Discussion Patches overwhelmingly help NRS games not hurt them

[I GOT HANDS]

This is the weirdest argument lol, this shouldn't be this serious and wasn't even what I was talking about in the first place. I never even brought up WB. I'm just saying that individuals in NRS like Paulo, John, Tyler, etc love our tournament scene and would probably like to see the game perfected, but those decisions are up to different people at NRS. So I can't really blame the team implying that they don't care about their game after 6 months, just the higher-ups deciding the project timelines. The people actually involved in creating&tweaking the game's mechanics don't get to dictate that stuff.

Show me where I blamed specific members of the team. In any development studio, there will be numerous members who wish they could continue working on any given project that they care about, but are told not to because the studio no longer cares / feels it is worth their time to do so. In this case, the studio is NRS. All I've said is that if the patches stop coming, it's because NRS has stopped caring. Stop making this something that it isn't, and whiteknighting for people who aren't even being called out here, because you SPECULATE otherwise.

If you are wondering why we are having this argument, it likely has something to do with you QUOTING ME SAYING THAT ABOUT NRS, and saying "that doesn't make any sense at all tbh".

 

[Sh1nkobi]

This thread has become an absolute disgrace to the nrs community with all the white knighting. Its one thing to post an opinion but its a whole different beast when you try to smear people for making intellegent points with substantial evidence. Some like these patches but the majority dont. If you feel so entitled that nrs makes games only for you your just being arrogant. I love nrs games but i hate how they make this game less and less interesting with each patch and thats my opinion. I also dont know why they added a training mode if everything I work on is going to change in a few weeks. By disagreeing does this mean that my opinion is any less valid than yours? Are you going to smear me too and say im just not good? Or call me a capcom player like thats an insult or a valid argument? Maybe we can clutch for a foothold by pointing to made up or dwindling tournament numbers like thats proof of anything. These types of things are a disgrace to the community and it turns potential new players off from the game. Your doing just as much damage to the longevity of the game as we dissenters claim the patches are. I think this thread is done, at this point its all just beating a dead horse or getting in pointless dick measuring arguments. I know its too much to ask for but, I think as nrs fans we've said enough dont you?

 

[GAV]

This is the weirdest argument lol, this shouldn't be this serious and wasn't even what I was talking about in the first place. I never even brought up WB. I'm just saying that individuals in NRS like Paulo, John, Tyler, etc love our tournament scene and would probably like to see the game perfected, but those decisions are up to different people at NRS. So I can't really blame the team implying that they don't care about their game after 6 months, just the higher-ups deciding the project timelines. The people actually involved in creating&tweaking the game's mechanics don't get to dictate that stuff.

I've never been on a design team, but I've had long conversations with many developers that have - and they were universal in saying the have always had power over their aspect or role in terms of creative development. As long as the development cycle continued, and develop cycles at NRS go beyond their games being released, they enjoy creative control without board approval so long as the creative designer and their other constituents are made aware - and there are no adamant objections to work through.

To shorten, developers make most decisions once cycles have started - so these changes are developer and creative designer driven. The board doesn't get consulted in matters like these unless they are off budget.

 

[Rude]

This thread has become an absolute disgrace to the nrs community with all the white knighting. Its one thing to post an opinion but its a whole different beast when you try to smear people for making intellegent points with substantial evidence. Some like these patches but the majority dont. If you feel so entitled that nrs makes games only for you your just being arrogant. I love nrs games but i hate how they make this game less and less interesting with each patch and thats my opinion. I also dont know why they added a training mode if everything I work on is going to change in a few weeks. By disagreeing does this mean that my opinion is any less valid than yours? Are you going to smear me too and say im just not good? Or call me a capcom player like thats an insult or a valid argument? Maybe we can clutch for a foothold by pointing to made up or dwindling tournament numbers like thats proof of anything. These types of things are a disgrace to the community and it turns potential new players off from the game. Your doing just as much damage to the longevity of the game as we dissenters claim the patches are. I think this thread is done, at this point its all just beating a dead horse or getting in pointless dick measuring arguments. I know its too much to ask for but, I think as nrs fans we've said enough dont you?

The same crowd that are now saying they hate patches are the ones that also demanded Tanya be nerfed, Raiden be nerfed, Kenshi and Kitana get buffed, etc.

You can't have it both ways.

If you demand balance changes an the developers give them to you, then you can't turn around and bitch that the game is patched too much.

 

[I GOT HANDS]

I've never been on a design team, but I've had long conversations with many developers that have - and they were universal in saying the have always had power over their aspect or role in terms of creative development. As long as the development cycle continued, and develop cycles at NRS go beyond their games being released, they enjoy creative control without board approval so long as the creative designer and their other constituents are made aware - and there are no adamant objections to work through.

To shorten, developers make most decisions once cycles have started - so these changes are developer and creative designer driven. The board doesn't get consulted in matters like these unless they are off budget.

Thank you. Someone who undestands how the industry works instead of just talking out their ass and picking and choosing who to blame like its a popularity contest.

If NRS stops patching, it was because NRS chose to stop patching.

 

[funkdoc]

here's a huge, HUGE goddamn thing that nobody in this thread has brought up:

in any non-niche competitive game, the MAJORITY OF ENTRANTS will be people playing it as a "side game"

look at the evo numbers for SF4 & smash & yes, MKX. think about how many players you see doing work at majors and grinding the game at weekly tournaments. do those add up to 2000 or even 1000 players? no way in hell. so where do those numbers come from?

in evo's case, they largely come from people who don't go to any other tournaments. they're there to be IRL stream monsters more than anything. some years back, one of the cannons made a post on SRK that said something like "our aim is to make evo the premier fighting-game convention", and that is exactly what it's become to the majority of attendees: a *convention*. these are people who will donate to the pot in the games they enjoy, but don't take any game seriously enough for it to be considered a "main game".

ok, so evo is a special case. however, the same general pattern holds true for other major tournaments out there. they don't get nearly as many of the people who never go to tourneys, but what they do get a lot of are scene regulars who don't really grind any particular game. they might be the people who get 17th in your 20-man local and do the same setups with the same character week in and week out, or they might be older players who travel just to catch up with old friends anymore. in any case, these are the people you WANT playing your game at tournaments - bigger numbers, more money, generally cool people to chill or play games with...what's not to like? and NRS's patching shuts out this potential audience, badly.

i am buddies with a lot of people who have...eclectic tastes in FGs. as in, the crowd who would rather play breakers revenge than SF4. these folks generally aren't that dedicated to any bigger game, but they are pretty damn smart when it comes to breaking down games - heck, one of my ohio friends figured out how silly MK9 kenshi was like a year before anyone did anything with him. this sort of player enjoys FGs for the "broken" stuff and the ability to do cool powerful things without spending hours a day to learn them. they're not all that likely to work on new things 6 months down the line, but they will still travel and enter tournaments for your game as long as their cool powerful things still work. that last part is where the patching has been the #1 deal-breaker for many people i know. examples:

- Person A (super turbo player, design theory nerd) didn't play MK9 but was highly interested in watching streams during the early days and IIRC was considering picking it up. same story as ultradavid: once cyrax lost his command grab->bomb trap, the writing was on the wall and the game was more or less dead to him.

- Person B (more of a KOF head than anything else) played MK9 at the start and was having fun with smoke. once his airthrow -> OTG smoke bomb was removed, he dropped the game and IIRC hasn't touched NRS stuff since.

- Person C (marvel player & FG designer) picked up injustice and spent some hours practicing cyborg's instant air fireball. the move got patched *that day* and that was it for him.


in these cases, the issue isn't "my character got nerfed", as none of these people are big character loyalists. their problem is more with what the patching represents. it's showing that the simple, fun, & unique tools that make FGs awesome to us will be removed or nerfed into the ground, rather than kept and balanced around. it's showing that none of what you learned might matter two WEEKS from now, much less two months. it's showing that these games will cater to a community that has the complete opposite values we do - the "balance is overrated" crowd might be small relative to the overall fanbase, but we have a far higher percentage of people who travel and support the games we like.


anyway, a lot of people on this site seem to take it as a personal affront if anybody else views their game as a side game. newsflash: that's not a slight toward you. if anything yall should consider it a compliment, as it means the person thinks your game is fun enough to merit playing even if they'll never sniff a top 8 in it. NRS & anime games have the hardest time keeping these players over the long haul and for very similar reasons: the patching/update cycle. a game where you have to relearn bnb combos or setups every 2 weeks or even 6 months is a game that is impossible to enjoy as a side game. period.

to end this, i'll leave yall with an old quote from arturo: "Scrubs keep the scene alive, not top players."

 

[declimax]

Anyone trying to make claims that patches as early and often as this are necessary should remember that Evil Ryu was considered one of the bottom characters toward the start of AE2012. Toward the end people were realizing that he might be close to the top, and with minor buffs in ultra he's now considered top 5, if not the best in the game. He went from being awful to being good without any changes, and went from being good to being the best with few changes.

In vanilla SF4 Sagat was considered the best in the game for pretty much the entire game's life until super came out. Looking back on it now, it's generally agreed that Akuma was the best, despite nothing about the characters actually changing.

It even happened in Hokuto no Ken, a bizarre and imbalanced game by arcsys for the PS2. Shin and Toki were considered the best in the game toward the start, but as more and more tech was discovered, shin gradually dropped as the other characters evolved around him. Toki stayed godlike but he was no longer untouchable because all the other characters were gaining practical options to use against him, despite the game never receiving a single update.

Games change over time even without the developers touching them.

 

[d3v]

In vanilla SF4 Sagat was considered the best in the game for pretty much the entire game's life until super came out. Looking back on it now, it's generally agreed that Akuma was the best, despite nothing about the characters actually changing.

I could go on and one about this. As stated, Akuma is acknowledged as the best character in vanilla by those who actually studied the game and the match ups. That said, there's a ton of stuff that was never explored, especially with the console characters.

Current thinking is that Cammy (based on what we know now) would have moved up alot (she was already considered as having a favorable match up against Akuma before Super hit). And Gen, with his ambiguous cross ups combined with being actually able to do damage would have probably run the game given a couple more years.

 

[declimax]

I could go on and one about this. As stated, Akuma is acknowledged as the best character in vanilla by those who actually studied the game and the match ups. That said, there's a ton of stuff that was never explored, especially with the console characters.

Current thinking is that Cammy (based on what we know now) would have moved up alot (she was already considered as having a favorable match up against Akuma before Super hit). And Gen, with his ambiguous cross ups combined with being actually able to do damage would have probably run the game given a couple more years.

Speaking of SF4, another comparison to make is the number of updates the games have received:

MKX: 4-21, 5-14, 5-20, 6-1, 6-23, 7-2 (thanks viscant)
6 updates in about 3 months

SF4: Vanilla arcade > Vanilla console, Vanilla console > Super, Super > AE, AE > 2012, 2012 > Arcade Ultra, Arcade Ultra > Console Ultra, Console Ultra > Ultra 1.04
7 updates over almost as many years

When was the 7th MKX patch planned for, again...?

 

[Marte]

I'd like to see what would happen if Capcom decides to apply this patching system to SFV. Cause dropping a "secondary" game it's one thing, but would the Capcom players drop their primary game too?

 

[declimax]

I'd like to see what would happen if Capcom decides to apply this patching system to SFV. Cause dropping a "secondary" game it's one thing, but would the Capcom players drop their primary game too?

I would. What reason do I have to re-learn SF5 every 2 weeks when I already know how to play SF4?

I'd also like it to be known that I don't think relatively frequent patches are necessarily disastrous, but they require a delicate touch and extremely competent and intelligent devs. See Killer Instinct--patches come about once a month (with break periods between seasons,) but the changes are few and they're generally very minor. I think you could count on two hands the number of changes in a patch they've made over the game's entire lifespan that are as significant as the average change a character receives in every MKX patch.

 

[Big Pampering]

Slips, viscant, ultradavid and revolver should just get on a skype call to continue this discussion. Record it and post it on TYM for people to voice their opinions. We need more podcasts and this is an interesting topic. Maybe @General M2Dave would be interested in doing something like this?

 

[MrSoloLobo]

Every single thing you worked on changed. Lol. How many times am I gonna read this? Did you only specifically look at the small amount of moves that were changed in the patches so far? How coincidental is that and how bad is your luck?

This thread has become an absolute disgrace to the nrs community with all the white knighting. Its one thing to post an opinion but its a whole different beast when you try to smear people for making intellegent points with substantial evidence. Some like these patches but the majority dont. If you feel so entitled that nrs makes games only for you your just being arrogant. I love nrs games but i hate how they make this game less and less interesting with each patch and thats my opinion. I also dont know why they added a training mode if everything I work on is going to change in a few weeks. By disagreeing does this mean that my opinion is any less valid than yours? Are you going to smear me too and say im just not good? Or call me a capcom player like thats an insult or a valid argument? Maybe we can clutch for a foothold by pointing to made up or dwindling tournament numbers like thats proof of anything. These types of things are a disgrace to the community and it turns potential new players off from the game. Your doing just as much damage to the longevity of the game as we dissenters claim the patches are. I think this thread is done, at this point its all just beating a dead horse or getting in pointless dick measuring arguments. I know its too much to ask for but, I think as nrs fans we've said enough dont you?

 

[Jaku2011]

I would. What reason do I have to re-learn SF5 every 2 weeks when I already know how to play SF4?

Because you like the game? I don't think anything added in a patch has fundamentally changed any game ever, in MK you still have a run button, block button 4 attacks etc. I would never drop sf5 just because Ryu lost invincibility on his SRK or whatever, if the game is good the game is good and I'll play it.

However I get not liking patches and I understand it bothers people, I guess it just isn't that big a deal to others. Honestly reading patch notes is a lot of fun for me

 

[Xx-TGODPRINCE-Xx]

There is a lot of discussion going on about how patches ruin NRS games and anyone who even thinks about discussing patches should be tarred and feathered and ostracized from the TYM community. I would like to give some ammunition to people on this sight that feel like they are not allowed to discuss MKX balance for fear of being called a "complainer" or even worse. Please discuss this game, talk about it, wonder out loud if you think something is overpowered or underpowered. In fact that is what this sight is supposed to be about, the open discussion of things, not people telling you "you shouldn't talk about this or that".

I would like to back my claim up with evidence. Let us please examine Injustice's patches. Awhile ago Slips got into an argument with MIT about whether patches were good for Injustice or bad. Slips then challenged MIT to go back and look at Injustice patches to see if they were an overall positive, or overall negative to Injustice. MIT is super busy in college and did not have the time to go through the Injustice patches so I did. Here is what I found.

Here are the links for my data.
http://www.injustice.com/en/news/updated-520-injustice-patch-v103-release-notes (Injustice first patch 05/20/2013)
http://www.injustice.com/en/news/injustice-patch-v104-release-notes (Injustice 2nd patch 06/04/2013)
http://www.injustice.com/en/news/injustice-patch-v105-release-notes (Injustice 3rd patch 06/26/13)
http://www.injustice.com/en/news/patch-106-release-notes (Injustice 4th patch 09/24/13)

MIT's main complaint was that characters like Deathstroke, and Scorpion got unfairly nerfed and that ruined Injustice. But I added up the changes and found that the positive changes were overwhelmingly positive and very rarely hurt Injustice, on a factor of 8/10. That means that 80% of the changes that happened helped Injustice be a better game, and 20% of the changes from the patch hurt the game.

Here they are.

1.03: 34 positive changes. 5 negative changes.
Changes of note in this patch.

• Broken characters like Aquaman, Superman are nerfed
• Low tier characters like Bane, Joker, Lobo, Raven, Shazam, Sinestro and Catwoman buffed
• Many unblockable's and insane block damage strings fixed.
• To be fair to the "patches are bad crowd" I added the Deathstroke nerfs and the Sinestro trait buffs as negatives to give them the benefit of the doubt.

1.04: 4 positives and 1 negative

• Mostly bug fixes but added a buff to Flash as a negative because possible Flash didn't need it.

1.05: 23 positive and 8 negatives.

• This had many positive things like more Superman nerfs
• But also had negatives like numerous Scorpion nerfs

1.06: The patch that saved Injustice. 89 positive changes. 18 negative changes. Also all of the negative changes I am giving the naysayers the benefit of the doubt if a nerf or buff was questionable I added it to the negative column. Notable changes in this patch where

• Nerfs to characters like Aquaman, Batgirl, Blackadam backdash etc. Superman and Zod
• Buffs to a plethora of characters like Catwoman, Green Arrow, Lobo, Lex Luthor, Joker, Zatanna etc.

Negatives I added

• 1 MMH buff, but he also got 1 nerf too (even though the buff outweighed the nerf), possible too many nerfs to Black Adam, and possible too many buffs to Bane.

Also take note that the FINAL Injustice patch too place before the game was even 6 months OLD! So the people that are telling you "you are not allowed to discuss patches until 6 months in are just absolutely crazy and out of touch.

So in closing the patches to Injustice included 150 positive changes and 32 negative changes. Patches saved Injustice.

My only hope with this post is to free people up to discuss what is on your minds. Please let us open up discussion instead of trying to stop people from talking. Thank you.

I completely agree. NRS patches make the game better. We are not all gods.... Even the creator make mistakes and when the pro's find broken shit it neds fixed lol. Everytime a patch comes out I get a fuzzy feeling in my stomach to relearn a character mentally. It makes it interesting! Even tho top tiers can get annoying but I love the challenge. Someone has to be good! Not everyone can have the spot light! Great post.

 

[smashingme]

Viscant, ofcourse the patching is bad. We have to counter those characters our own way but the Tanya patch I get. Evo is coming up, having everyone play one character that looks ridiculous with all the teleports (especially in a mirror) would make their game look bad in the biggest tournament of the year.

New potential players will be thinking: oh you can only play 1 character if you wanna win and you have to pay for it. They want their game to look good and attract more players.

Don't get me wrong I agree with you about the patching but this one seems like a right move for NRS.

 

[declimax]

Every single thing you worked on changed. Lol. How many times am I gonna read this? Did you only specifically look at the small amount of moves that were changed in the patches so far? How coincidental is that and how bad is your luck?

Every time any character receives a change, any player of any character is affected. The characters don't exist in a vacuum, they have to interact with other characters. When moves change, matchups change, for everyone. When matchups change, you need to re-learn the matchups.

Just because my character isn't nerfed or buffed doesn't mean they aren't affected by every single patch.

Because you like the game? I don't think anything added in a patch has fundamentally changed any game ever, in MK you still have a run button, block button 4 attacks etc. I would never drop sf5 just because Ryu lost invincibility on his SRK or whatever, if the game is good the game is good and I'll play it.

However I get not liking patches and I understand it bothers people, I guess it just isn't that big a deal to others. Honestly reading patch notes is a lot of fun for me

It's not about Ryu losing invincibility on SRK (though that would be bad.) It's about ryu losing invincibility on srk, and low jab getting more hitstun, and low forward's range getting adjusted. And then, two weeks later, cammy gets more fireball invincibility on EX cannon drill, and her divekick becomes less advantaged on block, and her back fierce does more damage. Every. Two. Weeks.

It's not about fundamentally changing how the game is played, it's about wasting my time by rocking the boat so often.

Viscant, ofcourse the patching is bad. We have to counter those characters our own way but the Tanya patch I get. Evo is coming up, having everyone play one character that looks ridiculous with all the teleports (especially in a mirror) would make their game look bad in the biggest tournament of the year.

New potential players will be thinking: oh you can only play 1 character if you wanna win and you have to pay for it. They want their game to look good and attract more players.

Don't get me wrong I agree with you about the patching but this one seems like a right move for NRS.

I get where you're coming from on this and I sort of agree but I think their approach to balancing Tanya was terrible.

"So we've got this character that might be too good. She's got a good ground game, just like all the other good characters, and she's also got this weird and unique and interesting teleport game. I guess instead of doing the sensible thing and weakening her ground game to let the teleport stuff really shine, we should nerf the teleports so she has to fight like everyone else."

I won't say it's lazy but I will say it doesn't make the game look very interesting when you choose to do something like that.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

"So we've got this character that might be too good. She's got a good ground game, just like all the other good characters, and she's also got this weird and unique and interesting teleport game. I guess instead of doing the sensible thing and weakening her ground game to let the teleport stuff really shine, we should nerf the teleports so she has to fight like everyone else."

I won't say it's lazy but I will say it doesn't make the game look very interesting when you choose to do something like that.

Weakening the ground game would have done absolutely nothing, since at a high level she was using a 95% teleport-based game. It's actually the teleport that needed to be toned down in order to bring all aspects of her design into balance, and make her the well-rounded character she was given the tools to be.

The problem wasn't merely that she was teleporting a lot, but rather that there needed to be a downside; so that there was some risk in using it, or some advantage to baiting/predicting/defending against it it, rather than providing continuous free invincible offense. Now there's a downside; so players will have to think when they use it. Still a great tool, but now one that requires fighting game acumen, timing, and decision making.

Posts like these indicate a lack of understanding of the game's meta + the reasons why certain things were toned down in the first place.

 

[declimax]

Weakening the ground game would have done absolutely nothing, since at a high level she was using a 95% teleport-based game. It's actually the teleport that needed to be toned down in order to bring all aspects of her design into balance, and make her the well-rounded character she was given the tools to be.

Posts like these indicate a lack of understanding of the game's meta + the reasons why certain things were toned down in the first place.

No, I understand, I just don't care. I'd rather she be unbalanced and different than be like everyone else. Otherwise, what's the point of even having the character? I was interested in buying Tanya and trying her out when I saw that she was so unique and crazy compared to the other characters. Then I saw the patch notes for her, and my interest in buying her faded along with my interest in playing the game in general. Because, guess what? A 95% teleport-based game is what I wanted, because nobody else has that. Now, she's just another character that fights on the ground. Exciting.

I will concede though, that you're right. My understanding of the game's meta is limited, because I'm just a spectator now. I think I've already made it clear why.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

No, I understand, I just don't care. I'd rather she be unbalanced and different than be like everyone else. Otherwise, what's the point of even having the character? I was interested in buying Tanya and trying her out when I saw that she was so unique and crazy compared to the other characters. Then I saw the patch notes for her, and my interest in buying her faded along with my interest in playing the game in general. Because, guess what? A 95% teleport-based game is what I wanted, because nobody else has that. Now, she's just another character that fights on the ground. Exciting.

She is still different than everyone else. Her teleport still gives her capabilities and a type of movement that no one else has (even if she has to use it intelligently now), her Naginata staff (and her ability to use it both for movement/defense/offense) is a very unique tool and very different from anything else in the game, her Pyromancer zoning is very unique (and equally effective form the air), and there's nothing else like Dark Shroud in MKX with the way that it attaches to you and enhances her damage.

She will actually become *more* interesting now that she'll be forced to make full use of all these other unique tools she was given by the designers, including but not limited to her teleport.

Saying "she's just another character that fights on the ground" shows a supreme lack of understanding of how this character operates.

 

[NRF CharlieMurphy]

NRS patching basically tells me that they like changing the rules of the game constantly.

Like telling pitchers in baseball "today we will be pitching from 60ft 6 inches."

"oh... you're total ERA across the board is too low... so we are going to move you back to 78ft"

"oh now your'e era is too high.... so we are going to move you to 65ft"

Except... ya know.... those guys actually have players rights and unions and such to keep shit like that from happening.... but the notion holds true.

The patches ruin the games for people like me.... who don't have the time to simply grind out stuff.... only to have it change... so we can regrind it out.... ONLINE (which is spectacularly bad).... with no offline scene.

I mean...... they REALLY know how to alienate their players.

 

[Vagrant]

Lord have mercy someone please lock this.

What happened here?

 

[rev0lver]

Show me where I blamed specific members of the team. In any development studio, there will be numerous members who wish they could continue working on any given project that they care about, but are told not to because the studio no longer cares / feels it is worth their time to do so. In this case, the studio is NRS. All I've said is that if the patches stop coming, it's because NRS has stopped caring. Stop making this something that it isn't, and whiteknighting for people who aren't even being called out here, because you SPECULATE otherwise.

If you are wondering why we are having this argument, it likely has something to do with you QUOTING ME SAYING THAT ABOUT NRS, and saying "that doesn't make any sense at all tbh".

I was only talking about blaming NRS as a whole vs blaming certain parts of NRS

I said it doesn't make any sense that patching the game would be more beneficial financially than working to push out the next one. Because yes that's a dumb idea.

 

[rev0lver]

I've never been on a design team, but I've had long conversations with many developers that have - and they were universal in saying the have always had power over their aspect or role in terms of creative development. As long as the development cycle continued, and develop cycles at NRS go beyond their games being released, they enjoy creative control without board approval so long as the creative designer and their other constituents are made aware - and there are no adamant objections to work through.

To shorten, developers make most decisions once cycles have started - so these changes are developer and creative designer driven. The board doesn't get consulted in matters like these unless they are off budget.

In a much more corporate environment than you may be used to, if they're told to work on the next game they'll have to work on the next game.

Btw, it actually costs money to patch games, at least on console. So they can't just do whatever they want

 

[rev0lver]

- Person A (super turbo player, design theory nerd) didn't play MK9 but was highly interested in watching streams during the early days and IIRC was considering picking it up. same story as ultradavid: once cyrax lost his command grab->bomb trap, the writing was on the wall and the game was more or less dead to him.

- Person B (more of a KOF head than anything else) played MK9 at the start and was having fun with smoke. once his airthrow -> OTG smoke bomb was removed, he dropped the game and IIRC hasn't touched NRS stuff since.

- Person C (marvel player & FG designer) picked up injustice and spent some hours practicing cyborg's instant air fireball. the move got patched *that day* and that was it for him.


in these cases, the issue isn't "my character got nerfed", as none of these people are big character loyalists. their problem is more with what the patching represents. it's showing that the simple, fun, & unique tools that make FGs awesome to us will be removed or nerfed into the ground, rather than kept and balanced around. it's showing that none of what you learned might matter two WEEKS from now, much less two months. it's showing that these games will cater to a community that has the complete opposite values we do - the "balance is overrated" crowd might be small relative to the overall fanbase, but we have a far higher percentage of people who travel and support the games we like.

So tl;dr we should have kept ridiculous damage resets (even those characters ended up having resets anyway) and a block infinite because they're fun and unique.

Sorry that if I play a character with a block infinite I don't ignore the rest of the meta and quit because I can't just do that anymore. It's 2015, the developers have the ability to remove this stuff, and I reasonably shouldn't expect broken game mechanics to stay just because it's how things used to be.

You could consider it, maybe, selfish? But I'd rather be a part of a smaller, more dedicated community than play the unpatched versions of these games for 2 years with infinites, ridiculous damage disparities, and other dumb things we see. And let's be serious here, we're still going to get a lot of people playing as a side game anyway, just like mk9 and injustice. And both of those communities held strong at least until the followup game. We generally surpassed every game at tournaments with the exception of Marvel and SF4 (and now we'll probably surpass Marvel more). With the way we've started out MKX, things are looking up, and if we lose a slightly larger percentage of the casual/side game players than a game like SF to make our game better, I'm okay with that.