Issues with Shang. Both personal and actual bugs

[SixPathsOfHate]

I was having a character crisis when I saw the character line up and was getting worried I wouldn't have anyone to play. I love my evil characters but I also love my zoning and none of the characters gave real good zoning vibes. Rain looked like a shit zoner from the moment I saw him and Ashrah.... anyways, when they showed Shang I was so happy. He also had a ""layer of complexity"" to him with his form change so maybe people wouldn't whine if I started zoning cause ChArAcTeR HaRd. That wasn't the case cause people just don't like zoning. W/E

Shang is fun to play when he works but even at his best, he still feels really clunky. I don't know who pissed in whose cereal at NRS but damn they really didn't like Shang. He's a buggy ass mess to keep it short.

I wouldn't recommend the character for the bugs alone. These bugs have existed since the start of the game BAR 1 the one where he goes invisible between rounds when walking back. That one can stay and is funny. They could maybe make it an Easter Egg of you playing Sysoth instead of Shang since they do have an interaction like that.
The other bugs are gameplay bugs and IMO massive ones. It makes him so much harder to play than I'm sure even they intended. I honestly wish someone could fix it through mods to show it could be done. I only use Unity and MK1 is in Unreal and probably a customized version. W/E

The fact no one plays this character only makes it more annoying to find bugs.
Bug Report link below. Please vote for it so these bugs can be fixed.

https://mortalkombat1.bugs.wbgames.com/bug/MK1-3016

Now lets also get into the weird choices they made for his kit.
Neutral Form Change has startup/recovery.

Why though? What sense does this make? You can do everything besides Guard while Form Changing with no stops inbetween. It feels like forced punishment for form changing with no action. Stephanie even mentioned you're suppose to be swapping between forms. This wouldn't be too much of an issue if the input bugs didn't exist. It's not like it builds meter either.
Solution - Make neutral form change instant.


Form Change Lock Out is too long.

The lock out duration is way too long. A combo like this isn't all that hard. The hardest part is how close you are to the Lock Out duration.
It's not like form changing cuts the recovery time down. It simply changes your move set. Morph also shares the same Lock Out timer as regular Form Change so if I EX Morph into the opponent's Shang for extra damage and try to do a Form Change string right after, I won't get the string. It's so dumb!
Solution - Cut the lock out time in half. Separate Morph and Form Change lock out duration


Morph feels really worthless this time around.

Normally Morph would make matchups 5-5 but that was because every game up until now had been 1v1's. Morphing is just too situational as you may not have a good Kameo for the stolen character. I wouldn't want to morph into Johnny Cage if I have Motaro. Morphing in general feels convoluted.

1. Get enough of an advantage to morph
2. Know how to play their character with YOUR Kameo
3. Adjust mid fight to the situation you're in with a new character+kameo
4. Try to find advantage to revert back

An example of a common morph situation that doesn't involve a Kameo would be: Shang morphs into Kitana to use Wind Bomb then morph back. The wind bomb is gone before you even get to do a fireball because the whole sequence takes so long.
Solution - Make morphing smoother

1. Change the Morph/Un-morph input to Up+Stance Switch. Have it function exactly like Form Change. Easier input that accomplishes the same goal.
2. Have the morph lock out be double the lock out duration of Form Change now.

I would happily take a 30% damage reduction to Non-EX Morph damage and a reduction in morph duration in exchange for smoothly moving in and out of move sets. That's where the real technical challenge will come from.
EX Morph could make the damage normal and have the morph duration match current Non-EX Morph duration.
EX Injection would act the same was as current, giving the damage boost and increased duration.
Concerns - How would it work if you did a string into morph? It will just stop the string unless you cancel it into a special that the morph form has. For example. Shang doesn't have a BF3 input but Liu Kang does. You could do F4121 Morph BF3 Un-Morph. It would be a mix of Shang's form change and Shinnok's special steal.


Triple Fireball/Far Ground Skull Input seems hard for the sake of being hard.

Can I do the input? Yea. Is it easier than doing DF HOLD F or BDF? Hell no. Currently, if you mess up the DBF input you get Double Fireball which isn't terrible but you also get Close Ground Skull which is the terrible and makes no sense when you consider you're trying to get Far Ground Skull.
Solution - Make the input DF Hold F1 or BDF1
Either solution would be fine. It would be easier to slide on a D-Pad/Analog/Joystick. If you mess up you will get Mid Ground Skull which has more of a chance to hit than a Close Ground Skull.
Sorry for the weird formatting. I just needed to get this out in some way and I kept putting it off.

 

[M2Dave]

Unfortunately, NRS does not have a good track record fixing quality of life issues that you outlined accurately and concisely.

The community had to complain incessantly to fix issues such as breathing hitboxes, male versus female hitboxes, disappearing hitboxes, player 1 advantage, delay from block punishment, etc.

Perhaps a more recent and relevant example in line with this thread is Dr. Fate, whose best advancing normal attack is f+2. However, d,f+2 is the notation for "Breath of Life" (i.e., healing), so Dr. Fate players would constantly perform healing when they clearly meant to perform f+2 out of crouch. I recall BDon, the best Dr. Fate player at one point, losing games and sets because of NRS's horrendous control scheme and their utter refusal to address the issue in spite of numerous requests.

I am not convinced that NRS understands the fact that execution ought not be linked to bizarre control schemes, input bugs, camera angles, etc. Shang Tsung has an interesting gameplay design whose execution should derive from the player's knowledge of spacing, the ability to switch and use the right stance at the right time as well as the ability to morph freely and intuitively while knowing how to utilize your opponent's character. I feel like some of these aspects mostly function properly (i.e., zoning and stance switching) while others, mostly the morphing, should be less restrictive because of the reasons that you summarized well.

 

[DixieFlatline78]

How are these bugs?

 

[LEGEND]

I'll never understand why they changed close skull from DU input to DB. Far skull should just be DF

I think most of these "bugs" are really just bad design choices. Which is a shame because they did a great job with the rest of him.

 

[SixPathsOfHate]

How are these bugs?

After testing Omni-Man/Nitara who both have a similar input to Shang's Form Change, they cant use the input from their air dash for another input. This pushes it down from a potential bug to an QoL change as Dave mentioned.

As for the F4121, this makes no sense to me. Especially when you are doing the same input regardless, just slightly delayed. This makes no sense when looking at how dial up works in this game. No other character has this type of interaction either so I cant test other cases.

Camera thing is a straight bug. Imma need you to look again because LITERALLY after the ground skull connects, the camera stops tracking upwards for the rest of the match.

The triple fireball input change is a QoL suggestion.

Unfortunately, NRS does not have a good track record fixing quality of life issues that you outlined accurately and concisely.

The community had to complain incessantly to fix issues such as breathing hitboxes, male versus female hitboxes, disappearing hitboxes, player 1 advantage, delay from block punishment, etc.

Perhaps a more recent and relevant example in line with this thread is Dr. Fate, whose best advancing normal attack is f+2. However, d,f+2 is the notation for "Breath of Life" (i.e., healing), so Dr. Fate players would constantly perform healing when they clearly meant to perform f+2 out of crouch. I recall BDon, the best Dr. Fate player at one point, losing games and sets because of NRS's horrendous control scheme and their utter refusal to address the issue in spite of numerous requests.

I am not convinced that NRS understands the fact that execution ought not be linked to bizarre control schemes, input bugs, camera angles, etc. Shang Tsung has an interesting gameplay design whose execution should derive from the player's knowledge of spacing, the ability to switch and use the right stance at the right time as well as the ability to morph freely and intuitively while knowing how to utilize your opponent's character. I feel like some of these aspects mostly function properly (i.e., zoning and stance switching) while others, mostly the morphing, should be less restrictive because of the reasons that you summarized well.

This game is just such a hot mess. I didnt even know about the Dr. Fate's input issue.

I fully agree with your last point. I think they're trying to capture that, "Hard execution = good FG" crowd. Even SF learned that there isnt anything wrong with simplified inputs, I truly think someone at NRS are purposefully trying to kill this game.

I'll never understand why they changed close skull from DU input to DB. Far skull should just be DF

I think most of these "bugs" are really just bad design choices. Which is a shame because they did a great job with the rest of him.

I hate complaining about the input because it just invites the, "git gud" crowd.

As for the form change "bug". I will retract it being a bug and put it in more of a QoL change.

 

[LEGEND]

I hate complaining about the input because it just invites the, "git gud" crowd.

As for the form change "bug". I will retract it being a bug and put it in more of a QoL change.

Its definitely consistent with practice, but they already had a clean input format for the same moves on the same character. So changing it just seemed weird to me.

 

[SixPathsOfHate]

Its definitely consistent with practice, but they already had a clean input format for the same moves on the same character. So changing it just seemed weird to me.

I've never played a character in an NRS game that did what Shang does now. It just seems like bad practice.

 

[PrinceGoro]

Idk if making morph function as form switch would be a good choice,could it even be technically possible?

you do have a point about morhp being impacted by your kameo choice,but at the same time morph doesnt seem to be a strategy he revolvs around,its kind off a side thing he can do when he wants,its not like if you cant utilize morph in a match then shang loses and cant do shit about it.

its challenging and takes time to figure out its proper applications not only based on the matchup but you also have to know to play the other character,so because the useses are not evident from the start its easy to just say yeah this is shit and ussless and needs to change.

considering you can combo into moprh and continue the combo with the other character makes the morph already pretty accessible,so i dobt think it being identical to form change is needed.

The thing that stops me from using morph is me not knowing how to play the other character,its not because what needs to be done to succssefully morph,i mean you can get it from his standard bnb for a bar and still continue the combo as the other character.

there is an easy version f4121xxdf1,4xxdf1,4xxdb1,df1EX,morph and you can continue the combo.

and the hard version i think doesnt work anymore,im not sure,i will need to lab this more but i was able to do,though it was pretty hard,f4121xxdf1,4xxdf1,4xxdf1,f4,db1EX,dbf1,df1,db1,morph,and then 1xxspear(as scorpion and continue the combo),i tried this recently and couldnt do it,but in any case even if its not possible,you still get amazing damage into safe morph setup with them knockdown and right next to you.(just to clarify the only hard part here was connecting standing 1 after morph the rest of the combo is standard shang bnb that you land like 10/10 times).

I play shang with goro so if i morph,goro is kinda usable with all characters because of that up punch,though yes the kameo aspect definetly nakes morph worse in this games because of how important char and kameo synergy is.

Im no crazy pro or competative player,but these are my experiqnces with morph,i feel like its pretty accessible to morph,the thing thats stopping me in a particular match up to morph is knowing how to use the other character.
Maybe to have a bit more incentive to morph they could make the regular version of morph give you something too,maybe increased meter gain.