Friday
May242013
ATP LIVE! - Episode 3 ft NYCfab, Rip and Rickstah
BY 
Aris ON Friday, May 24, 2013 at 10:23AM
Aris ON Friday, May 24, 2013 at 10:23AM In this week's episode, Rip, Rickstah and I are joined by NYCfab as we discuss ECT as well as the current state of Injustice and TTT2. Hope you guys enjoyed the show. Make sure you tune in every Thursday at 8pm PST to watch us live on twitch. Thanks for the support.
Reader Comments (14)
I think it is important to discuss the state of a game's popularity and why it might be at its current position, but the talks about Tekken's falling popularity seems to me to drag on forever without adding any new sides to the argument except new ways to moan about it. It becomes tedious, and quite frankly, if these talks have an impact I feel they are only helping to bring a potentially struggling community more down. What do you think happens with the general view of a game in a community when profiled players such as yourselves discredit the game as flawed?
I'm especially adressing you, aris. I understand your criticism, but you present your views with a kind of discontentment that, regardless of how it's intended, seemingly leers into a justification for leaving Tekken for a simpler game. I'm not saying you shouldn't voice your opinion. I'm saying you should ask yourself what kind of impact you want to have for a game's popularity. I don't doubt that you love Tekken, but I feel that you are putting your frustrations for the unforgiving nature of the game out in the community like a bitch, only creating more dissatisfaction in the minds you convince and adding weight on the scale that needs to be lifted for people to be able rejuvenate their interest for TTT2.
Gluvv
You have excellent points. We will discuss this topic on next week's show for sure.
Game needs a proper tutorial that includes wall combos, punishing, and frame traps. 200 moves per character is off putting for newbs, but a better tutorial would help that. Aris, wouldn't 1 vs. 1 tournaments fix some flaws off high damaging combos? They should have put 1 vs. 1 as an online option, i feel its a more pure tekken experience.
@Gluvv there are people like Aris & Co who loves Tekken til the hell, you are not one of them. I thought if
the men were a bit more support to Dead or Alive they will be of much more success now, but they just stay
as is.
Added the stubborn attitude of Namco who refuses to listen to any words for a hell while, and the
out-of-instinct mobbing of some so-called "Tekken fans" to people with negative opinions, I honestly can't see
the franchise would go anywhere. Another thing I was worrying about is, the way people talks about Tekken
under Namco's wrath might make things more complicated.
Small changes wont cut it.
For TxSF they need to test the field with a couple of changes like:
-No bdc anymore. Backdashing and sidestepping should work like in SC5 where a new player can just do it without reading up about it and going to the lab for a week. <-mandatory!
-Trim down move lists
-Make sidestepping consistent. Linear moves shouldnt track. Every move that has tracking abilities should be marked as one.
-Lows that arent seeable should NEVER knockdown or combo. Its too frustrating for new players.
-Hopkicks and generally moves that get spammed online and ruin the online experience of new players should be alot more punishable. This game needs alot of the randomness removed for players to feel rewarding.
-A decent practice mode like SC5 or VF that shows punishes properly, frame data and makes it easier to set up enemy moves to practice against.
Thats just a couple of things on top of my head. Die hard tekken fans will hate all of these changes but they are absolutely neccessary if tekken is supposed to be a mainstage title.
Biorr, most of the things you mention could for sure help the game and don't really have a downside, but the first 2 would change it a lot. I think most people who like Tekken would rather have it stay a bit less popular than change it into an entirely different game for the sake of becoming mainstage. Testing the changes on TxSF like you say makes sense, though.
Also I think Aris and his guests are being overly dramatic about TTT2's decline. They talk about it like its already dead, but we know there are still plenty of tournaments, including Evo of course, and WNF in particular is still going. Many other new games end up being out of WNF almost immediately. It is easily the most popular 3D game. Maybe Tekken will never have the numbers of 2D games, but the competition is still there for high-level players.
BTW Aris what do you think about this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOIZXxB1nlI#t=1m32s
Is it true that the best players don't trash talk and just win instead?
Fun watch, good job
Where I live there is absolutely no competition. I know a couple of people that play AE, but tekken? No sir. Game is too hard.
And the guys that are on top in TT2 are the same people that did well in Tekken years ago. Barely any new players get introduced to the game and STAY until they actually reach a decent level so they can then attend local tournaments. That just happens way to rarely.
Tekken is a competitive game without competition basically. People like GM and Kor keep placing high in tournaments without even practicing for the game because there are no new players stepping up.
If you were to chose a game were you want to compete in, would you chose a game that as entry lvl player demands 8h/day of practice for mediocre results in 50 player tournaments or chose a game like injustice that demands way less of you, still is fun to play and has tournaments all over the place with 3 times the number of entrants? Heck, when I watched GUTS this weekend, they had 10k viewers when Injustice was being shown. Thats almost rivaling casual games. When has TT2 ever had 10k viewers? Not once in its entire lifetime. Not even during evo if I recall correctly.
Makes the choice of what game to play competitively easy, doesnt it.
For the record, the Koreans haven't been playing TTT2 for "years" longer than the Americans. The release date for the arcade version of TTT2 was in September 2011 BUT most Korean arcades boycotted the release of the game.
The reason for the boycott was because a supplier got a monopoly of TTT2 and provided terrible hardware for the game in that one Korean arcade that had it. It wasn't until nearly Christmas of 2011 that most Korean arcades finally got TTT2.
The console release of TTT2 was in September 2012 so that really only gives most Korean players an extra 9 months of play when compared with their American counterparts.
Where is the audio only version!
Could you perhaps discuss what makes Tekken a game worth putting the hours into during the next show? Why have you stuck with this game over such a long time?
I really like Biorr's (first) post and agree with most of his suggestions. I don't think that SC movement (8 way run) should be implemented on Tekken though. The reason it works with SC is because of the block button and I really don't like the idea of a block button in future Tekken games. I do agree that BDC should go the way of the dodo though. Maybe some sort of 8 way run hybrid could be implemented. Say all attacks (except throws and unblockables) are automatically blocked as long as you haven't moved more than two steps (or hit buttons). Anyway that's like half an idea and I can understand if something like that might not be popular or feasible but the point is that BDC is really an odd, complicated way for (safe) character movement and new players would probably learn faster (and thus more likely stick with the game) with its absence.
Although trimming down the move lists seems to be another suggestion that I hear quite often. I feel like the large move list(s) is more of a symptom, not the actual problem. Namco is just going to have to face it, they have produced one of the most technical, deep, difficult fighting games to date and they continually fail when it comes to creating a meaningful practice/tutorial mode! After all the lip service and reassurances that Harada paid to fans before the release of the console version concerning the inclusion of a decent practice mode, the actual result, though better than Tekken 6 (anything is better than the practice mode in Tekken 6), was still woefully lacking. The glaring omission, as everyone knows, is the frame data. I've heard Namco refer to Tekken frame data as "company secret", but they are finally going to have to get over this! What? Is some lowly, budding game producer going to "steal" Tekken frame data to create a new 3D fighting game? Come on. The only people that care about viewing the frame data are the dedicated players that buy Namco's products. A "rogue" game developer would have the tools to find the frame data anyway if they wanted it and its not like its not already on the internet for christ's sake! Merely viewing the frame data (for example in a move list) is not enough to teach a game as deep and technical as Tekken, but if Namco were to use it correctly they could produce the most complete, kick-ass tutorial of all time. Imagine a tutorial mode that showed you the negative and positive frames IN REAL TIME as you played! What if you could toggle a mode where the A.I. suggested specific punishers, movement (sidestepping, side-walking, back-dashing) or stance changes based on the input commands while attacking, or after a successful block, whiff, or evasion. What if you could view recorded matches that, not only showed you the frames during the replay, but also showed you the result of specific exchanges IF YOU WOULD HAVE CHOSEN THE APPROPRIATE PUNISH/MOVEMENT!!! Why don't we have this yet!?! I don't want flying Ganryus! I want a tutorial that shows me real scenarios WITH FRAME DATA!
The other issues that Biorr addresses that I feel strongly about are hopkicks and "randomness". Its not so much about the hopkick itself, but how it works in relations to other wild variables (randomness) in TTT2. I really like walled stages (my favorite actually) and I think its ingenious the way Namco has implemented rage/netsu as a pseudo-meter bar to use for tag crashes or big damage depending on your situation and preference. But never have I lost so many matches where I was DOMINATING my opponent. I do think hopkicks themselves are a little overpowered when it comes to risk/reward, but with rage enabled they are almost unfair. Maybe I'm complaining about a specific situation, but I hate how random TTT2 becomes at walls and more specifically in corners. If you are at a 90 degree angle with your opponent's back against the wall there are generally no issues, but in nearly every long set session I've played I have found that when you are pressuring your opponent against the wall at an angle other than 90 degrees the outcome becomes maddeningly random. So many times have I pressured my opponent and suddenly they teleport behind me because of the angle! Then they usually panic hopkick, trap me in the corner or against the wall and win a undeserved victory off rage and a panic move! Listen Namco, I really like the walls and the way they change the variables of the game, but if I can't visually recognize that I'm at an angle that causes my pressure to "pass" my opponent then either normalize it or EFFING CREATE A PRACTICE/TUTORIAL MODE THAT EXHIBITS WHY MY OPPONENT IS TELEPORTING BEHIND ME!!!
One last issue that I would like to mention. Why is the new juggle system so hard? I figure there is going to be a hoard commenters trolling me for saying this ("The juggles aren't hard; you're just a newb." etc.) but I've been playing since Tekken 3 and I've never dropped so many juggles. (Some) Juggles with EWGF, shotgun, and Nina's just frame rising 3, not to mention tag assists with mandatory sidesteps (where you have to consider which player side you are on) are just ridiculous hard. The few players in my (tiny) community seem to agree with me as they have dropped more juggles than ever too. Anyway, the point isn't that its difficult for me, but if I've been playing since the mid-ninties and have a background in Tekken and I have a hard time performing the new juggles then how does Namco ever expect beginners do them? Why would a beginner care to put time into TTT2 when they can't perform the combos that they need to win?
I know this was long, thanks for reading and keep up the good work Aris/Rip/Rickstah.
wanneste e3d3fd1842 https://www.jeenee.net/torishardflux