How MK10 can innovate and still be MK

I've said the same thing I'm about to say in threads from the past. They've been buried away throughout the forum's lifespan, so I'm just going to make this thread so it's out in the open.

There's a very simple way to keep MK10 an MK game (2D plane, block button, the current combo system, etc) while adding lots of new gameplay innovations. In MK9, it's obvious NRS tried to make each character feel different. Why not take that idea and just run with it?

What if some characters could jump higher than others?
What if each character had different amounts of life?
What if a few characters didn't do chip damage because their hitstun is so powerful (or instead they don't build super meter from hitting a blocking opponent)?
What if some characters built super meter from actually hitting their opponent?
What if you could choose from 3 different types of super meters (you could choose to have no combo breakers in exchange for much more damage/armor on EX moves)?
What if each character had wake up-only attacks?
What if one character couldn't even jump, but he could run?
What if one character had projectiles that traded?

You see the point. This would add an incredible amount of depth and innovative gameplay elements while keeping MK's core gameplay mechanics in tact.

This may seem like it would be harder to balance, but at the same time it gives NRS many more options for balancing. Imagine if Kabal just kept everything he had now, but NRS just gave him 25-30% less health.

Thoughts?

nrs has always been about innovation, but I think they really should keep it the same as mk9 and add a minimum of new things. just polish the game.

PerfectMindGame said:

nrs has always been about innovation, but I think they really should keep it the same as mk9 and add a minimum of new things. just polish the game.

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The problem is, Boon said this about MK10 in an interview:

"Just philosophically, I don't think we could take the approach of doing the same thing but adding new characters in our next Mortal Kombat game," he said. "We definitely want to do something new with it, we feel we have to introduce something into the mix."
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/366680/next-mortal-kombat-must-innovate-says-boon/

It's kind of inevitable that Boon is going to try something new with MK10. My suggestion is that since this is going to happen, it should be more like how I described in the OP. At least this way we could avoid nonsense like free-fall kombat but still have a fresh new MK game.

GrandMasterson said:

The problem is, Boon said this about MK10 in an interview:

"Just philosophically, I don't think we could take the approach of doing the same thing but adding new characters in our next Mortal Kombat game," he said. "We definitely want to do something new with it, we feel we have to introduce something into the mix."
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/366680/next-mortal-kombat-must-innovate-says-boon/

It's kind of inevitable that Boon is going to try something new with MK10. My suggestion is that since this is going to happen, it should be more like how I described in the OP. At least this way we could avoid nonsense like free-fall kombat but still feel like a fresh new MK game.

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they do that for the casual players. I think the majority that takes mk serious would like the game to stay the same with some fixes.

some things they could improve in the new game are imo:

- the poking system( things like d3 being -3 on block means nothing with the block stun in this game), pokes should never combo either imo like they do in injustice. imo just introduce a whole new poke system
- block stun
- hit levels, 3d hitlevels are fine but a mid should always be a mid and should not whiff on low hitboxes and overheads should not whiff on crouching characters. so the system is fine but they need to polish it, the hitlevels seem to be even worse in injustice than MK.
- less armor, maybe make a seperate meter for pushblock, armor, etc. so that they can't be abused not talking about revenge/ultra meter though, maybe have a fixed amount of armor/pushblock a match. like 4 bars a match and armor/pushblock would cost 1 bar.
- normals should be more dominant than specials, i'm seeing way too many special moves right now in injustice, which might change though.
things like good backdashes on wakeup, pushblock, different airnormals, trades, trip guard should be taken from injustice and put into mk. DONT FORGET WALKSPEED AND ANTI AIR

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As For the Kabal point im goint To reference you To something Mike Z Said in an interview
Start at 5:35 (its a good discussion on balance though would recommend the whole vid)



"If a character doesnt have the options it doesnt matter how much damage they do or how much life they have they just are going to die slower."

examples
Gen
Akuma
Seth
3 lowest life values in sf4 have won or been in top 3 of the last 3 evos. Nerfing Kabals life will just make people play him lamer and it will be even more boring to look at. To drive the point home even further what is regarded as the most balanced games in the FGC SC2, VF, T5 engine, Kof, etc all have same life values. Keeping health the same from a design standpoint makes balance easier because your not worried about weighing options against life value of one character and then have to calculate life against options against situation etc you just have to weigh options against each other.

PerfectMindGame said:

they do that for the casual players. I think the majority that takes mk serious would like the game to stay the same with some fixes.

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Believe me, I agree with you

I'm just afraid they're going to do something utterly ridiculous

CamChattic said:

Nerfing Kabals life will just make people play him lamer and it will be even more boring to look at.

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It's not possible to play Kabal any lamer than he already has been.

GrandMasterson said:

Believe me, I agree with you

It's not possible to play Kabal any lamer than he already has been.

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Thats what people said about akuma when thy nerfed his life and Vortex options in 2012 and then Infiltration came along and now makes the character look like dhalsim.

CamChattic said:

Thats what people said about akuma when thy nerfed his life and Vortex options in 2012 and then Infiltration came along and now makes the character look like dhalsim.

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Nerfing Kabal's life is just one option. I was just throwing an example out. Besides just because that happened in SF doesn't mean the same thing will happen in MK.

Mortal Kombat is definitely fine as it is, adding way too much features will only ruin it in my honest opinion.

If it is to add a few things, i would sugest only the special block (just guard), a system that would allow to not lose any damage when an attack was blocked at the very last moment.

I wouldn't add anything else, that alone would make lots of things different.
MK doesn't need pushblock because is a pressure game where blockstrings is the easiest way of building up meter, the breaker is fine.
MK definitely doesn't need characters with different jump arcs, this will definitely screw some characters up that will fall into the forgotten.

Such as the same for characters who couldn't jump and others ideas that definitely would add way too much technical features in the game and later on would be dificult to balance out and we would end up having characters exploiting them for his advantage like happened in MK9 with resets (Cyrax) Kabal game design, Kenshi, Skarlet game resolving around armor and constantly threating other characters just by having her bar filled, nine frame moves that are zero on block against characters who they standard normal was 12 frames and was about -1 on block.

Changing all those things listed in the OP is just begging for the game to be even more imbalanced than MK9,

When boon says he is going to do something new, I am hoping he is referring to single player content.

They need to focus solely on creating a balanced FG instead of constantly trying to change things.

i'd like if they made fireballs designed specifically to trade/beat other fireballs. it'd add an interesting layer to zoning/anti zoning and maybe NRS wouldn't have to give half the cast fucking teleports

PerfectMindGame said:

nrs has always been about innovation, but I think they really should keep it the same as mk9 and add a minimum of new things. just polish the game.

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Is MK9 similar to MK:Armageddon? No? Hmm... I wonder why that is. Oh I don't know... maybe BECAUSE MK9 WAS RELEASED ON NEXT GEN AND HAD A BRAND NEW ENGINE?

Maaaaaaaaayyyybbbeeeee.

Of course MK10 will look nothing like MK9 and play drastically different. Thank god for that.

gamemk that's a really neat idea actually. Would the trade meter be separate of the normal meter for enhanced moves?

Maybe it won't be a fighting game? Maybe mk10 will be an Adventure game? That's different, no?

CamChattic said:

"If a character doesnt have the options it doesnt matter how much damage they do or how much life they have they just are going to die slower."

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No it's not the simple. There is no character that doesn't have options, there are characters with less options. It would make huge different if Kabal's highest bnb was (say) 18%, he wouldn't be the same as he is now. Sheeva would't be the worst character if he could do a 80% combo midscreen. Cyrax would't be that good if he could't do 99% combos.

So say we have a character with less options who could do huge damage and a character with more options but with low damage:

For example imagine a matchup in MK9, say Freddy VS Sub: Freddy has a lot more options, but if Sub-zero could deal double damage (or better Freddy half damage), the matchup would had been 5-5.

In conclusion, I believe it would be nice to have a Sheeva type character in MK10, with not many attacking options, but really huge damage, and a Kabal type character but low damage.

So you guys just want more of the same?

gamemk what about projectiles trading would make MK not MK?

PerfectMindGame said:

nrs has always been about innovation, but I think they really should keep it the same as mk9 and add a minimum of new things. just polish the game.

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This is the way tekken has approached it's series by giving characters more moves and balances after each iteration without making to many drastice changes. It leads to easier balance taking this approach, and less crazy variables to focus on.

The only negatives to this are:
-Game reviewers tend to give lower scores because of this...since they always want some new content
-If done for too long, the skill level for each mk game can become to high for other new tourney players to compete in (as we have seen in tekken were characters have a ton of moves). This shouldn't be a problem in mk10 however, but if continued in future mk's can create a large skill gap like between new and seasoned players
-Casual fans tend to think it's just rehashed

Personally NRS in my opinion should take the tekken route. Balance the characters from the last games, with the same moves and probably add on some new strings for each character, while adding in the new characters. Just leads to easier balance than trying to be "innovative".

And by "innovative" I mean not being innovative at all, and trying to copy every games features.

gamemk said:

I disagree. Mortal Kombat has always added stuff that made it more technical: crossups in MK2, better mobility in MK2, and a run button and target combos in MK3. There's nothing wrong with adding technical ideas into "casual" games as long as they're implemented thoughtfully. Plus, why do "casual" games have to mean easy to operate, understand? Super Mario Bros. is fun, but requires at least a 90 IQ to complete. Varying jump arcs is a good idea. There's no difference between varying a jump arc and having larger or smaller characters.

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You can disagree all you want, but the more technical issues a game like MK has, the dificult to balance the game will also increase, and so far there is no MK besides maybe MK1 who is "just" in term of balance.

MK3 and its updates were pretty broken, Mk2 was zoning broken, MKDA was broken, MK9 was broken, etc etc.


Besides, this new standards of them they just hit the nail, i wouldn't mind slightests improvements in the system, but seriously adding things like projectiles that trades, characters who can't jump or with different jump arcs that can be too dangerous IMO.

Has you already stated, just by looking into Kabal, you can see how flawless he is, because he controls every aspect of the game, imagine a character who can't jump fighting kabal, or a character with a huge jump arc...

Protagonist_1 said:

This is the way tekken has approached it's series by giving characters more moves and balances after each iteration without making to many drastice changes. It leads to easier balance taking this approach, and less crazy variables to focus on.

The only negatives to this are:
-Game reviewers tend to give lower scores because of this...since they always want some new content
-If done for too long, the skill level for each mk game can become to high for other new tourney players to compete in (as we have seen in tekken were characters have a ton of moves). This shouldn't be a problem in mk10 however, but if continued in future mk's can create a large skill gap like between new and seasoned players
-Casual fans tend to think it's just rehashed

Personally NRS in my opinion should take the tekken route. Balance the characters from the last games, with the same moves and probably add on some new strings for each character, while adding in the new characters. Just leads to easier balance than trying to be "innovative".

And by "innovative" I mean not being innovative at all, and trying to copy every games features.

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I think the NRS way of being "innovative" is just presenting a fresh experience rather than actually trying to innovate. Considering the story of Mk9, having most of the old characters return will be odd but not impossible.

That being said. I don't want MK10 to be UMK9. Just adding new strings or whatever would be stale and disappointing. New additions like the ones in OP wouldn't be terrible if NRS handled them properly.

Eddy Wang said:

You can disagree all you want, but the more technical issues a game like MK has, the dificult to balance the game will also increase, and so far there is no MK besides maybe MK1 who is "just" in term of balance.

MK3 and its updates were pretty broken, Mk2 was zoning broken, MKDA was broken, MK9 was broken, etc etc.


Besides, this new standards of them they just hit the nail, i wouldn't mind slightests improvements in the system, but seriously adding things like projectiles that trades, characters who can't jump or with different jump arcs that can be too dangerous IMO.

Has you already stated, just by looking into Kabal, you can see how flawless he is, because he controls every aspect of the game, imagine a character who can't jump fighting kabal, or a character with a huge jump arc...

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Well, Injustice utilizes different jumping arcs so it's not too much of a foreign idea to NRS. You also mention having a character that can't jump fighting against Kabal. Who says that there will have to be a Kabal like character in the new game if everything is re worked?

Projectile trades aren't too dangerous because they're implemented in just about every other fighting game out there. They'll just have to keep projectiles trading in their mind when creating character's moves and game mechanics.

Arc Sys games have characters with wildly different movement capabilities yet maintain balance because the characters and mechanics are designed around these movement differences and are given ways around them.

Nothing is too dangerous as long as it's implemented correctly.

DangerousBacon said:

Well, Injustice utilizes different jumping arcs so it's not too much of a foreign idea to NRS. You also mention having a character that can't jump fighting against Kabal. Who says that there will have to be a Kabal like character in the new game if everything is re worked?

Projectile trades aren't too dangerous because they're implemented in just about every other fighting game out there. They'll just have to keep projectiles trading in their mind when creating character's moves and game mechanics.

Arc Sys games have characters with wildly different movement capabilities yet maintain balance because the characters and mechanics are designed around these movement differences and are given ways around them.

Nothing is too dangerous as long as it's implemented correctly.

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Has NRS ever being able to implement something correctly thus far?

Tossing a few ideas in this thread.

Additions:
Improvements:

If they kept the 3 bar per meter thing i think itd be cool to combine enhanced specials and meter burn specials for 2 bars of meter.

Like sektors up rocket would be homing enhanced but once it hits you can meter burn it so itll pop the opponent up for combos

Also just throwing this out there. I dint think projectile trading should be,in mk at all. It just wouldn't feel like a mk game if it happened