SRB2Kart 1.6

[Ace Dragon]

Yeah, that's my thought as well. The "for seasoned veterans" should be Hard or even Master difficulty, not Normal.

I have played a couple of cups now on normal difficulty, and while it is not impossible to beat the rival and get first place (I got gold in both), I can see why it would be frustrating for those who are not already familiar with the tracks.

I already played those tracks on Gear 1, so I know which ones are safe to really perform drifting on and which ones require you to slow down a little to avoid falling off or going too far off the road (not to mention I now know how to break through the shortcut barriers). The first two cups also did not have tracks with a lot going on at once visually or with a lot of branching, so I have yet to see how Gear 2 pans out for those.

I at least got addons unlocked, so there will be nice user content to play with over time if I do not make a lot more progress on normal with the bundled tracks.

Regarding the tumbling, I do agree that it can either be toned down a little or the AI gets tweaked to make it less likely for many of the racers to be in close proximity to each other. On normal, I had to retry multiple times because of the difficulty in passing a cluster of racers without the right powerups (especially if you combine that with an accidental fault at the start).

 

[DocThok]

2.1 as a patch is enough. There's still a lot of problems with the game and the devs can just say "lol git gud" to all the criticism.

The biggest problems right now are the CPU AI (looking at you RIVALS), slope physics being a pain in the butt and tumble being extremely punishing in it's current state.

 

[Red2010]

I will give my opinion on DRRR Here, I will try not to address so much in terms of spoilers (if they have not already been spoiled)

Ring Racers at first seemed like a good reimagining of the up to that point obsolete Srb2 kart.

But as soon as I started to get into its world (after spending about 2 hours in a tutorial), I can say that I was faced with something that I was not very prepared for.

The first tracks were quite easy since they had enough space and you could outwit the AI a little if you were quick (this before 2.1), but it was from approximately the unlockable grand prixes after finishing the first batch of grand prixes that they give you that the game sharply increases its difficulty on tracks

I would talk more but I haven't unlocked everything yet at the time of writing this.

Complaints:

I was one of those who had the bad luck to start in the first version of Ring Racers (2.0), and the tutorial lasts too long for half of the mechanics they teach to be useful in races.

I felt that several parts were there to further explain a mechanic that you will use at most a few times in grand prixes, and that is where the duration is unnecessarily extended.

With patch 2.1 they added the ability to skip it (or at least signal it) and even after spending my first 2 hours learning mechanics that I won't use, they finally give me the option to go for serious grand prixes

In the end, so much racing left me wanting to do other things and UPS!

I don't know who thought of blocking addons, time attacks (at least in 2.0) and other things behind an unnecessary progression barrier.

I understand it's to make the player experience a little bit of what it's like to play with nothing, but this betrays one thing about standard Srb2. And it is its modding, since Srb2 (and Kart) let you add addons from the beginning, since you will not always play with the same characters in the same scenarios.

Sometimes I just want to add Addons to my newly installed Srb2 and I can do it without problems

Here they simply blocked that behind a progression barrier which takes time to do, which is one thing I didn't fully understand.

And here is my biggest complaint I have about Ring Racers...

The AI is unbalanced, I felt on several occasions that they reached me no matter what (especially the rival). and after seeing that if they cheat it makes me think that whoever did this only wanted to artificially lengthen the duration of the game (so that the player doesn't complain that it is short), and it doesn't help at all that the sudden jump in difficulty in the Last clues of the second batch of unlockable clues without emeralds are torture

oh and the ones I can say like "Special Stages?". Well, I'll be honest, its difficulty is very average (at least for me), what if it's not forgiven is that you have to get almost perfect in an entire grand prix to have a chance to at least see the emerald.

I like the concept of "Hey, destroy the capsule, grab the emerald and get out of there alive as best you can" but some tracks I've played with that mode are quite challenging and several times use mechanics that I'm not entirely familiar with. In general they are good if you know how to play

End:

Although I don't argue well in my eyes, this is my opinion... My intention was not to insult but to emphasize a little what I see wrong in Ring Racers...

 

[CrayFray]

I felt like giving my 2 cents to a place where it is not immediately buried. Warning, lots of spoilers in this.

Spoiler: I am spoiling most unlocks here.

I now have roughly close to 30 hours in Ring Racers, most of it in single player. I have unlocked all Grand Pix cups (also recycle cups), 100% of tracks, gotten all 14 emeralds on Normal and a few characters/colours with spraycans. I have tried to unlock most things as the game intended, and my aim was to first get at least all tracks before giving my opinion of Ring Racers.

Let me start of by stating that Ring Racers is absolutely fantastic. Kart Krew has done an absolutely phenomenal job establishing a tight core gameplay loop. It is seriously very fun to engage with, especially with friends via netgames. All of the changes introduced compared to Kart are such a step up that you guys weren't lying - This truly is racing at the next level, and you can feel it with every race. I would like to give attention to at least a couple mechanics:

- Item Roulette kicks major ass. Over the course of the game, I realized the Item roulette stays consistent under certain conditions under the engine hood. That is so cool because I exactly know what items I can expect at certain positions/distances from other drivers. The game gives you the tools for just the right situation, and adds a flavour of skill by timing the roulettes to - and here is the kicker - to your preferred choice. Want invincibility because you can best peform at a consistent speed? Sure, if you can hit it! Speed Sneaker more your style? Have at it! This is so cool.

- Catchup Mechanics. Top notch. I love that item boxes get replaced with roulette spins at rings. Hitting jackpots or close to is so damn satisfying, and effective on top. The tethering keeps the pressure up. No longer can 1st place rest easily, as the next grow/invincibility will quickly turn the tides either in your favour or against. I love knowing that even if I eat major butt, I still have a stake in the race, because I can rely on the game to give me the tools and knowledge of the tracks to gain the edge over other racers.

- Grand Pix and Track variety are off the charts. There is lots of pretty eye candy to awe over, and I feel even the "bad" maps have some staying power. I don't really think any map is truly "atrocious," maybe just too tough for my taste or just not fit for my playstyle. I almost never see a map and go "Oh no." Maybe if I really see a tough or annoying map online, that's a different story. I am playing online to laugh and have fun, not to win. If I barely tumble into 11st, so be it. I am having a good time eitherway.

- Chaos/Super Emerald special stages were tough, but fair and also fun after conuqering them. I very much welcome being able to practice these stages before attempting the Super Emerald ones. However, I am of the opinion the "Special" option should have been made available right away when you get to the first special stage, not after only getting the first 7 emeralds (basically how it works with the Super Emeralds). I didn't have an issue with this, the first 7 weren't tough, but I still think you should be able to practice them before attempting a real run eitherway.

The package overall is fantastic, and it's the reason why I couldn't stop playing anything other than Ring Racers for this week. There are a couple things I didn't like, and it's sadly as such that I will be sticking to Normal on Grand Prix for now. It will otherwise burn me out.

- Rubberbanding AI/Rivals are sadly still extreme at times even after the v2.1 patch. I don't have a problem with Rivals as a concept, they're a fun way to do some small worldbuilding but the way they're executed is borderline cheating. Rivals frequently zip past me at absolute insane speeds, to such an extend that I can count how many times they're unable to control this speed at all, causing a fall out or getting stuck on map geometry. This should not happen and Rivals should play by the same rules as me - do skillful driving, and use items (according to the roulette, no special ones or cheated ones, nada) in order to snipe me and gain the advantage. I have to do the same, so why don't rivals do the same? The playfield is just unfair.

- Unlocks are just too much, I am sorry. I am fully admitting for punching in the characters and colour password codes, because the grand prix unlocks (getting all tracks) alone took me over 28 hours. This includes getting all emeralds for Recycle Cup A, and also a 2nd clear of the hardest special stage in this game for Recycle Cup B. That is insane and it shouldn't even have taken half of that time to get all of them.

The reason I did this is as so many unlocks are tied to the tracks thanks to the individual spray cans/mystic shrines that it didn't really make any sense to go for anything but those at first. I am fine with characters/colours being a bit extra, but a spray can for each track? A character behind mystic shrines, or sometimes really time consuming unlocks?

It didn't help that these unlocks were so far removed from what I enjoyed most about Ring Racers, that being the actual racing! Chao Keys sadly cannot rectify this problem entirely, as you are likely to spend another 2-3 hours for 10 Chao Keys if it is a big space, which is so time consuming that, for me, it isn't fun to go for them. The unlocks also tend to be on harder diffculties, with rubberbanding AI where at times, you're playing a numbers game if the past 15-20 minutes of a Grand Prix run were for naught.

With how many unlock spaces there are as well, at times when I went to the Challenges tab, I saw nothing but a grocery store item checklist. It became that monotonus to stare at unlock conditions where I know I will be spending an hour attempting this. If I do well.

I will still be racing at the next level, as the package is too fun to pass up on. I just hope these 2 will get addressed, as if they don't, the singleplayer will become more and more unappealing for me.

TLDR; RR is fantastic, gameplay loop is fantastic. Rubberbanding AI feels still like cheating at v2.1, Unlocks are way too much and exhausting to go through that at times I thought of dropping the game if it weren't for the passwords.