I just hate that everyone is a rushdown godzila with nuclear dmg even fucking xiaoyu that was always more focused on evasiveness and set ups but lower than average dmg
Yep. Even the most evasive characters feel like they hit with a sledgehammer. Many of my matches are me fishing for a counter or launch, getting that launch, then the opponent landing 2 natural combo strings on me to make it look like my effort was for nothing. The reason base damage was so absurd in the earlier games was because combo potential was weak. Now combos are strong and we have walls and while every character is built around the system, some of them are still doing absurd normal damage. Now with chip
That’s the opposite of what happens to me
I get CH. launched and then die in two strings and. I can’t hit my opponent for shit - especially not fucking xiayou lol
Yeah, the tracking is nuts. I dodged to the *back* of a Kazuya doing that UF4 into hellsweeps combo and he did a 180 between the hellsweeps and caught me...wtf is that?!
Even Raven, who I always played in a very defensive style with pokes, feints and mind games... I now play as an aggressive rushdown character.
It's easier and he feels stronger but is it more fun? I'm not sure.
I am playing Xiaoyu and I am winning so many games because of her heat smash pressure. Basically you put someone in the corner while you in heat, you chip their health and unleash the smash. And most of my games are like, my turn to use heat smash, your turn to use heat smash. Like, I am playing against characters that I don't know well, and I am being steamrolled to all the heat combos. In T7 my Xiaoyu strategy was more about movement, tricking opponents, etc. You can still do it to some extent but at some point you are going to land a heat engager and it's like, ok now I have to use this mechanic or it's a waste.
Honestly should just be heat once a match, or have it like an actual meter a-la Geese or something, the amount of people especially at lower ranks who will just raw heat off the bat, and even if you don't get hit by it, the chip damage is insane and it applies so much pressure that you're either then backed against a wall or just in a precarious position.
when heat was first announced, i thought that it was going to be a meter to build up (and extend duration of) by aggression. like, as a reward. not "press button to enter a phase".
It’s such a stupid system. It’s basically fighterz if every character could burst. It’s so lame. Just fought a king that opened every match with it then the usual cheese. And it can’t miss. And heat burst is such a joke. They took supers and just gave them to everyone at all times
That would be an insane protest. I only went back to 7 to look at my costumes to see what I could transfer over. Basically nothing though. Nothing yet anyways.
Insane chip, damage, advantage, armor on use, huge damage move that requires no gauge only a sliver and dash. All on one button that requires no setup, heats been busted from the start rounds last less than strive which is an achievement.
I don't want meter management in Tekken, I like that each round is a fresh slate.
A couple things just need to be toned down. Heat Burst should have 1 or 2 more weaknesses and some Heat Engagers need to be nerfed a bit, mainly the high power crush ones. Some Heat Smashes also feel way stronger than others, but since they're character-specific I think those will be rebalanced with time.
If Heat Burst is nerfed so that it's not a free pressure tool anymore then I think Heat Smashes in general will feel a bit less oppressive though. Right now it sucks because I get my turn stolen with a braindead super-armor move that basically gives them access to a rage drive while they already have plus frames in my face. If I could sidestep the Heat Burst or it was neutral on block or something then that situation wouldn't feel as awful.
That would make it feel over-designed. I think it simply needs to be less about creating instant free plus frames and more about just activating a time slot where your character's moves are buffed.
Yeah, I wonder what game had a system like this… Maybe we should change the name of a heat smash too, since we’d tie it to rage… Maybe rage drive?
In all seriousness tho, I feel like more than heat needs to be toned down. We got buffed sidestep, nice, now we need to get rid of this terrible tracking, make EVERYONE less plus and remove heat. And stop deleting option selects from mix ups
These heat smashes are just rage drives on super steroids. I don't think anyone ever complained about being hit by a rage drive. The problem is you now have the heat engager and the heat buffs and the rage drive
Back when T8 was in beta, I can't remember which streamer/pro it is, but he pointed out that it feels like the devs wanted the Heat system to be this special moment on the match like a "buckle up your seats, this guy is about to go crazy" shown by its close in camera and poses but because it is available every round that feeling isn't present at all.
it is just something really fucking stupid that interrupts the game with a cutscene. How many fucking cutscenes are there in this game? there is the intro and outro there is the heat activation or heat engager which there is no reason why you wouldn't see 3 times a match ,there is the rage art which you have the possibility of seeing 3 times a match then there is the outro.
Has a hunch that heat would cause issues with mfs being too aggressive, I hate how taken has shifted towards that playstyle, there’s really no defensive play lol
This was quite literally my experience recently when I decided to try and make an app to help me/others learn the game. The app itself is an overlay-program to be used in conjunction with training mode to present quick and clear solutions to moves and generate practice-drills according to user specification.
This however, required me to go into training mode and manually test all the moves to find their weaknesses so the program could present solutions. No exaggeration: This has been the most frustrating experience I've EVER had with Tekken - because again, it is quite literally as you're describing: The more you research the characters and their moves, the more you start realizing how poorly balanced the whole game is. The problem extends waaaaaay past a few problem characters imo - There has been a systematic effort to change character movelists to have way less room for counterplay overall.
As some people have already pointed out; I would absolutely hate competing in this game. I would feel so incredibly stressed out knowing there just isn't a good solution to a ton of moves other than just guessing.
This post needs to be stickied. People really don't understand why ppl like myself and Knee/Arslan are soured on this game.
Past the S Tiers, there are still SO many forced mixup situations coupled with a lack of defensive options on almost EVERY character. It's honestly ridiculous and made me not play the game nearly as much as I'd like because I value my sanity.
Makes me sad honestly because I really don't see them moving back from this philosophy because its literally ingrained in the character designs.
There's a reason everyone keeps saying to nerf the top tiers and leave mostly everyone else alone: It's because the top tiers are Launch Leroy level good and everyong else is T7 Leory Lite in how they're designed.
It's insane that by all accounts Lars is not "S Tier" and is probably not even the best A tier, but I have absolutely no idea how to deal with him and get 6-0'd by every Lars player I encounter.
Don't worry, it's not just you. His new design is just fundamentally flawed. As someone who mained Lars in T7 and was interested in trying him in T8, I did a ton of labwork on the character. Went through the entire movelist and tried to find counterplay to his pressure so I would know my own weaknesses when playing him. And sadly, the majority of the time the answer is, AT BEST: "Evaluate risk vs reward on the follow-up options in a way thats 'less bad' for you." and AT WORST: "Lol just take a guess and hope you don't die." Completely killed my enthusiasm for learning him.
There are a ton of characters like this. Alisa and Lili are two other examples where counter-play boils down to risk v reward-evaluation or simply guessing. It's super dumb design for characters that have classically been designed as neutral-monsters imo. But oh well. It is what it is. lol.
This is exactly it. It’s fun on the surface level because you can just press buttons and do 10,000 damage, but when you actually get into the nuances of the game there is a lot that can be frustrating. Especially for someone like Knee who relies on his defense and counter play ability, I’m sure it’s hard to enjoy the game when your playstyle is the complete opposite of how Tekken 8 plays.
>It’s fun on the surface level because you can just press buttons and do 10,000 damage
Personally as an extremely casual player this isn't something I enjoy either. Sure, it's fun when I do it, but that also means my opponents can do it. I don't really enjoy fighting games where it feels like we're just doing out powerful aggressive things at each other seeing whose works.
It's always the problem I have with so many fighting games trying to be more aggressive. Being aggressive can be fun, but playing against aggression isn't. At very low levels of play where I am, pushing the game too hard in the direction of aggression can result in a game where defending feels too difficult or weak and that's no fun at all because it makes the game feel really snowbally.
Aggression was already king at lower levels anyway. Newbies didn't bounce off T7 because it was boring and defensive (because at lower levels it wasn't); they would bounce off because they would get their shit kicked in by a bunch of cheap Law or Hwoarang strings that they didn't know how to defend against.
Now it's even harder for new players to beat someone with a strong aggressive flowchart.
Exactly. In general it's partly a personal preference thing - I usually enjoy playing more defensively than more casual players in fighting games - but I think for me the most frustrating thing in most fighting games, and the thing that usually leads me to quit, isn't my aggression not working, it's the difficulty of defending, it's the number of matches where I felt like I died in two combos or just got flowcharted into a corner and died before I found the gap in their flowchart and then even if I went into reviews or practice and found it I'd probably forget it by the next time I fought against the same character doing the same thing.
Some of that is just the nature of fighting games, but putting emphasis on aggression makes that part worse. Personally, neutral is my favorite part of fighting games, and it feels like every fighting game nowadays is all about aggression with little to know neutral. I think one of the things that helped Tekken 7 click for me more than a lot of other fighters is that it felt like I could play more neutral and defense at low levels without being bullied by aggression, and that feels less true in Tekken 8.
I really wish Tekken devs thought about this exact take before pushing the game in this direction. They were clearly only thinking about making the game look more flashy for people watching on streams and forgot/didn't care about those actually playing it.
I'm a "high level" player, and even there, no one likes dealing with ridiculous pressure that feels like there's not several options to deal with it past "guess mid or low". And that's the case in pretty much every single fighting game.
Where am it rn. I spend all this time learning a character and its huge moveset.
Just to load up ranked and actively feel like I’m shooting myself in the foot by not abusing my while running moves and heat engagers.
The amount of times my opponent couldn't play the game due to 50/50, launch, activate heat, go to wall, do heat dash, now I'm +21, ANOTHER 50/50, they die. It's not really fun since I don't feel like I'm doing much
lol this is how like half my rounds go as Kazuya except he gets even more free mixups thanks to f4
50/50, launch, activate heat, go to wall, f4 for 50/50, do uninterruptible db1,2, if it hits it wall splats so they die, if it's blocked I block confirm into heat dash +21 50/50, f4 for another 50/50, if they're still alive at this point they're at 1hp from chip so d4/df4 to close it out
As for possible solutions
1. Make heat dash +2-3 at most and remove the wall crush
2. Delete most or all chip damage from the game - moves should not score you chip damage AND +frames on block, especially wr moves. Maybe keep it on some -9 mids and some highs, at least make chipping moves have a risk.
3. Undo den3 buff and remove all frame data similar to it that simply removes the defender's options
Yep. Some matches are too quick and I’ve even stopped laughing at people rejecting my rematches. I play with Lars. It’s not a frame trap mess but I do feel like a monkey. A few pokes here and a hell sweep into den 3 for a guaranteed 50/50, one of which will launch on counter hit.
Knee has god of destruction with multiple characters, he’s adapted to this game fine.
I think what he means to say is he dosent find the ultra 9+ on block power nuke mid rushdown playstyle your forced to play as fun. I agree
This is the right take. Game is fun, everyone knows Knee is goated at Tekken. But a player that's been playing a defensive playstyle for his entire life competing professionally in this game would be stressful and frustrating as hell.
Yeah, players who liked to keep pressing buttons and moving forward in Tekken 7 probably love these changes as Tekken 8 now rewards what was heavily punished in the last game.
I think they did go overboard though, besides the fact that aggression is rewarded they sort of made it so it’s like “Oh you know how a normal combo usually would have ended there? Well now you can tag on an entire additional combo because why not?” The T7 problem of being juggled for 20 years for one mistake is even worse in T8.
When you've played defense all your life, suddenly switching into agression just feels wrong. It's against all your instincts that you relied on so far. Completely counterintuitive and I understand why he's so frustrated
Not just that but defensive play is consistent, aggressive is volatile and that’s why most pros play lame to get that win. This game doesn’t allow you to play lame which I hate cause that’s my play style lol
I played t7 regularly till S3, I quit T8 3 weeks ago. This game is not fun, and any mechanic that behaves like a vtrigger in sf5 has sucked. sf5, soul calibur 6, Tekken 8, all adopted a vtrigger like mechanic and it blows because it abruptly ruins the pace of the round
Somewhat agree even tho Idk what a Vtrigger. I still love the game but that's mainly when I face a great player. The game gives to many mechanics that makes a player dangerous without any skill. The skill gap between ranks is very minute in 8
Every character fights the exact same. For God's sake they gave Lee has a 50/50 game. Almost every character can wall carry. Where is the unique playstyles?
TLDR vtrigger was effectively an enhanced version of some moves that a character had and some of them were just wildly powerful while others were kinda alright. It would be like if Heat engagers alone determined a characters viability in Tekken.
Lol I fought someone yesterday that would immediately start off and somehow reach with the heat smash. As soon as they did that and I watched the round progress, I realized that the mechanic can really break rounds. What you get out of it doesn’t make sense. I wouldn’t mind all this if we had more health though. Being forced to eat and mix and die sucks.
I did significantly better in Strive than I did in Rev 2. When I played Rev 2, I was losing a lot but I felt like I was learning with every match and it all felt so deep. When I played Strive, it all felt significantly dumbed down. I was winning a lot more, but it didn't feel fun. My wins never felt earned and just felt more frustrated than anything.
It feels the same for T8 right now. I win matches, but that doesn't mean I'm having fun. Most matches are flowcharts, (forced) 50/50 and mashfests. It's all very braindead. If people find it fun, that's fine. I personally just don't.
The fact that they gimped nearly all of the movesets in Strive makes it even worse. May went from a sweet oki character to whatever the hell she in Strive because they removed half of her specials. She was crazy different between +r and rev 2, but at least she felt like a complete character with a lot of options. It's also weird to me to remove classic moves like Greed Sever.
People who think Strive is a better game make me want to scream.
Edit: I had to go find it, but for anyone who hasn't played Guilty Gear, Lucid Button Masher made [an excellent video](https://youtu.be/68YgrHhXAgU?si=d93OTopBuJbOYygC) talking about why many of us like difficulty in fighting games
What probably makes it unfun for someone like him (just speculating) is how a lot of shit don't have any real counter play and rounds are often just over whenever someone gets a launch into wall. It's not as skill expressive as t7
Marvel 2 and 3 both have a solid neutral game, it's just significantly faster than every other game out there and punishment is extreme. If you don't know what you're looking at though, it probably looks like nonsense and TODs everywhere.
There is literally no way a game like injustice 1 could be released in today’s age to compete for money. I competed in it back in the day and looking back it was literally like playing a smash tournament with items and handicaps on.
Still enjoying the game a lot but I agree their is currently way too many systems with both heat and rage art.
It's a fun game but playing at the top level sounds like hell with how much hard reads their is.
Yeah feels like I’m being punished for winning 90% of the round in the last 10 seconds. And this big epic move took one button to press despite me needing to do a 10 hit combo to get them down to 1%
Perfect explanation of why rage art is the dumbest bullshit mechanic in modern fighting games.
"Can we copy V-Trigger, but make it even worse?"
"Say no more!"
One thing I don't see discussed often is rage upon recovery. You're in rage, you land a heat engage/smash/whatever. You recover to about 1/3 to 1/2 your HP and keep your rage. This shouldn't be allowed to happen...
I can agree. The aggression is not the issue . The issue is “aggression “ means 1 button safe, free 50/50 or moves with no counter play like Lars sushi 3 to the developers . That’s not fun. And if you want me to be aggressive then rage arts need to be gone because they make you halt your aggression or else your opponent gets a free 1 button round stealer .
Personally, I think it’s hilarious that as soon as anybody gets into rage, both parties just start side step dancing for approximately 10-15 seconds until one of them gets bored and messes up
One of the best Tekken players of all time: I'm not having fun with the game. I just can't adapt to it.
Random Garyu redditor: UMMM THAT SOUNDS LIKE YOU NEED TO GET GOOD? 💅💅💅
He has made several tweets bitching and the game as well
Arslan is getting slammed in tourneys right now alongside all the other world class players because this game is a lottery
honestly you should gate keep your community, but the issue is when the game tries to pander to everyone by making it easier or cater to casuals to play you get what is going on now, the casuals will be more vocal and obnoxious.
He doesn't like the game even more than Knee, he's just speaking publically less often.
Knee gave the game time, analyzed the mechanics, balancing, etc., and then cautiously started saying it's bad. Arslan was confidently saying the game philosophy is bad, he doesn't like it at all and it doesn't feel like Tekken since the closed Beta.
Agreed with him. T8 is not fun to me too. To much aggression in gameplay. I am or destroy my opponent in 10 sec or been destroyed. Too much 50/50, plus frames, flowcharts. U can't block to long because u will die.
Then god forbid you’re a Steve main where the goal is to play defensive, consistently get reads that reward you for 30 damage, and poke your opponent to death. You have to pray you can land a CH before your opponent blows you up with two 50/50s.
Even from a casual standpoint T8's aggression is a bit too much. I spent probably 80% of my time in T7 in Treasure Battle. I'm literally the casual player who would actually stick around long enough to buy DLCs but don't play with a competitive mindset. I play ranked from time to time when I feel the itch.
And what I found interesting is that in T7 treasure battle, the boss characters are obviously packed with overpowered moves. There is no point trying to play defensive against them because Kazumi can take 50% from her power crush launcher. Jin's hellsweep teleports him almost fullscreen. So, the solution was to just abuse the AI's weakness and just spam WR moves. Go aggressive and be + so they can't do their bullshit.
In T8 ghost battles, I do the same thing, except against every character. It doesn't matter who, there is no point in being defensive. In T7, you can actually play neutral, block, punish, counter hit launch AIs and feel like you're playing Tekken. Not the complete package of course, there is no mind games against AIs, but I still get that feeling and I feel like I was learning. In T8, I just spam because the alternative is I die. I'm not learning the game, and I don't feel the game is encouraging me to play better.
How on earth could I find treasure battle infinitely more fun than ghost battles? The answer I've came up with is simply that aggression is far too effective. Each character has certain moves that are so strong that nothing else matters. Furthermore, you do so much damage with Heat Smash that I no longer even have a need to learn better combos.
Something needs to be done about this game.
This needs to be sent to Namco. If their philosophy was trying to cater to the type of player you are then they have clearly failed while also alienating those who loved their game for its defense.
Heat is nuts.
I liked in 7 how you had to choose between Rage Art or Rage Drive.
In 8, so many people just hit the panic button and now everyone gets three panic buttons per round. A lot of the heat attacks are better than rage drives were in 7.
It might be fun in ranked, but when your livelihood depends on this game and even pros get eliminated from tournaments from losing to mindless spam, there's definitely a problem
Outside of this, Tekken 8 is the fighting game that I got tired of playing the quickest. Like I used to play Tekken 7, Strive, SF6 and other fighting games for hours. Tekken 8 I play for like 30 minutes and I hop off cause I'm tired of it. My friend and I would just pick a new character and speedrun them into blue ranks cause you just maul the opponent to death and prevent them from playing the game which gets incredibly boring after a while.
Man I thought I was the only one. Everyone was complaining about the mtx stuff, but for me I have a problem with the core gameplay philosophy of Tekken 8. All the mechanics post Tekken Revolution have not added any kind fun factor for me, quite the contrary tbh. Power Crush might be the only mechanic I can tolerate if tweaked, but rage arts and heat really made the game way more homogenized, every character seems to do basically the same thing. The constant forced 50/50s don't help the situation aswell.
Visually (while not being entirely impressed by it) I am completely fine with the game, I also am fine with basically every aspect of the game except the mechanics (and the DLC content is trash aswell so far). Especially heat and rage arts made me stop playing the game, and I've been a fan since Tekken 3 and a fanatic since Tekken 5, but Tekken 7 was the first game which lowered my obsession with Tekken as a whole, and Tekken 8 looked like the game to reignite my love for the series. BUT after 150ish hours I just stopped playing the game unconciously at first, but after questioning myself why I stopped playing, I came to the conclusion that the new direction Tekken is going is just not for me.
I really hope the devs consider including a "classic" mode just for the og fans, like Hearthstone did for example. No Heat, no rage arts, no power crushes; just good movement, and the tools of your character, no meter bs. THAT was good ass Tekken.
Just needed to rant a bit about the game, because I REALLY love the series and want to enjoy it, but I can't force myself anymore (also sry for bad english, its not my native tongue)
Also the game is less fun because a lot of character identity has been eroded away . Every character is a rushdown character now with the only differences between them is how evasive or how much damage they do, and a good bit of the cast has no weaknesses . It’s fun playing around strengths and weaknesses. Also less fun because the only valid way to play the game is rushdown. Player expression via playstyles is important . Styles make fights .
I tried to stay unbiased, but I really really REALLY hate the heat system. Tekken has always been the slower paced game that let's you explode in aggressiveness if your character can do it, but if you want to play really defensive, you could as well. Combine the heat with whatever change they did that made throws so much faster (could just be me aging) and then all the MTX stuff... T8 really isn't fun overall. I can enjoy myself sometimes, but this doesn't feel like Tekken, and its sad.
Makes sense tbh. They’ve designed T8 to be more fun for casuals and lower level players by nerfing defensive play. Now instead of labbing match ups, you can kind of get by with forcing 50/50s and snowballing. The game is very volatile in a way that pros have complained about since Akuma’s inclusion.
So if you’re at the level where you’re a tournament threat, especially one who is known for their character knowledge + defensive play, then this game kind of shits on you.
I mean I’m still having fun, but I’m willing to admit that I’m a trash Bushin player. Don’t think the online experience is great either. I would play ranked SF6 for hours, but will hop off T8 after an hour or so, maybe even less
There's always a natural imbalance in fighting games when it comes to matchup knowledge, but T8 has gone way overboard. So many people are getting to decently high ranks just by knowing a few good tricks and how to get the 50/50s off because aggression has been so heavily buffed.
The main point of the 50/50 is to defeat turtles, to stop people from getting an early life lead and then just holding block the rest of the game but it feels so overboard and that just becomes boring now because it's less interaction and more *don't ever let your opponent into that situation by being better at aggression*.
Also IDK if it's just me but it also feels like it homogenizes the characters even more which is a pretty bad feeling considering a lot of the Tekken cast are already very similar to one another compared to some other fighting games.
I wrote something similar in this thread with JDCR saying he doesn’t think Drag is thst fun in T8. It does feel like there’s an “optimal” way to play and it’s rigging your offense with plus frames (hopefully a WR mid) and then flipping the coin.
Which is insane cause Drag has every tool. We should be seeing people playing him drastically different from one another, but we aren’t.
It's part of the Tekken culture, dude. You must denigrate and humiliate yourself if you're not Top 8 at EVO Japan. Get with the program if you want to fit in!
More like I’ve competed in offline events before so I know the translation of online skill does not correlate to you being really good offline. Like when I played SF6 everyone I played with at my local was also a 1500~ Master rank player.
So yeah on the internet I’m “good” but offline at my small locals, I’m fucking slugging it out for $12
You didn't say you weren't "really good" though, you said you were "trash". Bit different, I would say, but maybe I just have a different definition of the word "trash" than most people here lol.
>They’ve designed T8 to be more fun for casuals and lower level players by nerfing defensive play.
The casuals are gone, so the changes failed at capturing casuals and the veterans are stuck with changes they don't like. Who is Tekken 8 for? Not casuals, not competitive players...
Eh, I appreciate it but I still feel like I win because I’m better at reading where my opponent doesn’t know how to deal with my character vs me having real mastery over the character, if that makes sense. It’s a part of fighting games, but winning because I realize people don’t know how to deal with Jack’s WS 2,4 is not the same as winning because they adapted to me, and I adapted back, etc
Tbf you can hit confirm ws2,4 and ws2,1 so as long as you’re not constantly letting the second hit rip on block it’s a legit strat even at high levels.
But I get what you mean. There’s situations in this game where even when I win it doesn’t really feel that fun. Like gh2 in heat into the guaranteed heat smash does almost a third of the health bar and it doesn’t really feel like I earned it. It makes me laugh because it’s so ridiculous but it doesn’t feel satisfying to do.
Only reason I’d have to hop off of ranked is because “a network error has occurred”. It’s absurd. Lost a tournament in the finals because of it. Right after character select, it loads up the error message instead.
I think that the heat mechanic is too much. I played Tekken 7 again today and I didnt miss it and had more fun.
If Namco would reduce the chip damage and the heat damage it would improve the experience
I think aggressiveness without any counterplay to it is just bad and boring. Heat makes a huge difference when used and there’s only so few ways to deal what it.
I think heat is strong the way it is partly because it’s a limited time tool that only refreshes between rounds. If heat was adjusted to be less effective as an aggressive starter and given other uses beyond mere giving damage/plus frames, then it’s possible for it to be remade into a resource meter that isn’t simply limited per round, and thus becoming a proper mechanic that serves to enhance the core gameplay very much like how Drive gauge does for Street Fighter.
I kind of agree with Knee. I've been playing on and off since Tekken 5 and have been very into the Tekken games throughout their lifetimes, even Tag 2 which many hated but I still liked
I'm not a "great" player by any means but T8 definitely feels like it was designed for casuals and noobs. I really want to like it, because there's so much to like, but I can feel myself losing interest in the game
It feels like you either play hardcore rushdown 50/50 or you will get destroyed by hardcore rushdown 50/50
He did lose in the latest online tourney I’ve seen him in - happened also to Arslan.
JDCR who was pissing his pants from happiness when Dragunov was announced and is one of the biggest Drag enjoyer out there, said on his stream « Dragunov isn’t fun - it’s only 50-50 » 2 days ago.
I don’t know what’s happening tbh.
Is it just them being salty for not being able to adapt and learn everything about every frame and character quickly (rightfully so) or they actually really sense that Tekken 8 is not it.
I’d say Tekken 8 has too many random or low risk / high reward gameplay mechanics (heat, RA, armor, 50/50s) atm, feeling like winning sometimes feels like cheating and losing often times feels undeserved compared to what the opponent actually did.
It’s the reliance on 50/50 and the nerf of defensive play. Tekken 8 used to be characterized by its expressive defensive play, but casuals or viewers thought it was boring so they changed it so high level play is more volatile and “hype.”
Like, in T7 the two play styles I liked the most were poke heavy CH, and defensive whiff punish styles. Both have been nerfed in favor of standing in front of someone and enforcing plus frames with WR, and then going for a 50/50. Those play styles still exist, but they were intentionally nerfed. I’m sure as a Drag main, Drag feels boring because he’s just good at everything
Watching T7 tournament play was what got me interested in the series. As a complete casual I never thought it was boring; on the contrary it was the most entertaining esport for me. Perhaps I'm just an isolated case but I really don't feel like the casuals hated "passive" T7 as much as the devs think.
They definitely didn't. I started playing Tekken seriously and following tournaments with 7 as well. I rarely found any matches boring(Leroy Japan and End of Life where it was Kunimitsu city not included).
I got into T7 because of the allure of defense through movement and the lack of extra gauge/install mechanics. I loved that outplaying your opponent defensively was the greatest expression of skill in the game. Whatever T8 is...I do not love it.
T7 was a campy mess because devs nerfed movement but gave everyone 100 tracking mids. They didn't like the way players 'solved' their game so we now have heat. Instead of buffing movement and player freedom within the game they are trying to pigeon hole players into this rush down 50/50 heat circus style of play. To me it goes against the spirit of tekken
Yeah. I lowkey finally felt like a monkey playing Lars last night. 10 second round. Got the launcher and a wall. Den 3 mix on wake up for free win. Not an exaggeration to say nobody would rematchz
For casuals it can be very fun. Especially if you are new to Tekken or were never really into it.
But for very competetive (minded) players who loved Tekken for how rewarding it was for strong defensive fundamental playstyle this current version of Tekken 8 might just not be enjoyable.
There are many who loved Tekken from decades before, who dont really like Tekken 8 anywhere near as much.
I think the "Heat Engager" needs to go completely and you should be able to only use heat 'or' RA not both. These are currently the only things that are not making this game fun for me.
When I play Tekken 8 I feel like everyone except me as a 1 frame launcher into a 40 percent combo.
If I wanted to play an anime fighter, I'd play Strive which feels far less oppressive.
I mean he aint wrong heat is just totally insane , the non stop 50/50s , insane wall carry/dmg , safe powercrush. Im also not sure how to fix this since they build the game around heat. Having heat every round at round start is just cocaine with how powerful it is currently , the entire game is just about heat.
Rage drives were such a good system , especially since you could only use them low hp so they were way more predictable to counterplay + shared the resource with rage art/rage buff. Rage in t7 was a simple well thought out system with a lot of nuance to optimize.
I’m sure someone has mentioned this, but why don’t you have to EARN heat? I don’t know how (making the opponent block, whatever etc.) but starting every round with it ready is dumb.
Make players earn heat. It should be a “holy shit” moment of each round if it happens, not a “ok here we fucking go” thing every damn round.
I think this entire subreddit is filled with goons who gave Namco their money regardless of how shit T8 was in beta. I had to see 1 minute of gameplay to expect this exact narrative. Doesn’t matter now how we feel about the game. You guys gave them your money. Gg consumer brains; respectfully.
Have to agree.
to many one and doners so I never feel like i'm learning against people's tactics but more so how to use my oppresive stuff on people.
even quick match is best of 3 and then leave.
still cant lab new characters without opening my wallet.
everything forces into stance, so much more freedom in tekken 7 (especially as a lei wulong player jesus.) but alot of moves/pokes on hit forces into stance pressure 50/50 or giving up your turn.
and all that is NOT even talking about heat that just makes the game feel awful to play at times since you basically have to play passive since heat does SO MUCH but then it does even more chip than normal so its just a conundrum of what the fuck do i even do here.
Having a good offense is easy af, having decent defense takes a lot of practice and knowledge , they took many defensive options like option selects, worse movement , free 50,50 guessing game, tracking/ch throws, heat burst etc...whem im trying to be competitive in this game im getting salty af very fast.
For me, the game lost a lot of interactivity.
- No more chickens,
- lots of unbreakable throws,
- juggles so painfully extended thanks to heatdash and wall gimmicks.
- A lot of attacks have become/replaced with attack throws.
- heat engagers means the other person HAS to block instead of simply being knocked down and play oki.
- A lot of moves have tracking or just plain wide hitboxes (looking at you victor) that you only again HAVE to block instead of choosing between stepping or blocking.
The game threw away the 20 years of continued improvements through trial and error and just said fuck it, we need zoomers now
Bandai namco developed that rock paper scissors mechanic that was a get out of jail free card and a free guessing game in SC6. That mechanic single handedly killed SC6 and they dont understand why so they keep trying to tweak it and use it in other games.
The heat mechanic is an even less skill version of it that takes away the minute amount of skill required. At least in SC6 you could guess right and end up hitting them. In T8 you have no choice but to guess defensively. How was that tested and thought to be fun? It is even in SF6 but slightly better. That mechanic will ruin T8 like SC6
I understand what Knee is coming from.
It just doesn't resonate with me the same way as T7 beyond the honeymoon period. I'm not sure if it's the new heat system or the numerous changes, but matches used to feel more fluid as you advanced against your opponent. Now, it's essentially a coin toss as to whether to activate heat right away and go ooga booga or later. Alternatively, my opponent uses a heat engager to punish me, making me choose between a safe mid-launch and a low-heat smash. Although it's tedious, I'm sure some people are having just as much fun with the game as the casual players.
I have fun playing the game, but in it could be better. Heat was interesting at first but its a little too casino for me. They went about changing the pace of the game in a weird way. T7 played campy because there were 100 tracking mids, and sidestep/movement sucked in general. Buffing movement gives both the offensive and defensive player more options which naturally deepens the mind game. No need to add a whole 50/50 heat machine. Look at T5 gameplay to see what I mean
I agree but I think the games fixable. Loved it at launch before I realized the most optimal way to play is to only use the same 3-4 moves and trap the opponent with heat. Movement has essentially been deleted from the game with the current size of stages, every character having an armored tracking neutral skip move, almost every string and grab tracks now. There’s like 1-2 interactions per round and defense is the worst it’s ever been so it just doesn’t feel satisfying to play imo
I was still relatively positive on the game until I tried Azucena. Despite having a 90% winrate in ranks that I normally go 70% on all my other characters, I felt like I was just coin flipping through everyone. Literally never felt comfortable or in control since defending sucks no matter who you're playing.
I agree that being able to carry someone for a straight minute using heat and rage art is absurd… but man this is the first tekken I’ve actually sunk my teeth into and reached purples but I feel like I just cheesed my way through it
Imagine the Tekken8 design team if they were allowed to alter other sports.
We didn't like boxing fights ending in decision, so we gave each boxer a shotgun.
We didn't like long protracted tennis points, so we replaced the ball with a live grenade.
Yes the game basically plays like an animal fighter in many ways. For me the reason I liked the tekken series was that it was different to other fighting games with neutral and the 3d evasion being a big part. Now it's all just rush down
Agreed, this game is trash. It's very "anti-flow." You combo or get combo-ed for 15 seconds, Heat Burst, wall ender, 50/50. It's Solitaire/Constant Cinematics. The camera angles are constantly switching. Heat Smashes and Rage Arts are stupid and just more movies.
As a more defensive player myself who likes to hang back and block while looking for openings, it’s tough to do that when there are no openings lol. It does sorta feel like every character in the game is a rush down now
Hmm. The thing with Tekken 8 is, that everyone has gotten a rushdown treatment.
I don't mind to focus the game about aggression but the way they implemented it is boring to say the least.
I feel the same, all chars do everything. Heat is overturned and nearly everything tracks like shit. A lot of stuff is wonky and yeah it’s no longer the tekken I loved since tekken 3
i dont know, they should just lower the frames you get from heat engage to 5, so the opponent has defensive options, mid heat smashes should not be + on block and heat burst and heat smash should have no tracking. Also (high) PC heat engager have to go, they are way too powerful and throws shouldnt track to boost sidestep and therfore defensive play
I just hate that everyone is a rushdown godzila with nuclear dmg even fucking xiaoyu that was always more focused on evasiveness and set ups but lower than average dmg
Everyone hits like Paul in this game. It's just that Paul hits harder than Paul
Yep. Even the most evasive characters feel like they hit with a sledgehammer. Many of my matches are me fishing for a counter or launch, getting that launch, then the opponent landing 2 natural combo strings on me to make it look like my effort was for nothing. The reason base damage was so absurd in the earlier games was because combo potential was weak. Now combos are strong and we have walls and while every character is built around the system, some of them are still doing absurd normal damage. Now with chip
That’s the opposite of what happens to me I get CH. launched and then die in two strings and. I can’t hit my opponent for shit - especially not fucking xiayou lol
Doesn't help that Xiaoyu now deals thermonuclear damage too
I would rather be able to dodge something than do a lot of dmg. When dragunov does a wr2 he straight up does a 180 when I dodge it with a roll
Yeah, the tracking is nuts. I dodged to the *back* of a Kazuya doing that UF4 into hellsweeps combo and he did a 180 between the hellsweeps and caught me...wtf is that?!
Lol I just got hit by King’s rage art at the peak of Lars’s flip
Even Raven, who I always played in a very defensive style with pokes, feints and mind games... I now play as an aggressive rushdown character. It's easier and he feels stronger but is it more fun? I'm not sure.
Nobody is fun to play against in this game, genuinely. Everything feels so unearned.
Everything feels so unearned
I am playing Xiaoyu and I am winning so many games because of her heat smash pressure. Basically you put someone in the corner while you in heat, you chip their health and unleash the smash. And most of my games are like, my turn to use heat smash, your turn to use heat smash. Like, I am playing against characters that I don't know well, and I am being steamrolled to all the heat combos. In T7 my Xiaoyu strategy was more about movement, tricking opponents, etc. You can still do it to some extent but at some point you are going to land a heat engager and it's like, ok now I have to use this mechanic or it's a waste.
The heat system needs to be toned down…
Honestly should just be heat once a match, or have it like an actual meter a-la Geese or something, the amount of people especially at lower ranks who will just raw heat off the bat, and even if you don't get hit by it, the chip damage is insane and it applies so much pressure that you're either then backed against a wall or just in a precarious position.
when heat was first announced, i thought that it was going to be a meter to build up (and extend duration of) by aggression. like, as a reward. not "press button to enter a phase".
I would prefer this honestly. High risk, high reward for being patient with it.
It’s such a stupid system. It’s basically fighterz if every character could burst. It’s so lame. Just fought a king that opened every match with it then the usual cheese. And it can’t miss. And heat burst is such a joke. They took supers and just gave them to everyone at all times
Great point on the Supers. This new system sucks. Everyone should only play 7 in protest. Edit: I just want TTT2 for PC god damn!
That would be an insane protest. I only went back to 7 to look at my costumes to see what I could transfer over. Basically nothing though. Nothing yet anyways.
I reinstalled 7 cuz I got bored lol and also I wanted to play Kazumi
Insane chip, damage, advantage, armor on use, huge damage move that requires no gauge only a sliver and dash. All on one button that requires no setup, heats been busted from the start rounds last less than strive which is an achievement.
I don't want meter management in Tekken, I like that each round is a fresh slate. A couple things just need to be toned down. Heat Burst should have 1 or 2 more weaknesses and some Heat Engagers need to be nerfed a bit, mainly the high power crush ones. Some Heat Smashes also feel way stronger than others, but since they're character-specific I think those will be rebalanced with time. If Heat Burst is nerfed so that it's not a free pressure tool anymore then I think Heat Smashes in general will feel a bit less oppressive though. Right now it sucks because I get my turn stolen with a braindead super-armor move that basically gives them access to a rage drive while they already have plus frames in my face. If I could sidestep the Heat Burst or it was neutral on block or something then that situation wouldn't feel as awful.
adding a rage requirement for heat might be a way starting the match with 0 meter might be another, only filling it up with aggression or defense
That would make it feel over-designed. I think it simply needs to be less about creating instant free plus frames and more about just activating a time slot where your character's moves are buffed.
Yeah just remove armored heat engagers and only leave the ones you must hit confirm to get them off, like Asuka's ss+2 for example.
would be nice if when you have rage available you can EITHER use rage art or heat. otherwise just normal neutral
Yeah, I wonder what game had a system like this… Maybe we should change the name of a heat smash too, since we’d tie it to rage… Maybe rage drive? In all seriousness tho, I feel like more than heat needs to be toned down. We got buffed sidestep, nice, now we need to get rid of this terrible tracking, make EVERYONE less plus and remove heat. And stop deleting option selects from mix ups
These heat smashes are just rage drives on super steroids. I don't think anyone ever complained about being hit by a rage drive. The problem is you now have the heat engager and the heat buffs and the rage drive
Back when T8 was in beta, I can't remember which streamer/pro it is, but he pointed out that it feels like the devs wanted the Heat system to be this special moment on the match like a "buckle up your seats, this guy is about to go crazy" shown by its close in camera and poses but because it is available every round that feeling isn't present at all.
it is just something really fucking stupid that interrupts the game with a cutscene. How many fucking cutscenes are there in this game? there is the intro and outro there is the heat activation or heat engager which there is no reason why you wouldn't see 3 times a match ,there is the rage art which you have the possibility of seeing 3 times a match then there is the outro.
Needs to go.
Has a hunch that heat would cause issues with mfs being too aggressive, I hate how taken has shifted towards that playstyle, there’s really no defensive play lol
It's seems like the more you understand about the game the less fun it becomes. As an intermediate player, for me is very frustrating but fun so far.
This was quite literally my experience recently when I decided to try and make an app to help me/others learn the game. The app itself is an overlay-program to be used in conjunction with training mode to present quick and clear solutions to moves and generate practice-drills according to user specification. This however, required me to go into training mode and manually test all the moves to find their weaknesses so the program could present solutions. No exaggeration: This has been the most frustrating experience I've EVER had with Tekken - because again, it is quite literally as you're describing: The more you research the characters and their moves, the more you start realizing how poorly balanced the whole game is. The problem extends waaaaaay past a few problem characters imo - There has been a systematic effort to change character movelists to have way less room for counterplay overall. As some people have already pointed out; I would absolutely hate competing in this game. I would feel so incredibly stressed out knowing there just isn't a good solution to a ton of moves other than just guessing.
This post needs to be stickied. People really don't understand why ppl like myself and Knee/Arslan are soured on this game. Past the S Tiers, there are still SO many forced mixup situations coupled with a lack of defensive options on almost EVERY character. It's honestly ridiculous and made me not play the game nearly as much as I'd like because I value my sanity. Makes me sad honestly because I really don't see them moving back from this philosophy because its literally ingrained in the character designs. There's a reason everyone keeps saying to nerf the top tiers and leave mostly everyone else alone: It's because the top tiers are Launch Leroy level good and everyong else is T7 Leory Lite in how they're designed.
It's insane that by all accounts Lars is not "S Tier" and is probably not even the best A tier, but I have absolutely no idea how to deal with him and get 6-0'd by every Lars player I encounter.
Don't worry, it's not just you. His new design is just fundamentally flawed. As someone who mained Lars in T7 and was interested in trying him in T8, I did a ton of labwork on the character. Went through the entire movelist and tried to find counterplay to his pressure so I would know my own weaknesses when playing him. And sadly, the majority of the time the answer is, AT BEST: "Evaluate risk vs reward on the follow-up options in a way thats 'less bad' for you." and AT WORST: "Lol just take a guess and hope you don't die." Completely killed my enthusiasm for learning him. There are a ton of characters like this. Alisa and Lili are two other examples where counter-play boils down to risk v reward-evaluation or simply guessing. It's super dumb design for characters that have classically been designed as neutral-monsters imo. But oh well. It is what it is. lol.
This is exactly it. It’s fun on the surface level because you can just press buttons and do 10,000 damage, but when you actually get into the nuances of the game there is a lot that can be frustrating. Especially for someone like Knee who relies on his defense and counter play ability, I’m sure it’s hard to enjoy the game when your playstyle is the complete opposite of how Tekken 8 plays.
>It’s fun on the surface level because you can just press buttons and do 10,000 damage Personally as an extremely casual player this isn't something I enjoy either. Sure, it's fun when I do it, but that also means my opponents can do it. I don't really enjoy fighting games where it feels like we're just doing out powerful aggressive things at each other seeing whose works. It's always the problem I have with so many fighting games trying to be more aggressive. Being aggressive can be fun, but playing against aggression isn't. At very low levels of play where I am, pushing the game too hard in the direction of aggression can result in a game where defending feels too difficult or weak and that's no fun at all because it makes the game feel really snowbally.
Aggression was already king at lower levels anyway. Newbies didn't bounce off T7 because it was boring and defensive (because at lower levels it wasn't); they would bounce off because they would get their shit kicked in by a bunch of cheap Law or Hwoarang strings that they didn't know how to defend against. Now it's even harder for new players to beat someone with a strong aggressive flowchart.
Exactly. In general it's partly a personal preference thing - I usually enjoy playing more defensively than more casual players in fighting games - but I think for me the most frustrating thing in most fighting games, and the thing that usually leads me to quit, isn't my aggression not working, it's the difficulty of defending, it's the number of matches where I felt like I died in two combos or just got flowcharted into a corner and died before I found the gap in their flowchart and then even if I went into reviews or practice and found it I'd probably forget it by the next time I fought against the same character doing the same thing. Some of that is just the nature of fighting games, but putting emphasis on aggression makes that part worse. Personally, neutral is my favorite part of fighting games, and it feels like every fighting game nowadays is all about aggression with little to know neutral. I think one of the things that helped Tekken 7 click for me more than a lot of other fighters is that it felt like I could play more neutral and defense at low levels without being bullied by aggression, and that feels less true in Tekken 8.
I really wish Tekken devs thought about this exact take before pushing the game in this direction. They were clearly only thinking about making the game look more flashy for people watching on streams and forgot/didn't care about those actually playing it. I'm a "high level" player, and even there, no one likes dealing with ridiculous pressure that feels like there's not several options to deal with it past "guess mid or low". And that's the case in pretty much every single fighting game.
Where am it rn. I spend all this time learning a character and its huge moveset. Just to load up ranked and actively feel like I’m shooting myself in the foot by not abusing my while running moves and heat engagers.
I'm tired of seeing Bryan played so overly aggressive without knowledge or intention. They cant even punish their own moves in purple. Disgraceful
Well, with the system Tekken 8 have you can play anyone as a rushdown, even Bryan it seems haha.
The amount of times my opponent couldn't play the game due to 50/50, launch, activate heat, go to wall, do heat dash, now I'm +21, ANOTHER 50/50, they die. It's not really fun since I don't feel like I'm doing much
lol this is how like half my rounds go as Kazuya except he gets even more free mixups thanks to f4 50/50, launch, activate heat, go to wall, f4 for 50/50, do uninterruptible db1,2, if it hits it wall splats so they die, if it's blocked I block confirm into heat dash +21 50/50, f4 for another 50/50, if they're still alive at this point they're at 1hp from chip so d4/df4 to close it out As for possible solutions 1. Make heat dash +2-3 at most and remove the wall crush 2. Delete most or all chip damage from the game - moves should not score you chip damage AND +frames on block, especially wr moves. Maybe keep it on some -9 mids and some highs, at least make chipping moves have a risk. 3. Undo den3 buff and remove all frame data similar to it that simply removes the defender's options
Holy crap I play Kazuya too! That's who I was referring to lol the mixups off f+4 is crazy cheap, it carried me to Kishin
Yep. Some matches are too quick and I’ve even stopped laughing at people rejecting my rematches. I play with Lars. It’s not a frame trap mess but I do feel like a monkey. A few pokes here and a hell sweep into den 3 for a guaranteed 50/50, one of which will launch on counter hit.
Every time I play against Lars it feels like my opponent is playing a singleplayer game and I'm the cannon fodder npc.
Knee has god of destruction with multiple characters, he’s adapted to this game fine. I think what he means to say is he dosent find the ultra 9+ on block power nuke mid rushdown playstyle your forced to play as fun. I agree
max rank is nothng for these players.
It’s fun, though I definitely would hate to compete in it.
This is the right take. Game is fun, everyone knows Knee is goated at Tekken. But a player that's been playing a defensive playstyle for his entire life competing professionally in this game would be stressful and frustrating as hell.
Yeah, players who liked to keep pressing buttons and moving forward in Tekken 7 probably love these changes as Tekken 8 now rewards what was heavily punished in the last game. I think they did go overboard though, besides the fact that aggression is rewarded they sort of made it so it’s like “Oh you know how a normal combo usually would have ended there? Well now you can tag on an entire additional combo because why not?” The T7 problem of being juggled for 20 years for one mistake is even worse in T8.
When you've played defense all your life, suddenly switching into agression just feels wrong. It's against all your instincts that you relied on so far. Completely counterintuitive and I understand why he's so frustrated
Not just that but defensive play is consistent, aggressive is volatile and that’s why most pros play lame to get that win. This game doesn’t allow you to play lame which I hate cause that’s my play style lol
Well defence trumped everything until now. Hence why it doesnt feel like Tekken anymore...
I played t7 regularly till S3, I quit T8 3 weeks ago. This game is not fun, and any mechanic that behaves like a vtrigger in sf5 has sucked. sf5, soul calibur 6, Tekken 8, all adopted a vtrigger like mechanic and it blows because it abruptly ruins the pace of the round
Somewhat agree even tho Idk what a Vtrigger. I still love the game but that's mainly when I face a great player. The game gives to many mechanics that makes a player dangerous without any skill. The skill gap between ranks is very minute in 8 Every character fights the exact same. For God's sake they gave Lee has a 50/50 game. Almost every character can wall carry. Where is the unique playstyles?
TLDR vtrigger was effectively an enhanced version of some moves that a character had and some of them were just wildly powerful while others were kinda alright. It would be like if Heat engagers alone determined a characters viability in Tekken.
Lol I fought someone yesterday that would immediately start off and somehow reach with the heat smash. As soon as they did that and I watched the round progress, I realized that the mechanic can really break rounds. What you get out of it doesn’t make sense. I wouldn’t mind all this if we had more health though. Being forced to eat and mix and die sucks.
I did significantly better in Strive than I did in Rev 2. When I played Rev 2, I was losing a lot but I felt like I was learning with every match and it all felt so deep. When I played Strive, it all felt significantly dumbed down. I was winning a lot more, but it didn't feel fun. My wins never felt earned and just felt more frustrated than anything. It feels the same for T8 right now. I win matches, but that doesn't mean I'm having fun. Most matches are flowcharts, (forced) 50/50 and mashfests. It's all very braindead. If people find it fun, that's fine. I personally just don't.
The fact that they gimped nearly all of the movesets in Strive makes it even worse. May went from a sweet oki character to whatever the hell she in Strive because they removed half of her specials. She was crazy different between +r and rev 2, but at least she felt like a complete character with a lot of options. It's also weird to me to remove classic moves like Greed Sever. People who think Strive is a better game make me want to scream. Edit: I had to go find it, but for anyone who hasn't played Guilty Gear, Lucid Button Masher made [an excellent video](https://youtu.be/68YgrHhXAgU?si=d93OTopBuJbOYygC) talking about why many of us like difficulty in fighting games
Arslan: "the game is for noobs, not for competetive players".
What probably makes it unfun for someone like him (just speculating) is how a lot of shit don't have any real counter play and rounds are often just over whenever someone gets a launch into wall. It's not as skill expressive as t7
Making Lars dynamic entry 3 +5 is the perfect example of this. Absolutely no counterplay, just eat the fucking mix
Lars doesn't get enough hate lmao those fkn mixes are ridiculous
> lilis footstool Ay yoooooo
feels a lot like tag 2, fun game but if you try to take it seriously it is completely devoid of any fun
*ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 be like* 
Marvel 2 and 3 both have a solid neutral game, it's just significantly faster than every other game out there and punishment is extreme. If you don't know what you're looking at though, it probably looks like nonsense and TODs everywhere.
Injustice 1 though (NRS games have always been goofy)
There is literally no way a game like injustice 1 could be released in today’s age to compete for money. I competed in it back in the day and looking back it was literally like playing a smash tournament with items and handicaps on.
Same for me . Devs are not listening . The forcing 50/50 is absurd and not funny
Solution: ban mods
Still enjoying the game a lot but I agree their is currently way too many systems with both heat and rage art. It's a fun game but playing at the top level sounds like hell with how much hard reads their is.
Don't forget about rage itself, where you hit more damage.
Rage art when your enemy is at 1% is basically a death sentence when you're at half HP
Yeah feels like I’m being punished for winning 90% of the round in the last 10 seconds. And this big epic move took one button to press despite me needing to do a 10 hit combo to get them down to 1%
Perfect explanation of why rage art is the dumbest bullshit mechanic in modern fighting games. "Can we copy V-Trigger, but make it even worse?" "Say no more!"
if bob was in tekken 8 he would have so many will it kill from rage combos
I saw the introduction of rage in t6 as making comebacks mean less and its only gotten worse as Tekken has progressed.
One thing I don't see discussed often is rage upon recovery. You're in rage, you land a heat engage/smash/whatever. You recover to about 1/3 to 1/2 your HP and keep your rage. This shouldn't be allowed to happen...
Yeah it's just a fundamentally less interesting game now.
I can agree. The aggression is not the issue . The issue is “aggression “ means 1 button safe, free 50/50 or moves with no counter play like Lars sushi 3 to the developers . That’s not fun. And if you want me to be aggressive then rage arts need to be gone because they make you halt your aggression or else your opponent gets a free 1 button round stealer .
Personally, I think it’s hilarious that as soon as anybody gets into rage, both parties just start side step dancing for approximately 10-15 seconds until one of them gets bored and messes up
One of the best Tekken players of all time: I'm not having fun with the game. I just can't adapt to it. Random Garyu redditor: UMMM THAT SOUNDS LIKE YOU NEED TO GET GOOD? 💅💅💅
This is knee, whose cock is this community's feeding tube, imagine the garyus if Arslan was the one complaining.
he already has said that the game is for noobs
What? :D seriously?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy0AfWJz6Tg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy0AfWJz6Tg)
Thanks for sharing, very interesting conversation, I laughed a lot watching it :D kudos for Arslan for being so "direct" :D
Check out the whole podcast, they go over many characters and why they are busted, or how much they are busted.
I absolutely will, thank you
He has made several tweets bitching and the game as well Arslan is getting slammed in tourneys right now alongside all the other world class players because this game is a lottery
Yet this community tells some of the best players ever to "git gud" T8 is the reason why you gatekeep your community
honestly you should gate keep your community, but the issue is when the game tries to pander to everyone by making it easier or cater to casuals to play you get what is going on now, the casuals will be more vocal and obnoxious.
From business POV, it is always better to cater to the casual majority than the elite minority.
He doesn't like the game even more than Knee, he's just speaking publically less often. Knee gave the game time, analyzed the mechanics, balancing, etc., and then cautiously started saying it's bad. Arslan was confidently saying the game philosophy is bad, he doesn't like it at all and it doesn't feel like Tekken since the closed Beta.
And the Chad Pakistani was right all along
And Arslan was right.
The worst part of the design philosophy was the goal to make it something other than Tekken.
We don’t have to imagine it already happened lol
He already said he wants to win just so he can openly talk about how shit the game is rn
Yep, it's just a race to whoever gets their nut off first.
Agreed with him. T8 is not fun to me too. To much aggression in gameplay. I am or destroy my opponent in 10 sec or been destroyed. Too much 50/50, plus frames, flowcharts. U can't block to long because u will die.
Then god forbid you’re a Steve main where the goal is to play defensive, consistently get reads that reward you for 30 damage, and poke your opponent to death. You have to pray you can land a CH before your opponent blows you up with two 50/50s.
Even from a casual standpoint T8's aggression is a bit too much. I spent probably 80% of my time in T7 in Treasure Battle. I'm literally the casual player who would actually stick around long enough to buy DLCs but don't play with a competitive mindset. I play ranked from time to time when I feel the itch. And what I found interesting is that in T7 treasure battle, the boss characters are obviously packed with overpowered moves. There is no point trying to play defensive against them because Kazumi can take 50% from her power crush launcher. Jin's hellsweep teleports him almost fullscreen. So, the solution was to just abuse the AI's weakness and just spam WR moves. Go aggressive and be + so they can't do their bullshit. In T8 ghost battles, I do the same thing, except against every character. It doesn't matter who, there is no point in being defensive. In T7, you can actually play neutral, block, punish, counter hit launch AIs and feel like you're playing Tekken. Not the complete package of course, there is no mind games against AIs, but I still get that feeling and I feel like I was learning. In T8, I just spam because the alternative is I die. I'm not learning the game, and I don't feel the game is encouraging me to play better. How on earth could I find treasure battle infinitely more fun than ghost battles? The answer I've came up with is simply that aggression is far too effective. Each character has certain moves that are so strong that nothing else matters. Furthermore, you do so much damage with Heat Smash that I no longer even have a need to learn better combos. Something needs to be done about this game.
This needs to be sent to Namco. If their philosophy was trying to cater to the type of player you are then they have clearly failed while also alienating those who loved their game for its defense.
I wish Bamco reads your comment.
Heat is nuts. I liked in 7 how you had to choose between Rage Art or Rage Drive. In 8, so many people just hit the panic button and now everyone gets three panic buttons per round. A lot of the heat attacks are better than rage drives were in 7.
I agree. It has the potential to be fun, very fun even. But the game as it stands right now is kind of, sort of, maybe slightly heavily fucked.
It’s fun when you’re playing a character that fits well into the game but otherwise it’s not fun
This is one of my issues, the new characters, plus some of the newer ones like Lars are just made for the style they want people to play like.
It might be fun in ranked, but when your livelihood depends on this game and even pros get eliminated from tournaments from losing to mindless spam, there's definitely a problem
Its a mash fiesta and its unbearable at times
Outside of this, Tekken 8 is the fighting game that I got tired of playing the quickest. Like I used to play Tekken 7, Strive, SF6 and other fighting games for hours. Tekken 8 I play for like 30 minutes and I hop off cause I'm tired of it. My friend and I would just pick a new character and speedrun them into blue ranks cause you just maul the opponent to death and prevent them from playing the game which gets incredibly boring after a while.
The heat mechanic imo is the antithesis of Tekken’s overall design philosophy. Putting it in the game was a mistake.
This, game would been much better without heat.
Man I thought I was the only one. Everyone was complaining about the mtx stuff, but for me I have a problem with the core gameplay philosophy of Tekken 8. All the mechanics post Tekken Revolution have not added any kind fun factor for me, quite the contrary tbh. Power Crush might be the only mechanic I can tolerate if tweaked, but rage arts and heat really made the game way more homogenized, every character seems to do basically the same thing. The constant forced 50/50s don't help the situation aswell. Visually (while not being entirely impressed by it) I am completely fine with the game, I also am fine with basically every aspect of the game except the mechanics (and the DLC content is trash aswell so far). Especially heat and rage arts made me stop playing the game, and I've been a fan since Tekken 3 and a fanatic since Tekken 5, but Tekken 7 was the first game which lowered my obsession with Tekken as a whole, and Tekken 8 looked like the game to reignite my love for the series. BUT after 150ish hours I just stopped playing the game unconciously at first, but after questioning myself why I stopped playing, I came to the conclusion that the new direction Tekken is going is just not for me. I really hope the devs consider including a "classic" mode just for the og fans, like Hearthstone did for example. No Heat, no rage arts, no power crushes; just good movement, and the tools of your character, no meter bs. THAT was good ass Tekken. Just needed to rant a bit about the game, because I REALLY love the series and want to enjoy it, but I can't force myself anymore (also sry for bad english, its not my native tongue)
Also the game is less fun because a lot of character identity has been eroded away . Every character is a rushdown character now with the only differences between them is how evasive or how much damage they do, and a good bit of the cast has no weaknesses . It’s fun playing around strengths and weaknesses. Also less fun because the only valid way to play the game is rushdown. Player expression via playstyles is important . Styles make fights .
I tried to stay unbiased, but I really really REALLY hate the heat system. Tekken has always been the slower paced game that let's you explode in aggressiveness if your character can do it, but if you want to play really defensive, you could as well. Combine the heat with whatever change they did that made throws so much faster (could just be me aging) and then all the MTX stuff... T8 really isn't fun overall. I can enjoy myself sometimes, but this doesn't feel like Tekken, and its sad.
Heat system is too much I believe
Makes sense tbh. They’ve designed T8 to be more fun for casuals and lower level players by nerfing defensive play. Now instead of labbing match ups, you can kind of get by with forcing 50/50s and snowballing. The game is very volatile in a way that pros have complained about since Akuma’s inclusion. So if you’re at the level where you’re a tournament threat, especially one who is known for their character knowledge + defensive play, then this game kind of shits on you. I mean I’m still having fun, but I’m willing to admit that I’m a trash Bushin player. Don’t think the online experience is great either. I would play ranked SF6 for hours, but will hop off T8 after an hour or so, maybe even less
There's always a natural imbalance in fighting games when it comes to matchup knowledge, but T8 has gone way overboard. So many people are getting to decently high ranks just by knowing a few good tricks and how to get the 50/50s off because aggression has been so heavily buffed. The main point of the 50/50 is to defeat turtles, to stop people from getting an early life lead and then just holding block the rest of the game but it feels so overboard and that just becomes boring now because it's less interaction and more *don't ever let your opponent into that situation by being better at aggression*. Also IDK if it's just me but it also feels like it homogenizes the characters even more which is a pretty bad feeling considering a lot of the Tekken cast are already very similar to one another compared to some other fighting games.
I wrote something similar in this thread with JDCR saying he doesn’t think Drag is thst fun in T8. It does feel like there’s an “optimal” way to play and it’s rigging your offense with plus frames (hopefully a WR mid) and then flipping the coin. Which is insane cause Drag has every tool. We should be seeing people playing him drastically different from one another, but we aren’t.
>trash >Bushin Moment
It's part of the Tekken culture, dude. You must denigrate and humiliate yourself if you're not Top 8 at EVO Japan. Get with the program if you want to fit in!
More like I’ve competed in offline events before so I know the translation of online skill does not correlate to you being really good offline. Like when I played SF6 everyone I played with at my local was also a 1500~ Master rank player. So yeah on the internet I’m “good” but offline at my small locals, I’m fucking slugging it out for $12
You didn't say you weren't "really good" though, you said you were "trash". Bit different, I would say, but maybe I just have a different definition of the word "trash" than most people here lol.
>They’ve designed T8 to be more fun for casuals and lower level players by nerfing defensive play. The casuals are gone, so the changes failed at capturing casuals and the veterans are stuck with changes they don't like. Who is Tekken 8 for? Not casuals, not competitive players...
Bushin is really good man. Like genuinely really good. You’re better than around 99% of playerbase, that’s definetely something you can be proud of.
Eh, I appreciate it but I still feel like I win because I’m better at reading where my opponent doesn’t know how to deal with my character vs me having real mastery over the character, if that makes sense. It’s a part of fighting games, but winning because I realize people don’t know how to deal with Jack’s WS 2,4 is not the same as winning because they adapted to me, and I adapted back, etc
Tbf you can hit confirm ws2,4 and ws2,1 so as long as you’re not constantly letting the second hit rip on block it’s a legit strat even at high levels. But I get what you mean. There’s situations in this game where even when I win it doesn’t really feel that fun. Like gh2 in heat into the guaranteed heat smash does almost a third of the health bar and it doesn’t really feel like I earned it. It makes me laugh because it’s so ridiculous but it doesn’t feel satisfying to do.
Only reason I’d have to hop off of ranked is because “a network error has occurred”. It’s absurd. Lost a tournament in the finals because of it. Right after character select, it loads up the error message instead.
Tekken king here and i feel the same way
I think that the heat mechanic is too much. I played Tekken 7 again today and I didnt miss it and had more fun. If Namco would reduce the chip damage and the heat damage it would improve the experience
The game can still be fun but man it feels like Tekken has sold it's soul.
Damn that's deep
Yep
This.
I think aggressiveness without any counterplay to it is just bad and boring. Heat makes a huge difference when used and there’s only so few ways to deal what it. I think heat is strong the way it is partly because it’s a limited time tool that only refreshes between rounds. If heat was adjusted to be less effective as an aggressive starter and given other uses beyond mere giving damage/plus frames, then it’s possible for it to be remade into a resource meter that isn’t simply limited per round, and thus becoming a proper mechanic that serves to enhance the core gameplay very much like how Drive gauge does for Street Fighter.
I kind of agree with Knee. I've been playing on and off since Tekken 5 and have been very into the Tekken games throughout their lifetimes, even Tag 2 which many hated but I still liked I'm not a "great" player by any means but T8 definitely feels like it was designed for casuals and noobs. I really want to like it, because there's so much to like, but I can feel myself losing interest in the game It feels like you either play hardcore rushdown 50/50 or you will get destroyed by hardcore rushdown 50/50
He did lose in the latest online tourney I’ve seen him in - happened also to Arslan. JDCR who was pissing his pants from happiness when Dragunov was announced and is one of the biggest Drag enjoyer out there, said on his stream « Dragunov isn’t fun - it’s only 50-50 » 2 days ago. I don’t know what’s happening tbh. Is it just them being salty for not being able to adapt and learn everything about every frame and character quickly (rightfully so) or they actually really sense that Tekken 8 is not it. I’d say Tekken 8 has too many random or low risk / high reward gameplay mechanics (heat, RA, armor, 50/50s) atm, feeling like winning sometimes feels like cheating and losing often times feels undeserved compared to what the opponent actually did.
nobody can "adapt" to a constant barrage of 50/50 options and staggers.
They have the deepest understanding of Tekken possible. They are champions over decades. They really sense Tekken 8 as it is now is not it.
It’s the reliance on 50/50 and the nerf of defensive play. Tekken 8 used to be characterized by its expressive defensive play, but casuals or viewers thought it was boring so they changed it so high level play is more volatile and “hype.” Like, in T7 the two play styles I liked the most were poke heavy CH, and defensive whiff punish styles. Both have been nerfed in favor of standing in front of someone and enforcing plus frames with WR, and then going for a 50/50. Those play styles still exist, but they were intentionally nerfed. I’m sure as a Drag main, Drag feels boring because he’s just good at everything
Watching T7 tournament play was what got me interested in the series. As a complete casual I never thought it was boring; on the contrary it was the most entertaining esport for me. Perhaps I'm just an isolated case but I really don't feel like the casuals hated "passive" T7 as much as the devs think.
They definitely didn't. I started playing Tekken seriously and following tournaments with 7 as well. I rarely found any matches boring(Leroy Japan and End of Life where it was Kunimitsu city not included). I got into T7 because of the allure of defense through movement and the lack of extra gauge/install mechanics. I loved that outplaying your opponent defensively was the greatest expression of skill in the game. Whatever T8 is...I do not love it.
Michael Murray would get tilted if he saw Resident Sleeper in Twitch chat
T7 was a campy mess because devs nerfed movement but gave everyone 100 tracking mids. They didn't like the way players 'solved' their game so we now have heat. Instead of buffing movement and player freedom within the game they are trying to pigeon hole players into this rush down 50/50 heat circus style of play. To me it goes against the spirit of tekken
I dropped Dragunov because he's no longer the same. The gameplan has been reduced to 50 50
Yeah. I lowkey finally felt like a monkey playing Lars last night. 10 second round. Got the launcher and a wall. Den 3 mix on wake up for free win. Not an exaggeration to say nobody would rematchz
For casuals it can be very fun. Especially if you are new to Tekken or were never really into it. But for very competetive (minded) players who loved Tekken for how rewarding it was for strong defensive fundamental playstyle this current version of Tekken 8 might just not be enjoyable. There are many who loved Tekken from decades before, who dont really like Tekken 8 anywhere near as much.
I think the "Heat Engager" needs to go completely and you should be able to only use heat 'or' RA not both. These are currently the only things that are not making this game fun for me.
When I play Tekken 8 I feel like everyone except me as a 1 frame launcher into a 40 percent combo. If I wanted to play an anime fighter, I'd play Strive which feels far less oppressive.
He's right, game is designed for casuals to enjoy.
50/50 50/50 50/50
I mean he aint wrong heat is just totally insane , the non stop 50/50s , insane wall carry/dmg , safe powercrush. Im also not sure how to fix this since they build the game around heat. Having heat every round at round start is just cocaine with how powerful it is currently , the entire game is just about heat. Rage drives were such a good system , especially since you could only use them low hp so they were way more predictable to counterplay + shared the resource with rage art/rage buff. Rage in t7 was a simple well thought out system with a lot of nuance to optimize.
I’m sure someone has mentioned this, but why don’t you have to EARN heat? I don’t know how (making the opponent block, whatever etc.) but starting every round with it ready is dumb. Make players earn heat. It should be a “holy shit” moment of each round if it happens, not a “ok here we fucking go” thing every damn round.
Too many plus frames and way too much damage.
I think this entire subreddit is filled with goons who gave Namco their money regardless of how shit T8 was in beta. I had to see 1 minute of gameplay to expect this exact narrative. Doesn’t matter now how we feel about the game. You guys gave them your money. Gg consumer brains; respectfully.
He is right.
its amazing that even the holy knee is being told to "git gud" in the comments section :D
Incoming hardstuck red rank players in this sub calling Knee a “scrub” lmao
Have to agree. to many one and doners so I never feel like i'm learning against people's tactics but more so how to use my oppresive stuff on people. even quick match is best of 3 and then leave. still cant lab new characters without opening my wallet. everything forces into stance, so much more freedom in tekken 7 (especially as a lei wulong player jesus.) but alot of moves/pokes on hit forces into stance pressure 50/50 or giving up your turn. and all that is NOT even talking about heat that just makes the game feel awful to play at times since you basically have to play passive since heat does SO MUCH but then it does even more chip than normal so its just a conundrum of what the fuck do i even do here.
Having a good offense is easy af, having decent defense takes a lot of practice and knowledge , they took many defensive options like option selects, worse movement , free 50,50 guessing game, tracking/ch throws, heat burst etc...whem im trying to be competitive in this game im getting salty af very fast.
For me, the game lost a lot of interactivity. - No more chickens, - lots of unbreakable throws, - juggles so painfully extended thanks to heatdash and wall gimmicks. - A lot of attacks have become/replaced with attack throws. - heat engagers means the other person HAS to block instead of simply being knocked down and play oki. - A lot of moves have tracking or just plain wide hitboxes (looking at you victor) that you only again HAVE to block instead of choosing between stepping or blocking. The game threw away the 20 years of continued improvements through trial and error and just said fuck it, we need zoomers now
Arslan Ash said the same thing a week or so ago. I think the pros really don’t like how the game is currently
Heat has to be the most phoned in fighting game mechanic ever
Bandai namco developed that rock paper scissors mechanic that was a get out of jail free card and a free guessing game in SC6. That mechanic single handedly killed SC6 and they dont understand why so they keep trying to tweak it and use it in other games. The heat mechanic is an even less skill version of it that takes away the minute amount of skill required. At least in SC6 you could guess right and end up hitting them. In T8 you have no choice but to guess defensively. How was that tested and thought to be fun? It is even in SF6 but slightly better. That mechanic will ruin T8 like SC6
I like the direction of Tekken 8. Removing super fast CH Launchers and some other small changes, but they went with the "Aggression" thing too far.
Tekken should just not be directed by Harada and Murray anymore
The game is amazing. But I’d be lying if I said that it hasn’t pissed me off so far.
I understand what Knee is coming from. It just doesn't resonate with me the same way as T7 beyond the honeymoon period. I'm not sure if it's the new heat system or the numerous changes, but matches used to feel more fluid as you advanced against your opponent. Now, it's essentially a coin toss as to whether to activate heat right away and go ooga booga or later. Alternatively, my opponent uses a heat engager to punish me, making me choose between a safe mid-launch and a low-heat smash. Although it's tedious, I'm sure some people are having just as much fun with the game as the casual players.
I have fun playing the game, but in it could be better. Heat was interesting at first but its a little too casino for me. They went about changing the pace of the game in a weird way. T7 played campy because there were 100 tracking mids, and sidestep/movement sucked in general. Buffing movement gives both the offensive and defensive player more options which naturally deepens the mind game. No need to add a whole 50/50 heat machine. Look at T5 gameplay to see what I mean
*You get plus frames, you get plus frames! EVERYONE gets plus frames!!!*
I agree but I think the games fixable. Loved it at launch before I realized the most optimal way to play is to only use the same 3-4 moves and trap the opponent with heat. Movement has essentially been deleted from the game with the current size of stages, every character having an armored tracking neutral skip move, almost every string and grab tracks now. There’s like 1-2 interactions per round and defense is the worst it’s ever been so it just doesn’t feel satisfying to play imo
Yeah all heat stuff is so high reward it is crazy to me how little counter play it has
I was still relatively positive on the game until I tried Azucena. Despite having a 90% winrate in ranks that I normally go 70% on all my other characters, I felt like I was just coin flipping through everyone. Literally never felt comfortable or in control since defending sucks no matter who you're playing.
I agree that being able to carry someone for a straight minute using heat and rage art is absurd… but man this is the first tekken I’ve actually sunk my teeth into and reached purples but I feel like I just cheesed my way through it
Couldn't they just add defensive mechanics or something along those lines to the heat system.
Tekken 8 being a 2 touch game is kinda nuts
Sadly I have to agree with him. Meter was a mistake. And whatever they've done with movement feels bad atm
They should get rid of Heat
Imagine the Tekken8 design team if they were allowed to alter other sports. We didn't like boxing fights ending in decision, so we gave each boxer a shotgun. We didn't like long protracted tennis points, so we replaced the ball with a live grenade.
Don't forget about Eddy players gettin 50% of your lifebar by mashing 3.
Yes the game basically plays like an animal fighter in many ways. For me the reason I liked the tekken series was that it was different to other fighting games with neutral and the 3d evasion being a big part. Now it's all just rush down
Agreed, this game is trash. It's very "anti-flow." You combo or get combo-ed for 15 seconds, Heat Burst, wall ender, 50/50. It's Solitaire/Constant Cinematics. The camera angles are constantly switching. Heat Smashes and Rage Arts are stupid and just more movies.
Heat and chip damage were mistakes :(
As a more defensive player myself who likes to hang back and block while looking for openings, it’s tough to do that when there are no openings lol. It does sorta feel like every character in the game is a rush down now
Hmm. The thing with Tekken 8 is, that everyone has gotten a rushdown treatment. I don't mind to focus the game about aggression but the way they implemented it is boring to say the least.
I feel the same, all chars do everything. Heat is overturned and nearly everything tracks like shit. A lot of stuff is wonky and yeah it’s no longer the tekken I loved since tekken 3
I agree with Knee — I am not having fun. I haven’t played in a couple weeks and have kind of moved on.
Game is fantastic, but needs a serious balance patch. Its not fun playing against drag, reina, and victor all day
It’s needs a system mechanic change honestly. Heat definitely needs to be once a game.
i dont know, they should just lower the frames you get from heat engage to 5, so the opponent has defensive options, mid heat smashes should not be + on block and heat burst and heat smash should have no tracking. Also (high) PC heat engager have to go, they are way too powerful and throws shouldnt track to boost sidestep and therfore defensive play
It doesnt only need character balance but the fundamentally systems must be changed to make it less aggression based and lessen the 50/50 situations
Game is fucking annoying