Tekken Player Has No Clue, Calls VF5US A Joke.....

Youtube streamer Main Man SWE, a somewhat high level Tekken player has a respectable following. I personally watch a lot of his content. Its usually pretty informed. But in this instance he's seems desperate to discredit Virtua Fighter Final Showdown. In this content he makes wild unsubstantiated claims about the size of the VF player base and VF sales.

• He presents no sales data to back up his claims about VF failing in 2005, and again in 2012
• He refers to community consisting of about 100 players, when there are hundreds of thousands of players on the ranked leader boards alone, not to mention all of the players who don't play ranked, or who don't play online.
• He doesn't give any specific criteria for what he thinks it means for a FG to succeed or fail
• He cites the character model designs as the reason for VF's failure (which he never defines what he means by fails)
• He criticizes VFR5US;s intentional retro sound effects (which many in the VF community love)
• He braggs about trolling VF5US in this stream (Yet he hasn't made it to any serious ranks yet )
• He refers to VF poor sales several times yet he does not present any numbers

It appears that MainManSWE had some kind of nervous break down a few months back. He had to take some time off from streaming (something to do with him not being able to take the pressure of rank and all of Tekken broken characters). So maybe his nervous breakdown had something to do with why he did this whacky stream about VF5US. But MainMainSWE does have a few followers, I hope they listen to what he says about VF with a grain of salt considering his recent bout with mental illness

I usually enjoy MainManSwe's stuff, its clear though from this video he's not well Or maybe he's just worried that a successful VF5US or VF5 E-sports is going to cut into his bread butter Tekken Content Youtube streamming revenue




Here's to MainMan Swe Get well soon dude....

 

who cares

 

It's Mainman, he says a bunch of nonsens even if it's related to Tekken, for example the Nina is easy to play and so on. People should not pay too much attention on what he says.

 

The problem is when he posted that stuff about VF it got a lot of views. Its not clear whether those viewers were new to his channel, or his regular viewers. The sad thing is he could negatively influence players who respect him and would otherwise give VF a try.
Maybe that's his plan Tekken is his hobby/bread-n-butter. Maybe he's worried that every player that joins the VF community will be one less subscriber for his Tekken content

He did put out a video in the aftermath of his nervous break down, that partially explains what happened. Maybe him dogging VF is part of his mental recovery process

 

It's called being frustrated, believe me he's not the only one. And frankly he's the only Tekken Youtuber who had the guts to say it in a rantful way. King Jae said it too how characters are bland but no one is getting on his case. People are just actually frustrated with VF5US. Me, personally, I think the game is cool. I still would've rather a reboot but that's neither here nor there now, but he did bring up a crucial point that I've been clamoring about and that is Presentation....You guys are gonna hate me

Him talking down on the game isnt really hurting anything. In fact its Sega that is hurting it themselves. This should be an eye opener for them as you can't keep doing the same thing and expect different results, the definition of insanity, as he stated and I agree. I've been preaching this for months now...VF needs to take more risks and get out of its shell.

 

This is very much a mute case to me. People who complain about repetition and lack of innovation really need to reflect on the simplicity of the prefrontal cortex, which one of the aspects to the human mind is with the creation of concepts that are abstract to the former.


It was never so difficult to come to terms with continuous routines of eating, drinking, working, sleeping, and etc. So, why is it hard for people like this one to accept that any later iteration from a specific game is either based off a prequel or a game outside of it's franchise?


With people taking jabs at Sega's Virtua fighter series, 3d gaming would be different than it is today without them. It's the reason why I typically like retro games, because of what's been established is in the past.

 

"The lack of presentation" he said lol...

While the menus of VF5US are 10 times better and smoother than Tekken 7. The VF5US character select screen is unbeatable. VF has so much better intro/win poses than Tekken 7. Even Kazuya copied the intro of Kage for T7, what a joke...

This guy is out of his mind, and his video game knowledge is absolute garbage.

And i take this "generic" roster from VF everyday of the year over any Tekken characters in a roster made up 80% of clowns. To me it's the complete opposite and the "generic characters" are in Tekken.

 

Please refrain to share videos of people that use your annoyed self to be shared. They don't care if you like or not the video, what they care is the sharing rates and the views, cause that's what will give money to them. The more you share in disgust, the more money you're giving to them. Don't even open their videos. This is the only way to stop this kind of content. Once you watch the video, they win.

 

Lol!

I saw his video appear on youtube, but me, in less than a few seconds, I didn't even waste any time clicking or watching it, if even it had a few interesting points, because it was obvious from the thumbnail pic, it was one of those silly evo Tekken fanboy click bait rant vids about VF.

It's like what I, gamers I know, countless others, many people from the Virtua Fighter community, other fighting game communities, and even Maximillian Dood and countless others have said, for the past 20 plus years about evo, tekken fanboys, some of the gaming media and gamers, who are heavily into trend and hype, and I'll add in stuff too,..........."any fighting game or game, that is not Tekken, more advanced than Tekken, or way way more fun than tekken, is categorised as crap, by a certain large group of tekken fanboys/Sony fanboys and evo fans. And it has been like that for a very long time. Way too long. And if a fighting game doesn't get a nerf patch, does not receive constant updates, is not balanced, (even though in reality, no fighting game has ever been perfectly balanced, if there is such a thing. And when they do balance the game, the sales and player base drop rapidly), doesn't have a silly cheesy guest character, or wave dashing, and does not appear at evo or on playstation, it is immediately categorised as a dead game."

Sounds familiar? That type of mentality, has been around during the Playstation vs. Saturn vs N64 days, to the dreamcast PS2 era to now. And during the time when the gaming media, was heavily hyping up Tekken 1 for PS1, and bashing Virtua Fighter and Killer Instinct non stop.

Well that sucks. Bad mental health sucks. Hopefully he recovers and gets better soon.

PS: His face in that thumbnail pic though. Dude, that facial expression is priceless. People might use it for memes.

 

Thus is the main thing. I agree regardless. VF6 must have a huge budget put into the game to add everything fans want. There is no choice

 

Characters are Soooooooooooo Bland.... But they Were killers in DOA and everybody wanted to use them then

 

What a whiney, hysterical clown. Seems like a drama queen to me.

He's raises a few good points, but most of his video is hysterics.

 

Part of the argument that MainManSwe makes is that Sega has not updated character designs since 2005. Hey says that VF is a failure (whatever that means) because it has the same characters look-n-feel and the same sound effects since late 90's and early 2000's. He argues it didn't succeed in 2005, 2012 so why should the same game do any better in 2021

MainManSwe obviously does not understand what it means to be an Icon or the gold standard for a game. Lots of games keep the basic same look and form once they achieve a certain level of notoriety, fame and become recognized as classics e.g.

• Classic Monopoly
• Checkers
• Chess
• Pac Man
• Galaga
• Tetrix
• Go
• Madden Series. etc

Once a game reaches its optimal and most recognized form, it rarely receives dramatic changes. Because it has reached classic status. And the majority of the consumers rely and depend on that classic form. Virtua Fighter is the quintessential classic 3D fighting game and is now and will forever be considered a classic. The clean and signature character designs and sound FX in Virtua Fighter are celebrated and cherished by FG lovers world wide. I think Sega understands this, that's why they chose to capture the look-n-feel of Virtua Fighter in its classic form. Its an award winning, ground breaking series that achieved world wide recognition in the FG world and in many other places in pop culture. Of course Sega is going to stay true to the original. The hit sparks were the compromise, and imo were not necessary. MainManSwe has no idea what being the classic quintessential 3D Fighting Games means or the responsibility it holds.

The sales of Virtua Fighter to an even broader FG community is more connected to providing more Single Player content than anything to do with redesigning characters or sound FX. More single player content and more features in offline VS mode would expand the Virtua Fighter player base. On the other hand redesigning its classic look-n-feel would be a fatal mistake.

Perhaps after MainManSwe fully recovers, he will revisit his video and realize that he didn't make the point he was really trying to make and that the character designs and sound FX in VF are part of the Virtua Fighter series signature.

Many of us in the VF community are sending positive thoughts MainManSwe's way and hopes that he gets well soon

 

At the same time you can't really blame him for not understanding the game, most of us here have played past VF games, personally VF4 was my first VF and i didn't like the franchise much until VF4 evo came out, and that has Quest mode that helped me to understand the depth of the game.

For VF6 Sega need to put effort into a mode to welcome new players, something like Quest mode would be the best, and also some kind of big story mode ala Mortal Kombat, T7 or SFV, or maybe combine both, a story mode with stuffs to help new people to understand mecanics and while unlocking stuffs. I mean idk but for sure if they want VF to become big they need to release a full package game at full price unlike VF5FS back in 2012, they must do it just like all big FGs games does like Tekken, MK, SC, SF ect.

 

If you truly love the sound effects and you want the game to keep them that's fine.

But just as how you dont like hit sparks and would want an option to take them off, I feel as we casual fans should get new sounds and can also toggle them on so everybody's happy. And Im only a casual fan now because none of the VF series grabbed me as much as VF2 did. So I stopped playing..

VF is a classic but if it keeps catering to the same group of player base, its going to keep the same group of player base..

Its as what Max said in one of his recent videos about GG Strive: in order to grow a fanbase you need to sacrifice your current fanbase to increase your current fanbase...or something like that..

I feel like VF fans dont want casuals playing VF to be honest. Its like them saying "You need to play VF like this or dont play it at all!!" Thats not how you get casuals to play..

Max also goes on to saying that you need to "Simplify but expand" I agree on the expansion but theres no need for simplification to VF its already a 3 button based game. Just focus on the animations and dont make hits seems so floaty and more impact. There are times where I can catch no connection from Vanessa's fist to Eileen's face just air between them..It looked like fake wrestling. Give the fighters' stances more live animation in them. Make them look like they breathe and not only when they are fighting. Theres so much VF can do but people think it is unflawed and 100% perfect which is not realistic at all especially if you want this game to grow for the future.

 

I agree mostly with your post, and with Max's video. He made very good and very important points about growing the fan base. And of course VF could be made better. I've made many many suggestion myself along these lines. So I'm not against improvement.


Two points here:

Point 1

I disagree with the premise that you have to sacrifice your current fan base in order to grow. Sega, along with most other Arcade FG publishers have over the years cut more and more single player/offline content (to save money, cut costs, maximize profits) and appeal to primarily online players

Features that many game publishers (Not only Sega) have either cut entirely, or cut down on from single player/offline modes include :

• Survival Modes
• Team Battle Modes
• Offline Mode Replays
• End of round Replays
• Training Mode (Move Animations)
• Player Profiles & Statistics for all offline modes
• The number and diversity of AI fighters in the games
• The quality of AI fighters in games
• Shortened Arcade Routes (e.g Tekken 7)
• CPU VS CPU modes
• Opening Movies, Intro/outtro Animations, Ending Movies

This has had the effect of slowly over time shrinking the player base for all the affected fighting games. While catering to the online community and the highly visible competitive players. Over the last 15 years the marketing theory has been to drop single player and offline VS content (which is more costly) and focus on getting 125% of the revenue/sales from 35-40% of the game's fan base. i.e. competitive players are willing to spend $200-$300+ over time on a single fighting game (e.g. a DOA5LR, DOA6, Tekken 7) and casual players don't spend that kind of money (so goes the theory).

If the FG game publishers had left these features in, and improved them over time, there would be no need to sacrifice the current fanbase to grow a future fanbase. @gido this has all been about greed. These FG publishers have for years been trying to find a way to get console revenue to generate as much profit as the Arcade version of the game used to back in the hey day of Arcade Machines. Now, by cutting all of that offline (costly content), and focusing only on online, DLC, and Seasons, GAAS( Games As A Service) they hope the profit will equal or exceed what they used to get in the golden days of the Arcades.

The point Max did not emphasize in his video is all of the Single Player content that Guilty Gear Strive has and will have to grow and keep the casual player's coming back. Other game publishers are trying to have their cake and eat too by cutting all the offline content and somehow still growing and increasing revenue

Point 2

MainManSwe's basic argument is that VF5 & VF5FS did not do as well as in previous versions because of their old & out dated presentations. But the fact of the matter is VF5 & VF5FS offered less compelling Single Player and Offline features than previous versions. Sega was moving toward the online focus in VF5 (XBL) and VF5FS (PSN, XBL) and both games were stripped down and in some cases dumbed down. Sega was trying to make more money and bigger profit while selling less (single player/offline) features and appealing to a smaller & smaller audience. Not achieving maximum sales had very little to do with character design or sound FX. It was about trying to sell fewer features , but yet make more money.

The FG publisher know what they need to do if they want to expand they player base. They know all that is necessary is that they provide compelling single player and offline content. They know this already But their goal is how can they squeeze more money (maybe 10 times the cash) out of the hard core, competitive players while making only minimum investment in online features. Like my grandma used to say "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"

The DLC for DOA5LR, DOA6 ran into the thousands of dollars. I haven't added up the DLC/Seasons for Tekken 7 (which has fewer features than any previous Tekken) but I suspect to get complete Tekken 7 it will cost you far, far, far more than Tekken 4,5, & 6 combined all while offering less offline content.

@gido this is not about growing fanbases my friend. From the FG publisher's point of view this is about sustainable, maximization of profit. Whatever scheme generates the most amount of sustainable profit for the least amount of financial effort is the plan. Right now that is:

• Bare bones Fighting Game offerings
• Online (esports) only Focus
• DLC, & Seasons oriented content (Pay to play)
• Let the Youtube & Twitch streamers do all the advertising for you

F#ck growing the fanbase

 

I agree that they are cutting down single player modes in favor of more online content and yea they've been doing this for years. In fact, it shouldn't be cut in the first place. But what I think Max is referring in terms of sacrificing the fan base is more than just content, its gameplay and presentation (visuals).

VF has always been more or less the same in each installment with not doing or adding much into the series. VF fans are known to not like the word "flash" and think it is not needed. And I can agree to a certain extent. However, to grab players/casuals attention, its hard to do so when characters don't have super human strength and agility or shoot fireball (or of the like) projectiles. The characters of VF are already normal human beings with normal ordinary day-to-day life occupations. That's something people are use to and nothing is out of the ordinary. And casual fighting game fans love to see things out of the ordinary.

Now I'm not saying to add bears, robots, and demons. VF is placed in a position where it cant do any of that anymore (besides for having fighting racing cars ). It has to rely on its realism aspect of martial arts.

And I'm saying to keep it that way. My only thing is to make it more globally accepted and not only based on the eastern region culture, ideas and nostalgia.

Give it more edginess in the way characters deliver their lines. You can tell the quality drop in this department between VF4 & 5 as VAs were changed. So their demeanor were noticeablly different through each game. VF4's Wolf's personality was a completely different character from VF5's Wolf

Why do you think VF2 & 4 are the best selling in the series? Can't be because of limiting content in favor of online features. There were no online features for those games to begin with. Those characters, and at "those specfic times", just simply stood out because they were....cool. They looked good, they sounded good the backgrounds and music were top notched. Imo, those games were the best in the series.

Imo, "Flashiness" are not just hit sparks, supers, comeback mechanics. It can be as simple as dynamic camera angles and strictly visuals and aesthetics which VF5US has down 100%..but if you had time to update the visuals to a great extent why not the audio? Why not the animations? Why give us the same game but just prettier graphics?

So in terms of being a sacrifice to grow the fan base, Sega took the lazy approach and relied on its usual fan base and simply tweaked the graphics. All I'm saying is that you needed to do more than that. It also doesnt help that there isnt as much single player content as it use to be which is why there is a diminish in the fighting game player base.

The greed comes from them giving you little of nothing but the same thing. They know we're going to play and get DLC because they are tapping into our love of the series. The idea of us "supporting this game" is laughable when we've been asking for VF6 for years now. Now you're telling us the last steps to do now is to support this game and eventually we'd get a VF6? How about they try something different and get off their asses for the past 15+ years?

 

I watched the video, honestly i don't have issues with sound effects, also it's understandable to expect new sounds in a new game, but that's not really a new game, it's remaster, and some idle animation got old and it make sens for a 2005 game, i mean i don't have issue with all that, if it was VF6 i would probably be annoyed, but again it's not VF6, it VF5 remaster basically, it's old as i said before the big L on this game is the netcode.

So again to summarize, i would totally agree with Mainman here if that game was a new entry in the serie aka VF6, but again it's not. But it's actually good maiman complained about that despite being a bit rough to some, and it wouldn't be bad if others do so, so Sega will get the message for VF6 (if Sega want to be lazy, it's better they are with VF5US than VF6 if you see what i mean). Again tho, personally speaking i don't have much issues with sounds but once again some idle animation feels a bit old and definitely need some rework and update for VF6. Also Sega most importantly need to stop neglecting Netcode quality and Single player modes.

 

@gido Agreed, your post is pretty much spot on.

This is a fair use of flashiness for VF

This exactly the case also

Yes

@SSfox yes for MainManSwe to be making a somewhat fair comparison who would have to compare VF5FS presentation which was release in 2006 to

• Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection release date: Dec 2005
• Soul Calibur 3 release date Oct 2005
• DOA 4 release date: Dec 2005

When compared to these games at this time VF5FS was way way ahead of the game. And the visuals were literally years ahead of these games. That's why VF5FS looks so unbelievable in 2021 because it was very far ahead of its time in 2006. Look at VF5FS compared to Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection, or Soul Calibur 3 VF5FS's presentation was a decade a head of itself at the time it was released. Just compare SC3, Tekken 5, or DOA 4's graphics to VF5FS So in 2021, the other fighting games have finally caught up to VF5FS's presentation. Its this fact that MainManSwe doesn't understand. VF5FS was easily 10 years ahead of everybody else. Now 10 years later MainManSwe is comparing VF5FS to Tekken 7. Now the fair comparison would be to compare VF5FS to Tekken 5, Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection or to SC3

The sad thing here is that MainManSwe doesn't realize VF5FS graphics and character models from 2006 still are superior to Tekken 7's character models in many ways Harada would agree with this.


Also, let say for the sake of argument that VF5US had perfect rollback netcode, and it had the perfect upgrade in flashiness and presentation. I'm saying these two things would not be enough to signficantly grow the VF community or fan base. Yes I do think we would add new VF fans, but not in big numbers. The Room Matches and Rank Matches are just simply not enough to sustain noobs, or casual players. Most of the Room Matches are private or locked or limited. And the Rank mode is just full of stone cold killers There's just no where a noob, or casual player can go to just learn and have fun with the game Training Mode, and Arcade Mode just don't cut it Sure there is a small percentage of casuals or noobs that can stand or enjoy the heat, but most don't. Not at their early stages of VF development. They need time and space to develop. Online Rank ain't it. Room matches are a step in the right direction but noobs and casuals need more. They always have.

Sega and most of the other FG publishers have simply decided that its not financially worth the hassle to go after the casual market. Its much more cost effective to milk the hardcore and competitive FG players for 10 times the price of the game through Seasons and DLC. Like I posted earlier, to purchase the full Tekken 7 (all seasons, all DLC) when it first came out would cost more than all of the prices of the previous Tekken games combined. Why should the FG publishers go after the casual market when they can make obscene profit off the hardcore, competitive players

MainManSwe talks about VF dying. I think his memory fails him with respect to what happened to Tekken 6, Tekken 5 DR, and Tekken 5 (and they had all the flash) Prior to Tekken 7 many FG folks thought the Tekken series was down for the count. Also there is simply referential failure here because MainManSwe does not define what it means for a FG to die. Does it mean

• Nobody, anywhere is playing it
• There are less than "some number" of players online at any give time
• There are no major tournaments for it
• There are no more offline gatherings for the game
• Its no longer playable on current gen, or previous gen consoles
• Its no longer being sold in stores, online, Ebay, Amazon,
• The game publisher and developers have abandoned it, etc

What does MainManSwe even mean when he says VF died, or is dying In my own personal experience , on my side of town I could (and can) get offline matches with friends, family, tourneys in the neighborhood anytime I want(ed). And for sure there was always something going on monthly from VF4 days until now. So depending on what VF dying means to MainManSwe .... we probably have a major difference of opinion there as well.

 

They already simplified the game with VF5FS which many existing players were never happy about. I don't think that even did much to draw new players in and probably caused others to leave.

The most important thing is to make the beginner level feel really fun, flashy and fluid without compromising the higher levels of the game. They could start with making basic exact recovery easy. Attacks that slam or spin you into the ground can stay difficult as that's part of the gameplay almost like degrees of a 2d style hard knockdown.

I don't care if they add hit flashes, lightning, fire or outlandish characters as long as the gameplay is not getting watered down. I think making it look more appealing in the right way would be much more effective at drawing interest than simplifying the game too.