Opinion after the Tekken Talks (Old-ish Player)
Long post, skip if it's not for you.
After watch the Tekken talk, I'm genuinely optimistic about the game's future considering how much I've been dooming about it in my mind. Honestly a step in the right direction overall.
Changes I like:
+ Powercrush heat engagers gone = this is where real Tekken starts ironically and unironically XD. Although the wording is tricky when they say "certain characters". So some characters may still have them but a select few or one just to fit that unique niche.
+ Sidestep to the foreground from crouch. Tbh I don't understand why this was ever removed. It was in the game originally way back in the day. Buffering it after a d1 or moves that force crouch makes the game more complex in a good way.
+ Anna Look sick as hell. Honestly the best design imo so far. She was my forth character so looking forward to her return.
+ Although I wished they added back the ranks they removed from green, yellow, orange, red, purple, and purple divisions that were previously there, adding more ranks to GoD works all the same. Just a bit weird aesthetically.
+ No Tekken Prowess matchmaking is a good thing. It means no parallel universe ranks where players on their """"Mains"""" can be a blue rank Bushin at 230k prowess and while another is a fujin at 180k prowess playing in mirror dimensions. Tekken prowess will follow ranks once again rather then creating insulated bubbles and dictating the matchup.
SUS changes:
- Heat engagers on hit accessing crouching stance. Initially I thought it would be worse but it seems that the animation is very clear cut in showing whether someone is going into crouch or not. And during that transition it takes about 1.2 seconds which means its more reactable. But regard, some crouching moves are ridiculously strong 50/50 potential worse than standing. So not good.
- The new win/loss point system for rank is "somewhat" a negligible improvement. Imo it should revert back to how it was done in the older Tekkens. I think especially when it comes to incentivizing rematching, large points loss from losing to a lower rank player doesn't help the win quit or lose quit culture. As the game is already 50/50 enough, there will be plenty of people one or two rank below that will win easily by mashing luckily on someones off day. Resulting, for example, in a kishin rank player losing like 1900 points, but win only 500 points vs low ranks is toxic. Again considering how coinflippy, especialyl for blue rank players. No one is going to rematch. Like we talk about how Tekken 8 load times are great, but that doesn't matter if 90% of the times I'm waiting in lobbies to find the next match only for it to be a wifi player. Skip the wifi dude and when I find a wired player, beat him, he quits. With this new system if he's higher rank, he's definitely quitting. And I would do that too lol. Quitting after a match is already at semi radioactive levels. No need for it be incentivized further.
Weird yet understandable PR statement:
-After many years tbh, I don't often really have faith in Harada's words sometimes. To be direct when he says that "Tekken 8 Hits 3 Million Sold Year After Launch Milestone Faster Than Tekken 7" My question in my head was how much faster and where's the actual date? Because people would like to know where the game stands. In the same post, it's explained that "Tekken 8 has reached around 3 million copies sold around it's 1st year anniversary." Which means it could be ahead of Tekken 7 just by 2 weeks or a month at most. In that case it's not that impressive. As Tekken 7 also successfully did 3 million within the first year.
Yet the wording and quick glaze during the tekken talk gives the impression its rainbows. Any players who was rooting / fan of the franchise way back will remember when they said tekken 7 sold 3 million copies before 1st year. So Harada writing "Tekken 8 Hits 3 Million Sold Year After Launch Milestone Faster Than Tekken 7" is SUS practice again because it could be faster literally by 1 week given how it was written in the post. A month at most. SUS practice like the genmaji temple stage map not being part of the fight pass situation unlike the practice in previous tekken dlcs. The banning of outfit modders, inclusion of tekken prowess matchmaking secretly and hiding micro transaction store on release until after reviews.
Conclusion:
Regardless I still like the franchise and I'll play T8 going forward. But I'll criticize when I see SUS practices continuing. T8 development is heading in the right direction, mostly. Optimism time