Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled (June 21st, 2019)

[Jango]

Speaking of skins, I unlocked Fake Baby T last night. That's another GP done

I don't know why, but that felt easier than the last one. Right now I have 6K Wumpa Coins saved. I want to save as many coins as I can untill the Spyro GP begins to buy all that good purple stuff!

[Echidna Adventurer CC14]

Yeah, thinking about doing the same. Got Fake Baby T a couple nights back and currently only lack Sabertooth Pura as far as the new skins go, so saving up for the Spyro content rather than trying to get every set of largely-identical lava rock wheels sounds like a plan to me. It's definitely the most hype GP so far.

[Your Vest Friend]

Sabretooth Pura was the first skin I got.

I think I got all the skins and wheels, but for some reason the paint jobs aren't generating often. I have Quartz and one other.

[Jango]

Skins aren't generating as often either. I see Baby Coco and Crash bundles every (I bought the characters separately), but I haven't seen Stone Age Tropy in a while. I think I'm only missing this skin and Caveman Zem... Which I don't intend to buy because I never play as Zem anyways, so fuck it.

As for paintjobs, I think I'm only missing the Pastel one which comes with the babies' bundle, so eh. I just got the Quartz paintjob which looks real nice.

Pretty sure I'm missing a lot of stickers and decals, but eh. I got the Pitfall! decal tho', which is a nice little reference to the ancient game

And finally, wheels. I got Red Lava at the beginning of the GP and I just got the Purple Lava one because I think it will go well with Spyro

[DarkRula]

Count me as another saving for the Spyro stuff. I've got to get that hoverkart - which I'm very nearly able to buy - and then I can just save for the rest of that time [unless something I really want shows up, but that's not likely].

[Harkofthewaa]

 

I got the hovercar yesterday when I was wrapping up the GP. Then I went to do an Oxide Trial for giggles and... it wasn't so bad. So I did the rest in one marathon session, then turned my gaze to the platinum relics...

Spoiler

Seriously, why are the platinum relics harder than the Oxide times? Papu's Pyramid and N. Gin labs in particular can go die. 

 

[DarkRula]

Got the hoverkart as well now, having been just a thousand off from getting it. A few online races was enough to sort that out. Just. After buying it, I'm on a grand total of 3 coins. I didn't think I'd be able to get any races in though, as the first two times the lobby was disbanded as the leader left, and I felt it would continue to happen every time. Thankfully it didn't, and thankfully I don't have to be touching the online again. At least until the next GP.

[Jango]

6 hours ago, Harkofthewaa said:

 

I got the hovercar yesterday when I was wrapping up the GP. Then I went to do an Oxide Trial for giggles and... it wasn't so bad. So I did the rest in one marathon session, then turned my gaze to the platinum relics...

  Hide contents

Seriously, why are the platinum relics harder than the Oxide times? Papu's Pyramid and N. Gin labs in particular can go die. 

 

I think they were supposed to be harder than the Oxide times. Seriously, when you beat that crap, beating the Oxide times are a walk in park. It's piss easy.

[DarkRula]

First try, though to be fair it is on easy, and to be fair it is Inferno Island. But even of easy Relic Races are tough. I have been doing some time trials, though, and most of those I've been beating first time as well.

[Jango]

Nice @DarkRula! Tracks with not too many turbo pads are a bit trickier to master, such as Coco Park, Crash Cove and yes, Inferno Island. Playing on normal/hard will require you to chain boosts constantly to keep the yellow fire active AND hit every crate to get the -10 seconds bonus. BTW, it's fine if you're doing it for fun, but if your intention is to unlock the platinum paintjob, you don't have to beat the CNK tracks  Just a friendly heads up, because these things are tough, even on easy I think.

 

[DarkRula]

That was just for the daily challenge, though I have attempted others in the past. Interesting to know that I won't need to beat the CNK tracks to unlock stuff, as I find most of those hell.

[Sonicka]

I still need to platinum the relics - although that’s a handy tip re: the paint jobs. Thanks!

I just wish the same could have been said for N-Tropy and his Digital Skin *cries* all 31 tracks? Really Beenox???

Still, it was probably the most rewarding unlock to complete - especially with the voice sample of congratulations from him. Much Appreciated. 

Side note: I went back to Mario Kart 8 the other day and played for hours online and in single player. I have to say that even after adjusting back to the controls... man, the game does not hold up in comparison to CTR - which is not what I expected to feel.

I always knew CTR was better than Mario Kart 64 back in the day for obvious reasons, but I didn’t expect to feel like this with CTR: NF against Mario Kart 8; which is my favourite MK of the series. I dunno, everything just feels so slow and unresponsive in comparison. I’m probably just too spoilt by CTR’s tight controls and boost mechanic no doubt. 

[Jango]

I'm still missing a few CTR and CNK time trials. Doing them once in a while to avoid getting tedious. Gotta say, the CNK ones are waaaaaay easier for some reason. The most demanding track is Tiger Temple because you HAVE TO keep the blue fire for 2 laps, which demands more skill. But holy shit does it feels good to pull off.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

On 7/25/2019 at 5:56 PM, TheOcelot said:

Perhaps this will help. I've manged to beat Oxide's time trial in Oxide Station! I recorded my attempt:

Also beat Polar Pass & Tiny Area today.

I still need to beat seven more (Crash Cove, Sewer Speedway, Coco Park, Blizzard Bluff, Dragon Mines, Tiny Temple & Inferno fucking-hard Island).

Gotta say, back in July, this was a real big help as it helped me finally beat that last N Tropy time and unlock him.

Nowadays, at the beginning of Auguat this year, I finished all the Oxide Times, so for quite a while, I've joined the Digital N. Tropy club which is quite the sign of skill. Most of those Oxide Time Trials are absolutely high octane challenging and no small feat.

Your video also helped me respect how different characters have differing sizes of hit boxes which helped immensely.

I've gotten that 101% file and all the rewards that come with it too.

[Meta77]

Well yet again I gave up on the gp.  I hate they force this horrible of a damn grind

[Ryannumber1gamer]

15 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Well yet again I gave up on the gp.  I hate they force this horrible of a damn grind

I honestly went in day 1, looked at the challenges, and haven’t found the will to pick it up since. Couldn’t be arsed doing the time trials or hard mode either because I am so burnt out on this game and the grinding shit hasn’t helped one bit with it.

[TheOcelot]

1 hour ago, Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice said:

Gotta say, back in July, this was a real big help as it helped me finally beat that last N Tropy time and unlock him.

Nowadays, at the beginning of Auguat this year, I finished all the Oxide Times, so for quite a while, I've joined the Digital N. Tropy club which is quite the sign of skill. Most of those Oxide Time Trials are absolutely high octane challenging and no small feat.

Your video also helped me respect how different characters have differing sizes of hit boxes which helped immensely.

Glad it helped!

 

Meanwhile I haven't played Nitro Fueled for about two weeks. Haven't maxed out gold-tier. Just needed a break and I've already unlocked everything I wanted to. I'll start playing again when the Spyro GP starts.

[Meta77]

2 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I honestly went in day 1, looked at the challenges, and haven’t found the will to pick it up since. Couldn’t be arsed doing the time trials or hard mode either because I am so burnt out on this game and the grinding shit hasn’t helped one bit with it.

Thata the thing. I love this game. But its forced replayability is annoying. Yes I don't mind some tough missions to get special karts in short burst sessions.  What I hate is being I grind to do missions over and over and over just to creep up gold tier

Sigh

[Your Vest Friend]

I used to play 7-lap Oxide Station for hours or even days at a time when I was a kid. This is small talk for me. 

[Jango]

I think grinding wouldn't feel as evident if the challenges weren't all the same in structure. There's basically a dozen "types" of challenges which only vary in: mode; character; track; vehicle; and quantity. Granted, some challenges try to spice things up, but even these are based on a pre-set structure.

Do <mode> with <character> in <track> using <vehicle> <number of times>. They clearly didn't put ANY thought in how this GP is supposed to be played. It's obviously an algorithm generating all these challenges, which is why we got gems like "win a race in Hyperspace Speedway without touching any turbo pad". That's impossible, game.

The GP is basically an excuse to lure people into buying all that cool stuff, now with REAL money (!) if they're too anxious to wait or don't have enough time to play and earn enough coins. They didn't bothered making these challenges engaging, unique or fun. Beenox's main focus is making all these legendary skins, vehicles and characters look as good and appealing as possible, make us players desire them so badly that we could actually end up using real money in fear of missing it for God knows how long, since they didn't bothered saying when the previous GPs items will come back.

So yeah, the GP is just a big excuse right now. The challenges are boring because they didn't think about it too deeply, they delegated the challenge generation to a machine for God's sake. At the very, veeeeeeery least, only some items are locked behind the Nitro Gauge completion, and the main new character of each GP is thankfully only locked at the end of the bronze tier, which is super easy to get. Still, 2 new whole karts and a legendary skin are locked within silver and gold tiers. 

What I've being doing to avoid getting bored by the challenges is only completing enough before it becomes tedious, then switch to online and what-not. It also helps doing with someone else than alone, if you can. Doing like, 10 challenges with a 50% bonus active a day (which takes around like... 1 hour) should be enough to finish gold tier confortably.

[Sonicka]

Yup, I was actually about to say the same. I was looking forward to some of the newer challenges like ‘relay race’ until I realised it’s just another ‘drive X character around the Y track Z amount of times’. 

I guess the only flipside with Nitro is that the really decent unlockables aren’t at the end of the Gold Tier Road and are all in the bronze and silver tier. During the Last GP I was interested in the final Motorsport Tawna Skin just for completions sake, but I could hardly care any less about the Fake Baby T Skin this time. 

I therefore did do an experiment this time - doing the bare minimum. If you can complete a few of the Theme and Pro challenges to boost yourself, then just make sure your Nitro percentage add on is at 50%; just play at least one or two online races every day (if you can win one then bonus). This will allow you to coast the Nitro Bar without having to grind to rubbish challenges. Within 2 races you’ll have accumulated at least 6-7 of the basic/daily/weekly challenges, if not more sometimes, in one go.

Disclaimer: It will take the entire GP period to complete this (I’m nearly there with 5 days to go), so only do this if you don’t want to grind, aren’t bothered about obtaining the rewards straight away AND have a spare 15 minutes to play CTR every day. 

I guess really the only other thing is the top 5% reward scheme to Egg the hardcore on... but then who cares about this when Beenox accidentally gave me the Champion Kart last GP when I didnt qualify... and now I have the Back N Time Winners Decal in advance by mistake alongside everyone else. If errors like this keep happening there really is no point to pursue those goals.

[DarkRula]

Usually, the cup that it want you to do for the daily challenges ties into the track that some of the other challenges also use, so by doing just one cup, you can possibly get up to five challenges done just by doing the cup. Run through the quick challenges, and its an easy 1000 a day.

[Harkofthewaa]

Honestly the Nitro grind isn't a huge issue with me. Even after getting to 42000 and using who I want I've still managed to get to 50000 just by playing the game. Yesterday I finally managed to get all the karts, all I have to do is get Gladiator Tiny and I'll have gotten my fill of this GP's items (Stone Age Tropy is nice, but at this point of I'm gonna use him I'm gonna go max flex with the Digital+Platinum+Champion setup). Believe it or not, I found a setup with Electron Coco, the Team Bandicoot Kart with it's basic stripes, and the Pastel paint that looks rather nice. Also been using Hot Rod Oxide with the flames, gold paint and Six-Pipes. Also, inb4 there's a 20000 coin bundle in the Spyro GP. You know Activisions gonna be pushing the MTX's as far as they can then, what with the anticipated crossover and all.

[Sonictrainer]

...oh...guess I have to try now...

[Sonicka]

Eww. I’ll pass on whatever the eff that is supposed to be? The Dino Chicken thing from the Prehistoric Park Track is it?

Thanks Beenox, you’ve saved me time. I’ll... just await it’s accidental giveaway again. 

(Note: When it comes to the Spyro GP champion rewards I’m not leaving my chances to fate a third time - I can already imagine how awesome that is gunna look with them characters splattered over this thing)