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The Zoning Academy (Mortal Kombat X Edition)

Peckapowa

Peckapowa

Champion
Circus said:
In SF4 there is only 3 straight up zoning characters at the moment matchup wise. This means that no matter who they are fighting, their goal is to fight at a distance.
Those characters are Poison, Dhalsim, and Guile who all have have some form of safe half screen to full screen attack.

There's tons of other characters in the game that play the space control game though, BUT at many points they have to buckle down and play the up close game.

This is the direction NRS has taken this time. Honestly in Injustice tons of characters could zone the entire match unless they were facing 2-4 characters in the game. It doesn't matter if 1 or more of those 2-4 characters were the top, the point is that THAT was Injustice in a nutshell.

I played Kano in Mk9 and Raven in Injustice so I'm all for zoning, but I actually like this direction they're taking, sue me. There are now tons of safer options to get in on zoners but all have a counter measure. It makes zoning more rewarding and also has zoners play a bit of the close ranged game without sandbagging.

I know it's the wrong thread to agree with the new direction of the game, but meh.
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There's a zillion chars like sagar and ryu in street fighter that have great defensive keepaway games that can control the pace of the match and play reactionary. I'm worried mkx won't have this patient playstyle at all.
 
KIllaByte

KIllaByte

PSN: playakid700. Local name: BFGC MonkeyBizness
Yo, what's the deal with Liu Kang not having instant air fireballs in MKX? Does anybody have instant airs? I need my high skill ceiling zoning tools, mayne.
 
Barrogh

Barrogh

Meta saltmine
General M2Dave said:
I am not bitching about anything. Keep the safe 50/50 mix ups. Just give me the tools to keep my opponents away before they have a chance to take advantage of them. But most set players want an easy way to get in and have access to safe 505/0 mix ups.
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I just want to point out that we don't know frame data yet.
We were told that people aren't used to very short blockstuns of MKX and often don't punish things that may actually be punishable. Those numbers that people provide suggest that most mixups aren't really entirely safe, plus I've seen repeatdely people being hit because of lack of MU knowledge and not because there are some mad true mixups.

On a side note, I personally don't like the idea of having polarized gameplay where you can keep people out for days or die like it's nothing once they are in that one time. In that regard, MKX doesn't look much better than IGAU did at launch - I just don't see diversity of playstyles. But ofc it's been like what, 2 days? We'll see how it will end.

In the end however it's not about how we would rather have it, but instead about how do we win in this game we are going to play, because let's be real - NRS know very well what they wish to see and once the game is fleshed out, fundamental changes aren't likely till their next game.
 
M2Dave

M2Dave

Zoning Master
KIllaByte said:
Yo, what's the deal with Liu Kang not having instant air fireballs in MKX? Does anybody have instant airs? I need my high skill ceiling zoning tools, mayne.
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Characters do have them, but they are universally mediocre now, according to reports.

Everyone knows me as the zoning guy in the NRS community, but I will say something that very few "set players" will ever say because they are very proud of their simplistic 50/50 mix ups. Overly dominant instant aerial fireballs, similarly to overly dominant 50/50 mix ups, result in a boring game. Zoning encompasses a reactionary based gameplay style. If one projectile shuts down horizontal and vertical movement, you remove the satisfaction from zoning.
 
usedcarsalesmang

usedcarsalesmang

Warrior
General M2Dave said:
Characters do have them, but they are universally mediocre now, according to reports.

Everyone knows me as the zoning guy in the NRS community, but I will say something that very few "set players" will ever say because they are very proud of their simplistic 50/50 mix ups. Overly dominant instant aerial fireballs, similarly to overly dominant 50/50 mix ups, result in a boring game. Zoning encompasses a reactionary based gameplay style. If one projectile shuts down horizontal and vertical movement, you remove the satisfaction from zoning.
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any ideas on who you want to play in MKX?
 
Phosferrax

Phosferrax

Original Liu Kang cop.
I think people are looking at the run mechanic and thinking 'obvious get in', but there plenty of times in the Fatal 8 matches that Sonic Fox ran from half or 3/4 screen and pressed buttons and the opponent didn't do anything. Like Injustice with dashing, if you're letting people run into your face and press buttons then there is problem with you, not the run mechanic. I'm not a fan of safe 50/50 mixups, but regarding the idea that it's 'Knockdown + Run In = Free pressure', I'm confident that people let a lot of things slip in regards to punishing run ins on knockdowns. Obviously some setups will work better than others e.g. EB's tackle hard knockdown looks sucky to deal with, but we definitely didn't see the full extend of counter options utilised. For instance, there were no wake up back dashes used to whiff punish run cancels.

People saying that zoning legit looks dead simply have no idea how the meta game will work out, and the reality is that we saw 6 aggressive and rush-down oriented players playing in the tournament, not to mention that unfamiliarity favours offense. Looking back at the games, it's very easy to see where defensive strategies will develop and how the game will slow down from what we've seen.

Regarding Sonicfox, yes he used a mixup heavy character, but his understanding of the game was visibly so much better than the rest of them. His footsies were far better, his reads were fantastic and was adopting strategies to beat out peoples inclination to poke. He clearly used a great character but he was by far the best player in the tournament.
 
NHDR

NHDR

Kombatant
I have no sympathy for players that still say fireball zoning is the equivalent of mindless spam. Yeah, try saying that when the Guile you're playing as in SF4 is getting owned by a full-screen wall jump by El Fuerte.

I personally think the Injustice style of instant fireballs is just pure stupid, but I also think that instantly getting in and doing some herp a derp mixups ala SF4 is also lame. Especially in SF4, a large majority of the cast boils down to a close-range footsie and/or oki setup archetype.
 
KIllaByte

KIllaByte

PSN: playakid700. Local name: BFGC MonkeyBizness
General M2Dave said:
Characters do have them, but they are universally mediocre now, according to reports.

Everyone knows me as the zoning guy in the NRS community, but I will say something that very few "set players" will ever say because they are very proud of their simplistic 50/50 mix ups. Overly dominant instant aerial fireballs, similarly to overly dominant 50/50 mix ups, result in a boring game. Zoning encompasses a reactionary based gameplay style. If one projectile shuts down horizontal and vertical movement, you remove the satisfaction from zoning.
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The only instant air projectile that ever completely did that was pre-patch Cyborg's, and Zod's. Kabal's could be ducked under and then forward dash block cancelled, at least-- liek DJT did at EVO nicely.
But I agree, to be honest, instant airs being mediocre is a good thing for the game, they've caused lots of actual problems in the past.
Nobody should feel the NEED to buy a different type of controller to play their character to full potential-- Hitbox Zod was a crazy debacle.
 
Conflict_90

Conflict_90

Mortal
Hades said:
Whats ermac like as a zoner and how does he maintain space? Is he great in the mid range?
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Precisely. In mk9 Ermac excelled mostly at mid range by keeping his opponents on their toes with his telekinetic push. Full screen, he became less dangerous.
 
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