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

Expectations

  • Surpassed

    Votes: 11 8.7%
  • Met

    Votes: 38 29.9%
  • Disappointed

    Votes: 78 61.4%

  • Total voters
    127

craftycheese

I tried to throw a yo-yo away. It was impossible.
Yea pretty hard to follow you there bro.
Sis, it's pretty easy to follow. Lame jokes about scrubs. Then into what I like about the game. Then a kinda meandering thing about other things I like.

it takes about 10 minutes to learn a character well enough to compete online
I don't understand what's really wrong with that. You can get the gist of any character in any game after 10 minutes. Doesn't mean you're actually good with them. That you know what to do in most situations and if you don't, you can make a really good educated guess.
 

colby4898

Special Forces Sonya Up-player
I try to avoid over the top criticism of games because it's very common but this one of the most half baked and ineffective ideas I've seen in a game. I think they just wanted to give you weak variations that would encourage you to go to kustoms, but that's a horrible way to communicate that to your players. On the other hand, guys like me made 100 kustoms variations and had to type out the name for each tourney variation...

Outside of the pretty and functional menus, the UI team did not do well with this game. On launch, you couldn't even tell what moves your opponent was using until the match started. I'd even bet that part of the reason they dropped kustoms as an idea for tournaments was the lack of UI for it. They just lacked vision with the system and basically ignored these criticisms. I don't get it, it really hurt the game IMO
At launch I played with variation 1 of Kung Lao in practice. It was the default variations, I assumed these would be the tournament ones. If they're gonna add default variations on character select, surely they mas as well make it the tournament ones? Nope spent a while learning the great kung Lao variation, went in to ranked and no where to be seen
Theyve fixed this now of course but it was just a really awkward way of finding the ranked variation at launch and I cannot understand why
 

jcbowie

...more deadly than the dawn.
100% Agree this is the best fighting game since 3rd strike. NRS just built a great fighting game. The only people complaining are the people who miss Mkx jank and don't like a neutral based game.
I fundamentally disagree with this suggestion that MK11 is more "neutral based" than either I2 or even than MKX in some ways.

In MKX, at least in terms of the top characters, you guessed on OH/low 50/50's where they would launch you for pretty high damage and in some cases even reset you for another guess. Zoning was a viable playstyle with some characters, but 50/50 rush was king for sure. Meta was all guessing but there were ways you could play keepaway or with some wild characters like GM Sub you could even play a weird uber-defensive/aggressive hybrid. There were some hybrid trap characters and other unorthodox (often non-viable) playstyles too, but I think we can mostly agree that, even if you thought it was high-octane fun, MKX was a bit of a mess.

Fast forward to I2. They definitely fixed the 50/50 mess, with some exceptions like Flash, but instances where that is a major problem are few and far between in I2, and it becomes much more about spacing. The problem that plagued I2 for much of its lifespan was that mechanics, like meter build and new escape functions as well as the massive stages, skewed the meta very heavily in favor of keepaway projectile-based zoners. The game was definitely more balanced than MKX, especially by the final patch, but still there were some problems like dealing with Fate or Batman or Firestorm who were kinda good at everything up-close and fullscreen even without making you guess very much.

And now we arrive at MK11. Look at the top characters like Liu and Johnny and Cetrion and (perhaps formerly) Geras. Instead of building on the good ideas and mistakes of I2 and MKX, they've now almost combined the flaws of the two metas in designing these characters. They all have probably the most oppressive stagger or plus frame-based rushdown in the game in addition to some of the most punishing and safe space control/projectiles in the game. Some top characters have OH/low 50/50's too, but it's mostly about frames and staggers. Meter comes back automatically, so they can play keepaway briefly to wait for a recharge or lock you into long meterless pressure sequences/hit animations so as to allow them to recover resources very quickly on defense and on offense. Additionally, because of their good frames and staggers and the fact that throws not only regain their 50/50 guesswork techs from MKX but also do more damage than in MKX or I2, the strike throw mixup, as most players have observed, is a VERY powerful tool that has become central to the meta. These characters are the best at this as well, and to top it all off some of these characters even have throw loops, allowing them to set you up for more than one guess in a row.

Does this new system strike you as more "neutral based" than just guessing on OH/low or dealing with zoning? I genuinely want to know this, because I certainly feel like we're dealing a little bit with the worst of both worlds and would take one or the other over both. Frankly I think that barring a few exceptions, like the Deadshot treatment juxtaposed with leaving other characters like Dr. Fate and Starfire with similar oppressive capability to early Deadshot unchanged, the development of I2 and the shape its meta took were more "neutral based" and better than MK11 has shown itself to be so far.
 

XxTheGoblinX

Le_Supreme_
I fundamentally disagree with this suggestion that MK11 is more "neutral based" than either I2 or even than MKX in some ways.

In MKX, at least in terms of the top characters, you guessed on OH/low 50/50's where they would launch you for pretty high damage and in some cases even reset you for another guess. Zoning was a viable playstyle with some characters, but 50/50 rush was king for sure. Meta was all guessing but there were ways you could play keepaway or with some wild characters like GM Sub you could even play a weird uber-defensive/aggressive hybrid. There were some hybrid trap characters and other unorthodox (often non-viable) playstyles too, but I think we can mostly agree that, even if you thought it was high-octane fun, MKX was a bit of a mess.

Fast forward to I2. They definitely fixed the 50/50 mess, with some exceptions like Flash, but instances where that is a major problem are few and far between in I2, and it becomes much more about spacing. The problem that plagued I2 for much of its lifespan was that mechanics, like meter build and new escape functions as well as the massive stages, skewed the meta very heavily in favor of keepaway projectile-based zoners. The game was definitely more balanced than MKX, especially by the final patch, but still there were some problems like dealing with Fate or Batman or Firestorm who were kinda good at everything up-close and fullscreen even without making you guess very much.

And now we arrive at MK11. Look at the top characters like Liu and Johnny and Cetrion and (perhaps formerly) Geras. Instead of building on the good ideas and mistakes of I2 and MKX, they've now almost combined the flaws of the two metas in designing these characters. They all have probably the most oppressive stagger or plus frame-based rushdown in the game in addition to some of the most punishing and safe space control/projectiles in the game. Some top characters have OH/low 50/50's too, but it's mostly about frames and staggers. Meter comes back automatically, so they can play keepaway briefly to wait for a recharge or lock you into long meterless pressure sequences/hit animations so as to allow them to recover resources very quickly on defense and on offense. Additionally, because of their good frames and staggers and the fact that throws not only regain their 50/50 guesswork techs from MKX but also do more damage than in MKX or I2, the strike throw mixup, as most players have observed, is a VERY powerful tool that has become central to the meta. These characters are the best at this as well, and to top it all off some of these characters even have throw loops, allowing them to set you up for more than one guess in a row.

Does this new system strike you as more "neutral based" than just guessing on OH/low or dealing with zoning? I genuinely want to know this, because I certainly feel like we're dealing a little bit with the worst of both worlds and would take one or the other over both. Frankly I think that barring a few exceptions, like the Deadshot treatment juxtaposed with leaving other characters like Dr. Fate and Starfire with similar oppressive capability to early Deadshot unchanged, the development of I2 and the shape its meta took were more "neutral based" and better than MK11 has shown itself to be so far.
Yes you said it Mkx is a mess, and I haven't played IJ2 so I can't speak on it. But Mk11 is definitely a neutral based game. Nobody in this game is broken it's balanced, we all have to play neutral to win the game. You can say grabs are overpowered but if I duck that shit you're getting full Kb combos from the entire kast and 50% from Shao so go ahead. Liu has great stagger pressure, Centrions the best zoner but they are not broken, There are things good players do to beat these play styles but you have to put the time and effort in. Worst-case scenario you have to pick up a character just to cover the bad Match-Ups, if you watch tournaments you can see that every character wins you just have to put the work in and figure it out. Its not a coin flip like Mkx its a Real Competitive Fighting Game. Ill take staggers and grabs over 50/50s anyday
 

jcbowie

...more deadly than the dawn.
Yes you said it Mkx is a mess, and I haven't played IJ2 so I can't speak on it. But Mk11 is definitely a neutral based game. Nobody in this game is broken it's balanced, we all have to play neutral to win the game. You can say grabs are overpowered but if I duck that shit you're getting full Kb combos from the entire kast and 50% from Shao so go ahead. Liu has great stagger pressure, Centrions the best zoner but they are not broken, There are things good players do to beat these play styles but you have to put the time and effort in. Worst-case scenario you have to pick up a character just to cover the bad Match-Ups, if you watch tournaments you can see that every character wins you just have to put the work in and figure it out. Its not a coin flip like Mkx its a Real Competitive Fighting Game. Ill take staggers and grabs over 50/50s anyday
That last bit's kinda my point though, how is a meta centered around staggers and strike/throw necessarily more satisfying than OH/low? It's still guesswork, still sort of a "coinflip" but the difference now is just the nature of the consequence for guessing wrong. No one has to be "broken" to be fundamentally better at this meta, some characters just are better. I think MK11's a more balanced game than MKX specifically, for better or for worse, but that doesn't matter if the characters are basically all the same archetype and some are still clearly better. I think it's definitely fair to make the case that focusing on "balance" in the sense of "give all characters tools to be kinda good at every single playstyle but some characters are slightly better overall" isn't a smart idea. I don't think a rushdown champion like Liu Kang should pretty much ever be able to zone out some characters out when he gets a life lead. I don't think that Cetrion should, in addition to being a premier zoner and having some of the strongest projectiles in the game, have incredibly powerful staggers up close. Why not just give these characters one or the other and develop them around that strength, with distinct weaknesses but perhaps a more expansive toolset for their strengths so that you can adapt to those who would take advantage of such weaknesses?

People who really enjoy this meta, which is fine to do by the way, keep saying "yeah it really encourages good fundamentals and forces you to actually play neutral." But the explanation for why and how this is the case always seems to hinge a lot on "there aren't as many OH/low 50/50's, zoning isn't that strong, and no one's broken" and that seems like an inadequate explanation to me. I don't think that making a new kind of mixup the central focus of the meta fixes what was fundamentally the biggest problem with those other games, nor does it make this game more "neutral based" than its predecessors.
 

Scoot Magee

But I didn't want to dash
I would prefer movement went back to what we had in the beta. I feel some characters get around the screen a lot faster than intended.

I would prefer an option for unique button inputs for enhanced moves, this was the original plan for the game. I think this would be a stick friendly option.

More stick friendly options would be nice. Button shortcuts are completely broken. Dialing in combos triggers interactables when players are in block or hit stun. It makes the game unplayable imo.

Private matches should allow a delay toggle for players who are playing in low pings. This would help a lot in actually learning the game at a higher level. 3 frames fixed can be the standard for everything else.

Stop making changes to the game based on what online players complain about. Patches should be few and far between when it comes to buffs and nerfs. I honestly think they should have waited a year before changing the balance but I'm in the minority.

Bring back scorpions d4.
 
Get rid of down jab into throw, and make crouch normals chain/link into stand normals. Just these two changes would make MK11's gameplay that much better. Also I get that mortal kombat is a different beast and all that, but sometimes it feels like your low pokes aren't all that useful since you can't cancel into specials from them, so something like d3 -> sub zero slide is inaccessible, just feels bad when there are no sequences of "Ryu crouch forward into hadoken" here that exist in so many other games
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
Get rid of down jab into throw, and make crouch normals chain/link into stand normals. Just these two changes would make MK11's gameplay that much better. Also I get that mortal kombat is a different beast and all that, but sometimes it feels like your low pokes aren't all that useful since you can't cancel into specials from them, so something like d3 -> sub zero slide is inaccessible, just feels bad when there are no sequences of "Ryu crouch forward into hadoken" here that exist in so many other games
There's nothing particularly special about poke into throw. And you can definitely cancel into specials from pokes, although they don't combo. People use this all the time to catch habit-mashing.
 

Jowabunga

Woooooooooooooo!
The irony of this is that at least for me poke into throw evolved to be a much more integral thing in mk11 than in past games to dissuade people from mashing downpokes to beat my follow-up pressure after I hit them with one of my own downpokes. If there were more jailing off those hits this would probably not be a thing
 

MuMuGuy

Noob

Unacceptable. Tell me where I went wrong.
Mortal Kombat 11 was rushed to market and the game is awful. Whiffing issues happen constantly in that piece of donkey shit and breaks the game to the point of making it unplayable.

I’m going back to MKX. MK11 has just a lot of 50/50 as well, plus I’d rather lose due to being coin flipped to oblivion than lose due to buggy hurtboxes and random whiffs.
 
Which games? I started trying to learn Injustice 2 due to my disliking MK11, but quit that game because it’s difficult finding Competitive matches. I2 no longer having a tournament scene made people want to play with Gear moves and stats.

I just started trying MKX since a lot of people returned to that game, with MK11 being so divisive. I sold MKX quickly after launch due to the bad launch netcode and skipped I2 initially due to finishing grad school and being scared off by NRS’ previously awful netplay.
If you like freestyling with combos and really dirty set ups, Killer Instinct.

If you want a game with good neutral where you almost always have an option, Tekken 7.

Tekken 7s netcode is pretty bad but KI probably has the best netcode of any game imo.
 

MuMuGuy

Noob
If you like freestyling with combos and really dirty set ups, Killer Instinct.

If you want a game with good neutral where you almost always have an option, Tekken 7.

Tekken 7s netcode is pretty bad but KI probably has the best netcode of any game imo.
I prefer 3d fighting games, so I was already playing Tekken 7. There is no other choice since Dead or Alive 6 is officially dead and Soul Calibur 6 has one of the worst netcode ever and horrible matchmaking.

Dead or Alive 6 has better netcode and WiFi indicators, but many people dropped the game due to the bad launch (no lobbies, lol) and their scummy business practices. The online scene for that game imploded when Team Ninja announced the end of support. The game deserved its fate for the hair colors scandal and charging more for Tamaki, a character they own than they did Kuma and Mai.
 

Marinjuana

Up rock incoming, ETA 5 minutes
That last bit's kinda my point though, how is a meta centered around staggers and strike/throw necessarily more satisfying than OH/low? It's still guesswork, still sort of a "coinflip" but the difference now is just the nature of the consequence for guessing wrong. No one has to be "broken" to be fundamentally better at this meta, some characters just are better. I think MK11's a more balanced game than MKX specifically, for better or for worse, but that doesn't matter if the characters are basically all the same archetype and some are still clearly better. I think it's definitely fair to make the case that focusing on "balance" in the sense of "give all characters tools to be kinda good at every single playstyle but some characters are slightly better overall" isn't a smart idea. I don't think a rushdown champion like Liu Kang should pretty much ever be able to zone out some characters out when he gets a life lead. I don't think that Cetrion should, in addition to being a premier zoner and having some of the strongest projectiles in the game, have incredibly powerful staggers up close. Why not just give these characters one or the other and develop them around that strength, with distinct weaknesses but perhaps a more expansive toolset for their strengths so that you can adapt to those who would take advantage of such weaknesses?

People who really enjoy this meta, which is fine to do by the way, keep saying "yeah it really encourages good fundamentals and forces you to actually play neutral." But the explanation for why and how this is the case always seems to hinge a lot on "there aren't as many OH/low 50/50's, zoning isn't that strong, and no one's broken" and that seems like an inadequate explanation to me. I don't think that making a new kind of mixup the central focus of the meta fixes what was fundamentally the biggest problem with those other games, nor does it make this game more "neutral based" than its predecessors.
On the game being neutral based, cause I feel like you're talking about balance of the meta and the idea of the game being more neutral based than MKX. MK11 is more neutral based partly because those mixups in MKX led to 30% damage combos both ways and the setplay and momentum was greater. Like you said, the reward for the mixups is much different. You can tech throws and counter the throw for a lot of damage which wasn't always true about mixups in MKX. You just get more chances to go back to neutral in MK11 than you do in MKX. And then MKX had the run button which arguably didn't stop it from being neutral based, but it definitely didn't encourage footsies like the movement in MK11 does. Also, more importantly than 50/50s IMO for neutral play, there were many more instances of strong advancing or long range normals, some that led into that same damage and momentum.

And what was fundamentally the biggest problem with the other NRS games?
 
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jcbowie

...more deadly than the dawn.
On the game being neutral based, cause I feel like you're talking about balance of the meta and the idea of the game being neutral based then MKX. MK11 is more neutral based partly because those mixups in MKX led to 30% damage combos both ways and the setplay and momentum was greater. Like you said, the reward for the mixups is much different. You can tech throws and counter the throw for a lot of damage which wasn't always true about mixups in MKX. You just get more chance to go back to neutral in MK11 than you do in MKX. And then MKX had the run button which arguably didn't stop it from being neutral based, but it definitely didn't encourage footsies like the movement in MK11 does. Also, more importantly than 50/50s IMO for neutral play, there were many more instances of strong advancing or long range normals, some that led into that same damage and momentum.

And what was fundamentally the biggest problem with the other NRS games?
I would argue that the setplay and momentum aren't that different from MKX, just for different reasons. With the introduction of throw loops and throw KB's and as you mention the KB counters for throws like d2's, the consequences in terms of taking big damage and returning to a defensive guess are just as prevalent in MK11, and truly reverting to neutral doesn't happen as often as we tend to think. I would also suggest that throw loops, the lack of real neutral-reset combo breakers, the relative weakness of backdashing, the relative weakness of zoning, and the presence of wavedashing as I see it are all effectively stand-ins for things like the run button and 50/50 resets and other things that detract from neutral. You no longer have to play spacing or other kinds of neutral beyond guessing either on a throw tech or a stagger or a breakaway or some other typically binary set of possibilities. The consequences are the same: high damage, albeit sometimes only once if a KB is the only launcher, and a situation where you must either expend resources to breakaway/wakeup or otherwise eat another stagger mixup. That the damage taken for a wrong guess is sometimes lesser than MKX's punishment is immaterial when you're still just repeatedly guessing until you guess more correctly than your opponent and then you can play neutral, which is generally the situation in both games. There is setplay and quick closing movement just like MKX, and while they're not as powerful as in MKX neither are the defensive tools that counter them, so it balances out to pretty much the same imo, without the speed and intensity but with the same amount of pressure and control.

Fundamentally what I saw as the biggest problems with the other games were the way that their mechanics really heavily lent themselves to one particular playstyle, like the balls-to-the-wall rushdown in MKX or the meter-build projectile-based fullscreen zoning in I2. I really felt like progress was made from one to the other, because in MKX while there were exceptions to its meta like Quan Chi (sort of) you mostly had to be a really 50/50-heavy rushdown character to consistently succeed, and in I2 there were definitely more viable hybrid and mid-range characters even though the meta was dominated by characters like Dr. Fate who had simple but powerful keepaway normals and could absolutely dominate you at fullscreen. In MK11, however, I feel like they regressed a little by trying to mitigate this problem through rounding out the strengths of more characters, making everyone feel like a jack-of-all-trades with a lot less character specialization. I think this explains all the people saying things about how characters feel "incomplete" or "watered down," and variations certainly don't help with this either. This is also the reason why the seemingly contrasting opinions that "this game is very balanced, no one's broken" and "there are distinctly stronger top characters" aren't always mutually exclusive conclusions to me: you don't have to be "broken" to be better in this game, you just have to be slightly better at all playstyles or significantly better at one playstyle while having baseline strength in the others. Liu Kang's zoning potential in a vacuum is average, and trying to play him like a pure zoner wouldn't be an optimal playstyle, but his rushdown is so oppressively powerful that once he has that life lead and can zone you out from fullscreen at all it seems a little silly that he should have that capability when he's just gotten through staggering you into oblivion up close.
 

Chernyy Volk

Wolf lord, footsie bully, chronic corner abuser.
The game is MKX2 with defense that is weak where it should be on the skill intensive fronts but strong in terms of the ability to bail yourself out of mistakes and errors.
 

MKF30

Fujin and Ermac for MK 11
Did not work out imo. If anything got worse with the 3rd variation, some characters getting much better and others getting worse or not much improvement....

Aside from many gameplay mechanics that are bad or flawed in this game on top of the lag online. It's just an overall disappointing experience, outside of the the fight along people in ToT and Story which I enjoy, the rest can kick rocks.
 

Gooberking

FGC Cannon Fodder
I prefer 3d fighting games, so I was already playing Tekken 7. There is no other choice since Dead or Alive 6 is officially dead and Soul Calibur 6 has one of the worst netcode ever and horrible matchmaking.

Dead or Alive 6 has better netcode and WiFi indicators, but many people dropped the game due to the bad launch (no lobbies, lol) and their scummy business practices. The online scene for that game imploded when Team Ninja announced the end of support. The game deserved its fate for the hair colors scandal and charging more for Tamaki, a character they own than they did Kuma and Mai.
I'm pretty bummed about DOA. I was really digging into it pretty hard for the first time right before MK11 dropped. The population just was never there, and it just seem to be spiraling down the drain right from the start.
 

MuMuGuy

Noob
I'm pretty bummed about DOA. I was really digging into it pretty hard for the first time right before MK11 dropped. The population just was never there, and it just seem to be spiraling down the drain right from the start.
DOA6 got what it deserved for the bad launch and consumer hostile practices. It’s a solid game mechanically, but the game is one giant microtransaction machine. The costume parts system is still slow and the season passes are ridiculously overpriced... for shit that was mostly reused DOA5LR assets.

There needs to be viable competition for Tekken in the 3d fighting game ring. Tekken 7 is stale because the game wasn’t much different from Tag 2 and the game was in arcades for 2 years before it launched on consoles/PC.

I really hope Sega announces a new Virtua Fighter.
 

Cashual

PSN: Cansuela
Thanks for the reply. Yes, I'm a fan of MKX but not for the 50/50's and endless mix (e.g.. no one enjoyed the corner mix of a GM sub zero), sorry if that's what you thought I meant. The game is filled with them, sure, but I wasn't a fan of MKX for them, I was a fan of that game for another aspect:

The games depth. I mained Dualist kang for a long time, why? The tech. The set ups, the combo potential, the ability to freestyle. It took alot of lab work to separate yourself from the others. Where is this depth now? Where is the freestyle potential that you had with nimble reptile? I miss those mechanics about X, not the mix up game, which is why I brought up throws in 11. It's also why I said I actually enjoyed crushing blows, as it allows for some creativity and mind games.

There were many combo routes and a character could not be labbed to optimal in a week. That simply does not exist in 11 minus some very few exceptions (Noobs dash cancel combos for example).

That is why I said what I said about throws in 11. They have become more than a 50/50 when factored into the strike/throw mix. I definitely do not believe throws were better in X. Throws in 11 do more damage raw. They have a built in mix in their techs, as well as having a 30%+ punishment for guessing wrong on the mix. More importantly, and far more annoyingly, is the amount of times it works on active frames. I can't believe how many times I see a D2 in its active frames get overwritten by a grab - on a correct read. Or a poke. Or a jab. I don't remember it happening to this extent in MKX, and hopefully this is something they can work on.

As for xrays vs FB's, I will admit one point that there wasn't much point using them outside of guaranteed unbreakable damage to close a round or even the gap - particularly if the opponent had a breaker ready. However, now that FB is a standalone resource, the odds shift significantly more than they have before. Got 2 defensive bars and a FB? Well you can breakaway/ use 2 tech rolls or wake ups, and threaten with FB. Its very powerful in combination with this meter system.

At least you can't mash it on wake up anymore as effectively. I just think there should be more weight to this mechanic, especially seeing as it recharges on whiff and block.
But twice now you have mistakenly claimed that a key difference between X and 11 is the fact that 11 features a throw mechanic where teching is in and of itself a 50/50. MKX had the exact same mechanic; press 1 or 3 to break a back throw attempt, and press 2 or 4 to break a front throw.

Dave’s point was that you were making a criticism of 11 while apparently being ignorant or possibly simply forgetting that the same system was in mkx, and that it can be frustrating when people make criticisms that aren’t valid.
 

Cobainevermind87

Mid-match beer sipper
by doing it a second time knowing it whiffs?
now you know to not use that combo route in the corner.
might want to check if its a char dependent thing or not.
It just happens randomly dude, doesn't matter who the opponent is. I went into the lab and tried to replicate it against Jax, couldn't do it.

So what would you suggest? Just not amping the shoulder that should obviously hit?

Maybe this adds to the depth of the game lol.
 
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Cobainevermind87

Mid-match beer sipper
I try to be positive about the game, that's why I stream it, but if it's broken, it's broken. Here's Scars getting D2 KB'd for fucking BLOCKING


R1 is her block button btw