Question Do you think the 3 variation system is something that will stick in future MK titles?

[00001]

I think Dragon isn't too bad. just that it doesn't really have a purpose other than offer a mixup off of f4 and give more range. I guess it can move a lot more than the other 2 variations, but in no way is is on par or better than Kobu.

DN is nowhere near Kobu, I'll agree and add that I never implied this. It's just not bad in my opinion. She has good meterless damage, great whiff-punishes and a gimmicky but effective mix-up off of f4 like you mentioned. Honestly if her b2 was made more safe then I think this variation would have some serious potential.

 

[KingKhrystopher]

DN is nowhere near Kobu, I'll agree and add that I never implied this. It's just not bad in my opinion. She has good meterless damage, great whiff-punishes and a gimmicky but effective mix-up off of f4 like you mentioned. Honestly if her b2 was made more safe then I think this variation would have some serious potential.

Oh i know, I respect your opinion . I personally think that Pyromancer is the worst, only because you can duck the regular Fireball and nothing will go wrong, even with Dark Dust applied. however, if you can get it applied, it does a good deal of damage.

 

[KingKhrystopher]

I think it's just the lazy one honestly. They wanna pay "homage" to a character, but only give them 3 moves. The lack of staff attacks, hell even a staff overhead is telling me they needed any ol' thing for Kit, and decided on a discount/watered down/bare minimum Jade

I STRONGLY AGREE. I just think Assassin feels more botched than Mournful though, considering that Assassin really has no purpose in this game.

 

[EdenianWarrior]

Why do you think that Dragon Naginata is shit? It's certainly not as bad as people make it out to be. I consider Pyromancer to be much worse, but I'm open to your opinion.

It makes Tanya "generic weapon wielding acrobat". Instead of putting her acrobatics into another weapon they should've made her a fast, agile, amd acrobatic grappler. Unique and fresh. It fits her character and doesn't rip off a weapon of another character.

 

[EdenianWarrior]

To me, Assassin is the type of fighting style Kitana used to earn her place as Shao Kahn's top assassin.

 

[00001]

It makes Tanya "generic weapon wielding acrobat". Instead of putting her acrobatics into another weapon they should've made her a fast, agile, amd acrobatic grappler. Unique and fresh. It fits her character and doesn't rip off a weapon of another character.

I was under the assumption that you were talking about gameplay. But even from a lore/design perspective the variation works for me since she was originally billed to have a naginata in Deception and was given her tonfa later in the game's development. Plus I think that the stance looks cool and the options it offers suit her deceitful personality. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Anyway, to answer the initial question asked by this thread, I love the variation system in MKX but I'm unsure if it has any longevity. It would be neat if it were applied to the next Injustice but I like the idea of choosing from multiple traits a little more. Will it be in the next MK? Probably not, since you can only push a character's design so far.

 

[EdenianWarrior]

I was under the assumption that you were talking about gameplay. But even from a lore/design perspective the variation works for me since she was originally billed to have a naginata in Deception and was given her tonfa later in the game's development. Plus I think that the stance looks cool and the options it offers suit her deceitful personality. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

Anyway, to answer the initial question asked by this thread, I love the variation system in MKX but I'm unsure if it has any longevity. It would be neat if it were applied to the next Injustice but I like the idea of choosing from multiple traits a little more. Will it be in the next MK? Probably not, since you can only push a character's design so far.

I respect your opinion. I don't like it gameplay wise either. I feel as though it doesn't do much other than have range and flashy combos.

 

[BlackJackSnack]

The variation system has grown on me so much. At first I wasn't really about it and I had doubts about character balance. As the game continued to change I think the variation system is amazing.

At the same time mk9 was great for what it was and at this point it can go either way for me and I will be satisfied.

Someone mentioned 2 variations which sounds like a great compromise.

 

[Awsumpossm]

I think it's just the lazy one honestly. They wanna pay "homage" to a character, but only give them 3 moves. The lack of staff attacks, hell even a staff overhead is telling me they needed any ol' thing for Kit, and decided on a discount/watered down/bare minimum Jade

Exactly. I main Kitana but pretend this variation doesn't exist. Aesthetically its extremely unappealing to me- as Kitana still uses her fans for her combo strings and fan lift and DB2... but she can't throw the fans? Why not? Further, its a surprise they gave her the staff at all considering how little she can do with it.

They should have just gone all out with it, in my opinion. If you're going to take away the fan throw, take away all of the fan stuff. All the moves, all the strings. Just go full-on Jade. More combo strings that use the staff or glaive, more special moves from Jade, ect.

 

[New York Pizza]

I don'the think nrs could keep up with that work load. Instead of variations, I think they'll create more whole characters to compensate.

 

[Hexin_Wishes]

It's based on Jade, who did previously have those moves. In my opinion it's a "stolen moveset," not one made up on the fly.

Yeah but to consider Mournful as "well thought out" in comparison to Assassin is bizarre to me for this reason. It's simply Jade's iconic attributes shoved into a completely different character just to have three variations. At least Assasin takes the character of Kitana and emphasizes the fact she is essentially a trained assassin. To me, that makes Assasin the more well thought out variation alongside Royal Storm while Mournful was the uninspired "this will work" variation.

 

[ChaosTheory]

It could be like going from MKDA to MKD. The basic fighting style system came back, but they tweaked the system by adjusting gravity, adding breaker system, universal d2's, etc.

When it came to individual characters returning, there was some legacy. Sub-Zero kept all three fighting styles from MKDA to MKD. Scorpion on the other hand only kept Hapkido and changed his middle and weapon stances. And then special moves were added/removed, move properties changed, universal changes were added to the system, new characters brought in, etc.

So like Sub-Zero could keep his identifiable Grandmaster variation. Then Cryo could also return but have completely different ice weapons. Then he might have a third completely new variation. Add that on top of a new set of normals, new properties, universal changes like gravity or a new meter or whatever.... and you have MK11 Sub-Zero. It could be a similar jump.

But that was back during the 2-year cycles.

 

[Bruno-NeoSpace]

The variation system is amazing!!! But 3 variations is too much. 2 variations per character would be better

 

[LiquidDrone]

The variation system is very cool imo and works really well. But 3 variations is too much. 2 would be better

 

[KingKhrystopher]

Yeah but to consider Mournful as "well thought out" in comparison to Assassin is bizarre to me for this reason. It's simply Jade's iconic attributes shoved into a completely different character just to have three variations. At least Assasin takes the character of Kitana and emphasizes the fact she is essentially a trained assassin. To me, that makes Assasin the more well thought out variation alongside Royal Storm while Mournful was the uninspired "this will work" variation.

I feel differently. We'll just have to agree that both are botched.

 

[ismael4790]

With the three variations system, nrs has not acomplished (until now at least) to get all of the variations viable for every character, and that's sad.

Maybe 2 for each character is enough.

 

[Ryu Hayabusa]

Lol @ everyone repeating same mantra of 2 variations because less content is always better.

Anyways I think there is 90% possibility that variations will be in Injustice, leatherface and triborg are strongly hinting at it.

 

[Hexin_Wishes]

Lol @ everyone repeating same mantra of 2 variations because less content is always better.

If the "less content" results in characters having more honest variations and not absorbing a different character to make up a third variation (Ex: Stunt Double Johnny, Mournful Kitana and Tigrar Fury Goro) then I'm all for it.

 

[Slymind]

It's the coolest feature of this game imo, i sure would like to see it back.

Obviously, you cannot expect everything to be equally good, but, since the patches, for the most part, there is definitely some cool diversity within the same character due the variations, some didn't turned out very good(as fas as people know), but that was bound to happen, and there is still time to improve them.

 

[Ryu Hayabusa]

If the "less content" results in characters having more honest variations and not absorbing a different character to make up a third variation (Ex: Stunt Double Johnny, Mournful Kitana and Tigrar Fury Goro) then I'm all for it.

Kitana and Goro having jade and kintaro variations is a choice made by NRS, it's not because they couldn't come up with 3rd variation for Kitana and Goro. Jade and kintaro weren't going to be in this game anyway.

I fail to see how stunt double is borrowed from another character.

 

[Ryu Hayabusa]

It also leaves room for some extra characters, not as many as variations cut because they also take resources from the graphic and programming departments, but if you shave 1 variation out of each character on a roster of 33, that's 33 variations less for game balance and from that perspective while you're not going to add 16 characters (32 variations at 2 per character) you could add 2-4 full characters for 4 to 8 variations that even if they come with new characters will be easier to balance than the previous numbers and it's still affordable for the other departments IMO while more character loyalists will be happy as there is more room and their favs could make the cut.

New character would require new character model,new 30+ normals and new 15+ combo strings.
+ 2 new fatalities, special effects, intros, more brutalities, win pose and ending.

Where as variations can be made different by by adding 3-5 specials moves and 2-3 combo strings.

It is easier and way less work to create 5 variations than entirely new character.

 

[Hexin_Wishes]

Kitana and Goro having jade and kintaro variations is a choice made by NRS, it's not because they couldn't come up with 3rd variation for Kitana and Goro. Jade and kintaro weren't going to be in this game anyway.

I fail to see how stunt double is borrowed from another character.

So? It's a terribly lazy decision. I mean, after all that brainstorming they just decided it would be better to give them a variation based off of an already existing character instead of another unique style? To me that just seems like they couldn't come up with something better.

Noob Saibot and his Shadow Clone in MK2011 says "hello".

 

[KCJ506]

I haven't read through this entire thread, so something like this may have already been mentioned. If they were to bring back the variation system in any future game, I think they should limit it down to two. The majority of the characters only had two "preferred" variations. Plus it'll be more easier to balance out the characters and give the developers more time to put in more characters for the initial roster since for MKX they had to design three separate movesets for each character.

 

[Ryu Hayabusa]

So? It's a terribly lazy decision. I mean, after all that brainstorming they just decided it would be better to give them a variation based off of an already existing character instead of another unique style? To me that just seems like they couldn't come up with something better.

Noob Saibot and his Shadow Clone in MK2011 says "hello".

You might think it's lazy and all that, but don't forget there are people who like to play those variations. Jade and kintaro weren't going to be in this game anyway.

Johnny's moves are Johnny's. Nothing is borrowed Noob. If johnny was throwing Klonr slide, Klone tackle and up knee.

Noob's Klone moves compliment his other abilities such as teleport and portals which is something johnny doesn't have.

Johnny's moves are vastly different in purpose and aesthetics.

 

[RonnyRAGE]

I say go back to Deception with 3 slight variations that you can swap during the match.

1 can be a weapon stance so really only 2 like everyone has been saying.

If we don't want to have three variations just add a Stage Weapon that drops in for the 3rd Round