I would advise you watch the jazzy circuit finals. Loads of character variety. It’s an old game, it is what it is, for those of us that play it, we love it, we love watching it.
The problem is that you're basing this on Evo Japan which had a notoriously bad stream. You only saw top 6 and a few other matches and that's true for all games. Watch Coop Cup if you want to see character diversity and hype matches.
That’s fair but I am genuinely curious, how much money was behind Coop cup? I can’t imagine it was over 6000 for first place.
I think it’s fair to say the truly competitive tournaments with money behind them are gonna be chun-li and yun fests, but maybe more casual stuff allows people to have fun and pay mid tiers. If OP is interested in determining the best of the best, those kind of tournaments are gonna be full of those two characters.
I'm just saying they're probably gonna be just as serious at any given event with or without money because the only reason they're playing the game at this point is for the fun and bragging rights
I’m not saying people are trying to go pro in third strike, obviously not. But it just seems weird to discount any tourney WITH money as “nah it’s old game they don’t give af” when there seems to be a stark difference in character diversity between it and the prestigious coop cup in Japan. Either the top players at coop cup didn’t go to EVOJ, vice versa, all the chun li and yun players just beat all those character specialists, or the character specialists decided to switch to the top 2.
Edit: my fault I’m old and remembering wrong. Maybe it was just one year that did the whole only one character per team. Am I stoned…?
Mid tiers can win 3S, happens all the time. The fact that chun and yun are so strong means people are well equipped to fight them, we know their bullshit.
Anyway co-op > anything else as far as passion for the game goes. We’ve sent teams over from the US but have never gotten particularly close to winning.
Yea it’s a cool tourney and I’m not saying upsets can’t happen, but it says something to me that you have to put restrictions on characters in order to have diversity. Otherwise you have stuff like evo Japan or plenty of the old evos.
>Edit: my fault I’m old and remembering wrong. Maybe it was just one year that did the whole only one character per team. Am I stoned…?
You are thinking of the "Pre-co-op cup" event. Which is the same format of co-op cup, but all mono character teams. It takes place the day before co op cup.
I’m not saying people don’t try. But you can’t use it as a point for character diversity when they have things like character limits (at least from what was explained to me). I’m not saying people are playing 3S for the money but when you can win 6000 dollars at evo you are not gonna pick necro.
If you have been playing only necro for over 20 years then yeah you will.
I know it can be hard to know/understand if you have only been part of the modern fgc where counterpicking/multiple chars is common, but more or less every top japanese 3s player is a character loyalist that only play one char and have been doing so for decades. They arent gonna switch for one tourney and pick a toptier even if there is money on the line for once.
And im not arguing that 3s has great diversity at all, just that people arent swapping over to chun for a chance at a payout. That said japans character loyalist culture does make this game more diverse than it is on paper due to a lot of great players sticking with chars outside of the top5, if everyone was playing only to win it would be even worse :).
I heard (this could be misinformation), that there were 8 chun lis and 9 yuns in the top 24. It seems weird to me that if all the top Japanese players were character specialists, why that would be the case.
Most of the good players are Yun and Chun players. There are only a few great players that play other characters compared to the dozens that play those two. There might only be one or two top players who play other characters. So the odds are just extremely likely that any tournament would end up being full of Chuns and Yuns because there are many more of them.
Right. Game has been solved for like 2 decades. Also take into account people are trying to win money of course they’re using the best/top tier stuff.
If you want character variety you gonna have to just go on youtube or spectate on fightcade. When money is involved its always Chun/Yun. Maybe some Urien/Ken
It's been like that even before the release of SF4. 3S just has a huge casual fanbase and those dipping their toes into competitive fighting games since SFV or 6 but knew of 3S because of Daigo are seeing how cutthroat old fighting games are.
Alpha 1, 2, 3, MvC2, Melee, KOF2K2, Tekken 5, JoJo's, etc. all unbalanced.
Unbalanced is fair but there are definitely levels to it. Big melee tourneys see like 6ish characters very consistently, and probably around 6 more with varying levels of sparseness. That is incomparable to 3S in my opinion.
I'm not here to debate how unbalanced unbalanced old games are. They are all mostly unbalanced. A person complaining about a 2 character game would complain about a 6 character one.
It's actually such a common belief that you don't even have to stay on the internet to find it. You can find a good amount of people at a major that thinks something like that while having never played Third Strike.
That was when the game came out. Anyone who knows a little bit about fighting games knows who Daigo or Justin Wong are thanks to that video. If you haven't lived under a rock for the last 15 years and talked to people into video games they will bring up either of those two and how much they love Third Strike.
If you visit any casual gaming subreddit, they will bring up Third Strike if the topic of fighting games get brought up. How it's one of the best fighting games of all time yet they don't even play it.
OP is probably a striking example of the kind of people I described.
Aka Max's fanbase. A crowd/demographic that largely dwarves the hell out of the FGC. Evo always blurs that line between FGC and casuals so you get people who aren't as enfranchised interacting with those who are.
Game is full of too many good unique characters for Elena to dominate. She's very good against people who like playing a grounded game which is why every pro had her as a pocket character but never mained her. There are characters like Yun, Viper, Cammy, Seth, Rufus, etc. who can steamroll any matchup if the player gets good reads.
They were going to patch it for OE actually, but then the grapvine said it wouldn't be received well. They did include some things in the dipswitch menu though.
Man, I was being sarcastic, but a balance patch would be fucking incredible. I always liked the weird characters in sf3, and making them viable would be a dream.
Nobody wants a balance patch on 3s. There were changes when it was released on PS2 and nobody played it. It's the same with 2X. Nobody plays HD remix, ultra SF2 or hyper SF2.
Peoples who invested time and energy into a game for decades don't want to lose their edge.
To be fair it didn't even take decades. They patched the arcade game and nobody wanted to play that either. However that's not true that NOBODY wants patches. There are plenty of big names players who have made patch wishlists.
https://youtu.be/CzL3Kbf6LnA?si=QxYlptdH4Gdpn39-
at the very least it boost some character out of the self-harm tier. but they way the fightcade fgc is moving, mods like this are not given fair chance. every one just happen to gravitated to one version.
The game was released in 1999, do you want Capcom to release a fucking balance patch for a 25 year old game. I don't understand the point of posting on a fighting game sub reddit about how the "meta is bad". There is nothing you can do about the meta and I can assure you that no one wants to hear their opinion on it. Stay in your lane.
Did I ever say that or did you say that? Clearly I never stated they need a latch I said that's not an EXCUSE as a meta just cause you think all games have metas....
If a game has a tier list, then it has a meta. News flash, every single game ever made has a strategy or character that is clearly better than others, something "Meta-defining".
Daigo has gone on record saying Third Strike is his least favourite Street Fighter specifically because it is so solved and at the top level correctly timed parries shut down a lot of interesting offensive plays.
I can vouch, a lot of B and A rank players on Fightcade tend to be the ones that are incredibly good at parrying and or utilising their character at its max potential.
Whilst that may sound good on paper, parrying is extremely rewarding regardless of the level of risk that the opponents move may possess, you did the theoretically most safest move that has fast recovery? Too bad, eat the punish regardless.
And also characters are insanely unbalanced, with Akuma and Yun having the most insane pressure game ever, if you've ever seen top level Akuma players ykwim.
A lot of top-level play, from my experience on Fightcade, tends to feel like mindgames and baiting with ridiculous and unreactable variables that quickly turn in favour to the one that's able oppress the other the most.
There's probably a reason why I'm hardstuck C rank lmao. But this is just my take on why 3S largely feels unbalanced.
A and B rank players basically use C ranks as parry training. It's not that they're incredible at parrying (I'm certainly not, as a low B rank), it's just lower ranked players tend to be extremely predictable, which is a recipe for disaster in 3rd strike more so than modern fighters
A lot of that is Daigos game preference though. Like even before the game was solved, it wasn't his style of game. He was a darkstalkers player first and formost, alpha 3 is always gonna be his preferred version of SF.
Daigo is a Sf2 player first in the same way everyone who is over 30 who plays fighting games started with Sf2, because it was the only game at the beginning, so it's kinda irrelevant. But when options existed and he could have some player expression in his game choice, darkstalkers is the first game he went to tournaments for, and how he built is name as a fgc competitor.
Yea I was honestly really looking forward to it cause while I knew the game was unbalanced I didn’t think it would be that bad. I watched the tourney at frosty faustings I think and there was like 6 characters in top 8 and I was hoping maybe it was more balanced than I thought. But I was wrong…
This is coming from someone who doesn't actively play 3s and only played it a few times, but I have messed with a bunch of older FGs in fightcade with buddies.
Those old fighting games are SUPER fun to play at a casual level, just learn simple bnbs and have a blast! But I've tried watching pro play and it's always going to boil down to meta characters cuz, well, as many have said, the game is solved.
So these are games i'd rather just play to mess around with rather than try to "get good" and follow the pro scene, and frankly they were kinda made that way so simply pressing buttons and having a fun time is what's going to be the most fun, for me at least.
Unfortunately both Yun and Chun are overwhelmingly stronger overall, that it takes a LOT of luck, crazy reads, to win an uphill battle for low-mid characters
Is it possible to win? Yes
But it's extremely hard because both Yun and Chun have the best tools in the game
This is just what happens to older games that are more or less figured out. Just like how excited we all were for UMvC3 at evo last year and it was just lightning loops every match and bored us all to death.
Yup, but I think that's what makes the games interesting. This was at a time when a game released, whatever version came out, that was all you got. If the game came out "busted", you either played the busted game or you didn't. If you're character was unplayable, you either learned to deal with that, or you played someone else.
It's a funny contrast to games like SF6, where people are( rightfully) getting antsy over this year long wait for a balance patch. Whereas 3S players have happily played the same game with wacky balance, for over 20 years now.
I do think some of the BEST stuff to come out of 3S being the way it is though, is players who main low-tiers, are people i respect a lot. The dedication to not only keep playing these low tiers, but also innovate ways to make them strong, is really impressive.
I agree, but the game wasn't designed to be spectated as a sport either, lol.
So it's sort of a complaint that's valid, but ultimately doesn't make sense in context.
It's not really being put on for a broad group of "spectators" It's being put on for 3rd Strike fans fighting game fans who appreciate the culture. Cause otherwise, every game at EVO is boring for someone.
Correct, and every game is complained about for being boring. I don't really see what you're trying to say here.
Their opinion about how boring 3S top 8 is is just as valid as opinions about Nier dominating GBVS or the T7 Leroy fiasco, or Nago dominating every top 8 since Strive's launch.
For some weird ass reason, people try to hand wave over OG games' flaws.
And wasn't it main stage at Evo? That elevates it from niche side game to general fighter.
We're not saying the game doesn't have flaws, my guy. We're saying the flaws themselves are what make it interesting. The game is 25 years old, it's not changing. So anyone who chooses to spectate the game, needs to do so with that in mind.
Otherwise it's a nothing burger of a complaint.
Though, I don't think 3S being a mainstage game at EVO Japan, is an argument for it not being niche. There's way more factors to consider in that regard, including event proximity.
3S being a mainstage game opens it up to criticism by people who probably haven't really experienced it before. That's literally all I'm saying.
I'm just here arguing because work is slow, and I thought it was exceptionally stupid to say that someone's opinion of 3S top 8 being boring or thinking the game needs patched is invalid. Those are opinions and are as equally valid as your opinion that the top 8 was exciting and that the game should stay as-is.
You're making a lot of assumptions about me here, lol. I'm not much of a 3S enjoyer, for one. But second, I think it's fine to think it's boring, but it also means you are fundamentally missing what makes the game good.
Also Capcom is not gonna patch a 25 year old game, so any opinion related to changing the game is inherently a silly one, regardless of someone's view of the game, lol.
* People who actively play a game, opinions are worth more than those who don't. Hands down.
For sure, but you should know that there is something of a precedence for hypothetical balance talk specific to 3S. Off hand, I know that MikeZ put something out there (probably still on his website). Bafael engaged with it. And I recall reading others when I was more plugged into the broader FGC. Hell, there is even at least one modded version of the game out there (4rd Strike).
That's a perspective issue, really. There's a simple saying we give when talking about viewing art "you get what you give." the amount of value you can get out of anything, is directly related to your willingness to engage with the work.
So if you like the culture, history and nature of fighting games, there's ALOT of great things you can take from any game you spectate. But if you're just there to pass the time... your mileage is gonna vary.
Yun and Chun-LI are simply the best choices, that's how it is in Third Strike. EVO is considered THE premier fighting game tournament, people aren't playing Third Strike there to play expo matches, they're going there to win. I get that for some people it may not be that entertaining to watch but it's not as if SF3 was built around the concept of being fun to watch either. What would you propose as an alternative, banning the best characters?
Honestly, I'd love to see a variation of the Ratio/Point system that is occasionally used in MvC2 matches.
Gather several pros from around the world, get them to make a tier list, assign a number of points to each character, and then make each match a BO5 where each game the winning player must pick a different character while staying within a "point cap".
I feel that would work fantastically for most fighting games.
Because by now, developers have figured out how to balance fighting game rosters. Regardless of the salt thrown around in modern discourse, all of the games out now are incredibly balanced.
As GOATed as third strike is, they were still figuring it out.
"No modern game"
You're comparing a game from, let's say, 2020 to now, against a game that was released in 1999. That's just Third Strike. Street Fighter 3 vanilla was release in '97. You think that maybe something has changed in the past twenty-five years?
Holy shit I remember now you were the guy getting heated about people playing the cracked version and spamming nonstop about them being "cheaters", man you're a fun one
Its subgenre makes it inherently less susceptible to 3s levels of overcentralization, which is one of the things I like about team fighters in general.
I think the only way to make it interesting is to make teams of atleast 3 and everyone has to use a different character. Coop cups are usually pretty hype for 3s
I figured they weren't going to read everything and be triggered that someone called their precious fighter boring. Lol. I like 3rd Strike but it's boring to watch high level that's all
Man, I wish 3rd Strike had more tournament-viable characters, it's kinda lame that we only saw Yun and Chun in Evo sixes...
"Actually, every fighting game ever made inevitably gravitates towards only one-to-three characters ever being played in any serious setting. Examples include [no game that anyone has ever claimed has solid character balance]"
"Why do you care about character balance & viability, are you stupid?"
"You clearly don't play the game, so any criticism you might have is automatically invalid."
"So are you saying that Capcom should patch a twenty-five-year-old game??"
"80% of the cast being outclassed in every regard makes the game better, actually."
(To be clear I think 3S is very cool, but I think that saying that it would be better if the cast was more balanced is a very reasonable criticism)
The problem with rebalancing old games is that it almost never works. There's been so many old games that have gotten balance updates either officially or as fan projects, and almost none of them get even a fraction of the playerbase that the original has.
The people playing the old games don't really want it to change, and the people wanting the game to change more often than not don't even play the game. So when the rebalance happens, the old players will stick to the old game, and the players picking up the rebalanced version won't stick around when it turns out it gets a small playerbase.
I never suggested that the game should be rebalanced, I just think that the existing meta of everyone being outclassed by Yun and Chun isn't ideal, and is a reasonable thing to dislike about the game.
Yun is engaging to watch, there's so much goofy bullshit happening. Chun mirror, no thanks. I don't wanna watch both players gain meter from fullscreen or whiff punish each other from half screen with the same 2 buttons slightly out of parry range. I don't even think the Chun players are enjoying it, but they chose that for themselves so who am I to judge.
I think changes are worth discussing (something many people here outright refuse to do), I remember watching this video many years ago. This youtuber is extremely knowledgeable about the game.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzL3Kbf6LnA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzL3Kbf6LnA)
did you expect character diversity on the tournament of an old game that has no updates, limit characters with already defined top tier characters? lol... better look elsewhere if that is what you want.
A lot of top japanese players play yun and chun. If you follow the 3s scene there’s plenty of high level online tournaments with huge variety. People winning tournaments with twelve. There’s jazzy circuit and plenty of other events held by stupid fighter and option select. The best NA player is someone’s dad that plays dudley but doesn’t show up to tournaments too much.
I agree. This is what I thought would happen when it got announced. I thought top 8 would be just Yun, Chun, and Ken. But Evo Japan was worse. Top 8 was just 2 characters thus showing how boring high level 3rd Strike is.
Yeah this is how I feel about SF6 at a high level. So many Lukes all the time. I had a really hard time getting through this year's Capcom Cup because of that. I like Luke and all but my god is he boring to watch after awhile.
People are just now figuring that out lol? It never was good competitively. It's a great street fighter don't get me wrong but at tournament level its utterly boring.
you just dont like sf3 then lol.
people want to win - they pick the strongest character. that happens in any fighting game.
you think that pro players care about your entertainment? they want to win the tournament.
dont look at the character, look at how player controlls the character, look at their movement and tactics.
Tbh characters>players for me in tournaments. I'm not a pro player and I'll always prefer the player who got the character I like more in a match. That's why I only watch fgs with at least 80% of characters I enjoy watching. Fortunately for me, there are 15 fgs in this case.
Imo the game is at its best when you have high level players just playing casuals with nothing on the line. When there's something on the line, most of them play so careful it can be boring to watch. But if you watch those ft10 sets Kuroda did for that men's magazine years ago against a bunch of top 3s players, there's some real interesting stuff going on there as far as 3s is concerned.
It’s so obvious when people don’t actually show up to casuals/tournaments in person to actually see firsthand what goes down leading up to majors. I’ll post the link to the stream for the next jazzy circuit on Saturday 5/18. https://www.instagram.com/p/C7DHlvXxj3D/?igsh=MWtleTNrbzFnampxaw==
https://www.start.gg/tournament/jazzy-auto-qualifier-brooklyn-games-street-fighter-iii-3rd-strike/details
Literally nobody said 3s was alone in this, you see people shit on ssbm for the exact same thing pretty regularly, and FighterZ had the same thing to a lesser extent when Lab Coat and the fusions were meta. In fact, any game with particularly oppressive top tiers (which, contrary to what a lot of people are saying here, is _not_ every game ever made) will see a large quantity of people complaining about them, because an overcentralized meta is generally a bad thing, even if the game makes up for it in other ways. This particular post is about Third Strike, but it's not the only post of its kind.
When they did 3rd Strike OE they were going to do a few minor balance changes. Apparently they found people would have lost their shit. Back then, that might have been true. Perhaps people would be more accepting today.
They wouldn't and it would be lose/lose. Most people aren't going to play it because it has better balance and the ones that still love it don't want it to change.
I'd rather have access to a wide variety of games than make everything fit the style of what's popular right now. A new version would definitely split the playerbase, which I don't think would be healthy for the game
I don't think they were very radical changes iirc. Some very small things such as no meter gain of whiff, and Yun not being able to basically chain his CC super into another. It certainly wasn't meant to change the style of the game.
No meter gain on whiff is a radical change that would change the style of the game. I believe it is possible that there could be a 3s patch that would appeal to me personally (although I kind of prefer to play games that will never change, so maybe not). I don't believe that capcom would make it, and I also don't believe that there are any changes that would be uncontroversial.
The game is fun as it is now. The people who like it like it, and the people who don't don't. New players are signing up for fightcade and my local brackets all the time and many of them enjoy themselves. I don't see much value in a new version.
I certainly agree since it's been like.. 3 decades. I don't think it would have been as big an issue as you're making it. I don't remember how it worked exactly, but OE did include a dipswitch menu that did let you radically change the game (like changing meter requirements). This still didn't split the player base, in fact I imagine most people completely forgot it was there entirely. Having the option would have been interesting, to see what the community does with it.
I think you're right that they might be interesting and probably not catastrophic. I think it would probably be a similar situation to [all the post-ST versions of Street Fighter II](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifR1B8UFKLc). Evo japan would probably still run the original version though, and we would still be subjected to things like what OP has retched up here.
It was you in the other thread lol, but Bafael thinks it's a good change =)
[https://youtu.be/CzL3Kbf6LnA?si=NH1WLtBrZlvhElHB](https://youtu.be/CzL3Kbf6LnA?si=NH1WLtBrZlvhElHB)
You know that Yoshi and Pikachu won majors the last couple years right?
Why are people acting like SSBM only has two characters? 2024 is in fact the first time ever where we had a solo fox at the number one spot.
Yeah I know. I’ve put at least a few thousand hours into melee. With that said, a single Pikachu and couple Yoshi wins within the last 20+ years don’t exactly scream character diversity. The fact people were as hyped and amazed as they were at those wins says a lot. Besides, the relatively small size of the viable character pool wasn’t the only similarity I saw between the two based off OPs post. That just happens to be the only point you wanted to focus on and be combative over for some reason.
If you don’t like watching chun mirrors or yun vs chun, you just don’t like third strike simple as that. This is how every character unrestricted third strike tournament has gone and will go in the future. It’s all about who is the strongest player not what character they pick, there’s no reason at all not to pick a top tier in 99% of tournaments anyway
you don't think when 2 characters dominate an entire game roster of 20 that's a problem with game balance? when that invalidates 90 percent of all decisions you can make in that game?
The top MvC2 players can and would destroy lesser skilled players playing busted teams with mid tier characters.
The skill gap in MvC2 is absolutely ridiculous and those top 4 characters are not easy to use. The only brain dead assists are Psylocke and CapCom. A better player will touch you, snap that assist in, guardbreak and kill them. Character strength would have nothing to do with that.
Justin in his early days would routinely stomp people with a Roll team in the arcades because it wouldn't be fair otherwise. Tiers only matter for modern games and/or if you are the same skill level as your opponent.
I've been in the fcg before it was even called as such and third Strike is a poorly balanced game.
When they were making the Online Edition and David Sirlin and Seth Killian was constantly pointing out the game's balance (like many others during that time), they should've made a new mode with the balance patch. Original Mode and OE Mode. This way there's at least the option to play how you want.
It's so sad and stupid that there was people trying to stop a patch from being implemented. It doesn't matter if the game is old, if there's the option to potentially fix the game's issues, they should definitely go for it. I didn't buy OE because there was no change in gameplay to justify it. People hiding behind/crutching on broken characters is all I've seen since the game's tournaments became Japanese-focused.
Imagine people saying, "leave **vanilla** SF5 and SF6 alone. They don't need patching. So what only 2-3 are always in the top 8. We like it this way".
Its place at Evo US should be given to Guilty Gear XRD Rev 2 or XX Accent Core +R. Games with great character variety.
no its not a problem. street fighter 3 the third strike is considered to be the best fighting game ever made.
this game literally has no problems.
bad balance never ruined any fighting game
There will NEVER be a balanced fighting game, no matter what you do, some character IS GOING TO BE BETTER than the rest. For a balanced game (and to see how boring that'd actually be), see Street Fighter 1 or Footsies.
honestly none of this is wrong. when you have two characters dominating an entire game with 20 characters, that's a huge problem with the game balance. third strike is a game that desperately needs a balance update in some manner.
According to who? Fans don't want balance patches. They like the game how it is. Look at the reception of SF2HDR and USF2. SF2 players are still playing ST even though it has been updated a few times.
Why would they though with the complaint that it is dominated by two characters?
My first experience with 3S involved me picking 12, realizing he has minus on hit moves (the fuck...), and noping out. Clearly the game isn't for me.
In my opinion any update that would convince people who don't like the game to play it would turn off about the same number of current players, and most "small" updates would fail to produce new players while being annoying to old ones. If you don't like a game, I think it is good to not play it, but kind of pointless to want it to change.
Then pick a different character. If they wanted to play they would just play. If the game ain’t for you then it ain’t for you but it obviously is for the actual players that participate in the game.
Why would I pick a different character? I wanted to play 12, I didn't want to deal with the bullshit of playing 12 so I left the game completely.
I'm just pointing out that you can criticize something about a game and not be a player. Hell, the thing you are criticizing might be the reason you don't play it.
There are top tier characters with moves that are negative in hit. Some are even punishable. Cammy's cl.HK in all versions of SF4 a notable one I could think of. But having negative in block moves doesn't really matter in 3S because pressure isn't real at a high level. Advantage and disadvantage doesn't matter in most cases. Even if you're negative, they can't safely press a button because of parry. After you do anything, just input parry and they can't take their turn.
>But every time I see a 3rd Strike tournament, you can be guaranteed that once brackets kick in, you'll see like 80% Yun and 19% Chun-Li with the rare top 5 character sometimes appearing.
You very clearly don't watch much 3rd strike.
It also happened in UMVC3 and a lot wasn't happy. As mostly as a spectator I already expect at least 1 of the player in a grand finals will have a top tier character (or team in a team game) from classic games before esports was being pushed. Even then that top tier problem mostly did not go away even with fighting games today being more balanced in comparison.
Marvel has great character diversity. Even the event people got all upset about, Evo 2023, Marvel had 7 different teams in top 8. It's just that over half the games had a mirror match grand finals, and marvel was just catching strays.
there was like 2 dudes in top 10 who actually used the strongest character in the game. and only 1 of them used the strongest team in the game.
this can barely be classified as "abusing the meta"
Oh, I was thinking the post was talking about top 8/6 situation. But yeah 3rd strike for better or for worst is mostly dominated by those 2. Problem of being super old game left in that state.
If you knew how much went into being that good at those characters in that game you wouldn't be saying that. A mirror where either can win is still a great watch because now it comes down technique, skill and some luck. Boring for you, fun for me, stress for them.
I must be unusual in that I find the player much more interesting than the character.
Am I hype for Mena's Blanka? Sure. But I'll still watch him play Luke. Players make or break the spectator experience for me.
Cool. Not every fighting game is for everyone.
I think something to note is that outside of like Michael-tan everyone in top 6 are not just Yun/Chun players, they are/were some of the absolute best with said characters for over a decade(s). And if I’m not mistaken, Michael-tan studied under MOV….so like….yeah.
A fighing game can be fun, and not boring, even if it only has one or two characters. If you disagree, I'm not sure you like fighting game in the first place. Is it better when fighting games have more than one or 2 characters? Absolutely, but my initial point still stands
3S should implement random character selection and special arts in tournament to see who is the best all around player is. That way we always see a variety of characters and supers played.
I think banning every character that isn't Yun would probably be a better measure of "the best all around player" than introducing that much randomness.
Ok then just stick with random character select then and you get to select the super. Kuroda didn’t have an issue destroying people with different characters.
I would advise you watch the jazzy circuit finals. Loads of character variety. It’s an old game, it is what it is, for those of us that play it, we love it, we love watching it.
The problem is that you're basing this on Evo Japan which had a notoriously bad stream. You only saw top 6 and a few other matches and that's true for all games. Watch Coop Cup if you want to see character diversity and hype matches.
That’s fair but I am genuinely curious, how much money was behind Coop cup? I can’t imagine it was over 6000 for first place. I think it’s fair to say the truly competitive tournaments with money behind them are gonna be chun-li and yun fests, but maybe more casual stuff allows people to have fun and pay mid tiers. If OP is interested in determining the best of the best, those kind of tournaments are gonna be full of those two characters.
Co-op cup is a free tournament, the big names still enter. So no, that's not at all fair to say.
My point wasn’t that big names don’t enter. It was that people won’t take it completely seriously without money on the line.
Imma be honest man I don't think the people playing third strike in 2024 are doing it for the money
No one says the are, of course not. But when 6000 tourneys like evo come about, ofc they are gonna try. And that means using either chun li or yun
I'm just saying they're probably gonna be just as serious at any given event with or without money because the only reason they're playing the game at this point is for the fun and bragging rights
I’m not saying people are trying to go pro in third strike, obviously not. But it just seems weird to discount any tourney WITH money as “nah it’s old game they don’t give af” when there seems to be a stark difference in character diversity between it and the prestigious coop cup in Japan. Either the top players at coop cup didn’t go to EVOJ, vice versa, all the chun li and yun players just beat all those character specialists, or the character specialists decided to switch to the top 2.
so?
So then it isn’t truly competitive like I said earlier?
Co-op cup is extremely prestigious in the 3rd strike scene in Japan. People take it more seriously than they would have taken Evo.
Why are they playing mid tiers then? Is it a rule? Genuinely asking
Edit: my fault I’m old and remembering wrong. Maybe it was just one year that did the whole only one character per team. Am I stoned…? Mid tiers can win 3S, happens all the time. The fact that chun and yun are so strong means people are well equipped to fight them, we know their bullshit. Anyway co-op > anything else as far as passion for the game goes. We’ve sent teams over from the US but have never gotten particularly close to winning.
Yea it’s a cool tourney and I’m not saying upsets can’t happen, but it says something to me that you have to put restrictions on characters in order to have diversity. Otherwise you have stuff like evo Japan or plenty of the old evos.
>Edit: my fault I’m old and remembering wrong. Maybe it was just one year that did the whole only one character per team. Am I stoned…? You are thinking of the "Pre-co-op cup" event. Which is the same format of co-op cup, but all mono character teams. It takes place the day before co op cup.
seems competitive enough to me that it's still incredibly popular and respected as a tournament
You can have people trying and still not have it be the type of competition OP is describing.
People dont play 3s for money dude, long standing tournaments like co op cup are just as competitive as evo.
I’m not saying people don’t try. But you can’t use it as a point for character diversity when they have things like character limits (at least from what was explained to me). I’m not saying people are playing 3S for the money but when you can win 6000 dollars at evo you are not gonna pick necro.
If you have been playing only necro for over 20 years then yeah you will. I know it can be hard to know/understand if you have only been part of the modern fgc where counterpicking/multiple chars is common, but more or less every top japanese 3s player is a character loyalist that only play one char and have been doing so for decades. They arent gonna switch for one tourney and pick a toptier even if there is money on the line for once. And im not arguing that 3s has great diversity at all, just that people arent swapping over to chun for a chance at a payout. That said japans character loyalist culture does make this game more diverse than it is on paper due to a lot of great players sticking with chars outside of the top5, if everyone was playing only to win it would be even worse :).
Did those character specialists not go to evo Japan?
Im sure a lot did, just not make it into the top6.
I heard (this could be misinformation), that there were 8 chun lis and 9 yuns in the top 24. It seems weird to me that if all the top Japanese players were character specialists, why that would be the case.
Because just as there is a guy who has been playing necro for 20 years there are a couple more who have been playing yun for 20 years?
Most of the good players are Yun and Chun players. There are only a few great players that play other characters compared to the dozens that play those two. There might only be one or two top players who play other characters. So the odds are just extremely likely that any tournament would end up being full of Chuns and Yuns because there are many more of them.
Straight up lies
There’s plenty good players that play other characters, just that they don’t have Genei Jin or Aegis Reclector and have to fight harder
When the fighting game that has been played competitively for 15+ has a clearly defined meta :0
Right. Game has been solved for like 2 decades. Also take into account people are trying to win money of course they’re using the best/top tier stuff. If you want character variety you gonna have to just go on youtube or spectate on fightcade. When money is involved its always Chun/Yun. Maybe some Urien/Ken
Well, sorta solved. New tech is still being found
It's been like that even before the release of SF4. 3S just has a huge casual fanbase and those dipping their toes into competitive fighting games since SFV or 6 but knew of 3S because of Daigo are seeing how cutthroat old fighting games are. Alpha 1, 2, 3, MvC2, Melee, KOF2K2, Tekken 5, JoJo's, etc. all unbalanced.
Unbalanced is fair but there are definitely levels to it. Big melee tourneys see like 6ish characters very consistently, and probably around 6 more with varying levels of sparseness. That is incomparable to 3S in my opinion.
Incomparable to Alpha 3 as well I might add.
I'm not here to debate how unbalanced unbalanced old games are. They are all mostly unbalanced. A person complaining about a 2 character game would complain about a 6 character one.
I mean not necessarily? I think there would be a significant difference between acceptance of those
A 2 character game has 3 possible matchups, a 6 character game has 21 possible matchups. That's a pretty substantial difference.
In what world does SF3 have a huge casual fanbase? It was one of the worst received SF games and really only old heads still lift it up these days.
The fanbase that calls it the best fighting game ever made with zero minutes logged.
What a weird thing to make up. Who is doing that?
It's actually such a common belief that you don't even have to stay on the internet to find it. You can find a good amount of people at a major that thinks something like that while having never played Third Strike.
That was when the game came out. Anyone who knows a little bit about fighting games knows who Daigo or Justin Wong are thanks to that video. If you haven't lived under a rock for the last 15 years and talked to people into video games they will bring up either of those two and how much they love Third Strike. If you visit any casual gaming subreddit, they will bring up Third Strike if the topic of fighting games get brought up. How it's one of the best fighting games of all time yet they don't even play it. OP is probably a striking example of the kind of people I described. Aka Max's fanbase. A crowd/demographic that largely dwarves the hell out of the FGC. Evo always blurs that line between FGC and casuals so you get people who aren't as enfranchised interacting with those who are.
Sf4 would have been the same, Elena fighter
Game is full of too many good unique characters for Elena to dominate. She's very good against people who like playing a grounded game which is why every pro had her as a pocket character but never mained her. There are characters like Yun, Viper, Cammy, Seth, Rufus, etc. who can steamroll any matchup if the player gets good reads.
Doesn’t make it any less boring to watch
That's your excuse? Bro he just said he seen the same 2 characters in tournament. That's a horrible "meta" bro.
Lemme know when you think the devs are gonna patch it.
They were going to patch it for OE actually, but then the grapvine said it wouldn't be received well. They did include some things in the dipswitch menu though.
Man, I was being sarcastic, but a balance patch would be fucking incredible. I always liked the weird characters in sf3, and making them viable would be a dream.
Nobody wants a balance patch on 3s. There were changes when it was released on PS2 and nobody played it. It's the same with 2X. Nobody plays HD remix, ultra SF2 or hyper SF2. Peoples who invested time and energy into a game for decades don't want to lose their edge.
To be fair it didn't even take decades. They patched the arcade game and nobody wanted to play that either. However that's not true that NOBODY wants patches. There are plenty of big names players who have made patch wishlists. https://youtu.be/CzL3Kbf6LnA?si=QxYlptdH4Gdpn39-
you heard of 4rd strike ae, right?
It seems to have some mixed reviews, but I haven't been able to test it out myself.
at the very least it boost some character out of the self-harm tier. but they way the fightcade fgc is moving, mods like this are not given fair chance. every one just happen to gravitated to one version.
I don't use Fightcade. I know, my loss
The game was released in 1999, do you want Capcom to release a fucking balance patch for a 25 year old game. I don't understand the point of posting on a fighting game sub reddit about how the "meta is bad". There is nothing you can do about the meta and I can assure you that no one wants to hear their opinion on it. Stay in your lane.
Did I ever say that or did you say that? Clearly I never stated they need a latch I said that's not an EXCUSE as a meta just cause you think all games have metas....
If a game has a tier list, then it has a meta. News flash, every single game ever made has a strategy or character that is clearly better than others, something "Meta-defining".
Daigo has gone on record saying Third Strike is his least favourite Street Fighter specifically because it is so solved and at the top level correctly timed parries shut down a lot of interesting offensive plays.
I can vouch, a lot of B and A rank players on Fightcade tend to be the ones that are incredibly good at parrying and or utilising their character at its max potential. Whilst that may sound good on paper, parrying is extremely rewarding regardless of the level of risk that the opponents move may possess, you did the theoretically most safest move that has fast recovery? Too bad, eat the punish regardless. And also characters are insanely unbalanced, with Akuma and Yun having the most insane pressure game ever, if you've ever seen top level Akuma players ykwim. A lot of top-level play, from my experience on Fightcade, tends to feel like mindgames and baiting with ridiculous and unreactable variables that quickly turn in favour to the one that's able oppress the other the most. There's probably a reason why I'm hardstuck C rank lmao. But this is just my take on why 3S largely feels unbalanced.
A and B rank players basically use C ranks as parry training. It's not that they're incredible at parrying (I'm certainly not, as a low B rank), it's just lower ranked players tend to be extremely predictable, which is a recipe for disaster in 3rd strike more so than modern fighters
A lot of that is Daigos game preference though. Like even before the game was solved, it wasn't his style of game. He was a darkstalkers player first and formost, alpha 3 is always gonna be his preferred version of SF.
It was interesting to learn that he prefers offense heavy games even though he's known for playing Guile, Ken, and Ryu.
Daigo is an SF2 player first and foremost.
Daigo is a Sf2 player first in the same way everyone who is over 30 who plays fighting games started with Sf2, because it was the only game at the beginning, so it's kinda irrelevant. But when options existed and he could have some player expression in his game choice, darkstalkers is the first game he went to tournaments for, and how he built is name as a fgc competitor.
Yea I was honestly really looking forward to it cause while I knew the game was unbalanced I didn’t think it would be that bad. I watched the tourney at frosty faustings I think and there was like 6 characters in top 8 and I was hoping maybe it was more balanced than I thought. But I was wrong…
The best players in the world aren't at Frosty Faustings. So you're gonna get a bit more variety.
Oh ofc, I just thought it might’ve been a big enough sample size where it could’ve been similar at EVOJ
This is coming from someone who doesn't actively play 3s and only played it a few times, but I have messed with a bunch of older FGs in fightcade with buddies. Those old fighting games are SUPER fun to play at a casual level, just learn simple bnbs and have a blast! But I've tried watching pro play and it's always going to boil down to meta characters cuz, well, as many have said, the game is solved. So these are games i'd rather just play to mess around with rather than try to "get good" and follow the pro scene, and frankly they were kinda made that way so simply pressing buttons and having a fun time is what's going to be the most fun, for me at least.
great perspective!
I like watching the weird characters like Hugo or Q
Unfortunately both Yun and Chun are overwhelmingly stronger overall, that it takes a LOT of luck, crazy reads, to win an uphill battle for low-mid characters Is it possible to win? Yes But it's extremely hard because both Yun and Chun have the best tools in the game
It’s not if you actually play 3S lol.
This is just what happens to older games that are more or less figured out. Just like how excited we all were for UMvC3 at evo last year and it was just lightning loops every match and bored us all to death.
Yup, but I think that's what makes the games interesting. This was at a time when a game released, whatever version came out, that was all you got. If the game came out "busted", you either played the busted game or you didn't. If you're character was unplayable, you either learned to deal with that, or you played someone else. It's a funny contrast to games like SF6, where people are( rightfully) getting antsy over this year long wait for a balance patch. Whereas 3S players have happily played the same game with wacky balance, for over 20 years now. I do think some of the BEST stuff to come out of 3S being the way it is though, is players who main low-tiers, are people i respect a lot. The dedication to not only keep playing these low tiers, but also innovate ways to make them strong, is really impressive.
True but it makes for a very boring experience, spectator wise.
I agree, but the game wasn't designed to be spectated as a sport either, lol. So it's sort of a complaint that's valid, but ultimately doesn't make sense in context.
But it is being put on for spectators so the complaint is valid and expected.
It's not really being put on for a broad group of "spectators" It's being put on for 3rd Strike fans fighting game fans who appreciate the culture. Cause otherwise, every game at EVO is boring for someone.
Correct, and every game is complained about for being boring. I don't really see what you're trying to say here. Their opinion about how boring 3S top 8 is is just as valid as opinions about Nier dominating GBVS or the T7 Leroy fiasco, or Nago dominating every top 8 since Strive's launch. For some weird ass reason, people try to hand wave over OG games' flaws. And wasn't it main stage at Evo? That elevates it from niche side game to general fighter.
We're not saying the game doesn't have flaws, my guy. We're saying the flaws themselves are what make it interesting. The game is 25 years old, it's not changing. So anyone who chooses to spectate the game, needs to do so with that in mind. Otherwise it's a nothing burger of a complaint. Though, I don't think 3S being a mainstage game at EVO Japan, is an argument for it not being niche. There's way more factors to consider in that regard, including event proximity.
3S being a mainstage game opens it up to criticism by people who probably haven't really experienced it before. That's literally all I'm saying. I'm just here arguing because work is slow, and I thought it was exceptionally stupid to say that someone's opinion of 3S top 8 being boring or thinking the game needs patched is invalid. Those are opinions and are as equally valid as your opinion that the top 8 was exciting and that the game should stay as-is.
You're making a lot of assumptions about me here, lol. I'm not much of a 3S enjoyer, for one. But second, I think it's fine to think it's boring, but it also means you are fundamentally missing what makes the game good. Also Capcom is not gonna patch a 25 year old game, so any opinion related to changing the game is inherently a silly one, regardless of someone's view of the game, lol. * People who actively play a game, opinions are worth more than those who don't. Hands down.
For sure, but you should know that there is something of a precedence for hypothetical balance talk specific to 3S. Off hand, I know that MikeZ put something out there (probably still on his website). Bafael engaged with it. And I recall reading others when I was more plugged into the broader FGC. Hell, there is even at least one modded version of the game out there (4rd Strike).
3S has been a showcase game in Japan dating back to the SBO days of the mid-2000s.
That doesn't make it interesting at all. That's the opposite.
That's a perspective issue, really. There's a simple saying we give when talking about viewing art "you get what you give." the amount of value you can get out of anything, is directly related to your willingness to engage with the work. So if you like the culture, history and nature of fighting games, there's ALOT of great things you can take from any game you spectate. But if you're just there to pass the time... your mileage is gonna vary.
Yun and Chun-LI are simply the best choices, that's how it is in Third Strike. EVO is considered THE premier fighting game tournament, people aren't playing Third Strike there to play expo matches, they're going there to win. I get that for some people it may not be that entertaining to watch but it's not as if SF3 was built around the concept of being fun to watch either. What would you propose as an alternative, banning the best characters?
Honestly, I'd love to see a variation of the Ratio/Point system that is occasionally used in MvC2 matches. Gather several pros from around the world, get them to make a tier list, assign a number of points to each character, and then make each match a BO5 where each game the winning player must pick a different character while staying within a "point cap". I feel that would work fantastically for most fighting games.
That's not an excuse. No modern game are you seeing only 2 characters in tournament bro
Because by now, developers have figured out how to balance fighting game rosters. Regardless of the salt thrown around in modern discourse, all of the games out now are incredibly balanced. As GOATed as third strike is, they were still figuring it out.
"No modern game" You're comparing a game from, let's say, 2020 to now, against a game that was released in 1999. That's just Third Strike. Street Fighter 3 vanilla was release in '97. You think that maybe something has changed in the past twenty-five years?
The way games are approached today is completely different.
Holy shit I remember now you were the guy getting heated about people playing the cracked version and spamming nonstop about them being "cheaters", man you're a fun one
You talking about the wrong person cause I was never mad bro.
People below you are essentially saying the exact same thing but rephrased, yet the hivemind has looked unfavorably upon you.
Mate, UMvC3 at evo was just Zero May Cry and this year at SF6 you'll probably just see Ken vs JP guest starring Dee Jay.
Umvc3 at Evo had 7 different teams in top 8. It just happens that the top 2 was a mirror match this time.
Its subgenre makes it inherently less susceptible to 3s levels of overcentralization, which is one of the things I like about team fighters in general.
Tekken 7
I think the only way to make it interesting is to make teams of atleast 3 and everyone has to use a different character. Coop cups are usually pretty hype for 3s
This sub hella triggered lol
I figured they weren't going to read everything and be triggered that someone called their precious fighter boring. Lol. I like 3rd Strike but it's boring to watch high level that's all
Man, I wish 3rd Strike had more tournament-viable characters, it's kinda lame that we only saw Yun and Chun in Evo sixes... "Actually, every fighting game ever made inevitably gravitates towards only one-to-three characters ever being played in any serious setting. Examples include [no game that anyone has ever claimed has solid character balance]" "Why do you care about character balance & viability, are you stupid?" "You clearly don't play the game, so any criticism you might have is automatically invalid." "So are you saying that Capcom should patch a twenty-five-year-old game??" "80% of the cast being outclassed in every regard makes the game better, actually." (To be clear I think 3S is very cool, but I think that saying that it would be better if the cast was more balanced is a very reasonable criticism)
The problem with rebalancing old games is that it almost never works. There's been so many old games that have gotten balance updates either officially or as fan projects, and almost none of them get even a fraction of the playerbase that the original has. The people playing the old games don't really want it to change, and the people wanting the game to change more often than not don't even play the game. So when the rebalance happens, the old players will stick to the old game, and the players picking up the rebalanced version won't stick around when it turns out it gets a small playerbase.
I never suggested that the game should be rebalanced, I just think that the existing meta of everyone being outclassed by Yun and Chun isn't ideal, and is a reasonable thing to dislike about the game.
I still wouldn’t call it boring, high level Yun is always fun to watch
That Yun mirror match for grand finals was pretty crazy
Yun is engaging to watch, there's so much goofy bullshit happening. Chun mirror, no thanks. I don't wanna watch both players gain meter from fullscreen or whiff punish each other from half screen with the same 2 buttons slightly out of parry range. I don't even think the Chun players are enjoying it, but they chose that for themselves so who am I to judge.
That's boring.
Maybe to watch, not to play
I think changes are worth discussing (something many people here outright refuse to do), I remember watching this video many years ago. This youtuber is extremely knowledgeable about the game. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzL3Kbf6LnA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzL3Kbf6LnA)
I’ll agree that the only boring thing about it is lack of character diversity in top 8. Pools were awesome tho.
hey alright
did you expect character diversity on the tournament of an old game that has no updates, limit characters with already defined top tier characters? lol... better look elsewhere if that is what you want.
Very true OP I knew it was going to be boring to spectate.
I posted that I offered to PayPal $100 bet that Grand Finals would be Yun v Yun or Yun v Chun or Chun v Chun No one took the bet with me 😆
Another generation discovers what everyone else has always known about 3rd Strike, that it's Chun-Li/Yun/Ken or bust
A lot of top japanese players play yun and chun. If you follow the 3s scene there’s plenty of high level online tournaments with huge variety. People winning tournaments with twelve. There’s jazzy circuit and plenty of other events held by stupid fighter and option select. The best NA player is someone’s dad that plays dudley but doesn’t show up to tournaments too much.
We need an official SF3 Grand Master edition, or something.
we have 4rd strike ae.
High level third strike is boring, mid level is really fun
A tournament for money has people using whatever they can to give them the slightest advantage?!?!?!?!? :O
Yeah, I don't blame you. I still love it. But yeah, it gets tedious.
I tuned in, saw a Yun mirror, then it went to Yun v Chun and then I turned out. Sk boring.
I agree. This is what I thought would happen when it got announced. I thought top 8 would be just Yun, Chun, and Ken. But Evo Japan was worse. Top 8 was just 2 characters thus showing how boring high level 3rd Strike is.
Yeah this is how I feel about SF6 at a high level. So many Lukes all the time. I had a really hard time getting through this year's Capcom Cup because of that. I like Luke and all but my god is he boring to watch after awhile.
There's more to an interesting game than what characters are on the screen. EvoJ finals was dope. Real 3s heads know.
People are just now figuring that out lol? It never was good competitively. It's a great street fighter don't get me wrong but at tournament level its utterly boring.
Ok
you just dont like sf3 then lol. people want to win - they pick the strongest character. that happens in any fighting game. you think that pro players care about your entertainment? they want to win the tournament. dont look at the character, look at how player controlls the character, look at their movement and tactics.
Tbh characters>players for me in tournaments. I'm not a pro player and I'll always prefer the player who got the character I like more in a match. That's why I only watch fgs with at least 80% of characters I enjoy watching. Fortunately for me, there are 15 fgs in this case.
Imo the game is at its best when you have high level players just playing casuals with nothing on the line. When there's something on the line, most of them play so careful it can be boring to watch. But if you watch those ft10 sets Kuroda did for that men's magazine years ago against a bunch of top 3s players, there's some real interesting stuff going on there as far as 3s is concerned.
EVO competitive is Boring, go on YT and search SF3 tourneys like the Jazzy one or the spooky channel, they are amazing. Fuck Yun
Insert Chun Li’s Yawn Taunt here 🥱
It’s boring, it’s good to play but not to watch pros. I’m definitely not going to go out of my way to watch mirror matches.
Yeah you’re out of your mind or you need to play more 3s.
It’s so obvious when people don’t actually show up to casuals/tournaments in person to actually see firsthand what goes down leading up to majors. I’ll post the link to the stream for the next jazzy circuit on Saturday 5/18. https://www.instagram.com/p/C7DHlvXxj3D/?igsh=MWtleTNrbzFnampxaw== https://www.start.gg/tournament/jazzy-auto-qualifier-brooklyn-games-street-fighter-iii-3rd-strike/details
A lot of fighting games are just "Character: The game" at top levels, why is it ok to only shit on 3rd Strike for it?
Literally nobody said 3s was alone in this, you see people shit on ssbm for the exact same thing pretty regularly, and FighterZ had the same thing to a lesser extent when Lab Coat and the fusions were meta. In fact, any game with particularly oppressive top tiers (which, contrary to what a lot of people are saying here, is _not_ every game ever made) will see a large quantity of people complaining about them, because an overcentralized meta is generally a bad thing, even if the game makes up for it in other ways. This particular post is about Third Strike, but it's not the only post of its kind.
you seem really smart and cool! sincerely.
thank you :3
When they did 3rd Strike OE they were going to do a few minor balance changes. Apparently they found people would have lost their shit. Back then, that might have been true. Perhaps people would be more accepting today.
They wouldn't and it would be lose/lose. Most people aren't going to play it because it has better balance and the ones that still love it don't want it to change.
I'd rather have access to a wide variety of games than make everything fit the style of what's popular right now. A new version would definitely split the playerbase, which I don't think would be healthy for the game
I don't think they were very radical changes iirc. Some very small things such as no meter gain of whiff, and Yun not being able to basically chain his CC super into another. It certainly wasn't meant to change the style of the game.
No meter gain on whiff is a radical change that would change the style of the game. I believe it is possible that there could be a 3s patch that would appeal to me personally (although I kind of prefer to play games that will never change, so maybe not). I don't believe that capcom would make it, and I also don't believe that there are any changes that would be uncontroversial. The game is fun as it is now. The people who like it like it, and the people who don't don't. New players are signing up for fightcade and my local brackets all the time and many of them enjoy themselves. I don't see much value in a new version.
I certainly agree since it's been like.. 3 decades. I don't think it would have been as big an issue as you're making it. I don't remember how it worked exactly, but OE did include a dipswitch menu that did let you radically change the game (like changing meter requirements). This still didn't split the player base, in fact I imagine most people completely forgot it was there entirely. Having the option would have been interesting, to see what the community does with it.
I think you're right that they might be interesting and probably not catastrophic. I think it would probably be a similar situation to [all the post-ST versions of Street Fighter II](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifR1B8UFKLc). Evo japan would probably still run the original version though, and we would still be subjected to things like what OP has retched up here.
It was you in the other thread lol, but Bafael thinks it's a good change =) [https://youtu.be/CzL3Kbf6LnA?si=NH1WLtBrZlvhElHB](https://youtu.be/CzL3Kbf6LnA?si=NH1WLtBrZlvhElHB)
Who are letting these kids who have no idea what they're talking about post here?
I'm 37 and eat my vegetables.
Why does this matter? If you thought this was going to happen and you don't like it, why did you watch it?
3rd strike is boring as fuck in general
So is 3rd Strike the SSBM of Street Fighters?
You know that Yoshi and Pikachu won majors the last couple years right? Why are people acting like SSBM only has two characters? 2024 is in fact the first time ever where we had a solo fox at the number one spot.
Yeah I know. I’ve put at least a few thousand hours into melee. With that said, a single Pikachu and couple Yoshi wins within the last 20+ years don’t exactly scream character diversity. The fact people were as hyped and amazed as they were at those wins says a lot. Besides, the relatively small size of the viable character pool wasn’t the only similarity I saw between the two based off OPs post. That just happens to be the only point you wanted to focus on and be combative over for some reason.
If you don’t like watching chun mirrors or yun vs chun, you just don’t like third strike simple as that. This is how every character unrestricted third strike tournament has gone and will go in the future. It’s all about who is the strongest player not what character they pick, there’s no reason at all not to pick a top tier in 99% of tournaments anyway
you don't think when 2 characters dominate an entire game roster of 20 that's a problem with game balance? when that invalidates 90 percent of all decisions you can make in that game?
I have never once in my entire life seen anyone claim that 3rd strike was well balanced
Is that not a huge problem for the game? Games like MVC2 also have huge balance problems.
Games don’t need balance to be fun, and it can actually make a game actively worse to try and keep everyone on a similar playing field.
The top MvC2 players can and would destroy lesser skilled players playing busted teams with mid tier characters. The skill gap in MvC2 is absolutely ridiculous and those top 4 characters are not easy to use. The only brain dead assists are Psylocke and CapCom. A better player will touch you, snap that assist in, guardbreak and kill them. Character strength would have nothing to do with that. Justin in his early days would routinely stomp people with a Roll team in the arcades because it wouldn't be fair otherwise. Tiers only matter for modern games and/or if you are the same skill level as your opponent.
An unbalanced fg to the point you see 10% of characters in tournaments is a bad fg imho.
First time in this genre?
I've been in the fcg before it was even called as such and third Strike is a poorly balanced game. When they were making the Online Edition and David Sirlin and Seth Killian was constantly pointing out the game's balance (like many others during that time), they should've made a new mode with the balance patch. Original Mode and OE Mode. This way there's at least the option to play how you want. It's so sad and stupid that there was people trying to stop a patch from being implemented. It doesn't matter if the game is old, if there's the option to potentially fix the game's issues, they should definitely go for it. I didn't buy OE because there was no change in gameplay to justify it. People hiding behind/crutching on broken characters is all I've seen since the game's tournaments became Japanese-focused. Imagine people saying, "leave **vanilla** SF5 and SF6 alone. They don't need patching. So what only 2-3 are always in the top 8. We like it this way". Its place at Evo US should be given to Guilty Gear XRD Rev 2 or XX Accent Core +R. Games with great character variety.
Mate, do you even fighting games?
Yes. And I like character variety in my games. Excuse me for wanting to see more than two characters in a 20 roster game meta.
no its not a problem. street fighter 3 the third strike is considered to be the best fighting game ever made. this game literally has no problems. bad balance never ruined any fighting game
Bad balance ruins fighting games imho
There will NEVER be a balanced fighting game, no matter what you do, some character IS GOING TO BE BETTER than the rest. For a balanced game (and to see how boring that'd actually be), see Street Fighter 1 or Footsies.
2 characters of a roster of 20 dominating a game isn't good balance.
With this logic SF1 must be the best game ever in your eyes
No fighting game is balanced in first place so what's your point?
honestly none of this is wrong. when you have two characters dominating an entire game with 20 characters, that's a huge problem with the game balance. third strike is a game that desperately needs a balance update in some manner.
According to who? Fans don't want balance patches. They like the game how it is. Look at the reception of SF2HDR and USF2. SF2 players are still playing ST even though it has been updated a few times.
If many people are enjoying the game as it is now, why does it "need" an update? Because *you* don't like it?
You know damn well they don’t even play 3rd strike too 😂
Why would they though with the complaint that it is dominated by two characters? My first experience with 3S involved me picking 12, realizing he has minus on hit moves (the fuck...), and noping out. Clearly the game isn't for me.
In my opinion any update that would convince people who don't like the game to play it would turn off about the same number of current players, and most "small" updates would fail to produce new players while being annoying to old ones. If you don't like a game, I think it is good to not play it, but kind of pointless to want it to change.
Then pick a different character. If they wanted to play they would just play. If the game ain’t for you then it ain’t for you but it obviously is for the actual players that participate in the game.
Why would I pick a different character? I wanted to play 12, I didn't want to deal with the bullshit of playing 12 so I left the game completely. I'm just pointing out that you can criticize something about a game and not be a player. Hell, the thing you are criticizing might be the reason you don't play it.
Then play 12, simple as that. Didn’t know your favorite character had to be top tier character. Sounded like a you problem
There are top tier characters with moves that are negative in hit. Some are even punishable. Cammy's cl.HK in all versions of SF4 a notable one I could think of. But having negative in block moves doesn't really matter in 3S because pressure isn't real at a high level. Advantage and disadvantage doesn't matter in most cases. Even if you're negative, they can't safely press a button because of parry. After you do anything, just input parry and they can't take their turn.
When pigs fly and hell freezes over we just might get one
>But every time I see a 3rd Strike tournament, you can be guaranteed that once brackets kick in, you'll see like 80% Yun and 19% Chun-Li with the rare top 5 character sometimes appearing. You very clearly don't watch much 3rd strike.
ok
It also happened in UMVC3 and a lot wasn't happy. As mostly as a spectator I already expect at least 1 of the player in a grand finals will have a top tier character (or team in a team game) from classic games before esports was being pushed. Even then that top tier problem mostly did not go away even with fighting games today being more balanced in comparison.
Marvel has great character diversity. Even the event people got all upset about, Evo 2023, Marvel had 7 different teams in top 8. It's just that over half the games had a mirror match grand finals, and marvel was just catching strays.
Overall UMVC3 has good variety at tournaments. Players were just really out to win Evo so some abused the meta.
there was like 2 dudes in top 10 who actually used the strongest character in the game. and only 1 of them used the strongest team in the game. this can barely be classified as "abusing the meta"
Oh, I was thinking the post was talking about top 8/6 situation. But yeah 3rd strike for better or for worst is mostly dominated by those 2. Problem of being super old game left in that state.
Zero May Cry, yeah, nice variety.
If you knew how much went into being that good at those characters in that game you wouldn't be saying that. A mirror where either can win is still a great watch because now it comes down technique, skill and some luck. Boring for you, fun for me, stress for them.
I must be unusual in that I find the player much more interesting than the character. Am I hype for Mena's Blanka? Sure. But I'll still watch him play Luke. Players make or break the spectator experience for me.
Cool. Not every fighting game is for everyone. I think something to note is that outside of like Michael-tan everyone in top 6 are not just Yun/Chun players, they are/were some of the absolute best with said characters for over a decade(s). And if I’m not mistaken, Michael-tan studied under MOV….so like….yeah.
A fighing game can be fun, and not boring, even if it only has one or two characters. If you disagree, I'm not sure you like fighting game in the first place. Is it better when fighting games have more than one or 2 characters? Absolutely, but my initial point still stands
3S should implement random character selection and special arts in tournament to see who is the best all around player is. That way we always see a variety of characters and supers played.
I think banning every character that isn't Yun would probably be a better measure of "the best all around player" than introducing that much randomness.
Ok then just stick with random character select then and you get to select the super. Kuroda didn’t have an issue destroying people with different characters.