Soul Calibur VI: General discussion

As much as I would love seeing more stages (dunno why my thoughts strayed to burning Toledo, perhaps it's Cassandra) I kinda doubt we will recieve them. Considering how much time we're waiting for mostly recycled items and how much more work is required to create a stage it's kinda dubious we will see any of them. Unless Namco drops some extra funds on season 2 but I'm not convinced we will even get S2 in the first place
 
As much as I would love seeing more stages (dunno why my thoughts strayed to burning Toledo, perhaps it's Cassandra) I kinda doubt we will recieve them. Considering how much time we're waiting for mostly recycled items and how much more work is required to create a stage it's kinda dubious we will see any of them. Unless Namco drops some extra funds on season 2 but I'm not convinced we will even get S2 in the first place
Well, at the right DLC price-point, extra staff to accelerate the process becomes viable. But you raise a valid concern nevertheless--not only does a stage take probably more man hours to complete than a whole customization pack, you also have to generate music for it (though this can be gotten around by simply using a legacy stage and assigning the original music). On the other hand, a character with a unique moveset is a comparable or larger investment of man hours and we seem to have plenty of those coming up. It is a concern that we've never heard a peep out of PS on the possibility of extra stages, but then it hasn't even been at the forefront of fan discussion until recently. And Season 2 hasn't even been confirmed as an official matter as yet, so there's no reason to expect them to hint at any stages that might have been considered as a part of that deal. Then again, if Season 2 does have six characters, and they want to keep the same price-point as the first season pass, it's hard to imagine them adding much extra content on top of the characters, other than the SCIV and SCV music and other such bonuses which involve very little work.

But in any event, our best odds are if we make our qualms about the current dearth of stages well known to Project Soul. We may have dilly-dallied on this too long as is, since Season 2's basic offerings were probably determined some time ago, but as i see it, there's still every reason to try and agitate for this content and no reason not to.
 
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As much as I would love seeing more stages (dunno why my thoughts strayed to burning Toledo, perhaps it's Cassandra) I kinda doubt we will recieve them. Considering how much time we're waiting for mostly recycled items and how much more work is required to create a stage it's kinda dubious we will see any of them. Unless Namco drops some extra funds on season 2 but I'm not convinced we will even get S2 in the first place
I mean, we have some hope, we got as far as learning Season 2 was at least in a planning stage. (Hopefully they go ahead with it).
We also know that in some capacity Season 2 is already been made, the music has already been prepared.

That and us getting ports is even more reason for us to get stages, SCIV/V are filled to the brim with stages that can be ported to this game.
No doubt in the SCVI environment with the current visual direction they'd look a million times better too. I don't think the majority of the content being ports is a reason to loose hope with the stages. If anything, its the only reason I can still hope.

If they were clever though if they go the route of porting stages I hope they port them regardless of story context. Especially since the general models in SCVI follow the style of the last two games it wont be a nightmare for them to refine them a little bit. I seriously think if we press for it we have got hope.

I might be delusional, but if we don't get new stages then I do hope we get every single stage from SCIV/V.

But in any event, our best odds are if we make our qualms about the current dearth of stages well known to Project Soul. We may have dilly-dallied on this too long as is, since Season 2's basic offerings were probably determined some time ago, but as i see it, there's still every reason to try and agitate for this content and no reason not to/
We have to be very persistent at this point. While I don't think they would be doing it intentionally to spite any of the fans, I do expect them to want to abandon the game post season 2 if it happens. Hopefully by Season 2 we'll be getting the stages though.
While it might not be a super reliable comparison, what takes away my hope is the way Tekken 7 stages were put out.
 
I still have not gotten around to buying T7; what is it about their approach to stages in that game that discourages you?

Essentially their new stages were reskins of previous ones (after home release to my knowledge). So essentially the same map but Night/Day to get the general idea across.
Its not a bad thing per say, but its more it being all they added in general when it came to stages. While it would be nice, I'd be quite disappointed considering SCVI already has a time of day system on some maps.
The only true new stage they got I believe was the Walking Dead one, which I would equate to Soulcalibur VI getting 2B's stage.

I haven't kept up perfectly with T7 (so if I'm wrong, anyone feel free to correct me). But I'm pretty sure that's how it worked there.
 
It is a concern that we've never heard a peep out of PS on the possibility of extra stages, but then it hasn't even been at the forefront of fan discussion until recently.
Okubo made a tweet a few weeks back about wanting to put more stages in while it was being developed so he at least knows it's an issue, i can't find it right now but it should still be in his replies.
 
As much as I would love seeing more stages (dunno why my thoughts strayed to burning Toledo, perhaps it's Cassandra) I kinda doubt we will recieve them. Considering how much time we're waiting for mostly recycled items and how much more work is required to create a stage it's kinda dubious we will see any of them. Unless Namco drops some extra funds on season 2 but I'm not convinced we will even get S2 in the first place
Why?

Namco stated multiple times that SCVI was a success that increased their profits. For reference, BBTAG sold much lower and still got a second season.
 
Untill we will have official info I preffer to stay pessimistic about the idea of season 2 or at least not treat it as given
I'm a bit more optimistic since the base game has sold well and now with this new poll asking our opinions reinforces my optimism for at least another season of DLC.

In case we get nothing further, I'm currently playing around with trying to port CaS parts from both SCIV and V but have mixed results so far. As you can see, I ported over the Tiger Lily Stockings but you can see a seam slightly above the stockings. So it's going to be a bit more complex to simply port things over since I'm an overall amateur who had to seek FluffyQuack's expertise and help from other modders to get me started. I'm going to be trying to export more CaS content to replace the boring parts I don't use. For the most part, the SCV things seem to be a perfect fit at first. For this exercise, I replaced the Night Butterfly Socks since it allows for two colors while if I would have replace the thigh highs, I would only be allowed to color with one color. The downside to using Amy's stockings is that I can't apply stickers on the stockings themselves. I'm still messing around with replacing other things but it's a bit time consuming and work gets in the way a lot, lol.

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But once you begin trying to mix and match, you run into issues, so it's not as simple as swapping the meshes and textures. Here, you can see two major issues that I have ran into so far, one is that there is a seam slightly above the top of the stockings, so the skin textures of SCV are different I believe. Then, since they are using Amy's stockings, the stockings disappear and this is the result.

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With that said, that doesn't mean it's entirely a failure, since I replaced Amy's stockings, that means you can create some interesting combos with the undergarments. Some parts look good while others, the clipping makes it look out of place. With that in mind, it does open the doors for those really creative and wanting to achieve certain looks. For example, the Tiger Lily Stockings makes the the Seraph's Armor look a bit less awkward and blends in pretty good once you color them to your choice.

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So with my experimentation I've done so far, it's not as easy as swapping textures and meshes that many here are complaining about not being in the game. It takes time to properly make them work and that must be true for all CaS parts from SCV needing to be reworked nearly from the ground up. With the game's small budget and small team, they have done well because you saw the issues I ran into with just this lone CaS part, imagine having to rework all the others..... It takes time folks, so hold your horses and see for yourself that it takes time to simply bring over the CaS parts from both SCIV and V......
 
That’s all true, but the people working on these CAS parts aren’t amateur modders. They’re professional game designers, programmers, etc, who actually know how to do these things on a base level, rather than just replacing meshes that are already in game. We already knew it was more complicated than just copy & paste, and I never thought it would be easy, but they’re supposed to be professionals, and I’m sure they have access to a butt load of loopholes around the issues modders have with this since they can work in engine with all of the tools that they used to create the game, the models, etc.
 
That’s all true, but the people working on these CAS parts aren’t amateur modders. They’re professional game designers, programmers, etc, who actually know how to do these things on a base level, rather than just replacing meshes that are already in game. We already knew it was more complicated than just copy & paste, and I never thought it would be easy, but they’re supposed to be professionals, and I’m sure they have access to a butt load of loopholes around the issues modders have with this since they can work in engine with all of the tools that they used to create the game, the models, etc.

They actually have control of the slots and tags so it should be vastly easier for them since the pieces have already been made anyway. We're sticking stuff in slots that have their own compatibility rules.

Or at least I assume the community hasn't found a way to modify the rules etc.

While it may be petty, it wouldn't surprise me if quite simply the developers found the process to be quite irritating.
 
I'm betting the disappointing amount of CAS items is due to budget. We don't know how many people they have working on these Creation Sets, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a tiny amount of staff. Considering the low budget of the main game, there's no way they allocated a lot for DLC. Maybe season pass 2 will have more content than season pass 1 now as Namco sees SC6 as one of their main successes from their last fiscal year.
 
I'm betting the disappointing amount of CAS items is due to budget. We don't know how many people they have working on these Creation Sets, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a tiny amount of staff. Considering the low budget of the main game, there's no way they allocated a lot for DLC. Maybe season pass 2 will have more content than season pass 1 now as Namco sees SC6 as one of their main successes from their last fiscal year.

At the pace the DLC (the characters in addition to the CaS) are being released, and considering what we know about the production of the core game, I'd say that a tiny amount of staff is virtually certain. However, I'm not sure that's the most sensible way to evaluate the "fairness" of the deal that the CaS packs (or DLC generally) represent; we're buying from Namco as the publisher, not Project Soul, the internal development team. If those teams are undermanned, that's Namco's own choice and it doesn't really effect that analysis of what we get for our consumer dollar (though it can, of course, effect the cost-benefit value of the content that they ultimately put on the market).

All of that said, am I the only one here who feels like what we get actually represents pretty incredible value when compared against the competitors? So not all of the items are to everyone's taste or have featured in previous games. For the same amount of money that, in this season pass, buys you four new characters, dozens of music tracks, and 120 dynamic objects that have to be carefully developed for a feature-rich character editor that no other fighter even attempts to offer you, you would get maybe a dozen static, uninspired, non-personalizable outfits that each could only be used on one character in DoA. I mean...that's a pretty drastic difference in value, and it's comparable to the kinds of skins you are offered as DLC for similar prices in just about every other fighter. On top of that, Namco have been dropping free content with every other update in recent months--they aren't huge drops, but there too, I can't think of any other publisher of fighters that gives you anything for free right now, post release.

In any event, lay people who have never worked with modellers are definitely, definitely under-appreciating the amount of work involved here in their assumptions. Even with Namco's library of assets, development tools and skilled labour pool, this stuff takes time. I suspect that Namco's profit margins on this DLC are actually pretty thin at the prices they are selling it at (and certainly narrower than what their nearest genre competitors are making on their DLC). And their staff could definitely be used elsewhere on more lucrative IPs (Project Soul is an ad-hoc development team that is constituted for new entries of Soul Calibur games with staff that must eventually be re-absorbed into other higher profile teams, not a permanent studio). I think the only reason they are pursuing this is because it synergizes sales with the base product and they expect they can move enough units of both that it makes sense under a variable sales model.

Anyway, I just feel if what we are getting here is seen as not decent value, we're all getting pretty damn spoiled. Development costs have skyrocketed and it's not just the demands of more technically complex games and concordantly larger teams that have gone up--think about the increase in basic wage rates, company overhead, and licensing costs over the same thirty years that the cost of a new game has remained static. If $30 for what we got in this season pass seems bad, some people are in for a super rude awakening regarding what is coming down the pike as the industry standard. But as with most products, most people today just don't recognize the basic real costs of the stuff they buy, or appreciate the basic reality of inflation. Honestly, this is as good as its gonna get. Good lord, how did I end up the one defending this, my fourth most favourite Soulcalibur game against people who mostly say that it is one of their favourites? This is so weird.
 
All of that said, am I the only one here who feels like what we get actually represents pretty incredible value when compared against the competitors? So not all of the items are to everyone's taste or have featured in previous games. For the same amount of money that, in this season pass, buys you four new characters, dozens of music tracks, and 120 dynamic objects that have to be carefully developed for a feature-rich character editor that no other fighter even attempts to offer you, you would get maybe a dozen static, uninspired, non-personalizable outfits that each could only be used on one character in DoA. I mean...that's a pretty drastic difference in value, and it's comparable to the kinds of skins you are offered as DLC for similar prices in just about every other fighter. On top of that, Namco have been dropping free content with every other update in recent months--they aren't huge drops, but there too, I can't think of any other publisher of fighters that gives you anything for free right now, post release.
The season pass has been worthwhile for me (2 characters I really like, and I really like how much music they've been adding from old SC games), but I'm having a hard time getting excited about the CAS items. They're nice additions, but CAS in the base game is 99% identical to the CAS system in SC5 but with far fewer items. And now we're getting DLC items which are also mostly ports of items from SC4 and 5.

But well, that's mostly nitpicky for me as I'm just glad the game is actually getting supported. I would have been a bit sad if the base game was all we ever got.
 
The season pass has been worthwhile for me (2 characters I really like, and I really like how much music they've been adding from old SC games), but I'm having a hard time getting excited about the CAS items. They're nice additions, but CAS in the base game is 99% identical to the CAS system in SC5 but with far fewer items. And now we're getting DLC items which are also mostly ports of items from SC4 and 5.

But well, that's mostly nitpicky for me as I'm just glad the game is actually getting supported. I would have been a bit sad if the base game was all we ever got.

That's basically how I feel as well (although I don't mind legacy CaS items as much as some). But then, I was always going to buy every single character, so it just made sense for me to buy the season pass--in that light, the CaS packs are virtually free bonuses to me. And in any event, I'd have bought them even if I thought they were all trash, just to do my part to increase the odds that Namco will mebrace this continuing support model and get more and more characters out in further seasons--movesets are where it's really at for me. Plus they even added in the old music as a bonus.

So doing the math, buying the season pass saves you about 17% on each item--or put otherwise, you pay about $5 USD per DLC marketplace item. And each CaS pack includes not quite 100 items, if you include both CaS parts and music. That means one pays about 5 cents for each DLC item within the pack. Even if I'm not doing cartwheels over each and every piece of equipment, that's pretty good value, particularly when you compare it against (to use just one example) the fact that DoA's best value DLC pack sells you 83 items for $53, or 63 cents per item. Or in other words, customization content on Soulcalibur's closest competitor costs nearly thirteen times as much. And I don't know about everyone else, but I'd rather have customization content that I can mix and match in an editor to create my own somewhat unique content than two dozen bikinis for Hitomi. So yeah, I think it's awesome value--even if we are talking in real value terms, but particularly so if we are considering it relative to what other companies offer you for your dollar right now. Plus my money goes to boost the chances that I will see the single most comprehensive roster of any SC game to date.
 
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We shouldn’t need DLC to make a game feel “complete” and the base game does not feel “complete” to me. I will continue to support them for my love of older sc games though.
See now that's an opinion I can respect, even if I don't 100% share it. Personally, I don't feel that the base game is fully fleshed out in the ways I would want it to be (roster size, stage selection, CaS), but it is nevertheless a complete game in terms of the overall amount of content, because of the overabundance of single player content offsets those other lackluster offerings, as a "did they do enough to justify 'full game' price tag?" Mind you, I think that's a terrible balance for a Soulcalibur game; as I see it, development for a Soulcalibur game should have the following priorities:
  1. Start with creating a sizeable roster with well-developed movesets and basic mechanics that are deep, stable, bug-free, polished, and balanced.
  2. Once that most essential base of a large selection of characters in a refined battle system is established, the next most important element is a large selection of detailed and vibrant stages and their accompanying music.
  3. Once those first two elements are established, focus should be upon developing reliable multiplayer modes, matchmaking, netcode, and other online features.
  4. Next in priority is construction of a decent selection of CaS items.
  5. And only after all of those areas are fleshed out and polished, should story modes become a priority, becoming as well developed as the remaining resources and manpower allow.
But that's pretty much the opposite of what Namco chose to do this time around, and I can't just choose to ignore that they put more than enough effort into creating the total offerings than is necessary to justify a $60 price tag, even if they did put most of their eggs into the worst basket (from my perspective on what makes a good SC game/competitive fighter in general). And yeah, SCVI may not be one of my favourite games, but I've never bought a SC game that didn't turn out to be worth the price several times over. I'm sure I'm going to be complaining and complaining about it's shortcomings for years...but in the final analysis I'm still likely to put hundreds of hours into it at a minimum, meaning it's well worth buying at full price. Ok, so maybe if I'd known a little more about how poorly it would sit with me in some respects, I wouldn't have bought this one on as many systems as I did. But even then I can't really be bothered to be too upset about it. It's still Soulcalibur and I'm only really disappointed in it becauseit doesn't, in my opinion, live up to the high standard of the series. In more general terms, it's actually a perfectly decent fighter. I just can't help comparing it against the better entries.

But in any event, when someone says "this just wasn't worth my money", I can view that as a rational opinion, even if I came to a different conclusion. What I find illogical, wrong-headed, and tedious is when people complain about how the content came about: "Tira was on the disk at launch, how DARE they charge me for it?" That's really not a reasonable perspective in my opinion. The only question you need to ask is "Did I get my money's worth with what was available without further purchases?" If the answer to that question is yes, then Namco satisfied its obligation to you, and it's perfectly reasonable for them to charge you for further content, whenever it was made. Bellyaching about when the content was complete in that situation (without regard to whether or not you were entitled to it as monetary matter) is not just lame and entitled, it's counter-productive: it will just make companies delay that content by weeks or months to hide when it was completed, so as not to set temperamental fans off, and you will have done nothing but shot yourself in the foot (and the rest of us as well by association).
 
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