Rollerbeetle Racing Top Score Analysis

So what your saying is you spent the weekend playing a mini game in a dead game in order to write a giant wall of text, good work.

In other words, he enjoyed himself.

Guild Wars is hardly dead, in fact I think the last month I've seen an increase. I started a new character and actually pugged quite a few Prophecies missions. It was actually refreshing playing with people who weren't obsessing over optimal builds and trying to play my character for me.

Too bad, they'll become hopelessly jaded like the rest of the player base Miss the good ol' days of FoW, UW, and The Deep runs where as long as you did your job nobody gave a damn what was on your bar.

Bah, you "racers" locked on getting the mini make RBR no fun. ANET never should have put the mini in there as a reward. A majority of players are so geared in on the reward that it is not fun. Everyone complains about KD's and leaves when they cannot get an OPTIMAL run, F%$@ that, it is a game and is meant to FUN. All this dissection and emphasis on the racing portion has removed the FUN. When you have to do the same thing at the same freaking time every time you have removed the enjoyment from the game.

Basically this is how this plays out:

Oh crap I got KD out of the first box, oh well game over, Oh crap I am the wrong color, oh well game over. Oh crap I lagged, oh well game over, oh crap i did not get echo and a super, oh well game over. Oh crap I got a KD, oh well game over. Oh crap I got body blocked, oh well game over. Oh crap I activated the skill at the wrong time, oh well game over. Oh crap XXXX is in the race with his guild mates, oh well game over. Even better I will race on TWO accounts to increase my chances for the wrong color/lag/starting position/not getting the right skills. Bring on the good times!

IMO RBR is way more fun when it is played as PVP Battle. crawling up the last hill battling for first place is a blast. Going for an out of the way box so you can blast the guy ahead of you is enjoyable. Nailing someone from way across the map with spit rocks is more fun than pressing the same button on the same skill at the same spot. Flying down the final steps with one or two players next to you is exciting!

ANET bring back the fun and remove greased lighting as a reward.

Failure to finish the run has little to do with the reward for a top 100 time itself, and everything to do with the fact that there are multiple reward systems.

Some people just want to win each race.
Some people want to post the top overall time, independent of whether they get anything for doing so.
Some people want to post as many top 100 times as possible.

You could in principle collapse the third group into the second group by removing the prize. But you're not going to strip away the competition for the top overall time without taking the leaderboard down. If you're fighting to get the top overall time, finishing runs that are already shot is inefficient.

The basic problem with neck-and-neck racing at the end is that it comes down to who got what from the boxes. KDs are always most potent if you save them for certain spots late in the race, and the worst spots to eat a Lunge are also at the end.

Don't think I ever mentioned not finishing a run???

Do not want to strip away competition and remove the fun. Battling for third place can be fun. Going from last place to second is fun. Everyone should want to win the battle and come in first. If I come in first with a 430 time it is because their was a massive and fun battle involved. If people want to flood the leaderboard with their name go for it. Removing the mini does not remove playing the leaderboard. Removing the mini does remove the singular need for posting the top 100 times on the board this is the focus of a majority of players.

This is no problem with neck and neck racing, it is fun exactly for the reason you state. If you get a lunge and I get a blast, do you manage to lunge me before I blast you or vice versa. The strategy you mention makes the game fun.

I know I am in the minority on this, and far be it from me to impose how to play the game on anyone. It is just my opinion that the game would be more enjoyable without the glittery reward that drives the need to post the best time. The consensus is that if you KD someone you are a noob or a griefer and then you have to endure the whining about how this is a race.

You say it like nobody is going to find enjoyment in finding the fastest way to the finish line, or the best way to ensure you get first place in each race, and that the only real motivation that exists to play the game besides for "fun" is the miniature reward, and not the Gamer points, the faction, or just the game itself.

12/10, please get the hell out.

RBR was fun when there wasn't a Greased Lightning reward for the top 100 at the end of the Canthan New Year? Gee, when was that? Oh, right - never.

"Oh well, game over" clearly implies that the run has lost its utility when these events happen. At that point some people quit trying. The behavior logically follows from your premise. I apologize for not explicitly making the connection. I thought the connection was extremely clear.

And again, stripping the prize isn't going to change that for players that just want to post the top time overall. Most of the players legitimately racing for beetles also race to post the top time overall during Birthday and Dragon Festival. All stripping the prize would do is transform CNY into being just like those events.

We'll still yell at you and be upset if you wreck a top time. You've wasted hours of someone's time when you do that, due to the infrequency of getting a hyper-clean start and the needed speed boosts to post the top time overall.

There is no strategy. There is an optimal spot to use each one. One results in the loss of more time than the other. The end. I'm sorry that you think there is legitimate strategy to it, but there just isn't. It's an elementary game theory problem.

You are a noob or a griefer...at least from the perspective of racing for a top score. Doesn't make you bad at GW.

You're still an ass if someone is about to post a top time and you deliberately KD them. What do you gain by doing this? If someone hangs a 484 on you, you weren't finishing anyway unless you lucked out and got a super for crossing the water...in which case you don't NEED to KD the player in front to finish and collect your Gamer points. Irrespective, you weren't going to win, so there's no call to screw over the other guy.

There are only two arguments for the KD. One is if you have a weak time at the bottom of the top 100 and you think you can save it by breaking a couple of other players' top 100 runs. The other is if you just enjoy hurting other people you don't even know. I can understand the former. If the latter is true, please take one for the team and uninstall life now. Thanks.

Tullzinski,
just accept the fact that there are (and always will be) COMPETITIVE players, who want to be better than the others, whether its RBR, title hunting(even crazy grinding) or RL. Just because the way to post a top score is monotonous, doesn't mean that players shouldn't try to make a top 100. There will always be players who want to be better than others, as well as those who play for "fun" ("ahaha i blasted that guy"). Believe me, those who are more competitive also have their fun. You shouldn't try to get a reward removed just because you don't care about it. Go protest against the Winter Games while you're at it, i bet it ain't "fun" at all either.

@shayne, what I am saying is that after the 200th run how is it fun anymore? Are the majority of people doing PVP or trying for the mini?

@martin, I get it now, sorry. Same question to you are the majority of people doing PVP or trying for the mini? When you mention racing from the top score perspective (the mini) RBR is no longer a PVP battle. KD are tools to help a gamer to finish in the best place possible. However it is clear that you view KD as something that wrecks a top time when used and that anyone that uses them is an asshole. This is the attitude that I have the biggest problem with. This is a PVP battle, people are SUPPOSED to use those skills to stop the people ahead of them.

If I let the guy ahead of me run clean then it is no longer a PVP Battle. Am I supposed to let the guy run a present back to the avatar even if our team is down and may lose anyway?

Perhaps you may want to unistall for life, you may be so jaded in posting the top 100 score you are blinded to the fact that there is alot of fun in RBR even if you do not come in first or post a top 100 score.

@Drake, Huh??? What is more competitve than a PVP Battle? What I am saying is that lets have some more actual PVP Battle and less monotonous racing for the mini.

You are still missing a couple of key points:

1) There are multiple ways to compete. It's still PvP. The dimension of competition just varies. I'm competing with Yuri, Lain, Pol, Tanniz, Ewok, Shayne, et al. for the overall top time. I also like Gamer points, so I usually finish runs. But sometimes I'm just mentally tired and can't be bothered.

2) Using the KD is fine. It's when the KD doesn't gain you anything that it's griefing. It's no different than joining AB matches to edge bomb your own team. You get nothing from it other than the prospective pleasure of making someone else mad.

If you're using your KDs before late in the race, you're incompetent. They are much more effective (especially in succession) to kill an opponent's momentum late when the distance between checkpoints becomes great and there are not spots to recover lost momentum naturally. This is really why people get mad if you KD them before the water boxes. You're not gaining anything if they combo (you still lose), and you're not helping yourself as much as you could by saving the KDs if they do not combo.

If you've already lost, you lost. Let it go. If you're down 4-0 in 4v4 Snowball Arenas, you might as well run the last one to their avatar for them and get a new match all the sooner. You're just wasting everyone's time at that point if you continue to hassle the runner of the last gift. If it's 3-2, then you should absolutely fight on. But if you're getting blown out, then fighting does nothing but waste seven other players' time.

You are ignoring human nature. You are assuming that the only thing that matters is the win or the loss (whether that win is in the match or in the top 100 score). Remove that assumption and every bit of your argument falls apart.

Funnily enough, the late discussion about the tension caused by the 2modes-in1 of RBR is illustrated by Ram: text says it's about KDing (mode 1: PvP, i.e. win spot #1 in the game) while in practice it's also an essential speedboost (mode 2: fullspeed, i.e. win spot in top100). Fundamentally no one is right or wrong, it's a matter of taste.

Tullzinski: the problem is that the "PvP mentality" of using bonuses to stop adversaries is wrong: if you want to win, you'll be more successful by driving your beetle as fast as possible rather than making the other beetles as slow as possible. This is very clear with Ram for example, used in the right places it earns you precious seconds, whereas you're likely to use it in the wrong places if you solely concentrate on stopping your adversaries. Sure the blast is always going to give you the edge, but it will most importantly distract you from having a nice trajectory and avoid loosing precious time. I've been kd'd countless times and the only time when it prevented me to reach a winning spot was when the same player kd'd me in succession, but then he forfeited his chance to get a good winning spot. Sure there have been some fun games where 3 or 4 beetles were shoulders to shoulders, but there's a good reason why people in the top100 are there. And as much as kd is here to be used, so are echo+SRBs to get a top score.

I am not ignoring human nature. I am assuming the following:

1) People dislike spending their time for no gain.
2) People are capable of mapping their actions onto outcomes.

If #2 is not true, then by Locke's definition you are an idiot. If you are an idiot, you are stripped of all social rights in Western society. I've got a colleague that's on about this issue (she thinks what we do to such unfortunates is morally unjustifiable). But in practice, the vast majority of human beings are completely capable of making the following causal connection:

action -> outcome

To state that to assume #2 ignores human nature is ridiculous. Ditto on #1. The KD on a top 100 run affects the observed outcome in no way. You still lose, and you still don't collect Gamer points. In fact, you hurt yourself by making a capable enemy...that probably knows other capable prospective enemies as well.

So to KD someone that far out in front means one of two things:
a) you're griefing
b) you're incapable of mapping actions onto outcomes

Some of the opponents are actually not smart enough to realize they cannot catch you if you're 30s ahead of everyone else, but a large majority get enjoyment out of seeing other players rage.

I see it as the same as ganking in hall of heroes. Typically, when one team cannot win or does not like another team, they gank to ensure another team comes down with them.

In the former case, I have only pity.

The latter case is where I request that they uninstall life. Or age a couple of years and outgrow it, in the right age range.

This.

Also OP, there is a z-axis. You might be right about the coding involved in the maps and such, and that there is truely a lack of a z-axis where it matters the most, but.. if GW had no z-axis, bows would shoot very differently. Ever shoot at something with a bow from up on a hill? Huge ass range.

I guess one of the ideas expressed here that I find fairly short sighted and entirely douchey is that if you aren't going to win, you may as well give up and concede defeat and just let the winners win big. Um, that just sounds like bullshit to me.

This doesn't happen in other sports outside of maybe in baseball where they don't play out the last inning of an unwinnable game. If an NFL team has no prospect of making it to the playoff games, then they should just lie down and let their opponents just run up the score and break records? Why not? They aren't going to win. I guess then that the regular season losers are nooby griefers if they don't let the playoff bound teams win big... riiiiggght...

opposing teams actually do allow this to happen. if a record is close to being broke and the other team is in a position where they cannot gain anything, they often concede (because their wallets are filled by paying viewers).

also its a good chance to put on the 3rd string or rookie players so they can get some experience. anyway, the analogy doesn't work.

One and only one thing will balance rollerbeatle racing: Remove SRB! That way it will indeed require skill to get to the top 100.