How To Fix MK11: Breakaway

[Chernyy Volk]

 

[OutworldKeith]

Take it out the game @Chernyy Volk lol. It’s the only way to fix it!

 

[John Grizzly]

Breakaway is one of the leading offenders in why I dislike this game and it bores me to absolute tears.

Oh...you just hit your Krushing Blow with your weak character (cough Shao Kahn cough)? Go fuck yourself, you're not getting your damage.

At least with Breakers and whatever the flip out mechanic was called in INJ2, there was a strategy involved. In MK, you could find unbreakable combos for those situations where your opponent had breaker. If you thought your opponent was going to flip out of a combo in INJ, you could punish them for doing so and re-launch them.

We knew this was a bad mechanic even back in the beta when people were breaking away, standing up and punishing you for trying to finish a combo.

Edit: I'm watching this video now and I repeated some of the points Chernny made. My bad.

 

[deathblooms2k4]

I think the mechanic while brain dead defensively add's depth offensively. At least from a conceptual stand point. You have carry combos, max damage corner combos and with breakaway you have juggle and non juggle combos.

Of course if you remove the mechanic you're going to level the playing field a bit, with less depth it becomes easier to balance. Which I think speaks to the main issue here which is less the mechanic and more of how it skews balance between characters who do well against it versus those who do not.

My main suggestion would be not to remove the mechanic so much as to provide tools to punish players who use it when you make the correct read.

 

[fr stack]

Its downside is that it is a down plus block input ! So many times i get hit by a fireball as an anti air or whatever fullscreen and will waste by breakaway cause i instinctively hold down when i get hit that way it fucking sucks lol

 

[Zviko]

Its downside is that it is a down plus block input ! So many times i get hit by a fireball as an anti air or whatever fullscreen and will waste by breakaway cause i instinctively hold down when i get hit that way it fucking sucks lol

And when you do need it it doesn't work right? Me too. Other than that I'm fine with it.

 

[MR_Footloose]

Question: How to fix MK11?
Answer: Remaster MK9

 

[CY MasterHavik]

You can bait it out.

 

[MKF30]

Breakers>>>>>>>>>>>>>Break Aways

 

[Eddy Wang]

esiest way to bait is never do a KB combo while they have it, to a regular combo, if they break it (which 80% of the ppl do) now you can start doing anything you want even strings with gaps.

 

[theotherguy]

if they break it (which 80% of the ppl do) now you can start doing anything you want even strings with gaps.

Exactly. Isn't this the whole point behind the mindgames of breakaway and defensive meter management?

If you get a whiff punish juggle, bravo... but why should you then expect to consolidate that punish after a breakaway by the opponent? They took their turn back at that point at the risk of losing defensive options.

You fucked up by not reading that they had that as an option.

So as above, do something that forces them to not have it, and then go for broke with all the juggles you want at which point all they can do is just watch.

 

[Chernyy Volk]

Exactly. Isn't this the whole point behind the mindgames of breakaway and defensive meter management?

If you get a whiff punish juggle, bravo... but why should you then expect to consolidate that punish after a breakaway by the opponent? They took their turn back at that point at the risk of losing defensive options.

You fucked up by not reading that they had that as an option.

So as above, do something that forces them to not have it, and then go for broke with all the juggles you want at which point all they can do is just watch.

I addressed why this isn't a a very good strategy if you watched the video. Being without defense meter IS NOT a big deal.

 

[Chernyy Volk]

esiest way to bait is never do a KB combo while they have it, to a regular combo, if they break it (which 80% of the ppl do) now you can start doing anything you want even strings with gaps.

Most gap strings can be poked/jabbed out of into full combo.

Also, the fact you said this tells me you never even watched the video cause I addressed this. Not having defense meter is not a big deal in this game. It's not enough of a penalty for FUCKING STRAIGHT UP.

 

[Shirakani]

While I don't like the breakaway mechanic either, its going to throw the balance out of whack if they simply remove it. Right now some characters like say, Scorpion, have combos that you cannot breakaway from due to them being 100% grounded. This is the also the basis of why characters like Scorp have lower overall combo damage than your Jacquis and Geras' etc since their combos, while highly damaging, can be broken away from.

If they're going to remove breakaway completely then the balance of the entire cast will have to be reassessed... and since we know NRS can't balance a perfectly square block on an airport runway... the less rebalancing they're required to attempt the better.

 

[SonicNinja3532]

While I don't like the breakaway mechanic either, its going to throw the balance out of whack if they simply remove it. Right now some characters like say, Scorpion, have combos that you cannot breakaway from due to them being 100% grounded. This is the also the basis of why characters like Scorp have lower overall combo damage than your Jacquis and Geras' etc since their combos, while highly damaging, can be broken away from.

If they're going to remove breakaway completely then the balance of the entire cast will have to be reassessed... and since we know NRS can't balance a perfectly square block on an airport runway... the less rebalancing they're required to attempt the better.

This is kinda false, scorpion has breakable combos that do just as much if not more than them so the balance of that isn’t really in question. If breakaways were changed it wouldn’t really effect anyone balance wise since virtually every character has 30% breakable bnbs anyway, and anyone who doesn’t never had high damaging unbreakable stuff to begin with.

 

[Shirakani]

This is kinda false, scorpion has breakable combos that do just as much if not more than them so the balance of that isn’t really in question. If breakaways were changed it wouldn’t really effect anyone balance wise since virtually every character has 30% breakable bnbs anyway, and anyone who doesn’t never had high damaging unbreakable stuff to begin with.

Scorpion was just an example of someone who can effectively bypass the breakaway system by having a pure grounded combo. My point is not everyone has these which is also arguably part of the problem. A combo breaker system should work on ALL combos, not just certain types. To put it another way, Scorpion is probably an example of unfairness as since breakaway is the only real combo escape in this game, the fact he has combos that cannot be escaped with breakaway is a problem.

Not sure who came up with the system but sheesh, combo breakers WORKED... don't try to fix what was working FFS.

 

[Kiss the Missile]

I think they should add some sort of Recapture property to certain normals/specials. A move that would normally do low damage and end a combo early, but if it hits a Breakaway it breaks their armor and restands them for a full punish. Similar to a Killer Instinct Counter-Breaker. It sounds strong, but considering Breakway lets you punish certain characters during their combos (Scorpion, Kabal, Joker) I feel like an equally punishing system would balance it out.

 

[Eddy Wang]

Most gap strings can be poked/jabbed out of into full combo.

Also, the fact you said this tells me you never even watched the video cause I addressed this. Not having defense meter is not a big deal in this game. It's not enough of a penalty for FUCKING STRAIGHT UP.

Your videos are kinda hard to watch tbh. sometimes you take way too long to go to the point, which turns me off.

Not every string with gap can be jabbed out only a few, but as far as i know, even the characters with gaps on those strings that can be jabbed out don't single handly depend on them to open someone up.

 

[Chernyy Volk]

Your videos are kinda hard to watch tbh. sometimes you take way too long to go to the point, which turns me off.

Not every string with gap can be jabbed out only a few, but as far as i know, even the characters with gaps on those strings that can be jabbed out don't single handly depend on them to open someone up.

I mean I dunno how to accomodate your attention span. This shit can't be talked about in a short sound byte =/

 

[Eddy Wang]

I mean I dunno how to accomodate your attention span. This shit can't be talked about in a short sound byte =/

will see, i do think though, this game doesn't really need breakaways anyway lol

 

[DarksydeDash]

Personally, I'd make breakaways only once per round. That way it REALLY makes it rewarding when you land the hit.

Either that, or you make it so amplified specials can't be broken away from.

 

[Marinjuana]

Pressure on that hard knockdown!

 

[Marinjuana]

This is kinda false, scorpion has breakable combos that do just as much if not more than them so the balance of that isn’t really in question. If breakaways were changed it wouldn’t really effect anyone balance wise since virtually every character has 30% breakable bnbs anyway, and anyone who doesn’t never had high damaging unbreakable stuff to begin with.

Well every character in the game gets a ton of damage from their launch D2 KB, sometimes a massive amount. Various other KB's launch. There's a bunch of combo paths that are only granted with launches. Some characters are made without a lot of mix/neutral but can launch for huge damage, those characters are made with breakaways in mind. Breakaways are part of the reason that low damage characters can exist.

I think removing breakaway would affect the balance negatively partly because you have characters like Kano in the same game as Shao Khan, but it also changes the balance of the meta towards explosive damage with full D2 KB combos and all the works.

I personally think the mechanic is really great, and certainly more interesting then combo breakers.

 

[ExpectFlames]

Exactly. Isn't this the whole point behind the mindgames of breakaway and defensive meter management?

If you get a whiff punish juggle, bravo... but why should you then expect to consolidate that punish after a breakaway by the opponent? They took their turn back at that point at the risk of losing defensive options.

You fucked up by not reading that they had that as an option.

So as above, do something that forces them to not have it, and then go for broke with all the juggles you want at which point all they can do is just watch.

With the edition of joker it kinda proves this point moot though. The point of your argument correct me if I'm wrong is "beat breakaway by planning better" joker probably beingthe chief offender of this NEVER EVER has to worry about break aways. You either end your launch in low bat or JIB free everytime after every combo, kollector who never launches and a few others. Basically you have characters that bypass the mechanics all together and if were talking balence that's seems a little wrong.
I think break away can be fixed just make it so the armor actually has a hit ending like 2 hits of armor or 3 instead of being infinite. Like if you launched someone with a d2 KB if they had to guess " is kang gonna f4xflykick or 12x12into bullshit" wouldnt have to change much with the system and honestly it probably wouldn't play to differently and I think that's the Cruz of why these threads keep popping up, I had a guy screaming at me on mic for never doing combos. I'm like "my guy you broke away every single time you had meter" the game deincentivazes combos in that regard especially since it auto regenerates.
In conclusion totally fixable but they probably won't touch it which is unfortunate.

 

[ExpectFlames]

As far as kollector goes, we really need a grounded break, it's a simple depth thing and maybe we dont absolutely need it,and I think I wanna differentiate grounded and unbreakable combos maybe it should be different. I'm fine with FB cancel combos but fuck that getting 35 percent cause you guessed wrong nonsense.