What Happened, NRS?!

[Bulletz4Breakfast]

I never saw such a fast decline in people's interest over an NRS game like the one MK1 is clearly having. This affects both casuals and "pros". Game hasn't even been out for two months yet, and I see many, many people not happy with the game overall, playing it less and even dropping it (like I'm probably about to do soon).

Nrs clearly fucked up this time in many areas. In my opinion they need to take a break from the traditional fg formula and try other things with the mk universe, like an adventure game. They are getting burnout, and maybe we are too.

They just gonna have to fix online and single player then buffing bottom tiers and I think the game is fine.
MK11 had same problem with many people being frustrated.
But every "I'm burned out post" I've seen, there's been 5-9 others saying "I love the gameplay and it's 1000x better than MK11" posts.
Not saying there isn't a problem but I don't think it's a death situation if they improve online modes, features, connection and do stuff to make single player more fun.
If they don't fix those issues I think it will be it's death.
The big problem I see is abysmal payouts at majors. $350 for 5th place at our first major is wrong on so many levels. I think it's $1000-$2000 for Final Kombat at 5th place.
Final Kombat is supposed to be the big payout that makes these players attending every major worth spending on planes, room and board, food and other essentials for 2-5 days every major or at least offset it for those who place top 8 consistently.
It's made players like A Foxy Grampa not attend majors!
This problem I fear won't be fixed unless it's funded outside of WB/NRS or they actually make a Pro Tour skin. But at least top players will attend locals that pay $1000-$5000 and we can see their gameplay on Twitter/YouTube/Twitch.

 

[ismael4790]

They just gonna have to fix online and single player then buffing bottom tiers and I think the game is fine.
MK11 had same problem with many people being frustrated.
But every "I'm burned out post" I've seen, there's been 5-9 others saying "I love the gameplay and it's 1000x better than MK11" posts.
Not saying there isn't a problem but I don't think it's a death situation if they improve online modes, features, connection and do stuff to make single player more fun.
If they don't fix those issues I think it will be it's death.
The big problem I see is abysmal payouts at majors. $350 for 5th place at our first major is wrong on so many levels. I think it's $1000-$2000 for Final Kombat at 5th place.
Final Kombat is supposed to be the big payout that makes these players attending every major worth spending on planes, room and board, food and other essentials for 2-5 days every major or at least offset it for those who place top 8 consistently.
It's made players like A Foxy Grampa not attend majors!
This problem I fear won't be fixed unless it's funded outside of WB/NRS or they actually make a Pro Tour skin. But at least top players will attend locals that pay $1000-$5000 and we can see their gameplay on Twitter/YouTube/Twitch.

Too many "ifs" required for the situation to be fixed. The clock is ticking and many people won't come back if they are late. This rushed release will cost them.

By the way, didn't know about those laughable payouts. Incredible if you compare it to, for example, what ESL brought to the table in MKX.

 

[ItsYaBoi]

I'm just going to be realistic here, I don't think what is there is salvageable, at least for the casual offline SP gamer anyway (which is the bulk of the fanbase and sales).

Invasions is pretty boring and underwhelming (something most people seem to agree on), and I don't see them tweaking it enough to be semi-good without it becoming an almost entirely different mode, which is a mammoth task at this point as that would be a MAJOR overhaul. We saw how long it took them to address Tower problems in MK11, and that is nowhere near on this scale.

Shrine is a fucking joke, as is the customisation system. Down from 3 gear types to 1? And even then the choice is very limiting and piss poor. Lol at the skin choice too and the only good ones being ridiculously expensive.

It's clear to see this game was mega rushed, and oh boy that is fucking tragic for what is meant to be a 'fresh start'. Way to get off on the wrong foot.

As somebody else said earlier in the thread, it's crazy because NRS used to be the undisputed KINGS for content. Now Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 are absolutely destroying them on that front imo.

Also working during covid is no excuse. Many great games have been either ENTIRELY developed - or almost entirely - from start to finish via remote work (Spider Man 2 is one example). If they couldn't hack it, it's on senior management for why they couldn't.

 

[Juggs]

I've been thinking about this game a lot the last couple days. I got the whole weekend to do whatever I want because my wife's out of town, so the plan was do the requisite responsible shit (work out, clean the house, run some errands), and then just 4 straight days of fancy beer and MK.

The first night I grabbed some bangin poke from the market, cracked open a Rochefort 10, and played MK for like 3 hours. And then, the next day I downloaded the SF6 demo and got back into Halo Infinite and that's what I've been doing since. It's really wild and very difficult to describe the whiplash I'm experiencing from being obsessed with MK1 to being powerful bored. I really do think it's just the lack of content and feeling like I'm not making progress toward something.

For me, with MK11 and Injustice 2, there was this really addictive loop of "do a few matches online, take a break to go grind out some cosmetic goofy stuff, tool around with all the gear, play dress up, go back online, etc." That loop is just broken here; all there is to do is go online and play matches. That's cool and gratifying for a while, but I need something to break that up, or some way to make online more interesting than "maybe get closer to getting a new sword for a character I don't play".

IMO, what they need to do to inject some life into this game:

1. Fucking pay pro players so they give a shit. It's so insulting that a company as big as WB can't shell out for some respectable prize pools, and those pro players in many ways really set the tone for the community. It's not just deo and ninja one-off saying "I'm kinda bored", the downer energy is everywhere and the buzz is dying so fast it's crazy. Pretty much every notable player has levied a serious criticism in the past two weeks, whether it's a patch that takes creativity in the wrong direction, the hilariously pitiful payouts for competitive play, the lack of any meaningful goals to work toward in-game, the microtransactions, etc.
2. Make online more compelling and fun somehow. The lack of character intros, the impersonal KL queue up where I just stare at a screen until some rando's banner pops up, the fact that each character has only one intro and outro, something about the whole online experience feels very isolating, empty, and lifeless.
3. Go completely the other direction with broken ass shit with kameos. I'm fully on team Sonic with this where I want this game to be broken and crazy as fuck, where every character and kameo has an incredible amount of dirt. I realize that comes with its own risks and drawbacks, but when the rest of the game is so limiting, I want the actual gameplay to be as fun and limitless as possible.
4. I know this is going to come across like a skill issue, but I am convinced something's up with the inputs in this game. Maybe like there's some weird buffering bug somewhere or something, but the level of precision I have to have to get the direction+button move I want to come out, or the fact that if I want to do a FB or kombo breaker I need to mash relentlessly, it's extremely frustrating. I really do think it's something about this game, because I'm not having this problem with SF6, and I didn't have this problem with MK11.
5. They need to add mountains of content extremely quickly and hand out a cosmetic like every time you do anything, whether it's an Invasions space, a tower, playing a few matches for the day online, etc. Blast the doors off of whatever approval workflows WB has internally for cosmetics and start pumping shit out. Having one gear piece per character is an extremely risky philosophy that did not play out well at all because they didn't couple that with an amazing amount of skins and instances of that gear.
6. Completely retool Invasions. This was obviously meant to be the centerpiece of the single player experience, but they shanked this so wide left with the actual implementation in season 1. I love the concept of the different elemental attributes, the different talismans, the idea of the map, character progression, but they somehow fumbled on every aspect. It's trivially easy by the end of the season, so it makes all of those RPG elements irrelevant for the most part. You very rarely unlock actual content. So why play this mode when what I'm unlocking is coins to use on the mode to make it even easier?

I dunno man, I can't really think of another game where vibes went from resplendent to putrid so quickly. The only one that comes to mind is Halo Infinite, and that's a great example of a game that is now experiencing a bit of a renaissance because of how much content they added. Turns out for all but the most competitive players, you need to give people stuff to do and earn in your game.

I think the biggest issue with MK1 is the lack of incentives. This applies to both the casuals and the competitive players.

For competitive players, there needs to be more of an incentive other than just getting overall Elder God status for ranked, and/or KL specific alts. This is another reason having character specific ranks like other modern fighting games (like SF6 for instance) should be mandatory for all modern day fighting games. Aside from all the benefits it provides of you being able to climb the ranking ladder with multiple characters, actually being able to use characters that aren’t your main in ranked, there’s the added incentive of getting a high rank or the highest rank with multiple characters.

Aside from that, other incentives would help tremendously. Incentives that would make casuals want to play ranked matches AND want the competitive players to play them as well. Which, KL exclusive gear is a good start, but there needs to be more. What that is? I haven’t really thought about that other than what I’ve already mentioned. Maybe reward you with the currency you use to buy things like thar Halloween Fatality. Idk, But I’ll try to think of more things.

As far as single player modes, the same principle applies. They need more incentives. What they currently have is decent, but it’s simply not enough. There needs to be far more gear and alts you can find. Speaking of which, there needs to be FAR more gear/palletes for each character and Kameo. This may seem like trivial things, but they have way more of an impact than you’d think.

Overall, you need more than the gameplay itself to provide an incentive to keep people super motivated to play. You want players to look forward to coming home from work to get on the game and all that.

There’s way more I want to say on this, but busy atm, so I’ll come back at some point and expand

 

[xenogorgeous]

yeah yean, lots of great opinions and statement here in this thread ..... you are the best, TYM members and fellows !

the gameplay is good, better than MK11, but the Single Player experience is bad ..... Invasions is a half assed poor experience, worse than expected and sure that they will do nothing to improve it ...... also, if you see Ed Boo doing Twitter survey pool about what QoL and improvements the fans want, this more than proves that this game was rushed to hell, lol !

As long as the casuals provide the amount of profit the WB IP owner expect, it is obvious that both WB and NRS will not embrace the competitive level of the game to the point of promoting majors with huge prizes, nope, will not happen .... will take a huge amount of time in distance future to take place or will never in fact happen, to them to do what Capcom is trying with the Capcom Cup 2023 stuff with SF6 .....

Such a shame that, for the GOTY this year, I cannot see MK1 taking the spot and gaining ...... SF6 probably will take the GOTY, and if so, this will be a slap in the face of NRS , hehe

 

[John Grizzly]

NRS (for the most part) nailed the most important aspect of the game - the gameplay.

Having said that, never in my wildest dreams would I ever think that I'd describe an NRS release as "bare bones", but here we are.

• Invasions is THE WORST single player mode in the HISTORY of NRS titles. I absolutely cannot believe they were able to come up something that made me long for the days of Towers of Time. Shit, at least you could see what reward you'd get for completion in ToT. Invasions is so fucking bad, it's actually embarrassing.
• The skins are garbage. Who thought we'd want 157 brown, yellow and red skins? They all look like shit.
• The shop still doesn't rotate, and when it does, it still doesn't have a thing I want. I dropped money on Krystals day 1 of release (my fault, I know) and I struggle to find anything I want to spend them on. I won't even get into the $12 Fatality. I hope no one bought that garbage.
• I'm still experiencing bugs like having the sound cut out when I go to the select screen. The only fix is quitting and restarting the game. Not annoying at all.

There's probably more I'm forgetting but I really hope NRS does something soon. I'm finding less and less reasons to play the game and that makes me sad. I was so incredibly excited for this release.

 

[ItsYaBoi]

The skins are garbage. Who thought we'd want 157 brown, yellow and red skins? They all look like shit.

This is so true. Listen, I'm playing as fucking Sub Zero, who has an iconic colour scheme attached to him, why the fuck would I want a red and orange version?

It's the laziest fucking filler content, MK11 was guilty of this too but at least it had more base game alternate skins for all characters.

 

[xenogorgeous]

This is so true. Listen, I'm playing as fucking Sub Zero, who has an iconic colour scheme attached to him, why the fuck would I want a red and orange version?

It's the laziest fucking filler content, MK11 was guilty of this too but at least it had more base game alternate skins for all characters.

yeah

NRS should know better that, for each color, the nature provided hundreds of tone and variation inside that color , so, yeah, I wanna Sub-Zero to have 20 skins, each one, a variation of his source color, blue ...... so the same for each other MK char

People in social media are mocking this season as the MK McDonalds season, cause, the skins colors are totally horrible , the worst ever for any MK game ..... normallly I spend and waste time grinding all MK content , but for this game, is not worth to pick each color variation, cause some of them are horrbile for the eyes, gross combinations of colors , without any sense of finesse coming from that , lol !

what a fucking joke, NRS !

 

[Dankster Morgan]

As somebody else said earlier in the thread, it's crazy because NRS used to be the undisputed KINGS for content. Now Street Fighter 6 and Tekken 8 are absolutely destroying them on that front imo.

Fuck… RIP

 

[MateoFoShizzle]

yeah

NRS should know better that, for each color, the nature provided hundreds of tone and variation inside that color , so, yeah, I wanna Sub-Zero to have 20 skins, each one, a variation of his source color, blue ...... so the same for each other MK char

People in social media are mocking this season as the MK McDonalds season, cause, the skins colors are totally horrible , the worst ever for any MK game ..... normallly I spend and waste time grinding all MK content , but for this game, is not worth to pick each color variation, cause some of them are horrbile for the eyes, gross combinations of colors , without any sense of finesse coming from that , lol !

what a fucking joke, NRS !

I would assume each season comes with its own color scheme but by that math (23 characters x 6 week season) - you’re looking at over 2.5 years to potentially get the color scheme you want instead of being available/unlockable at launch

 

[chrisisnice]

One of the things they should do is convert your excess invasion siver coins which expire at the end of the season into crystals (eg 5 invasion coins = 1 crystal). At least then threre would be some reward for the shitty grinding you do.

 

[YagamiFire]

It's stupid but with their lack of load-outs for different variations of gear/skin (which is in and of itself a problem with character selection and worse than it was in MK11) we also lost the little black, gold and red icons we could have for those variations. Yes, this is a stupid little thing but it's a stupid little thing that is now not able to be collected in the game as a minor reward for doing thing like towers or challenges, etc. So more content decay from MK11.

 

[chrisisnice]

Yes, this is a stupid little thing

I get the impression that a lot of what is wrong with the game boils donwn to a bunch of "stupid little things"! Combined, they all contribute to people's enjoyment of the game. There was definitely a big lack of foresight with a lot of these issues!

 

[Shania Twain]

Why was I not a Sindel skin?

People would pay crazy money for it! You can wear a crown, no crown, all sorts of colors. You also get a kameo Jade. That should be free cuz ya know ... I'm rich and should compensate for game sales while they address these issues. There is even a free lights a laser variant of the palace stage where Kitana and Mileena sit on the thrown IE with a background like Retrocade. Heck with it...it's a whole new stage.

 

[BecomingDeath13]

They are working on the single player and also hear they are changing the Invasions Mode to make it more fun.

Where did you hear about this

 

[Bulletz4Breakfast]

Where did you hear about this

From a few pros that talked with Stephanie Brownback. They plan on working on online first, they will be addressing Crossplay since many notable top players and well known players like Ketchup and Mustard begging for Crossplay ASAP, even seen them say 2/3 is a waste of time that they want Infinites fixed, QOL changes in Online, Single Player modes and they want more custom options, a better rewards system for invasions, single player and online with better seasonal skins and a Character based ranked so you can start from scratch with characters you haven't used

 

[chud_munson]

From a few pros that talked with Stephanie Brownback. They plan on working on online first, they will be addressing Crossplay since many notable top players and well known players like Ketchup and Mustard begging for Crossplay ASAP, even seen them say 2/3 is a waste of time that they want Infinites fixed, QOL changes in Online, Single Player modes and they want more custom options, a better rewards system for invasions, single player and online with better seasonal skins and a Character based ranked so you can start from scratch with characters you haven't used

Man, if they did all that stuff, that would def be a step in the right direction for me. Except I would love the option to still play 3/5 and have more points on the line.

 

[Art Lean]

One of the things they should do is convert your excess invasion siver coins which expire at the end of the season into crystals (eg 5 invasion coins = 1 crystal). At least then threre would be some reward for the shitty grinding you do.

I have 413,745 invasion coins, which would convert to 82,749 crystals.

I support your conversion rates!

 

[BecomingDeath13]

From a few pros that talked with Stephanie Brownback. They plan on working on online first, they will be addressing Crossplay since many notable top players and well known players like Ketchup and Mustard begging for Crossplay ASAP, even seen them say 2/3 is a waste of time that they want Infinites fixed, QOL changes in Online, Single Player modes and they want more custom options, a better rewards system for invasions, single player and online with better seasonal skins and a Character based ranked so you can start from scratch with characters you haven't used

If only. The monetization is what killed it for me though. I don't typically spend money on mtx in any game but seeing the exorbitant prices they're charging for content has killed the game for me. It makes me feel dirty supporting an exploitative game like that. You know whales are gonna buy regardless and that hurts. I've put the game down. The $12 fatality was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I've only got around 89hrs in the game and that's nothing compared to the amount of time I had in x and 11 by this point. Instead I've gone on and played through to platinum Lies of P (fantastic game btw) and with Alan Wake 2 out I've started a playthrough of the remaster. I originally played AW1 on 360 and I loved it. Then I look at my dashboard, see mk1, and just sigh..

It's gonna be interesting to see if they address anything during the Kombat Kast tomorrow. I think that absolutely need to because the fan base has fucking had it.

Edit: Can we skip the Nitara season and go straight to the Sub-Zero season so I can have 500 different shades of blue for everyone?

 

[PrinceGoro]

The whole ping issue I hear is being fixed. Ed Boon asked the community what they want first to come. They are working on a patch.
1. They are having server problems, I guess this game is coded in servers and a server problem causes glitches like the player 1 advantage they fixed at least Paulo said that and EX Clone glitch on Sub Zero character is also a server glitch. Have no clue how but that's what they said.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1720537768068039146

So 1 or all of these features are coming next patch and the others to follow:
Crossplay, Ping Filter, WiFi Filter KL, Ranked to FT2 instead of FT3.

They are working on the single player and also hear they are changing the Invasions Mode to make it more fun. I hope they expand it x3 and make it free movement like the Krypt or at least remove the constant Ambush/"Secret Fights" and throw in a bunch of Boss battles and MK Knowledge Riddles/Puzzles to unlock secret zones.
I know currently there are hints on locked areas I haven't got in even though I've gone through every Mesa.

My biggest issue with single player is constantly being disconnected from servers.

That tweet is just embarassing,especialy because they advertised cross play at launch yet now they seemingly have no specific date,and are asking the community what they want.

This is just fake communication/damage control and nothing else.Expect the standard radio silence on any important issues the game has,and especially on the monetisation.

There really should be a giant uproar against the trash that is the premium store,It should be removed completly.

 

[Lord Snotty]

There's no doubt this is the worst game in NRS history. Why? breathes deeply The kameos are gimmicky distractions, an excuse to dispense with characters we want in the game as viable options. They might be liked by us, but the 3D era characters were unsuccessful with the public for many reasons and continue to be unsuccessful even in a new iteration, which is the best lesson in why you never pander to fans ever. The concept of a revamped universe was a great one, and yet we still got Johnny Cage doing his shtick, damn Titans, and alternate realities we don't care about. The lack of new characters tells me there are no new ideas. The animation feels more cartoonish than MK11. There's no depth to this game. The Kombat Pack is terrible. We've got damn Cassie Cage again along with Omniman and Homelander. The extras are rotten. The lack of a three part dialogue loading screen robs the characters of personality. The monetization is greedy as fuck even for NRS. I can't imagine going back to this game and I never thought I'd say that about Mortal Kombat. It really is that terrible. I'm so disappointed.

 

[Juggs]

There's no doubt this is the worst game in NRS history. Why? breathes deeply The kameos are gimmicky distractions, an excuse to dispense with characters we want in the game as viable options. They might be liked by us, but the 3D era characters were unsuccessful with the public for many reasons and continue to be unsuccessful even in a new iteration, which is the best lesson in why you never pander to fans ever. The concept of a revamped universe was a great one, and yet we still got Johnny Cage doing his shtick, damn Titans, and alternate realities we don't care about. The lack of new characters tells me there are no new ideas. The animation feels more cartoonish than MK11. There's no depth to this game. The Kombat Pack is terrible. We've got damn Cassie Cage again along with Omniman and Homelander. The extras are rotten. The lack of a three part dialogue loading screen robs the characters of personality. The monetization is greedy as fuck even for NRS. I can't imagine going back to this game and I never thought I'd say that about Mortal Kombat. It really is that terrible. I'm so disappointed.

Oh? Cassie Cage is in the DLC??? Wow!

 

[Eddy Wang]

If by January 26th 2024 this MK game is not functioning as it should, i'm gone.

My trust was already broken, and after that i'm not buying an NRS game digitally ever again, and certainly not pre-ordering digitally either, so if by the time i purchase and see the same BS i've seen in this one, like lying publicly about the product and pre-order baits, i will just re-sell the retail physical copy since WB doesn't take refunds.


This could've been easily my Tekken 8 pre-order, but i had to see it to believe, considering this game was being "baked for the past 2 years" and had the biggest QA team in a NRS release yet.
There is just 0 excuse to defend this product or to even come out as it did, even if it was pushed out by WB as many like to say, the review of basic functions not being implemented it's beyond belief, the training mode on it's own it's worse than MK11's training mode, the net code is worse too, gosh the inputs make my eyes bleed and it seems that they keep desigining their game around that precious d1 where everyone ends going for when they are negative.

My time is set, now all i have to do is wait.

 

[Shania Twain]

well they must already be working on a new game cuz according to linkedin they are hiring for a lead animator, senior concept artist, senior designer for combat, senior software engineer. so apparently they are moving on fast. all of these posted within the last week. some within a couple days.

 

[masuhdunkillyall]

I uninstalled a couple days ago. I have far too many great backlogged games waiting to be played. I’d rather do that than spend time playing this shit.

Everybody has already vocalized the many issues with this game (all of which I agree with) but the one thing that keeps rearing it’s ugly, disgusting head is the incredibly shitty online. I feel like I’m playing an FG from the early 2010’s or something; it’s fucking incredibly bad, and I have a great gaming PC with a wired, ultra-fast connection. My main “mode of play” so to speak is either labbing or casual matches/ranked, so the online being unreliable at best is just unacceptable in 2023, especially when compared to SF6.

I rarely get time to game these days, so when a few rounds of MK feels like I’m playing a product that could literally break at any moment (and often does) or isn’t representative of stable intentional gameplay, it’s frustrating to no end.

They burned me with their shitty PC MKX port and at the time I resigned to just not buy NRS games anymore (especially after burning out on Injustice 2 rather quickly, disliking the variations concept in MKX, etc). Skipped MK11 but decided to give them a chance with this, day 1. I should’ve waited.

Never believe the hype.

If they can improve it in due time, I’ll be back of course. As for now, I’m just disappointed.