What is wrong with Injustice 2 (and NRS games)

[PizzaMasta]

In injustice D1's into specials actually combo on hit.

Yeah, exactly. I'm just wondering if it's still the same in I2?

Not like I would know.

#TeamNoCode

 

[shura30]

Injustice 2. I'm thinking that yeah, this is definitely a problem in MKX, but maybe the issue is solved in I2 because of cancellable pokes?

at least in mkx it can be a problem in a few matchups

So maybe NRS games could work too if they had better and, importantly, more interactive defensive options?

this is a good point
but unless they go ahead and change the actual breaker into KI's combo breaker, defensive options would work both ways
in 3s both chunli and sean have parries but there's still a huge difference in their tier placement
or just take a look at the pre-patch mkxl armored launchers those were a defensive option and an incredible offensive tool as well

 

[LaidbackOne]

Wow, Lord Tweedy strikes with his internetz research.

 

[WATCHD0G]

You seem to miss the most obvious and most important thing from developer stand point these days. Which is especially true for corporations like WB.

They will do whatever to make the game look good for casual players eyes. And let me make it clear - balance is not the thing what makes game "pop off" for a casual player. It's crazy rushdown, effects, fatalities, super moves, fav. characters that make casual players hype. Moves have to look good, casuals don't care if its +7 on block of 50/50 or -20, "it looks great, hype!".

Casual players who will play it, finish story mode, play the game for like a week in other modes and forget that it ever existed - move on to the next title. Those players makes sales, millions.

Competitive scene is like 0.1% and for corporations like WB are considered a very small side effect. They will throw some money for it now and then, make ESL, patches for like 1-2 years but it's smoke and mirrors. It's a drop of what they're making of casuals players in terms of money and only that matters.

WB allows them to patch the game etc coz they already made good money of it and it doesn't interfere with development of their next game but it's never their main focus, never was and never will be.

Also it doesn't mean that Paulo or anybody at NRS doesn't care about the balance (althou they made some pretty awkward balancing decisions throu the years) , they probably do but at the end of the day NRS is owned by WB and WB cares pretty much only about the money (like any corporation) and hyping their next movie (Wonder Woman says hello), which obviously means they gonna make more money of it.

 

[crosstalk]

I think one thing NRS can definitely improve on is doing a better job with the early life of games they release. This is where they seem to fall flat. While it's understandable that vanilla releases can have issues with glitches or exploits, their games always seem to have a lot of them. On top of this, patching is usually messy at these points and balance changes are questionable. Initial DLC releases are always a mess (Freddy and Skarlet in MK9, Scorpion in Injustice, Tanya in MKX, etc.) If they can ensure higher quality around the beginning of a game's life, I think it will have more success down the line. A lot of non-NRS players seem to leave around this time because of these various issues.

 

[Zur-En-Arrh]

Tbh that depends on design. Thing is, NRS have a history of creating two types of "bad" top-tiers:

1) Ones that have a few strong moves that are universal enough that you can't go wrong with them. "OP" happens when said character doesn't have serious downsides and can basically spam his way to win (F23 EVO anyone?) regardless of what his opponent could do if he wasn't too busy being controlled so hard. Characters such as these hardly make the game more fun. People will use them to win, but that's about it.

2) Diverse "can do it all" characters. Now, these may be fun to watch for a while, but when it comes to NRS games, a lot of their less conventional characters (or occasional specialist that isn't following current game's trend) have at least one serious weakness. And, so happens that weaknesses can be easily exploited by having just right hard-countering move. Such characters tend to quickly make competitive list less diverse simply because how many characters they can counter. Think MMH who could zone many of CC characters out while completely destroying zoning of many others.

So, it boils down to the fact that in NRS games, "everyone is OP" works poorly because large portions of the roster get hard countered and cannot play their game against other seemingly equally strong characters that just happen to have a right tool of two.

There are game where "everyone is OP" kind of works. KI characters, for example, are absolutely bonkers if you compare them to characters in other FGs outside of respective games contexts. But at least basic mech of the game makes sure you can always do at least something and have a chance to get your own game going - no matter how insane opponent's offence is, it won't neuter free combo breakers; no matter what gap-free pressure and plus frames opponent has, it's punishable on a read; there's almost always some kind of invulnerable move or armor you can use knowing opponent's options in hes current position.
So maybe NRS games could work too if they had better and, importantly, more interactive defensive options?

I agree that the top tiers of NRS are a bit too much. But the example of KI is relative. The most common top tier in KI, and I'm talking about season 3, are the "can do it all". Think about it, two of the best characters in the meta are Fulgore and Jago (all arounders, jack of all trades type of character). And what you said about this archetype is exactly what happens in this game. Many good characters (Kim Wu, Shago, Sadira and so on) are eclipsed by the absolute titans that are KI's top tiers that know how to do almost everything in the game better then anyone.

Fulgore for example is kinda the both archetypes at the same time. Because not only his rushdown is rocksolid across the entire cast, but he can also do great zoning if he can (unfortunately no one has done that until this date to illustrate what I'm saying). Jago on the other hand, almost none character in KI shuts him down in my opinion.

And even though all of this KI is really fun to watch and play, and that comes from, not only the great battle system that KI is, but because the cast is so strong that even though they lose match-ups against these top tiers, they are well made characters that put up a fight and a show for who is watching. Since they are strong when they put they're gameplan running (in the few times that they manage to) it is so good to watch.

IMO what really destroys the fun of a polarized fg is when a top tier is so strong that the community starts picking him over and over again to win fights. Kinda what happened with Tanya, Scorpion and Alien. This really kills the hype because a player forces hand of a character that he played for a long time just to win the tournament because the game is unballanced.

I see this situation in a way that a top tier ruining the experience depends on how the community approaches the problem and how they try to solve it. But of course, you can explain that communities fighting with or against a top tier depends on how strong he is (I won't hide this argument). This discussion is so long, so I won't stretch the text more than I already had. It's really a great topic to talk about .

 

[Tweedy]

I am one of the best and most known SC players in the world. I even have a character ghost named after me in SCV. The fact Im not placed high enough on 8WR rankings its just these tournaments are mentioned are like the only I've travelled to. If MM counts for you, I dont think there are people I didnt beat.

Ask any guy in SCV "top-10" about me and they will tell you who I am. Damn, like there are people in SCV who dont know who I am. When people say "Mitsurugi" they think "Belial".

You are the one butthurt because I taunted you a little, Sweedy, I suggest you point your "research" towards executing stanky leg.

I figured at best i'd get a response like this. It's not like you'd ever admit that you would deceive the fine people of TYM.

So you're essentially a character representative who did all right when you got to travel, that assumes that he could have been ranked inside of the top 100 on a game with probably around 250-300 competitive players? Cool.

 

[HateMe!]

I figured at best i'd get a response like this. It's not like you'd ever admit that you would deceive the fine people of TYM.

So you're essentially a character representative who did all right when you got to travel, that assumes that he could have been ranked inside of the top 100 on a game with probably around 250-300 competitive players? Cool.

I think you're the only person in this topic who actually gives a fuck about that.

 

[Evil Canadian]

I figured at best i'd get a response like this. It's not like you'd ever admit that you would deceive the fine people of TYM.

Here's the best response you gonna get

Take it and be happy you got even that!!

 

[Belial]

Here's the best response you gonna get

Take it and be happy you got even that!!

Ironically, Tweedy has gorilla as his avatar.

 

[Evil Canadian]

Ironically, Tweedy has gorilla as his avatar.

Harder to find gifs of humans throwing poop

 

[CrazyFingers]

All this Soul Calibur talk is making me want a new Soul Calibur game. It might have not been perfect but dammit it was fun...i miss SC...

 

[Barrogh]

this is a good point
but unless they go ahead and change the actual breaker into KI's combo breaker, defensive options would work both ways
in 3s both chunli and sean have parries but there's still a huge difference in their tier placement
or just take a look at the pre-patch mkxl armored launchers those were a defensive option and an incredible offensive tool as well

Definitely. But my point is not that it will solve character balance issue, but that it can make "everyone is OP" idea work better. The point being, anyone can have multiple chances of having their game going at least in cases when characters have roughly the same field of expertise or at least don't have something that completely ruins opponent's game plan.

Other than that, even KI breaker system, at least alone, doesn't make characters closer to each other in terms of balance because it hinders offence of both roughly equally (unless your character is into poke combat or something, but that's specifics).

I agree that the top tiers of NRS are a bit too much. But the example of KI is relative.

I know. I didn't mean that those issues are NRS-exclusive or something. I was just pointing out that if you want to build characters that can shut down opponents this hard no matter what he is, then you need to at least introduce some ways for defender to break staple rules of FGs in general (KI kind of does that by "breaking" traditional combo system and allowing guard cancels) to get out of it all to keep matches more meaningful. It does not mean the game will be more balanced if some characters still have everything they need at any time while others scramble for situations where they have more options.

But at least it does what you said - the game becomes more watchable and keeps minds of players busy with more than salt even if they are in a bad situation.

All this Soul Calibur talk is making me want a new Soul Calibur game. It might have not been perfect but dammit it was fun...i miss SC...

Aaand the devs keep hyping people up with random posts with no substance, not even giving any hope SC6 can happen (no, that last one, whatever it was, doesn't count).

 

[exflyingbooty]

Just make the game fun, balanced and have depth. If NRS does thing the game will have a long life. People have to pick up and enjoy the game even while losing.

 

[CrazyFingers]

Definitely. But my point is not that it will solve character balance issue, but that it can make "everyone is OP" idea work better. The point being, anyone can have multiple chances of having their game going at least in cases when characters have roughly the same field of expertise or at least don't have something that completely ruins opponent's game plan.

Other than that, even KI breaker system, at least alone, doesn't make characters closer to each other in terms of balance because it hinders offence of both roughly equally (unless your character is into poke combat or something, but that's specifics).


I know. I didn't mean that those issues are NRS-exclusive or something. I was just pointing out that if you want to build characters that can shut down opponents this hard no matter what he is, then you need to at least introduce some ways for defender to break staple rules of FGs in general (KI kind of does that by "breaking" traditional combo system and allowing guard cancels) to get out of it all to keep matches more meaningful. It does not mean the game will be more balanced if some characters still have everything they need at any time while others scramble for situations where they have more options.

But at least it does what you said - the game becomes more watchable and keeps minds of players busy with more than salt even if they are in a bad situation.


Aaand the devs keep hyping people up with random posts with no substance, not even giving any hope SC6 can happen (no, that last one, whatever it was, doesn't count).

You don't like random throw away arcade games disguised as one of the best fighting game franchises of all time? Strange...

 

[CrimsonShadow]

I figured at best i'd get a response like this. It's not like you'd ever admit that you would deceive the fine people of TYM.

So you're essentially a character representative who did all right when you got to travel, that assumes that he could have been ranked inside of the top 100 on a game with probably around 250-300 competitive players? Cool.

 

[Matix218]

If Sonic Fox or Scar made a thread exactly like this the very same people who are blowing up Belial would be praising Sonic and Scar and telling them how right they are and how much they agree. It is like you are not allowed to have an opinion around here without getting blown up for it by the majority of the community unless you are one of the top 5-10 players in the world. I personally agree with much of what was said in the OP. He may over generalize (specifically over stating the amount of plus 50/50s in the current build of MKX) but most of his points are right on.

 

[JJvercetti]

If Sonic Fox or Scar made a thread exactly like this the very same people who are blowing up Belial would be praising Sonic and Scar and telling them how right they are and how much they agree. It is like you are not allowed to have an opinion around here without getting blown up for it by the majority of the community unless you are one of the top 5-10 players in the world. I personally agree with much of what was said in the OP. He may over generalize (specifically over stating the amount of plus 50/50s in the current build of MKX) but most of his points are right on.

The hive mentality is strong.

 

[trufenix]

If Sonic Fox or Scar made a thread exactly like this the very same people who are blowing up Belial would be praising Sonic and Scar and telling them how right they are and how much they agree. It is like you are not allowed to have an opinion around here without getting blown up for it by the majority of the community unless you are one of the top 5-10 players in the world. I personally agree with much of what was said in the OP. He may over generalize (specifically over stating the amount of plus 50/50s in the current build of MKX) but most of his points are right on.

right, but they wouldn't have made this thread because they actually like playing this game.

 

[Matix218]

right, but they wouldn't have made this thread because they actually like playing this game.

You would be suprised. I would think that the top players of the game would be just as (if not more) likely to be passionate about aspects of the game that they don't actually like but I imagine they tend to keep those opinions off of public forums so as not to bite the hand that feeds them. I know top players like Wound Cowboy for example have been very vocal about things they do not like about the game and their character's design. So it would not be a far stretch to see Wound make a similar thread to this, and if he did the dick riders would be out in full force because he is a "top player". Strong players are not always the be all end all when it comes to breaking down or fully understanding a game in an unbiased manner either. Often they are blinded by their own character or personal bias because they have so much time, money and emotion invested in it. Also some of the best coaches in sports were not necessarily good players and in the same vein many great players did not have success as coaches. A great coach however clearly has a deep understanding of the game even if he would never have been able to personally execute on the field as a player. Belial or myself have just as much of a chance to make a good (or bad) observation or opinion on a game that we play as Sonic and Scar, even though they are much better at it than we are.

 

[trufenix]

You would be suprised. I would think that the top players of the game would be just as (if not more) likely to be passionate about aspects of the game that they don't actually like but I imagine they tend to keep those opinions off of public forums so as not to bite the hand that feeds them. I know top players like Wound Cowboy for example have been very vocal about things they do not like about the game and their character's design. So it would not be a far stretch to see Wound make a similar thread to this, and if he did the dick riders would be out in full force because he is a "top player". Strong players are not always the be all end all when it comes to breaking down or fully understanding a game in an unbiased manner either. Often they are blinded by their own character or personal bias because they have so much time, money and emotion invested in it. Also some of the best coaches in sports were not necessarily good players and in the same vein many great players did not have success as coaches. Belial or myself have just as much of a chance to make a good (or bad) observation or opinion on a game that we play as Sonic and Scar, even though they are much better at it than we are.

Who in this community doesn't whine? Have you just forgotten Alien?

 

[Matix218]

Who in this community doesn't whine? Have you just forgotten Alien?

Thats not what im talking about. Im talking about when someone takes the time to write a detailed and thoughtful post about their opinion hoping to spark good discussion and people dont even give it the time of day because he is not a top player

 

[trufenix]

Thats not what im talking about. Im talking about when someone takes the time to write a detailed and thoughtful post about their opinion hoping to spark good discussion and people dont even give it the time of day because he is not a top player

people are disrespecting belial because he's an asshole, not because his opinion is unpopular.

 

[Alright RyRy]

The real problem with NRS, is not giving out Beta codes for the people who actually pre-ordered the game.

 

[Cobainevermind87]

Could be worse. Could pay $60 for a shell of a game upon release (SFV anyone?). You also don't have to pay to upgrade to newer versions of the same game. Wonder how many editions of SFV there will end up being. NRS might not be perfect when it comes to balance, but at least they deliver a complete game at launch and don't keep nickel and diming you throughout the game's life cycle.