The Most Balanced Games
Saturday, February 23, 2008 at 2:18PM Please help me with a personal project. Tell me what you think "the most balanced games" are. Don't include sports. Stuff like Chess and Backgammon, while true, isn't that helpful either. These should be competitive multiplayer games that have demonstrated they hold up to high level play.
It seems like the games I'm looking for have to have the concept of different races/classes/characters/sides to qualify. Otherwise, it doesn't mean much to say something like Settlers of Catan is "balanced." It's a great game and all and we could study it to learn how to make a great game, but not really how to balance a competitive multiplayer game.
My nominations:
- StarCraft
- Fighting Games:
- Street Fighter (Hyper Fighting and Super Turbo)
- Virtua Fighter
- Guilty Gear
- Soul Calibur 1 (yeah, I said it)
- Magic: The Gathering
- Puzzle Fighter: HD Remix (??? I don't even know, but I can nominate it at least!)
StarCraft probably requires no explanation. Guilty Gear designed defensively by including many self-correcting balancing features, as well as lots of tuning over the many versions of the game. Virtua fighter has relatively low variety (compared to Guilty Gear) but extreme care has been taken over MANY iterations (over 14 versions of VF so far, maybe way more, I lost count). Soul Calibur 1's parry system does a lot to level the playing field, and it was pretty balanced in general anyway (SC2 and 3 maybe not so much and ruined by bugs on top of that).
Magic: The Gathering also has a defensive design with somewhat self-correcting balance. I realize this one is probably very controversial because there are times in the history of the game that it was pretty unbalanced, but I also lived through long periods where the so-called type 2 environment was healthy, had no banned cards, and a diverse set of viable decks at top-level play.
Does Counter-Strike belong here? Team Fortress 2? Halo? Enemy Territory?
Please add your own nominations.
--Sirlin
Reader Comments (4)
Hello, Sirlin. I understand that you consider Puzzle Fighter (HD) to be the best competitive puzzle game, but what about these competitive puzzle games:
Bomberman (Online, PC)
Bust-A-Move 4
Dr. Mario
Magical Drop 3
Meteos
Puyo Puyo 2 Tsuu
Tetris (versus)
Tetris Attack
Twinkle Star Sprites
And what is your opinion on a good competitive racing game? Have you seen or played any that you have considered worthy?
I don't think Bomberman is a puzzle game. Bust-a-move is not nearly as good as Puzzle Fighter because you can't plan as much. If you hesitate, your stuff gets covered up. In Puzzle Fighter, you can build against the enemy drop patttern and embed crash gems so that getting your stuff covered up is ok.
Some games on your list are ok, just not in the same category. I think Meteos is incredibly good and deserves special mention. It's a symmetric game though (can't play different characters versus each other) so that makes it a little less interesting, but excellent still.
Twinkle Star Sprites is the true gem of your list. Very well designed game and it is asymmetric (each player controls a different character with different moves). It has all the makings of being super great, I just don't know if it holds up to high level competition. It did hold up in all the intense battles I had, but I don't know if it's somehow broken at even higher levels.
Sirlin,
Starcraft certainly holds up well at the highest levels of play. It's worth mentioning, however, that the game has been balanced for about 10 years. This is "fair", and so for the most part I agree with Starcraft. However, from what I know about it and have been told about it, it tends to have a rock-paper-scissors element to it (each race is good at beating another race). Perhaps this disappears at the highest levels of play? But in general, I would frown upon this as being balanced in that Rock-paper-Scissors is trivially balanced (pick a random strategy and it's a tie in the long run).
I'm a big fan of the RTS genre, and I'm currently in Supreme Commander (Forged Alliance). While there is currently an issue with the new race, the Seraphim, the game seems to be otherwised balanced. It is true that it has not withstood super high levels of play like Starcraft. However, there are *so many options* in the game that I feel like it has to stand up. There are always unexpected moves to make; and in this way, Yomi Layers come into play, and also the advantage of keeping on the attack.
Perhaps you disagree with me. I am certainly biased! But, I would like your opinion on the matter. I tend to feel that the game has at least an appropriate structure for high balance, and were it given 10 popular years to balance, it would perform quite well.
I'm a bit late with the comment here but I want to mention one other balanced asymmetric game; Starfleet Battles. This is a hex based spaceship combat game that's been around for about thirty years now and played at a very high level of competitive play that entire time. Unbalanced scenarios are possible within the game system but the tournament scenarios and tournament ships undergo constant play and tuning to establish balance. These ships have a highly varied set of capabilities within a pretty complex rules system. It seems to me that the most balanced games are those which manage to maintain a active competitive community for a prolonged period of time and undergo iterative improvements during that period.