Funny how everyone here was asking for Helena to be buffed and on saturday Rikuto couldn't stop claiming she was broken during the Absolute battle grand finals, even when Master completely destroyed e-mann's Helena (the one that killed Rikuto and caused him to start singing "broken broken broken") and proceeded to deliver an absolute beatdown to black mamba's Helena (though he lost in the end)
The moral is: don't be too hasty with the buff/nerf suggestions! It's early days and these characters have enormous rosters. As time goes on, people will discover "broken shit", others will adapt, the game will change, and others will come up with different "broken shit".
Today's broken shit is tomorrow's bread and butter tactic. The fact that Helena's force tech situation can put an opponent into a hugely disadvantageous situation is a part of the game....in Marvel almost every viable character has a way to turn a single opening into a character death. In street fighter, vortex characters can create a debilitating offense that forces the opponent to guess.
These are the things that make a fighting game beautiful to WATCH as opposed to beautiful to PLAY. When I listen to many of the balance suggestions on here, i can see we are trying to make the game into one where every game ends with a super-close round after a lot of boring back-and-forths because everyone has so many options everywhere.
I think that will make for a great game to play in your bedroom, but nobody will be interested in watching that. Marvel and SF are so clutch BECAUSE spectators are always on the edge of their seat. They know that "once he gets him in that setup its all over!" and when he does its like "Okay now its on!" and then if he gets out of it somehow there's the "oh my God!" moment.
You witnessed this in the absolute battle Grand finals. While the commentators were being down on the GAME and ignoring the match, whining about "force tech nonsense", the audience was cheering and getting hype for DOA!!! DOA of all games! When last did you see that at a mixed tournament? Imagine if marvel streams had the commentators saying "oh man he just got him in that Zero loop nonsense. Ah this is so stupid. Ok its over. Oh, he got out? He's so lucky." as opposed to whipping up the hype the way they should?
Its all just a word of caution. I know many will pounce on me and say I "know nothing about balance" and so forth but really... I think what we should be aiming for is not a perfectly balanced (therefore boring) game, but an extremely hype game that does not degenerate into something boring like Soulcalibur hilde all day every day, tekken 6 boblaw poke fest , or MK9 kunglao pressure strings all weekend.
if it degenerates into something like the crazy chunli onetouch on thirdstrike, touch of death blowups in marvel with crazy execution, or the street fighter vortex/wakeup guessing game, these "degenerate" states have proven to not only be extremely hype, but highly dramatic on stream.
Just my suggestion.... Team Ninja seems too hasty to implement player suggestions so if we arent careful we may ruin our own game just as it's getting started. Helena was first, what if other characters find force tech loops? what if the game evolves into one where a crazy spacing mindgame is played (like what manny used to shut mamba downand take more than 9 rounds off him) and the "force tech nonsense" becomes the high risk reward payoff?
I say take it slow with the nerf suggestions. Instead adapt first, try to figure out a counter, try to see if other characters have a similar tool or setup, see how the metagame changes, and EVEN IF you still cant figure it out, if its a tactic only 5% of players can use (manny vs e-mann shows skill still plays a part), LEAVE THAT SHIT THERE so everyone knows that yeah helena is low tier but black mamba's Helena is broken.....
