International online lag a heavy focus for the Tekken team's next-gen fighters, Tekken Revolution designed with RPG influences
Posted by Steven 'Dreamking23' Chavez • September 2, 2013 at 1:35 p.m. PDT • Comments: 33
Earlier last month, Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada took the time to answer a few of Siliconera's questions regarding Tekken Revolution, the future of Namco Bandai fighters and more.
Harada unveiled a bit of insight on what he and his team are currently focusing on most for the next-gen consoles. The Namco representative feels that international online lag is an issue that all fighting games struggle with at the moment, and states that although there are many factors that contribute to this problem, they are looking for ways to design their games so that this lag isn't felt quite so much.
Below is what Katsuhiro Harada had to say on the matter.
What do you want to do with Tekken as a series and the fighting game genre when moving to the next generation? What barriers or limitations will be easier to overcome and what challenges do you want to tackle?
Hmm… this is unique to fighting games, perhaps, but when it comes to limitations since you have an opponent you’re playing against. Say you’re in Japan and they’ are in Brazil. That’s something nobody, not just Tekken but other fighting games, is able to do well at the moment because of lag. That’s not something that will necessarily improve because of next generation hardware because there are a lot of outside factors that implement that.
The main goal we have for fighting games is outside the hardware leap. It’s how we tailor the game systems so you don’t feel the effects of that as much. It’s the main thing we’re focusing on at the moment and have to solve that problem.
Hit the jump to read on.
Hmm… this is unique to fighting games, perhaps, but when it comes to limitations since you have an opponent you’re playing against. Say you’re in Japan and they’ are in Brazil. That’s something nobody, not just Tekken but other fighting games, is able to do well at the moment because of lag. That’s not something that will necessarily improve because of next generation hardware because there are a lot of outside factors that implement that.
The main goal we have for fighting games is outside the hardware leap. It’s how we tailor the game systems so you don’t feel the effects of that as much. It’s the main thing we’re focusing on at the moment and have to solve that problem.
One thing I felt when I was playing Tekken Revolution is that you can become a more competitive fighter through sheer perseverance. Unlike Tekken Tag Tournament 2 where you have to learn bounds, just be sticking with Revolution your character gains stat points and becomes more powerful, which gives players that put more time in the game an edge even if they haven’t mastered things like just frames.
To start off, it’s not all Tekkens are going to be like this. This was just a challenge we wanted to try to take on for [Tekken Revolution]. It’s what we expected when we were designing it. Tekken Revolution is geared towards people who have never tried Tekken before or people who are returning after a long time playing.
We wanted to show players, kind of like a RPG, that the time you put into the character is reflected into that character so you become attached to them. For fighting games, the only thing that builds up is your skill as a player. However, when someone better than you fights against you that means nothing during that bout. We wanted to adapt the game so the time they put into the game is reflected as their character becomes stronger.
Source: Siliconera.
To start off, it’s not all Tekkens are going to be like this. This was just a challenge we wanted to try to take on for [Tekken Revolution]. It’s what we expected when we were designing it. Tekken Revolution is geared towards people who have never tried Tekken before or people who are returning after a long time playing.
We wanted to show players, kind of like a RPG, that the time you put into the character is reflected into that character so you become attached to them. For fighting games, the only thing that builds up is your skill as a player. However, when someone better than you fights against you that means nothing during that bout. We wanted to adapt the game so the time they put into the game is reflected as their character becomes stronger.
