Tekken 8 released, and man it was a fun game. Flawed, but fun. We all expect season 1 of a fighting game to be a bit questionable, but that's okay, they can fix it.
Then the "fixing" started, and it only got worse. Just as the "honeymoon" period starts to wear off, they add their first major patch, which added more bugs to the game, and they added the in-game shop, which includes "premium currency" systems to force you to spend more to buy less. In a $70 (for base edition) game. Ouch.
Okay, whatever, I'm sure they need one way to monetize their game, it's fine. Then they add their next major patch, where they broke several core systems related to the game (such as walls and floors, oops), and they added another layer of microtransactions: The battle pass. Wow, this is really beginning to sting, and the battlepass contains items that were free and included in previous Tekken games, they didn't even update the model to fit the art of the new game. In this patch, they also included some balance changes, but instead of reducing the numbers of the overtuned characters, they instead made system wide changes specifically targeting the character they wanted to nerf.
For example: Certain moves will trigger the floor to explode on certain stages, this is awesome and lets you continue your combo. One character could abuse this and extend their combo by forcing the opponent to lie on the floor, then explode the floor, this was too much.
Instead of making it so this character's move would not explode the floor, they instead made up a new system which is impossible for new players to learn: Certain moves explode the floor. However, if you are in the middle of a combo, it still explodes the floor, but not if your specific combo has the opponent lie on the floor, however, if they are lying on the floor without being in a combo, your move will once again explode the floor.
This nerfed the character, but in a game as complicated as Tekken, it has a ton of unexpected casualties, and many characters got unintended nerfs because of it. They have now made multiple similar system wide changes, instead of just changing the one problematic character, making the systems in Tekken incredibly complicated and extremely difficult for anyone to learn unless they are willing to get a Bachelor's degree in Tekken.
These changes are not thought through, and is frustrating to deal with. But whatever, I enjoy my character, I will keep playing.
Then they release their first DLC character (making this $70 game have 3 layers of microtransactions!).
This DLC was the last straw for me. This character is so braindead to play, people were making bots that only press 1 button on repeat (not moving, not thinking, just mashing the button on repeat forever), and it took them to Red ranks (this is basically Platinum in most games). While EVO Japan was playing, the biggest Tekken tournament to date, the DLC character spamming one button in ranked matches had almost 3000 viewers, EVO Japan had 9000 while Tekken was live. Embarrassing.
Now, this bot is pretty stupid, sure, but let's practice against it! I will simply download the replay of the matches where I encountered it. Haha, no. You need to BUY the character to even view the matches you played against him. You can also not select the character in training mode, or see their move-list so you can learn what type of attacks they have.
This means that if you want any chance of learning how to fight this character, you need to either find someone who has bought the character and let them punch you around for long enough, or you need to fork up the money so you can see their move list.
Not only that, but this DLC, as with every patch in the game, continued changing system wide mechanics for the worse, and breaking things along the way.
At this point, I quit the game. However, I kept watching and staying up to date, because I really wanted to play this game, I just could not deal with the shady business practices and rushed updates. The community was so down bad, the trust in the company was so low, that when Tekken announced their upcoming patches, they had to specify that balance patches will be FREE. Are you kidding me? What a steal! You'd almost think these guys tried selling framedata for money in the past (oh they did lmao).
There is no community trust, the developers are continuing to reduce the quality of the game, and almost none of the common complaints have been fixed yet. I have been holding off writing this review, but it has been 4 months now, and they still have not changed anything. It is such a shame.
I hope to give this game another shot a year from now. In the meantime I will be going back to Guilty Gear, which seems to only have gotten better with time.
Then the "fixing" started, and it only got worse. Just as the "honeymoon" period starts to wear off, they add their first major patch, which added more bugs to the game, and they added the in-game shop, which includes "premium currency" systems to force you to spend more to buy less. In a $70 (for base edition) game. Ouch.
Okay, whatever, I'm sure they need one way to monetize their game, it's fine. Then they add their next major patch, where they broke several core systems related to the game (such as walls and floors, oops), and they added another layer of microtransactions: The battle pass. Wow, this is really beginning to sting, and the battlepass contains items that were free and included in previous Tekken games, they didn't even update the model to fit the art of the new game. In this patch, they also included some balance changes, but instead of reducing the numbers of the overtuned characters, they instead made system wide changes specifically targeting the character they wanted to nerf.
For example: Certain moves will trigger the floor to explode on certain stages, this is awesome and lets you continue your combo. One character could abuse this and extend their combo by forcing the opponent to lie on the floor, then explode the floor, this was too much.
Instead of making it so this character's move would not explode the floor, they instead made up a new system which is impossible for new players to learn: Certain moves explode the floor. However, if you are in the middle of a combo, it still explodes the floor, but not if your specific combo has the opponent lie on the floor, however, if they are lying on the floor without being in a combo, your move will once again explode the floor.
This nerfed the character, but in a game as complicated as Tekken, it has a ton of unexpected casualties, and many characters got unintended nerfs because of it. They have now made multiple similar system wide changes, instead of just changing the one problematic character, making the systems in Tekken incredibly complicated and extremely difficult for anyone to learn unless they are willing to get a Bachelor's degree in Tekken.
These changes are not thought through, and is frustrating to deal with. But whatever, I enjoy my character, I will keep playing.
Then they release their first DLC character (making this $70 game have 3 layers of microtransactions!).
This DLC was the last straw for me. This character is so braindead to play, people were making bots that only press 1 button on repeat (not moving, not thinking, just mashing the button on repeat forever), and it took them to Red ranks (this is basically Platinum in most games). While EVO Japan was playing, the biggest Tekken tournament to date, the DLC character spamming one button in ranked matches had almost 3000 viewers, EVO Japan had 9000 while Tekken was live. Embarrassing.
Now, this bot is pretty stupid, sure, but let's practice against it! I will simply download the replay of the matches where I encountered it. Haha, no. You need to BUY the character to even view the matches you played against him. You can also not select the character in training mode, or see their move-list so you can learn what type of attacks they have.
This means that if you want any chance of learning how to fight this character, you need to either find someone who has bought the character and let them punch you around for long enough, or you need to fork up the money so you can see their move list.
Not only that, but this DLC, as with every patch in the game, continued changing system wide mechanics for the worse, and breaking things along the way.
At this point, I quit the game. However, I kept watching and staying up to date, because I really wanted to play this game, I just could not deal with the shady business practices and rushed updates. The community was so down bad, the trust in the company was so low, that when Tekken announced their upcoming patches, they had to specify that balance patches will be FREE. Are you kidding me? What a steal! You'd almost think these guys tried selling framedata for money in the past (oh they did lmao).
There is no community trust, the developers are continuing to reduce the quality of the game, and almost none of the common complaints have been fixed yet. I have been holding off writing this review, but it has been 4 months now, and they still have not changed anything. It is such a shame.
I hope to give this game another shot a year from now. In the meantime I will be going back to Guilty Gear, which seems to only have gotten better with time.