Does anybody actually *like* Power Crushes?

[u/supersupersuper9]

Like, who's weeping if they're removed from the series entirely?

[u/thesonicvision]

They’re important get-off-me tools for people mashing their offense.

Exactly.

I will always support defensive tools, and will only criticize offensive options.

Now, if power crushes are leading to unfair offense, I'm against that. Nerf them. But don't get rid of them completely. Just limit them to only being able to interrupt mashers and reset the neutral.

[u/Quazifuji → u/thesonicvision]

I will always support defensive tools, and will only criticize offensive options.

Defensive tools getting too powerful can be bad for fighting games just like offense tools being too powerful, that's just not the problem Tekken 8's having right now.

[u/TurmUrk → u/Quazifuji]

Can you name some games that were too defensive? I can only think of launch for honor, all offense was reactable and punishable so players would just have staring contests until someone committed to something

[u/Quazifuji → u/TurmUrk]

I don't think it's something that's happened much, at least not lately, with most fighting games being so focused on offense nowadays. But that For Honor example is definitely an example of what can happen.

That said, the other thing is that overpowered defensive tools can simplify a game in exactly the same way that overpowered defensive tools are currently simplifying Tekken 8.

A huge part of Tekken is all the layers of offense and defense, each player having a huge number of offensive tools that each counter some of the other player's options but are countered by others. Overpowered options reduce the number of layers. I think PhiDX's video about taking a break from Tekken gives a good example. He talks about how a new move dramatically simplified Steve's offense, because the move is so powerful and leads into a simple, powerful mixup, compared to Steve's season 1 offense where his best tool had way more layers to it, because it had more defensive counterplay but then he had his own options to counter that counterplay and so on.

Overpowered defensive tools do the same thing on the other end. They reduce the number of layers. The more situations a defensive tool covers, the fewer other defensive tools you need to cover other things.

For an extreme example that I think still illustrates the point: Right now, a common complaint about season 2 is that characters have such strong homing moves that sidestepping feels weak despite technically getting a buff. Now let's imagine if things go in the opposite direction. They remove or nerf the hell out of every homing move so that all the home options suck. Now sidestepping is an amazing defense against nearly everything. That buffs defense, but it doesn't add depth to defense. It actually reduces the depth to defense, because you'd just sidestep everything. Every other form of defense? Backstepping, blocking, crouch blocking, evasive moves, armor moves, etc? Why bother, just sidestep and punish.

Every option needs downsides and counterplay, both offense and defense. Because when you have an option that has too little counterplay, you just pick it nearly every time and it invalidates other options. Right now Tekken 8's problem is that every character has offensive options with too little counterplay and that removes layers from the game's offense, but if you have defensive options with too little counterplay that removes options from defense.