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NRS - Engine update history review (MK9 - Injustice 2) and suggestions for future improvement

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
I gotta say it feels good to be an NRS costumer and fan, and 2017 its probably their best year ever since MK9 lifespan, they have rebuilt their support plan and i think its paying out better than it did with MKX IGAU and MK9, however things weren't always this awesome although it took years to get one our greatest complaints fixed, it took us about 6 years to do so.

MK9
The NRS engine is built based on MK VS DC engine, updated graphics and animations are the prime changes.
  • Training Mode is super bland, there is no respawn options to start labbing at corners, record/play doesn't exsits, position swap and so on, none of these exists.
  • Huge amout of erractic blockstuns in most moves
  • Engine had a stance lock system, if you blocked a move crouching or standing, you would be locked in that position until a blockstun ends, you were still forced to block overheads even if the animation was crouch blocking
  • Armor system was broke and you could armor breaker attempts with certain characters (Skarlet)
  • Negative Edge had no option to turn it off
  • Input bug (game would not register up or Down inputs unless you held them, so tapping up wouldn't make your character jump, same as tapping down.
  • Armor was dictated by lasting frames rather than how many hits you could take (Skarlet had 45f of armor in one move).
  • Attacks were essentially over 10+ on hit or block in many situations.
  • Some characters had the fastest jabs in the game that was 3 or 4 frames faster than the most common and it was 0f on block, so every time you blocked a jab from them they were always at +3 or +4 on block or more against certain characters.
  • Advantage on hit from certain moves were affected by the opponent being standing or crouching.
  • Player 1 had host advantage (In situations were both attacks were pressed on the same instant, player 1 had host advantage so he would always win by default, as result many people wanted to play on P1 side)
  • Jump kicks had no ground recovery frame if whiffed you could block it almost immediately
  • Jump kicks had no recovery animation, you could jump all they way up untill you reach the floor with the active frame of a kick
  • Disjointed Hitboxes are introduced (Kitana's fan normals, Skarlet's slaches, Lao's hat etc)
  • NJPs could be canceled with specials even on whiff
  • NJK were so bad and canceled with specials even on whiff
  • Terrible netcode
  • Happy accidents Rain can dash cancel his special to create combo links, Sonya dive kick can be canceled from military stance with some execution forcing a type of link for combos, both mechanics would be officially introduced 5 years later.
  • No way to escape corners once put into a corner lockdown.
  • All jump arcs, jump attacks, NJPs all looked the same.
  • Meter Drain glitch (even during plus on block moves it was possible to trigger anything, including ex specials or X-rays resulting in having their meter drained due the over plus frames.
  • Coding in general was a huge mess resulting that every patch would bring even more unwanted problems in the game forcing NRS to cease patching and focusing on rebuilting the engine again from ground up for IGAU.
Main culprits of the game
Kabal, Kenshi, Cyrax, Sonya, Skarlet, Lao, Kitana, Cage, Shang, Smoke


IGAU
With IGAU there are things that were done specifically for the game, the characters are also smaller compared to MK but huge improvements.
  • Input bug is gone.
  • Negative Edge can now be turned off through options.
  • Training mode its a massive improvement, now has spawn options, record/playback and ways to force blocks which gives more room for training options, and much more.
  • Disjointed Hitbox presence is much more evident compared to MK9
  • Support to fix things without creating a mess stablished including stage gimmicks
  • Both players now can pick a stage and it becomes a 50-50 pick
  • options for corner escapes are added
  • Interactables are added and all throwable ones are unblockable
  • Netcode gets looked at, but still terrible.
  • Armor mechanic altered (now its about how many hits you can receive rather than how many frames your armor can last)
  • You can no longer activate ex specials and such while the animation of getting hit is in place preventing meter drain glitch
  • Moves still have a good amount of blockstun
  • Insane rain of constant patches throwing people off
  • Hotfix system introduced
  • for some were reason walkspeeds are annoyingly bad
  • Anti-airs gets worse in the beggining of the game life cycle and gets better down the line
Main culprits of the game: Batgirl, Zod, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Batman, Deathstroke, Black Adam, Doomsday, Bane, Flash

MKX

The MKX is focused on mixing up what they added into MK9 and IGAU and gave birth to a new hybrid.

  • Stamina system added to rule the new breaker, run and backdash mechanics introduced
  • You can now configure your controllers in slots and in the select character screen
  • Jump attacks now have recovery animation air or ground
  • NJP is no longer special cancelabed
  • Legacy support for controllers
  • Stance Jail is removed (you can no longer jail characters in crouch or standing during a blockstring, personally i used to enjoy this.)
  • NJK changed for a HKND on hit
  • different jump arcs
  • Attacks hitting standing or crouching no longer had different frame data
  • different jump attacks animation
  • Anti-air is far worse in the beginning of the game life cycle than it was from past previous games, gets better down the end.
  • Massive complain over variation system, a good ammount of patches, and lots of buffs and nerfs, doing lots of harm and goods, in sum, it changed the complete vision NRS had for the game before Day 1 launch and it was hard to recover from.
  • Interactables are blockable in MK universe
  • corner escapes are more evident
  • Disjointed hitboxes are now part of many jump attacks and normals as wells
  • Run cancel and links introduced in the game
  • Huge range on mids and strings can even go fullstring for most of the cast
  • insane overhead and low speeds for characters that have both, nerfed in the end of the game life cycle
  • insane runspeed distance coverage, stamina cost made it severe in the end of the game life cycle
  • Standardized speed for fastest attacks are established
  • Armor only absorbs one hit in the beginning of the game life cycle, changes down the end.
  • Skarlet type of armor durability is now part of the guest character Jason
  • During the middle life cycle of the game, GGPO netcode is introduced making online infinitely better
  • Kounter/punishing system added down the line, first, hitspark turns red, then its swapped with a message that says Kounter whenever you hit someone on their startup or recovery frames.
  • Some blockstuns are fairily reduced in the end of the game life cycle.
Main Culprits: Kinda hard to tell, we will never truly know with the variation system, hope it never returns.

Injustice 2
NRS agrees to build the game upon legacy format, sit the game out and let it breathe instead of constant patching, avoid the issue of completely changing their vision of the game (very nice call)

  • Instead of bring a bunch of things that are hard to balance, NRS focused on refining what they already had.
  • GGPO netcode at start.
  • Training mode receives Injustice specific changes just as MKX had its own with stage gimmicks selections.
  • Introduction of Shaders and gear system.
  • Walkspeed of the game is reasonable good compared to IGAU
  • There is also no 50-50 monsters.
  • No ubber fullscreen strings unless its a character specialized in such division as scare crow and its still different.
  • non un-antiairable attacks.
  • Fixed the massive negative edge and buffering inputs members have been complaing for years
  • Continued to improve gameplay quality by giving more responsive commands and options to members to satisfy their need either gameplay wise or so swap and sell gear.
  • AI playstyle simulator is added.
  • Anti-Airs surprisingly are very well designed in Injustice 2 un-cursing the game of AAs getting worse at every game.
  • Competitive mode online and Ranked. with 2/3 matches.
  • Online mode now can display who is playing wired or on Wifi.
  • Balance change happens occasionally but has less impact than it had on previous past 3 games, making it feel really good in general. (This is subjective, feel sorry for Swamp Thing and Joker players)
  • Punish Indicator gets improved yet again. (Now there is a punish and counter indicator in the game)
  • Learn Session ( A new segment which teaches advanceds concepts of the game such as zoning, rushdown and more) added at the end of the game life cycle.
To be updated at the end of game life cycle....


So to anyone saying "you forgot in game frame data":
That doesn't count as an engine improvement because that's something NRS still does it manually to put it on the game, and many often they get some of these data wrong, so its not the game calculating it and presenting us accurate data all the time, no.

Pretty satisfied with everything that has been done so far, if you look at all the things the game engine from MK9 to I2, NRS has come a long way


Suggestions of improvement:

Pretty sure there is still a bunch of things NRS could make to improve their gaming engine in the future, here are my left suggestions
  • The AI playstyle simulator can be something to build upon on in future games, specially if are able to play against or, if its able to pick up stats from players.
  • The Record/playback will surely need an update next game, try to come up with record/playback slots, at least 3 of them with a frequency meter of how often you want them played compared to the rest, and then make them able to record 3 different setups and have them all play at random, this will help blocking and reacting to mixup options, this would also end up the debate of our super human players blocking 18f overheads because it can be telegraphed.
  • The in game frame data its something NRS still adds manually, having a script running to count in game frame data can be the next best thing, as long as it register startup, block adv, recovery and such to display them in the command list or to show during an action.
  • An alt to this is having a vulnerability script, NRS did this with deception, where they had a bar that would flash red whenever a vulnerability appears, by how many frames would be a true challenge.
  • I noticed you guys are really trying with be more diverse specially on tutorials in how certain character plays, just keep doing what you're doing.

Pretty sure i missed a bunch, so list it to add them.
 
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MagicMan357

"130 ms is more legit than Labbing" - TYM
i think one of the major things is, they need to make recovery frames match the frames on block. Its really wierd and only us hardcore nrs fans will get it.
 

Shaka

Tier Whore.
i think one of the major things is, they need to make recovery frames match the frames on block. Its really wierd and only us hardcore nrs fans will get it.
What, some moves have more recovery on whiff or block that is part of the game and any fighter for the most part.

Exampe Supes F23 is -2 on block? on whiff has at least 15 frames of recovery, it's designed to play footsies. if you don't space it right you get whiff punish but if you do you get rewarded.
 
What you guys think about the current dash mechanic?

I liked the MK9 dash system. It was very quick and it helped with the movement in short distances. I understand that the current backdash distance is good for escape some moves, but Netherrealm could do a new back roll mechanic to help with this, similar to the front roll mechanic of Injustice 2, and keep the dash mechanic quick and short like MK9.

What do you guys think about this?
 

foxof42

Thanksgiving corner game, going ham and stuffing
What you guys think about the current dash mechanic?

I liked the MK9 dash system. It was very quick and it helped with the movement in short distances. I understand that the current backdash distance is good for escape some moves, but Netherrealm could do a new back roll mechanic to help with this, similar to the front roll mechanic of Injustice 2, and keep the dash mechanic quick and short like MK9.

What do you guys think about this?
I think the beauty of the MB roll is that it requires you to expose yourself for the length of a forward dash. Being able to gain that much ground on top of i-frames in a zoning meta would be a bit much. However, I say this without much MK9 context, so idk.
 

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
Just a reminder, while the link and run cancel system had been officially introduced at MKX as a mechanic, MK9 did had its happy accidents and some characters had this, like Rain who could use 4 RHC~ 4, 3 RH combo and Sonya who could use F22~MS~ia Dive Kick~ into 21~cartwheel

Those were insane and it took NRS 5 years until we see this again in MKX officially as a game mechanic with certain characters. MK9 also had auto block system. I think they had recreated this option down the line which now they can turn it on and off instead of going through an huge amount of codding.


make some sort of online league or ranking system instead of a bogus leaderboard. Would help with matchmaking too so I would know if I'm matched with someone leagues ahead of me instead of a projected win percentage that's almost never right
Ranking system is what is left for online Ranking i think, my country has a ranking page for MKX and we had a ranking system based around set wins as a stats and we have ranking names for it, it goes like this:

Free = less than 2 wins
Rabbit = greater than 2 wins, less than 8 wins
Cake = greater than 8 wins and less than 12 wins
Chiken = greater than 12 wins, less than 15 wins
Bird = greater than 15 wins, less than 20 wins
Human = 20 to 24 wins
Warrior = 26 to 30 wins
Competitor = 31 to 35 wins
Dominator = 36 to 40 wins
Shaolin = 41 to 45 wins
Linkuei = 46 to 50 wins
wraith = 51 to 55 wins
Sorcerer = 56 to 60 wins
Shadow Priest = 61 to 65 wins
Demi god = over 65 wins
Khanum = over 75 wins
God = over 85 wins
Elder god = over 100 wins
One being = I didn't set the win difference



The point is, NRS could use something similar to matchmaking certain characters over win ratios with like a difference in between one or 2 ranks in scale just to not get way too empty.
 

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
Thread updated with a few tweaks and language correction, there was also the different advantage on standing or crouching on the same line as with a difference sentence.
 

Tanno

The Fantasy is the Reality of the Mind
Online

  • Fix the matchmaking issues from MK9.
  • Add the black list, so that we may add the ragequitters in this list, and ultimately prevent the matchmaking system to match us and those within the black list. (all games)
  • Add the competitive mode even for gear powers without the gear stats. (INJ2)
  • Add the option to avoid the Wi-Fi users. (all games)
  • Get rid of the region lock system. (started in INJ2, and needs to be added for the upcoming games) I played with ADM|Chopperazi w/ 250ms and we played almost fine.
 
The games AA's still have the fatal issue.

If you AA Fate or Robin or [insert character with good j3 here], it trades and you take more damage just for successfully hitting your d2.

We still need a proper priority system.
A small number of characters should be allowed to jump. It's part of their designs as long as they're balanced, we're all good.
I don't want to play a game where there is absolutely no air movement
 

Fred Marvel

It's actually Freddy Marvel
Ranking system is what is left for online Ranking i think, my country has a ranking page for MKX and we had a ranking system based around set wins as a stats and we have ranking names for it, it goes like this:

Free = less than 2 wins
Rabbit = greater than 2 wins, less than 8 wins
Cake = greater than 8 wins and less than 12 wins
Chiken = greater than 12 wins, less than 15 wins
Bird = greater than 15 wins, less than 20 wins
Human = 20 to 24 wins
Warrior = 26 to 30 wins
Competitor = 31 to 35 wins
Dominator = 36 to 40 wins
Shaolin = 41 to 45 wins
Linkuei = 46 to 50 wins
wraith = 51 to 55 wins
Sorcerer = 56 to 60 wins
Shadow Priest = 61 to 65 wins
Demi god = over 65 wins
Khanum = over 75 wins
God = over 85 wins
Elder god = over 100 wins
One being = I didn't set the win difference



The point is, NRS could use something similar to matchmaking certain characters over win ratios with like a difference in between one or 2 ranks in scale just to not get way too empty.
See that would work, the problem is it looks like NRS will never do it unless there's an outcry for it. SF4 had one and SFV has a better ranking system they could just copy that or use whatever names lin kuei, elder god etc or for superhero thememed tou csn go from vigilante to hero to justice league or something idk but it makes no sense for there to be no form of ranking system for online play, it gives players no incentive because you never know if you're improving or not and don't know who the really good players are and if you're being matched correctly until after the set. The system you posted is great they just have to spread the wins out more like every 20 wins without a loss you rank up and the higher you go the bigger the gap or something along those lines.
 

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
See that would work, the problem is it looks like NRS will never do it unless there's an outcry for it. SF4 had one and SFV has a better ranking system they could just copy that or use whatever names lin kuei, elder god etc or for superhero thememed tou csn go from vigilante to hero to justice league or something idk but it makes no sense for there to be no form of ranking system for online play, it gives players no incentive because you never know if you're improving or not and don't know who the really good players are and if you're being matched correctly until after the set. The system you posted is great they just have to spread the wins out more like every 20 wins without a loss you rank up and the higher you go the bigger the gap or something along those lines.
This is something we did for our website, because with every tournament the more sets you win the higher you go, we didn't had a demotion system.

But still, i think NRS can come up with a demotion system as well, it would work greatly if they could do it.
 

Fred Marvel

It's actually Freddy Marvel
This is something we did for our website, because with every tournament the more sets you win the higher you go, we didn't had a demotion system.

But still, i think NRS can come up with a demotion system as well, it would work greatly if they could do it.
Yea I'm just saying if you guys could do that yourselves they could do it on a bigger scale and flesh it out more since they're being paid for it. It's very simple and something that should be included in any game that wants to be considered competitive online
 
Can you still see if an opponent is wired or wifi on Xbox? I'm pretty sure their connection is just rated in a scale of 1-4 bars. I don't think we can see exact ping either.

Am I missing something?
 

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
updated with:
  • Learn Session ( A new segment which teaches advanceds concepts of the game such as zoning, rushdown and more) added at the end of the game life cycle.
 

Second Saint

A man with too many names.
Biggest improvement they could make is to fix hitbox issues. Low profiling in all their games has been a huge issue, and I'm surprised it's not listed.