The State of Zoning and Overall Strategy in Mortal Kombat 1

[Juggs]

I also don't see any top 5 character shutting down any other character either. It's a fair game for everyone to beat them.

I’d argue that Johnny Cage completely dominates Scorpion. It’s very difficult for Scorpion to do anything vs him, and I don’t feel that way with any of the other top tiers vs Scorpion. Yeah the other top tiers have favorable MU’s vs Scorpion, but I think the Scorpion Cage MU is 7-3 in Cage’s favor personally.

 

[rifraf]

I’d argue that Johnny Cage completely dominates Scorpion. It’s very difficult for Scorpion to do anything vs him, and I don’t feel that way with any of the other top tiers vs Scorpion. Yeah the other top tiers have favorable MU’s vs Scorpion, but I think the Scorpion Cage MU is 7-3 in Cage’s favor personally.

I'd argue that Scorpion is the worst character in the game. Look at UFA Top 8, Tekken Master(Baraka) vs MK Javier(Scorpion). Baraka completely shut down Scorpion. It actually felt unfair. I think they need to make Scorpion a bit less cheesy and give him some strong tools instead.

 

[Juggs]

I'd argue that Scorpion is the worst character in the game. Look at UFA Top 8, Tekken Master(Baraka) vs MK Javier(Scorpion). Baraka completely shut down Scorpion. It actually felt unfair. I think they need to make Scorpion a bit less cheesy and give him some strong tools instead.

They don’t need to do a whole lot with Scorpion buff wise. I think there’s plenty of good options like removing the gap between the 3 and 2 in f32. I feel like one of his biggest issues is not having a good mid or a good low starter. So, it’d be cool if they made f3 be a low, and f32 be a low to mid that is gapless. Honestly that’s all I’d want for now and just see what that does for him. He obviously has more issues than just that, but I truly believe no character in the game needs a TON of buffs, just like I don’t feel any character needs a TON of nerfs.

 

[rifraf]

They don’t need to do a whole lot with Scorpion buff wise. I think there’s plenty of good options like removing the gap between the 3 and 2 in f32. I feel like one of his biggest issues is not having a good mid or a good low starter. So, it’d be cool if they made f3 be a low, and f32 be a low to mid that is gapless. Honestly that’s all I’d want for now and just see what that does for him. He obviously has more issues than just that, but I truly believe no character in the game needs a TON of buffs, just like I don’t feel any character needs a TON of nerfs.

I guess it's a bit frustrating being on our end, the players, while NRS has shown very little interest communicating their philosophy. They don't need to start a conversation with the kommunity but some sort of communication is needed. They have these Live streams they're using purely for advertising future paid content, but why not pay a lead designer some money to come to one of the streams and lay down some words so we can see how things are and what to expect?

I mean, it's almost 2024. This is a competitive game. They really need to massively up their game in communicating with their community.

 

[Bulletz4Breakfast]

These videos were made before Sonic’s sets, but I think to anyone watching his argument behind Cyrax is pretty clear.

Cyrax gives him an easy option for setups into invisibility, full combo off throw, combo off slide, plus some additional pressure on block for certain situations.

For anyone watching and saying “It’s just Sonic”, I didn’t see him doing anything superhuman. His gameplan was pretty basic, but the additional conversions were helpful and he just understands how to be effective.

Honestly Scorpion does all of that plus gives him an overhead, a full screen reset with invulnerability and gives him far more damage. The Cyrax throw combos only gives him like 13-18% assuming you can time it right and it's hard and inconsistent to say the least, not including the 2BAR Cyrax F Throw which is definitely good but costly for Reptile usually a threat end of match. I'm talking about Sonics "Tech" today I've seen private sets that had Sonic explaining what's "Broke" I don't agree as of yet:

Nothing Sonic did here is revolutionary or broken, it's standard hit/throw mix that every character has, and many characters get throw combos. Yes he is more plus off of F32xxInvus into CyraxCopter and that's definitely good but you get 40%+ off of Scorpion and you can combo off many of Reptiles strings that you can't with Rax.

Cossner, Honeybee, And other Reptile mains all say they don't use Cyrax after patch because the things that made him different are not nerfed with a 24Second freeze on Regen making you not able to Forward Throw, use any Kameo move, not be able to Kombo Breaker or meat shield.
If the throw combos where consistently 20% I'd agree that's something but it's just a more restricted, harder version of other Kameos.
Sonic didn't show anything that the pro Reptile mains didn't know with Cyrax.
I'm genuinely hoping Sonic discovered and shows new Reptile tech that changes the meta of Reptile. If he can do a consistent Cyrax Bomb setup off throw and still combo after I will absolutely pick up Cyrax with Reptile
I have experimented with bomb setups using Reptile and he can do Spit and avoid blast but has so much recovery you can't follow up with anything worthwhile.
I did have a glitch where back throw forced bomb launch and Reptile for whatever reason didn't take the bomb and got combo off it. But I can't replicate it with any timing or far throw distance.
Net combo is practically impossible. I've heard you can do max range B3 into Forward fast Forceball into Net and actually recover in time to catch them but it must be a 1-2 f link with crazy hitstun/recovery. Can't get that consistently and Cossner and Honeybee say the same.

If you are aware of any crazy tech for Reptile, please disclose because I am a long time fan of both Reptile and Cyrax but I hated the patch to Cyrax Forward Kopter Chopper. It would of been fine if they buffed bomb or net to make it more usable but up Cyrax is pretty wild with its timing on certain moves and requires a 4f timing to make it consistent in corner and forget about midscreen. Is it sending them left or right, you never know and I may be bad but I can't get 2 frame links consistently.

Honeybee is still saying he doesn't agree with Sonic on Cyrax or Reptile being stupid broke.
But I'm willing to be convinced with new tech that Sonic promised but still hasn't released for Reptile. If it was any other character Sonic would have dropped strong tech within 5 days.

 

[Ray'sGoodLiquor]

"I don't care I'm not a competitive player anymore"

Stunning and brave.

 

[Bulletz4Breakfast]

Stunning and brave.

The hope I have for balancing is some indications they put a ton of thought in certain characters and Kameos. They just don't make any money for balancing or tournament funding.
Forever King and Dragon was working as quality control for character balance and I know someone like Forever King has been around since the old days and knows what moves are overpowered, how they should be used at a high level, frame data knowledge on how to adjust moves without crippling characters.
That's my hope, but it seems several at NRS that I've spoken to simply doesn't care about balancing or characters being all near the same power level or buffing clearly struggling chars like Nitara, Sub Zero, Scorpion, Reptile. Some things about these characters make zero sense, they destroyed the use of several of the moves like Subs Ice Ball and his Clone to a large degree and every string he has owns multiple gaps making it a death sentence to even jail pokes into 12/21 and no other character has that fundamental problem.
Scorpion might be a lot better if F32 was not duckable. Why do this to well known loved classic characters and then bring Omni-Man who has a much stronger Mid launcher that jails into high unless crouch blocking from start and is safe into 47% meterless. He has 222 which jails into high.
I think many agree that Scorpion needs a better gameplay than F3 into Spin Stryker Nades/F32 where he's risking half his life on a mind game most of the roster doesn't have to make.

But when they do hasty shit like they did with Cyrax Forward Kopter instead of turning it into a splat on airborne opponents and adding 5sec stop on that move after use. It brings me back to their previous misguided balancing strategy in MKX. The change only stopped Cyrax from being used for the majority of characters but didn't stop that playstyle shown at UFA with Stryker/Goro/Lao which essentially does the same thing aside from simultaneously closing gaps and making stuff safe at the same time.

I'm afraid they will go right back to Nerf, Nerf, Nerf till the casuals/lazy players stop crying.

I hope I'm wrong and they go to buffing the mid to bottom characters and give a bunch of Kameos stronger tools add at least 1 ambush to each Kameo to open up the doors.

Do you have hope for future balancing and when do you think the next large patch will drop?

 

[Juggs]

These videos were made before Sonic’s sets, but I think to anyone watching his argument behind Cyrax is pretty clear.

Cyrax gives him an easy option for setups into invisibility, full combo off throw, combo off slide, plus some additional pressure on block for certain situations.

For anyone watching and saying “It’s just Sonic”, I didn’t see him doing anything superhuman. His gameplan was pretty basic, but the additional conversions were helpful and he just understands how to be effective.

The thing is there isn’t anything Cyrax provides to Reptile that ONLY Cyrax can provide. I think the actual top Reptile players being confused as to why Sonic is saying Cyrax is “200% Reptile’s best Kameo”, even after watching his most recent sets using the team should show you that maybe Sonic got it wrong this time. Which believe it or not that can and does happen from time to time, lol. This of course doesn’t mean Cyrax is a “bad” choice for Reptile, there just hasn’t been enough evidence to prove that he’s “200%” Reptile’s best Kameo.

 

[Law Hero]

The hope I have for balancing is some indications they put a ton of thought in certain characters and Kameos. They just don't make any money for balancing or tournament funding.
Forever King and Dragon was working as quality control for character balance and I know someone like Forever King has been around since the old days and knows what moves are overpowered, how they should be used at a high level, frame data knowledge on how to adjust moves without crippling characters.
That's my hope, but it seems several at NRS that I've spoken to simply doesn't care about balancing or characters being all near the same power level or buffing clearly struggling chars like Nitara, Sub Zero, Scorpion, Reptile. Some things about these characters make zero sense, they destroyed the use of several of the moves like Subs Ice Ball and his Clone to a large degree and every string he has owns multiple gaps making it a death sentence to even jail pokes into 12/21 and no other character has that fundamental problem.
Scorpion might be a lot better if F32 was not duckable. Why do this to well known loved classic characters and then bring Omni-Man who has a much stronger Mid launcher that jails into high unless crouch blocking from start and is safe into 47% meterless. He has 222 which jails into high.
I think many agree that Scorpion needs a better gameplay than F3 into Spin Stryker Nades/F32 where he's risking half his life on a mind game most of the roster doesn't have to make.

But when they do hasty shit like they did with Cyrax Forward Kopter instead of turning it into a splat on airborne opponents and adding 5sec stop on that move after use. It brings me back to their previous misguided balancing strategy in MKX. The change only stopped Cyrax from being used for the majority of characters but didn't stop that playstyle shown at UFA with Stryker/Goro/Lao which essentially does the same thing aside from simultaneously closing gaps and making stuff safe at the same time.

I'm afraid they will go right back to Nerf, Nerf, Nerf till the casuals/lazy players stop crying.

I hope I'm wrong and they go to buffing the mid to bottom characters and give a bunch of Kameos stronger tools add at least 1 ambush to each Kameo to open up the doors.

Do you have hope for future balancing and when do you think the next large patch will drop?

Reading through this thread (and some others), the situation with NRS and the competitive scene really reminds me of the relationship between Konami and the competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! scene which I have followed since forever. I remember constantly hearing about just how much Konami hates the competitive YGO scene because it's a very loud portion of the consumer base that's increasingly difficult to please. Konami just wants to print pictures on cardboard with mascot characters for casual fans and fans of the anime, but competitive players have really high standards for balance and meta diversity that actively clashes with their business strategy.

Like, when they come out with a new booster pack, they want everyone to buy the new one so the cards need to be more powerful than those of the current meta to encourage people to buy. If they're weaker than the current cards, no competitive players will buy, and if they're on par with the current meta, then a relatively small percentage will buy since the rest have the option of sticking to their current decks and aren't forced to spend money to keep up with the new cards. So new packs come out with broken cards, the meta is thrown into unbalanced disarray, competitors complain (but still buy new cards), then once sales slow for the new cards, Konami "balances" the meta with new banlists, and the cycle repeats when the next set of new cards come out.

It's like a never ending headache shared between a company that wants to shell out a low-effort product and a group of consumers that has specific needs that require a lot of care and consideration to please. I feel that things are similar here with WB/NRS where they just want to put out a fighting game with an "EPIC CINEMATIC STORY MODE" and tons of mobile-tier monetization modes to maximize profits, but the competitive players throw a wrench into things because none of that matters. Instead, things like balance and diversity in the meta take center stage, and those are things that take a lot of time and effort to get right, and that time and effort spent is not something you can really market or monetize like a new story mode or loot boxes.

Whenever Tom Brady talks about NRS DLC characters being the most overtuned characters in this galaxy and even the Andromeda galaxy, it always makes me think of the situation with YGO cards. Anyway, these are just my feelings. Maybe WB/NRS love the competitive scene, and have a team working around the clock to perfectly balance Kung-Lao's low hat instead of finding out just how many shades of orange the human eye can detect in order to sell them as shaders for Sub-Zero in the rotating shop.

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

Whenever Tom Brady talks about NRS DLC characters being the most overtuned characters in this galaxy and even the Andromeda galaxy, it always makes me think of the situation with YGO cards.

It is worth noting, though, that only Joker, Fujin, Spawn and (later in the game's lifecycle) Robocop were high-tier DLC characters in MK11. Maybe Sindel can be thrown together with them. While Mileena, Rambo, Rain, Terminator, Sheeva, Shang Tsung and Nightwolf were ranging from "okay" to "bottom 3". So I'd say there is a good chance we are getting some characters that are not "overtuned" as dlc this time

 

[Juggs]

Reading through this thread (and some others), the situation with NRS and the competitive scene really reminds me of the relationship between Konami and the competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! scene which I have followed since forever. I remember constantly hearing about just how much Konami hates the competitive YGO scene because it's a very loud portion of the consumer base that's increasingly difficult to please. Konami just wants to print pictures on cardboard with mascot characters for casual fans and fans of the anime, but competitive players have really high standards for balance and meta diversity that actively clashes with their business strategy.

Like, when they come out with a new booster pack, they want everyone to buy the new one so the cards need to be more powerful than those of the current meta to encourage people to buy. If they're weaker than the current cards, no competitive players will buy, and if they're on par with the current meta, then a relatively small percentage will buy since the rest have the option of sticking to their current decks and aren't forced to spend money to keep up with the new cards. So new packs come out with broken cards, the meta is thrown into unbalanced disarray, competitors complain (but still buy new cards), then once sales slow for the new cards, Konami "balances" the meta with new banlists, and the cycle repeats when the next set of new cards come out.

It's like a never ending headache shared between a company that wants to shell out a low-effort product and a group of consumers that has specific needs that require a lot of care and consideration to please. I feel that things are similar here with WB/NRS where they just want to put out a fighting game with an "EPIC CINEMATIC STORY MODE" and tons of mobile-tier monetization modes to maximize profits, but the competitive players throw a wrench into things because none of that matters. Instead, things like balance and diversity in the meta take center stage, and those are things that take a lot of time and effort to get right, and that time and effort spent is not something you can really market or monetize like a new story mode or loot boxes.

Whenever Tom Brady talks about NRS DLC characters being the most overtuned characters in this galaxy and even the Andromeda galaxy, it always makes me think of the situation with YGO cards. Anyway, these are just my feelings. Maybe WB/NRS love the competitive, and have a team working around the clock to perfectly balance Kung-Lao's low hat instead of finding out just how many shades of orange the human eye can detect in order to sell them as shaders for Sub-Zero in the rotating shop.

I got into YGO as a kid, but never really played it all that much back then, just loved collecting. Around 2010 or so, I found out about a site called “Dueling Network” where you could not only play people for free online, but you also had access to every card ever made. Only downside is that it was mostly a manual software, meaning you had to know the rules. Anyway, around this time was absolute peak YGO meta for me. Even the broken decks at the time were nothing compared to the brokeness that followed it. Like back the meta was like Tengu Plants, Synchro Plants, Dino Rabbit, Six Sams, Lightsworn, Chaos Decks, Chaos Dragons (I believe is what it was called), Frognarchs (my favorite deck at the time especially before Tengu got semi-limited). I got pretty good and on DN, you could spectate other peoples duels. Unless you were a content creator, which there weren’t very many especially not back then, you’d get like 0-2 viewers maybe. I’d always get anywhere from 30-100 viewers. One time me and REO played and he had a Kaiba deck and I had a Yugi deck and we cosplayed as both in the chat. The spectators loved it, and it was hilarious and fun.

Anyway, eventually the new boosters/cards were getting worse and worse as far as them being broken. And right when Pandemonium cards came out, I quit. I came back once Duel Links came out and I loved that as well. But eventually Duel Links got all the ridiculous stuff too so that got ruined as well. The whole link summon monster and system just was never appealing to me and I haven’t played since. I did start collecting again for awhile, and still have a somewhat decent collection.

I really miss the 2010-2012 or so era of YGO, it was so much fun.

Anyway, back on topic lol.

 

[Bulletz4Breakfast]

Reading through this thread (and some others), the situation with NRS and the competitive scene really reminds me of the relationship between Konami and the competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! scene which I have followed since forever. I remember constantly hearing about just how much Konami hates the competitive YGO scene because it's a very loud portion of the consumer base that's increasingly difficult to please. Konami just wants to print pictures on cardboard with mascot characters for casual fans and fans of the anime, but competitive players have really high standards for balance and meta diversity that actively clashes with their business strategy.

Like, when they come out with a new booster pack, they want everyone to buy the new one so the cards need to be more powerful than those of the current meta to encourage people to buy. If they're weaker than the current cards, no competitive players will buy, and if they're on par with the current meta, then a relatively small percentage will buy since the rest have the option of sticking to their current decks and aren't forced to spend money to keep up with the new cards. So new packs come out with broken cards, the meta is thrown into unbalanced disarray, competitors complain (but still buy new cards), then once sales slow for the new cards, Konami "balances" the meta with new banlists, and the cycle repeats when the next set of new cards come out.

It's like a never ending headache shared between a company that wants to shell out a low-effort product and a group of consumers that has specific needs that require a lot of care and consideration to please. I feel that things are similar here with WB/NRS where they just want to put out a fighting game with an "EPIC CINEMATIC STORY MODE" and tons of mobile-tier monetization modes to maximize profits, but the competitive players throw a wrench into things because none of that matters. Instead, things like balance and diversity in the meta take center stage, and those are things that take a lot of time and effort to get right, and that time and effort spent is not something you can really market or monetize like a new story mode or loot boxes.

Whenever Tom Brady talks about NRS DLC characters being the most overtuned characters in this galaxy and even the Andromeda galaxy, it always makes me think of the situation with YGO cards. Anyway, these are just my feelings. Maybe WB/NRS love the competitive scene, and have a team working around the clock to perfectly balance Kung-Lao's low hat instead of finding out just how many shades of orange the human eye can detect in order to sell them as shaders for Sub-Zero in the rotating shop.

That actually sums up my theory of what I think has happened in the last two NRS games.
They don't like having to please this competitive scene which I admit are extremely hard to deal with, I don't think most of them even know what they want, they just complain about a character or move and scream until it's nerfed out of existence without any suggestions on how to tone down actual broken tools.
Most don't lab anything to deal with their faulty gameplan against a matchup they just explain it away with "Character is Broken Tier" it's a 3-7 MU mentality.

But then we have several very knowledgeable people in the FGC of NRS games and do give their feedback and NRS actually got a few of them for QC.
The problem is 4 Top players may want Johnny nerfed while a few very notable Top 10 players say the character isn't broke, it's the Kameo making his toolset crazy hard to counter. So there is varying opinions of balance and a community that instantly knee jerk loses their mind from a small change to a character when the character went from S to A+ Tier.

But to be fair NRS has a long history of shotgun style nerfs where they over nerf characters and adjust the wrong things causing drastic tier shifts/viability/completely missing the mark/nerfing other characters by proxy.

The big problem I see is there are competitive players like me who want buffs over nerfs and to not bring down the "S Tiers" be it characters or Kameos but instead Buff the lower tiers and middle up close to the Top 10 so more characters get new tools, strong options, more stuff to discover and varying styles of gameplay. But also buffing Kameos. If they do Kameo nerfs like Kung Lao Kameo I'd want it to be minor so the Charged/Held Hat has a 5 Second longer Regen to prevent HTB Vortex, it wouldn't prevent the use but the constant use of it without thought. But in my opinion characters need buffs to actually get them all to the top tier level. Kameos alone can't do this because the S Tiers get the same Kameos. It's possible but NRS isn't gonna make specific Kameos that only helps low tier characters in a way S Tiers can't use it.

Then we have the other side that doesn't care about low tiers, they just want oppressive characters with oppressive tools nerfed. Some want minor slight nerfs, some want multiple nerfs to the top 5 S Tiers and some want those characters nerfed to the ground in any way possible as long as it basically stops that characters use in tournaments and KL. Like Baraka/Cyrax and it worked, no more Baraka or Cyrax in KL and zero Cyrax in UFA and only one very good Baraka/Stryker (TekkenMaster)

Do you think most will be happy with only nerfs to just the top 5 with maybe two minor buffs to 2 lower tier chars?

Or would they be happier with mostly Buffs and a few minor slight nerfs to Kameos that still allow the functionality where the mains don't have to completely relearn their characters and adjust or even change Kameo. The buffs also got be more tools to many characters but allow them to keep their current gameplay and playstyle but have a few more options?

 

[Bulletz4Breakfast]

idk if its the MU or because its casual online sets but Sonic was just throwing themself at Kenshi. I'm thinking about matches where the opponent of Kenshi plays lame.

It could just be that any character that doesn't have full screen presence and can't wiff punish Kenshi's buttons has a hard time against him. idk

I think the main potential here is getting Sento out on block.

Correct me if i'm wrong, i could just be playing bad Kenshi's that don't know how to cover this (likely) but his 50/50 is fuzzyable, so to combat that, the Kenshi player has to delay their F1/B2 mix which then opens up holes in their offense.

There are ways to fuzzy but its timing based. If you commit to fuzzy the mix I can slightly delay 5-7 frames which isn't really noticable on reaction and it will throw off your fuzzy. There's a reason Kenshi opens up top players in majors.
Kenshi can just frametrap you to death with S2 + F22 and just keep chipping till you have to make a move. There are ways to burn a bar to refresh Sento safely while Kameo is pressuring you.

Let me be clear, I don't want Kenshi nerfed in any way. It's crazy he can make you hold block for almost 15 seconds. But that's Kenshis strength and without it, he wouldn't be nearly as strong as he is. He also has a high execution barrier (big brain char)
But it's counterable with reads and baits just like Johnny is.

But no doubt this character in a Top Players hands is a top 5 char. Played a pro Kenshi and I legit had to hold blk 60% of the match and his movement was so good that he got away fast enough while blockstun with Sento into refreash and zoning/baiting wiffs then back into Sento lockdown.

 

[LEGEND]

Reading through this thread (and some others), the situation with NRS and the competitive scene really reminds me of the relationship between Konami and the competitive Yu-Gi-Oh! scene which I have followed since forever. I remember constantly hearing about just how much Konami hates the competitive YGO scene because it's a very loud portion of the consumer base that's increasingly difficult to please. Konami just wants to print pictures on cardboard with mascot characters for casual fans and fans of the anime, but competitive players have really high standards for balance and meta diversity that actively clashes with their business strategy.

Like, when they come out with a new booster pack, they want everyone to buy the new one so the cards need to be more powerful than those of the current meta to encourage people to buy. If they're weaker than the current cards, no competitive players will buy, and if they're on par with the current meta, then a relatively small percentage will buy since the rest have the option of sticking to their current decks and aren't forced to spend money to keep up with the new cards. So new packs come out with broken cards, the meta is thrown into unbalanced disarray, competitors complain (but still buy new cards), then once sales slow for the new cards, Konami "balances" the meta with new banlists, and the cycle repeats when the next set of new cards come out.

It's like a never ending headache shared between a company that wants to shell out a low-effort product and a group of consumers that has specific needs that require a lot of care and consideration to please. I feel that things are similar here with WB/NRS where they just want to put out a fighting game with an "EPIC CINEMATIC STORY MODE" and tons of mobile-tier monetization modes to maximize profits, but the competitive players throw a wrench into things because none of that matters. Instead, things like balance and diversity in the meta take center stage, and those are things that take a lot of time and effort to get right, and that time and effort spent is not something you can really market or monetize like a new story mode or loot boxes.

Whenever Tom Brady talks about NRS DLC characters being the most overtuned characters in this galaxy and even the Andromeda galaxy, it always makes me think of the situation with YGO cards. Anyway, these are just my feelings. Maybe WB/NRS love the competitive scene, and have a team working around the clock to perfectly balance Kung-Lao's low hat instead of finding out just how many shades of orange the human eye can detect in order to sell them as shaders for Sub-Zero in the rotating shop.

I was playing paper YGO since about mid last year and it really felt like they release broken cards just to sell product. The power creep is insane in some cases that its impossible to believe that its by accident.

Pretty much anyone could've bought out AGOV and dumped S : P little knight for a profit, knowing that the card being valued over $100 was inevitable, just by reading the text and knowing it'll be an SR.

point being, I don't think Konami "just wants to print pictures on cardboard with mascot characters for casual fans and fans of the anime". Very often the cards they make are financially predatory. Why else would so many broken cards only come in SR/UR?

 

[LEGEND]

I got into YGO as a kid, but never really played it all that much back then, just loved collecting. Around 2010 or so, I found out about a site called “Dueling Network” where you could not only play people for free online, but you also had access to every card ever made. Only downside is that it was mostly a manual software, meaning you had to know the rules. Anyway, around this time was absolute peak YGO meta for me. Even the broken decks at the time were nothing compared to the brokeness that followed it. Like back the meta was like Tengu Plants, Synchro Plants, Dino Rabbit, Six Sams, Lightsworn, Chaos Decks, Chaos Dragons (I believe is what it was called), Frognarchs (my favorite deck at the time especially before Tengu got semi-limited). I got pretty good and on DN, you could spectate other peoples duels. Unless you were a content creator, which there weren’t very many especially not back then, you’d get like 0-2 viewers maybe. I’d always get anywhere from 30-100 viewers. One time me and REO played and he had a Kaiba deck and I had a Yugi deck and we cosplayed as both in the chat. The spectators loved it, and it was hilarious and fun.

Anyway, eventually the new boosters/cards were getting worse and worse as far as them being broken. And right when Pandemonium cards came out, I quit. I came back once Duel Links came out and I loved that as well. But eventually Duel Links got all the ridiculous stuff too so that got ruined as well. The whole link summon monster and system just was never appealing to me and I haven’t played since. I did start collecting again for awhile, and still have a somewhat decent collection.

I really miss the 2010-2012 or so era of YGO, it was so much fun.

Anyway, back on topic lol.

Alot of people play a format called Edison that covers the March 2010 format. You could reliably find people in-person or online to play if you care to.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

But to be fair NRS has a long history of shotgun style nerfs where they over nerf characters and adjust the wrong things causing drastic tier shifts/viability/completely missing the mark/nerfing other characters by proxy.

Then we have the other side that doesn't care about low tiers, they just want oppressive characters with oppressive tools nerfed. Some want minor slight nerfs, some want multiple nerfs to the top 5 S Tiers and some want those characters nerfed to the ground in any way possible as long as it basically stops that characters use in tournaments and KL. Like Baraka/Cyrax and it worked, no more Baraka or Cyrax in KL and zero Cyrax in UFA and only one very good Baraka/Stryker (TekkenMaster)

When was the last time this actually happened, though? Jacqui and Cetrion were handled in an extremely conservative way. Raiden, Johnny and Baraka in MK1 were all changed in a way that kept them competitively viable. For as much as I hear about characters being nerfed ‘to the ground’, very few actually are.

And as much as people keep saying “It’s just Tekken Master”, it was actually Tweedy that was successful with Baraka/Stryker long before UFA.

 

[Eji1700]

YGO Stuff

You missed out. While the meta always rotates you could still do off meta stuff pretty well (depending on the current nightmare deck) up until the end of pendulums. Linkz is where I jumped ship as it felt like every single deck was just forced to cram the same cards and all diversity went out the window.

As for the rest:

It's hard for me to look at mk1 and not get into nitty gritty stuff. Is there character variety at the top level? Yes. Is there move variety? Not nearly as much as there should be?

Watching top level scorpion play look like shit out of the 90s, back when 90% of your movelist could be worthless but 3 decent moves/buttons kept you viable, feels wrong. MK1 is one of the ONLY assist based fighters I can think of that actually allows your assist to do more than 1 move. Not that anyone would know that watching the game play because the kameo meter is so precious using it on anything BUT your best move (often an ambush) seems to just not be worth it.

I assumed this would be how the meta would start, but we're months in now and it's only getting worse, not better. It feels like there's not nearly enough characters who actually get to use their whole movelist, and the kameo's are atrocious for this (summons need to be better, but I don't think making them ambushes is the way to go).

It's basically variations/custom movellists all over again, but it feels even worse than those because everyone is using a kameo. The variety can wind up severely lacking, especially when so many gameplans are "Cover your unsafe pressure with a kameo, stall until the bar comes back, repeat".

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

I feel like some kameo summon moves, like goro's punch walk and frost's ice punches, would benefit tremendously from simply having 2 hits of armor. That way you actually have a meaningful reason to use them (as armored reversals or wakeup armored moves). Turning them into ambushes would just probably get them into Cyrax territory - either will cost a full bar and be useless again as a result, or will cost a half bar and be spammable as cyrax/raiden was.

Stryker, Scorpion, Sub Zero and Sareena are good examples of kameos, as all their moves are useful for different reasons. At the same time we have Darrius, which has barely 1 functioning, expensive move, Goro, with one useful move and a situational low grab, Tremor with the costly ambushes, Frost without a SINGLE ambush move and the list goes on.

 

[CipherJ]

When was the last time this actually happened, though? Jacqui and Cetrion were handled in an extremely conservative way. Raiden, Johnny and Baraka in MK1 were all changed in a way that kept them competitively viable. For as much as I hear about characters being nerfed ‘to the ground’, very few actually are.

And as much as people keep saying “It’s just Tekken Master”, it was actually Tweedy that was successful with Baraka/Stryker long before UFA.

You make a valid point.

They main problem with NRS balancing is that it is very low effort. Deadshot was virtually removed from Inj2, because of NRS laziness(?-or WB corporate demands).

Cyrax hori copter was nerfed with very little thought and almost removes it from the game. If you pick Cyrax it almost best to pretend that move doesn’t exist for how long it removes your kameo. They could have required it to use full meter, but meter after hori copter regens in 12 seconds. Prevents repeated use in block strings, but you are back in action in not too long of a time.

Current balancing was low effort damage nerfs, Cyrax nerfed into ground, and removal of Nitaras blood cost. I don’t know how much coding goes into that, but didn’t take any playtesting. Obviously.

 

[SixPathsOfHate]

I feel like some kameo summon moves, like goro's punch walk and frost's ice punches, would benefit tremendously from simply having 2 hits of armor. That way you actually have a meaningful reason to use them (as armored reversals or wakeup armored moves). Turning them into ambushes would just probably get them into Cyrax territory - either will cost a full bar and be useless again as a result, or will cost a half bar and be spammable as cyrax/raiden was.

Stryker, Scorpion, Sub Zero and Sareena are good examples of kameos, as all their moves are useful for different reasons. At the same time we have Darrius, which has barely 1 functioning, expensive move, Goro, with one useful move and a situational low grab, Tremor with the costly ambushes, Frost without a SINGLE ambush move and the list goes on.

Hell, I think Sareena should get her double throw nerfed and in exchange, have her drain also be a DoT. Something to make people scared of it.

 

[kevkopdx]

Hell, I think Sareena should get her double throw nerfed and in exchange, have her drain also be a DoT. Something to make people scared of it.

Her double throw may be annoying but I hardly think it needs to be nerfed in the grand scheme of things. It has counters, it’s just obnoxious to sit through as a combo extender.
If people used her drain move appropriately, it should be something to be scared of, because you will never be able to combo break.

 

[M2Dave]

When was the last time this actually happened, though?

Hm, last month? LOL.

Cyrax was nerfed from the best kameo in the game to bottom 5, which arguably affected one third of the roster, some significantly more than others (i.e., Rain without Cyrax vs. Raiden without Cyrax).

For this reason, NRS has probably not nerfed Kung Lao yet. They might have actually realized that if they nerfed Kung Lao, they would nerf half the roster and consequently perform one of the biggest tier shifts in fighting game history.

Could you imagine how much characters like Ashrah, Kenshi, and Raiden would benefit from Kung Lao nerfs because he is not their best kameo while those characters who vehemently depend on him would suffer (i.e., Geras, Liu Kang, Mileena, Sindel, Shang Tsung, etc.) ?

The future balance of this game will be very entertaining to observe as NRS keeps "low shotting" (Injustice 1 pun intended!) themselves in the foot.

 

[SixPathsOfHate]

Her double throw may be annoying but I hardly think it needs to be nerfed in the grand scheme of things. It has counters, it’s just obnoxious to sit through as a combo extender.
If people used her drain move appropriately, it should be something to be scared of, because you will never be able to combo break.

My issue is it hitting on return AFTER hitting her. If they wanted, they can keep the return but make the scythes travel longer so you have more of a window to punish before the return then have them be destroyed if you hit her before they make a return trip.

While it can deal with breaks, most of the cast can use 1 bar+kameo to safely leave unless your character has a way to armor break. I dont care about Sareena's drain because I can almost always guarantee a way out but it could just be due to bad players.

 

[SixPathsOfHate]

Hm, last month? LOL.

Cyrax was nerfed from the best kameo in the game to bottom 5, which arguably affected one third of the roster, some significantly more than others (i.e., Rain without Cyrax vs. Raiden without Cyrax).

For this reason, NRS has probably not nerfed Kung Lao yet. They might have actually realized that if they nerfed Kung Lao, they would nerf half the roster and consequently perform one of the biggest tier shifts in fighting game history.

Could you imagine how much characters like Ashrah, Kenshi, and Raiden would benefit from Kung Lao nerfs because he is not their best kameo while those characters who vehemently depend on him would suffer (i.e., Geras, Liu Kang, Mileena, Sindel, Shang Tsung, etc.) ?

The future balance of this game will be very entertaining to observe.

I dont get why people say Shang needs Kung Lao. He doesnt give Shang anything useful besides a +2 low projectile, a HTB you can counter by delay teching and it costs a bar.

The teleport+fireball confirm is not realistic and Shang does not need the buzz saw for his confirms due to the way ground skulls scale the combo+gravity.

Shang wants to be able to get a free D4 which ALWAYS pushes back into optimal poke punish range and being +2 doesnt allow that but Stryker's +6 does and they cant jump it.

The ONLY thing I can see being actually relevant that Lao can give to Shang that no other kameo can is low defense against slides since you can hold hat to guard your legs while you full screen zone but this also disincentives people to not want to low profile to deal with your zoning which removes a potentially heavy punish option that you can take advantage of by doing Fireball+Buffered Taunt to bait.

 

[Eji1700]

I feel like some kameo summon moves, like goro's punch walk and frost's ice punches, would benefit tremendously from simply having 2 hits of armor. That way you actually have a meaningful reason to use them (as armored reversals or wakeup armored moves). Turning them into ambushes would just probably get them into Cyrax territory - either will cost a full bar and be useless again as a result, or will cost a half bar and be spammable as cyrax/raiden was.

Stryker, Scorpion, Sub Zero and Sareena are good examples of kameos, as all their moves are useful for different reasons. At the same time we have Darrius, which has barely 1 functioning, expensive move, Goro, with one useful move and a situational low grab, Tremor with the costly ambushes, Frost without a SINGLE ambush move and the list goes on.

I think stryker and scorpion are extremely sub par design wise. They are 99% used for grenades and hellfire respectively. Scorpions overhead isn't "real" offline so it's just a combo extender, and I can't recall the last time I saw someone use spear (hopefully that's because I haven't had a ton of time to watch footage lately and it's upticked, but i doubt it).

They NEED to change how the kameo bar works. The huge issue is that the worst cooldown is the one taking effect.

For goro/lao you might use toss/spin respectively as a way to get more combo damage, but you don't because of how kameo cd works. If i've used goro's up punch, and then use toss, i'm still in up punch cooldown penalty, so i might as well ONLY use up punch.

Lao is the inverse. If i use spin i'm in spin cd, and now I can't hat nearly as much until the bar completely refills.

There needs to be some way to mitigate this. Maybe reward players for hitting the opponent by lowering cd or some other way to interact with it, because right now it just automatically limits the hell out of your real options.

Honestly, if they CAN'T make frost useful with just summons, thats a huge sign they aren't handling their system right. I think it's perfectly fine to have a kameo who's thing is "all summons" but dear god do her moves need to be better to justify that.