DLC Theory: "Stone" is NOT Rock

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Is Rock an unpopular, "shit character"? I mean, i guess sure. So is half of the remaining characters teased for season 2 if you want to say that. There just isnt strong enough evidence to differentiate him from the others at this point. A handfull of people posting and liking comments at 8wayrun doesnt reflect his overall popularity.

Fighting games just dont design every character to look good. Take the most popular and recognized fighting game ever as an example. Exactly how many characters are designed to be visually appealing? Sexy doesnt come to mind when i think of Honda, Zangief, Blanka, Hugo, Birdie, Dahlsim, Hakan, Oro, El Fuerte, Rufus, Fang, etc... Nor are any of those characters "badass" either.

This was something that made a lot more sense to say back before the game released and we had no idea who was on season 1 or if there even was going to be a season 2 and how many characters. Then of course, yeah there was no way he would make DLC. Things are a little different now.

There hasnt really been any examples i can think of where a new character made DLC when there are missing legacy characters. Unless we're talking about exceptions that are taken way out of context. Such as F2P examples like KI, or similar cases like SF5, or a brand new fighter where everyone is new anyway. Tengu from DOA? Ok and that was it, right? Did anyone else get replaced? What would be the Soulcalibur equivelant of that? Charade maybe? Not like, a real character basically. The takeaway point with that is companies have a little more respect for their characters and fans than some of you think.
 
Li Lo
Is Rock an unpopular, "shit character"? I mean, i guess sure. So is half of the remaining characters teased for season 2 if you want to say that. There just isnt strong enough evidence to differentiate him from the others at this point. A handfull of people posting and liking comments at 8wayrun doesnt reflect his overall popularity.

Fighting games just dont design every character to look good. Take the most popular and recognized fighting game ever as an example. Exactly how many characters are designed to be visually appealing? Sexy doesnt come to mind when i think of Honda, Zangief, Blanka, Hugo, Birdie, Dahlsim, Hakan, Oro, El Fuerte, Rufus, Fang, etc... Nor are any of those characters "badass" either.

This was something that made a lot more sense to say back before the game released and we had no idea who was on season 1 or if there even was going to be a season 2 and how many characters. Then of course, yeah there was no way he would make DLC. Things are a little different now.

There hasnt really been any examples i can think of where a new character made DLC when there are missing legacy characters. Unless we're talking about exceptions that are taken way out of context. Such as F2P examples like KI, or similar cases like SF5, or a brand new fighter where everyone is new anyway. Tengu from DOA? Ok and that was it, right? Did anyone else get replaced? What would be the Soulcalibur equivelant of that? Charade maybe? Not like, a real character basically. The takeaway point with that is companies have a little more respect for their characters and fans than some of you think.
As I said, the character in question doesn't have to be sexy. That's just one possible thing that goes in their favor. It matters how much visual and gameplay appeal they have, Rock failing on both fronts. Considering that Astaroth is more popular, and he inherited Rock's moves, having Rock would be completely redundant.
 
That’d be a total waste to do that for Rock.

Depends on some things. Its definitely worth it if they can pinpoint elements of his moveset that needs work. That and drop the animal head costume for something a little different.

Its certainly far less work on their part to do that instead of cooking up an entirely new character and everything that entails.

He has changed weapons before.
 
Where's your proof that Rock is popular? Because this isn't something that needs "hard evidence", you can gather that just by being part of the community.
-rests head on hand- You're really not getting this. I'm not arguing that Rock is definitely popular (whatever threshold of support that might mean or how one would go about establishing it with empirical rigour)--I'm saying that we don't have any meaningful, dependable evidence either way. You're the one who keeps insisting that you "know for a fact" that he is super unpopular and that's why he couldn't possible be the character Namco are alluding to with 'Stone'. Or that if this is in fact Namco's plan, they are utter idiots who don't know their own business and the creative, design and market needs of their own game as well as you do, because "he will never sell" and "people will be furious" if they package him into the DLC. You're making some really strong claims there, homes, and if you wanted them to be taken seriously (/more than you ranting about your own feelings and how things "should" be), the burden is upon you to provide at least a scintilla of evidence to support your really forcefully asserted opinion that Rock is so unpopular that he would tank as DLC--which you present as if it were established, indisputable fact, rather than just your random speculation (which is what it really is).

I am not saying that I know for a fact that I know if Rock is popular or not (nor are the others pushing back against that presumption of yours, from what I have seen). I'm saying we don't have anything remotely close to good evidence either way. And no, again "I just know it!" is not proof of anything, other than your credulous ability to soak up an opinion based on a few random comments and then repeat it like it's gospel. No matter how many times you repackage and reiterate that same argument, as in....

I've spent plenty of time not only on this community, but others, and I know that Rock is a character no one cares about. It's not rocket science.
....and the numerous other ways you've said the exact same thing here since you started this thread, that argument doesn't get one whit more compelling or effective.

First off dude, you're recalling your own impressions of conversations from years past--if you knew anything about the cognitive science of the human mind and how it processes such things, you'd realize that such recollections are subject both to massive errors in recall and a strong propensity to preferentially recollect (often inaccurately) examples which support your argument, over those which run counter to it. That's why in a serious debate, investigation, or empirical inquiry about any fact, no one takes such assertions seriously (nor should they).

Second, even if you had a camera on your head for all of the last ten years so that we could go back and check the content of every conversation you've had about Rock--and it turned out that you had ask direct and relevant questions that would help us establish that in every case--there's also the fact that there's no way you've talked to more than .00000000001% of the people who have ever bought a Soulcalibur game (let alone all of the people who have played one!) about this topic, so even if you had been behaving like a perfectly impartial observer/investigator in every instance and had perfectly recorded those interactions, the information you've collected over those years would still be completely and utterly irrelevant as a matter of statistical significance.

So, again, I'm not saying I know for a fact that Rock is "popular". I'm just commenting on the quality of your own evidence--which is to say, absolute garbage. And since you are using essentially your own gut instincts to support two rather bold conclusions--1) Stone is not who we would assume it is from the obviously referential (and if you are correct, outright trolling) codename, and 2) even if it is, Namco are fools for doing this, because you know better what would work in terms of design and marketabaility than them, with their 24 year history of making these games and doing professional market research on them--you really ought to come armed with more compelling evidence in support of your assertions than just repeating "I know, I've been to a lot of online gaming forums"...

Oh, and Li Long? That would sell even less than Rock, which says a lot. There's no way it'll be Li Long either; he hasn't been part of the series since Soul Blade, nor did he have any part in this game other than some background text. Even Hwang has been built up to. That's another argument though.
Actually he was a playable character in both versions of SCIII. But even if he had last been present in SE, there's no principle reason he couldn't come back. Given nobody else would really fit the 'Yell' particularly well (among remaining characters), and the fact that I doubt that PS would come within just one character of completing the classic roster and not do that, I have a high degree of confidence. But it'll be months before we know with any certainty.
My point is that Rock is uncool and uninteresting in terms of design, while in comparison Astaroth, Nightmare, Cervanes, Yoshimitsu, Voldo, Inferno, and Azwel stand out a whole hell of a lot more.
Which is a completely subjective opinion of your own, which you treat like it is a hard-boiled fact. I mean personally, I could go for a little less anime-fantasy nonsense (that is, teleporting, magical, shit growing out of their body designs) in the roster.
 
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Depends on some things. Its definitely worth it if they can pinpoint elements of his moveset that needs work. That and drop the animal head costume for something a little different.

Its certainly far less work on their part to do that instead of cooking up an entirely new character and everything that entails.

He has changed weapons before.
Yep he switched from an axe to a two handed mace, along with some changes in the moveset.
 
This is clearly going nowhere. It's just people yelling at each other in the face. I'll be amazed if it's Rock because that means they have a lot of confidence that a bottom tier character that no one requested is one that will sell, and even more amazed if it's Li Long. God, now I just to EVO to come already.
 
Depends on some things. Its definitely worth it if they can pinpoint elements of his moveset that needs work. That and drop the animal head costume for something a little different.

Its certainly far less work on their part to do that instead of cooking up an entirely new character and everything that entails.
I don't know whether it would be meaningfully less work on the programming, debugging and balancing end (the majority of work), but whether it is or no, "That'd be a total waste to do that for Rock" is just not something I can believe has to be addressed here as though it were an assertion of more opinion than what it imparts about one player's contempt for this particular fictional character.

I have my disliked -- even despised -- characters as well, but I generally try holding to the belief that there are almost never bad characters; just poor utilization. When it comes to the SC series, certainly some characters have been poorly utilized, but they aren't inherently worthless.

I may feel that way about Dampierre, but I must acknowledge that he could probably win even me over with the right approach. I also might feel that Algol is far and away the dullest, most uninteresting character in the series in terms of both story and moveset (which is a shame since I love the series' story and lore), but I know that's only because of how poorly he was utilized in every facet of SCIV that wasn't Sophitia's ending. And then there's his further diminished utilization in SCV.

With the fact that almost anything could be done with Rock's story and gameplay at this point, there is absolutely no objective basis for a claim that working this classic, nostalgic presence into SCVI is objectively a waste of time -- and I can't bring myself to entertain such pigheadedness any further.
 
I don't know whether it would be meaningfully less work on the programming, debugging and balancing end (the majority of work), but whether it is or no, "That'd be a total waste to do that for Rock" is just not something I can believe has to be addressed here as though it were an assertion of more opinion than what it imparts about one player's contempt for this particular fictional character.

I have my disliked -- even despised -- characters as well, but I generally try holding to the belief that there are almost never bad characters; just poor utilization. When it comes to the SC series, certainly some characters have been poorly utilized, but they aren't inherently worthless.

I may feel that way about Dampierre, but I must acknowledge that he could probably win even me over with the right approach. I also might feel that Algol is far and away the dullest, most uninteresting character in the series in terms of both story and moveset (which is a shame since I love the series' story and lore), but I know that's only because of how poorly he was utilized in every facet of SCIV that wasn't Sophitia's ending. And then there's his further diminished utilization in SCV.

With the fact that almost anything could be done with Rock's story and gameplay at this point, there is absolutely no objective basis for a claim that working this classic, nostalgic presence into SCVI is objectively a waste of time -- and I can't bring myself to entertain such pigheadedness any further.

Well they gotta come up with the moveset, weapon, story, design, etc for a new character. A lot of that is largely done for any returning character.

I dont know, i havent personally liked a lot of the new characters introduced in this series. It seems as if identifying what might be wrong with an existing character and making changes is far more possible and easy to do than designing a likable, new character completely from scratch.
 
Well they gotta come up with the moveset, weapon, story, design, etc for a new character. A lot of that is largely done for any returning character.

I dont know, i havent personally liked a lot of the new characters introduced in this series. It seems as if identifying what might be wrong with an existing character and making changes is far more possible and easy to do than designing a likable, new character completely from scratch.
Indeed, beyond that, there is the fact that they already have an established narrative and if there is anything that defines the apparent design priorities for SCVI to date, its the nostalgia factor. Everybody included in the roster so far is a SE-SCIII character, and every plot device is something culled from the the span of time covered from roughly the tail end of Soul Edge through the early/middle of SCII, with some characters (Talim, and probably with Amy and Cassie when they drop) even as late as the beginning of SCIII. There's also two new characters who play a central role int he story, and that's perfectly par for the course in SC: one or two of the new characters are always among the headliners for that title; in SCIII all plot lines revolve around Zasalamel and to a lesser extent Tira, in SCIV it's Algol, and in SCV its Patroklos and Pyrrha. But aside from those two and the guests, it's proper a proper nostalgia fest. It doesn't surprise me in the least that we have six forecast characters in the code, whose names all roughly align to the remaining six characters from the narrative arc stretching through the first half of the franchise history.

Now some of us may wish for different characters first, and fair enough--I get that impulse; I never mained anybody in those characters and don't expect I will enjoy playing many of them very frequently. But you know what I will enjoy? Playing against them. And I'll buy them for the rare event of wanting to play them, the less rare event of having friends over I know will want to play them, for characters creations to share online for whom they are the most ideal fit, moveset wise, and for a half dozen other reasons. People forget there are lots of reasons a given player will buy a character that they may never main and who they would never pick in a "pick your one favorite" poll, not the least of which is that same nostalgia factor. From a purely self-serving perspective, I suppose I'd choose to have Hilde or Viola or Natsu back before a couple of those classic six characters, but I have to say there's a certain kind of logic and stylistic appeal to them filling out the legacy cast first for this game, and that certainly fits with every design cue the devs have given about this game to date.

Besides which, there's another pragmatic piece to this. In order to believe those names are not who they seem to be, we have to believe Namco is actively trolling it's consumers for shits and giggles by throwing in these clearly misleading code names...I mean, what could they possibly stand to gain by doing so that would compensate for sowing so much ill will among their most loyal and engaged customers. We're talking about a sophisticated company with a carefully calculated marketing strategy, not some rinky-dink indy operation playing pranks on their patreon funders. Ever notice what Okubo is always saying whenever people ask him to spill the beans on confirming the upcoming season one DLC characters (even though we know who they are, and he knows that we know) or to give a hint as the to the release timetable? "Oh, I don't think my marketing colleagues would like that very much." We're talking about a Forbes 2000 company here--in Japan no less. You best believe that shit is real. If you walked into a meeting saying:

"I'd like to massively disappoint tens of thousands of our consumers by teasing a few of our classic characters for Soulcalibur VI's upcoming content, but as a bait and switch for other characters--you know, for lawls! So anyone hoping to play them again will be disappointed, and rather than creating hype, we'll create a massive amount of bad will right when we're gearing up to promote that same DLC. Game fans are a famously easy going and forgiving group of consumers though--I'm sure they'll see the humour of it!"

...well you might as well pack your desk ahead of time, because you'll probably be escorted out of the building after being given your pink slip, said escort being so that you don't accidentally f#$@ something up on your way out of the building.

Anyway, echoing your comments and those of @TresDias, I don't have to love playing a given style or the character design itself to see it having a meaningful place in overall gameplay tapestry of the series. A character could by fortieth place pick for a main and I'd still be happy to see it back in the fold. Beyond that, if the game doesn't gel together, no amount of clever characters will save you from the complaints. In every respect this makes classic characters simply easier as known commodities--not only does it involve the lessened costs and development time that you note above--everything also fits together just a small bit easier, from gameplay balancing to fleshing out the single player content. The design priorities for this game is such that PS wants to somewhat re-invent the wheel...but they also want that wheel to look super familiar to you.

And like you two say, one doesn't have to like every design. I think I've liked five of the last sixteen main roster characters released since SCII. But even the ones I didn't care for initially I've gotten used to and miss when they are absent. I mean, for crying out loud, we've had a goth chick who fights with a hoola hoop for four games running now, and we just accepted that shit like it was perfectly normal. And you know what, ridiculous as she is, I'd miss Tira if she were gone, because I've gotten used to that unique dance between her and my mains. Same story for the Classic Six, except except I've been missing most of them for a game longer since they all got the boot from SCV (SCIV for Li Long). If I play Rock twenty times in the next five years, it will still be more than worth my contributions to the DLC coffers to have him back in the mix. Same for Setsuka, and Hwang, Li long, Yun-seong, and Lizardman.

I also understand that if I want to keep the gravy train flowing and give a remote, remote chance of there being a third season pass, I need to not allow myself to get too picky and entitled about the choices of season two. The devs will choose who they are going to choose and if I'm not happy with their choices, I'd only shoot myself in the foot if I get so self-involved and judgmental of their choices that I don't buy it, thereby very slightly reducing the chances that my favourites would come in a third season. Maybe some people would say that makes me a non-discerning consumer, but I don't think so--I just want the biggest Soulcalibur game possible, including the biggest possible roster. Two months ago, I was thinking there was only an 80% chance of a second season, and now I know there's almost certainly going to be one. I also thought it was going to be four characters for sure--now I know it's six. Whoever they release I'm going to buy, and on all three platforms. Then I'll probably buy some as gifts for friends. I doubt everybody's going to splurge like that, but for me, I more than get my value considering how much I am going to play this game. In any event, whatever the motivation, I suspect there are plenty of people who will buy any legacy character in a heartbeat, whomever it is.
 
Daishi said Bangoo was excluded from SC 5 because he did not want another Rock or something worse than him.

I really wish Daishi hadn't deleted his account. The only thing I can find regarding Bangoo is:

Daishi Odashima stated a few times that he would like to include this character to the roster of Soulcalibur V, though this didn't pan out in the release.

 
I’m so black pilled (full of despair) about EVO having meaningful surprises for SoulCalibur 6 that I read this thread.

Even though it’s mostly arguing it’s still great fun to read and reminds me of how exciting the future looked for this game.

But here we are in August and Evo is about to happen. Cassandra is not already here as predicted so she will be the announcement. Season 2 is either not a reality or the final chance to announce it is at the Asia finals/1 year anniversary something.

But I felt compelled to come here because of street fighter V leaks about the sumo wrestler e.Honda being DLC. A sumo wrestler should not be appealing but people are excited for him.

So...honestly with this drought of content I’ll take Rock and I’ll main him for a month because we desperately need more characters
 
Rock is actually one of my favourite characters in the series and I remember how pissed I was at this topic especially when right next to it was "in defense of Lizardmen" which was always one of my least favourite characters. But that's purely subjective

It's hard to not feel somewhat disappointed in how it all turned out, how little hopes remained yet to be tested with the end of EVO and thought that right after Cass release we'll be back to radio silence ain't helping as well. Luckily for me I was able to somewhat deattatch myself from this game so whatever happens, even tho it still will be somewhat sad I won't give much of thought

Untill then - let's hope for the best when it comes to final EVO announcements
 
So....

Anyone still gonna argue Rock?

It seems this wasn't the S2 like we thought. We're getting S2, but it's not six returnees, but four with one being a guest. Again, it's hard to argue Rock's case, but I'm interested in seeing others try. Thoughts?
 
So....

Anyone still gonna argue Rock?

In fairness, it's now a completely different question. Before, it was "Would Rock be likely to be one of these six?" Now the question is "Would Rock be likely to be one of these three?"

With that being the question now, my expectations don't leave much room for him.

I definitely expect Lizardman and Setsuka. Unsure about the third.
 
So....

Anyone still gonna argue Rock?

It seems this wasn't the S2 like we thought. We're getting S2, but it's not six returnees, but four with one being a guest. Again, it's hard to argue Rock's case, but I'm interested in seeing others try. Thoughts?

If this was a six character pass I would say maybe Rock had a great chance.

But this is completely different. I have no idea what is coming. There could be brand new characters for all I know. I don't know what to expect at all
 
If this was a six character pass I would say maybe Rock had a great chance.

But this is completely different. I have no idea what is coming. There could be brand new characters for all I know. I don't know what to expect at all
Rock might have had a chance if this was a six-pack of returnees like many thought. But it's not. It's a four-pack, and one of them is a guest. I'd say Setsuka is definitely one of them (a lock even). The other two? Who knows.
 
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