Mortal Kombat

[Angrist]

Speaking of which, I hope the next Super Smash Brothers will be patchable. That way Nintendo can keep the game balanced and even more competitive.

[Typhoid]

Guilty Gear, Blazblue: Continuum Shift, Street Fighter 3rd strike, Melty Blood: Actress Again, Super Street Fighter 4: Arcade Edition

If I was a fan of asian-fighting games with flashy cartoon-y colours/sounds/graphics, I'd be all up in those. But I'm not.

Hell even Tekken 6: BR is extremely balanced.

I don't know what Tekken 6: BR is, but I am aware that I once owned Tekken 6, which was so painfully unbalanced I had to sell it, and only got 2 dollars in re-sale on it. Which leads me to think that Tekken 6: BR is some type of re-do of Tekken 6 to try make it more balanced, which is sort of a wash.

I do fondly recall going 17-0 as Raphael in Soul Caliber by only using the attack that quickly strikes 3 times with the sword. I did so to combat other people constantly using cheap characters by out-cheaping them. When you play with friends, this strategy gets the point across that being cheap is lame.

Actually I've generally never had that problem, as I didn't play competitive fighters until college, and at that point I actually learned what the fuck I was doing. Enough to know that mortal kunglaobat is garbage in terms of being competitive.

Uh...huh. Well then I suppose you're in the vast minority, and a real niche complaint catagory. You're the only person I 'know' who competes in fighting video games. I didn't know such a thing existed (Aside from Smash). I don't think it's fair to say "MK sucks, because I play competitive video game fighters, and the ones I play are much better and more balanced, everyone who plays these games in these competitive video game tournaments agrees."

Because maybe, just maybe MK was released to cater to the people who dont play fighting video games competitively, and instead wanted a slower-paced oldschool fighting game. Will people take the game super seriously? Of course. Some people have nothing but time.

The words of a casual. If one of your friends, or even you, decided to actually learn how to play any of the mentioned games, you would realize that it's not quite the case in fighters.

I'm sorry my lowly un-competitive fighting background is so pleb to you.
Dylan has MvC3. I have had Tekken 6. I also had Street Fighter 4. I also now have Mortal Kombat. And Mortal Kombat is by far the most fun I've had playing a fighter, and the most fun I've seen people have playing a fighter. Last week 4 people took turns (2v2) playing MK between the hockey games, and the entire room of 10 or so people were enthralled by the intense battles going on. It was epic. It wasn't over quickly.

And saying the game sucks because of Kung Lao is fucking hilarious. Maybe the game sucks for competition because everyone will abuse Kung Lao (As people often do when they find a way to easily win any video game with minimum effort), but that is easily vanquished within a group of friends by saying one of the following:

A: "Don't be cheap."
B: "Don't be Kung Lao."

Or if someone cheaps out as Kung Lao, out-cheap them by using Scorpion's attack where he flies out the left view, into the right behind the person and attacks them. That is how I deal with it. It works excellently.

You can always out-cheap someone, if someone is being cheap. Obviously that doesn't solve the problem of being cheap, but it sure solves your main point of "lawl, the only character in the game is Kung Lao."

I assume you play with a group of friends that haven't even bothered to understand the mechanics behind a 30-80% combo in MK, or how to effectively DHC with your team in MvC3.

No, you're right. I play these games with my friends to have fun, not to attempt to prove I'm better than they are at fighting games.

Anyways, maybe you just need to step off the whole 'competitive fighting video game' scene, and just chill with some friends and casually play games and have fun. Not play the games to win the fastest, and have the most wins. But hey, to each his own.

I'll keep having fun with MK and my friends, and you keep doing ridiculous amounts of combos in some crazy-coloured Japanese game.

Don't bother try going into mega-detail about any fighting game, as my peasant mind wouldn't be able to comprehend the madness that is competitive video game playing.

And maybe I'll put it in bold this time, since last time you may not have seen it.

And thus ends my pot-induced video game rant.

Edit: And of course, I don't know all the retarded technical shit behind which character's stats are better (for any of the games) because I don't go out of my way to make myself aware of that - because I don't care. I was basing what I have said on what I have witnessed. Maybe someone who considers themselves a 'competitive video game player' will spend time to find a way to counter a specific character who is constantly winning, or try google a strategy or watch videos on how to combat certain characters or combos - but me, and my friends, just play the games. Besides, nobody even likes Kung Lao, so the only reason people would play him is if their sole reason in playing Mortal Kombat is to win. And if that's your purpose behind playing a video game, you (not you, you) need to re-evaluate your life - because that seems really....dumb. Just play the game to have fun. You can still lose a game and have fun.

[Vampyr]

For a lot of people playing competitively and winning is the fun part, and playing not to win is unthinkable.

Personally I always play to win by any means necessary. Unfortunately I also don't have the attention span to get really good at fighting games.

[TheSlyMoogle]

No I'm saying you have no clue what you're actually talking about in terms of what makes a fighter balanced, and I'm saying that in all technical breakdowns of the game mortal kombat, kung lao is a god. He literally cannot be punished for pressure strings or special moves by 95% of the cast. It's not that complicated honestly, it's in the frame data, 60 frames per second, moves have a certain number of startup frames, a certain number of active frames, and a certain number of recovery frames. All of Kung Lao's pressure strings start and end with moves that have significantly less startup frames and recovery frames than the majority of the cast's move with the lowest amount of startup frames.

A situation like that not only caters to competitive players to rape the scene with Kung Lao, but it also caters to button mashing casual gamers because he out prioritizes shit and can just mash mash mash all day pretty safely.

And as far as making MK9 to cater to casual players, that would be true if MK9 didn't do play testing at several major tournaments, and even had a team there to talk to players to find out what they felt they could do to balance the game to make it acceptable in the competitive scene because believe it or not, that's what brought back all the fighters you know and love.

And what do you mean no one plays Kung Lao? He's a fucking monk with a badass razor hat. WHY WOULD YOU NOT PLAY HIM?!

Playing in a competitive fighting environment isn't really about winning either, it's mostly about making friends, and usually the goal of being in a tournament is to get better at a game, not to win. It's about pushing yourself to just be better constantly, which turns into winning, but you're also helping those you play with to get better too. You get better, the people around you are forced to get better to try and win, which makes you play better, everyone gets better, so at the end of the day you can say "Man, we got a lot better and had some sweet fucking matches" not "Man, I kicked your ass and won so hard, you're fucking bad"

That's just poor sportsmanship in any area of life.

[Typhoid]

For a lot of people playing competitively and winning is the fun part, and playing not to win is unthinkable.

I would call that poor sportsmanship.
Growing up playing sports, lesson 1 was always "Whatever you do, have fun." Maybe my mindset with video games is mainly to have fun over winning because of that, I don't know. I can still really enjoy a game (especially a fighter) if I have lost a good fight. I just play games to play games, have a good experience, etc.

No I'm saying you have no clue what you're actually talking about in terms of what makes a fighter balanced, and I'm saying that in all technical breakdowns of the game mortal kombat, kung lao is a god.

That's sort of my point. Of course I don't know what makes a fighting game balanced, technically. I even went out of my way to say I don't look that up, and I don't care about the actual technical stats of specific characters in whatever game. I play to play, and that's basically the end of that.

What I was saying was that the whole "Kung Lao is the best character" is only valid if you play this video games competitively (Meaning not just with a group of friends, but with a collective of like-minded people all gathering together to win a competition). Much the same way that I would assume the Mach Bike in Mario Kart is extremely abused in competitions, as would be any other easy-way of winning by people who play games only to win. That is life. People will look for the easiest way, with minimum risk. Did the developers make Kung Lao overpowered in one way or another? Sure. Did some people find a way to take advantage of that? Of course. Now it will only be a matter of time until someone finds an even cheaper way to out-cheap the cheapness of that. The game has been out for a few weeks. And while I'm sure there are people who are doing nothing but playing this game and trying to get good with a specific character, I'm just as sure there is at least one dude trying to find a way to specifically out-cheap Kung Lao, and when he completes that, he will post it on the internet - which will give you something else to pick apart about a game you don't like.

But for the rest of us normal people who don't play in competitions, this poses little to no problem because:

A) You can tell a friend to not be him prior to picking him
B) You can agree to not button-mash/over-use one combo, regardless of character
C) Chances are the casual people playing the game won't know how to string massive single-hit death combos.

And what do you mean no one plays Kung Lao? He's a fucking monk with a badass razor hat. WHY WOULD YOU NOT PLAY HIM?!

Enh, I honestly haven't come across many people who like him. In fact a few people I've talked to about this game (very few) actually avoid him for the reason that he's cheap, and they don't feel proper using a character that will ruin other characters with little to no challenge.

And for the record, Liu Kang is by far the cheapest character I've used in that game. Back, back, forward, O. Flying dragon-bicycle kick-thing. It's unblockable, and you can constantly do it. I just choose not to do that all the time when I play because that would be flat out dumb and unfair. Unless I'm speed-playing the arcade on hard. Anything can really be taken advantage of if you try it enough times and get the technique down properly. That practically goes for every video game.

Playing in a competitive fighting environment isn't really about winning either, it's mostly about making friends, and usually the goal of being in a tournament is to get better at a game, not to win.

Well then what's the big kafuffle about? If people play tournaments to get better, and challenge themselves/others, who would pick a character that is leaps and bounds easier to play than the other characters, and thus making the tournament less challenging?

[Vampyr]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

I would call that poor sportsmanship.
Growing up playing sports, lesson 1 was always "Whatever you do, have fun." Maybe my mindset with video games is mainly to have fun over winning because of that, I don't know. I can still really enjoy a game (especially a fighter) if I have lost a good fight. I just play games to play games, have a good experience, etc.

I'm not saying that losing ruins the experience for me - I'm saying I would rather win than lose. "Whatever you do, have fun" is a great mantra, and for me having fun means trying my best to win at whatever I'm doing. It's not poor sportsmanship unless you act like a jerk after winning or losing. Being a competitor doesn't mean you're a jerk. I still share any knowledge or advice I have with other players and try to help them become better, or I ask questions if it's a game I'm a noob at.

Even playing games casually with friends I'm like this, and I hope that they will be too. Making up fake rules like "that move is cheap, don't use it", or "that character is cheap, don't pick him" just serve to degrade the game for everyone since it prevents people from learning how to deal with those scenarios.

I've been playing some competitive Magic the Gathering lately, and one thing you see some experienced people do is let rules slide with newer players, like not pointing out triggers or other things they have to do that might cause them to lose. That's just setting that person up to be a worse Magic player further down the line, which I'm sure they don't want to be.

Of course there's a nice way and a not nice way to tell people these things, and that determines if you're a bad sportsman or not.

[TheSlyMoogle]

You can beat Liu Kang's bicycle kick with a standard jab, and get a free combo.