idea for follow the leader

[jilbo]

Hi,

Is there an option to be the leader in the game mode "follow the leader"?
I know this is possible when you play without AI opponents, but the game will be ended with in no time.
I play this game mode a lot with friends on one pc and I would love to play with one friend against 18 AI opponents as a leader.

[Tuxfan]

Hi Jilbo!

No, there is no option to play the leader.
The leader in "follow the leader" is a non-player character, similar to a referee. Thus the leader cannot win the game. He just defines the rules. If you have overtaken the leader or your kart is the longest distance away from the leader, you will loose the game, when the timer drops to zero. The last kart remaining with the leader wins.
This means, if you start a game with only one player, you win immediately. Being the leader is just an illusion.

I thank you for your question, as it has triggered some thoughts:

• Is it difficult to tweak the gametype selection menu, to show a grey "follow the leader" button, if only one player is selected. This button should do nothing, but show the message "Add more players to enable follow the leader", when hovering with the mouse cursor on it.
• How could the leader's AI be improved, such that the game is getting more varying?
• Should the rules of "follow the leader" be adjusted, if too many karts (lets say more than ten) are in the game, such that the game does not take that long? Reducing the count down may help. (20 seconds instead of 40)

[jilbo]

I really like to play the long version when you play this mode with a friend it's really challenging to end up in second place. If there was an option to be the leader when playing against a friend or even two or three friends and ai opponents, you would be able to outsmart your opponents by driving the other way and then turning back once in a while. However this would be very hard for the ai opponents, because they will get stuck a lot.

[Uni]

I really like this. Especially when we introduce online play it would be nice to have a human player as leader. Perhaps create a ticket on github with the suggestion, because I doubt it will get any priority soon. (A lot is going on especially with gsoc and online play.)

[hiker]

I really like this. Especially when we introduce online play it would be nice to have a human player as leader. Perhaps create a ticket on github with the suggestion, because I doubt it will get any priority soon. (A lot is going on especially with gsoc and online play.)

The main potential problem I see (at least with some of the current track designs) is that players would drive off track, making it very hard to determine in which order the karts are - or maybe I should write: the computer's idea of the order of karts might be different from the player's expectation Simple example: farm track, where a player could just drive towards the center (depending on where the check lines are, and which karts have crossed which check lines, the resulting ordering might be quite unexpected).

I am not saying I am against it, but this is a bit of an issue at least for some tracks.

Cheers,
Joerg