Mortal Kombat Fatalities too hard? Buy easier ones!

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/mortal-kombat-x-has-microtransactions-for-easy-fat/1100-6426612/

There isn't a facepalm big enough...

I'm not a huge fan of the idea of anything other than a level playing field in a fighting game. Even moreso, I'm -really- not a fan of the idea of being able to microtransaction making the game easier, even if it's not an element that affects gameplay balance (i.e. if you can do a fatality then you've already won the match).

-Byshop

Whatever gets the cash flowing.. someone will do it

Actually I'm in favor of this. This is DLC done right: instead of witholding content or gameplay elements, or even worse, giving advantage to paying users, they make money on minor cosmetic things (and I think seeing fatalities more easily counts as such). Now, i don't know whether all the DLC for this game is like this, but this particular one is cool in my book.

This is really stupid. Why bother doing this?

The thing is is that this has absolutely zero impact on anyone who doesn't buy this, it's the very definition of frivilous.

@Black_Knight_00:

Oh thats how it starts...... then before you know it you can by entire victories if you're too lazy to earn them. :(

This is a perfect example of how gaming is leaning more to the casuals

@MarcRecon:

Making a game casual friendly aint a bad idea..... but they are going about it the wrong way.......

They shouldve just made a tutorial for the damn thing...... did they ?

Just don't buy it.

Yeah, it's really really dumb, I can't believe it's actually a thing. However, it really doesn't effect anything in the grand scheme of things. I think the goro DLC is actually something worth getting pissed about.

Yet it's the "Hardcore" that continues to buy this kind of DLC

@nini200:

A strange and bold thing to say..... but it does make sense when you think about it......

Whos going to peel themselves away from Candy Crush and pay $400 just to play Mortal Kombat..... I don't see disposable easy fatalities having that kind of power...... or any Greedy tactics for that matter.

You have a VERY good point about Candy Crush. Casuals fork over the dough for that game like it's nothing.

Casuals won't truly be interested in a game like Mortal Kombat though. That game is Hardcore central and unfortunately, there are even Hardcore gamers that don't know how to do simple fatality inputs either because they don't want to put in the short time to learn them or they have never played fighting games.

Fatalities are lame as hell, but they're basically as innocuous as this DLC. Jeff Gerstmann summed it up nicely by saying something along the lines of you can't have a Mortal Kombat game without them, but there's no real point in them anymore.

@nini200:

Somebody actually just made a thread about that a few seconds ago.......

To be fair I'm no pro either..... I can't side step consistently in Tekken or DoA.

Lol wow the chances of that lol

and I consider myself pretty high level in fighting games. I've been playing them since the early 90's starting back with Street Fighter 2, Art of Fighting and Fatal Fury. I've won some tournaments and have always placed top 3 whenever I entered.

Sidestepping in both Tekken and DoA (DoA's sidesteps are a bit more useful since it's made pretty much with a Virtua Fighter-ish engine) were implemented pretty poorly yet they still work but take a bit more practice to pull off successfully.

If you want to play a fighting game that has Sidesteps done correctly, play Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown (I would say 5 but good luck finding that). However i must say, Virtua Fighter is without question the most difficult one to learn but it is the best 3D fighter out.

@Lulu_Lulu:

I'm not sure, I don't plan on buying it because I haven't really been into fighting games lately.

@nini200:

Yeah I noticed that.... I have the trial version on my 360 and damn the mobility in that game is just tops...... so very intuitive especially compared to Tekken......

And even though the controls are simpler too...... theres just so much too learn..... the fighting styles are very deep and distinctive........ but the soul reason I haven't dropped the very fair price of $15 to get it is beccause it doesn't have DoA's Defensive Mechanic....... that plus DoA has 4 of the VF characters and they fit quite well there They even had Sarah and Akira make cameo appearences in the Story Mode.... difficult as they are to master.

@MarcRecon:

A good tutorial could ease people in..... I find one of the big reasons the genre is not all the popular is because people just don't know how to play...... the game just tells you what the buttons do and throws you in there.... then you get pummeled by the AI and Human Players...... injustice had a tutorial but it was very shallow....... I hope MKX has a better one.

People only play this for the fatalities anyway so what's it matter? All the serious competition seems to be on the street fighter series.

No. The cool thing about fatalities is knowing you're able to pull them off. There will come a time where the next MK or SF will only let you punch and kick. You'll be forced to pay for your special moves a la carte. We need to start saying no at some point. We've gone well beyond that point.

@JustPlainLucas:

Didn't the Free to Play Soul Calibur game do that..... or something equally terrible......

Those days are much closer than you think.

@pimphand_gamer:

Well by fighting game standards MK Has one of the best Story Modes..... people can play it for that....... plus this specific game has character variations...... a new and pleasant change to the series more alluring than the gore and violence.

One can say MK is growing up.

Yeah, I won't support this game. This is just seriously asinine.

I fail to see how this will lead to that. Everything is still intact as you can still do the fatalities just like any other MK game, you don't have to pay to do them. I think some people are just running around like chicken little shouting that the sky is falling.

I use to be a fan of MK back in the day, I just haven't been feeling the game over the last few years

@MarcRecon:

Oh..... well then theres nothing anyone can do about that.......

I never liked MK because my brother was a cheating sadist...... you know the type of person who says "lets play" but doesn't teach you how..... that bastard.

One one hand games need new players. One the other dumbing down a game like this or from ME1 to ME2 is not good since you loss the depth from the game. I do like fighter game but I there are easier way to make these games more accessible to new player.

Yes exactly. The Mobility in VF is the best for a 3D fighter yet. Expert play of VF is like watching amazing choreography of the best fight scenes in movies.

Yeah the controls are simple yet the technicality and depth of the commands and game is immense. The creator of DoA has called DoA a VF lite version and I can understand exactly why. DoA is a very fun game and it does borrow things from VF but it's not as in depth as VF. Yeah the VF cast could fit fairly well in DoA especially since the button setup is similar but they'd have to tweak some things like they did for the guest characters.

@nini200:

If nothing interesting goes on sale then maybe I'l get it......

Why did Sega stop making VF games anyway ?

Trust me. If enough people buy these easy fatalities, then the publisher will adjust their business models accordingly. They're essentially selling an Easy Mode. Over the years, cheat codes were thrown out for Unlock Everything packs. Characters locked out on disc to pay for on day one. Cosmetic changes you used to get as rewards for playing the game are sold in eight dollar packages. All these microtransactions stem from testing the waters. Don't be surprised if we see a fighting game where the move sets are sold piecemeal.

Ok so you have bought the game in anticipation of the cool gameplay only to find out they have made the fatalities too difficult to pull offf in order to force people to buy easier fatalities.....yeh great one, any other sneaky ways you devs can think of to make extra money blackknight is all in.

@ariabed:

do you ever get the feeling like sometimes Voting with your Wallet is a huge waste of time.......?

Am I missing something here? I tried the game for the first time and went through fatality training for like 10 characters and I got most of their fatalities on the first try. 3-4 joystick movements followed by a single button press while executed at a specific range. After reading this I was expected them to be crazy complicated or something, but it seems like pretty standard Mortal Kombat to me.

-Byshop

Just in regard to this type of dlc in general...

The developers are obviously playing their game to extract as much money as possible from the consumer.

But I have my OWN game. That is, wait till the goty edition!

Well I would be surprised if that happened because this isn't selling parts of a game piecemeal, it's simply talking an already established mechanic and making it easier for some people to perform. It's a mechanic that has no effect on the gameplay or outcome of a match. It only gives satisfaction for the one who bought it with no detriment to anyone else.

If this game didn't have microtransactions, I would buy it. I wonder how many people are in the same boat. Sure, they make some extra koin off some gamers. But how much did they lose from people who see this shit and then don't buy the game at all.

You would have a point if fatalities had been made harder, but since they are exactly the same 5-input combinations they have always been, this store item has no negative side at all. It only looks sleazy until you actually stop and think for half a second.

It's aimed at lazy people with too much money and does not impact the experience of those who pass on it in any way whatsoever. I don't see how having a truly optional way to milk lazy people for cash is a problem, especially considering that publishers need more revenue from a AAA game in order to turn a profit these days, and if this is the way they found to do it, I'll say it has been a million times worse in the past.

@Black_Knight_00:

But who is that Lazy ?

I mean it's a fatality..... a humiliation move performed after you've already beaten someone........ its seems highly uncharacteristic to earn a win fair ans square then be too lazy to perform the Fatalities.........

These are two drastically different types of behaviours we are talking about here...... I sincerely doubt they can be occupied by any single guman being.......

Now we've all seen content like this before...... developers always have some method of pressuring Their players to consider buying a feature rather than unlocking it........ there are no exceptions....... what would be the point of paying for a shortcut if these unlockables were easy to get ?

Nope...... there is definitely a catch....... or maybe WB is just stupid......

People with disposable income who play a lot of MK online and want to do fatalities every match without hassle. Besides: the publisher counts on a fraction of the players to buy the token pack once. Rest assured that they are not expecting to sell a lot of these, but even if they were to rake in a mere million bucks, it's a clean zero effort million bucks, and with these premises, they can absolutely be my guest. Besides, anyone dumb enough to pay 16 to 20 cent for a fatality deserved to be fleeced.

@Black_Knight_00:

The world is getting scary.... :(

The base game for $15 is all you really need. The other $30 is just costumes and stuff.

Not sure if they stopped actually. There's rumor of a new VF coming and hopefully it's true. It'd be a shame for them to stop making VF

@nini200:

VF also has many costumes ?

It's average honestly. Not really worth $30. The custom outfit creator is not that robust as most would be led to believe.

@nini200:

Well.... its still custom something.... DoA doesn't have that.

True.

It's unfortunate this game turned out to be a DLC travesty, maybe I would've spent money on it otherwise.

@KHAndAnime:

Meh its not that different from what every other publisher is doing..... I'm pretth sure every big game coming out this year is going to be doing DLC Stuff in their games......

And with that said...... I also won't be spending money on it..... not because I am also disappointed by the Pre order DLC but because I simply don't think MK is my type of game.....

Anything to squeeze some more bucks out.

Now I don't really mind Microtransactions or DLC regarding Cosmetic things like skins and such, I think it's more outrageous that they wanted extra money for a single character, Goro, to be in the game. And the 30$ price tage on the upcoming four characters.

But this is getting a pattern and I'd say the Developers are moving out on thin ice, Plenty of people who're already now starting to get fed up with buying a game and then get asked " Hey, could you give me more money for these trinkets and things we avoided to put in the game. We figured you would cause you'd probably want it"

Videogames aren't cheap and I understand they are far from cheap to make but spending over 100$ on a game, which also seems to be getting shorter and released as unpolished as many have. That's a pretty big way to take advantage of your consumers and fans to get green numbers at the end of the month.

Well yeah! If me and you are the only ones doing it lol.

I don't know, games are more expensive to develop these days i guess and i do want devs to keep making high quality games, if dlc helps them do that then what the hay, but using sneaky ways to force people to buy dlc is not a good look.

@ariabed:

LoL..... well thats what jt feels like some time...... perhaps i could try writing a letter instead...... my wallet's not big enough to change a studios ways.