Sonic Fox's criticism of Mortal Kombat 11

[Marinjuana]

Meter doesnt recharge for free in those games.

I know you can make a case for these characters having mad meterbuild but still had to be earned.

How much do you do to earn it though? You get a lot of it from just taking damage and doing stuff that you would normally do. I think mostly, it encouraged you to throw more projectiles, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I don't know if it was really that deep outside of zoning wars.

Also, if we're talking about character discrepancies, the meter build mechanics of MK9, IGAU, MKX and INJ2 all contributed to bad matchups and was an inconsistent mechanic across different characters. I know you mentioned the mad meterbuild some characters had but I'd say it's one of the biggest issues they had with balance across the games. There was too many Brainiacs vs Batman, Bo' Rai Chos vs Mileena, Kabals vs the world, etc. Though obviously, other games have meter build systems so it's not like it can't work.

On the other hand, I feel that my lower damage character can compete much more because of the existence of breakaway and how his damage is largely unbreakable.

 

[M2Dave]

Meter doesnt recharge for free in those games.

I know you can make a case for these characters having mad meterbuild but still had to be earned.

In Mortal Kombat 9, a character like Kabal broke out of combos two to three times a round while a character like Sub Zero broke once. The scenarios are obviously less extreme in Mortal Kombat X. The point is that quantity is arguably the number one issue. If every character broke away once a round in Mortal Kombat 11, fewer people would be criticizing this system.

The deletion of breakaways would also benefit some characters such as Baraka and Kung Lao over others and cause certain "ground combo" variations such as Yaas Queen Cassie and Highborn Kitana to be less useful in tournament play. Severe gameplay overhauls always come with unintended consequences (i.e., removal of armor in Mortal Kombat X made some offensive options better and anti-aerial attacks worse).

 

[Wigy]

In Mortal Kombat 9, a character like Kabal broke out of combos two to three times a round while a character like Sub Zero broke once. The scenarios are obviously less extreme in Mortal Kombat X. The point is that quantity is arguably the number one issue. If every character broke away once a round in Mortal Kombat 11, fewer people would be criticizing this system.

The deletion of breakaways would also benefit some characters such as Baraka and Kung Lao over others and cause certain "ground combo" variations such as Yaas Queen Cassie and Highborn Kitana to be less useful in tournament play. Severe gameplay overhauls always come with unintended consequences (i.e., removal of armor in Mortal Kombat X made some offensive options better and anti-aerial attacks worse).

You're also comparing to a game that was just turbo busted. Jade had more 7-3s than all characters combined in mk11.

Kind of a moot point saying oh it didn't annoy people in mk9, folks were more fixed on cyrax killing you in one and kabal being kabal.

 

[colby4898]

Been saying from day 1 you should get once chance to fatal blow per round. None of this cool down bs if it doesnt hit

 

[haketh]

What are y’all doing that you’re constantly getting punished by Breakaway? Even as a Cetrion player the number of times I’ve been punished by a well timed breakaway is minor.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Also on a secondary note I appreciate SonicFox is trying to cut through the bullshit and say the community has shitty attitudes and won't lab before asking for nerfs, it's pretty wack for them to also start beating down on low/mid level players for not being good at the game. That's like Lebron going to a pickup game in Sherman, Illinois, dunking on everyone, and saying "y'all are trash cuz you dont practice like I do." You're an intrinsically talented world class player who's had the luxury of playing in every major tournament and training with the best of the community on a daily basis, and it's your actual full time job.

I don't think they were trying to say that everyone is supposed to be as good as Sonic is -- they know that not everybody will be a world class player.

The issue is that a lot of people in this community won't even learn the basics before complaning about something. Like, the absolute MINIMUM that you know to just understand the game and how things work. You constantly see posts from people with a laundry list of changes, but yet they don't understand how throws work, how pokes work, how hitstun works, how online networking affects frames, etc.

So that point Sonic is making (which is actually a very good one, imo) is that you should learn wtf you're talking about before you go ranting and crying that everything needs to be changed. It's no different from people who want a character nerfed Day 2 after release when they haven't even labbed the MU yet.

 

[Deleted member 5032]

What are y’all doing that you’re constantly getting punished by Breakaway? Even as a Cetrion player the number of times I’ve been punished by a well timed breakaway is minor.

I'm not anyone complaining about breakaway, but to answer your question, I play Noob's Dark Sabbath variation a lot and like to end my kombos with b1(1+3)~ghostball for the restand. However, the opponent can breakaway late enough that I have to make a hard read; if I commit to the b1(1+3) and they do break away, I get full-kombo punished.

 

[LeoMK29]

Is Sonic still the best MK player? Haven’t been following the tournament stuff

 

[Deleted member 5032]

Is Sonic still the best MK player? Haven’t been following the tournament stuff

I believe it's either him or Ninjakilla.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Is Sonic still the best MK player? Haven’t been following the tournament stuff

Yeah, he is. Winning Final Kombat (with the Joker, no less) solidifies Sonic as the current best player we have.

 

[Eldriken]

Yeah, he is. Winning Final Kombat (with the Joker, no less) solidifies Sonic as the current best player we have.

Man. "with the Joker, no less" <- What's this supposed to mean? Joker is on some stupid shit. This isn't Injustice 1/2. >=P

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Man. "with the Joker, no less" <- What's this supposed to mean? Joker is on some stupid shit. This isn't Injustice 1/2. >=P

They could have taken the easier way out and played Johnny, Liu, or any of the other obvious picks, but they did it with a character that they fleshed out themself, and stuck with him.

 

[Eldriken]

He could have taken the easier way out and played Johnny, Liu, or any of the other obvious picks, but he did it with a character that he fleshed out himself, and stuck with him.

Yes, this is true. But they had the advantage that no one had enough real MU experience against the character and the character is very strong.

Fox would have likely won regardless of their character of choice, but I'd say their "best" choice was the Joker due to the aforementioned.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Yes, this is true. But they had the advantage that no one had enough real MU experience against the character and the character is very strong.

Fox would have likely won regardless of their character of choice, but I'd say their "best" choice was the Joker due to the aforementioned.

Yeah, I just think that it takes something extra when you also have to basically build the character yourself.

For example Dragon with Cetrion; everyone has known how she works for a while, but it's up to him to be the guy who figures out how to win with her anyway. Despite lots of people saying that Cetrion is broke (and her being at the top of nearly everyone's tier list), he's one of the only people who's figured out how produce at a Top 8 level with her and that's cool.

I will always applaud people who do that over taking the easy way out, because without them we'd likely not know how good certain characters are.

 

[Eldriken]

Yeah, I just think that it takes something extra when you also have to basically build the character yourself.

For example Dragon with Cetrion; everyone has known how she works for a while, but it's up to him to be the guy who figures out how to win with her anyway. Despite lots of people saying that Cetrion is broke (and her being at the top of nearly everyone's tier list), he's one of the only people who's figured out how produce at a Top 8 level with her and that's cool.

I will always applaud people who do that over taking the easy way out, because without them we'd likely not know how good certain characters are.

I think Fox would have actually increased their chance of losing had they picked a character that was in the game from the beginning. The familiarity would have allowed for players to defend and/or react better versus the lack of familiarity against the Joker's universal tools and then the significant changes each variation presents.

Fox's ability to recognize strong tools from the get-go definitely served them will this go around.

What I mentioned above goes along with your statement of building a character yourself. Fox did this by recognizing the strengths Joker possessed and used that to their advantage. Can't really defend against it if you're unaware that it exists, y'know?

 

[CrimsonShadow]

I think Fox would have actually increased their chance of losing had they picked a character that was in the game from the beginning. The familiarity would have allowed for players to defend and/or react better versus the lack of familiarity against the Joker's universal tools and then the significant changes each variation presents.

Fox's ability to recognize strong tools from the get-go definitely served them will this go around.

What I mentioned above goes along with your statement of building a character yourself. Fox did this by recognizing the strengths Joker possessed and used that to their advantage. Can't really defend against it if you're unaware that it exists, y'know?

Watching those matches though, it didn't seem like Ninja was getting hit with anything he wasn't aware of, and he even won the first set.

I'm 100% sure he labbed Joker and knew what to expect.

Sonic was using the same couple of footsie strings that everyone knows about -- he just ultimately outplayed Ninja and beat him at his own game.

 

[deathstroke187]

To play devil's advocate, is breakaway really as bad as people claim? Obviously, scenarios for which you get punished for trying to do combos are unacceptable. However, the implication that breakaway benefits bad players is nonsensical. You have access to the same tool that your opponent does. Breakaway favors a player no more than flawless blocking does. Another argument is that in previous Mortal Kombat games the top tier characters took advantage of combo breakers on a consistent basis because they built meter quickly. The option has been universalized in Mortal Kombat 11 so that the whole roster can properly exploit it.

it is and its a feature that should had stayed in injustice we dont need that shit in mk.

 

[kingjolly]

Sorry but this whole “they” thing is super annoying to read.

 

[DixieFlatline78]

Sorry but this whole “they” thing is super annoying to read.

That sucks

 

[Juggs]

Yeah, he is. Winning Final Kombat (with the Joker, no less) solidifies Sonic as the current best player we have.

Man. "with the Joker, no less" <- What's this supposed to mean? Joker is on some stupid shit. This isn't Injustice 1/2. >=P

Was gonna say something similar. Joker is most likely a top tier character. Liu Kang is undoubtedly better though. Plus NinjaKilla has been using him since launch. Both players used very strong characters, tbh I feel the advantages evened out. SF knows the LK MU back to front, likewise NK knows LK back to front, both players have a lot of experience with this character. As far as Joker is concerned, regardless of whether or not NK did all the proper preparation for SF and the Joker, the long term experience isn’t there facing against the Joker. Obviously you could then argue that that goes both ways, but in the end, I feel the character choices evened out and neither player had a clear character advantage.

 

[Juggs]

Sorry but this whole “they” thing is super annoying to read.

That is SonicFox’s preferred pronoun.

 

[GeoffBedlam]

It's not that it's on you, it's that it's even possible for it to be on you.

The entire flow of a figthing game is dealing with your opponents bullshit (rushdown, defense, zoning, whatever) until you get a hit, and then you get rewarded. Literally take a risk, get it right, get rewarded.

This puts a mini game in the "reward" that makes it less rewarding, because now you're STILL dealing with risk.

As with my list from before, this is usually handled as either brief one off that resets to neutral (basically a do over), sometimes with a double down option for the aggressor to REALLY call out the defender, so it's still rewarding the person who took all the risk getting past their bullshit to land the hit.

MK11 is one of the very few games that not only gives a do over option, but will actively punish the player who landed the hit thus totally skewing the risk reward.

What's extra annoying is that you and everyone else who plays half serious knows this is mostly just a dumb knowledge test. "Oh don't bother doing X move in a combo unless they're out of meter". That's not interesting or exciting, and neither is "properly reading it" and just getting some slight oki (compared to say a burst bait/counter breaker from GG/KI). It's just a non obvious rule for beginners that leads to super unhype play in practice.

On top of this they clearly haven't balanced the cast for it, as a lot of the people who are most hurt by this system have nothing to make up for it, while others get great damage either way and give up essentially nothing.

So yes, you can make the read, but why? It's not making the game better, they didn't make it interesting to do, and it doesn't let them balance in better ways, so what's the point of it?

Okay, now that someone has actually bothered to explain their point of view I see it a lot clearer. You're right, Breakaway does bring the flow to a bit of a halt. And yeah, I see how having to take more risk even though you've made the right read and should be rewarded for it is really getting on peoples nerves.

However, I don't see it as a "dumb" knowledge test. I like having to adapt and take into account meter so that I can get the most optimal combo from a punish but I guess that's just me.

Also, Breakers/Breakaway are part of the reason I love playing MK the most. Sure there are other mechanics in other games that "break" combos but I like having a way to get out of a bad situation when I need it most and Breakaway (at least in my experience) works way better and is more reliable than other game's options. I really do think bringing back Breaker would resolve this because it put both players at a (mostly) neutral state and wouldn't/shouldn't put either player in a good or bad situation. That's just me though, I suppose.

 

[dribirut]

Also I love how he alllwaaays claims that his characters are “actually super hard to play.” First off there are only like 2-3 characters that are a little tricky to use. Everyone else is pretty flow chart; especially the joker. The joker literally has one of the most simple/easy gameplans to execute in the entire game.
And I looooooooved how he put Liu Lang as “just a bit better” thank joker. Could it be because that his main rival who usually beats him in casuals, mains him?

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Also I love how he alllwaaays claims that his characters are “actually super hard to play.” First off there are only like 2-3 characters that are a little tricky to use. Everyone else is pretty flow chart; especially the joker. The joker literally has one of the most simple/easy gameplans to execute in the entire game.
And I looooooooved how he put Liu Lang as “just a bit better” thank joker. Could it be because that his main rival who usually beats him in casuals, mains him?

Complexity of a character doesn't really equate to difficulty of use, though. Usually the 'simplest' characters require the strongest fundamentals. There's a reason why everybody isn't winning with Ryu in SF even though he's had the same 'simple' gameplan for basically his entire existence.

I don't mean this specifically about Joker, but I don't like this type of argument in general.

 

[Cobainevermind87]

what game u playin bro? At most they will have to guess strike/throw. If that is scary then I reccomend u guys never leave the land of mk11.

Apologies. Was looking at it as a day one DoW/Avalanche (when it got added) user. How stupid of me.

I hate breakaway, have since launch. Would be glad to see it go. But let's not act like dirty setups are nonexistent in this game.