Penalty time

[Kinsu]

Changes are coming to the race-start. Why not removing the penalty time at the same time ? The arguments :
- It's not really useful
- It's not encouraging for new players who don't know it
- It's not funny

We though about replacing the penalty time here, but it's true it's a little complicated.

I think we should at least remove it, and just allow players to burst the engine before the race-start (no acceleration, just noise ).
And, to maintain a little challenge with the boost acceleration, maybe if the player hits the key before the race-start (within the 1/2sec before the final beep), some kind of engine fail makes it miss the race-start, with a black smoke ?

What do you think ?

[StefanP.MUC]

Yeah, cut off the penalty time, but still give the additional boost when the player hits gas directly on "Go!". That's how I would like it best.

[Turtle]

Yeah, cut off the penalty time, but still give the additional boost when the player hits gas directly on "Go!". That's how I would like it best.

+1

[Knitter]

Considering it annoys me more than it really helps I would go for removal. The engine failure with the black smoke seems to be a nice feature, at least it seems to add some fun to the failure.

[Arthur]

Yeah, cut off the penalty time, but still give the additional boost when the player hits gas directly on "Go!". That's how I would like it best.

Same here.

[Crendgrim]

I also do like StefanP.MUC's idea best.

[Funto]

+1 for removing that penalty time.

My suggestion for determining the initial boost of the player: think of an accelerometer like this:


The player can burst the engine as much as he wants.
At the moment the players start ("go!"):
- cursor in the white part -> nothing happens
- cursor in the green part -> boost
- cursor in the red part -> nothing happens, except maybe black smoke?

=> the challenge is in keeping the cursor in the green part at the moment the race starts.

[Arthur]

IMO too complicated. I suggest to remove the penalty for starting too quickly, but you should miss the bonus possibility if you burst the engine before start. If you didn't burst the engine, you can try to press accelerate at the right moment as it is now.

[Auria]

IMO too complicated. I suggest to remove the penalty for starting too quickly, but you should miss the bonus possibility if you burst the engine before start. If you didn't burst the engine, you can try to press accelerate at the right moment as it is now.

+1

[hiker]

Hi,

I don't like any of the more complicated approaches. And I admit I don't really see what's wrong with a startup penalty. Mario Kart Wii has it. Now that I think about it we basically have the same mechanism as MK: in MK you have to press at the right time before 'go', and you get a penalty when you press to early. The timing is not obvious ("When the countdown starts wait till the 2 starts to disappear and then press and hold the 2 button. So the 2 must still be visible but disappearing.This will give you a boost at the start of the race." from gamespot), while in STK we have a well defined moment: the GO must be visible. Also if you miss the right time in MK, you get the penalty a second (or so) later, so there is no direct connection between your action and the penalty; while in STK the connection is made immediately, and even explained on screen. So I think our implementation of a startup boost is actually much better.

Are you aware that the AI also gets false starts? Is the problem perhaps that this is not very visible, so you feel like you are the only one penalized? Some visual effect would be nice - black smoke, screeching tires, ... Or is it even the case that the start positions in STK are too close, so that if an AI karts ahead of you gets a penalty, you will most likely hit it?

I am not totally opposed to removing this, but it just feels wrong to give players a potential bonus if there is no risk attached. Esp. since many other kart racing games have the same mechanism, and (afaik) no one complains about them, even if they are (imho) less well implemented than the STK one. Or is the problem perhaps that people expect MK behaviour, and are therefore too often hit by the penalty? While it doesn't exactly count for much, I basically never get the penalty when I 'really' play, so I can't see this as a big issue.

What is the difference between the startup penalty, and e.g. hitting a banana? Both are penalties

Would it help if we changed the penalty, e.g. instead of no movements for a seconds, the karts would still drive, but slower than normal?

It's just that this is one tiny part of STK which I think it is actually doing really well, better in fact than many other games.

Cheers,
Joerg

[Funto]

Actually I think the MK approach is bad, for the reasons you stated

IMO, the reasons that make the penalty in STK frustrating are:
- no way to recover from it: you pressed accelerate by accident (say you wanted to validate something, or more likely you wanted to burst the engine like in any other game) => you have to wait for the start, while knowing you won't be able to start, just because that *#!%!!!$ game doesn't want you to start!
- no way to make noise with the engine while on the start line.
- in a much more important way, no graphical effects other than that disappointing message on the screen ^^

[Kinsu]

it just feels wrong to give players a potential bonus if there is no risk attached.

I agree. As Funto says, the current penalty time system does penalize players even when they are not trying to get the bonus, and this is not funny at all (it's frustrating to be punished for nothing !)

So the malus should be given only to players that try to get the bonus & miss, if possible. What about this :
- If the player presses the key within the 1/2sec before the race-start, consider he was trying to get the bonus, and trigger an engine failure (like penalty time) with black smoke.
- If the player presses the key before the 1/2sec limit, just make some noise.

[Turtle]

The startup penalty in MK is one of the annoying things about the game. Just like the Bigger karts go slower than smaller ones. For balancing the speed bonus, I like Kinsu's idea. I sometimes could be waiting for the screen to load, and get caught off guard (hit it at the start thinking the game froze).

[Arthur]

I dunno why people should be penalized for trying to get a bonus? You don't see bananas in-between most of the item boxes, so why not just let people try to get the speed bonus, but don't penalize them if they are too quick? Let them try, and if they press too quickly, they can't get the speed bonus anymore. If they succeed, let it be like it is now, and perhaps add a graphical effect making it obvious why others may start quicker than you.

Simple and beautiful, IMHO anyways.

[hikari.to.yami]

Yup, I agree, it is so annoying. About a couple week ago I met some of my cousins (they're still at elementary school), and I introduce them to STK, and they also think that the penalty time is annoying.

[qubodup]

My experience is that new players didn't understand that they got penalty time/why they had to start later than the others.

Some gamepads (my Xbox360 wired on Linux, may be a hardware/driver problem...) are quite sensitive and will make it easy for a player to accidentally trigger penalty time.

As long as penalty time exists, the message that tells you that you got penalty time should also include instructions on how to avoid it.

"Don't accelerate before the countdown finishes!"

[Turtle]

My experience is that new players didn't understand that they got penalty time/why they had to start later than the others.

Some gamepads (my Xbox360 wired on Linux, may be a hardware/driver problem...) are quite sensitive and will make it easy for a player to accidentally trigger penalty time.

As long as penalty time exists, the message that tells you that you got penalty time should also include instructions on how to avoid it.

"Don't accelerate before the countdown finishes!"

Better if they got rid of it in the next update, than just add the tip (seems to be what several people agree on).

[StefanP.MUC]

The most liberal solution would be to make it an option with default set to "off".

Maybe a general and "global" difficulty settings panel somewhere would be nice anyways (in addition to the three AI levels). Where the player can change some settings to what that he likes best. Like penalty times, handicaps, availability of specific weapons/bonuses, ...

[Arthur]

Meh, it's there already, and it's called stk_config.xml in the data folder.

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

  <!-- Startup information.
       Penalty: Penalty time if a kart accelerates before GO. -->
  <startup penalty="1" />

Large and convoluted configuration panels typically doesn't do much good; the few interested in making tweaks can look the config files up, and the rest of users (99,9%) wouldn't care even if they knew they could do these changes.

Changing the defaults to more sane ones does have a real impact on the other hand, as those 99,9% of users might get a more positive experience out of the game, although they wouldn't want to customize this themselves.

[Iridium]

Meh, it's there already, and it's called stk_config.xml in the data folder.

{l Code}: {l Select All Code}

  <!-- Startup information.
       Penalty: Penalty time if a kart accelerates before GO. -->
  <startup penalty="1" />

Large and convoluted configuration panels typically doesn't do much good; the few interested in making tweaks can look the config files up, and the rest of users (99,9%) wouldn't care even if they knew they could do these changes.

Changing the defaults to more sane ones does have a real impact on the other hand, as those 99,9% of users might get a more positive experience out of the game, although they wouldn't want to customize this themselves.

Lol, I've already set that value to 0 Messes you up in MKWii though.
-Iridium

[asciimonster]

Penalty time is a bit blunt. My idea is to do something similar, but less brutal:

Here is a graph of

Let me run you through:
- This graph tells you what boost you'll recieve at the moment you press the accelerator
- When you press the accelerator you "finalise" the boost you get. Even releasing and repressing the accelerator won't help.
- At 3 sec before the start you get the normal boost ( same as being really late)
- Pressing the accelerator just before the start sign gives you a massive boost,
- Pressing the accelerator just after the start sign gives you a massively bad start.
- To help people get the idea the pitch of the idle engine rises until the start sign (the pitch when pressing the accelerator is higher of course)
- To help indicate that you were too late some low or stuttering engine noise combined with some visible black smoke would help explain the bad start.

What do you think?

[hikari.to.yami]

Penalty time is a bit blunt. My idea is to do something similar, but less brutal:

Here is a graph of

PenaltyTime.PNG

Let me run you through:
- This graph tells you what boost you'll recieve at the moment you press the accelerator
- When you press the accelerator you "finalise" the boost you get. Even releasing and repressing the accelerator won't help.
- At 3 sec before the start you get the normal boost ( same as being really late)
- Pressing the accelerator just before the start sign gives you a massive boost,
- Pressing the accelerator just after the start sign gives you a massively bad start.
- To help people get the idea the pitch of the idle engine rises until the start sign (the pitch when pressing the accelerator is higher of course)
- To help indicate that you were too late some low or stuttering engine noise combined with some visible black smoke would help explain the bad start.

What do you think?

I like the idea except this part :
"Pressing the accelerator just after the start sign gives you a massively bad start."
IMO this part is even worse than penalty time.

[asciimonster]

I like the idea except this part :
"Pressing the accelerator just after the start sign gives you a massively bad start."
IMO this part is even worse than penalty time.

It's not exciting if there isn't a little risk, methinks.

[hikari.to.yami]

Meh, it is embarrassing to say this, but I kinda regret to write that.

After thinking for awhile, it is good to say "the longer you wait to press the accel button the more boost you'll get, but if you're pushing your luck (too much) you might end up with slow start"

that's being said +1 to your whole idea

[Auria]

I don't really like the idea of a penalty if you're late, especially since we currently don't have a tutorial and so most users would get the penalty simply by not knowing