I started playing MK11 when it released, and back then I had a hard time with combos because of the "dial-a-combo" system, I was playing SFV before (I was never a FGC guy, had just started playing SFV some months before).
I rememberwhen I started playing, I took a look at the "controls" options, checked some info online and had a setup that looked good for me, so I never came back to look at it till today...
So, I was labbing a bit I just found out that when "Input Shortcuts" are on, the time window you have to cancel your combos into normals is noticeably bigger... It feels more natural to me even though I'm still cancelling into wrong normals at times because I'm inputting too fast (still inputting "dial-a-combo" style sometimes). Taking a while to adapt now, since When using "Input Shortcuts" you can, for example, cancel into the same special (lets say: D,F,2)by entering either 1,2,D,F,2 or 1,2,2,D,F. But if you input too fast you might cancel the second input of the string, making it a 1,(D,F,2). Go wait that "2" that is part of string to hit before inputting the special.
I'm still getting used to it but feels way more natural to me. Just wanted to share it because the description in game ("Special Moves require less directional precision") doesn't look accurate enough to me.