Juxtapose
Warrior
To revive this thread, I played some Kombat League today for the first time in a very long time. I haven't played Mortal Kombat 11 much since shortly after "Aftermath" launched, and I wanted to further reflect on the above and as I play, pay attention to how the game really makes me feel.
I only played three Sets, and throughout it all, even when I was winning or making a solid comeback, the one emotion that was always at the forefront for me was frustration. I believe I hit the nail on the head above with expressing that I feel like I'm fighting with the game's design.
I started focusing on what aspects of the game were making me feel this way, and overall, I felt the game feels extremely sluggish, especially after months of playing Killer Instinct (2013). My options always felt limited, generic, and much of the game's systems feel unfinished/unrefined.
Things that especially irked me are (in no particular order):
I didn't have an issue with Variations in Mortal Kombat XL, it was a complete and proper system with pros and cons, but it felt finished. Here, the Variations often feel inadequate and half-baked. The overall game itself isn't even unified with them, since you can't go and play Unranked without running into Custom Variations and thus moves and situations you'd never encounter in Kombat League or Tournament play. It all feels very unrefined and poorly executed.
The game was never designed to be kombo focused, and Krushing Blows seem to be one of the things designed to "replace" the damage of kombos from previous games. Basically you're spending time in the game meeting conditions or doing set ups to cash out these high damage moves when the timing is right. But just like the Variation system in the game, they feel half-baked and not consistent across the board, with some characters having very simple to execute Krushing Blows, and others struggling to get them off, having ones that are very situational or gimmicky. It's system that, with more time and refinement and balancing could be very cool, but in it's current state it feels poorly implemented.
Many of the strings, at least for the characters I play, feel pretty useless. You typically find only a few of them are good to decent and so you just repeat them in between pokes and Throws. Not very complicated, but also not very engaging either.
After I did these few Sets, I stopped because I simply had no desire to keep playing. I'm not posting this to rant about the game or to crap on those of you who do like it, I'm using this post primarily to order my thoughts better (thus why I'm detailing things that are common enough knowledge to people on this board) and to discuss my own opinions and feelings about the game now that I'm fleshing them out better.
Overall, I'm not done with Mortal Kombat 11 itself, I don't think it's a bad game, but I do think it's very unrefined with a lot of good ideas that are simply poorly executed. This extends even into the "casual" modes of play. For example, if you look at the Living Towers from Mortal Kombat XL, they were quirky with modifiers that were fun and added to the casual nature of the play. They had cool affects and affected both players equally in almost every instance. Here in Towers of Time, Modifiers have been heavily enhanced giving you less time to react, and they also seem to do increased damage and debilitation, but most importantly they rarely affect the AI player. This has made that game mode crazy frustrating to play as well.
It seems to me that the designers took so much that was great about the past two games and have confused making things more frustrating and masochistic with making things more engaging and challenging, which all leads me to feel like I'm fighting with the game itself and brings little enjoyment to the table.
I think that, I am mostly done with Kombat League, and when I do feel like playing the game, I'll stick to Fight Local Sets against the AI, or occasionally private matches with friends. For actual competitive play, for me personally at least, I'll stick with Killer Instinct.
I only played three Sets, and throughout it all, even when I was winning or making a solid comeback, the one emotion that was always at the forefront for me was frustration. I believe I hit the nail on the head above with expressing that I feel like I'm fighting with the game's design.
I started focusing on what aspects of the game were making me feel this way, and overall, I felt the game feels extremely sluggish, especially after months of playing Killer Instinct (2013). My options always felt limited, generic, and much of the game's systems feel unfinished/unrefined.
Things that especially irked me are (in no particular order):
- The Get Up System
- The Variation System
- The Krushing Blow System
- Limited selection of strings
I didn't have an issue with Variations in Mortal Kombat XL, it was a complete and proper system with pros and cons, but it felt finished. Here, the Variations often feel inadequate and half-baked. The overall game itself isn't even unified with them, since you can't go and play Unranked without running into Custom Variations and thus moves and situations you'd never encounter in Kombat League or Tournament play. It all feels very unrefined and poorly executed.
The game was never designed to be kombo focused, and Krushing Blows seem to be one of the things designed to "replace" the damage of kombos from previous games. Basically you're spending time in the game meeting conditions or doing set ups to cash out these high damage moves when the timing is right. But just like the Variation system in the game, they feel half-baked and not consistent across the board, with some characters having very simple to execute Krushing Blows, and others struggling to get them off, having ones that are very situational or gimmicky. It's system that, with more time and refinement and balancing could be very cool, but in it's current state it feels poorly implemented.
Many of the strings, at least for the characters I play, feel pretty useless. You typically find only a few of them are good to decent and so you just repeat them in between pokes and Throws. Not very complicated, but also not very engaging either.
After I did these few Sets, I stopped because I simply had no desire to keep playing. I'm not posting this to rant about the game or to crap on those of you who do like it, I'm using this post primarily to order my thoughts better (thus why I'm detailing things that are common enough knowledge to people on this board) and to discuss my own opinions and feelings about the game now that I'm fleshing them out better.
Overall, I'm not done with Mortal Kombat 11 itself, I don't think it's a bad game, but I do think it's very unrefined with a lot of good ideas that are simply poorly executed. This extends even into the "casual" modes of play. For example, if you look at the Living Towers from Mortal Kombat XL, they were quirky with modifiers that were fun and added to the casual nature of the play. They had cool affects and affected both players equally in almost every instance. Here in Towers of Time, Modifiers have been heavily enhanced giving you less time to react, and they also seem to do increased damage and debilitation, but most importantly they rarely affect the AI player. This has made that game mode crazy frustrating to play as well.
It seems to me that the designers took so much that was great about the past two games and have confused making things more frustrating and masochistic with making things more engaging and challenging, which all leads me to feel like I'm fighting with the game itself and brings little enjoyment to the table.
I think that, I am mostly done with Kombat League, and when I do feel like playing the game, I'll stick to Fight Local Sets against the AI, or occasionally private matches with friends. For actual competitive play, for me personally at least, I'll stick with Killer Instinct.