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So I’ve played a bit of the S3 Tekken patch, Miary changes seem solid, but man...
It feels like the design team lacks focus on a clear, unified design direction for what they want to do with this game. It generally feels like the changes they do land on are made to actively alienate the people who put any semblance of time into the game.
There were so many changes that I felt were obvious points of frustration in the 8-month drought that were consistently expressed by the community at large.
Reading the patch notes and seeing only a very small handful of these things were addressed alongside multiple characters getting buffed is crazy.
There are some nerfs that target some of the issues that these characters had, Anna got nerfs to her ff2, 2 and db4 for example; however, there are other “nerfs” that seemly target random things and don't really contribute anything, so the core problems of Season 2 remain unchecked in addition to being further amplified by a new hit state/system mechanic that instantly triggers floor interactions which further simplifies how some characters play in the neutral.
I'm really trying to understand the intent behind some of these balance decisions. They mentioned that they wanted to go back to basics and that there would be more focused and deliberate changes in place, but a handful of these changes don't really do any of that, and even push specific characters into a more homogenised design.
The "new moves" also show that the team doesn't have the developer bandwidth to supply meaningful new additions.
Every single new move in this patch, outside of a few, is cut from pre-existing animations or dug up from older Tekken games.
Tekken is no stranger to re-using animations (there are literally animations from Tekken 1 present in this game), and there's nothing necessarily bad with doing so; however, the new moves in Season 3 feel like they were added for the sake of marketing that they’re “new” with not much care put behind them. The way they visually look makes them stick out like a sore thumb in comparison to literally any other move.
I pointed this out with some of the S2 move additions last year that spliced pre-existing moves and didn't even bother to change their properties, but the quality is somehow worse this season. I don't understand how this is even an issue when previous seasonal updates in Tekken 7 added moves that looked fine, and arcade updates in even older Tekken games did the same.
At this point, I feel like, if they want to make changes that benefit the game competitively (if that's even their focus anymore), they need to do a full rework akin to something like FFXIV ARR.
The changes that were made to heat, allowing them to be cancelled out of stances in Season 2, have created some extremely polarising gameplay situations that aren't really going to go away by just shifting around numbers; they need to be outright removed.
Heat in general needs to be sent back to the drawing board and reworked into something that people can actually use to properly strategise with the battle system.
And personally, I don't think a portal is a good idea. There are a lot of people who suggest balance changes from a view that lacks game knowledge, nuances, or are straight-up biased.
I think it would be better to have a pool of pro players from around the world that share their thoughts and perspectives, so that they can draw parallels with shared concerns and make balance changes that can actually help push the game in the correct direction.
I will still play now and then at my locals, but competitively? I think I'd rather just spend the time working on my own projects.
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