Tekken Tag Tournament 2: Harada Talks Net-Code, DLC Controversy & Character List
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 made an appearance at Namco Bandai's recent showcase. We caught up with legendary director Katsuhiro Harada to learn more.
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has been in Japanese arcades since September 2011, but development on the Xbox 360 and PS3 ports has gone on for a long time, which isn't surprising given that the character roster is now sitting at 50.
The amount of balancing and testing required to make this the best Tekken instalment so far is vast, so to see if Namco is up to the task, we sat down with Takken Tag Tournament 2 game director Katsuhiro Harada to discuss the dangers of DLC, online multiplayer and much more.
What was your take on the recent controversy surrounding Capcom's DLC approach to Street Fighter x Tekken?
Well, regarding the Capcom thing, it’s their business decision obviously and I speculate that maybe the reason they did that was because, for example, if I were to fight someone online and I had bought a character and you hadn’t, in order for it to work you’d have to have the data on your machine as well.
If it wasn’t on the disc, for each match, you’d have to download the character data and with it including the character model it would be quite a large file, increasing load times. It was probably done to reduce file sizes and make the matches more convenient.
What is your approach to DLC in Tekken Tag Tournament 2?
Regarding DLC, or disk-locked content, Tekken’s never really done that before and charged for it. However, we did have a system, if you remember Tekken one through five, where characters unlocked as you play, but we never charged for it. The concept itself was there.
Really the player’s opinions and heated discussions surrounding this is about whether or not you should charge for it. And this isn’t really directed at Capcom, it’s something I’ve been saying for a long time now, I see characters and their move sets as kind of like chess pieces.
They are essential items necessary in the competitive aspect of the game and we would never sell them individually. I’ve been saying that since before the whole thing happened and that stance hasn’t changed.
How is the net-code for Tekken Tag tournament 2 coming along so far, and how challenging has it been to get it working?
It is difficult for a fighting game and we’ve talking about this for a while. Even compared to Street Fighter the key data we have to transmit is difficult because of the number of characters, and just because the game’s system is roughly three-to-five times more than other fighting games, which makes it very difficult.
But, as you’re aware Soul Calibur V came out recently and everyone was pretty happy and surprised with its net-code, so we’re basically borrowing that system. Our technologists have done a great job working on data compression techniques that have also really helped.
This is so daft, but it makes us smile.
Do you ever feel that 44 characters on the roster is too much, or making your job harder?
We’re actually up to 50 characters now. Itagaki from the Dead Or Alive series said something similar in that, ‘you have way too many characters in your game’. But, we’re probably ok up until about 60.
Realistically, players only use three or four of their favourite characters, but since Tekken is so popular all around the world the popular characters tend to vary depending on the region. It’s not about the overall volume, more that the characters you like are in the game to begin with.
How useful are the stats collated from the arcade version of Tekken Tag Tournament 2 when developing the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions?
We do use the arcade data as a reference a lot of the time, but we don’t see that as a problem. It’s a good reference point and it’s empirical that we have its input.
People who play in the arcades are pretty hardcore, we not going to have a grandmother playing against some tournament level player, they’re usually around the same skill-band and know what’s going on in regards to Tekken.
It’s a good case of ‘if this player faces of against this character so many times, this is outcome we can expect’. It’s a good place to get data like that and that’s why we based the framework on its top pyramid of structure.
Once the core gameplay is in place we look at the modes we want to include for novice or light players and we look at which characters we can include to balance existing ones. There’s nothing wrong using the arcade data to help in this.
Speaking of these hardcore players, is hard to strike a balance between making games like Tekken Tag Tournament 2 accessible to newcomers and satisfying to the veterans at the same time?
It’s a very difficult question answer because we do place a lot of emphasis on the hardcore players and their input into the game. If we say we don’t value that as much then we get slammed on the internet and spammed on Twitter.
But, the one thing that can be said is that it's important that the core can voice their opinions. Before that, though, when you’re developing a game, and not just a fighting game but maybe an FPS, you automatically shift towards the core opinions as you’re developing the game while sharing similar feelings as them.
You have to be careful you don’t go too far that way and leave all the other mid and lower casual players behind. We understand what the core players are saying and we really feel the same way about a lot of the issues, bit we have to intentionally recall it and listen to some of the lighter audiences issues.
We would also have to listen to some fans that don’t play our game but some day might. We have to make an effort to implement stuff they would be attracted to.
Another example is that I’m a big FPS fan, and one thing that really irks me is when I’m playing against someone, if get shot in the hand at any time I die and that’s a bit weird.
Since I’m a pretty hardcore FPS fan, I’d prefer it if when I get shot, I only die if the wound is in a vital area. If I had some pull with the developer of an FPS I might say ‘make it this way’ and then they would probably be interested because they'd understand why I might say that.
They might even want to use that as a chance to try out some new technology, but if they did implement it, they'd leave out the feeling of the casual players saying ‘hey, I hit the guy, why is he not dead?’
Were you happy with Tekken: Blood Vengeance movie?
Well, if you look back at all the non-game Tekken instalments like the original Japanese animation series that was released, the one Hollywood movie I don’t want to talk about, out of all of these I think Blood Vengeance did pretty well.
Many Tekken fans seemed to enjoy the movie and we even gained some new fans that hadn’t played the game until they watched the movie.
So, in that regard I think it was a success. But, once you do make something like that, you’re never really satisfied with it as it is and everyone around me have so many ideas of how to make it cooler.
Even people who haven’t played Tekken, but liked the movie would say to us ‘you should try this out’. We would always like to try something a little more different.
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