4/24/19 Emergency Kombat Kast Recap

With concerns popping up with various issues surrounding the initial launch of Mortal Kombat 11, this emergency Kombat Kast was called to address concerns. Items on the docket were fixes related to difficulty of Towers of Time, reward progression, and more.



Derek is back this week, 16 Bit is gone. So first thing they discussed this week was the difficulty of the Towers of Time. Very openly saying that they were "tuned to be too hard", the first initial fix they rolled out (in a hotfix that has already gone out) was reducing opponent health to be more in line with the usual game, with bosses maxing out at 1500. On top of that, the modifiers (like the homing missiles) now happen less often. For the future, with a proper patch, they will adjust the drop rate for rewards on top of some other fixes, like making the unblockable modifiers blockable. The patch with those changes are planned to come end of this week, beginning of next at the latest. The goal with everything is to give a broader spectrum of challenges, as opposed to just making everything easy.

Next up, they went over some details on the Krypt. So the Krypts are randomized for each player, with everyone getting the same 600 chests but in different locations. Certain special chests are static for everyone. So what you will get isn't random, but when you get it is.

Going out to everyone in part of the updates, everyone will get 500,000 coins, 500 hearts, 1000 souls, and 1000 time crystals. No immediate timeline as to when, but that's something to look forward to.

That's it for today. No talk about character changes/fixes, but that'll be coming later down the road. So yeah, go back to playing the game! Or work! Or whatever you were doing with your time right now!

 

Finding the towers fine now. Even going through some without consumables.

Seem to be getting skins from the krypt at a pretty good rate too.

 

The whine is real... lol. You mean I have to play this longer than a day to unlock all of the shit? Consumer rights man!

 

Frost was secret, but then leaks happened.

A character that's sold on the store as soon as you start the game is secret?

 

I don't know why the character towers have to have modifiers on them in the first place. If I'm a serious player trying to max out my knowledge and capability with my character and get their highest level stuff, wouldn't it make more sense to play the game itself at your highest level to do it?

Maybe that's just me.

I mean, aren't there Survival Towers and other modes to do that too? You can still do that with other modes and koins from ranked matches.

 

Takeaways:

-Derek looked visibly shaken. Wouldn't be surprised if he had just gotten yelled at 10 sec before this kast. Sounds like his dept is to blame for a lot of this.

More like ever since the first review went up and this is what brought the scores down... I do feel bad for him

 

More like ever since the first review went up and this is what brought the scores down... I do feel bad for him

It's hard to know exactly where the blame lies but ultimately the stuido head is the one steering the ship. Even if WB applied pressure (as I said in another post) artists have to stand up for their art/vision. If every game company did exactly what their publisher wanted many more games would be this exploitative.

Its false economy though and only gets in short term revenue at the expense of it in the long term.

 

If every game company did exactly what their publisher wanted many more games would be this exploitative.

I agree with this in general, but I'd like you to be specific with how it related to MK11 if you wouldn't mind. What's exploitative about it?

 

I agree with this in general, but I'd like you to be specific with how it related to MK11 if you wouldn't mind. What's exploitative about it?

Basically paying full price just to have systems in place with the sole purpose of tempting users spend more. Making the grind purposly long and slow.

God of War could of added in loads of microtrasactions if they wanted to but they didn't because you genuinely get the feeling they respect their fanbase.

Horizon had one piece of DLC. An amazing expansion 6 months after the main game. Why are these kind of profits ok for these companies? What makes Mortal Kombat different. How many different ways has NRS tried to monitize us for example .

 

I'ma break this down further if you don't mind. I'm genuinely curious to get to the bottom of all this.

Basically paying full price just to have systems in place with the sole purpose of tempting users spend more. Making the grind purposly long and slow.

Tempting you to spend more in a store that has... 2-5 things you might want in it a day? If their goal was to squeeze the tit wouldn't they put out a store that has everything that's unloackable in the game for sale at exuberant price point? That's certainly a more effective model from a business standpoint.

God of War could of added in loads of microtrasactions if they wanted to but they didn't because you genuinely get the feeling they respect their fanbase.

God Of War is a different genre and an RPG. Micro transactions really don't work very well in single player RPGs. People really just play them for the narrative and the characters. Now Shadow of War they obviously went this route and... That was received really really well.

Horizon had one piece of DLC. An amazing expansion 6 months after the main game. Why are these kind of profits ok for these companies? What makes Mortal Kombat different. How many different ways has NRS tried to monitize us?

Horizon is such an amazing game and experience... I need to redownload and play through that again sometime. Thanks for putting it on my radar again. As for MK again I refer to my original response to this.

 

I'ma break this down further if you don't mind. I'm genuinely curious to get to the bottom of all this.


Tempting you to spend more in a store that has... 2-5 things you might want in it a day? If their goal was to squeeze the tit wouldn't they put out a store that has everything that's unloackable in the game for sale at exuberant price point? That's certainly a more effective model from a business standpoint.


God Of War is a different genre and an RPG. Micro transactions really don't work very well in single player RPGs. People really just play them for the narrative and the characters. Now Shadow of War they obviously went this route and... That was received really really well.


Horizon is such an amazing game and experience... I need to redownload and play through that again sometime. Thanks for putting it on my radar again. As for MK again I refer to my original response to this.

Having timed items just smack of a mobile game to me. Having 600 boxes with alot of filler making it purposly hard to get what you want in a game you own. Can you buy coins? If so purposly making the supply low to encourage buying. Having easy fatality shortcuts on the pause menu which they want you to buy when it would make more sense to have the actual button prompts there to do them manually.

I'm not saying MK is the worst example btw but after been treated so well by my favorite companies this does feel a shame. Especially when ive paid for the season pass and pre order character etc already which is two more things than I do for other games usually.

I don't think publishers care about the genre they just see us a cattle to be milked in alot of cases. The more you give the more they will take.

I recently finished the Horizon DLC it was really good but took such a while to get back into it as Id forgot all the controls/systems lol. The weather effects in the new region is amazing.

 

How do you even play in competetive mode but just with the costumised char?

 

How do you even play in competetive mode but just with the costumised char?

you change the skin?

 

Having timed items just smack of a mobile game to me. Having 600 boxes with alot of filler making it purposly hard to get what you want in a game you own. Can you buy coins? If so purposly making the supply low to encourage buying. Having easy fatality shortcuts on the pause menu which they want you to buy when it would make more sense to have the actual button prompts there to do them manually.

Here's the thing though you can't buy Koins. You can buy time crystals. They only work for that one single vendor that does the 2-5 option thing on rotation. The price point doesn't scream exploitative to me it screams "Here are a couple cool things you might want if you're feeling super duper lazy today.". As I said if they were trying to rake our backs for money they would sell us Koins, Hearts, and Souls the currencies used in the rest of the Krypt. Or just outright let you buy whatever skins or animations etc etc you want right from the Kustomize page. THAT is exploitative when combined with a grindy game. They have made it a point to NOT do this. The RNG for the things you CAN spend real money on is agonizing which is a means of discouraging you from going that route. You could NEVER see a single skin or brutality or fatality you want in that vendor the entire time you play the game.

 

Here's the thing though you can't buy Koins. You can buy time crystals. They only work for that one single vendor that does the 2-5 option thing on rotation. The price point doesn't scream exploitative to me it screams "Here are a couple cool things you might want if you're feeling super duper lazy today.". As I said if they were trying to rake our backs for money they would sell us Koins, Hearts, and Souls the currencies used in the rest of the Krypt. Or just outright let you buy whatever skins or animations etc etc you want right from the Kustomize page. THAT is exploitative when combined with a grindy game. They have made it a point to NOT do this. The RNG for the things you CAN spend real money on is agonizing which is a means of discouraging you from going that route. You could NEVER see a single skin or brutality or fatality you want in that vendor the entire time you play the game.

Hmm it seems like everything is agonising in terms of rewards. What incentive do they have to lock away content they have made so hard (in terms or reward and difficulty), if not for monetary gain? Theres no way to prove it of course but i bet they had very different long term plans a few weeks ago with regards to monitization than what they have now.

I don't believe it was an over sight/bug/unintended etc. AAA games just go through too much QA, also based on the path they were starting to go down go with Injustice/X and lastly looking at WB's prior efforts/history.

 

Hmm it seems like everything is agonising in terms of rewards. What incentive do they have to lock away content they have made so hard (in terms or reward and difficulty), if not for monetary gain? Theres no way to prove it of course but i bet they had very different long term plans a few weeks ago with regards to monitization than what they have now.

I don't believe it was an over sight/bug/unintended etc. AAA games just go through too much QA, also based on the path they were starting to go down go with Injustice/X and lastly looking at WB's prior efforts/history.

Something happened for sure. It's SET UP to be exploitative but it isn't. All the pieces were in position. Character Towers: Impossible. Krypt: Expensive, and with no substantial source of Koins, Souls, or Hearts in sight. Online: Unrewarding from a currency stand point.

EVERYTHING IS THERE... Except the means to spend real money on everything by the tens and twenties.

So what happened? Was this WB's plan, but at the last minute NRS yanked the vendor out to try and keep the game from exploding on contact?

Either way y'all can stop calling the game exploitative. It ain't. It was probably GOING to be. But that's just (Probably very accurate) speculation.

 

Something happened for sure. It's SET UP to be exploitative but it isn't. All the pieces were in position. Character Towers: Impossible. Krypt: Expensive, and with no substantial source of Koins, Souls, or Hearts in sight. Online: Unrewarding from a currency stand point.

EVERYTHING IS THERE... Except the means to spend real money on everything by the tens and twenties.

So what happened? Was this WB's plan, but at the last minute NRS yanked the vendor out to try and keep the game from exploding on contact?

Either way y'all can stop calling the game exploitative. It ain't. It was probably GOING to be. But that's just (Probably very accurate) speculation.

Its the outcry that keeps these things at bay. May of us have been burnt many times before and we dont want to see it happen again here. Regardless of money there's defo was/is cause for concern with this game, i don't believe thats unfounded.

Nice to have a sensible debate on both sides btw

 

Something happened for sure. It's SET UP to be exploitative but it isn't. All the pieces were in position. Character Towers: Impossible. Krypt: Expensive, and with no substantial source of Koins, Souls, or Hearts in sight. Online: Unrewarding from a currency stand point.

EVERYTHING IS THERE... Except the means to spend real money on everything by the tens and twenties.

So what happened? Was this WB's plan, but at the last minute NRS yanked the vendor out to try and keep the game from exploding on contact?

Either way y'all can stop calling the game exploitative. It ain't. It was probably GOING to be. But that's just (Probably very accurate) speculation.

Maybe, just to throw it out there, it's like some people said: the system is already in place and they wait AFTER launch (and reviews) to really push on MTX.

I hope not but it's been done before in this generation. If some weeks from now we'll start to see currencies or more stuff in the store then I'm really gonna be pissed off.

 

Maybe, just to throw it out there, it's like some people said: the system is already in place and they wait AFTER launch (and reviews) to really push on MTX.

I hope not but it's been done before in this generation. If some weeks from now we'll start to see currencies or more stuff in the store then I'm really gonna be pissed off.

They will not do this.
They know it's a death sentence. You must not have watched the Kombat Kast and the nervous manner in which he delivered the line "We will never sell you Hearts, Souls, or Koins.". That is LITERALLY the single step between what this is right now, which is weird, and annoying, and frustrating, and they're trying real hard to walk it back. And what it was GOING to be, which would have been unacceptable and thrown back in their face by every reviewer that encountered the single player portion of the game for any period of time.

 

Just turned on the game and got:

Your save game data "Player Settings" is damaged. This data may be deleted if you choose to kontinue. The Match Replays file may become inaccessible. Retry loading the save game data?

WTF!

 

They will not do this.
They know it's a death sentence. You must not have watched the Kombat Kast and the nervous manner in which he delivered the line "We will never sell you Hearts, Souls, or Koins.". That is LITERALLY the single step between what this is right now, which is weird, and annoying, and frustrating, and they're trying real hard to walk it back. And what it was GOING to be, which would have been unacceptable and thrown back in their face by every reviewer that encountered the single player portion of the game for any period of time.

Maybe now after the backlash they won't, but it wouldn't surprise me if this was the original plan all along. It has been done by other companies, the last COD didn't even have mtx at launch and a month later they were selling a simple stupid red dot sight for one dollar.

Maybe I'm old school, I've been a gamer for almost 30 years at this point, but I'm tired of bullshit like this and my good faith has gone dry. I hope that it's just an honest design mistake on NRS part, otherwise I'm done with them and MK is my favorite series since 92.

 

Maybe now after the backlash they won't, but it wouldn't surprise me if this was the original plan all along. It has been done by other companies, the last COD didn't even have mtx at launch and a month later they were selling a simple stupid red dot sight for one dollar.

Maybe I'm old school, I've been a gamer for almost 30 years at this point, but I'm tired of bullshit like this and my good faith has gone dry. I hope that it's just an honest design mistake on NRS part, otherwise I'm done with them and MK is my favorite series since 92.

This was absolutely what the plan was originally. That's what we were just discussing. It has all the call signs of an oppressively aggressive MTX economy but it's lacking the vendor. Someone yanked it out and now they're trying to make a reasonable system out of one that wasn't meant to be. The question is, who and why.

 

This was absolutely what the plan was originally. That's what we were just discussing. It has all the call signs of an oppressively aggressive MTX economy but it's lacking the vendor. Someone yanked it out and now they're trying to make a reasonable system out of one that wasn't meant to be. The question is, who and why.

I think they expected to get away with it. I think they're reasoning was "let's make it very grindy to keep players invested and keep playing time very high, people will buy a bunch of fight skips and stuff from the store and if it goes well we'll start selling currencies".

I don't think they expected a backlash like this but they were wrong for two reasons: 1- it's really bad and people is tired of this bullshit in general, see Anthem for example 2- a lot of people after the whole "woke" controversy was eager to have any other reason to shit on the game.

 

They will not do this.
They know it's a death sentence. You must not have watched the Kombat Kast and the nervous manner in which he delivered the line "We will never sell you Hearts, Souls, or Koins.". That is LITERALLY the single step between what this is right now, which is weird, and annoying, and frustrating, and they're trying real hard to walk it back. And what it was GOING to be, which would have been unacceptable and thrown back in their face by every reviewer that encountered the single player portion of the game for any period of time.

Why wouldn't they do this.

This is late capitalism at work. Haves and have-nots. Companies over people, profit over passion.

Can you buy all of the doo-dangles and hoo-haha in this game directly? No, but you're absolutely being disingenuous if you think this isn't a mobile game system in a 60-100 dollar product. You buy time crystals to directly buy skins and random knick-knacks you want, and you can buy skip tokens to bypass broken fights in towers.

People like you are getting held up on the criticism of the Krypt which I agree isn't elucidated well, spoken well. The Krypt itself isn't MTX directly- instead it makes a formerly perfect system, which MK X's Krypt was where you could grind or buy out as a one-time purchase to bypass the grind, and makes it all an enormous grind with random loot boxes, because again stop being so disingenuous and understand that's what these chests are by everything but name. However, instead of selling currency directly, it incentivizes you to buy time crystals and immediately buy the item you want directly from the store using psychological tactics that these video games companies HAVE invested in. It's gambling tactics put into a product that you cannot get net profit from as a gambler.

This isn't a conspiracy to hurt Netherrealm man. This is basic business and business like this is booming off of whales like you. First off, I don't know your status in this miserable life, but unless you are literally PR for Netherrealm, why are you so fervently defending them like they're your family? Do you have a stock in the company? Do you work for them in any way? What is your position? Because if it's "fan", than I hate to break it to you, and I would sit down if I were you, but... these companies don't give a damn about you.

You are nothing to them. Your fandom is skin-deep to them; a number assigned to a name. You exist for them to make money off of you. That is it. They use PR, trained PR folk with degrees and training, to make you a profit source through psychological tactics like commmunity outreach and putting a face to a faceless corporation.

I'm 32- you think you're the first lost soul I've seen defending a game company? No.

You and everyone in this forum that does this, you should be ashamed of yourselves. It's fine to be a fan of Mortal Kombat. I am! But they're not my brother or my mother or my friend and my fandom begins and ends with the purchase of these games and maybe the DLC if like the characters offered.

 

No direct link to the broadcast?

 

Why wouldn't they do this.

This is late capitalism at work. Haves and have-nots. Companies over people, profit over passion.

Can you buy all of the doo-dangles and hoo-haha in this game directly? No, but you're absolutely being disingenuous if you think this isn't a mobile game system in a 60-100 dollar product. You buy time crystals to directly buy skins and random knick-knacks you want, and you can buy skip tokens to bypass broken fights in towers.

People like you are getting held up on the criticism of the Krypt which I agree isn't elucidated well, spoken well. The Krypt itself isn't MTX directly- instead it makes a formerly perfect system, which MK X's Krypt was where you could grind or buy out as a one-time purchase to bypass the grind, and makes it all an enormous grind with random loot boxes, because again stop being so disingenuous and understand that's what these chests are by everything but name. However, instead of selling currency directly, it incentivizes you to buy time crystals and immediately buy the item you want directly from the store using psychological tactics that these video games companies HAVE invested in. It's gambling tactics put into a product that you cannot get net profit from as a gambler.

This isn't a conspiracy to hurt Netherrealm man. This is basic business and business like this is booming off of whales like you. First off, I don't know your status in this miserable life, but unless you are literally PR for Netherrealm, why are you so fervently defending them like they're your family? Do you have a stock in the company? Do you work for them in any way? What is your position? Because if it's "fan", than I hate to break it to you, and I would sit down if I were you, but... these companies don't give a damn about you.

You are nothing to them. Your fandom is skin-deep to them; a number assigned to a name. You exist for them to make money off of you. That is it. They use PR, trained PR folk with degrees and training, to make you a profit source through psychological tactics like commmunity outreach and putting a face to a faceless corporation.

I'm 32- you think you're the first lost soul I've seen defending a game company? No.

You and everyone in this forum that does this, you should be ashamed of yourselves. It's fine to be a fan of Mortal Kombat. I am! But they're not my brother or my mother or my friend and my fandom begins and ends with the purchase of these games and maybe the DLC if like the characters offered.

You were bottling that up, or writing it for a minute.

Nothing I have said is defending NRS. I have no intention of ever buying crystals. I even called out that this system feels like it was designed to work around a vendor selling us everything we want for more money than it's worth.