I agree that it doesn't make a mod less competitive as people can still play for the win, but it shifts the point of the mod(s) toward something different that most people don't want to be a part of, because it doesn't feel fair nor "in agreement" with the purpose of the game/mod.

When people compete into a fighting game, they expect to fight, not a cop & robber chase game.

Also, I wasn't saying directions of the run matter, but in a mod without a dojo you can start running in a direction at turn X, keep pushing in that same direction at turn X+1, push again in same direction at turn X+2 , same at X+3, same at X+4 etc... Whereas a ring makes it so at Turn X+2 or X+3 you have to stop your momentum and manoeuvre to change the path of your course, which gives time for your opponent to catch up.

The point isn't that a good player can catch any average runner, it's that when 2 good players would run behind each other forever if there were no limitation in space.



I agree, the only thing that makes a mod competitive is if players are willing to compete in it, there's no other factor, it's only a matter of tastes and subjective opinions. And what makes people want to compete generally is how fair & rewarding the mod can be.

I think the real point of the discussion, as you said, is to point the flaws of the mods that are already being played by the community (aikido, abd, lenshung, wushu, tk, rk-mma and whatever else I'm missing) to push players to work and remove those flaws from their mods.
Every mod has its own part of "unfairness" and aspects that call for "unsportsmanship", and that's what has to be removed, I'll take a concrete exemple other than wushu to make my point :

A few days ago I played some abd with Diamond, I got my ass handed to me (litteraly) but the way he won felt cheap and dirty 70% of the time because of the flaws of the mod. Then we played another mod he made (very close from aikido7 & sw4), which basically was a version of abd with only grabbable arms, no fracs/dms and a few other changes. I got my ass handed to me again, but even tho I was being rekt it didn't feel unfair like it did with abd : wins were clean and the difference in skill & experience was clear, no weird stuff. I was actually enjoying getting pwnd and learned some stuff, which wasn't the case in abd.



As I'm aware there still are flaws and some stuff to improve, I really think we can't have a totally fair striking mod with time-based wins, as long as there's a possibility to point hold and play the cop & robber chase game, people will do it when the stakes are high.
Wins based on time and points advantage is the biggest flaws of all striking mods.