What would you change about Mortal Kombat going forward?

Off-Topic
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TL/DR: What would you like to see in the next MK? What would you like for them to change from MKX for the next one? I know it’s early, but I’d be curious to hear people’s thoughts.

I’m curious where people want to see this series go. What can Netherealm learn from or change from MKX and what would you like to see in the next game?

For me:

  1. X-Rays: Scrap them. Two games in, they weren’t nearly as novel as they were the first time around. Also, don’t replace them with a new hook like free fall kombat or button tapping mini-games or whatever. Keep special enhancements and maybe have as upper move of some sort for each character, but make it quick so it doesn’t interrupt the action as much as X-Rays did. I’d also reduce the power on a move like that as well.

  2. Story Mode: Restructure it. Remove the chapters, and get everyone’s perspective, even if only for a match or two. Every character should have a good level of involvement in the plot. Also, don’t be afraid to end matches prematurely, have scenes mid-match or lengthen the number of matches between story moments. The battles serve the story in this mode. Fold them around what you want to tell.

  3. Storytelling: PLEASE take the material more seriously. We grew up on these characters and the mysterious life or death tournament that they fought in. Give the characters a more human range of emotions and make them smarter in the decisions they make and what motivates them. Use more complex themes to tell a more intricate and nuanced story. MKX headed in this direction, but it needs to go further and cut out a lot of the campiness.

  4. Arcade Endings: Make them canon. Stop with the “Sub Zero riding ice dragons because who cares, this doesn’t happen anyways” crap. Use arcade endings to augment story mode. Maybe give us one canon ending that supplements what the character did during the story that we don’t see in story mode and then another that gets unlocked once we’ve beaten story mode and then arcade mode again to give us some info on what’s happening with that character after story mode leaves off. Again, canon.

  5. The roster: Really, it’s time to take some risks. I’m not saying Netherealm has to go full on Street Fighter 3, but so many fans wanted 3D era characters to get a real second chance in this game after the MK9 reboot of the series. Instead, we got a bunch of extraneous trilogy era characters, many of whom fans were actually saddened to see upon their reveal. The new MKX characters were fantastic, so more new characters would be nice, but lower the number of trilogy characters and be a bit more bold in who makes it and who’s either DLC or simply doesn’t make it at all.

  6. Animations / Combo System: Increase fluidity all around. Combos need to feel more natural and even player improvised. Less 50/50’s. More fluid startup animations and jumping that doesn’t seem to have such a tight input window for attacking. In fact, loosen input windows all around. MK’s come a long way in these areas, but it still needs to do away with the choppy, stiff character movements, animations, timing windows, etc.

  7. Netcode: Improve this a thousand times. KI’s netcode is vastly superior and it came out about a year and a half earlier.

  8. Premium Pricing: Please… Enough with the super expensive DLC, the ridiculously expensive Kollectors Editions or Premium Editions or whatever. I get that this game costs money, but four characters and a few skins for half the price of the whole game? Or spending $150 or more on a collector’s edition, just to have some piece of plastic or whatever thrown in? I feel like some of this stuff capitalizes on fans love of the series by gouging them in to spending too much and while people certainly don’t 'have" to buy it, it still feels oily.

  9. Paytalities: Scrap the red tokens. Buying the ability to do one button fatalities? How about allowing people that don’t want to perform forward down forward 1 the ability to simply toggle on one button fatalities without having to pay real cash to perform a couple of fatalities?

  10. Faction Wars: Get a new hook or improve this dramatically. It’s a good idea in theory, but there didn’t seem to be any worthwhile reasons to play this beyond some gold rewards. Give people real incentive to play (ie character outfits, canon story supplements, bonus character bios, maybe even bonus characters and backgrounds). I know, all of that costs money and time to make, but I felt no camaraderie with my faction, leveling up felt largely useless, rewards seemed minimal (profile icons? meh…). If this is going to be a thing, and I think it can, then it has to have a good stream of weekly content beyond an impossible boss battle and yet another tower with characters I already have.

  11. Variations: Cool idea, but much like stances in MK:DA and MK:D, we really don’t need three per character. Also, there was a lot of inconsistency in how different characters actually were from one variation to another. Some had mere gimmick changes like Reptile with a poison cloud. Reduce the variations to two, but give each character completely different looks and special moves. Otherwise it just feels like a gimmick and, in general, MK really needs to get away from gimmicks.

Here’s (most of) my list, what’s yours?

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Wow, that’s quite a list. I actually like MKX just fine. I can never play it because it’s too disturbing to play in front of my kids. I don’t care very much at all about the story or plot etc. but here are my top 5 wishes:

  1. Better online
  2. better online
  3. better online
  4. better online
  5. Fewer 50/50 combo starters into full combos.
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Sheeva.
She needs an update. Storywise, gameplaywise(she should be fast and fasthitting, not a wrestler) & also an update in design. Someone made an awesome fanart of her a while ago.

Ditch WB games as publisher.

BBL with more things.

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My biggest gripe with the last couple of MK games has been story mode. While it’s extremely well done and is fun in its own rite, I’d rather have the open-world Konguest mode like MK: Deception. Traveling through the realms as Shujinko was extremely fun. I loved all the little details they put in it like a character appearing in a certain spot, or a hidden chest that only appears at a certain time on a certain day, or the challenges you had to complete to get a certain item. That stuff was fun! Now, story mode is nothing more than one long cinematic with fights thrown in.

I think a new fully open-world konquest mode where the story changes based on the choices you make, people you fight, side quests you complete, etc. would be amazing!

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I like MKX a lot too. I know I have a lot of stuff here that I mention negatively, but those are just the things that I want to change. There are a ton of positives from the game that I absolutely loved as well.

I just think that there were some aspects that made it a little bit less than it could’ve been. Granted, I’ve been a somewhat diehard MK fan since the beginning, so my hopes were a bit unreasonable after MK9 and how much I enjoyed that one, so it probably wasn’t going to live up to my lofty expectations regardless, but I still feel like there were some missteps and a few things that were either good, but could’ve been better or okay but maybe don’t need to be there in the future. That’s really where I’m coming from here. :smile:

WB owns Netherealm. I’m not sure it’s possible to ditch them, though I can certainly see why you’d have issues with WB.

I think that there are a lot of people that would agree with you on this. Personally, I hated Deception’s Konquest Mode. The sparse looking worlds, the endless number of fetch quests, Shujinko’s decison making and the whole plot that pulled him along, the fact that you couldn’t find everything without having to look online because so much stuff came on the day/night timer…

There were some fun aspects, and if they were to give this a real, next gen upgrade that didn’t just involve you speed meditating through time and what not, and had a good amount of character progression, plot, personality (in all characters), and large, gorgeous, highly interactive areas to explore (without the day/night timer), I think I’d be interested.

Only thing is that to me, if they’re going to do a mode like that, they should really blow it out and make it an entire game unto itself. Have multiple characters that you switch stories between and have them interlocking through a large and complex plot. Have them find money and secrets and move upgrades and let them talk to a lot of different NPCs to learn more about what’s going on or where to find hidden items or simply learn more about the area you’re at or what’s happening with other characters etc. Make the world their in appear real, dark and vast, full of tons of places to explore.

Basically, I’d want a Shaolin Monks 2, but taken to a much higher level in terms of overall content, of storytelling (intrigue, believable emotions and decision making, some romance perhaps, some betrayal, more complex themes / range of emotions explored etc), tons more character battles, unlockable content etc. I mean, something like that could work as a story mode, no doubt, and I’d absolutely take that over the current 80% cinema / 20% fighting story mode, but I’d imagine it’d be too big. It’d be like developing a full game within a full game. It’d still be cool though!

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Who knows, Microsoft might be willing to buy them :slight_smile:

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Just curious: why do guys hate WB as a publisher? From the outside looking in it seems like they’ve done right by the property. Or does all the DLC stuff just feel like gouging and exploitation?

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I don’t personally hate WB. Honestly, when they pulled Netherealm out of the rubble that was Midway’s collapse, I was thrilled to know that my favorite gaming franchise (Mortal Kombat) would continue. So in a way, I’m extremely grateful to WB.

It just feels like some of their business practices surrounding some of their titles are getting a little carried away. So really, it’s more the gouging and exploitation. I get that on one hand, you don’t have to buy that ultra / premium / bonus / collectors edition and the massive amount of DLC and what not, or play the iphone FTP-ish P2W-ish tappy game to unlock some costumes in the main game but if you’re a diehard fan of a franchise, you want that stuff. The problem then comes in the pricing.

It also comes in monetizing things like fatalities. Again, you don’t have to buy fatalities, but if you want to, you can plunk down real world money for the chance to do a (limited) number of fatalities instead of just, ya know, putting in an option to toggle on one button fatalities, which I believe has been a cheat menu option in a previous MK or two.

It’s not entirely crazy to look at where a slippery slope like that may lead in the future. Play through the arcade tower or pay $5 to immediately unlock a character’s ending? Buy in game koins for the krypt with real world money? Hmm… Can’t recall, they might actually have that one. They certainly do in the iphone version. Anyways, you get the point.

None of that stuff is enough to make me hate WB, but it’s enough to kinda wince when I hear their name, as it now reminds me of this sort of nickel and diming just as much as it reminds me of their great games.

Other companies nickel and dime players as well and some are far more exploitative than WB, but when it comes to my personal favorite franchise; the one that I’ll actually allow myself to be nickel and dimed on, it’s hard not to look at WB specifically and cringe a little at some of the stuff they’ve done in this regard with MK.

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Basically this.

I would be all over MKX if it wasn’t a 50/50 mess and the netcode wasn’t ■■■■.

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The netcode. The game is unplayable for me. I have no desire to play AI and the game is trash online. KI not only has better netcode but shadows is vastly superior to any AI MK has.

I also think MK combos are too long and do too much damage. You simply build the muscle memory for bread and butter combos then once you open someone up you get free damage unless they have 2 bars of meter to break it. Street fighter is similar in this but their combos are not nearly as damaging. It’s not uncommon in MK for a match to be finished in 2 combos even worse is after the first combo the defending player is immediately put into a 50/50 for the next combo. To me that’s incredibly boring. You can basically just put your controller down and watch the screen if you’re against an opponent you’re confident won’t drop their bnb.

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I agree with what OP said. But more importantly…

Better netkode.

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Well played sir, well played

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You can’t buy koins, but there is an option to spend real money to unlock the entire krypt.

Speaking of buying koins, I know this is off topic, but is anyone else disappointed that the KI developers once promised alternate ways to unlock items besides playing online, and that ended up being purchasing KI gold?

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Not really. The alternate ways to unlock besides online is basically just playing in every other mode save practice. You gain xp for everything you do…there are quite a few people who have gotten level 50 with everyone without ever playing a ranked or exhibition game.

If you don’t feel like grinding for the time then you can buy KI gold, but in general you can earn everything even without playing online.

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Agreed. A few weeks into gameplay, these become eye-roll material for me. Unless you coincidentally have the meter for one to end a round with, there’s almost always a better use of meter.

I’m not a big lore guy when it comes to FGs, but I will say that I garner more laughter from their ladder endings than whimsy.

One could argue that they have already begun to take risks - certainly with D’Vorah and Kotal and Ferra Torr, which just so happen to be some of my favorite characters in the game. I really hope they get the support they deserve for taking these risks, and feel that they don’t have to play it quite so safe in the future. I assume some judgment is to be reserved until the reveal of the Kombat Pack 2 characters.

I enjoy your description here, because this is such a hard/subjective thing to put into words. Best I can summon for my own explanation is this - “When I play MKX after playing KI, I feel like I’m controlling mannequins”.

I briefly frequented the TYM forums, and 90% of my posts were on this topic (to the point that I was getting tagged in NetKode threads). Online play is atrocious on XB1 and it’s the main reason why this game collects my household dust.

Whereas I wasn’t in the “OMG real MK fanz can dew Fatals, stop feeding teh newbs” camp, and I appreciated the consideration paid to Fatals having awkward/nearly immemorable movements associated with them, I don’t think making people pay for the decrease was the answer; to be fair, Fatality practice mode was a good addition.

I really enjoyed the idea of playstyle variety within individual characters… unfortunately it can be observed that one, and rarely/at most two, variations per character ended up being tourney-viable. What’s amusing to me is Jacqui seems to have a great variety/balance within her 3 variations… but literally no one is using her at tornaments.

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CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

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Yeah as a fan of the lore from back in the day, I’ve never understood why they don’t use the endings to advance the story at all. It’s all just “this is what would happen if they won it all.” Well, okay, I get that they don’t want to give away any of the plot for the next game or write themselves in to a corner, but any half decent writer can create these endings and have them augment the story without conflicting with it or screwing them up for the next game.

To me, it’s just a waste of space doing it the way they are now because none of it means anything. It’s just a token reward for beating the final boss.

Oh no, don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about the new characters in MKX. Honestly, I thought the new group in this game were the best group of new characters since MK2 and for me, that’s saying a lot.

My issue is with the returning roster and how full of MK1 and MK2 characters it is. A lot of MK fans were hoping for some reimagined or reinvigorated 3D era characters, specifically MK4 and while we got a few, there were still a ton of old characters that seem to make it in to every game, even if they don’t have a whole lot to do story-wise. That’s really what I meant by them playing it safe. Just give us more of a variety between MK1 and MK9 (or MKX, if we’re talking about the next game).

Agreed 100%.

I’d take it a step further beyond tourney viable and say that only one or two character variations of the three were actually fun in general. So yeah, I’d honestly rather they just switch to having two interesting and largely different variations as opposed to having three with only a few minor differences in most cases. Just my opinion though.

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id like for the gameplay to change, tired of the block button BS and oh yeah…THE NETCODE. thanks.