Mortal Kombat 11 To Receive Reward System Tweaks After Player Backlash

The fact that they can implement a change without a patch leads me to believe they had this system in place all just for the greediness factor.
This isn't a mobile game, we are paying full price for a console title... You already got our hard earned cash

Of course it is designed to get you to spend money. Though it is possible that it was designed that way based on the orders of the business side of the company.

Fact is, a lot of money goes into making game like this and the companies will want to milk every dime out of you that they can.

Why do you think "free to play" games and micro transactions are becoming so common these days? Yeah, you could put in hours and hours and hours and hours to unlock everything, or you could open up your wallet and have it now. They prey on people with little self control, or who simply lack the ability, or willingness to invest dozens, perhaps hundreds of hours unlocking all the content.

Absolutely despicable they farm their fans like that. They must view the players with utter contempt.

Let's be honest NRS is as bad as EA in trying to bleed it's customers.

@vegeta11 pretty sure the blame should fall on WB as the publisher.

For anyone interested it's already $10 off on Amazon

@Heavyarms55 Those are free to play games though. Mortal Kombat 11 is a full-price game. I'm not sure if that excuse really works here as in this case it seems like an especially blatant money-grab, having microtransactions on top of the full-price game purchase.

Of course video game companies are mostly out to make money. They're not charities after all. But if you ask me, there's money grabbing, and then there's money grabbing. Microtransactions, much as I hate them, are fine in free-to-play or at most 5 dollar games, but not in full-priced games. ..that's just my look on the matter, though.

In any case, what little interest I still had in the game at this point is fully gone because of this.

To be fair this is just the price we pay for games being as cheap as they are. The actual shelf price of a major new release massively undervalues the actual cost of creating the game. If we are honest with ourselves we should really be paying around £70-80 for a AAA release. Prices have barely increased from the Mega Drive days (I was a Sega boy in the 90s). Expecting the shelf price never to rise without DLC or microtransactions to compensate is unrealistic and probably unfair to the studios.

We need to be able to unlock rewards offline too. I hate how you have to be connected to the internet to get rewards for playing those game modes.

I was stupid enough to pre-order this game thinking that WB wouldn't try to screw me over in some way. I was smart enough, however, to keep my game in its plastic wrapping, so I can return it. At least I ended up saving $5.99 on Shao Kahn.

@subpopz I've played IJ2 mobile for years NRS is all about the cash grab

@super08mario I have a feeling that the microtransactions may be the cause of that.

Wow congrats for changing something that was implemented into the game and now your changing to look like the good guys! BIG ROUND OF APPLAUSE

Sarcasm aside, I really hate this trend. Having to be online to play a game and unlock certain things. The little interested I had is no where to be found.

I just saved myself $60 plus whatever bull dlc they add. I'll gladly pay for smash Bros dlc because at least there is a huge game and many things to unlock (and I don't even need to be on the internet to unlock things..... What a concept!)

A major 3rd party publisher implementing excessive grind mechanics in a game you already paid for as a way to entice you to spend additional money on top of the money you already spent? Who would have thought it....

@Ooccoo_Jr I think devs and publishers have realized this is the upper limit of what they can charge for a game outright without backlash. Which is ridiculous. There is a lot going in on games nowadays.

@Ooccoo_Jr I don’t know if I agree that we should be paying more because of inflation and the rising costs of game development but I totally understand the point. Obvious the free market dictates the price of games and they have kept low because the games industry has continually grown bigger, there are more developers than ever before (albeit a lot of mobile trash but still) and the prices of electronics rapidly decrease with every advance. These all lead to healthy competition keeping costs low. The huge costs of AAA game development can only exist because of the huge market and that wouldn’t exist if the games cost too much (think how small NeoGeo market share was back in the day with games that were considered elite and therefore super expensive). We’ve collectively built this massive industry with our financial support and it would be a very different and smaller industry if game prices kept rising. Basically I think I trying to rationalise why prices have stayed low and I’m very happy they have.

@Ooccoo_Jr Don't forget the massive manufacturing cost for carts back then when looking at the price of games then vs now. The amount they pay for switch cartridges now isn't anything like what those chips used to cost, and the disc systems it's negligible.

There's a reason those neo-geo games were 5-600$ a pop. Hell, SF2 Turbo cost me 80$ for the SNES the day I walked into Electronics Boutique and picked it up.

They’re just pushing as far as they can with micro transactions to see how far they can go, before slightly pulling it back if there’s backlash, corporate greed and capitalism at its finest. What happened a decade ago when micro transactions weren’t a thing? Game studios managed just fine then

@TPort777 I'm saying that paying 40 quid for a game that can give you 100+ hours of entertainment is not bad value for money. In fact what other form of Media can match that sort of value? Companies are entitled to make a profit and Mortal Kombat will not make "Billions" in profit. Some games take hundreds if not thousands of people to create them nowadays and have budgets to match blockbuster films so it wouldn't be unreasonable if these games cost an extra tenner or so.

As long as microtransactions are purely optional (and I understand the issue here is that content that you would expect to be part of the base game is stuck behind them without dozens of hours grinding) then I don't have an issue with them. I just ignore them, pay my 40 quid and get fantastic value for money.

@ozwally Late Stage Capitalism happened. Retiree stock-market demanded more and over-their-head CEO's get greedy and push their companies to nothing.
Happening in all industries.

unpopular opinion, i don't mind microtransactions or the grind that you might have to do. just more playtime to me. stupid reasoning? probably

Self-Control people. The game is great and the same old cry about microtransactions is getting old. They are optional, not required. There is plenty of content included in the base price. I don't plan on spending any money on microtransactions. I'll unlock things naturally.

My only complaint would be a lack of cross progression as I don't want to grind on two different systems. I'll buy games I like for both Xbox One X (4k) and Switch (Portability) to have the benefits of both, but progress needs to be shared.

@redd214 Wb has a bad record in screwing stuff up like with the dc franchise with a few exceptions.

@Yosher Same, I will wait for a huge sale and also watch this progress to decide if I even buy it then. I am tired of buying iap filled trash and won't anymore, there are too many good games by smaller devs without any purchase later to worry about these corporate scum and their horrible business model.

@WarVision78 some of the absurd Tower challenges make them a necessity for beating them. It can’t be done without rare gear.

@WarVision78 yeah I gotta agree with you here. I for one play some of the most notorious micro transaction filled games (Destiny, EA sports, NBA 2K, etc etc) and have never been compelled at all at any point to spend on them or have genuinely felt my progress was being halted to force me to. Not judging those who do but really is about self control like you said.

@MagnaRoader it is never enough.

Honestly just give it a year and they'll re-release the game with all the DLC included anyway. Personally though I'll just stick with the classics on SEGA Genesis.

@WarVision78
The problem is you won't unlock things naturally, at least not the things you want. The grind really is insane. It's sad that we're defending microtransactions in full price games now just because it's "optional". FYI Brutalities are locked behind random chests. But hey don't take my word for it, it sounds like you have the game so play through the towers and you'll see.

@MagnaRoader Nothing can be implemented without a patch, how is it going to tell your version to now act differently???

Why gamers should not just be happy with whatever they given.

Make noise or publishers will simply think they can get away with it - and that will be all you get.

It's amazing how so many games release on Switch with fewer features, yet cost the same as other platforms.

No wonder third-party titles don't sell as well on Nintendo consoles. It's not the Nintendo demographic; it's the developers doing an awful job.

Why do I get a deja but about games like Dissidia 012 or Xenoblade 2 that no drama queen could accuse of being "designed to make you spend money" because they had no MTX function to begin with? And they still had a ton of stuff to grind for profiles, icons, blades... TotW Radiant Mythology (at the very least, the first game, the only one localized to date) had eye-watering grade point sums to rack up for some items including proverbial alternate costumes. This stuff long predates the ability to spend money. It's obvious that the bored and indignant wish to cut the distance inspired the industry to hang this carrot on the dollar stick - but it's every bit as obvious that our most of our righteous rage against this stuff simultaneously admits that we don't even have any confidence in controlling our own urge to bribe our way to victory, let alone any desire to accept or abandon the core mechanic and the potential prizes behind it. If you have no time or interest for this stuff, draw the line at the story campaign or its analogue and walk away. I don't think much of the dollar "cheatcode" myself, but like I've elaborated before, I'm a bit too conscious of whose behaviour lies at the root of all this stuff to play pious pope here.

Of course, the buzz will continue because many find internet ranting is more interesting than video game grind for pink vaders. And the amount of freemiums consciously racking up the challenge to exploit gamer impatience have long ushered another convenient argument - "pay to win" which will likewise get slapped on any title with soulsbornish challenges (or even slow progression) and MTX in the same package. Heck, if I remember correctly, someone on Reddit already played this card in regards to MK11 (although since they used the abbreviation, a number of replies just expressed humorous shock at how brutal "the new Mario Kart" sounded). The show goes on.

@MagnaRoader exactly. I paid $100 USD and you dare ask for more?

Once upon a time all secret characters could be unlocked by beating the game. Once upon a time we got the full game. You had to finish the game to onluck charactesr or earning points to unlock. Now you have to pay almost for everything (if you want easy mode) After MK Deception I couldn't be really bothered with MK games...

If they're optional, I don't really relate to all the upset.

Yup they milk the crap out of every single tiny thing until it turns to dust and they dont give a single crud about a single word about anything we say or feel.

@Aethon Yea they really screwed the pooch on this one... but if you have ever played the MK mobile game like I do... or did about 1-2 weeks ago they took their existing game and took a hardcore right turn down whale street drastically changing the game and severely hosing ppl who had already invested money and time into the game without any warning or anything. They took away all options to well get what you pay for and put it all into a fully loaded chest and added an all time low 1% chance to get any of it when it was pick and choose and get what you spent your gems on the day before. It seemed like they wanted all the ppl playing it before the update to quit due to the severity of the changes and the massive wall of greed that arose overnight. After seeing that I thought I would hold off on picking up the console version i pre-ordered for a few days and see what happened cause i had a sinking feeling something like this was going to happen. Its a full price console game... they have taken one of the most storied amazing long lived franchises ever made and turned it into just another distasteful shady scummy cash grab. The grind from what ive seen is just scummy from nrs/wb to the players... those low lifes made it so frickin ridiculously hard to get almost anything and implimented their mobile game marketing strategy... make your players so unhappy, upset, and frustrated that they end up rage buying to get anything at all. I dont like it but i get it in mobile games to a certain degree but in a full price console game you add gacha chest and a beyond lousy reward system on purpose. Wow it just makes you wonder how low the scum of the earth will go to hose its players over to milk an extra penny out of them.

@KingBowser86 actually that sounds about right... in 2019 all but 1 of the games i have been playing for a year or more took a hard right turn down epic greed street and went full on whale mode and have all but straight up given the finger to all non-whales.

Really glad now that I am waiting. What a bunch of swear words. To hell with Boon.

I’m not buying this bs, bunch of greedy mofos

@Gutzdeep42 IMO, they've been doing that for a while, but then my tolerance is lower. People are seeing things like Starlink, Anthem, EA's hand at Star Wars, and going "Okay, yeah, this is getting ridiculous."

I don't need these microtransistions to have fun with the game. it is purely an option. Nothing more, nothing less.

@WarVision78
The problem with that is no matter your skill level some of the tower challenges are just broken, no way to beat them.

Why is that guy wearing ladies nail varnish? lol

From what I've seen on reddit in various subs, there's a lot of people that apparently don't understand NRS games and MK as a whole blowing this "issue" way out of proportion. And everyone is jumping on the hate bandwagon. It's just sad, MK 11 is amazing.

EDIT: Anyone jumping on the bandwagon, please watch NRS comments on this "issue" here https://www.twitch.tv/videos/415846301

I love how people are still trying to use the “microtransactions and _____ content are optional” argument as if it means anything.

@Ooccoo_Jr Just wanted to say that I completely agree. It’s not often I see comments from like minded persons who understand that not everything grows on trees.

I mean, I’m probably even more of an outlier though because I actually like DLC, but I think that’s because I buy games that I actually like and most DLC for decent games is completely additive (as it is in this game - you won’t miss out on the campaign or the ability to play versus just because you don’t have a new DLC character).

This is why I still like Nintendo: they make great games for the longer run, with some quick "filler" games and mostly actually good DLC. Triple A is on life support, sucking the blood out of its "blood donors". I'd rather pay a small amount for a short, fun game, that goes largely to the creators, than pay a small amount each time I want something in an expensive game, just to please publishers and shareholders.

Is it just me or does the text in MK11 look slightly pixelated in both docked and handheld mode? Some of the textures during fights also look better in handheld mode than they do docked.

People always have to complain. Atleast we have have MK11 on the Nintendo Switch just be happy about that we could of gotten nothing at all

It`s sad, but you can`t pre-order or buy almost any game on the launch day. You have to wait so you understand how they`ll try to milk it, be it loot boxes, in game currency, and/or so you know there`s not a necessity for a huge patch that will make the game playable.

I just hope that doesn`t happen with Sword/Shield, cause I`ll buy that gem day-one.

Wasn't interested in the game that much and now definitely not.

Having to grind isn't a bad thing. Having to grind a ridiculous amount of time just to avoid paying money is.

When companies post earning reports in the double digit billions, I don't tend to agree with the rising cost of game development. Sorry. As a consumer I will never feel sorry for a faceless corporation while I struggle to make ends meet.

It doesn't cost anymore to draw a tree in 2019 than it did 20 years ago. Polygons are polygons. The costs are entirely self imposed through expensive marketing campaigns and poor management.

Teams of indie developers on shoe string budgets have proven that mentality to be wrong many times.

That being said, is anyone surprised by this ? It's Warner brothers. They're the worst of the bunch in terms of aggressive monetization. WB logo should have been enough to warn anyone.

And who cares about a review? It's already been reviewed elsewhere and poorly due to monetization. What could you possibly add? It's overpriced loot box fodder hidden behind a popular ip.
Doesn't matter if the game is any good. The business model should be enough to warn your readers.

I have read the reviews and based on the monetization aspect, which was soundly denounced for the extreme amount of time it takes, I am not getting this game. This trend towards screwing the player is dangerous and speaks only of greed. I am voting with my wallet.

@Itzdmo
Well said and as you seem to realize the developers/programmers are not reaping extra pay from this form of legalized indentured servitude to the publishers.

I was reading about this in reviews. I actually heard the gameplay itself is on par with the best in the series. The forced micro transactions really sour the whole experience though. Just another franchise being forced to become a live service, to everyone’s detriment but the Board of Directors at Warner Bros.

As I said on Pushsquare, pretty much called this. Injustice 2 was already showing signs of being exactly this and the fighting game scene as of late has been becoming very scummy, with SC6 outright cutting characters out of the game just to resell them to you later as DLC.

In fact, this game has Kitana but not Mileena. How do you even do that? How can you have one without the other? It's like having a street fighter game without Ryu or Ken. Of course I fully expect Mileena to become DLC just so they can sell her back to fans. All these scummy practices and here we have Smash Ultimate giving us everyone from the last games with no "reselling back" tactics. I miss the days of MK Trilogy....

The saddest part of it all is that the gameplay is actually pretty solid. It's a good game ruined by greed. But the fact they're working to correct this means maybe they aren't as bad as companies like Namco and Tecmo.

@vegeta11 NetherRealms loves their fans and Ed Boon is an old guard developer who is as much MK as Miyamoto is to Mario. This is clearly WB pushing this onto NetherRealms the same way they did the same thing to Monolith for ME: Shadows of War. WB are awful publishers.

Play stupid games win stupid prizes.

@MagnaRoader their changing numbers not actual game mechanics so it doesn't require a patch.

Microtransactions are the future as game developing costs have soared over the years and companies can only cost effectively release so much of a game and require more for the rest.
Me myself I would rather game costs for these games to just go up to $100 bucks and give me it all on physical instead of having to dl anything. I am not one for buying dlc or digital as you never own it. When that server or systems internet support is ended so is your being able to play these online required games.

Ironically back in the days of arcades the game machines are designed to get you to spend money and no one complain about them.

I remember the days of playing MK 1 and 2 where the point was to play a fighting game against your friends. All this fluff is exactly that. Who cares. They do it because they know people will pay it. I'll be fine just playing the game and all the micro-transactions in the world will have no effect on me.

Oh my gosh...no disrepect to anyone at all...but I think it's sad that our gaming community focuses on stuff like this, or the supposed SJW agenda, or download size...instead of the game itself! It seems like an awesome game with a great roster. Play it! Have fun for goodness sake.

@nin10doom Yes, how dare the community focus on an aspect that has a direct impact on the enjoyment of a game.

People are surprised by this? One look at the massive list of planned DLC made me pass on this game until a complete edition is released.
Even then I’m weary as these days, unless it’s Nintendo “AAA” usually means a literal truck ton of extra charges on your credit card.

@RyanSilberman Oh! I get the frustration of NetherRealms approach to this aspect, for sure. It's definitely shady. I just feel like more and more nowadays, the community is focused on pretty much everything BUT how fun the game is. I guess I just long for days past... when we'd be exchanging button combos for Scorpion, instead of in game currency.

@Yosher Your attempt at disagreement only reinforces my position. It is exactly that, a blatant money grab. Companies exist to make money and that is exactly what they were trying to do here. They just pushed it father than consumers are usually tolerant of.

And they are going to keep pushing, a little more, and a little more... So long as it keeps selling, companies are going to keep milking us.

This illusion that game companies are somehow different and benevolent entitles is just that, an illusion. While the actual game devs themselves might not want to do certain things, they have bosses and answer to traditional business types who are going to push to make games as profitable and "milkable" as they can.

@Heavyarms55 "Free to play" Yeah, I hear this radio commercial for a certain F2P mobile game, and I'm like "yeah, sure it's 'free' because so is the production of and airtime to broadcast said 'free game' commercial."

@Yosher I guess they already blurred the lines, those "full-priced" games could as well as be free
More than half of Activisions' revenue comes from monetization alone
But why cut the "full-price" if people will buy it anyway?
Sure, Mortal Kombat looks like it has some nice single-player story content, so I think it deserves a entry price, but won't be surprised if it gets huge "discounts"
Nba 2k got like 75% off
I think that if sales significantly drop because of full price + monetization, they will probably get rid of the full price, not of the shady practices

@KingMike "Free to Play" is industry code for "pay with enormous amounts of your time or pay in micro-transactions or be drown in ads."

@subpopz
Well the thing is, cosmetics are important. Why do you think that they are selling them, because they know the players want choices (doesn't change anything but looking different is fun). If they weren't wanted, they wouldn't put a price on it.

Imagine Smash Bros, and having only 3 colors for characters and you have to grind through the hard parts of World of Light (Pauline, big boss etc), just to maybe get mario a 4th color, but then the eShop had Mario's 4th color for $5 ... Not that fun when someone unlocks a skin within 30 minutes of playing the game and you've played 9 hours and still not having any luck.
Playing the game may be fun, but having a random chance of getting something isnt.
Why not level progression where you level up a character (by playing them) and you unlock outfits, fatalities, etc. So at least you have a goal in mind with how long you have to play to get a certain reward.

Not saying MK11 is boring, but there won't be much of incentive to keep going if you feel that all you earn is the same few items and being online all the time.... Is not ideal.

@nin10doom well actually, you were still paying money for new characters and stuff. “Got Mortal Kombat 3? Pay us more money to play Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3! Then give us even more money to play Mortal Kombat Trilogy!”

I don’t support this kind of business in games.

There’s ‘hate bandwagon’ but there’s also refusing to accept the status quo from companies trying to take advantage of the consumer. Of us. Look at WB and how they screwed players over in Shadow of War? The grind has finally been patched out. None of that would have happened were people just to accept it.

The outrage over lootboxes in Battlefront led to big changes to legislation which affected EA’s practice in many nations.

Where people are angry here in MK11 is Krypt is completely random now. In the past games, Krypt loot was designated to the box. You could read a guide and know exactly what is where. Ontop of that, there is TONS of useless filler such as hand sketched drawings of fatalities that looks like something a kid drew on a napkin.

People are pissed costumes and even locked fatalities are hiding somewhere in the Krypt and its a whole lot of grinding and even more luck to get them which means a stupid amount of time would be involved.

Consumers shouldnt expect this mechanic to work in their favour but its fair to voice their complaints. Its up to NR to listen for the sake of their relationship with their fans and customers.

I got MK11 on Switch and it shows an effort was made porting it across. Fights look and perform well. What I hate is the Krypt is linked to the MK11 servers and instead of earning things offline and being able to link back up when you find a connection, being offline gets you zip. Not future friendly..

More can be done and by the looks of it is being done by NR. Time will tell if they truly care about their playerbase but its better than no action.

@Bass_X0 I think Capcom was ahead of that. How many Street Fighter II games did we need?
And then there was Final Fight Guy. In Japan, had to buy the whole game again to get a different character. Though in the US, they at least kept the game to a rental.

Case in point - I paid for the premium edition on Switch and low and behold, the blanked out character on the top right of the character screen is Frost. They want me to buy her for $8!!!

I am not dropping another CENT. This sort of practice is not on. Disappointing to see Boon and co being led by WB greedy practices.

@MagnaRoader well, if they’re only changing something like reward requirements, which may be entirely driven by their network and not baked into the software version, then... js

@Heavyarms55 I didn't necessarily disagree with you though? I simply elaborated on the fact that it's a matter of free-to-play (or at least cheap) games vs full-priced games. There simply is no 'disagreeing' with the fact that video game companies are going to try and milk as much money as possible from their consumers. This is how business in general works after all, not just video game companies.

I just think that there's good ways to go about it, as well as bad ways. This is simply one of the worst examples out there because of how blatant it is, being microtransactions on top of the full-price entry. So it's not necessarily a case of 'Of course it is designed to get you to spend money', because (almost) every game is designed for that, but rather a case of 'God can you make it even more of an obvious money grab?'. I guess most of all I'm just wondering what made them think people would accept this kind of thing. If they looked at it from a consumer's point of view maybe they would have seen that this would be unacceptable practice.

@NullPointerExcep Yeah it is certainly going to be getting a good price cut in due time, probably not even that long into the game's lifespan. ..but I guess that depends on how much the game will sell. If they're not happy enough with its initial sales it will certainly drop in price pretty quickly. But yeah, of course that's not going to stop them from incorporating microtransactions and all that. I mean, it's already part of the game. Removing that altogether now would be like saying, ''Okay, we admit, it's evil business practice'', and that might hurt their future microtransaction (or maybe even full-price game) revenue. And they can't have that.

I purchased MK11 on Switch and Xbox.
Differences I found so far...
Xbox version the Krypt is only requiring gold to open the crates in the two main areas.
Switch version the Krypt is requiring gold or many crates are requiring the green crystals which take longer to obtain. Confused at why this is different?

Audio Setup
Xbox has a way to link mobile MK to get a second announcer voice.
Switch doesn't have an option to switch announcer voice and I can't find a way to link to mobile.

Online
Xbox has a box for leagues coming soon in the ranked section along with the rank box next to it.
Switch just has the ranked section.

Anyone else own for more than one system and notice differences?

I can see why the switch users would complain about the grind as it's much easier to get gold and open the crates on the Xbox version.

Where's the review NLife?

@Jawessome complete chapter four of the story to unlock her. I believe that’s what I read.

Yeah. Where I went wrong was doing the chapter as Scorpion and Subzero where you need to do the entire chapter as only Subzero and she unlocks.