HugeQuest Alter Code: F

[Open Assets] HugeQuest Alter Code: F V1.12

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OH, BIG
Welcome to HugeQuest, a collection of gameplay mods to spice up your Kart experience!

Featured mods (and their console commands):
Grow+(hq_huge, default On): Inspired by V2, Grow+ allows the use of items while active! Additionally, items used during Grow+ are now twice as big, with Orbinauts and Bananas splitting on impact with a player, another item, or - in Orbi's case - the last wall impact in their bounce threshold. Split items are normal size. Furthermore, using another Grow while Grow+ is active will extend the timer, scaling by 75% from the third activation in a chain onward. Mines set during Grow+ retain their standard counterpart's range and blast radius. Finally, item odds are adjusted during Grow+ to roll attack items or Invincibility, with a chance to roll 4x Orbi or 10x Banana!

Grow+ Giant Item Split(hq_hugesplit, default On): Allows Giant Orbinaut/Banana to split on impact with either players or other attack items on the track. Giant Orbinauts will split into two, while Giant Bananas will split into three.

Optional features for Grow+:

Offroad Immunity(hq_offroad, default On): Changes the Grow+ flash from Periwinkle to Thunder and allows Grow+ to ignore offroad.

Extendable Invincibility Timer(hq_sparkle, default On): Instead of resetting the duration when using a second Invincibility during the effects of the first, the second's duration is instead added to the first, prolonging its effects. Extensions scale by 75% starting with the third activation in a chain.

Visual Timers[clientside](showitemtimers, default On): Shows visual timers for various states at the bottom of your screen.

Other fun stuff:
- Hitfeed support! Grow+ squishes show up on Hitfeed just like Vanilla Grow.
- Hostmod support! You can see the enabled HugeQuest features on the Neo Scoreboard, as well as HugeQuest-related tips in the Did You Know? section.

Credits/Special Thanks:
DarkyBenji: For laying down the groundwork and being the co-author of Grow+
Tyron: For permission to use i/o logic and tips framework from Juicebox
minenice: For math help on split item functionality
Ashnal: For guidance and general troubleshooting help
Togen: For help with Grow+'s Damage hooks and assisting during public testing
Titou: For inspiring item size scaling with Weathermod
Home: Visual timers, with improvements by Indev
Mitsuo: Master Emerald and Driftboost sprites
Scyther's Stream Server, Mocha's Coffee Shop, Karts R Us, Tinge of Chaos, Northeast French Bread, and The Interdimensional Circuit: For participating in public testing and providing valuable feedback.

and

You, Random Kart Player: For taking the time to check this mod out and hopefully take it for a spin.

Important interop notes:
-
If you are developing a mod that checks for Grow (player.kartstuff[k_growshrinktimer]), please also add a check for (HugeQuest and player.hugequest.huge > 0) to ensure both Grow and Grow Plus behave as intended.
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Author
RetroStation
Downloads
5,826
Views
16,629
Extension type
pk3
File size
484.5 KB
MD5 Hash
46b74523280c6364781605c84137b447
First release
Last update
Rating
3.33 star(s) 3 ratings

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Latest updates

  1. Update - V1.12

    (DarkyBenji) Fixed random desyncs on map load
  2. Update - V1.11

    Fixed errant typo in BoostLibInterop
  3. Update - V1.1

    Removed erroneous code pertaining to BoostLib interop (thanks DarkyBenji)

Latest reviews

Grow+ is severely unbalanced.

I'll go through each of the changes it makes to grow and what makes each of them unbalanced, as well as making general comparisons to the other main power item of the game, invisibility, and how they're both generally used in-game.

You can ignore the third point, as it's mostly subjective, but is one I want to make any way.


(1st) point, comparing vanilla grow to vanilla invisibility in terms of offensive capability, grow is the better item.

Grow's stomp is much more useful in terms of slowing down the person hit by it than invisibility's bump, due to it stopping the person hit dead in their place, while leaving them in a few moments of hitstun, effectively stopping the progress they're making for a few moments.

Invisibility's bump canon balls the person hit away, usually sending them a few feet forward in a faster speed than what they were already at, making the amount of progress it halts much smaller compared to grow, the momentum left over from being hit by invisibility can also sometimes allow the person hit to recover even faster if they were hit over a jump or hill.

Contributing further to invisibility being a worse offensive item is how unusable it is in "Just before the finish line trying to pass the person infront of me" situations, due to the bump more often than not sending that person further into the finish line, something someone using grow doesn't have to worry about.

So it really puzzles me why grow+ not only gives the player a bigger chance of getting combat items like orbis and bananas, but decides to also buff them in, the two most unimaginative and obnoxious ways I can think of, by making the hitstun you incur from being hit by them longer, and also making them Much harder to avoid due to their size.

It makes grow better at something it's already really good at, and something that it already sells itself over in comparison to invisibility, offense.

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(2nd) point, comparing vanilla grow to vanilla invisibility, they're equals in terms of their ability to make come backs and recover from large deficits.

While I do admit that invisibility tends to be the better item for that in vanilla maps, and smaller maps, with the large majority of modern kart maps being very wide open, and with those maps being considerably more popular, it makes vanilla grow an equally viable item, if not outright better than vanilla invisibility, in terms of making come backs.

And so, I don't understand why growquest makes grow able to pass through grass completely unimpeded, making it objectively better as a comeback item compared to invisibility due to the longer duration, the faster speed, and being able to take (almost) all shortcuts invisibility can without issue, it's not only a really unimaginative change that removes a big part of what made grow unique compared to invisibility, it makes invisibility almost completely irrelevant, with no meaningful situations where its better than grow+ grow.

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(3rd) point, in terms of being a "beginner's" item, vanilla grow is an objectively worse item in terms of usability in comparison to vanilla invisibility, due to its lower acceleration, larger hitbox size and harshly increased speed.

That, in my opinion, is a good thing.

Most of the time when I spectate newer players who're in the lower spots using invisibility, they never drift, they only ever turn with it, and due to invisibility's faster acceleration, that's more than viable.

Grow's design forces newer players to not only drift, but also brake, if they want to use it effectively in any way, introducing these players to two essential mechanics of the game, and gradually removing the crutch that invisibility gives them.

I'll fully admit that this is not a good way of introducing these players to these mechanics, it can be very frustrating, and they may want to cancel their grow every time they get it, but with the absence of any sort of in-game tutorial to help learn drifting, it at least serves a purpose.

Grow+ not only removes that aspect of grow, but makes the crutch even bigger, by giving the players an even better invisibility that, not only gets them out of last place, but can give them really good spots in a race, without ever bothering to drift or brake, it makes newer players very complacent, something you'll easily notice if you saw how many of them complain if a server doesn't have growquest.

------------------------------------

(4th) Point, dynamic power timer.

This feels like a feature that was added in with no real goals for fixing, anything, and the only thing it ends up achieving is nerfing invsibility even further.

The biggest difference between vanilla grow and invisibility aside from the speed, is the duration.

Invisibility's duration is just good enough, you can take over a good amount of the competition's places and be in the running for top 3 with invsibility, but you usually won't be stealing 1st place with it.

Grow's duration is more than good enough for you to be able to steal a race with it, but due to its sometimes overkill speed and low acceleration, it can genuinely be a difficult thing to achieve.

What I'm trying to say is, lowering the duration of grow by the amount DPT does doesn't hurt it a ton, lowering the duration of invisibility by the amount DPT does, utterly cripples it as a comeback item.

Not to mention how much a change like DPT makes these items near unusable for newer players, the ones who are most likely to be bumping against walls and being hit by trap items or stage hazards, and being happy that that is happening when they're using a power item, it's a very confusing mechanic in terms of game design decisions and implementation.
RetroStation
RetroStation
A lot of these issues have been corrected in Onihime+. While I did say Onihime would be the final update, I recently came across never-before-seen edge cases which required restructuring of HugeQuest's code. A lot of pain points in Nora have either been reworked or outright removed, and item strength seems to have been leveled out. Nevertheless, I appreciate the feedback!
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This mod makes growing big fun, it's been a staple for my private server for a while, and though there's some issues with mods like Combi, I won't dock points for something probably out of control of the author, I really enjoy this mod otherwise.
RetroStation
RetroStation
DM me on Discord (RetroStation#1909), and we can definitely talk about it! Might be able to Smash something together
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Welcome to releases!
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