Looking at some of the discussions lately, I've become really frustrated with this community. I love you guys. You know that. But I'm sorry...everyone's been pampered too much. And to be frank, you guys need to step it up.
What do I mean by pampered? Let's look at some of the discussions going on. There was a topic as of late, discussing whether Cyrax should be banned because he can spend an entire bar and create an unbreakable combo for up to, what, 50%? We still have people wanting another hotfix to change the game because shit "looks awful" and because we still think some characters need to be buffed.
You know what I think? We need to stop being babies.
I know I can't talk about being around back when there were no patches, because I'll be honest, I wasn't. However, the first games I came to play and explore first were the classics that were still played not because they were always patched up until this day, but because they were fun games still evolving because people were still putting in the effort to evolve themselves as players. Admittedly, the first game I became serious about had no tournaments. MKA. By the end of its lifespan, I was up there as one of the top players...there's only a handful of players who know that game as far inside and out as I do...several of those players are huge and influential figures within our community right now. All of it was from hard work. Exploring the limits, evolving our play as time went on...we spent hours leveling up. And you know what? At no point did we ask for rebalances of the game. Because we couldn't...we were given the game and forced to either just keep playing and just learn, or give up.
I'm kinda disgusted at the mentality we have right now. Instead of grinding our asses off and playing this game we're given...I see a lot of complaining. There's a rumored hotfix supposed to be arriving, and some stuff will be fixed with it. I have a question.
What if this hotfix doesn't come?
I'm sorry, let me ask some more questions. What if we are stuck with Cyrax being able to strip half our life and be unable to do anything about it? What if Smoke is forever blessed with the ability to strip your entire lifebar anywhere on the screen? What if we are left with Jax's absurd corner game? What if Kabal can still spam the fuck out of us? What if Quan Chi remains capable of beating you because you played proper defense?
Pretty much, what if this version of the game is the final version we will get? What will all of you guys do? Are you going to stop playing because you can't handle the bullshit? Or are you going to level up?
Let me talk about another game really quick...my favorite Street Fighter, Alpha 2. Now, in this game, basically every character is capable of taking off anywhere from 40-60% of your life, you can't do a damn thing about it if they start the combo, and they can do it in a way where basically you're losing all this damage from a 0-frame low because there is a bug where you cannot block low if you are not already blocking low when the custom combo flash goes off...or they can just walk up to you and break your guard by activating the custom combo. This same game has a universal option that allows you to spend meter to counter an opponent while still blocking...note not every character has a strong counter of this type, while some can basically on reaction, nail you from basically sweep distance for 15% (Think Cage X-Ray), or can basically solve an entire lack of a traditional reversal by just spending a bar that they can easily fill back up. Other things include a command throw that can be set up to basically be impossible to avoid and you lose like 20% everytime it lands (Kinda like Cyrax could do pre-patch). This game has a load of bullshit in it. Still played to this day in tournaments, and is arguably the best game of the Alpha series. Yet, it is pretty fucking broke lol.
What I'm trying to say is that history tells us broken shit doesn't stop people from playing these games for a long time. You think games like SFII or Tekken are innocent angels? Fuck no. And you know what? The players had to deal with it all, or they pretty much wasted their money and had to wait at the back of the line. Be lucky you guys don't have to do that, lol...get randomly touched by Cyrax and there goes your quarter taken.
We shouldn't be worrying about this stuff, because it's possibly here to stay. What we should be worrying about is improving. The level of play for MK9 has really evolved since what, 9, 10 months ago? That said, we still have a lot of room for improvement. Admittedly, a lot of the play we see can be pretty sloppy, and not just on occasion, either. At this point, we should not be able to jump so freely, our reading should be a lot quicker and more on point, and our spacing should be better. We have our work cut out for us as players. Not to mention, a lot of people still don't have experience vs at least half the cast. A huge number of characters still haven't been explored to the extent that you've seen Kabal, Jax, Reptile, Kung Lao, Kitana, etc, explored.
We need to be putting in all our efforts to pull out the full potential of this game. If we can do that, can you imagine how much funner this game will become to play? Can you imagine how this game could potentially evolve so much further than it already has, to the point where maybe some of the shit we complain about isn't even really that big a deal anymore? It's happened for other games...why can't it happen here?
I say forget about how stupid things are. Right here, right now. Let's continue to break the fuck out of this game. Let's make the gameplay become deep as the fucking ocean.
Let's level up and quit the bitching.
