Defensive Powerups Brainstorming Discussion

[ArDanWol]

Hi everyone,
There have been many discussions about powerups in the past on this forum. I was just browsing through a few today and started getting some ideas. Many people (me included) think that there should be more defensive powerups. There have been multiple good suggestions on this forum, so I thought I'd bring some together here.

Many people believe that cakes are too powerful. I partially agree with this and liked some suggestions made on the cakes discussion. Here are some ideas I had for defensive powerups:

Make the flyswatter partially defensive (i.e. making it defend against cupcakes and/or basketballs only)
Defensive only tennis racket or baseball bat (maybe even make it deflect weapons onto other karts)
A fan that blows weapons away
A water pistol that shoots down weapons (also defensive only)
A bumper for bowling ball defense
An umbrella for weapon defense
An Ice cube that can be thrown to freeze weapons (could be used only once)

I also liked these ideas by other people on this forum:

An emergency light that prevents you from being hit and gives you extra acceleration
Making the cakes into mines when they're thrown backwards

Hope this can generate some creativity and thought about defensive powerups!
Thanks everyone!
ArDanWol

[Tiger]

Make the flyswatter partially defensive (i.e. making it defend against cupcakes and/or basketballs only)
Defensive only tennis racket or baseball bat (maybe even make it deflect weapons onto other karts)
A fan that blows weapons away
A water pistol that shoots down weapons (also defensive only)
A bumper for bowling ball defense
An umbrella for weapon defense
An Ice cube that can be thrown to freeze weapons (could be used only once)

I totally agree with the idea of defensive powerups. Like I said some weeks ago, all we don't need are new power ups that will be used to screw us instead giving us some advintage. The race is unfair from the start, because we are in the last position. Then, some people come here and give ideas for new power ups that, probably, will be used much more by the controlled karts instead us, the gamers.

I liked the idea of some stuff to freeze weapons. They could bring back the effect that makes you be "pulled" by the target kart when you shot it with the sink plunger or any other weapon.

I would like if we could collect coins to change them by our prefered powerups. Would be nice too if we could keep the invulnerability for two or more races during a championship, just like in the Supertux milestones and the most important for me: a qualifying race, at least, when we chose a championship.

[thamlett]

Maybe if we started near/in the back we should have some power-ups to start out with... and perhaps a "selection" so that we can have 2 gum, 1 swatter, 4 cakes, and 6 balls (just as an example).

[ArDanWol]

They could bring back the effect that makes you be "pulled" by the target kart when you shot it with the sink plunger or any other weapon.

What do you mean by this? You already get pulled when you shoot the plunger at another kart.

I would like if we could collect coins to change them by our preferred powerups. Would be nice too if we could keep the invulnerability for two or more races during a championship, just like in the SuperTux milestones and the most important for me: a qualifying race, at least, when we choose a championship.

I don't think the coin idea or the invulnerability idea are necessary. I think it's smart that the powerup selection is semi-random. Otherwise, you would be choosing cupcakes or basketballs all the time and annihilating everyone else (not to mention you would have to choose your powerups on the go and multitask ). That wouldn't be fair IMHO. Also, this is a racing game, not a Mario Bros./SuperTux sidescroller game. I also don't think the qualifying race is necessary for Grand Prix because you already qualify when you finish the first race. If you're experienced, you can win fairly easy.

[Tiger]

They could bring back the effect that makes you be "pulled" by the target kart when you shot it with the sink plunger or any other weapon.

What do you mean by this? You already get pulled when you shoot the plunger at another kart.

Yes. At least, playing 0.7 I had this impression.

[samuncle]

Hi everyone

We are currently in the process of releasing the new version of stk so we won't add nor remove any major features.
I want to point out something, changing powerup isn't easy it requires a lot of testing to be sure the game is balanced. STK is "unfair" and yes you can loose your lovely first place. It's the whole point of a racing game with powerup.

It's something difficult to accept for many players/people (myself included) but making the right decision is counter intuitive. For instance if Nintendo had made a vote about the blue shell I'm pretty sure everybody would agree to remove it. But this item even if very powerful and frustrating for the first one make the game more fun.
How ?
Well because let's be honest being all time at the first place without any challenges isn't very funny.

Yes in stk cakes are one of the most powerful weapon but you can fight back by using the shield or by using them to go back to the first place.

There are countless example in stk where I strongly disagree with choices, and I sometime hate them, however I do know it makes the game funnier and ultimatly it's better. I agree it's not easy but it's true.

I can only speak for myself but we had countless debate about the power of the cupcake and I think we won't change it's effect nor appearance nor way to avoid it until some time.

There have been many discussions about powerups in the past on this forum. I was just browsing through a few today and started getting some ideas. Many people (me included) think that there should be more defensive powerups. There have been multiple good suggestions on this forum, so I thought I'd bring some together here.

Many people believe that cakes are too powerful. I partially agree with this and liked some suggestions made on the cakes discussion. I also think that there should be a defense against the basketball besides bubble gum (although I found out the other day that you can shoot them down with a cupcake). Here are some ideas I had for defensive powerups:

Again what's fun isn't what you think ^^. Also I made some test and many basketball end up stuck in walls and destroy themselves without doing any damage to the player.
STK is quite well balanced and yes it takes some time to master it (at least for the upper difficulty levels and yes you can't always win which is part of the game.
Also try to play to other similar games like mario kart or blur and you will get probably the same level of frustration with the most powerful items, but that's part of what makes a game fun.
If winning was easy, the game would be uninteresting.

I would like if we could collect coins to change them by our prefered powerups. Would be nice too if we could keep the invulnerability for two or more races during a championship, just like in the Supertux milestones and the most important for me: a qualifying race, at least, when we chose a championship.

and you will end up with everyone using cupcakes. Nope it's not a good idea. However I like the coin idea to buy new karts. Currently all karts except two are locked. I think we should allow people to slowly unlock in some way karts that could be more adapted for some track (for instance xue and gnu could have the ability to go over the water).
That would make the game interesting + encourage people to try other characters than tux

[tuxkartdriver]

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[ArDanWol]

Okay, I evidently need to clarify some things.

We are currently in the process of releasing the new version of STK so we won't add nor remove any major features.

Yes, I understand that Sam. I wasn't expecting any suggestions made here to be included in the next release or even 0.9. The whole point of this was to come up with ideas for the long term future.

I want to point out something, changing powerup isn't easy it requires a lot of testing to be sure the game is balanced. STK is "unfair" and yes you can loose your lovely first place. It's the whole point of a racing game with powerup.

I understand that too. I'm not whining about it being unfair (though some others are *cough* i.e. Tiger), I'm just trying to come up with ideas for new items. The whole point of this discussion was to create new ideas since we have 8 offensive weapons and only one defense. So far, I'm the only one whose had any ideas and the rest are complaints (except Samuncle). I would be perfectly happy if we kept the game as it is, but there is always room for improvement. I like the fact that the game is challenging and you can lose first place. I'm able to go from first position to last within one second, and I'm also able to go from last to first in one second. As Sam said, It's the whole point of a racing game with powerups. If you don't want that, do time trial mode or play in artist debug mode where you have unlimited powerups.

It's something difficult to accept for many players/people (myself included) but making the right decision is counter intuitive. For instance if Nintendo had made a vote about the blue shell I'm pretty sure everybody would agree to remove it. But this item even if very powerful and frustrating for the first one make the game more fun.
How ?
Well because let's be honest being all time at the first place without any challenges isn't very funny.

Yes. Being in first place all the time without any challenge is not fun.

There are countless example in stk where I strongly disagree with choices, and I sometime hate them, however I do know it makes the game funnier and ultimatly it's better. I agree it's not easy but it's true.

True. You can't have something that you like 100% unless you make it yourself. But contributions and ideas from everyone make the game better.

There have been many discussions about powerups in the past on this forum. I was just browsing through a few today and started getting some ideas. Many people (me included) think that there should be more defensive powerups. There have been multiple good suggestions on this forum, so I thought I'd bring some together here.

Many people believe that cakes are too powerful. I partially agree with this and liked some suggestions made on the cakes discussion. I also think that there should be a defense against the basketball besides bubble gum (although I found out the other day that you can shoot them down with a cupcake). Here are some ideas I had for defensive powerups:

Again what's fun isn't what you think ^^. Also I made some test and many basketball end up stuck in walls and destroy themselves without doing any damage to the player.
STK is quite well balanced and yes it takes some time to master it (at least for the upper difficulty levels and yes you can't always win which is part of the game.
Also try to play to other similar games like mario kart or blur and you will get probably the same level of frustration with the most powerful items, but that's part of what makes a game fun.
If winning was easy, the game would be uninteresting.

True. The game is fun as it is, and my opinion isn't everything. I've changed my mind about the basketball situation now that I've discovered you can destroy them with cupcakes. It's also true that many basketballs don't even make it to you since they blow up when they hit a wall and can't make it over water or bridges. Again, I'm not whining about the game being unfair, I'm just making suggestions. Tiger in particular has a reputation for whining on this forum about the game being unfair, and I totally disagree with him.

I would like if we could collect coins to change them by our prefered powerups. Would be nice too if we could keep the invulnerability for two or more races during a championship, just like in the Supertux milestones and the most important for me: a qualifying race, at least, when we chose a championship.

And you will end up with everyone using cupcakes. Nope it's not a good idea.

I completely agree!

However I like the coin idea to buy new karts. Currently all karts except two are locked. I think we should allow people to slowly unlock in some way karts that could be more adapted for some track (for instance xue and gnu could have the ability to go over the water).
That would make the game interesting + encourage people to try other characters than tux

That would be awesome!

As a summary, the entire point of this discussion was to come up with ideas on new defensive powerups, not to argue about whether one powerup is too powerful or whether or not the game is "fair". If people want to argue and fight about the game being unfair, create a new topic and title it "Fighting over fairness" or something, this discussion is for ideas and brainstorming! I would be perfectly fine with the game staying as it is, but there's always room to improve it.

Thanks,
ArDanWol