Why Balanced, Interesting Zoning Characters Hardly Exist in NRS Games

I like the idea of zoners having combo-able pokes, also maybe not having zoning moves be -300 would be nice.

Wasted said:

Love you too, sweetie.

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Awesome, hopefully I'm not sleeping on the couch tonight.....

I'd also like to add part of the reason why I think the design team made teh zonen moves so negative is because a lot of them are fucking binary as shit. This doesn't have much to do with anything of 3d 2d just a design decision that I feel is partially fueled by the desire to keep things from old mk games that were and are still stupid. Like superman being a instant fast horizontal charge move that pushes you across the entire fucking screen but is like full combo punishable on block. It's like extreme opposites. Something similar conceptually but not as binary is something like honda's headbutt, which has more nuance to it. To link it to zoning, ermac's tk push is like -30 on block because it's a full screen high damage(for a midscreen poke) reset with a biggish hitbox. So if they get hit, bam full screen and the process starts all over again(which gets reset because he has no full screen tools anyway except tp and go ham offensively which make tk push literally just a combo ender). If they block, they run, and now you get pressured. Polarizing opposites. If they added slightly more nuanced, where it just staggered with not a lot of pushback you wouldn't need to to make it negative by half a second.

Edit: That's not to say Ermacs tk push is justifiably -30 because you can argue in a fastpace high movement game Ermac's push is a pittance what awaits him at the wrong end of close range oki/presssure. I'm just spitballin as to why the devs made the moves so unsafe, but didn't realized that they need strong pokes without being death on block to counter extreme offense.

More pushback on block, better startup and recovery and Kenshi in balanced and possesed is good to go with minor normal adjustments to better work out of pressure.

Make b1 or f3 an OH then I'm playing MKx

Vithar said:

people should stop giving idiotic ideas about 50/50 and shit.

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Most of the Top Tier list is comprised of people that have em. ie: Raiden, Soyna and Dhvora to name a few. Everyone is spoiled on 50/50 now. Since most so the people that don't have one wants one. Im not going to name any names. You know who you are! lol I think a lot of characters that are considers bad because they have to be played straight forward, because they don't have an 50/50 of some kind are not as bad as people think. Look at an Takeda in top 10 a few days ago. A Ferra/Torr 2-3 weeks before that. Everyone in this game can put in work and be hella viable on a tournament setting. It just takes taking that one step back and taking another look at what the character has to offer. Maybe even ditching the traditional variations that have been put towards the foreground. an example of that forget about an "Kung Jin damage post patch report" how about an "Kung Jin shaolin Primer" ? Stuff like that. Its way to early to say this or that about a character being ass. To point out the strongest in the game yea, but the worst..... For all we know the meta might not come down to 50/50s it could come down to who is plus on block before a 50/50. Thinking like that might push characters like KL or Shinnok Higher up. all in all i think its too early to write any characters off.

Zoidberg747 said:

Dvorah would be OP as fuck if you allowed her to combo off of d4/d1/d3.

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A-fucking-greed

funkdoc said:

oh, and one last addendum...

the usual talking point you hear re: NRS zoning is "they need to make projectiles clash like in every other game", but i honestly don't think that's a problem at all. why?

when you have dueling fireball characters in games where they clash, the character with the faster-recovering fireball will gradually work their way in on the character with the slower-recovering fireball. essentially, recovery becomes the most valuable trait of the projectile, and the character with worse recovery is the one who eventually has to find a non-fireball way of winning.

that basic fireball-vs.-fireball game is still present in the likes of MK - it just ends up rewarding a greater variety of traits. the above paragraph still applies when you have two characters whose fireballs travel at a similar speed and both hit high or mid, but there is another possibility that directly results from the lack of clashing. specifically, projectiles that travel slowly become much stronger in this system; as long as the startup won't get you hit before you get the projectile out, you will force the opponent to deal with the projectile and gain distance/initiative. in a game with clashing, travel speed tends not to matter much for fireball fights since the fireballs will disappear anyway - it's mostly important for corner traps and fighting non-fireball characters. i think no-clashing is interesting for adding this element and don't see how it's worse than the standard system.

that's not even mentioning that MK's other unique projectile traits also add variety to these matchups, such as some projectiles hitting high and others hitting mid. i think this part of the game is the one that doesn't need work, really!

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They can't make projectiles clash as long as there are low projectiles.

STK said:

Most of the Top Tier list is comprised of people that have em. ie: Raiden, Soyna and Dhvora to name a few. Everyone is spoiled on 50/50 now. Since most so the people that don't have one wants one. Im not going to name any names. You know who you are! lol I think a lot of characters that are considers bad because they have to be played straight forward, because they don't have an 50/50 of some kind are not as bad as people think. Look at an Takeda in top 10 a few days ago. A Ferra/Torr 2-3 weeks before that. Everyone in this game can put in work and be hella viable on a tournament setting. It just takes taking that one step back and taking another look at what the character has to offer. Maybe even ditching the traditional variations that have been put towards the foreground. an example of that forget about an "Kung Jin damage post patch report" how about an "Kung Jin shaolin Primer" ? Stuff like that. Its way to early to say this or that about a character being ass. To point out the strongest in the game yea, but the worst..... For all we know the meta might not come down to 50/50s it could come down to who is plus on block before a 50/50. Thinking like that might push characters like KL or Shinnok Higher up. all in all i think its too early to write any characters off.

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Kenshi(Balanced) just needs faster normals so he can ''retaliate'' vs characters that pressure him endlessly(atm he is a punching bag).
Hes can bait the enemy pressure 50/50 with EX R'Karma with Armor and he does enough damage from range.
Also as i mentioned 'faster'' normals - they don't even need to lead to big combos or so ...

Wasted said:

Sometimes it was fun to see people squirm, sure, but I much preferred seeing Dorm slap people and go ham with Dark Matter mixups.



Love you too, sweetie.

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Thats all about preference then.

Error said:

I like the idea of zoners having combo-able pokes, also maybe not having zoning moves be -300 would be nice.

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D3s into special will give more 50/50s lol. Some pokes should be a bit faster thats all.

a recovery time reduction on projectiles would be nice.

@funkdoc NRS focuses on unique aspects rather than game balance. They want to make things fresh rather than make things work. If the game had actual solid fundamentals like Street Fighter has its own, it would be lot less troublesome for people who have a favourite character that happens to suck in one iteration of the game or another.

funkdoc said:

the block button creates issues when it comes to opening people up, but i think there are ways around that. i discussed this some in m2dave's thread but i think a guilty gear-style guard meter could work with MK in its present state. guard crush could also be an option but ONLY if you completely removed chip on normals, and i'm not sure how yall would feel about that.

projectile crossups are not part of the traditional zoning repertoire, though. i'm sure you're thinking of SF4 dhalsim here, but he's still kinda sucked throughout that game even with that option. that's more of a nice luxury than something that turns losing matchups into winners. if you take a look at the classics like hyper fighting or super turbo or alpha 2, that type of mixup didn't exist at all yet zoning was stronger than in any modern game.

and yes i should have clarified this further, but haketh did a very good job addressing it. i obviously wouldn't want to make the comboable down pokes universal by any means. it feels like it could be fine for a liu kang or someone, an offensive character who doesn't have a real high/low, but scorpion or d'vorah? i mean i love broken shit in FGs but that ain't even the fun kind of broken shit i want!

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I agree projectile cross aren't traditional but I sorta meant more than that. Because of the block button. They don't have as much tools as they could have for zoning and what not. Let's say someone has a projectile rush down style sorta like how reptile or a zod with a iazb would play. They need a over head AND low to really get anything off of it. If their wasn't a block button you could do cross ups and stuff of the sort to make it work without giving that character both a over head and a low so balancing could be better. It's the fact they they can make more actual zoning characters that don't follow the just blindly inputting the move repeatedly

Zoning always comes in later because there's more depth to it than just overhead/low and it's always the best and some character somewhere always ends up losing 8-2 because of it.


This is why NRS shouldn't listen to anything anyone has to say this early on unless it's a blatant glitch because no one really knows what they are talking about and you'll end up with another Killer Frost

tatterbug4 said:

I agree projectile cross aren't traditional but I sorta meant more than that. Because of the block button. They don't have as much tools as they could have for zoning and what not. Let's say someone has a projectile rush down style sorta like how reptile or a zod with a iazb would play. They need a over head AND low to really get anything off of it. If their wasn't a block button you could do cross ups and stuff of the sort to make it work without giving that character both a over head and a low so balancing could be better. It's the fact they they can make more actual zoning characters that don't follow the just blindly inputting the move repeatedly

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this is actually a relevant point - zoning characters absolutely can use their projectiles to set up offense and still be considered zoners. to go back to SF2 guile, that was the whole purpose of his bazooka knee. that move was unsafe on block or hit, but you used it to move forward while charging sonic booms so that he could mix up low/throw after it or just set up his optimal spacing for more booms.

that said, even in a block button game, you don't need mixups to have threatening offense. have we already forgotten about MK9 johnny cage? chip damage on normals opens up other possibilities there that wouldn't exist in SF, and i'd like to see more of those compared to the mixups. you could absolutely create a hybrid zoning/"poor man's MK9 cage" type character, i think.

Bird Lao X said:

D3s into special will give more 50/50s lol.

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i think it would be fine as long as the safe specials that start combos are EXs. and again, i'm not suggesting you add this for every character, mainly just the more dedicated zoning ones who tend not to have the greatest overheads.

i'd really love for them to make kenshi good in a way besides giving him an overhead...that's part of what made me think about this stuff.

don't have enough time to address everything else but thanks for all the replies, everyone! just a couple quick bits...

- again, i would never want to make comboable down pokes universal. i should probably edit that into the OP at some point...

- good points about the shitty frame data on certain zoning characters. as i mentioned in m2dave's thread, i think NRS doesn't want MKX to get the reputation MK9 & INJ both had with the stream monsters (i.e. boring zoning world), so they likely overcompensated when designing the zoners. worst-case scenario is that it's like the blazblue team's attitude on grapplers; for those who don't know, they're on the record as saying that they intentionally make sure tager isn't strong in each version of that game, because they think people don't enjoy the game when grapplers are good. i have some hope that paulo & co. aren't that far gone, but it will be something to watch for.

btw i should have given this disclaimer in the OP but: i haven't actually played MKX because i don't have a console for it. i've played a lot of MK9 and some injustice, along with a million other FGs over many years, and i have particular interest in figuring out what good design is and why it's good.

Bird Lao X said:

D3s into special will give more 50/50s lol. Some pokes should be a bit faster thats all.

a recovery time reduction on projectiles would be nice.

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A mix-up maybe, but most zoners don't really have 50/50s in this game as far as I know besides Summoner Quan Chi, and 50/50s/mix-ups where both options don't lead into full combos are fine too.

funkdoc said:

i think NRS doesn't want MKX to get the reputation MK9 & INJ both had with the stream monsters (i.e. boring zoning world)]

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Yeah now it's fun to watch but boring to play. Heads or tails become boring real quick. Especially when some characters only have heads ...

NRS might want to stop starting all over from scratch with each game, and develop from MK X and balance / tweak gameplay with iterations.

They fail on game balance. Casuals scream for nerfs . NRS nerfs (for no reason). And they move on, making a new game without thinking about what they've done in the past for a second.

You can't build a competitive game that way. Ever. And that's why MK will still be a joke topic (sadly) as long as those horrible 50/50 into resets (etc) are at the center of the game. No mind game when you bet on a stance (standing or ducking) and hope for the best ... especially when you can't punish shit anyway if you guessed right

funkdoc said:

- good points about the shitty frame data on certain zoning characters. as i mentioned in m2dave's thread, i think NRS doesn't want MKX to get the reputation MK9 & INJ both had with the stream monsters (i.e. boring zoning world), so they likely overcompensated when designing the zoners. worst-case scenario is that it's like the blazblue team's attitude on grapplers; for those who don't know, they're on the record as saying that they intentionally make sure tager isn't strong in each version of that game, because they think people don't enjoy the game when grapplers are good. i have some hope that paulo & co. aren't that far gone, but it will be something to watch for.

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They stopped doing that with Tager like three iterations ago BTW, hell now he's A Tier & actually scrapes Nu.

Error said:

A mix-up maybe, but most zoners don't really have 50/50s in this game as far as I know besides Summoner Quan Chi, and 50/50s/mix-ups where both options don't lead into full combos are fine too.

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Jacqui has a pretty solid mixup game also

I'd say cyber kano is the closest to a well-rounded zoning character in this game. The other zoners like Kitana and Kenshi simply lack everything else (good normals). I understand them not having the crazy mixups, but their terrible normal game is an unecessary weakness from a design viewpoint imo.

Error said:

A mix-up maybe, but most zoners don't really have 50/50s in this game as far as I know besides Summoner Quan Chi, and 50/50s/mix-ups where both options don't lead into full combos are fine too.

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I dont need more mix ups, we got plenty of it already. Really what we need are better defensive tools.

haketh said:

They stopped doing that with Tager like three iterations ago BTW, hell now he's A Tier & actually scrapes Nu.

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yooooooooooo word???????? ok thats like the best fuckin thing i heard all day, you are ~that dude~.

another anti-arcsys talking point put to rest...good, good

Jacqui has a pretty solid mixup game also

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yea she seemed p. sick to me at first but isnt it the glitchy hitboxes holding her back atm? i want that shit fixed cuz shes rad as heck

funkdoc said:

yea she seemed p. sick to me at first but isnt it the glitchy hitboxes holding her back atm? i want that shit fixed cuz shes rad as heck

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Yeah that & she has the Sektor small reach problem, but unlike Sektor she has a really boss walk speed so it's still a weakness but not as awful.

GLoRToR said:

@funkdoc NRS focuses on unique aspects rather than game balance. They want to make things fresh rather than make things work. If the game had actual solid fundamentals like Street Fighter has its own, it would be lot less troublesome for people who have a favourite character that happens to suck in one iteration of the game or another.

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I think you're right, which explains why every fucking Mk game plays differently.

aj1701 said:

I think you're right, which explains why every ducking Mk game plays differently.

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Differently in a way yeah but then there are recurring problems with all of them that I don't think NRS even recognises as problems.