what makes melee "balanced"?

[missedwithtruestrike]

one of my friends, and one of the best players in our group quit smash recently.
he said the game was "too imbalanced" and that too few characters were viable for high level play. when he said this, a few others agreed with him and quit too, the point i made was that since a majority of the cast is viable, therefore the game is balanced.
but they said that "viable does not mean balanced"
so i ask:what is balance?

 

[Stratford]

That's a good ****ing john to stop playing... I had some friends like that but they're not my friends anymore.

 

[missedwithtruestrike]

harsh...but yea, i think thats all it was anyway, since ive been the best of our group for 2 years now...

 

[keeper]

Tell them to stop using horrible characters.

 

[missedwithtruestrike]

one mained peach and the other samus
seconds were link and ...uh..kirby respectivly
mine are marth and doc... :/

edit: noones actually giving me input here...

 

[Stev]

well tiers really show at high levels of play, not so much at lower levels (which you may or may not be in). So basically, the game comes down to individual skill at the lower levels for the most part.

 

[Che_Lab]

in some matchups, tiers dont really matter, for instance many pros consider young link a peach counter.

 

[missedwithtruestrike]

one of their main arguments though was that not enough characters are good enough for tournies, which i believe is false.

 

[No_Face]

nearly all fighting games have this problem after the metagame evolves a little bit

melee in particular doesn't even suffer it so badly compared to the ones i'm aware of

 

[Binx]

In most competetive fighting games the top tiers are usually 2 or maybe 3 characters, melee is lucky that we have 4 VERY viable characters and 3-5 more than can still compete at most levels of play.

 

[Vsin]

Um, I thought the number were better than that...

4 "awesomeness" characters (Marth, Fox, Shiek, Falco)

4 "pretty darn good" characcters (Falcon, Peach, ICs, Puff)

*some more* tourney viable characters (Doc, Ganon, Samus?)

And not to mention that the lowtiers are perfectly viable counterpicks.

 

[HT F8]

Uhh I have the feeling your friends weren't playing at a high level... so what are they whining about? Stop *****ing about high levels of play when you don't come remotely close to that level.

They're just johning cause they suck.

I suck too, but you don't see me BAWWing and quitting cause of it.

 

[Eyce Theon]

This game is mindblowing in how much skill matters FAR MORE THAN the character you play to compete, in all but a tip-top competitive level. Of course, there's a spectrum of what characters are easier to play than others that may make the game SEEM more imbalanced.

A Shiek or Marth player with the same amount of time put into the game as a Ganon or Doc player will likely be able to win more matches against people with the same skill level, but once you get past that initial curve you'll find that so many more characters are useable in tournaments than the usual matchups portray.

 

[missedwithtruestrike]

this is what i tried to explain...but they wont accept it...
\this thread was just making sure i wasnt insane...

 

[Hazygoose]

you're not insane.
you're awesome because you play melee :D

 

[CableCho57]

you're not insane.
you're awesome because you play melee :D

agreed!!!!

 

[HawaiianJigglyPuff]

This game is mindblowing in how much skill matters FAR MORE THAN the character you play to compete, in all but a tip-top competitive level. Of course, there's a spectrum of what characters are easier to play than others that may make the game SEEM more imbalanced.

This is the main thing to keep in mind. What makes Melee so great is how intricate it is. Simple stuff like L-canceling is huge. It's mind-blowing that they didn't put L-canceling in Brawl. Such a simple thing that can give such an advantage to a better player.

Skill matters so much. No matter how many times I pick Marth or Fox, KDJ will still 4 stock me with Pichu.

If your friends can't see/understand that, then 1.) they must suck at the game. 2.) are uberly lame.

 

[ArcNatural]

No point in taking this further. All competitive games have this issue. Some are more balanced than others, all that matters is if the players still have fun with what's given to them.