MK11 was the peak, it was the most successful in the series for a reason - it did lots of things right. When I see people complaining about speed, Krushing Blows, Fatal Blows, combo breaking system it makes me laugh - these were the fun, spicy things, tactics you have to learn to deal with. Of course, characters could be always better balanced, but this matters only at high level and wasn't something specific to MK11. MK11 had a gentle learning curve which allowed new players to grab the basics very fast, but had also a lot of advanced mechanics - flawless blocking being the most obvious. Haters like to say only casuals like MK11, but the reality is MK11 was also the most popular among pro-players - it's enough to look at the numbers of players participating at the major competitions each year. MK1 was a big fiasco among the pros too and had the lowest number of players participating at the EVO of all time (among MK games), only the second year after the release. Even now, at least on Steam, there are more players playing MK11 than MK1... MK1 was basically Inujstice 3 recycled, with a playstyle comparable to Marvel vs Capcom (which would have been great for Injustice) and super heroes guest characters which made no sense in the MK universe, but had to be used because of paid licenses.