PNDK&M presents - MK11 Explained: Kustom Variations

[NothingPersonal]

That's the thing though. If they couldn't balance mkx variations, what makes them think they will in mk11? It's far better to let custom variations available and balance moves, because if one special proves too powerful they can either balance it, or make it occupy all three slots. And if two specials prove to make a broken combination, they can make them take 2 slots each so that you can't equip them. I don't see a problem, there are plenty of ways to balance the specials.
My concern is the base character. Because you have base Sonya who has 50/50's again, and she happens to have a good zoning tool to equip there's no hope for balancing. They should do something with 50/50 strings to all chars like with Scorpion imo so you shoulg equip certain strings and specials to create a certain archetype of a character.

 

[Johnny Based Cage]

After watching that, this is the first time I’ve ever actually been pretty hype about variations and could even see the “kustom” ones potentially working competitively. I’m kinda mind-blown actually because I’ve always been a huge advocate for throwing the variation system right into the trash where I thought it belonged...

But that really actually felt like I was watching a real choice having to be made between distinct gameplay styles, rather than MKX’s more or less homogenous overall gameplay with various moves from distinct styles sprinkled on top here and there.

If they can really continue to balance the choices like what was shown here, where rather than just slapping moves onto characters MKX style they actually put some thought into it so that combo extenders replace projectiles on Raiden, maybe command grabs replace set-ups/traps for Geras, etc. etc. and so on and so forth, we might have actual balance AND gameplay diversity, the latter of which was especially sorely missing from the last crack they took at this shit.

I’m honestly intrigued af.

 

[callMEcrazy]

To all those concerned with balance in MK11:

• The best players of any character will tend to converge towards a "meta", i.e. a single custom variation combination. Rest of the combinations will mostly be dismissed as sub-optimal. There might be a few exceptions but by and large this is unavoidable. No amount of balancing will stop this from happening.
• As before only a handful of players (lets be generous and say that number is 50) will define the meta. Tiers in reality depend not just on characters, but also on the players playing them. The re-balancing done in any patch post-launch will revolve mostly around how those players are using those characters. Specials that are most commonly used by them will be nerfed, and specials that haven't been making the cut into custom variations at all will be buffed. Specials or strings that is.

Balancing is highly influenced by biases even in the best of times. Nobody thought Dragon's Fire Liu Kang was top tier during MKXL's life. But now ninjakilla is making him look godlike. Is it Dragon's Fire or is it ninjakilla that is really that good though? The answer probably is the combination. My takeaway from this is that even the best players in the world are quite clueless about balance. So there's no point worrying too much about it.

MK11's balance will neither be much better or much worse than that of MKX. That is what I expect.

 

[kabelfritz]

Augmented slots aren't going to be in competitive mode.

They haven't mentioned custom variations not being in competitive mode and the assumption at the moment because there aren't base variations yet is that they WILL be used in competitive mode.

And no one still knows what they'll decide on when it comes to wether or not they will have base-variations like MKX at all.

they said at the reveal there will be NO custom variations but like 3 presets in competitive mode, but they might the number of presets over the time.

 

[ismael4790]

Heard from? If that's so, hopefully it's limited to just a few abilities, e.g. for Geras his time rewind ability and that's it.

Geras is precisely the example I heard about lol. Can't tell source.

To all those concerned with balance in MK11:

• The best players of any character will tend to converge towards a "meta", i.e. a single custom variation combination. Rest of the combinations will mostly be dismissed as sub-optimal. There might be a few exceptions but by and large this is unavoidable. No amount of balancing will stop this from happening.
• As before only a handful of players (lets be generous and say that number is 50) will define the meta. Tiers in reality depend not just on characters, but also on the players playing them. The re-balancing done in any patch post-launch will revolve mostly around how those players are using those characters. Specials that are most commonly used by them will be nerfed, and specials that haven't been making the cut into custom variations at all will be buffed. Specials or strings that is.

Balancing is highly influenced by biases even in the best of times. Nobody thought Dragon's Fire Liu Kang was top tier during MKXL's life. But now ninjakilla is making him look godlike. Is it Dragon's Fire or is it ninjakilla that is really that good though? The answer probably is the combination. My takeaway from this is that even the best players in the world are quite clueless about balance. So there's no point worrying too much about it.

MK11's balance will neither be much better or much worse than that of MKX. That is what I expect.

DF Liu was considered top by many people during mkx life. Some didn't want to listen/admit the obvious or straight up downplayed.

I wouldn't say "the best players" are clueless about matchups. The thing is, thought, that usually they are the ones that are the most biased, so their opinion has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

 

[_CHINOCUDEIRO_]

Still waiting for a 3 sec. video that says "yes or no" if the kustom variations are allowed for rankeds

 

[Zhidoreptiloid]

I hope, they will balance all 3 tournament variations, because, on a paper all 3 variations had to work, but they not working, and, in a most of scenarios, You will pick one most dominant variation from 3

 

[NothingPersonal]

I hope, they will balance all 3 tournament variations, because, on a paper all 3 variations had to work, but they not working, and, in a most of scenarios, You will pick one most dominant variation from 3

And they say they'll be adding more variations down the line. Imagine the balancing issues then. Also I bet Baraka will have only three and Scorpion around ten or something

 

[ChaosTheory]

I hope so.

I do, too. I'm just curious about the math. In this Scorpion example... How do you include all of those in three variations?

 

[greedface]

Kustom variations WILL work competitively and if you disagree you sound SOOO dumb stoopid
Big dumb dumb yup
Dumbity dumbledore

 

[trufenix]

Yeah I was under the impression that competitively it's going to be similar to MKX in that there's 3 fixed variations per character again. It's just that they added the powerset loadout customization now from INJ2 for various types of modes.

It's gonna be more than three just based on the number of moves and point restrictions we've seen in the reveal build and we're definitely not going to know before launch day because they aren't going to tell us how many moves are in the game.

They've even talked about DLC variations down the line, so I wouldn't be surprised if the day 1 patch drops a bunch in the game that they didn't finish before they went gold.

 

[Saboteur-6]

It's gonna be more than three just based on the number of moves and point restrictions we've seen in the reveal build and we're definitely not going to know before launch day because they aren't going to tell us how many moves are in the game.

They've even talked about DLC variations down the line, so I wouldn't be surprised if the day 1 patch drops a bunch in the game that they didn't finish before they went gold.

Literally from the article linked in this thread:

In the demo there were three variations to choose from. Are there always going to be three base variations that people can choose from?

Yeah. The game will come with the “regulation” versions of the character, and you can add to one and build it. We’re kind of still thinking about whether we want to make those three fixed. We can let you copy and paste and then build from there, but I’m personally leaning towards having some base ones, certainly for competitive and tournaments.

Do you think that between those three variations, those will be a character’s entire moveset, or will there be custom-only moves?

No, I don’t think from the base three variations we’ll be adding to that. We want those things to be fixed, so players can know, "That’s the variation, I know how it plays, I’m learning how to fight against it.”

 

[trufenix]

Literally from the article linked in this thread:

The very next question is:

Across those three – that will be the character’s entire moveset?

Yeah. We don’t want to leave stuff out, so I imagine that’ll be the base three, and they’ll encompass all of what that character can possibly do.

We already know from the K&M videos there's no way 3 variations can "encompass all of what that character can possibly do" based on the point totals and move replacements. So either he's wrong about there only being three or he's wrong about wanting to leave stuff out. What do you think?

 

[Saboteur-6]

The very next question is:



We already know from the K&M videos there's no way 3 variations can "encompass all of what that character can possibly do" based on the point totals and move replacements. So either he's wrong about there only being three or he's wrong about wanting to leave stuff out. What do you think?

Or, the slot requirement per special move is still in flux and will be implemented to accommodate whatever fixed variation archetype is the end goal.

It's open ended and nebulous because it sounds like it's still being discussed internally so nothing is definitive yet. By the tone of that article Ed at least sounds like he's leaning towards:

1. 3 static variation options per character for competitive/tournament (a la MKX)
2. Archetypeal design to each variation representing distinct playstyles. (a la MKX)

So the only problem would be slot restrictions which is an adjustable value.

 

[ChaosTheory]

So the only problem would be slot restrictions which is an adjustable variable.

In that case, regardless of how many abilities a character has, the maximum slots they could have would be nine, right?

Again, in this Scorpion example, they'd have to remove five slots for that to make sense. With eight abilities, there's only room for one of them to require two slots.

Even for an early build that's not finalized, it seems like too big a discrepancy for that to be the case.

We're missing something. Hopefully it's addressed on the stream they do.

 

[NothingPersonal]

Maaan, restricting custom vars for competitive is such a bad idea. Why not have both, fixed - the devs can play with and customs - the players could try out, is beyond me. But making fixed dlc vars in the future makes sense for gainig moneys. Will anyone be ok with that since all the moves are already in the game? What a dick move. Unless they're free.

 

[Error404]

If Kustom Variations are allowed in competitive mode, there is no hope for this game to be balanced.

You have absolutely 0 ways of knowing this. Also NOT having kustom variations doesn't mean the game will be balanced.

 

[Saboteur-6]

In that case, regardless of how many abilities a character has, the maximum slots they could have would be nine, right?

Again, in this Scorpion example, they'd have to remove five slots for that to make sense. With eight abilities, there's only room for one of them to require two slots.

Even for an early build that's not finalized, it seems like too big a discrepancy for that to be the case.

We're missing something. Hopefully it's addressed on the stream they do.

Where are you getting your values? Per the video and Scorpion loadout example he had access to:

• 11 total additional abilities (not including base kit)
• 3 customizable slots

My point is that the underlying push from Ed per that interview is to have a minimal number of locked, static, archetypal variations available for competitive (he says 3). NRS can adjust, bypass, or outright "waive" slot restrictions for specific locked archetypes if they want to "encompass as many abilities as possible" provided it's balanced. This to me sounds more feasible than having a multitude of variations or potential combinations for ranked/competitive. That's a ton of moving parts to have to try and balance together.

 

[pure.Wasted]

Still waiting for a 3 sec. video that says "yes or no" if the kustom variations are allowed for rankeds

If someone doesn't ask that on the Kombat Kast today, swear to god...

 

[MKF30]

So it appears that skins/shaders will be combined? Man that kind of bums me out but if we get like 50+ per character I'll be happy I suppose. I was hoping for either a free color palette option where we can alter the color of pieces of clothing or simply have a bunch of shaders per costume but whatever. Still looks cool.

Gameplay wise, not worried. No doubt they'll just balance, patch and offer us tournament options with barebones and variations on modes.

 

[DDustiNN]

So it appears that skins/shaders will be combined? Man that kind of bums me out but if we get like 50+ per character I'll be happy I suppose. I was hoping for either a free color palette option where we can alter the color of pieces of clothing or simply have a bunch of shaders per costume but whatever. Still looks cool.

Gameplay wise, not worried. No doubt they'll just balance, patch and offer us tournament options with barebones and variations on modes.

I mean that's basically exactly what it is. In the reveal build, there were a few different costumes, each with a bunch of different shaders applied.

 

[ismael4790]

You have absolutely 0 ways of knowing this. Also NOT having kustom variations doesn't mean the game will be balanced.

No way to know for sure, yes. But mkx is a pretty interesting precedent to see what is likely to happen when nrs tries to balance a game with variations. Kustom variations is variation system with steroids.

Regarding the second sentence, I didn't say that. But what is obvious is that less variety potentially makes balance an easier task, since you have less variability to control.

 

[MKF30]

I mean that's basically exactly what it is. In the reveal build, there were a few different costumes, each with a bunch of different shaders applied.

True.

 

[Error404]

No way to know for sure, yes. But mkx is a pretty interesting precedent to see what is likely to happen when nrs tries to balance a game with variations. Kustom variations is variation system with steroids.

Regarding the second sentence, I didn't say that. But what is obvious is that less variety potentially makes balance an easier task, since you have less variability to control.

I don't know what this obsession with perfect balance even is tbh. A lot of the most competetive FGs of all time have been a far cry from balanced. What matters is variety , fun and a hyped community imo

 

[Circus]

"We haven't talked about that (yet)"

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