A discussion about the hype the game brings

Before I get started, this is not to bash any of the Yomi/cR guys. This is just from what I've noticed as someone who has observed the scene since Injustice (watched MK9 stand out moments as well, but after the game's time).

EDIT: Carefully read the post if you plan on voting in the poll, I am of belief that MKX more or less has become less exciting to watch. If you agree with this, vote "agree". If not, vote "disagree" and give some reasons why.

Almost an entire year has passed since MKX's release, which means IGAU2 or whatever potential NRS title should be right around the corner, and it's made me feel like barely anything has really happened for the game in terms of findings, hype and everything else that would get people excited for the coming tournaments for the game. From what I've seen, there's barely been any ground-breaking tech threads (that haven't changed due to patches) or talk about tech being saved for majors. Or people starting shit to a point where we all had to watch the ft10 between the people involved, or it's been a dream matchup for us. There's a rather obvious lack of rivalries and not a whole lot of secret tech that would get all of us talking.

It felt waaaaay different during the time of Injustice, though. Right out of the gate, we had shit-talk between the NRS scene and the Capcom scene with FChamp getting excited for Sinestro and it got people excited to see how well he'd do versus us and likewise. Then you had stuff like Theo vs Brady, Wonder Chef vss GGA, Glass Sword winning at AK with Raven, Sonicfox starting his reign of terror, KDZ/CDJR/PL's ridiculous assessments of characters they played in the game or of other general game things, etc etc the list can go on and on and vary from minor thing to major thing. And on the tech aspect, I remember when people were trying to figure out WoundCowboy's Sinestro tech before he showcased it at a major, or the time Chef used all those Zod glitches in a match and still lost (you giant scrub) or when the Doomsday corner game/Flash OTG tech was found for the first time.

In MKX's time, there's been Yomi dominance with cR right behind them with very few major upsets or unexpected wins (the only one I can think of now being hayatei's performance at CC). Injustice felt unpredictable in a way. With MKX, I feel I could miss a major's stream, ask one of my friends who is in top 8/how'd top 8 go and I would already know Yomi/cR would fill up the roster, with maybe one unexpected-but-really-good player.

This isn't to say that I condone randomly starting shit with other forum members or a return of a million tech threads. But that feels like what this game is missing. Maybe I'm remembering things too fondly when in actuality IGAU was just as exciting as MKX now, or I'm just not paying enough attention to the tournament scene. Before you think I suddenly love Injustice or think it's NRS's best title, I'll tell you now that I look back on that game and think it's outrageous with it's character balance but I DO look back on how exciting it was to be someone who was interested in IGAU. Right now, I'm not too interested in watching upcoming majors for MKX because there's no rivalries going into it or talk of secret hidden tech that will change how we think about a character. I think I actually only watch local stuff in my scene/ESL now, which wasn't the case back then.

A lot can happen in a year, especially in this age of fighting games with information being so easy to share and a training room with a mirade of ways to fully utilize it. But a year has passed and it feels like barely anything happened at all. Do you agree? Do you think I'm just some crazy person that forgets how hype IGAU really was and disagree?

Yeah I found IGAU tournaments more hype too. Hell the last time I watched a non-ESL MKX tournament was PL vs SonicFox because it was hype. That kind of stuff is what's really been missing in MKX for me.

Also there was more to find in Injustice so TYM was alive with tech threads and MU discussions. Now it's just buff threads for KP2 and complaints about the shitty netcode.

wait till my warlock quan hits the streets, baege redfield

Regarding the tech, it's expected for a few reasons:

1- Injustice was a back-to-block, which meant the hunt for crossup setups was real, and there were tons of them. That alone was like 80% of the tech in the game, and it's obviously out of the question with MK.
2- I believe OTGs are universally disabled in MKX with some specified hard coding. There's an obvious protection window that takes OTGs out of the question. I don't think this existed in MK9 and Injustice.
3- Injustice had unblockable interactables, and people were constantly looking for setups to utilize them. Also non-existent in MKX.
4- Wake-up stuffing in Injustice was a big deal and also a big part of the setups. MKX is fundamentally different in that aspect, and you can clearly tell if you have a chance of breaking armor by just looking at your character's tools without even trying/searching.

These main chunks of the tech we used to hunt for in Injustice do not apply to MKX. You can easily tell that you won't find the same amount of tech in MKX as you did in Injustice without even trying to look for any.

There's not anymore regional rivalries which hurts. I also think the fact that Injustice was on the brink of death but then exploded with with life with the balance patch and NEC rejuvenated the scene tenfold.

There also wasn't so much money on the line. esports money left and right. Top players are gonna hold on to their tech more and not interact as much because of that. TYM runs rampant with casual players and online warriors more than ever now. There's more misinformation than good information. Almost SRK-like.

Overall MKX is just more serious, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. That's just how things go when things get more corporate.

I disagree about the tech thing though. There's a lot of tech out there, but there's so many silly threads to weed through to get anywhere they are harder to come by. The good tech threads usually get ignored by the typical TYM user these days too so they don't get bumped often.

Guess I should really post the Kotal infinite before it's too late. Was saving it for EVO but oh well.

Stay tuned.

couldn't disagree more... also your results will be sewed as you hav e loaded the question. The poll due to your title looks like you are saying "isd the game hype... agree or not" but what you mean is "the game is not hype, agree or not"... might get a lot of hype voters polling wrong.

The cR vs Yomi battle at every major gets me pretty hyped.

I didn't follow the tournament scene pre MKX, so I can't relate to the past. But I'm sure enjoying it these days.

yeah it's way less hype imo

I practically never missed an injustice tournament to stream monster (up to and including locals), i can't even remember the last mkx tournament i watched

iSuckAtFightingGames said:

couldn't disagree more... also your results will be sewed as you hav e loaded the question. The poll due to your title looks like you are saying "isd the game hype... agree or not" but what you mean is "the game is not hype, agree or not"... might get a lot of hype voters polling wrong.

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I'm not sure how/if I could change the poll or title of the thread so that the mistake doesn't happen like you said, but could you give some reasons why you disagree with me?

If the same top players are dominating a tournament scene, is it really at all relevant if they have YOMI written in front of their name or not?

It's not like they play easy mode vs each other or anything, King vs his own brother was hype as fuck, I'm here to watch top tier MKX why would what clan they decided to join have any bearing on that at all? I really don't see how it affects hype at all. The rivalries are real as ever, the community is larger as such the clans get bigger and better. This is community, this is a good thing.

I feel like if you have the funds to attend tournaments it would be a touch more exciting because you get more involved. As a spectator who can't travel as much as he'd want...it's getting a tiny bit stale but only a tiny bit. I do however love watching fellow PSN players make it far in brackets.

I'm pretty sure this exact same post was made about MK9 when Injustice started to age. Unfortunately, nobody whose watched or attended an MKX tournament will agree with you.

God Confirm said:

If the same top players are dominating a tournament scene, is it really at all relevant if they have YOMI written in front of their name or not?

It's not like they play easy mode vs each other or anything, King vs his own brother was hype as fuck, I'm here to watch top tier MKX why would what clan they decided to join have any bearing on that at all? I really don't see how it affects hype at all. The rivalries are real as ever, the community is larger as such the clans get bigger and better. This is community, this is a good thing.

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I'm not trying to say anything rude towards Yomi or point the finger at them, it's really slightly about the results of tournaments lately. It's more that the regional aspect of the rivalries feels like it has died down. Like, one of the basic things people root for or want to see in a tournament would be EC vs WC, Socal vs Norcal, etc. Instead of this, it feels like it's JUST Yomi vs cR. Everyone else in between them gets mopped before top 8, or somehow makes it to top 8. Jupiter making top 8 and hayatei winning CC were super exciting to hear about and I was sad that I missed those players placing higher than I'd expect. Like, imagine if Jupiter won instead of just making top 8. It'd be unexpected with a character I don't think we've seen make it THAT far in tournaments, unless I'm mistaken. Jax would have the spotlight on him on TYM like Takeda did when hayatei took him that far and there'd be more to talk about then. It would've been really exciting and I would've immediately regretted missing out on the tournament. I'm really trying not to turn this into a "boo yomi!" "boo sonicfox/cr!" thread, this is just how it seems to me.

I completely disagree with the tech thing I think shits being oozing lately

I like drama as much as the next guy but close sets with both players playing out of their minds is enough to get my hype like Slayer vs Sonic

Injustice was ass. MK9 was 1000x times more hype than Injustass and 100x more than MKX.

aldazo said:

Injustice was ass. MK9 was 1000x times more hype than Injustass and 100x more than MKX.

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Lets play MK9 then

Injustice was a snooze fest to me. I tried so hard to like the game, but ultimately just could not do it. MKX is more hype than Injustass imo, but I'm a Mk guy so I'm biased.

i thinks its subjective, anyway the players matured so there will be obviously less shit talk and tend to be more friendly

After watching the KIT Injustice tourney I 100% agree. Too many things that make that game so much more exciting to watch. First of all, the variety of legitimate playstyles in much better than MKX even with variations. We saw big body with pressure, big body with traps, big body with armor, rushdown with mix ups, two different styles of zoning, a jack of all trades character, a vortex character... the top of a random side tournament had more variety than the entire MKX roster! Every character in Injustice plays completely uniquely to the rest. Now lets look at MKX, 90% of the variations in the game are rushdown with armor, great. In injustice as Bane the idea was you trade speed and a hurtbox for armor options your opponent didnt have, but why should choose a slow big body in MKX for armor options when I could just be Kung Lao and have everything plus armor in to full combo? Armor should be unique to the big characters but in MKX its handed out to everyone so whats the point? Playstyle design made so much more sense in Injustice, in MKX they got lazy and just decided to give everyone armor for reasons I'll never know, not only does it make the characters less unique, but it also makes the neutral game way scrubbier.

And speaking of neutral game, sprinting ruins that too. Why attempt to play footsies when someone can just sprint up to you and now you have to guess whether or not they are going to cancel sprint into a mix up or into armor, hooray footsies. I saw more legitimate respectful neutral game in the Cowboy vs Ducky match than all of the MKX matches I've seen. In addition to that the Ducky vs Cowboy match also showed that timeouts are a thing in that game that add to the hype even more, no way you are getting a timeout in MKX because everyone is always in each others faces doing random offense and nothing else.

Now admittedly once Batgirl came around and started playing the "if you guess wrong eat 50% if you guess right guess again" game the hype goes away pretty quickly, and shit like Flash having an infinite number of safe mix ups gets pretty absurd but I'm under the impression that if Injustice had one more good balance patch it would have been the best fighting game I've ever played and we would still be playing it now.

However I really just wish that MKX was UMK9. NRS needs to realize that if they are going to be a legitimate fighting game company instead ofjust a company appeasing to casuals they need to change the way they approach these games. Right now their approach is "we never make the same game twice, its always different." To a casual that sounds great, but to competitive players all it means is they are going to try a completely different formula instead of learning from the past and improving upon what they started. That's why the balance in these games are always shit at release, because they have no idea how their new formula even works lol. I ust hope Injustice 2 really is just Injustice 2 and not an MKX/Injustice hybrid like MKX is an MK9/Injustice hybrid.

I think the hype has died down so much because of the huge lack of updates. I think it's let most casuals leave the scene and even let competitive minds wonder.

As far as the teams go man I really don't mind. You need some cool guys that are awesome to check out? @Milkman (milky situation) @PND_Ketchup @PND_Mustard @DatProStunner @Madzin @CheapEddie @YOMI DJT @YOMI RM SaltFace @Scar I can't remember what team he's from.

There's plenty of others. This was just top of my head exciting players to watch the KIT tournament today will open your eyes to new people to. The community just needs life brought back into them but NRS has been doing god damn awful when it comes to updates.

Fun to watch and being a good game don't really equate to being the same thing. If you like a game where lesser skilled players can come out on top because it is exciting to watch for the unpredictability I can understand that. That to me doesn't make me want to play a game though. It is actually the opposite. It makes me want to completely drop a game when this is the case. (Been there before) If all the best players are constantly in the final 8s then that tells me the game results accurately reflect the skill of the players. This is a great thing.

I just kind of like the characters I like, and I love it when the great ones play those characters. I also just love the high level play between any characters because I try to stay within the game the two players are playing and try to understand where they're coming from. Watching these matches is what teaches me the game's meta. It does drop off a little when its not among my favorite characters fighting, but my focus is there regardless. I watch football and fighting sports and fighting games much the same. I wanna break it down in my own head and figure out as much of what's happening as I can. For me, its not just a chill out and watch experience.

IMO, run button, safe 50/50's, lack of proper normal AA's FOR THE ENTIRE CAST and long range safe mid normals which lead to full combos on hit, fucked up MKX. In MK9 if you were a rushdown character you had to earn your way in, even in IGAU as well.

Batgirl was fucked up, i agree, but with proper spacing you could keep her out, since her normals sucked from a certain range. Kabal was fucked up beyond reason, BUT, he required heavy execution, to do what he did. He was not for the "average joe" player, even competitively.

Cyrax should have been banned from MK9 tournaments, period. Kabal as well, but his "excuse", was that the character required heavy execution and time invested in him to do what he did. Other than those two characters, MK9 was, IMO, superior to MKX.

In MKX thats not the issue. You just cancel the run animation into a safe long range mid move and boom, you are in.

Then you have zoners you cannot zone. Prime examples are Ermac and Kenshi especially.

Then you have safe 50/50's which lead to a shitload of dmg into the very same situation all over again. Prime examples are CC and GM SZ.

Then you have braindead characters with easy as fuck execution, great reward, minimum risks. Prime examples are Tanya and Tempest KL.

Then you have AA's in this game. Oh wait...

Then you have online. And people srsly play this game online competitively? (yeah i m talking about ESL). I read the article regarding the improved online beta which is coming. Mr Boon or any other NRS devs, if you are reading this post, this should have been done since the beta version of MKX. That shit is purely unacceptable, especially since you are focusing on competitive online tournaments (ESL). And this is coming from a strictly offline scene player. I just say this cause im feeling for all the online players out there. I have tried playing MKX online and after one match, i quit it.

Just to name some of the problems MKX has amongst other things.

The thing is, MKX is more revolved around lucky guesses, than proper spacing, zoning and footsies. Imo thats why the game is not as hype as it was (if it ever was tbh). In those aspects MK9 and IGAU were better by far.

Now, dont get me wrong, the game is still fun to play (thats what games are for in the end), but, IMO, MKX in its current state, is not competitive at all. It has the potential to be a great competitive game, BUT, it requires ALOT of changes to get there. I hope NRS fixes these problems, although i dont see it happening.

I m probably gonna get bashed for this post, but yeah, truth hurts.

Wetdoba said:

After watching the KIT Injustice tourney I 100% agree. Too many things that make that game so much more exciting to watch. First of all, the variety of legitimate playstyles in much better than MKX even with variations. We saw big body with pressure, big body with traps, big body with armor, rushdown with mix ups, two different styles of zoning, a jack of all trades character, a vortex character... the top of a random side tournament had more variety than the entire MKX roster! Every character in Injustice plays completely uniquely to the rest. Now lets look at MKX, 90% of the variations in the game are rushdown with armor, great. In injustice as Bane the idea was you trade speed and a hurtbox for armor options your opponent didnt have, but why should choose a slow big body in MKX for armor options when I could just be Kung Lao and have everything plus armor in to full combo? Armor should be unique to the big characters but in MKX its handed out to everyone so whats the point? Playstyle design made so much more sense in Injustice, in MKX they got lazy and just decided to give everyone armor for reasons I'll never know, not only does it make the characters less unique, but it also makes the neutral game way scrubbier.

And speaking of neutral game, sprinting ruins that too. Why attempt to play footsies when someone can just sprint up to you and now you have to guess whether or not they are going to cancel sprint into a mix up or into armor, hooray footsies. I saw more legitimate respectful neutral game in the Cowboy vs Ducky match than all of the MKX matches I've seen. In addition to that the Ducky vs Cowboy match also showed that timeouts are a thing in that game that add to the hype even more, no way you are getting a timeout in MKX because everyone is always in each others faces doing random offense and nothing else.

Now admittedly once Batgirl came around and started playing the "if you guess wrong eat 50% if you guess right guess again" game the hype goes away pretty quickly, and shit like Flash having an infinite number of safe mix ups gets pretty absurd but I'm under the impression that if Injustice had one more good balance patch it would have been the best fighting game I've ever played and we would still be playing it now.

However I really just wish that MKX was UMK9. NRS needs to realize that if they are going to be a legitimate fighting game company instead ofjust a company appeasing to casuals they need to change the way they approach these games. Right now their approach is "we never make the same game twice, its always different." To a casual that sounds great, but to competitive players all it means is they are going to try a completely different formula instead of learning from the past and improving upon what they started. That's why the balance in these games are always shit at release, because they have no idea how their new formula even works lol. I ust hope Injustice 2 really is just Injustice 2 and not an MKX/Injustice hybrid like MKX is an MK9/Injustice hybrid.

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Lol What? They learnt from their mistakes and made a much more balanced game. Mk9 was ridiculous and btw injustice isnt mk. Is there an injustice forum where you can post these opinions?