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NRS Speaks and Confirms MK11 is Officially Done

What is your opinion on this news?

  • Good news to me

  • Bad news to me

  • I'm indifferent / doesn't affect me either way


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Suntory

Suntory
I'm sad to see MK11 go. Really good game, could have been great with a little more polish. Had a lot of fun learning Raiden and discussing him with the Raiden crew. Too bad the pandemic really killed a majority of MK11's competitive life. I'm excited for whatever comes next though! I'm hoping for Injustice 3.
Yea, I would have loved to have seen more MK11 at majors if not for the pandemic.
 

Immortal

Blind justice....
So why did they do about 10 patches that changed absolutely fuck all. Im sorry but with how well this game sold i cant see them squabbling over the pricing of the work to do some frame data changes.
You're missing the point. You're looking from competitive player perspective and not the corpo/money perspective which runs gaming (and other) industry.

The way you make patches and prioritize them is almost universal and goes like this:

- you patch game breaking stuff (crashing, things that prevent your customers from finishing the game, obvious major visual/sound bugs etc..) which will impact reviews and if left alone longer - selling numbers

- you patch stuff which is annoying to your 95% of playerbase (casuals) and will annoy them so they wont buy your DLC or/and next game. Best example for MK 11 would the insane Krypt grind when the game was released and it was patched like the first thing they did coz that went public very fast and even big media outlet picked up on it

- you patch the stuff you know isn't right, mostly minor things which were obvious even at internal alpha and beta testing but you didn't have time to fix it before game release deadline, this doesn't affect your selling numbers in first months of game release but it will get noticed sooner or later and will impact the bottom line in a small way

- lastly you do or you don't do other things which doesn't really impact your bottom line in any significant way and those are the balance patches, small glitches (usually visual, etc...). They usually cost you money and in most cases you dont even brake even on those things in long run coz in reality it affects like 1% of people who bought the game

We got patches where they basically just changed health values.
There are several ways to aproach game balancing and NRS tried at least some of them; even trying to tune everything like they did it with MK X. This time they took aproach of small changes and granted it didn't work well for them but again it's not a big deal for them. They make money from casuals not from competitive players. So nobody at NRS or WB/ATT will loose sleep coz of Cetrion and Joker and Kabal and Jaqui moping most of the cast "free". It's an afterthought, if it worked - great but if it doesn't - no problem, it's not like they're loosing money on this (at least not in a way it would impact their bottom line).

Ive heard the same from my friends in game development and dont doubt its a huge factor but it doesnt add up to me. Theres money to be made long term by instilling good will in the gamer base and keeping players engaged.
For every 10 competitive player they make happy with long term support they can make 10000 casual players happy doing another DLC and/or making new game instead. You always allocate your resources where the (big) money is. That's just how it works.

I will agree the community always wants another patch.. its absolutely true but this game has taken the piss. We have got ineffective breadcrumb patches. We have day 1 hitbox issues still allll over the place.
While true the simple truth is - fixing hitbox issues, especially breathing hitbox issues, female hitbox is a lot of work, makes 0 sense for them to fix it when it only impacts... again... 1% of their customers (competitive players). That's just the sad reality of... well simple math really.

It is sad that game development has had the well posioned with finance stuff. I just expect better- many smaller developers deliver that. NRS has a winning franchise thats a huge cashcow. I wish they'd just take their product to a new company if its stifiling them this badly.

No shots at you by the way, i understand you come from a more informed place. Just doesnt add up how they can implement a million useless tower changes, HP whatever and then when it comes to changing a number on block advantage etc its suddenly unfeasible
They're in the bussines of making money which doesn't equal to making the best games. They do "good enough" for most of their customers and this works well for them coz the bottom line is great. No need to change anything while this works like a charm for them.

In general when you think about gaming industry and you think big titles / big companies always start with "what will make them the MOST money and will cost them as little as possible" and go from there, coz that is like a mantra in big corporations and to be fair that is why they're so sucessfull. This isn't a good recipe for a great game for all the players but it's the best possible recipe for a profitable bussines and in the end... that exactly what gaming (and other) industry is... a bussines.
 
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Edmund

Kitana & Skarlet
Not sure if there is a more appropriate place to post this thought, but something that I was thinking about: remember how they were making it seem like MK11 was going to be the final MK for sometime? I think they are backtracking on that idea because of the story expansion they did that furthered the probable next MK game and showing it is a clear cash maker. Basically, I think they changed their mind from more support because a newer MK will come out within 5 years, not like the 8 or so years that people originally predicted.
 

DeftMonk

Noob
The previous game had so many meta changing patches. The last version of the game was vastly different from release. They even completely redid the netcode. With mkll the only way they coulda done something similar was to add a patch that added some depth to the game with combo routes opening up and setup moves becoming viable. They didn’t want that. Whatever I guess.
 

M2Dave

Zoning Master
Game development needs a shakeup.
NRS game development needs a shakeup. Most other fighting game companies (i.e., Capcom, Namco, Nitendo, Reverge Labs, etc.) support their games and communicate with their respective communities. Most recently, for example, Masahiro Sakurai explained how Kazuya would play in Smash Bros. Ultimate in a 40 minute video and stated that the game would have one more DLC character. On "Harada's Bar", Harada said that "Tekken 7 has gone on long enough", but that the game is still selling well to the extent that releasing Tekken 8 at this moment would not make much sense financially. Capcom released an unannounced balance patch not too long ago. Etc.

NRS, on the other hand, waited eight months to report that additional content and patch/hotfix support for Mortal Kombat 11 would cease. In the meantime, the executive producer trolled and teased fans on Twitter, even calling them "entitled". I do not have to have any experience in the gaming industry to identify this behavior as unprofessional at best and other explicit adjectives at worst.
 
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Mk9kevin

Sareena for MK11!
....Well then. This is concerning and really disappointing.

As much as I love MK, this game... was very messy since the beginning. And I’m not referring to the graphics or visuals because we can all agree that MK11 is beautiful. The subpar marketing, the silence, and just the lack of communication really put a bad taste in my mouth. ESPECIALLY, the last few months after MK11U’s release. They really out to apologize to the fans IMO because literally from the start the developers... Just seemed so... Uncaring? I like to keep things optimistic especially in the FGC... but quite frankly this is probably the most divisive MK I have ever seen. The lore inconsistencies weren’t unnoticed, the DLC characters were kinda flat.

I understand that not everyone is going to be pleased, but MK11 could’ve been so much more. I appreciate the time and effort that the developers put into the game... But the marketing team needs to go back to the drawing board and sort some things out. Fans should not have to rely on LEAKS for any sort of update. I for one am TIRED of “New list of characters leaked.” It happened with MKX. It happened with IJ2(and the whole character roster was out). And when MK11 started marketing... I knew some asshole was going to create some bullshit list. I really hope NRS didn’t somehow absorb all this leak nonsense into their selling point because it seems like it’s deliberate by now. I understand that leaks happen and what not, but this whole game was about damn leaks. Speculation should be fun, it doesn’t have to be this tedious! Communication really wasn’t their forefront for MK11. Covid, although a valid point, shouldn’t be the only excuse. Look at other games like FFVII Remake.

Don’t get me wrong, I did have a blast with the game, but NRS/WB need to do something different. I have been playing MK since Deadly Alliance, and for the first time... I’m actually weary if I should buy their next installment or not. That’s how displeased I am with NRS under WB’s eye. I’m pretty sure all of this BS is because of WB.

Also. Please. No more variation system. No more. Their selling point of MK11 was CUSTOM variations, and we didn’t even get that till way later after the games’ release(talking about ranked matches here).

TL;DR- MK11 is beautiful, but its flaws... Really make me worry for the next game.
 

Wigy

There it is...
NRS game development needs a shakeup. Most other fighting game companies (i.e., Capcom, Namco, Nitendo, Reverge Labs, etc.) support their games and communicate with their respective communities. Most recently, for example, Masahiro Sakurai explained how Kazuya would play in Smash Bros. Ultimate in a 40 minute video and stated that the game would have one more DLC character. On "Harada's Bar", Harada said that "Tekken 7 has gone on long enough", but that the game is still selling well to the extent that releasing Tekken 8 at this moment would not make much sense financially. Capcom released an unannounced balance patch not too long ago. Etc.

NRS, on the other hand, waited eight months to report that additional content and patch/hotfix support for Mortal Kombat 11 would cease. In the meantime, the executive producer trolled and teased fans on Twitter, even calling them "entitled". I do not have to have any experience in the gaming industry to identify this behavior as unprofessional at best and other explicit adjectives at worst.
Preach brother. NRS completely fucked communication and sold bills despite whatever may be happening with WB
 

molambo

(X ౪ X )
It's only for public player match lobbies, can't be used for King of the Hill, private games, or ranked.
was that something they had the intention to do? when not i wouldnt call it in beta state since it seems to be done, just not how some people expected it.
i am on pc and crossplay was no thing for it anyway so i did not really looked into that topic back then.
 

craftycheese

I tried to throw a yo-yo away. It was impossible.
was that something they had the intention to do? when not i wouldnt call it in beta state since it seems to be done, just not how some people expected it.
i am on pc and crossplay was no thing for it anyway so i did not really looked into that topic back then.
Doesn't it still say it's a beta ingame or have they finally changed that?
 

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
Again... this is not how things work..... Let me put this into a simple conversation:

Some NRS dudes: lets patch some frame data (server side), this will take our QA team like 5 days at launch brakes
Some other NRS dudes: but but we only can do Playstation and Xbox version; PC is done by QLOC and Switch ... i dont even remember. We need ATT permission, coz neither QLOC or that Switch company works for free... Okay lets go to our managment so they can ask somebody from ATT for permission.
NRS managment: This will not work, they wont agree, there is no money to make here... MK11 is done... but fine lets ask them
NRS managment to ATT: Can we do a small patch for MK 11 for all platforms?
WB/ATT: How much we gonna make out of it?
NRS managment: Nothing.... we actually have to pay QLOC and other company to port it to PC and Switch on top of time of our employees... Community wants it!
WB/ATT: Commun... what? No, piss off.

End of conversation.
This just shows they missed every oportunity they had to put out good patches and shift the ppl on their side so the game could live longer.

This is one of the reasons why i think i fighting game should be designed to be fun and not stressfull, think well what should be implemented and have fucking rules in design should be.

Tekken 7 outlived 3 NRS games, that's hilarious but t's a fact.
Harada recently revealed that all the budget they spent making T7 was recovered two months AFTER release day, so after two months in early 2017 to 2021 it's just profit money. And the board can't say no to them because with each new season more money for them lmao.
 
I think each of those NRS games has outsold Tekken 7. It makes more business sense to release a new game every couple of years.
I understand the point behind this but I must add that this only works if people accept it AND if people like the game. If the next game is handled the way this one was they will lose gamers. Even people who have been riding with the franchise that are life long fans will stop buying their games.

It would have taken work to improve this game and cost money but in the long run you maintain a reputation for repeat business between them and the players. As much as I love the game they handled this one poorly and have lost fans bc of it. If it continues this way it will cause long term damage.
 

Darth-Nero

Come Thunder! Come Lightning!
It’s crazy to me that some believe people will look back on MK11 fondly. Most boring title in NRS history and it will not be missed. I hope NRS handles the next game much differently.
Unless they managed to make the next game ultimately worse than mk11 ever was which, judging from their down curve in developing core mechanics, is not that long of a stretch.