Labbing is the genre of game I am in love with. Unfortunately, Injustice 2 was the last NRS game in that genre. Ever since even MKvDC, I spent hundreds of hours labbing the “crazy time delayed setups” and “hard-to-blockables” in each game. In MK11, I ran out of shit to lab in about 5 hours. The game is just a different genre, not one I am particularly fond of. It’s probably a best fighting game from NRS, but ultimately the least fun. It’s just so limited, I agree with Dood.
Yeah, I think it's a personal taste thing.
I'm anti-lab. I wanted a fighting game that would get me playing against another human as quickly as possible, without the necessity of spending more than 10 minutes in training. When I was younger I could afford to spend months learning every move of every character in Tekken Tag, but I just don't have time to do stuff like that any more, so more straightforward games are appealing.
I remember something David Sirlin wrote years ago about wanting to limit the time that people needed to invest in "single player" (meaning training modes) in fighting games before they felt comfortable competing against other players. That philosophy eventually became Fantasy Strike, but for older ex-arcade players like me, it inspired nostalgia for the ways fighting games used to be. Learning what tools were at your disposal didn't take single player "lab time", your learning was how to use those tools against live players. MK11, for me, is closer to that experience, so that's one of the reasons I dig it.
Max is into flashy stuff, novelty, and watching excellent players exploit systems. I respect that, but that's not what I want out of a fighting game. I think there's space in the genre to appeal to many different types of players, and games don't have to be crammed full of complicated systems and interactions in order to be considered successful.