The "zoning" myth vs. the reality of pro-level skill

I understand that spammed zoning can be frustrating to deal with, especially at the casual level (which is where I'm at) but I think it should be frustrating to deal with, same as it's frustrating to deal with a rushdown character running in and spamming their moves, or dealing with a difficult divekick character, or teleport, or whatever strong move other characters have.

Zoning and projectiles need to be properly balanced, just like any other strategy in fighting games. In the case of Injustice 2 currently, I think it's balanced fairly well. I want zoning to be a viable strategy because I think it adds an interesting additional dynamic to fighting games, and I worry that if zoning gets toned down enough that a newer player can simply get around it without breaking a sweat, zoning ends up as a toothless strategy.

Grapplers wouldn’t be as much fun without fireballs to navigate. Fire away.

Darth-Nero said:

The skill : reward ratio is absurdly off balance. Read Crimson's posts above to understand why zoning in NRS games is the most frustrating experience of all compared to other fighting games.

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Yeah, just to be fair -- I'm only illustrating why I think people view zoning differently in our games. I don't want to make a value judgement on what's ok/not ok; I just think that a lot of times, people just aren't considering the big differences in how zoning plays into the overall game designs.

And yeah, every game has it's own sources of frustration. We've seen that with the many comments about SF5's meta over the months. The absolute top players will always just do what they need to do to overcome it and win.

CrimsonShadow said:

Yeah, just to be fair -- I'm only illustrating why I think people view zoning differently in our games. I don't want to make a value judgement on what's ok/not ok

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Nope, too late to backpedal there buddy. You've already spoken CRYSTAL WORDS OF WISDOW!

The real problem with this game is the throw immunity on random moves.

Wigy said:

Also the fact you'll have taken chip you can't do much of anything about on the way in.

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Yup.

Marlow said:

I understand that spammed zoning can be frustrating to deal with, especially at the casual level (which is where I'm at) but I think it should be frustrating to deal with, same as it's frustrating to deal with a rushdown character running in and spamming their moves, or dealing with a difficult divekick character, or teleport, or whatever strong move other characters have.

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The problem is the meter gain. Not only are they building bar like crazy just for spamming projectiles, they're building bar when you're taking chip as you're making your way in as well. It's my opinion that universal in-game resources (meter means absolutely everything in NRS games) shouldn't so blatantly favor one playstyle over another.

Cobainevermind87 said:

Yup.


The problem is the meter gain. Not only are they building bar like crazy just for spamming projectiles, they're building bar when you're taking chip as you're making your way in as well. It's my opinion that universal in-game resources (meter means absolutely everything in NRS games) shouldn't so blatantly favor one playstyle over another.

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To me it makes sense, if you can balance out the rest of the character's toolkit. I think a character like Deadshot was a good example of how this didn't work, and a character like Cyborg is a good example of how it can work in a balanced way. Letting Zoner's build more meter but also be more meter dependent, meaning they need to be better at meter management, helps add to the depth of the game.

Marlow said:

To me it makes sense, if you can balance out the rest of the character's toolkit. I think a character like Deadshot was a good example of how this didn't work, and a character like Cyborg is a good example of how it can work in a balanced way. Letting Zoner's build more meter but also be more meter dependent, meaning they need to be better at meter management, helps add to the depth of the game.

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Yeah I dunno. I mean it's fine they build meter for using specials. But to me, simultaneously building meter off of chip damage from said projectiles is a bit much. I understand the game is simply designed so that every character builds meter for inflicting chip damage, but zoners kind of get a 2 for 1 deal when you couple it with the meter they make as soon as they input the special.

Edit: I also feel like earning meter for inflicting chip damage is a mechanic meant to reward a player for applying pressure up close through staggers and block strings and plus frames and whatnot. I don't feel it should I apply to characters who are already building meter zoning from full screen.

Again, really enjoying this thread and all the helpful advice and insight. It's especially interesting to hear how aspects of the game design really contribute to favor zoning (relative to SFV, for example), and that it's not just high technical skill and execution requirements that make anti-zoning a more difficult strategy to adopt.

I get and can appreciate the comment about how I2 and MKX are two different cups of tea (zoning-heavy vs. rushdown-heavy games), and folks can play whichever one suits them better... but it's still a bit unsatisfying. I lean towards I2 for a couple reasons, and it would be frustrating to drop it if I'm not able to climb the steep anti-zoning learning curve. We'll see how the lab time goes...

It's good to hear that folks think I2 is alive and well. Still, I can't help but notice that it has a relatively small tournament presence, even compared to some games that have been out much longer. MKX seems even further down the chart. Tournament entries isn't a perfect predictor of casual player popularity, but no doubt there's a strong correlation. Local I2 scenes seem hard to find, whereas SFV, T7, DBFZ, and Smash local scenes seem a lot more common.

I wonder how much of this dwindling presence has to do with NRS' apparent proclivity towards making these uni-playstyle games (at least at the casual skill level)? Obviously there's a decent number of pros who can beat the skill gap in I2 and continue to play it however they want, but is that skill gap driving away a larger number of pros as well as casuals? I haven't tried some of the older but more popular games like SFV and the Smash iterations, but I've heard they're more focused on accessible game mechanics and easier execution. Others' thoughts?

I don't want to see NRS taking drastic steps to change its mechanics (I agree that more RNG would be terrible... I was just throwing ideas out there), but like I said before, it would be nice to see them produce a game that stays widely popular for more than a year or two at most, and I wonder how much focusing on accessible, balanced playstyles would help.

Marlow said:

@Obly I'm a fairly low level player myself, feel free to add me on either PSN or Xbox, I play injustice on both. I don't always have a ton of time to play, so when I do get a chance to play I don't really care if I win or lose, I'm just happy to get some games in.

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Thanks, man! I'll add you as soon as I feel minimally confident enough to venture online!

Obly said:

Thanks, man! I'll add you as soon as I feel minimally confident enough to venture online!

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Great, good luck!

It makes me laugh that full screen leaps and unreactable, safe or even plus 50 50s into 40-60% damage are more often viewed as fine but a 8-10% projectile that is fully punishable from full or half screen is cried about so much lol. I just don't get it honestly. Flash mains be like.. "Stop spamming and fight like a man" lol

Cool. I'll let you in for free while you mix my life away.

big j gleez said:

It makes me laugh that full screen leaps and unreactable, safe or even plus 50 50s into 40-60% damage are more often viewed as fine but a 8-10% projectile that is fully punishable from full or half screen is cried about so much lol. I just don't get it honestly. Flash mains be like.. "Stop spamming and fight like a man" lol

Cool. I'll let you in for free while you mix my life away.

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I've read less bias in Trump's tweets

Git gud

Jhonnykiller45 said:

Injustice 11 won't be for a while, I think.

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indeed it wont be for a while considering that even inj2 cant survive after just one year.

i think we can all agree

sfv> inj

in terms of skill and gdlkness and arguably a lot of other things but for now we’ll leave it at that lul

NRS games reward haphazard, easy play. SFV punishes this type of behaviour. Probably a lot of other games do as well.

NRS needs to step away from creating "spammable" content that requires the receiving player to put in more work, learning and generally develop / own a higher level of understanding than the "spammer".

Success should take effort whether it is via zoning, rushdown, setplay, grappling shenanigans or footsies.
I'd love to see a fighting game that has pure archetypes, one of each, so that the balance between these could be explored in great detail but I don't think it would be popular.

GLoRToR said:

NRS games reward haphazard, easy play. SFV punishes this type of behaviour. Probably a lot of other games do as well.

NRS needs to step away from creating "spammable" content that requires the receiving player to put in more work, learning and generally develop / own a higher level of understanding than the "spammer".

Success should take effort whether it is via zoning, rushdown, setplay, grappling shenanigans or footsies.
I'd love to see a fighting game that has pure archetypes, one of each, so that the balance between these could be explored in great detail but I don't think it would be popular.

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I think it’s kind of unfair to say that it doesn’t take effort, though. At the end of the day, despite the mechanics being friendly toward any particular mechanic at any point in the meta, it’s going to take effort to do well and study to be effective.

Like Big J said, if the Flash gets in and you’re not sure how to handle yourself, then all your zoning is going to be for naught. Even in MK9 when Kenshi was truly broken, Pig still worked hard to be able to win with him (as evidenced by the fact that it took several other players upwards of 2 years to be able to consistently win with the same character).

So these are like gradations on a ramp of difficulty, but still often don’t determine who’s going to win the match.

GLoRToR said:

NRS games reward haphazard, easy play.

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What makes you say that? To me it seems like spamming moves is a part of every fighting game, it's not just an NRS thing.

CrimsonShadow said:

I think it’s kind of unfair to say that it doesn’t take effort, though.

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That's fair. Let's say it takes less effort to utilise some of the "spammables". It's 4am here, just got off work so I'm not going to be able to articulate my opinion in a way that conveys it fully. Definitely not trying to discredit people that play well, you've probably seen me yell at people in threads like that before.
I'm just saying that while I think Injustice 2 was a step in the right direction, NRS still needs to walk the mile before we see a game that feels good imo.

Marlow said:

What makes you say that? To me it seems like spamming moves is a part of every fighting game, it's not just an NRS thing.

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It's the risk/reward that's my problem I suppose. For example I don't mind teleports that can be reacted to, but for example in mkx they could be "made safe" and playing a zoner who had shit recovery meant being free to them. This is probably not the best example to what I mean, but , see above.

I don't know if SFV is the best example. I feel like Guile and Menat at some distances are as comfortable as Fate is here in Injustice 2. And If I am not mistaken zoner characters like them are even stronger in meta than here in Injustice 2.

@GLoRToR Thanks, I think I understand where you're coming from.

SFV, and the SF series in general, tends to keep things more grounded with their move sets. It leads to fewer OP moves, and heavily favors things like fundamentals. Things like walking/dashing in and out of range, anti-airs, frame traps, hit confirms, and manually putting together blockstrings.

NRS games tend to try and go for more that...craziness factor, I guess I'd call it. They'll try for cool moves or concepts, even if it means there's a higher chance a move ends up OP. This ends up with more moves that end in a capture state, stronger projectiles, stronger teleports, 50/50's, stronger everything in general. Combine that with generally easier execution, and yeah, I see why NRS games can be considered to be easier to go ham and find success with. However, I feel the NRS design also leads to more freedom and creativity among the characters.

I really like both SFV and Injustice 2, so for me it's just a question of which style I'm in the mood for.

Marlow said:

What makes you say that? To me it seems like spamming moves is a part of every fighting game, it's not just an NRS thing.

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good luck spamming anything in Guilty Gear mate

God Confirm said:

good luck spamming anything in Guilty Gear mate

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Guilty Gear is pretty great. It's one of 5-6 games I wish I was decent at. I like that chick with the funny hat and giant swords.

I love how when I open this thread, I get a ton of ads for Real Estate Zoning books from Amazon.