Some of you may recognize me since I already was around here.
As the topic title indicates ; I want to speak about cakes. These of STK.
This point was already made a few times, but as far as I know ; no action followed.
What is the effect of cakes ?
They are explosive weapons which can also be fired in reverse. They are extremely accurate, and very fast.
To compare ; the bowling ball go only straight ; so it needs some attention to fire it ; and you take the risk the other fire one at you. Nothing like that with cakes ; which tolerate small curves.
The speed of the cake also deny the possibility to react ; while the bowling balls (especially fired in reverse) give some chance to avoid it.
And the icing on the cake ( ) : one cake can touch several karts while exploding, if they are close enough. Especially effective at the start of a race.
How can someone protects itself against cakes ?
Bubblegum used as a shield is the only effective protection against it. While really helping ; the shield doesn't last long enough ; and isn't get so often. Also, the cakes do the most damage at the end of the race ; while it is only the 2 first third of the karts which can get it.
(The other way is "fire a cake on him before he fires one on you" which isn't really a protection...)
What is the likeliness to get a cake ? (And a bubblegum as we are at it ?)
- {l Code}: {l Select All Code}
<!-- cake
<first 5
w-multi="0" />
<top33 30/190
w-multi="10" /> [it works like the following : if the cake is selected ; the likeliness of getting 3 is of 10%, in this case]
<mid33 30/220
w-multi="20" />
<end33 30/210
w-multi="30" />
<last 30/290
w-multi="30" />
<!-- bubble
<first 25/80
w-multi="0" />
<top33 30/190
w-multi=" 0" />
<mid33 30/220
w-multi=" 0" />
<end33 0
w-multi=" 0" />
<last 0
w-multi=" 0 " />
(data taken from the github repo)
So we have ~15% of cakes for everyone but the first. From these 15% ; the top 33 have 10% to get 3 ; the mid33 20% and the others 30%. For a random kart ; the likeliness of getting 3 cakes with a box is around 3%.
For bubble shield ; the first have ~30% to get it ; then top & mid 33 have around 15%.
So the fact that where the cakes do the more damage (the last positions) is where there is not even a bit of protection is clear.
Is it really a problem to be able to get 3 cakes ?
Definitely, yes. If you are not already convinced (playing enough to get them and use them ; or see them used against you ; is probably the most effective way to be convinced) ; I'll argue a little more.
What can you do of 3 cakes ?
- If they're a lot of opponents around you, you can touch 3 or 4 of them without much trouble. They'll all lose several seconds. They're probably already in the last places, this just go worse.
- If there is one opponent nearby ; even if he haves a shield, you can fire two times and easily touch him. You can keep the unused cake(s) for when you'll get near another opponent ; or when one will be close behind you.
So what to do to balance this ?
Changing the power of the cake itself, by slowing it or making it less accurate, may be a way.
This isn't the one I suggest however, which is to avoid any possibility to get 3 cakes at once ; and to reduce also the probability to get a cake for the 1st third of the karts.
I'll refer here to the post I did more than a year ago ; where I proposed a new table for items, with weight based on a 100 scale to make it way easier to understand : http://forum.freegamedev.net/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=4875&p=50424#p50424.
Another possibility would be, in addition of avoiding 3 cakes, to not allow the throwing of cakes in reverse.