Ed Boon Q&A on Twitter

[Marlow]

I'd actually be interested in a Mortal Kombat Alpha, with a basically all "new" kast of kharacters from other realms. Have it take place during one of the first ever tournaments. You could probably still have your typical character types (ice ninja, earth ninja, wind ninja, fire ninja, water ninja, heart ninja, mind ninja, electricity ninja, ghost ninja, robot ninja, blind ninja, old ninja, wizard ninja, emo ninja, smooth jazz ninja, etc) but at least they could include some new flavor. And that way they wouldn't need to be so beholden to legacy characters and legacy move sets. More freedom to create.

 

[Wigy]

I'd rather they take their time than rush an unfinished product out.

Im betting we get both- and barely any support.

 

[Juxtapose]

And Johnny should have no part of Special Forces/Military stuff outside of being an action movie star

I actually didn't have an issue with that. Not only was his involvement with Sonya a big part of the overall trilogy's story, with his abilities and the death of Liu Kang and Kung Lao he became Earthrealm's best hero. Him ending up in Special Forces, who's primary responsibility is Earthrealm's protection, makes complete sense.

...and doesn't look anything close to John Parrish...

Perhaps they didn't have the rights to use his face model? When I first saw the trailers, I thought the "past" was going to be the original timeline characters from Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, since the character design reflected that look. It would have been very interesting to see the new and old trilogy counterparts meet one another, since they're rather different.

I think that's why the Kotal Krew was so well-received in MKX...

The Outworld Civil War was by far the most interesting story line in the modern trilogy. I'd love a game based on this alone.

Im betting we get both- and barely any support.

Someone's just a smidge bitter.

 

[Vslayer]

Yeah I really get the vibe that Ed is annoyed with his bosses. He usually interacts with the community so much more. Even with these AMAs he's being extremely dry. There is zero humor in any of his answers and thats so unlike him

yeah, I'm not going to pretend I know what's going on but it's clear he loves the community and wants to give us something to chew on. He's a solid dude. I know we're all impatient, but I mean they did stop with MK11 patches and they had to know the game was going to die out eventually.

Oh well, it'll happen when it happens. Not sure if the tweet was posted here but he said he couldn't answer if we would get an announcement by the end of the year or not.

 

[Wigy]

@Juxtapose

When NRS gives you lemons..

 

[Marlow]

@Juxtapose

When NRS gives you lemons..

We complain about those lemons and pine for the lemons we used to get.

 

[Juxtapose]

We complain about those lemons and pine for the lemons we used to get.

^This.

 

[Wigy]

We complain about those lemons and pine for the lemons we used to get.

Yeah it's true but at least they mixed up the lemon meta with proper patches.

Wish they'd take the OW2 development plan as much shit as its got they have heard the community's cry for more content and changed their model accordingly.

 

[Marlow]

Yeah it's true but at least they mixed up the lemon meta with proper patches.

Wish they'd take the OW2 development plan as much shit as its got they have heard the community's cry for more content and changed their model accordingly.

Feels like after MKX NRS got much more conservative with their patching in Injustice 2 and MK11. Which to be fair, plenty of people in the competitive community were calling for. Seeing how things have played out, I'd like to see NRS be a bit more aggressive in their patching. But it's kind of a no win situation for them.

If they're too conservative with their patches, people complain that the game is too stale. But if they're aggressive it risks changing the meta drastically in the middle of tournament season, and ending up constantly having OP characters that then need to immediately be nerfed back down. It's a bit of a tightrope.

 

[Juxtapose]

Which to be fair, plenty of people in the competitive community were calling for.

That's exactly what happened. I remember here on TYM, people were constantly complaining for a slower, more measured patch process by the time Mortal Kombat XL's life was wrapping up. People were suggesting several months between major patches, giving time for meta and nuance to be worked out, and to see if "broken" things were actually broken.

But it's kind of a no win situation for them.

Game development in all aspects is a no-win situation for the developers. Even if a developer and/or publisher gives a community exactly what they're asking for to a "T," said community will still freak at them for "getting it wrong," and then proceed with the verbal abuse, slander, and rants about how the developer is a "liar."

The modern gaming generation does not know what it wants.

 

[Kiss the Missile]

They were way too passive with MK11. Some characters barely got anything, there was little spice added. I played Kabal since the fucking Beta, and that man received zero changes for the entire game's lifespan.

 

[Marlow]

They were way too passive with MK11. Some characters barely got anything, there was little spice added. I played Kabal since the fucking Beta, and that man received zero changes for the entire game's lifespan.

Didn't he turn out to be pretty good, though?

I really liked MK11, but it definitely could have benefited from a little more spice.

 

[Kiss the Missile]

Didn't he turn out to be pretty good, though?

I really liked MK11, but it definitely could have benefited from a little more spice.

He's amazing, but they never tried anything with him. He still has completely useless variation moves like Tornado Spin, and things like his DoT Gas Clouds could have been expanded

 

[Marlow]

He's amazing, but they never tried anything with him. He still has completely useless variation moves like Tornado Spin, and things like his DoT Gas Clouds could have been expanded

Gotcha. I played Raiden, and I feel similarly that they never really did enough with his less popular moves. His lightning rod could have been made interesting, but they left it mostly worthless. Feels like that's the case for a lot of characters.

 

[Juxtapose]

Feels like that's the case for a lot of characters.

It is. All characters that I think of have worthless moves. Then you have other characters who require certain moves just to be viable by any means.

 

[Wigy]

That's exactly what happened. I remember here on TYM, people were constantly complaining for a slower, more measured patch process by the time Mortal Kombat XL's life was wrapping up. People were suggesting several months between major patches, giving time for meta and nuance to be worked out, and to see if "broken" things were actually broken.



Game development in all aspects is a no-win situation for the developers. Even if a developer and/or publisher gives a community exactly what they're asking for to a "T," said community will still freak at them for "getting it wrong," and then proceed with the verbal abuse, slander, and rants about how the developer is a "liar."

The modern gaming generation does not know what it wants.

I'm so tired of this brainless shilling for development studios on this forum.

They went from one extreme to the other. The community isn't at fault. It would be like every character having kill combos then patched to everyone with 10% BNBs and when people complain, everyone on here like OMG community doesn't know what it wants.

At least when they patch too quickly the game feels fresh. We had dumbed down characters with barely any changes through the games life.

 

[Juxtapose]

I'm so tired of this brainless shilling for development studios on this forum.

And I'm so tired of entitled whining on this forum, and yet here we are.

They went from one extreme to the other.

Yes they did.

The community isn't at fault.

No, but no matter what pace the game is patched at, the community will whine and complain. Not just this community, any gaming community today.

At least when they patch too quickly the game feels fresh.

Not every game needs to be a "live service" where everything is changed and updated every 5 seconds. There's much to be said for letting things sit and settle and naturally evolve. Having said that, I agree, they could have patched faster.

 

[Pizza]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1578415621569540097

Glad to see MK4 has not been forgotten! I love MK4

 

[xKhaoTik]

So that’s it? A trailer about the games and movies?

 

[Marlow]

So that’s it? A trailer about the games and movies?

Yeah, that's what Ed said they were going to do.

 

[Pizza]

So that’s it? A trailer about the games and movies?

I assume this is just the beginning

 

[ChuckFiasco]

Sad

 

[Marinjuana]

People complained quite a bit about the large amount of patching and NRS had a reputation of hitting characters that were too broke since MK9. I think they answered that criticism well by making two well balanced games without big meta changes in Inj2 and in MK11. They let characters live and sometimes the cheap ones got less cheap as people got good and some were just too much and got the bat in time.

I think part of how they accomplished this balance was toning stuff down either with tourney loadouts in Injustice or MK11's less cheap meta with those 'balanced on the safe side' kustom moves.

Now I think us NRS fans (and maybe just FG fans) are coming to terms with the idea that we just want more content and patches with new tactics will give us that. Like that patch to fix hurt reactions and add hit stun on some moves, just made the game so much more fun.

I really do think that MK11 could have been an amazing game if they had polished the hell out of it like we've seen with some other games like SF2 or Tekken 7. That said, I will give them their just props on having more well thought out balance and patch cycles.

 

[Law Hero]

People complained quite a bit about the large amount of patching and NRS had a reputation of hitting characters that they were too broke since MK9. I think they answered that criticism well by making two well balanced games without big meta changes in Inj2 and and MK11. They let characters live and sometimes the cheap ones got less cheap as people got good and some were just too much and git the bat in time.

I think part of how they accomplished this balance was toning stuff down either with tourney loadouts in Injustice or MK11's less cheap meta with those 'balanced on the safe side' kustom moves.

Now I think us NRS fans (and maybe just FG fans) are coming to terms with the idea that we just want more content and patches with new tactics will give us that. Like that patch to fix hurt reactions and add hit stun on some moves, just made the game so much more fun.

I really do think that MK11 could have been an amazing game if they had polished the hell out of it like we've seen with some other games like SF2 or Tekken 7. That said, I will give them their just props on having more well thought out balance and patch cycles.

The problem is that, for some reason or another, NRS was either unwilling or unable to strike a balance-for lack of a better word-when it came to patching.

When it comes to patching, players should not be dreading it because they're worried their characters are going to go from S tier to F tier or vice versa. Conversely, the patches should have noticeable enough effects that players feel the changes. As stated earlier, NRS seems to jump from one extreme to the other between games and really seem unable to find a good middle ground. Just like when people complained that MKX was too fast and MK11 was too slow. It's not because the community is "entitled" or never satisfied, but because NRS hasn't found that happy middle yet.

Hopefully now that the NRS trilogy is over and we've seen the extremes, they can use what they've learned to make something that will make most of the community happy.

 

[Wigy]

If I'm going to be as measured as I can with complaints.

-NRS need to not have so many useless moves that never ever get changed.
-It's a bitter pill they just abandoned ship with patching after making kustom variations- especially since rain got absolutely nothing and both his signature moves are absolute garbage.
-they toned everything down to try create better balance, but I think when that's paired with barely any beefy changes means the game gets very stale.
-I think the compounding annoyance is they seem to put a lot resources into patching weird tower shit which makes it really annoying to have blatantly useless moves that could just get a simple frame change.

I am hoping we get some kind of battle pass so NRS can pull in more money so they can support the game. Overwatch has done that and I'm liking their road map. OW1 had similar complaints about not enough patches and taking too long to address bad 'metas'