Ring Racers Suggestions

[D00D64]

Yeah, while I like the keys, needing to go through GP to take care of a course-specific challenge, it could get annoying. But since that got brought up plenty of times by now, you know what also would be nice?

The ability to bring up challenges whenever you're not in a netgame, and/or mark specific challenges to show up on the pause screen. It can be very easy to lose track of what you need to do, and either of these would go along way of helping. I get if the challenges menu is too big to load in the middle of playing a course, so having makred challenges to form a to-do list could be a great alternative to the problem. Maybe the option to enable pop-ups for challenges specific to the course you're on?

Not sure where else to say this, but marked challenges could also be used like a highlight, so they serve as sudo-bookmarks in the challenges list. I was constantly scrambling to find out where specific challenges were, and I would lose track of their locations all the time, so being able to set up bookmarks in your challenge list that would be highlighted even on the little line map on top would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Claudiadoe]

Yeah, while I like the keys, needing to go through GP to take care of a course-specific challenge, it could get annoying. But since that got brought up plenty of times by now, you know what also would be nice?

The ability to bring up challenges whenever you're not in a netgame, and/or mark specific challenges to show up on the pause screen. It can be very easy to lose track of what you need to do, and either of these would go along way of helping. I get if the challenges menu is too big to load in the middle of playing a course, so having makred challenges to form a to-do list could be a great alternative to the problem. Maybe the option to enable pop-ups for challenges specific to the course you're on?

Not sure where else to say this, but marked challenges could also be used like a highlight, so they serve as sudo-bookmarks in the challenges list. I was constantly scrambling to find out where specific challenges were, and I would lose track of their locations all the time, so being able to set up bookmarks in your challenge list that would be highlighted even on the little line map on top would be greatly appreciated.

In spirit of this suggestion, it'd be nice to have a randomized list of 3 challenges show up next to each cup in GP mode so that, when you enter a GP, you have multiple things you can try to achieve besides just winning and trying to get a chaos emerald.

 

[Sonic Shadow]

If you're a completionist, isn't doing insane challenges part of the territory? I don't think any true completionist goes "Yeah, I'm a completionist, but only for things that are not actually hard." Chao Keys are a fine solution, allowing you to unlock items, but leaving their words gray so you can tell you haven't actually done them, and you still got bragging rights for what you actually managed to accomplish.

Not really? Some of the challenges are more on the scope of achievements rather than 100%. But I digress, I'm probably deranged enough to actually 100% the game eventually.

An in-game way to sort between challenges that unlock characters, cups, sprays, followers, and misc would be VERY welcome though.

Never mind, D00D64 said it better. Scrolling through the menu is cumbersome.

 

[Candescence]

If I can reiterate on the conversation above, I don't think the game is really bloated in mechanics as most people who criticized it do. You can have depth in simplicity, but also in complex mechanics. It generally goes down to how you use them.

To go with yet another inevitable Mario Kart comparison, that game has a lot of tech that I imagine not many people are aware of. You can choose to learn it and try to squeeze additional seconds in your races, but you can also take safe and easy lines, play smart or conservatively and often you'll do just as well. It entirely depends on play style and Ring Racers is no different.



On the other hand, it feels extremely disheartening to see the dev reaction to the CPU difficulty in particular, as I think that's the sole area where the game falls short. The general consensus I've noticed, whether it's on Discord, in streamer chats or online, is that:

• the game is an absolute blast to play online, whether it's with randos or friends
• GPs are a nightmare and aside from a relatively small minority who learned to counter the CPUs and enjoy the challenge, people don't really touch it after unlocking whatever they wanted and starting playing online

Which is disappointing, to say the least, when singleplayer has been this game's major selling point since its conception. And whenever I asked devs, the typical answer was "we like it where it is" or "we're not interested in adding another difficulty".

And I seriously implore you to reconsider. At the end of the day, it's the singleplayer modes that are supposed to ease players to the game. I learned and got good at Mario Kart 8 Deluxe because I played with relatively easy CPUs on 100cc and then on 150cc, not by getting trashed every single race by playing against 10-20k VR full-Japanese worldwide lobbies. There's a point where challenge just becomes demotivating. Why do I have to play for 20+ hours just to get good enough to beat some bots and unlock stuff, which is time I don't have and effort that doesn't feel worth spending? At that point it's easier to just grind chao keys, use passwords or get a 100% savefile and only focus on online. But then what's the point of having a singleplayer mode?

So, please either tone down the Intense difficulty or introduce an intermediate between Relaxed and Intense. Making the game more accessible is not going to lower its integrity whatsoever - I really don't understand where this bizarre opinion came from. Vicious and Master are right there.

Also on that note, I'd like to say a few things about the Relaxed difficulty, which is a band-aid solution for the newbies and casual players.

You can't reach sealed stars with it, which I assume is because you wouldn't even be able to beat them on Gear 1. It breaks multiple maps, particularly those with large jumps for which you need higher speed (Gust Planet says hi) or maps with crushers which don't slow down to accommodate the players' speed (MEGA Scrap Brain is an extreme example). And even on maps that are okay, it's just plain not fun. It's the other extreme where instead of the game being violent, it's sluggish and the bots hardly fight back. The best metaphor I can think of is that Relaxed has your dad hold you on a leash while you're riding your bike in circles around the house, while Intense just straight up drops you into rush hour traffic. The game fails to strike that balance.

That's all I wanted to say, I realize it's a bit lengthy and I don't mean to be rude to the devs in any way. In fact I apologized to a couple about a week or so back because the tone I used before was significantly more hostile. It just feels sad to me that out of all things it's the singleplayer difficulty that KK seems to double down on so much, when online is arguably what reins the playerbase in anyway. I just don't think making singleplayer more accessible would ruin the game, y'know?

If you managed to read all this, you're a cool one

I absolutely agree with all of this. Intense either needs to be dialed back difficulty-wise or there needs to be a Gear 2 difficulty between Relaxed and Intense, which I already proposed as 'Moderate' or something like that.

Pretty much the vast majority of my issues with this game revolve around the GP difficulty. If rivals were actually reasonable, the rubberbanding overall was dialed back further and the dynamic difficulty was reined in, then I think people who aren't exclusively playing online would be enjoying this game a lot more. The GP difficulty as it is makes me absolutely dread having to redo cups for Sealed Stars, because there's basically no such thing as consistency when it comes to GPs.

Minor aside, but this actually isn't true; Gear 2 was the focus of our attention and design.

Consider Gear 3 to be a "200cc" type challenge and Master to be a treat beyond that for super players; it's good that you enjoy it but we don't expect play to centralise around it.

Gear 1 definitely needs to go, though. There are multiple maps that are borderline unplayable or broken with it.

 

[yfyfyfyfyfy]

I completely agree about gears. I don't like 2nd gear because the game is VERY slow, some tracks stop working properly and I don't know... but it also seems to me that the whole game revolves around 3rd gear. 1st gear is just disgusting and I don't know how people play it.

 

[Tracker_TD]

Had a couple more thoughts while playing this morning, basically all centered around online voting - at the minute, it's a tad restrictive on what can happen compared to 2Kart, so I'd like to see it adjusted a little.

• Increase the likelihood of Encore appearing - I still want it to be an 'oh shit' moment when it shows up, but right now it's more of a 'does that setting actually work?' thing. I gather it's so insanely rare right now due to a spoiler embargo or something, and I get wanting folks to find out about the mode for themselves (as well as get used to the original tracks) - but it was in 2Kart, and it's just Mirror Mode with some cool re-themes for certain stages, so I don't think it's a huge spoiler. After like, 40+ hours of online games, I've yet to see Encore show up once in the voting, even with the chance toggled on. It'd definitely give some more variety to lobbies.
• This has definitely been mentioned, but I'd also like the occasional Game type changes to be brought back into the voting system too. I think I get why it was removed - I always turned it off in 2Kart. But Battle Mode is so good in Ring Racers that it'd be nice to let the folks in my lobby decide whether to play it, rather than ultimately leaving it at my whim.
• Finally, it'd be nice to see the random stage option added back in. Sometimes you simply aren't feeling the map selection you're presented with; and while I wouldn't go as far as saying there's a ton of bad stages (as I did closer to launch - simply put, I've learned them), there's still a few occasions where I'm stuck thinking "none of these maps scream fun right now". I know there's no Map Hell to trigger with it, but it still serves a practical purpose.

 

[Kamon62]

This one would be very helpful for the Australian servers, I'd like to see an 'auto-join/queue' feature for online. Not for when a player slot is free but rather when another person joins. I've noticed that people playing online tends to be a snowball effect, no one wants to be the first one to join a server and have to wait for others to join but they will join once they see a few people already in. It'd be nice if players could queue for the server, go back to singleplayer and knock out a few gps or time trials and then get alerted or get a new challenger popup when someone else auto queues or joins the same server. That way the less populated servers for smaller regions could have a chance to build up a player count.

 

[mitsame]

I've talked about this with Viv a little bit, so I'm echoing this here to see how others feel about them.

Two extra functions/tags for followers, namely:

• Followers that are drawn directly over player sprites, following player position and rotation
• Followers that are exclusive to specific characters (only really worthwhile with the prior suggestion)

I've been trying to make a follower that positions itself onto the back of the kart (think a bumper sticker) and this is basically impossible without making many immersion breaking concessions. I've come pretty close, just, not close enough for it to be comfortable.

The other one is purely hypothetical, but it would allow for the creation of character specific skins that don't take up an additional slot. It's... a little pointless? In a way? since it would essentially make it so in order to give Sonic a hat, for instance, he can't have any other follower, when you could instead just make a full on alternate slot character, but it could be fun in certain applications.

Also, on that note, a way for custom colors to only be accessible as a character's prefcolor, and inaccessible otherwise. This one would just be nice for clutter reduction, like if you're making a palette that's only meant for the one character and it doesn't work on anyone else.

 

[casual koopa]

seconding all of this (I am Always in favor of more tags and settings being made available to non-lua mods, and there's so many things you could do with an "accessory" follower) but Especially the point about exclusive prefcolors. I feel the game's handling of "having 100 basegame colors" and "having modded colors not really consistently sorted among themselves" is already at odds with itself, but even more so when you need to make a color Just for one character. Like, if you have 3 different colors on a character you all want to be recolorable to the same palette, you need to make a prefcolor palette with those three colors yourself. Which is fine, but that palette is almost certainly going to be basically unusable for anyone else, making it meaningless clutter. Cutting down on that would be great.
(I also feel like you should have the option to put modded colors on their own wheel somehow? I understand you can't really automatically sort them like the basegame ones, but you could then at least Look At The Circle and see them without One Hundred basegame colors getting in the way. That's just me, though)

 

[D00D64]

I've talked about this with Viv a little bit, so I'm echoing this here to see how others feel about them.

Two extra functions/tags for followers, namely:

• Followers that are drawn directly over player sprites, following player position and rotation
• Followers that are exclusive to specific characters (only really worthwhile with the prior suggestion)

I've been trying to make a follower that positions itself onto the back of the kart (think a bumper sticker) and this is basically impossible without making many immersion breaking concessions. I've come pretty close, just, not close enough for it to be comfortable.

The other one is purely hypothetical, but it would allow for the creation of character specific skins that don't take up an additional slot. It's... a little pointless? In a way? since it would essentially make it so in order to give Sonic a hat, for instance, he can't have any other follower, when you could instead just make a full on alternate slot character, but it could be fun in certain applications.

I'd like to add to this: The ability to have more than one object spawn when using a follower.

Some shields in SRB2 work by having a layer that is always rendered in front, and a layer that's always rendered behind. I used this same idea to make Espibee's ring, so the background portion of the ring could be layered behind her. Unless I'm mistaken, a follower can follow your movements 1-to-1 and can have different sprite layer offsets, so if you could spawn multiple objects (perhaps 2 or 3), or even just have multiple layers of an object, you could make not only "barrier" type followers, but for other kinds of complex followers as well.

 

[heccison]

Y'know how in Smash Bros and fighting games in general you can pick and choose which characters you want to fight against? I feel like it'd be cool to have an option for that in Ring Racers Single Player matches as well. Like when you're choosing the level and the amount of characters, you can also have an option to turn on a custom character selection screen that lets you do like what I previously said.

 

[Potada1289]

Glad to see I'm not the only one thinking Intense difficulty is a but too, well, intense. I don't have much experience with Vicious and never have gotten Master unlocked, but it really does feel like Intense needs a slight adjustment in balance. This feels especially the case since my small bit of experience with Vicious felt more "fair" as a hard difficulty compared to Intense.

Edit: Thought of something else related to a certain gameplay discussion: items and rings. I understand that certain items break the game when allowing ring usage at the same time, and that this probably won't be considered since the devs have mentioned as such. However, has the possibility of having SPECIFIC items block ring usage been considered? Taking away ring usage would make sense for strong items like the barriers, garden top, etc. but allowing ring usage for weaker items could potentially work. Just some food for thought.

 

[DragonDePlatino]

I've talked about this with Viv a little bit, so I'm echoing this here to see how others feel about them.

Two extra functions/tags for followers, namely:

• Followers that are drawn directly over player sprites, following player position and rotation
• Followers that are exclusive to specific characters (only really worthwhile with the prior suggestion)

I've been trying to make a follower that positions itself onto the back of the kart (think a bumper sticker) and this is basically impossible without making many immersion breaking concessions. I've come pretty close, just, not close enough for it to be comfortable.

The other one is purely hypothetical, but it would allow for the creation of character specific skins that don't take up an additional slot. It's... a little pointless? In a way? since it would essentially make it so in order to give Sonic a hat, for instance, he can't have any other follower, when you could instead just make a full on alternate slot character, but it could be fun in certain applications.

Also, on that note, a way for custom colors to only be accessible as a character's prefcolor, and inaccessible otherwise. This one would just be nice for clutter reduction, like if you're making a palette that's only meant for the one character and it doesn't work on anyone else.

Adding to this, it'd be great in the final implementation if you could just define all the same sprite names as karts (eg. STIN, FSLL, DRLI) and it just matched up and aligned with whatever the current kart frame is. That way you'd have maximum flexibility for things like repositioning hats when the head turns. And you'd be able to reuse all of the existing Kart Maker/Builder tooling to generate these "overlay followers".

Honestly at that point it might even be worth a system separate from followers just called "alts" or "accessories" or "overlays" and a few characters have one or two each. Or even "stickers" or "decals"?

 

[Frostiikin]

I've talked about this with Viv a little bit, so I'm echoing this here to see how others feel about them.

Two extra functions/tags for followers, namely:

• Followers that are drawn directly over player sprites, following player position and rotation
• Followers that are exclusive to specific characters (only really worthwhile with the prior suggestion)

I've been trying to make a follower that positions itself onto the back of the kart (think a bumper sticker) and this is basically impossible without making many immersion breaking concessions. I've come pretty close, just, not close enough for it to be comfortable.

The other one is purely hypothetical, but it would allow for the creation of character specific skins that don't take up an additional slot. It's... a little pointless? In a way? since it would essentially make it so in order to give Sonic a hat, for instance, he can't have any other follower, when you could instead just make a full on alternate slot character, but it could be fun in certain applications.

Also, on that note, a way for custom colors to only be accessible as a character's prefcolor, and inaccessible otherwise. This one would just be nice for clutter reduction, like if you're making a palette that's only meant for the one character and it doesn't work on anyone else.

I'm pretty sure you can already have a prefcolor only one character is able to access by setting the color's accessibility value to "false", that's what I did with my character Vanta's custom color (she needs it in order for her to be able to be two-toned), and i've not been able to select it with anyone else.
I'm not sure this is exactly intended behavior, but it seems to work just fine

freeslot(
"SKINCOLOR_VANTA"
)
skincolors[SKINCOLOR_VANTA] = {
    name = "Vanta",
    ramp = {130,134,149,150,151,152,201,202,181,203,205,206,207,185,186,187
},
    invcolor = SKINCOLOR_ORANGE,
    invshade = 9,
    chatcolor = V_BLUEMAP,
    accessible = false
}

 

[RedLilyQueen]

The way accessing your own replays in Time Attack works is kinda wack if you aren't a single character purist. This might be kind of a me problem, but if you don't remember who you did a certain track as, you have to guess at which character you did it with, go through all the menus, see whether you got it wrong, go all the way back, repeat- only other choice being to check your replays folder, which has its own problems. That's a lot of unneeded button presses! Seems like kind of a big issue.

It isn't entirely relevant to my next point though. I forget where exactly I've seen it (probably it's been brought up a few times in this thread already lol), but I echo the sentiment that the character select is misplaced in the order of menus. I understand putting it before the Online menu option, but putting it before the entire rest of the local play options... As Online is concerned, I think moving the character select menu to just after it, and before Host/Browse/Direct Join would be better. As for local play, it should probably be moved to...

• After selecting Grand Prix or Match Race, followed by the respective options menus (cup difficulty/race settings).
• In Time Attack, Prisons, Special, and SPB Attack, it should be moved to after the course selection. Specifically, there needs to be a "Replays", "Staff Ghosts", "Ghost Options", and "Select Character & Start" set of options- or something like that, at least, what I said specifically is probably inelegant and could be improved.
  • "Replays" should then bring up another menu. I don't know how it would or could work exactly, but my thought is that you'd be able to see all your replays per character here. Either reusing the Character Select screen- wherein characters without replays would be removed or otherwise indicated as not having one, and selecting a character would bring up a list of their replays for the track-, or making a new screen with, say, lists of names, character names, and whether they're best time, best lap, or last run, and then bringing up relevant statistics (time, fastest lap, etc.) and the option to play them when selected. Although I guess the CSS-reuse format would need some extra menu like that too.

Again though I feel like the way I've laid it out is kinda flawed- especially in the increase in number of Attack-related menus- but I stand by the concept because it'd be a heck of a lot better than the way it's working right now.
As for the current location of the character select screen- being right after Play- I think, if it does need a replacement at all, that should be changed to a four-player-layout profile select specifically. Obviously the option to change your profile in the regular character select should stay as well- it's still necessary if someone joins in in the middle of things!-, alongside the on-startup profile select. Both are necessary for the sake of getting one's own control layouts selected.
I understand if there's good reasons for all the menus to be laid out as they are that I'm presently unaware of though. Regardless of the rest of the menu finagling, the Replays thing is the main issue here to me. There just needs to be a more organized and simpler means of looking at various replays without prior character selection being a factor, I think.
At the very minimum, you should be able to check out your overall best lap or time regardless of character.

 

[Blitz-T]

Adding the ability to fastfall without bouncing, while still being able to fastfall with the bounce in it's current state. Kills two birds with one stone, assuming it's possible without too many complications anyway.

As an example:
*Pressing the fastfall button would have players land without bouncing (Good for maintaining momentum and even getting an extra boost with it upon landing on a downhill slope, like that one drop in Lost Colony)
*Pressing + holding the button would allow players to bounce upon landing (Good for maintaining control on the road.)

This particular setup would certainly trip players up initially, but nothing that a little adaptation can't fix, especially when it's just a matter of holding/releasing the button.

 

[Kamon62]

Adding the ability to fastfall without bouncing, while still being able to fastfall with the bounce in it's current state. Kills two birds with one stone, assuming it's possible without too many complications anyway.

As an example:
*Pressing the fastfall button would have players land without bouncing (Good for maintaining momentum and even getting an extra boost with it upon landing on a downhill slope, like that one drop in Lost Colony)
*Pressing + holding the button would allow players to bounce upon landing (Good for maintaining control on the road.)

This particular setup would certainly trip players up initially, but nothing that a little adaptation can't fix, especially when it's just a matter of holding/releasing the button.

Doesn't this ability already exist in the form of a triangle dash? You can even fastfall and use the dash to negate the bounce if you want a steeper angle. I like it being situational and skill based, giving you another option off ramps to get an edge without being a catch all solution.

 

[Blitz-T]

You can even fastfall and use the dash to negate the bounce if you want a steeper angle.

Wait a minute. You can CANCEL the bounce with the mid-air drift boost? That's the first I've ever heard of such a technique. That's actually crazy. Jeez, this game's jam packed with options. Nah, I gotta play around with that later. I need to see the deal on that one. I'll probably edit my comment once I've messed with it enough in regard to whether I stand by my suggestion or not.

EDIT 1: It's official. Game's goated.

Anyway, never mind my suggestion, because this right here? This is all I needed to see. Hey Kamon, thanks for filling me in on this tech. Best believe I'll find a way to use this in some of my maps.

EDIT 2: Actually, now that I've let my hype for this tech simmer, I thought about it some more and I actually stand by my suggestion.
While this technique of cancelling your bounce with the Triangle Dash does work for keeping momentum, it's isn't all that smooth. Plus, I think there's enough challenge in trying to keep your momentum, while looking out for items on the road/stage hazards/players with invincibility, or grow in front of you, etc. I just see the potential for the additional option to use the fast fall without bouncing on large drops into a downward slope(A little like the first jump in Marble Garden) where you could probably go zooming downhill at an even faster pace than normal, if that vertical momentum from the fast fall's descent carries over.

If nothing else though, the triangle dash to cancel the bounce works for me.

 

[Tracker_TD]

Wait a minute. You can CANCEL the bounce with the mid-air drift boost? That's the first I've ever heard of such a technique. That's actually crazy. Jeez, this game's jam packed with options. Nah, I gotta play around with that later. I need to see the deal on that one. I'll probably edit my comment once I've messed with it enough in regard to whether I stand by my suggestion or not.

You don’t even need to fastfall to pull it off - simply releasing the mini-turbo in midair will accelerate you towards the ground, with no bounce. After getting the hang of it, I don’t mind the bounce anymore (especially bc as of that one patch, it’s a super-effective redirection tool)

That said, I think this does highlight the need for better names for these, lest they get skimmed over in the manual. When I hear ‘Triangle Dash’, I think of the Triangle Jump from Heroes (given this is a Sonic fangame), and it’s nothing in that vein. And then I googled Triangle Dash and lo and behold, it’s just more stretching to name stuff after Melee tech for no real reason. Same with the sliptide boost being ‘wavedashing’ just because of a vaguely wave-like graphic - like, I’d expect everyone to just call it a sliptide boost, because it’s nothing like what 90% of the internet knows a ‘wavedash’ to actually be. It’s not like Directional Influence, which makes sense outside of the Melee context. To some extent even the fastfall is guilty of this, since unlike Melee fastfalling isn’t strictly faster - the bounce would be a better name, since it’s more akin to, well, the bounce in SA2 or something.

(To be fair I think you can argue the Sliptide’s name is similarly contrived given it comes from using Sonic 3’s tide wave graphic, but it’s at least unique and has its own identity)

I gather at least someone on the team really likes Melee, and that’s fine - but there’s gotta be a point where you separate that from giving these things sensible names instead of just referential ones.

 

[D00D64]

... I’d expect everyone to just call it a sliptide boost, because it’s nothing like what 90% of the internet knows a ‘wavedash’ to actually be. It’s not like Directional Influence, which makes sense outside of the Melee context. To some extent even the fastfall is guilty of this, since unlike Melee fastfalling isn’t strictly faster - the bounce would be a better name, since it’s more akin to, well, the bounce in SA2 or something.

(To be fair I think you can argue the Sliptide’s name is similarly contrived given it comes from using Sonic 3’s tide wave graphic, but it’s at least unique and has its own identity)

I gather at least someone on the team really likes Melee, and that’s fine - but there’s gotta be a point where you separate that from giving these things sensible names instead of just referential ones.

I will be entirely honest; I actually groaned when I saw "wavedash" appear in the technique names. I've been calling it "Tidal Wave" instead. Sliptide + Wavedash = Tidal Wave. I'm not sure that's the best name either, but at least it doesn't sound like I'm bating for Reddit karma.

Speaking on naming mechanics and tech, its weird that you'll give a name and explanation for "drifting without holding accelerate", but the state you're in that allows you to go through tripwires is just described as you having an "aura" of some kind, and not given an actual proper name or keyword. So talking about it sounds like "when you have that aura", or "that downward slope gives you that aura", and then someone inevitably goes "what aura?", and I gotta describe it because "aura" isn't a keyword and just looks like another of the game's many visual effects. It's not even always applicable, because items that don't provide that aura can let you cut tripwires anyway!

It coulda been called "Wirecut/Wirecutting", like "Reaching 200% speed lets you wirecut", "you can only go through here when you're wirecutting", "that downward slope can let you wirecut", "Growing naturally cuts wires", "Gardentop lets you wirecut, but only once, and then it breaks without providing speed. Make sure to hold down and throw it to have you launch in a wirecutting state instead", you get the drift. Once you know what a tripwire is, the term "wirecut" comes naturally.

...Hey wait a minute, I thought it was called Triangle Dive, because not only is that what its literally called in Heroes, but you literally dive at a triangle-esque angle, Why is it a Triangle Dash if the most important part of the tech is that it dives??