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How is the Blue Shell anything but terrible game design?
- Thread starter Nazgul_Hunter
- Start date
There is in Mario Kart 8, you will see shells ignore a target quite often if they recently got hit at least, not to say you can't get unlucky and get hit in a perfect rhythm.
evilromero
Member
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Deleted member 325805
Unconfirmed Member
It's awful and should be removed from the game, the person in last should not have so much influence over who wins, it's not like it's going to help them, all it does is stop the best player from winning. It's a flawed and frustrating mechanic.
Fucking bombs and getting triple hit with red shells poses more of a threat. In the case of bombs, I find that they usually take out more than just one person as well. But overall, everything balances out. Sure, you are going to get screwed. And when you are not, someone else is.
Curry-Hakase
Member
It is indeed a really bad comeback mechanic. I see it more as a vindictive item where you throw it just to fuck over someone else because you know you're not going to win.
What a bunch of bull. Your preferred way of playing the game ("not serious") is no better than my preferred way of playing the game.
That's bullshit, I hate getting Blue Shells at the back of the line because they do little to help me.
superpickleman
Member
Yup, a lot of times when I have a good lead not even a blue shell can help those behind me catch up, but it does put me at greater risk. 2nd place getting triple red shells is far more bullshit tbh.
As has already been pointed out, it would be far too easy to stay in first without items. It's a battle racer and screwing over others and getting screwed is how it works. You win some and you lose some.
So much influence... lol.
The person in last place is going to get a lot of mushrooms, not blue shells. Sometimes you get really lucky and have actual useful items like lightning and Bullet Bill.
NumberThree
Member
If there's a person in the group who wanted to play Mario Kart with no items then I'd rather not play Mario Kart at all.
There is no item that can help you if you're far behind enough that the game gives you a Blue Shell instead of anything else. Players who get a Blue Shell are given it to get a slight taste of revenge before the pain of defeat washes over them.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
It depends how closely packed everyone is. If your not competitively in the match sure it's worthless. But it does have it uses if your actually in the game, even back there.
Namely the fact that even if you succeed and kick everyone's ass and reach 2nd place all your doing is helping first since your significantly slowing down the pack, making it very hard to catch up. The blue shell compresses that pack so on the off chance your manage to fight your way back you still have a chance to win.
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Deleted member 325805
Unconfirmed Member
I'm not sure why you find that humorous?
True democracy.
Goldenmoney
Member
Opinions, we all have em.
I think anyone who wants to race seriously should be playing another racing game. Literally any other racing game.
breadtruck
Member
Its a great item because it pisses the person off who is in the lead, and you feel good for wrecking that dude even if you dont stand a chance at winning.
The ultimate middle finger if you will
The ultimate middle finger if you will
I hate it!! I pretty much hate all the Mario Kart weapons, I think they should all be avoidable using skill rather than when the game decides it wants you to avoid them by giving you a counter weapon. The latest Mario Kart seems to be the worst, the weapons have really got in the way of the fun for me.
Chinbo37
Member
I certainly agree that it's a completely useless item for the guy who gets it because it helps them in practically no way. However, as an equalizer, it's a important item in how the balance of Mario Kart works.
The blooper is the item we should be complaining about. It helps in no way and practically everyone has no issue driving with ink covering part of their screen. Most useless Mario Kart item ever.
The blooper is the item we should be complaining about. It helps in no way and practically everyone has no issue driving with ink covering part of their screen. Most useless Mario Kart item ever.
Air Zombie Meat
Member
You're overstating how much influence it has on the result. It's not really any worse than getting hit by a red shell. Which if you're racing in the pack will happen a lot.
There's a Penn & Teller game?!?!
Because like I explained, 12th place has very little influence in what happens to the people in the winning half because the item distribution is so heavily stacked towards getting triple and golden mushrooms when in that place.
Freezie KO
Banned
Blue shell is brilliant game design because every other design decision favors being in first place.
First place has first access to coins on the track and item boxes. They can litter the track with shit, so their racing lines are better. And best of all, they are away from the pack.
Being in "the pack" in Mario Kart is death. When you're in second place and below, you need to worry about items ahead of you and behind you. Worse, you need to worry about more powerful weapons like triple red shells and bullet bills and stars.
In first, you only need to worry about stuff coming from behind you, most of which can be blocked: a green shell, a red shell, occasional triple reds.
The blue shell is the only thing that balances the insane advantage gained by first place.
First place has first access to coins on the track and item boxes. They can litter the track with shit, so their racing lines are better. And best of all, they are away from the pack.
Being in "the pack" in Mario Kart is death. When you're in second place and below, you need to worry about items ahead of you and behind you. Worse, you need to worry about more powerful weapons like triple red shells and bullet bills and stars.
In first, you only need to worry about stuff coming from behind you, most of which can be blocked: a green shell, a red shell, occasional triple reds.
The blue shell is the only thing that balances the insane advantage gained by first place.
Its necessary to slow down the front racers, and it hits people along the way. It's a much more necessary item in races with higher amount of players to equalize people lucking out of getting stuck in the pack. Most decent racers are nearly uncatchable if they break out from the pack because they do not have to deal with items flying around, and they have numerous other favorable advantages, whereas everyone else is at a big disadvantage. Now that they have lowered the amount of blue shell drops and added a defense against it, its much more balanced than it was in MK Wii.
Portugeezer
Member
In competitive play people try to avoid the blue shell by getting in to second place or getting collateral damage when getting hit by it. Maintaining first place becomes a game within itself, and I personally never thought it was too bad, if you are aware of the map then you know when someone has let a blue shell go and try the above tactics; lightning is much worse as you literally can do nothing about it.
I don't know how it has changed in MK8 though, now that you can only hold one item at a time (previously, you could hold one behind your cart and one in the item box), but there is an item which can block them... so there's that.
SilentTristero
Member
Dumb question: If you get a blue shell and save it, then drive to the front of the pack so you're in first place, can you release the blue shell and hit yourself with it?
The blue shell makes sense because skilled player can see the blue shell coming on the second screen. Therefore the leader stops until he is second, so the second gets the blue shell. In a perfect world the first three or four players drive backwards and the blue shell sender catches up to the rest.
What do we learn: Hold the blue shell as long as possible to maximize its effect.
What do we learn: Hold the blue shell as long as possible to maximize its effect.
Neff
Member
Yep. The guy in first hasn't had it this easy since Super Mario Kart. MK8 makes the Blue Shell not only relevant but necessary, to shake things up a bit at least, or offer an equalizer at most.
blue_phazon
Member
I'm more bummed by the stupid coins when i'm in the lead. At least give me a bananapeel! Also, I've had tons of blue shells kick my ass, and only had 1 blue shell as an item. It bothers me in Mario Kart and it gets on my nerves. Getting useless items when i'm behind, while other people get Bullet Bills and lightnings. Ugh.
cookie-monster
Member
timetrial mode is for fairness addicts
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Deleted member 325805
Unconfirmed Member
If I get hit by 2nd place with a red shell then fine, it sucks but at least he's a good player as well and isn't 40 seconds behind me. I just find it hard to swallow to lose a race because a bad player got a blue shell. And more often than not it's not just a blue shell, the blue gives the pack time to catch up and then you eat multiple projectiles in a row. So you've now gone from 1st to 6th because some guys Grandma got a blue shell. I don't feel I'm overstating its influence at all.
It's a bullshit item, but it's a bullshit item mixed in with a sea of other bullshit items.
Mario Kart ain't about hard counters. It's not looking to make things fair from every angle. It's try to give people a hard advantage and trying to balance that out by giving everything else a hard advantage. Crazy 8s, bullet bills, the lightning, the auto-tracking piranha plants, the triple red shells.
It's definitely inferior to something like Blur, but for what it is, it ain't bad.
Mario Kart ain't about hard counters. It's not looking to make things fair from every angle. It's try to give people a hard advantage and trying to balance that out by giving everything else a hard advantage. Crazy 8s, bullet bills, the lightning, the auto-tracking piranha plants, the triple red shells.
It's definitely inferior to something like Blur, but for what it is, it ain't bad.
Air Zombie Meat
Member
Why does it matter who fired it though? Without the blue shell you'd never get hit by anything in the lead. It's trivial to defend yourself against the occasional red because you have nothing else to do with your items in first.
edit: actually thats not true. You get to spam all of your items behind you to screw over the pack and pick up a new one at every single question block. And if you time it right you can do that and never be without a defence item unless you get coins.
Spieler Eins
Member
In MK8 you can get blue in like 4th place and a single green at 12th.