I agree with trolli. A 'battle speedrun' makes no sense to me.

I saw you joined matrix. mimiz posted a bunch of screenshots showing the changes around 3:30pm EST on Monday (Sep 19th). If you cannot scroll up, you should ask mimiz to repost them.

One of my critiques is that these changes came out of nowhere. mimiz posted screenshots and blend files, kimden and FabianF agreed, and then Benau said okay unless Alayan opposes those changes. It all happened within one day and I don't think the new item placements have been thoroughly tested.

Where is Alayan when he is needed?! :( I am glad we have Benau continuing development, but he doesn't play STK and therefore can't assess the gameplay.

Hi all,

A few players suggested changing item placements in official tracks for the upcoming 1.4 release. I am strongly against it for two reasons: i) I don't think the new item placements are better for gameplay. On the contrary, the changes may lead to even more front-runs. ii) The changes would invalidate many records we have set over the past couple of years.

I am writing here mainly because of (ii). Benau seems to be considering the suggestion. If you have an opinion about this, please say so in the main STK IRC channel (bridged to matrix, telegram, discord) or contact Benau directly. It feels like I am the only one interested in speedruns there.

Cheers, Haenschen

Sounds like Typhon is working on some bug fixes and I believe he will keep the reverse option. Generally, I like reverse as an option, but it is not a must have criterion for me. For simple tracks like Abyss or Zen, reverse is often as good as forward, but for tracks with many jumps/cuts (e.g. Ravenbridge) reverse can be plain vanilla boring compared to forward. What I do not want is that any track designer makes any sacrifices just to ensure that reverse works. I'd rather disable reverse. Volcano remake is a complex track with many zippers and a tricky jump. I think reverse racing this map will always feel a bit akward. Is it really needed?

On that note: Why is reverse disabled in Mod Circuit?! And does anyone miss Beehive reverse?

I love the Volcano Remake. It's my favorite addon of 2020, but it still has a few teething problems. Basketballs currently don't work properly. They get stuck at the start/finish line and jump on a spot without moving forward. Typhon did a driveline hack to improve respawning positions in reverse, which caused this issue. I don't think the track is good for reverse anyways. I think Typhon should do:

1. Disable reverse direction. This would also fix the respawn issues and the basketball problem.
2. Upon wax request, Typhon redesigned the section near the summit to be more difficult. In my opinion, the broken/uneven road right before the 3 bananas is now too challenging. I drive there really fast (zipper pad, red skid and nitro) so that any bump causes my kart to fly into the bananas or even off the road. I think the road should smoother (at least a section in the middle) so that this part of the track is less random.

Typhon generally listens to feedback and if several players agree on this, it's not unlikely that he will fix it.