Regarding unlocking stuff:
I think it's actually an interesting discussion. On the one hand, I can see the merits to having a system where everything (in terms of skins, gear, cosmetics, brutalities/fatalities) can be unlocked with $. As someone in his late 30's with a family and full time job, I sympathize with people not always having the time to straight up grind away hours into the game to get certain gear. Sometimes it'd be nice to get that cool outfit without having to log 100+ hours, especially if it's in a game mode that I don't care for.
Depending on the tediousness of the grind, it can also come across as a bit petty or even scummy when a game dangles something tantalizing in front of you but forces you to try what feels like a Sisyphean task to try and unlock the "cool" gear. So again, having some kind of microtransaction/$ transaction can help counter that.
On the other hand though, I can respect a game for saying "hey, we made this game with the intention that people play it. Valor should be earned, not bought, so some gear will simply be super rare and challenging to get, with no assurances that you'll be able to get it. If you want to 100% the achievements, put in the hours, or accept the fact that you can't get everything you want in life".
I guess what I'm asking is, should a game be obligated to give players a 100% ability to reasonably unlock everything they want, or is it ok for a game to be designed with the idea that some items might be too difficult for the majority of players to unlock?
The devil's always going to be in the details, and it's always going to be pretty subjective. I can't make any conclusions either way, I just find it an interesting conversation. I thought MK11 was fine, I grinded for a couple Raiden gear things and didn't think it was too bad, but I'm also not really a completionist and I don't care about gear/cosmetics as much as some. People usually are good at figuring out optimal ways to farm stuff, so that normally helps too.
