Some suggestions for 0.8

[jarvis]

Hello,

i think there are too many karts and tracks in SuperTuxKart 0.7. Indeed some tracks (such as amazonian track) are botched (ugly texture) and some karts (such as Tux Kart) are too old fashioned. So, I think you should reduce the number of official karts (15 to 8) and official tracks (20 to 10). You are a small team. You should concentrate your effort to a small number and use your addon feature. For some tracks you also should reduce their length. For the novice level, it's very long to finish it.
Another suggestion is to add a button "a quick try". At the beginning, a lot of people only want to play and doesn't care to play with beagles or tux. I think "a quick try" should have the feature: 3 opponents, 1 short lap, novice level and an explanation of the main key (<space>, V,B and N keys).
You also should to improve the sounds of supertuxkart. They are very poored. Consequently, people is quickly bored of supertuxkart.

[Kinsu]

i think there are too many karts and tracks in SuperTuxKart 0.7. Indeed some tracks (such as amazonian track) are botched (ugly texture) and some karts (such as Tux Kart) are too old fashioned. So, I think you should reduce the number of official karts (15 to 8) and official tracks (20 to 10).

Hi jarvis !
I agree with you up to a point. Maybe for beginners there are a lot of karts and tracks, but for people who want to play a little more, it's important to have more content in the game (especially tracks).
To solve this problem, the content-locking system is here : beginners and casual players play to tracks that are unlocked by default (i.e. easier and shorter tracks), other ones unlock everything and play on it.

Regarding karts, I think more of them should be locked, but to my opinion it's just great to see all these funny characters so they should not be removed from the core package.

The quick-race feature could be interesting, but I think the character and race selection screen are very simple (& welcoming) so it's already easy to race quickly... But maybe my opinion is biased as I know by heart STK...

[Iridium]

i think there are too many karts and tracks in SuperTuxKart 0.7.

Wrong. There are only 14 Karts standard(Not including GNU). A mainstream game like Mario Kart Wii has a full 25 characters. To suggest that we have too many is ridiculous IMO.

You are a small team.

How incredibly incouraging. Are you done pointing out all the obvious things that we can't fix? Unless you'd like to get some more contributors for us, "jarvis", I suggest you leave this topic alone.

use your addon feature

Doing that.

For the novice level, it's very long to finish it.

Yes, of course it is, if you've never played a computer game before in your life.

Another suggestion is to add a button "a quick try"

I do actually see this as a good idea, sort of like a "Tutorial" if you will. Shouldn't be too hard to make. I support this.

You also should to improve the sounds of supertuxkart.

Doing that.

They are very poored.

[Insert English Language sarcasm here]

Consequently, people is quickly bored of supertuxkart.

"people" meaning only you...
Yes, jarvis, I support your idea of a tutorial, but the rest of your post is just ridiculous.
-Iridium

[Crendgrim]

Iridium: Please, don't be this harsh. That isn't good for anyone.

For the novice level, it's very long to finish it.

Yes, of course it is, if you've never played a computer game before in your life.

Well, he is right. You should not just use this sentence as a quote, but read what he wrote; and some tracks (namely Crescent Crossing) are really very, very long and tiring on Novice level.

Another suggestion is to add a button "a quick try"

I do actually see this as a good idea, sort of like a "Tutorial" if you will. Shouldn't be too hard to make. I support this.

There once was an attempt to do this, but AFAIK it was never finished.


Apart from this, I share your opinion, though. There aren't too many karts, and there aren't too many tracks included. I do not even understand how an arcade racing game where you drive just for fun is supposed to have "too many" karts and/or tracks. IMHO, the more karts and tracks, the more diversity, and the better is your gaming experience — and the more fun a game makes.

[Iridium]

Crend: My bad, rough day.

Well, he is right. You should not just use this sentence as a quote, but read what he wrote; and some tracks (namely Crescent Crossing) are really very, very long and tiring on Novice level.

Crescent Crossing can be long, yes, but not if you take shortcuts hehe! (More on the subject of shortcuts some other time).
On the other hand, tracks like Shifting Sands and Amazonian Journey are tedious on Novice. I know Shifting Sands is due in for a revamp, but I dunno about Amazonian Journey..

There once was an attempt to do this, but AFAIK it was never finished.

Really? Maybe it could be implemented at the end of development or something, since everyone who plays now knows and when the game gets released as 1.0 there'll be a much bigger need for this.

Apart from this, I share your opinion, though. There aren't too many karts, and there aren't too many tracks included. I do not even understand how an arcade racing game where you drive just for fun is supposed to have "too many" karts and/or tracks. IMHO, the more karts and tracks, the more diversity, and the better is your gaming experience — and the more fun a game makes.

Definitely true. Mario Kart Wii wouldn't be fun with just the standard karts and bikes in the same way that SuperTuxKart wouldn't be fun with just Tux and a few tracks. It's why I enjoy MKWii so much; so many different styles and techniques are possible
-Iridium

[Auria]

Hi,

i think there are too many karts and tracks in SuperTuxKart 0.7. Indeed some tracks (such as amazonian track) are botched (ugly texture) and some karts (such as Tux Kart) are too old fashioned. So, I think you should reduce the number of official karts (15 to 8) and official tracks (20 to 10). You are a small team. You should concentrate your effort to a small number and use your addon feature. For some tracks you also should reduce their length. For the novice level, it's very long to finish it.
Another suggestion is to add a button "a quick try". At the beginning, a lot of people only want to play and doesn't care to play with beagles or tux. I think "a quick try" should have the feature: 3 opponents, 1 short lap, novice level and an explanation of the main key (<space>, V,B and N keys).
You also should to improve the sounds of supertuxkart. They are very poored. Consequently, people is quickly bored of supertuxkart.

quality has been steadily going up, so I personally hope that sometime not too far away we can have great quality without reducing the size of the game.

I agree that some tracks are too long, this will be improved in the future

About "tutorial mode", indeed this is something we want, but as you mentionned we are a small team

regarding sound effects, please explain more which ones; but better replacements are even more welcome, good free sounds are hard to find

[Funto]

As for the number of karts, I would go for keeping the same number of tracks we have currently but lock more of them, instead of some locked tracks.
A locked kart is something the player is curious about and it gives enough motivation for trying to unlock it. A locked track is more frustrating I think, but that's my point of view ^^.

[Kinsu]

A locked kart is something the player is curious about and it gives enough motivation for trying to unlock it. A locked track is more frustrating I think, but that's my point of view ^^.

I totally agree for karts (and when they will have different physical attributes, will should just make sure at least one character of each class is unlocked by default).
For tracks, I think that locking up the most difficult ones makes sense. I agree that for contributors it's pretty annoying (though we just have to change the challenge files to avoid that ^^), but I believe that for "normal" players this is not so annoying, and adds... challenge to the game
(I would be glad if someone could confirm that)

[Funto]

I can't confirm but I agree at least ^^
I didn't say we should unlock all tracks, some of them (as well as battle arenas) should be locked by default I think.

[hiker]

A locked kart is something the player is curious about and it gives enough motivation for trying to unlock it. A locked track is more frustrating I think, but that's my point of view ^^.

I totally agree for karts (and when they will have different physical attributes, will should just make sure at least one character of each class is unlocked by default).

Atm the main reason is that all karts are equal, so it's not thaaat exciting if a new kart is unlocked. And also (I think) that people are more interested in tracks, and of course the idea of challenges is to motivate players But agreed, long term there should be a better balance.

For tracks, I think that locking up the most difficult ones makes sense. I agree that for contributors it's pretty annoying (though we just have to change the challenge files to avoid that ^^), but I believe that for "normal" players this is not so annoying, and adds... challenge to the game

That was the initial idea of the challenges. But many tracks were modified, added, other replaced, and the challenges were not really updated. Main problem is that the challenge system is somewhat inflexible, making it hard to change the tracks (since after any change all dependencies (between tracks and GPs) need to be checked). There is a ticket open to improve this, which should make it easier to update the challenges to really lock the harder tracks.

Cheers,
Joerg

[Kinsu]

Yes, the challenges system could be reviewed. And more kind of challenges could be added : for now they are funny during a short time, then they become very repetitive.
I add a brainstorming topic to try to find new challenges.

[qubodup]

Another suggestion: I think there should be either an "Absolute Beginner" AI level, in which the enemies make mistakes sometimes or that "Novice" AI should do that.

I haven't played STK before 0.7.2 for a while and the Novice AI was extremely hard (and still sometimes is). Often the only reason why I win is the fact that I collect many nitro bottles that the AI ignores. In levels where there is little Nitro this doesn't work.

Getting to the level where I kind of can deal with Novice AI was quite a long way. The difference between the different AI levels seems rather slight to me.

Mistakes could be simulated by AI kart randomly/accidentally making turns or making turns too early/too late.

Does anybody have an opinion on this?

[Funto]

I agree that AIs should make mistakes and take some bananas.
The hard thing is to make it plausible, i.e. if you have an AI go straight to a banana while there is no reason for it to do so, that doesn't really look natural

[Arthur]

Not if the AI kart in question is Suzanne...

[Iridium]

Not if the AI kart in question is Suzanne...

Haha yeah, she'd love bananas, wouldn't she?

[hiker]

Another suggestion: I think there should be either an "Absolute Beginner" AI level, in which the enemies make mistakes sometimes or that "Novice" AI should do that.

We had a different implementation for steering for lower level AIs, but had to disable them since they were just too bad for certain tracks (e.g. karts would constantly fall into water from the bridge in sand track). So now the main difference is handling of items and nitro (well, low level AI will accelerate a bit less, be slower to react at start, have a higher probability of false start).

I hope to implement some kind of dynamic AI adjustment: if the AIs are too far ahead, make them slow down somewhat, and (perhaps) if they are too far behind, make them go a bit faster. But that will be after 0.8.

Cheers,
Joerg

[jarvis]

quality has been steadily going up, so I personally hope that sometime not too far away we can have great quality without reducing the size of the game.

I have the feeling that the length of development increases hugely because of a long integration of new tracks or new karts. I think the development could be more effective if you release a 0.8 version with the more advanced karts and tracks (addon will have the role to relieve the impatient people and to test). And when you have enough of new advanced karts and tracks and when you fix all the bugs, you release 0.8.1, etc for 0.8.*.

regarding sound effects, please explain more which ones; but better replacements are even more welcome, good free sounds are hard to find

For example, the sound of squid should be different if you drived on the sand or the road. The sound of engine should be different if you use a small kart (such as hexley kart) or a big kart (such as beasty kart).

[Kinsu]

I have the feeling that the length of development increases hugely because of a long integration of new tracks or new karts.

Mhhh, I'm not sure that adding new content slows programmers, as it's not code-related.

[hiker]

I have the feeling that the length of development increases hugely because of a long integration of new tracks or new karts.

Not at all. All recent releases were triggered by finishing coding milestones, not because of new tracks/karts.

For example, the sound of squid should be different if you drived on the sand or the road. The sound of engine should be different if you use a small kart (such as hexley kart) or a big kart (such as beasty kart).

We have two different kart sounds (for small and large karts), but are looking for better replacements. Do you know of any?

Cheers,
Joerg