Thinking about making a balance mod for Tekken 8, mostly in reaction to the Season 2 Tekken Talk and Harada’s tone deaf response. If season 2 is as bad as the presentation suggests, then I’ll try and actually make such a mod.

Goal

The overarching goal is to make Tekken feel more fast-paced, grounded, and interactive. This is achieved by:

Reducing the amount of cinematic pauses
Reducing combo frequency and combo length
Rebalancing or reworking slow situations that are greatly in one player’s favour
Making more situations have defensive counterplay

The first two are self-explanatory. The third is mostly explained by Why you hate throw loops. The fourth goal needs some explanation since it’s kind of vague.

Defensive counterplay

The goal of defensive counterplay is to give players the following experience:

“What the fuck is that bullshit?” → frustration at a challenge.
“Ah, okay, I have to do this here.” → relief at solving the challenge.

However, one has to be careful not to end the story there, because it takes two to tango. The story for the attacker should be:

“Let’s see if you can deal with this!” → presenting a challenge.
“Damn… but I bet you can’t deal with this!” → confidence in the face of setbacks.

The deeper this cycle goes, the more the game feels like a dance between two warring spirits. This dance is the essence of fighting games.

How the cycle breaks

There are two ways that this virtuous cycle can be broken.

“What the fuck is that bullshit?”
“Ah, okay, there’s nothing I can do.” → exhaustion, resignation

And, for the attacker:

“Let’s see if you can deal with this!”
“Oh, okay, I guess that doesn’t work either.” → paralysis, self-doubt

It is a great challenge to avoid at least one of these from happening. Tekken 8 fails more in the first way, and Tekken 7 and prior all fail more in the second way. This is I think what Harada means when he talks about balancing the wants of the attacker with that of the defender.

Where Harada is mistaken is he thinks this tradeoff is inherent. There’s no need to “find a middle ground” if one understands that it’s a dance where the needs and desires of both the attacker and the defender (roles which both players fill when it’s their time) can be fully satisfied. You just have to not break the cycle.

What’s a defensive option?

To enable defensive counterplay, we first need to understand what defensive options are.

Many people would start by contrasting attacking and non-attacking options. They think that blocking and moving is defensive, and attacking is offensive. Perhaps some would also slot sabakis or powercrushes into the defensive category. Wiser still would consider fast counter hit attacks as defensive. This is all mistaken. A defensive option is merely one that is more effective when you are being attacked.

Moreover, a defender, using defensive options, may strictly speaking be at an advantage. Consider the situation after blocking Shaheen df+1. Shaheen is the attacker, and he is at -1. This is by definition a disadvantage. However, the options he considers likely differ to the ones he would consider after blocking a jab, despite theoretically being the exact same situation. Why? Because the attacker has an inherent advantage in having created the situation. Once he presses df+1, he knows there are only four possible outcomes: blocked, hit, whiffed, or interrupted. He doesn’t need to go from being ready for anything to being ready for a -1 situation. He’s already prepared. On the other hand, the defender must go from being ready for anything to immediately being ready specifically for a +1 situation.

With this under consideration, almost anything could be a “defensive option” now. The definition becomes elusive. Can we salvage any meaning from it?

Contextualizing options

One of the strongest defensive options in many cases is df+1 (or equivalent mid check). Doing it after blocking puts you into the driver’s seat without taking much risk, since df+1 in most cases is safe to throw out and covers most options. When it’s blocked, you still have the attacker’s advantage.

However, if you just blocked Reina’s f,F+2, then df+1 is suddenly a horrible choice! Her fast options beat it hard, and all of her slow options would also lose to something more rewarding.

Strong defensive players are able to respond appropriately and use df+1 a lot generally while also rarely (or never) using it in situations where it’s specifically bad (like after Reina’s f,F+2). This is not easy. Tekken’s extensive move lists create these countless unique situations where the appropriate responses can vary dramatically. It’s the main thing that separates Tekken from other fighting games.

Concrete application to Tekken

All the above might sound a bit too abstract, so let’s talk specifics. There are two ways to create unique situations: strings and stance transitions.

There are only a few broad defensive options: block, move, parry, crush, mash. All of these options can be fuzzied in any combination. Every character should have:

Threats that must be counterplayed with one of the above options.
Threats that punish common defensive options like jab, dickjab, and df+1.

Counterplay should never just be “do this to cover everything.” The only exception is when it’s a reaction check, e.g. reacting with a crouch block always beats a Snake Edge.

List of changes

Most changes have some overlap with multiple categories.

(This list is very incomplete.)

Reducing the amount of cinematic pauses

Heat Burst no longer has a cinematic pause
Rage Art no longer works in combos

Reducing combo frequency and combo length

Heart Dash launchers add 2 hits to juggle pushback scaling (previously subtracted 2)
Heat Burst no longer works in combos
Tornado no longer works at the wall
Many launchers changed to be mini-combos only:
- Most safe counter hit launchers
- Most string extensions
- Most fast, safe, mid launchers (e.g. Feng df+3)
- All safe df+2 (e.g. Shaheen df+2)

Rebalancing or reworking slow situations that are greatly in one player’s favour

Heat Engager frame advantage from +16g to +11g
Heat Smash (mid) all have much less frame advantage on block
Guard Break moves don’t wall splat (e.g. Bryan 3+4,SNE.2*, Yoshi KIN.2,1+2*)
All pancake flips (e.g. Kazuya f,F+4) replaced with weaker knockdown (e.g. as with Lili’s qcf+3)
Easily enforced plus mids don’t hit grounded (e.g. Drag qcf+4, Hwo f,F+3)
Wake-up lows knockdown on CH
Most i10 punishers have less plus frames
Most knockdown lows have longer recovery

Making more situations have defensive counterplay

Heat Smash (low) are all much slower (i24 or slower) but safe on block
- Same for Leroy’s low cane
All low heat extensions deleted
Most lows around i20–23 are reworked around being either intentionally reactable or unreactable, e.g.
- Claudio SS.4 is i18 and less plus, and db+3 is i25 but much stronger and safer
- Lars db+4 (and similar moves) are slower but don’t stagger
Slow moves (~i24 or slower) have more powerful properties in general, e.g. Snake Edges don’t stagger
Various changes to strings and stances to enable e.g. fuzzies, crushes, parries, etc. vs immediate timing
Stronger properties to underused moves to expand the variety of situations players are exposed to