Mortal Kombat 11 Thoughts

So right now, I honestly think NRS has created something special. I think this game is actually going to be one of the greatest fighting games in existence and I hope it lasts long. The pacing of the game, the footsies, the neutral, it’s literally everything I have ever wanted in a fighting game. With that being said, I also had a lot of gripes after playing it for like 12 hours straight



1. Movement:



I definitely feel dashing should be better. Its a no brainer, and everyone knows it! It is a relief that Ed has assured us that the dashing is buffed in the final build so I am glad! Walking forward was faster than dashing and it shouldnt be that way IMO!





2. Defensive tools



This is a big one so get ready.



I love the idea of flawless block, but I think it is overwhelmingly overpowered right now. Currently in the game most strings with each character have a gap in it, and because of this, I was able to just OS guard the string into a full combo launcher. The fact that for example, Skarlet’s 124 which would only benefit skarlet maybe 3% damage on hit has a gap in it means that I can fuzzy block OS the gap at absolutely no risk. If I on the defense am correct, I get to take over 30-35% of your life vs your 3% for sticking the string out. It’s like this with mant of her other primary footsie tools as well. I was playing Semiij and everytime he did F43 I was blocking the low at the last second and taking his lifebar away. I believe that the defender should only get access to the fully invulnerable Up3 vs the popup because it is way too powerful right now. I feel in the long run characters will struggle greatly with this. If anything tremendously scale the popup so at max im getting like 5-10% for it.



The New Combo Breaker



So my honest opinion on the new fall out of combos tools is that Injust blatantly think it is bad design. There is absolutely no risk for the person getting hit to just do it and punish me. For example as Skarlet, I can do 212, 212, 44 Cell siphon, and if my opponent elects to just drop out of the combo on reaction, I get full combo punished in return. I am a firm believer that if I am the person that gets the hit, I should be rewarded as such, and I should be securing my damage without the risk of just losing the game for it. Literally me and semiij came to a point where we just dropped our combos because it was too dangerous to continue it without dying for it, and we extremely disagree with the design.



The second biggest thing about it is that the fall out of combos thing only hinders characters who are launch heavy. Some characters get the luxury of completely ignoring this mechanic because their primary combos keep you standing into really good damage. From the kombat kast, Jade and Kabal are just a few characters I can think of who can ignore this. If I launch you in my combo, I should be heavily rewarded for landing a ~launcher~ and not “oh he might just fallout and punish me for extending anyways.” I really feel this could be a huge dealbreaker for people from other scenes as this is the only fighting game where “breaking” a combo can lead into the defender getting a full combo back in return. There is however two things that I propose:



Bring back the classic MK combo breakers. I know that when an opponent breaks, at worst, we go back to neutral and I am alright with that. I am not ok with risking dying for doing the right thing by getting the hit. This same fallout concept left a bad taste in my mouth for Inj2 as well as some characters ignored it entirely!



Second proposal is to give me some way to counterplay it. If that means you introduce combo breaker baits like Killer Instinct, so be it! I believe that in almost any other game where you get to escape combos, there is RISK too trying to escape as well. In Blazblue you get burst baited. DOA you get high counter, KI you get countered into lockout. Give me something like that here so that I can interact with the player more. I am a firm believer that AT BEST, the person who got HIT’s best scenario is returning to neutral, and not taking away 40% of my life. Its giving me greenlantern from mkvsdc feels eeeeugh! What puts me more off on this system is that i can still special cancel too even after making contact with the armored frames which is more often why I get punished. Instead of making it armored, why not make it so that the gravity increases on the combo instead? Just food for thought, but I am totally in full disagreement of this change. Not a fan at all.



Chip Damage/ Chip kills



I think the way flawless blocking and chip works is fantastic! Walking in really is a good thing in my opinion, but generally speaking from the players in the community, I think chip kill should be removed for the nature of the game that NRS is striving for here. There are alot of end game scenarios that I believe are just “fuck neutral” specials to close out the round. For example skarlet’s tongue and scorpions teleport are hard to react to and flawless block to live, and there is almost nothing to stop them. When playing with semiij, I felt that matches were alot more intense with making a pixel comeback by just walking and being rewarded for good defense. I think that if anything, id like in the official beta to try a build without chip death so that even at magic pixel, we can really still keep focusing on neutral game versus yolo teleport into ggs.



Now that isnt to say I wanted ENTIRELY removed. I believe the only thing that should chip kill should be fatal blows. Right now people sorta just yolo the blow out and I noticed they do absolutely no chip damage. I think if you made it so a fatal blow did about 5-7% of chip damage, then you could make it so that the fatal blow has a bit more utility. And you can still flawless block it too! So it adds a layer of mindgames like should I use it now? Should I wait till next round? Am I confident in my neutral to get another hit to win? Things like that!



On the note of Fatal blows, my only request is make them all like -40 on block. That is a super that will delete me if I get hit that has armor. If you go for it and I block it, like almost any other fighting game, you deserve to get ~HARD~ punished. Let people be smart with the fatal blows.





Dot damage

This should not kill. Simply put. There is end game scenarios where no matter how good a person’s defense is, this bypasses that. Poison damage in a fighting game should never kill IE Skarlet’s red mist is an end game scenario. Make the player think more on getting the hit.





Other than that, I think NRS has something extremely special here. They just did everything else so perfectly. I really feel there is no “fraudulence” when I am playing neutral in this game. It’s you either have better footsies than me or die. I cannot absolutely wait to compete in intense matches with future competitors. I am absolutely in love with the game and I cant wait to get my paws on it in full come April 23rd! I just dont want to see people not stick with the game for silly things as I stated above!



Let me know what you guys think!



xoxo







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