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What if this game were to have a "Guard Meter"? Pure Speculation.

EMPEROR PRYCE

EMPEROR PRYCE

WAR SEASON "THE WEAK EXPOSED!"
From a casual and spectators viewpoint, i did not enjoy MK9 as much as the next person. Do not get me wrong, I am a HUGE fan of the MK series but it seemed MK9 was a "turn-taking" game, and this was the experience i had when i played it as well.

I might get blown up for this but idgaf. By "turn taking" I mean, it was easy to realize your opponent is respecting you, just by seeing them half screen holding the block button, thus allowing you to pressure until your block string or frame traps are over, and then its the opponents turn and so on and so forth. For other button to block buttons, this never seems the case. Soul Calibur for example is very fluid with the action and it seems to never be a dull moment of two opponents blocking in each others faces, nor does it seem like 1 player gets their turn and then the opponent gets his turn and so on and so forth.

Anyway, me and a few friends were talking over XBL and we came up with the idea of a "Guard Meter" similar to what you'd find in KOF and SCV. It'll encourage players to find different ways to evade attacks and punish turtling players and force them to rush down or zone. Now i understand people will say "what about zoning characters, or characters that have horrible defensive options" Similar to some Capcom games or Anime fighters, each character will have a weaker or stronger Guard Meter. Zoners with bad defensive options (lacking anti airs, teleports or longer ranged normals) will have stronger guard meters, while pure rushdown and/or vortex characters will have weaker guard meters, forcing them to go in or pick and choose when to be an active defender.

I never liked the idea of combo breakers, but its whatever, if they are in MK10 breaking the guard meter could result in a FREE UNBREAKABLE Combo. I believe having something like this will evolve the meta deeper than a lot of games.

What do you guys think? Good idea? Bad idea?
 
Jack Burton

Jack Burton

Apprentice
EMPEROR PRYCE said:
From a casual and spectators viewpoint, i did not enjoy MK9 as much as the next person. Do not get me wrong, I am a HUGE fan of the MK series but it seemed MK9 was a "turn-taking" game, and this was the experience i had when i played it as well.

I might get blown up for this but idgaf. By "turn taking" I mean, it was easy to realize your opponent is respecting you, just by seeing them half screen holding the block button, thus allowing you to pressure until your block string or frame traps are over, and then its the opponents turn and so on and so forth. For other button to block buttons, this never seems the case. Soul Calibur for example is very fluid with the action and it seems to never be a dull moment of two opponents blocking in each others faces, nor does it seem like 1 player gets their turn and then the opponent gets his turn and so on and so forth.

Anyway, me and a few friends were talking over XBL and we came up with the idea of a "Guard Meter" similar to what you'd find in KOF and SCV. It'll encourage players to find different ways to evade attacks and punish turtling players and force them to rush down or zone. Now i understand people will say "what about zoning characters, or characters that have horrible defensive options" Similar to some Capcom games or Anime fighters, each character will have a weaker or stronger Guard Meter. Zoners with bad defensive options (lacking anti airs, teleports or longer ranged normals) will have stronger guard meters, while pure rushdown and/or vortex characters will have weaker guard meters, forcing them to go in or pick and choose when to be an active defender.

I never liked the idea of combo breakers, but its whatever, if they are in MK10 breaking the guard meter could result in a FREE UNBREAKABLE Combo. I believe having something like this will evolve the meta deeper than a lot of games.

What do you guys think? Good idea? Bad idea?
Click to expand...
MK does have a guard meter. The life bar.

Don't block too much or you'll never get the life lead back.
 
Fromundaman

Fromundaman

I write too much.
It really depends how they make the game.

Guard meter, the way it was done in SCIV, was pure garbage since there WERE characters with ridiculous blockstrings you had to keep blocking against, but you got punished for doing that too.
The reason it works in SCV is because there is generally very little blockstun on most moves, and honestly even if it didn't have a guard meter, the game would probably still play out similarly. The guard meter in SCV honestly is there more to discourage lower level players who don't know how to punish/take advantage of gaps in between moves from just holding guard all day and encourages them to be more proactive.

Smash is the same way. In Melee and Brawl, the guard meter is useful since it prevents you from just blocking everything all day, but ultimately that's not really necessary if you know how to punish correctly, which is why shieldbreaks are incredibly rare.
On the flip side, Smash 64 was more like NRS games in that it had enough blockstun for you to link moves against a blocking opponent, and as a result hitting your shield button in that game results in getting blockstun comboed into a shield break, which itself leads to 0-deaths.


Ultimately, the way to make a game less "Red Light, Green Light" is to reduce blockstun on moves moreso than building in a guard meter.
 
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