T4 A Dissapointment So Far

Well, just check this out. Tekken Central seems to be having a few problems right now, but...

http://www.tekkenzaibatsu.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16072

It may be Namco released Tekken 4 too soon to try and match the release of VF4, and as such they didn't properly balance and test the game.

 

Maybe history is just repeating itself? Didn't a similar case happen when VF3 came out?

To each their own I guess. Though I have to admit, the way the players in the Korean vids were playing.... seemed like a lot of bashing each other before anything solid came out. I was surprised I didn't see all that many low pokes or even ranged play (guessing they're just trying to fully grasp the system and character arsenals).

In any case, I've heard similar comments before and we'll see what ends up happening soon enough.

-Chanchai

 

Talk about over-reaction...it's pretty common for top players to drop out in a sequel to make room for new top players. Just look at VF3...the tetsujins from VF2 are no longer tetsujins at all. Speaking with Dickson a few days ago, he noted how in his trip to Kani-Spo most of the top VF3 players like Chibita were...still playing VF3.

Also, one crucial thing that Zaibatsu posters didn't address was that yes, T4 will obviously be different than TTT/T3, but is it better because that, I suspect, is what the Korean/Japanese top players are really complaining about.

Of course, we also need to address this question for VF4...but I think we are probably a little more patient than those folks at Zaibatsu.

 

I'm fast coming to the conclusion that in a sequel, you never please more than 50% of the old school hardcore players except in rare instances.

I see the same pattern in Quake 1-->Q2-->Q3, Unreal 1-->UT, Daytona 1--> Daytona 2, Time Crisis 1 --> TC2, Tribes 1-->T2... now Virtua Fighter 3-->VF4 and Tekken 3/TTT-->T4.

The common trend seems to be that game developers are always on the lookout to expand the player base, and usually add more "balancing features" and nerf some tricks that experts used to employ to gain the upper hand... thereby making the game more "accessible"; this in turn makes the game more of a mainstream success but ends up alienating some old hands.

Heck, it's the same thing in the restaurant business... the push to go mainstream typically has an associated negative effect (In & Out vs McDonalds, Coffee Bean vs Starbucks... the list goes on).

And... my point being...? Nothing. Just an observation =)

 

This post looks aawwwwfully familiar.../versus/images/icons/smile.gif
Sorry. My sarcasm rears its pretty lil' head every now and then.


-<font color=white>Ghost</font color=white><font color=red>DOG</font color=red>

 

Hehe... /versus/images/icons/tongue.gif


This post is just to pad my post count. Nothing to see here, please move along!

 

Just some side commentary:

A ton of Quake 1 players hated Quake 2 (I was part of the Quake 2 group though). Quake 1's combat skills only took you so far in Quake 2 alone. Partly because the slow as hell weapon change time in Quake 2 (which I honestly believe suits well in Quake 2), partly because rockets are nothing like Quake 1 (slow as hell in Q2), and also because whoever owned the armor in a matchup had that much of an advantage against the other person. In addition, whoever controlled the stronger weapons and the armors and the ammo usually had a damn good advantage. Guess you could say defensive abilities shot up while offensive abilities were lessened in Quake 2. The rail helped balance this out, but that was mainly for certain maps. Eventually, the stronger players finally made use of weapon orders (going beyond just the railgun--even in The Edge: I would sometimes say that in the right hands, the chaingun is the strongest weapon), situational applications, JUMP BUGS (love them, wish they had as many in Q3A), appropriate routes and approaches, etc... Much like Quake 2 turned off a lot of Quake 1 players because the original ways of playing were toned down (like what Tekken4 is looking like), Quake 3 Arena turned off quite a few of the Quake 2 hardcore (general audience did move on in this case). Q3A also grabbed some of the interest of Q1 players as well, since intense combat applications were around. However, the resource management was oddly changed and only a few maps seem to have important resource management that was stressed in Quake 2(but also existed in Quake 1). Particularly.... small maps. But I haven't tried the new Pro Mode which tries to grab the old Quake audiences with stronger resource management rules (longer respawn times, ets).

I think a lot of Virtua Fighter 2 players didn't like Virtua Fighter 3. And I think the initial disappointed probably mentioned something similar... that VF3 is 50% luck. In addition, a lot of things in VF2.0 were gone (like a lot of Quake 2 jump bugs were gone in Q3A). VF3 seemed like a much slower game than VF2. VF2 had a lot more emphasis on yomi since there was little room to mess up. Stronger players won against weaker players by a longshot (this marginal difference is also reflected in Quake 1 vs. Quake 2... Quake 1 1on1 scores would have huge differences in frags between the players, Quake 2 1on1 scores had much fewer frags and a smaller difference). List goes on.

This sort of trend is very common. Sometimes it's part of a change in the gameplay (well, often it is). Sometimes it better reflects the societies in the fan base (opinion leaders often have something to complain about with the newer products). But as far as I can tell, it's almost always going to happen. Exceptions were probably Mortal Kombat 1 to Mortal Kombat 2 (though I say I like the graphical style of MK1 better than 2), Virtual On to VOOT (let me know if some VOOM players despised VOOT).

My conclusion... judge for yourself. But if you really care about it, give it a chance for awhile, and then judge for yourself. Most of the time, you are going to hear people bitching almost no matter what.

-Chanchai

 

6 posts left, Chanchai. Think you can get a grand by the end of the day? /versus/images/icons/smile.gif
Only 6 posts to go........


-<font color=white>Ghost</font color=white><font color=red>DOG</font color=red>

 

Ah yes, for some reason I didn't bitch about Q2 because I liked the slower, more strategic pace... plus Q2CTF was a nice improvement over the Zoid's original ThreeWave CTF. Q3 on the other hand threw a lot of map strategy out the window and became a raw twitch-fest... which is fun for awhile but became tedious (unless you are hardcore into the professional 1v1 gaming scene). Unreal Tournament had a lot better CTF and Team DM action going, and would have ruled the roost in straight DM as well if not for the fact that some projectile weapons are randomized (RL, flak) and the framerates were a lot choppier in the UT engine than in the Q3 engine (especially on NVIDIA-based cards), which are no-nos in the professional scene.

VO --> VOOT... *nods* Yeah, one of the few sequels that was just outstanding!

MK1 --> MK2. *nods* Apart from the graphical style that became more comic and less gruesome, MK2 was a definite improvement over MK1. MK3, on the other hand... *cough*.

Hmm, going back to the VF series... VF1 --> VF2, I don't think anybody had any complaints there!

 

I asked Hyun if he could offer any info on the situation with the Korean TTT players disliking T4. This was his response:
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://members.boardhost.com/hardcoregaming/msg/53886.html>http://members.boardhost.com/hardcoregaming/msg/53886.html</A>

 

Well, it looks like we'll be seeing T4 v1.1 already. Namco is acknowledging the problems and is promising an update before sponsoring any official T4 tournaments. The 1~2 shenanigans were bad enough, but now an infinite combo has been discovered. I'm left wondering how Namco could do this to themselves given the precedent of VF3's disastrous debut? (

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.tekkenzaibatsu.com/forums/showthread.php?s=ff953b7a8094063e2ebed1ff94d56b5b&threadid=16173>http://www.tekkenzaibatsu.com/forums/showthread.php?s=ff953b7a8094063e2ebed1ff94d56b5b&threadid=16173</A>

 

I disagree that VF3 is 50% luck, or that VF2 had more emphasis on yomi than VF3. VF2 was all about motor skills and about how much you know, whereas in VF3 it was more about making the right guesses. Whether or not those guesses should be seen as yomi or luck depends on the player.

 

I also disagree that VF3 is 50% luck. I was just meaning that as far as I knew, some people felt this way about VF3 when it first came out. Much like some people feel this way about Tekken 4.

I'm definitely still playing VF3/versus/images/icons/tongue.gif But in my case, it definitely does not mean I'm not playing VF4.

 

That was an interesting article. Unfortunately, it is not just the Koreans complaining about Tekken 4. The Japanese are complaining bitterly as well. The Americans who have played are also complaining. Apparently 1,2 is just too powerful with Law, Steve and Paul.

This is really annoying, because my local arcade is going to pick up a Tekken 4 machine, but they probably aren't getting a Virtua Fighter 4 machine, and from what I've been reading Tekken 4 is not up to standard.

Just check out the Zaibatsu forums and read the topic I linked to and also the "Saying it sucks after two days" thread. Tekken 4 appears to have major problems at this point. Hopefully they'll be fixed, but right now it doesn't look like they will be.