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Anti-Air Stats in Mortal Kombat 11

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
All of the data are character specific because some characters by design can anti air more effectively and consistently than others. In Street Fighter 5, for example, Akuma has better anti air attacks than Karin even though both characters are top tier. However, Karin has a superior ground game to Akuma and most other characters so she has anti air attacks that are less effective and consistent. This weakness exists by design in an attempt to mitigate strengths. Furthermore, Karin had been considered "free to jumps" for a very long time, but clearly the player base adapted and made the appropriate adjustments.

Before the community follows REO's data blindly and demand that NRS buff anti air attacks substantially, I would like for everyone to think about the consequences. Think about the Street Fighter 5 example in the context of Mortal Kombat 11. You could end up fighting against a character with a 9 frame mid attack like Liu Kang who would dominate you in the air as much as he currently dominates you on the ground.

Just a thought.
I still think it’s important to know how many actual attempts were made to AA, rather than just how many jump-ins were blocked. I think that otherwise, the numbers will make AA’s look markedly worse than they really are.
 

Zer0_h0ur

XBL tag: South of Zero
All of the data are character specific because some characters by design can anti air more effectively and consistently than others. In Street Fighter 5, for example, Akuma has better anti air attacks than Karin even though both characters are top tier. However, Karin has a superior ground game to Akuma and most other characters so she has anti air attacks that are less effective and consistent. This weakness exists by design in an attempt to mitigate strengths. Furthermore, Karin had been considered "free to jumps" for a very long time, but clearly the player base adapted and made the appropriate adjustments.

Before the community follows REO's data blindly and demand that NRS buff anti air attacks substantially, I would like for everyone to think about the consequences. Think about the Street Fighter 5 example in the context of Mortal Kombat 11. You could end up fighting against a character with a 9 frame mid attack like Liu Kang who would dominate you in the air as much as he currently dominates you on the ground.

Just a thought.
There already is a huge discrepancy....the absurd hit boxes on some characters standing normals for AA ability compared to others is arbitrary and dumb. But that goes hand in hand like other arbitrary things in mk11 like KB damage and KB/FB scaling.
 

Marinjuana

Up rock incoming, ETA 5 minutes
I think it's a cool idea to track this but yeah, without comparing it to other games(especially other NRS games), then you are just marking people's progress or the fluctuation of jumps/AAs from tourney to tourney. We all know Reo wants better anti-airs like always but I'm not sure it's an issue for the game as a whole, outside of a few specific attacks. I do think that the system of having J1/J2's be heavily normalized and having J3 be good and plus but harder to convert from is much better then past games jump attacks, you get to have some counter play. I also think people will learn to utilize Flawless Block more to counter jump attacks.

Good players jump at good times in situations where anti-airing is tough(reaction wise or just hitbox wise) so I'm not sure the jumps not being anti-aired the vast majority of the time(even at a high level) is that unusual for a fighter.

And I don't see an issue with someone jumping and avoiding combo on someone's late and over-aggressive meaty or when they were late on a punish.
 

GLoRToR

Positive Poster!
I think it's a cool idea to track this but yeah, without comparing it to other games(especially other NRS games), then you are just marking people's progress or the fluctuation of jumps/AAs from tourney to tourney. We all know Reo wants better anti-airs like always but I'm not sure it's an issue for the game as a whole, outside of a few specific attacks. I do think that the system of having J1/J2's be heavily normalized and having J3 be good and plus but harder to convert from is much better then past games jump attacks, you get to have some counter play. I also think people will learn to utilize Flawless Block more to counter jump attacks.

Good players jump at good times in situations where anti-airing is tough(reaction wise or just hitbox wise) so I'm not sure the jumps not being anti-aired the vast majority of the time(even at a high level) is that unusual for a fighter.

And I don't see an issue with someone jumping and avoiding combo on someone's late and over-aggressive meaty or when they were late on a punish.
Frankly I think that we have bigger problems in this game than jumping. Such as Erron's b2 which is literally an iWin button mid advancing safe launcher into big damage and can't be lowprofiled by most d4s either. Liu's F4 is also dumb and then some of Kabal's shit. And we have Sonya who combines the strengths of a rushdown and a zoner.

Yeah jumping is scrubtrash in nrs games but it always has been. I think it's a much bigger problem how some characters have omnipotent shit while others scrounge for a hitconfirm.

I wish people actually listened instead of doing the usual tym gymnastics so that we could nag out some proper game balance for once but chances are mk11 will end up being the same rubbish that dies in 2 years as every other nrs game.
 
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Wigy

There it is...
Aside from the obvious.

SO many strings have blindspots if someone NJPs in your face so unless you have a good s1 or d2 you just kinda gotta hold a lot of it.

Then depending on your follow-up a lot of characters get very little. Frost for example off her main antiair isn't getting far past 20% at best.

Probably closer to 15%
 
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Error404

Noob
I think jumping is great in this game. Everyone can anti-air for a combo and if you see a jump you can reliably stop it. I don't think you should be able to press a button 1 frame before getting hit , and get an AA.
 

REO

Undead
This thread wasn't created to bash MK11 in any way, but I'm not surprised it turned into some kind of hidden agenda conspiracy to bury MK11. I created this thread to track data and put numbers into perspective for many of the players who claim they see anti-airs all the time in MK11 from my stream. What started off as a fun mini-game during a weekend, ended up being an interesting project. I must admit, I was also very surprised myself when I tracked the first two tournaments. I was not expecting it to be the 1:5 ratio we currently have. Why do you think commentators get so hype when anti-airs happen in MK11? Because they are not too common, so when an anti-air does happen, it is very memorable and stands out beyond recognition.

I'll cease all data for future tournaments and put this project to rest, as it really is pointless and is stirring so much negative energy.

And the reason I'm not specifically only counting "the times someone tried to anti-air and failed, or hit them and succeeded" is because then you have common matches like Hayatei, Deoxys, Gunshow, etc. in top eights where they will MAYBE attempt to anti-air ONCE or TWICE in the entire first to three set against a player. Showing data for only 10-20 jump-ins for an ENTIRE top eight is not only not believable, but severely misleading. In what universe would the masses believe that there were only ten to 20 instances of jumps in an entire top eight of first to three sets? That is precisely why I also include jumps done in neutral that are specifically blocked or hit a grounded opponent.

There seems to be a science behind why some players tend to block and defend 70% of the jump-ins instead of challenging them. The most common form of "anti-jumping" control I noticed in these top eights is walking backwards to avoid the jump-in completely, and then whiff punishing them. This is the universal tactic almost every players tends to go for when predicting a jump.

In regards to the data, I include "flawless blocking into reversal launcher" as an anti-air. So keep in mind in the numbers you see for anti-airs in these top eights also include the flawless block reversal.


Also just to add on, it's very possible and completely OK for there to be a great fighting game that does not have very powerful anti-airs. Stop associating inconsistent anti-airs = bad game, which is where I feel most of the negativity is coming from. It's possible for fighting games to not shine in one specific area and be a great fighting game. Look at MKX as another example - it wasn't primarily focused on neutral and footsies, but it was still a great game. To each their own. Play the games you like.
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
This thread wasn't created to bash MK11 in any way, but I'm not surprised it turned into some kind of hidden agenda conspiracy to bury MK11. I created this thread to track data and put numbers into perspective for many of the players who claim they see anti-airs all the time in MK11 from my stream. What started off as a fun mini-game during a weekend, ended up being an interesting project. I must admit, I was also very surprised myself when I tracked the first two tournaments. I was not expecting it to be the 1:5 ratio we currently have. Why do you think commentators get so hype when anti-airs happen in MK11? Because they are not too common, so when an anti-air does happen, it is very memorable and stands out beyond recognition.

I'll cease all data for future tournaments and put this project to rest, as it really is pointless and is stirring so much negative energy.

And the reason I'm not specifically only counting "the times someone tried to anti-air and failed, or hit them and succeeded" is because then you have common matches like Hayatei, Deoxys, Gunshow, etc. in top eights where they will MAYBE attempt to anti-air ONCE or TWICE in the entire first to three set against a player. Showing data for only 10-20 jump-ins for an ENTIRE top eight is not only not believable, but severely misleading. In what universe would the masses believe that there were only ten to 20 instances of jumps in an entire top eight of first to three sets? That is precisely why I also include jumps done in neutral that are specifically blocked or hit a grounded opponent.

There seems to be a science behind why some players tend to block and defend 70% of the jump-ins instead of challenging them. The most common form of "anti-jumping" control I noticed in these top eights is walking backwards to avoid the jump-in completely, and then whiff punishing them. This is the universal tactic almost every players tends to go for when predicting a jump.

In regards to the data, I include "flawless blocking into reversal launcher" as an anti-air. So keep in mind in the numbers you see for anti-airs in these top eights also include the flawless block reversal.


Also just to add on, it's very possible and completely OK for there to be a great fighting game that does not have very powerful anti-airs. Stop associating inconsistent anti-airs = bad game, which is where I feel most of the negativity is coming from. It's possible for fighting games to not shine in one specific area and be a great fighting game. Look at MKX as another example - it wasn't primarily focused on neutral and footsies, but it was still a great game. To each their own. Play the games you like.
I just think that part of the reason the negativity started is because the count is successful anti airs (a smaller number) vs. a huge number of the total jump-ins in the entire top 8.

If you put the number of successful anti-airs against the total of actual attempts (a smaller number), in addition to showing the total jump-ins, then it looks more reasonable and gives the whole picture.

I strongly agree that every fighting game can choose what to prioritize (one of my gripes with how people bash MK11 is that it's basically [insert fighting game here] has this, why isn't it the same in MK11?"). But I think you may as well just give all the data together if you're going to give some of it.

But besides that, forget the haters. I thought this was an interesting concept. Anyone who can't look at data without throwing a hissy fit and pushing their "Bash MK" agenda can go elsewhere.
 
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Hellbringer

1 2 3 drink
There where times that someone got hit by jumpkick because they where just too late with the anti-air. So human error has also something to do with it. Im not sure if we will see more attempts to flawless block a jumpin in future top 8's, depends how the game will play out. Imo i think ppl will get better at antiair with buttons in the future and less jumping will occur.
 

dribirut

BLAK FELOW
Is there anything more annoying than characters doing jik at the top of their arc jump arc and stiiiiillll be able to get their really fast mid out before your d1?

No there isn’t
 

Zer0_h0ur

XBL tag: South of Zero
I just think that part of the reason the negativity started is because the count is successful anti airs (a smaller number) vs. a huge number of the total jump-ins in the entire top 8.
There was a sequence towards the end of NK vs Deoxys where NK seriously jumped over deoxys like 4 times back to back to back to back
I lol'ed.