Here's the Actual Issue behind the bad progression system: Uncertain Goals

Give me a second to explain my point here: I've seen a bunch of posts discussing how "it's going to take so long to unlock everything." But I think many people aren't really understanding why they are having such an unenjoyable experience with the krypt.

It's about goals. You've probably heard of SMART Goals. It's super common in business jargon, but it extends beyond that. Everyone set's goals for themselves, and Players setting a goal for themselves in a game is what most developers want. I want to beat the Klassic tower on Hard. I remember setting that goal for myself in MKX and spending hours in the lab just playing against a AI on hard until I finally was able to beat him.

I'm sure you are getting tired of my shit, so here's my Core Point:

Cosmetic Unlockables are Goals, and in MK11 they are objectively Badly Made Goals

If you aren't in for a long read or if you already understand my point you can stop here. The remainder of the post is just justification for my claim using accepted information

So a good goal has these characteristics:

• Specific (simple, sensible, significant).

• Measurable (meaningful, motivating).

• Achievable (agreed, attainable).

• Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based).

• Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive).

So that's super generic, but I'm gonna go through it again from the point of view of creating an unlockable item and making it a Good goal for players. For a Easy Example, let's say we are Talking about the Ice Cryomancer Mask for Sub Zero

I'm gonna go in reverse order of letters which is confusing, but it reads easier that way.

Time Bound: A little different for a dev making an unlockable, you actually want it to take a long time, but not TOO long thatit doesn't feel worth it. Let's be pretty generous and say that currently, the Cryomancer Mask has a 10% chance to drop from a tower of time? alright so let's just assume that the Time to Acquire for the Cryomancer Mask should be 10 completed Time Towers.

Relevant: An issue here, because there's not really much current relevance between the method of unlocking the Cryomancer mask, and the mask itself. In fact... It's random. There's no memorable correlation for a player. A relevant Goal in this case should PROBABLY be doing something AS sub zero, or against sub zero, or at the very least ICE.

Achievable: this is a little abstract, but basically means it should be realistic. The current goal for the cryomancer mask isn't completely unachievable. (finish a tower of time) although the towers of time are oddly difficult. For our example lets say something achievable, but in line with the reward. I'm going to say we do Winning a tower without losing a match.

Measurable: This is another weakness of the mk11 system. Cool, I've just finished 3 Towers of time. you know what the chances are on me getting the Cryomancer mask in the next tower of time? the exact fucking same as it was the first time. When there's no sense of Proximity to the goal, every effort spent towards the goal adds frustration instead of anticipation.

Specific: Well we've hit a Final big snag. You know the requirement for the Cryomancer Mask? "it's unlocked in a time tower." That's very NOT specific. The business explanation here is Vague or generalized goals are unhelpful because they don't provide sufficient direction And that nails how most players are feeling.

Final Result:

A SMART goal for how to unlock the Cryomancer Mask would be something like this:

Complete 10 Towers of Time, As Sub Zero, without losing a match.

That's probably going to end up as a lot of time the player has spent for this goal... however it's going to feel MUCH more rewarding for a player who gets it. To be able to show off his success by wearing it.

So for NRS my suggestion is this. Take all the cool shit (Fatalities, Brutalities, Best Gear) out of the chests and towers of time. Set a SMART goal for them (making sure not to set them as too long to acquire that players get frustrated) and then use the Koins, the Time Towers and the Krypt as a Secondary method of unlocking less focal things, Art, Color palate swaps, music, maybe into or outro animations.

TL;DR:

Unlocks are goals that devs make for players to set for themselves. In mk11 they aren't using the time tested methods of making good goals. It's hurting them and players.

Submitted April 24, 2019 at 01:49AM by Ghostkill221 http://bit.ly/2USkTm3