Far too much RNG in Chocobo racing

[RyuujinZERO]

tl;dr Too much RNG in chocobo racing makes it extremely frustrating. Frustration is not good gameplay



I understand the importance of items in order to tip the balance, and allow weaker racers a chance to win, instead of the fastest and strongest winning race after race.

But as the racing level increases victory increasingly comes down to pure RNG - where a single action will render all the effort in the world useless.Common scenarios include:

• 2-3 meteors appear in a chest simultaneously, essentially eliminating every racer ahead of that chest.
• A particularly aggressive racer gets caltrops, and proceeds to rail his opponent.
• An already strong racer gets a hero potion. (I win button)

The main problem stems from some of the abilities being far too strong. If you get railed with caltrops you're basically out of the race in a single RNG action. Likewise, meteors are already crazy strong without dealing stamina damage; multiple meteors chained together - like caltrops, will destroy you, and are even more unavoidable.

I think those skills are salvagable mind you, but they need some tweaks:

Caltrops:
These are foremost an area-denial tool, if you have caltrops up it's very hard for opponents to try grab chests or plates you are shielding with it; in this regard it's perfect, reducing the damage dealt would make it less effective in this role and I don't think we want that. The Problem with caltrops, stems form the fact you can chase after people with it and deal massive damage by railing them (approaching 30-40%) and use it offensively, and the only counter-skill to it, is almost pure RNG (finding a tablet to weather it, or shoes to sprint out of it)

Possible suggestions (Either/or, not all at once ):

• Have caltrops "fall off" if the user changes lane, making it an area denial tool, not a weapon.
• Lock the user into their current lane, achieving same effect as above suggestion, if it's not mechanically possible.
• Totally change the mechanism to one that can be avoided (ie leaving a briar "land mine" behind the user)

Meteor:
Yeah I get it, this is the blue shell, it allows riders at the back to hurt everyone else up the list and take lead. But even the blue shell is avoidable, meteors are not. The real problem with the meteor IMo is that it deals stamina damage. By being nigh unvoidable, and dealing stamina damage, it becomes possible for multiple meteor hits to deal fatal damage, and, there's nothign more frustrating than being taken out the race by an ability you had no means of avoiding.

Suggestions (Either/or, not all at once ):

• Remove stamina damage from meteors. Lamed already serves the role admirably of letting people catch up.
• Give riders a way to avoid the attack, like you can blue shells.
• Keep the damage, but limit meteors to 1 drop per race, so you don't get a chain of 3 that murders the racers.

In summary, items are a critical part of games of this genre, but skills that can destroy a player's chances of winning in a single action and can only be avoided through RNG are a source of immense frustration, not fun. Within the Balmung racing linkshell, it's pretty much a universal opinion that meteor and caltrops need to be reworked, I'm curious if other servers feel the same way.


EDIT: Further thoughts
After a little thought and discussion, it seems there should be equitable pull and push between the skills. If a buff allows a racer to gain 3 seconds on the other racers, then the counterpart debuff should cause them to lose 3 seconds on the group. If an attack skill wipes 15% off your stamina bar, then a healing potion should restore 15%. In this way buff/debuffs, provide pull and push, rather than outright wiping out a racer or rendering them uncatchable.

EDIT EDIT: And of course let's not forget our dear fair weather chocobos, this needs a fix ASAP

[MomomiMomi]

I'd be fine with these changes as long as they make Graviball and Bacchus's Water better. These two items being so weak gives the person in first way too much control over second place getting any good items.

Maybe make Graviball 6 second duration and have it prevent sprint for its duration.

Bacchus's Water increase 1.25-1.5x stamina drain.

[RyuujinZERO]

I agree there. Bacchus water borders on just uncontrolled acceleration for all the "damage" it does, and graviball is very short and can be powered through fairly easily; further highlights the imbalance really between skills like caltrops that can take a contender out in a single hit, and skills like graviball that scarcely ever have an appreciable effect on the outcome of the race.

[RobinRethiel]

I agree to you. There is too much RNG in this game a whole and you literally feel it in Chocobo racing, because you got such less control. You can't really break. Rain destroys a fair weather chocobo, so it becomes almost impossible to escape caltrops from non effected chocobos. Especially in higher tiers, the luck with items plays an even bigger role, because there are a whole bunch of Super NPC enemies. So without the right items and weather you simply can not compete.

Of course, you always get XP, but the problem is, when you lose many races because (for example):
- wrong weather (you can't do anything against it)
- meteors (you can't do anything against it)
- 100% bad luck with items (only get those pointless slow and frenzy items, while the NPCs all the sprint shoes, potions and so on - and you can't do anything against it)

I really like those traps, because you can use them, avoid them, they are a real part of gameplay. But when you simply got bad luck the 100th time, it becomes demotivating. And I'm not alone with this. It's hard to tell, but there are seldom many people on my server at chocobo square and it is one with the most players.

edit:
After doing higher R-Rank Races for a while I can clearly say:
You have to LOVE RNG to like Chocobo Racing.

1. You need a near perfect chocobo to even have chance. How to gain such a chocobo? By RNG, of course.
2. You are lucky with that, but it's a fair weather chocobo? Have fun. The game will **** you with rain, reducing your stats to that of a 1-star chocobo, whenever it likes.
3. You are lucky with that? Have fun with tons of races you can't win, because all you get are the worthless items, while all those (of course also 4-Star-) NPC Chocobos will trash you around with their lucky picks.
3b. In addition, the game likes to cheat you, so somehow this chocobo behind you gets your item and you his shitty one or you simply don't get it at all, even if you are running straight on the right lane.
4. You are still lucky, got the right weather in the race and some good items, so you may win this race? Wait a second. Weather change! There goes your speed and stamina, while they even run with 0,5% past you.
4b. Weather change is also very likely combined with caltrops spam from the NPC and since you are a sitting duck, because the rain somehow broke the legs of your chocobo...
5. What? You got a foul weather chocobo or enough distance to them? Okay, METEORSTORM! 1-4 Meteorstorms hit (and this is NOT exaggerated or seldom!), take all your stamina and of course the NPC are STILL faster than you, even when also hit.
6. You were lucky, everything went fine and nothing bad of this list happened? Congratulation, you won the RNG chocobo lottery. This time. See you next race from point 3 and when you reach Rank 40, begin at 1 again.

It's clear, that someone at Square wanted to put some parts of Mario Kart into Chocobo Race, but this is obviously not Mario Kart and it does not work that way.

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Meteors can be blocked with a Hero Tonic, but...yeah that's RNG too. I don't mind meteors, but I DO mind when an item box has multiple meteors in a row. That's an equivalent of having 5 thunderbolts from Mario Kart going off at once.

[RyuujinZERO]

Yeah, caltrops can be blocked with tablets too. But, the answer to being one-shot killed shouldn't never be "More RNG"

[Angelusdemonus]

....and skills like graviball that scarcely ever have an appreciable effect on the outcome of the race.

Graviballs are very effective in the later rating races, because it always drops your speed extremely low. They shouldn't be changed unless you alter them for races under R120.

[RyuujinZERO]

Graviballs are very effective in the later rating races, because it always drops your speed extremely low. They shouldn't be changed unless you alter them for races under R120.

Ah I see, so it sets your speed to a fixed value rather than by a quantity, they do need to change that value then to make them useful in lower tier races. As you can imagine it's incredibly frustrating when you have people getting multiple sprint shoes in a race, but you're only getting graviballs, which do not have a nearly equitable result.

Seems like there should be parity; if shoes makes you move faster, allowing racer X to gain 3 seconds on the group, then graviball should make racer X lose 3 seconds on the group.

[Camate]

Hello, everyone!

Thanks for all the Chocobo Racing-related feedback. We’re currently at work making a variety of balance adjustments, so hang on just a bit longer!

In addition to balance adjustments, we’re also planning to lower the MGP cost of certain chocobo-related items, and we’ll be looking into whether we can setup a system so that you can change the color of your racing chocobos.

[Autumnfire]

Hello, everyone!

Thanks for all the Chocobo Racing-related feedback. We’re currently at work making a variety of balance adjustments, so hang on just a bit longer!

In addition to balance adjustments, we’re also planning to lower the MGP cost of certain chocobo-related items, and we’ll be looking into whether we can setup a system so that you can change the color of your racing chocobos.

WOOHOO! =D