Customize folks with gear and lootcrates? NRS has a base tourney mode for us confirmed.

[shaowebb]

I don't know man, I really think the Gears will be the standard feature for all modes, like variations did. Anyway if the community doesn't like the Gears just ban them, so people are forced to play with default barebones chars. The issue that could arise is if the balance spin around the Gears themselves, in that case then it could be a problem.

And even then only if its all random loot drop based. It'd be expensive if they had an Unlock All Gear DLC for tournies but it'd still be tourney viable though. Just detrimental and expensive to our scene.

 

[Jynks]

I mean, I obviously can't say for sure, but anything else would be so monumentally absurd that I refuse to believe NRS would make such a mistake. Yeah, they've flubbed some things in the past, but that would be the end of their tournament life.

Could this be the entire point though?

Injustice could be aimed squarely at the casual crowd, cashing in on the mass appeal of comics... and then focusing solely on MK as a tournament game. This wouldn't be the first time a game company has released games in the same genre but only pushed one of them as a tournament game for esports.

This system may be a way to enforce the exclusion of injustice2 from the tourny scene, as a attempt to stop the expected death of MKx and a way to keep both games alive by focusing them on different groups of gamers.

 

[shaowebb]

Could this be the entire point though?

Injustice could be aimed squarely at the casual crowd, cashing in on the mass appeal of comics... and then focusing solely on MK as a tournament game. This wouldn't be the first time a game company has released games in the same genre but only pushed one of them as a tournament game for esports.

This system may be a way to enforce the exclusion of injustice2 from the tourny scene, as a attempt to stop the expected death of MKx and a way to keep both games alive by focusing them on different groups of gamers.

Interesting but since they made Injustice a tournament game in the first title I seriously doubt they'd flip stance and throw its FGC crowd under the bus by switching entirely away from them. Especially when they can cater to both with a simple base mode addition with no or only chosen gear presets.

 

[aldazo]

And even then only if its all random loot drop based. It'd be expensive if they had an Unlock All Gear DLC for tournies but it'd still be tourney viable though. Just detrimental and expensive to our scene.

What I meant was that maybe by default some chars are on purpose weaker than others (lets say joker vs superman) and you NEED the gears to balance the chars (like the magic pills from IGAU). In that case the barebones chars would be unbalance a priori and NRS would balance the game using only the Gears. But I really doubt this will be the de facto scenario.

 

[ErMac333]

Tournaments will probably end up being handled gearless for more accuracy. Online might have a separate match making system only for gear matches, and for these there'll probably be a capacity value in order to contain the amount of power ups each character will have.

 

[God Confirm]

All I can say is - NRS could not have made me more hyped for Injustice than this. If it doesn't work, who gives a shit, nobody has to play it, we aren't losing out on anything here. If it does work, it could be one of the coolest things ever in a fighter. MASSIVE props to NRS for pushing the boundaries ONCE AGAIN, stuff like THIS is why I'm still a fan. Hopefully it delivers.

 

[haketh]

I always bank for the special. Thats just me though.

I try to, keyword here is try

 

[JesterSMX]

What if the loser of each round (or after losing 1 health bar) gets to pick one "gear" before the match continues. You start barebones and only build after a lost round. You pick different gear depending on the character you play against. Cosmetic gear that doesn't affect gameplay is set before the match starts. Somehow they would need to make everything available to everyone for it to be fair. Don't see how their system would allow that.

This is really strange and kinda goes away from what fighting games are about with the only factor being skill. The grind in fighting games is the time commitment to get better. Not play as many matches as possible hoping that the RNG gives you something so you can even compete. I personally don't enjoy sports games or fps because I'm not completely in control of winning or losing. RNG doesn't belong anywhere near a fighting game if it affects gameplay.

 

[Doombawkz]

What if the loser of each round (or after losing 1 health bar) gets to pick one "gear" before the match continues. You start barebones and only build after a lost round. You pick different gear depending on the character you play against. Cosmetic gear that doesn't affect gameplay is set before the match starts. Somehow they would need to make everything available to everyone for it to be fair. Don't see how their system would allow that.

This is really strange and kinda goes away from what fighting games are about with the only factor being skill. The grind in fighting games is the time commitment to get better. Not play as many matches as possible hoping that the RNG gives you something so you can even compete. I personally don't enjoy sports games or fps because I'm not completely in control of winning or losing. RNG doesn't belong anywhere near a fighting game if it affects gameplay.

You probably get to choose your gear on the select screen, and as I said I imagine it being more like the clash replacement. Instead of betting for health, you just self-buff ala X-factor and gain whatever your set gives you for a short amount of time.

 

[Evil Canadian]

Looks like I got the supes cape that lets me juggle you higher, hehh sorry about your bad luck running into me buddy! Get better drops scrub.

 

[Spinky]

You probably get to choose your gear on the select screen, and as I said I imagine it being more like the clash replacement. Instead of betting for health, you just self-buff ala X-factor and gain whatever your set gives you for a short amount of time.

This would actually be not terrible.

 

[JesterSMX]

You probably get to choose your gear on the select screen, and as I said I imagine it being more like the clash replacement. Instead of betting for health, you just self-buff ala X-factor and gain whatever your set gives you for a short amount of time.

I think we're on to something. The trailer shows the heroes buff up only after being defeated. The "each time I enter the pit I emerge reborn" line has to be a reference to the gear system. They use words like evolve, adapted, and prepared so I'm thinking it all ties with gear and the game mechanics. We just need all the gear and it sounds like it would be kinda cool. Like an expansion on variations but you get to customize yours. NRS decided after Ancestral that they weren't qualified to determine a character's move set.

 

[Eddy Wang]

If customizable gear is for single player mode only why give yourself all the work for making for every character?

If Customizable gear can be used in VS and competitive community wants to use the preset to avoid broken stuff why give yourself all the trouble of making them in first place?

Either way, i still dunno how to feel about this, not sure if is a good thing or not, but make sure this thing doesn't go near our next MK franchise please.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I think we're on to something. The trailer shows the heroes buff up only after being defeated. The "each time I enter the pit I emerge reborn" line has to be a reference to the gear system. They use words like evolve, adapted, and prepared so I'm thinking it all ties with gear and the game mechanics. We just need all the gear and it sounds like it would be kinda cool. Like an expansion on variations but you get to customize yours. NRS decided after Ancestral that they weren't qualified to determine a character's move set.

Yeah you're on to something. Superman mops Flash, Flash gears up and mops Superman. Aquaman tridents Batman, Batman gears up and fights Aquaman, etc...

 

[portent]

No ...we DONT KNOW whats going to happen. I keep pointing this out and you keep ignoring it and working yourself up. We dont have anything but a generalized statement from Rollingstone in an article and a CG cutscene so please avoid all this Hyperbole. There is no factual basis for any of this being either good or bad at the moment. State what you dont want them to do with it and state how you feel it might work or stop stating things as fact with no actual Injustice 2 data to prove it please. Its just not very conductive to pass judgment with no actual case built up yet on this mechanic as it applies to this game. We all know nothing here. Its a speculation thread. Not a judgment black and white good or bad thread.

Lets start over @portent. What would be the things to avoid doing with this mechanic that IS in the game and what would be some good ways to handle it because it IS going to be in it. Not just "dont include it" because thats not an option. Its in. So lets discuss this rationally.

I'm sure everyone realizes that this escalated quickly and that wasn't my intention. I was attempting to be facetious and sarcastic, but this community loves to argue, and I should have recognized that. My own fault for putting myself in a situation to be argued with and putting people in the position to have something to argue about.

Ok, so let me start over much more calmly. I'm first laying groundwork for why I think it's a poor idea, then I'll follow with some ideas on what they should avoid.

First, my personal opinion is that since the game will have this mechanic, I think that for competitive purposes, it needs an option to be turned off. We aren't just talking about balancing 3 variations of each character anymore, we're talking about balancing not only potentially overpowered characters, but then balancing the augmentations that could be added to each character. That produces an astounding level of "variations" of each character that may need to be balanced.

Based on our experience from MK9, Injustice, and MKX, balance has been a problem for NRS. Likewise, they have a tendency to listen to the loudest cries about characters that are fine, and they either buff them or nerf them depending on the crying. As I said before, let's all pour some off for poor Triborg, LOL.

Because of this, I don't trust that NRS can balance a game without a gimmick like this, and I am very concerned about their ability to balance this gimmick. I cannot and will not blindly throw my faith at them because I'm a fan of them. I will buy the game and play the game, that doesn't mean I trust them to balance the game.

I also believe that this is a cash grab. On top of DLC Characters and season passes, I'm sure we will see costume packs and now gear packs. I also believe that we will see loot crates that use some sort of in-game currency that you can either earn on your own or buy with real money. I'm afraid that These crates, like the packs in the mobile games, will be randomized and you'll need buy many of them to get the gear you want.


Things that should be avoided are:
-Synergistic combinations. I said it before, a DoT helmet, plus a life regenerating chest armor, plus a "converts life regeneration to meter while DoT is active" leg armor is a fun idea if you're playing Diablo, but combinations like this would be a logistical nightmare competitively. We're talking not only character and stage counterpicks, but entire gear counterpicks to negate specific gear bonuses.

-Set bonuses. Again, like Diablo and WoW, this is a potential nightmare. This is giving a bonus "stat" for having multiple or a complete set of matching gear.


Things that could potentially work are:
I said in a previous post that we about 4 archetypes of character. Zoning, Rushdown, Grappler, and Hybrid.
-Gear sets that change a character from one archetype to another. This would work similarly to the MKX variation system.

-Gear augments already existing movesets. For instance, gear that make cuts trait cooldown time. This keeps the moveset intact, but gives a bonus in terms of how often you can use something.


I'm sure that there are more, but this is a starting point of things I believe are things to avoid and things that could work.

 

[aldazo]

I said in a previous post that we about 4 archetypes of character. Zoning, Rushdown, Grappler, and Hybrid.
-Gear sets that change a character from one archetype to another. This would work similarly to the MKX variation system.

Tbh NRS ruined this in MKX, almost all chars and variations share the same playstyle. Here I hope they correct their mistakes in I2 but really doubt it. Now for the gears themselves I think they will work isung the trait system from IGAU, your trait will active your gear equipment, giving you temporary powerups (ala x factor), I don't see the issue here except for the fact that some people will have more gears than the others depending of the time/money invested in the game, but for tournament play it could be solved easily.

 

[Samsara]

I am cautiously hopeful (not optimistic---- hopeful) about this aspect of the game. On the one hand, I'm a huge fan of RPG and progression systems in game. I play plenty of Diablo so I'm used to the RNG grind. It sounds like a fun way to boost player retention. On the flipside, I also like to spend a lot of time in training mode, and I see nothing but aggravation for myself in the future labbing a matchup and having it all go to waste because my opponent has on some doodad that fucks with their meter gain or some other nonsense.

At the end of the day, the best option would be a standard mode with cosmetic changes only for offline and online. You can still have PVP with gear, but that would be a separate option from the standard one.

My only true concern about egregious practice is that this is a WB game. I can almost guarantee an RNG Gear based system that affects gameplay just begs for some corporate commander to start turning the player base into cash cows. Furthermore, NRS has proven that balancing a game is incredibly difficult for them, if they couldn't handle the variation system how in all holy hell are they gonna balance thousands of RNG-deployed gear?

I'll wait until I see some gameplay on Saturday to change my opinion. I'm not getting hyped just yet.

 

[shaowebb]

*SNIP*

Much better. Well written Portent. We all share these concerns too. We're not writing them off either. I'm glad you got past the initial stages and got a chance to write up something as clear and thoughtful as this one.

I agree. They will likely need to setup some kind of "variations turned off" thing to have a chance at balancing a base tourney oriented meta. 1000s of gear? Yeah its a logistical nightmare...so much so that it almost goes without saying in even an early stage pre alpha desing meeting that it'd be too much to tackle balancing ever. This is why a lot of us write it off as "I'm betting only a few are allowed in the form of preset gear variants" or as " I'm betting they wont use gear in tourney modes at all". We just don't believe with their relationship with pros that they'd not have heard this obvious wisdom repeated thousands of times already...especially by their own playtesters.

Its a real concern, but its one I think a lot of us just feel they likely already took care of because how could you miss that? Theres having doubts in people and then their is assuming complete blind and defness of the whole team. Not addressing this concern would require the latter so its just hard for many of us to believe they wouldn't have prepared for balance by bottlenecking whats in tourney mode down from whats outside of it already in terms of gear.

As for microtransactions, RNG on lootcrate fuckery, potential to nickel and dime...yeah thats business and we all have that sitting in the back of our minds too. Its why most of us say "they haven't mentioned microtransactions YET". Not they aren't doing them...just "yet", because its a very real possibility. Honestly so long as it doesnt affect tourney play then they can do whatever they want IMO in the "for funsies" modes with loot drops, RNG rates, and yes even microtransactions. Why? Because it doesn't affect us at tournament and create a have from have not scenario of people not being viable unless they pay for that right. For fun modes wouldn't last for fun though if they became the Diablo uber heal loot setup which you brought up that I have ran into in many forms before (even Kingdoms of Amalur). They do however have experience in gear balancing via the mobile and since that means they likely wont make you heal yourself superior it will still require a modicum of skill to beat someone even in modes that allow crazy gear combos because its not a turn based title, but a twitch oriented footsy based fighting game from NRS.

You have real concerns...the same as the rest of us and I'm glad you were able to finally write up a thoughtful summary of all of them and your thoughts on how to avoid the pitfalls and the dangers these things all pose. We all feel very similar...just some of us have more confidence in the capabilities of a team thats so large with so many dedicated players employed under it to keep the tourney modes intact and devoid of shenanigans.

Are we right or wrong? None of us know. We'll find out more Saturday with the gameplay reveal hopefully in the form of a few words. If not, well then we just plain keep voicing our concerns because as you say they respond to the loudest repeated issues at NRS and if the tourney mode was gonna be destroyed somehow its a guarantee folks wouldn't shut up about any issues that hurt it around TYM.

Good luck everyone. I think we'll be fine. Can't wait for Saturday to know more.

 

[trufenix]

Tbh NRS ruined this in MKX, almost all chars and variations share the same playstyle.

(insert wut.gif)

 

[aldazo]

(insert wut.gif)

Maybe I'm exagerating but deep in your heart you know is true.

 

[Schuyler]

All I can say is - NRS could not have made me more hyped for Injustice than this. If it doesn't work, who gives a shit, nobody has to play it, we aren't losing out on anything here. If it does work, it could be one of the coolest things ever in a fighter. MASSIVE props to NRS for pushing the boundaries ONCE AGAIN, stuff like THIS is why I'm still a fan. Hopefully it delivers.

I bet thats how people felt about advance warfare and we see how that ended up.

 

[Schuyler]

let me guess 4 months in NRS is going to start charging for more loot drops. This is a slippery slope towards pay to win.

 

[Jynks]

let me guess 4 months in NRS is going to start charging for more loot drops. This is a slippery slope towards pay to win.

how exactly is that different to DLC characters you pay for?

 

[STB Shujinkydink]

Why are they adding something no one wanted

in some opinions you could say that about the game as a whole

 

[Shaikhuzzaman]

I imagine tourney systems would just have all gear unlocked