New Mortal Kombat Can Be Balanced on the Fly

[Logan Westbrook]

New Mortal Kombat Can Be Balanced on the Fly

NetherRealm Studios' Ed Boon says that Mortal Kombat won't need patches to keep everything running smoothly.

Character tiers are just one of those unavoidable facts about fighting games: Cable is better than Wolverine, Kazuya is better than Yoshimitsu, and Sagat is better than, well, everyone. But Boon says that this won't be a problem in the new Mortal Kombat, as the game can be adjusted without the need for big patches.

He said that while every effort will be made to make the game as balanced as possible at launch, over time, players will find the exploits and some characters will have distinct advantages over others. Boon said that NetherRealm added the ability to "turn knobs" in the game, and while it won't be able to do things as major as adding or removing special moves, it will be able to slow down a projectile or change the amount a damage a move does.

Boon also said that NetherRealm plans to be quite aggressive with DLC for the game, with new characters being high on the list. He said that the core of Mortal Kombat's roster would come from the first three games, but that DLC was a great way to introduce characters from MK4 and onwards, as well as totally new characters. It was going to be a challenge, he said, to make sure that everyone had the data for the new characters, even if they hadn't bought them, as NetherRealm didn't want to split the player base.

"We're going to need a patch or some kind of delivery method-and we're still trying to solve it," Boon said. "One option is a free character that everybody gets and gets you all the purchasable ones too. If you download a free version of Raiden or whoever, you'll get everything."

Mortal Kombat comes out for Xbox 360 and PS3 in the first half of next year.


Source: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5618460/mortal-kombats-post+launch-balancing-add+on-character--pc-plans]


Permalink

 

[-Samurai-]

Does this mean that I could turn everything down and have super long, drawn out fights?

As far as DLC, I don't see why they don't just give us everyone we've played as in the past and a few new characters, then make more new ones DLC.

 

[Jared]

Intresting. IU am sure Patches will come out at points though, bit the concept they have here is reaher intresting

 

[Taco of flames]

How exactly does the "turning knobs" thing work? Do players control it, or does it read combos and moves that get used frequently and autonerf those, or something else? I don't actually care about the game too much, but the idea of on-the-fly balance sounds cool.

 

[Carlston]

COUGH

-Bullshite-

Yes I said shite,

Sorry MK dev team, you couldn't balance a check book...
I expect this game to be like every other MK game, Super over powered AI where even easy pulls off a 1 percent health come back for a perfect win?

Why?

You never programed a fighting AI that didn't understand we weren't in a arcade giving you a quarter every time you screwed the player...

Yeah believe it when I see/play it.

 

[AbsoluteVirtue18]

Now I may be an optimist, but I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Sorry guys, but it's gonna take a lot more than real time number tweaking to make MK a solid fighting game.

How exactly does the "turning knobs" thing work? Do players control it, or does it read combos and moves that get used frequently and autonerf those, or something else? I don't actually care about the game too much, but the idea of on-the-fly balance sounds cool.

Basically, there are server side switches on the MS servers that the games have to talk to during online play. Use of this server side set-up allows developers to tweak the game experience based on, essentially, an invisible download when you first start the game up without having to actually download a patch. Supposedly it's the same memory used when, for example, the Gears Of War games turn on multiple XP weekends.

 

[-Samurai-]

Sorry guys, but it's gonna take a lot more than real time number tweaking to make MK a solid fighting game.

How exactly does the "turning knobs" thing work? Do players control it, or does it read combos and moves that get used frequently and autonerf those, or something else? I don't actually care about the game too much, but the idea of on-the-fly balance sounds cool.

Basically, there are server side switches on the MS servers that the games have to talk to during online play. Use of this server side set-up allows developers to tweak the game experience based on, essentially, an invisible download when you first start the game up without having to actually download a patch. Supposedly it's the same memory used when, for example, the Gears Of War games turn on multiple XP weekends.

Boo. I want control of that

There go my hopes of long, drawn out fights.

 

[Numb1lp]

Does this mean that I could turn everything down and have super long, drawn out fights?

As far as DLC, I don't see why they don't just give us everyone we've played as in the past and a few new characters, then make more new ones DLC.

But then they wouldn't be able to scam us for our money.

 

[Tom Phoenix]

Am I the only who thinks that this is a really bad idea and that it could potentially be far more detrimental to balance than normally?

A "self-adjusting" game just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I'm not so sure, if it adjusts for common or 'cheap' combos, it means players will have to relying on a set of about 3 attacks all the time and actually have to fight using their full repertoire of moves, I think IF it works, it's a great idea, and giving away a free character to keep everyone having the full range of players makes sense too.

Of course, there's a huge chasm between press releases and actually seeing it happen in game

 

[Rad Party God]

I like the idea on the DLC for new characters, if you don't have a certain new character, you'll still going to fight against someone who has downloaded that character, pretty much like Company of Heroes did a huge patch adding the extra armies on the vanilla game, even though you can't use the new armies, you can still play against someone who has them.

 

[CrazyMedic]

I thhink players can mod it for local games and NR can do it on the fly for online(so they figure out that raiden can pwn everyone with lightening doom kick or what ever they can balance it and everyone who is online will have raiden's move slowed down or what ever with out a patch it just automatically happens.

 

[Orcus The Ultimate]

Make us pay, and you will pay !

 

[General Ken8]

Now I may be an optimist, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Same here. I'm actually rather good at MK: Armageddon, but when I fought one of my friends who was playing for the first time, he almost beat me with Raiden by spamming the same button over and over, because the move was too fast and my character couldn't get up fast enough to block it.
If they COULD fix things like that, though, Mortal Kombat would be great. I'll get it either way, though.

 

[Dioxide20]

Ah the limitations of Console gaming. But that is really cool, not sure why must games do the tweaking without patching thing, seems like a great idea.

 

[FloodOne]

I like the idea of a free DLC character with all of the extra paid per fighters already in the file. You sell unlock licenses for the rest of the characters in it, and the user base doesn't get split up. Count me in.

 

[Thunderhorse31]

Am I the only who thinks that this is a really bad idea and that it could potentially be far more detrimental to balance than normally?

A "self-adjusting" game just sounds like a recipe for disaster.

My thoughts exactly. "Balance" shouldn't mean that you can never be sure your moves will have the same priority/speed/power as they did the day before.

 

[ace_of_something]

There hasn't been a good mortal kombat game since they went to 3-D. I don't think the problem is 'balance.' I'm glad their limiting the roster initially because in MK:A they had so many characters they couldn't include proper fatalities. It was like a random combo thing.
Each MK: Seems worse than the last...
Yet for some stupid reason I keep fucking buying them...
It's my gamer shame.

 

[chaos order]

There hasn't been a good mortal kombat game since they went to 3-D.
Yet for some stupid reason I keep fucking buying them.

cause they are still awesome!!!