you sure about that, I saw maybe 2 or 3 that were 5+ but even then I dont care, this game does look like a minimal dial game, I'm happy with it personally. especially the fact that I found none above 3 hits in the second fight.

Check out Reptile vs. Sektor, around 35 seconds into the match. See how Reptile makes a quick invisible dash but Sektor backs up? Rep's meter went all the way down, so we know X-Ray Moves are a one shot deal.

But they still do too much damage.

Do they? I thought I saw some damage reductions, particularly when they combo'ed into them

Nah I went back and reviewed, thats my main problem with them. The easiest solution is being able to use breaker. As stated before, x-ray is easily something that could be left out.

So you think you should be able to use breaker to just flat out beat the move?

How about instead of canceling the animation, being able to reverse them mid-combo in exchange for whatever meter levels you have?

so maybe you couldn't escape the entire move, but you can at least reverse it before the other guy lands the big shot. That way, you didn't escape unscathed and the other guy didn't waste his time, but at least you're holding onto most of your health.

X-Ray moves need to deal a lot of damage. It takes a whole match without EX moves to fill it. And then you have to land the move itself. Sektor's seems simple enough to land, but other than him everyone else looks like they will have a hard time combo-ing

when all is said and done, having a power meter at all bothers me, but that wont change. All we can really do is hope they figure out a way to balance it out somehow.

Combo Breakers are great! You take some damage, pay some meter and break out of a combo. Seems like a perfect trade off

I do have one problem with breakers, that problem being that you're not always going to use them to stop the xray. Maybe you're just getting your ass kicked and you have to spend 2 whole bars just to break out of it, it may stop the onslaught for awhile but it drains you of special offensive ability. If you are fighting someone good and they block your attempted punisher they can combo your butt into oblivion again and your bar is drained. If they made the breaker a counter instead and let you combo out of it you could return fire more easily and things would be more even.

that's a far trade off. We need to think of these X-Rays as gory ultra moves. You're not supposed to break them. And since X-Ray moves seem like they are hard to land outside a combo, you won't have too much trouble.

I mean, if you were playing Sektor for example, and you see he has an X-Ray tucked in. You know he'll try a teleport uppercut, then the X-Ray move. If for some reason you are caught in the punch, just break out of it with a breaker.

They're handling X-Rays, Kombo Breakers and damage reduction with a lot of care.

That is actually one of my big concerns. While Boon is hopefully taking his time and making sure this game works (which he couldn't before with Midway forcing out a MK every year), I really hope they test the combo system and make sure there are no infinites. Otherwise the breaker system (if the special meter still mainly fills while being attacked in the final game) will just turn into the Maximum Damage system again. After all, why would you save your meter if your stuck in an infinite till you die?

Edit: I remembered another game breaker that doesn't need to return, juggling after throws. Keep in mind the last game I really played was MKD so they might have fixed this, but that led to so many bullshit combo's it's one of reasons MKD was so broken. With the inclusion of these x-ray moves, I really hope we never see these throw types again.

Is what I'm seeing really true? Did they take Reptile and give him the fragile quick guy role?

Because he can dash around the place and trip people up, but he seems to hit like a bitch. He might even take more damage than everybody else because I saw that Sector punched out his blood with like 5 hits.

Last night i was refreshing to see some Pro level UMK matches. No gimmicks just classic Mortal Kombat. It's amazing after all these years people still embrace the classic Mortal Kombats. I'f you're interested in seeing what I'm talking about go to Shoryuken inside the media section and you will see. It was On The Road to Evo tour. Maybe one day we will see a serious next Gen MK taking seriously at a world renowed tourny such as Evo.

How do you guys think you should be able to build meter?

Special moves? Dealing damage? Taking damage?

Maybe it would depend on how Boon and co. view the Super bar? The revenge meter in SF4 promotes the possibility of comebacks. So is that the same with the X-Ray move? Is it a reward for playing well?

the meter should build from everything you do (besides just standing still and punching/kicking.) It should build slowly too.

IMO it should be a reward for playing well, you shouldn't be able to get more than five bars a round (so you can't do more than one xray move a round, and that's if you conserve your super meter), and maybe reset every round. Unfortunatly it looks like It takes after mkdc's meter, which means you get rewarded by getting hit and gain very little for attacking.

Since this game has gotten me interested in mk again, I went ahead and bought mkdc. While it is the best 3d mk game, there are still MANY things the new game needs to improve on. I'm going to leave out the obvious like the guessing games that are klose kombat and falling kombat, and the annoying rage.

One of my concerns is movement. Yes they added dash and got rid of running, but the walking movent still looks stiff. The characters still look like they take a full step when you just tap the directional button. The characters need to stop walking the moment I take my finger off the button. The jumping also looks like it needs some more work. The jumping attacks still look jerky and I really hope characters don't freeze in mid-air when they punch .

My other big concern is combo's. They did improve them by shortening them and letting you mix special moves in with them in mkdc, but they still feel clunky and, I don't know, slow and unnatural. For one thing I hate how you can just press the buttons as fast as you can and the combo will come out. Even the button combo's should require specific timing so it takes some skill to use. Second, I wish you could delay the button inputs in combo's like tekken and vf. Finally, attacks themselves feel slow in recovery. I don't know if it is the animation or something else, but the new mk looks like it has that same feeling. I wish they would look at tekken and vf on how to do smooth feeling attacks and combo strings.

It looks like they are making improvements, but it also looks like a good chunk of the engine comes from mkdc. Hopefully we'll see big changes in the next 9 months.

Take out the meter completely. Bring back the HP,LP, HK, LK, BLK, RUN buttons. On second thought the only thing you should be able to earn is a breaker and thats pushing it. Bring the serious back to it's glory days and I gaurantee it will be recieved well. Some games can't deal with change like others can, MK is just one of those series that just doesn't seem to be able to evolve like others. I'm not saying make the game like MK2, or 3, but simply bring back the elements in which make it a profound series.
When will the team learn that it's founding priciples were being the first to use "real people" as characters, with an actual believable button scheme. Don't follow the Jones and stick to what works rather than watered down gimmicks that will eventually make the game an fad.

I think, if done right, that the meter isn't a bad idea. In fact, it could add to an already deep engine (again, if done right) and it definitely has an MK flair to it. But it won't do anything to help a crappy fighting engine, and I really hope they aren't expecting this to add a lot of depth. What they need to do is strip the game of this meter then look at the fighting and say "Are there a lot of options for the player? Is it balanced both offensively and defensively? Is the fighting fluid enough so that the player isn't fighting the controls, yet not enough that it becomes a button masher? Do the characters play differently from each other? Are infinite's and game breaking glitches non-existent?" if yes to all these then add a working meter to the game. Look at Third Strike, even if there were no super arts in the game, it would still be a deep and enjoyable game.

Also, I don't think combo breakers are a bad idea if done moderately (they are too frequent in MKDC), but I wish they would make it look a little more organic. This may not effect gameplay, but it would help the feel of the fight if characters didn't freeze for a split second when a breaker is activated. If they added more animations to players breaking a combo (like swatting an arm or a leg away then doing a character specific animation like sektor launching a rocket) it would look a lot smoother.

Good Points I agree.

Assuming my ass off.

I'm not that worried about Combo in-out X-Rays. The damage seems to be scaled.
Even though they look like a one button input, actually pulling it off is the challenge. If you're sir-jumps-a lot, you can easily avoid it.

Each X-Ray seems to have a certain advantage. They're either weak and let you combo with it or they're just powerful. Like, the weak ones, no matter what you do, you probably won't make to the damage as a character that has a powerful X-Ray.

Scorpion:
39%
Combo with it afterwards looks unlikely. Combo into it? Looks slim.

Sub-Zero:
His seems funky. It seems that you must be far distance to perform it, just like other people have to be close range. Make sense.
Sadly, his has a tell, easily avoidable by just flipping away.
For some odd reason, it didn't show how much damage it does but no doubt that it's 40+%.

Reptile: (lmao at the eye poke)
As you can see, it's avoidable by flipping away.
In the end, 41%.
Doing a combo afterwards is not possible.
Could it possibly be combo in?

Maybe, if the running animation is actually a "grab timer" then a punch or two into the X-Ray might work.
If not, then for some odd reason, I think you can jump attack into it. I don't know why, I'm just getting a feeling that it would strangely work.

If all that fails and then my Weak/Powerful X-Ray theory is correct, then Reptile would just do 41% damage.


Sektor:
40%
I'm damn near positive that this can be combo in as the player almost did it.
Just regular performing it, the X-Ray can be avoidable if the person blocks?
So you're practically forced to combo into it, as if you won't anyway.


Kung Lao:
It seems that Lao temporarily stuns the opponent for a free extra hits (neat).
Which in the video, the player was able to manage a total of 35%. Even if the player knew a good combo, I doubt it would make it near 45%. The scale will kick in. The con of it, besides the short stun time, Lao must perform the X-Ray close range. Because of that, since it's weak, possibly can be combo into if my "One or two hit attack then X-Ray" theory works.

Nightwolf:
35%
I have a strong feeling you can combo into this but definitely not out.

Cage: Works like a counter. And because of that, he gets to combo out of it.
I don't see the problem with that at all.
After Cage performing the X-Ray and then a two hit combo, he was able to manage a 44% damage. Wow.

Mileena: Just 33%
Unless they make Mileena stand there like a tard, then she will probably be able to at least perform her teleport kick or roll attack afterwards.
Combo into it, looks slightly possible, but it would have to be a punch or two and then the X-Ray input.


As much as I hate the idea of a Gauge, and the thought of a X-Ray being a "noobs advantage" But I'm not worried about that at all.
Through out the whole time, everyone's bars will be wasted on performing long string of combos.

In a situation of just standing there and getting beat up, that person will have closely to 25% left by the time they get their X-Ray. An X-Ray so far performs less than 45% tops. After that, skill or luck will determine the winner of that round.

There's really nothing to be afraid of.

---------

Me personally, I hate the idea that if you wanna pull off major "wtf" combos, you have to waste some bars in the gauge. I hate it because for a game that supposed to have custom combos, it's actually restricting your freedom of doing so.
But I understand why they did this, so it can be balanced as possible and possibly reducing the chance of Infinites ever making it into this game at all since they're soooo focused on online play (which I don't care for but it sucks that I have to play online to get achievements for this game, booo).

But I've seen Kung Lao pulling off a good combo string and only used one bar, so it looks like not all hope is lost.

*acknowledge of this video*

Hmmm....now I'm not sure if I can say that combos + X-Ray are scaled. I'm still not worried about it. But the combo Sektor performed was definitely not scaled back.
Doing the X-Ray alone does 40%. In the video you posted, it was 49%. Jeezus.

I wish in that video it showed how much percent damage Cage did after performing the X-Ray, since he didn't combo-ed after it.

Weapon:

I agree, if the guy playing himself that if you're good enough to combo the X-Ray moves you can take about 60% in one combo. Once again, another reason for people to not play MK9.

well, something interesting about MK is that in UMK3 a bunch of characters had a 50% BnB combo. So if you were hit by a jump punch starter, half your health would be gone easily. Seeing Sektor take 50% after combo-ing into an X-Ray didn't seem like a lot to me because I'm so used to the ridiculous damage of UMK3

And this is why the Breaker system needs to be more prominant. Also in MK4 the created Maximun Damage to rectify this issue. It it was understandable back then but now it would be rediculous to take steps back with the game.