SF6 Devs Reveal Plans For 'Master League' and Balance Updates

Everyone loves Shuhei Matsumoto and Takayuki Nakayama! The Street Fighter 6 Producer and Director have been the face of the game since the midpoint of Street Fighter V and many of the innovations that made SFV such a good game by the end of its cycle was attributed to them. They have also been front and center of Street Fighter 6 and have delivered a smash hit to the fighting game community. 

The two men sat down for an interview Inside Game JP to talk their thoughts on Street Fighter 6 right now and the plans for the future. The wide-ranging chat can be read in its entirety here, (it's in Japanese), but some of the juicier details will be discussed here. 

One of the things they talked about was the rumored League Points reset which many thought will be implemented into the game as a leveller of sorts. The devs dismissed this saying that at no point would there be a League Point reset, but that they would try to make Master Rank more interesting in other ways. One of this ways is through an feature they call 'Master League' which they say will be introduced later. This league will be for a specified period which will be called an 'Act' in which time, players in Master rank will be able to wager some sort of digital points to fight one another within the time period of these Acts. After one Act is done, the points attained within that time period will reset and people can go again. This is to make Master Rank more fun and give players who have attained it something to look forward to and fight for. 

They gave the example of Haitani, a pro player, who has already leveled every character to Master Rank and literally has nothing else to do now. 

Further into the interview, they also addressed issues around the game's balance stating that they will aim to do one big balance patch every year. Nakayama also said that he is careful to ensure that the patches won't be around huge tournaments. For example, the first big patch for SF6 will only come after Capcom Cup. As for smaller issues like the one with throw loops, those can be attended to quickly. 

Another point they addressed was the controversy between Modern Controls and Classic. According to the Capcom devs, Modern Controls might have been the only scheme released with the game, but with so many 'Classic' heads on the development team, it was decided to add both and ensured that none was not too powerful over the other to enable them both be viable in all aspects of the game's experience. 

The interview touched on Street Fighter's eagerness to partner with all sorts of companies to get the game out there to many more people and the shock at seeing so many people play it and enjoy the experience. 

Street Fighter 6 is available on Steam, PS5, PS4, and Xbox