I haven't played much of the wave 4 dlc since it was released at 2am for me, but to my understanding Nintendo buffed the speed and weight of the characters lighter than waluigi in, what I can only assume to be, an attempt to level the playing field. I doubt this change alone will do anything except change which combo that is deemed the best and then it will dominate the meta, but maybe there will be more variation I don't know. I do wonder what the motivation for the changes are though, does Nintendo aim to make mario kart a competitive game in which ever character vehicle combination is viable? Or are these changes merely an attempt to please the causal crowd complaining that they see too many people using waluigi wiggler in worldwive races?
Either way I don't see how this would solve anything. Let's begin with the first alternative that Nintendo has a vision of mario kart as a competitive game. The first issue I see is that there are a tremendous amount of different combinations you could use even accounting for the character vehicle parts that have the same stats. How in the world would you balance that while keeping the unique characteristics for each vehicle part/character, I think it would be very hard if not impossible considering how much acceleration (since it's tied to miniturbo) matter compared to other stats. The second most important stat probably would be speed and then handling and weight comes after that but the gaps between all these are rather large. Not to mention that some parts are based around the grip stat which just doesn't matter nearly as much as the other, these part probably should be deleted if instead of trying to be balanced. The only approach I can imagine would be to do precisely what Nintendo has started doing, to buff the objectively worse part until everything is equal. But at that point everything could be thought of as reskins and people would just use their favourite characters (perhaps just what they want). If this continues I predict that we will end up at more or less the same place only that wiggler, buggybud and scooty would be replaced by other vehicle parts and the waluigi weightclass would be replaced with something else. However at that point there would be no noticeable variety in the meta and different play-styles that are equally viable you would want to see in a competitive game (inward doesn't count because it specialises in the same stats).
If Nintendo just wants to please the causal community by this i believe they will be disappointed because a new character/weightclass and new vehicles will be deemed the most viable that then that will simply "pester" their worldwide races and in the end nothing will have changed. Therefore Nintendo would have to keep going down this road and further try to equalise the stats to push people towards their favourite characters. Ultimately we would end up in the same situation as previously concluded.
My conclusion is that whatever nintendo is trying to do is that it will not work because trying to balance a game that rewards one stat (accelration/miniturbo) so much more than the other for 48 characters and who know how many vehicle parts is just not feasible. What nintendo does will just lead us to a very similar meta situation as we had before the update was released or essensially all meaningful difference between combinations would have to be erased. If Nintendo truly wants a mario kart in which all combinations are equally viable they should just try to do that in mk9 but i believe that would require much less room for vehicle and character customisation, for example 8 characters and 3-6 vehicles each could be feasible, that wouldn't really feel like mario kart though. Perhaps we are just the lab rats for the mk9 that will come (copium).
Maybe many of my assumptions have been incorrect. Please write your thoughts to nuance the topic.
I don't want to talk about how this affects TTs because that's an whole other issue.
Either way I don't see how this would solve anything. Let's begin with the first alternative that Nintendo has a vision of mario kart as a competitive game. The first issue I see is that there are a tremendous amount of different combinations you could use even accounting for the character vehicle parts that have the same stats. How in the world would you balance that while keeping the unique characteristics for each vehicle part/character, I think it would be very hard if not impossible considering how much acceleration (since it's tied to miniturbo) matter compared to other stats. The second most important stat probably would be speed and then handling and weight comes after that but the gaps between all these are rather large. Not to mention that some parts are based around the grip stat which just doesn't matter nearly as much as the other, these part probably should be deleted if instead of trying to be balanced. The only approach I can imagine would be to do precisely what Nintendo has started doing, to buff the objectively worse part until everything is equal. But at that point everything could be thought of as reskins and people would just use their favourite characters (perhaps just what they want). If this continues I predict that we will end up at more or less the same place only that wiggler, buggybud and scooty would be replaced by other vehicle parts and the waluigi weightclass would be replaced with something else. However at that point there would be no noticeable variety in the meta and different play-styles that are equally viable you would want to see in a competitive game (inward doesn't count because it specialises in the same stats).
If Nintendo just wants to please the causal community by this i believe they will be disappointed because a new character/weightclass and new vehicles will be deemed the most viable that then that will simply "pester" their worldwide races and in the end nothing will have changed. Therefore Nintendo would have to keep going down this road and further try to equalise the stats to push people towards their favourite characters. Ultimately we would end up in the same situation as previously concluded.
My conclusion is that whatever nintendo is trying to do is that it will not work because trying to balance a game that rewards one stat (accelration/miniturbo) so much more than the other for 48 characters and who know how many vehicle parts is just not feasible. What nintendo does will just lead us to a very similar meta situation as we had before the update was released or essensially all meaningful difference between combinations would have to be erased. If Nintendo truly wants a mario kart in which all combinations are equally viable they should just try to do that in mk9 but i believe that would require much less room for vehicle and character customisation, for example 8 characters and 3-6 vehicles each could be feasible, that wouldn't really feel like mario kart though. Perhaps we are just the lab rats for the mk9 that will come (copium).
Maybe many of my assumptions have been incorrect. Please write your thoughts to nuance the topic.
I don't want to talk about how this affects TTs because that's an whole other issue.