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

[SoapBar]

Guess to win.

 

[Goat-City]

i still say that normal specials shouldnt cost stamina, and i'm not going to change how i feel about it. lol.

I know it's a big change but I bet you'd like it, and also remember that I said breakers should only drain half stamina to compensate. But if you still wouldn't agree then how would you buff zoning since we know it's too weak as a play style in this game?

 

[ILuvFightGames]

I disagree big time with the OP. I respect your opinion but honestly, hell no 50/50's don't help the game, in fact that's one of the main reasons people stop playing it or prefer other fighting games. Guessing wrong (on a 50/50) should never lead to a defeat, considering that a lot are safe. I'm an old school Mk player and have loved it since it came out but even I got discouraged by me outplaying someone online then guessing wrong one or two times and eating a 40% combo, that's not right. I remember having a back and forth thread here on tym regarding SF and MK, and one member said, "In SF when you lose its because you get outplayed, in MK when you lose its because you guessed wrong". I mean that's the general idea of even casual players so I guess 50/50's do hurt MK!

 

[SHAOLIN]

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.

 

[Invincible Salads]

I know it's a big change but I bet you'd like it, and also remember that I said breakers should only drain half stamina to compensate. But if you still wouldn't agree then how would you buff zoning since we know it's too weak as a play style in this game?

thats just it , doing what your suggesting would nerf zoning too, lol, so i say everything BUT the specials costing stamina could possibly work.

 

[Goat-City]

thats just it , doing what your suggesting would nerf zoning too, lol, so i say everything BUT the specials costing stamina could possibly work.

How? I said projectiles wouldn't cost stamina, only non-projectile specials would cost stamina with my idea.

 

[Israel]

No.

For i am a casual player. The 50/50's are the reason i put this game in my rearview.

50/50 & Armor are the name of this game. Heres the scenario if every match...
"Jump in punch, 50/50, u blocked it? ARMOR!" Rinse and repeat.
This is just not fun, for me.

As a casual player, i wanna do more besides just this scenario.

Rip Mortal kombat 9.

 

[Invincible Salads]

How? I said projectiles wouldn't cost stamina, only non-projectile specials would cost stamina with my idea.

still not a fan.

 

[Somea2V]

Let's acknowledge something here. Punishable 50/50's are not a problem. If you have a 50/50 opportunity, you guessing right should lead to combo and your opponent guessing right should lead to their combo. Also, 50/50's shouldn't necessarily yield super optimized opportunities off of both (all) options.

For instance, in Killer Instinct there is back to block. Shadow Jago is a character that can literally attack you from four directions between teleport dive kick/cross up dive kick and slide/teleport slide. Both dive kicks can lead to good damage but could be easily broken depending on how you follow up, which doesn't always yield a reward for guessing right, and only the normal slide leads to a full combo. Teleport slide leads to a juggle and non-optimized damage without using heavy meter. However, all four options are unsafe and have counter options if you guess right, with both dive kicks able to be stuffed on read by most characters and all characters being able to poke out of teleport slide, leading to full combo for the defender guessing right. This is a situation that involves heavy guessing but is far from one sided. Casual Shadow Jago players will benefit from the guessing game but will eat a hardcore reversal when their opponents guess right.

Anyway, 50/50's aren't an issue. Safe, universally optimized 50/50's are.

 

[Bizzle PB]

I disagree big time with the OP. I respect your opinion but honestly, hell no 50/50's don't help the game, in fact that's one of the main reasons people stop playing it or prefer other fighting games. Guessing wrong (on a 50/50) should never lead to a defeat, considering that a lot are safe. I'm an old school Mk player and have loved it since it came out but even I got discouraged by me outplaying someone online then guessing wrong one or two times and eating a 40% combo, that's not right. I remember having a back and forth thread here on tym regarding SF V and MK, and one member said, "In SF when you lose its because you get outplayed, in MK when you lose its because you guess wrong". I mean that's the general idea of even casual players so I guess 50/50's do hurt MK!

It is the randomness of the 50/50's that enables the casual player to believe they can win. Again, with all things equal, the better player will win more than their opponent. The small element of 50/50's allows for variance. Variance that lets the lesser player win sometimes. The lesser player winning sometimes builds the scene. If they never won, they would stop playing.

 

[God Confirm]

50/50's are fine, some characters are balanced around them and make sacrifices elsewhere to not only have them but to even use them in game as opposed to other buttons, like Sub Zero, or Jax, or Quan, etc. Pressure is fine too, characters like LK and Hellfire make a lot of sacrifices compared to the basic tools a character has in this game, to be able to do so



It's when you start blending them together, and on characters who make no sacrifices to have them, that it starts to become ridiculous. Characters like Swarm Queen DVorah and Spectral Ermac are the worst thing about MKX.

 

[Vjeekes]

No.

For i am a casual player. The 50/50's are the reason i put this game in my rearview.

50/50 & Armor are the name of this game. Heres the scenario if every match...
"Jump in punch, 50/50, u blocked it? ARMOR!" Rinse and repeat.
This is just not fun, for me.

As a casual player, i wanna do more besides just this scenario.

Rip Mortal kombat 9.

Punish the jumpin, if not, block the 50/50, if you guess right, punish the 50/50, if they armor, respect it

 

[Matix218]

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#@.

I understand where you are coming from and much of what you said is true but I think that you are mistaking "casual gamers" for "competitive gamers". Casual gamers are people that literally play just for fun. They enjoy story mode, test your luck, Fatalities, Character Endings, occasionally playing online, maybe learning some combos from YouTube videos, unlocking trophies and stuff like that. They are not in any way interested in frame data, research or competitive forums, learning matchups, competing in ESL, competing in regional or major tournaments, and the like. These people make up probably over 95% of the people who purchased MKX. The people you are referring to in your post are "online warriors" or even competitive local/tournament players who are just not quite as good as the top pro players. These people do research online, learn max damage bnbs and punishes, follow the competitive scene, and are not what I would consider "casual"players at all. They are still in that "less than 5%" of people who bought the game and they are not going too grow the scene very much because they are essentially already part of it.

There is literally no chance that a true casual player could sign up for esl and beat a top pro in a first to three by just guessing right because they will never even get the opportunity to use their 50/50s against a top pro.

 

[villainous monk]

I disagree. I strongly disagree. No. No no no. You DON'T need 50/50's to win a game or bring in more casual players.

I'm one of those "weekend warriors"

*which i really really hate it when people use this term but I'll hold my breath and bite my tounge*

which you so labeled. But I'm aslo one of those guys who's labbed my characters.

Go on every single site on the net looking for knowledge to better understand and apply to my skills.

Reads. Looks. Listens. Learns. Observes and does his absolue best to understand the vast amount of tech, fundamentals & the general basics to head scratching advanced mechanics of most fgs. Casuals & mostly don't want. OR Need a 50/50 to win.

Fundamentals.
Tech.
Practicing.
Basics.
Knowledge.
Balances of both the game and characters with out so many blasted changes.
A higher level of learning to play and use skills and abilities that requires you to think before you act.
Is the game fun for casuals? This and that is what brings people in.

To suggest 50/50's are needed has a handicap or a crutch for casuals is ridiculous.

 

[Matix218]

I disagree. I strongly disagree. No. No no no. You DON'T need 50/50's to win a game or bring in more casual players.

I'm one of those "weekend warriors"

*which i really really hate it when people use this term but I'll hold my breath and bite my tounge*

which you so labeled. But I'm aslo one of those guys who's labbed my characters.

Go on every single site on the net looking for knowledge to better understand and apply to my skills.

Reads. Looks. Listens. Learns. Observes and does his absolue best to understand the vast amount of tech, fundamentals & the general basics to head scratching advanced mechanics of most fgs. Casuals & mostly don't want. OR Need a 50/50 to win.

Fundamentals.
Tech.
Practicing.
Basics.
Knowledge.
Balances of both the game and characters with out so many blasted changes.
A higher level of learning to play and use skills and abilities that requires you to think before you act.
Is the game fun for casuals? This and that is what brings people in.

To suggest 50/50's are needed has a handicap or a crutch for casuals is ridiculous.

I agree with this 100%

 

[Tom Brady]

the safe or adv 50/50 is the worst thing to ever happen to fighters.

 

[Meep8345]

The amount of 50/50's that led to big dmg,are safe,or plus is what is wrong with this game. Sure it gets to keep people liking the game but does anyone really think it's "hype" watching a Sonya player knock someone down and doing a 50/50 you can't react or fuzzy that both options lead to good dmg? I don't it's what keeps this game from becoming amazing that and the run mechanic.

 

[freakwency]

how is it an issue. it still takes skill to win thats why sonicfox wins everything because he is the best. why dont people abuse safe to 50/50s to try to beat him if they are so overpowered. he can win with kitana who has barely any mixup potential

 

[Clark L.]

 

[FROST_]

the safe or adv 50/50 is the worst thing to ever happen to fighters.

I agree with Brady tbh. What happened to the zoning? Spacing? Staggers? Footsies? I can tell you what happened to them. Threads like this is what happened. 50/50s that are safe killed this game. Every character has atleast 2 options to keep his or her 50/50s safe. I want to be able to zone people out because that's my play style to sit back and be patient and let you make a mistake and punish accordingly. But in mk9 zoning characters like kenshi, Kabal, noob, kitana made the "casual" players mad and scream "spam" all over TYM threads. While characters like smoke, scorpion, rain, Cyrax, sektor, quan, mileena had excellent counter zoning tools. Even mk9 had the mkx Rushdown style with characters like Sonya, reptile, jax, skarlet, Johnny.. Spacing by all those characters zone based or pressure based needs great spacing to be successful still. For example as a noob saibot main I couldn't just throw out shadow slides all day they were -40 with A LOT of recovery, same with shadow tackle. I had to SPACE my shadow up knee to have a great anti air presence and also pressure presence. Even the black holes needed to be spaced properly. Stagger strings like b1, f3(3)(3), 12, b2, I needed for pressure up close. As to be good in mk9 you had have a good balance in zoning, pressure. In mkx you have no zoning. Your just running for a SAFE 50/50 which is complete bullshit. Tbh if your saying 50/50s are needed I'd hate to see how you played in mk9, sf5, tekken, doalr, Skullgirls. The casual player doesn't need skill to win now. All they need is a SAFE or PLUS 50/50 and for you to guess wrong 2 times to win. But that's my rant I'll leave it up for discussion now.

 

[Sultani]

No.

My favorite part is the people complaining about 50/50s and then using scenarios as examples that aren't 50/50s.

 

[Landonio]

...is this a real topic.

 

[Alarmingly Fast Skeleton]

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.

My agreement with you hinges on these two points. As for buffing zoning, I also agree. I'm not sure if stamina drain is necessary to accomplish this though. Because while zoning in MKX is nowhere near as good as it was in MK9, there are still plenty of characters more than capable of keeping you full screen.

 

[Sultani]

it's whatever. There are undoubtedly cases where your only options are to guess, but there's not NEARLY as many of them as people pretend there are. They see someone with OH starters and low starters and are immediately like, "OMG I HAVE TO GUESS!"

even though they don't.

 

[Addhad]

Bish the problem is safe 50/50s that lead into full combos meter less
-Sonya
-Jacqui
Or stuff like projectiles that are less than -6
Like u don't have to think abt zoning. Smh kitana players cuz their fans have so little recovery ;c why does this game have so much brain dead stuff