Mahjong is being sidelined, and that has to change

[retsa2b]

I was going to save this for a sort of post-game analysis, but I really want to get this out there in case Infinite Wealth is still in a bit of a design flux.

In Like A Dragon Gaiden, you can be completely done with Mahjong in about ten games.

And I don't just mean "ten games and you've fulfilled the entirely optional minigame challenge category." I mean "after you've played ~10 games of Mahjong, you have absolutely zero remaining content to explore."

I want to put that into perspective. In Judgment, this was the Mahjong content:

* Three Mahjong parlors, each with at least three tiers of difficulty.
* Challenge list included legit challenges, like 6 "open riichi," winning 30 total hands, etc.
* There was decent NPC interactivity with the game in the form of Ms. Tachibana, who would request increasingly demanding yaku and award neat prizes for completing them.
* A special, hidden extra table you can only access towards the end of the game if you do things in a certain way.
* All in all, if you took Judgment's Mahjong content seriously, it could give you really quite a number of hours of challenge and entertainment.

I also want to highlight Yakuza 4 as another specimen of when the franchise was taking Mahjong seriously. In Y4, you controlled four different characters throughout the course of the game. Each of those characters had access to their own Mahjong tournament, where they would steadily climb up the ranks. The rewards for winning weren't functionally meaningful but they were unique items you could only receive for completing the individual tournaments. This is excellent incentive.

In Like a Dragon Gaiden, you finish the mandates "win 10 games" and "win at each table" more or less hand-in-hand. Done in 10 games, as I said. The only Mahjong content beyond that is a so-called Sotenbori Cup, which is just a single table, one-and-done, and the reward is just money.

Even though Like a Dragon Gaiden has not been positioned by SEGA as a mainline, AAA entry, this is something that concerns me deeply.

Because they did the same exact thing in Like a Dragon aka Yakuza 7.

In Y7, you had a few parlors and a few tables, and one final table. The "tournament" was exactly the kind of nothingburger it is in Like a Dragon Gaiden and the reward for winning it was the same 1,000 yen bottle of sake you could get at a convenience store. No meaningful NPC interactivity like in Judgment. No protracted tournaments with unique trophy items as rewards like in Yakuza 4 or really most of the Yakuza games.

In Lost Judgment, it's just another "win 10 times", "win at each table", and totally pointless "Cups" with only money rewards. Again!

This is the approach RGG has taken with Mahjong with every game they've developed since 2020.

Why?

Conjecture: They're afraid of alienating the big Western audience they found when they started porting their games to PC.

Solution: They already have the best solution. Same thing they did in Yakuza 4 and others: Make the extra fluff content provide rewards that will truly only be of interest to people who actually want to play Mahjong. An in-game Mahjong trophy item? Nobody else is going to care, but lovers of Mahjong will view it as a challenge they're obliged to take on. Win-win!

RGG... STOP SHORTCHANGING MAHJONG.

[DutchVikingrSaga]

While I understand that your view on Mahjong is strong, and you like it, RGG also has to think about the larger majority of people that don't necessarily enjoy playing Mahjong. I never cared for it, and depending on which game you ask me to rate Mahjong it, it can range from absolute hatred, to okay-to-do.

For me it's when you have Mahjong done like in Yakuza 0, with its nearly two dozen CP goals (not actual numbers likely, but you get the point) that it becomes a bit too much for the majority of people who want to actually complete the game and 100% it. I did it, through tons of sheer luck, will and brute forcing sometimes through it.

Personally as long as they don't tie achievements (beside the in-game trophy as you mentioned) then I don't think it'll do much harm to the broader community as a whole. I couldn't tell you how obnoxious the Mahjong achievements were to get in Yakuza 3 and 4. Especially given some people (myself included) find it that it feels like the AI sometimes cheats.

[retsa2b]

Originally posted by DutchVikingrSaga:

While I understand that your view on Mahjong is strong, and you like it, RGG also has to think about the larger majority of people that don't necessarily enjoy playing Mahjong.

This is why I was unambiguous when I took pains to elaborate the differences in how each game approached Mahjong.

These games have tiers of "completion." Some people think completion means beating the game. Some people think completion means getting all of the achievements. The real completionists feel that completion means attending to the entire list of challenges you can find in the game's submenu. That's about, what, 5% of players?

I feel like you didn't read my post in its entirety. Because the Mahjong content I'm talking about falls outside of all three categories.

You get trophy items for completing Yakuza 4's individual mahjong tournaments. It's not advertised. They don't even show them in a "list of things you can win." You only find out when you win, and that's after at least 15 full mahjong games per tournament.

Would you feel like you needed to do this to "complete" Yakuza 4?

Bottom line is that no, 99.9% folks would not. The entire point of having such rewards, or of presenting multi-game tournaments that are 100% optional, is to give Mahjong some substance. Substance which Mahjong completely lacks in Like a Dragon, Lost Judgment, and now Like a Dragon Gaiden.

[ɛքȶɨƈ ¯\(º_o)/¯]

As long as they keep mahjong away from substory requirement they can do whatever they need to to make fans happy about it. I just cant stand those minigames as requirement to unlock amon

[McGeorgeOfTheJungle]

The game wasn't your typical Yakuza length experience, even the Karaoke is watered down, although the Pocket Racing was brutal and hard but was more in depth.

I really love Mahjong, it's so entertaining and it is equally enjoyable and frustrating at the same time.

[Valk]

See, this whole thing is under a major misunderstanding. The misunderstanding being that they're targeting mahjong. This simply is not true.

They are targeting EVERYTHING. Mahjong just happened to get caught in the crossfire.

As someone who loves to 100% these games, the fact that the main series seems to have abandoned the completion list as a metric was a pretty large blow. The only reason I ever learnt games like Koi Koi, Shogi, Mahjong, and Oichu Kabu was because they were completion metrics, which gave me a reason to try these otherwise unknown side games. Gave me a reason to LEARN them. And the result was I fell in love with mahjong and koi-koi especially. Games I otherwise probably would never have touched, had it not been for the completion list. I know people are going to see this and do the usual "you let your enjoyment be controlled by doing achievements get a life", but this simply isn't true here. I never planned to 100% yakuza. It was simply "there's a reward for trying this stuff" and I thought "hey why not". And then went on to 100% it because I had so much fun doing the varied stuff.

Now look at Y7 in comparison. No real reason to complete the PTH list, especially not after Ichi maxed his personality. Absolutely no reward at all. No bonus stats, no achievement, no special gear. Nothing. This in turn also applied to Gaiden.

Ontop of all this however, there's another glaring issue. Whilst 7 and Gaiden had no reason to complete their completion lists, they did follow a different trend. Decreasing the difficulty of the list.

6 was the first game to do this. 7 followed this. JE and LJ are a bit different, but as you said, they're trying to appease the western audience with the main series. I don't think this has been applied to JE/LJ, seeing as LJ still has a pretty hefty completion list AND a completion metric/reward for it.

Gaiden, on the other hand, made it the most obvious.

Arcade fighters used to usually have something like "Beat the game plus the secret boss", a task that certainly isn't that easy to do especially if you've never played that specific fighting game before. Gaiden? "Win 20 matches, win once as each character"/

Arcade racers used to be "get x score" or "place first in every stage". Gaiden? "Play the game 10 times, complete each practice stage"

Golf used to have far higher score requirements. Hell, I remember one of them having something like you needed to get like 2000 points in golf, and yet in Gaiden it is 300 in each course. For bingo it just wants you to get so many bingos total, compared to how it wanted you to play a perfect game previously.

Things like pocket circuit would want you to beat EVERY race possible, and collect EVERY part. Gaiden just wants you to beat *most* of the races, and *most* of the parts.

Shogi used to want you to WIN games, now it just wants you to COMPLETE games. UFO catcher wanted you to get ALL of them, now it just wants SOME of them. Colliseum wanted you to perform well in every fight, now it just wants you to win every fight.

And so on and so on. This isn't something limited to just mahjong at all. I wouldn't even argue that mahjong got hit the hardest either, because arcade games got hit harder than anything else. Mahjong still at least requires you to win games, and requires you to win on a harder table at that, so you still need to know how to play it. The arcade games mostly just want to you play them, or win the practice fights on the easy machine.

[Valk]

Originally posted by DutchVikingrSaga:

While I understand that your view on Mahjong is strong, and you like it, RGG also has to think about the larger majority of people that don't necessarily enjoy playing Mahjong. I never cared for it, and depending on which game you ask me to rate Mahjong it, it can range from absolute hatred, to okay-to-do.

For me it's when you have Mahjong done like in Yakuza 0, with its nearly two dozen CP goals (not actual numbers likely, but you get the point) that it becomes a bit too much for the majority of people who want to actually complete the game and 100% it. I did it, through tons of sheer luck, will and brute forcing sometimes through it.

Personally as long as they don't tie achievements (beside the in-game trophy as you mentioned) then I don't think it'll do much harm to the broader community as a whole. I couldn't tell you how obnoxious the Mahjong achievements were to get in Yakuza 3 and 4. Especially given some people (myself included) find it that it feels like the AI sometimes cheats.

To be honest the problem with the mahjong goals in 3 is mostly that mahjong is ultimately RNG. It would be like having a poker achievement where it required you to win with a straight flush. It's extremely rare and there's no skill involved, and one bit of bad RNG and an AI can steal it right from under you.

[Legato Bluesummers]

Judgment mahjong took me like 25 hours to complete for the list. I was on a bad streak but i think judgment went overboard. Id like to see a cp item where you have to get 1st in the tourney. But other than that they bumped up shogi in this game. I think this mahjong reqs are good but bare min.

[Valk]

Originally posted by Legato Bluesummers:

Judgment mahjong took me like 25 hours to complete for the list. I was on a bad streak but i think judgment went overboard. Id like to see a cp item where you have to get 1st in the tourney. But other than that they bumped up shogi in this game. I think this mahjong reqs are good but bare min.

They didn't. At all. Much like every entry that has puzzle shogi, You can brute force it with ease, and you can just google the solutions. Challenge shogi is deceptive. It makes it seem like you need to win all 10 challenge shogi matches, but the reality is you do not. You only have to complete 10 shogi challenges. Emphasis on complete. If you quit the game, it will not count. If you lose, it will. All you have to do is play challenge shogi 1, intentionally lose, and then repeat this 9 more times and it will pop.

[retsa2b]

Originally posted by Valk:

They are targeting EVERYTHING. Mahjong just happened to get caught in the crossfire.

I agree with everything you said and have made these arguments before. Especially when it comes to Y7, which was, in essence, the first RGG game ever to fail to provide an achievement for beating the game on Legendary difficulty, thus reducing the entire NG+ component of the game to pure headcanon. You can use this specimen as a microcosm of the direction RGG has taken their games, and I once again believe it all comes down to a misguided attempt to mass appeal.

They can mass appeal without stealing away the incentives. Really, they can, I promise. But whoever's calling the shots is making poor decisions.

I underscore Mahjong because I feel it is the minigame which has taken the biggest ding by far. Mahjong is important enough in Japan to command a big presence among all non-specialized minigames in the franchise. Yet they have chosen to reduce it down to about 1 hour total per game. One hour of total content, let alone the even lesser amount needed to satisfy the blatant challenges. In Y4, if you really went and did everything, you could have a good 10+ hours of Mahjong, spread across a very long game. All completely optional and painlessly ignorable by anyone who just doesn't care—no achievements; no challenges; just some fluff items that you can't get any other way.

It worries me that the design team can't see how easy this is.

[a passerby]

There's been so much feedback over the years from players who've indicated their lack of interest in Mahjong. The primary goal of any game is to entertain. And considering each LAD game has so many other minigames, I would forgive them for not investing resources to cater to a very niche playerbase.

[Valk]

Originally posted by retsa2b:

Originally posted by Valk:

They are targeting EVERYTHING. Mahjong just happened to get caught in the crossfire.

I agree with everything you said and have made these arguments before. Especially when it comes to Y7, which was, in essence, the first RGG game ever to fail to provide an achievement for beating the game on Legendary difficulty, thus reducing the entire NG+ component of the game to pure headcanon. You can use this specimen as a microcosm of the direction RGG has taken their games, and I once again believe it all comes down to a misguided attempt to mass appeal.

They can mass appeal without stealing away the incentives. Really, they can, I promise. But whoever's calling the shots is making poor decisions.

I underscore Mahjong because I feel it is the minigame which has taken the biggest ding by far. Mahjong is important enough in Japan to command a big presence among all non-specialized minigames in the franchise. Yet they have chosen to reduce it down to about 1 hour total per game. One hour of total content, let alone the even lesser amount needed to satisfy the blatant challenges. In Y4, if you really went and did everything, you could have a good 10+ hours of Mahjong, spread across a very long game. All completely optional and painlessly ignorable by anyone who just doesn't care—no achievements; no challenges; just some fluff items that you can't get any other way.

It worries me that the design team can't see how easy this is.

See the thing is in the first place too, achievements are primarily going to be enjoyed by people who seek out the challenge of achievements. The kind of people who just want easy achievements are the kind of people who buy those under 2 hour games purely to get the achievements. I genuinely don't get why they have to make the games challenges easier for the people who will never interact with said challenges.

I do still stand by the mahjong point though. It's definitely not taken the biggest hit. Considering that it is ultimately a game of RNG, I'm glad they aren't like Y3 was anymore, I just wish there was more variety to them. Things like "Go out with Riichi x times", and "Go out with a haneman", or "All pairs". Stuff that is reasonably easy to achieve without having to rely on RNG too much, but is varied enough that you can't just stack them all necessarily.

They could also potentially get around the issues of Shogi Mahjong Koi Koi Oichu-Kabu and Cee-Lo by having you play some scripted tutorial hands too. A tutorial that you could skip if you know, and they could just copy-paste between each game, instead of just hurling controls at you and then expecting you to read the manual itself. Show don't tell, is it not?

[Valk]

Originally posted by a passerby:

There's been so much feedback over the years from players who've indicated their lack of interest in Mahjong. The primary goal of any game is to entertain. And considering each LAD game has so many other minigames, I would forgive them for not investing resources to cater to a very niche playerbase.

There's been even more people who say they don't bother to 100% the games. Compare the platinum achievements to the finished finale achievements.

Here's the thing though: completion list challenges are ridiculously easy to implement, considering they're still there in the games anyway. The games aren't balanced around completing them either. They exist almost exclusively for the people who like the challenge of them. The problem is that these people are being gradually abandoned by the devs, who are neutering the challenge of the games by a gigantic amount in favour of the people who don't like challenge. The people who wouldn't be interested in completion in the first place.

[retsa2b]

Originally posted by Valk:

Here's the thing though: completion list challenges are ridiculously easy to implement

Exactly this. The earlier point about "devoting resources" to minigame content is bonkers. For one thing, all they have to do at the end of the day is recycle what they did in earlier games like Y4, and that would be just fine. RGG is good at recycling.

For another thing, adding new content is so painless that it probably takes like 10 minutes. In Judgment, Tachibana asks the player do get a certain tricky hand, and then to get a certain other tricky hand, etc. And if you pull it off, you get awarded the same cheat items they've had in every RGG game ever. There's no spoken dialogue. It's just text, an NPC dialogue event, you get an item, boom, done. How long did this really take to slap together? Not enough time to qualify at all as "devoting resources." Somebody on the dev team had a good idea for fleshing out the Mahjong content and they put it together by themselves in nothing flat.

Same deal with an earlier Yakuza game where you would be steadily challenged by Mahjong fans on the street if you kept at it. Neat! Thanks to the scripted nature of how everything is arranged in these games, it probably took all of half an hour to put together the whole thing, and definitely made the Mahjong experience in that game feel like something worth investing some time into.

[Valk]

Originally posted by retsa2b:

Originally posted by Valk:

Here's the thing though: completion list challenges are ridiculously easy to implement

Exactly this. The earlier point about "devoting resources" to minigame content is bonkers. For one thing, all they have to do at the end of the day is recycle what they did in earlier games like Y4, and that would be just fine. RGG is good at recycling.

For another thing, adding new content is so painless that it probably takes like 10 minutes. In Judgment, Tachibana asks the player do get a certain tricky hand, and then to get a certain other tricky hand, etc. And if you pull it off, you get awarded the same cheat items they've had in every RGG game ever. There's no spoken dialogue. It's just text, an NPC dialogue event, you get an item, boom, done. How long did this really take to slap together? Not enough time to qualify at all as "devoting resources." Somebody on the dev team had a good idea for fleshing out the Mahjong content and they put it together by themselves in nothing flat.

Same deal with an earlier Yakuza game where you would be steadily challenged by Mahjong fans on the street if you kept at it. Neat! Thanks to the scripted nature of how everything is arranged in these games, it probably took all of half an hour to put together the whole thing, and definitely made the Mahjong experience in that game feel like something worth investing some time into.

Yup. Would also help if, whenever people bring this up, it didn't get sidelined by people saying ♥♥♥♥ like "you like achievements get a life" or "this makes me sad to see that people need achievements to enjoy games" etc. It always happens, and its so dumb.

[DutchVikingrSaga]

Originally posted by Valk:

Originally posted by DutchVikingrSaga:

While I understand that your view on Mahjong is strong, and you like it, RGG also has to think about the larger majority of people that don't necessarily enjoy playing Mahjong. I never cared for it, and depending on which game you ask me to rate Mahjong it, it can range from absolute hatred, to okay-to-do.

For me it's when you have Mahjong done like in Yakuza 0, with its nearly two dozen CP goals (not actual numbers likely, but you get the point) that it becomes a bit too much for the majority of people who want to actually complete the game and 100% it. I did it, through tons of sheer luck, will and brute forcing sometimes through it.

Personally as long as they don't tie achievements (beside the in-game trophy as you mentioned) then I don't think it'll do much harm to the broader community as a whole. I couldn't tell you how obnoxious the Mahjong achievements were to get in Yakuza 3 and 4. Especially given some people (myself included) find it that it feels like the AI sometimes cheats.

To be honest the problem with the mahjong goals in 3 is mostly that mahjong is ultimately RNG. It would be like having a poker achievement where it required you to win with a straight flush. It's extremely rare and there's no skill involved, and one bit of bad RNG and an AI can steal it right from under you.

Which is why that Mahjong achievement was my last achievement gotten in Yakuza 3.