Son-icka

Yup. I completely agree on this. High expectations on track with a disappointing payoff - thankfully the characters, skins, karts and wheel sets and colours make up for it - I want most of this stuff this time. It’s a complete 180 on the last Dino GP - low expectations but got an AMAZING track, little to no interest in any of the characters or skins though. Hopefully Nina’s Night ride will be a more balanced affair overall. But then a lot of this will be subjective to what individual players look forward too. Everyone has varying interests on different aspects of the franchise. Beyond the Original trilogy and playing a little of both Wrath and Twinsanity... I have little affiliation beyond the Naughty Dog years. A good and bad thing I guess - no expectations, but I will miss the details and references included for diehard fans.

I... I actually really like Spyro Circuit. I will happily admit that wasn’t very impressed with this back on release though, and there are still plenty of missed opportunities with the scope and portal to portal locations. If anything the big bug bear for me was that the Artisans outdoors section should have been treated more openly than be constricted, like how Nintendo dealt with MK8’s Hyrule Field section of its circuit. But, a week of play has given it some newfound appeal. The track is definitely not long enough considering the legacy character, but I do have an appreciation for CTR’s short and tight track design variety that crop up - and this falls into that category nicely. There’s enough going on to keep online races exciting throughout with plenty of traps and hazards - this mixed with no sacred fire opportunities (unless you have the right set of items or conditions) is excellent as then speedsters don’t dominate. Yes - the blindness to a Nitro Box or Potion being laid directly at the exit of the portal is devious... but on the flip side YOU feel a huge sense of self gratification when YOU are the one placing it. I’m also grateful that the portals are designed in a way that even hitting the edge of it still takes you through than have you colliding to a stop. The wall respawn is an annoyance in the second section for sure, but this is what makes the shortcut an excellent risk/reward situation. If you could clip the edge without issue on landing everyone would be doing it without a fret. I cant speak to any other respawn sections or invisible walls on the track however as I’ve yet to come across this issue myself. But yeah, would be great to have a lengthier track next time.

Interesting stuff! At this point it’s pretty much a monthly thing with no breaks then until Christmas I guess then? A general festival/carnival theme for GP5 would make sense - November doesn’t hold anything specific I can think of beyond Bonfire Night with Fireworks Festivities - but that’s a UK tradition and then you have thanksgiving in the US. GP6 (because this will undoubtably happen) is obviously going to be Christmas Related, with Santa style outfits for the Bandicoot teams and elf costumes for the Norm characters no doubt. Beyond this I wonder how much more support the title will receive in terms of updates and GP’s?

So, I've been experimenting the past couple of weeks and have discovered you can get a 4th day of Wumpa and Weekend Bonus coin time. I think part of this may come down to the Weekend Bonus starting later than it should. We know this apparently impacts regular Wumpa time whilst the game resets the perimeters on the first day (Friday) and comes at the cost of the players Wumpa time being wasted until they are both active. So, here's the exploit for that if you can hold off until weekend time activates. I can confirm that the Weekend bonus lasts a full 7 hours past your daily clock reset on the final day (Sunday). This will likely vary from region to region, so to give my example; 1AM UK time is the daily reset for items and Wumpa Time (except Friday as explained above). Now, the Weekend Bonus won't deactivate until 8AM on Monday BUT the Wumpa Time still resets as usual at 1AM. So you have an extra 7 hours to grind some easy big payouts. I'd just like to say that admittedly every single time I try to stand a case in Pro of Activision/Beenox or even joke around it... that I do end up falling on the opposite side of my own argument. Ultimately I'm attempting defend a game that I enjoy rather than the scummy practices surrounding it - but yes, you're right that I'm probably giving them more credit than they deserve, and am ignorant to their previous works. Whilst I do believe in general safety culture and player well-being standards, obviously no I have no certificate of proof that they employ anything of the sort that is mindful to gamer vulnerability. My previous example for 30 minutes of Wumpa time being a health positive? Yeah, scratch this. You're right that this makes little sense. Whilst I think that limited Wumpa time does stop excessive gaming... Nitro completely undoes that claim. The reality is that the entire issue could have been avoided altogether with constant fairer and higher coin output rate or a shop that isn't stingy with costs. I was trying to justify something good out of a system that arguably doesn't need to exist at all. Quite the minefield to justify anything I'm discovering. Grinding doesn't overly phase me too much because I really enjoy playing the game, the limited items in the Pit-Stop aren't a bug bear for me too. I can purchase what I want when I can. I'd love to get it all of course, but I don't think it's been designed to operate this way. This very much sucks for those that want everything - and obviously is a stressful endevour for others. Online could be better I guess, but as I've little to compare too with my own personal experience with online gaming I find myself a lot more forgiving than most. It's a shame that a game as brilliant as this with a developer like Beenox who clearly are passionate, has all this nonsense riddled throughout. Wishful thinking we'd get a GP break I guess. If anything I'm 100% in agreement that they need to slow the heck down. 3 months of having to play CTR every day to just about keep up... that's not possible for every gamer. Whilst I don't think I'd get fed up of CTR, I am admittedly exhausted. That IS interesting. So yeah, even the loyal will wain eventually then. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to keep this up and the game does aggressively engage me to keep playing because I have fun... but then that's obviously the point of what they are doing. At least they seem to be sticking to 3 characters per GP. I was definitely the most stressed out during the Nitro GP, and packs were too expensive in the Back N Time GP. They seem to have a better medium this time round, and hopefully will improve each GP. But if they could just reduce the prices of the skins (which should be 1000-1500 coins in general) alongside the stickers and tyres... then I'd be much happier.

Well, no, frankly... I wouldn’t necessarily be wrong per se on this. I probably should have been a bit clearer - because I’m not dismissing the other bad practises by any means - but they will have their own industry regulations and standard practises to meet. For balance, Activision would more than likely have to provide a pro-player stance on particular gaming fronts and player habits. This is a bit sketchy though as what may be a pro stance online isn’t offline, and vice versa. It’s also why there is 100 pages of disclaimer to sidle through when the game is first booted up - as this covers their respective asses. I’m just providing a potential pro-explanation for timed events and character reductions. I’m not going to excuse the other messes. Personally I feel the game does improve every update, maybe not by much. But then again what is considered by many to be a mess I just find to be a mild inconvenience a lot of the time. I think this is because I’m not an online player by choice usually, so I don’t really have the experience to tell the difference between what constitutes to good and bad servers and glitches etc... as per previous discussions. A months break would certainly we welcome though for most of the reasons you’ve suggested. And if the Halloween GP is incoming - hopefully this will be the case and they will start it at the end of October rather than leading up to it. They need to understand that the players won’t go anywhere - but they’ll probably abandon ship if pushed too hard... or purchase Wumpa coins instead. The latter more likely. 😂

Changed my mind on the Spyro Track. It’s still a bit too short but it’s actually really REALLY fun to race around online. Races so far have been incredibly frantic and tight because Blue Fire can’t be gained anywhere and there are plenty of obstacles to knock you around. Purchased the Gnasty Pack, Spyromobile, as well as the wheels, paint jobs etc... so off to a good start. Unlocked Spyro already like most... but then the Bronze Tier is always the quickest to grind (thank goodness) to get the main item you’d want. In retrospect of the talk of the reduction to only 3 characters per GP... it may have been the plan all along. I actually think this might be a good thing overall and could well have been something that was implemented to the players benefit to not let people burn out further from trying to unlock even more timed exclusive characters. We give them crap for the MTX and whatnot, but there is a much bigger emphasis on safety culture that’s undeniably present in this day and age as well. As I mentioned previously, it wouldn’t surprise me if the timed Wumpa multipliers are tied to health and safety protocols for promoting healthy screen-time.

It’s actually somewhat surprising they didn’t - or implement charge sections into the track as boost sections (like N Gin labs speed tunnel). Yeah, plenty of missed opportunities - or new opportunities for future GP’s tracks (or a full game).

I still suspect Spyro 2 and 3 tracks later down the line. But yeah there could have been a bit more representation of the realms considering the portals. My thought overall are this: Spyro Circuit is short, sweet, and very tight. HOWEVER, considering Spyro has his first track debut I expected something much longer than a 45 second lap. This makes it the shortest track of the GP’s so far. I think the Artisan part is spot on, but they may as well have not bothered with the Portals if they were only going to explore one other dragon realm, and the final section which is inside the caves - whilst a cool spectacle - was unnecessary at 5 seconds in length. I think this would have much worked better if it was just the Artisan Homeworld at this short a track, we could have dived through the hedge maze, over the grassy bumpy hills, and maybe even ended by flying through the Dragons Stone mouth portal to transfer us over to Doctor Shemp and back. Either this or lengthen the track to two extra sections from other realms. Still, the rest of the level Fan-service is so overboard and top tier that I can’t bemoan this too much. The overhaul of the title screen, the karts, colours, and stickers - I actually want all this stuff. The skins especially will actually make me want to play as characters I was never interested in before (super love the Gnome skin idea for velo too). Spyro seems oddly small in proportion when you see him in his Kart... but then he is a tiny dragon. Saying that... proportions of other characters don’t make much sense either (Coco —> Bandicoot Girls for example) so whatever. I am very happy they oddly made him the Heavy Character though, always my preference. Also appreciate Beenox/Activision not doing a 11,000 pack in the Pit Stop - it shows that they are listening to feedback considering it was a super unpopular move last time. Other small QOL updates are sweet as well. Looks like they are keeping the Super Engine and weapon adjustments in, and the slight improvements of the Online Lobby is nice too - I do really like the new angle on the Karts so you can see everyone now for example. The new challenges highlighted something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. We need Mirror Mode to be added online - this would give just that extra little bit of variety to the fun.

Gotcha. Well, I’ve never had 10 minutes to wait so that sucks. I’ll admit It is a tad annoying when you are playing in a good racing lobby and are thrown out. But yeah, sometimes the players glitch about the track or items don’t hit or my racing placement is mysteriously changed once I cross the finish line - usually not always in my favour. So that’s their server issue huh? I guess I’m too green to have noticed or let it phase me much 😂 I have to admit I quite enjoy when the game screws up - weather in the menus, or a track. Once I raced around N-Gin Labs no floor beneath me. And interesting challenge. It’s not good obviously though.

Could you explain the video to me? I’ve had this happen but I don’t understand the issue. Perhaps I’m ignorant for being new to playing online but I just come out of a lobby and go back on again if this happens then I’m attached to a new one again. Usually I’m out of a race for no longer than two minutes max. Should the process be faster or non-attach? I usually just presume there’s an issue with my or players connections for it to happen. ———— As for people not getting a fair deal for not playing online... don’t think anyone would suggest that they get a good deal. Players that choose to not play online or don’t have the ability to play online have the worst deal. I started off that way myself and it sucked to play 60 near identical races offline just to get a skin or character. The game was clearly designed for online grind or offline wumpa coin purchasers. Much more fun that way. But, I guess at the end of the day you have to appreciate everyone’s time commitments are different with playing to grind for items - this was never going to suit everybody and I do agree there is some masterminding behind pursuing and pressuring players to fork out more cash. Im clearly not a target for this, so I have no real issue about it. And whilst I agree it’s not great to grind in a racing game - apart from changing it to purchase only packs or releasing all this stuff for free...what else could they do? All this content is basically free anyway, and it’s stuff that never existed in the first original game. You can’t lock everything behind adventure mode and time attacks. At the end of the day the Coin grind is a fair compromise in my opinion. The multipliers alleviate a lot of the time consuming play - and on a positive flipside these also incentivise breaks to take from the game - the daily 5x multiplier is 30 minutes in game - imagine if it was forever - not good. But we also get x2 multiplier for a 3 days weekend AND x10 for the first 30 minutes of those 3 days. It’s very good. In actual fact regardless of your position at the weekend you will get an easy payload - 3000 Wumpa minimum a day at least if you rank 4th or below for 30 mins of online play in game. I would also just like to bring back up that this is a remake of Crash Team Racing. We have been spoilt bucketloads with endless new content and the developers have clearly put a lot of time and effort into making. The game is something more than this could have been, so despite everything I can’t help but find myself still vaulting above the negative barrier than doing the conga below it.

Ahh, so that’s why the track felt slightly underwhelming. Essentially it goes Artisians —> Magic Crafters —> Magic Crafters. The 2nd and 3rd segments felt very similar in feel which makes the Portal element feel like they didn’t quite make the most of its potential. Almost a shame the last or a 4th and final segment couldn’t have been from dream-weavers or even peace keepers just for variety. Still, we get to go inside the Artisan castle doors and I looove that they kept the iconic podium in as well. Spyro Team Racing Next please, Beenox.

I apologise. I didn’t realise that sticker packs 11, 12 & 13 or random dino decals were the current height of want 😛 Look, there’s no need to retort hastily when I’m expressing an opinion. Honestly, I’m not ignorant to what’s actually going on here. To be frank - I was using “completionists” as a generalisation to get my point across. I do agree it’s not great for those that DO want to get purchase everything - heck I would like to myself. But there’s far too much content that’s overpriced and unnecessary. So I could say why bother (but that would cause offence clearly). I’m just saying I can’t see ‘everyone’ gunning for everything. I don’t even bother now, I don’t want what I’m not interested in. But yes, there WILL be those that are taken advantage of obviously. It’s been discussed before that clearly activision know what they are doing to try and swindle some cash. Apologies if my thoughts were mislaid in my last post (and to be safe - the first sentence in this post is intentionally flippant).

Fan service to the max! I would have liked an extra section/realm to make it a tad longer - but it’s a Spyro crossover into the Crash realm done well. So I can’t complain. Looks like Sparxs is indeed the Invincibility Mask for Spyro as we suspected too. Also yes, they may be plastering over the cracks with grinding - but I agree that a Wumpa Coin Grind isn’t so terrible compared to Nitro (and don’t forget to will automatically rack up some of the challenges anyway just from playing) Even with the Pit Stop purchases to additionally make if you Grind coins for the Nitro Bar alone... I just can’t imagine that (apart from a few completionists) many people take the Pit-Stop purchasing seriously enough to want grind to get EVERYTHING - even including stuff they don’t care for.

Yeah, I think my expectations were probably too high for this one as it seems fairly underwhelming ^^’ I think the course is still going to be sweet AF - especially as Wumpa fruits and Crates are swapped out for Gems and treasure chests. But the whole package (apart from Hunter) does seem to be Spyro 1 theme’d overall - which is ok. Much like with the last Grand Prix I feel largely disinterested about the most of the purchasable skins announced so far. I’ve also no ties to Mind over Mutant or Crash or the Titans from never playing them, so although that’s awesome for fans and the crash legacy value... I actually don’t understand their inclusion in the Nitro Bar as unlockables. What’s the relevance to the GP? Personally I’d have rather had the option to buy them separately and place the Spyro related ones in.

Oh, completely agree. They couldn’t separate the Trophy Girls for sure, I reckon they may have taken less time though with the similar models and skins attached. Thinking about it - 5 characters per GP is quite an ask in reality especially when this is being dealt to us monthly... Also completely agree. I mean, I love the constant things they are throwing our way... But man Beenox, could we not have even an ENITIRE week or 2 for a breather rather than a few days. The players won’t go anywhere if the additional content is good enough (Nitro challenges withstanding). I admit whilst I genuinely love playing CTR there are other games in my library I’d like to play now. I feel a bit like my hands are tied because of the exclusivity of the timed scenarios. I appreciate everything will come back around to the shop eventually but I can’t be constantly keeping tabs on that. I mean at least there is a bit of relief via paying for the Nitro Gauge now as the amount isn’t totally insane. But then this means if you’re not playing as much you probably won’t get enough Wumpa coins to purchase timed skins and decals and karts you want on top of it. Hence MTX as your “last resort” I guess 🙄