itt: let's whine about chocobo race balance

[Krr]

-Every item in the game has some kind of counterplay except Briars, which can't be reflected, esuna'd, or avoided except by not letting a player near you have Briars, which is unavoidable on narrow tracks like Sagolii. Briars placed in narrow areas deal more stamina damage than freaking Bacchus Water, which is single-target, reflectable, esuna-able, and has a counter ability. Stacking Stamina doesn't help against them. At -least- make this garbage Choco Reflectable or countered by Tireless, or just reduce the amount of stamina damage done by it. "Don't be near other players" isn't a counterplay option on narrow tracks like Sargolii.

-Stats seem wildly imbalanced, at least in low-grade tracks. I don't feel any reason to raise my Cunning unless I'm playing at high ping, which basically turns it into a stat tax for slow connections. Stamina and Endurance don't seem to do jack, especially compared to the wildly high amounts of damage Stamina-killer items do.

-Not balance, but can we please try to prioritize matching players with each other over NPCs? It's annoying to see "Races are currently full!" on high-pop servers despite half my opponents always being NPCs when I actually get in. It's a weird space allocation issue.

-who invented Choco Meteor. Is this avoidable in any way? it's seriously worse than blue shells in mario kart like come on. is there even a pattern to who gets hit by this thing?

[Sho86]

-who invented Choco Meteor. Is this avoidable in any way? it's seriously worse than blue shells in mario kart like come on. is there even a pattern to who gets hit by this thing?

Having Hero Tonic up will evade it completely. The 'pattern' is anyone in front of the player using. IE: 1st place uses it, no one hit, 8th place uses it, everyone hit.

[MomomiMomi]

-Every item in the game has some kind of counterplay except Briars, which can't be reflected, esuna'd, or avoided except by not letting a player near you have Briars, which is unavoidable on narrow tracks like Sagolii. Briars placed in narrow areas deal more stamina damage than freaking Bacchus Water, which is single-target, reflectable, esuna-able, and has a counter ability. Stacking Stamina doesn't help against them. At -least- make this garbage Choco Reflectable or countered by Tireless, or just reduce the amount of stamina damage done by it. "Don't be near other players" isn't a counterplay option on narrow tracks like Sargolii.

Tireless prevents all forms of stamina reduction, including Briar Caltrops. Sprint also can let you escape it, and I think also prevents stamina loss, but I'm not fully sure on that. I'll need to try it out some more, but I believe I saw someone say it does. Hero Tonic also works.

-Stats seem wildly imbalanced, at least in low-grade tracks. I don't feel any reason to raise my Cunning unless I'm playing at high ping, which basically turns it into a stat tax for slow connections. Stamina and Endurance don't seem to do jack, especially compared to the wildly high amounts of damage Stamina-killer items do.

The only stat that I feel is not balanced very well, as far as I've seen, is max speed. However, it's possible the other stats may become more important in the later races. Rating goes up to 300 most likely, and it already sounds like it gets pretty crazy at R-140. I don't think we've seen everything it has to offer.

-Not balance, but can we please try to prioritize matching players with each other over NPCs? It's annoying to see "Races are currently full!" on high-pop servers despite half my opponents always being NPCs when I actually get in. It's a weird space allocation issue.

It gives you 30 seconds for other people to join your match. If nobody joins, it fills the rest with NPCs. I think it's working fine. An option to queue for a longer waiting period would be a good fix for people who want to race with more players.

-who invented Choco Meteor. Is this avoidable in any way? it's seriously worse than blue shells in mario kart like come on. is there even a pattern to who gets hit by this thing?

Tireless prevents the stamina loss, but not the debuff. Hero Tonic completely negates it. I think it hits everyone in front of the person who uses it, but it might have a range.

[SeleneArtemis]

Those caltrops... need a heavy rebalancing.

The fact that Caltrops can be only avoided by using one item (Tonic) already makes it quite OP, especially taking into account that it is almost impossible to avoid due to a lack of deceleration, or lanes too narrow dodge. A 30% stamina loss is also incredibly debilitating considering that other debuffs, like heavy or bacchus, have short durations or are hit/miss (because sometimes getting bacchus-ed is beneficial or a non-issue, cuz sometimes you were sprinting already).

Also these things drop like candy. I've seen chests with 3 caltrops in a row. And everyone tends to drop them at once, so it's a huge clusterbomb of thorns that leaves people with almost no stamina left. And again, you can't dodge... because there's just nowhere to go. A single caltrop alone can lose you the race, but getting hit by multiple, you might as well just afk and corpsegrind.

A simple reduction in the amount of damage received would solve this.

[Krr]

It gives you 30 seconds for other people to join your match. If nobody joins, it fills the rest with NPCs. I think it's working fine. An option to queue for a longer waiting period would be a good fix for people who want to race with more players.

Yeah, I'd take up to a minute or two to try and get matched with more players. It bugs me a lot on some crowded servers (ie Excalibur) where our race instance roster is regularly full - with races that, IME, typically contain up to two players and 6 NPCs.

The other stuff is good info, by the way - I had no idea that Hero Tonic actually made you immune to attack items and skills, as the description is just 'It improves your chocobo's abilities![sic]"

[MilesSaintboroguh]

The Briars should be made less frequent.

[Syrellaris]

Briars are a pain but not really an issue either. I've done plenty fo races and honestly, I do not think there an issue.

[DrOstler]

Briars are a pain but not really an issue either

lol, not an issue. If I get hit by a caltrop near the beginning of a race I just afk the rest of it because theres not a chance in hell I can finish anywhere decent.

[Syrellaris]

lol, not an issue. If I get hit by a caltrop near the beginning of a race I just afk the rest of it because theres not a chance in hell I can finish anywhere decent.

I've had matches with multiple players(and even npc's) hitting me with Briar, sometimes twice in a row and I still manage to end in the top 3. Like I said, they are a pain but it is something you can deal with pretty easy. Yes sometimes it might be hard to avoid, but it can be avoided even in the small pathways.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

And how does one avoid it in a narrow path?