Concerns about "fixed" variations

[NothingPersonal]

Wouldn’t it kind of suck if the first tourney is a shitshow of broken custom variations? Tanya and Superman didn’t set very good tones for their respective games and they were play tested. If the dev team didn’t account for balancing custom variations then it shouldn’t be used.

Think of Tanya and Superman as preset variatons. It's gonna be a shitshow weather or not custom variation is allowed in tornament. It has nothing to do with variations per se, it's pre-launch balancing problem.

 

[MrArcher15]

Yeah, honestly it’s baffling.

They had trouble balancing MKX’s variations, and that shit was completely set in stone.

You guys think they’re really going to be able to make custom variations fair across the board?


Not to mention, you know the problem where sometimes one variation is supremely dominant over the other two?

Even with custom variations that would still happen, people would literally just pick the optimal moveset at every tourney anyway, straying only for a counter pick tool.

Like, think about this for more than 5 seconds.

Having them be selectable at the select screen would lead to a counter-picking nightmare.

Person A chooses a hard zoner with zoning tools, then Person B goes “lol” and picks three anti-zoning attacks and completely stomps them free. If you have stuff that’s set you may have an anti zoner variation to counter pick but it’d still be balanced. Not somebody with a full screen teleport, projectile reflect, and full screen armored dash against a poor Kitana.

Yup you get it bro. Pros would have to blind pick every match cuz they’d just be counterpicking each other

 

[NothingPersonal]

3/5 for mkx and injustice wasn't standard from the get go, it got standarded after a while when people saw it as mor interesting and optimal overall. Custom variation can ne managed the same.

 

[NothingPersonal]

The issue here is not weather custom variation will or won't be tournament allowed, the issue is NRS want to exclude this possibility to use it in tournament play entirely, which I disagree eith.

 

[LaidbackOne]

Maximilian says the devs told him they would make 3 variotions of their choice for competitive play. I strongly disagree with this. They can make two if they want to and let one slot for the player to customize. The community will then figure out on its own which one is better for competitive play. This needs to be petitioned before the game is out, or after it's out to be patched out. It's one of the most interesting thing for competitve play and NRS is about to flush it.

What are u waiting for then?! ITS CHANGE.ORG xDDDDD

 

[NothingPersonal]

What are u waiting for then?! ITS CHANGE.ORG xDDDDD

I created a petition already Go sign, there's nothing to lose.

 

[NothingPersonal]

Come on guys, help me out here. Maybe I'm not explaining it good enough.

 

[Lokheit]

The thing is, if one specific custom variation is too strong, you can always balance the main special move to make it 2 slots or nerf it and kill that specific combination, it's not so hard once you identify the problem (and this way, you can kill a single problematic move rather than a whole custom variation if there is a need to go hard on the nerfhammer).

Personally I'm all in for some sort of quick menu in character selection to turn moves on and off on the fly, it would be very interesting.

Of course we would need good balancing (ie: not what those moves were in I2), but it could be a great feature and would make every game feel different (so audiences won't get bored at the same matchups time and time again).

 

[Law Hero]

It does make me a bit sad that custom variations are most likely not going to be tournament-viable. I mean, if they're not good for tournaments, then there will need to be a custom variationless ranked mode for people to train, and if that's the case then custom variations will pretty much be regulated to unranked or party modes.

It's just a shame that the main selling point is totally irrelevant to the game's competitive scene. It makes the game seem almost like a watered-down MKX. If custom variations are relegated to noncompetitive gimmicks, then I think I'd rather just have MKX variations where at least I know each one is (theoretically) unique, and created to complement the other two, instead of just being a bunch of different moves spread across the same character.

 

[SaSSolino]

@CG Nino I honestly don't think custom moves would be this hard to balance, if anything I think they'd be easier because one simple tool: the possibility to make a move cost more or less slots to equip.

You said there might be broken syngergies? True, but they can just make the best of those moves that provide synergy cost more slots, and it'll be impossible to have them both together.

Have variations set in stone on the other hand puts the developers in a place where they need to balance those together (like in MKX) while still keeping some sort of balance between the moves for the casual, and they can't modify slots requirements too much otherwise competitive variations would be impossible to actually create.

They only reason I'd understand for not making custom variations competitive is time wasted at tournaments choosing moves, but that can be solved with a clever UI and fixed rules by the tournament's side.

 

[CG Nino]

It does make me a bit sad that custom variations are most likely not going to be tournament-viable. I mean, if they're not good for tournaments, then there will need to be a custom variationless ranked mode for people to train, and if that's the case then custom variations will pretty much be regulated to unranked or party modes.

It's just a shame that the main selling point is totally irrelevant to the game's competitive scene. It makes the game seem almost like a watered-down MKX. If custom variations are relegated to noncompetitive gimmicks, then I think I'd rather just have MKX variations where at least I know each one is (theoretically) unique, and created to complement the other two, instead of just being a bunch of different moves spread across the same character.

The moves being set in diff vars is the mkx system. Thats literally what they are going to do. Just this time make the moves more well rounded hopefully. Geras full move list is unique through his specials. Thats enough to make variations different w him as an example alone. They will do a better job then they did w mkx with it. At least we hope so.

 

[Lokheit]

@CG Nino I honestly don't think custom moves would be this hard to balance, if anything I think they'd be easier because one simple tool: the possibility to make a move cost more or less slots to equip.

You said there might be broken syngergies? True, but they can just make the best of those moves that provide synergy cost more slots, and it'll be impossible to have them both together.

Have variations set in stone on the other hand puts the developers in a place where they need to balance those together (like in MKX) while still keeping some sort of balance between the moves for the casual, and they can't modify slots requirements too much otherwise competitive variations would be impossible to actually create.

They only reason I'd understand for not making custom variations competitive is time wasted at tournaments choosing moves, but that can be solved with a clever UI and fixed rules by the tournament's side.

THIS. SO MUCH THIS.

You can kill specific moves if there is the need rather than whole combinations.

You can make a quick UI like the alternate costume skins in MKX where you can toggle different moves in quick sucession. Preset variation could act as templates for quick access to your favorite builds and then have the ability to toggle moves.

 

[CG Nino]

@CG Nino I honestly don't think custom moves would be this hard to balance, if anything I think they'd be easier because one simple tool: the possibility to make a move cost more or less slots to equip.

You said there might be broken syngergies? True, but they can just make the best of those moves that provide synergy cost more slots, and it'll be impossible to have them both together.

Have variations set in stone on the other hand puts the developers in a place where they need to balance those together (like in MKX) while still keeping some sort of balance between the moves for the casual, and they can't modify slots requirements too much otherwise competitive variations would be impossible to actually create.

They only reason I'd understand for not making custom variations competitive is time wasted at tournaments choosing moves, but that can be solved with a clever UI and fixed rules by the tournament's side.

Its not that simple... nerfing moves by adding points for slots causes ripple effect. Now you have 8 moves with 3 of them being 1 slots 4 being 2 slots 1 being a 3. That 3 slot has nothing else to its kit and therfore becomes a useless variation just like the mkx builds of variations w cool gimmicks but ultimately not worth it. Just trust the devs to make the system, players job is to use the system, we will just continuously abuse it if left to competitive players.

Eventually youre gonna keep changing these moves enough to where you have 2 or 3 combinations possible anyways lol.

If you think MORE choices isnt harder to balance then less then why is there no fg without low tier when the chars are set? Its simply adding way too many variables to be done correctly. Especially left to players choices. Unseen effects happen w basic chars, yet alone 50 plus variables.

What you guys are asking for is akin to gear arpgs or looter shooters w a focus on pve meant to break the game and min max to destroy cpus. Its not meant for 1v1 competitive play. Play w your friends w that mode if you want. Dont subjegate the rest of us with the open world concept.

 

[Pterodactyl]

It does make me a bit sad that custom variations are most likely not going to be tournament-viable. I mean, if they're not good for tournaments, then there will need to be a custom variationless ranked mode for people to train, and if that's the case then custom variations will pretty much be regulated to unranked or party modes.

It's just a shame that the main selling point is totally irrelevant to the game's competitive scene. It makes the game seem almost like a watered-down MKX. If custom variations are relegated to noncompetitive gimmicks, then I think I'd rather just have MKX variations where at least I know each one is (theoretically) unique, and created to complement the other two, instead of just being a bunch of different moves spread across the same character.

Just about every new mechanic they put in this game makes it better as a competitive fighter and more complex than any of their past games, but not letting people play mix and match on the grand stage is what makes it someow “watered-down”?

How can it even be watered down due to a feature that wasn’t even in the previous game you’re talking about.

 

[SaSSolino]

Its not that simple... nerfing moves by adding points for slots causes ripple effect. Now you have 8 moves with 3 of them being 1 slots 6 being 2 slots 1 being a 3. That 3 slot has nothing else to its kit and therfore becomes a useless variation just like the mkx builds of variations w cool gimmicks but ultimately not worth it. Just trust the devs to make the system, players job is to use the system, we will just continuously abuse it if left to competitive players.

Eventually youre gonna keep changing these moves enough to where you have 2 or 3 combinations possible anyways lol.

I'm saying that this would give the devs an additional tool, not that it would be their only tool or that there is no way in hell they'd make a mistake with it.

If they find themselves in that situation, which I trust them not to find themselves into, they can always work on frames and other moves properties and reset their slots requirements to their original state. Besides it's not like having characters nerfed to death never happened with the old system, how's this any different?

Also they don't need to remove every syngergy, only the broken ones.

 

[CG Nino]

I'm saying that this would give the devs an additional tool, not that it would be their only tool or that there is no way in hell they'd make a mistake with it.

If they find themselves in that situation, which I trust them not to find themselves into, they can always work on frames and other moves properties and reset their slots requirements to their original state. Besides it's not like having characters nerfed to death never happened with the old system, how's this any different?

Also they don't need to remove every syngergy, only the broken ones.

Play w your friends online or offline. Keep set rules for the competitive. Competition is good w set rules not on the fly mixups between matches with 50 different things to account for w every char on the roster.

Are we gonna set every char select as blind... set timers? Like I dont think you guys get the logistics. Its a pain in the ass just to do this regardless of how many ui fixes you do. It takes too long for people to just pick costumes and colors if you ask me lol.

Like i also said above. The kb system is tied to some moves. They dont want chars having say 3 base move kbs plus 2 universal kbs and another 3 kbs from the chosen specials. It gets ridiculous to account for.

 

[SaSSolino]

Play w your friends online or offline. Keep set rules for the competitive. Competition is good w set rules not on the fly mixups between matches with 50 different things to account for w every char on the roster.

Are we gonna set every char select as blind... set timers? Like I dont think you guys get the logistics. Its a pain in the ass just to do this regardless of how many ui fixes you do. It takes too long for people to just pick costumes and colors if you ask me lol.

Obviously not. In the playable build from the reveal you could create your own variations, but in the roaster you'd pick between them and fixed variation like you'd pick variations in MKX. You don't need to pick the moves directly.

At tournaments is the only time where you'd need to use that UI I was talking about, and convenient enough there's a tournament mode in the game!

 

[Law Hero]

Just about every new mechanic they put in this game makes it better as a competitive fighter and more complex than any of their past games, but not letting people play mix and match on the grand stage is what makes it someow “watered-down”?

How can it even be watered down due to a feature that wasn’t even in the previous game you’re talking about.

I know there's lots of new mechanics in the game, but the main defining feature of the game is custom variations. It's what NRS is advertising as the big unique feature of the game. If these custom variations are pointless and regulated to gimmicks, and instead everyone is forced into to choosing between preset variations, then I see little reason for their existence outside of casual/party modes. In this case, it's the same as MKX, except the characters in 11 were designed to have moves swapped around, and it's being ignored.

Like I said earlier, it saddens me because I would either like to see custom variations in competitive play or instead characters created from the ground up with three very unique variations in mind. Submitting to preset variations is like an unhappy middle ground in my opinion. I'm not attacking your stance or anything, just stating my dissatisfaction with the compromises that must be made for the sake of competition.

 

[CG Nino]

Obviously not. In the playable build from the reveal you could create your own variations, but in the roaster you'd pick between them and fixed variation like you'd pick variations in MKX. You don't need to pick the moves directly.

At tournaments is the only time where you'd need to use that UI I was talking about, and convenient enough there's a tournament mode in the game!

Part of playing fgs at a competitive level aside from mastering your own char and habbits is matchups. To truly know a mu you need to play it over and over and over and over...

This create a mu you guys want to implement is not a serious way to play fgs. This is not something you do for competitive play. Ranked or tournament its a joke tbh. You are essentially trying to make a char on the fly and basically pull the wool over peoples eyes.

 

[CG Nino]

I know there's lots of new mechanics in the game, but the main defining feature of the game is custom variations. It's what NRS is advertising as the big unique feature of the game. If these custom variations are pointless and regulated to gimmicks, and instead everyone is forced into to choosing between preset variations, then I see little reason for their existence outside of casual/party modes. In this case, it's the same as MKX, except the characters in 11 were designed to have moves swapped around, and it's being ignored.

Like I said earlier, it saddens me because I would either like to see custom variations in competitive play or instead characters created from the ground up with three very unique variations in mind. Submitting to preset variations is like an unhappy middle ground in my opinion. I'm not attacking your stance or anything, just stating my dissatisfaction with the compromises that must be made for the sake of competition.

News flash, the majority of consumers are casuals, they will use this feature with their friends and sp. Theres a statistic that a LARGE majority of fg buyers never even go online. So for them that sales pitch of create a char works. Thats what theyll be doing. For competitive play no, thats why the devs have been clear saying they will have SET variations for tourney and ranked. Many players would pass this game if they didnt tbh.

 

[Sablicious]

I don’t understand how anybody would want custom variations to be in competitive play. There are so many reasons why it just wouldn’t work. For one it’d be hell to balance...

Then you're assuming that the non "factory set" specials (or combinations thereof) will all be broken -- making the "extra" specials (which they're not -- 'cause, unlike IJ2, all specials will be unlocked from the get-go; with only "augments" locked out) all but gimmicks for non-competitive play... Which could be further compounded, if they neglect to allow player-2 to use the unlocked content, as with their IJ2 pratfall. That is to say, what the hell is the point of it all them?! Might as well have given the characters a nice, expansive, "BALANCED!!" move-set, and used the saved development time on giving the poor suckers' the characters they've supplicated for for forever and a day... for.

We have to work with logic here, and given that all specials are there and ready to use, and that Boon is eyeing three preset "Variations", he / we must have faith that the moves themselves are balanced (...and they more or less will be -- out-of-the-box or via patches -- this isn't 90's era SNK). Naturally, if a character has, say, two or more projectile type abilities that operating very similarly to one another (which, suffice to say, would be very lazy development practice... NRS / Midway being the reining "palette swap" champions of Earthrealm, notwithstanding), the respective abilities might flag one another out / be unequippable simultaneously. As such, there is no "balance" related reason that freedom in "Variation" customisation -- across all modes and settings -- should be so restricted.

Lastly, Boon arbitrarily designating "Variations" are no different to what MKX did... and it didn't work well in said game. Which is to say nothing of all how he's touted the 'individualisation' aspect of customising characters -- all rather shallow rhetoric, if the functionality is locked out of any meaningful play mode/s...
---

I agree with you in that the main strike against custom variations is tournament stress because it seems you have to go through menus in order to set them.

Bunkum. Tournaments are mostly run on consoles -- usually Sony's console -- they can bring their profiles; upload / download them from the cloud; flick through the specials on the spot... whatev's. There is no rush.

M!!K is not as fist-paced as before (*a pod cast I just caught, with the likes of SonicFurry, even likened '11' to an "old school" paced fighter), with all its "Krushing Blows" / "Fatal Blows" cinematics et al. -- I think ADD addled crowds can wait 30 seconds for players to select their character set-ups. Of course, this ignores the obvious fact of matches neither being conducted in some 'speed run' fashion, nor players frantically mashing buttons to rush from match to match -- irrespective of the presence of any "Variation" customisation (and player causing pre-Fatality resets). Lastly, the characters have a few specials, not dozens -- it won't be like filling out a mortgage application!

The benefit of allowing variations in competitive play: It would will allow players to modify their favourite characters in order to suit a given match-up or opponent -- without having to swap out characters in the traditional (and, IMO, the rather craven manner) of "counter-picking".
(NB: Of anyone, it should be proe$ who should have to learn their characters well enough to not have to counter-pick every time they are faced with a difficult opponent / match-up... And if the game isn't balanced enough for that, then "Variations" are the least of the its problems).
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Wouldn’t it kind of suck if the first tourney is a shitshow of broken custom variations?

Early tournaments are always experimental: tiers are in flux; players are trying out possible mains; comboes get dropped... so on and so fifth.

Personally, I'd rather players be given the opportunity to find combinations of a given character -- using their own nous and knowledge -- with access to the full repertoire of their favourite character's move-set -- than abandoning the character that they have imprudently adopted as part of their user-handle, because they're just too crap; and the abilities that could have potentially addressed their weaknesses, are locked behind a Great Wall of Boon Balance. >each to their own

Case in point: Imagine how differently Bane would have played in Injustice 2, were he able to use his "Super Venom" -- in so doing, losing his armour, but gaining even more damage potential? Or Enchantress, having access to here meter change special... >mind: BLOWN

I mean, aren't these components introduced to make the game more interesting (lit., less predictable)? If so, why be so shy in showcasing them...? If some extra balance is required -- so be it. If nothing else, it will incentivise NRS to stick with their products longer than that last DLC has been ran$omed. /sacrcasm

Yeah... nah. I appreciate the E-sports reared generation's concerns / catatonia / self-cutting about "muh balance". But, frankly, I'd rather see diversity over predictability; exhilaration, over exhaustion from ennui; neural pathway creation over early onset Alzheimer's...

In reality, though, I'm definitely the not the majority. Heck, it's taken 8 years for my favourite character (and hardly an obscure one, at that) just to get back into the game! So, perhaps 'coherence theory' will win out (...again v_v).

 

[Pterodactyl]

I know there's lots of new mechanics in the game, but the main defining feature of the game is custom variations. It's what NRS is advertising as the big unique feature of the game. If these custom variations are pointless and regulated to gimmicks, and instead everyone is forced into to choosing between preset variations, then I see little reason for their existence outside of casual/party modes. In this case, it's the same as MKX, except the characters in 11 were designed to have moves swapped around, and it's being ignored.

Like I said earlier, it saddens me because I would either like to see custom variations in competitive play or instead characters created from the ground up with three very unique variations in mind. Submitting to preset variations is like an unhappy middle ground in my opinion. I'm not attacking your stance or anything, just stating my dissatisfaction with the compromises that must be made for the sake of competition.

Dude like 90% of the player base are casuals, competitive and tourney scene is an extreme minority.

Most people buy the game, fuck around with it for maybe a month at most before the new hot triple A game comes out and move on.

This is a fun party mode feature to give casuals something cool to fool around with.


There are just some things in these games that are meant for one side of the player base, and some things meant for the other. What you’re complaining about is like in the line of being upset that there isn’t a competitive Test Your Luck.

 

[Pterodactyl]

Also this entire argument is dumb because this shit is all on the event organizers side, not Nethrrealm.

In literally every instance of a fighter having a customizable moveset option, it’s banned by the tournament organizers because it’s impossible to properly balance and you’d have a real mess on stage.

And I love NRS, god bless them, but they take a while to really get their balance of their games in line sometimes, and that’s with much less in play than a hundred potential variations of movesets in mind. Balancing isn’t as easy as moving a number around in most cases.

And spending months trying to tune something that would feasibly take years to perfect when you could use that time and resource on adding more content or doing more in depth balancing on a small scale with the set variations, is STUPID.

You people have to stop thinking about what you want before you think about what is feasibily, realistically, tangibly possible.

 

[comoesa]

Custom variations won't ever be allowed in official tournaments. Fighting games are not smogon or some run of the mill trading card game.

 

[Roy Arkon]

There is no problem if the Variation system being the same under competitive mode as in MKX, as you still have 3 options to play the character they you want, unlike in IJ2 and almost all other fighting games. Of course that will be cool to have to the option to pick the moves you want for tournament play, but it's still a lot better to have 3 options for movesets, and therefore possible directions of gameplan, rather then one per character.

Also regarding the balance, it will be fine regardless. NRS already proved that they improve the balance form game to game, MKX and IJ2 are both super balanced, and it will be the same for MK11.