NetherRealm Studios rolled out an update for Mortal Kombat 11 on Monday that addresses the game’s economy and the divisive Towers of Time, two changes that make the fighting game less grindy and more player-friendly.
For players looking for more of Mortal Kombat 11’s various currencies, NetherRealm is now giving them two to three times as much of the post-fight currency rewards (Koins, Soul Fragments, Hearts) than before. In the Towers of Time, for example, battles I played earned me somewhere between 1,100 and 1,500 Koins per match, as well as 10 Soul Fragments and three Hearts per match. That’s a considerable boost in in-game currency.
That increased payout is on top of a new “Community Gift” that NetherRealm rolled out to PlayStation 4 players on Monday (the update and the same gift is promised for Nintendo Switch, Windows PC, and Xbox One players soon). The gift includes 500,000 Koins, 1,000 Souls, 1,000 Time Crystals, and 500 Hearts, all of which should make exploring the Krypt more fruitful.
NetherRealm has received blowback over how it implemented Mortal Kombat 11’s in-game currency rewards and how those currencies were used in the game’s Krypt. Players complained that the time investment required to unlock the game’s hundreds of skins was compounded by the random nature of unlockable cosmetics, augments, and other items found in the Krypt. Similarly, the Towers of Time mode has been criticized for pushing players to use consumable items to overcome extremely difficult (and not-at-all-fun) challenges.
On top of the economy, Towers of Time received a major overhaul, in terms of difficulty, payouts, and how Konsumables work. Here are the relevant patch notes from NetherRealm’s update, as posted to Mortal Kombat subreddit.
Towers of Time Adjustments
• Adjusted AI difficulty curve
• Further opponent health reductions in higher level Towers
• Performing a Fatal Blow while standing in an active modifier will no longer sometimes cause unexpected behavior or a crash
• Ice based modifiers will no longer attempt to freeze players during invalid states
• Adjusted and removed modifiers from many Daily Towers
• Increased Koin Rewards for kompleting Towers and Tower Platforms
• Increased Dragon Challenge Koin rewards
• Increased post fight Koin rewards
• Increased amount of Hearts earned from Fatalities, Brutalities, and Mercies
• Lowered modifier damage for many modifiers
• Adjusted the lifespan of several modifiers
• Dramatically increased cooldowns on Tag Assist modifiers
• Fixed a missing Reduced Damage modifier in The Gauntlet
• Several Gift/Curse Modifiers are now considered projectiles allowing them to interact with moves that effect projectiles as intended
• Adjusted Gauntlet difficulty and progression requirements
• Disabler Konsumables now work with all intended modifiers
• Improved targeting for several Konsumables
• Sektor Hunter Killer Protocol Modifier is now disabled by the Rocket Disabler Konsumable
• Corrected some multipliers on Augments for some characters which were inconsistent with others
• Fixed incorrect Armor interactions with some Modifiers
• Decreased Konsumable cooldowns for players