I finally bought this game; I can’t believe it took me this long. I love this series… anyway, last night I decided to try the WiFi racing, and I saw some crazy stuff!
Please don’t laugh too much, because I’m sure all of you already know everything about what I’m going to ask and will find my ignorance quite amusing. The other people in the race were doing these crazy zigzags all over the course, and I have no idea how they did it (was this the drifting?). Also, in the second race somehow someone KEPT getting blue shells and just fired them nonstop. The first thing I could live with, but the second just ruined the fun because literally no one could drive at all. It totally blew.
Anyway, my friend code is 322224 990657 if anyone wants to play in a normal way!
The first thing is indeed drifting or ‘Power Sliding’ as it is called in the MK series. It’s been around since I believe 64 is is a technique used by players to matain speeds around corners that with a little wagging (for lack of a better definition) of the analog stick or the D-Pad as in this case can provide a slight speed boost. The second phenomenon could be one of two things either a) the player in question having been bringing up the rear was getting rarer picks to compensate for his but getting pwned (a feature that has been around since the begining), or b) there may have been some hacking involved at which point you’re better off ignoring the doofus.
I noticed it too when I played. I think they’re really good at getting mini turbo boosts when the track is wide and straight. I think it’s called “snaking” and from what I’ve seen it’s frowned upon on the Gfaq’s board. I faced someone who did it and probably due to slight Wifi lag it looked like they were teleporting. Fortunately, despite only using mini turbo boosts the normal way (while going around turns), I was able to keep up with him and tie him for first. This probably happened because I was using Peach’s third kart which has a ridiculous drift boost stat and I think the other guy I was racing with saw what he was doing and we whored our items on him.
As Killmore said, you get better items when in last place. It was probably bad luck.
Snaking is trying to maintain the drift-boost throughout the race, not just around corners. It’s a bit tricky to pull off, but makes the racing more interesting. Just don’t play public if you want to avoid people snaking.
As for the items, as said before, Mario Kart is communist.
I’m completely unable to pull it off, and I’ve tried. So that’s why I really don’t play public, since it more or less means auto-lose for me.
I really dislike that the only way to counter snaking is to snake yourself, it’s kinda unbalanced. Even if you get contstant triple red shells I’ve seen people get so far ahead that it doesn’t matter.
I know that items are rarer the further back a person is, but blue shells literally every second? That’s got to be hacking, but I just don’t know how. Now I’m just curious.
So, help me not to play public and give me some friend codes to input. I’d love to race with RPGC people.
edit - Yes, I do remember how to use the search feature. If your code has changed or you missed the last code thread, please give it up!
I used to be able to do it, it’s been a while however.
I don’t care if it’s frowned on or not, it’s a method, a skill. It’s like frowning on a guy in Street Fighter because he can do a fireball and you can’t.
I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. Characters in Street Fighter have more than one move to rely on, and if you can’t do one you can at least do others. There are moves that can counter other moves as well.
The problem is that Snaking is the ONLY skill-related move that you can use in Mario Kart, outside of the Starting Turbo Boost. The items are random and can’t be depended on. If the Street Fighter characters only had one individual move to use outside of normal punches and kicks, and if the move had an ungodly complicated series of inputs that was hard to memorize and hard on the thumb to input, AND it tore off 1/2 of your opponents life bar when it connected, then THAT would be a fair comparison to Snaking.
There is absolutely no technique that can counter snaking besides snaking yourself, no way to stop an opponent from snaking outside of items, and no way to rely on items since they are random. I can see why Nintendo started making items better the further back you were, they saw what Snaking was, but instead of removing it or putting on some other counter they just relied on items instead. But, as I said before, it’s possible to get so far ahead with Snaking that it would take a series of Blue Shells in a row to catch up. And relying on a random item generator isn’t fun.
I hope that for the next Mario Kart game Nintendo either removes Snaking and rebalances the items, or adds in some new techniques that you can use to either match snaking or nullify it. Yes, it takes ‘skill’ to be able to pull off Snaking, that’s not the point. Having really only one ‘move’ to use in the entire game, and being able to use that move vs not being able to use it being the difference between victory and defeat, is NOT a balanced system.
A balanced game is Rock Paper Scissors. Right now, Mario Kart only has Rock and Scissors.
Uh, items in Mario Kart games have always been better if you’re farther back, it’s been like that since the SNES, so I hardly see that as a fix Nintendo threw in to counter snaking. I doubt they even knew about it until after the game was released, I don’t believe Nintendo would knowingly keep something as game breaking as it in if they knew about it. The issue here is that people are abusing a ‘feature’ that wasn’t intended by the developers. Hell, go back to the fighter analogy, tournaments have banned aspects of gameplay because they’re obviously broken, this is really no different.
While it’s true that system has been in place since the first game, it’s all the more apparent in the DS version. In the older games even if you were in first there a few better items would occasionally slip through (even though the SNES version didn’t have a huge selection of items, you’d still occasionally get a feather or a mushroom), though stars and lightning bolts were saved for the trailers. But, even though DS has way more items than the SNES game, when you’re in first you’re more or less restricted to the basic obstacles: Bananas, Green Shells, and the occasional fake ? Block. The system by which items are granted seems a bit more elaborate in the DS game.
I wouldn’t rule out Nintendo knowing about Snaking and leaving it in, though. I’ve heard stories about a similar reviled technique in Smash Bros Melee. I’m not too keen on the specifics, though, since I’ve only been playing Melee for a few months. But I’ve seen discussions around it, particularly about whether or not it’ll be in Brawl, or if Nintendo will give an option to enable or disable it, or what have you.
Of course, I’m aware that theorizing that Nintendo knew about snaking and did what they did with the items to counter it is all just an assumption on my part. I admit I’ve gotten more than a little frustrated being left in the dust by snakers. I don’t think it’s fair to say I’m whining, though, the game IS broken.
I’d love to race with RPGC people.