My honest thoughts on all these threads and posts calling MK9 unbalanced..

[STRYKIE]

Now I was going to post this in a thread re-iterating all of this, but it got closed, and I hope this one doesn't. Hell I hope it put's an end to these discussions for good more than anything.

And I'm not really posting this thread to tell you it isn't unbalanced, but I think a few things need to be looked into first and foremost..

Consider this:

Smoke - all this talk about safe, scrubby smoke bombs and pokes, 60-80% 1 bar combos, easy mobility, never made top 8 at EVO.

Scorpion - all this talk about slow normals, shit pokes, no advantage on anything, no advancing footsies except a hard as shit instant teleport, very little unbreakable damage, all specials are painfully unsafe on whiff. X-rayed the then-MLG Champion's Kabal to make top 8.

9/10 characters in this game are solid, but we need to understand and accept collectively that there's a top 5 and bottom 5 in every fighting game. You may think TTT2 is off to a good start, and that "anyone can win", and by all means they can, but on the basis of "wanting to win money", less than a year into Tekken Tag 1's life, there wasn't a single Korean that didn't have a Mishima or Ogre on their team. Everyone realized that Jin had everything you would ever want, and that Jack-2, Kunimitsu, Baek etc. were poorly designed, and essentially outdated and useless in that game and just got on with it.

And quite frankly I'm glad this game isn't getting patched anymore, because the way we interpret Kabal now (and Cyrax, Sonya and Kung Lao before they were "nerfed"), would've just got passed on to the next guy, and the next guy, to the point where it would've wound down to the point where we started calling Baraka broken. Let the game develop, Sub-Zero's flowchart of back dash, Ice Clone, Ice Ball, Punish, repeat in MK9 was made moot in less than 3 months, new tech is still being found for Reptile in UMK3 16 years after it's release, coming from a game he was complete ass in, MK2, sometimes it's just luck of the draw how tier lists pan out.

Short version: People need to realize when players simply.. get outplayed or didn't think through who they should counterpick with and why. Not: "OH NOEZ I LOST TO KENSHI FUCKIN BROKEN EEZEE KEREKTER GAME IS UNBALUNZ HNNNNNNGGGGG GOTTA BUST OUT DAT 5 MINUTE KOOONG LAU!"

Maybe it is a good thing that so much of the community is taking an interest in Injustice, it'll probably put alot of things into perspective for us and that it doesn't just apply to MK. Has there been major problems with the decisions NRS made with MK9? Fuck yes. But considering what they stem from, the characters themselves are the furthest thing from them.

 

[DownfouralitY]

People have too many excuses

 

[zaf]

You need to realize, a lot of the whiners that stem from this game, MK is their first figther.
For people like myself who have been playing fighters for 5+ years now, this is nothing to us and we just play the game.

 

[InFlames]

Scorpion is downplayed. Other than crappy pokes and unsafe mixups(which are your choice), he, in the right hands, is a complete beast.

 

[WayoftheFist]

You need to realize, a lot of the whiners that stem from this game, MK is their first figther.
For people like myself who have been playing fighters for 5+ years now, this is nothing to us and we just play the game.

A lot of it is from outside the community too.

 

[EGP Wonder_Chef]

This game has sooooo many viable characters.

Compared to almost every other fighter out there the balance is good.

 

[Zoidberg747]

MK is my first fighting game, and being a Baraka player I call the game unbalanced. Because quite frankly you know whats BS when you yourself have none.

That being said I usually dont go beyond saying its unbalanced, I still shut up and play the game anyway because I love it.

 

[OutworldKeith]

Scorpion is downplayed. Other than crappy pokes and unsafe mixups(which are your choice), he, in the right hands, is a complete beast.

His pokes aren't bad. The advantage on his d4 is the only thing wrong with his low poke game. Yes his d3 his -7 on hit/block but his d1 makes up for that poke completely.

Most players don't know how to properly take advantage of a low poke on hit anyway. The game has a decent balance, although it could be better.

 

[InFlames]

His pokes aren't bad. The advantage on his d4 is the only thing wrong with his low poke game. Yes his d3 his -7 on hit/block but his d1 makes up for that poke completely.

Most players don't know how to properly take advantage of a low poke on hit anyway. The game has a decent balance, although it could be better.

I agree, his D1 is the best in the game(in my opinion) and a perfect AA. On hit the best thing to do is to cancel into tackle, but on block it can be interrupted which if the opponent does that constantly I switch it up to D1~Spear. Yes it's risky but the outcome is worth it.

 

[OutworldKeith]

I agree, his D1 is the best in the game(in my opinion) and a perfect AA. On hit the best thing to do is to cancel into tackle, but on block it can be interrupted which if the opponent does that constantly I switch it up to D1~Spear. Yes it's risky but the outcome is worth it.

Canceling into tackle is good because they have to respect it, it's unavoidable. More importantly, it allows Scorpion an opportunity to pressure because it's unavoidable.

 

[1man3letters]

STRYKIE well fucking said sir!!!

also @zoidberg7474 whatcha talking about bro, baraka has the most BS in the game, u4 hello?
(all joking aside chop chops hitbox is still bs even after the auto correct change,its a funny kind of bs though lol)

 

[NRF CharlieMurphy]

There is a clear line between who is viable and who is not.

That scorpion player also use like.... 5 different characters to get where he was.

I mean... I can couterpoint everything you said with facts.

This is a fact.... some characters will not win short sets vs others.

 

[AREZ God of War]

ya, so many people complain about MK9 and it's broken unbalance. I been playing FGs since 1987, and this EASILY the least broken, most balanced MK game to date AND one of the better FGs currently. LOL @New Gen players. You don't appreciate what u got cuz U have no IDEA how shitty it was before this. Even I myself have had changes of heart in the short time I been playing MK9. I used to think Kenshi was broken and OP-easy mode, but I'm convinced he is only #4....#3 at the absolute best (more likely #4 though). Watching CD slice through Kabals w/ Kitana? PSsshhhh.

There is a reason people look up to the OG-MK players. People may want to take some time and figure out why.

 

[InFlames]

BTW, MIT saving his new tech for Kabal was smart. JIP into Mix up is a great mind-fuck. The reaction was also priceless. lol

 

[Qwark28]

Canceling into tackle is good because they have to respect it, it's unavoidable. More importantly, it allows Scorpion an opportunity to pressure because it's unavoidable.

srsly one of the few people i respect and acknowledge that they know their fucking shit

 

[STB Sgt Reed]

LBSH, Baraka is broken.

 

[darkfirestealth]

A very good thought out post to start the thread and I agree with most if not all of it. The rest of the posts seem positive. This is the first fighting game I spent time trying to learn but there are 2 or 3 things I would have liked changed (only 1 change would affect a small amount of characters) but I am quite happy to continue playing the game until the online truely dies (as that is the only way for my to play against people.)

 

[Pig Of The Hut]

Too many viable characters

Not enough Viable players for them

 

[DJ L Toro]

ya, so many people complain about MK9 and it's broken unbalance. I been playing FGs since 1987, and this EASILY the least broken, most balanced MK game to date AND one of the better FGs currently. LOL @New Gen players. You don't appreciate what u got cuz U have no IDEA how shitty it was before this. Even I myself have had changes of heart in the short time I been playing MK9. I used to think Kenshi was broken and OP-easy mode, but I'm convinced he is only #4....#3 at the absolute best (more likely #4 though). Watching CD slice through Kabals w/ Kitana? PSsshhhh.

There is a reason people look up to the OG-MK players. People may want to take some time and figure out why.

you've been playing for that long yet you write like you're four...

in all seriousness though i dont see what the big deal is about balance. yeah, so kenshi is broken, so what it's still fun to play against him and takes skill to beat good players with him (while rereading i notice this seems ambiguous. what i meant was that if you play him you still have to be good to win, but it is also true that you must be skillful to beat a good player who uses him). yeah kabal is OP, but have you tried playing him? i know i cant even play him against a casual sheeva without having a hard time (and no, i'm not terrible at the game). how many other "broken" characters are there? Smoke and cyrax have obscene amounts of damage, but we all know how that damage starts and what to do to avoid it, so if you get caught that's on you. plus this game balances such things with its meter. taking damage builds meter, 2 bars is a breaker. meter management in this game is probably more important than matchups because good use of meter vs bad use of meter is what can take a 5-5 and make it 6-4 in one direction or the other.
if you want a balanced game go play divekick

 

[Red Reaper]

Too many viable characters

Not enough Viable players for them

I never realized how good Sindel was, she seems like my playstyle. Very surprised people think she sucks.

 

[GLoRToR]

As player, I disapprove of this thread because people are entitled to their own opinion much like the OP, the people complaining, and everybody else.

As Mod, I disapprove of this thread because of the flamebait factor.

 

[1man3letters]

Too many viable characters

Not enough Viable players for them

wow dropping those logic bombs

 

[TheTetraSpirit]

I'm sorry, but that post is, in short, complete bullshit.

Regardless of your choice of character, any person with a brain should be able to tell how imbalanced some of the characters are in this game.
Your pointing out of a character's lack of placement is also dumb. Just because it is technically possible to beat a character who has something dumb doesn't make it not dumb.
They don't need to be unbeatable to be fucked up.

 

[OutworldKeith]

It might be my controller, but for some reason I can't do d1 takedown consistently when crouch blocking.

Probably the controller. It works when I do it .

The Takedown is underrated by Scorpion players. It's a cornerstone of his pressure game because of the mind game it can establish.

 

[STRYKIE]

You need to realize, a lot of the whiners that stem from this game, MK is their first figther.
For people like myself who have been playing fighters for 5+ years now, this is nothing to us and we just play the game.

I know, this is pretty much what I was getting at in my last paragraph, lol.

As player, I disapprove of this thread because people are entitled to their own opinion much like the OP, the people complaining, and everybody else.

As Mod, I disapprove of this thread because of the flamebait factor.

Please refer to the end of the 3rd to last paragraph sir.

I'm sorry, but that post is, in short, complete bullshit.

Regardless of your choice of character, any person with a brain should be able to tell how imbalanced some of the characters are in this game.
Your pointing out of a character's lack of placement is also dumb. Just because it is technically possible to beat a character who has something dumb doesn't make it not dumb.
They don't need to be unbeatable to be fucked up.

Absolutely, I don't care how barebones people think they'd be without them, if this game ever was patched, they can do away with Quan's Rune trap and Scorpion's void in a heartbeat. But those problems are on NRS's design choices, NOT the characters.

Good luck finding me a fighting game that's any less of a culprit in what you preach though.