I understand not preferring Mk1 to MKX. They are both have some key mechanics that differ wildly, but the particular argument that one is "less creative" than the other, or that one's HTBs were more complex to setup/execute is difficult to agree with.
Its okay to enjoy MKX and think it is your favorite. And it is okay to dislike MK1's meta and mechanics (God knows I dislike various bullshit from this game lolol). But at their core essence they (and MK9 - and even MK11 to some extent) are surprisingly similar, so we should be cautious when saying this or that did not happen in this or that game.
i honestly think none of this current games are similar to mk9
MK9 was a game you would mainly poke with jabs, d4s and d3s
because in that game, d3s on crouch hit were +7 on hit, and used to give a massive advantage to start off an offense, meanwhile on standing hit it was +3 only, while d4 on standing hit were +12 on hit, and +4 on crouch hit.
the thing is, the game also had stance jail, if you were caught in a blockstring standing, your character would get locked in standing until the blockstring ends, same for crouching, so there were moves you had to be crouching to avoid.
The worst poke in the game were d1s which as also the fasted buttons in the game at 6 frames, but were only +1 regardless the stance and where always -13 if blocked.
In sum, you had specific reasons to hit your opponent with a d3 if they're crouching and hit them with d4s while they were standing, so you could always get a massive advantage on your offense to start chimming in your strings and continue to be your turn, which it was either to be blocked properly, or armored out if they had the advantage, which would lead to specific situations such as jump to cross up counters, d1 counters, armor, throws and what else.
Sadly this used to be where MK branched from the rest and when they universalized this, they essentially killed one aspect of NRS games that added depth to the offence, in that era while this was as diverse, notice how ppl didn't relied as havily as they do into d1s and what not as they do now, that's because some these attacks were bad if blocked and even at -3 it would mean the world between someone who has a 12f jab and someone who has a 9f mid.
The vid bellow it's a top match i faced a cyrax, and you will hardly see me doing d1s at all if any, i used to poke more with jabs and strings, and when i sensed they would duck, i would go for d3s, if i happen to hit them standing, then switching to d4 was a good idea to increase the advantage.
You will see often the cyrax player trying to either jump out or do something else, but rarely pokes back with d1 either, because it's not ideal
you will also see me trying to punish d1 with f4 once, but he had jumped and since d1 had no blockstun, for skarlet it was one of the most hardest just frames in the game, since mk9 had no buffers in command normals either.
Whener i say "i would like NRS to keep MK9 as base of their foundation" i mean mostly this:
1.d1s needs to be downgraded back to -13 on block again, while still being fast and grand far more than 1 frame of advantage on hit
2. the stance advantage needs to comeback, you need d3s to be relevant againt on crouch/standing hit with good advantage to start adding some other buttons in depending on where they hit, same as d4 which were the oposite and only +4 on crouch hit
This would put players at the edge of their seat, because they would have to learn correct blocking again, "if standing, watch out for d4s, if crouching watch out for d3s" and with this overheads would be far more meaningfull because now you have a reason to stack up damage into pressure, advantage and when they want to focus on that part of the game, BOOM... overhead.
With all the things we have now, the variety in poking advantage, range and hits, short hops, up blocks, flawless blocks, and backdashes, jump outs, would make one hell of a complete system that doesn't have to realy heavily on just "i d1 and you d1 back" which is growing stale imo and it's the fastest way to get out of any offense with a 6f gap
the games would be far more than just the current type of offense that has been building up since MKX, yes which is where this shit started and still ruins every MK game on it's wake, it's doesn't feel as good as it used to.
