How Mortal Kombat 11's Custom Variations Will Work In Competitive Play

[Syd Barrett Lives]

That was expected.

On one hand I'm kinda disappointed that the main feature of the game isn't avaiable in ranked. Even if I play towers or other stuff I'd never use a loadout I can't take online, so I (and I think a lot of other people) basically won't ever use them.

On the other hand though, after playing the beta and watching the kast, I'm starting to believe that in the end the preset variations will be the more viable loadouts anyway. I mean some moves are meant to get grouped together for a certain playstyle (ex. zoning vs rushdown) so if they create some good presets using all of the moves I guess I can live with that. I would have preferred to have Kustom Variations in ranked though and let the players sort it out, patching where needed.

 

[Roy Arkon]

My mentallity leads to it? I am acutally playing the games, support it fully, watch all the tournaments even tho there are mostly in late night in my timezone. I contributed to cashprices for both offline and online tournaments I haven't even played. I go to every tournament I can allow myself to go. I support various of streamers both by watching them and financially because I want them to play game more. I support developer's decisions.
The only thing I don't do is not bitch when things does not go as I imagined and I don't jump from game to game spreading my bitching.

Yeah. I am realistic. You can stay as righteous as you won't but TO won't let kustom variations rock. We can still make it happen online. I know I will be playing with kustom variations. Probably I'll still be playing it after you drop Naruto Fighterz Konoha Senpuu X or what new one year anime wonder will be called that year.

^This.

 

[DDustiNN]

48 different Characters
Choose 3 Characters each
1 assist for each of the 3 Characters
They also choose the skin for all 3 Characters....

6 seconds.

Exactly. People already know what they want to pick. They’re not gonna just stare at you and see what you pick first. And if they do... so what? How is that any different than variation counter-picking? Or full characters? It’s not like the select screen will stay on all day.

 

[Error404]

Casuals don't play casual mode. They either play the same as everyone or full on test your luck or something . Nobody who considers themselves a "casual" player spends hours testing and building variations.

This is a waste of an opportunity and a massive dissapointment. NRS has rebuilt games from the ground up before , hopefully , it will happen again.

 

[Rice]

Cant wait for next Kombat Kast when they show off all the moves you will never use.

 

[RoboCop]

48 different Characters
Choose 3 Characters each
1 assist for each of the 3 Characters
They also choose the skin for all 3 Characters....

6 seconds.

I dug through this thread just so I could Like this post.

 

[JBeezYBabY]

Why are people complaining? You can play with your custom variations casually. Most people don't travel or compete at tournaments so go ahead and play the way you like.

Read the the previous pages of the thread and you will know. And I plan on traveling more. This killed that hype for me. Im not saying I will not play the game, but its a major bummer.

 

[ChatterBox]

"I really hope they support the game and our community doesn't abandon it in 18 months"
"They better remove all the player choice so we can't have a nice long dive into the customs, wouldn't want people to have more opportunity to like this incredibly niche style of competition."

If people are scared of the zoning being too good, then we should have customs.

If people are scared of MKX again with crazy mixups and restands and too much damage, we should have customs.

 

[B. Shazzy]

hey wtf is all this complaining on my safe space nrs fanboy site. itz simple:

dont liek it dont buy it guize. now lets talk about something kool liek... wats ur fave fatality guise?1!1

 

[Circus]

Now, character viability will be based on what moves they happen to put together. Oh, no Scorpion variation has Misery Blade and one of Skarlet's variations has two of her best moves? I wonder which character will be better...People complain about balance, but this is going to make many more characters NOT viable and limit the scene. Such a shame...

Saying this with any certainty is too early, but I agree.

If a certain move is absolutely key to a matchup (like a move that gets around zoning), and that one move is only in one variation that adds nothing else to the matchup at all....

....it'd just be a better idea to use the 10 other characters that do the same thing but better.

And because characters are easier to learn, it just sounds like at the highest level, 100% requiring multiple characters is going to be the optimal thing to do again.

Sad thought.

 

[RoboCop]

The balance argument falls a bit flat. Since when has NRS ever released a balanced fighter? And look at other fighters that have terrible balance but remained tournament staples for years. UMVC3 had fucking infinites and it still outlasted the previous 3 NRS games.

As far as the amount of work it would take, it would seem to be way easier to normalize a single move than to balance an entire character. Yes, there is the synergy factor, but they already have systems in place to manage that, such as slot costs and just straight-up saying "You can't equipment this move and this move at the same time."

This game is going to have top tier and bottom tier just like any other fighter. Customization isn't going to affect that.

 

[Afumba]

This game doesn't have stat boosts.

It does... they are called augments.

 

[TaserFace007]

It does... they are called augments.

Yes, it clearly said that the mode which allows for custom variations is where you can also use all of your augments such as damage boosts online. There will be an option to disable this, but they're enabled by default.

I do not want the OPTION to disable these, I want them TURNED OFF BY DEFAULT. It's a shitty assed setup which ruined the custom variations for IJ2 and it will do the same for this one. How fucking difficult is it to switch these two modes into two separate sections?

 

[Name v.5.0]

We need to stop using excuses for this in this community. I'm going to stand on a soapboax on this, because it's time we stopped using these silly excuses for every single game.

In case you haven't realized it, when NRS fixes something, you guys then just switch to something else as being the supposed reason why the game is dead. Examples:

• MK9 died because there wasn't a last patch. One more patch and it'd have been perfect. Oh and NRS doesn't support us with money.
• So in IGAU, they patched it a ton, and then people say the game is dying because there are too many patches. Oh and interactibles are too strong, the game is broken because it's too defensive and people are running away throwing things. Oh an the netcode is bad. But really it's just that NRS didn't support us with money and esports.
• MKX comes out and NRS supports the tournament scene to the tune of 100's of thousands of dollars. Literally money everywhere. Oh but it's going to die because it's too rushdown and 50/50 heavy. NRS patches and takes out a ton of the 50/50s, easy armored launchers, etc. The netcode is bad.. NRS fixes the netcode. With 6 figures in tournament support, special events, tons of promotion, rollback netcode, and a 'last patch' that fixes a ton of stuff, the game dies immediately afterward anyway. Because 'unbalanced?' or 'no footsies' or something.
• Injusitice 2 comes out, the most broken stuff is patched out within a few months, the game is neatral-heavy, lots of footsies and patient play. There's a whole tournament circuit again. And War of the Gods for the online people. And the balance is decent. Lots of close matches and display of fundamentals. Oh but with the footsies it's too slow and there's not enough rushdown and zoning is a thing so the game dies. And oh gear moves, they should have let characters use their unbalanced crazy moves in tournament and then the game wouldn't have died..
• Now we're on to MK11..

Do you see the pattern? No matter what NRS does, as soon as they fix whatever you guys say killed the last game, you pick a completely new reason that the new game supposedly died. So I'm going to say it right now:

*The reason NRS games 'die' is that a new game comes out every 2 years and the community is not big enough to sustain multiple sub-communities, with a full crew of top players and monsters for each game. Period.

It's not balance, it's not patches, not netcode, not zoning, rushdown, extra moves, tournament money, or anything of the sort. It's just people not admitting that we're not big enough to play two games, and it's 90% the same group of top tournament players for both franchises. Let's end the false narratives and just be honest.

Fucking nailed it with the last 2 paragraphs. Thank you.

 

[VSC_Supreme]

This is disappointing to hear, was expecting this outcome but really wanted customs to be the standard.

I get the argument that it would devolve into the top players all using the same moves for the character because its the best one, but I'd rather have 1 custom loadout everyone picks that allows the character to show up than 3 preset loadouts that aren't good and the character ends up unused.

 

[NaughtySenpai]

I hope there's a Scorpion variation with Misery Blade and Demon Dash in it, otherwise he'll be garbage the way he was in the beta.

I don't really care if custom variations result in everybody using the same moves.
A lot of those shitty niche moves should've been baseline anyways.

Who the fuck wants to trade Misery Blade for that shitty neutral jump attack and those stupid unsafe as fuck chains? It wouldn't be worth it if you add two more crappy one point skills to the package.

I just want to play the skills that make my character the strongest and most versatile.
On top of that there's enough other people who like certain moves, even if they're shit, and want to use them so for those people it means lack in variety.

Sucks for both success and immersion oriented players.

 

[JSF]

This pretty much ruins the game imo because let’s just be honest NRS can’t balance with preset variations, and as plenty people have pointed out there are characters who have moves that are essential to play them at the highest level (Baraka’s gutted, scorpions misery blade etc) so there are 100% guaranteed to be variations that are just worse. This decision just doesn’t make much sense all they had to do was put ability select on the select sceeen in ranked and in tournament mode so everyone would see which moves you pick.

AND THERE STILL IS NO ONLINE RANKING SYSTEM!!???? why aren’t we crucifying NRS for this? It just doesn’t make sense I don’t wanna see my hypothetical win percentage I want actual matchmaking based on points/league/rank just like EVERY OTHER MAJOR FIGHTING GAME
Yes I’m salty -_______-


And anyone saying it wasn’t possible in competitive play/tournaments just isn’t using their brain or doesn’t want to learn matchups

 

[Vagrant]

I have no issue with this. I'm just glad they finally told us what they were going to do.

 

[Afumba]

Yes, it clearly said that the mode which allows for custom variations is where you can also use all of your augments such as damage boosts online. There will be an option to disable this, but they're enabled by default.

I do not want the OPTION to disable these, I want them TURNED OFF BY DEFAULT. It's a shitty assed setup which ruined the custom variations for IJ2 and it will do the same for this one. How fucking difficult is it to switch these two modes into two separate sections?

I wasnt replying to you but to the guy that said that MK11 doesnt have stat boosts.

If you read my last posts you see that i want the same thing as you. A mode were you use custom variations but augments wont be allowed. Preferably a ranked mode. As you said... stat boost are the dumbest shit ever.

 

[Trustful_Whale]

Kinda blows my mind they're just making the exact same mistake as Injustice 2 by not only shoving custom moves out of the way, but turning augments on by default in player matches.

Seriously, NRS, you had me believing in you and then just threw it on the ground.

Edit: we had it wrong and Augments will be opt-in only, so off by default which is good.

 

[DDustiNN]

@Dizzy @16 Bit

I hope you guys see this and read through the entire thing. The disappointment on this topic massively outweighs the defenders. There are even great suggestions and examples of how to overcome any selection and/or balancing issues.

Please hear us!

 

[JBeezYBabY]

My mentallity leads to it? I am acutally playing the games, support it fully, watch all the tournaments even tho there are mostly in late night in my timezone. I contributed to cashprices for both offline and online tournaments I haven't even played. I go to every tournament I can allow myself to go. I support various of streamers both by watching them and financially because I want them to play game more. I support developer's decisions.
The only thing I don't do is not bitch when things does not go as I imagined and I don't jump from game to game spreading my bitching.

Yeah. I am realistic. You can stay as righteous as you won't but TO won't let kustom variations rock. We can still make it happen online. I know I will be playing with kustom variations. Probably I'll still be playing it after you drop Naruto Fighterz Konoha Senpuu X or what new one year anime wonder will be called that year.

Ummm....YES! There's a difference between being realistic and believing never say never. Its great you support the games. Good for you. Now what about the majority of the community that want to do the same? I wanted to LOVE all the NRS games, but I didnt; therefore, I wasn't interested in watching all the tournaments and participating in them. You can't force people to support something they do not like.

MK11 was suppose to be the change of how they treated MKX and Injustice 2. But with this announcement, they're going right back into their old ways. The customization was an answer to bring what was missing from the other two games. They sold us customizations and made it brilliant to the point where if you want to use a move, you have to swap out another one. THAT was the balance. And it worked. It gave us hype. Then all of a sudden that hype that was taken away. Nobody wanna play that bum ass casual match to get good games in. ESPECIALLY since augments are going to play a part in it too. Even worst. And you know damn well casual players will drop the game after two months.

My point is, instead of taking it for what it is, we as a community can advocate for something greater! You want this game to follow the same ass pattern with its 2 year run? Then keep it the same as Inj2 and MKX. But if you want to this game be the best it can be, the community will follow. Hell, if I have to get experience to TO myself, I will gladly give it a shot. Tired of being content with things when we can do our part to FINALLY break the cycle. Let's at least give this custom thing a try. The people want it. And it can work!

 

[DDustiNN]

Kinda blows my mind they're just making the exact same mistake as Injustice 2 by not only shoving custom moves out of the way, but turning augments on by default in player matches.

Seriously, NRS, you had me believing in you and then just threw it on the ground.

I really felt like they had fixed all of the issues I had with Injustice 2... but now we’re back to no customization in ranked, and stat augments in unranked... the two biggest letdowns.

Just let augments remain single-player only, like you originally told us. And let us pick custom moves in the character select screen in ranked. It works for other games; it will work here.

 

[MkPeezy]

I just wish there would of been a earlier stance on variations then hearing about it post 2 betas and 3 weeks away from launch. If we were told hey there's going to be preset we just don't know how we're going to do it I would of been cool but I felt like a lot of hype was put behind customization.
We get two betas with full customization so most of us are thinking this is the direction they're going in.

While playing the beta mind you I only played skarlet in the stress and jade in the beta, I never felt overwhelmed with going against so many diff load outs and I thought it was kinda cool because one character can play so many different ways. Could certain moves need a bit of tweaking yes but that's why it's a beta. Now I'm a zoner player and I want to play jade but she doesn't have a true zoning preset that's kinda disappointing.... Hopefully this is well thought out because the article was very brief so I'll save my full comments for when it drops and I see it in game but I thought the customization was dope.

And for those complaining a UI customization in character select will take for ever in tournaments you do know you can just put a time limit in the character select screen and that's that. You have x amount of time or the comp will select the default load out for you to play.

 

[Kiss the Missile]

Not the end of the world. NRS isn't afraid to make drastic changes to their games and their systems. If the game truly would be better with custom variations, they'll add it in.