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

[Lumpymoomilk]

While I'm referring to overall character viability, why are people still under the impression that Kung's spin is unfair? it's always had a head-to-toe hurtbox, good luck punishing it in MK2 for that matter.

And most meterless wake-ups will stuff projectiles with zero risk, which I have mixed feelings about but Kabal takes way too much undue flack for that.

Well I guess that's my fault for playing Sheeva, without armor almost everything is unsafe. Even with the armor most things can be avoided easily, While I'm guessing if I have to low grab, air grab, grab and punch or 212 (which almost half the cast can duck the first hit) or f3 (which is slow as crap) Other characters can use one special or have more than one options, to protect themselves from most close attacks. Like I said probably just my fault for playing Sheeva but I like the challenge of it, but is she as viable as most of the cast to win, maybe, but it sure as hell isn't as easy to win with her. I mostly win with gimmicks, mind games and trickery. Balance I would have assumed would mean everyone has different tools but the same chances of winning. This does not seem to be the case for her so maybe MOST of the characters could find balance but not the game as a whole in it's current state.

 

[Konqrr]

While I'm referring to overall character viability, why are people still under the impression that Kung's spin is unfair? it's always had a head-to-toe hurtbox, good luck punishing it in MK2 for that matter.

It also had about 20-30 frames of startup... not SIX!

 

[AREZ God of War]

Here's another example: In all the time it's taken for the Sub Zero community to bitch about how terrible their character is, Tom Brady and Denzel were busy single-handedly leveling up the entire character's game. Sub Zero has gone from one of the most shit-on characters in this game to a solid mid-tier fighter.

• If you hate the game, stop playing.
• If you think your favorite character sucks, stop playing.
• If you think this game is horribly balanced, stop playing.

The important point of every case: NO ONE GIVES A SHIT. I'm so tired of crybabies around here hoping for a patch that will NEVER EVER come, and insist on derailing every productive thread by complaining about nonsense. Just leave the forums if you hate this game so much. Obviously there are enough people here who are enthusiastic enough to keep this game alive, so please, stop trolling the forums worrying about those who still support this game 110%.

GOD-like post.

The only thing i want to add is learn to use the roster. Sorry if your character isn't the best and has bad MUs. It's your own fault for not having a viable character in your arsenal now 2 YEARS after the game was released. If you're going to be a character loyalist, do it and STFU already because you don't get to go complaining to everyone else about the problem you seemingly brought on yourself, especially when the rest of functional society has conformed and worked on improving their situation.

Too many viable characters

Not enough Viable players for them

This might just be the best post you ever made.

 

[bloodsport]

and i'll state this point again (something i've said many times) :

aside from the top 4-6 characters in this game, MK9 is extremely balanced

this

but the bottom 4-6 (actually i think it would just be kano and sheeva..) also have some minor issues and could use a little bit of help. everything in between is on point.

 

[coolwhip]

The thing about balance in this game is some characters have options that cover so many bases at once while others have options that you basically have to be a god at reading the opponent or you die.

example kung lao spin, yes it can be blocked and punished, but does any other counter move in the game CSZ and Liu Kang parry, Baraka spin can all be beaten by a low poke, so where's Kung's spin weakness? Your only option against it is to block the spin or armor.
Kabal enhanced dash beats out pokes, jumps (except crossovers because they go past him), projectiles on wake up. Combine it with being able to cancel it and you have almost non stop pressure.

While some crap tiers have to guess are they going high low jumping ect just to hit their opponent let alone get a combo.

Being full combo punishable is not a weakness? You talk as if blocking the spin is a bad option. It's actually much better than having the ability to beat it with a low poke (a la the Baraka spin). In another thread, someone complained about Lao's tele 3 (which is full combo punishable), and low hitbox characters can really make the KL player regret teleporting. The spin is full combo punishable as well. Just because a move is good (and the spin most certainly is) doesn't mean the character is overpowered or the game is unbalanced.

 

[coolwhip]

While I'm referring to overall character viability, why are people still under the impression that Kung's spin is unfair? it's always had a head-to-toe hurtbox, good luck punishing it in MK2 for that matter.

And most meterless wake-ups will stuff projectiles with zero risk, which I have mixed feelings about but Kabal takes way too much undue flack for that.

LBSH, Kung Lao is one of the most balanced top tier characters in any fighting game. And no, I'm not trolling. He's great, he's got a shitload of tools, yet all of them are extremely punishable, and he can't simply abuse them at will against all of the casts, and is forced to take a different approach against low hitbox characters.

 

[x18x2xwildx]

I love the "play a better character then" philosophy. It shouldn't have to be that way. It's up to the developers to make sure it doesn't come to the point of, "well, if you want to win you better make sure you know how to use this character" in the first place. By not saying anything, and just playing the best character, you do nothing but accentuate what's wrong with the game. And while there's not another patch coming, we can at least hope that NRS takes the complaints they've read here into account when developing the next MK... or Injustice for that matter.

 

[Lumpymoomilk]

Being full combo punishable is not a weakness? You talk as if blocking the spin is a bad option. It's actually much better than having the ability to beat it with a low poke (a la the Baraka spin). In another thread, someone complained about Lao's tele 3 (which is full combo punishable), and low hitbox characters can really make the KL player regret teleporting. The spin is full combo punishable as well. Just because a move is good (and the spin most certainly is) doesn't mean the character is overpowered or the game is unbalanced.

Well his spin which can be used to continue combos, anti air into combos, stop cross overs and pokes seems like a pretty good move, it's only punished if you do it predictably and stupidly. Everyone can be punished, some characters are just much harder to punish than others. Combine that with his tele 3s, mobility, 24 low hats and mix ups and he is leagues ahead of any D and F tier characters. That's not balance IMO. If someone like GGA Jeremiah is winning with Sheeva it's because they are very good at reading opponents, tricking them and taking advantage of their mistakes not going on autopilot like some top characters can do. Balance should be based on what a character can do and what they can use to beat other characters not how good the player is.

 

[Flagg]

Often, when a player does well with a mid-low tier character, the first thing the community says is "it's not the character, its the player" and by that reckoning, tier lists should be irrelevant.

Let's just say Big D does well with Kano at Dallas, everyone will say "Derrrrrrp, Big D is just a good player, Kanoz is still crap, lmao!" which doesn't make sense.

If you think about it, characters like Scorpion, SZ, Noob saibot, Rain, Jade, CSZ, Sindel, Stryker, LK, Kano, Nightwolf, Baraka, Sheeva and perhaps, Mileena and QC aren't low to mid, they are what I call balanced characters, and it would be hard to rank those characters in order of tier, but everyone else either has the advantage of stupid armour, stupid damage or infinites. And bullshit rules in this game.

I think the only thing I would like to see in this game is if everyone only had one armour move. I like the idea of assigning one special at the beginning of the match with armour properties, similar to choosing a super art. Think of how more dynamic the game could become then. Obviously that is never going to happen. Despite everything. I think the armour distribution in the game is probably what lets the game down the most. Kenshi and Jax DON'T need that much armour.

But MK is what it is now.

 

[x18x2xwildx]

Often, when a player does well with a mid-low tier character, the first thing the community says is "it's not the character, its the player" and by that reckoning, tier lists should be irrelevant.

Let's just say Big D does well with Kano at Dallas, everyone will say "Derrrrrrp, Big D is just a good player, Kanoz is still crap, lmao!" which doesn't make sense.

If you think about it, characters like Scorpion, SZ, Noob saibot, Rain, Jade, CSZ, Sindel, Stryker, LK, Kano, Nightwolf, Baraka, Sheeva and perhaps, Mileena and QC aren't low to mid, they are what I call balanced characters, and it would be hard to rank those characters in order of tier, but everyone else either has the advantage of stupid armour, stupid damage or infinites. And bullshit rules in this game.

I think the only thing I would like to see in this game is if everyone only had one armour move. I like the idea of assigning one special at the beginning of the match with armour properties, similar to choosing a super art. Think of how more dynamic the game could become then. Obviously that is never going to happen. Despite everything. I think the armour distribution in the game is probably what lets the game down the most. Kenshi and Jax DON'T need that much armour.

But MK is what it is now.

And that's the whole problem. Characters like Sonya can use her enhanced Kartwheel to escape pressure, and keep pressure since it's only what, like -4 on block? Then even after it's blocked, she could jab faster than other characters. Then you look at characters like Mileena. Umm... she can't escape pressure and gets a nice average of 30% damage by taking risks... that's not balance, that's poor design.

 

[STRYKIE]

I love the "play a better character then" philosophy. It shouldn't have to be that way. It's up to the developers to make sure it doesn't come to the point of, "well, if you want to win you better make sure you know how to use this character" in the first place. By not saying anything, and just playing the best character, you do nothing but accentuate what's wrong with the game. And while there's not another patch coming, we can at least hope that NRS takes the complaints they've read here into account when developing the next MK... or Injustice for that matter.

It essentially isn't, Chris G and IKizzle have shown that you don't need absolute top tier characters to win tournaments, but with several thousand dollars on the line, character loyalty almost always goes out the window and players going deep into their own pockets to travel all across the country, if not the world, want the appropriate tools available to them to procure the win. And I've already pointed out that this happens in games where anyone can win anyway.

fun fact.

any character that has 2 unwinnable matchups shouldn't be mid tier. ..... and the best guy agrees that Kenshi and Kabal (and smoke almost) are unwinnable.

The problem is that not everyone accepts it... BECAUSE they don't all the characters. So please.... step DOWN from that high horse.

Tom and Denzell win those matches..... not SZ. No one seems to really grasp that fact. If SZ won the matches... then those two wouldn't be successful playing with other characters.

Hmm, I'm gonna have to question this one, Kung Lao was deemed unwinnable for SZ around this time last year, the argument was that Denzell showed us stuff that SZ can do that for the longest time everybody claimed he didn't have an answer for, nobody said Sub was suddenly going to beat KL 10 for 10 from there on out, Perfect Legend just made good reads a few minutes later on stuff he didn't have time to think about. Denzell had obviously been working on it for months. While everyone else tried to scrounge up a makeshift counterpick.

 

[Prinz]

I want my Jade to be patched, so badly, man... Just some minor tweaks that won't hurt anyone, just help her be a decent char. Man so much potential here

 

[Flagg]

fun fact.

any character that has 2 unwinnable matchups shouldn't be mid tier. ..... and the best guy agrees that Kenshi and Kabal (and smoke almost) are unwinnable.

The problem is that not everyone accepts it... BECAUSE they don't all the characters. So please.... step DOWN from that high horse.

Tom and Denzell win those matches..... not SZ. No one seems to really grasp that fact. If SZ won the matches... then those two wouldn't be successful playing with other characters.

No offence, but im sick of hearing that line "they won the match, not SZ".....WRONG!

They won the match USING SZ! Those are their best characters! What happened when Tom Brady went to Raiden, he got blown up. Now it's generally agreed that Raiden is better than SZ, so then Raiden should have been a walk in the park. It wasn't. The beauty of this game is, nearly every character in this game is fairly unique and they have a style that appeals to a certain players abilities.

Brady knows SZ inside out, that's why is extremely good with him. Dizzy knows Cage inside out, 16 Bit knows Kitana inside out, and so forth. Do you really think if you just dumped any random character on those players, they would do just as well?

Each character in this game is a weapon and people do well with various weapons because of familiarity.

People have this obsession with shitting over mid to lower tier, and I think it's because the truth is because a lot of broken stuff can compensate for average to bad fundamentals. I think MLG will prove that SCAR is the superior Freddy as all m2Dave knows how to do is activate special moves.

 

[Prinz]

I want my Jade to be patched, so badly, man... Just some minor tweaks that won't hurt anyone, just help her be a decent char. Man so much potential here

Yeah, complaining again. Shit. Gotta stop it

 

[x18x2xwildx]

It essentially isn't, Chris G and IKizzle have shown that you don't need absolute top tier characters to win tournaments, but with several thousand dollars on the line, character loyalty almost always goes out the window and players going deep into their own pockets to travel all across the country, if not the world, want the appropriate tools available to them to procure the win. And I've already pointed out that this happens in games where anyone can win anyway.

I'm not going to spend 2 hours defending my opinion. The only thing I'm trying to say is that some of the tools given to characters were clearly not thought out well during the development cycle and make for clear balancing issues.

 

[Flagg]

And that's the whole problem. Characters like Sonya can use her enhanced Kartwheel to escape pressure, and keep pressure since it's only what, like -4 on block? Then even after it's blocked, she could jab faster than other characters. Then you look at characters like Mileena. Umm... she can't escape pressure and gets a nice average of 30% damage by taking risks... that's not balance, that's poor design.

Well if you're CSZ, you can ice parry that, but yes, not everyone has that luxury. You could jump over her if you anticipate it, make her waste a bar.

I see a few people say in this thread things like "KL has a better spin that Baraka"....yeah that's true, but then you have to think outside the box. I cant remember if I saw Foxy or 1man3letters do this first, but if you input F2>>spin with Baraka, the opponent has to block, because the F2 is an overhead. If they duck, they get hit by the F2 and spin, if they stand, you have to block, and baraka spin is safe on block, and does fair chip damage.

People that play the mid-low tier characters are usually forced to up their game to compete with the heavy weights. That's a good thing right?

I just think some of the game design wasnt thoroughly examined, i mean CSZ and Smoke have far superior parries to LK, so why bother giving LK one? Why bother giving CSZ a teleport? What's so hard about making Cyraxes bombs work the same way as CSZ so you're not bouncing around in a 100% combo? Pretty sure LK cannot duck under projectiles when he activates his low fireball like Sindel and some stances can.

But the game is what it is.

 

[Prinz]

Yeah, complaining again. Shit. Gotta stop it

Nope, won't stop it.
Flash needs to go through Kenshi's zoning except shoulder charge, has to have the same properties over Smoke's bomb as Noob's portal. Glow doesn't need 50% more damage. Boomerangs should be faster or cancelable. Every normal to connect into staff overhead + some frame data changes in recovery and cancels. So very little

 

[STRYKIE]

I'm not going to spend 2 hours defending my opinion. The only thing I'm trying to say is that some of the tools given to characters were clearly not thought out well during the development cycle and make for clear balancing issues.

And that's why I said 9/10 characters, the mindset in the tournament atmosphere is very different to the one you'll have choking on a hotpocket on the couch because they made a read on a gimmick online. Buy anyway, your issue seems to be with matchups more than character viability. 2 characters can lose to the same character for very different reasons, and that's why Sheeva does better against Kenshi than most of the top 10.

Here's an interesting triangle to go by too:

- Mileena beats Reptile
- Reptile beats Scorpion
-.. Mileena therefore should beat Scorpion right?
No, because Scorp has one hell of a better catalogue of tools to combat Mileena's gimmicks that Reptile does, and that's exactly it, tools dictate matchups how matchups will run.

The funniest thing about it is, Cyrax actually is one of my favorite characters in the MK series, but I fully accept that his tools just aren't my cup of tea in MK9 specifically. Fuck this weird sense of entitlement.

 

[MashPotatoTower]

Here's to picking up Kung Lao strictly for the kabal mu

 

[STRYKIE]

Nope, won't stop it.
Flash needs to go through Kenshi's zoning except shoulder charge, has to have the same properties over Smoke's bomb as Noob's portal. Glow doesn't need 50% more damage. Boomerangs should be faster or cancelable. Every normal to connect into staff overhead + some frame data changes in recovery and cancels. So very little

Shoulda, woulda, coulda, but NRS clearly thought it was more important to listen to some neanderthal who didn't wanna take 2 minutes out of their time to learn how to block Jade's U3 and how to keep it in check rather than make changes that should've been in place from the get go of Kenshi's release.
And er.. if I were you, spirit charge would be the first thing I'd want flash to go through..

 

[Prinz]

Shoulda, woulda, coulda, but NRS clearly thought it was more important to listen to some neanderthal who didn't wanna take 2 minutes out of their time to learn how to block Jade's U3 and how to keep it in check rather than make changes that should've been in place from the get go of Kenshi's release.
And er.. if I were you, spirit charge would be the first thing I'd want flash to go through..

Kenshi IS spirit charge. If you take it from him, you might as well take him out of the game.

 

[NRF CharlieMurphy]

No offence, but im sick of hearing that line "they won the match, not SZ".....WRONG!

They won the match USING SZ! Those are their best characters! What happened when Tom Brady went to Raiden, he got blown up. Now it's generally agreed that Raiden is better than SZ, so then Raiden should have been a walk in the park. It wasn't. The beauty of this game is, nearly every character in this game is fairly unique and they have a style that appeals to a certain players abilities.

Brady knows SZ inside out, that's why is extremely good with him. Dizzy knows Cage inside out, 16 Bit knows Kitana inside out, and so forth. Do you really think if you just dumped any random character on those players, they would do just as well?

Each character in this game is a weapon and people do well with various weapons because of familiarity.

People have this obsession with shitting over mid to lower tier, and I think it's because the truth is because a lot of broken stuff can compensate for average to bad fundamentals. I think MLG will prove that SCAR is the superior Freddy as all m2Dave knows how to do is activate special moves.

brady got ... what 13th at FR? yeah..... thats not blown up by any chance.

but the player makes the character. Every "tier" list is just a "who has more shit" list. The top have more shit than anyone.... and it trickles down.

 

[STRYKIE]

Kung Lao IS 2,4,low hat. If you take it from him, you might as well take him out of the game.

Hey this sounds kinda familiar..

 

[Prinz]

Hey this sounds kinda familiar..

Lol, kinda.

 

[Pig Of The Hut]

Often, when a player does well with a mid-low tier character, the first thing the community says is "it's not the character, its the player" and by that reckoning, tier lists should be irrelevant.

Let's just say Big D does well with Kano at Dallas, everyone will say "Derrrrrrp, Big D is just a good player, Kanoz is still crap, lmao!" which doesn't make sense.

If you think about it, characters like Scorpion, SZ, Noob saibot, Rain, Jade, CSZ, Sindel, Stryker, LK, Kano, Nightwolf, Baraka, Sheeva and perhaps, Mileena and QC aren't low to mid, they are what I call balanced characters, and it would be hard to rank those characters in order of tier, but everyone else either has the advantage of stupid armour, stupid damage or infinites. And bullshit rules in this game.

I think the only thing I would like to see in this game is if everyone only had one armour move. I like the idea of assigning one special at the beginning of the match with armour properties, similar to choosing a super art. Think of how more dynamic the game could become then. Obviously that is never going to happen. Despite everything. I think the armour distribution in the game is probably what lets the game down the most. Kenshi and Jax DON'T need that much armour.

But MK is what it is now.

You do realize you summed up every fighting game ever