Hello everyone, Knee here. Normally I upload my matches, vlogs or funny highlights but for the first time I'll be talking about a character. Leroy Smith right here.
It's been about two months since he was released and there has been controversy about this character ever since. This character is just too strong. At Lunar New Year there was a really big tournament in Japan, EVO Japan. There were 963 or so participants, over 900 people. All the Tekken players knew that there would be a lot of Leroy players there, we all were expecting it. But the reality was far worse than what we predicted. I think about 80% played Leroy.
Of course I played Leroy in qualifiers a few times but thought it was wrong and picked Steve and Zafina and… lost. At the end I was playing Zafina and lost against Leroy. But was it just me? No. All these top Tekken players lost against Leroy.
Seeing that, well I have always said that I never get sick of Tekken and always find it fun but this time, I got a bit sick of it. Why? I've been playing Tekken for over 10 years and every time a challenge presented itself I would practice and overcome it. But after losing against Leroy I realized, this 'Tekken' that I've been playing all this time is something where if the developer makes an OP character there is no way to overcome it. Even Knee if they were to pick Leroy. Seeing all these famous top players drop out I really felt it. Back in December I did a survey on Twitter about whether Leroy was OP. There were 3897 votes cast and out of it, 76.9% thought it was OP. Leroy's strength really is unbelievable.
So basically in EVO Japan the top 8 was like this. Leroy v Julia, Leroy v Leroy, Leroy v Leroy, Leroy v Bob. Out of 960 people 8 made it and this happened. So Book won this tournament and his speech was Just pick Leroy. That was it.
People said that they stopped watching this EVO Japan, that it was the worst one yet. I too think that there were too many Leroys and also other characters weren't able to overcome Leroy and it depressed me. Leroy won at the end, no one overcame him.
But seeing the Tekken you've been playing all this time and the experience be denied by a character that came out two months ago is something that really makes you think. So a lot of players got upset so they nerfed him, but it really isn't a nerf. Out of 100%, they nerfed like 10% tops. More like 5% really.
I think Akuma, Geese, Leroy they have something that other characters don't. So you can't help but feel at a disadvantage facing these characters. There are people enjoying those characters and people who started playing Tekken because of them but in my opinion, because of all these DLC and collaboration characters I think there are more people who stopped playing or left Tekken completely. I hear a lot of people say that due to these Geese, Akuma, Leroy characters they don't find Tekken fun and just don't want to play. There are also people who say that they won't play until those characters are nerfed.
It's not easy balancing a fighting game but I think the direction they chose for Tekken 7 is wrong. The game came out in 2015 and I played it for five years… when Akuma and Geese came out to be honest the Tekken that I was playing until then got destroyed. The game knowledge I had, whether I had the frame advantage or was in an advantageous situation, these characters destroy that. Whether by using an energy bar like invincible EX Dragon Punch or they jump over my low attack and do an aerial attack, removing half my HP bar. Or I think I press a safe button of -10 to -11 frames then get hit by jab DP EX cancel and lose half my HP. These things go against 'Tekken' it's not Tekken any more is what I think. But I kept playing because it's my job and Akuma and Geese characters came from other games. But this original Tekken character called Leroy is worse. There are strong characters in any game of course but this is over the line.
For example in LoL there are OP champs but they have a ban system and sort of create a balance. But Tekken doesn't have so you are forced to fight them. But it's so strong I don't see a way to defeat him. I have no idea what his counter is. People say that Leroy's counter is Leroy. He's basically invincible at this point.
From now on I plan to create more content where I share my ideas on how to buff or nerf certain aspects of a character to balance it. Thank you.