They Could Probably Balance This Game With Health Bars

[CrimsonShadow]

Not saying that this is how it'll be done. But was thinking about it today:

Nitara can't zone, has good mobility, but takes a lot of risks to get in. Give her 1200 health and her current kit will be less of a struggle. Her playstyle will work better because she'll be able to absorb a couple more mistakes and take more risks.

Ashrah has the kitchen sink. Let her keep it, but give her Nitara's current health (900) instead, and let her work it out.

Raiden does a lot of "garbage damage" and converts easily for big chunks on hit. Give him 850 or 800 health and it'll even the odds against a lot of other characters.

Anyway, obviously I still think changes that make a character's meta more interesting are preferred — especially when it tends to be pretty one-note. But at the same time, I'd be curious to see what would happen if they're less conservative with the HP differences is in this game. It would reward different playstyles, and avoid having to give every character similar tools, like what happened with Takeda in MKX.

 

[Juggs]

This is actually what I proposed in the nerf/buff wish list thread. Picking Cyrax gives you -100, and characters like Raiden, Cage, Kenshi, etc would be nerfed themselves to have 900 health. So picking Cyrax would mean they’d have 800 HP in total. This + making Cryax’s Kopter Chopper cost more Kameo meter and potentially also recharge the Kameo meter slower after using it, and same with Kameo Kung Lao’s low hat.

This’ll allow you to balance top tier characters without gutting them or overnerfing them. Or even changing them so much that they aren’t used very much anymore. Not suggesting that nerfing Raiden and Cage’s HP is the only nerf they should get, but that in conjunction with nerfing the Kameos, you wouldn’t have to nerf that much more on these characters imo.

 

[rifraf]

It's definitely a mechanic the developers could utilise but it would be much more interesting if they gave the rest of the cast more tools or make the current ones better. It's harder to do than just nerfing the top tier, but that's their job anyway.

 

[Rodney Quillz]

It's definitely a mechanic the developers could utilise but it would be much more interesting if they gave the rest of the cast more tools or make the current ones better. It's harder to do than just nerfing the top tier, but that's their job anyway.

Just nerf the two problematic kameos for right now and buff characters like sub and Shao and see how it plays out, I know they’ll go scorched earth with the nerfs though.

all the pros will be like “xyz is still fine! They are still good!” while slowly dropping them because they are bunz after the nerfs and because they found something busted with someone else.

a new top tier will be introduced and everyone will complain about them being op and seeing them in every match in tournament whilst downplaying their mains and advocating for buffs, happens in every nrs game.

 

[Pan1cMode]

This is essentially what I proposed in the buffs/nerfs wishlist thread.
Top tiers all have 950, and cyrax takes -100, kung Lao takes -50.

Cyrax probably needs a regen nerf of copter as well and Kung Lao regen nerf on low hat (from 4 to 6 seconds).

 

[Eji1700]

Solutions like this tend to suck.

Akuma is already boring because either he murders you or you murder him. You get closer and closer to that the more you try to just make it hp as a solution.
Taking a boring matchup where first to convert tends to win, and then just nerfing hp, doesn’t solve anything.

 

[M2Dave]

Nitara can't zone, has good mobility, but takes a lot of risks to get in. Give her 1200 health and her current kit will be less of a struggle. Her playstyle will work better because she'll be able to absorb a couple more mistakes and take more risks.

You want to give 1200 health to a character who is supposed to have a healing mechanic that in reality does not work? How about addressing the flaws of this mechanic and making the character unique?

This game is good. In fact, this game is very good, but the players and the spectators will get bored by this "string into helicopter / low hat toss" meta very soon.

Cyrax and Kung Lao, respectively, were used more than any other kameo combined at East Coast Throwdown this year.

Could the other kameos promote a different type of gameplay style than what was already observed?

I really hope so, because these universal "health" balance suggestions are ineffective and boring.

 

[haketh]

I actually think Nitara’s lower health makes sense with her runaway & keepaway potential when she has a lead. A lot of Deo’s matches were going real close to time, she prolly just needs some of the weird bugs fixed & some better frames, but we’re already seeing how Nitara can compete as is.

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

I'd rather have them change the framedata and, as some other folks have said, address the fundamental mechanics of some characters' toolkit - make Nitara's health regen stronger, fix Reptile's invisibility, change Raiden's storm cell chip and meter gain, etc. Changing health seems like a lazy and volatile way to balance things.

 

[John Grizzly]

Adjusting health may help the balance of the game, but it doesn't make it fun to watch. The endless Storm Cells into HELLYCOPTA HELLYCOPTA is absolute garbage. Bless Sonic for winning with Rain but my god was that a boring tournament.

The game needs some adjustments very soon because it sort of looked like a joke this weekend. I really hope NRS can figure out what to do because I truly do love the game and want it to thrive. If I had never played MK1 and watched ECT, there's no way I'd want to play it, let alone buy it.

 

[YagamiFire]

The game needs some adjustments very soon because it sort of looked like a joke this weekend. I really hope NRS can figure out what to do because I truly do love the game and want it to thrive. If I had never played MK1 and watched ECT, there's no way I'd want to play it, let alone buy it.

Hear hear. You took the words write out of my mouth.

 

[Gooberking]

The Kameo situation complicates my usual opinion of fully disliking health as a balancing dial. This is probably the first and only game where I kind of get it given what is being dealt with, but overall I wouldn't want to lean into the idea. As an academic exercise I guess it's something to think about, but having variable health is annoying by injecting uncertainty in a place where it would be useful.

You have these super important life bars telling you, your opponent, and any onlookers about where the match is. Both players are thinking about those bars, making decisions around them, and they aren't consistent. Not from character to character, and here not even match to match. You are having to build a "feel" about what they mean and it's way less about knowing. Maybe if the lifebars changed size to reflect the actual life pool, but then the screen UI isn't symmetrical and I'm sure that becomes its own issue.

It also has lazy mode vibes to it. Like one of those things you do when you don't have an actual answer because you aren't totally sure what's wrong.

 

[Arqwart]

Adjusting health may help the balance of the game, but it doesn't make it fun to watch. The endless Storm Cells into HELLYCOPTA HELLYCOPTA is absolute garbage. Bless Sonic for winning with Rain but my god was that a boring tournament.

The game needs some adjustments very soon because it sort of looked like a joke this weekend. I really hope NRS can figure out what to do because I truly do love the game and want it to thrive. If I had never played MK1 and watched ECT, there's no way I'd want to play it, let alone buy it.

A joke and exceedingly boring. I found myself less and less interested in rooting for specific players and instead rooting for whoever wasn't playing Raiden, Johnny, or Kenshi. Skipped every Johnny and Raiden mirror. Skipped every fight that was Raiden, Johnny, Baraka, or Kenshi fighting each other. Skipped every X/Cyrax vs. Y/Cyrax fight aside from Sonicfox to see their Rain. Instant right arrow key press to skip 5 seconds when a top tier started their tedious Chip Kombat rotation. Videogamesyo, Deoxys, and Grr were the saving graces of this tournament as a viewer with their Shao, Nitara, and Geras play which was actually hype as fuck to watch, especially with their unique matchup knowledge with their characters.

On the thread's topic, I don't think using ONLY health balancing is the right call here. I believe NRS is shockingly super close to the mark here for a release patch; but there's some frame data, damage output, and design issues for certain characters and kameos that should be addressed. For example, Raiden having 800-900 health won't change the fact that he's at a minimum great at basically everything (running the timer, chip, pressure, safety, damage, hit confirm ease, mixups, corner carry, neutral, and zoning). I'd prefer NRS not go the Street Fighter route with characters like Cammy or Akuma who are historically nightmares to balance because they're given a laundry list of amazing tools but are given minimal health to "compensate."

 

[The Ultimate]

I feel that just health bars being changed wouldn't change much at this stage of the game. It wouldn't change Cyrax and Kung Lao kameos being the meta. I think among NRS games, MK1 might be the hardest to find that perfect balance. If high chip damage is going to continue being a thing going forward, then flawless blocking will be imperative. I've thought about making flawless blocking easier to execute, but is that really the way? I'm not sure, but I think it should do more than what it currently does. My current suggestions would be something like:

--Change flawless blocking so that once executed, the opponent gains half the meter from the rest of their current blockstring. One problem with Cyrax is that not only does he enable safe, high chip damage blockstrings, but he's also gaining you a shitload of meter. So you flawless blocked to avoid the chip, well they're still gaining half a bar(or over a full bar!) during their blockstring.

--Change the properties of kameo costs, cooldowns, moves and more. This is not just saying Cyrax copter and KL low hat should be nerfed, though they obviously should. Other kameos should gain some changes. Maybe give Sub-Zero ice armor a property where you take no chip damage or severely reduced chip ala IJ1 Grundy trait, this would help players who have trouble flawless blocking. Some assists could even be changed into ambush assists; I've thought that you could turn Sonya's ring blast and Motaro's reflect into ambush assists, among others. Make some character's normal moves that aren't special cancellable "summon assist cancellable" instead; imagine cancelling a normal that knocks down into Frost orb or Motaro triple blast for oki, or cancelling the end of an unsafe string into Scorpion spear to reset the neutral; stuff like that. Kameos are this game's major mechanic, so more interesting stuff needs to be introduced for them, giving them more of a specific niche.

--Then, tweak some of the characters. I have no specific suggestions, though, what I'd like to see most of all are characters getting completely new attacks, as I don't think that's been done much in NRS games.

 

[John Grizzly]

A joke and exceedingly boring. I found myself less and less interested in rooting for specific players and instead rooting for whoever wasn't playing Raiden, Johnny, or Kenshi. Skipped every Johnny and Raiden mirror. Skipped every fight that was Raiden, Johnny, Baraka, or Kenshi fighting each other. Skipped every X/Cyrax vs. Y/Cyrax fight aside from Sonicfox to see their Rain. Instant right arrow key press to skip 5 seconds when a top tier started their tedious Chip Kombat rotation. Videogamesyo, Deoxys, and Grr were the saving graces of this tournament as a viewer with their Shao, Nitara, and Geras play which was actually hype as fuck to watch, especially with their unique matchup knowledge with their characters.

One thing I realized very early on in MK11's lifespan which solidified the fact to me that the game was beyond boring to watch was this:

Does Ninjakilla's Liu Kang play any differently than any other top player's Liu Kang? The answer, to me, was no. It all looked the same. This can be said for any character in that game, honestly. Month 1 Liu Kang was no different than mid-2023 Liu Kang in MK11.

I felt the same way watching the tournament this weekend. Ninja is obviously an incredible player, but if you couldn't see his name above the lifebar, you'd have no idea it was him playing and not any other top player using Raiden/Cyrax.

I really hope some major changes are made prior to the next tournament because I'm not very excited to watch if it remains as is.

 

[Archgamer]

Every character was used in top 25 except Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Kitana and Li Mei.

Reiko, Nitara, Shang Tsung, Shao Kahn, Havik, Reptile and Tanya were only used by one player in top 25.

Character user rate isn't that bad. Adjusting the strength of kameos so we can see more then just Cyrax and Lao is more important.

 

[M2Dave]

--Change flawless blocking so that once executed, the opponent gains half the meter from the rest of their current blockstring. One problem with Cyrax is that not only does he enable safe, high chip damage blockstrings, but he's also gaining you a shitload of meter. So you flawless blocked to avoid the chip, well they're still gaining half a bar(or over a full bar!) during their blockstring.

This change would inadvertently normalize zoning, which is already weak in comparison to offense in this game.

I felt the same way watching the tournament this weekend. Ninja is obviously an incredible player, but if you couldn't see his name above the lifebar, you'd have no idea it was him playing and not any other top player using Raiden/Cyrax.

In theory, kameos are supposed to distinguish players and establish player expression, and they do to some extent. However, the issue is that you are not playing optimal unless you use Cyrax and Kung Lao for 90% of the roster. Character usage at East Coast Throwdown was respectable this weekend, but the kameo usage was as lopsided as you will ever see in a fighting game. Data suggest that Cyrax and Kung Lao, respectively, meaning not even combined, were used more than all the kameos altogether. You can deduce that Cyrax and Kung Lao must be toned down or that the other kameos are too weak and need buffs.

Another reason that people are complaining, especially from a spectator's perspective, is that the meta is monotonous. Most top tier characters kind of play similarly (i.e., strings into helicopter or low hat into block pressure / hard-to-block setups). Even the so-called "zoning characters" play in this manner. LOL.

Mortal Kombat 9, in spite of its 15 flaws, is revered for the opposite reason. Complete characters. A plethora of archetypes. No variations. No kameos. No top tier characters who play the same. Good times before NRS became obsessed with eliminating certain gameplay styles that the casual audience cannot handle.

 

[John Grizzly]

Mortal Kombat 9, in spite of its 15 flaws, is revered for the opposite reason. Complete characters. A plethora of archetypes. No variations. No kameos. No top tier characters who play the same. Good times before NRS became obsessed with eliminating certain gameplay styles that the casual audience cannot handle.

What I loved most about MK9 was that I could tell immediately who was playing just by watching the gameplay. Some quick examples:

• Tyrant's Jax
• REO's Kabal
• Your Freddy (M2Dave)
• DJT's Cyrax
• Pig's Kenshi
• Scar's Skarlet
• 16 Bit's Kitana
• Slips' Scorpion
• Brady's Sub-Zero
• PL's Kung Lao
• Dizzy's Cage

I could probably go through the whole roster. There was a lot of player expression and I love that.

I finally got around to watching Deoxys' Nitara from ECT and that was amazing to see. I hope in time we see that sort of player expression more and more and the game evolves. I don't want everyone to pretty much just play the same due to certain Kameos just being leagues better than everything else.

 

[FoughtDragon01]

It just feels like the current meta that everyone's leaned towards is "blockstring into assist for safety/chip/plus frames" and so even if Cyrax and Lao get nerfed, it'll just be that same playstyle again, but in different flavors. If it isn't those two giving you that, then it'll be Stryker, and if not Stryker, then Goro, and if not Goro, then Sektor.

There's so much untapped potential with the Kameo system, but right now, the most effective playstyle is unfortunately the most boring one to watch.

 

[fr stack]

Do any of you guys feel that (insert popular streamer here) says something and everyone else just gets on the bandwagon , i feel like the developers cant help people playing like lemmings , people just will not lab anymore its easier to google it , dunno how it could be solved cause the content creators are going to create content

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Adjusting health may help the balance of the game, but it doesn't make it fun to watch. The endless Storm Cells into HELLYCOPTA HELLYCOPTA is absolute garbage. Bless Sonic for winning with Rain but my god was that a boring tournament.

The thing is, if the playing field was evened by Raiden having less health, I'm sure you WOULD be watching less of it

Not a lot of the players are real Raiden fans. They do it because it's the easy route and it's straightforward for the character to get and keep a health advantage.

Like I said in the original post, I do prefer adjustments that diversify a character's meta. But I'm also not opposed to the idea of letting a character do what they do, and just making it harder for them to win in such a straightforward way, instead of nerfing them into oblivion mechanically.

 

[rifraf]

Do any of you guys feel that (insert popular streamer here) says something and everyone else just gets on the bandwagon , i feel like the developers cant help people playing like lemmings , people just will not lab anymore its easier to google it , dunno how it could be solved cause the content creators are going to create content

That's where things currently are everywhere in gaming. It's honestly up to the developers to filter all that information and make use of it in a way that is positive for the game. Definitely easier said than done, but that's where we are.

 

[Eji1700]

The thing is, if the playing field was evened by Raiden having less health, I'm sure you WOULD be watching less of it

Only because one would die faster. These kinds of balance attempts have been tried in plenty of games. You can go ahead and make raiden die from one good touch, and you're still probably going to have mostly raiden mirrors.

In fact, you know who benefits a lot from people having lower health? Raiden. He does a boat load of damage and chip is now an even higher % of your total HP.

You know who's probably one of the best characters to have if you must have low health? Oh right, raiden. He's got really safe tools and a great way to get away from his opponents that few characters can easily punish.

 

[Son ov Timett]

10 percent hp decrease in order to have access to giving 30 percent chip off two storm cell Cyrax kameo calls and an ex storm cell for a bar.

Screw balance, he needs it.

 

[SaltShaker]

They could. Or they could simply do the right thing like they've done and nerf Cyrax.