Absolutely, but it also has a bunch of outdated mechanics that still have no systems in place to balance them:
50/50 throws- There's no skill to breaking them since they all look the same. It's like putting three bullets in the revolver and hoping you don't get one of those three bullets after the spin. Then you have two different types of commands for teching them. To make it even worse, Krushing Blows are added just for flair. Needing to place the new mechanic anywhere we can, just because.
Chip-Kill - Everything does chip (even teching a freaking throw lol). Chip is fine and so is Chip-Kill, but MK doesn't have a system in place to deal with it (last breath is useless against multi-hit attacks, gap-less strings and DOT). When low on health, a comeback is highly unlikely because neutral means absolutely nothing at that point all thanks to no countermeasures to chip/DOT. Think about it for a minute. You're being punished for doing what you're supposed to do when you're attacked (defend). Blocking/teching is a punishment in MK. It's rather weird to make performing a skilled comeback through meter management and good hand/eye coordination useless, but then add...
Fatal Blow - The MK-Blue Shell. Seriously? There's no freaking reason for this to exist except to rubber-band matches like Mario Kart. Who the hell wants to see artificial comebacks assisted by the damn game? This is the neutral destroyer. The game slows down to a crawl because of how momentum-changing they are and all for little cost of a player getting their @ss kicked.
Ridiculous Krushing Blow conditions - A large potion of the cast has these KB conditions that just scream casual. They are highly unrealistic in a pro match.
In the spirit of discussion, I shall attempt to answer your queries and ask some questions of my own.
1. Throws: Throws are designed to deter the opponent from blocking and playing too defensively. Hence is it unblockable. However they can also be neutral crouched and shorthop punished. A throw tech in this game is probably more about stage awareness than reactions. That’s probably the “skill” in reading the player’s tendencies. Throws are also one of the only ways of opening people up with certain characters. You aren’t meant to tech every single throw, just as you aren’t supposed to block every single mixup. Everything in a fighting game is strictly speaking a guess, by which the player chooses the best option that they believe will work. It is simply risk/reward in every decision you make.
2. Chip kills have been present in many NRS titles to date, and MK11 probably has the most ways to negate chip out of MKXL, Injustice 2 and MK11 (I cite these 3 since I’ve only seriously played these 3 NRS titles) projectiles can be jumped or crouched without taking damage. Flawless block negates chip and if you flawless block the first hit of a string it negates chip for the whole string (I think? Iirc the tutorial touched on this) Flawless block also enables invincible reversals and non-invincible launchers to straight up punish certain block strings (exchanging your small amount of chip damage with a comparatively large amount of damage you inflict on an opponent). There’s also the Last Breath mechanic that sacrifices stamina bar for survival, so no wake ups and no breakaways or rolls on last breath. Even if you’re on the ground, due to the new system of meter each character is given an invincible wake up that once again negates chip damage where armoured wake ups would serve nothing in preventing chip kills. Each character also has access to a fast armoured reversal that goes into a 30% unbreakable combo. Use it.
3. I would like to ask why you keep comparing FBs to the blue shell? I’m not sure about your reasoning beyond “it’s a rubber band mechanic” which I assume correlates to the ease of which the move is executed? If you are referring to the fact that it steals momentum back for the defending players, then it serves the same purpose as armouring through your minus frames in MKX into a 30% combo, only the opponent cannot breakaway. If you are referring to the fact that there are no workarounds and the move can be throw out randomly with little thought and the only one that can benefit is the one who executes the move, then I suggest to you look into how exactly the blue shell works, and whether it’s actually so OP. I made a post giving some details in another thread if you wish to take a look.
4. This I do not know enough to agree or disagree. I know that limited access to KBs limits the potential of some characters greatly, so perhaps you have my agreement there.
All in all, I do not believe that MK11 is catering for casuals, it’s not rush-down oriented with overhead-low guessing like MKX was, instead it’s a more calculated and slower-paced game, guesses are still there, though not as simple as overhead or low.
