Marlow said:

Are there some specific things that NRS needs to "finish" that will lead to community growth? I just have a hard time pinning so much of this on NRS and on the game. To me the state of MK1 right now compares pretty on par to the state of MK9, MKX, and MK11, and least when it comes to things like balance and competitive gameplay.

If the goal is to see more community growth, then that seems to be more on the community itself than on NRS or MK1 the game.

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That’s the toughest part though, the voices of the people who want this game to do bad are a lot louder than the ones that want it to grow. And I swear if I see another post saying “don’t compete just stay home and make content” I’m gonna explode, we need people coming out not sitting home and restreaming events.

I think if someone wanted to do a deep dive into it, there's a lot of factors at play. Age/makeup of the community is certainly one thing (Street Fighter and Tekken have much older and well established communities, with a bigger history of traveling to offline events, whereas NRS scene kind of grew up in the online competition era). Current economic conditions, combined with better online play makes the choice of whether to travel to a tournament to compete much harder to justify. COVID and having pro competition circuits take place so heavily online is also likely a factor.

I have a hard time seeing the game itself or NRS being the main issue though.

I'm hoping the streams are later at night, my kids go to bed at 7:00 so I'll be able to tune in after then.

Marlow said:

I have a hard time seeing the game itself or NRS being the main issue though.

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Even though I appreciate the in-depth analysis of TomBrady, I think it has to do with each MK having to build a new community with each release because they're all so different with each other. MK1 did bring some MK9 back with a twist in the form of kameos, but all the MKX, MK11 players and even some MK9 purists are not too thrilled about it.
And, in terms of growth. MK11 was a true spectacle for its time. Beautiful game with a best in class story mode experience. That shit matters.

I kind of get that, but I don't think the games are such drastically different from each other that it would be prohibitive to growth. A lot of the core stuff stays the same, even if different gameplay elements are added/subtracted around it. It's still a block button, string combo based game, still has the same legacy characters, and most if not all legacy characters keep their core moves.

And honestly every fighting game goes through this with the next iteration in the series, where there's a certain amount of backlash between people who prefer the older games. Plenty of third strike players didn't care for SFIV, SFIV players didn't like SFV, and now even some SFV players are critical of SFVI.

I think the biggest thing MK11 had going for it was that it was before Covid, and launched relatively close to Combo Breaker, hence the crazy big number of entrants.

Tom Brady said:

stuff

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what's your point? MK is not as popular as other fighters in the "pro" scene? MK1 is not as popular as MKx? That has nothing to do with the game being viable and having a active pro scene.

WB is going broke and they gutted the pro-league. Without the funding even if you win evo you are still not going to cover the ticket to the US and the accommodation. The fact that there is the 2nd best showing for MK1 at combobreaker's history shows how STRONG the competitive scene is. A scene going so well it is still getting people to show up regardless of support, just like in the old days and, btw, there is literary 100s of players in every single one of the large regular online events.

MK1 is going so well it is surviving, even thriving without all that support that we bloody well should have had.

Remember back when you played DCvsMK.. I mean I was in AU and there was no international scene but I remember my local and our local vs local events, there was no money from on high.. just like now.. and I am pretty sure you consider those times with MK9 as a "good" period.. but news flash.. there are more events now, more players playing RIGHT NOW in competitive events, than there ever was back then.

MK is not SF or any of those other games. We are as grass roots as the FGC can be in this "eSports" era and I think we should be proud of it. People like Aqua, TMS, SyRU, R1p, Darth and more are doing so much. Doing grass roots international events. Inter-fucking-national events via the online scene. Any of that back in the day? And all this is feeding into the majors. I mean TexasShowdown had major new faces coming from those onlie scenes as well as a full invasion of the "PC Boys". Just like locals have always fed the majors. That is why combobreaker is at a 2nd level high for poeple entering.

Sure.. we all wish we had 500K prise pool events like back in MKx days, but we don't.... so we do not get the pure numbers of MKx... but instead all these lound people around here are looking at what we don't have... what we never really ever had apart from MKx, you know when it wa funded... if you look at what we got and what the community is doing... not only is it total bullshit to say MK1 is dead, it is spitting in the face of 100s of players and all those TOs doing Gods fucking work.

MK1 compeditive scene is live, full of life and kicking arse!

Imagine for a second if @Tom Brady focused a fraction of his energy towards arranging tournaments, commentating on them, etc. instead of yelling in front of a mic like an old man yelling at the sun

rifraf said:

Imagine for a second if @Tom Brady focused a fraction of his energy towards arranging tournaments, commentating on them, etc. instead of yelling in front of a mic like an old man yelling at the sun

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Imagine if yall talked about the game at all other than drama and jokes
Lol, I'm joking but TYM isn't helping the scene much either.

Tom Brady said:

You also mention the online scene.. Is it dead? Absolutely not. Is it even close to the other 2 major fighting game competitive scenes? Not even close.. Again, those scenes continued to grow, we did not and MK1's still unfinished state is a HUGE reason. You also must understand that its always the offline scene that's the first to go, the online tournament scene follows. If MK1 does not get completed sooner rather than later, the online scene will take a major hit while the offline scene will become non-existent.

I do not understand what the issue is with acknowledging that, YES.. THERE IS AN ISSUE.. NRS absolutely cannot continue the slow motion route. Blindly ignoring the obvious just to be "positive" makes no sense. The game is not dead, but right now NRS is not doing it any favors. Finish the game and I believe things will begin to grow once more.

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SFV, an unfinished game, had the highest entrants at Combo Breaker 2016.

Entrants are a reflection of the community, not the state of the game. People who are toxic and destructive, rather than being constructive and supporting their scene, have effects on turnout.

CrimsonShadow said:

SFV, an unfinished game, had the highest entrants at Combo Breaker 2016.

Entrants are a reflection of the community, not the state of the game. People who are toxic and destructive, rather than being constructive and supporting their scene, have effects on turnout.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1788207236189208885

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Can you please requote your post and be admit how intellectually dishonest what you just said was?

I'm really not trying to get into an argument and everything that needs to be said has been said. But shit like this keeps it going in circles.

Dont care what anyone says mk1 is miles better than 11 , miles

Ahh i see,so analyzing competative numbers and crticizing poor aspects of the game,like lack of character utility,poor sp content,horendeouse monetisation and so on,is toxic and kills the competative community

But the new school vs old school player narrative,stating that all these new players would have trashed and dominated in past eras if they were there,that old school players results and wins dont matter and that they are trash totally is not toxic.

Mass hostility to players who come from other games/or have a different main game(nychrisG for example) is also not toxic and not at all hurting competative community growth.

Secret grouping and refusal to share game knowledge with the rest of the community by certain current top players is also not hurting the competative numbers at all.

I get it now,thanks Crimson

PrinceGoro said:

Ahh i see,so analyzing competative numbers and crticizing poor aspects of the game,like lack of character utility,poor sp content,horendeouse monetisation and so on,is toxic and kills the competative community

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No man, people calling the game dead and a scam three months after launch are the actual toxic ones.

Tom Brady said:

I am not trying to be disrespectful here, although because its me and this is TYM it will undoubtedly be taken as such...

MKX had 273.. literally the exact same number as MK1 now, so its not really correct in saying MKX could not attract this. Also, when it comes to community growth, the other 2 of the "big 3" fighting game scenes have grown by A LOT.. Mk started to grow in Mk11 and now has regressed 10 years. Meanwhile, not only have the other 2 of the "big 3" fighters exploded with their scenes, even games like GB, GG, etc seem to be getting more community support. At EVO, 3RD Strike is over Mk1 and that game came out 25 years ago. Its true that 274 is NOT bad.. but its not good either. Hell.. Mystery game tournament doesnt have a "pro komp", no $200k finale, no 10K pot bonus for mystery game tournament.. yet it doubled MK1 in entrants

MK used to have growth.. MKX was bigger than 9, MK11 was actually bigger than MKX with offline entrants.. MK1 has IGAU numbers.. NRS scene has stopped growing, at least with its offline tournament scene and the online one isnt far behind.

Not in any way saying MK1 is done. Just saying that NRS cannot continue to take the VERY slow route in completing it.

Attached are the Combo Breaker 2015 stats, this was the first CB for MKX and actually the first CB. MKX had the most entrants of ALL games.. MORE than even tekken and SF. Look at their communities now, thats growth.. In fact, as I pointed out, even the mystery game tournament has grown, but not MK.. nope.. MK1 has regressed the MK scene back to 2015

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I agree that 274 isn't great, but there are different and deeper factors than the release and current state of MK1 that I attribute to those numbers and why I think they are pretty good considered. The scene is definitely growing in that we have a massive influx of new players each title, but a massive fall off of players from the previous title. I would argue because of that we are almost seeing the competitive MK community be replaced by an entirely new/different one. Younger and more digital like the rest of the world. Because we lose so many of our previous players, OGs, top players, and content creators we are still decades behind SF and Tekken competitive Legacy. So many quit for their reasons and all being valid, but the point is they are all gone. The main reason for that I feel like is actually on NRS, these games have almost no legacy from title to title so we all have to learn a new game from the ground up. Yes that sucks, but oh well that's their choice since they make the game. No amount of complaints are going to change that I think, unless someone wants to organize a boycott and hit WB in the wallet over combat design I guess? If you get enough people behind it you never know. Next would be that we have almost NO locals. No local scenes=hard to have a big scene. That isn't on WB/NRS, that's on us. Look in a mirror and ask yourself when the last time you supported a local, regional, and major tournament was. Next is covid, and I would argue we flourished during it with online #s and activity. NRS was a letdown in "support more than 2 years though holy crap. What damage it did though was financially, to most if not all of us. Most plebs now can't afford to travel, and we used to have locals and local players we could travel with to make it cheap. These factors have hurt us for a long time. What I see this year at CB are mostly new names and players, as I did at ECT and TXS so far for MK1. If all of our community members actually showed up that CB number would be great.

Mr Aquaman said:

I agree that 274 isn't great, but there are different and deeper factors than the release and current state of MK1 that I attribute to those numbers and why I think they are pretty good considered. The scene is definitely growing in that we have a massive influx of new players each title, but a massive fall off of players from the previous title. I would argue because of that we are almost seeing the competitive MK community be replaced by an entirely new/different one. Younger and more digital like the rest of the world. Because we lose so many of our previous players, OGs, top players, and content creators we are still decades behind SF and Tekken competitive Legacy. So many quit for their reasons and all being valid, but the point is they are all gone. The main reason for that I feel like is actually on NRS, these games have almost no legacy from title to title so we all have to learn a new game from the ground up. Yes that sucks, but oh well that's their choice since they make the game. No amount of complaints are going to change that I think, unless someone wants to organize a boycott and hit WB in the wallet over combat design I guess? If you get enough people behind it you never know. Next would be that we have almost NO locals. No local scenes=hard to have a big scene. That isn't on WB/NRS, that's on us. Look in a mirror and ask yourself when the last time you supported a local, regional, and major tournament was. Next is covid, and I would argue we flourished during it with online #s and activity. NRS was a letdown in "support more than 2 years though holy crap. What damage it did though was financially, to most if not all of us. Most plebs now can't afford to travel, and we used to have locals and local players we could travel with to make it cheap. These factors have hurt us for a long time. What I see this year at CB are mostly new names and players, as I did at ECT and TXS so far for MK1. If all of our community members actually showed up that CB number would be great.

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How can the player base be growing if as you said you have both an influx of new players but also a drop off from older players? The nrs community is stagnant and has been for years. MK games are fun to play, but other fighting games are better for competitive play. All the factors you mentioned, like covid, have also been problems for other games, and they don't appear to be struggling like MK is. I think most MK die hard fans have to realise that while MK is being made by NRS the game will never be taken seriously or have the huge communities like Tekken and SF.

JJParker said:

How can the player base be growing if as you said you have both an influx of new players but also a drop off from older players? The nrs community is stagnant and has been for years. MK games are fun to play, but other fighting games are better for competitive play. All the factors you mentioned, like covid, have also been problems for other games, and they don't appear to be struggling like MK is. I think most MK die hard fans have to realise that while MK is being made by NRS the game will never be taken seriously or have the huge communities like Tekken and SF.

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I see more new people joining than old people leaving for now. If you combine the new + the old we have a pretty damn decent community. SF and Tekken are also not plagued by a lack of competitive legacy and lack of locals>regionals>major tournaments. They also have the pleasure of not being banned in Japan and China which are HUGE metrics for Tekken and SF alone.

You did hit a nail on the head though that I gotta agree with. The greater FGC does not take MK serious

Mr Aquaman said:

You did hit a nail on the head though that I gotta agree with. The greater FGC does not take MK serious

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This has always been the case. We are a stinky western fighter and nothing else. Its whatever but thats why our community is important for US.

Mavado banned at CB due to the Two Week rule after "Official" release a week after premium

Mr Aquaman said:

Mavado banned at CB due to the Two Week rule after "Official" release a week after premium

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fair.

Mr Aquaman said:

I agree that 274 isn't great, but there are different and deeper factors than the release and current state of MK1 that I attribute to those numbers and why I think they are pretty good considered. The scene is definitely growing in that we have a massive influx of new players each title, but a massive fall off of players from the previous title. I would argue because of that we are almost seeing the competitive MK community be replaced by an entirely new/different one. Younger and more digital like the rest of the world. Because we lose so many of our previous players, OGs, top players, and content creators we are still decades behind SF and Tekken competitive Legacy. So many quit for their reasons and all being valid, but the point is they are all gone. The main reason for that I feel like is actually on NRS, these games have almost no legacy from title to title so we all have to learn a new game from the ground up. Yes that sucks, but oh well that's their choice since they make the game. No amount of complaints are going to change that I think, unless someone wants to organize a boycott and hit WB in the wallet over combat design I guess? If you get enough people behind it you never know. Next would be that we have almost NO locals. No local scenes=hard to have a big scene. That isn't on WB/NRS, that's on us. Look in a mirror and ask yourself when the last time you supported a local, regional, and major tournament was. Next is covid, and I would argue we flourished during it with online #s and activity. NRS was a letdown in "support more than 2 years though holy crap. What damage it did though was financially, to most if not all of us. Most plebs now can't afford to travel, and we used to have locals and local players we could travel with to make it cheap. These factors have hurt us for a long time. What I see this year at CB are mostly new names and players, as I did at ECT and TXS so far for MK1. If all of our community members actually showed up that CB number would be great.

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I'm lucky enough to have a local scene in Oregon a handful of dedicated players work had to keep alive. Actually, is there a place on this site to promote locals or other tournaments?

Btw, really appreciate everything you do, Aquaman.

OldManFGC said:

I'm lucky enough to have a local scene in Oregon a handful of dedicated players work had to keep alive. Actually, is there a place on this site to promote locals or other tournaments?

Btw, really appreciate everything you do, Aquaman.

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There is but I'm gonna see about a new section just for locals. Can you send me all the info on it? That's awesome!

Mr Aquaman said:

I see more new people joining than old people leaving for now. If you combine the new + the old we have a pretty damn decent community. SF and Tekken are also not plagued by a lack of competitive legacy and lack of locals>regionals>major tournaments. They also have the pleasure of not being banned in Japan and China which are HUGE metrics for Tekken and SF alone.

You did hit a nail on the head though that I gotta agree with. The greater FGC does not take MK serious

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All of this plus something I feel has been overlooked. Which is the fact that MK1 is only available on current gen consoles (+PC ofc). There’s a ton of people that still don’t have a PS5 or an XBSX. And not being able to play the game obviously effects entry numbers, but also it effects viewership. And I feel this disproportionately effects the MK community because we have far more casual players than any other fighting game. And casual gamers are less likely to be quick to get a new gen console, especially when so many games are still being released on the PS4 and XB1. There’s honestly not very many current gen exclusive games right now. I remember seeing a thread about it on Reddit around a year or so ago that there were only 30 “next gen” exclusives out at the time. And that’s the total # of next gen exclusives, that # is of course even less when you split up the games that are exclusive to PS and XB.

I know people aren’t going to think this is a factor and that it’s just an excuse, but I’ve been pretty vocal about my stance on WB/NRS and MK1. So I’m far from a “shill” and I’m not defending anything. Just providing context I feel people aren’t taking into consideration.

Juggs said:

All of this plus something I feel has been overlooked. Which is the fact that MK1 is only available on current gen consoles (+PC ofc). There’s a ton of people that still don’t have a PS5 or an XBSX. And not being able to play the game obviously effects entry numbers, but also it effects viewership. And I feel this disproportionately effects the MK community because we have far more casual players than any other fighting game. And casual gamers are less likely to be quick to get a new gen console, especially when so many games are still being released on the PS4 and XB1. There’s honestly not very many current gen exclusive games right now. I remember seeing a thread about it on Reddit around a year or so ago that there were only 30 “next gen” exclusives out at the time. And that’s the total # of next gen exclusives, that # is of course even less when you split up the games that are exclusive to PS and XB.

I know people aren’t going to think this is a factor and that it’s just an excuse, but I’ve been pretty vocal about my stance on WB/NRS and MK1. So I’m far from a “shill” and I’m not defending anything. Just providing context I feel people aren’t taking into consideration.

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This def had a factor on locals as well I think. It's rare enough to have people competent enough to organize locals, the requirement to switch to next gen machines for those locals can't be overlooked. Also the cost of SPACE to host the locals went up as well.

Coming out of the pandemic, cost of everything has skyrocketed, POT MONSTERS, NOT PROS make up big pool entrant numbers. When super fans, average players, or people with some interest can't travel easily or cheaply, just to be around the scene, then there is major drop off.

Regional rivalries drove A TON of the average pot monsters desire to travel to a major and see things play out in the MK9 and INJ days.
Those story lines were built up through locals, and through this very site. It was almost like a damn living tv show, with the weekly events culminating at majors. Then the results of the majors starting the next story lines.

While online HAS flourished, we are missing that component. What a double edged sword. Players have never been better, the amount of HIGH LEVEL great talent has NEVER been higher, the moneys the best it's been, but we have no big story build up to Combo Breaker.
Instead of the Storys being about the Players, it's been about the state of the game,
And thats a hard narrative to break out of when 8 months down the road the game STILL isn't were it needs to be.

We had ONE chance at my local with MK1, there was a little bit of interest, and we ran a bracket.

But we hit the issue of "ALWAYS NEEDING TO BE ONLINE" to have all the right stuff stay unlocked.
We hit the button configuration glitches that were present, where they wouldn't save properly,
And we had the game freeze a couple times.

This was week 1/2 of launch and it was dead in the water after that, that was enough. I feel like I'm further behind then when MK9 first launched in having the ability to convince people to come out and compete locally.

And it's unfortunate.

anyway, this got away from me a bit lol, I hope combo breaker is a good time for anyone going,

Juggs said:

All of this plus something I feel has been overlooked. Which is the fact that MK1 is only available on current gen consoles (+PC ofc). There’s a ton of people that still don’t have a PS5 or an XBSX. And not being able to play the game obviously effects entry numbers, but also it effects viewership. And I feel this disproportionately effects the MK community because we have far more casual players than any other fighting game. And casual gamers are less likely to be quick to get a new gen console, especially when so many games are still being released on the PS4 and XB1. There’s honestly not very many current gen exclusive games right now. I remember seeing a thread about it on Reddit around a year or so ago that there were only 30 “next gen” exclusives out at the time. And that’s the total # of next gen exclusives, that # is of course even less when you split up the games that are exclusive to PS and XB.

I know people aren’t going to think this is a factor and that it’s just an excuse, but I’ve been pretty vocal about my stance on WB/NRS and MK1. So I’m far from a “shill” and I’m not defending anything. Just providing context I feel people aren’t taking into consideration.

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Your argument doesn't make sense. So MK1 is only on next gen console and because MK has a very large casual fan base these players won't get the game because they won't have the new consoles. Yet MK1 sales figures reached 3 million copies much much faster than SF6 did. Also because mk isn't sold in as many regions as SF6 this mean a massive portion of those 3 million people are living in America. Unlike sf6 where loads are in Japan and Europe. Even with those numbers and a high percentage of the player base being in America those players still have no interest in going to tournaments. So numbers of people having access to the game is clearly not an issue. There are some core gameplay issues with NRS games that prevents them from growing a large competitive player base. So what needs to change to rectify that problem?

JJParker said:

Your argument doesn't make sense. So MK1 is only on next gen console and because MK has a very large casual fan base these players won't get the game because they won't have the new consoles.

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This wasn’t my “argument” at all. Don’t really feel like getting into it because I’d have to explain things I’ve already explained dozens of times. Mainly the differences between NRS FG’s and other FG’s, the business model differences, and just a bunch of other boring stuff that I, again, have talked about ad nauseam.