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

[Jango]

2 hours ago, Operationgamer17 said:

A bit of an addition. 

 

That's important. I had the impression it would cost 14K no matter which point I finished before the end. Just gotta confirm if the prices will be equal to the ones at the Pit Stop or less. Let's say I only didn't managed to unlock the final reward which was a legendary skin: the price to fill that last bit of nitro should cost 2500 at most. 

I mean, it's Activision, so they probably gonna rise the price x(

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

3 minutes ago, Jango said:

That's important. I had the impression it would cost 14K no matter which point I finished before the end. Just gotta confirm if the prices will be equal to the ones at the Pit Stop or less. Let's say I only didn't managed to unlock the final reward which was a legendary skin: the price to fill that last bit of nitro should cost 2500 at most. 

I mean, it's Activision, so they probably gonna rise the price x(

I'm surprised at how much more savvy you've gotten when it comes to Activision. 

[Jango]

Just now, Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice said:

I'm surprised at how much more savvy you've gotten when it comes to Activision. 

Nothing has changed

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

1 minute ago, Jango said:

Nothing has changed

Nah, you seem a lot more aware of what crud they're not amiss to pulling these days. Not bad.

Anyway, in latest news, people are taking bets on which GP item or character(s) is gonna be a no-show for the Spyro event.

Since now missing items and paint jobs have been the case for each Grand Prix event so far.

[mayday2592]

Lol I never saw those ever. Did they just never show up in rotation? 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

15 minutes ago, mayday2592 said:

Lol I never saw those ever. Did they just never show up in rotation? 

Like I said. It's a repeat of what happened with Tawna's paint job.

[Sonicka]

Oooooh, so it’s up? 14,000 for the entire bar is... actually not an entirely bad deal.

In a previous post this was calculated based on approximate Pit Stop prices to be around 24,000 in total. This is almost half that amount.

In theory you could just about grind that amount of coins in one weekend, so it’s a somewhat fair payoff if you don’t want to take part in the GP over 4 weeks. 

The other alternative of course is to pay about £11.00 - £13.00 and fill it up by buying your way through, but who honestly wants to do this now?

I reckon the price of coins barely reduces on each tier though. As much as I would love to think it’s equal (considering the items on offer) you just know Activision will go:

- From Bronze Tier: 14,000

- From Silver Tier: 12,000

- From Gold Tier: 11,000

But I’d be interested to see what other players have to pay based on the where they ended their nitro bar.

Also, I think I may have messed up on a previous comment regarding everyone getting the Championship Kart last GP - apparently I qualified for the reward this time too being in the top 5%.  

I guess I hadn’t realised last time, but it seems that just finishing the GP is enough to qualify you because of the amount of registered players online, completely missed this.

[Jango]

Yeap, I'm too am surprised it's relatively cheap. At least for now. My guess is that Activision will rise the price of all this stuff every so often. But we'll have to wait and see.

As we draw close to the end of the month, a new GP arrives, the most anticipated perhaps: The Spyro and Friends GP, and oh man I am very excited.

Can't wait to see the Spyro references they'll use for the legendary skins. I can already picture stuff like "Dr. (Shemp) Papu-Papu" or "Gnorc Zem". Coco using a hood like Bianca's would be neat too. "Sgt.(Byrd) Penta" anyone?

Also, can't wait to see the track. I wonder if they'll pick a single level and make the track based on it (Stone Hill? Magic Crafters?) or create a track with elements from all the trilogy.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Well, I guess it's fitting that the Spyro Grand Prix be during the same month as the Spyro ports release.

But still though, feels like we could have skipped Back N. Time and given players a much needed month off from grinding for content. Sigh.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

3 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice said:

Well, I guess it's fitting that the Spyro Grand Prix be during the same month as the Spyro ports release.

But still though, feels like we could have skipped Back N. Time and given players a much needed month off from grinding for content. Sigh.

Also doesn't help that Back N Time was weak as hell and felt rushed out. Only three new playable characters, with Baby Crash and Coco basically being boring as hell, with their voices literally just being their regular voices made squeaky. No legendary skins for the new characters, reused and buggy as hell challenges,  Baby Cortex and Tropy being data-mined, only to not make an appearance, etc. It feels like they had a Grand Prix just to wear people down so they'll be more enticed to spend when the Spyro Prix drops.

[Harkofthewaa]

Yeah, even though I probably need to grind coins for what is inevitably going to be overpriced stuff in the Spyro GP, I'm taking a break till it starts. I have about 12000 coins, I would have more but i wanted Roadster for some Coco and Megumi setups, and naturally the game made me buy all the other karts to get to it. sigh

[SonicWind]

I personally just got Baby T out of this one and called it a Grand Prix. I'll be coming back for the Spyro GP, though.

And hey, at least you get an option to buy all of the rewards you couldn't get after the Grand Prix is done now. When the Nitro Tour GP ended, you were plain out of luck.

...I'm a bit of an optimist. What else can I say?

[Sonicka]

Unlike the Nitro GP where we got an excellent amount of new characters and content to unlock but a fairly weak track, it was the reverse with Back N Time GP.

Prehistoric Park is one of my all time favourites now, especially with its variety in design and it’s risk reward shortcuts. But I agree that baby crash, coco and T... I could hardly care for. Especially their weird skins and recolours.

I will say that the Legendary Skins for Tiny, Crash, Fake Crash and Ripper were sweet - that was about it though. Also odd that the Fake Crash Skin wasn’t a prehistoric skin... considering the theme of the track was based AROUND steal tropy’s gear and meddling with time. Could’ve done more with this.

I did really like the Mammoth Kart though as it was an aesthetically unique new addition. The Probolt was alright, but the Nostalginator was an eye sore (apart from some of the hilarious decals).

But Baby T... oooooh man, I was especially disappointed by him. I felt it was their first mishandled design update from the Crash Series with his weird look and mismatched voice palette. We were also sorely missing essential characters from the crash-verse with Baby Cortex & Tropy - considering the datamine my best guess is we will be getting another GP with them included later on which may better suit their inclusion and explain their non-appearance here. 

But yeah... just got to hope they do Spyro justice now. I can’t think what sort of level they’ll base  the track on... Perhaps a cruise around the Legendary Tree Tops? That could be dangerous and fun. 

To be honest I’d actually hope we actually get something akin to Hyper Spaceway in which they’ll use the Portal doors as a means of traversing from one realm to another. That way we’ll get sections from 3-4 realms over a split track.

[Jango]

58 minutes ago, Son-icka said:

Unlike the Nitro GP where we got an excellent amount of new characters and content to unlock but a fairly weak track, it was the reverse with Back N Time GP.

Prehistoric Park is one of my all time favourites now, especially with its variety in design and it’s risk reward shortcuts. But I agree that baby crash, coco and T... I could hardly care for. Especially their weird skins and recolours.

I will say that the Legendary Skins for Tiny, Crash, Fake Crash and Ripper were sweet - that was about it though. Also odd that the Fake Crash Skin wasn’t a prehistoric skin... considering the theme of the track was based AROUND steal tropy’s gear and meddling with time. Could’ve done more with this.

I did really like the Mammoth Kart though as it was an aesthetically unique new addition. The Probolt was alright, but the Nostalginator was an eye sore (apart from some of the hilarious decals).

But Baby T... oooooh man, I was especially disappointed by him. I felt it was their first mishandled design update from the Crash Series with his weird look and mismatched voice palette. We were also sorely missing essential characters from the crash-verse with Baby Cortex & Tropy - considering the datamine my best guess is we will be getting another GP with them included later on which may better suit their inclusion and explain their non-appearance here. 

But yeah... just got to hope they do Spyro justice now. I can’t think what sort of level they’ll base  the track on... Perhaps a cruise around the Legendary Tree Tops? That could be dangerous and fun. 

To be honest I’d actually hope we actually get something akin to Hyper Spaceway in which they’ll use the Portal doors as a means of traversing from one realm to another. That way we’ll get sections from 3-4 realms over a split track.

Noooo, not Tree Tops  Bad memories. If they decided to do a single level, I'll have to go with Dreamweavers. But the idea of going through portals and visit different locations would be the best. 

 

[Sonicka]

Haha, yeah. Tree Tops would be an absolute boost fest with very difficult to reach places. I do love tree tops rollercoaster rides but it is largely remembered for its tre(e)mendous difficulty back in the day. 

On the flip side I wouldn’t go for Stone Hill either even though it’s probably the most associated level with Spyro, I feels it’s just a tad too bland for my tastes. 

But yeah, multiple worlds would be lovely. Perhaps we’ll be so lucky to have a Mario kart 8 1-2-3 structured level so each new lap is a different world. Best of the best of the trilogy?

[Jango]

The "problem" is that Spyro's got so many memorable levels hahaha It'd be nearly impossible to pick one from each game and make everyone happy. I know Magic Crafters and Artisans are more associated to Spyro 1 than other levels, but after seeing what they did to Dreamweavers in Reignited, I can't help but wish a track based on it. Floating islands in the clouds, magic purple sky, blue-ish grass, castles... That's Spyro to me. As for Spyro 2, man. So many. Glimmer is the obvious choice. But Breeze Harbor and Zephyr are also big classics. And Spyro 3 is even harder. My vote would have to go to Fireworks Factory, easily the most remembered level, eventhough it's not my personal favorite (that would be Frozen Altars).

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

19 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Also doesn't help that Back N Time was weak as hell and felt rushed out. Only three new playable characters, with Baby Crash and Coco basically being boring as hell, with their voices literally just being their regular voices made squeaky. No legendary skins for the new characters, reused and buggy as hell challenges,  Baby Cortex and Tropy being data-mined, only to not make an appearance, etc. It feels like they had a Grand Prix just to wear people down so they'll be more enticed to spend when the Spyro Prix drops.

It does also leave us with the sad possibility that we may only get 3 characters in Grand Prixs, perhaps even the next one, instead of 5, and more work for less rewards if they turn up as half-done feeling as the Back N. TIME grand prix felt.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

So, as a helpful tip - from the start of Silver Tier, to all of gold - it only costs 12k coins to fill up the nitro meter. It's still a good bit, but if you grind out your weekend bonus, you'll be roughly getting 4k coins a day, and 8k a weekend, which means you'd be able to have the nitro meter filled up without about 2-3 days of weekend grinds. 

If you ask me - that is much better than the nitro fuel grind. If you aren't in a mad rush to get the items, and you don't give a shit about the decals (Like me, I only went hard in the first Grand Prix because I cared much more about Tawna and wanted the champion kart). The nitro challenges are a pain in the ass, and comparatively - the grind for coins is shorter, easier, and less frustrating.

--------

Also - on a side note - I wanna talk about how scummy the addition of the nitro top-up was handled though. Now, I don't think the execution of the feature was horrible per say. It's actually relatively cheap compared to the fuel grind, is only added to the end of the grand prix to stop pay to win, and the price scales down depending on how much nitro you have. That's well and good, despite the fact the reason the nitro grind was likely so badly designed was to bring incentive to this feature.

My biggest gripe is how it was handled. Activision did not announce this ahead of time, it just randomly appeared on the Grand Prix screen after the prix finished (which also had it's finishing days randomly changed as well). Which means if you're in the position I'm currently in - you've now got about 5-6 days to grind nitro coins to try get to 12k coins to finish the gauge because you didn't know to save ahead of time. And it's obvious why it was done, so you can be tempted to buy coins in case you don't get enough before the next prix.

[Jango]

3 hours ago, Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice said:

It does also leave us with the sad possibility that we may only get 3 characters in Grand Prixs, perhaps even the next one, instead of 5, and more work for less rewards if they turn up as half-done feeling as the Back N. TIME grand prix felt.

Perhaps the very first GP having 5 characters was a lucky exception since it wouldn't make sense to sell the girls separately, as much as Activision would love the possibility of extra profit. Imagine if in GP1 we got Tawna, Ami and Megumi and in GP2 we got Isabella and Liz? XD 

It is sad tho', they had the chance to sell 5 character because Baby Cortex and Tropy were at least considered. Even worse, the models already exist. It's nice that Baby Crash and Coco are "original", but still. 

The Spyro GP maybe do suffer the same fate. The dataminer found 5 names, but only 2 models (besides Spyro himself): Hunter and Gnasty. So there's a chance Ripto and Sorceress won't make the cut ;/

[Ryannumber1gamer]

5 minutes ago, Jango said:

The Spyro GP maybe do suffer the same fate. The dataminer found 5 names, but only 2 models (besides Spyro himself): Hunter and Gnasty. So there's a chance Ripto and Sorceress won't make the cut ;/

I really have my doubts they'd add Gnasty over Ripto, who's easily the most iconic, and closest to arch-enemy that Spyro has. They have to both be in, it's the only scenario I see them adding Gnasty in.

[Your Vest Friend]

Honestly, I think Reignited has given Gnasty a lease of life over Ripto. The intro isn't that much, but that added with the entire presentation of Spyro 1 has made it stick out more recently.

I mean I still would see it as a "all or none" scenario but still. 

[Sonicka]

3 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

So, as a helpful tip - from the start of Silver Tier, to all of gold - it only costs 12k coins to fill up the nitro meter. It's still a good bit, but if you grind out your weekend bonus, you'll be roughly getting 4k coins a day, and 8k a weekend, which means you'd be able to have the nitro meter filled up without about 2-3 days of weekend grinds. 

--------

My biggest gripe is how it was handled. Activision did not announce this ahead of time, it just randomly appeared on the Grand Prix screen after the prix finished (which also had it's finishing days randomly changed as well). Which means if you're in the position I'm currently in - you've now got about 5-6 days to grind nitro coins to try get to 12k coins to finish the gauge because you didn't know to save ahead of time. And it's obvious why it was done, so you can be tempted to buy coins in case you don't get enough before the next prix.

12k from Silver Tier? That’s literally the exact amount I randomly guessed / hoped they wouldn’t attribute.

Whilst this is not outright terrible, IMO each tiers unlockables are pretty equal in spend even if the Nitro filler bar is completely counter to this. The grind on Gold Tier is the most tedious because the prizes actually aren’t as good as Bronze or Silver Tier - and whilst that is a plus for those that don’t want to grind hard but still get the decent prizes - the incentive drops heavily. It’s a shame (although I’m not surprised) that the amount it costs from each tier doesn’t represent the items but the amount of Nitro instead. 

I also agree about the handling of the implemtation, especially with the GP ending ahead of the actual countdown. It may have always been Sunday 25th for the end date, but the time left on the main screen never reflected this and advertised more time (by 2 days). It may well have been an error - but the misinformation is confusing which makes it feel as though it was done on purpose. I’m just glad I read about it on here, as originally I was coasting along to reach the end and had to do a last minute weekend grind to ensure I made it to Fake Baby T.

Back to Spyro - it’s entirely possible we’ll get 5 characters again, but like Jango mentions we may have only got 5 in the Nitro Tour GP because it was the Trophy Girls + Tawna.

Whilst they are all original inclusions and the Fans were excited for their inclusion don’t forget  they are basically all Female Bandicoot characters with slightly different aesthetic looks. The Baby Bandicoots (whilst rubbish) were a unique inclusion and we had Baby T as an all new model on top of this. It’s not an excuse for the lack thereof of more or for the eventual dismissal of Baby Cortex and Baby’s Tropy - but I think had it been those two over the Baby bandicoots we would not have been complaining so much. The Babies we ended up with was likely because they didn’t want to to go live without “hero” characters front and centre.

At the very least we had the same amount of skins and the like, arguably these are also slightly more original in this GP - the Motorsport Skins where all basically all the same apart from colour cosmetic changes and the girls having new hairdo’s.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Spyro Grand Prix Leaks:

Track: 

Characters: Spyro, Hunter, Gnasty

Also - if you're on Twitter - there's a fake roadmap circulating, showing a legendary Skylanders Spyro skin, and a legendary Elora skin for Coco, as well as Ripto and Sorceress. However, it's a definite fake. The karts shown in the roadmap are from CTTR, and don't match the ones present in the leaked track video.

[Guest]

 

[Jango]

Well. There you go. Like I said minutes ago, don't take Ripto and Sorceress for granted just because their names was in the files

The track looks nice, they actually did based on more than one location. Artisans, Dark Hollow and Alpine Ridge apparently. It's a shame they focused only in Spyro 1 tho'