Mario Kart 8 Discussion/Rankings Thread

For those of you who recently bought Mario Kart 8 or plan to get one, this is a thread made for discussions and rankings.

Discuss anything relating to Mario Kart. You can also give your critiques on the game as well, even if you haven't bought it yet.

Eventually, we can create a ranking list within this thread if people are comfortable with that. It will be updated on a weekly basis.

Here are a list of Nintendo IDs you can register to play online.

- Dr. Canadian Bacon: Dr.CanadianBacon
- GanonTheGreat: Ganonthegreat
- MercuryHg34: MercuryHg34
- Mp3 Toaster: Mp3_Toaster
- Mr. Mistress: Amaha91AD0
- Smash King: EJ88201

My Nintendo ID is - Dr.CanadianBacon

My Nintendo ID is EJ88201

I will also create an ID list once we get enough players sharing

My ID is MercuryHg34.

My ID is Ganonthegreat.

I've also added everybody's ID's so far to my account, you should get a friend request.

I envy all of you, but at the same time, i feel great for all of you

So, how's the game?

I am moving to a new house in 5 or 6 days. And that place won't have broadband (it will be fiber net btw) until September (just a estimate currently). So we have to settle with mobile net until then. But I won't use it to play online with if I even could do that. So I wish to play some Mario Kart 8 with you guys (or any online game in general maybe) before I finally move out.

In case my ID isn't obvious enough. It's "Mp3_Toaster"

My ID is in my sig. I unfortunately don't have the game yet, but when I do get it, I'll be sure to challenge anyone that's available.

i'll have to check what my id is so i can play with you guys but maaaannnnnn the CPUs cheat hard in mirror mode, took me two hours to 3-star the flower cup in mirror mode

Just in case anyone missed the birth of the next great meme.

OP updated with confirmed Nintendo IDs

I beat all the staff ghosts finally, it wasn't the most fun experience of the game, that's for sure. I definately think Bone-Dry Dunes was the hardest. Anyone else done it yet?

Time get the stars on Mirror mode and 150CC!

i've been slowly working on those, got maybe 8 to 10 done

had to learn a couple new strategies to beat them with baby daisy in my biddybuggy/standard/parasol kart (hint: so many miniturbos)

Finally did all cups with one star, that's enough for now. So now, just 10 000 coins to go! Oh boy...

Maybe we should all keep track of our game progress in this thread as well to compare? Not really necessary but it might be fun to do. So far I've only got 3 stars on all cups on 50cc, and rank 1600+ online.

Also, my inner balancer has forced me to do some research and I've found a whole ton of useful info to compile into this thread for anyone interested.

-The metagaming is so real right now that players have already discovered this game's AT, equivalent to snaking in MKDS, etc. It's called Flame Boosting, and the basic jist is that you can extend the duration of any boost by repeatedly hopping left and right as it's happening. This is because you decelerate slower while airborne, so this tech allows you to maintain boost momentum for noticeably longer than usual. Take a look at this:


-The game doesn't explicitly tell you what each of the visible stats mean, but here's what they do.
Speed: Affects the top speed of your vehicle in all terrain except for off-road (explained later)
Acceleration: The rate at which your vehicle reaches that top speed. This includes how fast you accelerate to your turbo (boosting) speed.
Weight: How heavy your vehicle is. Heavier karts push lighter ones aside.
Handling: Affects how sharp your vehicle turns.
Traction: Affects top speed off-road, as well as how well your vehicle grips the road on surfaces with less than 100% traction/friction.
No particular stat can exceed 5.75 on the stat screen, even though it goes up to 6.0. This is because there is simply no part combo that produces a stat value that high.

-There are a set of hidden stats as well, affected by the visible stats and can be different depending on what character and parts you pick. They are as follows:
Mini Turbo: The duration of the boost obtained from boosting after a drift or a trick jump. Affected by Acceleration.
Water, Anti-Gravity and Air Speed: Top Speed affects all of these at once, but each one is a different value that can differ from one another depending on your kart build.
Water, Anti-Gravity and Air Handling: Same as above in regard to handling. Needless to say it's determined by your kart build and the Handling stat.
Hurtbox: The size of your kart actually affects how big a target you are. There are 5 sizes, Very Small, Small, Medium, Large and Very Large.

-Acceleration is a special case compared to the rest of the stats. Apparently Acceleration is measured in brackets, not how it is shown on the stat screen. These brackets are simply whole numbers. Any decimal tacked on the end of the stat gets rounded DOWN to the nearest whole number, so your acceleration doesn't actually change until you either go up to a whole number (3.5 -> 4 = 3 -> 4) or go down to the decimals of the next lowest whole number (3.5 -> 2.75 = 3 -> 2). Knowing this, you can build your kart so that acceleration lands exactly on a whole number, thereby "not wasting stats". The only exception is 5.0, 5.25, 5.5 and 5.75. There actually is a difference in each of those numbers, but the difference is much smaller and worth foregoing in favor of a little extra speed and weight.

That's all I have time for this morning, later today I'll share my findings on the different parts themselves and which builds yield the (statistically) best performing karts.

Merc, stop ruining games man.

as far as in-game progress i've 3-starred every cup on every difficulty, and i'm around like 1700 points in online i think?

imo flame hopping will make my usual build pretty dumb; i typically run baby daisy with biddybuggy/standard/parasol, which nearly maxes out acceleration and does max out mini turbo iirc (i think if i ran the button wheels like i do on my ludwig kart - mr. scooty/button/standard - i would max out acceleration), and since both acceleration and mini turbo are maxed out, flame hopping would make me consistently faster than most other builds. i haven't tried it in time trial but the only way i could beat some of them was excessive mini turboing, so this'll be pretty dumb

stats spreadsheet

edit: on second glance the buttons would max out my acceleration and my mini turbo, maybe i should make the switch lol. i'd end up with 5.5 acceleration and mini turbo.

I got the game, Micks. ID's in my sig and I'm available to play on late afternoons and evenings.

Added Mist to the list.

Bump!
Not only bump, but HOLY BUTT'S WE'RE GETTING PAID DLC

http://mynintendonews.com/2014/08/26/mario-kart-8-dlc-has-been-leaked-by-nintendo-includes-new-characters-and-courses/

There are 2 packs, each pack has - 3 Characters, 4 Vehicles, and 8 Courses (2 cups).
The characters are - Link, Cat Peach, and Tanooki Mario for Pack 1, then Dry Bowser, Isabelle, and Villager for Pack 2.

Stages We've seen are - Wario's Gold Mine (Wii), an F-Zero course, and some unknown map to my knowledge in Pack 1, then an Animal Crossing map, some Tree map, and a ? map for Pack 2.

Vehicles - Blue Falcon is all so far, more will hopefully be shown.

So what are your thoughts? I'm getting the DLC for sure, you also get 8 different coloured Yoshi's, and 8 different coloured Shyguys if you purchase both packs.

Glad to see this game with more content, I didn't actually expect anymore than the Mercedes Benz DLC.

Link in Mario Kart?

What is this, Super Smash Bros. Kart?

Kirby wrote:

Link in Mario Kart?

What is this, Super Smash Bros. Kart?

Really brought that one home

Really didn't expect Link in Mario Kart and while i am excited for him, there is an F-Zero track on that DLC that i just HAVE to race on.

Mario Kart 9 is just gonna be Nintendo Kart
Which I'm fine with.

...Is that Excitebike I see?

AEM wrote:

...Is that Excitebike I see?

What? Where?
It may just be the sports bike if your talking about Link's bike.

Wow. Mario Kart 8 has Mario (duh), Zelda, Animal Crossing, F-Zero and Excitebike. 5 Nintendo Franchises (with Mario Kart Wii having a slight reference to Mach Rider with the Mach Bike).

It's official, Mario Kart 9 is not gonna exist, it's gonna be Nintendo Kart now.

Oh, the map is Excitebike! I never ended up playing Excitebike, but wow!

I'm too hyped. I LOVE Mario Kart 8

Wow Link?! They really forgot some more mario characters.
Like Dr.Mario, Dr. Luigi, Nabbit, Birdo, Mouser, Professor E.Gadd, Dry Bones, Diddy Kong (that almost got in), Kamek, and even Toadsworth. The last time ive seen good mario kart roster was double dash imo.

Gamey, they're just hoping to mooch off the LoZ fanbase, duh.
It's TOTALLY not a crossover.

Personally, I welcome these characters! I'm glad to see characters from other franchises playable, I'll probably play them a lot!