How often should fighting games be patched?
Navigating the nuance of seasonal updates
A few months ago, one of the feedback surveys for Guilty Gear Strive asked players how often they felt the game should be patched, with options ranging from once or twice to several times a year. I genuinely didn’t know how to answer this question, because it relied on a lot of context. What exactly is being changed? Is it just bugfixes, or is it major balance updates? Certainly the game should be rebalanced every time a new character comes in, and subsequent updates should focus on tuning that character if something about them is too strong or week. On the other hand, if the game gets patched too frequently and without warning, the game may be difficult to remain consistent in, and it may become drastically different within the span of a few weeks or months.
Patch fatigue is a very real issue and has been described in games like League of Legends or Killer Instinct. In League, major patches happen every two weeks, and top players have often described it as being very frustrating having to re-learn the whole game so often. It’s often been likened to the hypothetical situation of the NBA changing minute features like the size of the court, the boundaries of the various point lines, or the weight of the ball between every game of the season. Since League of Legends patches also often include drastic new additions like whole champions or reworks to existing champions, juggling all of these elements while trying to learn existing tech is exhausting. While KI’s development cycle is now complete, it was the subject of similar complaints due to its frequent patches.
GGST’s patch cycle for this year had already been announced- we would be getting three of the five DLC characters from Season 1 (Goldlewis, Jack-O’, and a TBD character,) a major character update alongside Jack-O’ in August, and an engine update in October. What no one could have predicted was exactly how drastic everything would have changed from the release version to the October 15th version 1.10 patch. Nearly every character got major buffs, and even characters that did get nerfs like Sol and May remained fairly strong or got new tools. These character changes released alongside universal changes such as buffs to Faultless Defense, nerfs to Guard Crush, and additional air options- new jump and airdash cancels, new air Gatlings, and some character-specific tools.
On his stream, Sajam pointed out that there was still a lot of new tools to discover from the August patch that hadn’t been unearthed yet, and that the October patch had turned GGST into a completely new game. While Sol was still extremely strong, for instance, his old bread-and-butter and high damage combos either didn’t work at all or required new routing, and his damage overall was reduced slightly, from 20HP or more. Sajam expressed concern on this point, noting that while the balance cycle was certainly very exciting, it would be worrisome if major patches on this scale weren’t spaced out more, since it would be difficult for long-time players to constantly have to relearn everything every two months.
I wrote this segment mainly because I personally am not sure about whether I want a major patch like this all the time, or with what frequency I want them implemented. There’s obviously pros and cons to fast and slow patch cycles, but it also depends on how fast or slow the cycles are. From the perspective of games that I used to play, League patch fatigue was a major turn-off for me playing the game constantly and has made it hard for me to come back to, whereas Team Fortress 2 hardly does anything to rectify its major issues due to a stagnant development cycle. If we were to look at Gerald’s recent Core-A Gaming video, frequent patching might burn out the “honer’s” ability to grind the game, while being exciting for the “innovator’s” need for the constant drip of new content. But on the flip side, infrequent patching (or patches that largely tone down or nerf aspects of the game) may demotivate the innovator’s interesting in discovering new tools, while providing the honer ample time to practice existing technology while knowing they won’t change.
The ‘middle ground’ here is tricky to reach while a game’s development cycle is active. Ideally, your game should be updated frequently enough so that players feel like their concerns are addressed (whether over critical fixes like game-breaking bugs or minor grievances like individual character tuning) while also eventually leaving enough to discover in the game long after the team is done working on it. Global balance changes should also be expected whenever major updates like new characters are added into the game to prevent power creep and make sure everyone fits neatly within the metagame’s ecosystem. If a game is known to change drastically, such as adding new system mechanics every season, those patches should not occur more than once or twice a year, or else the core game will become wholly unrecognizable very quickly.
In past articles, the major changes that I’ve suggested adding to GGST would probably require patches to the game that are as drastic- if not more- as the most recent October patch. In fact, they’re already partway there, as one of the suggestions I wanted was more Gatling routes, especially in the air. I like the balance philosophy of tuning nearly everything in the game to be stronger rather than outright nerfing core gameplay or strong characters, and I also think shaking everything up dramatically is exciting and fun. However, I also think Sajam and others have a point when they worry that the game may change too much very quickly if this is the scope of future patches, especially since we still have least three more characters (and thus at least three more major updates) to look forward to within the next year. Even if that concern is premature, it’s predicated on the history of other games that were developed with similar intentions.
So, open question to you, reader: How often do you think modern fighting games should receive patches? What should the nature of each patch be? What, if anything, should be updated or changed? Do you like the direction that games like GGST are taking with their post-launch balance philosophy?
