Tekken 8 should adapt one specific feature from Street Fighter 6’s Ranked Mode 

Thanks to recent entries from the likes of Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Tekken, the fighting game scene is as strong as it has ever been. Other fighting games have been released in the past few years but these big titles in particular attract large audiences, bringing in players new and old to try their hand at digital brawling. Each franchise has its own distinct gameplay elements to learn and so long as people are willing to put in the time and practice, then there is definitely a fighting game out there for everyone. 

Tekken in particular is notorious for being one of the hardest fighting games to learn. Not only do players have to memorize spreadsheets worth of moves for their chosen characters but they also need to learn the moves of their opponents. This doesn’t include the oft-unspoken skill of making full use of all the 3D stages and their layouts. Once players have got the basics down and fought in some quick matches, they can set their sights higher by partaking in ranked matches. 

Ranked modes in fighting games are where their matchmaking systems matter significantly. Players of similar skill levels are pitted against each other to gain points and rank up. But when it comes to learning new characters, Street Fighter 6 has one integral feature that makes it more approachable than Tekken 8. 

Street Fighter 6 encourages playing as multiple characters

Street Fighter 6 has a feature that ties each player’s characters to individual ranks. Say a person plays only Luke and manages to get all the way to Diamond rank. That Diamond rank only applies to Luke. So, when the same player decides to pick up Blanka for the first time, they will have to complete their Blanka ranked placement matches before they can start working their way up the ranks. It’s these per-character ranked placement matches that help balance the game’s matchmaking. 

Since all the characters in Street Fighter 6 play differently (as is the case with most fighting games), this effectively makes it less intimidating to play multiple characters. Players just starting won’t get paired against those with more Street Fighter 6 knowledge, thanks to the per-character placement matches and savants don’t have to worry about dropping their highest characters’ ranks. Pairing individual character ranks with per-character ranked placement matches makes the game’s ranked mode more welcoming to players of different skill levels. 

Tekken 8’s ranking system makes it hard to play more than one character

While Tekken 8 does have a per-character ranking system, the way it makes adjustments to characters that are less played is different. As a player’s highest overall rank increases by using certain characters, a lower soft cap for the other characters gets set. A player with a King who has a highest rank of “Garyu” will find that their other characters’ ranks have been raised to “Cavalry” (for reference, Cavalry is 7 ranks lower than Garyu). This is Tekken 8’s way of preventing more experienced players from matching up with newer ones and vice versa. 

The problem is that each character in Tekken 8 is different from the rest of the cast (with a few exceptions). This means that someone proficient with the beginner-friendly Asuka could find themselves struggling if they decide to switch over to the more mechanically-advanced newcomer Reina. Starting this new Reina player at a much higher rank could result in them getting beaten up by other players who have more experience with their main characters. 

Overall, Tekken doesn’t really entice players to pick up different characters. A single character’s moveset can be so extensive that not everyone will be able to fully comprehend it even after hours of play (Related Article). But the automatic scaling of players’ ranks with other characters seems to do more harm when it comes to lowering the barriers to entry. 

Per-character ranked placements would feel right at home in Tekken 8 

Compare Tekken 8’s ranked system to that of Street Fighter 6, which allows players to complete placement matches with other characters to assess their current skill levels. Street Fighter 6’s system lets players keep the skills they have learned and allows them to put their new character through their paces before ranking them. It is only once the placement matches have been completed that players can work on grinding through the ranked mode. It’s a far more organic and practical way of implementing a per-character ranked mode because players actually play as the characters to determine their standings. 

Tekken 8’s ranked placement system assumes players are good enough at the game based on the highest overall rank they attained. This may not always be the case as knowledge of a specific character doesn’t necessarily translate to proficiency with another. Add that to the game’s sketchy matchmaking (there have been issues where high-ranked Tekken 8 players were caught boosting their placements) and using a new character in ranked mode could prove more challenging than it should be. 

By implementing the simple, per-character placement matches that Street Fighter 6 has, Tekken 8 wouldn’t need to soft cap players’ other characters. Likewise, players would find that the placement matches will more accurately determine their starting ranks (they would also be a step up from the AI-controlled placement fights that only appear when players first get into the game). Making players fight other players for their initial placements seems like a simple fix but it would make Tekken 8’s ranked mode fairer and more approachable.