You Can Buy "Easy Fatalities" As Mortal Kombat X DLC

[Jamash]

I gotta say, we've really hit DLC rock-bottom here. I understand that developers need to make money, but, really? Sorry to sound like an old man, but back in my day, DLC like this was called a "cheat code" and it was free.

I'm an older man that you and back in my day, cheat codes weren't necessarily free and could be learnt by phoning a Premium Rate number hosted by the publisher, helpfully advertised in the game manual.

The monetisation of cheat codes and locked game features isn't a new practice by any means and has been around long before internet enabled consoles existed and could simplify the transaction with DLC codes.

In fact, I'd even argue that this so called "rock-bottom" of DLC is actually cheaper than calling a Premium Rate phone line and listening to a slow recorded message (prefaced by useless guff to extend the length of the phone call) dictate the cheat codes to you at £1/minute. I'd also say that this optional cheap DLC (irrespective of it's use or value to you and me personally), is still a lot more of an honest and upfront transaction than the insidious way cheat codes used to be sold before DLC was possible.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

As has already been said, this might have been acceptable if it was permanently unlocked, but nope, they want you to pay for each teabag.

Well said, also funny, doesn't change that ermac only exists because of fans.

I don't shave. Never have. My barber always does it for me. She even did it for free all those years, because I am a close friend. She doesn't anymore. I don't know why exactly. Maybe it's because she has another child, or maybe because she has to remodel stuff in her house because of that child, or maybe times just got worse, maybe I just don't come by often enough anymore. So should I start bad mouthing her now? I mean I got a clean face for free all those years. Now I have to pay for it. Maybe I should find another pretty girl to cut my hair all together?

You know what I did instead? I paid what she asked and still gave her a tip. And you know why? I like how she cuts my hair. And I know she likes me coming by as well. It never entered my mind that she's gotten greedy or wanted to take my money just because she can. It was a courtesy that I got it for free. "A privilige, not a right" is the correct saying I think.

Brings me back to thinking you are self-entitled... (oh, and that's a true story by the way. I have a great barber and she is pretty.)

Your comparison is off. You are comparing free haircuts to the EZ mode fatalities, ignoring the fact that people have to pay for the base game.

Your comparison would make more sense if you've always had to pay for your haircuts, but your barber's started charging you every time you read one of her magazines.

People aren't pissed because they think they DESERVE this for free, they're pissed that yet another supposedly "full" title is using scummy freemium tactics.

 

[wizzy555]

You know what the sad thing is, I have no desire to buy the game until it is super cheap on steam. But I would have gladly paid $5 to watch the story mode as a film.

 

[Quellist]

Good on the developers! If anyone is stupid enough to pay for a bit of dick swinging then honestly let them have it. This has zero impact on serious or casual players so why the fuck not?

It's not like its extra fatalities only for people who pay....that would piss me off a little.

 

[AT God]

I bought my first MK game about a week ago, MK9 was available on Steam for 5 bucks so I thought I might as well give it a shot despite my extreme lack of skill at fighting games.

The one thing I was surprised by was how easy the fatalities are to pull off in MK9. I remember reading the old inputs for the arcade and thinking there was no way I could ever manage that. But MK9's fatalities are all either 3 or 4 direction inputs and a single button. Once you know what the single word explanation for what distance you need to be from the opponent it is incredibly easy to pull them off. The difficult thing is you occasionally screw up a directional input and there are no second chances if you have to be close to the enemy and the final input is an attack command.

Unless they regressed to the extremely long inputs that were used in the older games I don't see why anyone would buy this DLC, although if they did go back to insanely long inputs that makes me think it is probably an intentional decision to help sell this DLC.

But yeah, I agree in general that this sort of DLC is really my limit on what I think games could get away with, although fatalities are essentially cosmetic only so it is really no more evil than selling player skins, actually kind of less since the game still includes all the fatalities, the DLC is basically just a laziness or lack of skill/coordination pack.

To be honest, an easier bosses DLC wouldn't be a bad idea for Dark Souls, there are lots of games I want to complete and but am unable to due to skill and therefore will never get to play through the end. I would like to actually see the end of Super Meat Boy but I had to watch it on Youtube because fuck those missile launchers and the sky world in general.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Ehhh, I don't find this much dumber than the "buy experience points" thing that "Dante's Inferno" had.

But seriously, fatalities aren't that hard to pull off. And I haven't gotten my copy of MKX yet, but if it has another "fatality trainer", like MK9 did, then that's especially sad if you STILL can't pull off fatalities.

As far as I'm concerned, good on the developers: if you're enough of a sucker to spend $5 on something that isn't difficult to do and isn't necessary for the game, then they've earned your money.

Unless they regressed to the extremely long inputs that were used in the older games I don't see why anyone would buy this DLC, although if they did go back to insanely long inputs that makes me think it is probably an intentional decision to help sell this DLC.

I haven't gotten the game yet, but what I've seen of gameplay it doesn't seem like they are any more difficult than they were in MK9. Sometimes, guys are pulling off the fatalities so fast the game doesn't even have to time to move the "Finish Him!" out of the way.

 

[lacktheknack]

OH for heavens sakes. Difficulty settings/cheats behind paywalls? WHEEEE!

Ah well, Heaven knows that even if I played Mortal Kombat, there's no way I'd be buying that.

 

[seditary]

The most amusing thing about this is that fatalities in MKX are almost all incredibly easy to perform already. A lot of them are just one extra input than a normal special move and they even give you a fatality training mode.

So I guess these are for people who want to chop people up but don't want to actually play MKX?

 

[Daymo]

I'm pissed off somebody out there, who isn't me, might buy this product that lets them perform a fatality they could have easily learned within the game. Like seriously, there is a super easy, free, very little time consuming, if you are somewhat competent at a fighting game alternative to this product called learning the inputs, they even give you a command list of them now, I remember when you had to look them up online, write them down and have them next to you.

How are people even annoyed at this as a thing when every free-to-play MMO has things liked timed experience boosts or timed drop increases, these are on a scale far worse than what MK is offering. I would even say cosmetics are worse than this as you can only pay real money for them and no other way to get them. These easy fatalities A) don't affect the game in any way and B) are easily accessible in game for at a very slight investment of time to learn the full inputs or to grind koins for these tokens. I wish every freeium thing had such easy alternatives, this is simply a double standard on triple AAA games that even with a complete product, they can't make extra money on it making it ever so slightly easier to be entertaining for people with the money to buy the game but not the time to learn the fatality inputs in full.

 

[loa]

Monetizing your shitty control scheme instead of fixing it, possibly making the control scheme even shittier in the process in order to to "incentivize" people to drop money on it. Or in other terms, they fixed the shitty control scheme and then put it behind a paywall.
Wow.
That's like metal gear solid 3 using a top-down camera and locking the much more game appropriate third person camera behind per-level-based microtransactions.

A new level of "fuck you" to consumers, you know exactly what's wrong with your product, deliberately design it that way, already implement the solution and then ask additional money for it.
Monetizing bad gamedesign. It is so over the top transparent and counterproductive to making a good game, it's laughable!

Can we stop pretending microtransactions don't affect gameplay now?

 

[cth]

As has already been said, this might have been acceptable if it was permanently unlocked, but nope, they want you to pay for each teabag.

Well said, also funny, doesn't change that ermac only exists because of fans.

I don't shave. Never have. My barber always does it for me. She even did it for free all those years, because I am a close friend. She doesn't anymore. I don't know why exactly. Maybe it's because she has another child, or maybe because she has to remodel stuff in her house because of that child, or maybe times just got worse, maybe I just don't come by often enough anymore. So should I start bad mouthing her now? I mean I got a clean face for free all those years. Now I have to pay for it. Maybe I should find another pretty girl to cut my hair all together?

You know what I did instead? I paid what she asked and still gave her a tip. And you know why? I like how she cuts my hair. And I know she likes me coming by as well. It never entered my mind that she's gotten greedy or wanted to take my money just because she can. It was a courtesy that I got it for free. "A privilige, not a right" is the correct saying I think.

Brings me back to thinking you are self-entitled... (oh, and that's a true story by the way. I have a great barber and she is pretty.)

Your comparison is off. You are comparing free haircuts to the EZ mode fatalities, ignoring the fact that people have to pay for the base game.

Your comparison would make more sense if you've always had to pay for your haircuts, but your barber's started charging you every time you read a magazine.

My haircut wasn't free. The shaving was. It was something that she technically didn't have to offer, because no barber in my country does it anymore. At least that's what I've heard. Has to do with the Aids thing. Anyway, does any other fighting game offer fatalities? So they now want money for something only they provide. I still don't see what's wrong with that. Oh, wait, they only want money for the easy way to get them...

And about the Magazines: I'm not forced to read them. I can bring my GameBoy! I guess you mean the magazines are getting paid twice. Once in the price of the haircut and once when I get charged extra specificially for reading them. (Which I wouldn't mind either, since I have a GameBoy.) I still can't find anything wrong with it, though. But I guess I really spent too much time in school. There I have learned that if a retailer gives you a price cut he doesn't really give you one, because the price cut was added on top of the selling price before the product even went on sale. So all those bonuses and discounts aren't really that. We pay more than we have to for almost everything every day. The whole system isn't that great if you ask me, but it's still what you want. You all follow the goal of "more is better", yet if someone does something that doesn't help you but him to reach that goal, you complain. Funny thing is, I don't live like that, yet I have no problem with the people who do. And you guessed why. Because my goal isn't "more is better". So even if the MK guys were greedy, I wouldn't begrudge them that. I'd feel sad for them actually if all they wanted was more money. Though I doubt that's the case as I said in my earlier posts. I truly think they only want to make more Mortal Kombat games with even more gory fatalities you might or might not have to pay for extra some day, but only because they will have to buy real people you then get to kill each other via mind control. Production cost goes up every new hardware generation.

And about my comparison: The fatalities are something they don't have to provide in a fighting game, just like shaving people in my country. Fatality cheats were free, now they are not. Shaving was free, now it's not. I think I'm in the bounds of fair comparison here, don't you think? Though of course you couldn't know about the safety rules in my world. So please accept my apologie.

(Also something else you might find funny. I don't even like Mortal Kombat. I'm a DOA guy...)

 

[Gearhead mk2]

I feel that I SHOULD be disgusted by this, but honestly it's so stupid that I just think it's kinda funny. I honestly can't see anyone buying this. And I say that as a guy who bought Horse Armour.

 

[NerAnima]

So, easy fatalities are unlocked through tokens, which are expendable, and Goro, arguably one of the most iconic characters of the entire bloody franchise, is locked behind a pre-order wall. I'm sure Goro will be sold as DLC later on down the line, which just makes the entire bloody thing even more repulsive to me. Oh, and then there is the fact that the PC version, which may be the one most people are going to go for, was just utterly broken on day one. Hell, it may still be broken.

You've probably heard about people who say "I was going to buy X but then they did Y and it convinced me otherwise" before; but for me, this is just too much, I refuse to even consider getting the game when this is the bullshit I'd have to put up with, I don't want anything to do with this.

I'll just wait until someone posts the Story Mode on Youtube, and watch that, then maybe consider playing Mortal Kombat 9 again. At least there they didn't take Goro and lock him behind a pre-order wall (granted, he wasn't in the game as a PC to begin with, but my point still stands).

 

[loa]

How are people even annoyed at this as a thing when every free-to-play MMO has things liked timed experience boosts or timed drop increases, these are on a scale far worse than what MK is offering.

It's more low-level than a crappy progression system or skins.
This is the control scheme they are monetizing. The very basic nuts and bolts of the game!
Think of what this implies! Probably not that they made an effort to actually improve the control scheme, make it a better game.
That would be bad for business!

This is on a whole new level compared to experience boosts.

 

[happyninja42]

That's not DLC, it's a pay to win model. Although in this case "win" has a rather narrow definition. I don't get it, though. If I want to see a Fatality or some kind of super complicated input move, I just mess around in training mode until I got it. Or heck, look it up on youtube. I mean... who pays money for this? X

But it's not a pay to win. By the time you are doing a fatality, you've already won the match. If anything it's a "pay to brag" or "pay to rub it in your face" model. It doesn't help you win the match, it just helps you look cool afterwards.

Though, from what I've heard, there is some kind of progression with the characters? Like leveling up or something? IF that's true, and you get xp or something for completing fatalities, then ok it helps you progress easier. But if it doesn't do this, then I don't see the problem.

 

[LordLundar]

I don't mind fatalities being easier to perform, but I won't pay a single cent for it. I'm sure that there will be a mod than gives you infinite easy fatalities for the PC version within a week from its release.

Infinite easy fatalities or nude Mileena mod? Which will be first?

Fatalities. There's a trainer out that gives infinite fatality and skip coins already.

 

[Davroth]

That's not DLC, it's a pay to win model. Although in this case "win" has a rather narrow definition. I don't get it, though. If I want to see a Fatality or some kind of super complicated input move, I just mess around in training mode until I got it. Or heck, look it up on youtube. I mean... who pays money for this? X

But it's not a pay to win. By the time you are doing a fatality, you've already won the match. If anything it's a "pay to brag" or "pay to rub it in your face" model. It doesn't help you win the match, it just helps you look cool afterwards.

Though, from what I've heard, there is some kind of progression with the characters? Like leveling up or something? IF that's true, and you get xp or something for completing fatalities, then ok it helps you progress easier. But if it doesn't do this, then I don't see the problem.

That is what I meant when I said it's a narrow definition of winning. I didn't expect that this would turn out such a controversial statement. XD

In MK, beating your opponent, at least when I played it, wasn't the victory. The victory was pulling off the fatality. And now you can pay for that instead of learning the button combination. So yeah, for me, that is "pay to win". I hope that clears it up.

 

[bug_of_war]

I've heard that the button inputs to pull off fatalities have been made even harder in MKX as opposed to previous games. If so, it would seem like they're basically trying to make it as obnoxious as possible in order to encourage people to buy the easy ones.

They haven't been, they're the same as the last game. About 3-4 directional button inputs + a kick/punch + standing in a certain position and you've done it. Easy as. Hell, the main storyline gets you to do one and it's pretty hard to fuck it up.

OT: Yeah, mixed feelings about this. Essentially it is just cosmetic, but it also seems somewhat greedy

 

[404notfound]

But now that this new "innovation" has been innovated, what are the most ridiculous "Easy X" DLCs that you can think of?

How about "Easy Quick Time Events"? Where they pass you anyway if you don't press the button it tells you too.