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!

 

I try to use armor and sometimes invulnerability to stave off shock and fire rockets, and try to pop in like Mileena's sais to add extra damage and get opponents off me.

These are terrible, in my experience. The problem with all defensive Konsumables (and character summons) is they have a cast time. A lot of the time you use them, you'll get immediately punished for it either wasting the Konsumable or making it not cast AT ALL. Even in the best scenario you'll waste a great opening to keep pressuring the AI. The only defensive Konsumable (that I've come across) that I'll use is 50% potion, because 50% is usually pretty big even if you get hit for 10% during it.

Look for Konsumables that trigger instantly, even (especially) if you're getting pummeled as you use them. Special Forces radio can do insane damage, other good ones are Bo Rai Cho fart, Hsu Hao laser, even Plasma Infused Death Rocket.

I did pretty well on Sonya's towers day 1, and managed to get within one tower of beating it. But today I tried Kahn's tower, and the first fight demolished me (Liu and Kun Lao). I've done tag matches before back in MK9, but this was just frustrating. Liu and Kung Lao didn't miss a block, and never failed a follow-up. I came close and got Liu down to the danger level, but could only get Lao down to 3/4th before he destroyed me.

Worst case scenario, if you come across something truly obnoxious and need an immediate solution, try letting your own AI have a whack at it.

Maybe I just need to take a break and take a step back for a moment. Reconsider my strategy.

Always a good plan. GL my dude!

 

I noticed that too, I felt bad

I love you, Derek. I love NRS.

They'll get us set.

 

So they haven't addressed the overly expensive Krypt prices at all. Instead they're just compensating us with:
500,000 coins - This is cool
500 hearts - 2 chests worth of Hearts really?
1000 souls - How many people have spent 2000 souls on a very specific bit in the Krypt? This is not enough.
1000 time crystals - This is fine.

I'm glad they're balancing the Towers of Time, but it shouldn't have even been released in this state and they've not even said anything about the Krypt prices meaning I won't be touching it for a while longer...

Who is going to be spending their hard earned currency when everything costs crazy amounts?

Did you miss the part where Koins as a reward will be more frequent?

 

Have they addressed the issues with the PC port yet?

NRS didn't make the PC or Switch Ports of the game. I recommend following those developers on Twitter

 

I wouldn't be surprised, game's getting review bombed because of an objectively badly designed system of the Krypt progression

If you're talking about the metacritic scores, a large majority of those negative reviews are due to Jax's arcade ending and the fact that the women are more fully clothed then usual. Definitely take those with huge grains of salt lol.

Not that the microtransactions and progression aren't an issue, they are one of the worst parts of the game, just saying that the game would be getting review bombed regardless of the progression.

Edit: After looking at it again the most recent reviews are more about the microtransactions than the "SJW are taking over the world" stuff. So I stand corrected, I guess that outrage was just a pre-release thing.

 

So are they still going to adjust the drop rates of Koins, Souls, and Hearts further? What about character tower specific loot?

E.g. Will they change Noob Saibot's character tower specific rewards? If so, how will this affect all of those who have already completed that character's specific towers?

 

Are things perfect, nope. are they listening and working on it, yes.
Anyone remember SFV launch?

 

So are they still going to adjust the drop rates of Koins, Souls, and Hearts further? What about character tower specific loot?

E.g. Will they change Noob Saibot's character tower specific rewards? If so, how will this affect all of those who have already completed that character's specific towers?

It sounded like they are working on a patch to adjust the rewards from towers, but they didn't really offer any specifics.

 

If I had the power to change only one thing, it would be the currencies. Why do we need 4? Everything should be Koins

There should be literally two currencies in the game at most. Gold Koins for towers and Soul Koins for MTX OR make the second currency those time tokens.

And the funny thing about this is- this is still patchable with programming. Combine the other nonsense into ONE nonsense and keep koins for towers and leveling gear up.

 

Well that was underwhelming.

I did notice the blocking thing last night though. So at least that’s slightly better.

But the frequency... I just did the 2-hour Jacqui tower, and the CPU was using the assist every 2-3 seconds. As soon as the cooldown ended, boom, here she comes again. Assist cooldowns need to be severely nerfed.

Meanwhile, I was trying the Floor is Lava tower, and the fire on the floor does absurdly massive damage over time. So I tried using a consumable (only had one for 50% fire damage), and it only lasted for a few seconds, then had a massive cooldown.

Wtf?

And what about the completely absurd character tower requirements? Perform 75 brutalities and 75 fatalities to progress. So you have to rack up 150 wins with a single character, just to earn one Brutality and skin. That’s just plain ridiculous.

I don’t mind a grind, but at least make it reasonable!

Wait until you are at the 100 krushing blow part.... grinding for an hour now and I‘m at 38 lol

Or the Gauntlet stage 7: one part is „finish this fight with a flawless victory“. Modifiers: you can’t block and the whole stage is filled with poison. I don’t know how anybody will be doing that. I tried anti poison consumable (lasts 5sec and has massive cooldown), even tried health items but didn’t get the flawless even having 100% health back. Oh, and you fight 2 chars (scorpion and sub zero) and 2 rounds. This has to be the most idiotic shit I have ever played. This part is straight up ridiculous

 

I chuckled to myself when they mentioned that their business plan isn't designed to frustrate or deceive players into spending money on MTX. Meanwhile, Frost is purchaseable for $6 with no mention that she is unlockable by spending an hour in story mode. A lot of casual players are going to fall or that con.

 

Meanwhile, Frost is purchaseable for $6 with no mention that she is unlockable by spending an hour in story mode. A lot of casual players are going to fall or that con.

It literally says on her icon you unlock her by beating chapter 4 of story mode.

 

It literally says on her icon you unlock her by beating chapter 4 of story mode.

I'm thinking more in terms of brand new buyers who have yet to really load up the game and poke around. I can't speak for other platforms, but on PC the steam store makes no mention of her being unlockable in-game. So I anticipate that a lot of first time buyers who are grabbing the game, season pass, and other DLC all at once are going to be misled into purchasing her before they even find out that she's unlockable.

 

at least were gettting more coins.

 

It's a damn shame that this has ruined the public's perception on an otherwise great fighting game.

Ah well, I'm not the one losing game sales. I hope they learn.

 

Release a game with progression locked behind an insane grind, then after the outcry patch it to be 5% less grindy and give away a bit of currency to show good faith.
Rockstar did literally the same thing a few months ago with RDR2. Anthem did too.

In Italy we say: "thinking the worst of someone it's a sin but it's often correct". We'll see.

 

Is this stream archived anywhere? It's not on their twitch or youtube. Seems kind of scummy to not archive this out of shame if they're trying to give out their mea culpas.

 

Is this stream archived anywhere? It's not on their twitch or youtube. Seems kind of scummy to not archive this out of shame if they're trying to give out their mea culpas.

It was on their twitch an hour ago, I watched it after the broadcast.

 

Well based on all this talk, i don't think i'm going to worry about doing much of the towers. Seems like too much of a grind for no great gain. I appreciate them adding this as single player content to keep people playing, but if i'm going to throw the controller at the TV just to get a few koins, it doesn't seem worth it.

About the Krypt, i've got nothing against the random nature of the drops. It's a smart way of making players actually go through and find things instead of cherry picking what they want. BUT it would have been better if the loot drops were tied to your character usage. So if Raiden is most used, then 33% of the drops would be for his items. At least then you'll get something that you wanted rather than a something for Kollector whom you don't play, or having to wait till the very end part of the Krypt just to get that final skin for your main character.

 

It was on their twitch an hour ago, I watched it after the broadcast.

Kek I'm dumb. It's titled "IGN Esports Showdown presented by Mortal Kombat 11" they just didn't rename the stream from earlier this week.

 

I’m going to reserve judgement until the patch drops but for me the damage has already been done in the sense that I will never preorder an NRS game ever again, and that speaks volumes considering I remember my brother and I having my mom pre order MK1 from a Hills department store for Mortal Monday and literally ever MK game since.

What really bothered me about their response was how they kept saying that this was in no way intentional when it clearly was, other wise they would have kept it as it was in MKX. There is clearly no value to the player in setting up the krypt, currency and random placement in chests.

The worst part is when Derick said basically this isn’t pay to win because you can’t buy Koins or soul fragments because that would affect the gameplay. That just seems so disingenuous. Really ? Your in game currency doesn’t affect gameplay either. The end result is people want to unlock skins, gear and finishers. MK9 was fine, MKX was fine, so if you didn’t “intend” this game to built around micro transactions, why the change ?

I also wonder ... how much of the games budget and resources were spent on designing consumables and augments ? Imagine if they would have left well enough alone and used those resources for something people actually wanted, we probably would have a playable Sektor and Cyrax and a U.I. That could handle custom variations for tournament play.

Bottom line is I feel bad for Tyler and Derick , you could tell they were uncomfortable and they are just doing what WB is ordering them to do, it at the same time, don’t try to bullshit us and say you guys just ran out of time to go over the krypt before launch. Even the most gullible fan can see the real reason this whole thing was left in the dark.

 

I’m going to reserve judgement until the patch drops but for me the damage has already been done in the sense that I will never preorder an NRS game ever again, and that speaks volumes considering I remember my brother and I having my mom pre order MK1 from a Hills department store for Mortal Monday and literally ever MK game since.

What really bothered me about their response was how they kept saying that this was in no way intentional when it clearly was, other wise they would have kept it as it was in MKX. There is clearly no value to the player in setting up the krypt, currency and random placement in chests.

The worst part is when Derick said basically this isn’t pay to win because you can’t buy Koins or soul fragments because that would affect the gameplay. That just seems so disingenuous. Really ? Your in game currency doesn’t affect gameplay either. The end result is people want to unlock skins, gear and finishers. MK9 was fine, MKX was fine, so if you didn’t “intend” this game to built around micro transactions, why the change ?

I also wonder ... how much of the games budget and resources were spent on designing consumables and augments ? Imagine if they would have left well enough alone and used those resources for something people actually wanted, we probably would have a playable Sektor and Cyrax and a U.I. That could handle custom variations for tournament play.

Bottom line is I feel bad for Tyler and Derick , you could tell they were uncomfortable and they are just doing what WB is ordering them to do, it at the same time, don’t try to bullshit us and say you guys just ran out of time to go over the krypt before launch. Even the most gullible fan can see the real reason this whole thing was left in the dark.

Completely agree. The Krypt started as a fun way to unlock optional content by playing the game however you wanted. Now they turned MK into a F2P looter shooter, complete with various currency, grinding, consumables and RNG mechanics (because the "it's not the chests, just the placement" stuff it's bullshit) while other important part of the game are lacking.

 

I also wonder ... how much of the games budget and resources were spent on designing consumables and augments ? Imagine if they would have left well enough alone and used those resources for something people actually wanted, we probably would have a playable Sektor and Cyrax and a U.I. That could handle custom variations for tournament play.

I was just about to post the same. If they spent half the time/money that was used on all this rubbish on things that people actually wanted - like decent skins etc. I, and many others no doubt would have been much happier.

 

NRS like many Americans and Westerners have no moral compass. It's laughable how greedy these punks are.

 

So should I not spend any currency in the krypt right now until the patch?