DOA 6 Revision - Pay Attention Devs

[Legendary Goken]

...This is a hunch, but I think from the very beginning of DOA6, Koei Tecmo didn't have enough budget to fund DOA6 and Yohei Shimbori said "I love the DOA community. I'll sacrifice some of my money to make Dead or Alive 6"

And the lack of the big time Koei Tecmo money and the deadline of the games release is what caused the game to be lacking.

I'm just going to point out my opinions on what a hot mess I think DOA6 is at this point.

Your first biggest problem is that you're always aiming to please the beginners.

I too have a soft spot for beginners and I'd like to help new people out, and I enjoy when new players learn. But oversaturating it with beginner quality content is only weakening the game.

With all due respect, I love your game, but you're killing it. Your methods to please both competitive and beginner crowds is ALL WRONG.

Your market plan to promise new characters "Only If" players buy new content is a wrong marketing strategy. I don't know what you call it in Japan, but in North America we call that blackmail, and you're not encouraging or shining any light to new players.

You want them to buy your content, you're going to have to stop listening to anyone who talks about the sexuality or the simplicity of the game, and only focus on the people who have a critical response to the mechanics.

Literally every competitive player has listed something great to improve the games quality and you've repeated turned your head and said "Nope. It takes away from the simplicity for beginners."

In order to create a big crowd of supporters who would kill to play your game, and make big sales like the fans of Tekken and Street Fighter, you need to make the game:
ALL ABOUT THE ATTACK LISTS, AND CHARACTERS!
That is the FIRST PRIORITY!!!

This is a crucial time...And Team Ninja, you need to hire more designers in Team Ninja's character/movelist design department, and that department has to forefront of the Dead or Alive game. That department has to be everything, and nothing should be more important than that department. Period.

This version of DOA is already easy, especially with the limited sidesteps.
Now you need to add a bunch of new attacks to each character, and continuously add new characters. At least 10 new moves need to be added to all the characters. There has to be multiple layers of playstyles for each character. The more diversity you create for character playstyles, the more of a fanbase you'll create for those characters.

Think of Mortal Kombat 10 and 11, with the three different martial art styles for each character in 10, and now the custom loadout creation you can make in 11. That gives players thousands of ways to play. Adding more moves means adding more fun.

Secondly, texture rendition of the game looks very bad.
You've reduced the texture quality one game at a time since Dead or Alive 4 (having the best colors and textures.)

The anime/cartoon look is not impressive.
It's actually very unattractive.
The thin glossy models of the characters cheapen the quality of the game, and make it look like a third rate indie fighting game.

Please put some depth into the textures, make them rigid and dark, and cool looking, instead of all glossy, smooth, bright, slender, and cute.

- The hair looks like three pictures, one for the pony tail, one for the head, and one for the bangs, smoothed out and shined. It doesn't resemble real looking hair at all.

- The face and skin is too smooth and shiny, with bright looking eyes, and facial features such as redness and make-up.

- The colors of the clothes are also just fake looking, either too bright or too flat, also lacking any kind of dark textures.


It's quite disgusting to look at for all non-doa-fighters out there, and makes all the doa-fighters look like sissy's, playing a sissy game.

If you want to make it look good, take tips from:
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
- Uncharted 4

Just look at some of the faces and skin shades of the characters in those games. DOA can easily look like that if you just play around with the shading of the characters complexion. Please do something about it.


Third, you have to make the game EVEN FOR BOTH GENDERS.
Making it mostly women is not going to attract fighting gamers.

You need to have an EQUAL number of MALES and females.

It's a fighting game for god sake, fighting is a masculine trait. I mean, come on...95% of fighting game players are males.

I have nothing against feminine players, but you will NEVER see feminine players dominating any fighting game.

If you make the game EXACTLY equal for both masculine and feminine, meaning creating male characters to match the number of female characters, then your game will flourish.

It's a simple truth, and it will happen, if you don't break that promise.

People will recognize the depth and understanding of respecting both sides, and people love your game, and more players will attend your tournaments. And Mr. and Mrs. Erikawa will be happy with Team Ninja and give your team more say in the company, and give everybody a promotion because they'll be raking in the big bucks from all sides. It's not that hard.

Just do it right, and everyone will be happy.

Let's recap.
1. ATTACK LISTS AND CHARACTERS ARE EVERYTHING.
2. MAKE THE GRAPHICS LESS BRIGHT, SMOOTH, AND CUTE.
3. EQUAL NUMBER OF MALE AND FEMALES.

 

[RayBellion]

Your market plan to promise new characters "Only If" players buy new content is a wrong marketing strategy. I don't know what you call it in Japan, but in North America we call that blackmail...

Huh? But that's exactly how America produces all its televion series and decides to produce another season or axe a show instead (for example RIP "firefly"). Sounds like normal market economics to me...

At least 10 new moves need to be added to all the characters. There has to be multiple layers of playstyles for each character. The more diversity you create for character playstyles, the more of a fanbase you'll create for those characters.
(...) Adding more moves means adding more fun.

I hate constant re-learning. I know it's my fault that I currently suck playing against certain characters, but if you multiply the playing styles you can definitely count me out. No way I've got the time to git gud against ever-changing playstyles of opponents or even the constant adjustments of my own main's movesets. It tends to become work for me even as it is now, because there's still so much to learn for me. Increasing the constant learning requirement is not fun, at least for me. It might scare away other potential players, too. Of course, I really don't know whether I am only part of a tiny minority, so that in the end the gain for DOA might be worth loosing a few players like me on the way...

You need to have an EQUAL number of MALES and females. (...) If you make the game EXACTLY equal for both masculine and feminine, meaning creating male characters to match the number of female characters, then your game will flourish.

Nope. On which observation is this opinion founded? Is "Uncharted" played by that much more women in comparism to "Tomb Raider" or what else is the source of your believe? Is the MK11 FGC full of female players who win at tournaments (MK11 having more male than female fighters, I think)? Nope. Hence I disagree.


Sorry to have rained on your parade, because I think you do show genuine concern and have thought about solutions, but I do neither share your suggested priorities nor recommendations. I even like the graphic style of DOA as it is. On my wishlist one can instead find things like having more eye-candy (more stages, more costumes, more intros + animations etc.), decent balancing adjustments and even the inclusion of new characters (despite the learning requirement), though I prefer (no-lolli) female additions, not male ones. If you choose great licensed guest characters, you can even draw new players in, like Nintendo with Super Smash Bros does.

 

[Legendary Goken]

Huh? But that's exactly how America produces all its televion series and decides to produce another season or axe a show instead (for example RIP "firefly"). Sounds like normal market economics to me...


I hate constant re-learning. I know it's my fault that I currently suck playing against certain characters, but if you multiply the playing styles you can definitely count me out. No way I've got the time to git gud against ever-changing playstyles of opponents or even the constant adjustments of my own main's movesets. It tends to become work for me even as it is now, because there's still so much to learn for me. Increasing the constant learning requirement is not fun, at least for me. It might scare away other potential players, too. Of course, I really don't know whether I am only part of a tiny minority, so that in the end the gain for DOA might be worth loosing a few players like me on the way...


Nope. On which observation is this opinion founded? Is "Uncharted" played by that much more women in comparism to "Tomb Raider" or what else is the source of your believe? Is the MK11 FGC full of female players who win at tournaments (MK11 having more male than female fighters, I think)? Nope. Hence I disagree.


Sorry to have rained on your parade, because I think you do show genuine concern and have thought about solutions, but I do neither share your suggested priorities nor recommendations. I even like the graphic style of DOA as it is. On my wishlist one can instead find things like having more eye-candy (more stages, more costumes, more intros + animations etc.), decent balancing adjustments and even the inclusion of new characters (despite the learning requirement), though I prefer (no-lolli) female additions, not male ones. If you choose great licensed guest characters, you can even draw new players in, like Nintendo with Super Smash Bros does.

Television is a much more lenient industry if you can get your foot in the door. You can create suspence, commercials, get people excited. There's a broader audience who generally enjoying watching a lot more than playing. That's why there's YouTube, Twitch, and other multimedia, etc...

The gaming industry is different. If your game is bad, people will not buy your game. Even worse if your game gets bad reviews. You can't ask your customers to buy content to get more content, because there's no one there except the hardcore supporters. And asking your supporters to buy and influence others when your game is not good doesn't give a good look for the development company. Especially if it's being torn apart by the hardcore supporters as well. You have to get a loan and fix your game, so people will find your game valuable, and then you can ask players to buy your content. That's how you build a good relationship between your fans.

Especially with a fighting game. If you want to be a successful fighting game, you have to listen to your fans first, because fighters put more hours into learning the game than any other type of game. There's a lot of respect to be had.

And by the sounds of it, I don't think you know how badly Team Ninja treats it's fanbase when it comes to marketing - like complete crap and no shred of remorse, not even one hair. They will eviscerate you with their prices and sleep on the job, giving unoriginal content repeatedly for you to pay. You have to wait years to even get a small surprise of good knews. Stick around.

If you're one of those people that ignores all the combo challenges, and that wants to wing everything instead trying to learn by doing some serious reading and watching combos carefully, then you will most likely never get ahead of the crowd. Those kind of people are always stuck in the average player groups.

Multiple options for a playstyle would actually work better in your favor because you could create a style that would be unique to you and still be good. That way, you could get ahead of the crowd faster, and perhaps even create more combo videos that others hadn't perceived.

I think you may have quoted me on the wrong section on your last quote. Because I'm not even sure what you're talking about to give you an appropriate response.

You think DOA is in league with smash bros? Not even close. Haha. You wish you could get a variety of magical characters like smash bros. You're not gonna get anything cool like that. Maybe a guest character from game that's more Japanese oriented.

And let me tell you about your wishlist...you're gonna get more lolli's and you're gonna like it!!
You think I'm joking?

 

[Jyu_Viole_Grace]

This version of DOA is already easy, especially with the limited sidesteps.
Now you need to add a bunch of new attacks to each character, and continuously add new characters. At least 10 new moves need to be added to all the characters. There has to be multiple layers of playstyles for each character. The more diversity you create for character playstyles, the more of a fanbase you'll create for those characters.

Think of Mortal Kombat 10 and 11, with the three different martial art styles for each character in 10, and now the custom loadout creation you can make in 11. That gives players thousands of ways to play. Adding more moves means adding more fun.

They could add over 100 new moves but if they don't know what each character need to be fun and to be able to fight against every matchup that will serve nothing.

For me the highest issue gameplay-wise is that a lot characters aren't fun to play in DOA6 in comparison with DOA5LR because most of them feel like nerfed versions, even if they still have some new moves in DOA6.

The issue isn't the lack of moveset, the issue is that now combos have way less paths, almost everything is unsafe in block, movement speed is slower, ground game is worse ... everything is just a DOA5 toned down version. Just adding more moves won't solve the issue.

For me and several other people I know the game is just less fun to play than DOA5LR due the reworked core game mechanics.

Secondly, texture rendition of the game looks very bad.
You've reduced the texture quality one game at a time since Dead or Alive 4 (having the best colors and textures.)

The anime/cartoon look is not impressive.
It's actually very unattractive.
The thin glossy models of the characters cheapen the quality of the game, and make it look like a third rate indie fighting game.

Please put some depth into the textures, make them rigid and dark, and cool looking, instead of all glossy, smooth, bright, slender, and cute.

- The hair looks like three pictures, one for the pony tail, one for the head, and one for the bangs, smoothed out and shined. It doesn't resemble real looking hair at all.

- The face and skin is too smooth and shiny, with bright looking eyes, and facial features such as redness and make-up.

- The colors of the clothes are also just fake looking, either too bright or too flat, also lacking any kind of dark textures.


It's quite disgusting to look at for all non-doa-fighters out there, and makes all the doa-fighters look like sissy's, playing a sissy game.

If you want to make it look good, take tips from:
- Rise of the Tomb Raider
- Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
- Uncharted 4

Just look at some of the faces and skin shades of the characters in those games. DOA can easily look like that if you just play around with the shading of the characters complexion. Please do something about it.

Meanwhile I agree the game doesn't look good due them wanting to making the game look like Anime style, let's not compare the game with 30fps and over 30ms input delay games, because DOA will never look like these games due being a FG where input delay has to be a thing.

For me SoulCalibur VI is a better example. Lightning, materials and shaders are way more natural in that game than in DOA6 and it's still around 5 frames of input delay.

Third, you have to make the game EVEN FOR BOTH GENDERS.
Making it mostly women is not going to attract fighting gamers.

You need to have an EQUAL number of MALES and females.

It's a fighting game for god sake, fighting is a masculine trait. I mean, come on...95% of fighting game players are males.

I have nothing against feminine players, but you will NEVER see feminine players dominating any fighting game.

If you make the game EXACTLY equal for both masculine and feminine, meaning creating male characters to match the number of female characters, then your game will flourish.

It's a simple truth, and it will happen, if you don't break that promise.

People will recognize the depth and understanding of respecting both sides, and people love your game, and more players will attend your tournaments. And Mr. and Mrs. Erikawa will be happy with Team Ninja and give your team more say in the company, and give everybody a promotion because they'll be raking in the big bucks from all sides. It's not that hard.

Just do it right, and everyone will be happy.

This sounds like ... male players can't play with female characters? I mean, do you even know that games like Arcana Heart exists and it's mostly played by male players?

Back when over 70% of DOA roster in older games were male characters it wasn't a issue for most people but now that there are a few more female characters looks like it's a big deal lol

If you are so invested in gameplay then you shouldn't care about if the character you are playing is male or female, only about its playstyle.

 

[Shining_Wave]

I would hate to see DOA turn into a harem anime, I wish they could add a little more variety in their characters and not just give us schoolgirls.

 

[candynarwhal]

I would hate to see DOA turn into a harem anime,

Too late, considering DOAX3 exists...

 

[Yurlungur]

GIMMIE THE OLD FLOOR GAME, I WANT HELENA TO BE A TERROR AGAIN

 

[KwonJigglypuff]

They are never going to listen. They are so lost right now. I'm curious to see their future plans for this series...

Honestly at this point, I'd rather have a Dead or Alive Dimensions 2 purely out of nostalgia, like an Ultimate version of everything since DOA1 (all characters, stages). There is no more creativity or ambition to be epic. Let's face it.

 

[Legendary Goken]

They could add over 100 new moves but if they don't know what each character need to be fun and to be able to fight against every matchup that will serve nothing.

For me the highest issue gameplay-wise is that a lot characters aren't fun to play in DOA6 in comparison with DOA5LR because most of them feel like nerfed versions, even if they still have some new moves in DOA6.

The issue isn't the lack of moveset, the issue is that now combos have way less paths, almost everything is unsafe in block, movement speed is slower, ground game is worse ... everything is just a DOA5 toned down version. Just adding more moves won't solve the issue.

For me and several other people I know the game is just less fun to play than DOA5LR due the reworked core game mechanics.



Meanwhile I agree the game doesn't look good due them wanting to making the game look like Anime style, let's not compare the game with 30fps and over 30ms input delay games, because DOA will never look like these games due being a FG where input delay has to be a thing.

For me SoulCalibur VI is a better example. Lightning, materials and shaders are way more natural in that game than in DOA6 and it's still around 5 frames of input delay.



This sounds like ... male players can't play with female characters? I mean, do you even know that games like Arcana Heart exists and it's mostly played by male players?

Back when over 70% of DOA roster in older games were male characters it wasn't a issue for most people but now that there are a few more female characters looks like it's a big deal lol

If you are so invested in gameplay then you shouldn't care about if the character you are playing is male or female, only about its playstyle.

I don't know what you think a game developer does, but they certainly don't review match ups corresponding with the move lists. They create a theme for the character, tweak the speed and damage, create moves and piece to together to create combos. That's pretty much it. They playtest the characters a little before launch, but the players acts as playtesting for statistics in the long term, and they tweak the character corresponding with a balanced meta.

No developer truly knows a characters full potential, because that falls in line with how proficient a player is with using the movelist with their playstyle. They simply add new moves, and we playtest the characters potential.

Adding new moves would be fun because it would create new combo opportunities and multiple playstyle potentials for every player skill level.

Every character is roughly doing the same damage potential, it doesn't mean the game has been nerfed, it just means it's the damage output has been toned down to have longer lasting games. Also the stun system has also been toned down, that's why you may feel like your moves don't connect the way they use to.

I don't think that's a bad thing. A lot of fighting game's damage output goes down after every new installment of the game, and then usually picks back up at the end of games life. That's a safe strategy to balance out characters for players.

As for males and females...Some male players don't want to play female characters, and that's just because of preference. They love the game, but not all characters. My investment is in the characters I want to play, and I will not play the characters I don't want to play. As I'm sure it's the same way with players who only like playing female characters. Arcana Hearts is a good game for players that enjoy playing female characters.

I'm just saying that having an equal diversity would call to a much more broader audience. It's a good marketing strategy, especially for DOA, because it's such a good looking game. I think players would love DOA more than ever if it was equal in gender diversity.

 

[legibifou]

They are never going to listen. They are so lost right now. I'm curious to see their future plans for this series...

Honestly at this point, I'd rather have a Dead or Alive Dimensions 2 purely out of nostalgia, like an Ultimate version of everything since DOA1 (all characters, stages). There is no more creativity or ambition to be epic. Let's face it.

Currently, my only wish for DOA would be a remake of DOA2U, and sadly, I'm pretty sure that the "new" TN could make it less beautiful and less fun. For me, they never understood the core of DOA games. These games used to be unique because they were focused on 2 things: Make everything BEAUTIFUL and detailed (Photo-realistic landscape, LOT of details, fluid animation...) and make everything FUN (multi-tiered stages with interactions, tag battle...).

From the moment when they started focusing on tournament and DLC, they started to create a new franchise with the same characters. For me, in DOA5 and even more DOA6, I don't find the spirit of old DOA games. Stages are so boring. The game is not even nearly as beautiful as the old games (on the first xbox!) and many new characters have no soul for me.

I'm really afraid that "their future plans" are just to make the most money with this game with the least amount of effort. I'm sorry, I'm really pessimistic, but like many old DOA games fans, it's been 7 years since I wait for the new TN to wake up and I'm exhausted to see that they still have not understood what has attracted thousands of players with the old games.

 

[Legendary Goken]

Currently, my only wish for DOA would be a remake of DOA2U, and sadly, I'm pretty sure that the "new" TN could make it less beautiful and less fun. For me, they never understood the core of DOA games. These games used to be unique because they were focused on 2 things: Make everything BEAUTIFUL and detailed (Photo-realistic landscape, LOT of details, fluid animation...) and make everything FUN (multi-tiered stages with interactions, tag battle...).

From the moment when they started focusing on tournament and DLC, they started to create a new franchise with the same characters. For me, in DOA5 and even more DOA6, I don't find the spirit of old DOA games. Stages are so boring. The game is not even nearly as beautiful as the old games (on the first xbox!) and many new characters have no soul for me.

I'm really afraid that "their future plans" are just to make the most money with this game with the least amount of effort. I'm sorry, I'm really pessimistic, but like many old DOA games fans, it's been 7 years since I wait for the new TN to wake up and I'm exhausted to see that they still have not understood what has attracted thousands of players with the old games.

Nah, you're not pessimistic. I understand what you mean. DOA3 and 2U did have a viewtiful selection of great looking and interactable stages.

I agree with that sentiment with DOA4.
In my opinion, it had great looking graphics, colors, and animation. Really fun and ahead of it's time. And that has a lot to do with Tomonobu Itagaki being the creative director. He had a clear understanding of what looks and feels good to play.

He became a famous creative director Because of his solid vision.

And the same thing goes for Ninja Gaiden, all of them were great until Itagaki left and then they made NG3, completely ruining the NG fanbase down to a niche crowd.

Even when DOA5 first came out, a lot of the DOA4 fanbase didn't like the new approach. It was until they started working with Sega that things started picking up in DOA5U, and also a small crowd didn't like the DOA5LR version, they preferred the 5U...the game series has received a lot of backlash since their previous installments.

Now with this abomination, Koei Tecmo had to give Yohei Shimbori a leave of absence, because it seems they've finally clicked in that his approach isn't working.

Yeah, DOA is falling very behind unfortunately... it's made me realize how well Tekken has survived. lol

T6, TTT2, and T7 have all been great games with a ton of visuals, superb cutscenes, customization, and wide variety of cool new characters with every sequal.