Menu
By:
Filters
What's new

Choosing the right character means being honest with yourself as a player

Crimzon-ET

Crimzon-ET

Got Face Huggers?
@Tom Brady
Thanks for taking the time to create such an honest and insightful thread to help out players improve their game in MKX

Personally I am not really sure what my real strengths or weakness are at this point. Even though I have played fighting games since Street Fighter II World Warrior. I have only recently started going to tournaments and to learn a fighting game on a competitive level.

The only thing I have to go on right now is that most of my habits and approach to playing matches stems from my years of playing Vega in Street Fighter. So I feel very comfortable playing the neutral game as long as I have good pokes to zone and counter the opponent with and I can usually do a good job at blocking most mixups once I get familiar with them. However it's hard for me to be sure if this is a strength of mine or if I have developed bad habits in the neutral and defensive game from all those years of playing fighting games casually.

The good thing is that I have noticed that I don't mix up the opponent enough on their wake up. So that is something that I have picked up on about my playing that needs to be improved or perhaps fixed with a character that can cover that area better. I think what I need is an experience tournament player to help me see what I need to improve on and what I am doing well during a match.
 
Last edited:
PaletteSwap

PaletteSwap

Misanthropiate
" candy ass standing on the corner of Know Your Role blvd and Jabroni drive."

I'm gonna say this everyday... Genius.

I honestly never found my perfect character in MK9. If there was a character tailored to my preferred playstyle, it'd likely be broken.

I like zoners who don't feel like zoners, or non projectile zoners like Ermac. I also love that he excels at mid range because I hate sitting at full screen spamming projectiles. Unfortunately, I also would like more mixup options.

What I like even more are counter, anti zoner characters. There is nothing that feels more satisfying to me than landing a parry or an ice clone. I love letting my opponent defeat themselves. I want my opponent to feel the way Liu Kang made Shang Tsung feel at the end of the MK movie. Sub-Zero was a no go for me because I love my teleports. Smoke was one of the most comfortable characters for me but I hate his combos with repetitive strings.

As horrible as the game is, Smoke in MKA was pretty close to how I prefer to play. An ice clone like trap move, a teleport attack and a normal teleport. But again, that game is terrible.

In MKX, it's looking like I'll probably click with Ermac (master of souls) or Kitana (assassin). Holding my breath for a less lame Smoke with more interesting stings. I can't do that 3,1 shit all day.
 
Last edited:
xenogorgeous

xenogorgeous

.... they mostly come at night. Mostly.
great read .... some great points of view here

yeah, we have 3 possible scenarios in fighting games :

tier whore : the dudes who take whoever it's the best character
loyalist : people who love a character and stick with him/her, no matter what
this Tom Brady situation : you try to find the character that suits the better your overall play style (zoner, rushdown, keepaway, footsie master, etc :D)
 
Killusion

Killusion

Stream addict
Nice thread. My biggest weakness IMO is my execution. I feel I literally can't play characters that require really precise button presses to be effective. My reads, neutral game, defense, clutch and patience are pretty good. My reactions could always be better though. I feel I'm naturally more offensive player than defensive, but I can play both styles decently.

I feel my ideal character has low execution requirements and big damage so I can really benefit from my reads. Good footsie tools would be a plus but I think I can make even mediocre tools work well with my good spacing. Hopefully someone who I'm interested in MKX matches my style.
 
CrimsonShadow

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
Tom Brady said:
My weakness counters my strength... I'll be good but will never compete with greats without help. I need the right character to help me mask my weakness so that I can have a high enough comfort level to focus on my strengths.
Click to expand...
This is one way to look at it, but the problem is that this leaves a player susceptible to either:

A) Changes to their character that affect the effectiveness of whatever they were hiding behind/using as a crutch
B) Buffs or changes to other people's characters that make the tools you're hiding behind less effective in key MUs

So while, of course everyone needs to find a character who fits their style, if your entire rationale for picking a character is to compensate for weaknesses, it might make sense to just work on the weaknesses so that they aren't weaknesses anymore.

Then you can choose whoever you think would be most effective in battle, rather than being limited to only a couple of choices because you have years-long fighting game vulnerabilities you aren't addressing.
 
Last edited:
sub_on_dubs

sub_on_dubs

Online Scrub Lord
I'm not sure who to pick this game since Sheeva is not in it. She covered all my weaknesses, now I'm not sure who to pick. I need to think about this deeply the next two weeks.
 
Last edited:
WakeUp DP

WakeUp DP

GT MK OshTekk.
ShadowBeatz said:
I'm a bad, low-tier player so I deserve to play bad, low-tier characters.

This way, I can blame my loss on "lack of tools" and "3-7 matchups" instead of actually improving. It's great!
Click to expand...
Wow dont upplay MK9 cyrax too much bro, people will begin to think that he was actually good in mk9 :DOGE
 
B

BLACKRENEGADE

Salt.exe
Totally feelin this write-up. I can't be a zoner also, it just doesn't feel right to me. I feel like I'd get my ass knocked down pulling traps too...but the rushdown and close pressure is where I thrive. I also love the mindgames involved with footsies. Gonna try to improve my game more though, like deciding how I'm gonna get in on players who use Takeda or Quan Chi or Erron Black with that rifle.

Shaazzyam said:
So would you say players inclined to top-tier have bigger weaknesses than most?
Click to expand...
Maybe the fact that they're using top-tier only characters says that they have no 'weaknesses' to begin with. Or maybe it says they're garbage in general. I'm almost certain though that if you took a Kabal main and tried to make him play someone like Stryker, things wouldn't work out as well.
 
Tom Brady

Tom Brady

Noob
CrimsonShadow said:
This is one way to look at it, but the problem is that this leaves a player susceptible to either:

A) Changes to their character that affect the effectiveness of whatever they were hiding behind/using as a crutch
B) Buffs or changes to other people's characters that make the tools you're hiding behind less effective in key MUs

So while, of course everyone needs to find a character who fits their style, if your entire rationale for picking a character is to compensate for weaknesses, it might make sense to just *work on the weaknesses so that they aren't weaknesses anymore.

Then you can choose whoever you think would be most effective in battle, rather than being limited to only a couple of choices because you have years-long fighting game vulnerabilities you aren't addressing.
Click to expand...
Which is why I worked with Rico and CD jr a lot to improve in that area. I am much better in the neutral game.
 
BigMilk

BigMilk

Former Divine Power Abuser
I think what's more important is pushing yourself to be/do the best you can. Learn to analyze yourself as a player and you will continually improve. Learn why x gives you trouble and work on dealing with that. Learn from losses
 
Malec

Malec

Noob
can someone explain to me what neutral game means? thx

my biggest weakness is patience against heavy zoning/keep out like mk9 kenshi, sub zero and stuff like that, i am getting mad pretty quickly (online) against that shit. trying dash canceling your way (without teleport) to your oponent, doing one mistake and sitting at full screen again, its just a pain in the a.. .
 
BillStickers

BillStickers

Do not touch me again.
Love this post. What a few people are missing is that covering your weaknesses with a character is not mutually exclusive to working on those weaknesses. You can use that character as "training wheels" while you work on your weaknesses, and that way you can improve while still being able to hold your own in the game and stay motivated.

It's really hard to figure out how a character is "meant" to be played early in the game, so I usually make the mistake of picking a character based on their "feel" rather than how much they complement me as a player.

That said, I have a really hard time playing a character that I don't like. Freddy is a very strong MK9 character, but his strings are totally awkward and his zoning game is really really boring to me. Same deal with Aquaman, MMH, and Batgirl in Injustice; I tried to pick them up, but I simply don't get any enjoyment out of playing them.
 
B

BLACKRENEGADE

Salt.exe
Malec said:
can someone explain to me what neutral game means? thx

my biggest weakness is patience against heavy zoning/keep out like mk9 kenshi, sub zero and stuff like that, i am getting mad pretty quickly (online) against that shit. trying dash canceling your way (without teleport) to your oponent, doing one mistake and sitting at full screen again, its just a pain in the a.. .
Click to expand...
Controlling the space between you and your opponent. The ways to do this are by playing footsies, not allowing the opponent to get to close if you're a zoner, pressuring your opponent towards the opposite end of a stage while maintaining spacing, etc. By controlling the neutral game, you control the flow of the match, and can set it at either a high or slow pace.
 
RoboCop

RoboCop

The future of law enforcement.
Administrator
Premium Supporter
Malec said:
can someone explain to me what neutral game means? thx

my biggest weakness is patience against heavy zoning/keep out like mk9 kenshi, sub zero and stuff like that, i am getting mad pretty quickly (online) against that shit. trying dash canceling your way (without teleport) to your oponent, doing one mistake and sitting at full screen again, its just a pain in the a.. .
Click to expand...
That's just the period during the match where neither character is being combo'd; you're trying to open your opponent up without getting opened up yourself and vice versa.
 
UsedForGlue

UsedForGlue

"Strength isn't everything"
Sometimes I give the opponent the benefit of the doubt too much, and expect them not to make crazy decisions or obviously unsafe things at the wrong times, and that tends to bite me in the ass and I get caught by it.

I have to remember that not everyone plays the game in the safest possible way, there will be major risk takers, and I have to assume that better vs them.

I cut that out of my game in injustice doe.
 
RoboCop

RoboCop

The future of law enforcement.
Administrator
Premium Supporter
UsedForGlue said:
Sometimes I give the opponent the benefit of the doubt too much, and expect them not to make crazy decisions or obviously unsafe things at the wrong times, and that tends to bite me in the ass and I get caught by it.

I have to remember that not everyone plays the game in the safest possible way, there will be major risk takers, and I have to assume that better vs them.

I cut that out of my game in injustice doe.
Click to expand...
Ha, yeah, there's nothing worse than getting caught by dumb shit because you don't expect your opponent to be dumb enough to do it...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.