Stage Select in MKX - Should There Be A New Tournament Standard?

One of the most jaw dropping aspects of Mortal Kombat X is the variety of well designed stages to select from.

Ranging from a city destroyed from the NetherRealm attack on Earthrealm with dogs attacking a man in the back, an Outworld Marketplace with throwable old ladies, to a lava bridge in NetherRealm with spectacular depth of view - there is plenty for the guys at NRS to be proud of.

But there is an issue - some of these stages are a little dark for streams, with one that is down right blinding.

The bigger issue of these is Sky Temple.

Aesthetically, this is my favorite stage. A strong storm creating several tornados in the background, lightning strikes coming from the dark, rolling clouds, rain falling hard onto the several statues and then draining down the sides...all of this comes with a friendly, throwable monk!

While there is plenty to love about this stage, there is one severe issue with the poorly lit stage being sporadically lit by the strong light of the lightning. This can be especially harsh on the eyes, especially in the far left corner where the building entrance is. The light from inside strengthens tenfold when lightning occurs which makes blocking some corner pressure hard to do because you get blinded for a second when they do it. Not only that, but it also interrupts focus. If you are absorbed in the game, random flashes of intense light can rip apart your concentration.

While I absolutely love the aesthetics of this stage particularly and others, we have a Training Room that has perfect lighting and acts like random stage select, itself. You never know which interactables you will get. You can basically have Sky Temple without the Raiden assist.

So what do you think? Should we just deal with the lightning or go Training Room? Should we demand NRS to fix the blinding lightning? Or can you think of a better way of doing it?

This is a real issue, in my opinion. I believe we should have players presented at their best in streams...poor lighting and blinding randomly occurring light can restrict these things.

Nerf Sky Temple.

Force market to get more blanchetalaities!!!!!!

In all seriousness though: for practical purposes it should just be training stage. It's a random pick anyways and easy on the eyes. That being said I'd hate if this actually happened because it would a lot more boring to watch. Stages are beautiful in mkx and it would be a shame to just see training stage over and over.

I believe it was @Pig Of The Hut who said he lets the other player choose random first and if it's sky temple he asks if they can switch. This could work for tournaments as well, like a soft ban on sky temple.

MsMiharo said:

Force market to get more blanchetalaities!!!!!!

In all seriousness though: for practical purposes it should just be training stage. It's a random pick anyways and easy on the eyes. That being said I'd hate if this actually happened because it would a lot more boring to watch. Stages are beautiful in mkx and it would be a shame to just see training stage over and over.

I believe it was @Pig Of The Hut who said he lets the other player choose random first and if it's sky temple he asks if they can switch. This could work for tournaments as well, like a soft ban on sky temple.

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That is the issue. While Training Room is more practical, it does become better for the player but is it worth having the same, boring background?

I guess it becomes a point of which takes priority - the player or the viewer

STB CoRzz said:

That is the issue. While Training Room is more practical, it does become better for the player but is it worth having the same, boring background?

I guess it becomes a point of which takes priority - the player or the viewer

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I feel like soft ban on sky temple should be (and often is) the norm. Worst case scenario you'll get a restart which isn't that time consuming.

However this is how it could be done:
Single random: p1 ransoms the stage. If it's NOT sky temple p2 does nothing/picks the same stage. If it is sky temple p1 unselects sky temple and chooses the stage that is chosen from p2s random (which is done after it is confirmed that p1 got sky)

I personally like the idea of each player just picking their preferred, maybe a softban on Sky Temple (unless the players agree). Then the game chooses randomly between the two. If one of the players doesn't have a preference, he or she can just pick random/training room himself or herself as their pick.

I would personally hate to see every match in training room. I've never had any visibility issues (MAYBE block pressure issues from the lightning, but I never attributed it to that).

I still don't get the Sky Temple complaint, some of the things that has been said about that stage on commentary are absolutely ridiculous but for the sake of it I wouldn't mind always picking training room. I think NRS killed it on stages in this game though, every single one is gorgeous.

I always let my opponent pick random, then I pick what was chosen unless it's sky Temple

random and if someone wants to be a pansy and switch we can restart

I don't get all the crying about the Sky Temple , really. I find this and the crying about block stun really sad considering that its comming from people who are supposed to be competitive.

Training Room should be removed from even being an option. That's a boring ass stage to play on. Takes a lot of the beauty out of the game imo. And looks more like a street fighter match than an MK match.

I like how Courtyard Day was a sort of standard map in MK9 b/c it was still beautiful and wasn't a stale looking training room.

And there's nothing even wrong with Sky Temple. Don't sit an inch from the screen and you shouldn't be blinded. lol

I have always hated sky temple - when it gets random selected before a match I facepalm so hard my nose gets inverted

seriously i like sky temple but i HATE fighting on it.

and shout outs to all the Jasons that pick INFECTED sky temple or INFECTED Forrest,

No. You should be able to fight on whatever stage it is. I never have any problems.

It should always be the jungle for reasons.

Training room is my favorite. "Fuck how you feel about it" -- Pimp C

Always dead woods or cove for the simple fact that they look the best

STB Sgt Reed said:

And there's nothing even wrong with Sky Temple. Don't sit an inch from the screen and you shouldn't be blinded. lol

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I don't sit super close to my screen and it still bothers me. Side note; when my wife is hanging out with me and I'm playing MKX she is forced to either leave the room or keep her eyes shielded if random select happens to pick that level due to her seizure disorder. The lightning flashes are awesome and add to the aesthetics of the level but could probably be toned down a little bit.

Does that stage make it harder to react to the 15 f overheads?

In all seriousness I thought this was going to be for some technical reason, ie dualist Liu Kangs orbs exploding prematurely in some corners.

Is it really that much of a problem? I don't know if this could be an issue with people's televisions, in which case they should just adjust the settings, but I've never had a problem seeing anything on all the monitors I've played on.

On the subject of technical reasons, since the game already randomly selects from the stage each player has picked its already sorted. I suppose some rules regarding counter picking stages could be worth a look, but I don't think they make that much an impact on whether one character gets an advantage. We're not Super Smash Bros, thankfully.

Too much effort I already did a lot of work picking a character, then a Costume, then a Variation!!!

its XX from there on.

im already sweating over that hard work

I usually pick training room or out would marketplace

I never found a problem with sky temple, but for some reason I can't see as well when I'm on krossroads. Guess it's just a little too dark.

But I say if interactions are allowed then sky temple should be as well. The flashes might benefit certain characters more, but so do interactables, particularly the vines in Kuatan.

I honestly never understood the issue with Sky Temple.