A Few Questions About General System Mechanics (Wakeups, hitboxes, damage scaling, etc)

[Seapeople]

A Few Questions About MK9 System Mechanics

I probably don't know the best way to test everything, but there's a few problems I've noticed. I also searched the forums a bit to make sure my questions haven't already been answered. Anyway, here they are:


-The wakeup system:
It seems pretty broken in tag combat. For example, Reptile's forceball assist always disables wakeups. Sometimes it's impossible for the opponent to wakeup after any knockdown, and player 1 seems to be more heavily affected.

I know tag doesn't matter, but it concerns me that the wakeup system has problems at all. Some of the things I'm noticing in tag could be present in 1v1


-Hitbox problems:
With Sub Zero, 21 and 22 are really inconsistent against crouching opponents. Sometimes the first hit will connect, sometimes it whiffs. See this video for an example: http://testyourmight.com/forum/showthread.php?4569-Little-oddities-in-Mortal-Kombat-9


-Damage scaling:
It increases a lot in anti air combos (at least for Sub Zero). Anti-airs are already more limited than ground combos, so why should they do less damage?


-Kabal's :en dash:
Does it have armor? I've tried it like 50 times against Sub Zero's clone from all distances. Kabal gets trapped in the clone both up close and far away. I don't know much about Kabal so I'm probably missing something here.

 

[Tolkeen]

I probably don't know the best way to test everything, but there's a few problems I've noticed. I also searched the forums a bit to make sure my questions haven't already been answered. Anyway, here they are:


-The wakeup system:
It seems pretty broken in tag combat. For example, Reptile's forceball assist always disables wakeups. Sometimes it's impossible for the opponent to wakeup after any knockdown, and player 1 seems to be more heavily affected.

I know tag doesn't matter, but it concerns me that the wakeup system has problems at all. Some of the things I'm noticing in tag could be present in 1v1


-Hitbox problems:
With Sub Zero, 21 and 22 are really inconsistent against crouching opponents. Sometimes the first hit will connect, sometimes it whiffs. See this video for an example: http://testyourmight.com/forum/showthread.php?4569-Little-oddities-in-Mortal-Kombat-9


-Damage scaling:
It increases a lot in anti air combos (at least for Sub Zero). Anti-airs are already more limited than ground combos, so why should they do less damage?


-Kabal's :en dash:
Does it have armor? I've tried it like 50 times against Sub Zero's clone from all distances. Kabal gets trapped in the clone both up close and far away. I don't know much about Kabal so I'm probably missing something here.

EX nomad dash gets 1 hit of armor near start up, so it's mostly for stopping a rush down.
The other things just seem to be nuances of this game, so I can't speak for why, but I think the AA stuff may be character specific. Johnny Cage gets a full combo if he catches you with back 3.

 

[Playpal]

Wake up system: Don't play tag, so I wouldn't know.

Hitbox problems: Thing is, every character has a different hit box when they're blocking, crouch blocking and neutral crouching. JC's F33 ex force ball whiffs against reptile, SZ's 2 whiffs against crouching JC, Mileena, Kung lao, etc. Sektor's block crouch hit box is actually smaller than his neutral crouch. The hitbox also changes because of the breathing animation. Occassionally, Kabal's ex dagger will hit JC crouching because of his breathing animation.

Damage scaling: Seems more like a question for the developers. Some moves won't scale in the air though, like njp. My guess is it's because the opponent is already in the air, which affects gravity and damage scaling. IE. SZ has a much harder time doing njp, 1, B12, 212 slide on a mid air frozen opponent. Doing njp, B12, 212 slide is easier AND does the same damage (26%). If the opponent is frozen on the ground however, the first combo does more damage (26%) and the second does 24%.

 

[GamerBlake90]

Let's see, where to begin...

The Wake-Up system: Don't play tag kombat, but your concerns for existing problems in single kombat are valid. From my experiences, everyone is able to snuff me out of my Wake-Ups but I can't snuff theirs out, and sometimes mine will not enhance even when I hit the inputs for it. I don't know if this is due to me mis-timing my inputs or, as you said, Player 1 suffering more limitations with the Wake-Ups.

Hitboxes: They vary from character to character. It's a weird issue, I know. Can't get a grasp on it myself.

Damage scaling for anti-airs: Now I can definitely think of a good reason. Do you know how often jumping is seen in this game, even amongst the pro players? A lot. As such, it's easier to get caught in an aerial combo rather than a ground combo, so the scaling for such situations seems reasonable. The scaling for combos starting on the ground will always be greater because it is your reward for managing to catch the opponent with his finger off the block button.

Kabal's Enhanced Nomad Dash: This is exactly the same question I asked on a stream chat tonight. Since the recent patch hit, I noticed that the armor applied to some moves got heavily affected. I'd even get knocked out of my attacks despite that I enhanced them. I was told that the dash only has armor upon its start-up frames. Personally I think it's bullshit: you are spending meter on a potent tactic, doesn't it deserve armor for more than just its start-up frames? Of course, meter can build pretty fast in a game like this.

These are just my opinions, which can be subject to change.

 

[Seapeople]

Hitbox problems: Thing is, every character has a different hit box when they're blocking, crouch blocking and neutral crouching. JC's F33 ex force ball whiffs against reptile, SZ's 2 whiffs against crouching JC, Mileena, Kung lao, etc. Sektor's block crouch hit box is actually smaller than his neutral crouch. The hitbox also changes because of the breathing animation. Occassionally, Kabal's ex dagger will hit JC crouching because of his breathing animation.

I knew that some characters have small hitboxes, but it's kind of dumb that each character doesn't have a constant hitbox... good to know though.

Damage scaling: Seems more like a question for the developers. Some moves won't scale in the air though, like njp. My guess is it's because the opponent is already in the air, which affects gravity and damage scaling. IE. SZ has a much harder time doing njp, 1, B12, 212 slide on a mid air frozen opponent. Doing njp, B12, 212 slide is easier AND does the same damage (26%). If the opponent is frozen on the ground however, the first combo does more damage (26%) and the second does 24%.

That makes sense. I think that damage scales more in the air off of regular moves than specials as well.

Let's see, where to begin...

The Wake-Up system: Don't play tag kombat, but your concerns for existing problems in single kombat are valid. From my experiences, everyone is able to snuff me out of my Wake-Ups but I can't snuff theirs out, and sometimes mine will not enhance even when I hit the inputs for it. I don't know if this is due to me mis-timing my inputs or, as you said, Player 1 suffering more limitations with the Wake-Ups.

I have problems timing wakeups correctly a lot of the time too. I think different knockdowns might change the input window completely.

Kabal's Enhanced Nomad Dash: This is exactly the same question I asked on a stream chat tonight. Since the recent patch hit, I noticed that the armor applied to some moves got heavily affected. I'd even get knocked out of my attacks despite that I enhanced them. I was told that the dash only has armor upon its start-up frames. Personally I think it's bullshit: you are spending meter on a potent tactic, doesn't it deserve armor for more than just its start-up frames? Of course, meter can build pretty fast in a game like this.

Yeah, I put my clone as close to Kabal as possible and he still got frozen. Since this might be a new patch problem, I'll try to post a video that shows it.

Edit: The video is posted now on this thread: http://testyourmight.com/forum/showthread.php?16016-EX-Dash-losing-armor?