I personally think mk9 was a much better and balanced game in general than mkx is now. Luck factor with 50/50s is much more involved in mkx than it was in mk9, and imo this hurts the game; in mk9 you had to be more creative to open up people. Moreover, zoning is non existent in mkx which makes the game unbalanced from the start, there is zero reward in mkx for defensive play.
The variations idea was great, but maybe just 2 variations per character would allow nrs to actually balance each of them properly.
I honestly think mkx will not have such a 4 year healthy life as mk9 had, it will die much sooner, almost as soon as the next game comes out.
Liu Kang must be in it and some of the classics, just like street fighter has their regulars. I like the run button but perhaps can be toned down. Variation system is ok.
Disagreed 100%. The only characters that HAVE TO BE THERE are Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and to am arguably lesser extent, Raiden. Of course we have our usual suspects and huge fan favorites, but no one is definite. Besides, be Daring take risks, think outside the box.
NRS whatever you do to MK11 just pay attention what you establish as ground rules, and what tools you give to a character, nothing a character has should be unbeatable by general gameplay rules or just by a chance, this is where things started to go very wrong with MKX
Fast walkings + Insane Running Characters with round starting reaching normals that are 11f startup, safe and unreactable 50-50s
Jumps with concealable hurtboxes when attacking from airbone that are plus when blocked or canceled into normals or 50-50s
Air attacks that can be done very early in the air, and hit someone crouching and is plus when blocked or canceled on block
No D1 should ever be safe again the -13 d1s of MK9 made the tool way less abusable, and didn't low profile standing highs at all which was good
Breathing Hitboxes,Insane Blockstuns, Ghost Hitboxes, safe long reaching disjointed hitboxes, longer input storage data causing lots of unwanted moves to come out when you want to punish right away.
Two juggle proprieties, float higher if standing, float lower if crouching, float even lower if mashing while crouching, WTF Paulo.
Slow backdashes with laughable speed, invincibility and recovery
Even if MKX could be patched to have at least all these fixed, the game would be 10 thousand times more fun to play even with low tier characters, than its current form and maybe even MK9 itself, i like the fact that spacing could be a factor in this game, sadly the overreaching normals and insane run speeds + unreatable HTB, ez mode offence ruins it.
Next game, give a returning universal move to the cast, Round House kicks, which command could be U4, and every single Round House should be viable enough to AA, punish run ins, whiff punish but duckable as well to balance the use of it, maybe punishable if blocked to add balance, and make it less abusable.
Creativity its a never ending road, you can also give the round houses new proprieties, for example, if hit someone airbone while they press a button, they spin multiple times airbone in one place allowing for juggle followups as a counter mechanic, if hits groundly, should be able to link a normal for a new combo.
I don't care what you will decide for the next game, as long as what NRS considers general gameplay rules are well defined, the game can have whatever they want it will be awesome.
In MKX, the block jail system has been removed, so every character can stand or crouch while blocking, however there are more real overhead and low starters in MKX that jump ins attack still grants blockstrings or real combo starters, which brings something that can definitely be an issue if ppl get to exploit it.
Characters that have OH/Low combo starters, can exploit this mechanic by forcing ppl to guess every single time their jump in punch is blocked, the defender has no other option rather than guess a low or overhead starter, which is what happens in MKX with Sonya, Cassie, to name a few.
And there is no other option rather than guess right for a correct block, i see this a potential issue in future NRS games if a character with more exploitable mechanics were to merge from such as simple.
So the suggestion was, maybe guaranteed chip from a jump in should stop being a thing in future MK games, and jump attacks should only jail on hit, i also believe this would make jump ins attacks much less powerful than they already are.
Point 2 (Not exactly how to improve online, but to help online experience with one more improvement in Traning mode)
Everyone complains a lot about online being bad, i have a wireless connection of barely 1mbps and played nearly well with someone from my country who has a 5mb internet, the thing that was really hard to get used to it, was landing my combos with the delay. NRS having a delay simulator to help online gaming could really make a difference, TTT2 and DOA5 have one which emulates the levels of lag and some ppl use it to train their combos since they play mostly online.
Point 3 (More improvements on training mode)
The training mode provided in MKX is incredibly advanced, i love it, the work you guys are having to have correct frame data info in the command list, i believe it must be frustrating, so maybe there are better ways to do that which would save up work with some algorithms.
1. An attack data mode ( a sort of freeze system which draws a certain color into the character who can't currently move because is either stuck in blockstun, or in recovery frames of a certain attack he just used)
Note: Tekken do that and works fine.
2. A frame data counter (DOA has a system in their training mode, that works like a timer, everytime an attack is used, the startup frames are counted until the first active frame, so it tells the user how long the move takes to connect and gives info in the startup frames, and can also give block stun, and recovery frames
A combination of both would help NRS to differ from the others for sure.
3. Hitbox viewer
Users keep asking for this, since other games do not give them, NRS give this to their consumers could also make a difference.
More proprieties
I can't stop to notice, that currently MK and IGAU mechanics were armor and invincibility frames, i know NRS is growing in balancing and content so it might not be a good idea to give it all at once, but wouldn't be far more easier to balance games out if more proprieties to counter certain things in particular be far more easier to balance?
For example:
a) Projectile invincibility moves: those were solely built to defeat projectiles, but can be beat by physical strikes and throws
b) Fully invincibility moves: those can beat out anything while being invincible for a short period of time (X-Rays do that.)
c) Throw invincibility moves: moves that cannot be beat by throw in specific, but projectiles and physical strikes can beat it.
d) Strike invincible moves: moves that are immune to physical strikes, but anything else beats it
To add on the Spoiler, if we can store record data and have option to play all of them at once which the AI could decide randomly or by a frequency rate of which to use first, we would be able to train different setups.
A more refined tutorial, we don't even need to press buttons, just have someone like REO explaining the mechanics of the game from a basic and beginner player stand point to a experienced and advanced player stand point and we have game.
Disagreed 100%. The only characters that HAVE TO BE THERE are Scorpion, Sub-Zero, and to am arguably lesser extent, Raiden. Of course we have our usual suspects and huge fan favorites, but no one is definite. Besides, be Daring take risks, think outside the box.
Yes, but there will be more characters than that from the old school, and I want Kang. I want a story mode more like Mk9, an epic that needs intermissions, than a block buster movie.
A more refined tutorial, we don't even need to press buttons, just have someone like REO explaining the mechanics of the game from a basic and beginner player stand point to a experienced and advanced player stand point and we have game.
I want the next game to have either no run button or more of a restriction on use of run. I agree with the people saying that they need to ditch far reaching/forward advancing fast mids. And they should tone down the 50/50s and make the ones that do exist more risky to use. But they could definitely use the mkx base engine to build the next game IMO
I would definitely prefer the next game take after MK9 more than MKX. I've had a love/hate relationship with MKX from day one. I've really tried to stay consistently interested in this game as much as I did MK9, but it doesn't hook me the same way MK9 did, and that really just comes down to the fundamental gameplay/mechanics of MKX which people have discussed ad nauseam.
I could personally do without a run feature, the highly offensive/50-50 gameplay, and even the variation system (though I'm mostly indifferent on it).
Things MKX got right? Netcode, training mode, and brutalities. Also, while I don't care much for interactables, I think MKX implemented them perfectly.
You mean how street fighter scammed everyone to pay almost full game price for an update that was just a couple new characters and frame data change with a new title? street fighter 4, street fighter 4 arcade edition, ULTRA street fighter 4 arcade edition. They basically did exactly what your talking about, built on a winning formula they had but even less than that they kept the exact same game just updated some things for over 5 years. Ye no that's a shit idea and it makes the game developers lazy and that is the completely wrong way of looking at it. Its good to take risks in life. Think about Fifa for example or COD a lot of their games are copy and paste and its put a lot of people off. Perhaps your suffering from Neophobia (fear of anything new or unfamiliar). In my opinion new is always better because there might be a few bad ideas but equally there might be a few brilliant ideas that haven't been done before.
Variations are the best thing about MKX. It gives me many options to play my favourite character. MKX is definitely more balanced than previous NRS games. I like run button but I wouldn't be pissed if it doesn't return.
Traits are just inferior version of variation system.
All these trait lovers/variation haters yet reptile(a characters 3 traits) is not even top 10 most played.
Only few people care about balance, Boon would be foolish to listen to tournament players and wannabe tournament players over casuals, he literally got shredded to bits by casuals when he announced ESL season 3 after promising a big news.
If variations don't return MK will bomb harder than SFV. You can't cut the content after spoiling them with so much content.
Oh, one more thing. Variations or no variations, we aren't going to get more than 24 characters for initial roster. Better they give us variations than no variations.
Here is what they can do for next game.
Change the most played variation of character by 20-30%.
Change the second most played variation by 50%.
Replace the least played variation with completely new variation.
No variation system in MK11. I felt like the variation system only allowed you to play one way with which ever variation you choose. In MK9 and even IGAU when you had complete characters. You can play one character in so many different ways! You wasn't limited to one play style.
Every MK game is different from the previous one so, I don't see how this tradition could change.
However MK9 and MKX share something and I think that an ipothetical MKXI will be the same.
In a pure, gameplay perspective, what I really want in a MKXI is:
- more enphasis in the natural fighting game concept of rushdown/grappler/zoner character.
- a deeper dash mechanics that replace the run and allow good mobility without allowing the player to pressuring the opponent forever.
- a more "light" version of variations. So we can have a character build that work and variations that enhanced properties of some special moves but the general gameplay remain the same.
- less 50/50. Only character that needs mixup in their gameplan should have 50/50, like the rushdown character and so on. And, for god sake, they need to take some risk in using them.
- maybe a new mechanics that allow combo without juggle. Some "general cancel". But keep the juggle, of course.
We should separate some game design concepts out because the base engine has been in place for quite some time (since MK vs DC at least), and I think that it more or less has to change now that UE4 has been out for a while.
In actuality, they could make MKX pretty darn close to MK9 in terms of mechanics just by altering move properties.
That said, I think NRS has abused their own move property system to the point of failure, which has resulted in wonky hitboxes, insane stun values, and a spaghetti-on-the-wall style of hit levels that make the game very difficult to enjoy.
One thing I hope NRS works on is the UX of their menus; I actually thought injustice had a pretty slick UX in terms of lobbies and matchmaking, and MKX felt like a huge step backward in that regard. Again, this is not even an engine thing; menus and UI in MKX are built in Scaleform so it's very designer friendly (since the underlying technology is Flash).
Graphics-wise, this game is a lot of muddy earth tones decorated with blood and gloss and lighting effects; I'd really overall like to see more time spent in the design phase and way more training for the 3D modelers (since I thought the concept art was really good but the end results were lacking). I also hope for more of an "outworld" style color palette next time instead of the muddiness we have now.
They should just build off of MKX its really a great game. IT definitely needs a few tweaks though. The Run Mechanic isn't really a problem. The problem is The speed at which characters run. Run speeds need to be toned down if they include this feature in the next game. High 50/50 offense is also a problem and needs to get toned down. I don't really have a problem with having 50/50's in a sense. Its just when both of your options lead to massive amounts of damage into some more Bullshit that you legitimately have to hold, that's where the problem is. or when both the options are safe and you didn't have to spend any resources or risk anything to make them safe.
I think the Variation system is great. however there are some variations that lack. But a lot of times people just say a variation is trash just because not a lot of people are playing it or have taken the time to flush that specific variation out. some of the Jump ins and Cross ups in Mkx are very ridiculous ( Mileena, Subzero, Kotal, Sonya) though I don't have a problem with people trying to jump at me. characters with these type of jump attacks shouldn't even be a thing.
The zoning in this game is fine, you just need to combine it with smart offense at times. Zoning alone WILL NOT carry you in Mkx. The Defensive options would be fine if it wasn't for the High Reward on Offense.
As far as balancing goes, There should have been character universal nerfs for things that legitimately needed changes. It doesn't make sense to take something away from once character just to either give it to another or allow another character to keep the same thing that was clearly a problem. For example: I was not one of the people that ranted about pre patch Tanya. But a lot of people felt like she was a problem which lead to her receiving the nerf that she got. So they come out with Tarkatan Alien which is Pretty much the same thing. Pre Patch Lao's J2 needed to get normalized..... in which it did, but he wasn't the only one. Kotal's J1 needed to get normalized as well and it didn't. Also there are characters that still need a damage nerfs.
At No point should a MID Be getting low profiled. This is also very annoying. These are some of the things that really need to be fixed in MK11. These things are also what turns many people off of Mkx.
HOWEVER, Even with the problems I have listed and the common ones that I am seeing others post. It only Hurts the game to a certain extent as far as the enjoyment.
Having a strong Neutral in MKX is very crucial, It helps you alleviate the reckless run in 50/50 and constant jump in game style. It stops you from getting fucked by the bullshit mechanics of mkx at times.
I want the MKX roster minus guests, Jacqui, Tanya, Shinnok, Reptile, and Kano. Jacqui and Tanya because boring, Shinnok because salt, Kano and Reptile because shit.
They should continue what they are currently doing. Each new game has an entirely new and interesting meta that plays nothing like it's predecessor. I like this.
The safety of series like Tekken and (to a lesser extent) Street Fighter is nice for veterans, but it is refreshing that NRS is more like a crazed mad scientist.
It ensures with every game there's an insane fight out of the gate to be good. Everyone gets thrown off their tower, and it doesn't matter how far you climbed previously.
I want the MKX roster minus guests, Jacqui, Tanya, Shinnok, Reptile, and Kano. Jacqui and Tanya because boring, Shinnok because salt, Kano and Reptile because shit.
