The simple fact of the matter is NRS have little to no idea what they're doing. I'm not claiming I do, but I can see broken-tier characters plainly enough, and so can most people if they wipe the salt out of their eyes long enough to take an OBJECTIVE look at whats in front of them. I don't even play Kenshi.. I wanted to, but I suck at this game and the struggle was too much for me. NRS should have a huge amount of data at their disposal now that they should be able to use to reasonably balance the game.. and now is the time to do it.
I know a lot of people say they don't want more changes, let the game breathe, but my counter to that is.. Why? This is early in the games life, now is when we should have changes and there are numerous characters and variations that *really* need changes. I feel like you do one of two things, large, landslide changes put out aggressively and often, early, then a 'lock-in' where you say 'ok, thats it, it is what it is. We will revisit blah blah after blah blah amount of time' OR you do scheduled changes, spread out over a longer period of time and make the changes small. Nothing that heavily shifts the game, but gradual changes, and you watch how things evolve. (I dont think fighting games lend themselves super well to this style).
Additionally, people saying the game needs to breathe, I think, are looking a little more at how things played out once upon a time. The argument is 'Well, people discover this and that and new stuff pops up months and even years down the road etc' . This certainly is true, but its not exactly that simple.
First and most importantly, the amount and delivery of information is exponentially greater than it was just a couple years ago. Competitive games today have MUCH larger player bases than they ever did before and those players are far more vocal. How many people were streaming and producing youtube content a year ago vs today? I'll bet the increase is MASSIVE. This means the chances of tech or dirt going undiscovered (or more specifically, un-broadcast) is much lower than it used to be. Dirty tricks and crazy setups that may have taken a community months to parse and discover once upon a time, now are rooted out and put on display by any number of YouTubers or Streamers, all hungry for views. The age of hidden tech is dying. You can tune in to a pros stream in almost any game at almost any hour. Once we had to wait for tournaments to see a pro play and try to cram down our throats all the knowledge they threw out during the competition, then assimilate it and so on.. Now, its a cinch you can Twitch or YouTube countless hours of high level play. This all causes games to age more aggressively and all the ins and out to be dug out and put on display MUCH faster.
Secondly, the quality of players has increased a great deal. The younger guys, in most instances, have gamed more than most of us older crowd did when we were the same age. So as they step in to new games they have a large and likely diverse background with games in general. That goes a long way when it comes to parsing the systems within a game and how they act avt and react to one another. And the older guys.. well, theyve been around a long ass time. How many of the MKX pros are brand new vs old school pros coming from one, two, three or more other fighting games? That kind of background and knowledge base means the well schooled pros can pick apart a character and just what that character can and cant do, very very quickly. The quality of opposition being what it is, it also means they cant afford to sandbag and hide tech, so when they play, we see what they've got. Sure, some stuff does slip through, Quans double portal thingy comes immediately to mind, but these sorts of things are NO WHERE near as common as they once were and if someone does discover something juicy, even if they don't openly share it, its a guarantee that the first time they use it it'll be noticed, picked up and passed along by any number of keen-eyed players.
Dont get me wrong, I feel like the last patch did some good work (and some bullshit.. Im looking at you Kano) but.. that doesnt matter to Kenshi, who took it in his blind little bum.
This thread is about Kenshi, if *insert character and variation here* sucks, I feel for you, I do. I would LOVE all Characters to be viable, but just because you feel like your character still didnt get what he/she needed, that doesnt make Kenshi;s problems any less of a thing and when a Kenshi player is putting in work and outplaying his opponent, making the right reads and doing his job as a player,. but still getting shit on by a character thats just spamming dirt over and over (loooooots of characters), that player, while sailing through the air and being full combo punished from full screen, isnt likely to say to himself "Ya know, this utter bullshit is ok, because I'll bet some other characters might suck even more than me, and fucking Quan Chi, he didnt even get armor!"
Also, saying Kenshi was strong in MK9 and this is punishment.. I assume most of you are joking, but if your serious, and that is your actual thought process.. Go chew on some roofing nails.
Here's a little experiment you can do at home to help illustrate how stupid the 'others have it worse' excuse is. Grab a loved one, and a hammer. Now! Smash two-three of their fingers with said hammer, then, while they scream and cry and babble, smash your own fingers with the hammer, only make it one fewer. So, if you took three of theirs, only take two of yours. Then lift up your hand with the jagged bone splinters and annihilated finger joints, grab your controller and go lab for about an hour. It shouldnt be a problem right? I mean, THEY have it worse than you, so you should have NO TROUBLE WHATSOEVER using your hand. It shouldnt hurt, nor should it hinder you, 'cause they are hurting worse, there-by erasing all your own issues.
Once that's done, grab the loved one whos hand you broke, and a gas can, cover yourself in gas and have said loved one light you on fire. This will serve two purposes, by your own logic, the first reason is your loved one will no longer be in any pain or suffer any inconvenience from the injuries you gave them because you are hurting more than they are now. The second reason, and arguably the most important, is you doing so will save the rest of the people on this website who have the ability to think and reason things out objectively and logically a few extra brain cells that they would have otherwise lost having to suffer through more of the brain-vomit you call a post.
