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Post by kungfubunny9876 on Jan 18, 2019 2:07:31 GMT
The newest entry in the series will have character customization, new gameplay mechanics like Fatal Blows, new characters, a new story involving time travel and, of course, gruesome new Fatalities. Game Informer highlights of the eventApril 23rd is the release date, on PS4, XBox One, PC and (surprisingly!) Nintendo Switch. |
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Post by Katzenbalger on Apr 24, 2019 14:14:00 GMT
I picked it up the other day (JB had it for $66 AUD, which is astonishing for release day). I like it, but with caveats, For one, online play seems fucked at the moment. On release day it was fine, but today it's borked - spends ages just searching for a match and not doing anything.
But the actual kombat itself is great fun. They've fiddled with some of the mechanics, which is taking some getting used to (the defensive moves seem a little fiddlier than i'd like), but it feels satisfying to play. Also i'm loving the roster. At first i was a bit skeptical, but the old favorites have been tweaked, the carryovers from X are great (D'Vorah is seriously fantastic) and the new characters are all pretty awesome (loving the Kollector).
But there are issues that seem to be based on Warner Brothers trying to do the 'games as a service' thing. The game constantly checks to see if you're online, even if you're just playing arcade mode or local vs. Every time a match finishes, it connects before it gives you end-of-match rewards. Speaking of, now there's a gross system involving multiple currencies you earn - while you earn regular coins pretty quickly, the other currencies look like they'll take ages to gather (unless you pay for microtransactions).
Unlocks are also a bit frustrating - you still unlock stuff in the krypt like in X, which lets you run around an island, unlocking chests with currency. But seemingly half of all unlocks come from the randomly generated tower modes, where you fight a series of opponents, usually with some sort of modifier to make things more varied/difficult (stuff like poison clouds or rockets, or maybe your meters don't refill). A lot of these modifiers are more annoying than interesting. The problem there is these towers promote the use of consumable items you can use, which do anything from refill your health bar to sending lasers out to hit your enemy. Consumables are clunky, and by their very nature limited in use so the game wants you to grind out other towers to get more of them. It also does the gros microtransaction thing X did, but worse (there're 'skip fight' tokens, and if you lose a match the game reminds you about them).
So it's a case of 'good game but with some shitty caveats tacked on'.
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Post by Katzenbalger on Apr 28, 2019 13:51:04 GMT
So apparently Netherrealm Studios has acknowledged the towers of time modifiers are shit and that getting currency is a grind, since they're apparently sending out a patch next week to fix things. I've been playing more, and some of those towers are miserable (when shurikens fly at you from offscreen every few seconds without warning, it's a real fucker). Any changes will be good, because the towers are the main meat of the game, and a lot of them just aren't fun.
The currency thing definitely needs a tweak, because at current levels it's a nightmare grind. Coins are easy enough to get, but then you need hearts to unlock the best chests. Rare chests need 250 hearts each to open. The only way to get hearts, outside of getting 5 - 10 from the occasional daily or tower challenge, is by doing fatalities and brutalities. Fatalities get you 1 heart, and brutalities get you 2. So either way you'd need to play over a hundred games just to open one chest.
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Post by kungfubunny9876 on Apr 30, 2019 23:16:02 GMT
So apparently Netherrealm Studios has acknowledged the towers of time modifiers are shit and that getting currency is a grind, since they're apparently sending out a patch next week to fix things. I've been playing more, and some of those towers are miserable (when shurikens fly at you from offscreen every few seconds without warning, it's a real fucker). Any changes will be good, because the towers are the main meat of the game, and a lot of them just aren't fun. The currency thing definitely needs a tweak, because at current levels it's a nightmare grind. Coins are easy enough to get, but then you need hearts to unlock the best chests. Rare chests need 250 hearts each to open. The only way to get hearts, outside of getting 5 - 10 from the occasional daily or tower challenge, is by doing fatalities and brutalities. Fatalities get you 1 heart, and brutalities get you 2. So either way you'd need to play over a hundred games just to open one chest. I think, even with these patches, the game is designed to make you spend on microtransactions. A lot of free-to-play games do this, but it's pretty pathetic when AAA $65 games do it as well. |
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Post by Katzenbalger on Jun 12, 2019 12:55:50 GMT
Still playing MK11, which got improved big time with the patch. Towers of Time are now playable because the modifiers have been toned down considerably and many have AI cooldowns, so you don't get stunlocked by shit flying in from offscreen. Well, sometimes you still do (there's one fucked modifier that causes ice walls to close into the center of the screen, to the point that both you and your opponent end up constantly being frozen while the clock runs down).
Also, you can now earn hearts and souls in abundance by playing, instead of the pathetic tricklefeed that there used to be. I still thing having three different fucking currencies for unlocks is stupid, but now it's less of a nightmare grind to get any good loot.
One glorious thing I've discovered is the ability to let the AI control your character when doing towers. Depending on the character, the AI will easily slaughter its way through towers, while you do something else like read a book or watch a movie or something. I know it sounds stupid and counter productive (why not just play the game instead of letting it play itself?) but I've been abusing it for towers i can't be fucked dealing with. The AI for characters like Sonya Blade and Baraka are ruthless enough to take out everything except bosses.
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