MK11 Fixes - System Still Broken

So I just watched the Netherrealm Studios stream addressing some of the main issues people are having with the game since its release. The main two problems seem to be the super difficult towers of time and the krypt. I haven't messed with the towers that much, it sounds like the rewards of going through them needs to be tweaked a lot. My main issue so far is MAN THAT KRYPT IS BAD.

They are giving 500,000 Koins (that's like 50-70 chests), 500 Hearts (2 heart chests), 1000 Souls (10 soul chests) and 1000 Time Crystals to all players. You get 1 heart for a fatality, so do they really expect a player to do 20,000+ fatalities to unlock all those chests? This all feels like a band aid to a problem. I agree with Jeff, everything about the Krypt is cool except the part of getting stuff from chests, its so bogged down with extra nonsense. I don't see how they fix this, the current solution seems to be just throw currencies at its players to stop complaing. I've never played a Destiny or a Shadow of War which I vaguely remember having similar issues. Does this problem get tweaked out over time? Or am I just stuck grinding for souls and fatalities as a part time job for the next 4 years? Time will tell, but I'm not super hopeful. [PS the game part of mortal kombat 11 is great, just a bummer its going to be impossibly long to unlock the cool customizable stuff].

while it does seem too expensive at the moment, I dont want to be able to quickly unlock all the gear. I was playing Injustice 2 up until this came out because there was still progression, just an excuse to get in and engage with the towers and the fantastic gameplay. Not saying it doesn't need tweaking, just not as upset as some. I do miss the character levels of injustice though, that was a huuuuuge hook for me.

I don't know for sure, but they said in the quick look you can do all the fatalities to begin with you just unlock them in the move list?

this game seems like a mess. Why the fuck does a mortal Kombat game need to have 4 different currency to unlock various shit? Way to make your unlocks a huge chore and ruin the potential your Krypt mode had. I hope it was worth it, NRS.

WB continues to seem like the absolutely worst when it comes to currencies and they're always able to comfortably hide behind far less egregious offenders.

They are implementing cost changes as well, the package is just a make good.

The real problem is that with 25 characters, 30 items per slot, 3 slots, 30-45 skins, various taunts, 6 unlockable entrance/exits per character, on top of innumerable concept art for all things and music means there is effectively no way to actually get something for a character you like without just doing towers which reward it. Unlike classic towers there is no adjusting for difficulty in time towers. You can use AI mode for them but they rarely react to stage hazards an other weird things so it can be a tossup even then.

@oursin_360: yeah you can do the 2 fatalities as long as you know the inputs, unlocking them on the krypt will only make the inputs appear however if you don't have the brutalities thosse you can't perform, you have to find them in the krypt

I posted this in another thread, but I'll also post it here.

Its 2019 and ppl need something to complain about. This concept has been around since the early 90s with 'random weapon/item' drops in CRPGs. In game grind IS NOT A NEW CONCEPT. Its just been updated, for better or worse. The grind and Krypt isn't the issue in this game. The Towers of Time is INSANELY hard, like unfair and borderline unplayable. The MKX/Injustice 2 'living' towers were actually perfect. The way they are designed in MK11 discourages skill and wants you to rely on 'konsumables'. Also, the game has too many 'kurrencies' (Injustice 2 did too). NR/WB have convoluted the economy more than it needed to be. If your koming to MK11 strictly for the story and online fighting, none of it matters. The problem is if your more a single player fighting game person (like me, I mean I got every character in Injustice 2 to over level 20), you may bounce quick or break some controllers in the process, which is the exact opposite of what NRS wanted. I'm all for a good challenge. I am not up for something that is designed poorly and meant to frustrate me. I'm a pretty die hard MK fan (& NRS) and I would describe my skill as 'average' maybe 'above average' with certain 'kharacters' and I absolutely can't beat some of the kharacter specific towers. For example, There is one where you have to fight Kung Lao and Liu Kang with rockets that hit you about every 8-10 secs, the kharacter that isnt on screen is regen health. 3/4 of my life bar was literally gone within 15 secs of the match. This happened more than once

Now all that being said, a patch is koming by the end of the week that will tweak the Towers of Time. Ed Boon is not happy, just look at his Twitter and the Kombat Kast crew looked visibly tired and shook yesterday, as if they had been getting chewed out for the last 12 hours. But NRS will get this whole thing balanced. Trust me. The issue is the first impression often turn A LOT of people away and in the age of outrage, its going to take A LOT of hard work and goodwill to convince people its fixed. NRS wants buyers to keep playing for the next year. I would be surprised if MK11 doesnt have the biggest dropoff of all their releases, which will cause even more problems for future games. I honestly think alot of these issues came from WB and NRS did the best the could with what WB was asking, meaning I genuinely think WB wanted loot boxes and NRS designed it to appease WB but also not screw the konsumer. One of the BAD parts of the the gaming industry rears it head yet again. Sigh

TBF having a bunch of different currencies has been around since the kyrpt was introduced on the ps2 era games. Its just now you have groups who are hypersensitive to any lootbox style progression.

Its good that we have people trying to keep companies in line but also there is so much noise for any of this kinda thing sometimes it feels like its hard to get the truth imo

Good point. In my point above yours as well, in game grind and random drops isnt new. It a very old concept that been around for decades. On the flip side. If MK11 didn't have any of these unlockables or tower modes and was just arcade ladder and online, people would complain it didnt have any unlockables and lacked content. People want everything immediately but also want unlockables/reasons to keep playing. Its hard to win in 2019.

If nothing else, NRS will fix the drop rate/amount you get and they will tweak the Towers of Time. But can they repair the damage with the casual consumer. I'm in for the long haul, most people are not.

PC version is in a fairly bad state - to the point where apparently they banned "PC" as term from the ingame chat in order to limit the number of complains on the game.

@efesell: WB gets away with it because they put out at most 1 game per year that people actually pay attention to in the main stream. Meanwhile EA will put out 5 games a year that the public at large actually care about and so they get brought up again and again and again.

I haven't looked at the 4 different currencies in MK11 but if you asked me to sit down and guess what they are I couldn't tell you. Even in free to play mobile games I've never seen more than "3" currencies and that's only "3" if you count energy as one. Usually it's gold you earn in the game, a premium currency you can buy and then you can use that to buy items or you can use it to buy the energy resource.

I don't remember those PS2 era games. Mainly because they were terrible. I highly doubt those currencies were as they are in MK11 though. There is no need for all the different ones. They are all used on the krypt and will give you similar rewards from the looks of it. Its needlessly obtuse. Plus you could not buy "time crystals" and buy skins in that era. Times have changes, much for the worse.

@immortalsaiyan: Fair point about not recalling the PS2 era. I love Mortal Kombat when it’s good (which is 1, 2, 9, 10, and 11).

I actually never played MK vs. DC...I bet it’s totally fine.

@nutter: i did play that game and its far from fine. Its quite bad. Its a bastardization of 2D and 3D mechanics that had the worst controls on a big budget fighting game i've ever played. It expected you to use the stick and dpad for different movement from what i recall. Plus the animation was laughable. Its only notable for being the first fighting game to have a cinematic story mode.

@immortalsaiyan: HAHA, alright!

1, 2, 9, 10, 11, it is!

So I've had trouble parsing what is in which update. Have they actually done anything to the krypt itself? Or is it just the currency stipend and the tower fixes that have been released so far? I have yet to actually buy anything in the krypt waiting to see if they did anything to it but I might just say screw it and deal.

I actually enjoy the towers and playing the game, and I have enough games to switch to if need be so the grind isn't a huge deal to me.

@reap3r160: As someone who's been playing it, pretty sure the big currency reward, raising tower/fight rewards, and tweaking tower difficulty is basically all they're doing. Besides a couple of very expensive things, I've gotten basically everything in the Krypt at this point, the balance seems totally fine.

My only really problem is that between loads and stuff, doing a full set of towers (which is the only way to get the main reward) takes a bit too long, but it's hardly a deal breaker. I've still been having a blast with Skarlet, who's my favorite MK character in a while.

@epidehl: I just need to earn hearts and souls at this point, and it’s only been, what, two weeks?

So yeah, I’ve played more than most (I’m playing the shit out of this game in a way I haven’t played games in a decade), but I’d imagine I’ll be done with the krypt in weeks, not months.

The grind isn’t bad.

I do wish the living towers would focus less on cheap bullshit. I need to play those to keep progressing in the krypt. Mostly, cool! Play game to unlock stuff for game! It’s better than my kid wanting a $15 fucking Fortnite skin. It’s just a bummer when the fight involves shit flying from off-screen every few seconds.

@nutter: Yeah, it's been baffling to hear people get mad about the unlocks and stuff in this game (both podcasts have been pretty vocal about it), when in most other games they would just charge you, full stop. I've found most of the tower things to be manageable, especially since I have so many of my own consumables at this point that it becomes a pretty fair fight.

@epidehl: I’ve been doing the survival horror thing of NOT EVER USING ANY CONSUMABLES, which feels less than smart.

But yeah, in the rare case that I use something like a fire armor against enemies that set you on fire at close range, it goes from infuriating to just sort of this other thing to do.