Do you really think top players now vs top players today would be the same if MK12 was basically a revamped MK9? MK9 was much harder to be good at, execution was ridiculous and you couldn't win unless you played perfect. The execution barrier of today's games is so toned down because they HAVE TO appeal to more people or they just won't sell anything.
People aren't better for playing watered-down games of monotony.
I do, because the top players today are mostly better than they had to be back then.
This is for a few reasons:
1) Our scene has a legacy curve. We’ve been studying and breaking down these games for so long that it’s become much harder to beat our top players. Remember when Chris G used to walk in and place for free in MK9, and win Injustice majors while playing other games? When Aris used to beat everyone at WNF? When PR Rog placed at EVO? When Justin Wong was a threat early in MK9? Or Corn Footwurk placed at the first MKX major? This doesn’t happen anymore, and it’s because the collective level of NRS game knowledge and talent accrued over years is significantly higher.
2) The second reason is: Sonic Fox. Sonic has singlehandedly raised the bar for our scene as a whole, starting with IGAU (and very late MK9), and continuing into MKX. By winning so many majors for free, he forced players to level up in order to even have a chance to deal with him. The fact that, over time, Scar (MKX), Dragon, and others have had to push themselves to such a high level to compete with him has done wonders for the neutral game, fundamentals, reaction speed and reads of the best players. And now you have players like Ninjakilla who come in with that bar set from the start. It’s great.
3) The third reason is that MK9 was a young scene — at that point, much of our scene had never played a high level fighting game before. Anyone who had prior serious competitive fighting game experience, be it in Street Fighter, Tekken, DoA, or in the 3D MKs, was coming in with a major advantage, and it showed. Many people fell in love with MK9 as their first serious fighter, and the skill gap has never been bigger than it was in those first couple games.
All of this is not to disparage the top MK9 players, as they were skilled and very dedicated. They set the tone for our scene to follow. But they would no doubt have to work even harder to complete against the likes of Sonic and Ninjakilla with the level of meta knowledge and fighting game fundamentals that have become standard. It is what it is.