games, you start to really feel connected to who that character is like the assets of that character, even though Luigi doesn't have. A lot of what defines us gameplay and ultimate and melee, like losing his grab, which you mentioned the suction cup, is very different in Malay, but he still has that essence of Luigi.

That is what, you relate to so much, which I think is really interesting.

Kristoff: yeah. And one thing that kind of corrupts that ideal in terms of playing a character for the first time, liking a certain move and then running with it [00:27:00] is tearless which you mentioned earlier. If you saw villager at the bottom of the barrel, which is not, but if he was hypothetically and you knew he was, why would you even pick them in the first place?

to me, this is a common thing. You'll hear it throughout the podcast episodes. And I'm obsessed with it is the sense of discovery or newness or exploration

Cade: which will be a topic, another episode for sure.

Kristoff: A hundred percent. I really want to encourage everyone listening and UK as well, too. First, at least the first time, just at least the first time, just play the game.

It doesn't matter what other people think about it. It doesn't matter. Experience it for yourself. Kate latched onto a villager. Some of you I'm sure will latch onto the Weegee because he's clearly superior. And, I think you guys are gonna have a blast, but the Mo yes, of course, but the minute you look at, ex pro players.

Tearless. And you realize that your character is quote unquote, not as good, or quote-unquote not balanced, meaning weaker,

Cade: Yeah.

Kristoff: scourges you [00:28:00] from playing the character, which really, to me, as a game designer, it's just not fair because the character is fun. And has I used the term sauce? it's cool. it's fun to play.

It's exciting. But I, it it's annoying to me because I've been affected by this countless times. Where I look at their power rankings. I want to perform well. And then I ended up playing a character, which I don't enjoy, which is not good for the longevity of the game. It's not good for playing the game over a long period of time, because you don't feel as attached.

You don't want to play that character more. You don't practice. You're not as passionate and you ended up not playing the game

Cade: Yeah. I

Kristoff: but it's happened to me.

Cade: yeah, I literally had done that as well. And I think actually a lot of people can probably relate to it. Like I play villager in Kristoff. Did the, very politely clarify how, that character plays. and so I definitely like in my head because of the internet and seeing your lists and seeing pro players, in particular, and it wasn't always, it wasn't always negative.

I don't think that, seeing like good characters do cool things is always a negative thing. I [00:29:00] generally disliked tearless as well, but seeing people like MK Lao, Play really well with, a number of different characters. and, when, because he played really well using those characters and it was very honest.

In my opinion, like very honest gameplay, made me want to switch, I switched to another character that's higher in the tier list that, just hits people instead of being like a zoner or a camper and using projectiles, they just hit people. And that really appealed to me because I felt like I was cheating or I was, I'm not really playing the game.

Which is, a ridiculous thing to think, Because I'm just playing another character in the game. it's no different, really. Like I'm just playing one of the characters that I can play. and it's just the one I chose to play. It's not worse that I chose to play, project out character, but the internet would have me believe otherwise.

And the tearless would have me believe otherwise.

Kristoff: I think online resources, such as wikis, such as pro players. So just tearless are very invaluable because a lot of times they're accurate they're right. These players play the games for an unhealthy [00:30:00] amount of time, which is just fine. I, they do what they want to do. They're accurate, Did they help you get through the gate and they help you learn the mechanics, but they also guide your thoughts, even if it's subconsciously, they deter you from something you might've chosen or you might've done.

And they can remove that experience from you. Kate said, I don't think they're inherently bad. Cause I watched my fair amount of pro players footage or content across many different mediums, Twitch, YouTube, countless. Hours. I've invested into that and I enjoy it. I enjoy watching someone who's very skillful at a certain game, but I think it's important to acknowledge that then playing those characters does have an effect on you in terms of what you do.

Cade: yeah. Yeah, no, I think that's interesting. And yeah, that's, I feel like this could even be a whole other topic too, like communities and, the influence that has, but actually I, that kind of segues into the last main topic of my argument. for games being [00:31:00] quote unquote unbalanced too, to be like well-balanced in a way, basically like having that strength, disparity as a good thing.

there's a couple more things I wanted to hit on one of them being, that I think. And, I hope I'm wrong about this because it'd be really interesting if I am, but the theory, the second part of my theory here, which is probably a whole nother topic, is I also don't think any game can exist purely competitively.

I think. Even if a game, I'd say Malay currently, I would venture to guess that there is such a minute number of people who play that game true casually in the year 2020, that it's probably less than double digits, but, there are a lot of people who play that game competitive casually, such as Kristoff and myself.

We're obviously not. Ranked anywhere. we're new to the game for sure. But we are really mostly playing casually and there's tons of people who that's true for. and that's, I, in my opinion, part of how melee can stay alive because, [00:32:00] that scene can exist and continue to exist because there is so much interest from people like Christoph and I.

In those pro players who carry the scene and in those content creators who help the scene stay, moving, and people who, continue to mod the game in that case to make it better. But I think the same thing is true of a game like ultimate or, many other games, or, league of legends.

That's true of, to tons of people play that game, quote unquote competitive casually, or completely casually.

Kristoff: eight hours a day.

Cade: Yeah. And people love that. And that is so important to the game. I don't think that game could continue to have existed for as long as it does, if it was purely just the best players, it just doesn't work.

That way. Games don't work like that. You can't. Keep a game alive for years and sometimes decades with only a super top tier competitive scene. there are examples, I think of games where that is the case actually. but I don't think that you'd ever [00:33:00] find a game that really has longevity and really has been adopted and successful where there's only a competitive scene.

I think going along with that, I think that. That is the case that is part of the case to be made for characters to not be balanced completely equally, because there'll always be those casual players playing it. And I think where bad characters really shine is in casual play. I think that meme characters like little Mac absolutely have a place in smash because do you know how many YouTube videos, content creators made?

Playing little Mac online. That's all there was to the video. That's it? But people eat it up because it's funny and sometimes really cool. Sometimes it's awesome. When you get a super cool kill with a crappy character, that can be like even better than getting a super cool kale with a good character. And.

I honestly think that little Mac being [00:34:00] bad is the only reason why people have played him so much. you can see that in ultimate, where some of the mid tier characters get played far less than the worst characters in the game, because people specifically pick them because they're bad, which I think is a case for them to stay.

That. I think that actually shows that them being bad as that. Positive game design choice. that's making people want to play them for that reason. for example, we have a friend who played ultimate with us before, and he actually played little Mac quite a bit when he first started playing with us, as I recall.

And I think that fit him very well because he didn't take the game as seriously as us. So it kinda made sense to play like a Mimi or character, because it it pairs well with. Not having as much, experience with the game, You're just, you're playing for fun. So you just play the fun, not as good character.

And then when you lose, maybe it doesn't feel quite as bad and you're not really taking it as seriously. So it compliments that, Maybe you're not playing a little Mac and Evo grand [00:35:00] finals, but, that's not the point of little Mac, I, and maybe Nintendo didn't have any of that in mind when they were making the game.

I don't know what they were thinking, but I think that actually it is, at the end of the day. good design.

Kristoff: I completely agree. I think one of the things which you didn't implicitly say, but I think you're implying, or at least that I want to talk about is the audience for your game. Who's going to play our game smash at its core is designed to be a casual game. So naturally. Yeah, a lot of casual players will want to play the game.

Little Mac is perfect for those types of players because he's super Mimi in the sense that he's super bad at getting specifically surviving hits. But he's he's actually similar to Louisiana. I think about it. I might need to pick them up. He's actually very good on the stage, right? Like it's okay to have characters that.

Perhaps aren't as busted or, that's the term for meaning they're very strong or quote-unquote inbounds. It's okay to have that [00:36:00] because certain players like that, as you mentioned, little Mac one, I just want to reference to that two characters in smash, since we're talking about the game so much, that.

Remind me of this concept. And it's a, okay. Tell me this doesn't sound weird. By the way, this exists in super smash brothers, there exists a character who has an ability, which has a one out of nine probability to basically InstaQuote you.

Cade: Which is a character I like to play by the way.

Kristoff: That character is mr. Game and watch he is a. Very enthusiastic has an impressive amount of animations and personality for only being 2d and 3d fighting game. And this ability, every one set of every nine characters is a hammer. And if he hits you with his hammer, which doesn't have a big rain, so it's hard to hate, which it makes it even more impactful when it hits, it just kills you.

It just ends, it kills you another character, which stands to mind, which. If you guys haven't played him, his name's hero, this character is literally [00:37:00] RNG, G central. Okay. He has, I don't know how many Billies he has, but it has to be over 20 and they're on this random like pinwheel, and basically you get random abilities every time you use this.

There's a certain ability and it's very odd people don't like it. Oh, did I mention he can critical strike you with tax meaning also insecurely you, yeah. That exists and. And the third one is let's go back to my boy Luigi. He has this ability called a misfire, which essentially transforms one of his regular moves, making it more powerful, more, faster, and more deadly.

A lot of people hate this when they get hit by it. But let me tell you as a Luigi player, when I know this move is not actually that good when it hits, Oh, it's the best feeling in the world. I transforming a character to have kind of this one little gimmick is super fun. None of the characters that I listed are quote, unquote balanced in a sense of being good.

Actually that's well, it depends. Gaming watch has actually got, in other games, such as melee, he's not good. And he still has the hammer, but They're not like,

Cade: him good. that's true.

Kristoff: yeah, the orangy component [00:38:00] doesn't make them good, but it does add this little flare or this little personality that makes them super unique in the game.

And to me. Some of the best moments come from those random RNG moments, even though it's the antithesis of a fighting game. if it, conceptually, there should be no RNG in a fighting game, but you have to remember who your audience is. Smash

Cade: I could

Kristoff: a casual game.

Cade: whole thing in like a total end of their podcast episode for a long time as well. I think we should do a podcast episode about smash bros, at some point too, cause I, I actually

Kristoff: referencing a lot.

Cade: really deep on how I think smash being designed casually is actually like the great is the reason why it's so great.

I think that's the other, yeah. I think, that's my other hot tech. Yeah, exactly. I that's my other hot take. but I'm going to save that for another episode. but I do, I definitely agree. Like I think those all add to the personality of the characters. And those are the exact same kinds of things.

Like what if [00:39:00] instead of building the tree, the first time I played ultimate, I got a nine kill. And then I was like, Oh yeah,

Kristoff: Oh, yeah.

Cade: I'm sure people have experienced that. that's the kind of stuff like the cool things that you can do that make people want to play a character.

and I love that it's like that dumb crap that can make the game feel so dynamic. yeah, I definitely, agree with all of that. And I think at the end of the day, Games are like speaking of being designed casual, designed for a casual audience, I think at the end of the day, like games are inherently most of the time going to be casual experiences with your friends.

And I know that's a, we don't really care about capturing with any project we work on, at fuzzy camel studios. right now, working on ozone, we really love that friend, the friendship element of gaming and like being able to do it with other people, And I think that's, what most gaming is going to be just [00:40:00] playing games with your friends.

And so I think, overall, good balance. Makes people want to play all the characters in your game because they're all cool and different. And maybe you're going to play a crappy character. maybe we'll play a melee after this and I'll play donkey Kong against you just because it's fun.

not because I'm trying to win a super major tournament, so at the end of the day, I think good game balance is what makes a game interesting, and fun to play and a lot of different ways. and I think at the, at the end of the day, I think what that is strength, disparity.

I think intentionally creating strength gaps between your characters, and I guess in a way, creating it to your list. but not emphasizing necessarily, that the TLS matters too much. I think within reason we don't want to met a night situation. but. Still, I think having Fox be better than donkey Kong is perfectly fine.

I think that actually makes a lot of sense. And you know what, if I, introduced Malay to one of my close friends who has never played smash before, they're probably not going to want to [00:41:00] play Fox. Fox is probably not the right character for them. They should probably play,

Kristoff: Even though he's the best, even though he's the best theoretically.

Cade: they'd probably be better off playing like donkey Kong or something and just getting like a big hit every now and then in being able to do something with it. And so you really got to keep that in mind. I think it's hard for competitive gamers to do that sometimes to keep in mind the casual audience.

But I think you really have to keep in mind yeah. All this skill levels and all those different ways people will play the game. It's inevitable in my opinion.

Kristoff: to end. I just want to make a promise. so that pro players, when they play ozone, don't make these bogus tearless and stuff like that. We will make our own tier list and give it to you guys. We'll publish it. And it'll tell you exactly the difficulty ratings. It'll tell you what the, what they can do, and it will tell you why you shouldn't play that character.

We will do that for you guys. it's, I'll arrange that. Don't have no worries. one thing I just wanted to say is, whatever game you guys are playing have fun with it. It's, competitive is one of my favorite aspects of games and it can be that your experiences can be molded by [00:42:00] others. It's not a bad thing.

You just have to be aware of it. And I would encourage you guys to try it out for the first time blind. You guys are gonna have a blast.

Cade: And actually we'll have another podcast episode about. The way we experienced games, particularly, going in blind quote unquote or, you know, watching a lot of YouTube content on a game beforehand. we'll definitely talk about that. I think that's an interesting topic. we covered a lot today.

It's been a lot longer than I anticipated of a discussion, but I think it's been a good one. So we've got some more topics clearly up our sleeves that we could have gone into even more today. So we've got no shortage of things to talk about. So stay tuned, subscribe to the podcast. If on here more, we'll be covering more game design topics.

We'll be chewing on more things. This has been Cade from fuzzy camel studios.

Kristoff: this has been Kristoff. Bye guys.