I believe a fair assessment of the game is that NRS decided not to take any risks with custom variations so there is significantly less creativity with predetermined variations.
On the other hand, many people in this community must confront reality and admit the following: If a locked special move were broken, they would complain. If the locked special that was normalized belonged to their favorite character, they would complain. If the locked special move were balanced, they would move on with their lives and eventually stopped caring.
Because the community largely have no idea what they want, I highly suggest NRS keep following "the vision" and continue doing what they have been doing thus far. The game is after all, as you state, a good game and the most polished Mortal Kombat game of all time.
Thank you for making this post Dave.
If anyone has been here since the beginning of MK9's release they can tell you how vacillating and contradictory the scene can be.
The community are the people ruining the game in my opinion.
Let's start with MK
I believe a fair assessment of the game is that NRS decided not to take any risks with custom variations so there is significantly less creativity with predetermined variations.
On the other hand, many people in this community must confront reality and admit the following: If a locked special move were broken, they would complain. If the locked special that was normalized belonged to their favorite character, they would complain. If the locked special move were balanced, they would move on with their lives and eventually stopped caring.
Because the community largely have no idea what they want, I highly suggest NRS keep following "the vision" and continue doing what they have been doing thus far. The game is after all, as you state, a good game and the most polished Mortal Kombat game of all time.
I definitely agree with a lot of this.
You'll know better than most people as I know you've been since MK9.
NRS actually do address or implement changes better and more often than pretty much any other developer.
However, the community is vacillating in pretty much every regard.
-MK9-
"I hate that they keep patching the game"
During this time NRS was one pretty much the only developer reading and commenting in forums and having conversations with players and tournament organisers to get the game to where it ended up.
Most of the fuckery that ended up in the game was actually because NRS was pandering too much in regards to community feedback.
-IGUA-
I didn't play this game so much but I know it went from 1.01 to 1.06 and at the end of its life span it came together quite nicely.
This when the NRS Community started becoming known for having their games constantly patched.
-MKX-
"This game is a broken, armored, 50/50 Rushdown fest"
This game came out in 2015 with a wave of new players (which is always nice, tbh) and so much attention was put on the game (Fatal 8, NRS Prize Pooling, etc).
What happened during this time is we all learned that NRS was in fact listening.
So what did that become:
"This move really needs to be an overhead"
"This move really needs to be a low"
"Why doesn't mine launch?"
etc, etc
-i2-
"This game is boring, zoning fest with annoying 50/50s."
This is when NRS started to tone down how often they patched their games because so many people complained about it in previous titles.
All that happened is players complained that the game wasn't getting patched soon enough.
Admittedly, the game had characters and mechanics which were harming the game (just like the previous game) but my point is I feel like they attempted make Injustice 2 the more 'traditional' FG and ramped up the full screen game because players whined so much about running in MKX.
-MK11-
"This game is uncreative and boring"
I can break down so much hypocrisy and contradiction when it comes to this game.
Well, I categorically tell you that when Kustom variations were potentially on the cards for all of us to enjoy the feedback was so negative it never had a chance to come to light.
It's by no means perfect but I want to illustrate part of the mentality that NRS players hold.
"Kustom variations make it impossible for us to know the match and it's going to be broken."
Bro, Marvel Vs Capcom (or any team/assist based game) and so many other FG's have literally thousands (sometimes millions) or permutations within their gameplay and mechanics have been fine.
Now people are begging for Kustoms to return to the game. When it's so clear that it should have be implemented from the beginning.
"This character is so dumb. Why do I have to guess"
Strike/Throw is one the underpinnings of any fighting game and most other games have WAY move mixup than this game does.
Nobody wants to guess at all.
Even though, in the last game we could run up to someone and make them guess a Plus on Block, High/Low (and Left/Right in Injustice), Advancing Mid, Launching combo starter that could be combo'd into a MB Throw Restand (in MKX) for like 50%.
Yet, the idea or having to guess between a teachable throw and a strike is somehow so broken that characters need to be 'deleted'.
"NRS aren't patching the game and responding to feedback"
The game has JUST become one year old.
Even the best developers with the highest budgets don't patch games (especially FGs which mature and develop over time) as much as this community exprcts them to.
"All I see is the same characters in Top 8"
Well, firstly the same few players keep winning (which is fair enough) but we also keep asking for characters to be 'nerfed to the ground' or 'deleted' which in turn negatively affects variety as the top players (and most of the fan boy/bandwagoners) will migrate to a more capable character.
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I've typed this on my phone so please excuse any grammar and I know that some this opinions could be better articulated but it's been on my mind for a while.
Personally, I feel that making the tournament standard 3/5 rounds like Tekken and allowing the players to create a quick Kustom Loadout would help the game the most.
This game has issues but it's only a year old and most other games take at least 2-3 seasons become decent.
I'm not shilling or riding this game as I do appreciate the community's grievances but a lot of the gameplay we have is because players asked for it.
"Remember when MKX was supposedly too much about 'Long juggle combos' and "Dumb Oki".
Now it's "The combos are boring" and "Wake-ups are too strong"
(I know it´s on me if I press D2 to early)
