Mario Kart 8 (Wii U) - Official Topic

Your chances of encountering a shiny Pokémon are higher than Jorge actually joining a Mario Kart 8 session, Rudy.

jb, literally everyone's here except you, and you said Friday was best for you XD.

That's out first short session earlier Marzy, before everyone else started joining (was faster to upload than the rest as it was shorter and didn't need to reencode since we did not skype for that one)

Also I did really crap on that one XD

And last night's big session :

Lol I will, soon! Sorry guys, have had pretty terrible flu all week, wanted to join but head was seriously pounding last night. If you're around this weekend, maybe. Had like 12 hours sleep just now XD

Do you still Skype or is it something else?

( Edited 22.11.2014 10:25 by jb )

Can understand that, no worries mate. I doubt I will be there tonight though, I'm supposed to have a mate over at home and with my bro that makes three players who'll want to play so can't get online I'm afraid and can't skype either (for tonight).

Mario Kart, lads.

Wow, the 5th was almost a whole lap ahead !!!

Joking, I know how you get screwed over by the online placing you behind when you're clearly in front .

Quick rage post.

The more I've hammered this game, the more apparent it's become how utterly shit the item distribution is. Possibly the worst of the series. The most telling thing is just how common triple shrooms are in almost any position.

One huge problem is, for example, if you're on the final lap, in the lower positions and you go through the last item boxes before the finish line and get 3xshrooms, you're thinking "Cool, I can use these to cut this last corner (think Toad Harbour) and maybe take over a couple of those guys ahead of me and around me."

But what you immediately notice is that every fucker in your vicinity has also been awarded 3xshrooms, so your item becomes absolutely redundant, and pretty much everyone's positions will remain as they are until the finish line because we all have the same stupid item. What's the point in giving me 3xshrooms to get an advantage if everybody else around me also gets the same thing?

I'm not kidding on the amount of times I've seen about three people in front of me and three people behind me have 3xshrooms as we use our final item box before the finish. It's unbelievable how common they are in practically every position and really ruins it.

I just finished a race where I got about six 3xshrooms in a row throughout my entire race, or at the very least had six 3xshrooms across the race as a whole. In the end, those shrooms really don't get you much of an advantage when others get them or better items, such as red shells, which make shrooms pointless after you overtake someone, because as soon as you do - bam, you're hit.

Got another 1000 points till I hit 10,000 VR, and as soon as I do, I'm done with this game until the next DLC or friend lobbies once in a while perhaps. Although at this point, it's become more difficult to get points now, and taking longer than I'd like. I may just casually play less frequently until I get 10,000. I know 99,999 is the max, but I'm sticking with 9999 (or, 10,000+) as my cut-off point here, as 9999 was the max on MKW, so it just feels right. 99,999 would literally take months of continued playing. No point at all.

It's a great game, and a good jump technically from MKW to MK8, but it's just let down in too many areas for me to consider this the best in the series. It can easily be redeemed with tweaks to the item system in a patch, plus proper battle mode DLC. That could quite possibly put it at the top of the list. I just don't get the impression either will happen though : (

I'm also tired of this bullshit:

Bonus: here is possibly one of the worst dickings I've ever had in this game from being in 1st place. Could have ended worse if I didn't get shrooms (what else?) to finish 5th, but it was unbelievable. Had to record from phone in full race mode, because highlights wouldn't pick it up.

^ That's the brutal moment I saw Az, when joining your match was absolutely mental. I was proper pissed myself.

Totally agree on how bad item distribution is, there's an article out there that claims it's based on proximity from first place, but I don't believe that for a second. I preferred MK Wii's item distribution (bar the influx of blue shells) over MK8 - I want to post an article on it, highlighting how poor it is - perhaps with animated gifs/Instagrams at somepoint too, get people talking about it and hopefully this being relayed to Nintendo.

I HATE COINS - the item, that is. You boost into 1st place, get coins. Fine. Next item box, coins. Then get battered by red shells, a roaming green and it's into 10th/12th place with not a lot of chance to really catch up again.

( Edited 02.12.2014 00:32 by jb )

I've read the same theories that you're far more likely to get strong items like bullet bills depending on your position from 1st place. Like if you're 8+ seconds behind, much more likely to get such an item. I think there may be truth to that, but certainly on the whole the system is hugely flawed.

Coins should never have been an item with how many there are on the maps. Really don't know what the idea was with that, especially as it's only whatever you cross the finish line with that gets added to the total coin score. It should continue to count even if I'm at a max of 10 in the race and pick up more.

( Edited 02.12.2014 00:45 by Azuardo )

Azuardo said:
The more I've hammered this game, the more apparent it's become how utterly shit the item distribution is. Possibly the worst of the series. The most telling thing is just how common triple shrooms are in almost any position.

My own thing is when I'm on the last lap and get a single shroom in, like... 9th position when the 3 in front and behind me all get triples XD. Ridiculous! The only place where item distribution is not always utter shit in in the front. If you can place yourself first or second, the others behind you will usually kill among themselves and leave the front of the pack untouched.

I didn't know it was that bad, Az! That was one of the worst moments I've ever witnessed in an MK game. Some how you still beat me though! D:

I agree about the triple mushroom thing, noticed it myself.

Rudy - that's a common and even worse situation.

Definitely if you can get a good start and ahead of the pack, avoid the initial battering of each other after the first set of item boxes, you are more often than not well on your way to winning the race from the beginning.

I've noticed it's often a great idea if you can keep the pace in 2nd right behind whoever's in 1st, don't hit them with items like red shells - just keep your position in 2nd - usually a blue shell will come and wipe 1st place out, allowing you to take 1st in the end. And even if it never comes, you may still have the chance to hit them before the finish - or it simply doesn't matter too much and you can take 2nd because you still get good points for finishing there online.

I just wish this series rewarded you more for skill, rather than being too much of a party game where anyone can win. I understand how it does mean any casual or newbie can have a chance and feel good about it, but I feel like it's too frustrating for people that actually play well. It's hard to imagine how exactly they could make big changes to the series and still keep it fun and accessible, though. Or maybe that's a sacrifice they should be willing to take after all of these party MK games in the past? I'd like to see something done to actually reward good players, anyway.

I'm actually really interested in doing a No Items tournament in a friend lobby. Yeah, it probably will be boring, but I'm curious to see how it'd play out. That's not how I want MK to be, but with how shit the item distribution is, it's really made me think about what it'd be like.

Azuardo said:
I just wish this series rewarded you more for skill, rather than being too much of a party game where anyone can win. I understand how it does mean any casual or newbie can have a chance and feel good about it, but I feel like it's too frustrating for people that actually play well. It's hard to imagine how exactly they could make big changes to the series and still keep it fun and accessible, though. Or maybe that's a sacrifice they should be willing to take after all of these party MK games in the past? I'd like to see something done to actually reward good players, anyway.

Myself, I'm quite happy that Mario Kart remains a game where the learning curve is pretty laid back. You can't become technical so easily but it's manageable in a few tens of hours for just about anybody. You have twice the amount of VR that I have (pretty much) so I expect you must have amassed twice the playtime as well, and I'm not THAT much worse than you, I can defend myself in general. It's only the item balance that I have a problem with, as I do get decked pretty badly often, quite like what happened to you above . I'm all for a no item one sometime too, because I do fancy my chances, as I'm usually pretty good at keeping a good trajectory throughout so long as nothing comes to mess up my game XD. 'ccept laybe on Bone Dry Dunes which I can't stand no matter what vehicle I take, I always mess up one way or another, I hate sandy tracks in general (not to mention that there doesn't exist a single desert music track in Mario Kart that's good XD).

(not to mention that there doesn't exist a single desert music track in Mario Kart that's good XD).

It's probably the item balance that is my biggest annoyance and contributing to the rage, making it feel like good play is punished. After all, when you see the above vid of being in 1st place, only to get hammered so much, I most likely would have gone on to win. It's more the item balance that makes good play go unrewarded.

Bone Dry Dunes is also one of my least fave tracks in the game. Was trying to think which tracks I really like the most the other day, because I dislike so many haha.

I know for sure, I'm decent at the game, because when I do get into 1st I can nearly always get quite a big lead over the rest of the group. The only thing that screws me over is the weapons, I nearly always get blue shelled when I do get into 1st. Being within the group is the worst place, because you just get screwed over all the time and it's so hard to get any good lead from the others.

I still think MK8 is an amazing game though, and the best in the series.

Also, there does exist good desert music in an MK game. I present Kalimari Desert:

No way man! No proper battle mode and a boring single-player mode is killer for me. It's crazy that N64 and PS1 kart games still batter MK in SP mode (CTR and DKR). All other kart racers today have some sort of strong SP mode.Character selection is poor, with too many clones, and there's an overall feeling with lack of modes and options all around that the game was rushed. No friendly fire off option, no item selection options, no GamePad full screen in MP...

It looks lovely and it's fun, but it's a step back from what other games have done for me.

I like it better than MKWii where I never stood any chance personally, especially against the CPU, and I didn't like too much the recovery time of the Wii game after your jumped off a ledge too, your kart or bike would bounce off a few times when falling from high (gosh, it was worst on Mushroom Jorge!!) and I didn't like that part of the physics, not to mention item balance wasn't too good either, but I'll always remember fondly that one for being the first with decent online support (and being pretty much the only reliable online first party Nintendo game on Wii )

Yeah, I used to come last every time in MK Wii, so the balance is definitely better, even if it's still bad.

See you in May, game!

That screenshot makes me feel better about myself, trying to 100% Smash 3DS with its atrocious RNG collectathon. What's your playtime at?

Activity Log says 179:23, and 133 plays.

I dunno how much you'd have to take off for non-online and friend lobby sessions, but I guess you can kinda work it out.

( Edited 18.12.2014 18:58 by Azuardo )

Geez, I think I'm at around 60-70 hours at most. Way too much extra time that I'm not willing to invest to get to 10,000 VR. Though I'm not sure what's worse, fighting the RNG in Smash to get the last missing trophies/custom moves/Mii hats or fighting the item RNG in Mario Kart 8 while trying to rack up VR against randoms with the same goal...pick your poison, I suppose.