Summary of Harada's Chat Session at The Location Test

UPDATE: I've edited the line regarding the Tekken 7 budget in light of it actually being incorrect. My apologies everyone, if anyone else spots any other incorrect translation please feel free to post them and I will quickly update it.

If you were waching the Namco Sugamo stream, you may remember seeing Katsuhiro Harada discussing with the stream a lot of details on Tekken 7 and it's developments. There's a lot of interesting bits of information mentioned within his short chat session that I feel is worth knowing about so I had it translated below. The summary comes from Kirito on Zexi but it has been spread to 2ch and the fighting game blog Chigesoku which I am sourcing for the summary.

▌ Harada's Location Test Chat Session Summary
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• The Tekken Development team is reading online message boards for feedback.
• He found 2 unexpected things from this Location test.
• First, in previous Tekken game's location testing, those games were considered 'unrefined' back in their time. For Tekken 7's Location test, he hasn't had that feedback yet.
• Players at the location test were mostly not worried about the online connection quality. There wasn't much of a negative reaction regarding the lag in the arcade-to-arcade matches.
• The second thing Harada was surprised about was how the players didn't really mind the current graphical quality of the game.
• Since the game is currently running at 60% of the graphical quality output, the lighting on all the characters are not yet finished. The background environment in the stages have no lighting at all for the location test also.
• Once they finish working on the character lighting, the female characters in the game will look more cuter then they do now.
• However completely realistic lighting aren't going to be incorporated as that doesn't always turn up with good looking results.
• The Unreal Engine is being rebuilt to add more costumes, arts/techniques, character poses etc into the game.
• The latest build of Tekken 7 is a lot more advanced then the one at the Location test. The build being used in this location test is from 2 months back.
• In order to achieve a higher level of perfection with Tekken 7, the team is working towards refining and making it a lot more better.
• The sparks and hit effects are currently set to max level in the location test build. Harada hasn't really received much negative feedback about the sparks bothering the players too much.
• We're experimenting with how effective the Power Crush moves should be as well as the damage the Rage Arts do in the location test.
• We were specific with the Power Crush moves at first to make them easy to understand but we may tweak their properties in the future.
• There are pros and cons to the removal of bound.
• Within the Tekken series there's always have been those that want us to remove bound from the games. Likewise, there are also people who appreciate the bound feature in the games to make the combos easier and to reduce the stress of performing them.
• Although gathering everyone's thoughts on certain game features and having a democratic style vote on them may sound like a good idea, it is not always a good idea to just go with what the larger majority of players suggest.
• There are 'core' Tekken players loved Tekken 4, their reasoning is not generally considered correct.
• Tekken 4's juggles were hated, the flat stages were hated 'x in Tekken 4 was hated' etc. That game ended up attracting a lot of negative feedback.
• The team likes to work on removing things in the games that people really hated. It's not really interesting for the development team to just hear all the 'good' feedback.
• There are 2 new Tekken characters in this Location Test with more new characters on the way.
• There is not much currently known about the new character Claudio. There will be more details and new information on him in the future.
• The team is working on creating a character in Tekken 7 to 'battle against Devil.'
• Currently within the development team, Claudio is really strong as a character.
• Katarina is a new character we've made with the concept of being easy to use for both beginners and advanced players.
• The Soul Calibur team which has a 'deep knowledge' on developing female characters were charmed by Katarina it seems.
• In Tekken 5 & 6, I was asked some times before about where Ling Xiaoyu's baggy white socks from her school uniform was. I think it's safe to say those things are out of fashion nowadays. This turned out to be an unexpectedly important topic that we now leave to the women and younger members of the staff.
• Kazuya's coat in Tekken 7 is really taxing on the processing side.
• Making more costumes and items really increases the production costs. During Tekken 5 the production costs was 1/4 of what it is now.
• Holding back on the stick during Paul's Rage Arts alters the ender part of it. You can choose to let the Rage Art play normally or hold back during it and Paul will not do the deathfist finisher. If you don't do that ender, you can replace it with your own combo.
• I wanted to see how many players at the location test would notice that ability but it looks like nobody did.
• We're maybe thinking of doing time release characters in Tekken 7.
• The throw breaking was made easier but the team is still not completely set on it and may adjust it.
• The background music in the final round of matches changes to a tune with a higher tempo.
• At this Location Test, advanced players will probably have noticed that we made side stepping weaker in this build.
• Changes were made to every character with also some added some new moves, they want to hear people's thoughts on them. The overall game system is still being worked on.
• The super slow motion effect was programmed to trigger when a character is one hit away from death. The slow motion too is taxing on the processing side of things but this effect was something they wanted in this game.
• There's consideration for putting in collaboration Idolmaster and Tales Of costumes into the game if there is enough demand for it.
• They're considering the 'stress' levels of beginner level players for Tekken 7. Harada doesn't want them to feel overwhelmed.
• Arcades aren't required to have the online modes on for Tekken 7 if they want. They know there's arcade with veteran players that wish to just play locally.
• The team is aiming towards making players who play online be matched up with players of their skill level.
• In regards to the game's online connection tests, Kyushu to Korea and Tokyo to Korea's connection test resulted with a low ping. We're doing testing with Taiwan and Tokyo to Osaka but more location testing in foreign countries to try the connection may be required.
• For the online connection of Tekken 7, Namco is not using a private internet line. Harada doesn't want to increase cost for arcades by making them get expensive private internet connections for this game.
• Harada doesn't want arcade cabinets to be outrageously expensive for arcades. The concept, design and planning for the Noir cabinets were all by Harada.
• The Noir cabinets has a really good reputation. China has been mass producing fake Noir cabinets.
• The option to pick which side (1P-2P) to play on is added to the game. When you're playing online in the arcades, the choice of which side will go to the new challenger.
• Noir cabinets display the games at 720p but there are now Noir cabinets that display at full HD.
• In Tekken Tag Tournament 2, corpse kicking (doing anything after KO'ing an opponent) was taken out because when we tested corpse kicking in that game out, they found that a lot of people found corpse kicking unpleasant. That and with the way replays worked and our memory limitations for the game, they finally opted to not put it in.
• Although not really used much overseas, there are items you can buy that do allow a form of corpse kicking.
• Adding some bar or gauge on the screen for players to see their ranks and how far away they're are from promotion/demotion isn't something Harada wants to add. He doesn't want players trying to calculate or worry about their rank 'points'.
• Harada's main character is Feng. He's doing the best he can to play Tekken so he can beat Holland's champion.
• Harada personally thinks adding signboards into games with the developer on it is pointless.
• 'There's a character in Soul Calibur 5 that looks like me? I don't know what you're talking about.'
• Harada can add things to the game that some players may want, but there may also be other players that won't get excited for it.
• Europe and the middle-east make up a large number of the Tekken player base but those areas may not play the game at a high level. There's been players from those regions that come to Japan and go home much better.
• In the middle east, Harada is really surprised that there is a huge fan base for FPS and Fighting games.
• Harada feels that Tekken players aren't really the 'devoted only to Tekken' types of players. There's not many people with deep emotional attachments to the characters.
• There's also not a lot of players that will be overly defensive of the Tekken series against 'anti-Tekken' opinions. Tekken isn't absolutely everything to the players.
• A lot of people rate Tekken Tag Tournament 2 pretty high giving it a high metascore. However the team doesn't hear a lot from the non-core players that don't rate Tag 2 as highly.
• He says that we can't continue going on by just dedicating the games to the 'core' level of Tekken players. 'It's pretty easy for us to appeal to the core players.'
• He's heard before from Ono-san at Capcom that they made Street Fighter Third Strike a really difficult game to get into that appeals to the 'maniac level' of dedicated players.
• Although you'll find that Third Strike is highly rated and you often hear about people praising it. But that's because you only hear from those who hold it in high regard.
• Tekken players will not consider Tekken games as 'good' solely because of the balancing.
• If the team only took in the good feedback from players in the Tekken series, we might have still been playing a Tekken 4-like game.
• The other week when Harada went to an American tournament (StrongStyle) which had different players from around the world, there was a Tekken 4 tournament being ran with some players pointing to it and saying 'MY BEST GAME!' He considered it a weird scene to see.
• There's a lot of player that consider Tekken Tag 2 the best Tekken game. The feedback from these players is something to be wary of.
• Harada finds that the players that consider either Tekken 3, 5 or 6 the best Tekken game have the best reasoning.
• Harada heavily considers the opinions of those who create twitter accounts and sends him tweets with feedback very important.
• Harada wants to hear from all sort of people on their thoughts about playing Tekken games, not just the people that are already fans of the series.
• During the time of Tekken 4, there was a huge amount of players that dropped off from the series.
• Harada finds Street Fighter Third Strike players interesting since that game made a lot of the fanbase stop playing but kept a small 'core' group of people that loved it.
• After hearing a lot of feedback, they're getting rid of the rage system that was used before. It had too much of a terrible reputation in Japan and overseas. It's an appeal to the 'silent majority.' During the time of Tekken 6, a lot of the younger generation of players like high school students and college students got into the game. The comeback mechanics for allowing these new players to pull off great comebacks was thought to be necessary for these players at the time. After 2 years of operation the surveys for the game turned up with good approval ratings from people.
• Harada doesn't want people to come up to him and complain about rumors that they hear on the internet regarding the games. He wants a lot of streams and videos of Tekken 7 for people to see for themselves.
• You can participate in the closed Location Test by registering for a Tekken net account. The team wants feedback from a wide range of players (not just Tekken 6/ TAG2 players).
• Tekken is Harada's life's work.

Source > http://chigesoku2.doorblog.jp/archives/41188525.html

--

Additional tweet:

December or early November (maybe). RT @TimucinokurOkur when are we getting the next News on tekken 7?

— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) October 6, 2014

Header image is from Namco Sugamo's twitter.

Comments

[Bob]

Excellent roundup. I have faith in Harada to make a good game even if they are just taking a bunch of ideas from SF4.

But what's a time release character?

[Anon]

Timed character reveals would be my guess in order to build hype nearing the release of the game

[Blood Hawk]

Time release characters were in the old (Tekken 5 and earlier) Tekken arcade releases. The character select screen would have many ? boxes on it and every week or so post release, a new character would be unlocked for play. It would generate a lot of excitement for arcade players and people following the games as they would want to know which new character would be released each week.

Tekken 5 for example had many time release characters in the arcade that were many of the old cast (Baek, Wang, Roger, Bruce, etc) and ended with Devil Jin and Hehachi being the final two unlocks. Heihachi being the second to last character was a bit of a surprise since the Tekken 5 intro shows Heihachi being potentially killed.

[Imfamousminded]

I sure do hope they do time release characters in this game. That's how it was done in the good ol days:)

[Reality]

1/4th of T5's budget? Don't like the sound of that

[wm4]

Time release in this era should mean online updates like DOA5.
If Harada wanted real opinions, nerf Asuka and Leo, buff Lili, bring Yoshimitsu (as they probably will),
and forget Katarina since she doesn't serve any real appeals.

[Ocelot]

The female characters will look cuter? Wat. Some aren't meant to be, such as Leo or Oscar. They're turning everybody into waifus. Can they at least leave out some? Leo looks like a friggin baby in TR.
I read all the other points and I find interesting to have Tales Of DLC costumes. To me, Tales of Xilia Milla is a real moron, but I'd buy her costume for some character. More recently, Gaius looks cool in Tales of Xilia 2. I'd get his costume too.

[Cunty McCunt]

Not too shabby! Harada is not that big of a cunt after all.

"The other week when Harada went to an American tournament (StrongStyle) which had different players from around the world, there was a Tekken 4 tournament being ran with some players pointing to it and saying 'MY BEST GAME!' He considered it a weird scene to see."

That cunt Bronson invited even Harada? What a pretencious douche! This little secret club of his, no streaming, top players from around the world, 'let's all have a tournament where we jack each others off'. And all the other cunts there actually said T4 was the best game? Motherfucker!!!

"Harada heavily considers the opinions of those who create twitter accounts and sends him tweets with feedback very important."

This is not good. So basically any cunt with a Twitter account can troll Harada to fuck this game up? One word comes to mind #BUFFLARS

[translater]

"The background music in the final round of matches changes to a tune with a higher tempo."
Good idea!

[Cunty McCunt Fan]

LMAO Cunty, i agree this twitter shit is very stupid

[J1N]

Who remembers when Devil Jin was the last time released character on the original Tekkn 5 arcades? Good times...

[skpg]

Probably won't see a console release until 2016.

[Starman]

2016? Its based on Unreal engine 4. Easy to program. And Namco needs to make some money in 2015. I predict it will hit consoles in fall 2015. I am abit surprised about tekken getting 1/5 the budget. That probably means no bonus modes. Something will get cut, otherwise he wouldn't have shared that info. Regardless, we need to support tekken, otherwise what other 3D fighters are there? This is the last great one. VF and SC are toast. Sega doesn't give VF any love, porting garbage of their premier fighter. And SC gets no respect from Namco.

[Author]

@ Starman

Dead Or Alive has become better and better recent years, while Tekken has become more like DoA year after year. They have both becaome more and more equal. Tekken a bit worse (with bikini-modes and whatnot) and DoA alot better (with shorter counter times) and better juggling system.

If you like 3D fighters, you MUST check out DoA, it's the closest thing to Tekken. Much better than VF. Actaully Tekken is going downhill because it's taking the same road as VF; becoming too closed, convoluted and too complicated, thus alienating 95% of the consumerbase. VF is so boring to watch even people playing it, hate it.

[Starman]

@author

I havent got around to playing DOA, even though I downloaded Core Fighters. But isn't sidestep dysfunctional? DOA players mention DOA 3.1 as having the best side step system. I believe that is what is holding DOA back in the depth department.

[Miga-Oh]

"During the time of Tekken 4, there was a huge amount of players that dropped off from the series."
Ahhhhh 2001-2002. Around the time lots of Tekken players were in college or in jobs after high school. I wouldn't fault the game entirely for losing players, but sometimes real life catches up. Interesting to see if other games were affected by aging players *cough* Street Fighter KOF *cough* in the same ways.

Starman: "I predict it will hit consoles in fall 2015."
Sounds about right considering arcade exclusivity. Late November?

"What's a time release character?"
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!

[IdleMindedFool]

crossposting from TZ:

re: emotional attachment/identification with characters

I understand his point. My experience is such as follows:

At a low level of play, when I first began playing, the character aesthetic and personality were all that mattered. I put a lot of investment into the "differences" between the characters.

As I got better and better at the game, and had to shave down what I used, one thing I noticed is the things which really made the characters unique were usually the things which you stopped using. At higher level play, in my eyes, characters play interchangeably. The only real difference was "databasing" matchups so you didn't get randomed out by a string you haven't seen in 4 years due to excessively long movelists.

Paul stopped feeling like a powerful, single-hit turns the tide of the match character the better I got. I was just fishing for launchers and juggles and carries. King stopped feeling like a grappler because as the level of play got higher, throws got broken on reaction more often, and the R/R of attempting throws got worse, so I started fishing for launchers and juggles and carries.

To me, this element of the game is tied to how the game "refines" [sic] itself as you get better at it. That sucks, but I think it's really partly to blame for attachment to characters falling off among skilled players.

[Starman]

@idlemindedfool

I don't know. I always felt TTT2 is a generic launch fest, by its nature.
The problem with TTT2 is the tag assault system. Harada put that in for the fancy affects of having 2/3/4 characters on the screen at one time. But it drags out the combos and is too damaging. And lets not forget the crazy wall damage. If they used the tag system from TTT the game would have been better.
But solo tekken, characters feel different, behave differently. So T7 should bring some enjoyment back to us tekken fans.

[wm4]

Hmm, DOA may have much more glitches than Tag 2 but it comes as a much more matured combo game.

IdleMindedFool said "I put a lot of investment into the "differences" between the characters. .....
As I got better and better at the game, and had to shave down what I used, one thing I noticed is
the things which really made the characters unique were usually the things which you stopped using."

Although very much minor and trivial, it would be one of the problems of Tekken as it makes the
characters more generic at higher level plays. The character uniques becomes more and more
unusable as the game community goes mature, as they are usually not safe to use and you don't
have a fail-safe measure behind them (like a parry, but Tekken can't be DOA anyway.) Let's say,
Hadoken works early game and still works late game, ie it always works. But in Tekken, it goes
straight to a fairly unforgiving game. The addition of the Power Crush have the potential to improve
this, so it's a nice new thing.

Harada has the trait of promoting new characters and his "stars" by all means, including
manipulating the Tier list. That gambling without really looking outside is a rather dangerous thing.

[Sweetest_Perfection]

Anna Williams in Tk7!!!...read me Harada.