I don't think that's true. You honestly don't think some of Gief's matchups couldn't have been better from the outset? Even on paper it's pretty clear that the character was going to have a very hard time in certain situations.
But that's not how matchups work. I think Gief shouldn't have had so many bad matchups in general, but expecting the matchups to be closer is based around every other characters' individual toolset. It would take a complete reworking of both Gief and the cast to normalize the majority of his matchups, because that's just how matchups work.
That's not the issue. Matchups are used to see how much trouble a character will have. It's up to the game to determine whether or not those are actually winnable or not. If I play Rubber Soul in Jojo, I'm going to have a way harder time than playing Gief against Nash.
Again, this is the nature of basically every fighting game ever. Even VF has matchups between certain characters.
It's easy to say that you can beat your worst matchup but it's a problem when that win requires your opponent to make pretty significant mistakes rather than it being the result of your skill. It can make the gameplay lack a sense of agency, which is less fun. If I win through capitalising on my opponents mistakes I at least want to feel as though I pressured them into making those mistakes but against someone like Guile it doesn't feel like that. I just guessed correctly and he pressed the wrong button at the wrong time, the gameplay is brain dead.
Capitalizing on the mistakes of your opponent is skill. It's harder to do against someone where your match up is a straight 2. So going by this, if Itabashi's Gief or Stupendous' Gief takes a win off a Guile, it's because they made a mistake and not because they are skilled? What?
You can also make the skill ceiling and skill floor so high that player skill will always sooner be the differentiating factor rather than character qualities. That's the alternative to homogeneity, and that's what we saw in SFIV, where top players would compensate matchup weaknesses with very advanced and complex playstyles.
What SF4 were you watching? People countered picked. Everyone played the same Elena, the same E. Ryu, etc, because that game focused on optimal playstyles. Matchups in that game were far, far worse than anything SFV has had bar none.
they basically buffed Dhalsim and made the MU worse for Gief. and it's not like Dhalsim was broken so it is not a balance thing, but a design problem
What other fighters don't have an issue between MUs? Or have characters where their MUs are straight 5-5s? But I guess I can see it being a design problem because you have characters that can keep Gief out all day, and that's just how they are made. But I stand by the point that you don't win bad matchups because someone makes a mistake, it's because you were more skilled than the person. If said game is balanced.
