Personally, I think that they should remove blocking entirely. It looks stupid. K-1 fighters don't come out, put their hands over their faces, crouch down and become impervious to all forms of attacks from their opponents.

They should split blocking into three categories, all of which must be time sensitive (ie, when their opponent is attacking):

Escapes: This would look like a dodge if their opponent is coming in with a punch or a kick. This would be a more traditional escape if the opponent is trying to throw the enemy.

Deflections: Basically, this would be closer to blocking. It's like an escape, only the player that's deflecting the attack would have more of an advantage on the opponent. You've seen deflections in other fighting games before. A punch comes at you and perhaps you pull their fist down and to the side so that they stumble forward, or you simply smack their arm out of the way. Same goes for kicks and throws.

Counters: Again, you've seen them in other fighting games. A counter would basically turn an opponents momentum against them. Some characters with certain martial arts backgrounds might turn a punch into a counter punch, while others might turn that punch into a joint lock or a throw of some sort.

The idea here is that escapes would have a bigger window for timing the button presses while deflections would be slightly less and counters would be even less. But these moves could be done infinitely. Escapes could be used multiple times for a character that's trying to do a combo, a punch could be countered with a punch that is in turn countered by another punch etc.

Or here's an example: A punches B, B deflects A's punch, leaving A open to attack. B tries to sweep kick A but A uses an by flipping backwards over the sweep kick. A comes back in with a throw, but B counters it with a joint lock which A counters into a monkey flip throw.

In other words, characters would have a fluidity to their motions, giving them tons of options. These would be balanced out with characters having what I'd call fakes (ie moves that look like they'll attack but don't, or moves that look like they'll attack one way but attack another, like a fake punch that turns into a throw etc) and players themselves would have to master the timing of escapes, deflections and counters.

Characters would also have moves that break through escapes, deflections and/or counters. These could be powered up moves (charged moves) or they could be special moves. In other words, yes, you could duck or side step Scorpions spear, but you're not going to deflect it or counter it. Special moves would absolutely break through all of these things, forcing characters to dodge by stepping out of the path of the projectile, jumping over it, or ducking under it. In fact the only special moves that this wouldn't apply to is teleport attacks.

So yeah, I've given the whole blocking thing a little thought. As it stands right now, blocking is stupid. I'd like to see a new system where the fights look more like martial arts movie fights and less like two players are simply entering commands, holding down and back to avoid taking damage from those commands and then entering more commands to attack. I think this blocking scheme I'm talking about here would help reduce that feeling a little bit and again, create more fluidity to matches and a more reactive experience.

Does that answer your question?

To my knowledge there are three kinds of guards. I am applying this from the swordfighting and wrestling codex Flos Duellatorum, circa 1409-1410.

To block, aka stand with equal or higher amount of strenght against an incoming attack. Least useful.

To parry, self-explanatory.

To escape, move away, so the attack would not hit you.

Theese three moveset would guarantee a sufficient complexity and depth for a good fighting game. Not all situations can be reserved, not all attacks can be parried. How do you parry a joint lock? Different attacks would have different resolutions.

That sounds great. I like the sound of those ideas a lot. I also like Baraka407's ideas, but I don't agree with the idea of taking out blocking altogether. I think that if they were to bring back some form of incorporating real martial arts styles, style-oriented defensive moves could be used. This was something that nindz suggested for those of you who know him.

I was thinking that with the blocking techniques, you could have the defender try to get more towards the opponent or move away while blocking. Also, I was wondering how a system could be properly balanced if the character that's blocking can try to follow up with a counter attack. I'll give an example.

When I studied Praying Mantis, one of the techniques I learned was a technique that had a simultaneous strike/deflect nature. In addition to that, one of the training exercises involved doing a rapid-fast combo using this technique. So I'm just wondering how something like this could be properly implemented, if at all.

Anyway, the bottom line is that MK's defense system really needs to go beyond simple blocking, ducking, and side-stepping.

I'm no martial arts expert but it seems to me that blocking would be used only when necessary by an experienced fighter and it depends on what situation the fighter is currently in. I mean you're not going to stand there all day trying to block punches. You are going to have to attack in order to win. Same thing applies to fighting games. I do know that in fighters though, that blocking just adds another option to the strategy of moves at your disposal. Also I would imagine blocking in fighting games has properties too. So like, if we are in a situation where you you try to land a strike on me and I block it in time and that strike takes a long time to recover, then I could perform a throw on you, because during that small window of time you are immobilized.

What I don't know is if a block is really more of last resort move compared to other forms of defense such as parrying a strike.

You could probably add pulling the upper body away from the opponent's attack to a type of defense available which is called Swaying or Fading according to wikipedia

Sub-Zero_7th, I thought about that technique that has a strike/deflect nature you were talking about and maybe it could be used against other moves that also have a strike/deflect nature as well. Or the move/s themselves could emerge from your opponent at a slower pace so you have a better chance of deciding what you are going to do against it, because it sounds like these type of moves are giving you a good advantage since it employs both offense and defense. By the way, can you describe this Praying Mantis technique or do you know of a video on it? I want to see if my ideas actually have application.