Tier Discussion, Tekken 5 vs Tekken 7 Balancing

[@radphoenix5872]

"in tekken 6 everyone was taken down, in tekken 7 everyone was taken up" *cries in lars*

[@nohat1375]

Rad Phoenix feelslarsman

[@amosjohnson6348]

"can you imagine that? Having a character that is playable but has one move that is so broken it's banned?" Me:"themainman must not know about the ice climbers..."

[@grantgarbour]

Icies that have only started being banned recently after trapping people in infinites for 10+ years. Where icies have wobbling, steve has infinites, broken punishment, frame data, combos. They took a broken character, stole his infinite, and he was still busted

[@traplover6357]

Except Steve wasnt on the level of icies. Ban his side step and he's still broken. He's more of a Meta Knight in Brawl and even than, stronger.

[@djw_tekken8490]

Who is Icies btw? Brothas

[@BboySquidfoot]

Bc it's not a real fkin fighting game. Smfh.

[@g8le]

@@BboySquidfoot Nonsensical comment that literally doesn't provide any value whatsoever by the way, "smh". Retard.

[@thecaptain0000]

I love all Tekkens. 5 was a real good one to.

[@Cherry91]

This is actually pretty interesting. I like that you included graphics to illustrate your point. Hopefully someone @Namco sees your video and takes your analysis into account for Tekken 8. We can dream, right?

[@Trakesh]

My dream is that Tekken 8 doesn't get made because there is even 1% chance it could suck and Tekken 7 is godlike. Dont make Tekken 8, Namco. Support Tekken 7 instead.

[@Cherry91]

Well if they ever release the rest of the story via DLC in T7 I wouldn't mind not having T8. But that'll never happen so get ready for that 1% chance IG 😂.

[@RaeBordz27]

@@Leadblast BRUH YOU SUCK AT TEKKEN 7 THATS WHY U SAYING IT SUCKS

[@RaeBordz27]

@@Leadblast git gud trash

@@Leadblast you suck

[@subspacesausage5918]

Awesome, Can we get a tutorial on how to draw Kazuya's manly jaw from 3/4 angle?

[@handianus]

I watched JDCR's stream recently and he said he doesn't have a tier-list because he hasn't considered all the matchups. : - )

[@multikultiraider]

Thanks for the video, TMM! It really pays off when you put this much effort into your videos.

[@grantgarbour]

HELL YEAH I fucking love this nerdy analysis shit. This was one of my favorite videos in the last couple months from all content creators. Everyone shits out tier lists for games like smash every 5 minutes but I've never seen someone go so in depth in their description of tiers, I love this. And as someone who never had a chance to play any tekken other than 7 competitively, these videos are super interesting to me. Just to see how far this game has come Wish I could like more than once, good shit tmm

[@mazuiface]

Do one for t5dr vs t5 and t7? Also what about t6 vanilla Bob, who was also a nightmare like t5 vanilla Steve?

[@shaheryarking]

i absolutely love these types of videos from the Tmm , you can disagree but you see he thinks and cares alot about the game

[@queencard97]

Yow, this reminded me of Khan Academy, luv it.

[@ldking5132]

Lol

[@basuka93]

I would like to see what u did in the first 7 min. For all characters, very interesting. Also I would like to see a video where every good matchup and counter pick for all characters are shown. Imo this would help many players

[@Jeneric81]

Namco dealt with this issue by giving all characters innumerable launchers that avoid things for no good reason and pretty much uniform combo damage. Balance at expense of character variety and game depth.

[@Tuldoka]

I think that's downplaying the polish and improvements from T5 to T7. I think the balance came more from providing more universal options to multiple situations. Categorical homing moves, power crush, and rage were great additions. I don't think the random evasive hopkicks of the new characters play that big a role compared to system changes. I personally think these give more depth than in T5. And balance/variety always runs a fine line, Core-A gaming has a cool vid discussing this topic

[@exnihilo5178]

Could we see a video on why the Tekken 5 low tiers were so bad?

[@nohat1375]

Ex Nihilo that would be fun. he did make a jin video which pretty much demonstrates it tho.

[@bilakos1987]

Could you please do a video on counter picks for Tekken 7, and elaborate on the subject?

[@punitniranjan9983]

People-tier list so dope... Rangchu-hold my dumpling.....

[@sarvanuchoudhury155]

Your channel has undoubtedly become the best KZbin channel for Tekken content...

[@docstrangelove1347]

The memories of maining Bruce in Tekken 5...

[@lit_wick]

Thats why I like SF way of making tiers. Matchup based. Yun is top tier because he wins more than 5 out of 10 games against a majority of the cast in Third Strike. The whole list is done this way and you can even see the breakdown and the matchups for all characters. I'm new to Tekken so I could be wrong but I've never heard anyone say XY matchup is a 4/6 matchup in X's favor. This of course means that in the context of a set of ten, character X wins only 4 of those times.

[@knixps4564]

In my opinion tekken is not much a counter matchup based because most character has three or more of the basic tools. In sf you have shotos like ryu and sagat who has dp and fireball and tekken has mishima like dvj and heihachi who have hellsweep, godfist and standard tekken wavedash. But they have standard df1s so you can play dvj with lows and df1s as if you are playing dragunov as opposed to sf where a zangief can never play like a shoto would. Yes king is considered the best counter to hworang because king can eliminate most of his best moves (which are kicks) with his unchickenable counter, but hwoarang can always play like a standard character focusing more on safe mid pokes and lows as if he's playing a kazumi. And with that kind of dynamic, counter picking is not much of an issue. Its still a debatable topic but not as much as in sf.

[@Mr440c]

That Jin point kinda confuses me. You've allways struggled at getting him to the same ranks as Mishimas and said that he is pretty hard. Now you stress how actually strong and comparitively more forgiving. RAnking up with him really is a struggle tbh.

[@jeetkundough6224]

Thorough explanation TMM.

[@gel0790]

Dude teach the lars combo

[@rikuheart91]

which one?

[@MasterOfSaingGAMING]

Damn mainman 5 vids in an hour Nice work!

[@IAMOP]

YEEEEEES I wanted this.

[@IamLmoon]

It’s kind of the opposite, in death matches kazuya suffers a lot, he’s a 50/50 character, and you can easily fall into a pattern with time, if you get downloaded and your hell sweeps are getting blocked you’re basically done. Any 50/50 character is weak death matches, no matter how strong fundamentally you’re.

[@electr0n884]

Lol noes, that is not the way defensive characters are meant to be played. You can do pressure with them just by spacing and being on their face's opponent. Sure Kazuya's offensive has a strong 50/50 mixup that can be easily blocked but he is a fundamental's character based and his punishment alone is above average. That means if Kaz player figured out the offensive of a mixup's character based in the long run it favors Kazuya cause he can punish any move you throw at him while the offensive player has to make an effort trying to vary the attacks. So in the long run the opponent's focus on react to Kaz attacks wear out and the hellsweeps will slowly start to connect in, thus favoring Kaz victory. That's Kaz design and style. Japanesque, Issen, counterhit based.

[@IamLmoon]

Kyran De Marbh What I’m trying to say here, is that kazuya is risky to play in long sets against a good player that can actually adapt, and has a good defense, as if he wants to open the opponent up he needs to use his 50/50 and in the long set he could get predictable and get punished heavily. Sure he has good punishments, but some characters just don’t take huge risk in opening their opponent up, kazumi for example if she got presentable she’ll not get punished as much as kazuya.

[@electr0n884]

@@IamLmoon Yeah I got the point, it is a valid argument. I didn't pretend to start a debate here, just shed some light about the characters are meant to be played. Kaz is risky as you said, as every char that relies on A)50/50 moves B)Mixups that wear out over time C) Gimmicks So the point here is that you definitely MUST NOT play Kaz risky or offensively. You play the char using its strenghts and advantages, in Kaz case, pressure and punishment. So a good Kaz player on a deathmatch scenario will stand solid as a rock blocking spacing and making good use of the tools to wear out the opponent and when they begin to waver BAM Kaz finish them off with his strong 50/50 (To finish, not to open the opponent up, I played deathmatches against some awesome Kaz players without a single hellsweep) So the 50/50 Kazuya has, its not here to be used offensively. It is here just to give him something to attack besides his other moves and to give him some variety. That's no strat or mind games, that's the way every defensive player its meant to be played here, in Tekken, the martial arts simulator (Well, kinda xD)

[@aFutureSelf]

Electr0n I played against a pretty damn good kazuya a few times. He practically beat me ONLY punishing and very rarely 50-50 over around 15 matches. Kazuyas punishment is no joke. I felt very pressured to try to make something happen bc he’d get a life lead then turtle hard. I’d say that’s a pretty good strategy for kazuya.

[@electr0n884]

@@aFutureSelf Yeah that was pretty much my point, definitely he is not a 50/50 character and he is not meant to be played like that. In a deathmatch scenario the best thing you can do playing kaz is just like you said, punish, defend, then 50/50 finish'em (or not, it can just be used sparingly to balance off the opponent) but definitely he is not 50/50 based. So if you complain in a deathmatch setting about "I cant open up the opponent I'm becoming predictabo" you clearly are doing something plain wrong

[@castieldiallo2945]

i totally agree about t5. raven was a beast. i gave up using lei until tekken 6.

[@Atilolzz]

6:32 I can't believe you forgot YOUR MASTER ARSENALTY!

[@JulleeusToo]

he's talking about players that use jin successfully in tournaments

[@roanmang]

I believe Cherryberrymango said that Kazumi is a really hard match up for Jin but that was before her nerfs so I don’t know if that’s changed

[@samuraisoda5601]

This was great and unique

[@big7pointer]

So when are you gonna explore the worst characters in tekken history

[@xscarecrowxx]

Where is your pocket protector?

[@ProjectMysticApostolate]

How does TMM blend himself into the video without a green screen?

[@TeodorTwolff]

TMM is DLC characters in T7 equal to Tekken 5 top tier, or broken?

[@araratamedi]

Release Leroi would be too 5 in Tekken 5 imo

[@felipecruzhidalgo]

what a great information!!

[@hesamr296]

Excellent explain well done

[@bodler]

Why do below red rank Eddy players always quit after one win match?

[@THECRIMSONWARRIOR1]

they will quit before you can adapt to their shit, because 9/10 they’re garbage 😂

[@sorubro2193]

Do best FT10 chars

[@brainrot8215]

This was awesome! I love this shit. :)

[@emperorvhwayne6759]

That was amazing

[@strafniki1080]

Your writing is nice

[@ibblue0710]

Honestly, I’d say tier lists don’t matter in Tekken or any other fighting game imo. Any character can be good if the player knows them well.

[@arsalanonlineofficial]

Some People that play devil Jin in tournaments: noroma, knee, Qudans

[@Ivan-td7kb]

Jin, the supposedly "strong" character who has never win any tournament

[@hedhog963]

isn't that also not only about the character but also about the player's skill in the match up ?

[@Vaeynheart]

Jin has always had a bad matchup against characters with good df4 like Drag/Kaz and rushdown play styles, since his poking and offense is slow and he's very vulnerable to CH. it's another reason you don't see Jin in Top 8 every tournament unlike Paul, Kaz, Jack and Drag. Jin requires a lot of conditioning to his large moveset, which makes him weaker in ft3 sets compared to death matches. still agree he's top tier, but he's definitely not perfect. he's too broad for his own good. unlike DJ, who is special in the aspect that he is just as good as you are.

[@gin2919]

I think Lei was pretty good in DR

[@DoCc7872]

The math is kind of wrong. If every character is broken, then the game is balanced, but not necessarily fair. It would come down to which character can do his broken move/combo faster. Meanwhile, if every character is almost "trash", risks are much higher and the punishment is greater so it would come down to the hit/block property of a move. I'd say a good game has a bit of both, you have to take risks, read your opponent, do setups, and also have the speed and the execution as an advantage and staple

[@TheKripox]

If the general power level was lower that wouldn't automatically make it a more defensive and punish based game. For example, what if the reason the general power level was lower was that you nerfed everybody's punishment to shit and left them with only their aggressive options being worth anything? Seems unlikely that would result in a punishment based game. Meanwhile you could have the opposite, buff the crap out of punishment and defense and now the general pwoer is higher but aggression is poor.

[@ZachHenke]

TheKripox What’s interesting about that though is that if your opponent is just going ham offensively the best strategy to beat them is going to be to block and punish. Which would wrap it back around to being defensive. Also, it’s an interesting question to ask that if everyone has busted offense because punishment is so bad, then are characters even weak at all?

[@TheKripox]

@@ZachHenke Depends on how ham and how it is done. If the main tool of offense had been easy to use + on block pokes then simply blocking and punishing would be hard, especially if, like I said, punishment options were weak. Say that there were very few launchers happening at reasonable frames, and everyone had to resort to small jabs to punish. Even if the neemy played in a way that would make you want to just punish it just wouldn't be effective if your defensive and punishment tools were just plain weaker than the other guys pokes and hard hitting aggressive mixups, he would still kill you faster with offense than you could retaliate with defense. As for your question, 2 things: I never said anything about busted offense, just weak defense. The offense could be limited to current or even lower general effectiveness, just nerf defense even more. If you instead meant it as a more general question, that depends. If everyone were equally powerful, then of course there would be no real balance issues and everyone would be pretty good. However, it could easily be the case that some were even more pwoerful than others. Like in Tekken 5, lots of strong characters but even they are weak compared to Steve, who's just beyond stupidly good. or King, in T1 or T2 he had a move that was like +40 on block, giving him guaranteed followups and making his offense all kinds of broken. Even in a game where powerful offense was the norm, you could have a guy like King who was even more ridiculous and hence the game would still be unbalanced. Thats after all what balance is about, having a more or less equal distribution of power between characters, its not about whether the general power level in the game is high or low.

[@ZachHenke]

TheKripox If defense is so bad though that you can’t really punish anything then for all intents and purposes offense is busted. Basically in this hypothetical game where we can’t punish anything super hard our opponent is rewarded for repeatedly using whatever their best offensive tool is and basically not caring if it doesn’t work. To me, this means every character has extremely strong offense. Now if you lowered the general reward of offense by the same amount as you’ve nerfed defense by, then you haven’t actually done anything to game balance and have only succeeded in making games take longer. In this case punishment isn’t really bad because it does the same proportion of damage relative to offense as it does in a normal game.

[@TheKripox]

@@ZachHenke It would mean that offense in general would be busted compared to defense, yes, but it would not be busted in the sense that you could just kill anybody in a flash. You would still need to hit them as much as before to kill them. This would make offense the primary or perhaps only viable option, but it would not simply mean that offense just resulted in ridiculous one combo kills out of simple poking. So yes, very strong in general, but there could still be nuances in here. You could still have characters with moves as broken as in some previous Tekkens outshining the rest of the cast. Even without those kinds of ridiculous moves, you could still have less ridiculous characters with generally stronger tools than others. For example, if defense was nerfed across the board right now in Tekken 7, the current defensive specialists would be a lot weaker than the current offensive rushdown characters, without buffin any offense into retarded ass damage territory. At the end of the day all I am saying is I disagree with the original statement from DocSenpai that a lower general power level automatically results in a more punishment heavy game. It is the relative strength of offense vs defense that decides what the optimal playstyle is, not the general power level of the cast.

[@icysree9556]

Now check tekken 6 balancing

[@bumblebee9736]

#BuffLars

[@bmierror4144]

6.0? Bob >>> everyone else and it's not even close. T6 vanilla Bob is the most broken tekken character in the entire series, NOT T4 Jin. Bob was unbeatable.

[@guitarhero661]

@@bmierror4144 Can you explain why? I didnt really play T6 that much

[@bmierror4144]

​@@guitarhero661 yeah! it was a combination of absolutely mindless things and natural hit strings he had for a lot of damage (that now only combo on counter). d/f+2 was a natural hit launch with homing that was safe on block (busted af), cd1 was better than in T6 BR and beyond, cd4 could wall carry, *all of his jabs tracked in both directions* (yes you read that correctly, even with T6's better movement than T7, you couldn't avoid him), u/f+1+2 was 0 on block, but it was a natural hit insta bound if followed up and a low-crush mid launcher on hit, d1 was a brainless mid poke that was completely safe, etc. I could go on. T5 Steve was on some stupid broken stuff, but bob was actually allowed in tournaments as is.

[@drokifam9238]

I like your handwriting

[@Raspotnik]

Starting to look like a dad now 😏

[@bluelion7342]

Ling + King = Linking

[@sorubro2193]

Inkling

[@nohat1375]

Link

[@Tuldoka]

= pussy ground and pound

[@James-br4jo]

i really dont care much for T5 it was before my time, but this video was tremendous lol youd make a great lecturer

[@bmierror4144]

pick up t5 dr on ps3 if you can

[@samarthkapil6579]

damn nice handwriting

[@cran3247]

*make some t6 vids please*

[@daft2114]

my favorite video of you

[@ralph8589]

🦆

[@pndakilo7963]

Tekken tag 3 ps5?🤷🏽‍♂️

[@MuzzYADam]

Nope, not gonna happen. The struggle Harada and co faced to make the game + the fact that it bombed sales wise. They are not going for TTT3 anytime soon.

[@ibblue0710]

There would also be Tekken 9 before Tekken Tag Tournament 3 because, Tekken Tag Tournament games come after 3 main installments.

[@pndakilo7963]

Well i only hope for a good Tekken game😁

[@2000Doriyas]

Thank god because it honestly looks fucking awful compared to 6 and 7 and is a mess mechanically, always wondered why the Tags seem to have a drop in visual quality besides the actual move animations.

[@SShaBazzz]

TheTekkenTeacher

[@mrmowjorisin]

Make a video about shit characters in Tekken 5 Please!

[@bmierror4144]

Use T5 DR rather than vanilla T5. It is much more balanced, and honestly a better tekken game (the best imo).

[@arsalanonlineofficial]

bmierror I personally prefer 5 but I also love DR (kazuya main here)

[@7homes]

well Qudans won the first TWT

[@herokiryu2652]

Just balance Gigas and the game is balanced... he just need to be slightly buff and he will be good to go..

[@7dogguy]

Tekken 5 dr was a better game idk why you are even talking about tekken 5 also this video is kinda sloppy and all over the place.

[@bmierror4144]

I also just posted this. I hope he sees it.

[@strykah92]

It's mostly aimed toward misinformed casual players that think vanilla Tekken 5 was the best in the series (yes they even bizarrely think it's better than DR, it's own update). usually for trivial reasons.

[@illyrianeagle9901]

strykah92 not everyone is a tournament player and cares about balancing

[@mazuiface]

Tekken 5 DR was the absolute height of Tekken.

[@tajmahas]

😩💦

[@SuperHaoken]

First

[@christophermoorejr3083]

Tekken 7 is not that balanced imo

[@angrypat4023]

Youre crazy

[@dragonic22]

Christopher Moore Jr It seems pretty balanced. How is it not?

[@herokiryu2652]

@@dragonic22 Gigas.. he is complete shit.. yet ppl play him coz he is so god damn cool.. he is basically batman where everybody can kick his ass but he is the coolest.

[@herokiryu2652]

@@nine5693 Gigas bad WS punish..no safe launchers either high and mid, few CH launchers that has bad range, no strings like 10f high to mid, bad lows that doesnt launch, poor combo potential, lots of -9 on block, poor knock back, b2 can be power crushed... without a wall, his strength drops dramatically... coz he needs a wall for his 50/50 to do max combo damage..

[@OmegaNitro]

Gigas is just ONE character...

[@JohnLick96]

Thanks Professor MainMan

[@JohnLick96]

I love your argument but you didn't mention the rage drives and rage art mechanics in T7. I believe that Harrada's attempt at balancing them is not just adding supers, but it is the fact that all of them are not created equal. For example, Kazuya in rage is a monster and is up there with the best comeback potential in the game and the same can be said for Jin in rage. However, some people are not as good in rage such as Eddy or King. Even AK has a pretty weak rage art but he is already so strong without it, I believe this is a way of balancing it out.

[@WeMissDimebag]

Wtf do you mean King isn’t good in rage? King’s rage drive is top 3 in the game (Ling + Steve are definitely top 2) It’s stupid flexible and guarantees so much shit. Easily the best version of the mid-spike-launcher drives.

[@MrMartinio]

If king gets a fd ft ground throw he gets about 30 20 30 damage on you

[@MrMartinio]

Mid air spike for 20 damage or 25/32 damage mixup, ground spike for 30 damage

[@greenshadow131]

Don't forget that all of King's grabs get the damage boost