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[Sayah]

I doubt Namco is going to give Tekken a rest but I can agree that TTT2 needs to have a really long lifespan.

What other IP does Namco have that's bigger than Tekken? A lot of their stuff is just video game rights to animated properties (Dragon Ball, One Piece, Gundam). Tekken may not selling as well in USA but the series is still a huge revenue earner in arcades. Doubt they're gonna let that money go. Namco doesn't have any other IP to fall back on like Capcom does. They don't have their huge hit Resident Evil/Silent Hill or Devil May Cry or Metal Gear Solid. Tekken is pretty much their biggest IP.

I hope their publishing success with Dark Souls is going to lead them into investing more heavily into new IP's that will become huge hits but they really do need Tekken at this point in time.

 

[A Pretty Panda]

They have Pac Man!

 

[alstein]

Tekken had always been PlayStation exclusive before this gen and was pretty much THE fighter to get throughout the PS1/PS2 lifecycle. Everything changed this gen and I wouldn't mind if they went back to maintaining exclusivity with Sony. Majority of people playing TTT2 are already on PSN anyway. TTT2 performed abysmally on Wii U (I think) despite a being a far better port than most of the other third party titles available at launch. Everyone bought Call of Duty anyway. And it's not like anyone's rushing out to buy Xbone's. So yeah, PS4 exclusivity is okay with me.

Side Note: I also hate when people categorize Tekken as only memorizing frames and movelists. I've been doing well/okay in the game and I don't have frame data knowledge. With time, you just learn how to punish and what to punish with. Heavy memorization isn't a requirement and you don't need to have a frame bible to start enjoying the game or to play it competitively.

What I'd want to see done- is to make the jump from casual to serious easier. it's a huge hurdle in Tekken, caused by many things requiring lab time.

basically, what Tekken needs to do is something similar to the improvements Sega made between VF5 and VF5FS. Reduce execution barriers, replace those with mindgames.

First thing off the top of my head is throw teching being reactionary in Tekken. Only about 2-3% of Tekken players can do this, but it's so huge an advantage to not have to guess on throws.

The problem there is you do this, Tekken vets would revolt. (some VF vets revolted over the FS elimination of multi-throw tech, but every vet who quit was replaced by 10 new players)

I also think Tekken should reduce combo length in general, players hate being hit for that long.

Tekken at its core is a really great game, I do respect it. I just think there are some areas it needs improvement/overhaul.

 

[DEATH™]

If this is the Tekken game that releases as T7 it will do worse than TTT2. The casuals are gonna play T7 for few hours and will come to the conclusion that its too hard. No matter how you organize it, 100 moves are 100 moves. A godly tutorial is not going to save Tekken either, it didn't save VF (casuals don't sit around in training mode).

I am with AAK as well, let TTT2 be the definitive Tekken for a long time and Namco make a different fighter that can be like a remade Tekken. Come back to Tekken when fans clamor for it or Namco is in deep shit.

It's not gonna be "hard"... Trust me... the "problem" right now is pros are too busy thinking about 4 chars rather than two (which should be a new skill we should learn easily), and casuals are forced to play fight lab or compete with people and required to be good at the game to enjoy it.

Remember T6? it got a "Scenario Campaign" that kinda like a free-to-roam Tekken Force mode. It also got a online version where people can team up with each other beating other goons up. CASUALS DIG THIS. As a testimony, we got a party long time ago and we are playing TTT2 casually, then people started to ask if I got T6 to play scenario campaign. Casuals want to accomplish stuff like unlocking items or finishing stages, or a bunch of single player stuff... What I'm saying is, have a separate vision on single player modes, kinda like Starcraft where they have good Campaign for people yet they can dwell in Multiplayer and have the tools to learn (which is already there and just needs to be improved upon).

MK gave the great example of what casuals want in a fighting game. This is easily achievable in Tekken, as long as Harada won't scrap the current game and focus the budget for making the new game system work which also not gonna give the casuals what they want and furthermore pissing your core crowd...

 

[Sayah]

What I'd want to see done- is to make the jump from casual to serious easier. it's a huge hurdle in Tekken, caused by many things requiring lab time.

basically, what Tekken needs to do is something similar to the improvements Sega made between VF5 and VF5FS. Reduce execution barriers, replace those with mindgames.

First thing off the top of my head is throw teching being reactionary in Tekken. Only about 2-3% of Tekken players can do this, but it's so huge an advantage to not have to guess on throws.

The problem there is you do this, Tekken vets would revolt. (some VF vets revolted over the FS elimination of multi-throw tech, but every vet who quit was replaced by 10 new players)

I also think Tekken should reduce combo length in general, players hate being hit for that long.

Tekken at its core is a really great game, I do respect it. I just think there are some areas it needs improvement/overhaul.

They do need to reduce the barriers for newcomers. Fight Lab was a good step forward but it's not really a great tutorial. They need to go much further than that and create a really extensive and deep tutorial for the newcomer. I also don't know if I'd have a big problem with grabs being changed. I don't think I would.

They have Pac Man!

What was the last successful Pacman game?

 

[A Pretty Panda]

What was the last successful Pacman game?

Pac-Man

 

[Busaiku]

There's Tales, Idolmaster, Ridge Racer, Gundam, and One Piece.
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure All Star Battle's coming up, and they're working on Super Smash Bros.

 

[Professor Beef]

What was the last successful Pacman game?

The new one that came out on XBLA/PSN, Championship Edition DX.

 

[Dahbomb]

The Scenario Campaign in T6 was god awful and a lot of casuals skipped out on TTT2 specifically because of how bad that Campaign was. Many casuals simply did not like T6 all that much and that was a major factor that played into TTT2.

The 2 character TAG team is just a bad excuse to dismiss the game on being too hard. No one thought that about TTT when it first came out, it was definitely a big step up from T3. People had made up their mind on TTT2 before even playing it.

 

[Sayah]

:/

Come on man.

I'm talking about Namco's biggest IP. Tales, anime games and $15 downloadable Pacman games aren't really those big several million copies sellers.

Let's put it this way. Activision's got Call of Duty, Capcom's got Resident Evil, Sega has Sonic, Konami has Metal Gear Solid, EA has all the sports titles/N4S. What does Namco have that they can rely on to sell several millions even if the game quality is shit (as has been the case with recent CoD, Sonic and RE games)? Namco is in the business of fighting games and they are probably the only major company that relies on fighting games (Tekken and SC) for significant revenue. I clearly don't work at Namco to know how their business is run internally. But what other major titles do they have?

 

[alstein]

They do need to reduce the barriers for newcomers. Fight Lab was a good step forward but it's not really a great tutorial. They need to go much further than that and create a really extensive and deep tutorial for the newcomer. I also don't know if I'd have a big problem with grabs being changed. I don't think I would.

The next thing I'd look at is movement. Movement itself is fine, but it needs to be easier to bust predictable movement. For example, if you know someone will EDC in VF, you have options, such as delay or low throw. Tekken lacks this, which is movement is so much more powerful in Tekken (it's powerful enough in VF, but only with knowledge. Tekken you can just do it without having to think about it as much.

Some of this is due to VF being fought at throw range, whereas Tekken is footsie range. My guess is you'd have to really buff circular moves in terms of range, or make it where an evade makes you vulnerable to tracking moves in that direction for a set time frame no matter what. (something VF needs also)

I do think your idea for Tekken (MK style reboot) would be great for Soul Calibur. They tried a half-assed reboot with 5 and got half-assed results. They need to go whole hog, and I'd also throw an emphasis on the physical over the magical (chars like Algol/Viola really have no place in SC)

 

[Dahbomb]

Namco has the Soul games but yea beyond that and the two fighting games they really don't have much.

 

[A Pretty Panda]

Those anime games that they fart out and probably make gangbusters off of.

 

[Karsticles]

A certain website has Tekken games as 6/10 of Namco's top 10 sellers. The other 4 are all retro game compilations. Tekken is certainly Namco's major moneymaker.

 

[Dahbomb]

Namco also has the Gundam IP so whatever game they brand with Gundam does well enough.

 

[Professor Beef]

Let's put it this way. Activision's got Call of Duty, Capcom's got Resident Evil, Sega has Sonic, Konami has Metal Gear Solid, EA has all the sports titles/N4S. What does Namco have that they can rely on to sell several millions even if the game quality is shit (as has been the case with recent CoD, Sonic and RE games)?

The Tales series.

 

[Shouta]

If this is the Tekken game that releases as T7 it will do worse than TTT2. The casuals are gonna play T7 for few hours and will come to the conclusion that its too hard. No matter how you organize it, 100 moves are 100 moves. A godly tutorial is not going to save Tekken either, it didn't save VF (casuals don't sit around in training mode).

I am with AAK as well, let TTT2 be the definitive Tekken for a long time and Namco make a different fighter that can be like a remade Tekken. Come back to Tekken when fans clamor for it or Namco is in deep shit.

Actually 100 moves aren't 100 moves if they map it well. Tekken's movesets are annoying because they have 4 attack buttons and everything is mapped to some kind of whacky combination so to remember what moves are good you have to sit down and futz with it until you get it right. VF helps to avoid this problem by (aside from having 2 fewer buttons than Tag 2) is to make cleanly fold them into strings and vary them from there. That way you have a mix up as a part of it and the player doesn't have to memorize a completely different combination to get the different move.

Some more of that would be nice in Tekken. They do it a bit now but not as much and honestly, it feels like a lot of strings are totally useless. Once you find your combo commands and good pokes, there feels like there is little reason to use anything else.

 

[Busaiku]

I'm talking about Namco's biggest IP. Tales, anime games and $15 downloadable Pacman games aren't really those big several million copies sellers.

The DLC for stuff like Idolmaster and Tales are among their biggest revenue streams these days.

 

[A Pretty Panda]

Looking up VF5 stuff. Is df df a common motion? Isn't it hard to do that on pad?

Also this was a still from the video I saw

 

[Sayah]

Namco also has the Gundam IP so whatever game they brand with Gundam does well enough.

Gundam does really well in arcades as well.

A certain website has Tekken games as 6/10 of Namco's top 10 sellers. The other 4 are all retro game compilations. Tekken is certainly Namco's major moneymaker.

I'm not even surprised, haha.

The Tales series.

The Tales series is no where near Tekken. Westerners should be happy they are even getting Tales games localized.

 

[A Pretty Panda]

There's a guy named Jeffry McWild in Virtua Fighter

Peter Popoff is selling Miracle Spring Water on the TV!

 

[Busaiku]

Tales is what keeps Namco afloat.
It's an annual franchise that grosses tons of revenue through DLC.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Looking up VF5 stuff. Is df df a common motion? Isn't it hard to do that on pad?

Maybe on shitty pads like the Dualshock and 360 pad.

 

[alstein]

Looking up VF5 stuff. Is df df a common motion? Isn't it hard to do that on pad?

Also this was a still from the video I saw

It's crouch dashing forwards, it's more common in Tekken. Some chars use df df heavily, others don't.

up df df gives you ECD.

 

[Sayah]

Tales is what keeps Namco afloat.
It's an annual franchise that grosses tons of revenue through DLC.

I'm sure Tales series contributes to profits. But if the series had been that big, there wouldn't have been huge hurdles trying to just get the games to localize for western audiences. There are some Tales games that still were never localized and kept to Japan. Even Graces F took more than three years to come to the West after the original Graces was released on the Wii in Japan.

And Namco is actually profiting a lot off of recent Gundam, Tekken, SCV, Naruto and Tales titles. And in Dark Souls success as well. They're not just staying afloat. But if you take the big names out of the equation (that being the 3D fighters), I don't think it's gonna be the same for them.

 

[Busaiku]

That's cause Tales doesn't sell in the West, but that doesn't mean it's not a very significant source of income.
It's not like Gundam does either, and it's their biggest thing by far (but that's more the Bandai side).

 

[Sayah]

That's cause Tales doesn't sell in the West, but that doesn't mean it's not a very significant source of income.
It's not like Gundam does either, and it's their biggest thing by far (but that's more the Bandai side).

naaaah. I'm quite certain Tekken generates a lot more revenue for them presently. Tales DLC sales are not really gonna match the arcade money Namco makes from Tekken. Arcades are not just a one-time transaction. And even comparing console sales, Tekken is far ahead of Tales series.

 

[Busaiku]

Yeah, I was talking about the console side of things.
Tekken's not very important in that regard is what I'm arguing, and Namco sees that as well (that's why releases aren't as frequent as other fighting game producers).

Tekken's probably bigger overall, but if they ignored console releases for the game, they'd still be ok.
However Gundam's their biggest arcade property for sure.

 

[Sayah]

I'd hate to be an asshole and I apologize if I come off as one but Tekken's console sales numbers overall are only superseded by Pac-man (for Namco's properties).

Look at #3 and #6 on this 20 million + list. Then scroll down to look at Gundam, Tales and Soul Calibur.

 

[Busaiku]

Yes, more people buy Tekken games than Tales gamest, but DLC is what's driving Tales games now.
You'll notice last gen they produced as many games as they had from SNES through PS2.

It's not like they sold amazingly well at release, but it has a strong fanbase that continues to fill Namco's pockets well after release, and that's the model they're using going forward.
It's also why Idolmaster is such a gigantic franchise for them. The games sell very little in terms of packaged retail sales, but the DLC makes up for it significantly (and of course there's merchandising).

Tekken's sales were absolutely huge for Namco through Tekken 5 or so, but then the series saw a decline afterwards, on the console end.
Gundam isn't properly on that list since the strength of the franchise (on the game end) is through arcades.

 

[MrCookiepants]

I think going back to being Sony exclusive could help Tekken in the long run. Past games were always among the best looking games on their platform. Tekken 6 kind of broke that tradition and that's where it went downhill. Make T7 look fucking amazing and you're halfway there for the casual market.

I'd hate to be an asshole and I apologize if I come off as one but Tekken's console sales numbers overall are only superseded by Pac-man (for Namco's properties).

Look at #3 and #6 on this 20 million + list. Then scroll down to look at Gundam, Tales and Soul Calibur.

Tekken: 41.4 million
Soul: 13.38 million
Dead Or Alive: 7.95 million

Ctrl+f Virtua Fighter: "no results" :lol

 

[toddhunter]

T7 just needs to be as good as ttt2, only 1v1 without the stupid tag mechanics that I hate and hence presumably everybody else should hate as well.

Same with capcom, my biggest problem with sfxt is making it 2v2.

Does anybody seriously like games where you just tag juggle over and over whilst playing with characters you can only ever be half decent with?

 

[alstein]

VF has never been able to transition to console as well, it was hurt by being on the wrong console during its heyday as well. It has over its lifespan done better in the arcades, and FS was profitable. If I was in charge of Sega, I'd make VF6 a FTP title and concentrate on customizations for money, and try to make it e-sports with yearly upgrades next-gen LoL-style. The game is good, folks just get initmidated by it (with no reason now, FS is easy to learn compared to any other fighter this gen)

Lifetime sales are good, but you gotta look at the future of the franchise- I actually think in what will become a post-arcade world even in Japan, the Soul series has just as much potential as Tekken.

SC5 did alright despite some bad design decisions and being rushed.

 

[A Pretty Panda]

with characters you can only ever be half decent with?

Maybe for you.

 

[QisTopTier]

T7 just needs to be as good as ttt2, only 1v1 without the stupid tag mechanics that I hate and hence presumably everybody else should hate as well.

Same with capcom, my biggest problem with sfxt is making it 2v2.

Does anybody seriously like games where you just tag juggle over and over whilst playing with characters you can only ever be half decent with?

Plenty of people can 100% more than a single character. I'm sorry you can't put the effort into learning more than one.

I'd kill for a good Tag game made by Arc, shit would be fucking insane.

 

[toddhunter]

Maybe for you.

Unless you train two characters at exactly the same time you have to choose. Which means you are never as good as you can be for the time invested.

Plenty of people can 100% more than a single character. I'm sorry you can't put the effort into learning more than one.

I'd kill for a good Tag game made by Arc, shit would be fucking insane.

Name one person who has 100% any character.

What you are talking about is getting "good enough" which is where you get boring tag games where people do the same basic thing over and over.

 

[QisTopTier]

What you are talking about is getting "good enough" which is where you get boring tag games where people do the same basic thing over and over.

Oh so you suck at fighting games and find high level play boring? Ok got it.

 

[Professor Beef]

Does anybody seriously like games where you just tag juggle over and over whilst playing with characters you can only ever be half decent with?

Plenty of people like 3rd Strike, so...yes?

 

[toddhunter]

Oh so you suck at fighting games and find high level play boring? Ok got it.

That seems a bit cranky. Which tag fighting games do you love?

 

[A Pretty Panda]

What exactly is "the same basic thing over and over again"? Is that when Ryu throws more than 2 fireballs in a row then I yell obscenities into the microphone?

 

[QisTopTier]

That seems a bit cranky. Which tag fighting games do you love?

The King of Fighers games that had tag
Xmen vs SF
UMvC3
TTT2
SFxTK

 

[SixMachine]

Unless you train two characters at exactly the same time you have to choose. Which means you are never as good as you can be for the time invested.



Name one person who has 100% any character.

What you are talking about is getting "good enough" which is where you get boring tag games where people do the same basic thing over and over.

Time is not equal to skill with a character, because there are different ways t o learn a game and they benefit people differently. If time was the only factor then probably some training mode monster would win. Many people also main multiple characters. Kuroda took an sbo with Q even though his akuma is godly. By playing different characters it can help you get better overall at a game since you would understand more facets of it. If you hate guile, you can try learning what makes him tick and the situations he hates. Also in tag games, character are picked as complements, you can play a grappler and face a bad matchup, pick someone to cover your weaknesses.

 

[sleepykyo]

I'd hate to be an asshole and I apologize if I come off as one but Tekken's console sales numbers overall are only superseded by Pac-man (for Namco's properties).

Look at #3 and #6 on this 20 million + list. Then scroll down to look at Gundam, Tales and Soul Calibur.

At 1.5M for TTT2, the series has seen better days. I'd also argue Gundam is more important than the console sales indicate, since Bandai makes money off of the animation and toys. Namco is going balls-deep on Dark Souls 2.

 

[toddhunter]

Time is not equal to skill with a character, because there are different ways t o learn a game and they benefit people differently. If time was the only factor then probably some training mode monster would win. Many people also main multiple characters. Kuroda took an sbo with Q even though his akuma is godly. By playing different characters it can help you get better overall at a game since you would understand more facets of it. If you hate guile, you can try learning what makes him tick and the situations he hates. Also in tag games, character are picked as complements, you can play a grappler and face a bad matchup, pick someone to cover your weaknesses.

That is all true, but I think the effect is minimised. For example if Daigo puts 100 hours into ryu in sf4 and 100 hours into ryu/rolento in sfxt, you would expect a better sf4 ryu right? It makes sense because he doesn't have to worry about rolento.

So the question as per Q above is, how long does it take to learn everything about a character? It is either going to be too long, in which case your lack of focus causes your play to relatively suffer, or too short because characters lack tools (in favour of tag mechanics).

Or of course spot on (50 hours in the above example). But realistically that isn't the case and people may just not have the time... Which I think is a factor in the lower sales of those games.

Marvel somewhat contradicts that... But marvel is marvel.

 

[Parallax Scroll]

FGTV is still going strong. By the onscreen counter I guess Champ/Kai have played 29 3/5 sets today? It's Kai vs CJ right now.

I guess it can't hurt for Champ to get more practice vs Zero.

 

[SixMachine]

That is all true, but I think the effect is minimised. For example if Daigo puts 100 hours into ryu in sf4 and 100 hours into ryu/rolento in sfxt, you would expect a better sf4 ryu right? It makes sense because he doesn't have to worry about rolento.

So the question as per Q above is, how long does it take to learn everything about a character? It is either going to be too long, in which case your lack of focus causes your play to relatively suffer, or too short because characters lack tools (in favour of tag mechanics).

Or of course spot on (50 hours in the above example). But realistically that isn't the case and people may just not have the time... Which I think is a factor in the lower sales of those games.

Marvel somewhat contradicts that... But marvel is marvel.

When it comes to comparisons across the same character in different games, I would argue the player is getting bettet at fundamentals rather than the specific character. The nuances of a game make or break a character and strength is relative in a game. Learning Ryu in Super turbo is not the same in 3s. In sfxt and sf4 there are also fundamental things that are different between ryu like being able to cancel his fireball. Learning a character like rolento could help daigo learn more about the rushdown aspect of the game and build that fundamental instead of say relying on fireball patterns since it can fail him at times and he needs to go in. Likewise it can help him in the rolento matchup since he knows how he plays, since he was a popular character.

About the time to learn a character is that you never know. New tech always comes out for a game and players always needs to adapt. Also players may look at things and think "it's impractical. Too much effort, so little gain. I don't need it to win" on a lot new things until it comes around and bites them. An example is Chrisis did the shadowblade infinite in match yet other people just don't feel like learning it because they are content. A playet can always improve something and you never know when you truely got everything out of a game unless it was years down the line.

 

[Edgeward]

RIP Todd

 

[smurfx]

RIP Todd

what he do?

edit: top of the page. -_-

 

[Parallax Scroll]

what he do?

Illuminati got him?

 

[SmokeMaxX]

Southern Rebellion (Ranmasama's tournament) in Shreveport, Louisiana is going down today. Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, and supposedly some people from Florida will be there. Tune in to the stream at 1PM Central (protip: Marvel starts at 3 PM) to watch. Should be fun. I know a lot of the players going and there should be some of the South Central's best players in every game (Injustice, Mortal Kombat, Marvel, AE, SFxT, etc.). No idea what the stream schedule's like though. I haven't been practicing my Marvel a lot lately, but if I show up on stream, get ready to see some gimmicks lol.
http://www.twitch.tv/pandaxgaming