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The Benefit of 50/50's to the Long Term Success of the MKX Community

B

Bizzle PB

Noob
Over the past year there has been a lot of talk of how 50/50's ruin the game and that guessing right or wrong should not be a part of the equation in winning or losing. Why I do understand the frustration when you are about to win a match that puts you in top 8, only to be stopped by guessing wrong 3 times consecutively against random noob, I do have a big positive that we need to pay attention to.

As we look forward to community growth and MKX and all fighting games to emerge out of the ESports dungeon, we need to pay attention to the biggest part of the growth. The casual player. The casual player is the person who will fuel the growth. Without the casual player, there is no pro player. Every pro player started out as a casual player. That cannot be forgotten.

Lets take a look at the casual player. What does this casual player want? This casual player wants to be able to compete against the worlds best players and maybe win once in a while. The casual player believes they can win because they are the best in their neighborhood, school, or local scene. Now, they may be good, but is he good enough to beat the best players in the world? The answer is maybe. And the main reason for even a maybe is the inclusion of 50/50's in the game. With the inclusion of 50/50's he has the opportunity to get lucky 3 times in a row and eliminate the pro player from an event. This gives the casual player a glimmer of hope in an otherwise futile struggle to be a contender. The glimmer of hope is witnessed by their friends, the stream viewers, and the other casual players.

As these "weekend warriors" become more confident, they decide to take it to the next level and attend the next regional in their area. Now he is bringing his game to the big time. Is he outclassed? Yes. Does he have a chance to eliminate you from the tournament? He sure does! If he can string together some of those 50/50's he has a chance to get out of pools or better! The thing is, that luck will eventually catch up with them and they will guess wrong 50% of the time like he is supposed to. When this happens, they are handled easily by the pro player and they are returned home to work on their game with a new found passion.

This player, at some point, may have knocked us out of the tournament, but it was a good thing overall for all pro players long term. You see, the more times the casual player sees a glimmer of hope, guessing right of 50/50's, the more likely he is to return to challenge you again. The ultimate beauty of it is, though, that if you win just half, or even close to half, of your 50/50's, you will most likely beat the weekend warrior each and every set.

I know this does no good in helping you understand why some random opponent sent you packing at CEO, but if you look at the big picture you will get it. The larger the number of entrants for each of the events, the larger the prize pools. The larger the events, the more exposure for the pro players. The increase in exposure for the pro leads to sponsorship opportunities and other sources of income.

So the next time you get beat by some random that guessed right 14 times in a row, make note that 50/50's are good for the community and that he will be back again. Maybe without a horseshoe up his A#@.
 
ismael4790

ismael4790

Stay focused or get Caged
Nice try.

But the fact that a random can scratch wins because of how 50/50s work in this game does not help him/her to improve, in fact it's the opposite, it prevents many players from improving and it just creates the illusion that their playstyle works.

I know this is not going to happen, but I would like mk11 not to have 50/50s. Each character should only have either a low or an overhead that launches to full combo, and the other option should be there to do small damage. This would force the players to come up with more creative ways to open up the opponent, improving their staggers and pressure.
 
B

Bizzle PB

Noob
So what everyone would like to see, regardless of whether or not the casual player can have a chance to win, is that all 50/50's are eliminated in full?
 
B

Bizzle PB

Noob
ismael4790 said:
Nice try.

But the fact that a random can scratch wins because of how 50/50s work in this game does not help him/her to improve, in fact it's the opposite, it prevents many players from improving and it just creates the illusion that their playstyle works.

I know this is not going to happen, but I would like mk11 not to have 50/50s. Each character should only have either a low or an overhead that launches to full combo, and the other option should be there to do small damage. This would force the players to come up with more creative ways to open up the opponent, improving their staggers and pressure.
Click to expand...
The casual player does not understand advanced concepts. Nor do they attempt to.
 
Invincible Salads

Invincible Salads

Seeker of knowledge
no, i think that there can be a few characters with 50/50's but they should be an exception and not the rule. Other characters should open characters up via strong zoning, Footsies, pressure and or frame traps.
 
Doctor Rektangle

Doctor Rektangle

Think outside the Box
50/50s aren't exclusive to MKX. Having 50/50s isn't the issue. It's the fact that so many can either be one or a combination of the following:

Safe, Plus, "Lowverhead" (my term for HTB), lead to 40% kombos, build lots of meter, punishability variables on breathing/standing/crouch blocking, lead into themselves again, cost no resources, lead to unbreakable damage, can be used in relentless pres sure after already plus on block set ups.

And a Lot of other games the 50/50 if low or overhead

The low starting does 10-15%

The overhead is the big damage so on defense you can commit to one. In a lot of cases in MKX the combos are the same after the low or overhead so there's little to no fear to throw out one or the other.

Also in most fighters barring Marvel one 50/50 doesn't equate to 70 to 95% of my health being gone then being able to be chipped out.
 
Invincible Salads

Invincible Salads

Seeker of knowledge
and when i say 50/50's are ok, i mean 50/50's only, not some batgirl shit 25/25/25/25 either, gotta guess between a low, overhead, ambiguous crossup or a special that can be controlled wheather it will cross you up or not....yeah none of that.
 
Goat-City

Goat-City

Banned
My opinion on MKX's 50/50s is that the majority of them should not be safe, unreactable, meterless, loopable, or launching in a combination of 3 or more all at once. So a 50/50 can be safe and unreactable but it shouldn't launch or lead into a vortex without spending meter. There can be exceptions but that should be the general rule, and I wish NRS would continue balancing the game with this in mind.

They should also be harder to get started by nerfing jump attacks, buffing d2s, and buffing zoning. Specifically I think these should be done by giving all grounded normals priority over all air normals except for jump kicks, and the only grounded attacks that should have priority over jump kicks should be d2s, so there's always a reasonable defense for any jump attack when you don't have meter, at least for most characters. Jump attacks should be used solely on reads that your opponent is going to do something that will whiff if you jump, they should not be for brain dead free plus frames.

As for buffing zoning, I think all projectiles should drain 25% stamina on hit and 5% stamina on block. Multi hitting projectiles like Jacqui's machine gun should drain 25% stamina for every hit and 5% for every blocked hit. Heavy projectiles that lead to a knockdown should drain 50% stamina on hit and 10-25% on block. Also every non-projectile special in the game with the exceptions of some mobility specific specials like Displacer and Ethereal's teleports should cost 25-50% stamina to use. To balance this, breakers should only cost half stamina to use. Of course any character that would be too heavily buffed or too heavily nerfed by these changes should be normalized to compensate. Thoughts anyone?
 
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Invincible Salads

Invincible Salads

Seeker of knowledge
Goat-City said:
My opinion on MKX's 50/50s is that the majority of them should not be safe, unreactable, meterless, loopable, or launching in a combination of 3 or more all at once. So a 50/50 can be safe and unreactable but it shouldn't launch or lead into a vortex without spending meter. There can be exceptions but that should be the general rule, and I wish NRS would continue balancing the game with this in mind.

They should also be harder to get started by nerfing jump attacks, buffing d2s, and buffing zoning. Specifically I think these should be done by giving all grounded normals priority over all air normals except for jump kicks, and the only grounded attacks that should have priority over jump kicks should be d2s, so there's always a reasonable defense for any jump attack when you don't have meter, at least for most characters. Jump attacks should be used solely on reads that your opponent is going to do something that will whiff if you jump, they should not be for brain dead free plus frames.

As for buffing zoning, I think all projectiles should drain 25% stamina on hit and 5% stamina on block. Multi hitting projectiles like Jacqui's machine gun would drain 25% stamina for every hit and 5% for every blocked hit. Heavy projectiles that lead to a knockdown or have slow startup should drain 50% stamina on hit and 10-25% on block. Also every non projectile special in the game with the exceptions of some mobility specific specials like Displacer and Ethereal's teleports should cost 25-50% stamina to use. To balance this, breakers should only cost half stamina to use. Of course any character that would be too heavily buffed or too heavily nerfed by these changes should be normalized to compensate. Thoughts anyone?
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i don't like the normal specials costing anything, in no other game does a basic special move cost you anything, other than that.......maybe?
 
Goat-City

Goat-City

Banned
Invincible Salads said:
i don't like the normal specials costing anything, in no other game does a basic special move cost you anything, other than that.......maybe?
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No other 2D fighting game has a run feature linked to stamina. If there was no run feature in MKX then I wouldn't ask for normal specials to cost stamina because zoning wouldn't be as weak. That's on top of the fact that a lot of the counter zoning specials in MKX are stronger than they were in MK9. For example, in MK9 Scorpion's EX teleport didn't launch, so you could zone him consistently without a constant 30% damage into a restand threat at all times. There's also Sub Zero's slide having much less recovery than in MK9, Mileena's teleport being mostly safe and the EX version launches, Ermac's teleport, Bone Shaper's full screen armored launcher, Kano's air ball that's unblockable for a bar, etc. There'd also be less constant "Is he gonna armor?" guessing games, so there'd be a lot more poking battles.
 
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Invincible Salads

Invincible Salads

Seeker of knowledge
Goat-City said:
No other 2D fighting game has a run feature linked to stamina. If there was no run feature in MKX then I wouldn't ask for normal specials to cost stamina because zoning wouldn't be as weak. That's on top of the fact that a lot of the counter zoning specials in MKX are stronger than they were in MK9. For example, in MK9 Scorpion's EX teleport didn't launch, so you could zone him consistently without a constant 30% damage into a restand threat at all times. There's also Sub Zero's slide having much less recovery than in MK9, Mileena's teleport being mostly safe and the EX version launches, Ermac's teleport, Bone Shaper's full screen armored launcher that's pretty safe from a distance, Kano's air ball that's unblockable for a bar, etc. There'd also be less constant "Is he gonna armor?" guessing games, so there'd be a lot more poking battles.
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i still say that normal specials shouldnt cost stamina, and i'm not going to change how i feel about it. lol.
 
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