MK1 Invasions Mode: (It Sucks)

[Swindle]

Another piece of bullshit:
Completed Kitana’s 35 levels of mastery, thinking that her awesome Evil skin from the end of story mode must be in there…
Fuck you, Derek.

 

[Toonen1988]

Another piece of bullshit:
Completed Kitana’s 35 levels of mastery, thinking that her awesome Evil skin from the end of story mode must be in there…
Fuck you, Derek.

Wait what? We don't get a cool skin on level 35 mastery?

 

[Kiss the Missile]

It's cool to have a season that's themed after something, but filling my inventory with countless orange and yellow costumes really stops being exciting after the 18th one

 

[Toonen1988]

Sorry for my language but WTF...... I had the most stupist and lamest fight in all history. Seriously, I just did a daily tower in Invasion mode. It has the modifiers Fire smoke, Flaming Hell Hound, Bouncing fireballs, Fire smoke (yes two times) and Flying Demon.

My character and AI was coughing, when that was over we got ran over by the flaming hellhound, knock down to the ground. When standing up, we got hit by the flaming fireball, when that was over the flaming demon set my character on fire. When that was over, characters starting to cough again and repeat the whole process.

The AI and I didn't literally hit eachother onces, seriously I should have recorded this. This is hideous, we didn't attack eachother once, because we got constantly interupted by the modifiers. You also couldn't evade it, because the modifiers keep in coming. I just won because I got less damage by the modifiers as the AI when the timer reach 0.

EDIT: I think my game is completly bugged now. My character is also teleporting all over the place when being hit by a modifier. I can't also do any fatalities or what so ever. My character is just "stuck" when I see the "finisher him/her" line.

 

[Kiss the Missile]

Sorry for my language but WTF...... I had the most stupist and lamest fight in all history. Seriously, I just did a daily tower in Invasion mode. It has the modifiers Fire smoke, Flaming Hell Hound, Bouncing fireballs, Fire smoke (yes two times) and Flying Demon.

My character and AI was coughing, when that was over we got ran over by the flaming hellhound, knock down to the ground. When standing up, we got hit by the flaming fireball, when that was over the flaming demon set my character on fire. When that was over, characters starting to cough again and repeat the whole process.

The AI and I didn't literally hit eachother onces, seriously I should have recorded this. This is hideous, we didn't attack eachother once, because we got constantly interupted by the modifiers. You also couldn't evade it, because the modifiers keep in coming. I just won because I got less damage by the modifiers as the AI when the timer reach 0.

EDIT: I think my game is completly bugged now. My character is also teleporting all over the place when being hit by a modifier. I can't also do any fatalities or what so ever. My character is just "stuck" when I see the "finisher him/her" line.

I think I had that one in Invasions too. My character and the AI literally just stood there coughing the whole time. I could barely get off a single fireball between coughs, and that was the entire fight.

 

[Nickolaidas]

Seriously, how Derek is still employed will never stop making smh.

 

[MateoFoShizzle]

Seriously, how Derek is still employed will never stop making smh.

y’all act like he is the one making the final call on everything. He’s just a developer, probably has to work within the parameters of whatever he’s told. Y’all are so quick to hate on someone.

invasions is alright in concept. As stated a million times on here, I think the whole game was prematurely released because it doesn’t seem completed at all. I was hoping invasions would be a mix of MK9s challenge tower with all the goofy and fun challenges and Deceptions conquest mode where it ties a lot of lore in and there’s NPC characters to interact with. Maybe that will be something they add in future invasions

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

I was hoping invasions would be a mix of MK9s challenge tower with all the goofy and fun challenges and Deceptions conquest mode where it ties a lot of lore in and there’s NPC characters to interact with. Maybe that will be something they add in future invasions

Instead, we got MKDA Konquest with MK11 Towers of Time bullshit mixed in it. Except MKDA Konquest actually served the purpose of teaching you every character's strings and some combos, something you can't do most of the time in Invasions due to bullshit modifiers...

 

[Afumba]

Totally agree.... the gameplay is so horrible that i wished i was doing MK11 Towers of Time... and those were already real bad. Its an unchallenging, uninspired crapfest with mechanics just intended to annoy, frustrate and prolong gametime.

The good things:
I like the Invasions idea and i love how the mesas look. They did a great job there. The Clues puzzle are also great and the only enjoyable thing in invasion by a landslide.

The bad things;
- The modifiers are horrendous and anti fun. They are either pointless or unplayable. Things like Black screen, white screen, the stupid cough one and the buttom scrabbling one are so bad that i am sure that someone got blackmailed into greenlighting those modifiers. 4-5 modifiers in an encounters is peak stupidity as well, no challenge no fun just a colorful pointless firework.

- Armor. Everything and their moms having armor and super armor nonstop is such a pathetic design. Just there to inflate gametime and annoy the players.

- even with those crap modifiers and all that armor its easy and unchallengng. Its just a big slog. As Mileena/Sareena i put 20 in health/def and than pumped special/attack to 100 in a 2:1 ratio and cleared everything with extele/tele, uppercut, exroll and Sareena projectiles with ease and without fun. Pretty sure this works for all chars. Agility stat is useless, havent blocked a single time the whole invasion.

- AI is bad. You can literally stand around in most non boss fights and the enemy will still struggle to kill you. Lots of times it feels like the AI just fights the air and does random stuff and not even engaging with you. For example i stood in front of a Liu Kang and he just did jump~airfireball three times in a span of around 10sec for no reason.

- syringes are totally broken. 15% perma resist is wild for an item you get frequently. Latest at living forest most elements only tickle you. I had electricity and dark immunity when i reached the Tarkatan camp and at the end everything except phys/blood/ice would do almost no dmg to me. Makes stats like Health and def even more worse than attack/special.

- Talismans and Relics are pointless. Never used a talisman and never equipped a relic beside the one from Johnnys mansion. Exception: after i failed the final TYM in the seasonal challenge Tower i used the Bo Rai Cho talisman to make the slog back to the top faster. It one shots everything.

- currency is almost useless, you get so much of it and the only thing thats worth the time to go buy them are keys, the "double all stats potion" for the seasonal challenge tower and the "no ambush" thing to avoid extra fights.

- survive mini game. Good idea horrible excution. After the first few you can literally stand still and tank them. Totally pointless. Also lack of variety and clucky movement . Seasonal towers has some variety but its pointless there too cuz you can tank those too.

- no map. Why t f not?

- slow walkspeed in mesas

- barely any variation. 1 boring and 1 pointless variationsless minigame. And fights consist of just normal fights, boss fights and endurance with easy targets.

- ambushes are a good idea with bad design. They are just regular fights. I like the ambush idea but as it is its uninspired/unimaginativ and the way invasions are right now it just extends the tedium.

- secret fights.... among all the bad shit this is the worst. Secret fights are supposed to be something awesome, something rewarding, something unique. In Invasions they are just a punishment. You sit there and hope that you dont get one so you can move along. They serve no purpose, they dont reward you with anything special. You even get mocked by the annoucer as he makes it sound like you just discovered something awesome. EVERY NODE HAS A SECRET. Dumbest shit i have seen this year and i play D4.

- netherstone was dissapointing. Absolutely not worth returning to every mesa. Unlocked areas, fights, rewards, everything was underwhelming

- no real secrets or hidden areas in mesas

- seasonal challenge tower... 18 floor slog. Not hard, not fun but as frustrating and annoying and time consuming as it gets. Worst designed tower i have ever played. About half the tower are bosses, mostly 3 rounds with very high hp/armor and tedious and timewasting bs. The other half is challenges.... easy endurances, "survive" minigames with one in which you are totally blind... sooo fun (luckily you can easily tank them all) and 1 TYM. The TYM is another pinnacle of fun gameplay design. Its the last fight of the tower and the zone you have to hit is about 1/3 of other TYM. You have 1 try, if you fail you have to start the whole tower again. And if you beat it you dont get anything besides coins and random talisman. (Some ppls reported to get skins for this, i call bs. Finished it twice and i never got anything beside coins talisman)

- Invasion rewards. The whole mode feels unrewarding. Beside the Scorpion Boss Outfit i cant think of anything i would consider a reward. The unfun nature of the mode as its now (at least to me) amplifies this even more. No/barely any rewards, no fun, not much to discover, no secrets, low variety. Why would ppl do it again next season?

So they should keep the mesas and the clue puzzles and scrap/reimagine/change everything else and add variety/secrets/special events etc... I also hope we dont have the same Mesas every season...

 

[Demon_0]

Its a steamy pile of dogshit with pretty looking environments.

Its amazing how in every game we get AI fight where they have super armour and insane health while all sorts of modifier magic is coming down on you from all directions. Like, which moron at NRS thinks this is actually fun? And who's the dumbass that keeps approving for this to be in the game?

Invasions is full of all sorts of problems.

 

[Ironsoulsmasher]

invasions mode is...uninspiring as is. very uninspiring.


On another note, I would like to lament over the test your might challenges in this game as they are completely random in nature this time around.

Call me old fashioned, but it's not as satisfying building up the bar to break (or obliterate) a rooster or a severed head on a stick compared to increasingly difficult levels of different substances as they did in older games.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

This is such a downgrade over every bonus mode we have ever had. The look of the “board game” is quite cool but that’s it, it’s dressing. It’s polishing a turd.

The rewards are terrible for the awful shit you have to do. Challenge tower had a finite beginning and an end, and a stupid horny Millena costume to show off to everyone how you suffered, it was a fun experience in between the actual game. MK9 also had a krypt, albeit barebones, and tag Kombat which was a blast as an alternate mode.

The MK11 krypt was cool as shit, exploring Shang Tsung’s island is a way better love letter to MK lore than moving across the “board game” for 3 seconds in between ass blasts. It had its frustrating aspects but at least it was entirely removed from the aids that was living towers.

It’s a good thing the actual game is so fun that playing online is all it takes to keep me satiated, but I can definitely see myself getting burned out since there’s fuck all else to do besides get your ass blasted on Kombat League by mashing lunatics on cellular internet. That’s hyperbole obviously, most KL matches are pretty dang good, but STILL. What a let down of this bonus mode. In MKX and 11 when I got tired of the ass blast, I had something else to do for a little bit to take a breather. I will literally only play MK1 for ranked and to lab things, otherwise I’ll just play a different game since there’s no quality bonus content. No krypt for the first time in well over a decade. MK1 is probably my favorite NRS game even already at its core gameplay, story mode was good, but I’m let down with the value of the overall package for the first time in an NRS game.

 

[thesacrifist]

Great stream-of-cosnciousness type rants, I feel the raw emotion, the pathos! Keep’em coming hopefully someone at NRS will read this but I imagine they are painfully aware of the state the «rest of the game» is in; as in not the actual gameplay and story which are luckily pretty great.

If they allocate resources to do the extra development needed they can «re-release» in a year and get a Destiny/No Mans Sky redemption arc going which would cement their legacy as a studio with the fans. Fingers crossed!

 

[xWildx]

I was really expecting more when I saw them teased on social media. The Test Your Might and Survive challenges were fun the first few times, then became stale, just like everything else in this mode. Pouring armor onto everything with ridiculous modifiers you can do little to nothing about isn’t the way to go.

I was expecting challenges much more like the original challenge tower from MK9. Modifiers like, “Your arms have been severed! You can only use kick attacks,” invisible opponents, Test Your Sight, defending against a horde of marching enemies, throwbacks to old ideas (literally could’ve reskinned Rain for a Hydro-themed challenge) are all missing.

Really, this mode just comes off as creatively bankrupt and I hope they see the negative reception and it influences future seasons.

 

[ZeroBG82]

AI is bad.

This is true across the board, not just in Invasions. I laugh so hard every time the AI kills itself with Nitara's self-damaging buff. I fought against her 8-10 times in local versus mode today just to mess around with some different kameos and she killed herself easily 4-5 times. Messed up an attempt to see a new brutality while she was at it once too!

 

[Juggs]

Had a long rant written out but it’s essentially saying the same thing I and others have already said.

Before any single player modes were even announced I said I hoped there wasn’t going to be a SP mode that was a boring grindfest with artificial difficulty like they had in MK11. And they not only made just that, it’s even WORSE than MK11’s Towers! If you can’t program the AI to actually be good, why even give us SP modes outside of the story mode and regular versus mode vs the AI? They would be MUUUCH better off having really fun SP modes as I mentioned earlier. Like they have had in the past. Like Chess Kombat, Motor Kombat, or even adding in arcade ports to classic MK games. They’ve done all of that in previous MK games, why are the SP modes 20x worse than they were over a decade ago?

Like if they wanted to go with this board game route, why not make it like Mario Party styled? Where in order to move forward you have to roll a dice in some way. They could’ve easily made this invasion mode fun if they actually made it like a board game in some way.

Anyway, that’s the last I’ll say about it. No reason to keep beating a dead horse. Just super disappointed. At least the actual gameplay is super good and fun. It feels like one of the most fun MK games competitively speaking that I’ve played in awhile. So I’m glad that they at least got something right with this game

 

[Ilthuain]

I'm on the last mesa, and I feel overall Invasions are... kinda bland? The armor doesn't really bother me, what does bother me is that it's trivially easy.

I don't mind playing against the CPU, either. I can happily play towers all day, but almost every battle in Invasions is over in seconds.

The systems are good, but there needs to be some content passes and some modifications. Maybe allowing users to allocate their own points is a mistake? Maxing out attack is super silly and an obvious way to blow through the content. I'm not even sure what some of the attributes actually do, but it doesn't matter because my uppercuts do 50% (or more).

The maps look great, though. Hopefully future seasons will be more interesting.

 

[Trustful_Whale]

Not every enemy or battle has hyper armor lol. Also, this makes fights more strategic instead of allowing someone just to run up and uppercut every fight to death.

Tbh it didn't feel very strategic to just pump damage stats and spam armor talisman to sleepwalk through fights. Everything explodes and you don't take damage even with base health.

 

[Art Lean]

I stupidly selected auto-attribute to the stats, but wanted to change it after and couldn't work out how. Now I'm level 30 and not increasing anymore, do I need to buy that thing from the Kollector so I can manually re-apply them all (or do I lose all my stat points entirely if I get that and have to start again)?

 

[Trustful_Whale]

I stupidly selected auto-attribute to the stats, but wanted to change it after and couldn't work out how. Now I'm level 30 and not increasing anymore, do I need to buy that thing from the Kollector so I can manually re-apply them all (or do I lose all my stat points entirely if I get that and have to start again)?

It refunds your stat points so you can re-allocate them, no risk.

 

[Ptehu]

Disappointment is the best word I think.

I'm disappointed because I expected something I can free-roam with cool challenges and different crazy fights and rewards.

What I have received?

Beautifully build maps which I can walk only from spot to spot. Can't even admire the environment because there is no aerial view for it.
There is no fucking map! Sometimes I'm walking around in circles and I'm forgetting easily where the blocked passages are. Ye, my memory is bad, but holy fuck - addition of the map (it can be faded for starter and then extending as per exploring - Heroes of Might and Magic style).
Rewards are boring - fucking orange Sub-Zero, orange Ashrah, orange Reptile and orange Rain. I mean - really? This is what I'm grinding for? Oh wait, we have the full-body tattooed options for handful of characters. But still that doesn't convinces me. I'm actually more excited visiting the Shrine rather than expecting something extra from invasions
Fights are boring af and definitely you will not learn anything that will help you with online/regular matches.


I loved the concept of MK11 krypt. Despite the grinding (that was toned down) it was great experience just being FREE to roam and explore by yourself. Not being handguided from one spot to another. Just imagine if we got these two combined - MK11 krypt and these beautiful, colorful mesas. With hidden chests, with some random characters you can meet and talk to (or fight with). With some lore-expanding dialogue lines or easter eggs.

So yea - disappointment. That's what I feel.

And as far as I'm reading here - I'm currently in the Tarkatan's camp - if you go further, nothing changes and there are no crazy rewards or anything that can make me play this.
I play this only for Koins. So when the Shrine is empty, not sure what else is there that can actually attract me to play.

And it's sad because I'm not super-skilled player to just jump online and smash everybody. I'm below average for sure, so online matches are linked with the stress-factor. I really wanted to get the decent alternative so that I can just play by my own and JUST. HAVE. FUN.

 

[ItsYaBoi]

I think it's the lack of variety within Invasion's that is doing it for me. There needs to be a few more minigames, easter eggs and interesting things for players and fans.

Why the FUCK you can't go into the arcade in Johnny's Mansion and play ports of classic MK games is beyond me. I'm not asking for too much there, just have MK1 or something playable if you go up to an arcade machine. Then in future seasons maybe look at adding MK2 and UMK3 then call it a day.

Having only Test Your Might be one of the minigames is weak. No Test Your Sight or Test Your Strike to mix things up? No? As somebody else said earlier in the thread, have some themed minigames or challenges based on the mesa you're in. A few tiles in Fengjian where you have to press buttons in a certain order to chop up ingredients for Madam Bo, with the character you're playing as doing karate chops in order to prepare the food. Just silly shit like that that breaks up the monotony.

Survive being just laser balls and knives (the only ones I have encountered yet) is pretty shitty too, and relies on teaching the player how to move across the arena and jump, that's it. Why not mix it up and have the occasional survival be with only falling projectiles, that go pretty fast, and the player has to avoid them by only using dash forward and dash backward.

Secret fights are bollocks when they happen almost EVERY TIME. Please for the love of god have some hidden requirements to get them, make them less frequent and make them more interesting. Give us a Liu Kang in green and call him Hornbuckle for example, and then give him Quan's moveset or something stupid - you know, the EXACT type of thing they did in the final chapter of the story mode with the hybrids. Fans would love that shit, instead of 'Princess of Xanaria' or some other made up, random bullshit you have pulled out of your ass.

The other complaints too are just ones I would be echoing. No map (how the fuck this happened is beyond me), AI being the most stupid I have ever encountered, and plenty more.

EDIT - as somebody else said too, I think for me this is the least value in an MK game yet. I enjoyed the story mode (barring complaints I have which I have mentioned in the spoiler thread), and the core gameplay is FANTASTIC. I've nearly done every characters tower and I have yet to encounter a character I didn't enjoy playing as. But so much is lacking for me. Invasions is weak and grindy, with shitty rewards and heavily monotonous gameplay due to a lack of variety as mentioned above. The shrine is a joke, the ultimate RNG and super barebones. I really don't get why we don't have a krypt at the very least.

It just overall feels so....barebones compared to previous MK's imo.

 

[Art Lean]

Do we really need all that damn artwork in the shrine? It’s an absolute ball ache to have a few thousand coins, have to make constant individual donations of 1k (in MK11 you at least got better rewards the more you paid) only to get 6 rewards of artwork you can Google for free only to get an ugly random palette or another identical stick for Tanya. It’s the sheer mystery of what’s even available that’s so infuriating.

I never thought I’d praise MK11’s grind and vagueness about how to obtain rewards, but at least it told you where to find things, what you can find, and what you can win. That goes a long way to making the grind have a purpose, whether you choose to undertake it or not.

After all, that’s why you dangle a carrot on a stick, so the horse can constantly see the reward it’s after for doing all the hard work. That horse is just going to stop moving if you just dangling a question mark in front of it… or maybe if it’s lucky, a disgusting orange playsuit for Reptile.

 

[Trini_Bwoi]

Unfortunately all this rings true. It's just reskined towers of time but even more tedious as you slowly move from node to node. To me the lack of commentary beyond Cage Mansion is a huge bummer. If Kung Lao commented in the village providing lore or details, Baraka for the Tarkat camp etc the mode would be way more interesting. But without that, what is the mode really?... It's mostly just a collection of fights with modifiers.

 

[Ptehu]

I recall that one user said some time ago that someone from NRS is reading this forum.

Not sure how biased are we and are we in our own bubble (i'm not that much into reddit, so not sure where else these kind of topics might be raised) but maybe they will acknowledge our existence and will come to right conclusions.





who am I kidding. Everything is awesome, let's organize a kombat kast for Omniman and have a belt battle and BIRTHDAY SHOUTOUTS!