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

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Just now, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I meant hard mode for Adventure Mode, since I need both that, and the time trials. I heard doing Oxide's ghosts first is the best way to beat Hard.

Oh boy. Okay, as someone who's beaten Hard mode, let me tell you, beating Oxide's ghosts gets you a good lay of the track.

However,  despite what they'll teach you, and yes they'll make a better racer out of you, they can't quite prepare you for the unfair difficulty from AI, items used,  and the rubber-banding.

Essentially, the Oxide ghosts are good practice, but you'll have to think on your toes and pray you get good defense when it comes to the hard mode races.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Alright, so I'm trying to do Crash Cove, beat Tropy fine, but Oxide is a pain. I'm really not sure what I'm doing wrong here, I can beat him fine on Lap 1, and then when I use the two boost pads to get SF, I end up losing it straight away even if I boost or not to try retain it.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

6 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Alright, so I'm trying to do Crash Cove, beat Tropy fine, but Oxide is a pain. I'm really not sure what I'm doing wrong here, I can beat him fine on Lap 1, and then when I use the two boost pads to get SF, I end up losing it straight away even if I boost or not to try retain it.

Are you making sure to get absolute  "Perfects" with your drift boosting?

[Ryannumber1gamer]

33 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice said:

Are you making sure to get absolute  "Perfects" with your drift boosting?

That did the trick, but I'm still having difficulty holding SF through the first turn.

[TheOcelot]

@Ryannumber1gamer if you're still having trouble beating Oxide's time-trial, here's the playthrough I did when I finally beat him which hopefully will help:

When you hit the first boost-pad (near the end of the lap) make sure you hit it at the same time as when you do the "third" chained boost-when drifting as well as ensuring each boost is a "perfect" (like Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice said). This will ensure you are going as fast as possible and keep doing "perfects" which will help retain the triple red boost.

If you can maintain the triple red boost for a whole lap (like I did in lap 3) this should help you beat Oxide.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

Oh boy. :Y

This old bug is back again, and with a vengeance. 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I managed to beat Oxide on Crash Cove! My first win against him!

[Jango]

You're off to a good start, Crash Cove is pretty tricky

I think the major inconvenience with the Time Trials is actually the constant back and forth to menus xD

 You finish your first attempt > result screen > N. Tropy Ghost unlocked!

"-Oh cool, will try to beat him now". Nope, instead, you're obligated to select "change track", wait, select the track again, select the character again, wait, and only then you can race Tropy. Two loading screens that could've been EASILY avoided if they simply added an option on the result screen saying: "challenge N. Tropy now" and reset the race right way with his ghost on. The same goes to Oxide's ghosts. Even better, if the player manages to beat Oxide or at least Tropy's time on his first run (which is usually the case) he/she shouldn't have to do it again and AGAIN. Just add a "Congratulations, you beat both N. Tropy and Nitros Oxide at once! You rule!". Don't make them face 4 extra loading screens...

Beenox really should've paid attention to details like these. Commitment to authenticity is one thing, repeating a design flaw is just stupidity...

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 minute ago, Jango said:

You're off to a good start, Crash Cove is pretty tricky

I think the major inconvenience with the Time Trials is actually the constant back and forth to menus xD

 You finish your first attempt > result screen > N. Tropy Ghost unlocked!

"-Oh cool, will try to beat him now". Nope, instead, you're obligated to select "change track", wait, select the track again, select the character again, wait, and only then you can race Tropy. Two loading screens that could've been EASILY avoided if they simply added an option on the result screen saying: "challenge N. Tropy now" and reset the race right way with his ghost on. The same goes to Oxide's ghosts. Even better, if the player manages to beat Oxide or at least Tropy's time on his first run (which is usually the case) he/she shouldn't have to do it again and AGAIN. Just add a "Congratulations, you beat Tropy and Oxide at once! You rule!". Don't make them face 4 extra loading screens...

Beenox really should've paid attention to details like these. Commitment to authenticity is one thing, repeating a design flaw is just stupidity...

 

I think the biggest issue with that is forcing you to unlock the ghosts first, even if you beat their time already. Like, even passing Crash Cove, and finally working out the timing a bit better, it still took a good bit of luck to make it through the first corner turn. I actually lost SF mid-way through lap 2, got it back on Lap 3, and even then, just barely beat Oxide, as in if I'd lost one more SF, game over. 

So If I were to get lucky the first time, and beat them both, only to have to do it again because Oxide wasn't unlocked, I'd be livid, personally.

Anyways, Mystery Caves is next on the agenda, if anyone's got tips for it.

[Jango]

1 hour ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

So If I were to get lucky the first time, and beat them both, only to have to do it again because Oxide wasn't unlocked, I'd be livid, personally.

Exactly haha That would suck.

To me it was really bothersome having to do this back and forth because **see as I try my hardest to not sound like I'm bragging eventhough I know it may be impossible** I usually can beat Oxide on my first attempt... I did the platinum relics first and when I've jumped into the realm of Time Trial-ing, I knew these fucking tracks front and back. It just came naturally. It sucks that Beenox kept that way, they could've at least added the "challenge N. Tropy now" button to the results screen...

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

2 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I managed to beat Oxide on Crash Cove! My first win against him!

Excellent work Ryan! I saw your message on the Motobug chat of such. Proud of ye. Crash Cove is actually one of the tougher tracks, despite it being the first. It's because of its lack of turbo pads and abundance of straight path, which can make drifitng for the drift boost harder to maintain while trying to head straight out.

Be on your guard though. There are quite a lot more challenges ahead. Many of which will make Crash Cove feel like a cakewalk.

2 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Anyways, Mystery Caves is next on the agenda, if anyone's got tips for it.

Ah yes, Mystery Caves. Baby T's home track. This is the part where the game introduces what I like to call the narrow ways. What are narrow ways, you may ask. Well, in CTR, you'll find a lot of tracks with narrow sections that thin things down considerably. Meet part of the reason why people consider speed characters the best.

SO, here's the tips. You know the fork in the road? Those are two narrow ways. It's absolutely essential that you keep as straight through them as possible while also maintaining your boost reserves.

As for the short cut at the start, only take that if you've got some high flames coming out of your exhaust.

Avoid the fireballs at all costs. Time them to the best of your abilities.

And finally, be wary of the turtles. Unless you bounce with them right, i.e forward, their bounces will only slow you down.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

48 minutes ago, Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice said:

Excellent work Ryan! I saw your message on the Motobug chat of such. Proud of ye. Crash Cove is actually one of the tougher tracks, despite it being the first. It's because of its lack of turbo pads and abundance of straight path, which can make drifitng for the drift boost harder to maintain while trying to head straight out.

Be on your guard though. There are quite a lot more challenges ahead. Many of which will make Crash Cove feel like a cakewalk.

Ah yes, Mystery Caves. Baby T's home track. This is the part where the game introduces what I like to call the narrow ways. What are narrow ways, you may ask. Well, in CTR, you'll find a lot of tracks with narrow sections that thin things down considerably. Meet part of the reason why people consider speed characters the best.

SO, here's the tips. You know the fork in the road? Those are two narrow ways. It's absolutely essential that you keep as straight through them as possible while also maintaining your boost reserves.

As for the short cut at the start, only take that if you've got some high flames coming out of your exhaust.

Avoid the fireballs at all costs. Time them to the best of your abilities.

And finally, be wary of the turtles. Unless you bounce with them right, i.e forward, their bounces will only slow you down.

Mystery Caves done, and within 10 tries, although just barely at 2:13:79 against Oxide's 2:14:00. Literally 21 miliseconds apart.

Found this much easier than I found Crash Cove. Was able to hold my SF for a lap and a half. Hell, was about to hold it for 3 laps on one attempt, only for a fireball to hit me and spin me out enough for Oxide to pass.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Anyone have tips for Sewer Speedway? I'm finding it difficulty to hit the shortcut consistently, and avoid the second barrel.

[Harkofthewaa]

I started the Spyro GP grind, but then I got to thinking. I've gotten all the Achievements, I can win most of the time online now and I've got most of everything outside the GP's out of the Pit Stop that I wanted. I realized something important, Vegeta puts it best here:

I really just don't care anymore. I'll play on the weekends to save up enough for the Nitro fill up and that's it. Screw this crap, I'm already deep in the grind in No Man's Sky, I don't need a second one killing all my free time.

   Also @Ryannumber1gamer, with the Sewer Speedway shortcut I find it best jump around the halfpipe to try to get a straight shot, then jump at the peak of the halfpipe. If you hit the sweet spot you can make the jump even at normal speeds. And just a forewarning, Oxide Station is far and away the hardest trial to beat. You need to try to jump through the S-bend before the first ramp to make it through with SF, and do more jumps in the bends after the big ramp to try to keep USF for as long as possible. Honestly, I didn't look up any guides for the trials, I just pounded them out one by one through a war of attrition. I know that isn't helpful, but believe it or not getting all the Platinum Relics is quite a bit harder that the trials in my opinion.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Somewhat related to the trials, someone discovered another ultra-shortcut in Dingo Canyon. It's inconsistent, but from testing, the lap skip appears to be based off the exact point you drop into the invisible collision. 

Either way, it's 35 coins and can be beaten in 18 seconds with max efficiency. Although please don't abuse this online.

 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Holy shit, I managed to beat Sewer Speedway...

...ugh that was annoying. If anyone's got any tips for Roo's Tubes, they'd be most appreciated. 

Edit: Adding onto that - I just managed to successfully beat Crash Cove on hard after a few tries. Something that seemed absolutely impossible to me. I think I'm seriously improving here!

[DabigRG]

12 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Somewhat related to the trials, someone discovered another ultra-shortcut in Dingo Canyon. It's inconsistent, but from testing, the lap skip appears to be based off the exact point you drop into the invisible collision. 

Either way, it's 35 coins and can be beaten in 18 seconds with max efficiency. Although please don't abuse this online.

 

Wrong Way!

Rex shit and a half.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

12 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Somewhat related to the trials, someone discovered another ultra-shortcut in Dingo Canyon. It's inconsistent, but from testing, the lap skip appears to be based off the exact point you drop into the invisible collision. 

Either way, it's 35 coins and can be beaten in 18 seconds with max efficiency. Although please don't abuse this online.

 

Addition to this - it's not fully consistent, but you wanna aim to jump or drive off the brown pebble onto the invisible ramp, that's the only general guidepoint there is for getting the lap skip to count.

On another note, Oxide is now beaten up to Slide Coliseum. 

16 hours ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

I think the biggest issue with that is forcing you to unlock the ghosts first, even if you beat their time already. Like, even passing Crash Cove, and finally working out the timing a bit better, it still took a good bit of luck to make it through the first corner turn. I actually lost SF mid-way through lap 2, got it back on Lap 3, and even then, just barely beat Oxide, as in if I'd lost one more SF, game over. 

So If I were to get lucky the first time, and beat them both, only to have to do it again because Oxide wasn't unlocked, I'd be livid, personally.

Anyways, Mystery Caves is next on the agenda, if anyone's got tips for it.

Aaaaaand I just experienced this. Beat both Oxide and Tropy at once on Turbo Track...only to have to beat Oxide again...ugh.

[Jango]

43 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Aaaaaand I just experienced this. Beat both Oxide and Tropy at once on Turbo Track...only to have to beat Oxide again...ugh.

Don't worry much tho', Turbo Track is famously known for being super easy to beat Oxide's ghost and even getting the platinum relic. IIRC, you don't even need to break every time crate for this one.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Well, update on things, I just managed to finish up Polar Pass.

Any tips for Tiny Arena and especially Dragon Mines?

[Sonicka]

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.  

On 8/31/2019 at 3:07 AM, Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice said:

As you yourself have admitted, you don't have as much experience or know-how of Activision's usual scummy behavior as was demonstrated in previous titles. 

Know what they had in common? Grinding encouragements. Not something that's supposedly for player's well-bring. Unless you've got documentation of such,  you're giving Activision far more credit than they deserve.

All the more power to you, but it just doesn't hold water because of how money grubbing the whole setup is.

It certainly doesn't benefit anyone who doesn't want to spend hours upon days of grinding to get stuff in the game, lest they pay out of their own pocket.

If anything, it's pure stress-inducement, and they know exactly what they're doing to players.

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.

On 8/31/2019 at 3:07 AM, Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice said:

Not for nothing, but if we were to get a Halloween event,  it's highly unlikely that they'll delay such to start near the end of October rather than just end on or close to the actual event.

If they do that, I'll change my avatar for a week.

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. 

On 8/31/2019 at 3:07 AM, Jovahexeon Ogilvie Maurice said:

going off the data and numbers crunched here,

  Reveal hidden contents

 

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lot did actually by the time of Back N. Time.

And if they're not careful, more will, especially if they continue some of the more unsavory practices.

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. 

[Jango]

Well... The dataminer found content for at least 2 more GPs. The Spooky GP (unofficial name) featuring Nina and the Nitro Festival GP (yep, that's the name the miner found). Now, we don't know if the Nitro Festival will happen in November or December, but the Spooky GP will likely roll through October since it's obviously Halloween themed. Would be great if it starts October 31 instead tho'.

By the way, what Nitro Festival could be themed after? Crash Bash? 

[Ryannumber1gamer]

1 minute ago, Jango said:

Well... The dataminer found content for at least 2 more GPs. The Spooky GP (unofficial name) featuring Nina and the Nitro Festival GP (yep, that's the name the miner found). Now, we don't know if the Nitro Festival will happen in November or December, but the Spooky GP will likely roll through October since it's obviously Halloween themed. Would be great if it starts October 31 instead tho'.

By the way, what Nitro Festival could be themed after? Crash Bash? 

Possibly a reprint of the Nitro Prix? Might be smart to do so and then have everyone ready and geared for a larger event prix for Christmas.

On another note, Dragon Mines is godawful, and took 3 hours and 100+ attempts to beat.

[Jango]

10 minutes ago, Ryannumber1gamer said:

Possibly a reprint of the Nitro Prix? Might be smart to do so and then have everyone ready and geared for a larger event prix for Christmas.

On another note, Dragon Mines is godawful, and took 3 hours and 100+ attempts to beat.

Yeah, I do believe they'll play a little with "(X) GP: Part 2". You know what would be great? If new GPs only happen between reprises of previous one. Having unlocked most itens on the first run, the players will only have to worry about unlocking the things they missed before (especially the pesky itens that never showed up), which shouldn't take much effort and time. At the same time, it would be a nice way to cool down and complete your item collection

If November is indeed a reprise of the first GP like you said, it would be really really nice. They could ditch the challenges during the reprises and put the Nitro Gauge itens you missed in the Pit Stop right way, UNLESS they can gather the data and fill your Gauge to where you have left, leaving open the possibility to those who want to finish without using coins. For that, they could then reset all the challenges.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

Quick question - I've decided to knock out Oxide Station now before doing Cortex Castle and N. Gin Labs. Is Accel or Speed the best class for it?