Virtua Fighter popularity... Relaunch?

This. Everyone could use a good trimming. Rework properties on existing moves, bam. Be hella easier to jump in as a new player.

I remember even Evo was hard and took 2.5 years just to finally get a vague understanding of it all.

Yeah, hopefully it'd be called VF6 and not be VF4 ver.100.

 

Sorry for the quick typical VFDC de-railed, but are you saying SF IV is a 3D fighter? Just asking. Anyway, people know the reason why SFIV is were is at right now. Not because is "Old School" is because, ONE-There hasn't been a new SF in over a decade, TWO-Marketing. This game was hyped from the get go. Ever since 1up showed the first gameplay footage(Back in DEC.07)The hype never stop. Capcom, keep releasing pics, after pics, through out the entire year of 08.

And here's the thing, SF(Like Reno, mention)Has a simple movelist, not only that, but easier to get into other characters due to the design of SF. You have fireball motion, characters, and then, you have your charge characters. So, is easier for a casual to mess around.

 

DOA's movelist size is similar to VF (maybe bigger) and that game was a great success, sales-wise. Casual players love that game..

You don't have to cut down on the movelists to appeal to casual players.

 

Well, true, but the thing with DOA is the combo system, you could easily smash buttons and get a "Cool" string combo to come out, and this applies to everyone. Is not going to guarantee you success against a more experience player, but against your roomate or buddy, you could have some fun matches by mashing away. And the TNA factor helps as well. And plus, the game has alot of eye candy going on in the background, similar to Tekken.

 

I realized some time ago that most noobs online don't know how to evade. Then, once they learn that, they evade all the time. I am in the process of learning how to deal with failed evades...all this stuff is interesting, but takes time to get to grip with, especially if you're slow like me. Sega needs to get the beauty of this game out in the open, because right now people at large are struggling to see the the real beauty of the game system...

 

I'm shocked to see you suggest this /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/shocked.gif

VF gameplay and depth are virtually perfect(excuse the pun)

I see noobs pickup the game and play it all the time. TBH I've never really heard noobs complaining about how hard the game is.

What I have seen, is noobs frustrated when they can't beat an intermediate VF player. I've seen two noobs playing each other and they think the game is fun. But once you introduce a player that knows the movelists, or what a sabaki or inashi is, the fun
element is over. Noobs don't like losing. So its not the movelist that hurts VF's popularity, in part its the fact that the people who like it get good at it and the gap between an intermediate player in VF and a Noob, is a lot bigger than in other fighting games.

The other big problem is the other publishers of fighting games
tend to be a little more supportive of the console versions. They tend to give more press releases about what they're going with the franchise. Namco is a lot better a letting the console fanbase know what's up with Tekken or Soul Calibur than Sega is.

Sega can seem almost secretive at times. So console fans have no idea what the future of the game looks like. Contrast that to Namco, just google the Namco interviews about Tekken for console, Tekken 4, 5, DR, and 6. Their schedules might slip, but at least the fanbase has some idea what's goin on.

Noobs can't get into the VF franchise, because there's no franchise. Hell if we didn't have VFDC we wouldn't be getting any information at all about VF.

Cuttin down the movelist aint the answer my friend because once you get the noob, you've got to keep the noob. Noobs don't stay noobs, they grow, they look for deeper gameplay. If they can't find deeper gameplay then they look for more game features, story line, customizable characters, easter-eggs, and publisher commitment.

Capcom gives its console fighter fanbase something to look forward to. They "seem" to show more commitment to console fanbase than Sega does with VF.

I don't think Sega has much to do with VFDC. But if VFDC was gone, what would be out there about Virtua Fighter. On the other hand you could get rid of Tekken Zaibatsu and Tekken fans could still get interviews, announcments, etc from GameSpy,Gamestop, Namco and so on.

Cuttin movelists in half would be the worse thing you could do to
VF. If you put it at the same level as some of the other fighters out there, but you don't have a good back story, don't lots of other game features, and no lighting, fireballs, or kangeroos, then the noobs will definitely not go for it /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif

1) Leave the fighting engine alone
2) Leave the movelist complexity alone
3) Put tutorial Mode back in with improvements
4) Add backstories and Character Profile Movies, etc
5) Add Character Customization ala Soul Calibur IV
6) Make Character Profiles portable
7) Dress up online and lobby
8) Provide a console roadmap for the fanboys
9) Sega hold an interview every now and then about VF on console
10) Promote a few console tournaments (outside of Japan)

 

I don't think trimming the movelists would hurt, but it's not really necessary either. I think that making the basics easier would go a lot farther than weakening the movelists. Why do we still double tap for dashing when that is the desired primary form of movement? Why does the forward dash have to be a double tap, but the side dash is a single tap? Why doesn't a single tap forward or backward do anything? Why does holding down duck, but holding up walks? These are questions I have been asked by people I was trying to get into the game. And they're right. Simplify and consolidate all of the BASIC techniques and input types (Virtua Fighter 3 started this, but we're a button short of being able to make it work without overlapping) and it makes things easier to pick up.

When you get away from the internet and ask people who will play other fighting games why they play those and not Virtua Fighter, they all reply with "that shit is boring" or something similar. But if you show them high level play, they become more interested. I think people online hide behind other nonsense and refuse to admit how much an interesting story means to them. Casuals want a cool looking game with a decent story, in game movies and rewards. The hardcore want a refined game to be sure, but a game with a massive following is just as important for competition (ask MarkMan).

Having good gameplay will not necessarily sell. Having complicated gameplay will not necessarily prevent it from selling. See: Mortal Kombat and Tekken, respectively. A game has to have visually interesting characters, a slick presentation package, some semblance of a storyline and decent marketing. Sega's approach has typically been to ignore all of that for this series because "Virtua Fighter is the deepest competitive..." blahblahblah. It isn't working. The Virtua Fighter name itself is poisoned in the West.

Repackage the whole thing: new name, new setting, new story, new characters, voice acting, presentation. Same core Virtua Fighter system, but with more major new systems. Grappling, enviroments, or even the way that damage is taken could all be changed and move the series' gameplay beyond VF4.v3.

 

And how does your comparison work with Tekken 6 that is also more popular than VF?

 

Another thing to note: having Akira as the poster boy of the series hurts tremendously. Casuals almost always pick him first and you can't get SHIT to happen with him. They conclude the game is too hard and quit.

 

I totally agree with masterpro. Foremost on the zero propomtion part.

What i don't agree with is the tutorial part. Sure a tutorial would be nice. But EVERTYHING could hve been implemented within the quest mode. Soul Calibur style. Yeah, i mentioned soul calibur. Most of you are going "GROAN" now. But in that game you HAVE to learn about stuff while playing the "tales of souls" mode or whatever it's called. I remember an enemy who had no frickin legs! Charade maybe? And then another enemy that could be thrown! There was this other quest-thingy where you HAD to deflect edgemaster's attacks with the f+g thingy because his attacks were doing chip damage on block. And trhere was this other special encounter where i ws *poisoned* so i couldn't play defensively.

Now look at VF5. Same as Soul Calibur, you have to play the quest mode to customise you rcharacter. Only the quest mode is barebones. Emptier that Fannie Mae's treasury. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? Who's going to grind that thing?

Would it kill them to put a wolf AI that only does low punch & dm p+k and write "learn to duck when facing wolf player that use evade p+k a lot". Or put a lau AI that keeps doing unsafe moves and write "block and punish this opponent's moves"? To much work? Did the SEGA in-house doctor warn the developpers they'd have testes cancer if the quest mode was actually interesting? or made sense? Why the fuck are the missions located in the arcade mode? Nobody plays that mode since there's no items! And for GOLD? That's double useless! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

 

Well in VF5, if you play on Expert you come across very specific styles of play like those you listed. It doesn't offer any advice as what to do against it which is a shame but you can easily learn from it.

There's an Akira in there that only does 46p+k but he's evil with it, took me ages to work out how to get round it /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/frown.gif

 

^ Someone so has to make a "to be this bad at marketing takes AGES" poster now!

 

Yea but... What about /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif

http://jobs.gamasutra.com/jobseekerx/ViewAccountProfile.asp?accountno=25891

 

Well said I remember convincing a co-worker to buy vf4 and he hated it said it was slow and unresponsive. I did not think about it at the time but I can only imagine he was using Akira.

The Quest mode and Arcade mode in VF5 really do hurt bad. These are the core modes of gameplay for fresh scrubs. They go here before going online to get battered (if they ever go online, which with VF5 ps3 you cant grrrrr).

Given all the recommendations thus far I think this is whats needed.

New lead promotional character.

Enhanced Quest mode.

Arcade mode reworked and written with actual stories and cutscenes.

New name (I still feel this would help alot especially if the had a story to tie it to).

New characters

Fully fleshed out online mode (Fighting games need to start putting serious time in here same as FPS games).

Lastly new frickin voice acting my goodness the voice acting in VF5 sucks so hard it hurts.

 

Quest mode for VF5 might not be as good as VF4EVO but it's not nearly as bare bones as T5DR's Ghost Mode.

 

There is some truth to this statement..

 

The voice acting for the announcers OMG /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/crazy.gif

Voice Acting IMHO

Akira -- Okay
Goh -- Okay
AOI -- Okay
Pai -- Okay
Kage -- Okay
Shun -- Okay
Lei -- Okay


Lion -- Sux
Blaze -- Sux
Jacky -- Sux
Brad -- Sux

Wolf/Jeffrey ???

Lau -- Sux
Vannessa -- Sux


Let-em use an appropriate language, AOI japanese, Lion French, etc /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif

 

There's so much truth in this thread it's staggering. Please Sega, listen to us! (Nice dream there eh?)

I agree far too much with the idea of "Repackaging" the Virtua Fighter Series (Aside from changing the name). Virtua Fighter has needed to be redone in some ways for so long now that it's almost unbelievable that Sega still hasn't done so. Personally, I wouldn't be a fan of creating custom characters or altering the movelists, but I'd accept those changes if Sega wanted to add them to try to increse VF's appeal to new players.

Anyway - I agree with sealion about the voice acting. It's easily one of the biggest problems. I mean, 9 out of the 17 characters in VF5 speak Japanese, and there aren't even any subtitles! Most new players can't even understand what half of the characters say without looking up translations online (I had no idea what Goh was saying...). I'm not saying "Get rid of the original voices.", I just think that there should at least be a "All english" voice option to turn on if you want to. SC4, SF4 and I'm sure a lot of other fighters have that option, why doesn't VF5? I think being able to understand the characters would help make them more appealing. And yeah, all of the English voice acting already in the game is terrible. I agree with that completely. (But I still like the voice acting... it's odd.)

Everything else, like the desperate need for a basic (well done) story mode that shows the characters interacting; the need for in-depth tutorials that explain how the game works on all levels; and the general idea that Sega needs to actually do something to connect with their fans, has already been mentioned so I won't talk about that. Sega needs to do all of that soon, or I may really start worrying about VF.

In the end, the lack of VF's large-scale success on consoles is completely Sega's fault, not the fans fault or because people didn't buy it. Sega could have included online play with the PS3 version of VF5 and they didn't (That's the biggest problem that I saw possible new players mention when it first came out). Sega could have included a new story, tutorials and voice acting but they didn't. Oh, and Sega could've responded to those thousands of e-mails that we've all sent them for the last 9 months regarding VF5R, but they haven't.

I know Virtua Fighter is a game that is all about gameplay, and I couldn't be more thankful for it. VF5 is the best game that I have ever played, and I will wait for VF5R for as long as it takes. But seriously, Sega. You need to update your game. This is 2009! I have no doubt that if Sega would include some of the things mentioned in this thread in the next VF game on consoles, that VF5R/VF5FT/VF6 would do much better sales wise and bring in a ton of new players at the same time.

(Oh, and Dural is an awful end boss character. Make a new one AM2. /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif)

(Edit: Oh right. Sega could also actually advertise their game. That might help /forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/laugh.gif )