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Kart Krew™'s exe mods

instead of drowning in the discord tsunami, I'm going to try organizing my thoughts in a nice tidy forum post

First off, let me take a moment to thank the dev team for their continued passion and devotion to SRB2 Kart. I was honestly blown away by the initial release of modern SRB2K (yes, I remember Kart Z), with how much attention to detail the game had at nearly every facet -- from the tracks to the mechanics to even the super thematic items -- and so far, every single teaser for 2.0 has had me waiting with bated breath. I'm really excited about the elemental shields, I can't wait to get my hands on Grand Prix, and I'm in love with Rings serving both as a catch-up mechanic for the safer players, and as a risk-reward speed boost for the truly daring.

With the previous updates, there seemed to be a bigger focus on in-the-moment action, cutthroat tight races between players of about equal skill, and this "never give up!" attitude with new powerful items alongside recovery mechanics like the tether boost and faster respawns. Aside from trying to eliminate Lap 1 "escape velocity", a lot of changes also seemed to incentivize playing top-left (light accel) characters, by giving them alternate ways of catching up with their faster and heavier adversaries.

However... this is the first time an update's had me feeling concerned instead of excited. Hitlag stood out to me as seeming ready to punish you even harder than ever, narrowing your chance of recovery or even finishing in the same half of the pack -- I can understand wanting power items like Invincibility to feel meaty and impactful, but seeing a full second of hitstun from a regular Orbinaut (as well as the spinout time!) felt a bit excessive for a common item. Not only that, but the tumble state already increases your "down time" (and makes it a LOT easier to get punted off-stage into a pit), so basically doubling that with prolonged hitstun seems... almost like overkill?

I don't have 2.0 in my hands, so I can't really speak much outside of kneejerk reactions, and hitstun might actually be okay? Sometimes? But what pushed me firmly into "worried" territory was the Position mechanic. What drew me into SRB2K in the first place was how welcoming the game felt; the controls were fairly easy to get a grasp on, and most items were fairly self-explanatory, but there were so many tricks and details under the surface (drift timing, sliptiding, item snipes, etc etc) that really gave players room to grow and eventually master the game. Position almost seems to be the exact antithesis: no pause, just a sudden mini-game you have to play in order to start halfway decently. Not to say that this is necessarily a bad thing -- Sonic Riders had a similar start mechanic with running through the electric gate right as the race started -- but the main difference with Riders is that your only hurdle is yourself and your own timing. With Position, not only do you have to concern yourself with your own acceleration, Spin Dash, and Ring Boost, but you could also have your start ruined by forces outside of your control! Why would I ever want to play a light accel character when I can have all my Rings bumped out of me before the race even starts? Or when I suffer almost twice as long for taking damage, due to hitstun and spinout stacking?

The Battle Mode changes look fun (especially the Emerald mechanic rewarding roaming players), and the Land Mine looks like a nice "power" version of the Banana or Eggman Monitor... and again, I don't mean to just come here and complain. I really do appreciate not just the work, but all the love poured into SRB2K, and if I wasn't passionate about the game myself, I honestly wouldn't care enough to try explaining why the teased changes worry me. But from what I have to judge from, I'm concerned with the long hitstun times, and Position honestly has me hesitant to jump into 2.0 overall...

also I feel like I was the only one that actually liked the Karma mechanic? being able to revive with kindness instead of being a dick really resonated with me, and was extremely unique compared to every other kart battle mode on the market. oh well.
 
This... looks incredible!! I shared this to a few friends and it's helped get them interested, and I can't wait to play this with everyone! As for some more in-depth thoughts...

The new items- the shields, the Land Mine, seem really fun to use! I may have missed something, but I wonder how the Bubble Shield works... And having a new trap with such a powerful effect in 1st may lead to some, well, devastating leads, but I imagine it won't pop up too often to let that happen. Speaking of that powerful effect, it looks especially awesome with the hitstun! Seeing that hitstun reminds me of how it felt to jump from older Smash or Tekken titles to Ultimate or T7, those bigger hits deserved so so much more *oomph.*

After seeing Position!!, I think I can guess someone on the team had a lot of fun with Sonic Riders... and that's a good thing by far. That mechanic was tense and it felt great to get that early boost! That being said, I can see it being a bit too chaotic for newer players, so an option to use a more spindash based start boost without the movement would be nice. But personally? I love it.

I am super glad and impressed Bots look so good, too! Having a Rival each race is cool, and the fact you guys have even more planned in the future for Grand Prix is hyping me up!! One question though- if one has bonuschars or mods loaded in, will there be bots of those characters added in? It'd be a neat feature to see, especially if bots are loaded into more modded servers. Also, I like that you can see other players names from a distance, and hope to see it on bots too! It'll help those packed servers distinguish the similarly coloured players.

Battle Mode looks to be fast and frantic at last, and I like how Blue Spheres are incorporated. Having items drop down instead of being boxes is a nice change too, and I can see a ton of fun being had in Overtime. Stealing bumpers looks to be fun, but I'm worried it might extend Battle's time a bit. I'm also hyped to see Break the Capsules, it looks hella fun!
Please tell me I'll get to hear that awesome Break the Targets music from Melee when that mode's picked.

And... I'm loving the new course designs!! The colours really pop and I'm super happy to see new levels added in~ It's hard to pick a favorite with just those shots alone, but they're looking great! Playing through what's in game is already good, but you'll see the same courses a ton when online, and the more variety the merrier!
 
I'm glad kart krew is fearless when making changes to the game, and I'm excited for everything here (especially hitlag and Position)

Great work! The only thing that really nags me is how the rings block your vision when you activate them.
 
I'm going to orgranize my thoughts, feelings and suggestions in my first post on the board. (Instead getting drowned in the messy Discord server).

First, I've being playing the game for more than a year now (Since the 1.1 update came out), even though I mainly play on Time Trials, (I've uploaded some records on the unofficial leader board), I also like to play with friends online which is pretty fun. All in all, what made me got into the game is, not only being highly addictive, features such as Mario Kart like controls, the ability to use mods (characters, custom tracks and scripts to expand the game more and make it more fun than it already is, thanks to the fantastic community here on this board) and online is really great. With these features, this game feel very welcoming for fans of the Mario Kart and Sonic games and other series alike. Special tricks (Slip tiding, timing drifts and now the Rings feature) encourages players to master the game. As for all the teasers for V2 I've seen for far, Grand Prix is a must have of a feature for me, as I mainly play by myself, and the feature I really wanted since I first played. The Ring system sounds really great as well, having the ability to boost as a "catch up" as well as increasing your top speed.

However, I have a few minor issues with a few of the new features and one that I suggest to add (It most likely won't be in the game due to being already created mods and has balance issues). The "hit lag" feature feels quite off, I don't have access to V2, so I can't make good judgement on timing this. In fighting games hit stun has a short duration (Hitlag goes for a few frames with an effect that it "connects" with the opponent hitting the players "hurt box" and produces "special effects" on the screen and character. I'm no good explaining stuff like this, looking up a video would make better sense to my explanation) Based on the gif, this effect feels kind of unnatural when comparing between fighting games as this effect stops the game too long. Regarding balance, the idea sounds really good, to prevent players recovering quickly on time. Maybe a reduced frame buffer window between hits can improve the effect.

Also, when each hit is taken, the more hitlag should be produced depending on how much damaging the hit was taken. Regarding Boost Stacking (a feature that I also like), is the effect similar to Crash Team Racing’s “Scared Fire”? Although it is already good so far, combining maxed out rings and chaining Mini Turbos can make the game more competitive and faster for more experienced players similar to CTR's Scared Fire.

This maybe off topic, one of the features that maybe a good idea is to have the ability to "snake" (although already a mod). However, the developer’s opinion on the mod page didn't like the idea, as this can cause balance issues and a nuisance to use. However when I tried for myself, the control actually feels really good and makes the game more fast paced compared to the stock drift physics. The idea behind this is that, is the ability to switch drift modes in the options, (I'm actually fine with the stock drift style as you can't use scripts in Time Trials anyway), this would also give players the ability to see what's preferred for them. When regarding balance, that's the only thing it needs to tweaked, although it's fine from the new update that Snu (the creator) made, I feel like it can be tweaked a little to provide better balance while playing. Between the two drift styles they can have their own advantages and disavantages, for example, with snaking, the ability to chain and with stock, provides a more powerful boost compared to snaking.

Also, to make things fair when playing online, server creators can choose what drift mode that they like, if the player for example chooses a sever with the stock drift while Snaking is enabled, the player can’t change it from stock while online unless another server has this enabled. Time Trial records should be save seperatly to differentiate between the drift modes and to avoid confusion when uploading them online on the leaderboard.

That's all I have to say, keep up the awesome work on Kart as I can't wait for V2!
 
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I have to echo what a few people on the discord and even this very thread have stated already, and that's that I really do not like the position mechanic as it is presented in its current state. Let me try to explain why by going into detail about how the original Riders handled the mechanic:


When the race starts, everyone is off of their board, on foot. While you'd think this would make things completely unfair considering what franchise we're talking about, everyone is actually on equal footing here (no pun intended). There's no real knockback aside from very light bumping into one another, and there is plenty of space on a given starting line to position yourself so you don't accidentally hit anyone while you run towards the starting line. Only after you pass it do you hop on your board and actually begin to race.


With kart, everyone is still in their karts when the race starts and stats still play a major role. From the looks of it, it will incredibly easy for players to bump others into the starting line causing them to lose a ton of time, especially if there's a weight discrepancy. Couple that with the tighter starting lines and Kart's more "physics-y" gameplay and I can honestly say that this isn't going to end well. I can see what KK were going for but I think this gameplay decision needs to be reconsidered.
 
My critiques first:

- The hitlag effect looks messy. If I were a playtester with no prior knowledge of the mechanic, I probably would have reported it as a graphical glitch where my kart seems to spaz out after being hit by certain attacks. "Ninja phasing" effects like this only really work at 60fps, imo. I'd like to see the stun time significantly reduced and for the player's sprite to remain in place so that my eyes won't lose track of where the kart is supposed to be when it starts flying. I also wonder if perhaps the origin point of the sprite could be moved more to the center when it spins out of control, which would make it more clear where you're going to land.

- Position looks like such a unique and cool idea, but I echo what others have already said: The cramped nature of the game's starting lines mean that certain weight classes, as well as novice players, could be at a significant disadvantage depending on how it plays out. One suggestion I could offer if it becomes too punishing/unfair after testing is to remove Faulting and instead have the barrier simply knock your kart backwards like a wall or light spring - You'll still need that razor thin precision to cross the line first but if you're off by a hair and get knocked back, you'd have a few more options to mitigate the time loss rather than being forced still for a second after the race begins. Something else that will be interesting to see is just how much of a lead the first player has with that rainbow boost compared to the others, but it's too early to predict how it'll go.


With that out of the way, V2 is looking amazing. The track selection looks to be at a much higher level of polish, quality, and thematic consistency (whereas in V1 there are only around 7 or 8 tracks to me that feel like they visually belong in the game and match the Sonic aesthetic). The updated kart sprites look amazing and the slightly larger size should give artists more wiggle room with character sizes and shapes, so I'm really excited to see what new custom drivers come from this. Seriously, your artists are crushing it on all fronts! The new powerups look fun and I'm interested to see what the new land mine does to make 1st place more engaging outside of outrunning SPBs. And of course, BOTS!! I'm really happy and thankful that you guys took the time to add AI drivers and a proper single player mode for those of us without reliable internet access or friends to play with, and I think that was the only major feature missing from an otherwise complete package.

I can tell there's a lot of passion going into this and I'm super excited to see how it goes! Best of luck with the rest of development!
 
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The only new feature that worries me is Position, I'm more used to the classic start boost system. Other than that, V2 is looking fresh so far.
 
Version 2.0 for kart looks very cool! A question though… Will top down get love also? I want to play the original with my friends, but can’t because I don’t own windows.
 
there is a guy who is doing a srb2 top down port to version 2.2 with permission ok
Correction: Without permission. He was also caught porting over the 2.0 mod XSRB2 after the original owner, Kaito Sinclaire, told him not to port it over. He did it anyway and got banned as a result.
 
Your post is very hard to read -- although proper grammar and spelling isn't a requirement, make sure you at least make your post readable and understandable and clear.
look guys I want you tell you v2 is so bad but it’s got development hell why the hell taking so longest development nope make you shut down it’s so bad v1 is awful and unfinished it’s really bad don’t play srb2kart but too late no more understand @VelocitOni
 
look guys I want you tell you v2 is so bad but it’s got development hell why the hell taking so longest development nope make you shut down it’s so bad v1 is awful and unfinished it’s really bad don’t play srb2kart but too late no more understand @VelocitOni
If you knew what it's like to make a game, you would understand why it's taking a long time Do you know? no so shut up.
 
I really love what I'm seeing with this update, and while as a fan of Sonic Riders I really like the "Position" idea, I do think maybe it would be a wise option to at least have the gameplay option to toggle between a standard Starting Boost mode and Position mode. Who knows, maybe the Position mode might be infinitely more fun to the point it invalidates needing it, but the option would be appreciated.
 

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