duplicate sorry

They might be DLC characters, like Tanya.

I remember there being a statement by Boon that there will be no NPCs in MK11.

Sorry in advance for the long post.

I think you have to consider that a model, a few voice lines, and a bare bones move list dont make a character. We certainly wouldn't accept the aforementioned characters if that was all they had.

If you want a character to be upgraded from fightable NPC to playable character that would require:

• a significant amount of voice over for hundreds of intros. Both the character needing more voice lines and others needing to interact with that character

• multiple skins instead of one new model

• dozens of gear pieces for each of the 3 slots

• 2 fatalities, couple brutalities, plus any finishes we dont know about.

• intros and outros

• an arcade ending

We probably wouldn't accept a character that had less than all of the above and all of that requires extra man hours and extra money to implement. If you want to have zero fightable NPCs but it would essentially just be cutting those characters without replacing them with anything. If less characters showing up but all of them being fightable is preferable to you, that's fair. But realistically the effort saved by not making fightable NPCs would only maybe, maybe equal 1 additional character

Personally i prefer the fightable NPCs as they are now

15 NPCs wow W.T.F

NPC's make sense. Please remember NPC are in story mode.. they only have to fight against one character in one background. There combos are basic and limited, as is their reactions. From a programming and lines point of view, they are about 5% of what a fully fleshed out and imagined character would be.

Thank you! This is a perfect explanation.

Same as people talking about Sheeva.. there's a difference between a character in a cinematic (e.g. Li Mei last game), a NPC like Rain who exists in one point of time.. and a full fleshed out character.

I agree to some extent but I have a few things to add:

It seems like some NPCs have been new character models but with move sets recycled from previous games. While this is find for a couple of single-player fights, to add them as playable characters much more would be needed; for one it would feel disingenuous to just asset-rip all the moves from old games instead of refreshing them and giving them tweaks and updates. For two, they would need to do balance work on the characters if they were introducing them to a competitive scene; they cannot risk a character being vastly over or under-powered, as that could just break the game or at very least ruin the character.

In this case, I think the right thing to do is to make some fresh moves, do the balance work, and sell the character for DLC. That being said, if there are some characters who just legitimately did not make the cut, but they make some sense in story and they have moves that can easily be imported for a quick single player battle, I can live with them being NPCs.

I sincerely hope the characters mentioned above will make it in as DLC though.

What is the point of a singular story mode fight with an NPC? An NPC appearing in a cutscene is a totally different situation than an actual fight with a "working" character model.

Sure the NPC would need voice acting, fatalities, balancing, etc... why add in a fight with half-baked character anyway?

Fun?

FUN!? In a GAME!? What kind of crazy ass-backward thinking is that!?

Good one. Sounds like the same kind of thinking used by one who wants to avoid spoilers, but lurks in a clearly spoiled thread.

Sure I'd like to avoid spoilers! I also freely admitted several times in the thread you've just referenced so completely out-of-context, that while it is my desire to avoid major spoilers, I also like minor ones, and furthermore lack self control in the matter. What can I say, I deeply enjoy this franchise and it sorely tempts me. I want to go read all the spoilers MORE than you can FATHOM, I just know I'll live to regret it come Tuesday. THAT said I wasn't the only one hoping to separate content spoilers from story spoilers in that thread (by far) and the thread did focus on content spoilers (for the most part) for the majority of the day, until a big storm of story blew in this evening SO... I politely re-iterated it would be appreciated if people could try to keep the two courteously seperated. While not attacking anyone or getting pissy about it at all. (I think I was pretty damned polite if I do say so myself!)

NOW however, I've got you over here you're throwing that unrelated conversation on an unrelated topic in my face in a completely separate thread, for completely unrelated reasons... for what? Throwing 14 sassy words your way in response to a question you directly asked.

You asked "what is the point of a story mode fight with an NPC?" My answer is: "Fun"

It will be fun to see & fight Cyrax, despite his not being on the roster.
It was fun to see & fight Baraka in MKX.

I suppose I was snarkier about my response than I needed to be, so hey! Apologies. But you were pretty cranky in your delivery of the question too, and that usually brings out the smart ass in me.

So... *Shrug* I dunno - Try not to be so butt hurt about it?

Fighting NPCs is as fun as seeing a Lamborghini parked in the street and not being able to drive it. Sure it was nice to see it, but I'd rather drive it.

Am not mad. You were unnecessarily "snarky" if that is what you want to call it and your response had nothing to do with how I asked my question. You don't have to type a whole lot of words to attempt to talk your way out of being obviously rude for no reason. Your answer wasn't JUST "fun" and we can pretty clearly see that. Your comment about "backward thinking" is why your "unrelated" comment got thrown in your face, backward thinking if I've ever seen it (whether you were polite in trying to direct the direction of a forum thread or not).

Regardless, I've seen your opinion on NPCs and how you feel about the "whiners" who say anything about them. Just own it.

To the point, I don't know that swapping that Cyrax fight for a cutscene fight with him would make the game any less fun.

Seriously. I just don't get the point of them outside of a cutscene moment.

I'd say its more akin to getting a chance to cruise around in the Lamborghini for a while even though you know that reasonably speaking owning it was never going to be within your budget.

Sure we'd all love to own it, but we all know that money needs to go elsewhere, BUT at least we got a joy ride.

Ehem...

Fun.

A fine metaphor but do you intend to pay for the Lamborghini? I'm realistic about the fact that my day will not feature me driving a Lamborghini as I cant pay for one

So really the question is would you be willing to just never see a Lamborghini again. The sole brightside being that you wont be reminded as often that you cant drive one

I may be looking at this wrong but It wasn't said that they would NEVER want to see a Lamborghini again. Fighting NPCs = seeing the Lamborghini parked in the street + not being able to drive it.

Maybe they are okay w/ seeing the Lamborghini in another context

I know you are going to say "don't make me laugh", but that made me laugh :).

So who are the 15 npcs in story mode?

Probably Sheeva, Cyrax 1.0, Cyrax 2.0, Cyrax 3.0, Cyrax 4.0 , .... Sektor 1.0, Sektor 2.0, Sektor 2.5, Sektor 3.7, ... :D

I dunno where that number comes from, but I have only seen two fightable NPCs and one NPC that is not fightable but is a side character in the story. Maybe by NPCs they mean from other modes such as Shang Tsung being the krypt guid, or some random bodies laying around.

This.

Not reading much in this thread to avoid spoilers. But @NathanMThom nailed it.

In addition, the time it takes to create a new moveset AND balance is extremely long process.

Taking an mkx or mk9 moveset and putting on a new model takes a small fraction of time compared to a brand new move set.

Again, not reading spoilers, if the character has never been in mkx or mk9 then they are almost guaranteed to be dlc, so I wouldn’t fret.

I don't know if this is saying anything, but I found a picture with Sektor looking different. So who knows?