I hate not being able to respond to this thread due to being at work all day, but I'm gonna throw in a bunch of responses now and make this a fairly large post.
Coins are supposed to stop you from constantly getting defensive items. Of course, in Mario Kart Wii, Fake Items are useless for defense themselves.
I believe that is a problem, though. It's like if Smash Bros stripped you of the ability to shield when you are in the lead. Or if the lead player in Smash 4 had a chance of tripping, yet other players didn't. That wouldn't be balance, that's outright placing a handicap on other players.
The defensive options in MK aren't great as is, so the least they could do is not throw in what is basically a dud item. I feel like they nailed the balance in MK8 in general, but kinda dropped the ball for first place players.
In my opinion, this is not a problem at all and is exactly how Mario Kart is supposed to work. Being in first place, you are supposed to either be very defensive, or strategically lay traps to mess up players behind you to give yourself a larger breakaway. I am talking about holding onto your defensive item(s) so that you cannot be hit from behind with a red shell, or laying fibs or backspamming shells tightly around corners otherwise known as traps. If you lay a trap, thus removing at least one of your held items, you are making yourself much more vulnerable, and you can end up getting punished for it. So you need to either have a decent breakaway to begin with, or have a very high sense of confidence that another player will hit your item. If you backspam a player who is directly behind you and miss, then by all means you deserve to get punished for not playing smart. If you backspam one of your protective items such as a shell or banana, miss the player behind you, and then end up only having a fib which can't protect you, then that's just poor luck not in your favor and is simply the nature of Mario Kart. You can relate the coin item in MK8 to MKW's fib, neither item can protect you from shells, and both are available in first place. If the player behind you has triple red shells and destroys your protective item and you spam the item button at the next item set hoping for another item to block their reds and you pull a coin, then it's again, simple bad luck. It's all just a part of the game is what I am trying to say.
one of the problems with MK is that the items are inherently unbalanced, the Spiny Shell being the biggest offender. It's an item that is a guaranteed hit on the lead player. The Super Horn in MK8 will help, but because it's something that will not pop up so often, it's not a perfect solution.
I can't agree with this, the blue shell has several, several different means of being avoided. The first option is of course by using a mushroom at the appropriate time, boosting the player out of the explosion. Another method, although not as common, is to dodge it while being inside of a cannon, though this only applies to MKW, as MK7's cannon's work much differently and don't give the player invincibility. The last way, which is particularly used in the competitive community, is to activate a shock at the exact moment that a blue comes in contact with the player in first. Whenever I would play in MKW wars, this was a common way to ensure that my teammate in first didn't get screwed over for getting blued as the shock would cut down the time penalty for getting blued by a very considerable amount. It would also ensure that they would not get red shelled immediately after their blue as the shock would take the item away from the opposing team's player behind them. If anything, I would agree with @
Z'zgashi
in that the shock is by far the most detrimental item as it can either make you or break you by a large margin. Much larger potential for carnage whilst being compared to the blue shell.
Another feature that both of the aforementioned games had was that courses could have parts where you would get a specific item from item boxes. If MK8 had parts where you always got a Super Horn, this would be a sufficient way of balancing the game better. They could always be at some fork in the road, and would be on the slower route, meaning there is a "risk-reward" element to it.
This feature was actually implemented by some creators of custom tracks for MKW. There would be certain offset item boxes which would always give a star 100% of the time. It was placed more off the track and took more time to reach; but the player would receive a star none-the-less. While it is an idea that I have no opposition to, I must admit that Mario Kart's randomness in terms of items is actually what attracts me to the game. Whenever I played, I liked not knowing what I was going to get, and I liked adapting and strategizing how I played for the remainder of the race around whatever items I got.
This is basically moot though, since they've removed the ability to stock a second item in MK8. Managing lower place items becomes nearly impossible. The race is basically half decided at the beginning of the race if you have to rely on lower place items.
No it doesnt, you've always kept that item in your inventory, and since the other players wont be able to have a second item to be offensive with either, it means there's less of a need for an extra defensive item. You're only looking at this from one side, the defensive one, you need to think about it from both sides. The guy in second place isnt going to have an extra item to try and hit you with, and if he does, then HE wont be safe.
This
Also, the current methods for evading Spiny Shells and the like are FAR too situational, and are actually glitches. That's bad game deisgn. It's much simpler to just put in a defense mechanic that any racer can use at least moderately.
Using a mushroom at the appropriate time is not a glitch. It is simply dodging by proper execution.
You're forgetting that multiple players could easily be tailing the lead player, or that one player could have three shells, bananas, or mushrooms at once. So no, losing the ability to stock an extra item greatly throws the balance off without a proper replacement as a defense mechanic.
That's simply how Mario Kart works, lol. People in first will get screwed pretty often. First place can be both the best and worst place to be during a race. Like I said, you can play very defensively and be okay; but other times there's just nothing you can do.
And you're not supposed to fall behind to get better items as a "risk/reward" mechanic, the powerful items are meant as a comeback mechanic for those lagging behind. I'm saying there should be a proper defense for people in the lead position. Lagging behind to get better power-ups is contrary to Racing 101 in any racing game. The game should be designed so that your goal is getting into first place with your own skills (and a bit of help from well used items), and holding that position. That's why stuff like getting coins that don't do anything for you is a bad thing, or having a randomised defense item. Things like this are contrary to how a racing game is supposed to work, and it's flat out bad design. I don't care if it's tradition or anything, because bad design should never become a tradition.
No, okay. No. Lol.
No No No No No No No
NO
See because, strategy and mind games play a
very large role in Mario Kart; and you also have to factor in other things like which track you are playing on to determine the appropriate playstyle as well. Starting off on what I mean by track selection, in my opinion there are three different classifications for styles of tracks. You have your front running tracks in which you go all out and try to remain in as high of a position as possible for the entire race. Strictly from a MKW perspective, tracks such as Moonview Highway, Toad's Factory, and Rainbow Road fall into this category. There are way too many on-course mobile obstacles and way too many turns and corners which block items from hitting high placed players. It is extremely easy to just take a tight turn on Rainbow Road and have a chasing Red Shell fall off the track behind you. Next, you have your sandbagging tracks, where you drop back lower in placements to get a good item such as a Star, and then go all out typically at the end of the final lap. Tracks such as Shy Guy Beach, Mario Raceway, and Luigi Circuit fit this category. Wide open tracks with long stretches and/or shortcuts before the finish line give players in last pure bliss when they acquire a Golden Mushroom. It is very easy to just shoot from last to first on these tracks, and they are typically given the "Luck Track" title, because honestly, that's all they are. Finally, you have your standard versatile tracks, where both frontrunning and sandbagging are viable options, and neither option really outweighs the other because everything is situational on these courses. It's hard to fit specific tracks into this category, but if I had to pick three, Delfino Square, Mushroom Gorge, and Dry Dry Ruins come to mind. All of these tracks you can front run and place well, and all of these tracks items can definitely be your very best friend. Getting a Golden Mushroom on Delfino Square and taking double, or taking the ultra on Dry Dry Ruins will boost you up in the placements. Just like getting the Bullet Bill and using it over the mushrooms on Mushroom Gorge will sky rocket you up in placements as well, especially if you dodge the Shock.
Basically, this is Mario Kart. Where we shoot bananas and turtle shells at people. Not Forza where you just drive fast to win
There should be more reliable defensive options in place for skilled players who are in the lead, to counter the powerful offense that could put you back five positions. Not only would this reward the skill of leading players, but it would also reward the skill of lagging players, for being cunning enough to get around defenses, and use items wisely, rather than them being "press button to automatically jump up 5 positions". Right now, getting around the defenses of a leading player is way too easy.
Generally, skilled players know how to correctly use items to their utmost advantage. Comparing a player who is competitively adept to the game to a player who is casual and only plays for fun, the competitive player will almost
always come out on first, Blue Shells, Shocks, or not. A competitive player knows how to correctly execute proper shortcuts ranging from easy to advanced, and knows how to adapt to certain sticky situations and evade them, whereas an inexperienced player would fail. I remember typing up a huge paragraph several months back where I stated that a competitive player would beat a casual player 49/50 times, and I still stand by that number. Item luck
really isn't as detrimental as people make it out to be, especially when the player knows exactly what they are doing compared to someone who doesn't.
While first place players generally don't get the
best defenses at times, they should still know how to use the items they are given to receive the best outcome possible. Sometimes, **** happens though, which is again simply the nature of Mario Kart. Everyone who has ever played this game should know the goofy nature of items and be prepared for it to happen on occasion.
And it's one thing to have a knowledge on one game's competitive scene, and another to be studying actual game design, and pointing out objective design flaws. Long time players may be OK with these flaws because they have gotten used to them, but people shouldn't have to "get used to" or "adapt" to these sort of things.
If they want to play this game, then yes they should. This is how Mario Kart is, and pretty much how it always has been.
I'm coming from the perspective of someone who really tried to take Mario Kart seriously, but couldn't, due to it being so flawed as a competitive racing game (it's fine for Time Trials, though). Other racing games accommodate for high skill play much better, and I played those games at a really high level.
I played Mario Kart Wii at a very competitive level and played in probably over 400 clan wars before the servers shut down. For being so flawed, it certainly still faired very well in terms of competitive racing, lol.
I'm only saying this because I like many aspects of Mario Kart, but I feel there are some fundamental problems that if ironed out, would make it a much more appealing competitive game to many, not just myself. And I really hope Nintendo considers patches for this one, in case we discover things that are wrong (and I already have noticed a few things worthy of patching, mainly regarding online play
I honestly think Mario Kart Wii was fine, and I also think Mario Kart 7 was fine, both on a casual and competitive level. I think it mainly boils down to
how strict you wanna be about flaws, and which ones you choose to not overlook. I could ***** and complain about dozens of things that annoyed me in Mario Kart Wii; but I choose not to because the game was ridiculously fun to me. Anything that annoyed me, I ended up being able to overlook, and so did thousands of other people in the competitive racing community. So far, Mario Kart 8 is looking super sexy to me and I'm excited to play it.
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