Making X-Rays Viable In MKX

[Oogalord]

I dunno if you guys noticed, but Scorpion's X-Ray does 4o%. Scorpion's X-Ray was on the weaker side in MK9.

It's likely that NRS will reduce the damage as development progresses; they did the same thing with MK9. Me personally, I hope they keep the damage that high. 35%-40% across the board.

40% is alot of damage. But if you're going to blow ALL of your meter in a game with meter-based combo breakers, it better be worth it. Alot of characters in MK9 can do 30% with one bar, so why would you ever save up for an X-Ray? Street Fighter IV gets around this by making Ultra's a separate meter. If NRS doesn't address this, it's going to be the same story as MK9 and Injustice (unless you play Bane, heh heh). If you tie combo breakers and X-Rays to the same meter, combo breakers will win every time even for low-level play.

Or they could keep the damage at MK9 levels but give all (or most) X-Rays one hit of armor. Whatever.

 

[Eji1700]

They do have the advantage of being unbreakable, and sometimes having properties that are attractive, and honestly, I don't want them to be too popular unless they introduce a way to skip them. Watching the same slow animation 100 times over the course of a tournament gets old fast.

 

[darkmoonlight_va]

Make the scaling not as awful in combos is the only way I could think of. But that would mean really high damage combos.

 

[Glass Sword]

Guaranteed damage is the only way they would become viable. You would have to make thme ridiculous where they give you a significant amount of damage in a combo like 10 or 15%. People would hate this however when they ineviabitly lose a round to a 60% combo.

 

[THTB]

I agree on the damage part. I think X-Rays should be incredibly damaging, considering how much more effective meter can be used without blowing all of it.

 

[Eddy Wang]

I dunno if you guys noticed, but Scorpion's X-Ray does 4o%. Scorpion's X-Ray was on the weaker side in MK9.

It's likely that NRS will reduce the damage as development progresses; they did the same thing with MK9. Me personally, I hope they keep the damage that high. 35%-40% across the board.

40% is alot of damage. But if you're going to blow ALL of your meter in a game with meter-based combo breakers, it better be worth it. Alot of characters in MK9 can do 30% with one bar, so why would you ever save up for an X-Ray? Street Fighter IV gets around this by making Ultra's a separate meter. If NRS doesn't address this, it's going to be the same story as MK9 and Injustice (unless you play Bane, heh heh). If you tie combo breakers and X-Rays to the same meter, combo breakers will win every time even for low-level play.

Or they could keep the damage at MK9 levels but give all (or most) X-Rays one hit of armor. Whatever.

Combo breakers have been balanced with the endurance meter now, you wont break a combo unless you have 2 bars of ex meter + full endurace meter! this should give x-rays more chance of being used.
Also hoping they keep raw x-rays to be very damaging

 

[Dizzy]

They should be more useful in MKX in terms of properties, in some way. They are always useful as unbreakable dmg, but that only comes into play when you are bodying your opponent for the most. I think a good way to make xrays useful were to make them fast as fuck and keep them armor breaking like MK9. Examples being Subzero and KL.

Btw, your info is off. Most chars in MK9 do 30+ meterless, not using 1 bar as you say.

That said, I hope they make nearly all EX moves useful. Some that just added dmg were really lame

 

[Oogalord]

Combo breakers have been balanced with the endurance meter now, you wont break a combo unless younhave 2 bars of ex meter + full endurace meter! this should give x-rays more chance of being used.

This is true. But you even if you eat half the combo while the stamina bar refills (and who knows if that's how it will actually work on the final game) you can still break the combo. Especially at high-level play, I think most people will still choose breakers over X-Rays almost every time.

People would hate this however when they ineviabitly lose a round to a 60% combo.

Nobody has said anything about 60%. I tried to find how much Torra's X-Ray does but couldn't and I'm currently too snookered to do a more thorough job. Point being, I think 40-43% should be the maximum damage and I can't imagine NRS making it any higher.

 

[Oogalord]

Btw, your info is off. Most chars in MK9 do 30+ meterless, not using 1 bar as you say.

Okay, true, and most characters who couldn't do it meterless could generally do it with 1 bar. It doesn't really detract from the point that nobody wants to blow all their meter on 28%.

 

[d3v]

Keep the damage up (40-50%).

Make it so that having full meter changes the way people react to you. For example, having an X-Ray that goes full screen and is projectile invulnerable. Or X-Rays that lead to longer combos or mixups out of them .

 

[Error]

Maybe if Supers were made with incredibly quick start ups (2framez) for high damage punishes, and honestly, if you're spending 4 bars on an x-ray combo, maybe 60% is fair, no?

 

[Oogalord]

if you're spending 4 bars on an x-ray combo, maybe 60% is fair, no?

No, that's too much. Over half of your opponent's health for one attack? No.

Making the damage unscaled or making more X-Rays that can be combo'd after would work too. Bigger damage is the obvious (and my favorite) solution but there's a variety of ways they can address it.

 

[itsdaveyj]

I thought I heard somewhere that X-rays now cost 2 meter and breakers cost 3? I might be mistaken though. I think that alone should help.

 

[Oogalord]

I thought I heard somewhere that X-rays now cost 2 meter and breakers cost 3? I might be mistaken though. I think that alone should help.

^^^ This video shows X-Rays requiring full bars.

 

[Barrogh]

Alot of characters in MK9 can do 30% with one bar, so why would you ever save up for an X-Ray?

Almost all characters can do 30%+ off almost anything meterless in MK9.

Or they could keep the damage at MK9 levels but give all (or most) X-Rays one hit of armor. Whatever.

MK9 X-rays already have superarmor and armor breaking properties. Exept Kabal's which has no armor. Fuck him.

Do we play the same game?

That said, I hope they make nearly all EX moves useful. Some that just added dmg were really lame

This, so much this.

OT: Ideas are abundant already, it's up to NRS now I think. Still, it would be useful to do some compilation. Depending on character (to keep things diverse and help with balancing later) they can be:
- less affected by scaling (say, ignore half of the scaling);
- combo-able;
- providing a unique option a character otherwise doesn't have (ridiculously fast startup to punish normally safe stuff, being normally unblockable etc.)...

What else can you think of?

 

[Error]

No, that's too much. Over half of your opponent's health for one attack? No.

Making the damage unscaled or making more X-Rays that can be combo'd after would work too. Bigger damage is the obvious (and my favorite) solution but there's a variety of ways they can address it.

x-ray combo

 

[Oogalord]

x-ray combo

Right, sorry. 60% X-Ray combos would be pretty spooky. As a Bane player, I have to say it's pretty dope and totally worth saving for.

And yes, most characters had armored X-Rays in MK9. Fuck me sideways, it's been awhile since I played it. The point of this thread is, I hope there is general agreement that X-Rays need something to make them more competitively viable than they were in MK9.

 

[callMEcrazy]

X-rays alone are too risky to throw out for 3 bars of meter, so it doesn't matter if startup frames are reduced or armor/invincibility is given. If its blocked or it misses you are royally screwed. So what really matters is how well they complement combos, where they won't miss. The damage scaling has to be reduced I imagine. An X-ray combo that did 42-43% would have to do around 50%. If not then the X-ray would have to allow continuation of combo afterwards.

 

[Swindle]

They should do a fair amount of damage, AND drain your opponents meter. That would make them instantly viable, and worth saving for.

 

[TarkatanDentist]

Maybe this is a silly idea, but... what if there was a 'limit' on X-ray scaling only so that they always did at least 30% of the damage they would normally? So even if you've had a 20-hit combo beforehand, finishing off with a 34% X-ray would still net you a solid 10% extra damage.

In fairness though, X-rays in MK9 were more useful than, say, Supers in SF tend to be, for the sole reason that you're risking three bars of meter rather than four.

Keep the damage up (40-50%).

Make it so that having full meter changes the way people react to you. For example, having an X-Ray that goes full screen and is projectile invulnerable. Or X-Rays that lead to longer combos or mixups out of them .

A handful of characters already had X-rays like that - I certainly wouldn't mind it being extended to most of the cast getting some special property from it.

 

[d3v]

In fairness though, X-rays in MK9 were more useful than, say, Supers in SF tend to be, for the sole reason that you're risking three bars of meter rather than four.

This only applies to SFIV though were Ultras generally took the place of Supers. A better point of reference would be SFIII (especially 3rd Strike) where whether or not your opponent had meter changed the way you approached the matchup.

 

[Groove Heaven]

I dunno if that's what NRS wants, though. I always felt that X-Rays were a way to give casuals an armored, high-damage, cool-looking option that isn't difficult to execute. It's extremely situational in high-level play but it sometimes you see it come out and it's always hype.

I have no clue how you could make it viable besides making it not cost your whole stick of butter.

 

[Vulcan Hades]

Yeah I want X-rays to be extremely good this time around.

With enhanced throws denying wake ups, we'll see very few EX wake up attacks so chances are people will again save their meter for breakers only. But I don't want meter management to revolve only around those two things.

The X-ray needs to be a good use of meter. Like I want to find myself in situations where I decide not to break a combo because it's not going to kill me anyway and I have this great X-ray setup that can win the game despite being at a huge life deficit.

tbh I wouldn't even mind if X-rays were all unblockable and did 50% unbreakable damage.

 

[shig]

I think you guys are biased towards making X-rays better since you are all relatively good players, but think of the average casual dude who plays this single player and then only occasionally at parties; Making X-rays much stronger will probably make their ENTIRE GAME revolve around getting and landing that X-ray. Super lame.

 

[Tony at Home]

Well, with Sub Zero I used X-Ray alot, but then again, it was mostly because

j2, 2,1,4, X-Ray = 52% , GG's.

So yeah, I wouldn't say they were useless, but some characters just had no reason to not spend meter before getting 3 bars, while others had no reason to spend meter until they got 3 bars. The only reason I ever need to spend meter with Sub Zero is to get armor on slide, and this is only in the specific case where I'm dealing with a zoner who has a projectile I can't slide under.

No matter what we do, so long as there are meter-burned moves, and breakers, there will always be a subset of characters who value meter for enhanced moves more than x-rays, just like there will always be characters like Subby who you see x-rays from more often because he just naturally benefits more from it.