Ok, my thoughs will be on this thread, loving your feedbacks so far.
Since this focused solely to gameplay, i will leave things related to graphics as i have no objections over it and i think MK graphics did pushed the envelope to the limit as back in the days when we used to look at UMK3, MK1/2 etc, it was a masterpiece
- What do you think it worked well?
1. Training mode: currently at it's peak, i does everything a training mode should do and far better than most fighting games functions, i personally think this time MK11 training mode it's the one to beat and Tekken and SF have to work to even match it's features, and i hope they keep it without changing anything, only adding to it if necessary.
2. toogle-able input timing, negative edge, crushing blows and input shortcuts : I personally think this was revolutionary, and i even considered them as assists, i played the entire MK11 with them turned off, and i think this it's the most beautiful thing NRS added to the game to brige the gap between execution players and someone who has never played a fighting game before.
3.
Tutorial Mode: Another revolutionary idea with basic to advanced fighting game concepts bridging that gap between someone who has never played a fighting game before, and the most credible way to know your way into the game, fighting game haven't got something this cool since virtua fighter 4 Evolution, on top of that, there is a small guideline to each character goal which is good (but obviously some tools are too much contraditory, but still an amazing first try).
2.What do you think it didn't?
1. Variations system: I think their approach despite of good intentions, this approach wasn't the right one as it ended up killing one thing i think MKX did well, which is expression of players who main such characters, everything is so down to earth that the game feels bland, equiable moves and such are the big culpurit as there is very little to work with, it didn't felt inspiring and some characters traits seemed a bit weird in general or lacking.
2. Poke throw Meta: This time around there is too much enfasis on throws, on top of being very dificult to avoid in this game, the intentionally designed the game and even made the throws with amazing animations with some of them even having crushing blows in it, that was a strong part of the game i personally didn't like because there was very few ways to avoid being glued into someone's pressure in this game.
3. Breakaways: Oh, easily one of the worst offenders of MK11, which was attached to another thing that made this obnoxious enough to eliminate management as everyone can escape damage he would have take for making huge mistakes, MK11 would survive better without breakaways considering the meter already refills itself (which i will touch on it soon)
4.Shop: The shopping mechanic was a disaster, don't even get me started on slotted pallete costumes instead of actually different ones which we could colour it ourselves (Huge disappointment)
What did give you mixed feelings and yet you believe it can be improved, nerfed a bit, or buffed?
What can be improved:
Krushing blows: I think some where very overused and others did not, though i think the easiest ways to implement it's by having a general rule instead for character that have a specific amount and that no character should have all KB outside of the Uppercut and punish maybe, the requirements should be around:
a) Whiffed a high uppercut KB
b) 11f Kounter Hit Krushing Blow Launcher
c) punish or whiff punish Krushing Blow Launcher
d) Failed to Break a throw Krushing Blow
e) short hop overhead whiff punish KB.
new
Krushing blows should be non breakable launchers, and instead of doing massive damage in one hit which sounds way too easy deal against anyone, they should just do less scale into a combo characters can't break for example, if a combo does 30% damage, with a KB launcher should scale less and allow the combo to go 10% to 15% damage more, and the punished shouldn't be able to break.
Short hops: I feel like they tried but maybe out of pride, they updated short hops in the wrong way, the move should have invincibility startup against lows and special mids (which is what d1 should have been) instead are the short hop attacks that have this possibility, i think this change wasn't a good one in the end, but i do like short hops in general, i was just expecting the mecanic to be a bit more fluid.
High Jail mechanic(turn highs into special mids): Its a mechanic that went under the radar in MKX and if you haven't played specific characters in MK11 i but you even noticed it was there, i like it for what it does, as it helps characters with less fast and strong mids to condtion better when their move hits, however, just hope they give these characters better highs next time to actually make high jail a bit more relevant in the game, or better high jail special cancels for that matter.
Commitment strings with better goals: I defend the usage of dificulty in a game as a barrier to something that should be strong, in MKX the perfect commital string was Kung Lao's 1,1 212, 4 string, as it was crucial to his pressure game, buildng meter, break armor and really just a good overall offence tool, it was a challenge to use and if you did, you would unlock part of Kung Lao MKX amazing offence.
However in MK11 his comital string doesn't have any purpose, i mean the first 3 hits are high and duckable and don't jail on block which doesn't led the string flourish in to the flurry fist part which is supposed to make it's usability good, this was a bad idea.
Kitana Komital string (B231) suffers the same problem, as it does nothing for her ouside of having a bland offense as it's not diable and it's easily her only good string in the game which is locked behind uncessary execution.
Commitment strings should have purpose and not just being made for the sake of being there, this is how it felt in MK11
What should be nerfed or re-thinked
Advancing strings: I hate it, and i think they have been more ridiculous the further NRS advances as a game, it kills the concept of proper spacing and when the use normals, instead almost every character can advance 10 to 15 feet into the opponent with a 10 or 11 frame command normal, that leads to a string which each attack covers absurd distances, sometimes you jump over these and you see them moving across the stage and can't even be whiff punished properly.
Strings that look like a wall , with hitbox all over the place: On top of ridiculous space coverage some of these strings can't be ducked or jumped off once they're used, the hitbox is just all over the place and can clip you if you jump, duck in most scenarios, we even obviously had moves hitting at the back of some characters
Flawless block attacks: I loved the idea and i still do, and i think they are an alternate way of use armor (which i think they could return), but i also think they went a bit too far with this one, when i first though about flawless blocks, the idea of a perfect defense in the game was to negate chip, and prevent the opponent to build any meter if a move is flawless blocked, and that was it, that was the solely purpose.
Instead we have flawless block in a game where meter regenerates on its own, and has a launcher option and a anti pressure option, even if i still to like them, flawless block clearly should not be aplicable when a character was supposed to be on a jailed situation, which unfortunately does, and there is no such thing as a frame trap in the game, hopefully if the mechanic returns flawless block needs to be tweaked and for the love of god no more uber fast flawless block attacks that can't even be countered even if predicted with reversals.
What was a step forward?
Match Data: Easily the most usable thing in MK11, each game you do, the game catalogs everything, your hit rate,, which move propriety you hit your opponent the most with (high, lows mids and even throws, projectiles or normals), the amout of times you flawless blocked anything, punishing rate and so on, i can see their building upon this as it work as metric data players can use to further improve themselves in certain matchups or more.
what was a step backwards?
Meter System (building on its own): I know i will probably be crucified for this, as we've seen an explanation of how obnoxious batman was, but this "soluction" isn't great either, which instead not only reverses the roles but brings other issues into the game which i will gladly highlight:
a) 0 consequence of Meter Management: With character who were little to no dependent of meter, some of these were also really good at keeping opponents at bay to not only build such bars but to always have at the disposal when commiting some risks, and when they were to get caught into a big launcher they always had breakaway at their disposal, killing the momentum of that one chance they had.
b) Characters with insane offence having their meter refilled even without touching you, liu Kang, Cetrion, Jaccqui which ended up being who they were in the game., well rounded, and in a game with meter they would probably be meter hunger and be a bit more passive of their offence, but in MK11, they just hack away, their amplified attack is so good that it builds back on its own.
c) Breakaway having a bar of it own, which was once mixed and required management, now well rounded characters who can spend their offense bar as much as they like because it builds back up, will mostly have breakaways as well as meter management it's no longer a concern.
The idea of splitting this bar into 3 brought huge problems to MK11, it made the game very toxic and it definitely didn't help this game, specially when all of them build back up and some of these amplifieds or fatal blows radius are broken.
I dunno what they're going to do next, but if you have refilling meter in a game maybe they should not have breakway in the game game?
Maybe they should have adding refill time to certain moves instead of everything growing back faster than roots in every single move?
Very graphic violence on fatalites and what not: Meh, i don't cope with that and it made me feel disgust most of the time, every KB, Interactable KB and fatalities in the game were pretty disturbing (specially the fatalties) and really hope they done down a bit from that, most of the time i end up not using it, and when someone did i had to just head out.
Jumping: Jump in MK11 feels much worse compared to MKX and MK9 all together, it's very hard to anti-air in this game, even if you know the attack is coming, with the mobility nerf, it makes jump attacks even stronger and much harder to deal with.
There is also jump attacks that feels sluggish, as it doesn't allow you to jump specials or certain things on reaction and this is the worst jump felt in a MK competitve game
What should be scrapped?
Definitely fatal blows, i gotta be honest, on top of being an comeback mechanic, the cinematic gets boring overtime which kills the momentum of the game, in MK9 Xrays were fast and swift, which i loved it, but in MK11 Fatal Blows are just injustice supers with added time of stage transitions.
They also have pushback on block despite being unsafe, and grow back, making some toxic characters even more toxic to deal with.
Variations system too: I miss the time were we got complete characters, now we have them in portions and some of them are not even atractive enough to play the game.
And finally, what do you preview for MK12 based on what we experienced in MK11?
I honestly dunno what they are gonna do next, just hope they stablish some rules and stick with it, improve their mechanics based on data they have already gather instead of adding some new shit that will give us headaches later on.
If there is an MK game in the works, it will be hard to predict which direction they will take with it, considering what MK11 was, but more about that in a future thread.
