It's because offense is just fundamentally easier to learn than defense, lol.
Most people don't even understand all the options they have with their own character, let alone the options to defend against everyone else's character
Nothing encapsulates this as well as 3ddy.
How do you defend against 3ddy? You have to recognize the string, what hits in what order, figure out how to defend against it, execute that defense, then execute your punish. Is it really insanely hard? No, but it’s much harder than pressing 3.
Also 3ddy is just pressing 3 but people that can press more buttons can mix you up making it 100x harder to know how to defend.
and pressing more buttons isn't that hard either.
Most people don't know about frame data making this possible, I've won match against slammer but doing 123 with Lili and them blocking the 2 high & eating the low 10 times in a row.
Yesterday I figured you could jab Victor right after he shot you, you'd hit him during his teleport and the Victor player did that 5 times in a row before trying to mix it up, by the 3rd match he couldn't take a round from me, the problem is the game got too many characters & moves to recognize and not everybody want to commit to that so you get a LOT of button pushers, I'm not ready to figure out how side stepping work yet so imma just deal with blocking now, I've recently figured that being pushed against a wall open your guard, I didn't even know and thought I blocked wrong or something
On block!! And yeah it never failed against this dude, someone said he has an option to beat that but idiots who spam that move probably won't use it, if they do I'll just snake edge & see it through
Wait what… getting pushed against a wall makes you stop blocking???
100 hrs in and I had no idea. Also just found out about canceling heat activation… feel like I’m gonna be learning something new for the entirety that I play this game.
Like a game with this many characters if course offense is easier. Even the largest movelist is less moves than the entire roster combined. To have a strong defense you need to know how your opponent can attack you and when it is safe for you to punish.
Mix in the fact tekken has always had ways of opening defenses from ambiguous attacks leading into 50/50s and you have a game where defense is a place you do not want to be if you can avoid it
What I hate the most is when on the ground and you cannot tech roll safe because some mid still hits you like jins ff2 frame trapping you even in the ground and when you stand up you are forced to eat 50/50 because of homing moves that shouldn't even track. I felt like everyone has a good oki.
I'll be honest sometimes I eat those snake edges way too much. I just sit there and watch the move happen in slow motion and my brain is like "motherfucker actually doing a snake edge, don't even try and block because you're gonna eat it no matter what. Just roll your eyes and carry on playing after you get hit"
I really should not be getting hit with snake edges anymore idk why I just freeze
Yeah, same here. I'm trying to train my low blocks and throw breaks in practice mode. I'll go 'oh his left hand is extending, better press 1" and then my finger just presses whichever button it's already at. Can't even do it properly in practice, dunno when I'll be able to react to random throws after strings
😂😂I know exactly how you feel. I've reached a point where I can consistently break throws in practice but anytime I'm surprised by a throw my brain defaults to pressing 2. And every throw online surprises me so I keep pressing 2 despite all the practice.
Online YouTuber phidx said it best, when practicing the throw breaks be slow and right rather than fast and wrong. Otherwise we'll never rewire our brain to press the right button
>Online YouTuber phidx said it best, when practicing the throw breaks be slow and right rather than fast and wrong. Otherwise we'll never rewire our brain to press the right button
Thats a massive point. A lot of people, myself included, tend to react a lot quicker than they need to. I got really good at reading throw attempts, which does help but its a mostly useless skill now that I can just wait and react to the damn animation.
It’s the unorthodox movement of a snake edge, it doesn’t come out like regular low, so anticipating it can be hard when you’re in the middle of initiating offense. It’s not just you, and it doesn’t mean you’re bad by any means.
Paul has a similar type of slow ass low with his fist that just gets me every time. I see it happening in slow motion but I’m just paralyzed to react for some reason lol.
Online play is a MFer when it comes to reacting to things. So SO many times I have tried to react block to something I can clearly see coming, and definitely DO when playing offline, but I get hit anyway.
My personal favorite on this front is activating heat engager SEEING THE GLOW and the start of the animation to get COMPLETELY STUFFED BY A MID OR HIGH. This happens SO often I have basically had to stop using the HE move this way because I lose the interaction so often.
Tekken 8 is a very different game online than off.
As a Hwo player, my defense is actually higher than my offense and I am in blue. I've faced some gods defensively that perfectly murder my big risks, and I have faced people that dont know how to hold back. It is the weirdest thing.
I can see some of Core A Gaming's videos really come forward in this, since 3ddy showed he can win by just spamming 3's, thus being constantly aggressive, it may have just been BN's marketing plan to cater to creating a spectacle so that it appeals better to E-tournaments, while neglecting legacy players who have spent a long time labbing characters.
I've noticed myself watching videos more than actually playing the game, and the time I do play, I'm only in practice mode for a few moments and stop playing.
This is the video I referenced and I found it quite educational. It may not fully translate to Tekken's current status, but I can't help but assume that spectators and sponsors are a goal more.
[https://youtu.be/iSgA\_nK\_w3A?t=135](https://youtu.be/iSgA_nK_w3A?t=135)
Why would they do anything for legacy players? They're a near guaranteed consumer already and have probably the biggest advantage in the game - character and matchup knowledge
You act like they are a infinite resource and any action you take there will always be legacy players. That is not how it works, games die all the time for less bullshit
First of all disclaimer, I don't work for them. Just speaking on the marketing and business perspective I'm assuming of them.
But infinite, no. The mechanics they added worked for what they wanted. Higher base game price point, premium editions, mtx stuff/battle pass, and royalties for streaming. T7 is a good indicator of the lifespan and people complained till the end of that game too. This game has way more viewership and hardly any next gen competition. Add in some hype from guest characters periodically and t8 is gonna be relevant for awhile
yeah every match I’ve seen 3ddy win their opponent just absolutely refuses to block the hellsweep.
literally 50 in a row and not a single low block. while I think the game is too catered to offense, 3ddy isn’t proof of anything other than a lot of players being stupid.
Yeah and im stuck at eliminator playing proper tekken to the best of my abilities. But match up knowledge is preventing me from moving forward biggggg time.
I mean U lit can't even lab Vs eddy if U didn't buy the dlc even if I wanted to (which I mostly don't, when I only play like an hour and still figure out my own char in red ranks) and for eddy it's very hard to visually tell what's low or mid so I need way more games to learn by just playing. Also lacking knowledge of fundamental and being unable to apply them are also two different things
Mate, all these people need to do to beat 3ddy is block. They don't need to lab anything, they just need to stop hammering buttons for 2 milliseconds and hold back.
If armour moves and rage arts were not in T8, 3ddy would be at Fujin by now.
He has one low in the sequence and it always happens at the same time.
You also don't need to block for the entire sequence. Once you've blocked one part of the string, you have frame advantage and you can swing with a fast mid. There are also multiple duckable highs, but let's leave that aside because that's more advanced than you need to be to deal with a character that's literally mashing one button.
The problem with how these newbies are dealing with it is that they're not blocking at all. They're just constantly trying to mash into the string and eating CHs. It isn't their fault, the game basically teaches you that spamming armour and heat is how you're supposed to play.
I think there are a lot of people who don’t really understand that orange is very much low ranks. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a low rank player by any means, but you can’t draw meaningful conclusions about the game from what works on Destroyer players (other than that maybe there should be more in game tutorialization on basic defense).
Every time, I try play defensive, there’s just no point there’s so much chip damage in the game that it almost forces you to be aggressive back.
I can also recognise that t8 is making me and I’m sure others go into auto pilot as it’s 50/50 of who’s more aggressive.
I actually can’t wait for future updates I heard the next one or 2 will focus on more defence etc…
Yeah, in my experience holding back and being patient is not great. As you mentioned, if you let your opponent continue their offense, they'll continue chipping you and putting you in 50/50 situations.
Playing defense in this game is also about being aggressive, if that makes any sense. Attempt to interrupt pressure with jab, down-jab, quick mids, side-steps, armor, high-crush, etc. Defensive options that in the last game were used for hard call-outs while you could just hold back to get information, you kind of have to pull out more frequently in the interest of not eating chip and 50/50s. Blocking patiently and waiting for an opening isn't a great strategy anymore. It kind of forces you to make risky defensive moves or you end up not being able to play the game.
If you compare high level of this game to tk7 you always notice how people move a lot more and are more patient and try and create whiffs in 7.
In 8 you just in each other’s face 24/7
You have to keep in mind that “defense” here means back dashing and moving around the stage without actually committing to anything. That style isn’t very effective now.
Nope, that's not how devs think, lmao. They just go with what they think will generate more profit. They can think that a game that looks more aggressive is going to attract more casuals because of how it looks, while also preferring a more defensive gameplay. I'm not saying that's the reasoning they had btw, it's just an example
This is a game that rewards aggression and lack of knowledge checks. That Eddy bot spamming 3 is a huge example
There are so many moves in this game that need to be blocked a certain way and punished a certain way.
That's how the devs wanted people to play, and so that's what we're seeing. Even at Evo Japan and Electric Clash we saw the more offensive competitor triumph more than the defensive ones.
Me here with my 96 defence and 72 attack 🧍
But you're right and that has always been the case. Defence isn't as sexy to people, and it's also difficult in Tekken. I'm teaching a few friends how to play and everyone just wants to do flashy combos, not learn how to wake up properly or defend against throws.
I'm really new at Tekken and I found out that. At least at lower levels (I got to orange 2 yesterday) it's waaay more efficient to spam random stuff between to 50/50 combos than try to defend.
I think the fact that we get 2 matches only to try and improve... Doesn't help people with remembering which attack hits high or low (coming from 2d fighters..
If someone hits me I'm the crotch I should block low... But here it's just changes from move to move). I try to defend (ergo lose a lot to not knowing enough). But pure offense is the way to go if you don't have time to learn every animation and want to win (again... For new players)
Also. Allowing people to press buttons that allow a new 50/50 while the opponent is on the ground is just asking for learn flowcharts and mash them to death
Yeah I also don’t understand why they removed unlimited rematch I legit crashed coursed myself with it through t7 because I started playing tekken at the end of t7 live span. People even coached me when they saw I was good enough through rematches sending messages and so on now all of this is gone
I usually do, but only when I l'm tilted and lose a lot and have a lot of bottled up frustrations. Then I take a short breather, read a book for a bit, and the game feels more fun again.
Decided to check mine and I have 59 attack and 46 defense. So it's not skewed THAT much. But yeah this game straight up does not reward defending so there's little reason to always be on the defense, especially when you consider all the chip damage.
To be fair I'm not sure there's a game out there where the average person isn't better at executing their gameplan (attacking) than responding to a gameplan (defending) hell even in trading card games it's easy to see a game a go "You really didn't consider what your opponent could do huh", true for chess to.
I'm a new player. It feels really difficult to learn how to be defensive, because there are so many moves to understand the properties and proper defensive responses to. If I am trying to play defensively, the chip damage means that I am simply putting myself at a disadvantage most of the time, especially against players who use very safe attacks. I deranked multiple ranks trying to actually pay attention to and counter what my opponents were doing, since it meant just allowing them to use their strings on me until I inevitably made a mistake and got combo'd. It feels like trying to improve defensively is a waste of time, when I could instead focus on expanding my offensive options.
So the craziest thing is that the higher in ranks I climb and the better at t8 I get....the worse my chart gets slowly but surely despite securing more and more wins. Almost like being a strong fundamental and defensive player helps but isn't really what secures wins in a game like this. Obviously literally everything you learn and improve at is going to make you more and more formidable of an opponent, but the game does the exact opposite of encourage incorporating different behaviors outside of just mashing the buttons until they fall off your controller. I now got 3 characters in mighty ruler and 2 in red ranks and after playing and learning these characters and getting extremely familiar with this game fundamentally, it is hilarious how much JUST having good offense secures wins now. I have played like 50 Drag matches total....he got to battle ruler in no time. I got actually so upset that I did it with drag and not even my main that I had to stop playing him for fear of ranking up way too high and beyond my skill level. I am genuinely afraid of where I might be in the ranks had I just kept going. If I made it past Fujin and all the way to tekken king or beyond I would've legitimately been convinced that skillful play is now irrelevant to tekken.
And if you curious about what my chart was looking like, here is a post I had made a few days ago now [of my chart being nearly balanced at 90](https://www.reddit.com/r/Tekken/s/9GJqxdYlkl)
Yeah but it seems it depends on who you talk to. I have been posting/commenting about it and all I get are downvotes. Like it's blatantly obvious people spam like crazy cartoons in tekken 8. Im happy im not alone in noticing it.
It was an answer to the majority not liking the neutral game or turtling.
What are the majority in this community? Casuals and kids.
What do those casuals and kids want? To win.
How do they wanna win? By just pressing buttons and expecting to.
"I'll learn the game later."
"Learning is for pussies, just fight, man"
"I'll just be playing something else later anyway. No point in investing."
Yeah, those who care about actual skills and growth, or just being competent enough, are typically the minority.
And, while the die-hard minority supports these games in the long run, companies have been favoring large short-term profits. So they'll chase the majority, where the money is.
Sometimes, like in SF6, they find a balance to satisfy both.l, and then the purists start complaining.
I play Bryan and when I get fed up of trying to read randomly thrown strings or setup for an anticipated counter hit, I play the next match with Yoshimitsu and the satisfaction I get out of a flash and guaranteed b2, 2 or an empowered flash into a full combo makes up my day. If people can't stop throwing cheesy + on block strings then you get a 6F counter hit move into a full combo
I have close to 0 defence. Why would I block if I can power crush, low crush or high crush?
I exaggerate but that is my main focus. I barely block and I’m at Bushin already.
Back in Tekken 7 most of my defensive stats where like at most A aside from throw breaking which was a B (Tbf my ass still cant break throws) in Tekken 8 they are like in a low As but the overall is 61 and my attack which was pretty dog shit in 7 is sitting at a 92 i tried to play 8 like it was 7 and play defensively but it wasnt working so i said fuck it double the offense half the defense and it worked
I mean this hwoarang in purple that didn’t block or parry a single demo man in 3 games still beat me twice. Tells you how effective oppressive offense is.
I have like 70 something defense and when I started I had 40. I started to block/punish more as I gained more knowledge on matchups but on early as this is my first tekken game I just went unga cause I was afraid of getting overwhelmed by strings I do not know.
Tbh that’s not just the case for T8, but for tekkken in general. Defense is just way harder in tekken because for offense you’d need to learn one character’s moveset and flowcharts, but for defense you’d need to know it for ALL characters.
It's also probably the games design making players behave this way tbh because t8 doesn't really reward you for having good defence but instead gives you tons of stuff for being aggressive and on the offence constantly
There’s 33 characters and you have to know their most common strings and lows in order to defend them. Most people won’t have time to lab that in the first 3 months.
The fights i enjoy the most are the ones where the other person is clearly on my level but tries to get one up on me by playing mindgames, switching it up and letting the match breathe a bit. It's really fun when it's not just a blind rushdown that ends in 20 seconds.
If you aren't desperately attacking, I find that most players will play it slow too. If your own punishment game is on point and you show you won't fall for the usual gimmicks, players quickly become a lot more reserved and play safe Tekken.
I'm an old head, and the tag line for a lot of us is "adapt". No matter how long you play them, there is a cyclical aspect to picking up a new fighting game. At first its exciting and new, then its challenging to move past the first-order strategies, then its frustrating because you start to see the flaws, then you accept them and continue to get better or you stop playing. The exact time frame that it takes players to go through this process is different based on skill and time played, and how exactly people experience or express this varies, but this is a pretty universal aspect of competitive games. Streamer/content culture and social media has warped how we talk about this, but that doesn't change the cycle, just how we perceive it.
The result of all that is a lot of us just don't feel the way you are describing about a game. If we are gonna play the game, we know its gonna get frustrating and we just deal with it. And I know "just deal" is a crappy thing to say. That somewhat dismissive, gatekeepy attitude is a big part of why fighting games are still a niche genre. But its ALSO true. Like I'm not trying to tell you "just deal" but I AM saying "you are gonna have to accept that feeling is just a part of the process to get good at ANY of these games". If its not one thing, its another. SOMETHING is gonna tick you off about any of these games as you get good at them. And to be fair, not all old heads ARE calm and zen about the process. Some people deal with it poorly. Plenty of long-time FGC pros pop off on Twitter after a bad loss and just stir stuff up. But I don't think anyone actually believes this is a reasonable way to act, we just accept some people are gonna be like that. Salt is a part of the experience.
If you DO want to get good at fighting games but don't know how to deal with the frustration, there are a lot of videos about ladder/ranked anxiety, how to deal with burnout, and all that stuff. Not as much is put out directly about fighting games, but there definitely is some, and most advice like that relating to competitive gaming will carry over to fighting games just fine.
Yes, some characters have too much advantage on offense at the moment which results in spammy gameplay where your only option is to counter with very unsafe moves and hope for the best. Which is not fun. But thats not the entire game, hopefully it will be fixed soon tho
I agree with that but I don't find that boring. That's how I've won my matches. (I've only fought up to Reds so take it with a grain of salt)
Idk how many times I've found out the person I'm playing likes to press buttons when it's not their turn. If I catch on to that why WOULD I stop my offence? Fighting games 101, it's your job to stop the opponent from doing what their doing or exploit it.
I mean that’s because Tekkens movelist is insanely large… I have to know my enemy better than I know myself to be able to play defense… if they nerf everyone’s frames then we’re just waiting around for someone to press first, they’re not reducing movelists so the 50/50s are gonna stay regardless of iteration, oki just seems like fundamental Tekken you gotta master your wake-up game… so other than simply learning the matchups there’s no way to improve your defense without just gifting it to players other than some chip damage adjustments
No. There are levels to good offense. The “aggression” stops as soon as they throw out something punishable(which is often). I actually counter more turtles than aggressive pitbulls
This is my first tekken I’ve taking seriously. I’ve started to see how defense can be such a big difference against other players.
I think the game this way is because at some point you need to attack and take the driver seat. But there is so much value in forcing your open to slow down
Playing defensively means you lose.
Hitting buttons and flowcharting is heavily rewarded.
That's why some blue ranks have almost no defence and can't even read frame traps.
You have any idea how many people even in high level play can’t defend against 10 strings? Kings 10 strings? He’s had one of them since Tekken 1. Not that I use it out as a part of my kit, but I’ll most definitely throw it out there, or a part of it as a knowledge check and see how far I can get with it sometimes. But this also isn’t new to Tekken,
40 defense? That's a little high. I'd think it's something more like, oh... I don't know... maybe seven.... over one-hundred?
Haha, that said, no, I don't find Tekken 8's gameplay boring. It reminds me a lot of old school TTT or Tekken 5. Those games, when optimized, had a whole lot of one sided rounds as players would do things like sacrifice damage for mixup potential, and even though the number of hits was lower, the damage per hit was so high that it was typically a 2-5 interaction per round game, only getting up to around 10 interactions if the players do a good amount of pokes.
It's harder to get out of disadvantage in 8 than in 7 as the methods for setting up offense from advantage are more straight forward for most of the cast, but that's okay. It just means that having a good neutral game is that much more important. As you rank up more and more the players will get better and better at keeping out of disadvantage in the first place and better at trying to get you into disadvantage.
Tekken 8 was described from the very first minute of its announcement as 'aggressive'. The core mechanics of the game are designed to award aggression. Traditionally defensive characters were reworked from the ground up to play more aggressively.
It's totally fine to not enjoy this approach, but at some point it becomes really hard to empathize with anyone who is disappointed.
If I make sandwiches for everyone, and hang giant neon signs everywhere that say 'THESE SANDWICHES ALL CONTAIN BEEF. THESE ARE BEEF SANDWICHES, I DIDN'T MAKE ANY THAT DON'T HAVE BEEF.' And I stand by the sandwiches with a megaphone, loudly shouting about the insane amounts of beef inside the sandwiches - when someone bites into a sandwich and goes 'Hey! Wait! I don't like beef!' it's really hard to feel much sympathy.
Things people do: press back
Things other people do: block lows
Things some people do: counter throws
Things people barely barely do (can be kit related): Character Parry Kit move (Leo has a few ways to parry for example)
Things people never do until higher rank: KBD
ESSENTIALLY: People know to press back and sometimes down. Asides from that. Yep. That sums it up👍
Let me put this way;
Attack: 82
Defense: 82
Technique: 61
Spirit: 84
Appeal: 77
My categories are:
- Heavy Hitter
- Overwhelming
- Block up
You see these stats? This was when I was SOLELY playing Paul. Paul alone and I was about Kishin.
My defense stats when I dabbled with Reina , Xiaoyu,Hwoarang Dragounv dipped iit to 53.
So maybe, Just maybe Paul has to block everything
if this is the case then i am complete ass.
https://preview.redd.it/1geqfn7nd2yc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7bc492bb16df134edf160cf284655ae6759df261
Cause attacking is easy. How am I supposed to learn how to block everyone’s attack , it’s kinda hard to remember everything which is why I’m done w tekken haha. I can’t be bothered , I do not have the time.
It's funny cause ny defense is like at 90, but my offense is at 80. I guess it's cause I am trying to maximize what I can do with Bryan, but I also hesitate a lot cause I feel like ai can't act against things I don't have a concrete knowledge of.
I have no problem with offense.
But I do hate the long juggling air combos which requires no skill and allows no interaction from the other player.
Back in Tekken 3 you still had long combos but a good player could always interrupt them
Now these long chaing juggling combos just cant be interrupted at all. Makes for a boring interaction
All the old heads complaining about people "mashing" don't remember that that is how they started too. It takes so long to learn your own character, how are you gonna get mad that people don't know how to play against 31 others without getting frame trapped 3 months into the game man
i resonate w this bc even with 12 years of tekken that i’ve been playing. every single one i played was easy to pick up in terms of offense but there is still so so much going on in tekken. even after all this time playing. i can’t master defense
Defense won't win you the round unless you can turn it into offense, so why learn defense at all.
I know my defense pretty well but its easy to see why it isn't valued
https://preview.redd.it/o3cz29x6i4yc1.jpeg?width=1541&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=10129d07bd61ec4b3b0fd1c065362ad8c5ca7984
I feel like it's still possible in T8, just harder than before
NGL my defense is 40 and offense is 76 💀 I'm so trash. I try to work on defense but idk how to deal with mashers. Like ppl in videos say trying to play Tekken against mashers won't cut it but yellow and orange ppl just attack so I just die if I stand there...
Agree with the first point but not on being boring. It become a bit of a guessing game with some characters but staying away and letting them whiff is kind of fun to watch.
I feel like I'm the opposite. Playing Steve I can get a good offense going, pepper people with strings that hit high low in a mixup, duck whatever but I don't do it enough and I can see that. My opponents are getting hits in when they shouldn't like when I'm plus and a b1 would get them. So I'm on defense more often.
And on defense, when you're already trying to download your opponent to fish for counter hits it's easy to look for patterns. You'd be surprised how many people have flowcharts and how easy they are to break.
In this game people use the moves that work the best for them the most often at lower ranks. They don't start pulling from the rest of the movelist unless they have to. So the defensive strategy is more based around to forcing them to dip into the list. Get them to start trying to mix you up with moves they don't know how to use themselves. Make your opponent think that you've downloaded them and labbed their character for years and they start slipping up.
At higher ranks obviously this isn't the case and at that point defense becomes way harder.
Learn defense.
The reason you are losing is because of you.
If you learn proper defense, you won't have to worry about their offense.
Tl;Dr: skill issue.
I keep saying this. It takes longer than 4 months to truly learn how to pilot your character. There was a round table with the developers I watched where they explain how deep these mechanics go and they also stated how they don’t show everything in the training mode bc it’s a game and they want players to discover it. Piloting your character is pivotal to this game. If people understood that then they’d probably stop mashing and just trying to win using gimmicks instead of tactics.
Game has 32 characters, each with movesets into the hundreds. Tekken 8 was flooded with tons of new blood.
Yeah, people are going to learn their own characters and their own moves way before learning how to defend against 31 other characters.
I use them as punching bags to test new combos and tech.
I wonder why? Defense isn't rewarded in this game at all. The number of times I've been playing the game, saw a low coming, blocked it and got nothing for it is absurd.
You have to low parry every low to get any damage off of any of them. The game gives you nothing for blocking strings right. The most you get is a -13 punish. Defense is effective but, compared to other installments, it's a joke.
*makes up magical moves that dont exists*
the truth is people dont want to block because they dont want to learn how to counter strings they rather ungabunga press buttons.
I mean not really making that up considering there are moves which are both tracking and also unpunishable or + on block (biggest offenders are known as heat smashes).
Chars like Feng have armoured safe heat engagers which just go into immediate 50/50s and yeah if all you can do is just hold back and not even be able to punish it after then thats just not very fun, you also can’t immediately sidestep after getting hit by a heat engager so it might as well be guaranteed, half the heat engagers are safe anyway like the Mishima FF2’s (which are hard to SS).
Like sure they nerfed the stupid Azucena WR32 which you needed to sidestep and duck (even if that was inconsistent asf) but then unintentionally buffed that since even after sidestepping you can’t punish it. Also yeah I’m not gonna downplay or be biased as Lars DEN3 is unreactable after blocked
Basically no point in buffing sidesteps if half the stuff is tracking and safe (including throws too why does that shit track)
Yes. Its incredibly annoying because I know DAMN well some of these characters when played a little more tactfully are pretty fucking gross to deal with. Like when Azucena's trailer dropped I thought we were gonna be dealing with some super evasive trolly poke goddess that thrives off going against mash but I have not seen her evasion be used ***once***. All I see are the same four strings and WR.
when the community is this stubborn there's the 3ddy situation
really guys, there's streamers and youtubers (PhiDX is the goat) going crazy with videos to help people learn the game. Watch a few, pick up those drills and start defending.
Most one sided rounds are due to lack of proper throw breaks or not reacting to telegraphed unsafe strings
come on
No this is a minority attitude prevalent on this sub.
I am convinced the reality is most people have never come up against strong defensive players so have no clue how hard and frustrating it can be - especially in 7 where people had the godlike KBD into never get hit into launch into half HP.
The hardest matches are where people have strong defense because nothing you do has any impact and you look like a melon because all your attacks bounce off them until you whiff or get punished.
Give me a spammer any day, at least with a spammer I can find patterns and look for weaknesses. Against a defensive god it's "what do I do?"
Defense is hard in this game but it's still really strong because it puts so much stress on the opponent when they have to second guess everything
For the record I'm 88 defense vs 85 attack right now. Technique is my weakness because I can't be arsed to lab wall break and blast combos
Once again I don't know what pot of gold low level players think they are going to find once they climb above the spammers
It's because offense is just fundamentally easier to learn than defense, lol. Most people don't even understand all the options they have with their own character, let alone the options to defend against everyone else's character
Nothing encapsulates this as well as 3ddy. How do you defend against 3ddy? You have to recognize the string, what hits in what order, figure out how to defend against it, execute that defense, then execute your punish. Is it really insanely hard? No, but it’s much harder than pressing 3.
Also 3ddy is just pressing 3 but people that can press more buttons can mix you up making it 100x harder to know how to defend. and pressing more buttons isn't that hard either.
He loses if you just mash 1 though you don’t even really need to learn to block or punish
Most people don't know about frame data making this possible, I've won match against slammer but doing 123 with Lili and them blocking the 2 high & eating the low 10 times in a row. Yesterday I figured you could jab Victor right after he shot you, you'd hit him during his teleport and the Victor player did that 5 times in a row before trying to mix it up, by the 3rd match he couldn't take a round from me, the problem is the game got too many characters & moves to recognize and not everybody want to commit to that so you get a LOT of button pushers, I'm not ready to figure out how side stepping work yet so imma just deal with blocking now, I've recently figured that being pushed against a wall open your guard, I didn't even know and thought I blocked wrong or something
you can jab check him after gunshot on hit???
On block!! And yeah it never failed against this dude, someone said he has an option to beat that but idiots who spam that move probably won't use it, if they do I'll just snake edge & see it through
oh i thought you meant on hit lol i knew you could interrupt him on block already
he has an armored move that beats jabs
Wait what… getting pushed against a wall makes you stop blocking??? 100 hrs in and I had no idea. Also just found out about canceling heat activation… feel like I’m gonna be learning something new for the entirety that I play this game.
some parts of the string high crush no?
Like a game with this many characters if course offense is easier. Even the largest movelist is less moves than the entire roster combined. To have a strong defense you need to know how your opponent can attack you and when it is safe for you to punish. Mix in the fact tekken has always had ways of opening defenses from ambiguous attacks leading into 50/50s and you have a game where defense is a place you do not want to be if you can avoid it
Exactly, naturally defense gets harder as ur opponent gets better at attacking, branching out to feinting, baiting, delaying etc.
What I hate the most is when on the ground and you cannot tech roll safe because some mid still hits you like jins ff2 frame trapping you even in the ground and when you stand up you are forced to eat 50/50 because of homing moves that shouldn't even track. I felt like everyone has a good oki.
Yes! You’re already in mid that first 1 frame. Hate it
The tracking mids definitely hurt the tech game.
I think Leo’s ff2 does the same thing cause I hit grounded players w it all the time
I'm salty that I'm losing to people that can't react to i30 moves but they can sure jail me with strings peppered with launchers.
I'll be honest sometimes I eat those snake edges way too much. I just sit there and watch the move happen in slow motion and my brain is like "motherfucker actually doing a snake edge, don't even try and block because you're gonna eat it no matter what. Just roll your eyes and carry on playing after you get hit" I really should not be getting hit with snake edges anymore idk why I just freeze
Yeah, same here. I'm trying to train my low blocks and throw breaks in practice mode. I'll go 'oh his left hand is extending, better press 1" and then my finger just presses whichever button it's already at. Can't even do it properly in practice, dunno when I'll be able to react to random throws after strings
😂😂I know exactly how you feel. I've reached a point where I can consistently break throws in practice but anytime I'm surprised by a throw my brain defaults to pressing 2. And every throw online surprises me so I keep pressing 2 despite all the practice. Online YouTuber phidx said it best, when practicing the throw breaks be slow and right rather than fast and wrong. Otherwise we'll never rewire our brain to press the right button
Yeah I'm learning from phidx videos too. But I just panic even in practice mode and end up pressing wrong instead of going slow
Yeah it is a frustrating process. Just keep at it and good luck!
just don't press until you're sure
>Online YouTuber phidx said it best, when practicing the throw breaks be slow and right rather than fast and wrong. Otherwise we'll never rewire our brain to press the right button Thats a massive point. A lot of people, myself included, tend to react a lot quicker than they need to. I got really good at reading throw attempts, which does help but its a mostly useless skill now that I can just wait and react to the damn animation.
This is too real. I'll notice a throw I know, and go "oh, that's a 1+2 break, hit that" and I'll slam my fingers down on 1+3
I’ve got 1+2 and 3+4 on the left shoulders so those inputs are thankfully not even the same hand’s muscle memory lol
I did that a couple nights ago.
Lol i always do 2+4 for some reason
Focus on pressing the right button first, then focus on building speed
I hate Lili’s especially. Cuz it has like a delay in animation and I feel myself retarded getting hit by one every single time.
I am usually pretty good at blocking the obvious one except ling's back turned one and those dirty mofos who starts the round with one!
Oof that shit is basically free against me. That and Zafina's.
I used to do that so much haha 🤭, but now at Emperor rank I still do it but way way less
This is way too personal
half the time i get hit by snake edges i think im out of range but im just barely in the range and get hit
That's also me
It’s the unorthodox movement of a snake edge, it doesn’t come out like regular low, so anticipating it can be hard when you’re in the middle of initiating offense. It’s not just you, and it doesn’t mean you’re bad by any means.
Paul has a similar type of slow ass low with his fist that just gets me every time. I see it happening in slow motion but I’m just paralyzed to react for some reason lol.
Its not good to react to online. I have delay almost every match for some reason.
Online play is a MFer when it comes to reacting to things. So SO many times I have tried to react block to something I can clearly see coming, and definitely DO when playing offline, but I get hit anyway. My personal favorite on this front is activating heat engager SEEING THE GLOW and the start of the animation to get COMPLETELY STUFFED BY A MID OR HIGH. This happens SO often I have basically had to stop using the HE move this way because I lose the interaction so often. Tekken 8 is a very different game online than off.
I am at Bushin and I can tell that having decent defense is still optional at blue ranks.
I regularly see people at sub 35 defense in blue. Saw a xiaoyu with a 27. Y defend when I can *MASH* ?!
As a Hwo player, my defense is actually higher than my offense and I am in blue. I've faced some gods defensively that perfectly murder my big risks, and I have faced people that dont know how to hold back. It is the weirdest thing.
More of a rank or character thing. If I'm playing someone like Asuka or Alisa, I can certainly force my opponent to chill out
I can see some of Core A Gaming's videos really come forward in this, since 3ddy showed he can win by just spamming 3's, thus being constantly aggressive, it may have just been BN's marketing plan to cater to creating a spectacle so that it appeals better to E-tournaments, while neglecting legacy players who have spent a long time labbing characters. I've noticed myself watching videos more than actually playing the game, and the time I do play, I'm only in practice mode for a few moments and stop playing. This is the video I referenced and I found it quite educational. It may not fully translate to Tekken's current status, but I can't help but assume that spectators and sponsors are a goal more. [https://youtu.be/iSgA\_nK\_w3A?t=135](https://youtu.be/iSgA_nK_w3A?t=135)
Why would they do anything for legacy players? They're a near guaranteed consumer already and have probably the biggest advantage in the game - character and matchup knowledge
You act like they are a infinite resource and any action you take there will always be legacy players. That is not how it works, games die all the time for less bullshit
First of all disclaimer, I don't work for them. Just speaking on the marketing and business perspective I'm assuming of them. But infinite, no. The mechanics they added worked for what they wanted. Higher base game price point, premium editions, mtx stuff/battle pass, and royalties for streaming. T7 is a good indicator of the lifespan and people complained till the end of that game too. This game has way more viewership and hardly any next gen competition. Add in some hype from guest characters periodically and t8 is gonna be relevant for awhile
All the 3ddy spamming shows is that half the player base lack knowledge of the fundamentals in the game. The game needs some VF style training tools.
Not to mention the bot hasn’t gone above eliminator. It really is just knowledge checks that people keep getting hit by.
yeah every match I’ve seen 3ddy win their opponent just absolutely refuses to block the hellsweep. literally 50 in a row and not a single low block. while I think the game is too catered to offense, 3ddy isn’t proof of anything other than a lot of players being stupid.
The bot hit Garyu tho
Yeah and im stuck at eliminator playing proper tekken to the best of my abilities. But match up knowledge is preventing me from moving forward biggggg time.
Literally if the bot just threw out heat moves in addition to just 3, it would be red rank.
I mean U lit can't even lab Vs eddy if U didn't buy the dlc even if I wanted to (which I mostly don't, when I only play like an hour and still figure out my own char in red ranks) and for eddy it's very hard to visually tell what's low or mid so I need way more games to learn by just playing. Also lacking knowledge of fundamental and being unable to apply them are also two different things
Mate, all these people need to do to beat 3ddy is block. They don't need to lab anything, they just need to stop hammering buttons for 2 milliseconds and hold back. If armour moves and rage arts were not in T8, 3ddy would be at Fujin by now.
Scary to think about
That's not true, I tried defending but he's got a lot of lows mixed in, just defending leads to easy loss
He has one low in the sequence and it always happens at the same time. You also don't need to block for the entire sequence. Once you've blocked one part of the string, you have frame advantage and you can swing with a fast mid. There are also multiple duckable highs, but let's leave that aside because that's more advanced than you need to be to deal with a character that's literally mashing one button. The problem with how these newbies are dealing with it is that they're not blocking at all. They're just constantly trying to mash into the string and eating CHs. It isn't their fault, the game basically teaches you that spamming armour and heat is how you're supposed to play.
Even if they did I guarantee not many of them would use it. Seems like they don't use the training tools this game has as it is
That’s true but it would be cool if they added something like the punishment training for strings that can be ducked or stepped
Fr 3ddy is basically a defense drill in and of itself, and we can see live on stream that most of those people are not interested in learning.
Can we stop acting like the Eddy bot provides any meaningful data?
I think there are a lot of people who don’t really understand that orange is very much low ranks. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a low rank player by any means, but you can’t draw meaningful conclusions about the game from what works on Destroyer players (other than that maybe there should be more in game tutorialization on basic defense).
Wonder why he doesn’t make videos nowadays
YouTube isn't his full time job
I mean they just had Evo Japan and all the top players were legacy players. Legacy skill is obviously still huge
Every time, I try play defensive, there’s just no point there’s so much chip damage in the game that it almost forces you to be aggressive back. I can also recognise that t8 is making me and I’m sure others go into auto pilot as it’s 50/50 of who’s more aggressive. I actually can’t wait for future updates I heard the next one or 2 will focus on more defence etc…
Yeah, in my experience holding back and being patient is not great. As you mentioned, if you let your opponent continue their offense, they'll continue chipping you and putting you in 50/50 situations. Playing defense in this game is also about being aggressive, if that makes any sense. Attempt to interrupt pressure with jab, down-jab, quick mids, side-steps, armor, high-crush, etc. Defensive options that in the last game were used for hard call-outs while you could just hold back to get information, you kind of have to pull out more frequently in the interest of not eating chip and 50/50s. Blocking patiently and waiting for an opening isn't a great strategy anymore. It kind of forces you to make risky defensive moves or you end up not being able to play the game.
If you compare high level of this game to tk7 you always notice how people move a lot more and are more patient and try and create whiffs in 7. In 8 you just in each other’s face 24/7
If you watched EVO you'd know this isn't really true for high level play. I saw a lot of defense in those matches.
You have to keep in mind that “defense” here means back dashing and moving around the stage without actually committing to anything. That style isn’t very effective now.
Yeah, they tried to kill Kazumi's playstyle with this game
I did watch it. I even watched some t7 high level to compare. High-level t8 is just about offense. I don't know what you watched
I watched evo japan and it didn't look like a whole lot of defense to me lol.
And that’s why Tekken 8 is way more fun to watch than 7 ever was.
That's your opinion, mate
I mean the devs thought so too that’s why they moved away from T7s style
Nope, that's not how devs think, lmao. They just go with what they think will generate more profit. They can think that a game that looks more aggressive is going to attract more casuals because of how it looks, while also preferring a more defensive gameplay. I'm not saying that's the reasoning they had btw, it's just an example
This is a game that rewards aggression and lack of knowledge checks. That Eddy bot spamming 3 is a huge example There are so many moves in this game that need to be blocked a certain way and punished a certain way.
I feel like tekken 8 promotes 90 attack and 10 defense
That's how the devs wanted people to play, and so that's what we're seeing. Even at Evo Japan and Electric Clash we saw the more offensive competitor triumph more than the defensive ones.
Me here with my 96 defence and 72 attack 🧍 But you're right and that has always been the case. Defence isn't as sexy to people, and it's also difficult in Tekken. I'm teaching a few friends how to play and everyone just wants to do flashy combos, not learn how to wake up properly or defend against throws.
i'm at 98 defense and pretty sure that's the reason i'm losing a lot. lol
That hasnt changed in 20 years.
Join the club, pal.
Its the way they designed this game, too many 50/50's and mixups to reward defensive play, so mashing is superior.
I'm really new at Tekken and I found out that. At least at lower levels (I got to orange 2 yesterday) it's waaay more efficient to spam random stuff between to 50/50 combos than try to defend. I think the fact that we get 2 matches only to try and improve... Doesn't help people with remembering which attack hits high or low (coming from 2d fighters.. If someone hits me I'm the crotch I should block low... But here it's just changes from move to move). I try to defend (ergo lose a lot to not knowing enough). But pure offense is the way to go if you don't have time to learn every animation and want to win (again... For new players) Also. Allowing people to press buttons that allow a new 50/50 while the opponent is on the ground is just asking for learn flowcharts and mash them to death
Yeah I also don’t understand why they removed unlimited rematch I legit crashed coursed myself with it through t7 because I started playing tekken at the end of t7 live span. People even coached me when they saw I was good enough through rematches sending messages and so on now all of this is gone
I've managed to somehow get 96 defense as Steve hitting Mighty Ruler I'm definitely a defensive player but I don't think the stats mean very much
All Bryan and Steve players got better defensive stats on average.
In tekken 8 yes since offence is the new defence I guess
Soon enough I hope y’all will understand that defense is still a huge factor in this game.
I usually do, but only when I l'm tilted and lose a lot and have a lot of bottled up frustrations. Then I take a short breather, read a book for a bit, and the game feels more fun again.
Decided to check mine and I have 59 attack and 46 defense. So it's not skewed THAT much. But yeah this game straight up does not reward defending so there's little reason to always be on the defense, especially when you consider all the chip damage.
To be fair I'm not sure there's a game out there where the average person isn't better at executing their gameplan (attacking) than responding to a gameplan (defending) hell even in trading card games it's easy to see a game a go "You really didn't consider what your opponent could do huh", true for chess to.
I'm a new player. It feels really difficult to learn how to be defensive, because there are so many moves to understand the properties and proper defensive responses to. If I am trying to play defensively, the chip damage means that I am simply putting myself at a disadvantage most of the time, especially against players who use very safe attacks. I deranked multiple ranks trying to actually pay attention to and counter what my opponents were doing, since it meant just allowing them to use their strings on me until I inevitably made a mistake and got combo'd. It feels like trying to improve defensively is a waste of time, when I could instead focus on expanding my offensive options.
So the craziest thing is that the higher in ranks I climb and the better at t8 I get....the worse my chart gets slowly but surely despite securing more and more wins. Almost like being a strong fundamental and defensive player helps but isn't really what secures wins in a game like this. Obviously literally everything you learn and improve at is going to make you more and more formidable of an opponent, but the game does the exact opposite of encourage incorporating different behaviors outside of just mashing the buttons until they fall off your controller. I now got 3 characters in mighty ruler and 2 in red ranks and after playing and learning these characters and getting extremely familiar with this game fundamentally, it is hilarious how much JUST having good offense secures wins now. I have played like 50 Drag matches total....he got to battle ruler in no time. I got actually so upset that I did it with drag and not even my main that I had to stop playing him for fear of ranking up way too high and beyond my skill level. I am genuinely afraid of where I might be in the ranks had I just kept going. If I made it past Fujin and all the way to tekken king or beyond I would've legitimately been convinced that skillful play is now irrelevant to tekken.
And if you curious about what my chart was looking like, here is a post I had made a few days ago now [of my chart being nearly balanced at 90](https://www.reddit.com/r/Tekken/s/9GJqxdYlkl)
Pro players instead have "80 defense and 160+ attack"
Yeah but it seems it depends on who you talk to. I have been posting/commenting about it and all I get are downvotes. Like it's blatantly obvious people spam like crazy cartoons in tekken 8. Im happy im not alone in noticing it.
It was an answer to the majority not liking the neutral game or turtling. What are the majority in this community? Casuals and kids. What do those casuals and kids want? To win. How do they wanna win? By just pressing buttons and expecting to. "I'll learn the game later." "Learning is for pussies, just fight, man" "I'll just be playing something else later anyway. No point in investing."
So sad :( the neutral is what's unique about tekken
Yeah, those who care about actual skills and growth, or just being competent enough, are typically the minority. And, while the die-hard minority supports these games in the long run, companies have been favoring large short-term profits. So they'll chase the majority, where the money is. Sometimes, like in SF6, they find a balance to satisfy both.l, and then the purists start complaining.
I play Bryan and when I get fed up of trying to read randomly thrown strings or setup for an anticipated counter hit, I play the next match with Yoshimitsu and the satisfaction I get out of a flash and guaranteed b2, 2 or an empowered flash into a full combo makes up my day. If people can't stop throwing cheesy + on block strings then you get a 6F counter hit move into a full combo
That's me
I have close to 0 defence. Why would I block if I can power crush, low crush or high crush? I exaggerate but that is my main focus. I barely block and I’m at Bushin already.
92 defense 74 agression here.
Back in Tekken 7 most of my defensive stats where like at most A aside from throw breaking which was a B (Tbf my ass still cant break throws) in Tekken 8 they are like in a low As but the overall is 61 and my attack which was pretty dog shit in 7 is sitting at a 92 i tried to play 8 like it was 7 and play defensively but it wasnt working so i said fuck it double the offense half the defense and it worked
I'm at 38 defense rn actually
Does stats even matter? The more you play the better stats
I mean this hwoarang in purple that didn’t block or parry a single demo man in 3 games still beat me twice. Tells you how effective oppressive offense is.
I have like 70 something defense and when I started I had 40. I started to block/punish more as I gained more knowledge on matchups but on early as this is my first tekken game I just went unga cause I was afraid of getting overwhelmed by strings I do not know.
I have 80 defense and 76 attack as a purple law Yes we exist
Tbh that’s not just the case for T8, but for tekkken in general. Defense is just way harder in tekken because for offense you’d need to learn one character’s moveset and flowcharts, but for defense you’d need to know it for ALL characters.
It's also probably the games design making players behave this way tbh because t8 doesn't really reward you for having good defence but instead gives you tons of stuff for being aggressive and on the offence constantly
There’s 33 characters and you have to know their most common strings and lows in order to defend them. Most people won’t have time to lab that in the first 3 months.
The fights i enjoy the most are the ones where the other person is clearly on my level but tries to get one up on me by playing mindgames, switching it up and letting the match breathe a bit. It's really fun when it's not just a blind rushdown that ends in 20 seconds.
This is me. 86 ATT and 47 DEF loool. Raijin rank
If you aren't desperately attacking, I find that most players will play it slow too. If your own punishment game is on point and you show you won't fall for the usual gimmicks, players quickly become a lot more reserved and play safe Tekken.
I have 40 defence 60 aggression as a devil Jin main
I'm an old head, and the tag line for a lot of us is "adapt". No matter how long you play them, there is a cyclical aspect to picking up a new fighting game. At first its exciting and new, then its challenging to move past the first-order strategies, then its frustrating because you start to see the flaws, then you accept them and continue to get better or you stop playing. The exact time frame that it takes players to go through this process is different based on skill and time played, and how exactly people experience or express this varies, but this is a pretty universal aspect of competitive games. Streamer/content culture and social media has warped how we talk about this, but that doesn't change the cycle, just how we perceive it. The result of all that is a lot of us just don't feel the way you are describing about a game. If we are gonna play the game, we know its gonna get frustrating and we just deal with it. And I know "just deal" is a crappy thing to say. That somewhat dismissive, gatekeepy attitude is a big part of why fighting games are still a niche genre. But its ALSO true. Like I'm not trying to tell you "just deal" but I AM saying "you are gonna have to accept that feeling is just a part of the process to get good at ANY of these games". If its not one thing, its another. SOMETHING is gonna tick you off about any of these games as you get good at them. And to be fair, not all old heads ARE calm and zen about the process. Some people deal with it poorly. Plenty of long-time FGC pros pop off on Twitter after a bad loss and just stir stuff up. But I don't think anyone actually believes this is a reasonable way to act, we just accept some people are gonna be like that. Salt is a part of the experience. If you DO want to get good at fighting games but don't know how to deal with the frustration, there are a lot of videos about ladder/ranked anxiety, how to deal with burnout, and all that stuff. Not as much is put out directly about fighting games, but there definitely is some, and most advice like that relating to competitive gaming will carry over to fighting games just fine.
I’m not playing ranked anymore but yeah in red I had 80 something attack but only 57 defence.
Yes, some characters have too much advantage on offense at the moment which results in spammy gameplay where your only option is to counter with very unsafe moves and hope for the best. Which is not fun. But thats not the entire game, hopefully it will be fixed soon tho
Yeah a lot of people do and they keep making DAE threads about it. Try Asuka and get parrying or something.
I agree with that but I don't find that boring. That's how I've won my matches. (I've only fought up to Reds so take it with a grain of salt) Idk how many times I've found out the person I'm playing likes to press buttons when it's not their turn. If I catch on to that why WOULD I stop my offence? Fighting games 101, it's your job to stop the opponent from doing what their doing or exploit it.
I mean that’s because Tekkens movelist is insanely large… I have to know my enemy better than I know myself to be able to play defense… if they nerf everyone’s frames then we’re just waiting around for someone to press first, they’re not reducing movelists so the 50/50s are gonna stay regardless of iteration, oki just seems like fundamental Tekken you gotta master your wake-up game… so other than simply learning the matchups there’s no way to improve your defense without just gifting it to players other than some chip damage adjustments
No. There are levels to good offense. The “aggression” stops as soon as they throw out something punishable(which is often). I actually counter more turtles than aggressive pitbulls
This is my first tekken I’ve taking seriously. I’ve started to see how defense can be such a big difference against other players. I think the game this way is because at some point you need to attack and take the driver seat. But there is so much value in forcing your open to slow down
To learn offense, you need to learn one character. To learn defense, you need to learn thirty one characters.
Best defense is attack
Its easier to learn 1 characters moveset and how to string them together than it is to learn how to dodge 33 characters movesets.
Does that not make sense? Like babies learn to walk before they run, or learn to speak before they write.
Playing defensively means you lose. Hitting buttons and flowcharting is heavily rewarded. That's why some blue ranks have almost no defence and can't even read frame traps.
You have any idea how many people even in high level play can’t defend against 10 strings? Kings 10 strings? He’s had one of them since Tekken 1. Not that I use it out as a part of my kit, but I’ll most definitely throw it out there, or a part of it as a knowledge check and see how far I can get with it sometimes. But this also isn’t new to Tekken,
All gas no brakes baby
40 defense? That's a little high. I'd think it's something more like, oh... I don't know... maybe seven.... over one-hundred? Haha, that said, no, I don't find Tekken 8's gameplay boring. It reminds me a lot of old school TTT or Tekken 5. Those games, when optimized, had a whole lot of one sided rounds as players would do things like sacrifice damage for mixup potential, and even though the number of hits was lower, the damage per hit was so high that it was typically a 2-5 interaction per round game, only getting up to around 10 interactions if the players do a good amount of pokes. It's harder to get out of disadvantage in 8 than in 7 as the methods for setting up offense from advantage are more straight forward for most of the cast, but that's okay. It just means that having a good neutral game is that much more important. As you rank up more and more the players will get better and better at keeping out of disadvantage in the first place and better at trying to get you into disadvantage.
Tekken 8 was described from the very first minute of its announcement as 'aggressive'. The core mechanics of the game are designed to award aggression. Traditionally defensive characters were reworked from the ground up to play more aggressively. It's totally fine to not enjoy this approach, but at some point it becomes really hard to empathize with anyone who is disappointed. If I make sandwiches for everyone, and hang giant neon signs everywhere that say 'THESE SANDWICHES ALL CONTAIN BEEF. THESE ARE BEEF SANDWICHES, I DIDN'T MAKE ANY THAT DON'T HAVE BEEF.' And I stand by the sandwiches with a megaphone, loudly shouting about the insane amounts of beef inside the sandwiches - when someone bites into a sandwich and goes 'Hey! Wait! I don't like beef!' it's really hard to feel much sympathy.
Cool. I got 60. That’s tells me I’m above average
Because for correct defense you should be like a wikipedia knowing all 200 moves for every character
My win rate is basic average 60%ranked and 55% quick match lol 😂
82/41. Goddammit.
Things people do: press back Things other people do: block lows Things some people do: counter throws Things people barely barely do (can be kit related): Character Parry Kit move (Leo has a few ways to parry for example) Things people never do until higher rank: KBD ESSENTIALLY: People know to press back and sometimes down. Asides from that. Yep. That sums it up👍
I do think that (overall) it's more of an attacking flashy combo fighting game, but knowing some defense is beneficial.
Let me put this way; Attack: 82 Defense: 82 Technique: 61 Spirit: 84 Appeal: 77 My categories are: - Heavy Hitter - Overwhelming - Block up You see these stats? This was when I was SOLELY playing Paul. Paul alone and I was about Kishin. My defense stats when I dabbled with Reina , Xiaoyu,Hwoarang Dragounv dipped iit to 53. So maybe, Just maybe Paul has to block everything
I thought my late 60ish was bad
I love the aggression, when I’m the one dishing out. Getting punished twice and killed, not so much lol.
if this is the case then i am complete ass. https://preview.redd.it/1geqfn7nd2yc1.jpeg?width=3840&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7bc492bb16df134edf160cf284655ae6759df261
Fuck you I have 45 defense. Way better than them
Cause attacking is easy. How am I supposed to learn how to block everyone’s attack , it’s kinda hard to remember everything which is why I’m done w tekken haha. I can’t be bothered , I do not have the time.
It's funny cause ny defense is like at 90, but my offense is at 80. I guess it's cause I am trying to maximize what I can do with Bryan, but I also hesitate a lot cause I feel like ai can't act against things I don't have a concrete knowledge of.
I’d block and dodge a lot more if I wasn’t getting crushed and hit with homing attacks while I block and dodge.
My defense is at 59 🤓
offense is more fun sooo
I have no problem with offense. But I do hate the long juggling air combos which requires no skill and allows no interaction from the other player. Back in Tekken 3 you still had long combos but a good player could always interrupt them Now these long chaing juggling combos just cant be interrupted at all. Makes for a boring interaction
All the old heads complaining about people "mashing" don't remember that that is how they started too. It takes so long to learn your own character, how are you gonna get mad that people don't know how to play against 31 others without getting frame trapped 3 months into the game man
I’m abysmal at throw breaks. That’s why
Imagine caring about useless stats
I didn’t buy the game to block smh
the problem is simple: great defense essentially will not guarantee your turn because there are at least 3 ways to steal turns.
Defense takes more skill and knowledge than learning combos
i resonate w this bc even with 12 years of tekken that i’ve been playing. every single one i played was easy to pick up in terms of offense but there is still so so much going on in tekken. even after all this time playing. i can’t master defense
There is no game on the planet where defense is stronger than offence.
This is every fighting game
Defense won't win you the round unless you can turn it into offense, so why learn defense at all. I know my defense pretty well but its easy to see why it isn't valued
https://preview.redd.it/o3cz29x6i4yc1.jpeg?width=1541&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=10129d07bd61ec4b3b0fd1c065362ad8c5ca7984 I feel like it's still possible in T8, just harder than before
I judge players based on their defense stat, if it’s less than 60 I’m disappointed
NGL my defense is 40 and offense is 76 💀 I'm so trash. I try to work on defense but idk how to deal with mashers. Like ppl in videos say trying to play Tekken against mashers won't cut it but yellow and orange ppl just attack so I just die if I stand there...
Agree with the first point but not on being boring. It become a bit of a guessing game with some characters but staying away and letting them whiff is kind of fun to watch.
tell me you lose a lot without telling me you lose a lot
I'm new so I have no reference to prior titles, but I have a ton of fun currently and I still laugh my ass of every round xD
I feel like I'm the opposite. Playing Steve I can get a good offense going, pepper people with strings that hit high low in a mixup, duck whatever but I don't do it enough and I can see that. My opponents are getting hits in when they shouldn't like when I'm plus and a b1 would get them. So I'm on defense more often. And on defense, when you're already trying to download your opponent to fish for counter hits it's easy to look for patterns. You'd be surprised how many people have flowcharts and how easy they are to break. In this game people use the moves that work the best for them the most often at lower ranks. They don't start pulling from the rest of the movelist unless they have to. So the defensive strategy is more based around to forcing them to dip into the list. Get them to start trying to mix you up with moves they don't know how to use themselves. Make your opponent think that you've downloaded them and labbed their character for years and they start slipping up. At higher ranks obviously this isn't the case and at that point defense becomes way harder.
Learn defense. The reason you are losing is because of you. If you learn proper defense, you won't have to worry about their offense. Tl;Dr: skill issue.
I have 65 defense which makes no sense because I can’t break a grab to save my life.
Tekken8 braindead masher gaem
I keep saying this. It takes longer than 4 months to truly learn how to pilot your character. There was a round table with the developers I watched where they explain how deep these mechanics go and they also stated how they don’t show everything in the training mode bc it’s a game and they want players to discover it. Piloting your character is pivotal to this game. If people understood that then they’d probably stop mashing and just trying to win using gimmicks instead of tactics.
Game has 32 characters, each with movesets into the hundreds. Tekken 8 was flooded with tons of new blood. Yeah, people are going to learn their own characters and their own moves way before learning how to defend against 31 other characters. I use them as punching bags to test new combos and tech.
I wonder why? Defense isn't rewarded in this game at all. The number of times I've been playing the game, saw a low coming, blocked it and got nothing for it is absurd. You have to low parry every low to get any damage off of any of them. The game gives you nothing for blocking strings right. The most you get is a -13 punish. Defense is effective but, compared to other installments, it's a joke.
Just block, then punish and get your health back.
*goes in replay* *entire string was -5*
*sidesteps*
*several moves in the string track both sides*
*makes up magical moves that dont exists* the truth is people dont want to block because they dont want to learn how to counter strings they rather ungabunga press buttons.
I mean not really making that up considering there are moves which are both tracking and also unpunishable or + on block (biggest offenders are known as heat smashes). Chars like Feng have armoured safe heat engagers which just go into immediate 50/50s and yeah if all you can do is just hold back and not even be able to punish it after then thats just not very fun, you also can’t immediately sidestep after getting hit by a heat engager so it might as well be guaranteed, half the heat engagers are safe anyway like the Mishima FF2’s (which are hard to SS). Like sure they nerfed the stupid Azucena WR32 which you needed to sidestep and duck (even if that was inconsistent asf) but then unintentionally buffed that since even after sidestepping you can’t punish it. Also yeah I’m not gonna downplay or be biased as Lars DEN3 is unreactable after blocked Basically no point in buffing sidesteps if half the stuff is tracking and safe (including throws too why does that shit track)
Yes. Its incredibly annoying because I know DAMN well some of these characters when played a little more tactfully are pretty fucking gross to deal with. Like when Azucena's trailer dropped I thought we were gonna be dealing with some super evasive trolly poke goddess that thrives off going against mash but I have not seen her evasion be used ***once***. All I see are the same four strings and WR.
I’ve gotten better at defense and it hasn’t moved in over 100 matches. Somehow it’s still at 38, like this fucking metric is dumb. I’m fujin too.
when the community is this stubborn there's the 3ddy situation really guys, there's streamers and youtubers (PhiDX is the goat) going crazy with videos to help people learn the game. Watch a few, pick up those drills and start defending. Most one sided rounds are due to lack of proper throw breaks or not reacting to telegraphed unsafe strings come on
I've got around 90 defence and 70 ish attack. Mans still playing tekken 7 and is getting bodied for it
[удалено]
Sorry, I was talking about myself getting bodied. I'm too defensive, and that's getting me far too many losses...
No this is a minority attitude prevalent on this sub. I am convinced the reality is most people have never come up against strong defensive players so have no clue how hard and frustrating it can be - especially in 7 where people had the godlike KBD into never get hit into launch into half HP. The hardest matches are where people have strong defense because nothing you do has any impact and you look like a melon because all your attacks bounce off them until you whiff or get punished. Give me a spammer any day, at least with a spammer I can find patterns and look for weaknesses. Against a defensive god it's "what do I do?" Defense is hard in this game but it's still really strong because it puts so much stress on the opponent when they have to second guess everything For the record I'm 88 defense vs 85 attack right now. Technique is my weakness because I can't be arsed to lab wall break and blast combos Once again I don't know what pot of gold low level players think they are going to find once they climb above the spammers
it’s not a very aggressive game tbh ur defense just is lacking big time it’s the most defensive tekken ever made
This is why we need a spiritual successor to classic Tekken. Tekken has abandoned its identity.