Run jabs huh? Sounds badass! I would love to see this in action! Goes to revisit Mkast!

Run jabs? Meh. I watched some UMK3 high-level gameplay, I feel like over half of what I saw was run jabs. It's a pretty difficult tactic to counter, if I remember correctly. Easiest way out of it is a teleport, but not all characters have one, obviously. I'll have to wait and see how it looks in this game. Which video is that in again?

Oh it's the latest Mkast they had!!! And I would be lying if I said I didn't want the run button to return!

I'd really rather not have the run button back. I'm probably in the minority here, but I for one never used the run button and I did just fine without it.

So what happens if MK turns out to be a bust and is broken? Would it still appear at evo?

Depends how broken it is. If it can be fixed to a point where it would be considered a competitive fighting game then I don't see why a few flaws would be held against it.

Also we don't know if NRS gave them a demo or something to play to convince them. It would make sense because I can't see them giving it a shot at evo given MK's track record of late. UMK3 was the last tournament worthy game so maybe they've got some info or gameplay we don't.

But if the game is broken then the game is broken and I can't see them allowing it if it's trash.

cant wait to see Daigo playing as liu kang or johnny cage

They said something about implementing functionality that will let them tweak the gameplay post release without major patches. If it works and they actually stay on top of things there shouldn't be an issue.

I'm for patches if they're implemented within a month or two after the release, but after that they're absolutely unacceptable. Minor, character-specific tweaks over time would seriously stifle the consistency and evolution of this game. That's just a really, really slippery slope and I'd rather they focus on just making one or two huge patches over the course of a few years.

I could be wrong here but doesn't SSFIV still get tweaked from time to time?

Only for stuff unrelated to gameplay.

hi people..dont know if this has been discussed yet or if anyones knows but concerning the tag mode how does it work when you use yer partners special move? i know it takes up the super bar but is the move they use automatic or will you have to maybe hold a button and input the move you choose??

I don't think anyone knows for sure, but from looking at the video's it seems to be one move that is called by pressing down plus tag (this is an assumption). It seems that the assist attacks are more projectile based while the switch-out attacks are more physical based.

This probably can't be answered, but does anyone know if they are using 3D or 2D hitboxes?

Man they should release a video showing the game in action not played by neebs

Stupid neebs.

Indeed, Abel still shuts down most of the cast. I'll take a bunch of patches over nothing at all like we got with MKDC. This is still the team the made MKD, let them fix what they can fix when they can fix it.

No offense, but to think this game will be anything like MKD is just totally unfounded. NRS has already stated that they're implementing hit stun decay so that completely debunks any notion of MKD style infinites appearing in this game (unless they were straight out lying to us, which I guess wouldn't be that far fetched). But as of now there really isn't any indication of anything really needing to be patched or not, so this is still all just speculation.

Kratos' fatalities should be a beast and what the pres said

The only fighting game that was not in need of at least a balancing patch upon its initial release is Karate Champ.

You can have all the faith in the world in NRS, but to think the game will ship perfectly balanced, and in no way needing a patch of any sort is just insane. There's a reason why NRS is including the ability to easily patch the game. Let them patch it as many times as they want as long as it gets closer and closer to being a balanced, competitive fighter.

The run jab isnt coming back, and it really needs to die with umk3. It's old style gameplay that is boring and repetitive.

No one could even know enough about the game for there to be any basis for a patch upon the initial release. Tiers and match ups don't start to solidify in (good) fighting games until at least many months or even years post release. And even then there are still so many variables to take into account that balance can still--and usually does--keep changing. A patch upon initial release would be pointless; a month or two of actual playing to determine if there is anything truly game breaking is much more suitable.



Well, (If you're addressing myself) I can't help but notice that I never said anything like that. I specifically mentioned that patches should be put in, but only after the first two months or at least a year. You can't have a balanced fighter if you keep changing stuff and don't give the game a chance to solidify. The chances that NRS would be muffing something up is far greater if they just kept patching and patching what anyone thought was OP, rather than waiting a year or so to actually have a clear picture of what works well for some characters and what doesn't for others. They've already stated that damage scaling and hit stun decay are going to be in, so the only thing left to patch would be the character's move priorities. But you simply cannot make judgments on whether or not character X's one really good special move is integral to his/her ability to get into characters Y and Z's defense if you keep constantly patching. You'd have no idea how important said special move could've been to said character's play style and may have effectively gimped him/her into unplayability. I mean, that was just one example of among hundreds of other possible points of contention. The bottom line is: You just need to give the game time.

I mean, If I had nickel for every time someone thought a character was going to be broken/OP in the infant years of a fighting game--only for them to be proven wrong--I'd be a pretty rich guy.

Let me first state that I only look at things from a competitive perspective. Online play doesn't matter to me, and neither do casual games.

That said, please name one fighting game that everyone thought was balanced at launch, where something broken appeared a year into the game that needed a patch.

It doesn't take long for experienced tournament players to see what's broken. Within a week of the game's release we'll start to have a general idea of the balance between the characters. By Evo, three months after the game releases, people will have stopped playing if there's something broken that hasn't been patched.

Look at Soul Calibur IV. It took less than a week for the tournament players to realize that the Soul Gauge was broken and Lizardman (among other characters) could abuse it. A month later people found Hilde's ridiculous combo. The Soul Gauge issues were patched within a month or so, but Hilde was never fixed, and it killed the scene for the game in far less than a year.

Also, while stun decay and all of that is great, have you looked at the combos in this game? The fact that the devs mentioned resets are in the game, combined with the combos we're already seeing, makes be very fearful of 100% damage combos. So yes, given the information we currently have, we do have reason to believe a patch may be needed on day one.

I will agree that it can take time to find the value of a specific attack, but most tournament players know what makes something good or bad. It's not often that things go unnoticed for up to a year.

No offense, but have you even been reading what I've written? Because this is pretty much what I've been saying. I've said: Give it a month or two to find out what's truly broken and patch it. I've made that clear in multiple posts. To be clear my second paragraph was about balance tweaks, and it falls in line with your opinion regarding people finding all the broken stuff early and the unlikelihood of something broken being found a year after.

Anyway, to think within a week of release we'll see what's what with roster balance is just absurd. SSF4 alone has gone through a myriad of tier changes since its release; to think everyone would have at least a general notion of of charcter balance in a game (MK2011) that hasn't even had an arcade release or any major play is just unsubstituted. As for the idea that people will stop playing if they find something broken: That's only subjective and has a lot more to do with the scene than it does with patches. CvS2, A3, and MvC2 lasted years even with un-patched broken stuff and were main stays at Evo to boot. Patches are in no way a concrete metric for measuring a games success.





Once again you're either misunderstanding my post or not reading it. I never said anything about a game being balanced at launch and something broken being found a year later. The question itself is a fallacy anyway because no one knows if a game is truly balanced or not the day of launch. But to answer the question of something broken appearing a year later I could point to MvC2. But still, I didn't say anything about such a game so this has no connection to what I've been saying. See the paragraph above.





Videos of some show-combos is not absolute evidence of 100%s and (like I said earlier) is just speculation. With that said I think you may have some misconceptions about my opinion of day one patches, which I've realized is my fault, because rather than restating what is said in my first post here:



I began to talk about the likelihood of the need for a patch on day one; which I still think is astronomically and completely unlikely, but wasn't my original point. If by some miracle a day one patch would be needed it would fall within my requested time frame of a few months.




But it is often for rosters to not have a solid tier list and match-ups within even the first year.

My entire starting point was based on what I think would be a slippery slope with minor, character-specific tweaks constantly happening over time--more specially: A year or so. Characters with things that have seemed to be broken is completely relative to that character's standing among the rest of the cast, and that's why I believe you need a year before you start patching things again after the initial patches that fall within the first months.

Waiting a year and doing one entire re-balancing patch would give NRS and everyone else a clear picture of what needs to be changed and what doesn't. Constant patches just keeps throwing more and more variables into the game and tacks a whole other microcosm of unknowns to a character's standings in the cast. There's just too much that could go wrong and could really stifle the evolution of the game.

This is what I was referring to:



MK is currently not a competitive franchise. It doesn't have a long history of competitive play like every other game you mentioned. If the game is broken and in need of a patch, and that patch doesn't come for "at least a year", people will stop playing it competitively.

This game has one shot at becoming a mainstay in the competitive scene.



Perhaps it's you who is not reading what I wrote? I said "we'll start to have a general idea of the balance between characters." That's a far cry from, "we'll see what's what with roster balance".

Let me clarify. After a week, we'll be able to see who's looking solid and who's looking to be lacking the tools they need to be competitive. If every launcher a character has is unsafe, that character will obviously be at a disadvantage compared to a character who has multiple safe launchers.

If we get frame data early on (which has been somewhat hinted at), then it'll be even easier to get a general idea of who needs a boost and who's looking broken.

Will we have a definitive tier list after a week? Of course not, but we'll be able to say something like, "Scorpion is looking really good, but Kitana is really lacking right now."



When did I mention anything about "absolute evidence"? I said I was very fearful and we "may" need a patch. You said there's no reason to think we'll need a patch day one due to stun decay and all of that. I simply showed you there is a possible reason despite the inclusion of stun decay.



I agree that we shouldn't be seeing constant patches every other week. A patch a month until the game is properly balanced would be more than enough. But there's a big difference between a patch a month, and waiting an entire year, then making a balancing patch.

Also, if a character has something that seems broken, it most likely is. If Scorpion has a 60% damage combo and can start the combo with a safe attack that gives him frame advantage on block, there's no way that will suddenly become "unbroken" a year later. People may figure out better ways to deal with it, but it will still be just as broken.

This isn't substantial at all, though. Right off the top of my head I can think of two games from the beloved versus series that were completely dropped because they were rubbish: CvS1 and MvC1. Those series being popular didn't help those awful installments at all.





I was iffy about using the phrase "what's what" because I didn't know how it would be interpreted, so that's my mistake. I was sleepy and reckless. :P





Fair Enough.





But again, this isn't at all what I've been suggesting. This is exactly the stuff I meant when I said to patch the truly broken stuff within the first couple of months and how it lines up with your (and my) opinion that most of the really broken things will be found early on.

I've already said that minor character tweaks over time are my concern and that I too believed that the truly broken stuff like the hypothetical you proposed would've been found and should be patched early. I don't think there's any outcome from messing around with frames, hitboxes, or hurtboxes of moves--that have already been shown to be unbroken--other than potentially nerfing or buffing things that didn't absolutely need to be in the first place, creating constant inconstancy in a character's match ups. My entire argument has been about that.

Aside from a couple of misunderstandings this has been a pretty good discussion in my opinion.