I think this trope needs a better name. "Fake" balance implies that there is the appearance of balance without the actuality. Most of this trope seems to be cases where its simply imbalanced.
In my mind, "fake balance" would be cases like D&D, where allegedly spellcasters and warriors are balanced by different challenges at different levels. In practice, they are both unbalanced, just at different times.
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YMMV. What may appear balanced to you, might not appeared as balanced to others.
Also, when are warriors unbalanced compared to wizards? Unless the challenge is something like "survive Xd Y damage Z times without magical aid" or "beat this NPC in a sword duel in an anti-magic field" the wizard can only lose by screwing up on initiative against a warrior designed to kill or disable in one round.
Would someone stop calling the spellcasters broken? If you think they're broken, you've never played under a competent DM. They're powerful at higher levels but not broken.
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Force them to run through multiple encounters without rest (works prior to 4.0) which forces them to think about managing their power as a resource. Force them to fight foes they can't just blast either due to immunities or tactical positions (or at least make the creatures immune to their strongest spells). Your spellcaster will have to fall back on things like party buffing and battle field control which gives the rest of the party a chance to really kick some tail (and if they're having trouble coming up with that tactic on their own DROP A HINT).
Any caster who blows his spell slots on fireballs and lasers and such is playing to his weaknesses, not his strengths. The greatest roles of the wizard and cleric are their ability to completely control the battlefield. Spells that stun, paralyze, turn to stone, blind, deafen, cause fear, daze, confuse, and otherwise make enemies waste their actions are infinitely more useful than a spell that does a random amount of damage based on die rolls, because the former remove enemies from the fight entirely, while the latter only do temporary damage. Hell, I once was in a party where a cleverly-used planar ally spell let us basically skip an entire dungeon, looting the entire thing from a distance while our characters had tea. So no, you're not proving your point, you're actually proving the opposite.
Edited by 216.99.32.44
"With the standard tournament settings (no items, 1v1 stock match) slow characters might be underpowered. However, they're much more useful in free-for-alls, where they can hog the K Os before other characters get a chance, and get K Oed less themselves. In both free-for-alls and team battles (to a lesser extent), they can pick off people who are busy fighting someone else, or slam themselves into the fray for multiple K Os. "
Not really true. FF As and team battles encourage a lot of careful play, jumping in the fray with something like Ike's U Smash will only get yourself killed, if you're playing someone decent. Metaknight is still very dominant in both modes, as seen in most doubles tournaments (MK/MK and MK/Snake are very powerful and popular teams).
Burnout Paradise probably qualifies. Just because your car has a strength rating of X does not mean that it will be the winner in a head-on collision with another car whose strength is Y, even if X > Y. It is possible to take down the Hunter Olympus or Carson Nighthawk with the Kreiger WTR.
"Luke Surl once proposed to "even things out"... so that all would be fair. "
Could someone explain to me what the above example has anything to do with video games? Just wanted to ask before removing this one...
Disambiguated per TRS:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=16746937270.14505900&page=1#comment-1
Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.