Chernyy Volk
Wolf lord, footsie bully, chronic corner abuser.
I know there was a thread that was like "how do you feel about the patch/are you happy" with a poll etc, but that poll and the responses in it really didn't articulate WHY you thought the patch was good etc.
For me, this patch was GOOD for me, because characters I play either got buffed, or left well enough alone. As far as helping the game realize it's potential and be an interesting FG though, I think it was a pretty poor attempt.
The good things about this patch to me.
QOL issues such as jailing etc got MOSTLY fixed. Not totally fixed.
Characters became complete, both variations viable and character loyalty definitely possible as a result. Noob, Liu, Jade etc.
NRS showed willingness to expand on characters to help them out. They basically gave Noob a whole new move and Cetrion a new KB, those are good signs for the future of how the game is handled.
The bad things however, are pretty numerous. I find this patch really perplexing and nonsensical in a lot of regards. Even for characters in this game I hate, the ways they got nerfed were super arbitrary and feel like they really lacked any kind of forethought. I'm welcome to hear peoples suggestions as to how I may be wrong on the things I talked about.
Geras:
I hated this character, but what they did to him is actually pure nonsense and they nerfed him harder than I would have. All I wanted personally was
111 to be punishable so he took a risk on the 50/50
F212 to have an U2-able gap
Sandtrap to be more negative on block
His KB's to all take a damage hit
7f D1 and 9F U2.
Instead, they just... took away a tool in the 50/50. Arbitrarily change the KB requirement on sandtrap for a reason I don't understand while also leaving him with a polarizing flawless block and counterpoke game that were huge reasons he was an issue to begin with. I feel like they did ZERO to actually address the character and what made him break the meta of the game, instead they just made him more boring both to play and to fight. I don't know what they were thinking here to be honest. This'll be a common trend amongst a lot of my complaints. Instead of adding more decision making and interactivity to playing against a lot of characters, they just straight up simplified it instead. Geras got did dirty IMO.
Sonya:
This is another example where every single change just felt arbitrary to me. Sonya still has the things that make her absurd and too well rounded.
Low profiling normals that also hella anti air
The best fireball in the game.
Instead they just... removed a launcher for some reason? The damage scaling hit was fine I guess. But it's the fact she's Deadshot with high damage unfuzzyable 50/50's. If this character had an absolutely shitty projectile and wasn't just immune to being jumped on regardless of how negative she was, I wouldn't mind losing 50% in the corner. Once again, they just kind of... reduced her. She's less unique now while still being problematic. Once again I don't understand what they thought they were doing. This character should be a mix monster with almost zero full screen presence IMO. She's still a character that does 45% in the corner off a 50/50, but can also decide to lame you out afterward with a top 3 zoning kit. What the fuck are they doing?
Scorpion:
I made a thread saying he was dead but I suppose I should've clarified. Reborn is dead. Searing Rage is fine. The teleport nerf was okay because every other attack teleport is a high, I agree that philosophy should be uniform. What's annoying is they didn't do anything to address Scorpion's issues. The mid teleport served as a bandaid for a lot of things.
He still has
b141 which is useless and not special cancelable. Surely it's not that hard to make this come out on block but special cancelable on hit.
Reborn is basically variationless Scorpion now because air throw is literally a KB with it and forget it move which is kind of a design problem across this game. I guess canceling into neutral return on strings is a good thing to have? But Reborn just kind of served as a crutch for people without fundamentals to be honest. The teleport change kind of exposed that one.
He still can't D2 or fatal blow people off teleports when they breakaway. I think everybody in the game should be always able to do at LEAST one or the other off their launchers.
Erron Black:
This is another character where it's another matter of, they didn't actually understand what was wrong with him.
The F4 nerf is a great change, it's the kind of interactive decision making I want out of this game.
The Scud Shot nerfs however, are so fucking pointless. The problem is that he can cancel into this at all. He either should've lost this move altogether and had it replaced by Acid Toss I think it's called, it's a BF1 hit throw special, or he should've lost the ability to cancel into this. Make the B222 or slide series 50/50 unfuzzyable. Now both variations have reasons to be used. Safe resourceless canceling should never exist except in the case of Jacqui where I think it's justified because of her lack of full screen game in that variation. Scud Shot ideally would be removed so it can be exclusively on the Gunslinger parallel unused variation tbh.
Buffing Liu Kang:
They gave the character that already has everything and almost has the best version of everything buffs to his second variation so now he has everything even more than he did before when people at the top level and below have been complaining about this character for months now. Nobody likes these block forever guess when you take your turn back characters, especially when they have top 3 zoning tools, insane mobility, crazy explosive easily obtainable KB's that lead to 50%+ comebacks. Liu Kang had no real weakness before. Now he's even more so that because he has a second variation that's good now that allows him to counterpick the MU's V1 lost. How in the fuck this character went under the radar I don't understand.
Command Grabs And Grapplers Being Trash
This is more a systemic issue but it does drive me nuts. I don't play grapplers, never been my style, but I pity those who do because grappling is ass in this game. Why does every command throw both do less damage than normal throws, often results in worse oki/situations than your normal throws AND almost all the ticks in this game are OS-able? These things should be good, but they just aren't. This is the first NRS game I've played where I'm no the slightest bit scared of grappler variations or characters, especially when taking the hit makes almost every tick throw punishable. The risk reward on these characters sucks bro lol
Those are some of the things, but I want to hear your honest thoughts. If you thought for example, the Geras changes were perfect, I want to hear why.
It just feels like NRS were really tone deaf. Dare I say, the changes that were for the better are almost an accident.
For me, this patch was GOOD for me, because characters I play either got buffed, or left well enough alone. As far as helping the game realize it's potential and be an interesting FG though, I think it was a pretty poor attempt.
The good things about this patch to me.
QOL issues such as jailing etc got MOSTLY fixed. Not totally fixed.
Characters became complete, both variations viable and character loyalty definitely possible as a result. Noob, Liu, Jade etc.
NRS showed willingness to expand on characters to help them out. They basically gave Noob a whole new move and Cetrion a new KB, those are good signs for the future of how the game is handled.
The bad things however, are pretty numerous. I find this patch really perplexing and nonsensical in a lot of regards. Even for characters in this game I hate, the ways they got nerfed were super arbitrary and feel like they really lacked any kind of forethought. I'm welcome to hear peoples suggestions as to how I may be wrong on the things I talked about.
Geras:
I hated this character, but what they did to him is actually pure nonsense and they nerfed him harder than I would have. All I wanted personally was
111 to be punishable so he took a risk on the 50/50
F212 to have an U2-able gap
Sandtrap to be more negative on block
His KB's to all take a damage hit
7f D1 and 9F U2.
Instead, they just... took away a tool in the 50/50. Arbitrarily change the KB requirement on sandtrap for a reason I don't understand while also leaving him with a polarizing flawless block and counterpoke game that were huge reasons he was an issue to begin with. I feel like they did ZERO to actually address the character and what made him break the meta of the game, instead they just made him more boring both to play and to fight. I don't know what they were thinking here to be honest. This'll be a common trend amongst a lot of my complaints. Instead of adding more decision making and interactivity to playing against a lot of characters, they just straight up simplified it instead. Geras got did dirty IMO.
Sonya:
This is another example where every single change just felt arbitrary to me. Sonya still has the things that make her absurd and too well rounded.
Low profiling normals that also hella anti air
The best fireball in the game.
Instead they just... removed a launcher for some reason? The damage scaling hit was fine I guess. But it's the fact she's Deadshot with high damage unfuzzyable 50/50's. If this character had an absolutely shitty projectile and wasn't just immune to being jumped on regardless of how negative she was, I wouldn't mind losing 50% in the corner. Once again, they just kind of... reduced her. She's less unique now while still being problematic. Once again I don't understand what they thought they were doing. This character should be a mix monster with almost zero full screen presence IMO. She's still a character that does 45% in the corner off a 50/50, but can also decide to lame you out afterward with a top 3 zoning kit. What the fuck are they doing?
Scorpion:
I made a thread saying he was dead but I suppose I should've clarified. Reborn is dead. Searing Rage is fine. The teleport nerf was okay because every other attack teleport is a high, I agree that philosophy should be uniform. What's annoying is they didn't do anything to address Scorpion's issues. The mid teleport served as a bandaid for a lot of things.
He still has
b141 which is useless and not special cancelable. Surely it's not that hard to make this come out on block but special cancelable on hit.
Reborn is basically variationless Scorpion now because air throw is literally a KB with it and forget it move which is kind of a design problem across this game. I guess canceling into neutral return on strings is a good thing to have? But Reborn just kind of served as a crutch for people without fundamentals to be honest. The teleport change kind of exposed that one.
He still can't D2 or fatal blow people off teleports when they breakaway. I think everybody in the game should be always able to do at LEAST one or the other off their launchers.
Erron Black:
This is another character where it's another matter of, they didn't actually understand what was wrong with him.
The F4 nerf is a great change, it's the kind of interactive decision making I want out of this game.
The Scud Shot nerfs however, are so fucking pointless. The problem is that he can cancel into this at all. He either should've lost this move altogether and had it replaced by Acid Toss I think it's called, it's a BF1 hit throw special, or he should've lost the ability to cancel into this. Make the B222 or slide series 50/50 unfuzzyable. Now both variations have reasons to be used. Safe resourceless canceling should never exist except in the case of Jacqui where I think it's justified because of her lack of full screen game in that variation. Scud Shot ideally would be removed so it can be exclusively on the Gunslinger parallel unused variation tbh.
Buffing Liu Kang:
They gave the character that already has everything and almost has the best version of everything buffs to his second variation so now he has everything even more than he did before when people at the top level and below have been complaining about this character for months now. Nobody likes these block forever guess when you take your turn back characters, especially when they have top 3 zoning tools, insane mobility, crazy explosive easily obtainable KB's that lead to 50%+ comebacks. Liu Kang had no real weakness before. Now he's even more so that because he has a second variation that's good now that allows him to counterpick the MU's V1 lost. How in the fuck this character went under the radar I don't understand.
Command Grabs And Grapplers Being Trash
This is more a systemic issue but it does drive me nuts. I don't play grapplers, never been my style, but I pity those who do because grappling is ass in this game. Why does every command throw both do less damage than normal throws, often results in worse oki/situations than your normal throws AND almost all the ticks in this game are OS-able? These things should be good, but they just aren't. This is the first NRS game I've played where I'm no the slightest bit scared of grappler variations or characters, especially when taking the hit makes almost every tick throw punishable. The risk reward on these characters sucks bro lol
Those are some of the things, but I want to hear your honest thoughts. If you thought for example, the Geras changes were perfect, I want to hear why.
It just feels like NRS were really tone deaf. Dare I say, the changes that were for the better are almost an accident.
