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MK11 Single Player Modes and Grind Discussion (Towers of Time, Augments, and Krypt) - Towers are Fixed.

The game really is looking procedurally less and less like a good Day One purchase.

Always Online requirement, lootboxes, microtransations, half of the DLC characters are guests, custom variations banned from Ranked, only two tournament variations from the get-go

Think I'll just watch the story mode streams and maybe wait for a GOTY edition, with hopefully all the bullshit being patched
 

Prateek Shekhar

LeggoMyEggo
There is a third character tower. Stage 3. Summon with 75,000 Koins after beating Tower 2.
It requires 25,000 pints of blood spilled, and 100 Krushing Blows to proceed.
I'll post screenshots later
 

Kratilim

Noob
There is a third character tower. Stage 3. Summon with 75,000 Koins after beating Tower 2.
It requires 25,000 pints of blood spilled, and 100 Krushing Blows to proceed.
I'll post screenshots later
Do you have to do these per character? And what do those towers give you?
 

Endeezdafreak

Big boi Shao <3
What most people here seem to ignore is how everything is stacked against you.

You dont only need "koins" to open boxes in the krypt, but also "hearts" which come by a lot slower. The AI still has button reading shenanigans and the modifiers are worse than ever. Last night I did a tower where they could summon Kung Lao. Once his move was done he could be summoned again and this kept going on like that.

You want to cheese it? Add augments to your gear. To do this you need to level your gear which is pretty slow also. But not all augments fit so you have to spend kurrency to make em fit.

So you have to spend kurrency, to gain kurrency to he able to spend it again to several different recipients. This would be a bit more acceptable if you knew what you were getting. But you dont.

Yall with the rose tinted glasses are gonna be really sour when you experience this mess yourselves.

Edit: this is only a portionof the grind.
 

Afumba

Noob
I honestly dont know whats worse... this garbage shit they are pulling here or the peoples defending it. How anyone can defend this goes beyond me. Some people had a few valid-ish arguments (which are still bot reasonable enough) but otherwise people just seem to wear NRS glasses.

Doesnt matter how they call it, these things are pretty dressed lootboxes. And bothering people into buying stuff is the lowest of the low. Thats easily EA level stuff thats going on here. This is a AAA title and not a F2P game or a mobile cash grab game. Even tough this game seems to have everything bad about those games implemented.

I dont mind grinding for things and i am also fine if they make people pay if they cant be bothered to grind, like MKX krypt unlock. But making the grind not only tedious but artificially prolonging it just to bother and force people into spending money is a scam. Plain and simple.
Also duplicate stuff shouldnt be a thing (like character towers showing rewards you already have etcetc)

If they want extra money they could monetize new skins and cosmetics at a fixed value. But yeah why do that when they have the option to make people pay money for things they already paid for.

This reminds me of pre Overwatch launch... Hey maybe we get new skins the same way Overwatch does... wouldnt that be fun
 

Prateek Shekhar

LeggoMyEggo
Review

Yesterday I posted my impressions of Towers of Time, Augments and the Krypt, and I promised to update you when I get some more time with it. Well since then I cleared Noob Saibot's 2nd Character Tower, and summoned the third. And came across the 2nd worst fight in the ToT so far.

I'm linking a video review of the towers of time at the bottom, but if you are having trouble with my accent or the audio, I'm also going to summarize it here. The towers are more intricate than they've ever been. There's more to see and do and the konsumables are fun distractions, but the towers are currently ruined because of two things:

1) The input/output ratio is bad. Noob Saibot's 3rd tower requires the following for the point of summoning to the point of finishing - 75,000 koins, 300 soul tokens, 100 Krushing blows done, 25,000 pints of blood spilled. In exchange, the rewards you get are: 1 end of round taunt, 1 victory pose, 2 skins, 3 gear pieces, 2 Noob Saibot Augments, 2 variation icons. This is not a good enough reward for the time and effort you need to put in.
Any other game with a different economy would just reward you the victory poses and skins for doing 100 krushing blows and 25,000 blood spilled as a challenge. And the other trinkets could be purchased by spending 75,000 koins or 300 soul tokens. But here, all of that just gives you the privilege of playing the towers. You still need to beat them to get the stuff, which gets me to point 2.

2) The towers have inconsistent difficulty spikes, and some of the worst balanced fights in fighting game history. I know a hard fight from bad game design. This is the latter. Trust me I'm not throwing this term around lightly. I've played old SNK bosses, I've done the MK9 challenge tower, cleared IJ2 multiverse bosses, and cleared SFV extreme survival. All of those are downright friendly compared to what we have here.

Most of the fights in the Towers of time are pushovers if you've been playing fighting games seriously for a while. They're just moderate difficulty CPU battles where the CPU does 3-4 hit combos and occasionally reads your inputs. But then there are occasional fights that make you question your reality. Try fighting a Kano while your normal and special move damage is halved, your Fatal blow damage is nerfed by 75%, while the Kano calls in an unblockable air strike that drops 4 explosives that do 10% of your health each, and also a single missile that reverses your controls, and both of these on a 5 second cool down. You tell me that is good game design.

In my video review, there's a fight which can only be won by losing till the CPU performs a mercy on you, and then making a comeback on him while his assists are disabled. If this is the only realistic way of winning these battles by a seasoned semi-serious fighting game player, then oh boy, new players or casuals are in for a very bad time.

I estimate that seasoned players can do
80% of the battles without konsumables with none to moderate amount of challenge
15% of the battles with konsumables to reduce the considerable challenge to make them fair
5% of the battles are impossible on paper without relying on mercies and mercy + heal konsumable strats

For the casuals, it is much, much worse
20% battles are easy to moderate and can be beat without konsumables
30% battles will be really hard but manageable with konsumables
50% of the battles will be downright impossible with or without konsumables, due to reduced player damage and increased enemy damage, and the reliance on big combos by the player to cope

There are a couple of easy solutions to this off the top of my head. The first is to make every assist/special from konsumables blockable. Even if that means the CPU can block it when I use it. That's a fair exchange. Second, if I'm facing a boss who has additional damage and I have reduced damage, like most fights in ToT, then make the boss not have assists to use. This makes it so that veteran players can overcome the damage limitation of their character and high hp of the boss with their skill, and don't have to deal with bullshit assists on top of that. Meanwhile, newer, less experienced players can use the konsumables to make up for their lack of combos or damage, and use this mechanic as intended.

Keep these assists and hazards for lower tier enemies in the towers who would normally be pushovers for veterans, and only slightly problematic for new players. Also, don't limit the damage of the players for these cannon fodder enemies. This way, rank and file enemies can still be annoying to veterans due to the assist characters, and be a slight wall to new players, who can use the konsumables to even the odds. The current system is similar, except that even rank and file enemy battles have player damage nerfed.

Yesterday, someone asked me if I would recommend this game to someone who's only in it for the single player, and I said yes, especially if you haven't spoiled the story for yourself. After reading a few posts and putting myself in the shoes of the average casual player, I'm not so sure anymore. For me, a lackluster story or a downright badly designed towers of time mode can't even scratch the brilliance that are the stages, characters and 1v1 fights in this game. But if you're not in this for the online or tournaments, then I could see you pulling your hair on some of these fights.

It's a 7/10 for the story and 5/10 on towers of time as they currently stand, for a 6/10 overall for the single player suite of the game. If you are in it for single player + online or just for online and the competition, then the game is easily a 9/10 or 10/10. But if you're someone who only wants to fight the AI, use the game to relieve stress, watch fatalities and unlock stuff, then I would recommend you wait till launch or a few weeks after to see if the final product is different. Or wait for a sale.

 
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Pazuzu

Noob
Thanks @Prateek Shekhar for your precious reviews. For my part, it's a real disappointement because I play mainly for the solo. I'm going to stay very far from these towers until they're fixed, because I don't want to be disgusted with the game. I'm going to farm the rng krypt (what a stupid idea) until then. This post needs better visibility, because this system is a real scandal. I'm not against the grind, I don't want to have everything right away, but this is bullshit. And stop comparing that shit to Diablo or Destiny, in Diablo the grind is fun and the loot generous, and Destiny you know at least what you're going to get at the end of the grind.
 

W40k Erron Black

Ready to eat lead?
I agree with everything @Prateek Shekhar said. I'm more of a casual player and the towers of time really suck the fun out of you. The fact that everything is unblockable feels like i'm not really in control of the game. I just want to play the game it was meant to be play. I don't want this fake difficulty. For now i'm just gonna play normal towers. Very good and detailed review btw.
 

Bloodfang

The Immortal Tiger
Do you get rewards from klassic towers enough to just unlock everything (randomly) through krypt (again hypothetically). Again, what is droprate for Time Krystals in game?
 

Prateek Shekhar

LeggoMyEggo
Do you get rewards from klassic towers enough to just unlock everything (randomly) through krypt (again hypothetically). Again, what is droprate for Time Krystals in game?
Time Krystals drop 10 per player profile level and there are towers of time that also reward them. I haven't done any classic towers so cant answer that
 

Kratilim

Noob
Time Krystals drop 10 per player profile level and there are towers of time that also reward them. I haven't done any classic towers so cant answer that
What are you able to unlock with the crystals? Only gear and skins? Or also things like intros/outros, finishers etc? Care to explain them? Thx!
 

Prateek Shekhar

LeggoMyEggo
What are you able to unlock with the crystals? Only gear and skins? Or also things like intros/outros, finishers etc? Care to explain them? Thx!
No idea. My game and console accounts aren't from the same region so I cant check. I checked the in game store with the correct regional account but is said nothings on sale, so the in game store might not even be populated till launch
 

SquidlyB

Noob
Maybe I'm lazy, but I know the single player experience is fucked when I can barely follow along with what game mode currencies buy new currencies for things in another game mode. Like am I on the right page, I'm so confused lol. Just a personal opinion, but I'm one of the rare people who hates rpg games. I don't want to play a game with built in chores, life is already demanding enough lol.
 
Something I’m curious about, which I don’t know if it’s possible to know at this point, is if there are there items that you can only get from the Krypt and other items you can only get from the ToT?

If they’re all the same items, just different paths, I’m kinda fine with it tbh.

You can either play the ToT and have an idea of what you’re getting, but play a mode that sounds pretty difficult; or go into the Krypt, have no clue what you’re getting, but get it pretty easily.

edit: re-read OP. No it seems likere’s rewards independent of each mode but you may need to grind ToT to advance in the Krypt and vice versa. I’ll probably stick to the Krypt first to be honest and hopefully get a bunch of consumables and augments to help me in ToT while I also level up various pieces of gear.
 
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But making the grind not only tedious but artificially prolonging it just to bother and force people into spending money is a scam. Plain and simple.
This is exactly the issue. Grinding is ok, as long as it's fun. But nobody likes unfair matches, and unfair matches = boring grind. It looks like CPU AI is still the same from MK9, which is terrible considering the amount of single player content you have. So on top of a bad CPU AI (which forces you to play different from online) you have that stupid assists shit. Honestly that Baraka fight in the video is retarded as fuck.

Also, that requirement... 75 fatalities? Who thinks watching the same video 75 times is fun or challenging?

Fortunately the only single player thing I'm interested in is the story, but seriously that kind of grinding seems terrible unbalanced and it's a shame because it seems we have an excellent game, full of content, but that kind of shit will backlash heavily.
 

Kratilim

Noob
To be honest your towers gameplay isn't super convincing that it's too hard.
You know what... didn't watch them due to spoilers. Glad I did thanks to this comment. The op's gameplay indeed comes across as a bit impatient. Doesn't look that hard tbh. Its hard to judge without trying it yourself.
 

Nickolaidas

Agent of Chaosrealm
In an age where gamers have the number of games on their backlog reaching three digits, it is ridiculous to make a game with so much grind. Not everyone wants to give 2-3 hours of their lives daily for a single video game.

Hopefully NRS will understand this and make the amount of grind more forgiving.
 

Wrenchfarm

Lexcorp Proprietary Technologies
Maybe I'm lazy, but I know the single player experience is fucked when I can barely follow along with what game mode currencies buy new currencies for things in another game mode. Like am I on the right page, I'm so confused lol. Just a personal opinion, but I'm one of the rare people who hates rpg games. I don't want to play a game with built in chores, life is already demanding enough lol.
You're not lazy, no one is supposed to be able to make sense of this kind of multi-tiered currency scheme. You're supposed to get frustrated and reach for the wallet.

This sounds really disappointing. I'm hoping for some day 1 or first month changes to address this because if not the towers seem like a huge waste of time.