Custom Variations UI Redesign ( Pictures )

[John Grizzly]

If custome variation was allowe people would do same thing in mkx they would just pick the best moves like misery blade scrop.

And this is different from what other fighter? Everyone uses the best characters/moves/variations.

This argument is ridiculous and I'm tired of seeing it. I ask how this is any different than MKX or any other fighter and no one ever answers.

The point of custom variations is to give the player the freedom to make the character their own. If there's a move you can give your character that will help in a particular match up but it's not part of any of their default variations (just like Misery Blade wasn't part of any variation), then you can equip that.

The default variations are super bland, boring and seem unfinished, frankly.

 

[DarkSado]

Fighting game and FPS shooter is far apart from each other I don’t know where to begin with. the mind game is so different especially fighting game is mostly 1v1 where halo tournament mostly team base communication .

 

[Scyther]

Fighting game and FPS shooter is far apart from each other I don’t know where to begin with. the mind game is so different especially fighting game is mostly 1v1 where halo tournament mostly team base communication .

Most of the time, yes, I agree. However, there are times (and even entire modes) where you find yourself on your own and face-to-face with another single opponent. And, particularly when neither of you know what the other has in their arsenal, the mind games are fairly intense. You're trying to bait the other person into making a mistake, drop out of cover pre-maturely or waste their ammunition (forcing a reload) for example. Simply running out, guns blazing with no thought as to what your 1v1 opponent may have up their sleeve, is typically a poor and fatal choice (unless you have some massive advantage that can protect you from the occasional reckless mistake).

I feel like even though they're different genres, fighting games and FPS have some overlap when it comes to 1v1 situations.

 

[OnlineSkunk]

If custome variation was allowe people would do same thing in mkx they would just pick the best moves like misery blade scrop.

People would still pick whatever variation has Misery Blade, I really doubt more than one variation will have Misery Blade equipped and it'll be disappointing for Scorpion players if they can't use it competitively, the character just wouldn't be nearly as good.

 

[podizzler3000]

You should def be able to see your opponent's moves at some point. You don't want to fight a Kabal who keeps his loadout a secret only to pull a surprise 30% Low Hook Krushing blow out of his ass in the final round.

i am probably in the minority but that sounds hype to me. if you want it to be a surprise for the final round then you are sacrificing using a major advantage for the whole match. the one thing i would like to avoid is people changing moves between matches. lock it in unless the character is switched

 

[PapaRegadetho]

Its going to be interesting how NRS will decide on this, they've been pressured before for smaller things. I say,lets rock it and kick ourselfs in the balls later if it becomes too broken,that way we can apologize and ask nicely NRS to revert it to prefixed. In that case if it becomes really dumb, we just gonna continue to be a meme in the fgc and Im ready to take that outcome.

 

[Megax Rocker]

Imagine if Dragon Ball FighterZ and UMVC3 locked us to preset teams for use in ranked and tournament.

 

[Obly]

I don't see why people say it can't be balanced either. Is Kabal too powerful because he can get big combo damage with hook grab, combo'd into a restand which then sets up for a free 50/50? Fine, then just make hook grab a 2-point move. Now he can only have either combo damage plus restand, OR combo damage plus 50/50s. Still don't like that? Fine, make restand and low hook incompatible, so that he can't restand you into a free 50/50. The argument that it can't be balanced is entirely invalid.

I'm not saying it would be impossible to balance loadouts move by move; I just think NRS looked at all the problems with it and made the most practical decision.

For one, if you start putting heavy restrictions on which moves can be loaded together, at what point does your "custom" variation essentially become a preset anyway? If there's one "gotta have" move that defines your gameplay, and your only remaining choices are all inconsequential, how much does that final choice add meaningfully to variety?

The problem is the OP moves. Whether you have presets or custom doesn't matter; you're going to be in the same predicament if there are a few moves that everyone always wants to have. So the most important thing is to tone down or balance out the advantage of those moves. And I think we'll get a much better overall result if NRS can balance 2-4 competitive variations per character rather than trying to come up with some complicated set of restrictions (which, as noted, takes the whole "custom" part away anyway!).

Plus there are the other factors. Whether you improve the UI or not, selecting a custom moveset in a tournament setting would slow things to a crawl. Not just from the time it takes to go through whatever screens or menus there are, but because the counterpicking would be extreme. You think it's bad now? Players would just sit there watching to see which moves the other player picks, so they can try to do a counterpick move by move. You'd need a whole new layer of rules to keep it under control.

And frankly this is a good thing for anyone who wants to be competitive. It's reasonable to try to learn MUs for a small number of variations per character, but extremely difficult to deal with an enormous number of potential permutations. The pro-level gameplay is going to be better this way.

I don't know how anyone can say that Presets will be better balanced after MKX. MKX is proof that NRS can't balance presets/variations.

You know that even game developers are human, right? And humans have the capacity to learn from the past and adapt in the future. NRS may not have done a great job balancing variations in MKX, but now they have all that experience to draw on for MK11. You might want to ease up on the pessimism just a tad.

 

[Obly]

Most of the time, yes, I agree. However, there are times (and even entire modes) where you find yourself on your own and face-to-face with another single opponent. And, particularly when neither of you know what the other has in their arsenal, the mind games are fairly intense. You're trying to bait the other person into making a mistake, drop out of cover pre-maturely or waste their ammunition (forcing a reload) for example. Simply running out, guns blazing with no thought as to what your 1v1 opponent may have up their sleeve, is typically a poor and fatal choice (unless you have some massive advantage that can protect you from the occasional reckless mistake).

I feel like even though they're different genres, fighting games and FPS have some overlap when it comes to 1v1 situations.

You're making my point for me, my friend.

Ask yourself which of those two scenarios you'd rather watch as a FG spectator: Two players slowly, carefully trying to bait each other to "drop cover" and show their moves...or two players who get right into the fight, guns blazing?

Look, I actually don't disagree with you from a logical standpoint that there's real skill in being able to improvise and deal with ambiguity in a game situation; I just don't think it works for competitive fighting games, since there's already such an intricate dynamic going on. The viability of pro-level play as we know it depends on complete knowledge of how the game works, so the players can totally focus on how to outplay the other person.

 

[MadPropz101]

Yeah this is pretty much what I had in mind, except the part when it's showing under the health bars which seems a bit cluttered and redundant.

 

[Xelz]

Good concept and nice work. But I think you're missing the point. The biggest problem with custom variations and tournament play isn't an inefficient UI. It's about balance, balance, balance.

No matter how hard NRS tries or how much they patch, they'll never achieve perfect balance across characters and their potential movesets. There will always be some combinations that are OP and some that are crap. How long do you think it will take competitive players to figure out which is which? You allow custom loadouts in tournies and you're guaranteed to see the same small handful get played again and again. Folks who are screaming the loudest about all this have apparently already forgotten the age of Deadshot mirror matches ad nauseum.

Using fixed variations is NRS's extra level of balance, because they can disallow the most OP combinations, and better ensure the available choices are reasonably well-matched. Might not seem "fair" to the people screaming right now, but it will be much better for us as spectators because we'll actually get some variety in the matches we see.

First of all, I don't think NRS (or any developer for that matter) will achieve perfect balance with or without custom variations. No fighting game exists where every character is S Tier.

Second, the easiest way to prevent a broken combination of custom moves is to disallow those moves being selected together, i.e. exclusionary requirements. NRS already built that into the beta. When players discover a broken combination that slipped through QA, add exclusionary requirements. That's way easier than re-configuring preset variations.

 

[OnlineSkunk]

If custom variations added enough variety to just see even TWO variations per character in Tournament regularly, that would one more than you'd see in an MKX-style preset system.

As it stands now, they want to feature every special move in a preset. With the 2-4 presets they've thrown out there as a number, that means each special will only be represented once. Which means, for example, you will only ever see whichever Scorpion preset has Misery Blade in tournament, and it will always be paired up with the same special because it's a preset. Meanwhile, with custom variations yeah you'd see Misery Blade all the time, but the other special would likely change a lot, adding more variety.

As another example, with presets you will only ever see Gutted Baraka. Now, Baraka does have other custom options that compete in effectiveness with that one move (grab+leg kebab for example), but they are only equally as effective if bundled together. If those two moves are in separate presets, then you will only ever see Gutted.

I don't see why people say it can't be balanced either. Is Kabal too powerful because he can get big combo damage with hook grab, combo'd into a restand which then sets up for a free 50/50? Fine, then just make hook grab a 2-point move. Now he can only have either combo damage plus restand, OR combo damage plus 50/50s. Still don't like that? Fine, make restand and low hook incompatible, so that he can't restand you into a free 50/50. The argument that it can't be balanced is entirely invalid.

I couldn't have said it better myself, I can't believe I didn't see this post when I was going through every reply earlier today. Thank you @TheJaquio

 

[Scyther]

You're making my point for me, my friend.

Ask yourself which of those two scenarios you'd rather watch as a FG spectator: Two players slowly, carefully trying to bait each other to "drop cover" and show their moves...or two players who get right into the fight, guns blazing?

Look, I actually don't disagree with you from a logical standpoint that there's real skill in being able to improvise and deal with ambiguity in a game situation; I just don't think it works for competitive fighting games, since there's already such an intricate dynamic going on. The viability of pro-level play as we know it depends on complete knowledge of how the game works, so the players can totally focus on how to outplay the other person.

Fair enough.

 

[OnlineSkunk]

I'm not saying it would be impossible to balance loadouts move by move; I just think NRS looked at all the problems with it and made the most practical decision.

For one, if you start putting heavy restrictions on which moves can be loaded together, at what point does your "custom" variation essentially become a preset anyway? If there's one "gotta have" move that defines your gameplay, and your only remaining choices are all inconsequential, how much does that final choice add meaningfully to variety?

The problem is the OP moves. Whether you have presets or custom doesn't matter; you're going to be in the same predicament if there are a few moves that everyone always wants to have. So the most important thing is to tone down or balance out the advantage of those moves. And I think we'll get a much better overall result if NRS can balance 2-4 competitive variations per character rather than trying to come up with some complicated set of restrictions (which, as noted, takes the whole "custom" part away anyway!).

Plus there are the other factors. Whether you improve the UI or not, selecting a custom moveset in a tournament setting would slow things to a crawl. Not just from the time it takes to go through whatever screens or menus there are, but because the counterpicking would be extreme. You think it's bad now? Players would just sit there watching to see which moves the other player picks, so they can try to do a counterpick move by move. You'd need a whole new layer of rules to keep it under control.

And frankly this is a good thing for anyone who wants to be competitive. It's reasonable to try to learn MUs for a small number of variations per character, but extremely difficult to deal with an enormous number of potential permutations. The pro-level gameplay is going to be better this way.

You know that even game developers are human, right? And humans have the capacity to learn from the past and adapt in the future. NRS may not have done a great job balancing variations in MKX, but now they have all that experience to draw on for MK11. You might want to ease up on the pessimism just a tad.

Personally, I think MK11 beta was balanced, not only from my own experience with it but because I was watching a lot of high level matches of top players like Scar, Sonic Fox and Dragon. Scar was fighting a Kabal player where almost every match ended with the timer, good neutral was what won matches in MK11 regardless of what abilities you equipped.

Whether there is preset or custom variations NRS will have no choice but to nerf/buff some abilities, you could give Scorpion every single one of his abilities vs Misery Blade only and most people would still choose Misery Blade.

Custom variations would give the player much more freedom no matter how you look at it, sometimes it won't be the abilities combinations that makes a character too OP or too underwhelming . Take a look at Scorpion for example, improving his basic attacks or removing gaps from his kombo attacks might end up breaking him in his misery blade variation but just barely viable in his other variations, would you rather NRS normalize Misery Blade and be balanced with customs variations, have a character where people only use one variation or not be viable at all. This is just one example from the beta, it could be the other way around for other characters when the game comes out.

As for your last point, I have answered it before. NRS can just simply add a timer of 45 seconds whenever someone tries to go back to the character select screen, it addresses every single koncern with a K when it comes to offline local tournaments.

I'll edit my post explaining why the too much counter picking argument isn't really an issue.

 

[pure.Wasted]

You're making my point for me, my friend.

Ask yourself which of those two scenarios you'd rather watch as a FG spectator: Two players slowly, carefully trying to bait each other to "drop cover" and show their moves...or two players who get right into the fight, guns blazing?

Por que no los dos? Why not first watch them bait each other out for 10 seconds, and then get excited about seeing which player is better at baiting out the other, and then get excited that one of them is 100% comfortable going all-in because he knows the other's kit, while the other is still holding back because he's scared of what he couldn't find out? Drama.

Now the second player is both under attack AND has to keep his guard up against everything remaining that it could be. More drama.

Look, I actually don't disagree with you from a logical standpoint that there's real skill in being able to improvise and deal with ambiguity in a game situation; I just don't think it works for competitive fighting games, since there's already such an intricate dynamic going on. The viability of pro-level play as we know it depends on complete knowledge of how the game works, so the players can totally focus on how to outplay the other person.

I'm curious why you feel this way, other than "it's always been this way." It's certainly not true of StarCraft. Fighting games are directly comparable to RTS games IMO. Both 1v1 competitions, both involve elements of mind games and high mechanical execution. But while it's arguable which has the higher mechanical execution barrier, it's not arguable that SC involves infinitely more mind games. And as exciting as watching pros execute is in SC, watching them out-mind game one another while also executing is often way more exciting for spectators.

 

[Zhidoreptiloid]

Bye balance then. Custom variation is cancer, which make game broken.
And there is NO creativity! We have 1, maximum 2 optimal builds. That is bullshit

 

[Obly]

I'm curious why you feel this way, other than "it's always been this way." It's certainly not true of StarCraft. Fighting games are directly comparable to RTS games IMO. Both 1v1 competitions, both involve elements of mind games and high mechanical execution. But while it's arguable which has the higher mechanical execution barrier, it's not arguable that SC involves infinitely more mind games. And as exciting as watching pros execute is in SC, watching them out-mind game one another while also executing is often way more exciting for spectators.

Well, I have no crystal ball; I'm just making educated guesses. And I don't know enough about SC to say much about that analogy--just that I assume ambiguity about the opponent's capabilities is an explicit part of the gameplay and how strategizing works. It's not like that with FGs, and I don't think it would desirable to add it.

I think chess is a good analogy. Anyone will tell you, high-level chess play is about thinking several moves ahead: what is your attack plan, what is your opponent's likely attack plan, how will they react to my moves, and how should I react in order to counter their moves and maintain the advantage? It's a very intense mind game, but that type of strategizing depends on complete knowledge of how the pieces interact.

Just imagine how the game would change if you didn't know that in advance. Like say, you start a match having no idea if your opponent's queen has given up diagonal movement in exchange for, say, a knight-like ability to move through other pieces. Your ability to think ahead and prepare for anticipated scenarios--and thus what really makes chess chess--would be destroyed.

The mind game in a high-level FG match is similar, in terms of thinking ahead, anticipating and conditioning, and trying to maintain the advantage. That's the game FG fans enjoy, and I think it would be lost. Maybe folks would learn to like that new gameplay you're describing, I don't know; I can only speak for myself and say that I wouldn't like it.

 

[DixieFlatline78]

OK so I assume this is going to sound like blasphemy to a lot of people here, but I have to ask:

Why does your opponent need to see what moves you picked...?

At all...? Ever...?

When a CS:GO round starts, you don't know what guns the enemy players bought, or what armor, or what accessories. As the round continues, you don't know which T is carrying the bomb, or which CT traded out his m16 for an AK from a fallen Terrorist, or whether the asshole trying to ambush you picked up a flashbang somewhere in the last 30 seconds. You encounter these things in the game as it happens, and you improvise to the best of your ability. And if the enemy players improvise better, you lose.

I spent years following the (massively successful) esports scenes of other games before taking so much as a look at any fighters, and in literally every single esport I've ever seen, both competitive players (on ladder) and pros (in tournaments) are:

1) expected to IMPROVISE when their opponents make "customization" options mid-match, e.g. changing their weapons (in FPS games), changing their characters (in hero shooters), or changing their strategies wildly (in RTS games)

and 2) expected to make educated guesses about, and keep track of, a fuck ton of information that is rarely if ever on screen

I can't help but think that compared to all other esports players and pros, fighting game players are babied with how much information they're given. And the result of this insistence on perfect information is a lower skill ceiling, a lower skill gap between different players, a lower variety of different skillsets that are rewarded by the game (which means that pros have limited avenues to distinguish themselves from one another), and less excitement for spectators because they're robbed of a lot of potentially dramatic and exciting moments.

Not only am I for custom variations, I don't even think players should be able to see one another's loadouts. You'll know what their loadout is when you see it in action.

First person shooters like that arent matchup based

When you play any character based game you always know exactly what tools they have access to. Press tab, you can see what items they have access to.

In a fighting game, if you didnt know what moves they had when you started, the first round, or even match would be super gimmicky. Knowing what you're up against is very important

 

[NothingPersonal]

I think showing custom moves on character and stage select screens is enough. A decent competitive player should be able to know what's up at this point. Great job.

 

[Jeffrey Wolf]

@Obly, exactly my point: From their experience with MKX, NRS should have learned that trying to balance that many characters isn't feasible. And this isn't me throwing shade at NRS. No one can balance 75 characters--just look at tier lists for the recent Smash game.

Some might then say, kustom variations would make balance even worse because there would be even more possibilities. The goal though isn't perfect balance because that is impossible (as you can see from every competitive level fighting game from recent history). The goal is to make more characters/versions of characters viable, since more choice is more fun for players and more exciting for viewers than seeing the same few top tiers/builds recycled over and over. As has already been said, it seems obvious that NRS plans to use each move that will appear in a preset only once. Certain moves will be better than others--there's no way a patch will change the core utility of a combo extender over say something that stops the opponent from cancelling strings into moves. By having each move appear in only one preset, people will naturally gravitate toward the preset with the most useful moves and not use the others at all (since they won't be paired with the best moves). In addition, if a character doesn't have the right moves combined, they may not be viable at all. However, if kustoms are allowed, it will increase character diversity because even if 99% of people pick Misery Blade for Scorpion, and Air Throw for Kabal, and Cell Siphon for Skarlet, etc., the other moves that they pick could vary, which would allow for personalization and more moves to be showcased at the highest levels of play. Not only would this make playing and watching more enjoyable, but it would also, hopefully, extend the game's life cycle.

@Obly, I agree with a lot of other statements you've made in threads, so I hope this doesn't feel like a personal attack. Instead, I hope it just clarifies the point I'm trying to make.

I love MK 11. I think it's the best game NRS has put out, and I just hate to see them make such a big stumble so close to the finish line. At this point though, the community has spoken, so we'll see what impact, if any, it has on release. I know others have said that this could be something that NRS changes in time and maybe so. However, after not getting the "real" version of MKX until MKXL released (at which point things were fairly dead), I'd hate to see the same happen with this game. I'd love for it to be complete out of the box with everyone knowing exactly how tournaments will be played so the community as a whole can push forward with that. As opposed to some playing now, and others waiting to see if kustom will eventually be allowed, and so on.

Anyway, time will tell, and here's hoping for the best outcome that will let MK 11 shine and last. Thanks to everyone here for your passion for the game, regardless of what stance you have. May we all have great games post release. I know I certainly can't wait to.