Chernyy Volk
Wolf lord, footsie bully, chronic corner abuser.
Copying and pasting a Twitlonger. Final thoughts on the game and what's wrong with it, just gonna post tech/match videos if I ever get around to doing that shit after this.
So before everyone jumps down my throat, no, the game is not random. The average bum isn't beating Sonic. WHAT MK11 DOES DO HOWEVER, is it makes it harder for Sonic to beat a bum.
This game has an illusion of balance and an illusion of elevated competition because of how it's designed, and it's important we start a conversation about this.
MK11 is not built to allow you to win by being the better player... not essentially. Being the better player meaning
1: You have more MU knowledge than the other guy
2: You're more optimized than the other guy
3: You have more fundamental game knowledge than the other guy (character specialization and things like block punishment, gaps etc)
4: Your footsies and neutral play are better
MK11's design does everything in it's power to actively pad against these things. How does it do so? Let's examine. I think breakaway is a good place to start.
Part One: Breakaway Punishes You For Your Fundamentals
Breakaway is the easiest one to talk about and it has the highest degree of variability. Let's compare and contrast MKX and Inj2 to this scenario.
You block or whiff punish your opponent, your opponent either
1: Breaks and resets neutral in MKX, or doesn't and eats the damage. Two possibilities with 100% consistent outcomes.
2:Tries to air escape and gets re-combo'd/read and resetted, or doesn't and eats full damage. Two possibilities with 100% consistent outcomes with some variance, but the variance the player who fucked up can add into the situation is VERY high risk and can be counterplayed.
What happens in MK11?
1a: You whiff or block punish, make the read whether they break or not by choosing to commit to your launcher or not. You might completely waste a punish opportunity because you read a breakaway
1b: When did they breakaway? Now you're dealing with an inconsistent (variable) meaty situation with get up, short delay and long delay into wakeup buttons
1c: They didn't breakaway at all AND you didn't spend the bar so now you're holding the plethora of WU options and wasted a punish opportunity
1d: They broke away at a predictable time but now you have to open them up again
1e: Do they have fatal blow? Now you're dealing with a breakaway timing mixup AND an immediate get up/short delay/long delay into potential wakeup fatal blow scenario
1f: You SURRENDER THE OKI and give them back neutral
Am I the only one who sees that, so wait, my reward for my block punishment and my footsies is that I GET TO BE PUT INTO A FUCKING 6 LAYER GUESS?
In MKX and Injustice 2, there's none of this. They either break or not in MKX and your situation afterward is consistent and you're guessing armor or not. In Injustice 2 they air escape, or not, which was mostly option selectable or readable into a big reset but your situation 90% of the time was also consistent afterward and all you had to do was read wakeup or not mostly.
The thing is, in MKX and Injustice 2, the variance only starts AFTER you bag your punish reward. There is barely any punish reward by contrast in MK11. You're putting yourself into a mixup to punish people for being wrong. This is fucked up.
Part Two: Footsies require consistency, which the games neutral does not have, therefore there are no footsies.
How are the footsies inconsistent in MK11?
1: Anti airs are unreliable, even the broke ones, because they can still be beaten by imperceptible timing mixups on your jump in ON TOP OF which jump in you used.
2: Jumps are unreactable, this throws a wrench in the idea of preserving or taking ground
3: Button ranges are variable because of dash canceling. People at the highest level, even by accident, sometimes add range to their buttons when they don't mean to but it just works. This means there is no "spot" for your character to control, which is a literal defining aspect of footsies.
4: Fuck neutral moves that require complete hard reads to beat (Jacqui dash punch) or just don't have any risk to them if not used point blank (Geras sandtrap, Cet Geyser). These moves are often not even made more risky except at point blank by gaining ground against those characters.
5: The breakaway section loops into this because the one time you do make a footsie read and it works you're putting yourself in a 6 layer mixup.
Part 3: The game is all mix and setplay, or zoning with no counterplay.
1: Unreactable staggers
2: String or d1 into yolo launching special
3: Throws are 50/50's with potential explosiveness due to KB's
4: Auto shimmies
5: Mids to beat attempting to OS throws and auto shimmies
6: Flawless blocks when it's your turn
7: Point blank jump on block for either player
8: Fatal blow
9: Variable pushback based on stand or duck block + variable blockstun on tons of moves
10: Zoning tools with literally no counterplay that become no riskier depending on how close you are with pushback or plus frames
More variables in the close range game especially than MKX or Inj2.
Oh yeah, and the fatal blow minigame to boot.
MK11 lacks the ability to CONTROL people with MU knowledge and consistent punishment/neutral winning results. It's honestly the games biggest flaw, and it leaves people with the incorrect belief that the game is balanced, or that the level of competition is higher. This definitely means it's possible for Sonic, Ninja, Rewind etc to lose to a player worse than them, or possible for them to beat a player they are worse than. Even at the highest level. It's abysmal.
Let me address the bad faith TYM arguments before they come out the gate
1: No, other FG's are not this variable
2: No, most fighting games, are not like this game in it's philosophy on how it handles these things
3: No, the answer is not to react/adapt/learn the MU/lab/kill yourself. This game actively works against all of these things as I just laid out here.
4: No, not every game is hard read based or even most. MK11 is the current gen FG with the LEAST amount of ways to reduce your guesses on the market right now.
Anyways, this is my last rant on what's wrong with the game. If you disagree, you are wrong. You can like the game, but as a competitive Esport the game is not "fine". I won't respond to any arguments that try to seriously argue this.
This post also has endorsement from Buffalo who can't stand the game either lol
So before everyone jumps down my throat, no, the game is not random. The average bum isn't beating Sonic. WHAT MK11 DOES DO HOWEVER, is it makes it harder for Sonic to beat a bum.
This game has an illusion of balance and an illusion of elevated competition because of how it's designed, and it's important we start a conversation about this.
MK11 is not built to allow you to win by being the better player... not essentially. Being the better player meaning
1: You have more MU knowledge than the other guy
2: You're more optimized than the other guy
3: You have more fundamental game knowledge than the other guy (character specialization and things like block punishment, gaps etc)
4: Your footsies and neutral play are better
MK11's design does everything in it's power to actively pad against these things. How does it do so? Let's examine. I think breakaway is a good place to start.
Part One: Breakaway Punishes You For Your Fundamentals
Breakaway is the easiest one to talk about and it has the highest degree of variability. Let's compare and contrast MKX and Inj2 to this scenario.
You block or whiff punish your opponent, your opponent either
1: Breaks and resets neutral in MKX, or doesn't and eats the damage. Two possibilities with 100% consistent outcomes.
2:Tries to air escape and gets re-combo'd/read and resetted, or doesn't and eats full damage. Two possibilities with 100% consistent outcomes with some variance, but the variance the player who fucked up can add into the situation is VERY high risk and can be counterplayed.
What happens in MK11?
1a: You whiff or block punish, make the read whether they break or not by choosing to commit to your launcher or not. You might completely waste a punish opportunity because you read a breakaway
1b: When did they breakaway? Now you're dealing with an inconsistent (variable) meaty situation with get up, short delay and long delay into wakeup buttons
1c: They didn't breakaway at all AND you didn't spend the bar so now you're holding the plethora of WU options and wasted a punish opportunity
1d: They broke away at a predictable time but now you have to open them up again
1e: Do they have fatal blow? Now you're dealing with a breakaway timing mixup AND an immediate get up/short delay/long delay into potential wakeup fatal blow scenario
1f: You SURRENDER THE OKI and give them back neutral
Am I the only one who sees that, so wait, my reward for my block punishment and my footsies is that I GET TO BE PUT INTO A FUCKING 6 LAYER GUESS?
In MKX and Injustice 2, there's none of this. They either break or not in MKX and your situation afterward is consistent and you're guessing armor or not. In Injustice 2 they air escape, or not, which was mostly option selectable or readable into a big reset but your situation 90% of the time was also consistent afterward and all you had to do was read wakeup or not mostly.
The thing is, in MKX and Injustice 2, the variance only starts AFTER you bag your punish reward. There is barely any punish reward by contrast in MK11. You're putting yourself into a mixup to punish people for being wrong. This is fucked up.
Part Two: Footsies require consistency, which the games neutral does not have, therefore there are no footsies.
How are the footsies inconsistent in MK11?
1: Anti airs are unreliable, even the broke ones, because they can still be beaten by imperceptible timing mixups on your jump in ON TOP OF which jump in you used.
2: Jumps are unreactable, this throws a wrench in the idea of preserving or taking ground
3: Button ranges are variable because of dash canceling. People at the highest level, even by accident, sometimes add range to their buttons when they don't mean to but it just works. This means there is no "spot" for your character to control, which is a literal defining aspect of footsies.
4: Fuck neutral moves that require complete hard reads to beat (Jacqui dash punch) or just don't have any risk to them if not used point blank (Geras sandtrap, Cet Geyser). These moves are often not even made more risky except at point blank by gaining ground against those characters.
5: The breakaway section loops into this because the one time you do make a footsie read and it works you're putting yourself in a 6 layer mixup.
Part 3: The game is all mix and setplay, or zoning with no counterplay.
1: Unreactable staggers
2: String or d1 into yolo launching special
3: Throws are 50/50's with potential explosiveness due to KB's
4: Auto shimmies
5: Mids to beat attempting to OS throws and auto shimmies
6: Flawless blocks when it's your turn
7: Point blank jump on block for either player
8: Fatal blow
9: Variable pushback based on stand or duck block + variable blockstun on tons of moves
10: Zoning tools with literally no counterplay that become no riskier depending on how close you are with pushback or plus frames
More variables in the close range game especially than MKX or Inj2.
Oh yeah, and the fatal blow minigame to boot.
MK11 lacks the ability to CONTROL people with MU knowledge and consistent punishment/neutral winning results. It's honestly the games biggest flaw, and it leaves people with the incorrect belief that the game is balanced, or that the level of competition is higher. This definitely means it's possible for Sonic, Ninja, Rewind etc to lose to a player worse than them, or possible for them to beat a player they are worse than. Even at the highest level. It's abysmal.
Let me address the bad faith TYM arguments before they come out the gate
1: No, other FG's are not this variable
2: No, most fighting games, are not like this game in it's philosophy on how it handles these things
3: No, the answer is not to react/adapt/learn the MU/lab/kill yourself. This game actively works against all of these things as I just laid out here.
4: No, not every game is hard read based or even most. MK11 is the current gen FG with the LEAST amount of ways to reduce your guesses on the market right now.
Anyways, this is my last rant on what's wrong with the game. If you disagree, you are wrong. You can like the game, but as a competitive Esport the game is not "fine". I won't respond to any arguments that try to seriously argue this.
This post also has endorsement from Buffalo who can't stand the game either lol