Disclaimer: I have been very, very, very high on this game, but this is the first legitimate complaint I have made from a gameplay aspect (barring the ridiculous Fatal Blow from the beta)
* My personal thoughts are shared in OP *
As we all know, dash has been significantly buffed in MK11. We also know you can cancel dashes with normals or blocking. In turn, we knew we may be able to somewhat re-create MK9 types of dash blocking with the buff.
@xGunShow put together a quick display on the capabilities of the new buffed feature. On this showcase, the result instead comes out like this-
The first thing that screams out is the speed of it. It is mimicking the speed of the MKX run, but
also allows you blocking during the run (again, similar-ish to MK9 dash block).
From full screen, he's closing the distance in a literal one second. By the time a character like Cetrion lifts up her 46-48 frame startup boulder, Jax would already be punching her in the face for a 35% combo from 3/4 away. When you're Cassie trying to space your far reaching 9F mid based around their tendencies from a bit outside of jump range (the definitive footsie type play), Jacqui can just instantly block into your face and mix you up. It is way too fast, way too safe, and very reminiscent of the early "MKX is the return of the footsies" in 2015 until we actually played it and saw it was anything but.
The second thing is that it looks stupid. It's like a replication of Tekken's, but uglier, faster, and sillier looking. I understand they are attempting to go a bit of a 2D Tekken for MK11, but this wouldn't be that route. From a visual perspective, I can imagine this being mocked by many onlookers in today's gaming climate of high expectations. It's the only 2D game I can think of that would look like this during gameplay.
The third thing, most importantly of all, is that it erases the entire "neutral heavy focus" we were expecting to get. One of the main reasons why the neutral game was so bad in MKX is because too many characters had oppressive pressure
combined with the run button. The MK9 dash argument is entirely separate, as many tools in that game were much faster/safer than in MK11. Being able to move like this, the characters built with lots offensive pressure (there are many more than we originally expected) have a massive advantage in this meta. There really isn't a "neutral heavy focus" when you are closing full screen distance in one second, or closing half screen distance in 0.5 seconds.
My first impression is of complete heartbreak. I am trying to understand how this "helps" the "neutral focus" of the game. I don't see it. Is this terrible? Is it an upgrade? Are you meh?
Thoughts?
EDIT: Different character dashes have different speeds and dash-block speed, per
@Circus while this may also be an EXPLOIT.
* My early proposed solution would be to make block unable to cancel the dash, but leave normals able to. That will leave the neutral heavy focus in tact as you can use the cancel to extend the range of your normals and the speed of your closure, but at a risk as well *
