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What should NRS learn from MK11?

As it says in the title...

Whatever the next title is, but do you think is the single biggest lesson NRS should take away from MK11?
 

xenogorgeous

.... they mostly come at night. Mostly.
Put Mileena in the next game.
ahaha, yeah, this .... so automatically they can avoid tons of bullshit in Twitter, if they put Mileena automatically in every future MK game, hehe :p

anyway, some stuff that they can learn from MK11, if they are humble enough to listen the community feedback :

Negatives :

Variations just don't work, if you limit them , so, go full crazy with or just scrap off the ideia and come back with the full complete characters will full moveset

Breakaway mechanic is BS; just return with the combo breaker mechanic, there was nothing wrong with to begin with

Tone down the grind fest next game .... tower of time is a fucking boring and pure waste of time that you obligate us to play to gain simple stuff as gears, or at least, make them being more fun and variated ..... the tower mode of MK9 is top notch and way , much more way fun than this shit in MK11

Kombat League is a major fail and boring stupid concept that just don't work, so, better luck next time and come with something with better aproach and more interesting for competitive online mode

Positives :

The game is beautiful; the graphics are awesome, the character models, fantastic, so, if they planning to use Unreal 5 for the next game, oh my, would be amazing

Keep improving on the story mode, but , is the mode that is a huge diferential between MK franchise and others fighting games, so, yeah, MK12 with story mode as good as these of MK11, in terms of animation, format, narrative and direction .... of course, the story plot, could improve a little, but, MK11 is a good base to improve over

Nonetheless, is up to NRS challenge themselves and come up with something fresh, inovative, cool and much better in MK12, let's see if they can do that, hehe :D
 

Marlow

Premium Supporter
Premium Supporter
Breakaway and Fatal Blows are interesting ideas, but could probably use some refinement and evolution for the next game.

With the variation system I'd either move away from it entirely and go back to just one base character, or make it fully customize-able at the player select screen and let customs rock in tournament. Right now it just feels little too in the middle.

Do a better job from the start of managing the grind/micro-transaction feel of things.
 

Obly

Ambiguous world creator
Kombat League is a major fail and boring stupid concept that just don't work, so, better luck next time and come with something with better aproach and more interesting for competitive online mode
The "concept" for KL is just "ranked online play." NRS didn't invent the concept; it is what it is. If you find the concept boring, you probably shouldn't play FGs. This is like telling bakers to come up with a better concept for "bread".

NRS's part here (something they could still do in MK11 if they're motivated to) is to:
  1. Give us the ability to decline wifi matches, or filter them out completely. Don't force us to play over known crappy connections.
  2. Track a player's disconnection rate and give us the ability to decline players with a high rate. Don't force us to play with cheaters.
  3. Create more ranks and don't reset them each season (each player should start at the same rank they ended on), so matches are mostly at your own skill level. Don't force us to play against opponents at our rank but way above our skill level.
  4. Distribute rewards according to wins at or above our rank level, not according to arbitrary "points". Don't penalize us so badly for forced matches against lower-ranked players (at least not until the ranks are fixed and are actually aligned with skill level).
Outside of this, all the problems and things people hate about KL boil down to the fact that so many of the players are, well, assholes. There's nothing NRS can do to fix that, so blaming them for it is pointless. Just do your part to be a good member of the community, and don't be an asshole yourself.
 
For me it’s the flowchart nature of characters. No one excites me, and you can pretty much close your eyes and predict how a match will go. I think this is partly due to the variation system as the characters feel too incomplete.

Make the gameplay styles of the character unique and exciting!
 

xenogorgeous

.... they mostly come at night. Mostly.
The "concept" for KL is just "ranked online play." NRS didn't invent the concept; it is what it is. If you find the concept boring, you probably shouldn't play FGs. This is like telling bakers to come up with a better concept for "bread".

NRS's part here (something they could still do in MK11 if they're motivated to) is to:
  1. Give us the ability to decline wifi matches, or filter them out completely. Don't force us to play over known crappy connections.
  2. Track a player's disconnection rate and give us the ability to decline players with a high rate. Don't force us to play with cheaters.
  3. Create more ranks and don't reset them each season (each player should start at the same rank they ended on), so matches are mostly at your own skill level. Don't force us to play against opponents at our rank but way above our skill level.
  4. Distribute rewards according to wins at or above our rank level, not according to arbitrary "points". Don't penalize us so badly for forced matches against lower-ranked players (at least not until the ranks are fixed and are actually aligned with skill level).
Outside of this, all the problems and things people hate about KL boil down to the fact that so many of the players are, well, assholes. There's nothing NRS can do to fix that, so blaming them for it is pointless. Just do your part to be a good member of the community, and don't be an asshole yourself.
yep, you're right, perhaps not the concept itself, but, somehow, the KL, is frustating is some points, like the best of 3 matches, that is stupid, and the rewards, oh my, they are terrible ugly skins almost all the time ..... the lack of WiFi filter is a shame, and the rank reset is an epic joke, so, yeah, some of these stuff linked to KL is what make so boring to dedicate effort and time trying to take part on it at first place, hehe :p
 

Metin

Ermac & Smoke Main
1 character + 30 min story expansion should be 60 bucks at least.

14 DLC characters (10 guest who is using a gun), release dates should be seperated in 4 years.

Larger hitboxes ( my D2 should hit the opponent at fullscreen )

At least 40 GB first day patch ( this tradition should continue )

No in game purchase but time crystals.

Wired players shouldn't be allowed to play ranked sets, only wifi. 200 ping at least should be a standart.
 

xenogorgeous

.... they mostly come at night. Mostly.
1 character + 30 min story expansion should be 60 bucks at least.

14 DLC characters (10 guest who is using a gun), release dates should be seperated in 4 years.

Larger hitboxes ( my D2 should hit the opponent at fullscreen )

At least 40 GB first day patch ( this tradition should continue )

No in game purchase but time crystals.

Wired players shouldn't be allowed to play ranked sets, only wifi. 200 ping at least should be a standart.


:DOGE
 

Zviko

Noob
1 character + 30 min story expansion should be 60 bucks at least.

14 DLC characters (10 guest who is using a gun), release dates should be seperated in 4 years.

Larger hitboxes ( my D2 should hit the opponent at fullscreen )

At least 40 GB first day patch ( this tradition should continue )

No in game purchase but time crystals.

Wired players shouldn't be allowed to play ranked sets, only wifi. 200 ping at least should be a standart.
If Reptile is in I'm pre-ordering.
 

Damaja325

Stylin' & Low Profilin'
Mk11 has so many design flaws they are already in the right direction designing a brand new game since it wouldn't be like mk11.
 

Courante

Give all to another and save yourself
Let the variation system die

Sometimes, when it comes to the roster, fanservice (giving fans what they want) is more important than story relevance. It took me awhile to come around to this opinion... I used to believe the exact opposite.

Dont mess with meter management to casualize the game

A slower, more thoughtful approach to neutral should not mean completely gutting a characters moveset and taking away fun (theres still a bunch of degenerate shit in the game anyway)

ie. Kitana and Sub-Zero losing a lot of identity because it's a 'new game'

Let the combo nerds do combos lol

Balance the game with clear design goals in mind instead of the bizarre way of just throwing in changes and hoping the data shifts.

ii. For instance, instead of actually addressing breakaway, you just threw in a bunch of changes on a per character basis that didnt actually adress the systemic issue and left many characters with horrible alternatives.

Single Player content is important, but dont design it so it feels like a grindy slog. I feel that Injustice 2 was way more respectful of players' time

Perhaps in the next installment (Injustice 3 or MK12 or whatever) focus more on making good character models than going all in on face scans.

Animations get better each game but you can only improve

FATALITIES SHOULD BE ABOUT DARK HUMOR TOO, MANY MKX AND MK11 FATALITIES ARE JUST VIOLENCE WITH NO CHARM. MK9 HAD CHARM.
 
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TrulyAmiracle

Loud and Klear~
I don't understand the hate for the variation system, its one of my favorite things in MKX, MK11's variations however are something I really hate so I understand that sentiment.
They are unapologetically what we got after their inital idea of custom variations that they backtracked on last minute and its why we have these half assed feeling variations that makes everyone feel incomplete.

It's not the variation system itself that's the issue, it's how they handled it in Mk11.


For things that I think should change:

-No more jumps like Kollector and Geras where they have their feet dangling during the whole jump please, I don't undersand how they have the proper looking ones like the ninja flips and Kitana/Lao but some are just their standing animation but floating around.
On the jumping note, they really need to figure out how to design this shit proper so jump kicks aren't so obnoxious, removing the instant drop from MKX was a step in the right direction, but they need to have less active frames, bigger hurtbox and just be less insane all around.

-d1s or pokes all around need to be more plus, but also minus enough where you have to block after.

-Grabs need a rework, the way they are now being highs but turn into mids is jank and stupid.

-We need less strings that go fullscreen, was never a fan of them and especially in a "footsies based" game they really feel out of place and unneccessary.

-Fatal blows as a concept isn't something I hate, but if they do return (and I'm sure they will in some form) for the love of God make them shorter and that they don't come back if you miss.

-Flesh out the characters more in general, more specials, strings, normals, more unique ideas and fun moves. MK was always the crazy game with lots of fun ideas and moves.

-For story mode, hopefully aftermath was them experimenting with removing character chapters so that the fights arent just "everyone will job in character A's chapter for 4 fights in a row even if it doesnt make sense"
..and even better, having the assist mechanic in the fights. That was actually a neat concept and experimenting with it was a lot of fun.
 

Edmund

Kitana & Skarlet
I think there are three simple take aways:

  1. There’s simply no way to please everyone
  2. It is better to be too easy to unlock things rather than too difficult (RNG and other methods of unlocking that were deemed too difficult)
  3. “no combos” or “lite combos” is NOT an effective marketing strategy
 

Vslayer

Juiced Moose On The Loose
Lead Moderator
I have to agree with the variation comments.

There's always one that's going to be stronger than the other two, mostly overused. If you're lucky a character might have 2 useful ones (Kitana), and 3 if all the planets align (can't think of who rn).

There is no need to give us characters that have different types of gameplay (keep away, rushdown, set-up) into 3 different variations as they most certainly will all feel incomplete and hollow compared to a version of the character with no variation and one specific gameplan or strength(s).

Seriously, injustice got it right? When you learned a character, you didn't learn 1/3 of them, you learned 100% of them (not to mention IJ did gear customization way better than MK11).

They should learn from what worked best in both franchises and I understand they might want to seperate them, and that's maybe why MK is keeping the variation system, but I feel like if you have a winning formula you use it and tweak that instead of striving to just be different and setting MK apart from IJ.

People have been voicing their discontent about variations since MKX, this is not new. I'm not sure why they're not changing that. Either, they think it's not the majority that don't want variations or like I mentioned above, they just want to set MK apart from IJ as two 'different' FGs.

If they want to continue down that route, I might as well make IJ my main fighter instead. So bring on that IJ3.