I actually like the fighting system as it is now. However as for things that could make it better:

Better and Multiple Reversal options.

at least two style specific throws (for each style, except for Weapon stance), one from the front and one from behind/to the side.

Wall Jumps, Flips, Dives etc.

Multi command Throws/Grabs that end in some limb breakers.

That's all. However I do like the system the way it is now (Please don't flame as it is my opinion) However these things couldn't hurt.

Yeah I mean the fighting system in DA is an interesting concept and the system if playable. Those things would definately make things more interesting... also attacking from different positions as well as throwing. combos that attack different points of the body, lower body combos that end up tripping the person or tripping forward and to get a knee to the face to finish the combo off. Also throws should be altered depending on which direction to push when you catch the person in a throw...

Better Juggle system.

Better hit detection.

No autocombos. Autocombos have the same set ups every damn time. They can be blocked and/or reversed to easily. They LIMIT waht you can do in the game. Outside of autos you have juggles. The juggles can be abused to the point of infinites being done.

Improvement on the block stun. I would like to see a parry move included rather than a reversal.

Foward dash as well as a back dash.

UNBLOCKABLE THROWS

Number limit on juggles. Here is a small example of what a proper yet improvable juggle system can do if put in MKD : Posted By YhanV in regards to Street fighter 3 3rd strike:

"In 3S there is a juggle limit for non super moves, which is 6 hits. After the 6th hit, the opponent becomes invincible thus you cannot hit them anymore and they hit the ground. So with Urien, if you peg somebody in the air with a fireball, you can get 5 more fireball/tackle hits until they fall to the ground. Hitting somebody with a super resets the juggle counter, allowing you to get 6 more hits.

Now when you try to juggle somebody in 3S, there are certain things you have to consider. Hitting somebody in the air with a special move will leave them vulnerable to juggles. So if the recovery of your last move and the startup of the next move permits, you can hit your opponent again, that is of course if you have not hit the juggle cap yet. Things kinda get hazy with normals though. When you juggle with most normals, the opponent, upon leaving hit stun from that move, will flip out of the juggle state, totally invincible until they land (there are exeptions to this, ie. Necro juggling Alex in the corner with db + fierce). That is, unless the opponent is stunned (as you might have noticed, the vid showcasses mostly all stun combos). So when the opponent is stunned, you can juggle them with normals until they reach the juggle cap.

Of course, it gets more complicated, as there is a way to juggle people before they flip out from the normal and also juggle past the juggle cap. When you hit somebody in the air, they do enter a certain amount of hit stun, usually very short. So if you hit somebody with a normal, and cancel into something fast enough, you can continue the juggle. An example of this is Alex hitting somebody in the air with s.strong XX dp + kkk. Normally hitting somebody in the air with Alex's s.strong will result in them flipping out, but since you canceled into the dp, you hit them before they leave hit stun. This also seems to be how you juggle past the juggle cap. On the 6th hit, the opponent is still in hit stun. So if you can cancel into something fast enough, you can keep juggling.

Sooooooo. You see Ryu hitting a jumping Gill with a s.jab, resulting in stun. Now he can hit him with more normals without Gill flipping out, in this case, 3 more s.jabs, 1 UOH, and a Hadouken (Hadouken's behave like normals for purposes of juggles). At this point, Gill cannot be juggled by anymore non super moves, thus the Shinku Hadouken. Now the juggle cap has been reset (remember, supers reset the juggle cap?) and Ryu can juggle with more jabs. Ryu does the same combo again getting up to six hits and cancelling super. Okay, so now Ryu is out of meter, so Ryu gets his six more jabs in, and on the 6th jab he does s.jab XX s.jab XX Shoryuken, all of which is fast enough to combo without Gill falling out. And now FINALLY, the combo is over.

Unfortunatly for Gill, he is still stuned. So Ryu gets one more combo in, resulting in Gill's death. Now, as we all know, when Gill dies and has meter, he ressurect's, but he still does his death animation, and during death animation, the opponent enters a stun-like juggle state. And you know what that means, more jabs ."


Something along these lines, catered to MKD game mechanics, can be implemented into MKD that can greatly improve the juggle system put in.


More to come.

It was already posted the variation in the styles can add a great dynamic to the fight. It can increase the speed of the fight as well as offer a great challege to a player. It can even lead a player to have to memorize each style of each character and make the person decide on a best 'counter character' to be used in the situation.

For example: TKD is mostly a foot/leg art. The choice of this art should almost cause certain characters to pick a counter art.

I'll expand on this later.


On to what I stated before about a parry:

I still like reversals and think they should still be in the game but a smooth transition from reveral to attack has to be implemented.

For example: Sonya attacks and you counter with a reversal, no pause in the reversal the attack is just reversed and the advantage is given the other player. This should not take anymore than a second to accomplish. Sad to say but DOA had good animation for reversals. Game is still crud though.

Now, as far as reversals go, I would like to see reversals do a knock down. i don't like the idea of comboing off a reversal.

I think it should go more like this:

Attack---reversal animation-----auto knock down. You get damage and distance.

As for parries, I would like to see parries or the combo breakers as the cancels into attck options in this game. reversals should be knock down and combo breakers should open up for a counter attack. It makes no since to combo break off a single attack. leave reversals for the single attacks. My opinion on this is that the character would have meter that can build during battle and then the breaker can be used but even then I am not sure. The KI combo breaker was top tier and a command to be done while in mid combo is not something I am opposed to at all.


Lastly, needless to say that grab cancels need to be put in for tyhe grappling styles.


More to come later.

Anything other than what it looks to be right now.

Grab cancels would be nice. Reversals as lists above by colguile would be excellent in MKDeception. The reversals also need to be where the person gets attacked specific also, like if you attacked lower, you have to counter lower, but if you use the normal 'high counter' the counter doesn't work... kinda like with blocking, there were way to few affective low attacks in MKDA and I hope this is addressed in MKDeception...

I don't really feel like writing an essay, but some things are.

Lot's of fancy moves like flips, side flips etc.

Off wall attacks

realistic looking reversals Like the ones they have in VF4E. Aoi has some bad ass reversals.


Cool looking throws like the ones in Tao Feng.

And a lot of other stuff.

Maybe I'll post it later.

Everything that everyone has mentioned above with the addition of buffering and the subsequent ability to incorporate special moves and throws into combo strings.

The kind of fighting I would like to see is if anyone has played Rise to Honor, at the end where you fight the last boss Kwan, you have to block his throws in such ways and counter the final hit.

Also: Wall jumps, flips, etc.

-Grab a victim by their head / waste, smash it against the wall.

-Not only blocking with arms, but legs and feet as well like in kung fu movies.

Edit: If you're on the ground after a hit, you should be able to perform a "jump up" attack, for those who've played Tao Feng know what I mean.

i am pissed at people who think just because we want a better fighting engine we also want it to be a clone of DOA,VF, SC and stuff like that. you can have a deep engine and keep it unique. in my opinion, the only unique thing about MKDA and MKd is the three fighting styles, death traps, and weapons in arena, so the only fighting thing unique about it is the fighting styles. this is an awsome idea and it needs to be deeper. each style should have many different weak hits, heavy hits, reversals, counter moves, throws, ground attacks, rising attacks, and stuff like that. but each one should excel in certain things in this caterglory. one could excel in combos, kicking, punching, throwing, reversing, countering, ect. it would make each style unique and useful. and physics should change when it is weapons vs. hand to hand and weapons vs. weapons. example, you shoouldnt be able to block weapons with your hands, but reversals would be devistating. in a reversal you could play a game of tug of war and if the person w/o the weapon wins they toss it and you will have to retrieve it some way. there should be no weapon reversal but it just knocks the weapon staggering the opponent, leaving the victim open for attack.there should also be rolls and moves llike that so you can get away from a hit and death trap. you should also be able to choose when to get up and able to roll left, right, back and foward when you are on the ground. stuff like this can make the game deeper and able to compete with other games like SC and VF. it would still be faster and have special moves.in fact the special moves should be more unique and do more for combos rather then damage alone (like kitanas fan lift, jump kick, and fan throw from mk2) and could make the characters more uniqe and enable you to experment more with combos. add this to multi tier environments and death traps and you could have a really deep game while being simple and fun at the same time

Although I felt that the fighting system in Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance was flawed, it was unique and interesting and a lot can be done to improve it.

Like Nindz, I feel that there should be style-oriented defense moves and they should take out the old MK style blocking system. There should be more authenticity and accuracy with the fighting styles but I don't want Mortal Kombat: Deception or any Mortal Kombat game to be too much like Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Dead or Alive, or any other fighting game but of course, with the new fighting system, there are bound to be similarities.

The fighting styles should be balanced.

For example, faster styles will generally be weaker styles while slower styles will generally be stronger. Some styles can be more fluid or more rigid than others and some styles can be easier or harder to master depending on how good the style is.

Styles like Ninjitsu, Hapkido, Shaolin Fist, Tai Chi Chuan, Jeet Kune Do, and Dragon could be some of the best and hardest to master styles in the game.

While styles such as Tai Chi Chuan, Ba Gua Zhang, Xing Yi Quan are more of the fluid styles, styles such as Karate and San Shou are more of rigid styles.

Some styles are more about striking (punching and kicking) such as Shaolin Fist, Karate, and Tae Kwon Do. Other styles are more about grappling such as Jujitsu, Judo, Aikido, Shuai Chiao, and Wrestling.

Styles such as Dragon and Muay Thai mostly use kicks and hand/arm attacks but also use some grappling and trapping.

Styles such as Ninjitsu and Hapkido should be two of the most well-rounded and hard to master styles and they both use a lot of punching, kicking, grappling and trapping.

Crane is more about snap kicks and crane beak strikes as well as acrobatics and should be a fast and fluid but relatively weak style.

Snake is more of a speed style and relies more on snake shaped hand movements and not so much on kicking. Snake also uses a bit of locking techinques. Overall, Snake should be about quickness, sneakiness and unpredictability.

When it comes to controls, they should vary with the fighting style and not be like Tekken with 2 punch buttons and 2 kick buttons.

For example, most of the attack buttons for Snake style should be hand based attacks while only 1 should be for kicks (preferrably attack 4). For defense, Snake should pretty much be about the snake-shaped hands and perhaps also a bit of locking.

It should pretty much be the opposite for Crane. Attack 1 should have crane beak strikes while the other 3 attack buttons should have kicks. Crane pretty much only uses snap kicks. In terms of defense, it should be about acrobatic flips and backwards jumping as well as crane beak hand movements for parrying or whatever.

Aikido should be more about locking and throwing. It's more of a defensive and counter-dependant style. There shouldn't really be much of combos in this style. The attack buttons would actually be more of "defense buttons" since Aikido is very much about defense. Aside from locks and throws, Aikido should also have rolling.

But uh..I don't want to go on and on. These are just some suggestions and ideas and such.

-Create your own combos
-More 3D emphasis and special moves
-Custom Character Costume edit
-Weapon Fatalities, dammit!

let you choose the order of the styles

a dodge button (blocking a giant sword doesn't
make sense)

I think the style switching should be able to go backwards through the styles... and maybe start out in a weapon style and switch to a hand to hand style, or go from a hand to hand, to a weapon, maybe pop the person up and switch to hand to hand and kick the opponent with a different style or just have more kicks in the weapon styles to launch the person through the walls or for long distances...

Oh man, the selectionof the order of styles would make the inclusion of autocombos....bareable.

That is perhaps the best idea I have read on here thus far. That way MK can keep is originality and still offer a rather expansive combo system.

I'm going to see what I can think of regarding this.

I'll post back later.

You should be able to switch styles instantly after a pop up attack. Sort of the same way you can switch characters in Tekken Tag right after a pop up.
You should be able to switch between styles back or forward.


Switch styles before the round starts.

A controlled custom combo system. It has to have such a system where you can't just mash the buttons.
It has to be something like in KI, a just frame, harder timing, hold a button etc.
Something like that.
Then maybe have a combo meter, like the run meter in MK3 so you max out at like 4-7 hits depending on the strength of the attacks.

Maybe also have it like a tree branch system, so only certain attacks can be linked smoothly.
And have it so some attacks you can't do 2 times in a row.
Some yes, and some No.


Style branch combos should be able to go back or forward through the styles.

There should also be a lot more of them, small and big combos.

Yea.. the obvious.. better manual combos for all fighting styles, and linkage from style to style. Variation.

Better hit detection.. better animation for the person taking the hits..

That's too much to ask for probably and some would tell me I'm too picky.. but I like a fighter I can believe in.. realistic. My worst pet peeve is clunky animation.. but I'm an artist so I guess in reality no game will ever be perfectly animated, to me.. coughDOAcough..

The custom combo and fighting style selection(smoother fighting style switching) could be used to fake the person out if put in right... if the attacks are useful unlike most of the attacks in DA, switching styles could totally thow the person off because they are used to defending a certain type of move... so say you are using a rather powerful fighting style that is blocked easier than most due to its slowness, you could switch quickly to one that is faster or your steps would be different to give you seemingly more speed when that stance is just for that style but it moves differently making it harder( or making the person adapt more) to fight them... also I think along with the uppercut returning I think there should be more moves that are pop ups in other styles and that ducking should play more of an important role... like someone uses a powerful attack that leaves them open, say a punching attack, you duck it and when they miss you can uppercut, or maybe some type of forceful handstand to kick them in the face with both feet(more agile fighters), the kicking handstand move could then have a set of attacks, maybe not a lot, but a combo could be build off of handstand kicking, then maybe using your arms to spring you forward to land another kick...

On the note of projectiles, they don't really belong in a 3d fighting game. HOWEVER, if Mortal Kombat wants to keep its projectiles, I think all projectiles should have full track (aside from unblockables like Scorpion's Hellfire). This will bring back the old Mortal Kombat feel of being able to space, zone, etc. with projectiles, but also make them at least useful enough for chip damage and the opponent blocking. Rather than just simply sidestepping it and punishing you, which makes projectiles almost never worth it unless you could somehow use it in a combo.

For weapon styles there should be some kind of striking detection, like two opponents attack with swords at the same time and they hit each other... or some flashier more difficult combos with weapons that involve throwing the weapon in the air, and jumping to grab it and slamming it into the person's skull, mind you these types of combos would be difficult to pull off, but rewarding if pulled off...