Still on the fence about this game like I mentioned in my first post here, but I did want to chime in on the racing points discussion. At this point in time I’m of the belief that 24 racers is a little bit too much, but that’s less because of the game itself and more because older courses aren’t built for that kind of player count. We saw a much smaller version of this problem in Wii when the racer count was bumped to 12 for the first time. There, some courses had to be scaled accordingly to fit the player count. This on its own isn’t a bad concept, and some courses like the SNES Rainbow Road remakes were upscaled anyway even in games like 7 that still had eight racers. The problem comes with specific remakes where the proportions of the course are directly ported from one game to another. The Double Dash remakes are especially bad in Wii in this regard since none of them were adjusted from their backwards-compatible versions on the original hardware. Case in point, GCN Cookie Land feels almost unplayable and borderline claustrophobic, while the only one of the race tracks that feels like it fits Wii’s engine is the Waluigi Stadium remake/port.
At first glance this doesn’t look like it has anything to do with the points system in online play or in Grand Prix or Versus Mode, but it’s how tightly packed the racers are together that makes all the difference. On most courses, the higher the player count, the closer the racers will be to each other distance-wise. But in the 12 and especially the 24 player settings, the distribution of the points won’t always be representative of the race itself or the skill gap between players. I have no idea how Nintendo would program something like this, but I think it would be great to see a more dynamic points system where the distance between players would partially account for how many points you get. If handled very delicately, this could help Nintendo provide players with an active incentive to prioritize racing performance and, dare I say, skill, over things like bagging strats and ultra shortcuts. The latter is okay for single player and for Time Trials, but I don’t think players should be punished as hard for just barely finishing second as they would be for finishing second by upwards of half a lap. For 1v1s? Keep the points as is, but not for full races.
If that’s too hard to understand and/or program, that’s fine. I get it. I have a second idea, though, this one for online play. All they need to do is make it so you earn less VR when you use better vehicles and characters based on the usage data. That’s it. That’s literally all they have to do. Conversely, players could be awarded more VR for using weaker, less common picks. I understand this may cause issues with matchmaking since good players could just spam the best combos and start beating up on newer players who are at a lower VR themselves, but if that becomes a concern, they could adjust a few other things to help balance the point distribution. What do you guys think?
At first glance this doesn’t look like it has anything to do with the points system in online play or in Grand Prix or Versus Mode, but it’s how tightly packed the racers are together that makes all the difference. On most courses, the higher the player count, the closer the racers will be to each other distance-wise. But in the 12 and especially the 24 player settings, the distribution of the points won’t always be representative of the race itself or the skill gap between players. I have no idea how Nintendo would program something like this, but I think it would be great to see a more dynamic points system where the distance between players would partially account for how many points you get. If handled very delicately, this could help Nintendo provide players with an active incentive to prioritize racing performance and, dare I say, skill, over things like bagging strats and ultra shortcuts. The latter is okay for single player and for Time Trials, but I don’t think players should be punished as hard for just barely finishing second as they would be for finishing second by upwards of half a lap. For 1v1s? Keep the points as is, but not for full races.
If that’s too hard to understand and/or program, that’s fine. I get it. I have a second idea, though, this one for online play. All they need to do is make it so you earn less VR when you use better vehicles and characters based on the usage data. That’s it. That’s literally all they have to do. Conversely, players could be awarded more VR for using weaker, less common picks. I understand this may cause issues with matchmaking since good players could just spam the best combos and start beating up on newer players who are at a lower VR themselves, but if that becomes a concern, they could adjust a few other things to help balance the point distribution. What do you guys think?
