It's pretty late here and I'm not thinking clearly, so apologize for a ton of possible grammatical errors and sucky stylistics.
Incorrect. It 100% matters and is in no way whatsoever the same. It matters because it impacts the design of the character and how effective their zoning will be built. I can't even address this if you cannot see that.
It may be for the better or worse. You don't have too much tools for zoning if a couple of them is enough. Say, if it's only one variation that zone well, it will be effective regardless of what others do. They, in fact, may have universal tools that don't work well for anything but that zone variation.
I agree it is only one variation, but that's all he needs. Raiden players would literally Match up like "oh he's gonna zone? Let me pick my Displacer where they clearly beefed up his teleport from MK9 to be more effective". That teleport and Takeda's have nearly zero recovery frames. It's all he needs to dead zoning. Projectile recovery is too slow in MKX to counter Displacer.
Good zoning variation is also the only one that zoner may need if others don't work for zoning or even anything.
Teleport may or may not be beefier, same for Takeda's one. Remember MK9 where Raiden's teleport recovery was like 10 frames longer than post-flash animation. New teleports of Raiden aren't anti-zoning tools either. New ex-TP may end up worse due to worse ability to mess with players that wait to punish (it looks the same, but without misdirecting flash), and additional teleports are situational against strong zoners at best.
As for projectiles - MK9 ones are very slow too and Raiden works extremely well... And then IAGB and Kenshi happened.
Doesn't change the fact that she was given a free anti-zoning tool, and her 3rd variation is not "extra tools", it is basically a variation replacing her "original moves" with "Jade". Also evades my original point. There have been "new" things like fireballs and crap but not a single anti-rushdown tool added to any zoners move set. Meanwhile multiple anti-zoning tools specifically designed for that have been added to others.
My point was that reflect is only on Kitana's zoning variation. It doesn't make the game less zoning-favourable, at least not more than reflect on Kenshi did. Adding more zoning counters won't do any more "good" to kill zoning as adding more slow fireballs won't kill up-close game.
Instant run in for pressure after knockdown. No one is going to choose to stay 3/4 of the screen away. If we're going to call Johnny Cage a "zoner" we cannot have this conversation.
Yes, he will pressure on knockdown, but it doesn't mean he is a rushdown.
Milia from GG is exactly that - she isn't up-close monster, all she has is mid-range tools which means she can't afford to be up close and must zone. However, once she scores a knockdown, you are in the grinder. She will lockdown you with her traps (unuseable in neutral, but work well on KD) and try to mix up you with short normals. Oki pressure pretty much. Once you've shaken her off, she must go back to her zoning. So basically it's a zoning that is rewarded by vortex-like situations and pressure instead of just combo damage, but essentially that doesn't change much in her neutral game.
Stunt double may end up the same. KD pressure (if it's good even) is just a form in which he gets his reward.
Ermac 2 zoning variations irrelevant to the other. Not strengthening either. Takeda doesn't have 3 zoning variations. Kung Jin has 1. As I stated multiple times I'm waiting to see guys like Freddy and Zod, not a couple of Aquaman's and be content with that being the only zoning available. I ask, why is it ok for so many characters to have 3 full variations focused on making their rushdown, brawling, etc styles better, but as of now not ONE single zoner can have this treatment???
So in the end it's a matter of naming convention and the fact that you want particular style of zoning (that's the only style that is called "zoning" by NRS crowd, I know * ), I see. I am pretty sure that you will get what you want though.
I also don't agree with your argument that characters get improvements to their base rushdonw abilities, but not to zoning. Yes, there are things like Cutthroat, but who is to say that his vanilla up close game is not Kano-tier in other variations? Essentially, he is "given" up close game to speak about in this one. Then there's Mystic that is straight vanilla set that doesn't burn meter for conversions and have better reach.
Ofc you can say that it isn't improvement, but it just enables his zoning. As you can see, in bother cases it's just a matter of where we draw the baseline.
As for counting zoning styles of the same character, it's about naming conventions again. Kung Jin may have just 1 style with emphasis on projectile, but what he gains in other variations doesn't look like something to make him want to be as close as possible to me. He just gains either better fullscreen tools, better medium range tools or medium range tools with less oomp, more setups (it seems).
* - I mean, Bison (SF) or Nightmare (SC) don't have anything resembling projectiles, but they aren't rushdowns by any means. You never want anybody up close with them. It's just NRS community arbitrary dividing pretty similar things into 2 arbitrary categories - zoning and "footsies".
Also, a teleport is a "better zoning tool than anti-zoning tool"??? I think Dave just died of a heart attack reading that. Not even entertaining a statement that ridiculous.
Refer to SG's Peacock. Her teleport is to convert her zoning into combos and to open people up while they are firmly under her fullscreen lockdown setups. Can be used for some gimmicky read punishes, but that's it. Use if to get onto zoning opponent without outzoning him first - and you will end up in very bad situation. So in that sense, her teleport is way worse for anti-zoning than for supplementing her zoning game - because of its properties and context of her other tools. Same may or may not be applicable to MKX characters, including S-R Takeda. We will see how he will play out, but to me it looks like he's getting a pair of conversion tools (one into combo, another into pressure?) for his spacing game. He sacrifices potency of his neutral for that (because he isn't Lasher) and setups (not jedi wannabe), but it may still be more of an asset to his main game more than anything. Ofc teleport may end up a tool against fullscreen zoning, just as his reflect is. It won't make him a rushdown is he isn't already capable in that role.
All is theory ofc.
Don't care. If anything you made my point. Rushdown players are getting massive love with the new changes and additions while zoners are getting "hey here's a new fireball" or "hey how you like this bat" or "hey your 3rd variation is rushdown". Look at it objectively and you see it's bs and unfair to the playstyle any way you look at it.
But what if those fireballs and bats will actually be useful to keep bull rushers honest?
As of NRS not providing enough flavours of traditional NRS zoning... I'll be honest too - with their track record you will probably have the best char+var for fullscreen zoning, best up-close game char+var... And a bunch of compromises and tradeoff toolsets. Making more characters that share same playstyle will only make their rank suffer from redundancy more.
They've made obvious changes to hinder 3/4 to full screen zoning. I gave you a bunch of examples. What examples make zoning better?? For any one you name I can name three that don't. One of the things I loved about MK9 and Injustice is that I was able to zone those distances if I was on top of my game, and a mistake could get you blown up. Everyone has different taste, and I much more enjoy watching a Good Zod dominate from range than I do Batgirl making people "guess if they block high or low" for full combos that loop. So for me no, I don't feel like it's a glorious direction at all.
I agree that I'd rather watch Pig's Zod than anyone's BG. But honestly, when IAZBs work (exactly the reason I found Pig more entertaining is that he uses entire arsenal and I didn't see him using ball+laser walls even when they could work), he becomes as braindead as BG's vortex. In that sense I liked Raven and MMH's zoning (not everything else about him...) more. That's why I cheer up for direction towards spacing games. Both universal fullscreen tools and auto-open-open-people-up-close are boring to me.
But as I've said, I really, really wish NRS will not screw up with whatever they are doing.
Will I? It wouldn't shock me if they toned Kenshi down to a crappy frames, slow projectile, armorless piece of garbage tier at this point. Obviously I hope that's not the case. I'm hoping since zoning makes many so salty that so they saved them for last, and made them powerful like these other characters, but until I see something that says otherwise I'll remain skeptical.
I, for one, am waiting for him to occupy the niche he had before. But let's don't pretend he wasn't way more than just a zoner in MK9 with his almost top normals and armor on everything.
I am curious how will NRS make a character that is good at range, not that good up close - while not getting beaten up for free once someone gets in. No need for any more coinflip polarized matches IMO.
P.S. Now, can we please stop with this passive-aggressive tone? I admit I've done that too in my previous post, so it's fair to get some of my medicine in return, but in the end we both want diversity and return on some playstyles that aren't well represented so far. I admit that without it this game won't be truly complete. Thanks for an opportunity of in-depth discussion too. Those are scarce right now due to lack of real info to discuss. Gonna last 'till MKX release, I guess.
P.P.S. Oh shit... I tried to re-read this and it's indeed a grammatical mess with a lot of typos. I apologize again, I hope it isn't too bad because I really can't afford to fix all that right now.
