A Year Later Safe To Say The Gameplay Changes Did Not Work Out?

[ErmacMKX]

When the game was revealed there was a lot of skepticism on the combo system and how simple the characters seemed. Realistically this was suppose to be supplemented with the variation move list but then we found out that these we be preset later.

Now it seems there's is a lack of hype with this game. Characters are so formulaic, the tech is so limited feels like you know a character by the first week. A lot of the excitement in the matches is gone to the point it's kind of a chore to watch. Seems the sentiment rings true with a lot of fans, I know there will be less here since this forum has the most loyal ones.

So a year later did it surpass your expectations, what you expected or a disappointment? Don't get me wrong I still enjoy it but not nearly as much as the past two. Lab'ing a character is not nearly as enjoyable as it was previously.

 

[Hebrew Negro]

I often wonder how the game would've played out if they didn't get pressured by the community in the early stages. Like imagine if there was no amplify button and rather there was specific inputs like u1 or u2. That is what was intended before people complained a lot. And counter KB's could be done at the end of combos.

 

[Marinjuana]

I do miss the "lab-ability" of characters but I think we got a much more polished game then past titles.

 

[exflyingbooty]

The meta is still abusable strings with mids and grabs in between so no.

 

[mastermalone]

Due to the gameplay changes and for the most part, very few 50/50 40% combo situations to get out of, I'm rather enjoying this game. I agree that there needs to be some more risky additions to the gameplay, but this is the MK game I feel like I've played my highest level at.

Previous MK games were all about balls to the walls pressure into 50/50 combos which I'm not so good at defending. They do need to loosen up the fighting a bit more and make some new combo routes possible. Maybe even add a new mechanic called, "Immortal" where you can go HAM with some crazy, unbreakable shit at the cost of all 4 bars of meter with an appropriate cool down to match.

 

[Espio]

I like the game, particularly Jade and Baraka.

I see myself playing the game for years to come especially if year two content delivers characters and meta changes I want like I suspect it will.

When I play fighters I like staggers, spacing , mix ups/burst damage and zoning which I get to do in the game. The fun part to me in fighting games is the mind games the walking up to you like I'm going to throw you, ducking your down 2 and punishing into full combo.


Also for people saying there is not a lot of labbing capabilities, I guarantee there are things that are being missed. A high level player was shocked to learn recently that Baraka could make his forward 4 plus for example and I barely see anyone doing Jaded things with Jade that can cause reversals on wake up and help set up her crushing blow off her command run.

People are also shocked by basic anti-flawless block things with Baraka's leg kebob crushing blow still and how effective it is at discouraging it off of some of his strings with gaps. I don't see Berzerker Baraka players taking advantage of this. They wanna play with mainly blade walk on block for the amp/non-amp mix up which isn't optimal strategy or play.

I also am not seeing Jade players who play Emerald Defender optimizing their glaive combos. Even straight glaives if they hit a jumping opponent can be converted into 20% and the combos feel fun and stylish to do.

I'm mentioning the two characters I primarily use, but I'm fairly certain that's universal with people not playing as optimal or as informed as the character tools allow. Until I see that it's hard to say we're tapped out even now.

I keep refining my play because I keep seeing things that NEED to be refined.

 

[OutworldKeith]

Man I remember when MK11 was first announced. I was fresh from another stint in Afghanistan, and my girlfriend said “babe it’s a new Mortal Kombat coming out”. The beta was great, but I started to lose hype as more news dropped.

NRS didn’t have a damn clue what they wanted to do with this game. It was a rushed product, but of course it still sold well.

I’m extremely dissatisfied with MK11, and I make that known all that time. I’ve preordered every MK since MKvsDCU, & this was my last one. I won’t be purchasing the next MK game until it’s at least 30% off. Not paying full price for some unfinished crap.

 

[Gooberking]

You do a lot of leading towards specific and negative interpretation of the game.

There seems to be plenty of hype for the game once you break out of orbit of the "I didn't like this game so nobody else is allowed to" star of dead games.

I was totally going to skip over the game thinking I needed a bunch of crazy stuff to hide behind. I ended up pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable it was to play a game that's not overflowing with unreal stuff people have latched onto in order to ignorance people to death. Having loads of crazy stuff is cool it in its way, but it's just refreshing to have an option where you can kind of just play and not have to deal with a high burden of knowledge.

I like it, and unlike a lot of other fighters I'd like to be playing, you can still find lots of people playing. I'm going to keep going in on it.

 

[chud_munson]

I like it. I like that I don't need to a lab a character for hours and hours before seeing what they can offer. Sure, I have complaints about the game, but I don't think it's as simple as "I don't like these things, so fuck this game." Things aren't black and white that way. There are a lot of missing characters I wish were here, I'm not in love with the cosmetics in general, I don't like the way characters' archetypes aren't differentiated more, and I don't like the fatal blow mechanic, but ultimately I'm happy I bought the game and have fun pretty much every time I play it.

 

[Arqwart]

Personally? The game's departure in core gameplay from MK9/X has met my expectations. It's no secret that this is my favorite of the NRS trilogy and it's because the game gives me room to fucking breathe.

As for hype supposedly dying down, I cant help but feel that's a natural result of the slower pace of DLC which is likely due to the peeling back of inhumane crunch time on workers. In addition, NRS decided this time around NOT to completely remake the entire game's balance with every major patch like they did with MKX. While it was entertaining to see top tier variations get their knees blown out with a shotgun and garbage meme tier variations suddenly made horrendously broken patch after patch, I definitely prefer the slow and steady consistency NRS is going with this time.

 

[ZBirdV8]

I hit my goal of achieving a certain skill level at the game and now find myself with little reason to play it.

 

[DixieFlatline78]

The game is getting better with each patch. I think it's in a very good spot to keep improving. Right now I think it's super fun and I'm having a good time learning new characters. Once I stopped playing Kombat League and stopped worrying about winning every little match I could feel myself actually having fun with it.

If you just grind a series of Bo3 matches for points, you just start autopiloting. Then you stop thinking. Then you tilt when you lose. Then you have a bad time. I think if people adjusted their mindsets and goals with this game they'd have a much better time with it. It really is a solid fighter and I think by the end of it people will really have a high opinion of it. this was the same cycle people had with MKX. I remember Pig of the Hut's threads about Kenshi, the many complaints about Erron, #buffmileena, etc. Its improving much faster than SFV too

 

[abstracto]

MK11 is to me the best fighting game since Street Figther 3rd Strike. I would argue it's more fair than previous entries in the MK series and it's impressive that almost all characters are viable.

I'm a sucker for graphics so on top of the gameplay, the fact that this is IMO the best looking fighter ever made (not including drawn or cel-shaded games as that's kind of an apples to oranges situation).

 

[OutworldKeith]

MK11 is to me the best fighting game since Street Figther 3rd Strike.

Not even in the same league as 3rd Strike lmao. MK11 isn’t even better than SF4. Although, I could agree with best looking fighting game graphically.

 

[Evil Canadian]

Like imagine if there was no amplify button and rather there was specific inputs like u1 or u2.

still woulda been 100% pointless and do nothing but add busywork for no actual reason.

Anyway my only problem with MK11 at this point is the variation system. No character is the most satisfying version of themselves because variations handicap them, the experiment shoulda been dropped after MKX. I can only hope they either allow customs in the future or just say fuck it and cram all the moves into one character to the best of their ability so characters can have a much more varied and dynamic gameplan.

 

[Demon_0]

I enjoy MK11 way more than MK9 or MKX.

I actually overestimated MK9's depth before it came out and found it very lacking next to the godawful animations. Balance was absent and the game barely had fun combos cause it relied on simply doing strings and chipping people to death. MKX was a full mess with armored launchers and 50/50's all over the place. It did expand on the combo department which made it fun to play.

If anything, MK11 finally got things right in terms of character balance and game depth. I don't see how this game is lacking combos either. If you pick Skarlet, sure. Not if you pick Geras, Scorpion, Nightwolf etc. I also disagree with the notion that it's easy to learn a character. Maybe on a very basic level but certainly not in high level. You have three variations of a character that completely alters every matchup. I just recently discovered via one of Tom Brady's recent videos a new setup for Sub-Zero with the ground ice move which I keep using in player matches. Feels like I'm using a whole new character.

 

[kabelfritz]

i think the mechanics are great, but the game has a huge presentation problem. when two great players meet, there is actually a damn lot going on gameplay wise that just doesnt convert into visuals properly. that makes even top matches look slow and random. as an example, walking forward and backward is extremely important in street fighter and they put a lot of effort into the animations for that. in mk its important too but everyone is always stiff. everything that has to do with string shenanigans has no visual indicator, like a cutting short or flawless blocking a gap. someone blocks 2 hits of a string and then gets opened up by the third hit - and nobody knows why. did he make a wrong read? did he mistime FB? was there even a gap? no idea, all i see is he randomly gets opened up - and thats basically not interesting.

 

[FullLifeguard]

I like this game, at the end of the day its the most competitively honest MK game, which is a game ive always dreamed of. My problem is how scrubby the game can be due to some high damage KBs being super easy vs others which are impossible to get. And Breakaway is just ugly, it reinforces a lame mindgame for outplaying your opponent. Wakeup system is too random. And the game feels TOO matchup/counterpick oriented because there really is only one way to play a character.

 

[Mr.Khen]

MK11 is the first MK I actually have the time to learn more than 3-4 characters compared to MKX where characters had so many strings they can pull on you and it made it hard to keep guessing, from someone in their 30's with 2 jobs it is, with that said, MK11 gets repetitive fast so I find myself jumping from one character to another to REALLY enjoy the game, which is not necessarily a bad or a good thing, just not exciting!

In comparison MKX was so much fun to play and hard to master, yes, it had it's flaws; I remember learning a character felt like learning how to play an instrument, everyone does it a little bit different each and their own technique and it was so satisfying spending days in practice mode with myself or other players just to compare combos or just fooling around with new strings coming up with new techs and testing it online . and getting mixed to death was frustrating at times. but overall exciting.. !
In MK11 it's rare to see someone doing something you haven't seen before that doesn't have to do with an intractable.

MK11 is a fun game with flaws - the good part is that it's repairable - I do see NRS tweaking the meta a little bit but rather than rushing into it there's a chance they'll do it right this time. I don't know which direction they will take it, I can only hope they will find the right place in the middle so the game feels creative to play and exciting to watch, if not? no biggie, there's still much to love about this game, because when the next MK comes, we will probably find a lot of thing we appreciate and miss about MK11.

 

[Nickolaidas]

Like a couple other posters said, game's in a good place, but it needs something to spice things up with the more demanding players. Custom variations in tournaments need to become a thing and patches need to come more often.

A couple of characters are still way better than some others, but overall I agree that this is the most balanced NRS game ever.

 

[MuMuGuy]

Playing Mortal Kombat 11 for at least seven minutes helps with my insomnia, so the gameplay has some redeeming value.

 

[Marlow]

I'd say it's met my expectations. It definitely feels like if you have good fundamentals (blocking, footsies, punish, anti-air, throw techs) you have a chance to outplay your opponent, regardless of character matchup. Not that some matchups aren't harder than others, but it definitely feels like the game rewards good fundamentals more than MKX.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Really enjoying this game. It really pushes good fundamentals, and I feel like every little decision matters in winning a match.

I love the focus on neutral, and I feel like the game continues to get better with every patch.

I’m also really enjoying a lot of the online events, and seeing the micro-reads and tactics employed by players like Kombat, Ninjakilla, Grr, K7 Showoff, etc. The game just looks and feels extremely solid in competitive play.

 

[MadPropz101]

The only downside is that most characters feel very linear in terms of how much time you need to invest to learn the moves and combos. Other than that it's a million times better than any other MK NRS has made previously.

 

[Marlow]

I'm mentioning the two characters I primarily use, but I'm fairly certain that's universal with people not playing as optimal or as informed as the character tools allow. Until I see that it's hard to say we're tapped out even now.

I certainly feel like that's the case for Raiden. Not that there's some big amazing game changing undiscovered tech, but I think there are a lot of little things that can be optimized. And I'm always surprised how many people show up in the Raiden discussion threads unaware of some of his most basic tools.