MKX "3-styles" - good or bad?

[Belial]

LOL @ telling the guy who works for SRK to "play at some competetive(sic) level".

And by the way, I've taken Blanka to top 8 before so I know a thing or two about bad matchups.

The problem is that you don't realize that, to remove unique matchups is to create what is basically a flat game. What happens is that you just approach almost every matchup in the exact same way instead of having to adjust and figure out how to deal with it. This is because, the only true way to remove matchups is to have a fighting game with ONLY ONE CHARACTER. Even if you give that character all the options in the world, people will eventually end up finding playing almost the exact, same optimized way.

Or we can simply have variations unlocked, just like it is in any other fighting game with variations.

Stop thinking that this is some brand new thing that NRS has cooked up. It's not.

So working for SRK make you a top player or some sort of expert? As far as I can tell you definitely lack manners and do not bother to back up your claims with anything but insults to your opponent.
So okay you've played competetivly, faced some bullshit and now you want to have more bullshit. How in the world giving Raiden all his styles wouldnt make him unique?
Unique character does not necesarily mean "character who can only do zoning" or "character, who can only fight in melee". There are already melee characters like Kotal Khan in MKX, having all styles wouldnt make him "all rounder" rather he would have more options.
If Ruy in SF only had DP and Ken only had Fireball and I said "hey Capcom would be nice to have both b/c that would let you play a more diverse game" you would counter by saying "WTF but Ken wont be free to jumps then it wont be fun then, game would be flat then"?
Since you are bringing up "Im a star" arguement, look up my previous post it lists my accomplishments. I am a far better FG player than you are, so pls dont treat me as an idiot ok?
Im not asking for a flat cast if anything makes game flat and simple is lack of character tools. Why in the world would anyone think that having less options is better than having more is completely beyond me, probably b/c you enjoy suffering and playing ridiculous footsie game (like Snakeeyes at EVO). I would be asking for a flat game if I wanted all characters to have the same moves. So far all reveals have completely different approach to counter melee/zoning etc in their stances I cant really graps how that would make game flat if they had it all.

 

[WakeUp DP]

Why in the world would anyone think that having less options is better than having more is completely beyond me...

because MMH... we dont want all chars to have every tool possible or well ended up with bs chars like MMH or Kabal lol.

 

[Zatoichi]

I like the variety, variety is good, variety keeps things from getting boring.

 

[Hini]

because MMH... we dont want all chars to have every tool possible or well ended up with bs chars like MMH or Kabal lol.

Frankly Kabal and MMH are BS characters because they have a shit ton of tools and options while other characters dont. Its the disparity of avaiable tools that make them crazy, not the amount.

 

[WakeUp DP]

Frankly Kabal and MMH are BS characters because they have a shit ton of tools and options while other characters dont. Its the disparity of avaiable tools that make them crazy, not the amount.

The point is they have good tools to deal with everything which makes them OP and we dont want that lol. chars need to have weaknesses and strengts in order to be balanced and that is what the OPs doesnt get.

 

[Shark Tank]

If they let go of this concept...(which they can't, It is too late, they've already designed around it and marketed it too much for them to drop it. The game is further along than what they show in trailers or demos) than they are going to have to back to the drawing board and rethink what they give characters because you can't just scrap the variation select and let raiden have everything he has now because he was never designed to have that all at once. The ramifications for that are HUGE, high damage+offensive game+insane oki. It's not so simple. Things are going to need to be redesigned., Not just for characters now made, but for characters that are going to be made that have their assets planned out.

Ofcourse this is still me speculating because I don't know if raidens traps won't suck, just like I don't know if it's all false choices and the characters will really only have one good variations and the rest get bodied. Or your extreme that all variations body different variations and it's a game on 9-1/1-9 matchups. Or it's a mix and some characters variations are more varied than others so some characters have only one good variation, some have one that's the most well rounded and variations that are situational, or you have a character that's variations literally turn a 1-9 into 1 9-1.

By the way, A single frame can change a whole lot about a normal. That's not considering hitboxes and things like damage/stun how it cancels etc. Don't undersell normals in 2d games, it does have a huge impact.

 

[NRF CharlieMurphy]

LOL @ telling the guy who works for SRK to "play at some competetive(sic) level".

And by the way, I've taken Blanka to top 8 before so I know a thing or two about bad matchups.

The problem is that you don't realize that, to remove unique matchups is to create what is basically a flat game. What happens is that you just approach almost every matchup in the exact same way instead of having to adjust and figure out how to deal with it. This is because, the only true way to remove matchups is to have a fighting game with ONLY ONE CHARACTER. Even if you give that character all the options in the world, people will eventually end up finding playing almost the exact, same optimized way.

Or we can simply have variations unlocked, just like it is in any other fighting game with variations.

Stop thinking that this is some brand new thing that NRS has cooked up. It's not.

Stop thinking that is what i'm thinking

I know it isn't new...... but to ...... 99% of the people who are going to play MK it is new.

 

[NRF CharlieMurphy]

The point is they have good tools to deal with everything which makes them OP and we dont want that lol. chars need to have weaknesses and strengts in order to be balanced and that is what the OPs doesnt get.

They don't even necessarily have to have a weakness... if the games mechanics are good, then just having strengths can make the game balanced.... as long as the strength isn't exposing something outside the realm of the mechanics.

 

[Belial]

Ok let's get away from attacking the OP because I guarantee that he had better credentials and better results in other fighting games than 99.9% of the people that posted in this thread. So show some respect.

Next for the OP, you need to realize that having all the tools available would be damn near impossible to balance. Each style has its own inherent strengths and weaknesses. The goal is not to have a jack of all trades character, but for each character variations to have their distinct flavor, matchup advantages and disadvantages. NRS sometimes fucks up and we get shit characters at the bottom of the barrel but recently as shown by injustice the balance is getting far better than MK9 was. If this trend continues then future NRS games will be far more enjoyable to play and watch. They still need to patch after 6 months but that's a different topic.

In reality the variations give more depth to gameplay because you are forced to maximize the potential of the variation you have chosen for good and bad matchups instead of just changing variations on the fly and making things easier. Plus each variation for the characters seem to be very unique and not brain-dead.

I think I might have started off the wrong foot
NRS should really do better job at balancing their games, b/c like I said the whole Idea of "counterpick" is only possible in a scenario where
1) 7-3 MU exist
2) Characters are very easy to learn
Which is what we observe in MK9 and INGAU

So when I realized that instead of fighting disbalance they patch it up with encouraging counterpicks that sort of dazzled me. Maybe in the end game would turn out amazing and fun, but the way they promote this feature just doesnt sound right.
I played many games and I know by experience having more stuff is better than having less. Characters do need weakness, but there still should be a way for them to overcome even bad MU. Thats what developers must think about: "If this characters is very melee focused how is he going to fight zoners?" at the same time when they create zoner they should think about how melee characters will do vs them. Capcom does thats why melee might spend 60 seconds to get near and then kill in 5. But NRS create zoners that have ridiculous melee, there is just too many flaws in their design.
For example bat girl. When I first saw her I was inspired, her trait seemed like a very interesting tool (it allows to switch stance between chip damage and extra combo damage), but then I realized she is a vortex character, she doenst need chip damage, she kills off 50/50. Chip damage is good for a character w/o mixup, char with low damage and weak juggles, but which has great frametraps and block pressure and occasionally switches to "damage boost" stance to end a round. So that it'd be hard to shake off her pressure, but the risk for guessing wrong wont be very high.
And its just one example out of many

A lot of ppl here are deluded, thinking its OK to have counterpicks. Counterpicks is not good. It is good when you have to explore MU and find a way to beat your opponent char with your char. But it is bad when its easier to just grab Aquaman(or variation B). And its far from hype. I felt that with 3-style thing NRS were avoiding the problem, rather than fixing it. Maybe its just NRS and nothing could be done. Anyway, I feel that I've said everything I wanted, its up to you guys agree or not.

Thank you all for your feedback anyway, it was very educational to read how people feel about this.

 

[Pho Cubic]

If someone wants to be a counterpicking asshole, they will do it.

It doesn't matter whether they counterpick using a different variation of the same character or using a different character altogether. The variations change nothing in regards to counterpicking. What variations DO allow is you to not have to have a pocket Kabal/Kenshi when your main character sucks and/or doesn't fit your playstyle.

There is very little any developer (in this case NRS) can do to stop people from tier whoring & counterpicking. Apart from tournament officials holding a gun to your head on the character select screen, it will never go away.

 

[Superi0rMagik]

So why don't you make a poll and see what people vote?

Swindle: why not, actually? its a long time till release and NRS listens to community
Even if it doesnt change much it will still show them how we feel and if we prove right, they might just change that next time. Or be a better listener next time.

 

[Juggs]

Fix a potential problem before it's potentially a problem? Seems legit.

This is what NRS does, they like to try new things out. If it works, great, if it doesn't, they either alter or discard and try something new again.

 

[NRF CharlieMurphy]

I think I might have started off the wrong foot
NRS should really do better job at balancing their games, b/c like I said the whole Idea of "counterpick" is only possible in a scenario where
1) 7-3 MU exist
2) Characters are very easy to learn
Which is what we observe in MK9 and INGAU

So when I realized that instead of fighting disbalance they patch it up with encouraging counterpicks that sort of dazzled me. Maybe in the end game would turn out amazing and fun, but the way they promote this feature just doesnt sound right.
I played many games and I know by experience having more stuff is better than having less. Characters do need weakness, but there still should be a way for them to overcome even bad MU. Thats what developers must think about: "If this characters is very melee focused how is he going to fight zoners?" at the same time when they create zoner they should think about how melee characters will do vs them. Capcom does thats why melee might spend 60 seconds to get near and then kill in 5. But NRS create zoners that have ridiculous melee, there is just too many flaws in their design.
For example bat girl. When I first saw her I was inspired, her trait seemed like a very interesting tool (it allows to switch stance between chip damage and extra combo damage), but then I realized she is a vortex character, she doenst need chip damage, she kills of 50/50. Chip damage is good for a character w/o mixup, char with low damage and weak juggles, but which has great frametraps and block pressure and occasionally switches to "damage boost" stance to end a round. So that it'd be hard to shake off her pressure, but the risk for guessing wrong wont be very high.
And its just one example out of many, I feel like instead of fixing

A lot of ppl here are deluded, thinking its OK to have counterpicks. Counterpicks is not good. It is good when you have to explore MU and find a way to beat your opponent char with your char. But it is bad when its easier to just grab Aquaman(or variation B). And its far from hype. I felt that with 3-style thing NRS were avoiding the problem, rather than fixing it. Maybe its just NRS and nothing could be done. Anyway, I feel that I've said everything I wanted, its up to you guys agree or not.

Thank you all for your feedback anyway, it was very educational to read how people feel about this.

Love this post.

 

[Shark Tank]

So why don't you make a poll and see what people vote?

They'd still be voting on conjecture and theory crafting.

Also, when he says "community",who's voting, just us at TYM or their general fanbase, because the latter makes me shit my pants a little.

 

[Crathen]

@Belial I think you're mixing up a 3d fighter mechanic with a 2d one , the 2d plane is more restricted when it comes to options ( at least the major 2d fgs ) and it's much more "controllable" ( = restricted options ) than a 3d one , let's take Tekken as an example ( since i was into the Tekken scene ) , while the game has plenty of options ( crush system , sidestepping , backdashing , tech states , throw breaking on reaction , bound , walls , parries , jump attacks , while running attack , evading moves , tag switch and so on ) and it does mitigate the balance to an extent you can't deny the game is very chaotic until you reach the "godlike" level of some Japanese / Korean player and even then you get those kind of supersolid players like Knee losing to Saint wich is more of a good "guesser".

To master and control the big amount of options you need so much time devoted into it that can be very frustrating to A LOT of players and very few ever get near that level , so you could say that the game is a lot more "random" than some unbalanced 2d where top tiers do have a mathematical advantage over the lower tiers / certain matchups.

How many characters in TTT2 have safe mid wallsplats that can rack up to 100+ more damage near a wall?How many fast low crush moves that launch for 80-90 + wallcarry and are only -13/14 on block?How many safe mid launchers?How many Lars uf4 , Jack df2 , Eddys CH b14 and so on.

It's no mistery that a huge amount of Tekken players still think T5DR / TTT1 are the best episodes in the franchise even tho they are really unbalanced , the top tiers in those games regulated the cast with a small amount of moves wich most didn't really have good answers against them , but it made the games more "controllable".

3d games are usually more balanced yes but at the cost of a fundamentally diverse cast / playstyles.

When you say you'd rather have a character with all the tools you're asking for a more complete / all around powerful character , if you make everyone all arounders to deal with everything you make the game more flat while also extenting the amount of tuning per tools a character has ( instead of having to balance 2-3 tools per variation ) , should Grundy have a 6 frame jab because he can't punish a -7 move while also having and unblockable command grab?And since he has troble against zoning give him a faster MB SwampHand with 2 hits of armor?I think you understand why that can skew balance in a similar way. That's how the Kabals , MMH , Kokonoe , AE Yun and so on make their way to the top. Of course there's more to it than just this but this is already getting too long.

Let MKX be the game the designers want to be and if the risk / reward on something is absolutely too good compared to the rest of the cast call it out and maybe they'll adress it thanks to the updates / patches , we have this luxury this day luckily.

 

[Youphemism]

Ok let's get away from attacking the OP because I guarantee that he had better credentials and better results in other fighting games than 99.9% of the people that posted in this thread. So show some respect.

To be fair, just because someone has competed and placed in more tournaments than the rest of us doesn't automatically make him better. Most of us don't have the money to compete or live too far away to compete a lot, we could win every tournament but you'd never know because there are valid reasons preventing us from doing that. That's not to say he isn't good, he must be if he's managed to get as far as he has, don't misconstrue what I'm saying

 

[Eldriken]

To be fair, just because someone has competed and placed in more tournaments than the rest of us doesn't automatically make him better. Most of us don't have the money to compete or live too far away to compete a lot, we could win every tournament but you'd never know because there are valid reasons preventing us from doing that. That's not to say he isn't good, he must be if he's managed to get as far as he has, don't misconstrue what I'm saying

Spend $10 (or whatever that converts to for your currency) and change your damn Gamer Tag.

 

[Youphemism]

Spend $10 (or whatever that converts to for your currency) and change your damn Gamer Tag.

Exactly! If I can't change my goddamn XBL gamertag how the hell am I supposed to enter a tournament?! Never mind flying over there from Scotland no less -_-

 

[WakeUp DP]

They don't even necessarily have to have a weakness... if the games mechanics are good, then just having strengths can make the game balanced.... as long as the strength isn't exposing something outside the realm of the mechanics.

A zoning chars has to be a little weak up close so when you finally get to them you get rewarded for it not destroyed because they are also good up close lol. same goes for rush down chars, they got good tools up close but are weak from full screen.

Imagine if KI3 Glacius had Sabrewulf rush-down tools? lol

 

[WakeUp DP]

@Belial I think you're mixing up a 3d fighter mechanic with a 2d one , the 2d plane is more restricted when it comes to options ( at least the major 2d fgs ) and it's much more "controllable" ( = restricted options ) than a 3d one , let's take Tekken as an example ( since i was into the Tekken scene ) , while the game has plenty of options ( crush system , sidestepping , backdashing , tech states , throw breaking on reaction , bound , walls , parries , jump attacks , while running attack , evading moves , tag switch and so on ) and it does mitigate the balance to an extent you can't deny the game is very chaotic until you reach the "godlike" level of some Japanese / Korean player and even then you get those kind of supersolid players like Knee losing to Saint wich is more of a good "guesser".

To master and control the big amount of options you need so much time devoted into it that can be very frustrating to A LOT of players and very few ever get near that level , so you could say that the game is a lot more "random" than some unbalanced 2d where top tiers do have a mathematical advantage over the lower tiers / certain matchups.

How many characters in TTT2 have safe mid wallsplats that can rack up to 100+ more damage near a wall?How many fast low crush moves that launch for 80-90 + wallcarry and are only -13/14 on block?How many safe mid launchers?How many Lars uf4 , Jack df2 , Eddys CH b14 and so on.

It's no mistery that a huge amount of Tekken players still think T5DR / TTT1 are the best episodes in the franchise even tho they are really unbalanced , the top tiers in those games regulated the cast with a small amount of moves wich most didn't really have good answers against them , but it made the games more "controllable".

3d games are usually more balanced yes but at the cost of a fundamentally diverse cast / playstyles.

When you say you'd rather have a character with all the tools you're asking for a more complete / all around powerful character , if you make everyone all arounders to deal with everything you make the game more flat while also extenting the amount of tuning per tools a character has ( instead of having to balance 2-3 tools per variation ) , should Grundy have a 6 frame jab because he can't punish a -7 move while also having and unblockable command grab?And since he has troble against zoning give him a faster MB SwampHand with 2 hits of armor?I think you understand why that can skew balance in a similar way. That's how the Kabals , MMH , Kokonoe , AE Yun and so on make their way to the top. Of course there's more to it than just this but this is already getting too long.

Let MKX be the game the designers want to be and if the risk / reward on something is absolutely too good compared to the rest of the cast call it out and maybe they'll adress it thanks to the updates / patches , we have this luxury this day luckily.

QFTT.

 

[Eldriken]

A zoning chars has to be a little weak up close so when you finally get to them you get rewarded for it not destroyed because they are also good up close lol. same goes for rush down chars, they got good tools up close but are weak from full screen.

Imagine if KI3 Glacius had Sabrewulf rush-down tools? lol

Then what's MMH's excuse? =P He has good zoning and can destroy you up close.

 

[WakeUp DP]

Then what's MMH's excuse? =P He has good zoning and can destroy you up close.

Thats why he is why he is considered to be OP same goes with Kabal.

 

[NRF CharlieMurphy]

A zoning chars has to be a little weak up close so when you finally get to them you get rewarded for it not destroyed because they are also good up close lol. same goes for rush down chars, they got good tools up close but are weak from full screen.

Imagine if KI3 Glacius had Sabrewulf rush-down tools? lol

But he does have good AA and good pokes.

That is why he's not useless in that game. He isn't really weak.... but he is def. not strong.

The mechanics of that game allow him to use his tools and not just trash someone else for trying to use theirs.

 

[WakeUp DP]

But he does have good AA and good pokes.

That is why he's not useless in that game. He isn't really weak.... but he is def. not strong.

The mechanics of that game allow him to use his tools and not just trash someone else for trying to use theirs.

You are just not getting it. He has good pokes and decent AAs but he does not have sabrewulf rush down tools. Like dash thro cross up, 0 frames eclipse which has a huge hitbox on both sides. Godlike crouching normals, overpowered move which is plus on block, point blank low, high mix ups etc etc

Glacius is a well balanced zoning char which does well from full screen but struggles up close. Thats what makes him balanced....

 

[Superi0rMagik]

I mean this guy does have a valid argument I must say but to be real! none of us know how it will turn out. I respect the fact that their adding new things! Then again I'm scared. But I know what I don't want which is Mkx to be mk9 re-skin that would Be fun at first but probably get boring a little fast. But mortal kombat has always been changing and we had a tornado up until mk9 which I can see why everyone is like omg variations ahhhhh! Lets just all be happy we get to see mk continue! And with new elements instead of the same thing as mk9! I'm don't like the variations that much but I'm glad it's not the same game repeated. I'm not saying the guy does not have a good point! I'm saying new ideas can go good or bad but we will see how they adjust if things end up bad!