Has NRS silenced the Mortal Kombat 1 critics?

[haketh]

• There is a legitimate conversation about whether traveling or supporting the scene is worth the time and financial investment. Content creators make more money streaming than competing, which stands true for other games as well.
• The overwhelming majority of fighting game matches are now played online. I predict that most tournaments will be held online while a handful of major tournaments like EVO and CEO will be held offline, which is more or less what is already happening in the current FGC.

I hate how true this is and how much it makes me want to throw myself off of a roof

 

[CrimsonShadow]

I believe that the release version of the game scared players away.

While content creators and Twitter toxicity can sway opinions, I am convinced that people will play the game if they enjoy the game.

I am probably not the best example, but I almost played 1,000 games in Kombat League last season, irrespective of the negativity, or reality check, depending on your perspective, that the leaks caused.

You and I have discussed this topic in another thread before, but the reason Street Fighter 5 could recuperate from its catastrophic release is because people in the SRK community and at large know that any Street Fighter game will receive long-term support.

The mentality within the NRS community, on the other hand, is to "sit this one out" until the next game releases in two or three years.

I don’t think any community is built this way, though. If it was just about enjoying the game, you wouldn’t get arcs like the one Melee had.

What happened with Melee? EVO dropped the game, the FGC shunned it, and numbers were critically low. On top of that, the game was broken, very unbalanced and would not be receiving any more support. And Nintendo actively refused to support the competitive scene.

By your logic, people simply didn’t like playing the game, and it ran its natural course. But what actually happened was that a much smaller group of leaders leaders then started a “Melee Revival”, playing tournaments in people’s houses, a documentary came out that got other people interested, and the scene was built slowly into being bigger than before.

So it’s pretty clear that people are swayed by others’ actions and words. Community building has an impact, and community-destroying actions have impact. Even beyond just the game or developer themselves.

 

[Eji1700]

I don’t think any community is built this way, though. If it was just about enjoying the game, you wouldn’t get arcs like the one Melee had.

What happened with Melee? EVO dropped the game, the FGC shunned it, and numbers were critically low. On top of that, the game was broken, very unbalanced and would not be receiving any more support. And Nintendo actively refused to support the competitive scene.

By your logic, people simply didn’t like playing the game, and it ran its natural course. But what actually happened was that a much smaller group of leaders leaders then started a “Melee Revival”, playing tournaments in people’s houses, a documentary came out that got other people interested, and the scene was built slowly into being bigger than before.

So it’s pretty clear that people are swayed by others’ actions and words. Community building has an impact, and community-destroying actions have impact. Even beyond just the game or developer themselves.

This is ignoring so much of what happened with melee.

1. Smash has INSANE casual appeal and it's something other fighters could learn from. Not just because 'oh hey my favorite character from X game can punch you in the face on wacky levels with wacky items and a fun single player', but because it's one of the few fighters that a total beginner can actually have some fun in and start, slowly, doing the right thing. Anti airs aren't done with 2HP or standing jab or whatever. You fucking hit up and attack. Want to hit them again? Here's a week and half of hitstun, go get em. It appears to be a very intuitive fighter (even if yes it's anything but).

2. Melee specifically ALSO had a shocking amount of depth that caught the kind of people who started out thinking "secret tech" was the way to go and then finding out alllll the other shit that game has going on. I mean fucking hell one of the best players in the world mains yoshi.

3. Like many games with a fuckload of depth, your main probably doesn't suck at any level you're playing at. Depends a bit on how hard they might be to use, or they could be fucking kirby, but otherwise you're probably actually having fun even if you're trying to play in a competitive way and not just screwing around.

So yes, the fighting game with THE most casual appeal by a fucking mile managed to sit on life support while the competitive community plumbed absurd depths generating all sorts of hype moments that brought eyes.

I would argue that if melee had been any other game it wouldn't have lasted at all, and is heavily responsible for the FGC still being fucking alive given how many new gen players first fighting game, even casually, was a smash title.

So yeah....if you get a monstrosity of perfect storm of casual appeal and the game not instantly shitting the bed competitively, then yes your community can keep pumping a decade later after multiple future release and plenty of attempts by the fucking parent company to kill you off.

 

[Juggs]

And how is that any different from regular moves not being punishable? How is that different from a move from the main character being super safe or plus? What you're telling me is that your issue with the Kameos are not the system in and out of itself, it's just that you don't know what to do against them. Even if some Kameo moves are that powerful, so are main character moves, but you can find solutions against them and the characters using them just fine. It's not different from Kameos.

There’s a big difference between a move a character has being balanced out to where it’s punishable but strong, so there’s a balanced risk/reward tied into it, and all downsides of the move being nullified due to a Kameo. To put it another way, when the drawbacks of a move are eliminated, the move is no longer balanced. The higher reward a move is, typically the higher the risk it should have. This is why most fck neutral moves are very punishable. But with Kameos, they aren’t. And on top of that, there’s no risk in using your Kameo either like there should be. In every single assist fighter, you can punish someone’s assist or punish them for using their assist. This isn’t the case in MK1. The only “punishment” is hitting the Kameo which makes it go away and not charge its Kameo meter for a few seconds. That’s not even a slap on the wrist, that’s a kiss on the cheek ¯\(ツ)/¯

 

[TomShane]

It's funny that you're right but also wrong, Omega Red is fucked up and would be Top Tier if not for the Four Gods haha. his chip is actually fucked up because you just use Omega Strike and Omega Destroyer to chip people, a lot of the not Four Gods can't answer that and Hell even the Gods can't outside Cable. A lot of the Marvel examples are setting off alarms in my head because they're incorrect even if the point being made is right.

Actually no. Omega Destroyer animation looks like it can deal tons of chip but in practice it's not. On block it has tons of pushback and the farther the opponent gets during the pushback the less chip damage it gets, until the opponent is full screen and the chip damage is reduced significantly. And if you hit Omega Destroyer from full screen on block, the chip damage is very, very low. Omega Destroyer is good at stuffing attacks, but not dealing chip damage.

 

[TomShane]

There’s a big difference between a move a character has being balanced out to where it’s punishable but strong, so there’s a balanced risk/reward tied into it, and all downsides of the move being nullified due to a Kameo. To put it another way, when the drawbacks of a move are eliminated, the move is no longer balanced. The higher reward a move is, typically the higher the risk it should have. This is why most fck neutral moves are very punishable. But with Kameos, they aren’t. And on top of that, there’s no risk in using your Kameo either like there should be. In every single assist fighter, you can punish someone’s assist or punish them for using their assist. This isn’t the case in MK1. The only “punishment” is hitting the Kameo which makes it go away and not charge its Kameo meter for a few seconds. That’s not even a slap on the wrist, that’s a kiss on the cheek ¯\(ツ)/¯

But that's not a problem with the system itself, it's just problem with the Kameo moves. It's a case-by-case thing, not a system thing. Just like Scorpion Kameo's F+Kameo used to be insanely unsafe at launch but then it got buffed to be very safe on block. And yes the Kameo defends the opponent, but you can still punish the opponent, just like with how it was with Scorpion Kameo before the buff. Not to mention also the vast majority of Kameo move require the cooldown meter, and some take the whole meter like Sektor Kameo's Double Missile, so you can't just spam these moves on block.

You're just confusing things because it doesn't come in the same fashion as you're used to, but it's no different than what we had so far.

 

[Juggs]

But that's not a problem with the system itself, it's just problem with the Kameo moves. It's a case-by-case thing, not a system thing. Just like Scorpion Kameo's F+Kameo used to be insanely unsafe at launch but then it got buffed to be very safe on block. And yes the Kameo defends the opponent, but you can still punish the opponent, just like with how it was with Scorpion Kameo before the buff. Not to mention also the vast majority of Kameo move require the cooldown meter, and some take the whole meter like Sektor Kameo's Double Missile, so you can't just spam these moves on block.

You're just confusing things because it doesn't come in the same fashion as you're used to, but it's no different than what we had so far.

No it is a problem with the system itself. Because like I said, in most assist games you can punish the assist. Typically because the assist is a character you use in the match because it’s a 2v2 or 3v3. MK1 is one of the only assist fighters that is a 1v1 and the assist isn’t a playable character, doesn’t have HP, etc etc. So not only do the Kameos make all these crazy fck neutral moves completely safe to where you can’t punish the character, you also can’t punish the assist aka the Kameo other than what I already mentioned, which isn’t really a punish at all. That’s why the risk/reward is so incredibly lopsided in this game. There’s virtually no risks but the rewards are massive.

 

[TomShane]

No it is a problem with the system itself. Because like I said, in most assist games you can punish the assist. Typically because the assist is a character you use in the match because it’s a 2v2 or 3v3. MK1 is one of the only assist fighters that is a 1v1 and the assist isn’t a playable character, doesn’t have HP, etc etc. So not only do the Kameos make all these crazy fck neutral moves completely safe to where you can’t punish the character, you also can’t punish the assist aka the Kameo other than what I already mentioned, which isn’t really a punish at all. That’s why the risk/reward is so incredibly lopsided in this game. There’s virtually no risks but the rewards are massive.

But once again the vast majority of these moves are on cooldown so you can't just spam the assists. In MVC1, all the assist-only characters also can be knocked out when they hit and therefore defend the main character. Also they can only be used a specific amount of times in the match and then you can't use them again, but as long as they are available you can spam them if you want, like Magneto and his EM Disruptor which can be used up to 7 times in a match, while in MK1, once again, you can't spam the majority of assists as they are all on cooldown but there's no max limit usage for them in a match. That's how the balance of the Kameos work.

You compare Kameos to actual tag team assists like MVC2 and DBFZ, while you should compare it to other games with assist only characters like MVC1 and Pokken Tournament. So yes it's not like the common type of assist, but it's not the only one of it's kind either, so you need to use the proper comparison.

 

[Juggs]

But once again the vast majority of these moves are on cooldown so you can't just spam the assists. In MVC1, all the assist-only characters also can be knocked out when they hit and therefore defend the main character. Also they can only be used a specific amount of times in the match and then you can't use them again, but as long as they are available you can spam them if you want, like Magneto and his EM Disruptor which can be used up to 7 times in a match, while in MK1, once again, you can't spam the majority of assists as they are all on cooldown but there's no max limit usage for them in a match. That's how the balance of the Kameos work.

You compare Kameos to actual tag team assists like MVC2 and DBFZ, while you should compare it to other games with assist only characters like MVC1 and Pokken Tournament. So yes it's not like the common type of assist, but it's not the only one of it's kind either, so you need to use the proper comparison.

You’re not understanding. The point in referencing DBFZ or MvC3 is to illustrate the method in which the assists are balanced in those games. In MvC1, it’s a 2v2 fighter with limited use assists. AND the assists AFAIR have one single attack. While Kameos have access to multiple different attacks that do different things. Where the only times you don’t have access to your Kameo is if they’re on cooldown. Kameos shit on every other assist in any assist game AND on top of that they can’t really be punished.

Like go down the list.

-Kameos don’t have a limited amount of uses like in MvC1

-They have access to all of their Kameo moves

-You don’t have to prepick which assist move you want to use

-They can’t be punished like in other assist fighters because they aren’t playable characters with HP

-The game is a 1v1 which makes the Kameos even stronger

-There’s virtually zero downside to using your Kameo and the opponent can’t really do anything about it

Like I said earlier, I already talked about most of this stuff in this thread MK1 isn’t your Father’s Assist Fighter. So check that out if you want more I guess context on the discussion/argument

 

[TomShane]

You’re not understanding. The point in referencing DBFZ or MvC3 is to illustrate the method in which the assists are balanced in those games. In MvC1, it’s a 2v2 fighter with limited use assists. AND the assists AFAIR have one single attack. While Kameos have access to multiple different attacks that do different things. Where the only times you don’t have access to your Kameo is if they’re on cooldown. Kameos shit on every other assist in any assist game AND on top of that they can’t really be punished.

Like go down the list.

-Kameos don’t have a limited amount of uses like in MvC1

-They have access to all of their Kameo moves

-You don’t have to prepick which assist move you want to use

-They can’t be punished like in other assist fighters because they aren’t playable characters with HP

-The game is a 1v1 which makes the Kameos even stronger

-There’s virtually zero downside to using your Kameo and the opponent can’t really do anything about it

Like I said earlier, I already talked about most of this stuff in this thread MK1 isn’t your Father’s Assist Fighter. So check that out if you want more I guess context on the discussion/argument

But the way that the balance needs to be done in a 3v3 team game with assist is different than a game with assist-only chars. Not to mention that the Kameos are also a combination of the Variations from MKX and MK11 along with the Konsumables from MK11 TOT's. That's why they all have access to several moves and not just one.

MKX Variations, MK11 Kustom Variations and MK1 Kameos are all gameplay-based customization systems, the difference between MK11 and the other two is that in MK11 you can customize individual moves while in MKX Variations and MK1 Kameos you can pick between chunks of moves, and then the difference between MKX and MK1 is that in MKX you get only 3-4 options of move chunks for a character while MK1 gives you 20 universal options of move chunks for the whole roster. This is also why the Kameos are so much better than the Variations in either MKX or MK11, because any main roster character can pick any Kameo they want.

And once again, MVC1 assists also can't be punished like in assists in MVC2 or 3 with full HP. And yes there a downside, because every Kameo can give you different options and you need to pick which set of options suits you the best. It's not like all Kameos cover all possible options.

So yes, it is different, and you can talk about the balance, but even if there are problems with the balance (and AORN, there are no really problems with the balance of either main roster chars or Kameos in MK1), it's still balance of a case by case for each Kameo or move, not the whole system in general. So no, you can't compare it to MVC2 and the like, because these are way too different. You can only either compare it to MKX, MK11, MVC1 or Pokken.

 

[just_2swift]

This is why it’s crazy that MK1 still outsells SF6, because SF6 was also released on a system that had over 100 million consoles already purchased.

Imo this may be one of the reasons why they went straight to MK instead of doing Injustice again; because if you’re releasing to a smaller console base, putting out a less popular game would be a much bigger risk.

Disagree here

 

[Vulgar]

No it is a problem with the system itself. Because like I said, in most assist games you can punish the assist. Typically because the assist is a character you use in the match because it’s a 2v2 or 3v3. MK1 is one of the only assist fighters that is a 1v1 and the assist isn’t a playable character, doesn’t have HP, etc etc. So not only do the Kameos make all these crazy fck neutral moves completely safe to where you can’t punish the character, you also can’t punish the assist aka the Kameo other than what I already mentioned, which isn’t really a punish at all. That’s why the risk/reward is so incredibly lopsided in this game. There’s virtually no risks but the rewards are massive.

I mean that has changed a fair amount since Final Kombat. The game is nowhere near as bad as Torpedo into Kano Ball as it used to be.

I think the biggest offender now might be Sektor or maybe Mavado mine?

Regardless, you can still hit Kameos most of the time and losing access to your Kameo is a pretty big deal. I think the way they've adjusted the cool downs of many of these moves makes it to where you can't absolutely spam these moves over and over again.

Sure, it feels bad to block a Sub Zero slide and get hit with a Kano Ball after or whatever. But you do realize, of course, that that is the read. They're expecting you to do a normal punish, so they're using their assist to trick you.

In this scenario, it may just be better to move onto the next level of yomi and just d2 the slide and take the Kano Ball hit.

(This is just an example.)

In any case, I've never found the argument of, "this game is different from other games like it so therefore bad" to be especially compelling.