Mario Kart 8 / Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

MnSG said:
You think that's fishy, Lemmy's traction is lower than that of some of the heavier characters. Mario Kart 8's trend was lowering the traction stat as you go up in weight classes.

Anyway, even though Mario Kart 8 lacked stat diversity, it's apparently a lot better with the character stat balancing than what Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is doing.
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Well, I realized how things went gruesome for Lemmy when I saw this picture:
image.png

basically, he has the lowest Land Speed and Weight, but no main stat that reaches maximum, making it worse than the previous Lemmy + Mr. Scooty + Roller Tires + Bowser Kite:

Land Speed: 1 vs. 1 (0)
Acceleration: 5.75 vs 5.5 (-0.25)
Weight: 1 vs. 1 (0)
Handling: 5.5 vs 5.5 (0)
Traction: 4 vs. 3.75 (-0.25)

so, Lemmy only losed in the main stats, not to gain anything as compensation. We'll have to see the hidden stats, but I'm not holding my breath...
By the way, he is unable to reach max Land Handling and max Traction this time, only max Acceleration (and hopefully max Mini-Turbo as well just like in MK8). Did they want a companion for Bowser Jr. and his horrible (in terms of main stats only) Koopa Clown?

Anyway, to add insult to injury, in MK8 200cc I mainly used Lemmy + Sport Bike + Leaf Tires + Bowser Kite because it looked good, had 5.25 Acceleration, max Handling (all 4 Handling Stats), 3 Traction and still had 1.75 Land Speed. Considering how I wanted to go on inside drifting bikes on 200cc but I was completely incompetent at it and frequently made mistakes, those stats were really nice for me. Now look at its stats now, I'm too sad to even report them here....
 
It should also be noted that in Mario Kart 8, no stat could ever go lower than 1/6. In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the ground speed stat can actually go as low as 0.75/6, thanks to the fact that some gliders now weaken the ground speed stat.

In regards to the Koopa Clown, its stat distribution reminds me of the Cact-X, from Mario Kart 7. The Cact-X hinders ground speed and acceleration, while boosting handling and off-road, but it was practically an inferior kart body that really didn't offer anything rewarding outside of a water speed boost that's less powerful than what you could get with the Pipe Frame or Egg 1.

Anyway, while a +1 traction stat may seem tempting, it's pretty much meaningless if it doesn't reduce how much speed you lose whenever you go off-road.
 
MnSG said:
It should also be noted that in Mario Kart 8, no stat could ever go lower than 1/6. In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, the ground speed stat can actually go as low as 0.75/6, thanks to the fact that some gliders now weaken the ground speed stat.

In regards to the Koopa Clown, its stat distribution reminds me of the Cact-X, from Mario Kart 7. The Cact-X hinders ground speed and acceleration, while boosting handling and off-road, but it was practically an inferior kart body that really didn't offer anything rewarding outside of a water speed boost that's less powerful than what you could get with the Pipe Frame or Egg 1.

Anyway, while a +1 traction stat may seem tempting, it's pretty much meaningless if it doesn't reduce how much speed you lose whenever you go off-road.
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I noticed that some stats range from 0.75 to 5.75, this means that 21 points are being used, the tables already had 21 entries, but the last one was reserved for the default value, now this was possibly changed. We'll see if the added value is made for 0.75 (leaving the in-game stats of all the other values unaffected) or is made for 5.75 (meaning that all the in-game stats are now changed). The latter case would be better, looking at all the nerfs, while the first one would only leave us with, well, worse stats when compared to the original Mario Kart 8.
Anyway, the Traction stat increases the speed on icy and sandy sections of the tracks (which also means pretty much the whole GCN Dry Dry Desert and GCN Sherbet Land), just no longer in what we called off-road sections of the tracks, called "dirt" sections since Mario Kart 7.
 
I still think that traction should've served the following purposes...
  • A better grip on the ground, making the vehicle less likely to skid while making sharp turns.
  • Affects how much speed is lost while on off-road or slippery terrain.
    • 4/6 traction and below can't drift on normal off-road at all.
    • 4.25/6 traction can't drift on normal off-road, unless the player has 8+ coins.
    • 4.5/6 traction can't drift on normal off-road, unless the player has 2+ coins.
    • 4.75/6 traction and above can drift on normal off-road, regardless of the player's current coin amount.
  • Affects how quickly the vehicle can enter a standstill state when using the brakes.
 
According to the wiki, the Badwagon has a ground speed boost of +0.5, but the Sports Coupe doesn't.

And the Wood tires were heavily nerfed. And the Monster tires are still bad. :(

The Pipe Frame was buffed, though.
 
So the Boomerang works weird if you get another item after using one or two of the throws and before the boomerang returns to you. The other item takes priority and then you finish using the boomerang. That's odd but I can understand why it works that way.
 
Because the Boomerang item now acts that way, it makes it feel as if it was made for this game.

Pink_Gold_Peach said:
And the Wood tires were heavily nerfed.
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They now have exactly the same stats as the Slim tyres, rather than the same stats as the Sponge and Cushion tyres. Also the Triforce Tyres now have different stats to the Slim and Crimson Slim tyres.

If I get this game, I'd still use the Crimson Slim tyres (Wooden now, as I've gotten tired of looking at the same red tyres in all my combinations) as they still give out a speed and handling boost, I'd also probably use King Boo as he has Good speed and handling. Combining this with the Gold Kart, and the Plane Glider (possibly the Plane Glider, as it does obstruct the view) would give out the stats:
  • Speed: 4.5
  • Acceleration: 2.25
  • Weight: 4
  • Handling: 3.5
  • Grip: 1.75
The worst stat in the combination is Grip, but the grip stat feels almost useless, so I'll say the worst stat is acceleration, but it's good enough for me. The other stats seem perfectly fine.
 
Does anyone else have a bad feeling that Metal Mario and Pink Gold Peach may be abused a lot in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe? They apparently have the best in-game stat total of all the characters, all thanks to the fact that the character stats are now very imbalanced.

And for those who don't know by now, in Mario Kart 8, the only imbalance was the mini-turbo differences between weight classes, while all the other stats were properly balanced.
 
I just hope this doesn't give Nintendo the false notion that they are actually popular as characters and should stay in future titles. I couldn't care less about stats beyond avoiding inward drifting bikes. I pick characters I like and vehicles that look cool.
 
Yeah if it were up to me, I would've done major adjustments to the stats so that everyone has the exact same in-game stat total.

The image below basically shows my character stat modifications, and it pretty much follows Mario Kart 8's stat trend, but with some additional diversity.

3fWuSzy.png
 
greatdimentio said:
I just hope this doesn't give Nintendo the false notion that they are actually popular as characters and should stay in future titles. I couldn't care less about stats beyond avoiding inward drifting bikes. I pick characters I like and vehicles that look cool.
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Nah Funky Kong was abused a lot in Mario Kart Wii yet he never returned.
 
i do and it's fun
 
I also got it in the mail yesterday, played a bunch with my brother in tabletop, quite fun indeed.

A trend in Renegade Roundup I see is that the renegades win most of the time. That is mostly against bots with the occasional human though, which as Nyrie pointed out in chat might be different against human players.

Bob-omb Blast with Hectic items turns all Item Boxes into doubles, which is quite the explosive experience.

In other news Mario Kart TV updates its replays instantly instead of going through a black screen with logo, and it doesn't show a logo in a corner anymore. Allows for some clean and fast recording. The lack of sharing can be a shame though.

greatdimentio said:
So the Boomerang works weird if you get another item after using one or two of the throws and before the boomerang returns to you. The other item takes priority and then you finish using the boomerang. That's odd but I can understand why it works that way.
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It more or less already worked that way in MK8, except there wasn't a spot for it to return in and just disappeared there.
 
Acceleration tiers have been removed, that's good news for me. But the stats changes don't seem great. To everyone who has this game, how do you feel about these? Are heavyweights still overpowered? Is the item distribution still distance based?
 
i played online one match vs. 80% metal marios so im assuming they're still op.

Item distribution is ? idk i got a star on 3rd place at one point with standard items.
 
I've already mentioned how terrible the stat balancing is in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe; the in-game stat totals between weight classes are really messed up. Mario Kart 8 did a lot better with the stat balancing, despite its lack of stat diversity, but the drawback is that the acceleration tiers messed up how acceleration should've operated in the 50cc, 100cc, 150cc, and Mirror engine classes.

If people are giving Mario Kart 8 Deluxe good reviews right off the bat, they should really compare the pros and cons between MK8 and MK8D. A better Battle Mode and five extra characters in MK8D doesn't change the fact that the stat balancing is atrocious, and the game reuses the exact same 48 tracks that are in MK8, so you're literally not getting anything new in regards to the Grand Prix mode.

And sadly, I don't see any future software updates fixing this, since Nintendo clearly refused to fix up the acceleration tiers and the Fire-Hop tactic in Mario Kart 8; doing that would mess up the Time Trials game mode's Staff Ghosts, the highlight reels, and even the best times that players have achieved.
 
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