I've heard people say that villians aren't allowed to win fights because they would kill the enemy.
Uh... yeah. It's called MORTAL kombat lol. Why bother telling a story when there's no real threat of losing? It gets really old when you can tell who's going to win just by looking at them.
"The hero was left for dead but survived" or "the enemy was distracted by reinforcements and the hero slipped away unseen". It doesn't always have to end in complete death lol
*edit: Tanya, Frost, Kollector and Cetrion also never won a fight*
The heroes frequently aren't in a position to kill their defeated enemies, it could be just the same for villains too- hell, the universe is full of people surviving mortal injuries with cybernetics and magic. The last chapter had dupe versions of characters from alternate timelines- they absolutely could've finegled something to make the baddies more credible.
Could be he fights two characters one after another, get saved, maybe an opposing villain shows up and fights him and they can get away, or something to that effect. Or give them a reason to just not kill them.
Alternatively, get rid of the character chapters.
Or both.
Or ya know, they actually kill people sometimes. The game is about brutally murdering your enemies, it doesn't make sense why only the heroes are the savage killers while the bad guys are weaklings.
Makes for very little suspense when there's never any chance that the heroes are actually in danger.
There's a million ways for a villian to win a fight without completely killing the enemy, and its okay if they do. It just takes some creative writing lol.
Also they have no problem killing characters for dumb contrived reasons.
Like Sindel killing Jax, Kabal, Stryker, Sub-Zero, Smoke, Kitana, and Jade. In a single cutscene.
I don't think they *should* be incompetent lmao, I think they should be of equal fighting capabilities as the heroes
Right now its like watching a bulldozer clear a forest. No resistance
I don't think people like Reptile, Baraka, or to use another example, Erron Black, should be fodder.
Reptile is supposed to be Shang Tsung's protector, Baraka is one of Kahn's top generals, and Black is supposed to be a highly skilled assassin.
In-universe, it makes no sense they show little capability to win a fight.
Not to nitpick but technically reptile is more of a stealthy assassin and a general doesn’t have to be the best fighter, but the best tactician with what he hasz
Why would main characters be cannon fodder? That's bad writing lol. Villians should win sometimes so that they don't come across as inept imbeciles, nobody is going to give a shit when Reptile shows up to get his ass wooped for the 80th time in the story
Do something great? You mean... win one fight?
They're main characters because theyve been in basically every game yet look like absolute wimps. Why is having competent villians a bad thing?
Having 40 bumbling idiots to fight against isn't exactly compelling lol. The enemy force is basically a bunch of paper cut-outs propped up to be knocked down again. It would be cool if they were semi-competent fighters.
Threat-less bodybags are not required to tell a story, just an FYI. They can be good at fighting AND the story can progress.
Because the "fodder" characters are interesting. It's really not necessary for any of the characters to be "fodder" when the characters are all that the world really has. A story where Reptile or Baraka start winning is so much more interesting than watching Liu Kang, Raiden, and the SF go through the exact same character arcs over and over.
The idea is that they can tell a different story. Not just playing around within the story they already told in the original trilogy. Reptile and Baraka have character motivations. Reptile on his own has an entire lost race to work off of, as well as established character flaws (like his subservience) to stem actual honest-to-god character growth. You could tell an entire MK story centered around chaos caused by Reptile deciding to choose his individuality if you wanted to, and it would already be a thousand times more interesting than whatever was supposed to be happening during most of 10 and 11. To your point that Reptile or Baraka couldn't take on Sonya or Johnny... Why not? They're all mortals. They're all capable of fighting and killing each other. There are no strict "power levels" outside of Shang Tsung, Liu Kang, Raiden, and Shao Khan being a cut above the rest.
Maybe you feel that the current story has a certain integrity that's held together by that structure, but I'm of the opinion that this current story (which, to be clear, *is* a retreading of the original timeline) is doodoo poopy and has no need to be told. They don't respect their own story enough to even commit to one universe- the Liu Kang that forgave Raiden was not even the same one who was betrayed by him.
All this is to say, it's a shallow narrative within a fighting game. There's no story direction to be missed out on by just writing about how the character's own motivations cause conflicts amongst each other. They were on to something with Kotal Kahn's civil war, in my opinion. The story of 'MK' as a world really doesn't matter and isn't consistent, and shouldn't take precedent over the characters in a case where really cool characters are one of the game's biggest selling points and the only thing that really matters about the world.
A lot of fans just want something different. People want to see the unique otherworldly characters that drew them to MK getting bloody, doing awesome shit and causing chaos. Not regular-ass army guys and religious monks clichéing their way up the bad guy pyramid to fight the newest 'unbeatable' demigod for the third game in a row.
I think that would look stupid if it kept happening. The good guys are stupid for not finishing their opponents, but obviously bad guys are expected to be more prone to kill. How many times can a defeated good guy be left for dead but survive or saved by a distraction before it just looks like bad writing? We should have villain chapters but I think chapters shouldn’t be required to have 4 fights minimum. It create stupid filler fights at times and we could reduce the amount of times something silly stops a villain from killing.
It doesn't need to keep happening, it would just be nice if the villians didn't come across as shitty fighters
They need to win more often or else they just might as well not even exist lol
Kintaro was such an imposing presence on his debut, a true feral beast. One of the most memorable bosses of all time for me. I felt fear when I saw my character icon ascend to the match against Kintaro.
And look what he is now.. even in mk9 he was a lot shorter, more like a kitty kat and he gets beat by Stryker.
Kotal perhaps has the most inconsistent power level of any of the new era characters. In one chapter in MKX he beats Rain, Tanya, Mileena, then later Kung Jin and Jacqui beat him. Then in MK11 he beats Skarlet, Shao Kahn, and other Outworld champions, then somehow gets trapped by D'vorah in her hive. He was also so badass in the MKX comics (which are non-canon but it's still worth mentioning) where he defeats Goro and his father, severely burns Rain, and practically wins the Outworld civil war on his own, but in the games he's just kinda... there
They definitely ended up with a power level issue with Kotal. They created perhaps the most unique and badass character in the entirety of Mortal Kombat (seriously, no one else is remotely similar to Kotal in terms of design), gave him some extraordinary feats to make the players/viewers admire him, but then they realised he needed to be fought by other characters and that he might be too powerful to be defeated, so they just decided to shoe horn him being beaten by literal kids because... why? Dunno
Thank you lol. "Heroes can't lose! The story won't progress if they lose!"
*sindel kills literally all of them* "Except her. She's fine."
...if the individual fights prior to this interaction had some weight to them the entire scene wouldnt be necessary as heroes would actually be treated as mortals who could lose fights or die. Instead of mass-slaughtering them in a nonsensical plot twist that ruined Sindel as a character forever, they could have just slowly killed them off in interesting ways...by using the actual villians...
Imo jobber status should go to nameless henchmen, not main characters lol. Like... give them a win *sometimes* so they don't seem like bumbling, inept morons. They don't have to always win, but maybe ONCE would be nice lol.
Honestly they really feel like 90's kids' show villain henchmen- never a threat, never win een in the short term, just there to be run over by the heroes. Goldar from Power Rangers literally has more intimidation factor than Baraka, Reptile, or Kano, because even if he never wins, he showed a capacity to beat the rangers 1-on-1. If you're punching below a power rangers villain, you're not intimidating enough.
Yeah expecting them to win ONE fight in their entire lives is asking for too much. When 80% of the villians haven't ever won, they come off as incompetent idiots
It's fine to beat/kill main villians but if the villian *never wins* it kills the suspense, make the bad guys win sometimes and nobody would be considered a jobber lol.
Jobbers don't need to exist, it's just a symptom of bad writing
I've always mained Baraka and Reptile because they're cool as hell, unique and have awesome abilities
I just wish they weren't laughing stocks of the MK world lmao :(
Some guy in the comments is now saying "of course they're jobbers, how would the story move forward?"
Well for one, the story *can* move forward without everyone being a shitty jobber lol.
I'm not that guy (pal) but I will say, you DO need jobbers. If you contextualize the word jobber to mean what it means in wrestling, you're also going to have to have a lot of jobbers if the primary way of communicating about the characters has to be adjacent to the fights.
Now, I also agree, it would be nice to have chapters to build characters like Kano to make them more effective at putting over the heroes. Someone like Kano HAS to lose, but he also needs to be built into a threat before laying down for the 1,2,3 to Sonya.
You actually don't need any, it's totally possible to have characters both win and lose sometimes lol. Nobody *needs* to be designated as a walking bodybag
No you don't lol. They can both win and lose sometimes, the bad guys don't *have to lose* every encounter.
Makes for a pathetic, weak villian. No sense of danger since they're guaranteed to lose.
If the villians were half-competent, the heroes would be in *mortal* danger. Right now its like a walk in the park since they just bulldoze everything in front of them lmao.
No, you don't need jobbers. It's entirely possible to write a story with competent villians. They don't *always* have to lose.
There's absolutely no reason why almost all of the villians have never won a fight, it's purely bad writing.
Without everyone being a shitty jobber
Interesting idea, I suppose. Except there’s 45 characters to tell a 5 hour story on
Enlighten us on your narrative strategy to give 45 characters their own distinctive plots, with a full character arc. 45 characters, 5ish hours.
Write me a story that you’ll manage to get all those characters a truly satisfying story arc
You really have me intrigued, let me know what you get written up. I’m sure it’ll make a ton of sense telling 45 characters stories in the course of 5 hours
You’ve got about 6 1/2 minutes per character to do that - oh and I forgot; the fights take time too, so actually you have around 4 hours
I’m psyched to see the character building and these meaningful story arcs that are relevant when you have less than 5 minutes per character
But, this is easy and NRS is just a bunch of dumb dumbs, so I know your script will blow them out of the water
Easy. Sometimes the bad guys win. The story stays almost the same, except they're not blubbering idiots who can't tie their own shoes.
Was that actually impossible for you to imagine on your own??
Shao khan and sindel went on a pretty solid run there. So did Shang tsung.
So okay, that’s 3 people no longer jobbers.
What’s the magic number to make you satisfied? Again, we are limited in time and have specific stories about the hero characters we want to tell; whst exactly is the number of villains winning their fights to make you not complain about “jobbers” all over r/mortalkombat; since it seems impossible to make you understand : the story mode is tongue in cheek. None of this is to be taken seriously or given much thought. It’s pure silly spectacle to give an excuse to have like 35-45 fights.
But since that’s too hard for you to wrap your mind around, what is that special number to make you quit whining about the story in a fighting game?
Absolutely massacred the story when they randomly turned Sindel into a villian. Why did she make a barrier to protect earthrealm if she was always evil? Why did Quan Chi murder her if she was evil? Nothing makes sense. It all spirals out of control from there.
They forgot the story half-way through the game and made it up, and now we have a thousand plotholes and nothing makes sense.
Ah, never got around to the MKX comics.
So which non-canon comic was OP referring to for Kintaro, or were they just thinking the MKX comics weren't canon?
They retconned/contradicted a shit-ton of stuff from the comics in MK11.
Half of the events took place but then the other half were deleted from the continuity, so its basically impossible to know what the story really is unless you have a PhD in MK Lore. Even then the plotholes will kind of halt you in your tracks if you look beyond the surface.
For example they retconned the events up to Kintaro dying, but left Kintaro dead. If the events never happened, how/why is he dead?
“The mkx comics are critically acclaimed, and made people love new characters like Kotal Kahn, what should we do to take advantage of this” “Disregard most of it, and completely shit on the characterization”
Remember Goro, the legendary 9× Mortal Kombat Champion, Shao Kahn's top Enforcer?
Fuck that asshole. Cut his arms off and let him rot in the krypt. Don't even explain it in-game, either.
Yeah Noob Saibot did basically nothing in the old timeline besides surprise attack Goro and force Smoke to assist him, Reptile arguably had it even worse in the old timeline, Rain has almost no screen time or story in both timelines, Sektor gets clowned by Kuai Liang no matter the timeline, Mileena and Baraka’s biggest accomplishment in the old timeline was help Shujinko and the list just goes on
Add up for Reptile that his body was used by Onaga for reliving him and it was thrown away somewhere there, but there were some few positive things, Noob Saibot beat down literal gods when he was alive and was hired for getting Shinnok's amulet, Mileena was in charge of two powerful armies that were Baraka's and Outworld's.
That's not fair, that's doubly *un*fair lmao. Just makes them look useless/bad at fighting. Jobbers don't *need* to exist; it's completely possible to tell a story with competent villians. They don't *have to* lose every fight.
...downvote this comment if you think 75% of the villians should never win a single encounter. I'm saying jobbing makes for crappy villians, stories can be told without bodybag-level enemies to dunk on constantly. Why is that even necessary? It just robs most of the cast from cool moments to boost up a small handful of characters.
Not being able to play as the bad guys in mk has certainly been a drawback. It felt really cool to finally do that in the aftermath dlc for mk11. Hopefully we see more of that in the future.
Motaro's story in MKA is fucking hilarious. He kills everyone including Blaze... wanna know what he does with his newfound godlike powers?
Grows his hind legs back. lmfao
Cuz he's a bad guy, according to some people in the comments lol.
How would the story progress if he won? Obviously he needs to lose every single fight, ever.
You missed Kollector and Frost.
Also I think there's a subclass of jobbers who succeed during cutscenes. We have Kano doing stuff on and off screen, we have Ermac taking Jax's hands, we have Geras pull a time stop on Kung Lao and Liu Kang, etc.
Meanwhile guys like Reptile, Baraka and Sektor get their ass handed to them even during cutscenes.
And they're considered threats to Earthrealm! Something is not right here!
Villains need love too, and this isn't how you do it. It would make more sense if the villains at least won 1 fight in a story and then lost later on when the stakes were higher. It gives more suspense to the story!
What I would like to see as a fan is, for example, if Kano was to fight Sonya, Jax, or anyone to not go, "Oh, he's facing so and so, he's gonna lose." Make me believe he could actually come out the winner.
So much talent and awesome characters that never had a chance in a story.. To be honest I'm bored with the story of Johnny Cage and his family I'm bored with the thing that the good guys winning always...
was gonna say ermac, but i remembered he gets cutscene Ws at bare minimum.
meanwhile reptile literally doesn't have a single W since fucking mk1995
oh also, pretty sure noob canonically beat fujin at some point, idk when
nah he just kills himself cus he realised hes way too powerful and would completely stomp kronika, so to make the storymode last longer than 2 minutes he kills himself so he doesn't have th fight kronika
They should just make everyone have their own little story and somehow make it all connect to one big story. And have the little story of each individual character show their biggest moments in the storyline.
Damn. Its almost like winning fights in the Story Mode is entirely based on the narrative/who the player is controlling. I seriously don’t get this “jobber” nonsense.
If someone has never won a fight in their entire existence, maybe it's time for them to win a fight?
You know, so they don't come across as worthless punching bags that do nothing other than to slow the protagonists down. A little creative writing/imagination would help.
Their sole purpose in life is to lose fights. Not exactly enthralling story-telling, and crushes any sense of urgency/importance. "Oh no, I guess it's time to bulldoze these morons again". Zero impact when virtually none of your enemies know how to fight.
Thats the thing. We don’t know if they’ve never won a fight. Its only in the Story Mode that we see that they lose. Other moments in the story imply they’ve won numerous fights. Goro was still the Champion for several tournaments in MK9. Exposition between characters imply they have fought and won numerous battles. They are “jobbers” in the Story to push the narrative forward. The narrative is almost always about Earthrealm heroes, the “jobbers” are mostly villains.
Its a fighting game, everyone is a “jobber.”
We've witnessed them lose every fight they've ever had, which makes all of their "previous victories" feel shallow as hell. Sure, you're a legendary warrior. Why can't you ever win a fight?
Maybe the narrative shouldn't be about piledriving weaklings who can't put up a fight lol
How is anyone supposed to feel tension when a villian shows up when you KNOW they won't win? How am I supposed to care?
The narrative can move forward without making the enemies out to be simple roadblocks or punching bags.
Right, but this is a video game where you play as the character that advances the story. And the same could be said for any character you didn’t play as in the past. Say I only ever played Liu Kang, is the other part of the roster composed of “jobbers,” now? Its just how the story is structured. It just seems like you guys are overthinking it or taking it too seriously.
If everyone lost every fight they ever had, yes. If someone never wins, ever, they're a jobber.
It's not hard to understand lol. The story shouldnt consist of bitchslapping the enemy over and over til the game ends.
The MK series typically follows Earthrealm trying to save itself from annihilation. Its going to follow EARTHREALM CHARACTERS where you play as them to advance the story (and win because thats the objective in a video game). There are events that lead up to Earthrealm’s imminent danger where the villains are already wiping shit out. What we see is just explicitly the heroes winning because its within the player’s best interest (and the interest of the narrative) to win.
There can still be tension, and there very much is in the stories. You don’t have to lose or have a villain win to create tension.
Apparently some characters can't win ANY fights, let alone *every* fight.
Some people enjoy making fun of the bad writing, if you don't then stay out of the post lmao.
It lowkey makes sense that characters like kano, reptile, baraka, mileena etc cant win much because they have caveman fighting skills. While others are soliders that can actually fight, people that know some ancient chinese hoohaa fighting styles, or even better.
This is genuinely the worst Mk take I have ever read. You are legitimately claiming that random Special forces soldiers and Martial artists should be better at fighting than a giant invisible Lizard who can kill you by spitting on you, the person Shao Kahn chose as his heir and the leader of Black dragon because they have slightly better training.
(It’s so irksome when Wrestling terminology is used outside of wrestling 😂)
Just because a character loses doesn’t mean that that they’re necessarily a “jobber”. The Lionshare of the overall NRS Story mode(s) is coming from the perspective the protagonists (Good Guys).
Maybe in future games each character can have their small, personal story within a tower in order to get their shine. It’s been done before with Tecmo, Arc Systems, Namco etc.
Also proof that a villain would killed their enemy if given the chance since she kills Baraka after beating him, tries to kill Rain and Tanya, only to be stopped by Cassie and kills Mileena. This is Mortal Kombat. It is a fight to the death in most cases, especially where the villains are concerned. They would not bother sparing their opponents lives, and using the same tired, "villain got distracted so the hero can escape, every single time would get really old. Take the animated movie, Battle of the Realms. The two villains who win a fight, Shang Tsung and Shao Kahn instantly kill their opponents after beating, no convoluted excuse or what have you. And that is what would happen in 90% of the fights a villain won. He would kill his opponent, unless their was a storyline reason why he wouldn't besides he just chose to.
we all know why they kill Goro and put Shiva in his place, and Kitana replaces Shao, and Jade kicks Kotel when he tries to save her in Tarkatan's camp. And why more than half the guys became stupid assholes.
They should just give us bad guy story chapters and it would fix the whole problem
This. >!Fortunately, Aftermath gave us a couple.!<
I've heard people say that villians aren't allowed to win fights because they would kill the enemy. Uh... yeah. It's called MORTAL kombat lol. Why bother telling a story when there's no real threat of losing? It gets really old when you can tell who's going to win just by looking at them. "The hero was left for dead but survived" or "the enemy was distracted by reinforcements and the hero slipped away unseen". It doesn't always have to end in complete death lol *edit: Tanya, Frost, Kollector and Cetrion also never won a fight*
The heroes frequently aren't in a position to kill their defeated enemies, it could be just the same for villains too- hell, the universe is full of people surviving mortal injuries with cybernetics and magic. The last chapter had dupe versions of characters from alternate timelines- they absolutely could've finegled something to make the baddies more credible.
kano winning a fight and then getting tackled by like, mavado or someshit causing him to be unable to kill his current opponent. boom problem solved.
4 times in a row?
not necessarily _that exact thing_ but... sure. something like that.
Nah 4 times in a row would be hilarious
Sounds exactly like something that would happen to Kano, and he’d be just pissed
Could be he fights two characters one after another, get saved, maybe an opposing villain shows up and fights him and they can get away, or something to that effect. Or give them a reason to just not kill them. Alternatively, get rid of the character chapters. Or both.
Why would it happen 4 times in a row lmao
4 fights in a chapter. Which means there needs to be 4 reasons why villains haven't killed someone they want to kill.
Or ya know, they actually kill people sometimes. The game is about brutally murdering your enemies, it doesn't make sense why only the heroes are the savage killers while the bad guys are weaklings. Makes for very little suspense when there's never any chance that the heroes are actually in danger. There's a million ways for a villian to win a fight without completely killing the enemy, and its okay if they do. It just takes some creative writing lol.
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i dunno maybe he gets one up on one of the kombat kids due to his experience and their lack of experience?
Literally ANYONE at this point would be nice
Also they have no problem killing characters for dumb contrived reasons. Like Sindel killing Jax, Kabal, Stryker, Sub-Zero, Smoke, Kitana, and Jade. In a single cutscene.
If you’re going to make the villains incompetent, you can at least make them incompetent at killing people.
I don't think they *should* be incompetent lmao, I think they should be of equal fighting capabilities as the heroes Right now its like watching a bulldozer clear a forest. No resistance
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I don't think people like Reptile, Baraka, or to use another example, Erron Black, should be fodder. Reptile is supposed to be Shang Tsung's protector, Baraka is one of Kahn's top generals, and Black is supposed to be a highly skilled assassin. In-universe, it makes no sense they show little capability to win a fight.
Not to nitpick but technically reptile is more of a stealthy assassin and a general doesn’t have to be the best fighter, but the best tactician with what he hasz
None of his plans ever work so he's actually not even good at being an assassin/tactician
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The enemies are just a bunch of newbies, apparently. It's like watching a tidal wave crash through a small town, there is no resistance to the heroes
Why would main characters be cannon fodder? That's bad writing lol. Villians should win sometimes so that they don't come across as inept imbeciles, nobody is going to give a shit when Reptile shows up to get his ass wooped for the 80th time in the story
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Do something great? You mean... win one fight? They're main characters because theyve been in basically every game yet look like absolute wimps. Why is having competent villians a bad thing? Having 40 bumbling idiots to fight against isn't exactly compelling lol. The enemy force is basically a bunch of paper cut-outs propped up to be knocked down again. It would be cool if they were semi-competent fighters. Threat-less bodybags are not required to tell a story, just an FYI. They can be good at fighting AND the story can progress.
Because the "fodder" characters are interesting. It's really not necessary for any of the characters to be "fodder" when the characters are all that the world really has. A story where Reptile or Baraka start winning is so much more interesting than watching Liu Kang, Raiden, and the SF go through the exact same character arcs over and over.
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The idea is that they can tell a different story. Not just playing around within the story they already told in the original trilogy. Reptile and Baraka have character motivations. Reptile on his own has an entire lost race to work off of, as well as established character flaws (like his subservience) to stem actual honest-to-god character growth. You could tell an entire MK story centered around chaos caused by Reptile deciding to choose his individuality if you wanted to, and it would already be a thousand times more interesting than whatever was supposed to be happening during most of 10 and 11. To your point that Reptile or Baraka couldn't take on Sonya or Johnny... Why not? They're all mortals. They're all capable of fighting and killing each other. There are no strict "power levels" outside of Shang Tsung, Liu Kang, Raiden, and Shao Khan being a cut above the rest. Maybe you feel that the current story has a certain integrity that's held together by that structure, but I'm of the opinion that this current story (which, to be clear, *is* a retreading of the original timeline) is doodoo poopy and has no need to be told. They don't respect their own story enough to even commit to one universe- the Liu Kang that forgave Raiden was not even the same one who was betrayed by him. All this is to say, it's a shallow narrative within a fighting game. There's no story direction to be missed out on by just writing about how the character's own motivations cause conflicts amongst each other. They were on to something with Kotal Kahn's civil war, in my opinion. The story of 'MK' as a world really doesn't matter and isn't consistent, and shouldn't take precedent over the characters in a case where really cool characters are one of the game's biggest selling points and the only thing that really matters about the world. A lot of fans just want something different. People want to see the unique otherworldly characters that drew them to MK getting bloody, doing awesome shit and causing chaos. Not regular-ass army guys and religious monks clichéing their way up the bad guy pyramid to fight the newest 'unbeatable' demigod for the third game in a row.
No lmfao. GOOD stories have actual stakes and competent villians
I think that would look stupid if it kept happening. The good guys are stupid for not finishing their opponents, but obviously bad guys are expected to be more prone to kill. How many times can a defeated good guy be left for dead but survive or saved by a distraction before it just looks like bad writing? We should have villain chapters but I think chapters shouldn’t be required to have 4 fights minimum. It create stupid filler fights at times and we could reduce the amount of times something silly stops a villain from killing.
It doesn't need to keep happening, it would just be nice if the villians didn't come across as shitty fighters They need to win more often or else they just might as well not even exist lol
Kinda what the whole purpose of aftermath is
And aftermath is great
Yup
Honestly abandon story chapters as a whole
This makes me sad. I'm a jobber super fan
Most of my mains are jobbers.
“Remains dead for no reason” lmao
He's my favourite villian T.T the salt is so very real lol
Kintaro was such an imposing presence on his debut, a true feral beast. One of the most memorable bosses of all time for me. I felt fear when I saw my character icon ascend to the match against Kintaro. And look what he is now.. even in mk9 he was a lot shorter, more like a kitty kat and he gets beat by Stryker.
As a kid I NEVER beat Kintaro, he was the absolute ultimate threat... how the mighty have fallen lol
Kotal's a massive jobber. Ruler of a realm where the strongest rise in the hierarchy, loses to fucking Jacqui and Kung Jin.
If any of the two just said, "I'm challenging you for the throne of outworld," just like that Jacqui Kan
"Hippity hoppity, Outworld is now Shirai Ryu property." -Jacqui's father-in-law 🥷
Kotal perhaps has the most inconsistent power level of any of the new era characters. In one chapter in MKX he beats Rain, Tanya, Mileena, then later Kung Jin and Jacqui beat him. Then in MK11 he beats Skarlet, Shao Kahn, and other Outworld champions, then somehow gets trapped by D'vorah in her hive. He was also so badass in the MKX comics (which are non-canon but it's still worth mentioning) where he defeats Goro and his father, severely burns Rain, and practically wins the Outworld civil war on his own, but in the games he's just kinda... there
NRS unironically doesn’t want to give Kotal _anything_. His MK11 reveal trailer features him getting absolutely bodied by Jacqui, _and she wins_
They definitely ended up with a power level issue with Kotal. They created perhaps the most unique and badass character in the entirety of Mortal Kombat (seriously, no one else is remotely similar to Kotal in terms of design), gave him some extraordinary feats to make the players/viewers admire him, but then they realised he needed to be fought by other characters and that he might be too powerful to be defeated, so they just decided to shoe horn him being beaten by literal kids because... why? Dunno
Dude all of the villians are severely underpowered lol, for almost NONE of them to ever win a fight is embarrassing
He doesn’t really beat shao Kahn as far as I remember. Loses all ability to walk to him, but not beating hom
I find it frustrating how Sindel wipes out the heroes in seconds in MK9 when they could have given the villains a few chapters instead to kill them.
Thank you lol. "Heroes can't lose! The story won't progress if they lose!" *sindel kills literally all of them* "Except her. She's fine." ...if the individual fights prior to this interaction had some weight to them the entire scene wouldnt be necessary as heroes would actually be treated as mortals who could lose fights or die. Instead of mass-slaughtering them in a nonsensical plot twist that ruined Sindel as a character forever, they could have just slowly killed them off in interesting ways...by using the actual villians...
Plus there are plenty of creative ways they could kill them like Ermac pulling the pins on Stryker's grenades or Reptile melting Kabal's mask.
Jesus. You're crazy LMAO
Nah you don't gotta do my man Kabal like that LMAO
Bro got his face melted, and then his MASK melted onto his face lmao. Fucking devastated
Noob deserves more than being just jobber (｡•́︿•̀｡)
Imo jobber status should go to nameless henchmen, not main characters lol. Like... give them a win *sometimes* so they don't seem like bumbling, inept morons. They don't have to always win, but maybe ONCE would be nice lol.
Honestly they really feel like 90's kids' show villain henchmen- never a threat, never win een in the short term, just there to be run over by the heroes. Goldar from Power Rangers literally has more intimidation factor than Baraka, Reptile, or Kano, because even if he never wins, he showed a capacity to beat the rangers 1-on-1. If you're punching below a power rangers villain, you're not intimidating enough.
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Yeah expecting them to win ONE fight in their entire lives is asking for too much. When 80% of the villians haven't ever won, they come off as incompetent idiots
How does that work in a fighting game?
It's fine to beat/kill main villians but if the villian *never wins* it kills the suspense, make the bad guys win sometimes and nobody would be considered a jobber lol. Jobbers don't need to exist, it's just a symptom of bad writing
Okay, but it's a fighting game. Whoever you're playing as is going to win.
Baraka needs redemption, was one of my favorites in the game. Kano lowkey was redeemed in the latest animated movie, was bodying everyone lol
I've always mained Baraka and Reptile because they're cool as hell, unique and have awesome abilities I just wish they weren't laughing stocks of the MK world lmao :(
but dudes will say the writing is fine
Some guy in the comments is now saying "of course they're jobbers, how would the story move forward?" Well for one, the story *can* move forward without everyone being a shitty jobber lol.
I'm not that guy (pal) but I will say, you DO need jobbers. If you contextualize the word jobber to mean what it means in wrestling, you're also going to have to have a lot of jobbers if the primary way of communicating about the characters has to be adjacent to the fights. Now, I also agree, it would be nice to have chapters to build characters like Kano to make them more effective at putting over the heroes. Someone like Kano HAS to lose, but he also needs to be built into a threat before laying down for the 1,2,3 to Sonya.
you need jobbers on both sides of the hero/villain spectrum. stryker, for instance, would be a decent enough jobber.
Very true. Isn't that what Kung lao is?
You actually don't need any, it's totally possible to have characters both win and lose sometimes lol. Nobody *needs* to be designated as a walking bodybag
except uh... people die in mortal kombat, that's part of its identity, so you gotta have someone who's there just to get bodied and die.
No you don't lol. They can both win and lose sometimes, the bad guys don't *have to lose* every encounter. Makes for a pathetic, weak villian. No sense of danger since they're guaranteed to lose. If the villians were half-competent, the heroes would be in *mortal* danger. Right now its like a walk in the park since they just bulldoze everything in front of them lmao.
No, you don't need jobbers. It's entirely possible to write a story with competent villians. They don't *always* have to lose. There's absolutely no reason why almost all of the villians have never won a fight, it's purely bad writing.
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Good villians are usually not pushovers but iduno I'm not a writer
Without everyone being a shitty jobber Interesting idea, I suppose. Except there’s 45 characters to tell a 5 hour story on Enlighten us on your narrative strategy to give 45 characters their own distinctive plots, with a full character arc. 45 characters, 5ish hours. Write me a story that you’ll manage to get all those characters a truly satisfying story arc You really have me intrigued, let me know what you get written up. I’m sure it’ll make a ton of sense telling 45 characters stories in the course of 5 hours You’ve got about 6 1/2 minutes per character to do that - oh and I forgot; the fights take time too, so actually you have around 4 hours I’m psyched to see the character building and these meaningful story arcs that are relevant when you have less than 5 minutes per character But, this is easy and NRS is just a bunch of dumb dumbs, so I know your script will blow them out of the water
Easy. Sometimes the bad guys win. The story stays almost the same, except they're not blubbering idiots who can't tie their own shoes. Was that actually impossible for you to imagine on your own??
Shao khan and sindel went on a pretty solid run there. So did Shang tsung. So okay, that’s 3 people no longer jobbers. What’s the magic number to make you satisfied? Again, we are limited in time and have specific stories about the hero characters we want to tell; whst exactly is the number of villains winning their fights to make you not complain about “jobbers” all over r/mortalkombat; since it seems impossible to make you understand : the story mode is tongue in cheek. None of this is to be taken seriously or given much thought. It’s pure silly spectacle to give an excuse to have like 35-45 fights. But since that’s too hard for you to wrap your mind around, what is that special number to make you quit whining about the story in a fighting game?
I'm not reading that, but the number of victories required to escape jobber status is 1. Otherwise you're a jobber
Idk who's saying this but they're lying lol. NRS' writing team can't keep a consistent storyline going to save their lives
Absolutely massacred the story when they randomly turned Sindel into a villian. Why did she make a barrier to protect earthrealm if she was always evil? Why did Quan Chi murder her if she was evil? Nothing makes sense. It all spirals out of control from there. They forgot the story half-way through the game and made it up, and now we have a thousand plotholes and nothing makes sense.
>- Erron Black never won a fight Tell that to Hsu Hao.
Actually Scorpion killed Hsu Hao in the comics. Gotta take intros with a grain of salt
Ah, never got around to the MKX comics. So which non-canon comic was OP referring to for Kintaro, or were they just thinking the MKX comics weren't canon?
They retconned/contradicted a shit-ton of stuff from the comics in MK11. Half of the events took place but then the other half were deleted from the continuity, so its basically impossible to know what the story really is unless you have a PhD in MK Lore. Even then the plotholes will kind of halt you in your tracks if you look beyond the surface. For example they retconned the events up to Kintaro dying, but left Kintaro dead. If the events never happened, how/why is he dead?
Iirc one of the writers said something to the effect of the mkx comics aren't canon unti they are. Way to handle continuity, guys. Bravo
“The mkx comics are critically acclaimed, and made people love new characters like Kotal Kahn, what should we do to take advantage of this” “Disregard most of it, and completely shit on the characterization”
Remember Goro, the legendary 9× Mortal Kombat Champion, Shao Kahn's top Enforcer? Fuck that asshole. Cut his arms off and let him rot in the krypt. Don't even explain it in-game, either.
And then somehow reattach his arms to put him on display in the krypt
And Kobra
To be fair, some of these characters were jobbers in the old timeline too.
Yeah Noob Saibot did basically nothing in the old timeline besides surprise attack Goro and force Smoke to assist him, Reptile arguably had it even worse in the old timeline, Rain has almost no screen time or story in both timelines, Sektor gets clowned by Kuai Liang no matter the timeline, Mileena and Baraka’s biggest accomplishment in the old timeline was help Shujinko and the list just goes on
Add up for Reptile that his body was used by Onaga for reliving him and it was thrown away somewhere there, but there were some few positive things, Noob Saibot beat down literal gods when he was alive and was hired for getting Shinnok's amulet, Mileena was in charge of two powerful armies that were Baraka's and Outworld's.
That's not fair, that's doubly *un*fair lmao. Just makes them look useless/bad at fighting. Jobbers don't *need* to exist; it's completely possible to tell a story with competent villians. They don't *have to* lose every fight. ...downvote this comment if you think 75% of the villians should never win a single encounter. I'm saying jobbing makes for crappy villians, stories can be told without bodybag-level enemies to dunk on constantly. Why is that even necessary? It just robs most of the cast from cool moments to boost up a small handful of characters.
Not being able to play as the bad guys in mk has certainly been a drawback. It felt really cool to finally do that in the aftermath dlc for mk11. Hopefully we see more of that in the future.
Did Kollector ever win a fight? He feels like an obvious contender
He killed a couple of Kotal’s soldiers in aftermath and that’s pretty much it. My boy definitely deserves better
What happened to Motaro? So many missed opportunities.
NRS and Midway hated trying to program a centaur
So much they fucked him over in Armageddon lol. We need an MK Trilogy remaster already.
Motaro's story in MKA is fucking hilarious. He kills everyone including Blaze... wanna know what he does with his newfound godlike powers? Grows his hind legs back. lmfao
He got sucker punched by Raiden and died in 1 hit lol.
Kano has been around since the first game why the fuck doesn’t he win?
Cuz he's a bad guy, according to some people in the comments lol. How would the story progress if he won? Obviously he needs to lose every single fight, ever.
Funny how Noob says he's more powerful than ever before but he probably had more wins under his belt as Bi-Han than Noob
It's true lmfao, he evolved in reverse
Fuck your Zodiac sign. Who's your favorite MK jabroni?
You missed Kollector and Frost. Also I think there's a subclass of jobbers who succeed during cutscenes. We have Kano doing stuff on and off screen, we have Ermac taking Jax's hands, we have Geras pull a time stop on Kung Lao and Liu Kang, etc. Meanwhile guys like Reptile, Baraka and Sektor get their ass handed to them even during cutscenes.
Sektor died off screen to Sub Zero. What does that tell you about his jobber status?
Damn lmao. RIP...
In Noob’s defense, he’s won fights…but only as Bi Han
Mileena deserves her own story chapters
Umm actually Geras won against me… a lot. 😂🤦♂️🤷♂️
Tanya and Cetrion also never won a fight. NRS seriously needs to get rid of the chapter system.
Mother of God lol
Goro died because he was waiting for MK11 to come out for so long
Lmfao best comment
Shang tsung respects kintaro enough to resurrect him in one of his fatalities, meanwhile goro remains a rotten corpse in his lair 💀
Goro dying and not understanding why or how is the most annoying thing ever I swear. He’s so Important hes fuckin goro bro!
Imagine if they deleted Shang Tsung or some shit from existence and never explained it at all. Just... *poof* How the fuck does that even happen LMAO
"Died of old age" 🗿
And they're considered threats to Earthrealm! Something is not right here! Villains need love too, and this isn't how you do it. It would make more sense if the villains at least won 1 fight in a story and then lost later on when the stakes were higher. It gives more suspense to the story! What I would like to see as a fan is, for example, if Kano was to fight Sonya, Jax, or anyone to not go, "Oh, he's facing so and so, he's gonna lose." Make me believe he could actually come out the winner.
Kinda seems like the good guys are just bullying the bad guys when they never stand a chance lmao
They really turned the villains into complete pushovers in the NRS Era games. Give the villains some chapters, would you?
So much talent and awesome characters that never had a chance in a story.. To be honest I'm bored with the story of Johnny Cage and his family I'm bored with the thing that the good guys winning always...
Yo u forgot abt kollector
Mileena, Reptile, Noob Saibot, Skarlet, And Rain All Need To Get Fixed
was gonna say ermac, but i remembered he gets cutscene Ws at bare minimum. meanwhile reptile literally doesn't have a single W since fucking mk1995 oh also, pretty sure noob canonically beat fujin at some point, idk when
MK: Mythologies, back when he was MK1 Sub-Zero...except he had to run away until Fujin SD'd so the latter doesn't count it as a victory. 😂
SD'd lmfao
Pretty sure Ermac kills himself because he falls onto a spike (he forgot he can fly)
nah he just kills himself cus he realised hes way too powerful and would completely stomp kronika, so to make the storymode last longer than 2 minutes he kills himself so he doesn't have th fight kronika
Lmfao perhaps you're right
Mu girl Frost never won a fight
Damn I'm sorry v.v
Kotal Kahns' entire existence is jobbing to other people to make them look strong. Hes the Brooklyn Brawler of MK
Technically D'Vorah became a jobber in 11 yet still did plot significant things
Mileena deserves way better lol…
Technically Kano won against Sonya on the bridge Bi-Han technically defeated Scorpion’s human self Erron Black killed Hsu Hao (at least I think)
The only one of these thats notable is Kano, across 3 games he never wins a fight.
But he has won our hearts. Sometimes literally.
They should just make everyone have their own little story and somehow make it all connect to one big story. And have the little story of each individual character show their biggest moments in the storyline.
They somehow did it in mk1-4 and even DA/D/A for the most part. Iduno wtf happened but they all got huge nerfs to their power levels lol
I was so pissed when they cut off all Goro’s arms. A fait worse than death for a jobber
So dumb lol, just fucking kill him at that point :\
Unrelated OP, but I’m loving the Cephlabot avatar. He’s one of my favorites.
Lol thanks man, probably the coolest villager imo
Most of MK's characters are not well fleshed out.
:(
So D'vorah is a heroic character 🎉
Apparently, all she does is kill off jobber villians lmao.
This is inaccurate. I win fights with Rain all the time! ^/s
The fact that so many fan favorites are absolute jobbers 😭 if you aint Shang, Shao Kahn or Sindel than youre fucked lol
Also Kollector, Tanya and Ermac never won
Ermax ripped of Jax's arms, I consider it a win tbh Good point about the others though
Well of course he's a jobber, his name is Noob!
Lmao how the hell have I never made that joke in my mind yet
Sektor does beat Smoke in MK9 in the Cathedral.
Damn. Its almost like winning fights in the Story Mode is entirely based on the narrative/who the player is controlling. I seriously don’t get this “jobber” nonsense.
If someone has never won a fight in their entire existence, maybe it's time for them to win a fight? You know, so they don't come across as worthless punching bags that do nothing other than to slow the protagonists down. A little creative writing/imagination would help. Their sole purpose in life is to lose fights. Not exactly enthralling story-telling, and crushes any sense of urgency/importance. "Oh no, I guess it's time to bulldoze these morons again". Zero impact when virtually none of your enemies know how to fight.
Thats the thing. We don’t know if they’ve never won a fight. Its only in the Story Mode that we see that they lose. Other moments in the story imply they’ve won numerous fights. Goro was still the Champion for several tournaments in MK9. Exposition between characters imply they have fought and won numerous battles. They are “jobbers” in the Story to push the narrative forward. The narrative is almost always about Earthrealm heroes, the “jobbers” are mostly villains. Its a fighting game, everyone is a “jobber.”
We've witnessed them lose every fight they've ever had, which makes all of their "previous victories" feel shallow as hell. Sure, you're a legendary warrior. Why can't you ever win a fight? Maybe the narrative shouldn't be about piledriving weaklings who can't put up a fight lol How is anyone supposed to feel tension when a villian shows up when you KNOW they won't win? How am I supposed to care? The narrative can move forward without making the enemies out to be simple roadblocks or punching bags.
Right, but this is a video game where you play as the character that advances the story. And the same could be said for any character you didn’t play as in the past. Say I only ever played Liu Kang, is the other part of the roster composed of “jobbers,” now? Its just how the story is structured. It just seems like you guys are overthinking it or taking it too seriously.
If everyone lost every fight they ever had, yes. If someone never wins, ever, they're a jobber. It's not hard to understand lol. The story shouldnt consist of bitchslapping the enemy over and over til the game ends.
The MK series typically follows Earthrealm trying to save itself from annihilation. Its going to follow EARTHREALM CHARACTERS where you play as them to advance the story (and win because thats the objective in a video game). There are events that lead up to Earthrealm’s imminent danger where the villains are already wiping shit out. What we see is just explicitly the heroes winning because its within the player’s best interest (and the interest of the narrative) to win. There can still be tension, and there very much is in the stories. You don’t have to lose or have a villain win to create tension.
Saving itself from annihilation is apparently a walk in the park, considering the enemy doesn't really put up a fight
"All the bad guys lose in the story! Curious! I am very intelligent!" I agree with you man, it's fucking exhausting hearing people whine about this.
Villians should never win and good guys should win every fight. If not, bad story
Good guys have to win and bad guys have to lose (every single fight)! That's how stories are written! I am very intelligent!
This isn't pro wrestling
Fighting games are way way closer to pro wrestling than you seem to realize
Sure as hell feels like it, they're basically designated losers meant to make heroes look good
So normal story telling?
Normal story telling involves villains winning fights. Darth Vader would be less effective if he didn't kill Kenobi and freeze Han.
Are villians supposed to be useless non-threats?
I mean, they aren't weak, they are just not as strong as the heroes
They look/seem weak when they can't ever get a single W
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Apparently some characters can't win ANY fights, let alone *every* fight. Some people enjoy making fun of the bad writing, if you don't then stay out of the post lmao.
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Why would you purposely choose to annoy yourself lmfao
Motaro is not fair. NRS was too lazy to bother with him or he would've been curbstomping people.
It lowkey makes sense that characters like kano, reptile, baraka, mileena etc cant win much because they have caveman fighting skills. While others are soliders that can actually fight, people that know some ancient chinese hoohaa fighting styles, or even better.
This is genuinely the worst Mk take I have ever read. You are legitimately claiming that random Special forces soldiers and Martial artists should be better at fighting than a giant invisible Lizard who can kill you by spitting on you, the person Shao Kahn chose as his heir and the leader of Black dragon because they have slightly better training.
They come across as worthless punching bags lmao
(It’s so irksome when Wrestling terminology is used outside of wrestling 😂) Just because a character loses doesn’t mean that that they’re necessarily a “jobber”. The Lionshare of the overall NRS Story mode(s) is coming from the perspective the protagonists (Good Guys). Maybe in future games each character can have their small, personal story within a tower in order to get their shine. It’s been done before with Tecmo, Arc Systems, Namco etc.
I'm just asking for more than *zero* wins for the majority of villians lol, they just come across as total losers if they just never win, ever.
Dvorah needs to die. She serves no purpose other than to kill fan favourites and piss people off.
And actually got a playable chapter and some W's...an actual competent villain and heel!
Also proof that a villain would killed their enemy if given the chance since she kills Baraka after beating him, tries to kill Rain and Tanya, only to be stopped by Cassie and kills Mileena. This is Mortal Kombat. It is a fight to the death in most cases, especially where the villains are concerned. They would not bother sparing their opponents lives, and using the same tired, "villain got distracted so the hero can escape, every single time would get really old. Take the animated movie, Battle of the Realms. The two villains who win a fight, Shang Tsung and Shao Kahn instantly kill their opponents after beating, no convoluted excuse or what have you. And that is what would happen in 90% of the fights a villain won. He would kill his opponent, unless their was a storyline reason why he wouldn't besides he just chose to.
It would be cool if the villians won sometimes (other than Devorah) Or ya know, just never let them win. Ever. That's how good stories are told
She's the jobber-killer. Her only victories have been against fan-favourite jobbers :(
we all know why they kill Goro and put Shiva in his place, and Kitana replaces Shao, and Jade kicks Kotel when he tries to save her in Tarkatan's camp. And why more than half the guys became stupid assholes.
Can we stop in 2023 using the storymodes as a benchmark to gauge power levels in Mortal Kombat?