Help with this game mechanic conundrum?

News & General Discussion
1

So I have a racing type game with pickups. Up to 6 players can race. Pickups include boosting speed, and weapons.

Problem is, whoever is in front of the race will get all the pickups! Which means they will progressively get further in the lead.

Any ideas how to solve this?

1 Like
2

Only able to hold one pickup at a time?

3

I think that might solve one problem. Although it might look strange if the player is driving over a pickup and nothing happens? And still the first driver has an advantage of getting the pickup first…

Also, I have things like jewels which give you extra points and extra speed. Not sure what do about these… I have to keep them in because they’re in all the trailers but I could change what they do…

4

Why not do what Mario Cart does and have a chain of pickups that grant a random powerup/weapon? You place them in a line so one player cannot run over more than 2/3 at a time, and have the ones that are taken re-spawn after a short time.

5

A line across the track? That sounds like a good idea. I think I’ll only be able to fit 3 in a line. But that might be OK.

Another thought I had was just make the pickups not disppear as you pass over them. But maybe just spin or something… but then you might just keep driving back over the same diamond to get infinite points! (I guess I could limit the points you get from each pickup by tagging it. So you only get points the first time).

6

Spawn pickups tied to a player. Each player only sees their pickups. That I think is the ideal for an online mp game. If it is a huddle around keyboard multiplayer (which I highly doubt with up to 6 people) use color coding so each person can easily tell which pus are theirs.

7

With spawnable item boxes across the track (like Mario Kart), each one has a higher percent chance to give you something relevant to your position. For instance, last place players will be more likely to get good powerups that help them get back into the middle of the race, while first place players have a higher chance to receive weaker items, but ones that help maintain their position.

This doesn’t really tie into one player getting all the power-ups, as your question asks, but more along the lines of keeping the race fun and fair by limiting 1st places potential to gain a huge lead.

1 Like
8

Place pickups in hard to reach locations which will put the lead position at risk. For example, at the outer edge of a sharp turn. Alternatively make items drop from unreachable area after leading car has passed.

2 Likes
9

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Study Mario Kart - tweak their ideas to fit with your own.
Gigi

3 Likes
10

This. Here are some specifics

  • Power ups were placed in a line, as long as you weren’t following directly then you could always get one
  • Power ups were far more powerful if you were behind
  • Only one power up could be carried at a time
11

Blue shells.

2 Likes
12

Similarly to placing pickups across the track in a line, you could add other geometry that affects the race such as ramps that give you speed boosts or the ability to leapfrog someone in front. If there’s a pickup next to a ramp, one player might choose the pickup while another chooses the ramp.

1 Like
13

Don’t despawn the pickup when you drive over it.

14

lols make the lead car spawn pickups out its back lols

1 Like
15

That’d be innovative.

16

Snowballing is always an issue in gaming. You also have to be careful about punishing the leader too much, because then you will have situations where players will learn strategy of staying in the pack just to get a better power-up and then only really compete in the last stage of the race. I personally hate games where the best strategy to win seems counter to the way the game is played.

For your situation, I would just go with player-only power-ups where each player has to maneuver to get their power-up, but the power-ups can not be exhausted by the leader, nor are there any differences in the actual power-ups.

2 Likes
17

Happens in real racing all the time. The best stategy often is to sit behind the leader, then put on a burst during the final sprint.

Sitting behind the leader is often better in terms of air resistance, fuel efficiency ect. Or in Mario Karts, not getting shot in the back.

18

You know, I almost was going to talk about restricter plate racing ( Daytona and Taladadega)… but yeah… exactly my point… people like those two tracks because of the wrecks that always happen because cars are forced into a pack, but the actual racing is horrible… 2.5 hours of worthless laps followed by 15 minutes of everything that matters. I hated watching them because at the time, my favorite driver actually purposefully stayed behind the pack to avoid getting caught up in the mess. So for 2.5 hours I would watch my driver in 40th position driving like my grandma because nothing the leaders could do could put the race out of reach for him. But that is only for restricter plate races, the majority of races the leader can pull away.

But it makes my point. Games where you artificially restrict the leader and boost the losers can go overboard to where the majority of your game feels meaningless…

2 Likes