Roy Arkon
I will leave my seal on you!
I said that the negative feedback towards the Variation system is "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". And your last paragraph, you just proved my point. You claim that the Variation hurts the validity of the chars, which is one of the two reasons I stated for such feedback. Not to mention that, like I said earlier, the Variation doesn't affect the validity at all, as there are a ton of unbalanced games from the past and present that have no Variation or anything similar. The roster in MKX is very well balanced, especially after the last patch, MKX is the most balanced MK game to date.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.
You also claim that they should combine the tools of the chars to make each of them as one well rounded-char. That is also false, because then every char will fall on the well-rounded archetype and then there will no diversity among the chars. As I said, the other reason some people are against the Variation system is because they claim that this is what makes everyone to be based on Rushdown and thus make the game to be based on Rushdown, which not only couldn't be any further from the truth (as I said earlier, there are ton of Rushdown-based games that have no Variation system or any of the like, so it could've been like that even with it or vice versa), but if you do combine all the Variations into one, it will only prove that point even further, because everyone will be under the well-rounded archetype, as everyone will be able to not just play Rushdown, but also play Zoning, Grappling, Mid-range, Mobility etc; The fact is, even though each char can play Rushdown at least to an extend, not every Variation gives the char the tools of other archetypes. So Kano, for example, has a full Rushdown Variation in Cutthroat, a Zoning based Variation in Cybernetic, and a Grappler/Counter based Variation in Commando. If they were all on one Variation, and also do the same for the whole roster, there would be no diversity, unless if they would've take some of the moves out completely, let's say the Grapple and Counter moves of Commando, in order to make sure each char will have some unique aspects to it.
As for Reptile, yes Noxious can be played up close, but Reptile's overall best tools are his projectiles, because they can help Reptile control the space and the pace of the match, and he is one of, if not the best Zoning based char in the game. But in order to take his Zoning to it's full potential, you need to use meter to stop his Forceballs at their place and/or use the EX versions of them, and in Noxious you need to use any meter for the Poison Gas, as the Poison Gas can help you even if you don't increase it even once in a match, and when you do, the regular version can be enough, so you don't need to use meter for the EX Poison Gas at all and you can save the meter for the his Zoning tools as well as his Anti-Zoning tools like his EX Slide and EX Klaw Pounce, but in Nimble and Deceptive, you have to use meter for the Basilisk Speed Boost and Invisibility specials, especially for the Invisibility, because they can't reach their full potential without meter unlike the Poison Gas, which means that you need to sacrifice at least some of his Zoning capabilities for those 2 moves. That is why Noxious is the most Zoning oriented Variation for Reptile.