https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/150cEH1X_CXg7JVmHYSfWgxqannZAa9pX

Covers the basics of the experience system.

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Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero

Experience Guide

As you may already know, in order to finish the game you need to have at least 5100 experience points. It’s for this reason speedruners can’t simply run past everything and combat is required. The question is, what’s the optimal way to acquire said experience? To answer that, we will take a look at how the experience system works.

¿How does it work?

It’s easy, just attack an enemy and you will get experience points, but there is more to it, each level and enemy has an exp multiplier so to speak. For example, a raw uppercut done against a monk in the first level grants us 9 exp, while a 6 hit combo gives 12.

Yet, dudes in level eight (fortress) give 28 exp per uppercut and 48 per 6 hit combo.

Looking at this it’s easy to come to the conclusion that farming exp/beating enemies in levels 5 and 8 are the most profitable, and this statement is both true and false.

Efficiency

While some enemies give more exp than others, the time spent killing and the risk to do so has to be taken into account. Most enemies that have a weapon, are only programmed to run and attack, they will never block or do any fancy stuff, this type of enemy it’s the easiest to kill, and the one that can be killed in a specific way that gives us a lot of exp.

The halberd monk in level 4 it’s a perfect example of this.

Halbred Monk: *Extremely easy to kill *Can be respawned(Just throw him in a pit, enemies respawn if they fall offscren) *Very high exp modifier (3.5) *Since the level involves backtracking, killing them removes the risk of getting poked and jumping over them it’s slower than just running. So we can see that in the case of this particular enemy, not only does the monk gives good exp, but the level incentives killing them for cleaner flow.

There are places where downtime allows us to beat this monk with 0 time loss, Two examples: When waiting for the platform in the water to reach the left side, this monk can be killed with no time loss.

After using the key, it takes a couple of seconds for the door to close, then the water starts rising, the monk can be killed after using the key and before the door closes, avoiding time loss spent killing him.

The opposite of the halberd monk it’s the fast teleporting monk in level 5, while they have the highest non boss exp modifier, this enemy it’s a pain to kill and their spawn`s are quite random.

Summary

Now we know that there is a bit of brain that goes into the killing route of the run, and it’s quite runner dependent. At the start you shouldn’t care a lot about the exp, since by dying you end up killing more enemies than necessary, but once the run gets a bit cleaner you need to start paying attention to this, it’s totally possible to get to the end with less than 5100 and kill the run. Failed boss fights carry the exp from the failed attempt, so it’s not as big of a time loss at it seems, but it still is pretty bad. It’s always good to keep the experience in mind in the final level, and know that to the left of the final elevator, there are two enemies worth 165 exp each.

After Thought

*There may be a route that involves killing Scorpion, he is worth a lot of experience points. Scorpion 2 always spawns in the middle of the room, so it’s easy to kill him by leaving an ice puddle in the middle and then running to one of the corners, when you come back he will be dancing.

*After an enemy gets hit with a jump forward kick, they take 50% less damage until the combo ends, it’s possible to re-stand them with an lp or hp, this can be used to get more exp from bosses. (But you still get 100% of the exp awared, only the damage is halved, so this can be used to extend the health of a high exp modifier enemy to get more exp by getting more attacks)

*My exp route involves killing the sword monks in level 1, kill the monks in level 4, and then get the rest exp from enemies in the prison and fortress.