Mario Kart director philosophical about need for the blue shell
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
First, learn all the shortcuts in the game. Some of them are quite good and they're all online. Then:
For all but the last lap your job is to stop anyone from getting far ahead and to lay back in about 8th place. Cycle through boxes (just use them) until you get a star, ideally. Hold on to that as you enter the final lap.
Half-ish way through the final lap, while still in a far back position (5th to 8th), use the star right before you pick up your next box. Since you picked it up while in a poor position, it will be something good like another star or a golden mushroom.
Thanks to the rubber-banding (such as the blue shell!), first place won't be very far ahead, and the star should advance you to near first, if not first.
When a blue shell comes at you, you will have the ability to dodge it with the mushroom or invalidate it with the star in your inventory. Or just use your 5-8th place powerup in 1st or 2nd if no blue shell is coming and it will last you to the end anyway.
Proceed to victory.
Point being: If a gameplay mechanics are not fair, don't worry about them, just think about how they can be worked to your advantage. 99% of players think of the blue shell, but its a canard. Very few think of the powerup hoisting, but that's whats going to win you the game.
The final act is your friends complaining that you always seem to win and are unaffected by the blue shell. Here again it works for you as a punching bag of plausible deniability. Yes, the unfair and random blue shell is why you always seem to win...
Is it as simple as conserving effort to just match pace until you see who around you needs to be outpaced, or is there something more complex here?
This strategy evolved, and then you end up with two bicyclists jockeying for last place, with bicycles nearly standing still.
I much prefer the new system, most ranked games of mario kart tend to involve the majority of people in a large group using the weaker, more skillful items to pull ahead. If any one person pulls too far ahead of the group for any reason then the entire group suddenly gets a huge shift in powerup strength to close the gap again.
I thought they changed it in 7, but apparently it was 8 so only the Wii U and Switch versions use these distributions.
Mario Kart 8 feels way more balanced in that sense. You don't need to deliberately hang back until the last lap anymore, and the distribution of items feels much more reasonable.
From what I can tell the developers have always wanted to maximize the amount of chaos in order reduce the modal player's ability to consistently win. From that perspective it seems designed specifically to avoid kingmaking; the only way I've seen kingmaking work in effect is by having a confederate in second place who passively avoids aggression against first place and absorbs aggression from other places (items). The blue shell is arguably the most important item for eliminating a "first place moat", and under this interpretation it makes sense that you'd never get it in second place (which would only help second place, but no one else, and which could allow even more egregious kingmaking, because the second place user could threaten a "nuclear option" for all who pass).
Moreover, in the latest iteration the blue shell slides across the ground, which means it can harm second and third place as well. Confederates attempting to absorb items to shield first place are no longer capable of doing so without a horn. From a (literal) game theoretic perspective, the confederates no longer have an incentive to shield first place when a blue shell is coming, because they have nothing to gain (the item will still proceed) but much to lose (they will still be harmed). It's more rational to avoid it, in which case at least they can attempt to advance their own position. This further contributes to churn rather than consolidation.
So it's actually a fairly complex mechanic. It can be used to eliminate a first place moat directly, but it also undermines concentration of power in the second and third place confederates because they have no rational reason to aid first place when one is coming. And this is in addition to the fact that the blue shell can also harm the mid-race participants in fourth through n place, where n is the blue shell user. You really wouldn't want the blue shell to be used in the front-race, because it would not meaningfully disrupt the state of racers behind the user. In further contrast, it could also be misused by anyone who has possession of it as a tactic for disallowing people from passing them. If the blue shell were not given to back-race participants, there would be no way to attack first (and now even second) place when the participants are too busy fighting with each other and defending themselves to advance.
This is not to say that Mario Kart is not a game devoid of skill; you'll still see people who regularly win. But it does seem to prevent people from being able to e.g. get a good start and stay in first place through sheer inertia, by virtue of being away from the rest of the race's chaos. The chaos can be brought to any position with a blue shell, just like it can with the lightning bolt or (in the most recent iteration) the Boo items. I think it would interesting to run simulations on race results using computer players with various combinations of items to see how consistency and position churn change overall. It's my hypothesis that the game is actually more meritocratic this way, because it takes more skill to resist the entropy.
A skilled player can avoid all the bees in the swarm, either through the use of items or by steering around, often at the cost of breaking a drift chain (players should be drifting at almost all times in Transformed).
Since the bees spawn in front of first place, they have the least time to react and thus they are most likely to get hit. Every player needs to drive through the bees, but as players collide with the bees there will be less left for those near last place. The swarm brings all players closer together, instead of just hindering the 1st/2nd place driver.
At least now in Kart 8 you can avoid it with skill so that's something.
You have (as of Mario Kart 8) three different ways to nullify an incoming blue shell, the easiest being to get hold of a mushroom.
If you can't get a mushroom because you're hanging a green shell or a banana out the back of your kart, you kind of have it coming, too. You know what you did wasn't big or clever, don't cry about it now.
Mario Kart is a fun party game, not some ultimate test of skill.
Edit: Which is fair when you take into consideration that the game came out in 2001 and people have been playing it for the last 16 years.
What kills fun are people who want to play a game together but have entirely different expectations and are unwilling to try it the other way.
Fox may be considered the best character, but I've seen Capt. Falcon, Marth, Shiek, Peach at Evo this year.
> Final Destination
Kirby's Dreamland, Battlefield, Fountain of Dreams, and Pokemon Stadium are all valid tournament stages, among others.
The only "truth" to the meme with regards to the strictest of Evo matches is "no items". Because becoming INVINCIBLE for a set period of time, or automatically gaining back 100% of your life completely breaks the game. And no one seems to be able to differentiate between "fair" and "unfair" items.
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> "No items, Fox only, Final Destination"
This mentality simply doesn't exist anywhere. The most competitive of Smash Melee players have a set of rules that are far more intricate.
Wishing other people liked the games you like is reasonable (though futile), but wishing the games other people like were more like the games you like is putting the cart before the horse.
Nah, the ultra-competitive weenies know there is a glitch such that if you mushroom the instant before the blue shell hits you, you can escape it (at least on the Wii version of the game).
What's wrong with it is it's arbitrary (you can't really help it), it punishes good behavior (winning) but especially: it's too powerful!
Its balancing effect could be spread over a couple of other items. Certain items could receive a penalty if you're leading. The odds of picking just the right item up could be affected.
What's great about OP items like this is the amount of spectacular saves it creates. An expert player is already married to the game anyway, why care? It's only him that suffers. The rest has a very memorable stolen victory.