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How Mortal Kombat 11's Custom Variations Will Work In Competitive Play

John Grizzly

The axe that clears the forest
I've been positive about just about everything when it comes to MK11. I've defended nearly every decision that's been made thus far. This is fucking disappointing as hell, though. I can't stress it enough.

I'm truly no longer excited about watching tournament play for this game. The default variations don't even seem complete. They always seemed like starting points to me. Like....start with this base build and add a move or two to make it your own.

The good part about this now is that the next 3 weeks can go by as slow as it wants. This really killed a lot of the hype for me. Another game with a bunch of amazingly cool moves that will never fucking see the light of day.
 

Circus

Part-Time Kano Hostage
If a move is so powerful that it creates a huge problem, then just HIGHLY limit that one ability, not the WHOLE GAME:

Amazing 2 Slot Ability:
Conflicts with Ability 1
Conflicts with Ability 3
Conflicts with Ability 5
Conflicts with Ability 6

This would be totally fine.

But limiting EVERYTHING just because of a few things is burning the house down to kill the spider.

I'm trying my best to comprehend the logic, but I just can't. There are solutions to all the problematic things here.
 

JSF

Waiting for Injustice 3
The biggest problem is the false advertising and/or misleading. If you want to have a custom variation now you have to play casual mode where someone can have augments and stat boosts like injustice 2 which most people who want something semi competitive don’t want to deal with
 
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kantboy-2

Ripper
I wanted my Kano to use command grab, combo extenders and the ball armor.

And for zoning opponents, change the knives to the eye laser.

I thought the slot cost was the balance aspect.

Did they see the UMvC3 interface at any point of development?
 

Xelz

Go over there!
So let me get this straight. Ranked will have variations. Casual will allow custom load outs plus augments. I can turn my augments off, but it's up to my opponent to turn theirs off as well. So it relies on a gentleman's agreement... which means the majority of casual games will use augments, since the player with better augments will keep theirs on. So I can't play my custom load out online without also suffering through augments?

Or the alternative is another casual mode that allows custom load outs without augments, but the player base would split across three rule sets. Ugh.

And some characters will have access to more options via 4-5 variations, while others could be restricted to just 2? How did any of this make sense during development? This is a clear case of equivocal design and wasted effort.

NRS needs to pick a lane. Either go all-in on custom load outs and balance them for competitive viability with full character selection UI support, or stick with pre-set variations and reallocate time and resources away from custom moves and use them to create refined, interesting and fun variations and spread them so no character has twice as many variations as another. I'd be content with either direction, but I'm disappointed in the game's current no-man's-land.

I want MK11 to succeed - I loved the beta, love the character designs, love the neutral and footsie focus. I worry that NRS' approach here is going to backfire, leading to confused casuals, frustrated core community members, and a penalty to review scores.

NRS, if you're reading, please think on this: stop focusing your marketing and community engagement (e.g. Kombat Kasts) on a feature that gamers won't see streamed in a tournament or play online (unless they want to get steamrolled by opponents with better augments). You're just setting up your audience for disappointment, and that never ends well.
 
The current UI around kustoms likely made this a non starter for tournaments , and it makes sense for ranked to have a ruleset similar to what we expect in offline kompetitive play.

They also hinted pretty early on they were leaning towards presets. I'd say this wasn't new info at all were it not for their acknowledgement that change was a possibility.

Nobody should be surprised that this would be the case at least at launch.

It may change and its good to give NRS our feedback, but this current freakout is unwarranted.
 
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Rathalos

Play Monster Hunter!
Deeply disappointed.
The set variations in 11 are asstastic.

If custom wasn't the standard they shouldn't have even bothered at all then.
All the preset variations are just nonsesne and feel like garbage and have no real design or flow to them, they just threw a few moves together and called it a day.
They should have just made it like X then, so at least the variations would have felt like they would make sense.

Shits garbage.
 

PapaRegadetho

All hail emperor Liucifer Kang!
This is old news guys, Ed Boon confirmed that way back in december, january in an interview with AngryJoe. You can be only mad at yourself by now.
 

Roy Arkon

I will leave my seal on you!
The current UI around kustoms likely made this a non starter for tournaments , and it makes sense for ranked to have a ruleset similar to what we except in offline kompetitive play.

They also hinted pretty early on they were leaning towards presets. I'd say this wasn't new info at all were it not for their acknowledgement that change was a possibility.

Nobody should be surprised that this would be the case at least at launch.

It may change and its good to give NRS our feedback, but this current freakout is unwarranted.
^This...

This is old news guys, Ed Boon confirmed that way back in december, january in an interview with AngryJoe. You can be only mad at yourself by now.
^.....and this.
 
This is really unfortunate. However, whichever way they decide to go with it, ranked play MUST mimic the tournament setting. If ranked allows custom and tournaments do not this game will die in record time. Too many online warriors will be ostracized by not having a reliable way to train.
 

Wetdoba

All too easy...
@16 Bit has also said on streams during the kombat kast "equip this move for a day 1 tournament." However we now know that the only game mode we can use custom equipable moves online also has augments on by default. So my question 16 Bit is in what world is someone playing in a tournament with augments on? Why are you showing these moves off on stream and paying people to animate them and create them if the intent is for them to not be used in any meaningful way?
 

JBeezYBabY

Mr. Righteous
The current UI around kustoms likely made this a non starter for tournaments , and it makes sense for ranked to have a ruleset similar to what we except in offline kompetitive play.

They also hinted pretty early on they were leaning towards presets. I'd say this wasn't new info at all were it not for their acknowledgement that change was a possibility.

Nobody should be surprised that this would be the case at least at launch.

It may change and its good to give NRS our feedback, but this current freakout is unwarranted.
Indeed it may change, but this concern is very warranted considering their whole marketing plan was based around custom variations.
 

Baygon

Noob
So let me get this straight. Ranked will have variations. Casual will allow custom load outs plus augments. I can turn my augments off, but it's up to my opponent to turn theirs off as well. So it relies on a gentleman's agreement... which means the majority of casual games will use augments, since the player with better augments will keep theirs on. So I can't play my custom load out online without also suffering through augments?
Yeah.. No... You can turn your aguments on, and its up to your oponent to do the same. So fi you are both feeling retarded you can go for agumented match.
 

Saviorself

Noob Saibot
This is a competitive game, you can try to be a unique snowflake and pick weird variations but complain once you play someone a proven moveset. Variations/custom sets are all just an illusion. People want to win and will pick strongest moves or variations.

The best choice would have been to add them all and make a complete character