Discussion Patches overwhelmingly help NRS games not hurt them

[d3v]

You avoided the actual point. I didn't say anything about how long it took MvC2 to reach stagnation or how 3s or MvC2 are bad to watch. Also B-revision of SF3 is neither here nor there. It wasn't a serious effort to balance the game, it just made even fewer characters viable in high level play.

The point is after a certain amount of time it was realized that there were characters who could invalidate the bulk of the cast.

Also with youtube, and training mode, and the much larger current playerbase the odds of a game having a meta that shifts much after 4-6 months is pretty low anymore. What's the last game where the tier list radically changed after 3 months of exploration without patches involved?

Everyone had pegged Superman, Black Adam, and Aquaman in Injustice by the end of month 1. Everyone knew that Sadira/Jago/Saberwulf was the top tier of KI season 1 from week 3. Even in MK9 people spotted Kung Lao and Kabal early and I know the Stryker forum was aware that he was bottom 5 within 2 weeks.

We move faster now, because there's a lot more access to information.

What I said is that in competitive play those games have a tiny pool of viable characters. Personally I think that's a bad thing. If you don't that's fine. But I think praising games where you lose on character select and literally cannot reasonably compete with the bulk of the cast is silly.

I'm a character loyalist in general. I have to like the character I am playing, and it sucks to know that no matter how much I like Stryker in MK9, or Ibuki in 3s, or Jill in MvC2, that if I care about being able to compete I need to play a different character. Not just that, but I need to play from a tiny pool of characters.

I don't think anyone wants anymore games where 80-90% of the cast cannot even hope to get top 3 at a major. Maybe you do, but to me the whole reason to balance patch is to get more of the cast viable and let players have an opportunity to win with any character they choose.

Before you tell me that that's impossible, I'd argue that several recent games are there, or close to there. Killer Instinct has large weeklies that have had maybe 2/3 of the cast win. Skullgirls has almost entirely viable characters even though like Marvel it's a team based game. USFIV has character specialists for almost everyone and even low-mid characters are known to win majors from time to time and tends to have varied top 8s even with extremely strong characters like Evil Ryu.

The problem is, all of that is still just month 1 stuff and we're still haven't fully explored the game at that point.

To quote Skullgirls' own Mike Z

I generally tend to agree with the older school of thought, in that you can't ask for well-thought-out changes off day 1, week 1, or mostly even month 1 play...and that's when the game is out and everyone's in the lab.

Yes, you may know that someone, or something is strong, but you still don't know just how strong it is, and how it should be addressed. That can only be figured out through seeing the game played at high levels.

Heck, Skullgirls, which you keep bringing up is an example of this. Balance changes take more than 6 months before they hit and Mike keeps changing and testing things in the Endless Beta on Steam before he makes the changes final in the retail version. This usually means that stuff that people think should be nerfed end up not really needing much of a nerf after all, case in point, the heavy Hornet Bomber assist which was only slightly nerfed despite everyone and their mother calling for immediate nerfs since the first month of the game.

Also, we still do see meta-shifts that take more than 6 months to come out. Everyone called Wesker out as top tier in UMvC3. At the same time, Zero was not winning anything major. Come a few years down the road and Wesker is considered high-mid tier and Zero is now winning everything.

Then there's SFIV. Everyone loves to talk about vanilla Sagat. Yet, looking back at the game with what we know now, the real top tiers there were Akuma and Cammy (the latter, I believe only Sanford recognized as having that potential).

As for USFIV (or every incarnation of IV since AE), guess what it is that is one of the biggest complaints about the game - that it's become bland because of how almost everyone in the game feels nerfed (even the top tiers).

While sure, it may seem exciting to see many different characters, but once you look deeper into it, especially once you bring knowledge of older games in, you get the same complaints - that the fundamentals/footsies are bad, that everyone has terrible hitboxes, etc.

If NRS waited, MK9 would have been dead by the time 6 months hit. And the same applies for Injustice.

People already do not look at NRS games positively on a competitive scale, and that's ignoring the patches. That is a major difference with them to the companies you listed. Even then, Capcom's fucked up in the department of patching before, as well, with SFxT (which still had problems after the patch, but the lack of doing anything completely killed the game before the patching even started).

And what is one of the reasons that some people don't look at NRS games positively? Because you never really get the chance to push the meta because hotfixes come in and fix everything scrubs complain about.[/quote]

 

[Ninj]

The difference here is that we have Kitana's frame data. We know her fans are duckable. We know that she can't get much off of her overhead. We know how - she is.

She's just an example, of course, but when a character's problems are spelled out in front of you, is it unreasonable to call a spade a spade?

At least back in MK9, we didn't have all of the frame data, so of course we were wrong. But now? We have access to more information than ever before.

In MK9, we had all the frame data, and it was wrong. NRS still has the frame data wrong. You'd think they could handle that by now.

I like NRS, and I like MKX, but that isn't going to stop me from disapproving of their stance towards their game as they could take it far more seriously than they do.

Frame data was wrong in MK9, and it's wrong in MKX. It was wrong in a lot of instances in Injustice as well. Yes they amped up their training mode compared to previous titles, but compared to other titles on the market (KI, again, or SFIV) they're playing catch-up. I'm glad they are trying to catch up, but they still aren't doing the work.

Again, I like MKX for what it is - a fun drinking game to fool around in and not take seriously. The past has shown us and will be proven again (mark my words) that when someone discovers a truly dominant variation of a character, that character will not be tweaked a) quickly to bring him back in line with the cast and b) effectively, as in the balance changes made to that character will either not fix the problem or severely underpower them as to make the original problem obsolete. That's NRS's MO and it's just not a method I respect.

In summation, TYM and NRS will always have a place in my heart for getting me back into the FG scene. But it's time, for me at least, to be honest and open about where NRS and MK stands - MK9 was broken by Kabal and Cyrax mainly, Injustice was broken by Batgirl, and MKX will be broken by someone else. It's a false assumption that FG's have to have an S+ tier character or characters. But the developers have to be in tune with why a character is so good - NRS has shown time and again that they are poor at judging that piece of it which leads to mixed/incomplete balance patches that generally invalidate characters rather than fix them.

 

[Sultani]

existence of tiers and general acknowledgement of them implies game imbalance. There's just no two ways about it. Some people have better tools than others do.

Why aren't people allowed to recognize what those tools and who those characters are quickly? There isn't anything that's totally unbeatable, but that doesn't mean certain characters aren't WAY better than other ones.

 

[THTB]

And what is one of the reasons that some people don't look at NRS games positively? Because you never really get the chance to push the meta because hotfixes come in and fix everything scrubs complain about.

The track record of NRS during the Midway days is pretty much why. People were extremely skeptical of MK9 prior to release because of everything post-UMK3.

MK9 had 2 block infinites upon release, with Kabal and Sonya. Kabal actually had multiple ways to block infinite you, as did Sonya. These characters so much as touched you, oh well. On top of Cyrax being much more ridiculous than what we see now, with his bomb trap out of command throw leading to a huge chunk of damage meterless, which, with today's tech, he'd be able to safe jump into a trap between command throw or making you eat an 80% for trying to take the hit to avoid having to attempt to time the break. And then there was Kung Lao's absurdities (including having a 6f launcher that had a special property of beating out every other normal in the game and was safe on a number of characters). Smoke put himself in a position to be safe jumped on for teching a throw. Skarlet upon release had better keepaway than even Kabal and Kenshi and certain characters actually had no realistic approach to getting in on her. Freddy had situations where he was randomly invincible to projectiles and did not have proper combo scaling, which let him do 75% combos with a bar. The hotfix system also didn't even save properly on 360. There were tons of issues with MK9, that went beyond just "figuring the game out". The block infinites, Lao, Smoke glitch and Cyrax stuff were found no more than a week into the game's lifespan. The Freddy and Skarlet stuff was found within the couple weeks of their release.

Would you continue to take a game that messy seriously after 6 months?

Injustice had issues, too. Cyborg's block infinite coming from a projectile that only 5 characters could avoid. Numerous OTGs that completely negated the wakeup mechanic. Most characters had no way to anti-air you. Interactables that were tracking and had splash hitboxes that made them unavoidable. 1-bar armored interactables. These problems were very minimal compared to that laundry list I made of MK9, but a lot of Injustice's issues went unfixed until after EVO, which nobody was entertained by in the slightest. Not the players, not the viewers...EVO's showcase literally almost killed off the game right there.

These are why people don't trust in NRS games. But want to keep the game unpatched for months. I'd rather not see that, after seeing how much that backfired in Capcom's face for SFxT.

 

[RunwayMafia]

Everyone is talking about Kung Jin. I have said it before and will continue saying it: "Swarm Queen D'Vorah will be a problem." No one is talking about her, but she's absoluty ridiculous.

Just wait and see.

What?? Lol, no.

 

[Rude]

In MK9, we had all the frame data, and it was wrong. NRS still has the frame data wrong. You'd think they could handle that by now.

I like NRS, and I like MKX, but that isn't going to stop me from disapproving of their stance towards their game as they could take it far more seriously than they do.

Frame data was wrong in MK9, and it's wrong in MKX. It was wrong in a lot of instances in Injustice as well. Yes they amped up their training mode compared to previous titles, but compared to other titles on the market (KI, again, or SFIV) they're playing catch-up. I'm glad they are trying to catch up, but they still aren't doing the work.

Again, I like MKX for what it is - a fun drinking game to fool around in and not take seriously. The past has shown us and will be proven again (mark my words) that when someone discovers a truly dominant variation of a character, that character will not be tweaked a) quickly to bring him back in line with the cast and b) effectively, as in the balance changes made to that character will either not fix the problem or severely underpower them as to make the original problem obsolete. That's NRS's MO and it's just not a method I respect.

In summation, TYM and NRS will always have a place in my heart for getting me back into the FG scene. But it's time, for me at least, to be honest and open about where NRS and MK stands - MK9 was broken by Kabal and Cyrax mainly, Injustice was broken by Batgirl, and MKX will be broken by someone else. It's a false assumption that FG's have to have an S+ tier character or characters. But the developers have to be in tune with why a character is so good - NRS has shown time and again that they are poor at judging that piece of it which leads to mixed/incomplete balance patches that generally invalidate characters rather than fix them.

We only had the MK9 frame data because of Somberness, and his data was, for the most part, correct.

Batgirl wasn't broken at all. Good, yes, but not broken. Nothing she did was based on a glitch or abused the mechanics of the game. A lot of games have vortex characters.

All you've done is repeat a lot of tired false narratives.

To use an Injustice example, Black Adam and Superman pre patch were a huge problem. NRS toned them down and you know what? They were still competitive characters. They were not "nerfed into being obsolete."

You've yet to provide me an example of a perfect, glitchless fighter. KI certainly isn't it based on what ive argued earlier. Even if the Hisako stuff is patched, it still doesn't help your case because there is no reason to believe Kitana's glitch will stay after a patch.

No game comes out perfectly balanced with no glitches, balance issues, or bugs. This isn't just true of fighters but of most triple A games. Day one patches are the norm even for single player titles.

If MK X were, "casual," you wouldn't have reversals, footsies, whiff punishing, baits, reads, an entire chatacter dependent meta based on how each character uniquely combats Sub Zero's clone, etc. Literally nothing you've teared about with MK X can't be found in anothet fighting game franchise

You say its casual, but cannot tell me one valid reason why. 50/50s? Every game has them. Vortex characters? Any anime fighter. Glitches? Every fighter ever made. A guessing game on knockdown? See SF. Tier lists? Everywhere. Top tiers? Again...everywhere.

Even KI is not above reproach with the Hisako infinite and Omen infinite on Aganos. No company or game is perfect, and to imply that NRS is somehow worse because the problems they've had are simply inherit to fighting games,(glitches, balance, etc) is horse shit.

While i'm not a 3rd Strike player, the guys who posted here that are has even said that the game wasn't 100% balanced and people loved that series. Same with MvC2&3.

TL;DR Version: You're talking out of your ass.

 

[Rude]

What?? Lol, no.

Yes. D'Vorah is coming.

Everyone else will see in time.

She will be a problem.

 

[Rude]

The track record of NRS during the Midway days is pretty much why. People were extremely skeptical of MK9 prior to release because of everything post-UMK3.

MK9 had 2 block infinites upon release, with Kabal and Sonya. Kabal actually had multiple ways to block infinite you, as did Sonya. These characters so much as touched you, oh well. On top of Cyrax being much more ridiculous than what we see now, with his bomb trap out of command throw leading to a huge chunk of damage meterless, which, with today's tech, he'd be able to safe jump into a trap between command throw or making you eat an 80% for trying to take the hit to avoid having to attempt to time the break. And then there was Kung Lao's absurdities (including having a 6f launcher that had a special property of beating out every other normal in the game and was safe on a number of characters). Smoke put himself in a position to be safe jumped on for teching a throw. Skarlet upon release had better keepaway than even Kabal and Kenshi and certain characters actually had no realistic approach to getting in on her. Freddy had situations where he was randomly invincible to projectiles and did not have proper combo scaling, which let him do 75% combos with a bar. The hotfix system also didn't even save properly on 360. There were tons of issues with MK9, that went beyond just "figuring the game out". The block infinites, Lao, Smoke glitch and Cyrax stuff were found no more than a week into the game's lifespan. The Freddy and Skarlet stuff was found within the couple weeks of their release.

Would you continue to take a game that messy seriously after 6 months?

Injustice had issues, too. Cyborg's block infinite coming from a projectile that only 5 characters could avoid. Numerous OTGs that completely negated the wakeup mechanic. Most characters had no way to anti-air you. Interactables that were tracking and had splash hitboxes that made them unavoidable. 1-bar armored interactables. These problems were very minimal compared to that laundry list I made of MK9, but a lot of Injustice's issues went unfixed until after EVO, which nobody was entertained by in the slightest. Not the players, not the viewers...EVO's showcase literally almost killed off the game right there.

These are why people don't trust in NRS games. But want to keep the game unpatched for months. I'd rather not see that, after seeing how much that backfired in Capcom's face for SFxT.

This 1000 times.

 

[RunwayMafia]

Yes. D'Vorah is coming.

Everyone else will see in time.

She will be a problem.

I believe you played my D'vorah. Granted, it was my day 3 D'vorah. Nah man, she is pretty balanced and has a solid design. She's just annoying to fight...certainly not OP.

 

[TakeAChance]

If @Rude you are suggesting that Hisako's Ultra infinite has any bearing on Ki's balance you are sadly mistaken.

The deeper I go down the MKX rabbit hole, the larger the tier gaps seem to be. As it stands right now, a lot of characters are VERY badly outclassed.

It's why we see so many Jin's, Quans, Subs, etc. There is almost no reason to use another character.

The frame data for some characters just boggles my mind. Want an example? Go look at Cage Fisticuffs variation. A variation built around chip damage, but with no great strings to back him up. Is he ok? Yea. But that cage is going to get bodied against the characters above.

Kitanna is another example. Just a mind boggling design around her strings.

It seems as tho a lot of characters have not been fully flushed out. Time restraints?

I see characters like Sonya and then a character like shinnok and just cannot fathom how that could happen.

Can any tester layout what a general day of testing at NRS actually entails? Just for curiousity.

 

[Rude]

I believe you played my D'vorah. Granted, it was my day 3 D'vorah. Nah man, she is pretty balanced and has a solid design. She's just annoying to fight...certainly not OP.

No, she's more than just solid. If Kung Jin and SubZero and others are hit with the nerf bat, she will take their place.

Wasp cancels. Full screen 50/50s. Safe, long range pokes. Nearly impossible to zone with great footsies and space control. Yours wasn't the only one ive fought.

No one believes me. But you will all see.

 

[Rude]

If @Rude you are suggesting that Hisako's Ultra infinite has any bearing on Ki's balance you are sadly mistaken.

The deeper I go down the MKX rabbit hole, the larger the tier gaps seem to be. As it stands right now, a lot of characters are VERY badly outclassed.

It's why we see so many Jin's, Quans, Subs, etc. There is almost no reason to use another character.

The frame data for some characters just boggles my mind. Want an example? Go look at Cage Fisticuffs variation. A variation built around chip damage, but with no great strings to back him up. Is he ok? Yea. But that cage is going to get bodied against the characters above.

Kitanna is another example. Just a mind boggling design around her strings.

It seems as tho a lot of characters have not been fully flushed out. Time restraints?

I see characters like Sonya and then a character like shinnok and just cannot fathom how that could happen.

Can any tester layout what a general day of testing at NRS actually entails? Just for curiousity.

You missed the point entirely. Not surprising.

The point wasn't "this character has an infinite so the game is imbalanced."

It was, "This character has an infinite, so infinites and glitches are not mutually exclusive to NRS and to pretend they are is not realistic."

 

[Rude]

If @Rude you are suggesting that Hisako's Ultra infinite has any bearing on Ki's balance you are sadly mistaken.

The deeper I go down the MKX rabbit hole, the larger the tier gaps seem to be. As it stands right now, a lot of characters are VERY badly outclassed.

It's why we see so many Jin's, Quans, Subs, etc. There is almost no reason to use another character.

The frame data for some characters just boggles my mind. Want an example? Go look at Cage Fisticuffs variation. A variation built around chip damage, but with no great strings to back him up. Is he ok? Yea. But that cage is going to get bodied against the characters above.

Kitanna is another example. Just a mind boggling design around her strings.

It seems as tho a lot of characters have not been fully flushed out. Time restraints?

I see characters like Sonya and then a character like shinnok and just cannot fathom how that could happen.

Can any tester layout what a general day of testing at NRS actually entails? Just for curiousity.

Breaking news: A fighting game has tiers. Film at eleven.

 

[NRF CharlieMurphy]

You missed the point entirely. Not surprising.

The point wasn't "this character has an infinite so the game is imbalanced."

It was, "This character has an infinite, so infinites and glitches are not mutually exclusive to NRS and to pretend they are is not realistic."

The point is how the other companies deal with said problems.... not that they exist at all.

You've been talking in circles the entire time.

 

[RunwayMafia]

No, she's more than just solid. If Kung Jin and SubZero and others are hit with the nerf bat, she will take their place.

Wasp cancels. Full screen 50/50s. Safe, long range pokes. Nearly impossible to zone with great footsies and space control. Yours wasn't the only one ive fought.

No one believes me. But you will all see.

Full screen 50/50s!? This I gotta hear!

 

[CrimsonShadow]

The problem is that they patch too quickly. Basically, their patch schedule means that they need to do band aid patches and can't really do any long term observation, planning and testing.

IMO, NRS really needs to take a look at the model adopted by Capcom, Iron Galaxy and Lab Zero where patches take time to come out and take long term tournament data into consideration.

Truth is, Ultra's first balance patch was as fast as anything in IGAU.

In addition, patching xTekken too late ultimately killed the game.

 

[Rude]

The point is how the other companies deal with said problems.... not that they exist at all.

You've been talking in circles the entire time.

Nope. I have stated and will state again that the complaint about balance and glitches and tiers is inherit to fighting games. Not mutually exclusive to NRS.

Furthermore how do those other companies handle these problems? By patching and releasing balance fixes. How is that different from NRS?

 

[Rude]

Full screen 50/50s!? This I gotta hear!

No one believes the unpopular opinion. You will see. You will all see! Duh-Duh-Duuuuhhhh!

 

[chemist4hire]

No, she's more than just solid. If Kung Jin and SubZero and others are hit with the nerf bat, she will take their place.

Wasp cancels. Full screen 50/50s. Safe, long range pokes. Nearly impossible to zone with great footsies and space control. Yours wasn't the only one ive fought.

No one believes me. But you will all see.

Don't exaggerate.

Full screen 50/50's? What are you talking about. Her optimal range is her down 4 and f 2 range, which is a little over sweep distance away. Her low starter is has no range, and if you are getting mixed up by her swarm puddle from sweep distance, you have bad reactions because you can react to the start up of it.

 

[Rude]

The point is how the other companies deal with said problems.... not that they exist at all.

You've been talking in circles the entire time.

The context which you missed, was my discussion with Ninj whereby he lambasted NRS Games for having problems all fighting games have to the point of calling them casual and my detailing why he is wrong.

Have i spelled enough out,

 

[Rude]

Don't exaggerate.

Full screen 50/50's? What are you talking about. Her optimal range is her down 4 and f 2 range, which is a little over sweep distance away. Her low starter is has no range, and if you are getting mixed up by her swarm puddle from sweep distance, you have bad reactions because you can react to the start up of it.

Even if you poke her on start up, you still get hit by the swarm. The D'Vorah agenda is real.

(Please tell me you can sense the facetiousness.)

 

[RunwayMafia]

Don't exaggerate.

Full screen 50/50's? What are you talking about. Her optimal range is her down 4 and f 2 range, which is a little over sweep distance away. Her low starter is has no range, and if you are getting mixed up by her swarm puddle from sweep distance, you have bad reactions because you can react to the start up of it.

Lol this. Once he said full screen 50/50's I tuned out.

 

[Rude]

Lol this. Once he said full screen 50/50's I tuned out.

THE END IS NIGH!!! HIDE YOUR CHILDREN! THE SWARM IS COMING!

 

[TakeAChance]

You missed the point entirely. Not surprising.

The point wasn't "this character has an infinite so the game is imbalanced."

It was, "This character has an infinite, so infinites and glitches are not mutually exclusive to NRS and to pretend they are is not realistic."

I wasn't arguing with you. I just pointed out your point about Hisakos "infinite" which can only happen AFTER you have been beaten. It's an Ultra inifinite...it's not in anyway gamebreaking. It's a moot point.

After that, it was just a general response. I'm kind of flattered that you read that all as if I was talking to only you tho. Tiers absolutely exist in fighting games, but right now as it stands, a lot of characters are REALLY lacking. The gap between S+ and A seems like the largest gap I've seen in a long time. In most games that gap is not that large. I am not spreading doom and gloom, this game is going to change drastically by October. That I'm sure of. It just saddens me that you can go through the roster and pick a handful of really interesting characters (Kotal, Johnny, Kitana, Mileena, Kenshi, Shinnok) and just shudder at their tools. It's not that they don't have any, it's that they literally don't make sense or don't mesh with their OTHER tools. Hell, those are just the characters I've personally touched too.

 

[chemist4hire]

Even if you poke her on start up, you still get hit by the swarm. The D'Vorah agenda is real.

(Please tell me you can sense the facetiousness.)

So because you don't know how to properly punish it, its a great mix up and she will be a problem? You have just demonstrated why you should never listen to the masses when they cry for nerfs or buffs. Instead of arguing about patches, take the time to learn the game.