The FreeStepDodge Podcast

[Rikuto]

Berzerk, I'm starting to think that no matter what position I take on the matter, you're going to take the opposite side "Just Because". Saving a dying franchise isn't the time to start playing devils advocate for fun and profit.

They are a top development team who know how to deliver polished games. No reason to worry at this point about CAN they do it; our place is to query WHAT they'll do - what the design decisions are.

They've also shown they are capable of cutting corners and delivering unpolished products if their company puts pressure on them (doa 4 and NG2).

That brings us back to the Itagaki thing. Briefly, I don't think its about his ego as a player; his decision to make changes late in development (I'm inclined to agree a poor decision, commercially if not in terms of the product compared to X05 build) It was about his design vision for the game and his auteur notions for how DOA4 should play that drove him, not because someone beat him at the game. He's a designer not a player. He doesn't care about being a good player, he cares about the game working in the way he envisioned..

No, it was his ego as a player. Personal preference was the driving force behind the change, Shimbori already clarified this. He has constantly been criticizing people who play his game, telling them they are doing it wrong (even when they are the top players in the world, and are winning). in the DOAU days he would even go online and bitch about how american players were lagging (lol). He is a scrub, through and through. I don't understand why you keep trying to debate something that has already been set in stone. You are stretching your devils advocate routine to the breaking point here, there is so much evidence to contrast your point of view and absolutely nothing to support your own theory.

The rest of the stuff im writing

You're basically trying to argue that the glass is half-full and not half-empty. Evidence most clearly indicates that the glass is half empty. Thank you and good night, this has been a lovely sparring session. Please stop taking up arguments you don't even believe in, the state of the game is depressing enough without having to quell misinformation.

We've got a very slim shot of saving this game and it's not going to be done by acting naive about the reality it's in.

 

[Raansu]

Berzerk =

 

[Matt Ponton]

Sales - don't get me wrong, the number is low.

...

Thus, we don't really know how DOA5 will sell in this new, post SF4, more fighter-friendly/aware time, on two consoles with BIG install bases.

Woah, woah, woah. What does DOA5's sales predictions come from? Nowhere do I see anything being brought up about the sales data of DOA4 validating future sales of DOA5. All that was said was, "DOA4's sales data was low." (Paraphrasing). I don't see how you got some sort of neg or positive on DOA5's sales from that, and I certainly won't go down such a pointless path of discussion.

Oh, and Platinum Hits copies of a game differ by system, but generally it's a 9 to 12 month time frame after the release of the title - depending on if there were "Game of the Year" editions or not.

 

[Awesmic]

Well... I guess you guys did the answering for me on why I felt depressed and offended. Carry on with your lack of optimism and hope.

 

[grap3fruitman]

Well... I guess you guys did the answering for me on why I felt depressed and offended. Carry on with your lack of optimism and hope.

I would love to be optimistic but I've been burned before with both DOA4 and Dimensions and, based on what I've seen, this looks like those right now, so to blindly give Team Ninja the benefit of the doubt is kind of hard at this point. Come DOA5, either I'll not be shocked that the game is bad and you'll be devastated or you'll be glad that it's good and I'll be ecstatic. I would prefer the latter but all evidence is saying otherwise.

 

[Raansu]

Well... I guess you guys did the answering for me on why I felt depressed and offended. Carry on with your lack of optimism and hope.

There's a difference between being optimistic and being blind. We say the things we do because we care about the franchise and we want TN to know. Sitting back and being "optimistic" doesn't help anybody. It's tough love, and there's nothing depressing about it.

 

[Rikuto]

Well... I guess you guys did the answering for me on why I felt depressed and offended. Carry on with your lack of optimism and hope.

Oh, I have hope. I just don't see the glass half full, and i'm not about to sit idly by thinking the odds are with me when I should be working overtime to get my point across.

 

[Berzerk!]

Rikuto: Not just for shits and giggles, but I'm not taking an opposing position, I'm pointing out some things to temper down some of the worry in the statements made here/on the podcast and challenging some of your assumptions.

Mr Wah: So are we coming to a conclusion that discussing DOA4's sales doesn't tell us much about what DOA5 might do? Is there much point discussing DOA4's sales?

Optimism/pessimism: What have we got to go on in drawing our conclusions? Fact is a new game is coming, its a new Team Ninja, they are listening to the community for the first time, they have a kick ass first trailer. Not a lot to go on but so far it's positive.

To say they don't have time to make a good game or "fix" DOA4 makes too many assumptions to get down about it. We don't know really if DOA4 is the basis (and even if it is, it's not that fucking bad to make a great game with tweaks and new features) and we don't know their development plan and we don't know their target for release.

 

[grap3fruitman]

Optimism/pessimism: What have we got to go on in drawing our conclusions? Fact is a new game is coming, its a new Team Ninja, they are listening to the community for the first time, they have a kick ass first trailer. Not a lot to go on but so far it's positive.

I would disagree with these three points.

How is Team Ninja listening to the community? When asked "How are you fixing ____ issue?" The response is "We didn't think _____ was an issue." That's hardly listening to the community unless you count listening to but disregarding our suggestions.

The trailer, while visually impressive, looked almost exactly like DOA4 and Dimensions in terms of gameplay.

We do have more information to go on. Did you forget that the same Team Ninja released DOA Dimensions? You can't ignore how they handled that game. It was announced with a very early looking trailer in June of 2010 but looked identical to DOA4
in terms of gameplay with the addition of Raidou. It was released almost a year later in May of 2011 and played 99% identically to DOA4, a game this community hates.

To say they don't have time to make a good game or "fix" DOA4 makes too many assumptions to get down about it. We don't know really if DOA4 is the basis (and even if it is, it's not that fucking bad to make a great game with tweaks and new features) and we don't know their development plan and we don't know their target for release.

If you watched the trailer, you can tell that DOA4/Dimensions are the basis for DOA5. Everything looks identical except for the graphics and the few new features that were added like the hanging mechanic and power blow. I think you're in the minority thinking that DOA4 was a great game, the majority of this community feels otherwise and it would take tremendous amounts of work to fix the game. Trust me, we were modding the game to try and do just that. We do know their target for release date, the trailer clearly stated 2012. I'm not attacking you, just debating your points so please don't be offended.

 

[Matt Ponton]

Mr Wah: So are we coming to a conclusion that discussing DOA4's sales doesn't tell us much about what DOA5 might do? Is there much point discussing DOA4's sales?

You go ahead and lead to your own conclusions. I already stated that it wasn't brought up as a reference either way to Dead or Alive 5.

The only reason I brought it up for discussion was I personally found it surprising that the game was out almost twice as long as Dead or Alive 3, with a larger audience, and yet sold only one third of the amount when compared to Dead or Alive 3.

That's it.

Nothing was ever brought up about how it somehow would affect the sales of future or present titles. I don't know where you ever got that idea, and you haven't explained that to anyone yet.

 

[Tenren]

im still 50/50 on it. There are way to many factors for me to decided. Being a new team ninja it maybe a new game then again they may just take doa4 and add on to it. Sorta like they did with DOAD. Also with all the new games and short 2012 time frame. They may try to hard and make a game that everyone that doesn't play DOA will play. Just to get sales and compete. Then again they may have been working on it for the last few years on the back burner. SO who knows. We will just have to wait to get more about it.

 

[Berzerk!]

I would disagree with these three points.

How is Team Ninja listening to the community? When asked "How are you fixing ____ issue?" The response is "We didn't think _____ was an issue." That's hardly listening to the community unless you count listening to but disregarding our suggestions.

The trailer, while visually impressive, looked almost exactly like DOA4 and Dimensions in terms of gameplay.

We do have more information to go on. Did you forget that the same Team Ninja released DOA Dimensions? You can't ignore how they handled that game. It was announced with a very early looking trailer in June of 2010 but looked identical to DOA4
in terms of gameplay with the addition of Raidou. It was released almost a year later in May of 2011 and played 99% identically to DOA4, a game this community hates.

These would be good points if they weren't outdated; you have to remember the context of Perfect Legend's interview was in the leadup to DOAD, and the answers given were in reference to that game compared to DOA4 and not around their ongoing design philosophy, nor does it reveal what they are thinking for the at the time unrevealed DOA5.

If you cling to that interview as a sign of what Team Ninja intends for DOA5 you're simply twisting things to suit your pre-existing view of Team Ninja. Even at the time, there is a flaw in your interpretation of their answers and the whole framework of what DOAD was about. It wasn't there to advance new game mechanics and change the game. It was a refinement of DOA4 and a condensed edition of the franchise to that point.

Since the time of DOAD's release and that interview, key things have changed that also change the context of how we should look at Team Ninja.

One, they went to DOAD and had conversations with players, leading to the opportunity to Mr Wah to give feedback.
Two, they began speaking more directly via social media about DOA
Three, they revealed DOA5 and we've just begun to learn about what their plans are.

The most important thing is that we don't yet know details about how the core gameplay will be changed except for powerblows and the ledge mechanic, neither of which have been specifically explained.

You may say the prealpha footage looks like DOA4/D but Team Ninja via twitter have said there are a lot of new changes yet to be revealed, so to be fair you really have to leave it as an unknown; with the animation merely a guideline for how fights will look.

Again, we don't know enough, and what you point out was about DOAD, not DOA5. DOAD had very different design goals to the full sequel in DOA5, so the pessimism based on that is unwarranted.

Lets find out more details about DOA5 to discuss and base things on.

If you watched the trailer, you can tell that DOA4/Dimensions are the basis for DOA5. Everything looks identical except for the graphics and the few new features that were added like the hanging mechanic and power blow. I think you're in the minority thinking that DOA4 was a great game, the majority of this community feels otherwise and it would take tremendous amounts of work to fix the game. Trust me, we were modding the game to try and do just that. We do know their target for release date, the trailer clearly stated 2012. I'm not attacking you, just debating your points so please don't be offended.

Not at all. Everyone has a passion for this franchise and its to be respected. I also, while respecting the work you put in modding the game, maybe this makes you a bit too close to it, taking on the position of a frustrated designer and wish you could do better, but unfortunately, it's not your game to change and you'll have to work with the limited input we as players have. As for the target of 2012, that's broad. Is it Q1, 2, 3, or 4? We don't know. That's a huge time variable there. Given we haven't seen anything beyond prealpha footage it's likely to be later 2012 in Q3 or Q4, and that's plenty of time for the prealpha footage that looks so much like DOA4/D to start to resemble the real game of DOA5.

Its safe to predict much more significant changes are in the works. (They have said on twitter that a new plan for the gameplay is to be revealed. )


MrWah: The whole context of the discussion on the podcast was to infer through DOA4's failures that they have a lot of ground to cover to make DOA5 a success. You can understand why a listener would believe the discussion on DOA4 sales is related to the discussion that continued about what Team Ninja need to do for DOA5? The points I raised were to present another perspective on that inference, that the context of selling fighting games to the market now is quite different to (missing) the launch window of the 360.

Or it could mean something else entirely. We don't really know the reason why sales for DOA4 were lower than DOA3, but the changing tastes of gamers, the time it was released, the other choices available, and many other factors are involved. It's certainly not to do with a later day, high level player perspective that DOA4 is a bad game, since first 3 months of sales? Noone was saying that then, not reviewers, not players. So here's the reason I raise it: to say maybe it's not THAT relevant anymore.

Short short version: There's a lot of old baggage that we should probably throw out in order to get a real perspective on what's happening with DOA5.

 

[Rikuto]

Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, Zerk.

I told you I have hope, but I'm not going to listen to the same poorly translated buzzwords and catch phrases we've heard for years and think everything will be fine. You're being an over optimistic sucker for hype.

This game can be fixed with a firm grounding in reality and a very pushy community. It can't be fixed by assuming team ninja has a plan to make everything better, when they didn't even realize it was broken to begin with.

Now we've stated the problems that are in the way of repairing this game. You can think of solutions, or you can pretend the problems don't exist as you are currently doing.

 

[Berzerk!]

Yep I'm with you. We should be an active, PUSHY community, love that to be a characteristic for us.

I just think that dwelling on things said prior to the announcement of DOA5 is counterproductive, and those agitating energies to address things of concern need to be focused on the now; when we hear more about the mechanics they are planning, and hear back from our feedback emails thanks to Mr Wah.

I'm hearing just a touch of chicken little - lets talk history when its relevant, such as when we hear about say, their decision on how the counter system and stun systems are planned to work in DOA5, and use our knowledge applied to that new info.

Stressing about the unknowns and just going on the DOA4/D era aint helping us. I think some of the little topics focusing on particular aspects of the game, are really good - what online features do we want - and I wonder if it's valuable to break open all the components of the game and maintain a wiki style master discussion on each area of interest?

EG a post each for

Online features
Stages
Counter hold system
Stun system
Movesets
Character design

A lot of the discussion about what to fix blow out into unstructured, broad far reaching treatises, and this may give us a more easily references set of items to focus on. Thoughts?

 

[LivingShadow]

With regards to Dimensions, I would advise that you avoid looking at it as where Team Ninja is going to be going with the series. I don't think it was anything more than testing the waters to see if people were still interested, thus I expected it to be DoA4 with a few minor tweaks.

As I said in other threads, I think DoA5 is going to be looking more into expanding what they can do on the hardware than anything else. Out of the list Berzerk gave I think they're going to be focusing on the Stages. Maybe online features and character design (In order to move away from the stigma that DoA currently has). Anything else may be touched upon but probably isn't a huge priority for them.

I'll leave my thoughts on those items for dedicated discussions.

 

[grap3fruitman]

Yep I'm with you. We should be an active, PUSHY community, love that to be a characteristic for us.

When you send people who don't push for anything and just want to get their ego stroked to playtest a DOA game, you get DOA Dimensions. I don't want a repeat which is why we're being so vocal.

I'm hearing just a touch of chicken little - lets talk history when its relevant, such as when we hear about say, their decision on how the counter system and stun systems are planned to work in DOA5, and use our knowledge applied to that new info.

So let's wait until it's too late to make significant system changes? Good idea, I hope DOA6 is the one that turns out good!

 

[ShinMaruku]

In a game like this if they were really motivated it would never be too late the make significant changes, that said we should press for things, but remember it must be done with tact.

 

[Berzerk!]

When you send people who don't push for anything and just want to get their ego stroked to playtest a DOA game, you get DOA Dimensions. I don't want a repeat which is why we're being so vocal.


So let's wait until it's too late to make significant system changes? Good idea, I hope DOA6 is the one that turns out good!

I agree in principle, but we don't really have a lot of basis to be critical right now. We know they are planning gameplay changes, we don't know what direction that is. We've already sent an extensive list of feedback based on our current knowledge, so I feel like the next point of analysis is when we actually get info about what they're doing...

The only point I made is that notionally, it's positive so far (with the very little we know) because their approach seems to have improved in terms of communications with us.

 

[clockpenalty]

To Mr Wah, Rikuto and grap3fruitman: Great podcast! I ended up here after following a trail that began with Tom Brady's youtube diatribe against DOAMaster, and ended with me listening to all 10 of your podcasts. I've been a fan of Team Ninja ever since I played Ninja Gaiden (Which I consider the best third person action game on prev/current gen consoles, superior to DMC and God of war) and I've always respected Itagaki as being one of the best game designers out there.

You can probably guess where this is going: I think the podcast is spot on about many things (The lack of guaranteed damage in doa4 and the emphasis on guessing games DOES have an effect of compressing the practice/returns curve- ie more returns for less practice, with returns dwindling as you put more hardcore time into the game due to newbie handholding)

However I feel the podcast is being unfairly harsh on Mr Itagaki. Allow me to quickly outline my reasons:

Itagaki's games:

Gaiden 1, black, 2: All brutally hardcore and demanding games, with Itagaki very vocal about his reasons for doing this. All this despite calls from game critics and "experts" to dumb down the games.

DOAXVB, DOAX2: Games that should simply have been casual gravure/ fanservice/soft porn games with limited hgameplay, actually ended up having punishingly difficult gameplay events and brutal unlocks, moving the focus from gazing upon boobs and bikinis to painstakingly battling events that are borderline unfair to all but the most focused and dedicated

DOA1, ++,2,3,3.1: Even though the authors of this podcast love to treat DOA pre-DOA4 as some sort of fluke that just happened despite DOA, it would really REALLY be disingenuous to assume that itagaki would be so hands-off as to not understand how his games were being played. These games were all incredibly hardcore and required practice and learning to master, unlike games such as soulcalibur or even tekken which had high levels of accesibility right from the beginning (even though they do stand up well to tournament play)

So, with this kind of track record, does it make sense that this guy who apparently likes hardcore games would suddenly dumb down a game because HE was a scrub?

Now I'm not claiming DOA4 was not dumbed down. It certainly was. Replacing timing, memorisation and execution skills with "educated guesses" (translation: 100% guessing if the opponent is buttonmashing) is clearly dumbing down the game. However let's not pin it on Itagaki's "scrubbiness" and thereby retcon all his past achievements into flukes.

So Itagaki changed the game at the last minute. So he made some snarky comments in interviews (Have you read any of his interviews? Its all an act, like the sunglasses). So he said the game was not being played "right". All this does not mean he had no clue how the game was meant to be played after all these years. He has been the director from the beginning, changes from doa3 to doa3.1 had to be signed off and cleared by him.

Personally I would lay the fault at the feet of an imaginary person I will call the "suit" also known as the "launch game marketing exec". Though Itagaki cleared the adjustments, you have to understand that they were launching into a world where fighting games were practically dead, and the only game that was successful anywhere was the (at the time) extremely broken and casual-friendly MK. Online was paramount, and casual appeal was paramount.

Hayashi also clearly said to you guys that Itagaki's number one priority was to boost the pace of the game: it may be that when he saw hardcore players poking at each other tekken-style due to the incredibly high risk of making a mistake, he adjusted parameters to reduce the penalty for making such mistakes, in order to allow for more constant attacks.

However your guess is as good as mine because nothing concrete has been said, all we have are facts and the man's track record, and despite the proofs you gave to bezerk earlier on which are basically related to his personality and quotes, you have to agree that his prior work and the work he is known for would be a better barometer of his tendencies.

Remember he gave us DOAX2 and NG2 after doa4, both games legendary for their insane level of difficulty, even to the detriment of their quality. Also remember he was fired from Team Ninja, and then Hayashi's versions of all his games (DOA paradise, NG2 sigma, NG sigma) all dumbed down the difficulty AND hardcore violence from those games, and amped the fanservice factor. All these seem to point to some form of resistance to a "wind of change" in the company which pushed for more casual-friendly games. I sincerely doubt that Itagaki is the one to blame for DOA4's lowered difficulty.

So in summary:

Am I saying itagaki was not a scrub? No. I am saying that his scrubbiness had NOTHING to do with DOA4 being dumbed down. I am saying that as a designer, Itagaki designs for the super hardcore, even if he may not be hardcore himself. And as a result, the blame for DOA4's final form should be laid elsewhere.



PS, I have 2 other small points to make:

* DOA4 sold better than you make it out to seem. The online leaderboards have over 760,000 unique players. Used sales will cannibalise that figure by a percentage but then a large number of players would also never have gone online considering this is a 2005 game. DOA4 appeared under platinum hits also so we can safely say the game did at least 1 million sales. Not bad for a launch game on a single platform, in a genre that was dead at the time and not well supported on that particular platform. 1 million sales figure is corroborated by vgchartz.com

* 1 year is enough time to fix the problems of DOA5. You yourself say DOA4 was ruined in a few months prior to launch. Remember that there is still the strong base of DOA3.1 to work from. Fighting games do not change drastically when this mature. The biggest bottlenecks would be assets (art music etc) and the "pre-alpha" status of the trailer need not represent how far they have gone with that aspect. I will not be surprised if the visual/music work is largely complete and all that really remains is tweaking and balancing of the system. Remember that Capcom implemented 9 additional characters and a host of balance changes and new moves for street fighter 4 in one year, and Ultimate MVC3 took less than a year. I would give Team Ninja some credit here.

If you got this far, I salute you once more, and congratulate you on aquiring one more devoted follower of your content. Peace

 

[Raansu]

Don't take some of our remarks of Itagaki too seriously. While many of us are somewhat serious about what we say about him, we are also poking fun at him due to our history with Itagaki and how he has responded over the years. In reality we mostly blame the VF players that were play testing DoA4 as the reason the game ended up the way it did.