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Mortal Kombat 11 character playstyle options

NothingPersonal

Are you not entertained!?
So, It's pretty obvious NRS is going with customizable characters in their games nowadays. But I'm more interested in playstyle cutomization than esthetics. That being said, I'd be pretty pleased if MK11 retained variations. 3 of them are the best bet since you can have 3 different styles of the same character (MKX Kano is the best example), not too little like 1-2 and not too much like 4-5. The custom movesets, like Injustice 2 gear moves, give more freedom in creating a playstyle, but it's unusable in tournaments I think and can also lead to broken setups. So my preference for the next MK would be if they retained 3 variations per character.
But what is yours? Any speculations?
 

Marinjuana

Up rock incoming, ETA 5 minutes
If they want to do the customizable move sets again then I think they should bring back variations, have 2 variations for competitive play and one variation for "create a variation". That way we could get the benefits of variations while keeping them more balanced by virtue of having only 2 per character and there would still be that customize factor.
 

Sugarwatermixlegit

Bruce Campbell 4 MK!!!
Two variations would be cool. A fighting stance and a weapon stance, throwback to 3D era. Also, not sure how they would balance it but I always thought a “offensive” and “defensive” selection for a character would be legit.
 

Johnny Based Cage

The Shangest of Tsungs
The variation system didn’t add playstyle diversity, it completely stifled it. Instead of getting actual, full-fledged character archetypes like dedicated grapplers and zoners we got them throwing a command grab or some faster projectiles onto the same core move set and trying to pass that homogenous horseshit off as “different variations.”

I don’t care how many fucking eye lasers and daggers one Kano throws and how many command grabs and parries the other one has if they share 95% of the same moves. Get real.
 

Cursa

Counterpoke with armoured DB2 at all times.
I like IJ2's customisation more than variations. I prefer it when characters have set weaknesses and can't just change up their variation in order to suit their needs. Plus cosmetic changes are cool enough for me personally.

I guess I'm saying I'd prefer more characters with set play styles, rather than less characters with some minor variations/gear to change play styles. IJ2 did that pretty well for me
 

BruskyPoet

Johnny bought a car
The possibilities I can see are: Two variations, MKX Legacy *Vomits*, Three variations again but completely different than how the characters play from MKX, MK9 Legacy (Yay), or something completely new (hopefully with actual fucking pokes, and other options that aren't combo starters)

Also, with the three variations, there could be that custom variation you can acquire some unlockable moves to for the third variation that would obviously be disabled in competitive play. It would be awesome if I could name the variation "Fuckboi Liu Kang" or something if he has some cheap ass unlockable moves that make him broke. Lol
 

jcbowie

...more deadly than the dawn.
I really hope the variation system is gone and we get a larger base roster instead.

I don't remember who it was, but in some other thread someone suggested "give each individual character 2 variations worth of tools." I totally agree with this, and, while I don't object to the idea of customizable playstyle, I would much prefer a character with enough tools that they can adopt a new playstyle without having to alter the character in a menu but rather as a conscious decision of the player to use certain tools more readily than others. Maybe that's too idealized and hard to do in a balanced way though, I dunno.
 

Roy Arkon

I will leave my seal on you!
I would love to see the Variations back, they gave each char several options to play them. And that is a huge deal because when you have a set of moves to use, the archetype and gameplan is very depended on that moveset, and if you have more then one option, you can get the one option you like the most for you.

I think it should be either 3 Variations per char like in MKX, or only 2 Variations per char and one or two extra Variations that can be customized by the players for fun, like how it's done with the Gear-only moves in IJ2. It's most likely gonna be the latter IMO.
 

trufenix

bye felicia
Two variations is the sweet spot, but the next game needs to be tag and based on tmnt. If it does have variations, it just needs a weapons on and weapons off variation.
 

Cursa

Counterpoke with armoured DB2 at all times.
Tbh I think a weapons off/weapons on variation system would be kind of lazy.

If they make it IJ2 gear system with abilities I kind of hope it's the same as IJ2 and comp and ranked doesn't allow abilities, especially since you can't just go lab against abilities (unless they just give them to us but then the amount of labbing you have to do for some MU's would be insane).

Just like, base characters would be good. I'd prefer a character with the tools of 2, maybe even 3, vacations, rather than having to commit to one of three
 

Dankster Morgan

It is better this way
Okay no, zero variations is the sweet spot.

It limits character variety sooooo bad. They can’t go crazy and make Kano his own unique archetype because they have to make a generic move set and then put a command grab in one and a 50/50 in another. That’s why I think there were so many cookie cutter 50/50 characters, because they weren’t able to go crazy and give characters a clear identity and their own unique set of tools, they had to make one variation which would be a dumbed down version of the character people were expecting (Grandmaster, Royal Storm, Piercing) so they could put a command grab on a move set designed around something else and call them a “grappler” just because they slapped a command grab on.

I feel like the defense would be strong enough to counter the offense if they didn’t have to dumb down defensive characters because they know that they also have to give characters who were meant to be defensive an offensive variation. So it doesn’t really add creativity honestly, 90% of people will stick to the variation of the character that suits them and view the other two variations as something that holds back their variation of being its own fully developed play style.
 

Gooberking

FGC Cannon Fodder
As someone that has been playing fg longer than a lot of players have been alive, the variation system was the most enjoyable thing put in a fighter ever from a longterm replayability pov.

Nothing is more disappointing than wanting to play a character but finding out the way they play doesn't work for you. I didn't play any of the main stream variations and a lack of them would have forced me to use different characters or be less satisfied playing them.

Now that mkx's competitive life is over there is left this really fun to play game I still see a lot of people playing with lots of content.

I think a lot of concerns over the system can be mitigated by making 2 to variation system and that's something a lot of people seem to want to see explored. I sure don't want to go back to just being like every other fighter.

Gear in the other hand was visually cool, but I felt like it left me stranded between two segregated camps. I hated that.
 

jcbowie

...more deadly than the dawn.
I would say the variation system makes characters inherently more limited though. If you're trying to make 3 or so variations worth of a character then you're either going to limit their base toolset so you can make the variations feel more different or you're going to have Reptile, where there are distinctions in certain conversions and pressure but it's really just a one-move difference and doesn't affect overall playstyle much.

Why not just make a really well-rounded roster with characters that have access to most/all styles of play but can lend themselves most easily to one? That way you have most of the character's players likely playing the way the character was originally designed for, but then you can also have specialists who have a really unique and niche but still viable playstyle with the same character. That way like in tourney you might have a lot of representation for a particular character, but you won't necessarily play against each one the same way you did the last.
 

THTB

Arez | Booya | Riu48 - Rest Easy, Friends
No variations.

I think @Dankster Morgan covered it very well. There's too much restriction on character archetypes overall, and some characters had to be stripped in order give other variations some distinction. It's also, clearly, a huge hassle in balancing 3 slightly different versions of 30 different characters within the NRS Cycle plan.

I feel NRS covered the customization aspect very well in Injustice 2. Just leave the varied movesets in a non-tournament standard mode, while still allowing the full-on customization of your characters' looks in the tournament mode. Maybe add in the option to select a specific color palette for your character's costume instead of randomizing even that, much like how other fighting games do. Would be cool to see tournament players pick a specific skin with a different color so that you know off the bat who is playing who because that's the color they use, like @Tweedy always using a Noble-themed shader for Kenshi, Alien, or whatever character he uses...or @ForeverKing going with the pimp-white Lao shader.
 

Gooberking

FGC Cannon Fodder
I would say the variation system makes characters inherently more limited though. If you're trying to make 3 or so variations worth of a character then you're either going to limit their base toolset so you can make the variations feel more different or you're going to have Reptile, where there are distinctions in certain conversions and pressure but it's really just a one-move difference and doesn't affect overall playstyle much.

Why not just make a really well-rounded roster with characters that have access to most/all styles of play but can lend themselves most easily to one? That way you have most of the character's players likely playing the way the character was originally designed for, but then you can also have specialists who have a really unique and niche but still viable playstyle with the same character. That way like in tourney you might have a lot of representation for a particular character, but you won't necessarily play against each one the same way you did the last.
I pretty much don't believe this, and think it's more of a hypothetical, philosophical rationalization being used to justify the dislike of variations than something that actually played out.

I would concede there is technical, and expected overlap between variations, but I don't know that constantly held back character potential. I certainly don't think that IJ2 characters generally felt any fuller than their MKX counter parts. Obviously an opinion, and one I don't expect to be shared.

I would think that the competitive balancing challenges, and variation duds are a larger issue, but I think all three of the issues (duds, balance, character focus) could be greatly muted while keeping most of benefits of variations simply by going with a two variation system.

Truth is, 3 variations was super ambitious for a first attempt, and I definitely think it's worth trying to adjust once before giving up on an innovative system that a lot of people did find value in.
 

Marinjuana

Up rock incoming, ETA 5 minutes
There were great examples of the variation system in MKX though, a character like Tremor didn't feel washed down in any his variations. He had moves that wouldn't have overlapped, his variations changed the properties of many of his moves. There were a lot of characters that had really cool uses of the variation mechanic. I think with just two variations they would be able to keep the quality up.

What if they brought back 3D MK style stance switching? Make that stance switch button worth a damn!
 

jcbowie

...more deadly than the dawn.
I pretty much don't believe this, and think it's more of a hypothetical, philosophical rationalization being used to justify the dislike of variations than something that actually played out.

I would concede there is technical, and expected overlap between variations, but I don't know that constantly held back character potential. I certainly don't think that IJ2 characters generally felt any fuller than their MKX counter parts. Obviously an opinion, and one I don't expect to be shared.

I would think that the competitive balancing challenges, and variation duds are a larger issue, but I think all three of the issues (duds, balance, character focus) could be greatly muted while keeping most of benefits of variations simply by going with a two variation system.

Truth is, 3 variations was super ambitious for a first attempt, and I definitely think it's worth trying to adjust once before giving up on an innovative system that a lot of people did find value in.
I would say that the gear mechanism in I2 is what's supposed to "round out" the characters, because I agree that a lot of I2 characters feel incomplete and lacking in tools too. I just think the variation system and the gear system are results of devs trying to find a gimmick that replaces the tested system of just creating more whole characters so they can kinda artificially inflate the roster size. I also don't think either system works very well, especially when you consider that some of the variations are literally just taking the special moves from a preexisting character in the franchise (i.e. Mournful Kitana vs. Jade) and just arbitrarily adding them to another character.

I still disagree though, I don't think it's at all a hypothetical that the variation system is at best totally unnecessary and at worst holds back design by not allowing base characters to have as many tools as a whole character would. It deprives some of the variations of signature tools that a character has previously had, like variations of Raiden beyond displacer not having his signature teleport or other Sub variations not having his Ice Klone. It's like if in Tekken 7 they had a variation system where one variation of Heihachi got Hellsweeps and one got EWGF but neither got both, it just ends up creating a fragmented roster where most if not all characters feel incomplete. It would be much better imo to let Characters all have more base tools even if the roster of actual characters only increased in size by a few more, at least then the playstyle variety is more real rather than forced.
 
If variation come back they need to shoot to be more varied as the name says. Less 50/50’s, No more insane plus frame characters that chip you out either. (Flamefist Liu, Sonya in general.)


Sent from my iPhone using Test Your Might
 

Cursa

Counterpoke with armoured DB2 at all times.
More whole characters would be way better than variations imo. @Dankster Morgan covered it good.

Variations are a sort of band-aid for not having as many characters but requiring the same amount of technical work. Some of them were pretty good imo. I liked how Quan's variations were done, but then you have a character like Reptile who had like 1 different move.
 

Roy Arkon

I will leave my seal on you!
I really don't understand how can anyone think that the Variation system has any affect on the character validity or the overall gameplay of the game. That sounds much more of an excuse to put an extra "reason" to justify one's dislike to the direction of the gameplay or to his claim of a character and/or Variation not being good. @Gooberking said that very well.

In a more Rushdown based game, even chars that are more Zoning based are gonna be Rushdown-based at least to some extent. That is true for other Rushdown-based MK games like UMK3, and other games from other franchises like MVC and DBFZ. MKX could've no Variations at all and still be a more Rushdown-based game, or vice versa. The same can be said for character validity, how many unbalanced games out there have no Variations or anything like that (and I mean games that are actually unbalanced)? There you go.

Also @Cursa and @jcbowie, Reptile's Variation do affect his playstyle. Yes his universal moveset is versatile and giving him the ability to play in a versatile approach, but his Variation-specific moves indicate on how you need to use his versatility. Noxious is the most versatile because it allows you to play both Zoning and Rushdown equally and freely, while Nimble and Deceptive are more Rushdown based, especially Deceptive.

The Variation system is not just about giving each char a vastly distinct gameplan for each char, for some chars it is about changing the approach of the gameplay while keeping the very core of their gameplay the same across all of the Variations. That's another proof that chars in MKX are indeed different then one another.
 
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jcbowie

...more deadly than the dawn.
I really don't understand how can anyone think that the Variation system has any affect on the character validity or the overall gameplay of the game. That sounds much more of an excuse to put an extra "reason" to justify one's dislike to the direction of the gameplay or to his claim of a character and/or Variation not being good. @Gooberking said that very well.

In a more Rushdown based game, even chars that are more Zoning based are gonna be Rushdown-based at least to some extent. That is true for other Rushdown-based MK games like UMK3, and other games from other franchises like MVC and DBFZ. MKX could've no Variations at all and still be a more Rushdown-based game, or vice versa. The same can be said for character validity, how many unbalanced games out there have no Variations or anything like that (and I mean games that are actually unbalanced)? There you go.

Also @Cursa and @jcbowie, Reptile's Variation do affect his playstyle. Yes his universal moveset is versatile and giving him the ability to play in a versatile approach, but his Variation-specific moves indicate on how you need to use his versatility. Noxious is the most versatile because it allows you to play both Zoning and Rushdown equally and freely, while Nimble and Deceptive are more Rushdown based, especially Deceptive.

The Variation system is not just about giving each char a vastly distinct gameplan for each char, for some chars it is about changing the approach of the gameplay while keeping the very core of their gameplay the same across all of the Variations. That's another proof that chars in MKX are indeed different then one another.
I don't understand the mentality that people who criticize the variation system are doing so to find a contrived reason to justify an arbitrary hatred of the system. I do honestly believe that the variation system is unnecessary, I promise I dislike it for that reason and don't just have some other visceral hatred for it.

Reptile's variations affect the way you use certain tools, I would argue that the rush-heavy playstyle remains the same across the variations even in noxious. Yeah, there's different uses for the tools that he's granted in each variation, but his priority is almost always to be in your face. Why not just give him the tools of two variations and then make a single, complete character?

I agree with you that the point of variations are just about changing "approach" or just the context in which unique tools will be used and that the core of the game plan is the same, but thats exactly my point: it's just unnecessary. If the core of the character is the same, why not just put the tools of a few variations together and then make a more well-rounded character? Then you don't have convolution of the balancing process, it's more likely that more characters will be viable/competitively strong, and characters can retain all of their signature tools instead of feeling limited or gimmicky.