Editor’s note: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the writer, and do not reflect Shoryuken.com as a whole.
Nowadays we have a new game releasing or being announced every handful of months, and loads of downloadable content per game; but with all of this comes a following influx of patches that change properties of moves in-game, and the tiers of the metagame. Depending on the game, these patches can come monthly or annually, and can be met with praise or ire.
While patching isn’t inherently bad, patching is the worst reaction to character matchups and deficiencies. Granted, I’ve been playing these games for a while, so a lot of the newer guard will perceive me as the old man screaming at them to get off my lawn. But there is a major issue with expecting every problem we complain about in the game to be immediately patched out by a design team. Just look at some of the issues this can cause, making this just as problematic as the issues that are initially complained about.
Fallible Developers
The biggest issue regarding demanding quick patches is, while the developers of the game have spent a couple of years at least working on the game, they may be unable to determine what is balanced in the game. Typically, the longer you spend staring at minute details and intricacies of something, the more difficult it becomes to look at the big picture–with that big picture being game balance. If it weren’t this way, then you would see every game equally balanced, and perfectly on the first try. There wouldn’t be a need for updates for each game.
Think about it. Tekken gets one update for each numbered title as of late. Street Fighter always gets several, and BlazBlue and Guilty Gear each receive similar treatment. Each one would have one release, and that would be that. So if we were to expect the developers to figure out what needs to be done to the game, then wouldn’t it already be done? We can’t, thus we can deduce that inherent difficulties of developing a game leaves a developer at an even greater difficulty to balance a game, or work out glitches and bugs. This is why most game testing is done by third party companies, or through beta tests.
Plus Equally Fallible Players
If the people who created the game are fallible, then how much more are the players of the game? While they will have a strong understanding of what characters are strong, why they are strong, and what the overall balance of the game looks like, they suffer from one thing that the developers (ideally) do not: bias.
Players have spent a large amount of time practicing with their character. They know what moves are weak and strong for their character. They know which matchups are good and bad for their character. Because of their knowledge of their character, they know how to make their character stronger. And they know how to make matches winnable for their character by modifying other characters.
This type of tunnel vision only helps one character. It tends to hurt more characters than it helps. And this is typically the angle that most players are coming from when they start decrying character balance to the development team.
The other angle that typically happens when a group of people decry one character or tactic as “cheap” or “overpowered.” You can see the rallying cries often, especially after events like Evolution and Capcom Cup. From all of this, there is a usual reaction that we often see developers respond with.
…Equals Knee-jerk Changes
With everyone screaming in their ears about what’s unfair from the players’ point of view, this often propels the developers to make knee-jerk reactions with their changes. These changes may not even be relevant at the time they are made, and may have been done in haste to what people perceived to be the strongest tools of the moment.
We have already heard from Razer’s Infiltration on his reaction to the Nash nerfs that happened in Street Fighter V’s Season 2. And he’s not the only one upset. Even people who didn’t play in Season 1 have had similar reactions to how Capcom approached Nash. They were relying on the arguments from players, after seeing how lopsided the top 8 at Evolution 2016 was in Nash’s favor.
However, by the end of 2016, Nash wasn’t a problem. All of the strengths and weaknesses of the character had been analyzed, and the top players were no longer struggling with the matchup. The results were made even clearer at Capcom Cup 2016: only one Nash player made it to the top 8, as opposed to the three who did at Evolution 2016. Even Infiltration was famously quoted at Canada Cup saying that he was looking at new characters due to the fact that everyone and their mother had dissected Nash.
By the end of the year, another problem had emerged–R. Mika. Again, Capcom rashly reacted by nerfing her Irish Whip, disallowing it to wall bounce outside of the corner. If NuckleDu has proven anything since the update, including his win in China, it’s that R. Mika can still be a problem. Which brings me to the biggest meat of the argument.
Get Good
As we talked about before, there was a time when this kind of knee-jerk changes were not often made. And if I go back into old man mode, those were the days. These made players truly dig deep into the game.
For example, Super Street Fighter II Turbo put players into a lot of inescapable situations. Anyone who has ever been pinned into the corner by original-version T. Hawk understands. Did players immediately begin decrying O.Hawk and demand patches? They couldn’t. The internet wasn’t prevalent enough to issue complaints to developers. If it were possible, instead of getting a patch to an existing title, it would have likely arrived in another confusing re-release of Street Fighter II. [Editor’s note: hmm…]
Rather, the mantra was: “If you’re getting put in that situation, learn how to not be put in that situation.” And that’s what happened. And if you play Super Turbo now, it still happens.
While these modern titles will still get patches and updates, this should be our answer before asking for anything to be patched. By learning more about what we’re losing to and adapting to it, we typically solve the problem without a patch. That is exactly what was done with Nash. If we had waited longer, it is quite possible that R. Mika would’ve been solved as well. Rather than complaining about how strong wakeup dragon punches are in Street Fighter V, we could address what we were doing on our opponent’s wakeup to make wake up DPs so strong in the first place. Most of the players that complained about wakeup DPs were insistent on being able to perform meaties with impunity.
By demanding patches–without allowing strategy, character understanding, and tech to mature–we delegate ourselves to be shallow players. One of the most amazing things about these games is how it can help improve our spacial intelligence and abilities to problem-solve. If we are taking our problem matchups and character deficiencies as a challenge to learn how to adjust ourselves, we are growing not only as players, but people. If our first reaction to problems we don’t understand in the game is to demand nerfs or buffs from the developer, we are implying that we are incapable as reasoning human beings to solve our own problems, and need a nanny to do it for us. This punishes everyone involved, including the player initially demanding the changes, as the pace and the meta of the game changes to the point where no one is satisfied.
Should Games Be Patched?
But with all that said, should games still be patched? There are instances where they should.
If patches existed in the era of Super Turbo, we probably would’ve asked for a patch for Akuma. It’s quite possible that we would’ve also asked for a patch on O.Sagat. One of these was warranted. One would’ve been unwarranted in the end, and ultimately not possible when considering the build of the game–O.Sagat was the Super Street Fighter II version of Sagat, and to nerf him would’ve made him a completely different character than that counterpart. Ultimately, down the line, O.Sagat was also figured out within competitive play, and most of the top players no longer struggle with the character.
Akuma would’ve warranted a look from Capcom, but may still not have been changed due to the fact that he was a hidden boss character. But this is the point I’m getting at: there are two reasons I can see for patches to be done. The first should be to address major character imbalances that make characters so strong, that they make them unbeatable or close to unbeatable in competitive play. Unless something is so broken that it is immediately recognizable, this kind of problem could take a long time to deduce.
A patch can also be used to keep a game fresh through the years, and to also accommodate new characters entering the game. This is what updates in the past tended to accomplish, from Street Fighter II on. If it gets to the point where everyone has figured out the majority of tech in a game, the game becomes stale and players outside of the most dedicated become bored and move on. By revamping the game every occasionally, this allows players to stay excited about the game and continue to play. That, however, doesn’t mean that drastic knee-jerk changes are the way to do it.
However, there are also different patch timings per series, and some work out better than others. Games from NetherRealm Studios—such as Injustice and Mortal Kombat—have followed a monthly to semi-monthly patch cycle. The patch cycle of Injustice was so frequent, and the changes so drastic, that people started getting soured by the game–with characters being super strong one month, then bottom tier the next. This is owed to the development team making knee-jerk changes to said characters.
NRS seems to have learned their lesson with Mortal Kombat XL, and the game seems to thus enjoy more dedicated players. However, that could just be that it’s their most current offering, and Injustice 2 could see everyone shift.
Probably the best example of frequent patching while maintaining a happy player base has been Killer Instinct. The team has released a patch every month, and yet few people complain about the patch cycle. But when you look at their patch notes, it often concerns glaring bugs and minor damage increases, and not completely changing the properties of moves. But by knowing what direction they want to go and only changing the balance of a character slightly either way, they manage to keep the game so similar that the changes seem negligible to the untrained eye, yet can still change the balance somewhat. This doesn’t force players to forget what they know about the game or their characters, but keeps them comfortable in an already-established system.
So, while there’s always preference for pure adaption over patching, patches themselves are not inherently “evil”–but perhaps, depending on your opinion, a necessary evil. But patches should typically be used for minor tweaks, as opposed to completely altering the game. The former allows for adaptation to still occur, and for the meta of a game to mature–instead of being completely altered by a singular, game-changing patch that leaves a large swath of the player base frustrated.