Koei Tecmo Dropped the Ball Hard with Recent DLC

It's time for the Dead or Alive community to bear arms against Koei-Tecmo for the absurd implementation of leasing hair colors through exchange of REAL money through the currency of 'Premium Tickets' exclusively on the PlayStation 4 console. As it stands thousands of people have expressed their disdain for the hair renting feature and with very little care or concern from Koei Tecmo games. Today we have received an extremely deceitful ticket response to a customer from Koei Tecmo games and it appears that KT gives not one damn about the feedback they have received.

If you decide to continue reading this story. You will be disturbed. You will see Koei Tecmo for who they really are. Hell you might even cry.

For this particular situation DO NOT blame Team NINJA or Master. With the proof we have now this is definitely the doing of the big wigs at Koei Tecmo games, and their response was to undermine the customer's intelligence and play stupid with the situation assuming their fans will eventually shut up and take it like they always do. They even gave the customer a DEAD-LINE for how much longer they could complain about the ticket situation before this player's feedback would be completely shut down. Since this issue has yet to be reported to the mainstream press Koei Tecmo is actually bullying & deceiving the people that support this game and seeing them only as a number and not one of their fighters.

Koei Tecmo also admits in this disgusting response that the feature was never a bug, and that they intended to keep it this way despite the fan OUTBURST on social media. Despite EVERY OTHER FIGHTING GAME HAVING THIS OPTION FOR FREE. Unless we continue to raise our voices they are going to plow fans over. Please players for the sake of this community, for the sake of keeping it alive we implore you to submit a ticket to Koei Tecmo expressing your anger for this money draining feature.

As many players have mentioned you can implement hair colors into the PC version for free after jumping through a few loop holes, and in the face of that it wouldn't surprise players if Koei Tecmo put a stop to PC modders so that they can protect the moral integrity of their scam - the problem for them there is the modders I've talked to don't think Koei Tecmo is smart enough to find a way to stop it.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1232425034590736384

If you explore the comments section of this Tweet you will quickly see that not one single person is into this idea or wants to pay for the coloring options, but some in general are actually willing to pay one dollar (or ticket) per color which would still give Team NINJA an outrageous 16 dollars per player if we were just allowed to keep each color across the board for all characters.

This feature is so tacked on so, so immoral and wrong that even players that normally defend DOA at every turn are going nuts. We must sound off on these issues before the imbecile big wigs at Koei-Tecmo continues to rip us all off for everything we are worth. I've never seen Matt Ponton, the creator of FSD, this furious and he has been supporting Dead or Alive longer than any of us.

This is not fair... this is not right and the only way we can defeat this from getting MUCH worse in the future is rally as a community to take these big wig con artists out at Koei Tecmo once and for all. Remember how PS4 players were required to download Season Passes in the beginning and couldn't individually download? This reason was to bamboozle the biggest player pool for the launch of the game, and the releasing hair colors first on PS4 is proof of that.

Do not support this color scheme scam unless you want a completely fucked game in the future where all DOA is is the SIMS or MAPLE STORY or an MMO.

 

We're doing a great job getting our word out, guys!

 

That DOA6 Has Problems video - c'mon, the unsynched voice acting when set to English is obviously an homage to classic dubbed martial arts films

Lol, seriously though, I feel like reminding myself about some positive things about DOA6 right now (great video btw, quite funny and very well edited, and mostly fair). Consider it a birthday/anniversary present. It turned out pretty lengthy so click the spoiler if anyone has time to read...

Spoiler: click for wall of text

Up until recently, I did honestly find it a lot easier to forgive KT's practices (though it got a lot worse for me after DOA6's release), as did other fans, I'd say for good reason. Even if a lot of people bought SPs in DOA5, KT did not have to get worse with it like it did since DOA6's release. I honestly believe there was so much DOA5/DOA6 was doing right compared to other FGs, even though it's all been tainted by multiple things now (the worst of which is the recent rent-a-hair system, among other things). It helped that I cared about TN and DOA further developing and perfecting the "casual" side of the game as well as the gameplay side (in a much better way than it is now, though). I never saw why DOA couldn't keep its style and at the same time become more tournament viable. It makes no sense that Tekken and SC have the same kinda sexual, silly, and superfluous stuff, and in some cases (SC) go further even, yet are taken seriously but DOA isn't capable of the same? If I had it my way, I'd like the ratio of priority to be in favor of gameplay 60% and other content at 40%, which I kinda felt like TN was getting to with DOA5, at least before the season passes started. The thing is, I think that as ridiculous as the cost of DLC costumes all together looks, I thought it was fine because they were just cosmetic stuff and idealy it works out fine for most players, outside of staunch completionists (although in DOA5's cases, the releases of DOA5U/LR and the sales helped a lot for anyone not in a hurry to get all DLC on day 1).

Core Fighters, IMO, is still a brilliant move by TN. It was the best Free to Play system for a true fighting game ever (remember, both Tekken and SC tried this too and failed hard). I don't see the point of people factoring in the total cost of buying all the DLC (like each character induvidually) a-la-carte for CF when you can just buy the full game and avoid paying that much like an idiot. The reason Core Fighters and the a-la-carte method is there, at least I hope it's the reason, is for there to be another option to make the game more accessible and cheaper to people who want to just try the game out or even those who know they just want specific things and know they don't want most of the other content and fluff. For example, if I was strictly 100% just playing for competitive reasons, I'd have just downloaded Core Fighters, bought Tina and Lisa, and that's literally all. No costumes, nothing else... and I'd be getting pretty much everything I need on day 1 for $10-$15. Options are awesome.

I'm someone who wanted all the characters on day 1 so I got the full game, but I often recommended Core Fighters to anyone who was at all interested in trying DOA5/DOA6. KT just doesn't allow for optimization of this brilliant idea, such as by better rotating which characters are free for a limited time to try out. It should be 3 or 4 additional free characters available every week, then change them up every week. That would give newcomers to the series adequate time to try any characters they're interested in and then buy the ones they choose to train with (otherwise wait weeks for them to be free again). At the very least that would get more people trying core fighters, sticking with it, and adding to the online numbers for those who do pay up. [insert gif of dude pointing at his head and smiling at the camera]

The problem with that is that... would someone strictly in it for competitive reasons or just trying out the game for its gameplay even want to pay that little or even nothing if the solid gameplay and basic content isn't there? That was the only true big issue I saw with 6 until recently. The thing is that it's recently become clear that KT doesn't want DoA to make them money in more honest ways, through quality free and paid content and DLC. That would encourage a growing number of players to start playing and keep playing and keep logging in every day and feeling fulfilled by it. They've gone the total pandering route instead, fishing for whales. They've gone from FTP to full Gatcha and they really suck at it, unlike with their FTP model. If you're gonna go gatcha at least be smart about it, there are ways to do it fairly and smartly. Every DLC costume in DOA5's time, even if you argue most of it was weak, it costing a fortune in total for completionists was a minor issue in comparison to other issues and could be rationalized away because it's just cosmetic fluff and wasn't really comparable to anything DOA's competition is doing. But then...

- the drop in quality of the DLC
- the slow increase in price of DLC
- making us buy old DLC again in DOA6
- the sets focusing almost entirely on just the girls in uniformed/fetishized costumes only as opposed to the greater variety in DOA5
- making us feel like we're basically starting DOA5 over from the start as far as content goes and buying everything again one by one, but shinier....
- and on top of all that, the massive dump they put on us with the rent-a-hair-colour system, which can easily be compared to competition who all do it better, making it look totally ridiculous in comparison
- focusing more on bringing us all this subpar fluff than fixing anything gameplay related... I wanted 60%/40% gameplay to cosmetics focus, but we're getting more like 20%/80%.

that's what's made what could be rationalized before become totally undefendable for me now. Before we were just crossing our fingers that they'll fix the gameplay issues and lack of content, which was bad enough, but now it's like we need them to fix everything.

Thanks for reading. *flame shields charged to 150%*

On this 1 year anniversay of DOA6, all I can say is... we could use DOA6U right now, today.

 

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1234218326856888320

 

What the fuck are you talking about, I've never bought a single DLC in my life and I never fucking will, I'm not the target of microtransaction shenanigans. The change doesn't even affect the version I play on (PC). I just hope this is not the beginning of more significant console/PC differences... AGAIN (DOA5LR missing stages and lobbies)

What I'm fucking, "talking about", is your comment about "just don't buy 'em lmaooo". The point is that they shouldn't be doing these practices in the first place. That's what most of this thread is about.

 

Seeing Crazy Steady doing the "Don't ask questions, just consume and then get excited for the next product" routine on Twitter with is "it is what it is" attitude to try to justify this was disappointing...

By the way, has Master done any update on the feedback he supposedly passed to Team Ninja/Koei? Last time I looked, he was promoting Nioh 2...

 

Seeing Crazy Steady doing the "Don't ask questions, just consume and then get excited for the next product" routine on Twitter with is "it is what it is" attitude to try to justify this was disappointing...

By the way, has Master done any update on the feedback he supposedly passed to Team Ninja/Koei? Last time I looked, he was promoting Nioh 2...

Manny has got the word across but he is but a single person. Occasionally on the competitive group on FB, he links the sites that leads to KT support and to keep getting into KT from there. Expect automated messages, but someone out there is reading hopefully.

 

@deathofaninja you can add me to the list of people Koei Tecmo is trying to silence. I was banned from the official NA Discord for posting links to the news reporting on the hair customs situation. All I did was post on the feedback channel over the weekend asking when exactly are they going to address this. My post got removed shortly after and today I was banned without warning.



To avoid this in the EU server, I've been joining and leaving after posting links (which again, isn't against the rules) and I was given a "friendly" reminder that next time I will be banned.



Some top notch community management from Koei Tecmo. Props to everyone there handling this.

 

And just for the record, here's the rule (yes, not plural) from the EU server. I guess calling them out is not being nice enough


You can verify all of this by here, my username is Jotamide#8855:

• NA Discord: discord.gg/KTFamily
• EU Discord: discord.gg/KTEurope

 

@Jotamide Wow, and here I thought I'd get blocked on twitter for @ing their DOATEC and KoeiTecmo pages repeatedly... since it hasn't happened yet I thought they were being smart about it, knowing it'd look bad if they started banning fans for speaking out. Their discord must have different and more dumb management...

Crazy. I'd say maybe message them through their customer service department on their official website about this. Ask why you were banned by their discord page for those messages. If they don't say this was a mistake by whoever runs their discord, then my opinion of KT has dropped even lower.

 

And just for the record, here's the rule (yes, not plural) from the EU server. I guess calling them out is not being nice enough lol
View attachment 30483

You can verify all of this by here, my username is Jotamide#8855:

• NA Discord: discord.gg/KTFamily
• EU Discord: discord.gg/KTEurope

The fact one person would call it a sabotage when the fact is they did it to themselves.

 

Are those servers moderated by volunteers or KT employees? Were the messages deleted from the feedback or the game discussion channel?

Those details would be important if someone were to report on KT censuring negative feedback.

 

@Jotamide What's just as surprising to me, not being a discord user, is that you're alone there?? All the DOA fans on discord are actually defending this crap by KT?? They're saying we at FSD are the problem? What the...

I'm guessing you got reported by other users there. But I can't believe they're not the way we are here, being mad at KT and welcoming the effort to get them to change. Fools, if we get this crap to be free by KT then it's no thanks to them. If the game is just killed further then it was deserved and it was KT's own damn fault.​

 

Are those servers moderated by volunteers or KT employees? Were the messages deleted from the feedback or the game discussion channel?

Those details would be important if someone were to report on KT censuring negative feedback.

Moderated by volunteers but KT employees are the admins. Therefore, they should aware to what happens in their server. The only message from mine that was deleted was in the "ask KTA staff anything" channel. I posted a bunch of news in the DOA6 channel with 1 post in the general chat on Saturday asking why is no one was talking about the issue. So they could have banned me on grounds of spam but that is kind of convenient, isn't it?

@Jotamide What's just as surprising to me, not being a discord user, is that you're alone there?? All the DOA fans on discord are actually defending this crap by KT?? They're saying we at FSD are the problem? What the...

I'm guessing you got reported by other users there. But I can't believe they're not the way we are here, being mad at KT and welcoming the effort to get them to change. Fools, if we get this crap to be free by KT then it's no thanks to them. If the game is just killed further then it was deserved and it was KT's own damn fault.

I mean, ultimately some of these people are the target market. FSD users and other community members are pushing back because this is the straw that broke the camel's back. But to others we're sadly just a bunch of whiners.

 

Me to this whole situation:

I remember the first time I got effed in the A by KT too!

Doesnt even hurt anymore >.>

 

KT Europe Discord for the DOA channel looks no different than GameFAQs. It's a wasteland, never seen those moderators at any competitive events either so it's just another bucket of practically nothing really going on that's even considered anything of relevance in there.

Sounds to me those KT Discord groups choose to remain living under the rock, so it's best to leave them under that rock.

 

Well. 5 pages of comments and nobody figured some things about this "News article".

• KoeiTecmo handles customer support for DOA6. To report an issue with DOA6 you go to https://koeitecmo.info/inquiry/kta/ or https://koeitecmo.info/inquiry/kte/ (there is also a Japanese site). Notice: it is on KoeiTecmo domain, not on TeamNinja domain. By creating a ticket there you start conversation with KoeiTecmo, not with TeamNinja. And if you started conversation with KoeiTecmo, you will get response from KoeiTecmo, not from TeamNinja. So this

  For this particular situation DO NOT blame Team NINJA or Master. With the proof we have now this is definitely the doing of the big wigs at Koei Tecmo games,

  is bull crap. Reply from KT customer support prove only one thing: KT customer support clerks do their customer support duties. It does not tell us a thing about Master, TeamNinja or imaginary KT "big wigs".
• To get response from customer support you need to write something to customer support first. Here we have customer support's reply, but we do not have initial message from user. This is one-sided and BIASED reporting from FSD's News Team in general and deathofaninja in particular. This is disservice to FSD community.
• So this customer support response most likely was written by some clerk as a reply to concrete message. And thanks to deathofaninja's substandard reporting we do not know what was in that message. If there were assumptions that hair recolors are bugged, then "...not a bug" phrase in response is fully justified. This is not a bug, it is a feature working as designed. Design might be bad, but that's separate story. Again if initial message showed signs of misunderstanding of how hair color feature works, then clarification "Please note..." phrase is justified too. So this crap

  their response was to undermine the customer's intelligence and play stupid with the situation

  was written in bad faith. Real goal of customer support message was to clarify possible misunderstandings and notify customer, that their ticket was heard and may affect future decisions (spoiler: it did).
• It is common practice for customer support to automatically close tickets after set period of time. And this makes sense. You can not rely on customers to close their tickets, and for customer support to periodically review and close tickets is too much of unneeded work. From KT's point of view it is streamlining of customer support, not shit like this

  They even gave the customer a DEAD-LINE for how much longer they could complain about the ticket situation before this player's feedback would be completely shut down. Since this issue has yet to be reported to the mainstream press Koei Tecmo is actually bullying & deceiving the people that support this game and seeing them only as a number and not one of their fighters.

  Very emotional, isn't it? Makes me wonder, if it was deathofaninja, who created the ticket and get that response... Anyway, I repeat: response was written by customer support clerk. To them you are not a fan, not a fighter, not a person - yeah, you are ticket number. That's not because they despise you. That's because it's the only way for them to keep both their job and sanity. Customer support clerks do not have mental capacity to indulge in complex social interactions like bullying or deceiving with every customer who created a ticket.
• Again response was written by clerk who can tell how things work now but has no authority to say what will be in future so this assumption

  Koei Tecmo also admits <...> that they intended to keep it this way despite the fan OUTBURST on social media.

  is very rich (spoiler: and wrong). Also DOA6 is KT/TN's IP, it's for them do decide what to do with it. Social media outbursts are good for telling if something is wrong but they cann't tell you the way to fix it.

• As many players have mentioned you can implement hair colors into the PC version for free after jumping through a few loop holes, and in the face of that it wouldn't surprise players if Koei Tecmo put a stop to PC modders so that they can protect the moral integrity of their scam - the problem for them there is the modders I've talked to don't think Koei Tecmo is smart enough to find a way to stop it.

  Oh, PC modding! If you changed your character hair color officially would your online opponents see it? I think, yes. And if you modded it? - Your guess, deathofaninja did not bother asking modders about it. Also KoeiTecmo is not DOA6 developer, TeamNinja is. So of course KoeiTecmo cann't stop PC modders. TeamNinja can try but that would be an arms race they have no chances to win for same reasons bigger game developers and publishers couldn't end game cracking scene up to this day. Still game modding is a thing that happens to KT/TN's intellectual property. So they have to have a stance on that. They choose pragmatic way: they said some words against modding, but did nothing to stop it. Not because they are not "smart enough", but because they know how not to waste human resources. Strictly speaking DOA6 was never a scam: KT/TN have always told you what you pay and what you get (OK, with season passes they initially told you how many characters/costumes you get - that a common practice with Season Passes) and they delivered what you paid for.

• some in general are actually willing to pay one dollar (or ticket) per color which would still give Team NINJA an outrageous 16 dollars per player

  Well, one color for one character (I might be wrong here, correct me) surely costs 1 ticket. And 1 ticket does not necessary cost 1 dollar: there were discounted bundles and deathofaninja knows it. But for some reason deathofaninja decided to lie to you simplify things here. Also, how those recolors work with costumes in the Wardrobe?

Overall I have 2 conclusions:

1. Initial post was based on message taken out of context.
2. FSD community does not understand relations between DOA IP, TeamNinja and KoeiTecmo.
3. To quote "About Us" section at the bottom of this page "Our community <...> pride ourselves on offering unbiased, critical discussion". What we see here is biased and delusional rants. FSD betrayed it's vision years ago.

 

Who cares, the game is dead, lol.

 

Well. 5 pages of comments and nobody figured some things about this "News article".

• KoeiTecmo handles customer support for DOA6. To report an issue with DOA6 you go to https://koeitecmo.info/inquiry/kta/ or https://koeitecmo.info/inquiry/kte/ (there is also a Japanese site). Notice: it is on KoeiTecmo domain, not on TeamNinja domain. By creating a ticket there you start conversation with KoeiTecmo, not with TeamNinja. And if you started conversation with KoeiTecmo, you will get response from KoeiTecmo, not from TeamNinja. So this is bull crap. Reply from KT customer support prove only one thing: KT customer support clerks do their customer support duties. It does not tell us a thing about Master, TeamNinja or imaginary KT "big wigs".
• To get response from customer support you need to write something to customer support first. Here we have customer support's reply, but we do not have initial message from user. This is one-sided and BIASED reporting from FSD's News Team in general and deathofaninja in particular. This is disservice to FSD community.
• So this customer support response most likely was written by some clerk as a reply to concrete message. And thanks to deathofaninja's substandard reporting we do not know what was in that message. If there were assumptions that hair recolors are bugged, then "...not a bug" phrase in response is fully justified. This is not a bug, it is a feature working as designed. Design might be bad, but that's separate story. Again if initial message showed signs of misunderstanding of how hair color feature works, then clarification "Please note..." phrase is justified too. So this crapwas written in bad faith. Real goal of customer support message was to clarify possible misunderstandings and notify customer, that their ticket was heard and may affect future decisions (spoiler: it did).
• It is common practice for customer support to automatically close tickets after set period of time. And this makes sense. You can not rely on customers to close their tickets, and for customer support to periodically review and close tickets is too much of unneeded work. From KT's point of view it is streamlining of customer support, not shit like thisVery emotional, isn't it? Makes me wonder, if it was deathofaninja, who created the ticket and get that response... Anyway, I repeat: response was written by customer support clerk. To them you are not a fan, not a fighter, not a person - yeah, you are ticket number. That's not because they despise you. That's because it's the only way for them to keep both their job and sanity. Customer support clerks do not have mental capacity to indulge in complex social interactions like bullying or deceiving with every customer who created a ticket.
• Again response was written by clerk who can tell how things work now but has no authority to say what will be in future so this assumption is very rich (spoiler: and wrong). Also DOA6 is KT/TN's IP, it's for them do decide what to do with it. Social media outbursts are good for telling if something is wrong but they cann't tell you the way to fix it.
• Oh, PC modding! If you changed your character hair color officially would your online opponents see it? I think, yes. And if you modded it? - Your guess, deathofaninja did not bother asking modders about it. Also KoeiTecmo is not DOA6 developer, TeamNinja is. So of course KoeiTecmo cann't stop PC modders. TeamNinja can try but that would be an arms race they have no chances to win for same reasons bigger game developers and publishers couldn't end game cracking scene up to this day. Still game modding is a thing that happens to KT/TN's intellectual property. So they have to have a stance on that. They choose pragmatic way: they said some words against modding, but did nothing to stop it. Not because they are not "smart enough", but because they know how not to waste human resources. Strictly speaking DOA6 was never a scam: KT/TN have always told you what you pay and what you get (OK, with season passes they initially told you how many characters/costumes you get - that a common practice with Season Passes) and they delivered what you paid for.
• Well, one color for one character (I might be wrong here, correct me) surely costs 1 ticket. And 1 ticket does not necessary cost 1 dollar: there were discounted bundles and deathofaninja knows it. But for some reason deathofaninja decided to lie to you simplify things here. Also, how those recolors work with costumes in the Wardrobe?

Overall I have 2 conclusions:

1. Initial post was based on message taken out of context.
2. FSD community does not understand relations between DOA IP, TeamNinja and KoeiTecmo.
3. To quote "About Us" section at the bottom of this page "Our community <...> pride ourselves on offering unbiased, critical discussion". What we see here is biased and delusional rants. FSD betrayed it's vision years ago.

What you are looking at is the first page of the site and the first time we have ever went out of our way to attack them head on and everybody followed. You need two conclusions, but I only need one: You're a fucking sock puppet and it's making as much traction as DOA6 did within the FGC.

We supported this game for an entire year loyally despite everything and kept our mouths shut. I feel no sympathy for KT and at this point I don't feel much sympathy for Team NINJA. You missed the entire point and that's your problem - not mine.