Turn Your Voice Into The New Game.

I would like to start by saying Happy New Years! I hope that people are excited about the news and just want to move forward and put this gig into gears. I need to hear your thoughts on a concentrated level about the new game coming out. With that said, lets use this particular room for discussion of what you the fans / competitors / organizers / moderators / admins want in this new game.

Try your best to keep me informed as I will be working hard to really ensure that the voice of the community is heard. Everyone deserves a chance to speak their mind on things, my role here is to make sure that your message doesn't fall on dead ears.

Stay on topic : What would make the next SC game GREAT. details details details... Take care everyone.

FilthieRich (www.twitter.com/filthierich) (www.facebook.com/soulcalibur)

 

- Make the stages at least 2 times bigger
- Online play that has been updated with a "train-while-you-wait" feature, which lets you practice while waiting for your online lobby to fill up. (like BB:CS's)
- A new announcer.
- Character specific, in match dialogue, like so~

( Sorry for not explaining this well, but I think you can get the general idea of what I'm talking about :P)
- Make the stages more memorable, I mean Cassandra's home stage in SCIII was a burning house. :D
- Charater specific stages.
- Character specific themes.
- A tag-team mode: SCIV had the ability to change characters during a match in Tower of Lost Souls. Seem like it'd be a waste to not use it again.
- Add team mode, it was pretty wierd that they removed it in the first place.
- Make online better.
- Have each character have 4 costumes, and have the other 2 costumes unlock-able by playing some mode that's similiar to Tower of Lost Souls , or Weapon Master.
- CG endings/opening
- Have an opening song that's like Soul Blade's
- Have guest artists design the fourth costum design (Like how Oh! Great designed Asholette
- Make Tira's dialougue crazier/darker. Make her voice more mature sounding too
- Make all the characters talk a bit more
- Make the game way, way more flashier.
- Make the OST more exciting. SCIV's music seemed pretty bland/meh compared to Thanatos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwewEotEVAY
Maybe speeding up the music could help add some flavor :I
- Make the game faster

- The biggest wish though that I have is for the SCV team to bring back Masumi Ito, Benten Maru , Yoshiyuki Ito, Aki Hata, and Taku Iwasaki to do the SCV soundtrack :D!

 

Story mode:
- LONGER!
- Have a prologue and epilogue cutscene (A long one)
- Reveal more about the character's pass
Online:
- Make it recordable
- Team battle
- Show more stuff in the player's profile. Like best win steak or disconnection count on rank match -__-
- Make the lobby look cute ( Like DOA4 )
General:
- MORE EPIC STAGES!
- MORE DRAMATIC SOUNDTRACK!
Character:
- Bring back ivy's sc3 face T.T
- Make ALL move of Hilde's doom combo as JF!!!
- Design a more revealing costume for Hilde
- keep Tira the way she ...

 

Well, one thing that i loved about SCIII that i dont think IV had was an awesome opening movie. I know its kind of unimportant, but opening movies make a big difference to me. The opening for III was just epic cause of all the fighting scenes that they were able to incorporate, while getting the main story of the game in it as well. I hate when the movie stars Nightmare and Siegfried, even though Soul Calibur doesnt have main characters. I like to see all of the characters interacting/fighting with each other to get pumped, instead of just watching Algol's story through the whole thing pretty much. Also, they should bring in most, if not all the characters into the movie. I hate them focusing only on the popular ones.

And focusing on the actual game, some things that i think they could add are Ukemi's for when you get smashed against a wall. Cant think of much else they could add really, but other people probably have good ideas that i didnt look through.

Oh, and if they are going to have characters be "unlockable", they shouldnt give you enough money to buy them without having to do anything at all. Honestly, when i first bought the game they didnt have Talim or Mina to start out with, so i wanted to figure out how to unlock them before playing the game, and so i went to character creation after i figured out thats how you unlocked people, and i started out with enough money to buy half of them. Stupid.

And please, take out a stage like that damn see-saw one that i hate. And i think it would be cool if they brought back popular stages with new graphics.

Also, leave out guest characters, if possible. Original characters are always the best. And if guest characters need to be put in to boost profits, at least dont make them have "the force" to piss me off, and dont, by any means, make a small character like Yoda again.

Edit:

Oh and i thought of a few more things.

Let us edit ALL of the color on the main costume of the characters in Character Creation. Cause i dont like that red bead on Talim's necklace when the rest of her outfit is purple and blue.

And being able to edit the colors of SOME of the weapons would be cool too. I think not being able to edit their main weapons and the Soul Calibur/Soul Edge weapons would be best, but the rest, it would be nice to edit the colors of the weapons to match your characters outfit.

Bring back the weapon demonstrations would be nice also, those were fun to watch.

Also, some vertical moves that track like crazy need to be fixed. Tira's unblockable for example...

Retire some characters. There are a lot of doubles in this game, and characters stories have nowhere to go after a while. I would say retire Rock for sure, and replace him with Bango, and i would say retire Sophie, but then Cassandra would have no reason to be in the game, because her whole reason for fighting is to protect and watch after Sophie, but the editors could get around that.

 

EDIT: by popular request of the siegfried soul arena im posting our wishlist here:
http://www.8wayrun.com/threads/soulcalibur-v-siegfried-what-do-you-want-to-see.6524/

1st thing 1st that Namco should focus on is gameplay and balance. i can understand every character is different, but each character should have a fighting chance against one another(eg bottom tier having a chance to beat top tier if used to maximum level.) remove all infinites. dont nerf RO range, but make sure there isnt something ridiculous like doom combo either. keep characters moving properly, eliminate needless whiffing, and try to make every move useful in some way, shape or form, no matter how bad the move actually is, it has a place.

keep the critical finish system in place, as it prevents extreme turtling. if it proves to be unbalanced, move it from a instant kill to a 60% damage attack, as mentioned earlier.

bring back soul charging as a standard action to give characters more options while maintaining balance at all times.

increase the command list size by bringing back alot of the moves that were taken away from SC3 to SC4, such as the moves you would execute while landing from a jump.

after such should be a variety of game modes. once the game is perfectly balanced, players should have enough game modes to get a good 100+ hours of gameplay out of this game NOT INCLUDING ONLINE. if need be, make it a multidisc game, or require a data install. bring back all game modes from all previous soul caliburs, but make sure each mode is also refined to the fullest (eg including an AI difficulty setting for chronicals of the sword)

increase the number of stages, including old stages from previous SC's. test them for balance as well.

after that is completed, develop a deep, and in depth storymode that really drags people into the game. heres an example from my SC5 siegfried whishlist:

.........

STORY/PERSONALITY

get sieg to do something with hilde since she saved his life last game. since she only shattered soul edge, it will likely return through its shards, but allow sieg to seek alternate means of destroying it. develop in him sense of loyalty, and perhaps create a teamwork effort between siegfried and hilde. develop a deeper, more personal view of each character, especially sieg. (what does he enjoy? what does he dislike? he may be trying to redeem himself, but he is still human afterall.) make the storymode much longer, and in doing so allow more events to take place in greater depth. who does sieg meet along the way? who does he fight? does he aim to kill, or simply try to subdue his foe? allow multiple paths in each story as well, allowing different outcomes and multiple endings dependant on path decisions. maybe sieg has come to view soul calibur with disdain? maybe he chooses to immerse himself with its power to stop soul edge at all costs? integrate flashbacks using costumes from older games. maybe have sieg visit his mother, and show a cutscene of it? whatever happend to Schwarzwind? how do people view Siegfried? is he seen as noble and just for his acts of redemption? or is he yet still viewed as a monster for his horrific acts commited under soul edge influence? where does sieg go? what is he really looking for? does he ever hold a ceremony for his father? incorporate more of siegfrieds personal perspective and thoughts as cutscenes. does he think of his father often? has he come to terms with his past? how has the relationship between raphael and siegfried progressed over time? the storyline could quite possibly be very strong here, as we're already working with a deep character as is. perhaps siegfried is able to save some1 like sophitia? idk, just some ideas.

see? there are so many possibilities.

now once we get through all of this lets work on refining the AI a tad more. perhaps keep all current AI's, but adjust their behavior to make them more human like(eg humans dont GI imcf on reaction). perhaps add a final difficulty setting that uses real tactics used by real players in real competition, that also incorporates several different play styles. lots of work, but thats y we have patches right?

1 - Tutorial Mode: Needs to cover topics such as why to use a move, point out safety, punishing, grab breaking, different Gi's, etc... Really cover all the way up to advanced tactics. a LOOOOOT of the games mechanics are completely unknown to people who don't actively seek info on the net and even then are under the impression combos and hard move define the game. A lot of them don't even know the difference between stepping and 8wayrunning. Also go over timing with hard moves. Have a tempo meter during say Asura dance so people know when the input for each step needs to come in. I still have no clue when to time GB Asura.

2 - Frames, Hit Boxes, and etc in Practice: I REALLY want to know the games frame data and hit boxes. Give us a way to turn that info on in practice mode so we can test things out! It can be aggravating to hunt that info down and double check if it's correct. Also show SG damage! It's fun to find ways to use moves and etc...it is NOT fun to test huge movelists for these details with a loose assumption if they're right. I'd rather be handed the info and have fun piecing together what to do with it. Anyone could waste a whole day grinding for the info (I know I have) in practice, but it's not rewarding or fulfilling. At least release the data even if it's not in game, the Strategy Guide for SCIV was TERRIBLE and had hardly any info worth having. It was essentially a repeat of all the move lists (80% of the guide...all of which is already in game and yet still lacked just frames and etc...).

^ this is one of the best ideas i have ever heard. thank u IFB. this should really be integrated into SC4. i loved the tutorial mode in SC3, even tho it didnt teach alot of the game mechanics it at least helped people get an understanding of the game. if time is such a big issue, allow a tutorial creation mode for users to create in depth tutorials for certain characters, including advanced techniques, such as frames and punishment, and basic techniques such the terminology we use here on 8wayrun, blocking, guard impacting. we could even go into move execution, i personally thing that would help alot of people, and im sure some of us here on 8wayrun would be overjoyed to write tutorials for a tutorial mode, myself included.

allow an extremely in depth CAS(depth of SC3, detail of SC4) mode that locks the characters hitboxes, preventing any sort of gameplay issues what so ever

after this is completed we may begin work on special vs. eliminate things like soul gauge charge + appeal right off the bat. then attempt to balance abilities in more ways than just equipment. sure some equipment may contribuite, but make the style levels count for something as well, allowing more development points for different abilities. let armor also affect movement to a greater extent. place limits on how powerful some characters can eventually become (eg no S rank abilities & 200% of 1 attribute comes at the cost of another). once more test each ability for character balance ex siegfried with soul gauge damage A shudnt critical finish with any more in less than 5 hits.)

finally once this is said and done with, we can work on the online mode. perhaps keep the current session set up with some improvement. allow the session search option to display ALL current sessions that are online, not just the 1st 6, then u refresh and see the next 6. perhaps work on net code to better reduce lag, allowing players to react to lag tactics and punish more efficiently. try to set online mode up almost as if it were part of a community, welcoming both casual and competitive players. include both standard and special vs. i think Jaxel here was working something out for a ranked mode, as well as we've had alot of attempts made by various people in the online forum, including Partisan. perhaps base ranking on some kind of point system, or even better, base it so that those who use lag tactics are penalized. provide steady and frequent patch support for online that perhaps lower the latency, even if just a specialty side process for certain moves that allows players to react to them. this woudl reduce, or even possibly eliminate lag tactics all together.

allow players the option to report bugs to namco, so that they can be patched and the game bettered.

now, if funding is an issue for patches, then i have many solutions to that as well.
1) namco shud draw their funds from hosting online tournaments. a % of entry fees goes to namco for maintenance
2) allow some kind of premium subscription or such to soul calibur that goes directly to maintenance of the game.
3) collect donations for maintenance
4) designate a % of game profits towards maintenance
5) achieve fees for maintenance through the sales of downloadable content
6) This could work nicely as well:

If they want to attract some casuals, Namco should run one of those polls that are so popular right now. Make a contest of it even.

Let people design some costumes, after they've sent in the art let everyone else vote on them, then include the winners in the game's Create-a-Soul section.

Namco gets free advertising and free art design, fans get their fanwank on, everyone gets a vote. Seems like everybody wins.

which brings me finally to my last point of downloadable content.

include frequent and new DLC. perhaps new characters, or reoccurring guest characters, new stages, game modes, music tracks, costumes, weapons, expansions, u name it it can be done. it would even be nice to allow user made mods to be downloaded through the soul calibur network. i know we already have a few active modders here on 8way already such as OOFMATIC. they'd probably love some way to share their content with current gen users, and i think this option would also create bigger consumer attraction. hell if they want to allow them to take their mods for online vs play through things like the "soul calibur mod network" or something like that.

through all of this effort i think that this would become a truly amazing game loved by the public, and possibly regarded as 1 of the best games of all time. the attraction of a game of this "calibur" would surely drive sales through the roof, and it would give calibur players a strong, united community of casual and competitive players for many years to come.

 

Blegh, finally felt a slight need to post.

1: Please have an arcade loketest, even if it's only in foreign countries. I don't care if there's a several month wait afterwards if it means having a better game in the end and larger player interest all around.

2. If the above isn't reasonable, go with what other people have said and have exclusive console loketests.

3. Make moves safer in general, and improve the mediocre/bad lows for a lot of characters. I can understand why Namco did this in the previous game so that offense combined with CFs didn't become overpowering, but I feel it backfired and hurt the gameplay overall as a result. Even if there's still a gap, having bottom characters that are fundamentally better still goes a long way imho.

4. Improve stances in general. There's a select few that are good (Mitsu, Amy), but many are just gimmicks that rely on smoke, mirrors, and ignorance + have garbage risk/reward. That, or their only purpose is for pretty combos. Ideally they'd still retain functional individuality, but if not I'd prefer not having one as opposed to having a worthless gimmick.

 

lose CAS
just give character edit like in tekken 6
focus on balance and game modes
give us characters that will be around for a few games no need for guest characters

 

Pretty much anything I can think of has been covered, just one thing I want to throw out there:

I would like to see the ability to just choose a weapon during character select again, regardless of what happens with CaS. I often go over to my brother-in-law's to play SCIV, and I'd like the freedom to use different weapons without having to take up time to make a custom character and CaS slots to do so.

Edit: Other thought, though it has sort of been touched on, I'd like to see Night Terror return to the game, I thought he made for an awesome boss character.

 

SC4 turned me off with the Creation mode, they took away from the creativity and originality from it forcing you to rely on game characters to be upgraded by the items. Or you went to Story mode or the Tower with a weak good looking character or strong silly character. Another problem may have been that the budget for SC4 was used up to get Dark Vader, Yoda, Starkiller, Three Star Wars stages filled with Star Wars trademark creations and theme songs. Compare SC3 to SC4 and the space that a XBOX360 disc or Blu-ray disc can hold...SC3 honestly had more content. They were worried too much on topping SC2's guest that they go and lease out characters whose colors you can't even change, weapons are unavailable to your using and quite frankly didn't make an epic splash in the series like Link did for the Gamecube version. In today's market you can rarely pick up a title for either system and look at it and say it's worth it's price tag. Now we're just paying for their name, or the character on the cover.

If they are going to make a step up, with an exclusion to what they have to fix to the game mechanics, fighting games will always have an unbalanced character(s),glitches, and things that just make you shake your head in shame along with a "wtf"...But we need to focus on the game content itself, bring back the real modes. The tower of souls wasn't fun, missions like "Defeat your foe before you are swallowed by quick sand!" "The rats on the floor are explosive!" The tower tried to gather this feeling but didn't.
Story isn't really that important because you can always just throw what happened to the side, follow someone else's path, push it so far ahead of every other installment people won't even bother to think about it. But I would like to see something new outside of the focus of "Journey for the cursed blade". Make some Demon Boss pop up that's going to make people want things like Nightmare around, or something that Nightmare might want to kill so he can absorb it's soul and become Night Terror, that will cause everyone to stop him. Make a new power that has nothing to do with those swords but rivals them and wants them destroyed so it can be the sole power in the world. SC3 kinda turned away from making a redundant antagonist and so did SC4...But you found most people's endings focus was on killing Siegfried at the end.

Overall I would like to see the Creation system go back to what it was in SC3, add more clothes, maybe two layers for every equipment slot. Keep the new body features in SC4 and bring back more hair. Get mission mode, exhibition theater, real artwork to be unlocked not all that cgi that I can find on the internet and don't waste the budget on extravagant guest. NamcoBandai has an extensive catalog of characters that can be ported for nothing than paying George Lucas all the money he's trying to rape back from Star Wars. And If they don't bring back custom weapon styles and just keep it strictly to styles of the main characters so what. The thing was the from SC1-SC3 they had something appealing for everyone. SC4 was just appealing to old SC fans, SW fans and pervs. I just want something that when I'm not spending countless hours of playing against friends that I can sit and play it by myself without saying "I wish they still had..."

 

Lastly (hope i didnt re-post this)

The command for soul crush should be available during stance (for example, waiting for maxi to end looping)

Is that a problem in Broken Destiny or something? Maxi can CF from stance in SC4.
---

Anyways, I find that having only 3 commands and 2 actions in training is too restrictive. Would really appreciate a few more slots.

Thanks for listening.

 

A training mode that displays and tests the execution of
attacks and easy combos would be great for more casual players in learning techniques.

To help convey an attacker's disadvantage after being blocked, and to create more realistic looking and dynamic feeling battles, there could be different blocking animations unique to each character. In addition to adding visual interest, this would help the defender know how unsafe the blocked attack is, and also explain why someone like talim can block just as effectively as nightmare, as talim could sort of deflect or dodge the attack as blocked, while nightmare could use his large sword to simply take the impact. This effect could be as subtle or as unique to each character as needed.

Character Customization was great in IV, just more slots and more choices. Allow Limited Edition to start with everything unlocked again please!

Constantly mashing a button while guarding to prevent throws is rather flawed. Perhaps have the two throw variants also be assigned to a different directional input of escape-- In addition to A+G and B+G, the attacker can choose to start the throw mid or high and the defender must predict which the attacker will choose, giving a more immediate opportunity to prevent a throw, but also allowing the attacker to play mindgames. Throws are an important and appreciated part of Soulcalibur though, despite the complaints heard against them.

Just a few ideas for awesome new weapon styles: A nimble Kusirigama (Chain-Sickle) wielder, Two large steel mallets or balls chained together (like a hefty Maxi), and a fast striking short-spear user

Only thing else I can think of now is online lag... but Namco-Bandai won't disappoint us with that again!

ps : Don't let our ideas obscure your creativity too much... you know better than we do

 

Wait a second. I havent been following the SC news. Is SC 5 actually hapening? IF so OMGOMGOMG!!! Ahem.. anyways, I love soul calibur 4 and it is my favourite fighting game. There isnt too much I want but here goes.

I want:
-Astaroth to remain as awesome as he was in SC4 (dont think I have to wory about that)
-Get rid of Amy. IMO she just doesnt fit in with the rest of the cast.
-Better stages. EX. that see saw stage while an interesting mechanic was bland
-Loved the character customization. want to see it return with more options
-balance (obviously)
-some kind of gamelay mechanic involoving a meter. (Maybe the more damage you do the more it fills and with enough you could do something cool after a successful parry? Or maybe like a cancel or something similar to sf4's focus attack? I dunno, just a thought)
-pre battle character interactions are always hilarious/awesome
-I dont really care about the story but Id like to see a sweet CGI intro (not super important) and possibly a story mode similar to SC2's
-New characters
-Old characters
-Less lag online (imostly play offline anyways though)

ummm thats all i can think of for now. Ill be extremely happy if this game comes out, and I know alot of my friends will be too.

 

my main and only request...

KEEP DAMPIERRE!

 

So far what I have liked from others.

The return of Hwang, Edgemaster, LiLong as playable characters.
Chronicles of the Sword.
Great story centering around specific characters.
Team Battle.
3 vs 3 verses.
Instant Replays. Saving your match replays.
Epic Announcer, Taunts.
Increased gamespeed like in SC2 and SC3.

A tribute to awesomeness.

 

Soul Calibur is awesome.

 

#1 - A PC version for god's sake. I bet 99.9% of the game is done on an x86 system anyway before being worked on with a console SDK. The arcade machines these days are crappy old Core 2s running Windows XP.

#2 - No more insane mad broke characters like those previous crazy guest characters, Hilda and Amy. In fact, no guest characters would be great. I guess what I'm asking for is balance, but the odds of that are even lower than the odds of a PC version which is infinitesimal.

 

Wow there are some great ideas here, keep them coming!

Soul Calibur 4 is brilliant for so many reasons including:

-Gameplay is extremely fun, rewarding good attack and good defense in equal measure
-Visually it's fantastic. I remember training with some characters when i first got the game - my heart melted when i saw some of the moves taki, nightmare and mina were capable of. All charas have amazing aesthetics in their movement, in sc4 even more than the previous titles
-Balance is excellent despite complaints. people are still arguing about tier lists 2 1/2 years since release. They couldn't have known mina's SG damage and range wouldn't counterbalance her weak frames up close. Or that hilde would be able to survive without attacking for 3 seconds in order to use her supermoves.

I think catering for the casual gamers is extremely important. Namco must primarily sell the game or we can forget about them producing new versions in the future. They have done such a great job with gameplay and balance in the past; that's why we're all still here, still playing the game and supporting a sequel. I trust them completely to do this again. the visuals and basic gameplay is what brings most players to the game in the first place, and they've always been excellent.

I'd like to see:

-Improved focus on story. SC universe has a really in depth story comared to other fighting games, and in particular the backstory in Soul Edge and Soul Calibur I for each character was incredibly deep. It added to the sense that your character was actually fighting for something, rather than just winning a tournament.
-Development of the SG system. The danger of soul crush was such a brilliant way to prevent turtling play, and balance the improved punishing system in sc4. Someone (Shenrii?) above suggested attributing advantages at different levels of SG, and i would personally like some kind of power increase at high (blue flashy) level. For example, to gain guard crush / unblockables or be able to soul charge.
-More intricate and interaction-based stages. the current ring out and wall combo systems are superb. For more interesting level design, you could include for example levels with lower stages where you could knock your opponent down. Depending on the design the character may sustain damage but continue to fight, or may lose the round but the fight would continue from there in the next round. This would add a new layer of strategy if say Seig was stronger on stage 1 but hilde had advantages on stage 2.

Hmm sorry for the wall of text. I've got some other ideas about stages and other things coming to me but I'll hold off for now.

i don't agree with: releasing frame data and making Edge Master mode play like a tourney player. it's up to us as a community to figure out the high level stuff, don't make namco and project soul slave over the inclusion and presentation of such things in their game. edge master mode in sc4 is excellent at teaching you to block, punish, step appropriately and play safe. it's not there to challenge you.

however a basic tutorial on punishment, safety, spacing and things like shaking stuns might be good.

---------------------------

I don't think you can ignore people's input about balance. Everyone who's played this for a while will think their opinion is valid. However a better player is more likely to come up with more effective nerfs/buffs without crippling/OPing a given character.

Nonetheless i still think Namco has done a great job balancing all the games so far. 2 1/2 years down the line and tournaments are still won by many different charcters (though mostly Ivy. bitch)

Don't forget that it can take a while for top players to fully realise a character's potential. Think how much the tier lists have changed since 2008. So best leave it to the designers, and then patch anything ridiculous a few months after SC5 comes out.

As for new ideas, I'd love:

> Team battle mode return, and online. Maybe with 'lives' for each character; so if in round 1 Maxi loses, he loses 1 life, Kilik can step in, and then if/when Kilik loses Maxi can continue so long as he has lives remaining. So if it was a 3-player team each with 3 lives, opponents would need to win 9 rounds to win.
Maybe even team Critical Finishers!?!

> More interactive stages. Imagine a castle curtain wall with a parapet (low wall) surrounding, and a square hole in the middle into which a character could be knocked. Then the fight would continue in the hall or throne room.

> Stories with objectives, tension and intrigue. The only reasonable story in SCIV was Sophitia's, where she was tricked by Tira into thinking that she had to protect Soul Edge or her children would die (because they were born while she had shards of Soul Edge in her wounds from her battle with Cervantes). Now imagine if, in SCIV, she had defeated Algol,taken Soul Edge, and become corrupted by its influence. Now imagine that Cassandra obtained Soul Calibur and was tasked to destroy the evil sword. Could she do it without harming her sister? The dilemma!! And imagine if Tira became Sophitia's servant!?! Or vice versa!?! Epic!!

If each character had proper motivations and each of these were both strongly related to the character him/herself, and these goals of each cast member would then intermingle, it would make a fantastic game even for those who won't play it for more than 20 hours. But also add more flavour to the pro fights!!

Also please make Xianghua's story better than: she was the child prodigy who banished the Inferno in SC I but now is full of doubts about her weaknesses and is horny for Kilik. This is pretty much her SC II-IV story

----------------------

Update - and some more ideas / Tapestry of fanboyism:

Lots of people want old characters back - so maybe make them boss characters?
- Ghost of Li Long returns to avenge Chie and himself against Mitsu / Cervantes
- Ghost of Xianglian haunts Kilik in his dreams, guilts him into taking the Dvapara Yuga from him and tries to trick him into giving it up
- Hwang returns to confront Hwang and Mina and force them to decide whether they really want to risk their lives in war, or return to their loved ones in Korea
- Kong Xiuqiang resolves to give up drink and take on the responsibility of rebuilding the Ling-Sheng Su Temple, only to meet Kilik who had murdered his daughter... and perhaps to finally meet his second daughter, Xianghua, whom he doesn't know even exists? They could meet at Xianglian's grave for example
- Edge master returns because he's so freaking cool
- Chie / Geki /Toki etc.

It would be awesome if there was time to create different paths for each character. Rather than all vying to find soul calibur / soul edge and face the same boss, the tried and tested formula format could change so that each character had to face other cast members. E.g. if Astaroth discovered that Talim had some inner power that could unlock Soul Calibur's hidden potential, or destroy Soul Edge for good, then he might try to find her but have to fight through Yun-Seong, Mina, Hwang, and/or maybe a powered-up version of Talim herself, having found and become in tune with the Holy Sword.

I'd particularly like these kinds of confrontations in the single-player modes because some of the most interesting backstories for various characters involve their meetings in the past, such as Mina's humiliation at the hands of Ivy, and Mitsurugi's persistent stalemate battles with Taki.

In terms of specifically balancing characters, all of Belial's suggestions are excellent. However they would serve only to improve SC4, where presumably SC5 will have new move lists. As such specific suggestions are impossible now, but I would prefer the SC4 direction of making the characters fight very differently and balancing them over time, rather than making all moves in the game adhere to basic rules. I don't like the idea of making all moves either safe or ranged or powerful or fast - characters can have moves like Asura or Umbrella or C3A so long as they are balanced by weaknesses elsewhere. It's part of the skill of the game to be aware of your opponent's strongest moves and adjust your playstyle accordingly.

I thought that the way cut scenes were rendered using in game-graphics was amazing, although I do think that the opening movies were a lot better in previous iterations, including Soul Blade/Edge.

I loved the subtleties in SCII such as being able to jump off walls (or special moves like X's WS [K] up the wall) and the changing hitboxes during step - that was unbelievable. Although I agree completely with those who want the game to continue to develop and diversify, rather than just remaking SCII. As posted elsewhere, stepping and GIs are great just as they are in SCIV.

 

Franman, your an idiot.

I was actually going to say what idle said......MARKET THIS GAME TO UR FUCKIN TEKKEN COMMUNITY, AND INTERNATIONAL REGIONS!!!!

Get involved in Sponsored Tourneys

Include another Tekken Character to the Main Cast...we know "guests" do you well make one permanent

Yes, as IDLE says, NAMCO can handle all the little stuff, we should mostly worry about the Marketing and Exposurw.

That G4 online Tourney thing was good, need more

And BALANCE!! Playtest and BALANCE!

Thank You

 

My few and only real suggestions

NUMBER ONE: Re-balance, using BD as the starting point. Boost the lowest tiers like Mina and Rock. Keep the balance as such that no character should be banned in tournaments.

Everything else is just a wish

-Superior net code, everyone here has harped on online and what it should be, so I'll leave it at that.

-Unlockable outfits from all previous games. SC2 NM was just pure shit your pantness.

-Bring Rock back to his Soul Edge days when he was pure raw POWA, and not throw you around till you hurl.

-Story mode equal to or greater than Tales of Souls from SC3

-Random stage effects, this made things so interesting.

-NO guest characters, period. Make new characters that are FOR the Soul series, not just showing up randomly in it.

-NO new characters using any cloning of any styles, if they're a new character, give them their own style of fighting.

-Keep the current bonus characters (Shura, Kamikirimusi, etc), but give them their own move set, don't take the lazy way or cheap way and clone a style and give it to them.

-Bring back Li Long, Hwang, and EVERY prior Soul character, including some bonus character from SC3's Tale of Souls (ALL HAIL STRIFE!!!)

-Bring back SC3 style selection for custom characters, you had nearly 75 styles or so to choose from, that didn't have to be the cookie cutter of the standard stock characters. Make these move sets equal to the standard move sets as well. Balanced, deadly, and most importantly, FUN!

-Improve the character customization, come on guys, you can do far better than SC4's. SC3 easily proved that.

-Instead of the in between rounds "X person wins the round!" or "KO!" sort of thing, I'd like to see it be more realistic and show the downed opponent get back up and get ready to fight again. I think this would be a change in a good direction, small but still good to see imo.

Wishlist Edit 1:
Why not give the ability to edit the actual styles themselves, change/remove/add moves as you see fit. Maybe giving some sort of limitation on what can and cannot be used (IE Can't use all safe moves with i10 speed). Selecting your own critical finish, or even making up your own!

So that's my wishlist, love it, hate it, I don't care. Just wanted to get it out there.

 

damn I kinda missed this thread.

Things I'd like to see in SC5:

-Bring back the original SC1 soul charge system, with updates of course for guard crush and soul gauge effects. But soul charge cancels, soul charge unblockables and everything that goes with them add a great layer of depth to the game and allows for players to get more creative with any character's move list. Maybe now instead of having certain moves be unblockable at a certain level (1-3), you can now have level 1's do more soul gauge damage on block, level 2's do guard crush and lv 3's are unblockable. Make the moves affected by soul charging be a wide variety as well, give people reasons to mess around with their character's entire tool kit.

-Keep the guard crush system the same as it was in 4. Worked great in my opinion.

-Keep the parry/repel system from 4 for guard impacting. As well as the just frame guard impacts for throws and unblockables, it was delicious.

-I'd personally like to see more focus on VS gameplay and balance for the next installment. I've made other posts in depth about it, but I'll keep this brief. If you focus a little less on single player aspects and additional outfits (add them later for DLC= more $$ for you anyways), the people keeping your game alive will be the 'hardcore' demographic. We will be the ones telling people to play this, we will be the ones defending your game against bad reviews and messageboard trollings, we will be the ones playing/promoting this game in public- giving you free advertising and we will be the ones lining up at midnight to get our copy as soon as possible. Yes we account for less that 1% of your actual overall sales, but the effect we have on others around us, online and in our community is immeasurable.
The way to not only keep, but INCREASE you hardcore fanbase is to put the time into testing and balancing characters and keeping your game competitively viable. I am willing to wait a little bit longer to see this game, if it means I know it was being tested properly.

-As an addendum to the above statement, improving the online play is key to your game being successful in this day and age. See: SF4.

-Have a team willing to patch the game if a degenerate gameplay exploit, bug/glitch or balance issue is found post production, and patch it (or at least tell the community you plan to) as soon as possible. This problem has plagued the SC series from the get go, and it always leads to community dissension, 'game is broke' rumors running rampant elsewhere and hurts your overall bottom line.
You have the ability to release DLC outfits, characters and gameplay modes... Balance/Fix patches should be included (in a timely fashion).

-Completely agreeing with most everyone here, increasing the games public profile and image is important. Market to all the 3D communities, market through SRK, release teasers and do all that facebook crap too.

========================

Personal wants:

-For god's sake PLEASE keep Voldo and Ivy's move lists/stance commands consistent for once! They are the most tortured players on earth, every game they have to learn a new character just to play their old one, often radically different from the one they left behind. While this isn't bad once and while to freshen up a character, porr Voldo and Ivy get radically changed every game!

-Rock is a throw dependent character... Please make his throws more useful. They took a step in the right direction with Broken Destiny, his throws didn't scale when performed mid combo.

-If you insist on guest characters, do it from a market that shares an interest. Add characters from another fighting game series, preferably one that is weapon based...or Tekken. Fighting gamers will buy fighting games, especially if their favorite characters cross over. Was Star Wars even a TINY success for marketing?

-If you are gonna add a single player mode... now that online is enabled, add the old SC2 arcade conquest mode! Have host player set up their world, and have X slots of players who can join in the conquest by battling AI ghosts of the actual player. That was the funnest single player mode I experienced with this franchise, I still play it to this day at a movie theater by my house (It's Ivy, all she does is 33A, 22B, 6~9B and SS set ups lol).

-Have an online leaderboard that emulates more of an arcade feel. Not just total victories or points... Have stuff like win streaks, time attack and survival for individual characters as well, that is always a fun one to attain and still includes all that grind the online player love so much.

-Have EdgeMaster, Ocldan and Charade come back and be selectable for the random slot. Everyone loves them, hell I'll even settle for Combot.

eh that's all i got before i go to work, not much originality I'm afraid.

cha cha

 

Hey, it's safe to come out!

I know I'm new to the boards here, but is it possible for mods to delete posts by other members? I really want Namco to take this thread seriously, and the flaming isn't going to help that.

I'm glad that some of you guys realize that we need to cater to more casual gamers as well as us. They are the driving force of the series in terms of whether or not the series will continue. That's why I was actually asking for guest characters, even if they don't make sense most of the time. Not to make it seem like we're better than them or anything, but not much needs to be done to make it marketable to them. Just make the game nice looking (fan service included), have a couple of fun single player and multiplayer modes, and put them on display on the back cover of the game. They don't even need to be robust.

In order to keep players playing, things like simple mechanics, great online play, and a fleshed out training mode would be a big step in the right direction. Thankfully, Soul Calibur 4 already has one of those, and it wouldn't hurt the game to put a little more focus on the other aspects needed.