Tekken Revolution

Aurongroove

Anyone been playing?

I certainly have.
(I started back at SCV again aswell but that for another thread)


For me it made Tekken fun again, and finally fighting online doesn't feel, well, like doing something the game wasn't designed for and could never quite get right or feel fair.

No binding means every second move on the roster isn't a launcher for full damage anymore; low and mid equilibrium is somewhat restored I feel.

The Special Arts is going to get it's own post I think, people have LOTS to say about it, and I've never been short for words about things introduced to the Tekken series.

Aurongroove

My official opinion on the Special Art (aka those spammy invincible glow red attacks)

A scenario:

Imagine I'm an Asuka player and while attacking I do a fairly ordinary high mid mid string or something. It's blocked and I'm at about -3 frames.

Now, because of my constantly happening psychological profiling of my opponent I'm almost certain he will attack, it's just a guess, but having been paying close attention to how he fights, and by association, how he thinks I'm about 90% sure he reckons something fast or with crushing properties is worth the risk at this point in the round.

In previous Tekkens I might set something up to intercept the incoming attack, perhaps a crouch jab, an attack reversal, a b+3, or a SS,2. These all beat quite a few different options but lose to certain others.

Now in this situation there is nothing more unfair then guessing your opponent's action correctly only for the SS you did to be fluke tracked, your crouch jab to be fluke hopkicked, your attack reversal to the fluke shouldered, kneed. sworded, tailed or otherwise, etc etc.
Basically something either going wrong because the opponent did a preposterously silly move that just happened out of the blue to beat your genuine attempt to trump the attack you knew was coming, or, the opponent did a move he assumed you would block and give him plus frames, but you didn't block for you suspected this was his plan, but it just so happened that because of a technical condition of the command you chose and the command he chose, he was rewarded, even though you won the psychological battle.

Every one complains about this in Tekken including the best players in the world; when a command unfairly rewards, when someone guesses wrong but still gets rewarded and vice versa when someone reads correctly but gets punished.

Special arts don't let this happen: so long as you predicted the attack, it will work. In poker terms it's a no bull**** all in; "I bet 1/3rd of my life bar (or your best punish) that you are about to attack"

To the casual player and beginner, this is a game balance and a God send; No more thrashings because someone is just scoring counter hit after counter hit in a well practice routine of attacks without any real requirement for sentient recognition of the human opponent.

For more advanced player it means less otherwise good defensive reads you're absolutely certain of, crushed by technical accident.

It also means less utter hopelessness if you don't know the treacherous "cheap shots" of a match up, which is a chapter in itself.

For a very long time Tekken has had far to much stuff "everybody knows" about (said with rolled eyes):
"everybody knows" the next hit on that string is a low launcher that can take half your health bar
"everybody knows" that character does a high crushing launcher after that attack is blocked
"everybody knows" attack reversals doesn't work on (insert character's body area)
"everybody knows" you can't SS to the (insert direction) after blocking that.

Well it's too much **** to know. HWO alone is a one man, "too much **** to know" and there is another 50 or so characters to 'study'
It's gone beyond saturation and to rectify this, there's now an "attack-be-gone" called Special Art.

if you know your enemy is going to attack (your human opponent), this will work. end of.

It takes tekken back to psychology and guesswork in balance, and of fighter and person controlling the fighter in balance or at least puts it back closer to being 50/50 knowledge and psychology and 50/50 player and character. Correctly profiling your opponent's mindset is now roughly as important a skill and knowing all the strings like some special little encyclopedia man.
At least now it's not a case where you have to spend eons studying the move lists, how good players use the moves and so fourth before you ever get a glimpse at fair match play. That any instinct you have for games, versus fighters, or just vs sports in general is completely useless until you first commit to either memory or 'reflex' (depending on how quick the move is) the 100+ 'noob killers' Tekken has amassed over the years.

The Special Art is a 'knowledge proof' tool for exercising the basic match playing skill of when you think you're opponent will or won't attack.
It doesn't have a complex weakness elite players can utilize or bully their way into making useless, the only way to deal with it is profiling your human opponent and when they might use it.

For the attacking player the special art is another pressure tool; it's 'another hit' to the string or series of attacks but at the cost of gambling for an even worse punish. If you guess right, you keep your health and you get the damage. If you guess wrong you don't get the damage and you lose the health.

Thus I theorize that the only people who will actively dislike Special Arts (and cite the reason that it's cheap or cheapens the game) are those who have grown too comfortable in separating themselves from competition via knowledge only, and not via knowledge and match play intuition in equal measure, especially when against newer or more casual players.

Plus there is no legitimate issue; it's not like anything is broken. You can punish the **** out of SA's. Their huge punish window actually bring moves back onto the table that were becoming redundant due to slow start up and such. For that I thank them; I like when Tekken introduces something in a newer game that makes already existing moves become important again, it's like a little time travelling present for your character.

deathrider

I play a bit of it on and off. It's good fun, and it's great being able to play Tekken on a stick again which I haven't done since the arcades. However, the wait 20 mintutes for your next fight idea doesn't sit well with me. Now, I get that it's a free game, and thus this is how it's played. I repect that, but I just don' think it works great from a gaming standpoint. If I know that I'm down to my last fight and that in order to have another fight after this I must win the current one, I get stupid. NErves kick in and I make silly mistakes that often cost me the match. The flip side is that after waiting twenty mintues, I'm too anxious to get back in, and thus make silly mistakes again because I'm thinking with my credit and not with my head.

Also, I'm not a fan of being able to upgrade your character's health bar, speed, and/or damage output. I refuse to do it, so I'm fighting an endless wall of Marshall Laws, each with a health bar and a half, using my bare bones Paul Phoenix. If nothing else, if makes victories infinitely more satisfying.

BigStupidGuy

^^^ Man if the game is making you slightly nervous or doing something to you (psychologically speaking) then it's a damn good game. I usually always play games for fun in casuals etc, but in reality "casual" gaming makes you worse at the game. Whenever I play a deathmatch for money or prizes or in a tournament it's always a completely different game. I break throws better, I punish better because I am forced to concentrate. And that's why I love the idea of this game, it bring you back to what arcades used to be like (or so I am told). Online casual gaming with no risk makes you soft.

Although I must admit I have never played the game... but I can't wait to next month

Doctor DooM

I'm suprised to hear someone who plays in tournaments complain about those jitters- same thing, I thought

deathrider

That "last chance" thing always gets me, and considering the way this game is set up, nearly every fight has could be your last. Also, I'm always a nervous wreck at tounrament, lol. With tekken Revolution though, knowing that I can only get a handful of games in per day kinda puts me off loading it up. For the first few days I'd be all about it. Then I pretty much lost interest towards it as I wasn't really getting long enough out of it. Also, this game needs a practice mode.

Bento Sento

I still don't really know what to think about TR, it has some things I like and other things I dislike. I didn't like the coin/ticket system at first but when they patched in the training mode I thought it was okay because that gives you something to do if you are waiting. I don't like the removal of the bound system. Granted bounds made the game more reliant on getting launchers because of the big damage but I liked that because it makes people think twice about doing something unsafe because they can lose half their health bar for doing so. As for the special arts, I like them and I think the fact that they are hella unsafe makes them fair but I just don't feel like they belong in a Tekken game. I like all the festival weekend things they do I think they are very cool and things like Mokujin rush was very entertaining.

The thing is though this is an predominantly online game and I don't like playing Tekken or really any fighting game online. It's a different style of play and mindset to offline and I really don't like it. I just can't bring myself to play this game. I don't really find it any fun. I have tried to play it because I want to unlock Kunimitsu but it's just not fun enough to warrant me playing it enough to unlock the characters I want. I think that if this game had an offline versus mode it would be very fun because this game requires a different style a play to TTT2 and playing that with your friends or at casuals would be very fun. I doubt they will ever patch in an offline vs mode though because it isn't going to make them anymore money with the FTP model they have so I don't really blame them for not putting it in.

As much as I dislike online play and especially online play in this version of Tekken I will say that taking away peoples tickets when you beat them is a brilliant feeling, much better than a simple win to your record in the other games. It's just adding extra salt to the wound of a loss.

Overall I like what TR is and I like that Namco are trying out something new with the FTP model but overall I just prefer TTT2 so I will stick to that.

Fergus_

I'm not a huge fan of TR tbh.

I hate the invincible moves, I feel they take a huge chunk of offense away and just takes a good bit of enjoyment away from the game (Not saying they're too good, just a silly mechanic in a game like Tekken). It removes layers of mindgames (like delayable strings etc.)

The no bounds is a cool thing but the high launcher damage is still there via stats (really silly idea imo) especially if your character has a lot of critical moves in their staple (Kaz EWGF, Asuka f2 b213 f1+2). No backrolling catching makes oki a lot weaker and the knockdown game is nowhere near as fun.

The game looks really ugly with that orange saturation and not a fan of the remodeling of faces for the female characters. They look too weird/different compared to everyone else and too buggy eyed.

It's an ok game to play on it's own but if you're using this as a starting point for new people to get into TTT2, I don't think that's a good idea because you need a good defense in TTT2 and invincible moves won't help you with that.

The coin/ticket system is pretty w/e to me.

I like the intention to have more emphasis on poking but the stats just ruins it imo. The game feels a lot more defensive (too defensive) due to threat of invincible moves.

It does have some cool features but overall not really a fan of it.

PS. Put Miharu in it and an offline vs mode.

BigStupidGuy

If there was an offline vs mode then Namco would be running a charity lol.

I think you can also play a certain mode were stats etc are removed though right? With a training mode also and plenty of downloadable content still coming it's hard to ignore the game

Bento Sento

Oh yeah that's the other thing I forget to mention. I can't stand the stats thing. If I want to play a fighting game RPG I will just stick with chronicles of the sword from SC3 because that was godlike. This stats thing in TR is stupid.

Aurongroove

Namco have flip flopped a bit on the stats: they now have a very small effect of the characters Strenght, HP and Critical.
Also, for player matches you can turn them off.
They'll really only a ranking thing now.

BigStupidGuy

I guess that means they listened to the fans. It's nice that they still care about the game, unlike TTT2