Knee weighs in on the Leroy controversy

Having played Tekken competitively for over 10 years, Leroy Smith was the moment where Knee revels in disbelief over the game's balance. With Leroy Smith out for two months with an overtuned move set, EVO Japan would go on to be too much of a display on how capable the DLC character really is. In Knee's latest discussion video, Knee collects his thoughts on the impact of Leroy Smith and compares them to other characters with similar episodes like Akuma or Geese Howard. Knee concludes his discussion with a certain sentiment that maybe some parts of the community might associate with: 'Tekken doesn't feel like Tekken any more.'

Knee's YouTube channel ≫ https://www.youtube.com/user/Tekkenknee/

▌Talk about Leroy & EVO JAPAN 2020
￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ 

▌English Subtitles
￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ ￣ 

Hi guys, this is Knee. I think this is probably the first time I ever talk about a stuff like this

You guys know that I usually upload a gaming montage, vlogs, funny moments, things like that

But today I'm going to do something unusual. This is going to be a discussion about a character

and that character is, like everyone would have expected, Leroy Smith over here

Now it's been almost two months since the release of Leroy and he's been controversial ever since

The thing is, this Leroy Smith is just too over powered.

His moves are actually almost ridiculous. To show you guys how strong and over powered this character is I'm going to use EVO Japan 2020 as an example.

Last month, During the lunar new year's holiday, there was a huge tournament held in Japan, called EVO Japan 2020.

I'm not quite confident with the numbers,but approximately 960 people signed up to play. That's a lot right?

To be honest, every Tekken players including me, expected this to happen

that EVO Japan 2020 will basically be a free real estate for Leroys

However it was far far beyond our expectation.

I think approximately 80% of the participants used Leroy Smith.

Even I played Leroy occasionally during the qualifier but it just felt wrong.

So I played Steve Fox and Zafina instead, and I lost. To a Leroy.

However it was not just me, but almost every single high-leveled competitive players have lost. To a Leroy.

When i saw that,I just...

I used to say"Tekken is always so fresh,and really fun to play."

but I don't know if I can stand with that in a state like this.

I played Tekken for over 10 years now and everytime there was a slump, I practiced harder, and overcame it.

But after getting defeated by Leroy like that

I thought "All my years of practices can be ruined because of a random character that developers did not care enough."

Even I, Knee, arguably one of the best Tekken players in the world cannot overcome Leroy Smith
and watching all those great players lose...

I was really devastated. Back in December... I put up a twitter poll asking wheter Leroy is an OP or a balanced character.

What do you think?

And over 76.9% of people who answered said,"Leroy is OP" and 23.1% of people said he is balanced,

Almost 3900 people voted for the poll, and 2997 people thought "Leroy is OP"

This is ridiculous. Leroy power is ridiculous.

Here is how EVO Japan 2020's top 8 looked like

This is what happened

Leroy VS Julia

Leroy VS Leroy

Leroy VS Leroy

Leroy VS Bob

This was quarterfinal

So, we sorted over 900 to 8, and this is what happened

so 'Book' won the tournament and his winning interview was like "Just pick Leroy"

His whole interview can be summarized as "Just pick Leroy".

People were saying things like

"I actually stopped watching it." and so on. I thought this was too much

this whole thing about Leroy in EVO Japan was too much but also other players failing to overcome Leroy with other characters as well.

Eventually, Leroy won the tournament. No one got over Leroy.

The experiences we've had, the times we spent with Tekken, lost to a character that's only been in a game for like two months.

I felt really bad

Every players were going crazy and saying "Nerf Leroy already" and the developers actually did nerfed Leroy

but it was a nerf that could not be considered as 'nerf'

It affected him like.....

How weak has he become? I don't know 10%?No not even 10% 5%? Akuma, Geese, Leroy, what these characters have and other Tekken characters don't, is just too much.

Every single time I play against those characters I feel like I'm at a disadvantage already.

Of course I know a lot of people enjoy playing Leroy, Geese, and Akuma

even some players I know have started playing the game because of those characters.

But I personally think a lot more people than that, loses interest and gets tired of playing the game and eventually, leave Tekken.

And I'm not making this up,a lot of actual players I know said to me

that they lost their interst for Tekken because of those characters and saying that they would not play Tekken untill they nerf those characters

Now I know it is not easy at all to balance a game like Tekken but I personally think that this is just wrong. The game is being misdirected.

I've been playing Tekken 7 for like 5 years since 2015 when it was released and when the Akuma DLC and Geese DLC arrived

The game we've been playing was suddenly lost its meanings

what I learned from my experience, like frame advantage, 'If i attack now,' 'It will be critical'

But those characters ignore those things

They use their EX gauge, and throw some EX shoryuken,

or when i use d2, they would just hop to the air and disappear leaving me for punish

Or if i use -10f or -11f attack because it's safe,

when Akuma punished with jap and makes a combo with an EX,

half of my HP just disappears and so on

It's..

Uh..

Tekken doesn't feels like Tekken any more

I thought about that a lot.

But I kept playing because it was my job, and Akuma and Geese were just collaboration character that passes by But Leroy is a original Tekken character that will stay in franchise

THIS ONE IS WORSE

OP exists here and there but this has gone too far.

but i think this guy has crossed the line.

LOL(league of legend)uses ban system to balance the gameplay.

They can ban OPs if they want to so they can balance the game on their own.

But Tekken does not have one, We have to go for it anyway.

But he is too strong, and have no idea how to beat this guy

I have no idea who can counter him.

I've heard that 'Leroy's counter is Leroy'

as you can see, this character is broken

I wanted to talk about

My opinion on direction of buffs and nerfs.The general balance

Thank you for watching and stay tuned for my balance discussion videos.

Have a nice day, and I'll see you guys later.