This document is an attempt to summarize my design philosophy behind the mod.

What c7 is not

c7 is not an attempt to recreate “real Tekken”, “classic Tekken”, or anything else that already exists
c7 is not an attempt to merely take the good bits of Tekken 8 and backport them to Tekken 7
c7 is not an attempt to merely “fix the problems with Tekken 7”

While it’s prudent to look at all official releases for inspiriation, nothing is sacrosanct. I’m trying to make something new.

If you bring any other expectations to the mod, you will likely be disappointed.

Overall goal

The defining feature of Tekken is its big movelists. Tekken has so many moves, so many gorgeous animations. It’s what allows casuals to just mash and have cool stuff happen on the screen. And yet, competitive meta gameplay typically has players using a very limited subset of these movelists. All those beautiful animations, and at a tournament you rarely get to see them.

The goal of this mod is to remedy this. I want competitive gameplay to have players using the full movelist, rather than relegating 80% of the moves to mere knowledge checks.

That isn’t to say moves can’t be very niche. Niche moves still get used sometimes. What I want is for every move to have a purpose, a reason to exist. If the only reason is “it might throw them off because nobody uses that move,” then it needs looking into.

Everything aside from this is negotiable. It is the singular thing driving the vision of this mod.

I understand this is not what many players want Tekken to be. They enjoy developing mastery over a simple set of moves, with all the game depth left in movement and timing. They think all those extra moves are bloat that should be left in the waste heap. I respect that perspective, but this mod will not appeal to this type of player.

Similarly, there are players who find a heavy focus on movement and timing boring, who want to be mashing buttons all the time. This mod will also not appeal to this type of player.

Balance

People put too much emphasis on balance between characters. That is, how strong character A is when compared to character B. When considering changes, I don’t put much consideration into this. The ultimate purpose of a game is to be fun. A perfectly balanced game is worthless to someone who doesn’t want to play it.

To this end, what’s far more important is balance within a character’s own moveset. If a character is top tier but has a well-designed moveset, fighting against them should still be fun. On the other hand, a low tier character with a poorly designed moveset can be very boring to play against. Some examples of this:

Leroy in Tekken 8, whose db+3 is so strong that it warps his entire strategy around it and leads to incredibly repetitive gameplay
Jack-5 in Tekken 5: DR, whose df+2 is in most cases safe on block and is the only mid ever worth using
Kuma in Tekken Tag Tournament, whose jab is so strong that he can control the entire screen with it, but otherwise can’t do much

A low tier character with depth to their gameplay and an inspired identity will still be popular. People take a lot of pride in piloting a low tier character to victory. Similarly, people get a lot of joy in discerning which characters are in fact top tier and then that being validated later as the competitive meta develops. That too is part of the game, adding an element of a puzzle game to it.

The only context in which character balance is particularly important is when there’s high stakes tournaments being played and you’re concerned with the watchability of the game. Nobody wants to see mirror matches for the whole Top 8. It’s a bad look. Does that really sound like something that should be on top of my priorities?

Putting too much emphasis on character balance makes every other game design choice need to go through an extra filter. I don’t have to just answer, “Will this change make the game more fun?” But also, “Is this fair to the character?” As soon as you add that lens to it, so many changes that would be healthy for the overall game become stalled indefinitely. “This change seems a bit harsh! Did [character] really need that nerf?” I hear this so often, and almost every time it’s missing the point, so disconnected from why the change was even made. If I have to give a compensation buff for every nerf to make sure everything is “fair”, then I will just end up changing nothing at all! It is hard enough to find one good change to make let alone a perfectly balanced pair of them.

Character identity

Character identity is critical for fighting games. However, in the context of moveset design, there are some common views on this I find disagreeable. For example, an experienced Tag1 player might say that Kuma’s humongous jab is central to his identity and resist any nerfs to it. This kind of system-brained thinking is common amongst competitive players, best embodied by the characters are just functions meme. If your idea of a character’s identity would sound weird to someone unfamiliar with the game’s system or competitive metagame, then you’re probably too deep in the sauce.

How would you describe Lee’s character identity?

System-brained answer: “He has good wall carry and okizeme, but struggles to lock opponents down. His identity revolves around poking until he can get one well-timed counter hit launch and then steamroll off of that.”
My answer: “He’s a mall ninja playboy who blurs the line between self-serious martial arts revenge fantasy and comic relief bullshido.”

Both of these answers have something to them, but mine focuses more on how the character makes you feel. You would make very different moveset changes based on which of these answers you prioritize.

Evolution of Tekken

As Tekken has evolved over the years, most characters have been improved in the ways I outline above. In Tekken 8, movesets are more fleshed out than ever, with far more moves having a clear and specific purpose and with more emphasis on moves that are coherent with the aesthetic appeal of the character. There are some notable exceptions—Paul and Steve being the biggest ones—but the trend is overall positive.

However, at the same time, Tekken has increasingly added numerous system mechanics that have largely achieved two things: de-emphasize movement, and over-emphasize juggles. Both of these trends are in my view largely negative.

This is why it’s difficult for everyone dissatisfied with Tekken 8 to decide on which older game to play instead. Because while Tekken 5: DR might have the cleanest system, it also has the shallowest characters. If you want to play a complete character in DR, your options are mostly just Devil Jin and Bryan. Every other character is pigeonholed into a very narrow range of strategies. Meanwhile, Tekken Tag Tournament 2 has much more complete characters, but it has all of the incoherent tracking properties introduced in Tekken 6, ridiculous combo damage on an incredibly unapproachable and overly long combo system, and far more launchers across the board. Tekken 7 nerfs the movement further and adds even more launchers, but it at least tones down the emphasis on the combo system. Everyone has different ideas on these things and degrees to which they are willing to tolerate what’s lacking.

But why should we have to choose? That is the goal for this mod: Get the best of both worlds. Not an easy challenge to meet, but one I will try to.