Topic: Mario Kart Ranking System Change -- Anyone really notice?

Came across this gem on Kotaku (not sure if this should go in the mass Mario Kart thread, or not; moderators feel free to move it)
http://kotaku.com/the-small-weird-way-nintendo-changed-mario-...

For those who don't want to read, it basically examines a potentially lost change to the online Mario Kart experience. Other than the fact that I recently played against someone with 15000 VR, I really hadn't noticed a difference.

I personally thought it was too easy to stack up points in the previous version, so it's a much welcome change. But again I don't care too much because there's no actual reward for reaching a certain VR number so it's all narcissism. It would have been really nice if you could unlock more stamps like NES Remix.

But there's something I don't understand: many people on that article are complaining that sometimes they arrive in second and get 0 points, or they arrive in third and lose points. How is it possible? I mean, the picture clearly shows that the top-6 get points and the bottom-6 lose points. Can anybody explain?

I did notice, and I did notice a LOT or people is complaining...

but honestly? I like this way better, since you must really earn VR points, you must be good at this game to earn VR points, that way makes it more competitive

I haven't played Mario Kart online since the Wii, and only barely. The way they're complaining kind of reminds me of Call of Duty, though. Last weekend, my brother and I played Call of Duty: Ghosts for the first time, and I was forced by him and my friend to play multiplayer first. So clearly we're level 1 scrubs, but there was one game in particular where it was us, a level 13 (or so), a level 26, and five people level 56-60. Those five high levels got grouped together versus us low levels (and we were destroyed, obviously. I'm really bad at that game). So, based on all that complaining, it sounds like MK8's matchmaking is just as unfair and wonky as CoD. Well, I don't play MK8 online, so it doesn't matter to me, but I bet it's not a lot of fun for the ones that do.

MK8 online is great fun.

The Mario Kart rating fails in what it should do :

Make sure the people playing together are similarly skilled. I have only ever played once against a really skilled player. (Winning every race with me in second but by between half and three quarters of a lap).

How is it possible? I mean, the picture clearly shows that the top-6 get points and the bottom-6 lose points. Can anybody explain?

Points are awarded based on your finish position and your RELATIVE ranking. Yesterday i ended as #3 in a 12 kart race but all the other racers were ranked a lot lower than me so i got +0 points. OTOH: if you beat racers with substantially higher ranking, you will get a lot more points. And if you come in behind lower ranked racers you can lose a lot of points.

So you would rather not be able to play if there weren't any matches in your ranking range?

@Mk_II ok, cheers. So basically the system now prevents players from stacking up points by beating inferior players and rewards them when they beat players of their rank or superior. If I get it correctly, it's exactly the opposite of what @Yoshi_Prime said about CoD: even if you go against incredibly experienced players, you get the chance of ending up getting more points than them.

unless I can't see the elephant in the room, sounds like an almost literal example of "balance" to me.

I don't think that is the case right now.

I would certainly rather wait a minute.

Well it definitely seems that people were just used to their massive VR scores and are now upset that they're losing points because of the new system.

One thing that someone on that other website said that I agree with is that Nintendo should have started everyone over at zero. That way, it would have been balanced from the beginning.

The other day I beat someone who was at 15000 (I'm at 3200) and I gained around 50 points. I didn't even have to come in first, I just finished ahead of him.

I will say that I've noticed that I've been racing against people who are all over the place in terms of VR. In that same race with the 15000 guy, there were a few 1000-2000s. Didn't seem too fair, because they were stomped (yet still earned some points).

If it was designed well it would balance out with only a few hours play.

With All Stars Racing : Transformed or the Chess thing I sometimes play online even if I play blind drunk and mess it up completely it resets if I play sober the next day.

Then you need to play more. I don't have as much time for Mario Kart anymore but i can say with great confidence that i am very good at that game given how much i played previous instalments and after i got around 5000 points i started playing against groups of people where the guy who came in last one race would win the next, very rarely have i ever encountered anyone so good that they could win more than a few matches in a row. When i've had races where i came in the bottom 5 i have a very hard time believing anyone can be sooo good that they win every match, i can improve at 8 quite a bit but my base Kart skills are very good and i'm challenged at a rating that isn't even that high. I still do win more often than not at my rating but Mario Kart is just too random to win every race if the competition is at least reasonable and there's a near full roster racing.

Are the racers really good or are they teaming up to bombard you with items the moment you pass them?

@spizzamarozzi - The balance is indeed perfect, that's not the problem. The issue is playing people with the same points as me or higher is very rare. The match ratings as all over the place. I'm on about 8500 pts, when I finish up 2nd and 3rd I end up losing out.

@VolcanoFlamesNL - I've always had a saying and that's 'NO PLANS 4 CLANS' You are unfortunately correct IMO. I spend half my time playing MK8, picking on clans that team up against other racers. I hate this gang culture with have with on-line games.

The main problem is the design which for me is designed to remove fun as much as possible. Getting lucky is no fun whatsoever for me.

I don't mind losing to a better player in fact I wish that happened every single time. Much more incentive to care about improving.