Chernyy Volk
Wolf lord, footsie bully, chronic corner abuser.
Hopefully I can get people in here who actually want to discuss this and people wont' just come in to meme etc.
I think the gameplay foundation of MK11 for the most part is flawless, but I want to talk about breakaway because I think it's a real eyesore to the decision making, neutral and risk/reward of MK11. I think we're all working around it just fine at this point, but it doesn't change the fact it's a shitty mechanic to me and I want to lay out in some detail the problem I have with it.
The essential thesis statement of my complaint is, it's the best defensive option to such a degree that it renders EVERYTHING ELSE pointless.
Now, it's more complicated than the breakaway itself, I think the wakeup options need buffs so you're incentivized to not just breakaway, but breakaway plays a big factor both because it's the best go to option and because it punishes people for using the wakeup options (u2 obviously), successfully.
So it works like this right? We're playing neutral, footsies, neither of us have touched each other for a good 30 seconds, you finally get that clean whiff punish, make the jump read on a badly placed projectile etc and get your hit confirm and assuming they've labbed the optimal (ASAP) break point you just used a bar to do like, 15% to them? Not only did they just "opt" out of their fuck up in neutral essentially, there's no element of unpredictability. They can simply opt to take a throw, which for most characters resets neutral and all they have to think about is whether they delayed wake up or not. Not only did the guy just undo his mistake in neutral, he also has less to worry about despite having no defensive bar.
But let's just say you want to emphasize that element of the other guy having no defensive bar. It's probably not going to matter. There is almost no situation in this game where getting somebody off breakaway and scoring a full combo after does more damage than successfully oki-ing someone on a wakeup read. At the highest level if you watch right now, the insta-break is mostly what we're seeing because it's a very "why not" decision. Yeah, you might get pressured by Jacqui, but she spent a bar, didn't even get to do 13% to you and has to open you up all over again. In highest level MU's between lame play characters, by the time the next hit is found if the guy who broke first gets hit again he can more than likely break again.
So I think this is due to a few things
1: The neutral focus of the game meaning you have to really outplay your opponent. This is a good thing. The problem is breakaway giving you essentially a free throw on fucking up.
2: Wakeup attacks do not give the reward for the hard reads they require. I've said before Invincible wakeups should be buffed to 12% damage and U2's should be 15%. When you factor in the possibility of getting shimmied, why EVER take the risk on this? You will always take more damage if you're wrong here than breaking away and getting opened up again.
3: Ability to capitalize on this lack of defensive bar is entirely determined by your KB's honestly. Punishment/Kounter hit KB's that launch are kind of bad honestly, because most people insta-break these if they launch, that one time resource is gone and almost wasted and in some cases (Scorpion's f34 for example) the insta-break literally results in LESS DAMAGE than a string into a special cancel. Grounded punishment/single hit/distance based KB's are I think arguably superior in this regard. Finding the opportunity to actually hit one of these launching punishment KB's after winning neutral is pretty difficult at high level because gratuitous whiffs and careless counter poking basically don't exist. What this results in is combo based Krushing Blows have poor utility, while fully grounded ones with differing requirements are more practically accessible, resulting in a power balance issue. Characters like Geras have the most accessible krushing blows you can get, while characters like Kabal, Baraka etc are kind of fucked by this.
So, here's the thing right? I think what NRS envisioned is people wouldn't opt to just always break and they would try to play the oki game because in that universe, LOTS of these KB's are realistically achievable in ways that aren't breakable because you made the read. For example, I can block punish somebody with Baraka with 112~db3, make a read, if they roll I can 122 and now I got my big capitalization read. The problem is, because breakaway is so good, and because it's so available, you can't even goad people into playing this game of wakeup chicken with you, They'll eat the throw and the block pressure all day long because they know if you open them up they just break AND your KB's you might use to read oki options will be less accessible.
I don't know what you would do about it tbh but I'm very tempted to say it should be once per round. Maybe even once per game. It's just a big wrinkle in this really well designed game to me. There's also the problem of break away allowing people to do all sorts of insane hail marys with no fucks given because they can just insta break.
In summary, I think for a game so neutral/footsie focused breakaway as it currently stands flies in the face of that. For it being an option with virtually no counterplay, it shouldn't be as available as it is. It both ultimately rewards both maniac and super lame play for the wrong reasons and it also cuts a substantial amount of the KB meta out of the game.
Anyways what're peoples thoughts on this?
I think the gameplay foundation of MK11 for the most part is flawless, but I want to talk about breakaway because I think it's a real eyesore to the decision making, neutral and risk/reward of MK11. I think we're all working around it just fine at this point, but it doesn't change the fact it's a shitty mechanic to me and I want to lay out in some detail the problem I have with it.
The essential thesis statement of my complaint is, it's the best defensive option to such a degree that it renders EVERYTHING ELSE pointless.
Now, it's more complicated than the breakaway itself, I think the wakeup options need buffs so you're incentivized to not just breakaway, but breakaway plays a big factor both because it's the best go to option and because it punishes people for using the wakeup options (u2 obviously), successfully.
So it works like this right? We're playing neutral, footsies, neither of us have touched each other for a good 30 seconds, you finally get that clean whiff punish, make the jump read on a badly placed projectile etc and get your hit confirm and assuming they've labbed the optimal (ASAP) break point you just used a bar to do like, 15% to them? Not only did they just "opt" out of their fuck up in neutral essentially, there's no element of unpredictability. They can simply opt to take a throw, which for most characters resets neutral and all they have to think about is whether they delayed wake up or not. Not only did the guy just undo his mistake in neutral, he also has less to worry about despite having no defensive bar.
But let's just say you want to emphasize that element of the other guy having no defensive bar. It's probably not going to matter. There is almost no situation in this game where getting somebody off breakaway and scoring a full combo after does more damage than successfully oki-ing someone on a wakeup read. At the highest level if you watch right now, the insta-break is mostly what we're seeing because it's a very "why not" decision. Yeah, you might get pressured by Jacqui, but she spent a bar, didn't even get to do 13% to you and has to open you up all over again. In highest level MU's between lame play characters, by the time the next hit is found if the guy who broke first gets hit again he can more than likely break again.
So I think this is due to a few things
1: The neutral focus of the game meaning you have to really outplay your opponent. This is a good thing. The problem is breakaway giving you essentially a free throw on fucking up.
2: Wakeup attacks do not give the reward for the hard reads they require. I've said before Invincible wakeups should be buffed to 12% damage and U2's should be 15%. When you factor in the possibility of getting shimmied, why EVER take the risk on this? You will always take more damage if you're wrong here than breaking away and getting opened up again.
3: Ability to capitalize on this lack of defensive bar is entirely determined by your KB's honestly. Punishment/Kounter hit KB's that launch are kind of bad honestly, because most people insta-break these if they launch, that one time resource is gone and almost wasted and in some cases (Scorpion's f34 for example) the insta-break literally results in LESS DAMAGE than a string into a special cancel. Grounded punishment/single hit/distance based KB's are I think arguably superior in this regard. Finding the opportunity to actually hit one of these launching punishment KB's after winning neutral is pretty difficult at high level because gratuitous whiffs and careless counter poking basically don't exist. What this results in is combo based Krushing Blows have poor utility, while fully grounded ones with differing requirements are more practically accessible, resulting in a power balance issue. Characters like Geras have the most accessible krushing blows you can get, while characters like Kabal, Baraka etc are kind of fucked by this.
So, here's the thing right? I think what NRS envisioned is people wouldn't opt to just always break and they would try to play the oki game because in that universe, LOTS of these KB's are realistically achievable in ways that aren't breakable because you made the read. For example, I can block punish somebody with Baraka with 112~db3, make a read, if they roll I can 122 and now I got my big capitalization read. The problem is, because breakaway is so good, and because it's so available, you can't even goad people into playing this game of wakeup chicken with you, They'll eat the throw and the block pressure all day long because they know if you open them up they just break AND your KB's you might use to read oki options will be less accessible.
I don't know what you would do about it tbh but I'm very tempted to say it should be once per round. Maybe even once per game. It's just a big wrinkle in this really well designed game to me. There's also the problem of break away allowing people to do all sorts of insane hail marys with no fucks given because they can just insta break.
In summary, I think for a game so neutral/footsie focused breakaway as it currently stands flies in the face of that. For it being an option with virtually no counterplay, it shouldn't be as available as it is. It both ultimately rewards both maniac and super lame play for the wrong reasons and it also cuts a substantial amount of the KB meta out of the game.
Anyways what're peoples thoughts on this?