Kombat League is Hot Garbage Yet Again

[Arqwart]

KL is one of the worst designed things they made for MK11 and for some odd reason, NRS has decided to bring it back for MK1. It's neither a ranked system nor a test of skill. Instead, it's a glorified PvP grind mode for unlocks with modern game design's favorite thing: FOMO. Let's look at how fucking stupid and awful this mode is real quick and why I'm just so flabbergasted NRS almost entirely copy pasted it from MK11 like that was somehow a good idea:

• "Rank" is just a grind upwards via points. You gain/lose points not based on your own skill, but by a basic determination of your rank vs. opponent's rank. This means if you fight someone lower rank that's decided to join KL late and they absolutely thrash you, you just spent 3 matches getting decimated to also lose 100 someodd points. Meanwhile, you could go against someone also lower rank than you that's around your skill level so you spend 5 matches grinding out a tough set to get only 10 points. Or go against someone who failed upwards by sheer playtime with a negative W/L ratio that's above your rank that you stomp for 3 matches and get an easy peasy 50 points for no effort. Again: no skill, just grind (and matchmaking RNG).
• Because of the pre-determined point values for gain/loss on win/loss, every instance of queing is a roll of the dice as to whether your opponent is on par with your skill level AND another roll of the dice as to where their rank lies in relation to yours.
• It doesn't appear KL has anything resembling a background skill level to queue people together. Instead, it's just a nebulous range above and below your current "rank."
• "Rank" is not determined nor separated by character. Your 1 hour Mileena is considered the same "rank" as your 45 hour Havik.
• There are no placement matches to determine your overall skill level at the start of your journey in kombat league. You're just tossed in with whoever is currently starting out KL in the lowest rank tier, be that Joe's 10 year-old nephew who learned a cool 5-hit combo or Ninjakilla himself.
• The leagues are temporary to line up with seasons for you to unlock gear, cosmetics, and profile banner items for. "Rank" is reset every time one of these new seasons comes out, resetting the grind for the new cosmetics. There's no overarching achievement for moving upward save for the cosmetics earned. A leaderboard means nothing if it's reset routinely and only includes the people with any "rank" in the current season.
• Past seasons are effectively just erased save for the cosmetics earned once the next season starts. There's no long term incentives to climbing or maintaining any position in "rank."
• With MK1, there is now no way to change characters (only kameos) during a set. Despite "rank" not being tied to your character, you are fully locked into your character choice ahead of time. I get there were notable problems with time abusers in MK11 always going back to character select to waste as much time as possible, but holy shit this is NOT the solution. This is also super ironic since they increased the sets to best of 5 from best of 3 like top 8 tournament rules.
• Again with the "Next Opponent" prompt not being at the top like at the beginning of MK11. Hoo boi.

Warrior Shrine had better be something like an ACTUAL long term ranked system. This game is already extremely barebones on UX, QoL, and online gameplay options. Coming out the gate swinging with a somehow worse version of Kombat League as the only "ranked" gameplay is ridiculous. Looks like it's back to the good ol' tactic of waiting till the last week or two of the league to super quickly fly upwards in ranks to unlock stuff as everyone else has already been playing a while. Good mode, NRS. Glad it's back in all its glory, especially with notable downgrades.

 

[subzert]

KL is one of the worst designed things they made for MK11 and for some odd reason, NRS has decided to bring it back for MK1. It's neither a ranked system nor a test of skill. Instead, it's a glorified PvP grind mode for unlocks with modern game design's favorite thing: FOMO. Let's look at how fucking stupid and awful this mode is real quick and why I'm just so flabbergasted NRS almost entirely copy pasted it from MK11 like that was somehow a good idea:

• "Rank" is just a grind upwards via points. You gain/lose points not based on your own skill, but by a basic determination of your rank vs. opponent's rank. This means if you fight someone lower rank that's decided to join KL late and they absolutely thrash you, you just spent 3 matches getting decimated to also lose 100 someodd points. Meanwhile, you could go against someone also lower rank than you that's around your skill level so you spend 5 matches grinding out a tough set to get only 10 points. Or go against someone who failed upwards by sheer playtime with a negative W/L ratio that's above your rank that you stomp for 3 matches and get an easy peasy 50 points for no effort. Again: no skill, just grind (and matchmaking RNG).
• Because of the pre-determined point values for gain/loss on win/loss, every instance of queing is a roll of the dice as to whether your opponent is on par with your skill level AND another roll of the dice as to where their rank lies in relation to yours.
• It doesn't appear KL has anything resembling a background skill level to queue people together. Instead, it's just a nebulous range above and below your current "rank."
• "Rank" is not determined nor separated by character. Your 1 hour Mileena is considered the same "rank" as your 45 hour Havik.
• There are no placement matches to determine your overall skill level at the start of your journey in kombat league. You're just tossed in with whoever is currently starting out KL in the lowest rank tier, be that Joe's 10 year-old nephew who learned a cool 5-hit combo or Ninjakilla himself.
• The leagues are temporary to line up with seasons for you to unlock gear, cosmetics, and profile banner items for. "Rank" is reset every time one of these new seasons comes out, resetting the grind for the new cosmetics. There's no overarching achievement for moving upward save for the cosmetics earned. A leaderboard means nothing if it's reset routinely and only includes the people with any "rank" in the current season.
• Past seasons are effectively just erased save for the cosmetics earned once the next season starts. There's no long term incentives to climbing or maintaining any position in "rank."
• With MK1, there is now no way to change characters (only kameos) during a set. Despite "rank" not being tied to your character, you are fully locked into your character choice ahead of time. I get there were notable problems with time abusers in MK11 always going back to character select to waste as much time as possible, but holy shit this is NOT the solution. This is also super ironic since they increased the sets to best of 5 from best of 3 like top 8 tournament rules.
• Again with the "Next Opponent" prompt not being at the top like at the beginning of MK11. Hoo boi.

Warrior Shrine had better be something like an ACTUAL long term ranked system. This game is already extremely barebones on UX, QoL, and online gameplay options. Coming out the gate swinging with a somehow worse version of Kombat League as the only "ranked" gameplay is ridiculous. Looks like it's back to the good ol' tactic of waiting till the last week or two of the league to super quickly fly upwards in ranks to unlock stuff as everyone else has already been playing a while. Good mode, NRS. Glad it's back in all its glory, especially with notable downgrades.

Biggest issue that I have with Kombat League is that it is now best of 5 set. That is very tedious.

 

[thesacrifist]

Very nicely summed up, sir!

I’d also like per character skill rank. Pretty much just do it as SF6 with matchmaking, skillranks, placement, promotion etc. and it’s perfect. Kombat League grind can be a separate set of XP or whatever you earn for victories independent of your skill.

No need to do their own thing here or reinvent the wheel

 

[Son ov Timett]

We need dedicated matchmaking rooms. We had this literally 12 years ago. I'm looking for some sweat, not wifi smokes noodle dancing on Comcast.

The Warrior Shrine will prob just be a leaderboard of sorts, I don't expect much from it.

SF6 bless.

 

[kevkopdx]

Agree on all points… the matchmaking is really weird, I’ve literally been paired up with the same person right after playing them at least 5 or 6 times

 

[subzert]

Agree on all points… the matchmaking is really weird, I’ve literally been paired up with the same person right after playing them at least 5 or 6 times

Same with me. Got beaten by a guy 3 classes above me and matched with same person again for the next set. I don't want to give anybody quitality but I am not going to get recked again for three fights.

 

[MK2D]

What are the chances NRS listens to and addresses many of these? If they plan on supporting the game for a while it seems imperative to start here. Idk how much better or worse it is being under WBG’s umbrella lately but their objectives shouldn’t extend much past launch/DLC monetization anyways.

 

[Vslayer]

They really were like we're just gonna copy paste MK11 online because being innovative is for losers. I wish they would have paid more attention to SF6, and copied their homework instead. Because having an account wide rank is stupid as hell and so backwards.

 

[Immortal]

To make something good or anything new for that matter, you need time... which they didn't have. They were rushing like crazy. So it's straight up copy-paste(not only KL but the whole online system) from MK11 which they didn't even have time to fully adjust for MK1 mechanics, hence missing features(even the ones which were in MK11), crashing/desync etc...

The whole game feels really subpar outside of the graphics/music and the actual gameplay which is fun(thou obviously crazy unbalanced and unfinished). This really needed 6-12 more months of development to be ready fo release.

 

[The Ultimate]

With certain things in the online being grayed out and "coming soon", I'm thinking NRS has plans to fix some things about the online experience, and I certainly hope they do. Seeing the strides other games have made to their online experience and having MK1 only have minor changes to their online suite is very disappointing.

 

[Gooberking]

I played limited amounts of KL in 11 and not playing MK1, but wanted to comment on this guy: "It doesn't appear KL has anything resembling a background skill level to queue people together. Instead, it's just a nebulous range above and below your current "rank." "

If it's like 11 then I do think there is a hidden skill metric of some kind that affects the matchmaking for KL but it is KL specific. I say this for a specific reason.

I had played KL a few times but only on PS4. A lot of the time I played on PC in casual mode then that was populated, and with people here. We had a public moment where the PC is concerned where several well known NRS players all decided to all try the PC version around the same time. We were well into the game's life, and the consensus seemed to be they like how the version felt, but PC players were "trash". We didn't have the all best players in the world on PC, so from their perspective that might track. Couple of them were more streamers than pros and they seemed to be doing better as well. Maybe PC players actually were all worse players.

Not long after that I played KL on PC for the first time. I'd played on PC probably close to 1k hours by then, much of it online; just not KL. In my first KL run I didn't lose (and not at risk of losing) until twenty something fights in, and that was to people the game seemed to think I had little chance of winning against. I don't get many 20+ win streaks in FG's when matchmaking is correct. This wasn't how it went down on PS4, and the predictive scoring was way off and didn't match what I was used to seeing on PC.

The game had already proven it knew how to score a win chance percentage against the other PC players via other online modes, but here I was washing people that I only had a 10% chance of beating. And that kept happening until suddenly it figured it out. It was pretty abrupt change and a 50% match meant way more like what I was used seeing in other modes and on PS4. What's more is the next KL season, whatever that was persisted. There was never another kindergarten run.

So I think there is/was something that it's scoped to KL. Once it knows you it will try to find relative current rank players near your general skill level using whatever that is. If you run out of players you can beat, then you will be forced to play harder players and may slow or stall climbing. If it you are good, it won't, and you will eventually climb to the top. It also means the bulk of your climb is technically against harder players than for lower skilled players.

Given this is the first KL and it takes multiple platforms with significant playtime differences to attempt, there isn't much of anyway to replicate that situation right now, but it sure seemed like there was something more going on than God fights God +/- 1.75 rank levels or whatever. And also since it's the first season, it doesn't now much about anyone yet. It has to know not just about you, but where all the other players are too. So until everyone has a hundo matches in or so, it probably has/had some extra sus ideas about who beats who and by how much

 

[Marinjuana]

How is a ranked system supposed to determine that a player who has not played before is actually good at the game and should be a higher rank?

I prefer character lock, personally.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

1) I think character lock is a good thing, but I agree on everything else.

2) The unlocks are terrible. I only played Kombat League like 3 sets a night (on the few nights per week I can play) because that’s all I could stomach to get to Grandmaster and get what I thought would be a cool Sub-Zero mask, a show of dedication and “skill” like the Halo 3 Recon armor back in the day. Come to find out it’s a generic palette swap of one of his ugliest masks. I feel no desire to play more and there is 33 days left. I can’t imagine wanting to play MK1 when I could replay the RE4 dlc, or the Dead Space remake, or just Spider-Man when it comes out.

 

[Vslayer]

I don’t feel like matchmaking really exists and it just matches you based on current rank and region. Cause I either get curb stomped, I kick their ass and they quit before it’s over, or it’s super close and sweaty 3-2 sets. I’m halfway through Master RN and I’m not getting better and better opponents, it’s like a roll of the dice.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I don’t feel like matchmaking really exists and it just matches you based on current rank and region. Cause I either get curb stomped, I kick their ass and they quit before it’s over, or it’s super close and sweaty 3-2 sets. I’m halfway through Master RN and I’m not getting better and better opponents, it’s like a roll of the dice.

I have learned absolutely nothing from Kombat League.

Like you said, in the same “rank”, back to back, I’ll get my nutsack kicked in, then face someone who’s been lobotomized, win / loss isn’t even a good predictor of this.

 

[Ray'sGoodLiquor]

I never cared much for grinding rank in fighting games. I don't like KL because of ft3 and lack of character diversity. Most of the time I use matchmaking it's because I want matchup knowledge but KL doesn't really provide that. I think the best option in game is kasuals, but the best option overall is to make friends with higher level players and hit then up for sets.

 

[Juxtapose]

What are the rewards you get in Kombat League this game? I can't check since I don't have Game Pass Core. Is it Seasonal themed skins and gear? Are they restricted to Kombat League or can you get them elsewhere?

 

[Dankster Morgan]

What are the rewards you get in Kombat League this game? I can't check since I don't have Game Pass Core. Is it Seasonal themed skins and gear? Are they restricted to Kombat League or can you get them elsewhere?

Like I said the Sub-Zero mask was very disappointing

 

[Syzoth]

I don't think Ranked is that bad. I'm down for First to 3. They fixed the issue of someone dashboarding or turning off their console and you not getting your points for a win.

I like to mirror match and counter pick so I'm somewhat disappointed with character lock but I do think it highlights the versatility of Kameos and their importance.

I like the rewards. I think it's worth fighting for and keeps people active playing the game. This seasons skins aren't groundbreaking but neither were the first few seasons of MK11.

The only thing I hate is that the ranks aren't character specific. I think since they've done character lock they are halfway there.

 

[Immortal]

I don’t feel like matchmaking really exists and it just matches you based on current rank and region. Cause I either get curb stomped, I kick their ass and they quit before it’s over, or it’s super close and sweaty 3-2 sets. I’m halfway through Master RN and I’m not getting better and better opponents, it’s like a roll of the dice.

The only two things you can actualy "learn" in KL is a fact that +frames mean nothing so everybody just mash d1/3/4 no matter what and that you shouldn't counter-poke coz nobody gives a shit about gaps and just cancel EVERY poke into special and then use Kameo to make it safe(if needed and the player isn't on auto-pilot which most of them are lol) .

 

[Immortal Reaver]

Can someone explain to me why character locking even when you lose is a good decision? I think you should be able to select both of your characters after a loss. Unless that's how it's going to be for major tournaments as well?

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Can someone explain to me why character locking even when you lose is a good decision? I think you should be able to select both of your characters after a loss. Unless that's how it's going to be for major tournaments as well?

Because the NRS online community doesn’t deserve it. You already have people that after they lose a match won’t hit rematch and let the clock run out just to waste as much time and be as much of a shithead as possible. People in past games would sit on character select screen until there was like 2 seconds left then choose their character. It’s maybe one of the worst communities out of any game I’ve gotten in to.

 

[Syzoth]

You already have people that after they lose a match won’t hit rematch and let the clock run out just to waste as much time and be as much of a shithead as possible.

That timer is 15 seconds right? Like.. not even long enough to look something up. Put in new batteries. Get a drink or go pee. If they're waiting one fourth of a minute, it may not be because they're being a 'shithead' but because they're considering what to do differently.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

That timer is 15 seconds right? Like.. not even long enough to look something up. Put in new batteries. Get a drink or go pee. If they're waiting one fourth of a minute, it may not be because they're being a 'shithead' but because they're considering what to do differently.

Perhaps but they do it every time and will wait until the last second and fatality after ever match. I don’t get tilted over one time, I’m thinking of just a handful of individuals

 

[Gooberking]

That timer is 15 seconds right? Like.. not even long enough to look something up. Put in new batteries. Get a drink or go pee. If they're waiting one fourth of a minute, it may not be because they're being a 'shithead' but because they're considering what to do differently.

I think that is giving the populace too much credit. I fully believe timer spite is real. Maybe not every instance, but speaking generally such stones are rarely left unturned.

Let's not forget what happened when no timer existed on rematch. People are willing to burn their own time