For anyone wondering I said the word cup 96 times in this video...Also excel spreadsheet with the info is in the description If you guys enjoyed please do consider liking the video means a lot! 😘
Most beginner doesn't know this, but you can adjust your height when gliding, and most of the jump you mentioned were hard can be solved by landing early
He stated he plays a lot more on 150, so maybe he played on 200, because on 150 he would 90% of the time get 1. even on harder tracks. Playing on 200 probably spread the placements and thus giving more reliable results.
@@Aeldur-l8o Yeah, 150cc is "easy" if you are a long time player of mario kart, even with bad karts you can still win most of the races in 1st place if you are good enough. 200cc was for sure a better option to compare.
It’s even better when you learn with proper early drifting you can take optimal lines and don’t need to brake drift at all. True for a lot of maps on 200 tbh, very few maps require any/minimal brake drifting.
@@jackjones7620 Yes it definitely has use cases, didn’t mean to say it wasn’t useful lol, I just think how necessary it is gets blown out of proportion sometimes. Imo early drifting is the TRUELY necessary technique for 200, brake drifting is just useful when early drifting isn’t enough/interaction with other players like you mention.
He also just made a lot of poor choices of racing lines. Going extra wide before sharp turns often allows you to go through them completely without breaking, and sometimes gets you a better mini turbo. He rarely did this however, forcing him to break unnecessarily, and sometimes making him slam into walls because the car doesn't turn fast enough.
@@bowino489 Maybe the fact he's still making extremely basic mistakes and forgetting track layout after supposedly 50 times? Very few shortcuts attempted. Lack of control knowledge with glider controls or brake drifting
@@U_C_G bro, you do realize he doesn’t have to use footage from his best runs right, we can’t be sure but maybe he only really selected from the first few runs of each track, stop trying to be so negative and put people down, nobody thinks you’re smarter for pointing it out
the one thing I've noticed is you don't seem to go towards the ground in the gliding sections, you often want to get back on the track as soon as possible in the parts where they force you to glide because that's where you're most vulnerable and you can turn more effectively sooner than if you stayed in the air
You can hold B while drifting to brake drift, letting you slow down and tighten the turn. Additionally, you can hold left or right on the stick while drifting to tighten or widen your drift angle as needed. Most of the turns you mentioned having difficult (particularly the one on Music Park / Melody Motorway) can just be taken as is like this.
I'm gonna have to try this. I am on the opposite side of the spectrum where I don't ever break on my turns, I use my joystick to control the drifting in my tight turns, and I've noticed I still end up fumbling on some turns, especially on the Neo Bowser City track.
I'd be interested to see a graph for each track, showing all 50 times with its own points for each run, to see if there's a certain number of runs where you suddenly improve or worsen
Something that would help based on what I’ve seen is the fact that you can end the glider sections early by holding forward. This brings your kart downwards quicker and makes it easier to start the next turn on Cheeseland or Wild Woods for example.
It baffles me that you never figured out you can steer the glider up and down. Just hold the stick forward, and you'll land much faster. On cheeze land, the first chain chomp literally can not hit you if you land early and drive on the ground. On wild woods, you are supposed to land much earlier, so that you can drift through the turn.
18:20 Little tip buddy, if you dont want to get hit by the chain chomp on cheese land, the best thing to do is land as soon as you can and drive underneath it when it jumps
I immediately thought of neo bowser city as the hardest track in the game. It's been my favorite track since mk7 because it's a bowser track that isn't his castle, and the whole cyberpunk dystopia aesthetic is really cool. I've probably played it way more than any other track in mk8, and I have those turns down to a science, but once in a while, even I screw it up and go over the edge.
Neo Bowser City was the only track I've ever had to go out of my way to practice to win against CPUs on 150cc (and 200cc). Every single other stage, I was able to quickly get full gold just by attempting the entire cup again if I got anything less than 1st, but Neo Bowser City took me messing around in time attack to figure out the routes and turns, and I completely changed my character and cart combo in 200cc solely in anticipation of THIS STAGE. tbh, I wish there was a whole cup of stages that difficult, although any more difficult and I think it's a pretty big ask for online.
One of my favorite 200cc shortcuts is on Yoshi circuit that little spine; you want to drift through that last turn towards the piranha plant and aim behind it. Once you're almost on the grass, you can hop over or mushroom through it! Cuts a good chunk out of the part of the track and if it lands just right all you have to do is drift into the turn with the ramp!
I find that it works alright on 150cc too, even without a mushroom. You just need to time your jump well, and you'll probably need to jump immediately after landing in the event that you land slightly in the offroad.
50 times, that's nuts. If you (can't say I blame you if you don't) do the DLC courses test 25 or less. You'll have the tracks burnt into your retina's. I'm glad you did this so we don't have to. So thank you.
I think this video would've benefitted from the criteria of playing the tracks on time trial to determine their own difficulty, away from the CPUs who mostly have RNG behavior. also I have to inform you about brake drifting, it's very powerful in 200cc.
surely the 50 times reduces error from rng. also tracks are different lengths, theres nothing to win or lose on time trials, some tracks will have lower times than others which can't be helped
As an almost exclusively 200cc player the Lucky Cat cup was the hardest literally just bc of Ninja Hideaway. I usually only need a couple tries but it took me over 15 tries to get it 3 stars
Seeing the Special Cup gave me flashbacks from back when I played MK8 on the Wii U. Bone Dry Dunes is a nightmare. Thanks for doing this experiment in the name of science to prove the cup's difficulty Also, 13:00 is peak Mario Kart!
I loved watching your process to taking these courses and ranking them; definitely gave me some thoughts as to what I think is most difficult. One thing I did notice is that you tended to eschew alternate routes/pathing that would either counteract or alleviate the issues you had with the tracks. For some examples: On Toad's Turnpike, take the walls. Slightly longer path, but the booster gives you so much speed that it's usually worth it, and you avoid the traffic entirely. On Bone Dry Ruins, taking the alternate path is both easier to drive and lets you get boosts off the spinners. On Twisted Mansion, taking the right path will always lead to you going high; take the left one for easier jumps.
My friend and I both watched this video and it's super interesting how different our predictions were: He basically said Special and Egg cup and I agreed, but personally I've always struggled on Egg Cup courses the most. I'm a pretty skilled player who plays online with other people who play a lot, so putting me on Excitebike or Mute City where I have no chance of making a comeback if I fall behind always hits the hardest. Meanwhile Yoshi Circuit and Dragon Driftway are some of the most technical courses in the game and take a lot of practice, so people who have played the course more than me have a huge leg up. There's no middle ground where I feel like I can get comfortable and that always feels like my downfall.
I've been working on getting 3 stars in all 200cc cups recently, and, in my opinion, Special Cup is by far the hardest. It's the only one that I've needed to use smart steering on.
I'd never heard the name "Music Park" until your comment and yes, it's "Melody Motorway" in the British English version of the game Other track differences include Koopa City (UK) -> Neo Bowser City (US) Toad Harbour -> Toad Harbor Bone Dry Dunes -> Bone-Dry Dunes
For a better player, the methods used to determine difficulty here become pretty moot: - Times falling off - Placement - Fatigue A good player won't fall off, will 99.9% of the time get 1st place, and playing the tracks over and over again is just like a time trial so they won't really get lost of forget the racing line. At the end of any specific cup, a good player's average placement will likely be 1.01 or 1.00. So it would be much harder to determine difficulty objectively. I guess it's kinda good that someone not so talented at the game did this challenge, because it shows the actually difficulty of the track for casual players, but watching basic driving errors being chocked up to track difficulty is a bit misleading on difficulty. Tight turns, brake drifting, landing early on gliders, shortcuts, bagging strategies, counter drifting, etc, would make this experiment much less volatile.
I appriciate your dedication to have large sample to be as scientifically accrute as possible, but fatigue probably plays a part in making the later track harde. Maybe next time take a well rest before moving to the next cup.
The DLC cups being hard is acurrate. In 200cc spent about 2-4 hours in total getting 3 stars in the first 8 cups, then 8 hours just beating the DLCs. I'm shocked to see Dragon Driftway not ranking much higher, since even with brake drifting, that track is the send of hell. Atleast in my experience.
It took me over 2 years to get 3 stars on mirror mode bell cup. Every other cup I managed to get 3 stars relatively easily (including all of the DLC), but for whatever reason super bell subway on mirror would trip me up every time.
Having just done Time Trials of all of the original tracks (to unlock the gold wheels), I have to say that Special is actually one of the easier cups. It took me significantly less time than the 4 DLC cups. Neo Bowser City can do one. Now I have 3 out of the 4 golden unlockables, with only the golden glider left to obtain.
Legendary stuff, thanks for sharing science. There’s a huge difference between 150 and 200 cc in some tracks, especially Bowser City, who may not have been the hardest at 150. (I’d guess Rainbow Road). Wouldn’t have bet Baby Park to be the easiest neither, this course gets so item loaded chaotic.
The fact that you did so well in Bone Dry Dunes that it didnt even show up in the Top 5 hardest but failed terribly at MUSIC PARK?!!?!? makes this entire experiment questionable at best LMAO still a great video, thx for your sacrifice :')
I haven't watched it yet to see how you standardize selection, but I will add this: Flower Cup was the last "modern" cup I finished in 200cc because of the oddly-shaped, narrow track, barely any power-up boxes per row Shy Guy Falls. It ended 70% of my attempts at it. Even Neo Bowser City was easier for me for whatever reason.
I know you said a disclaimer at the end about this, but some players struggle with one track, while another person excels at this track. While I always failed the NES Rainbow Road, my girlfriend got top 3 placements most of the time, she sucked at babypark, I got 1st all the time. So it would be cool to see how the ranking would be influenced by comparing the data of many people. And I think you should always either dismiss the first 5 trys for each track or focus solely on those trys. After 5 attemps, you should know the basic track layout and drive better at this speed (even thought your stats dont reflect that, most even get worse for the 5 attemps, I guess because you got tired, tilted or something)
I think the worst thing about those musical notes is that stupid smile on their faces. It's like they were smirking at you after they just flattened both you and your vehicle. While your character can't be killed I can't imagine they'd be feeling too good after that.
I won't lie, as someone with more experience in this game, calling some of these tracks difficult is painful lol, but for average players, I suppose the ranking is fairly accurate
hmm I think you really should have done this on 150cc since most, if not all, of these tracks weren't designed with the speed of 200cc in mind so that probably screwed with your values just based off of what courses had the tightest turns
A thing I didn’t hear so far from anyone (also haven’t looked for it tho) is that in 200cc it’s pretty good to brake while drifting to adjust the drift direction. You keep drifting while braking but you have to beware off braking to long and stopping. Also works pretty well in 150cc if you took a turn too sharp.
7:33 since I played way too much Mario Kart 7 I was genuinely surprised to see call this track the hardest of the cup. (I genuinely think that the banana cup is the easiest in the game)
Would it have been better to determine standard deviations and confidence intervals (or like a t test or something) for each cup to determing definitively if one cup was harder than another. The values for bell and special were so close that I don't feel that simply looking at an average would be a good measure of which cup is harder but great video nonetheless!
The turns that has two of them going left and right, you can actually go straight, skip the first turn and drift the second, makes it a lot easier and actual racers use this a lot
I hope this will help: you can hold b while drifting to do a slower drift. It allows you to take turns tighter. Also, you can just tap r or zr to do a hop, it changes your direction. You will slow down a bit after using them, but it allows you to take extremely tight turns.
Maybe I'm weird but the hardest cup for me was consistently the one with Piranha Plant Slide. I lost on that map 3 times before doing it perfect, and I remember getting 2nd on another of the maps. Special cup only took me two tries to 3 star
Liked the video although you should’ve used 150cc because that’s the standard and lots of the tracks aren’t meant for 200 and some of the problems you had were very beginner problems
I think the funniest part about MK8 Deluxe's base courses that are native to MK8, is they feel so raced on and used (and they're ORIGINALLY from the Wii U, is at this point it feels almost like they're retro courses that should say what game Console they're from like N64 and GCN tracks do lol
50 runs each is a lot of data, so kudos. In my more anecdotal experience as an advanced player 100%ing the game with triple stars on each cup at each difficulty, the Bell was by far the hardest. But restarting it over and over again meant I'm now quite adept, maybe even fond of Neo Bowser City from repeated play. Special, was obviously hard, but I found it much easier to clear than the "middle" tier e.g. Leaf and Egg. I'd say a substantive difference in casual play vs completionist play is that once you develop enough familiarity, the tracks themselves cease to be your enemy and your highest barrier becomes your actual opponents. Very "simple" tracks like Excite Bike, i.e. induce chaos in a way more ostensibly difficult courses don't. RNG and AI spoil your run way more than your own mistakes.
The list(I made this before he showed the list in the end): Mushroom cup-55.25 Shell cup-54.14 Star cup-54.04 Egg cup-53.94 Lightning cup-53.76 Flower cup and crossing cup-53.65 Leaf cup-53.37 Banana cup-53.1 Triforce cup-52.22 Bell cup-50.98 Special cup-50.75
Rainbow Road (Special Cup) was the bane pf my existence when playing through the GPs on 200cc the first time. Interestingly, Neo Bowser City didn’t give me that hard of a time. Probably cause at this point I was somewhat used to 200cc. That and I also switched up my cart config.
This is great! There is one variable that you didn't account for though, and that's that you aren't very good at the game. :/ Also using full standard is an interesting choice. It's not bad, but it makes much more sense to just use meta.
as someone who just recently beat 200cc after many a fail, I 100% agree with the cup placements, tho (personally) i would argue that super bell subway is a little more difficult than neo bowser city. if you brake immediately after MTing before the extra sharp turn, you can make it (barely) a majority of the time
it was an entertaining video, there is a lot that can be improved on but as you mentioned you mainly do 150cc where I normally practice on 200cc. one big tip I can give is that you don't need to trick off every trick ramp, like the last turn on super bell subway, that turn you kept falling off on music parkway (melody raceway), as well as that one turn on tic-toc clock should be better if you drifted off the ramps instead tricking them. it'll make turns like those easier and you'll have a better approaching line. I would also recommend releasing your mini turbos early as the purples are hard to control if it's not a straight away such as the snake on neo bowser city. practice them before doing to more harder stuff, doing these can make you brake drift less even (most tracks I don't brake drift at all on 200cc). best I can do is help you practice in case you wanted to throw in chaos for your friends
I tried 5 times in the 3 most hardest tracks and my mind is fucked already. Dk *| 15,00 - 1,00 | p5-5* Neo bowser *| 10,40 - 4,60 | p3-5* Rainbow road *| 13,20 - 1,60 | p5-5* Rainbow road get a good average, but was the more stressfully
I remember when I was grinding for gold mario, it took me an ungodly amount of tries to finish the triforce cup because of god damn highrule circuit, which is only made worse because of its the last course in the cup so each time I failed I had to do the whole cup again
Just finished the video. When I saw the title of your video I was positive the Bell Cup was gonna be the hardest. Super Bell Subway has made me rage quit more than any course in the game. Worse than Rainbow Road because at least Rainbow Road has a Shroom less shortcut on 200cc. But that damn subway fucks me on the last lap. Every. Damn. Time. It got #2 spot. Makes perfect sense.
Totally fair in Triforce Cup being a top two candidate, Ice Ice Outpost in particular is not hard to complete, but offers little room to get far ahead of CPUs because the roads are so narrow, and the computers are willing to do the only hard thing about it, the ramp shortcuts
For anyone wondering I said the word cup 96 times in this video...Also excel spreadsheet with the info is in the description
If you guys enjoyed please do consider liking the video means a lot! 😘
Where are the dlc tracks🤦♂️
@cnicome8493 Listen to the intro maybe? 🤦♂️
What a coincidence, as when Wave 6 releases there will be 96 tracks in the game
@@dannytheocto2556 exactly my thought
You should make a Franchise Tier List of SNK Games sometime in the Future.
Most beginner doesn't know this, but you can adjust your height when gliding, and most of the jump you mentioned were hard can be solved by landing early
exactly, wild woods is so easy if you adjust your height
you can’t adjust your height, you can slower your decent slightly, but the game still forces you down when you get far enough
@@Roxletonyes you can, by pressing forward you go downward
@@Muckelienchen I was specifically talking about vertical assent and not downwards decent. Even then, if you do that, you barely fall any slower
@@Roxleton I said landing early dude, no one says anything about slowing descent
It might have been a better idea to race on 150cc since that’s the standard as far as I’m aware.
Yeah and 200cc is basically me playing Sonic but everything ends too fast
He stated he plays a lot more on 150, so maybe he played on 200, because on 150 he would 90% of the time get 1. even on harder tracks. Playing on 200 probably spread the placements and thus giving more reliable results.
@@Aeldur-l8o Yeah, 150cc is "easy" if you are a long time player of mario kart, even with bad karts you can still win most of the races in 1st place if you are good enough. 200cc was for sure a better option to compare.
I’ve played so much 200cc at this point that 150cc feels super slow
@@FortunAdlaich That's so true, I played a bunch of 200cc to get all 3 stars in all cups and when I play 150cc it feels like it's 50cc
This entire project must have taken so much dedication from start to finish. Massive respect to you for completing it
@CandidBanterbro, if you’re bad just say that
My soul ascended when he finally learned how to break drift around yoshi circuit 💀
(Great video still!)
Fr
It’s even better when you learn with proper early drifting you can take optimal lines and don’t need to brake drift at all. True for a lot of maps on 200 tbh, very few maps require any/minimal brake drifting.
@@dh3913you prob dont need it if you take perfect lines, but in stuff like online play where youre getting bumped all over brake drifting is great
@@jackjones7620 Yes it definitely has use cases, didn’t mean to say it wasn’t useful lol, I just think how necessary it is gets blown out of proportion sometimes. Imo early drifting is the TRUELY necessary technique for 200, brake drifting is just useful when early drifting isn’t enough/interaction with other players like you mention.
@@dh3913 very true
Tip - Brake drift more. Most of the mistakes you made were go too wide during turns.
He also just made a lot of poor choices of racing lines. Going extra wide before sharp turns often allows you to go through them completely without breaking, and sometimes gets you a better mini turbo.
He rarely did this however, forcing him to break unnecessarily, and sometimes making him slam into walls because the car doesn't turn fast enough.
Another one is not landing earlier from the Glider
Tbf I didn't even know you could do that until I was on 200cc lmao
exactly. I had to learn this in this game's time in the Wii U.
sorry i’m dumb but what does thus actually mean? what do you mean by “too wide”
This man literally played 2,400 tracks for one video, from that effort alone, you’ve earned my subscription
And he is doing it again for all the dlc tracks
Nuts
I somehow doubt he did 50 genuinely
@@U_C_G it definitely seems insane, but there’s no real reason to doubt it
@@bowino489 Maybe the fact he's still making extremely basic mistakes and forgetting track layout after supposedly 50 times? Very few shortcuts attempted. Lack of control knowledge with glider controls or brake drifting
@@U_C_G bro, you do realize he doesn’t have to use footage from his best runs right, we can’t be sure but maybe he only really selected from the first few runs of each track, stop trying to be so negative and put people down, nobody thinks you’re smarter for pointing it out
the one thing I've noticed is you don't seem to go towards the ground in the gliding sections, you often want to get back on the track as soon as possible in the parts where they force you to glide because that's where you're most vulnerable and you can turn more effectively sooner than if you stayed in the air
You can hold B while drifting to brake drift, letting you slow down and tighten the turn. Additionally, you can hold left or right on the stick while drifting to tighten or widen your drift angle as needed. Most of the turns you mentioned having difficult (particularly the one on Music Park / Melody Motorway) can just be taken as is like this.
You can also move your Right Stick down to Break drift.
@@destroyermcw626 this explains why I lose speed so much while drifting. I hold down too hard on Joysticks.
@@AverageEggmonEnthusiast Yep and if you move your right stick up you drive and these are the other secret alternate controls.
My fave is music park and i do these tricks for good driving
I'm gonna have to try this. I am on the opposite side of the spectrum where I don't ever break on my turns, I use my joystick to control the drifting in my tight turns, and I've noticed I still end up fumbling on some turns, especially on the Neo Bowser City track.
I'd be interested to see a graph for each track, showing all 50 times with its own points for each run, to see if there's a certain number of runs where you suddenly improve or worsen
Something that would help based on what I’ve seen is the fact that you can end the glider sections early by holding forward. This brings your kart downwards quicker and makes it easier to start the next turn on Cheeseland or Wild Woods for example.
It baffles me that you never figured out you can steer the glider up and down. Just hold the stick forward, and you'll land much faster.
On cheeze land, the first chain chomp literally can not hit you if you land early and drive on the ground. On wild woods, you are supposed to land much earlier, so that you can drift through the turn.
he’s so bad I’m crying 😭
18:20
Little tip buddy, if you dont want to get hit by the chain chomp on cheese land, the best thing to do is land as soon as you can and drive underneath it when it jumps
Holy crap your dedication is insane. Replaying each cup 50 times, in a row, on 200cc??? You’re a beast dude nice job. And great video!
I immediately thought of neo bowser city as the hardest track in the game. It's been my favorite track since mk7 because it's a bowser track that isn't his castle, and the whole cyberpunk dystopia aesthetic is really cool.
I've probably played it way more than any other track in mk8, and I have those turns down to a science, but once in a while, even I screw it up and go over the edge.
Neo Bowser City was the only track I've ever had to go out of my way to practice to win against CPUs on 150cc (and 200cc). Every single other stage, I was able to quickly get full gold just by attempting the entire cup again if I got anything less than 1st, but Neo Bowser City took me messing around in time attack to figure out the routes and turns, and I completely changed my character and cart combo in 200cc solely in anticipation of THIS STAGE.
tbh, I wish there was a whole cup of stages that difficult, although any more difficult and I think it's a pretty big ask for online.
Maybe In 200cc but in 150cc Wario stadium is harder
@@Finnthechatlmaowait what, if you know wario stadium its one of the easier ones
@@mpownage4806then why does top 20 player in the world (gyrodos) rank it as the hardest track in the game
@@Finnthechatlmao because its a very technical track, thats why he ranks it high
One of my favorite 200cc shortcuts is on Yoshi circuit that little spine; you want to drift through that last turn towards the piranha plant and aim behind it. Once you're almost on the grass, you can hop over or mushroom through it! Cuts a good chunk out of the part of the track and if it lands just right all you have to do is drift into the turn with the ramp!
I find that it works alright on 150cc too, even without a mushroom. You just need to time your jump well, and you'll probably need to jump immediately after landing in the event that you land slightly in the offroad.
50 times, that's nuts. If you (can't say I blame you if you don't) do the DLC courses test 25 or less. You'll have the tracks burnt into your retina's. I'm glad you did this so we don't have to. So thank you.
I think this video would've benefitted from the criteria of playing the tracks on time trial to determine their own difficulty, away from the CPUs who mostly have RNG behavior. also I have to inform you about brake drifting, it's very powerful in 200cc.
surely the 50 times reduces error from rng. also tracks are different lengths, theres nothing to win or lose on time trials, some tracks will have lower times than others which can't be helped
This video probably took longer than a week of playing straight. Dedication. He deserves a lot
As an almost exclusively 200cc player the Lucky Cat cup was the hardest literally just bc of Ninja Hideaway. I usually only need a couple tries but it took me over 15 tries to get it 3 stars
Really important thing to get cheese land and wild wild woods down well is landing asap on the glider sections
This dude can not drift or glide to save his live 😂
Seeing the Special Cup gave me flashbacks from back when I played MK8 on the Wii U. Bone Dry Dunes is a nightmare. Thanks for doing this experiment in the name of science to prove the cup's difficulty
Also, 13:00 is peak Mario Kart!
I loved watching your process to taking these courses and ranking them; definitely gave me some thoughts as to what I think is most difficult. One thing I did notice is that you tended to eschew alternate routes/pathing that would either counteract or alleviate the issues you had with the tracks.
For some examples:
On Toad's Turnpike, take the walls. Slightly longer path, but the booster gives you so much speed that it's usually worth it, and you avoid the traffic entirely.
On Bone Dry Ruins, taking the alternate path is both easier to drive and lets you get boosts off the spinners.
On Twisted Mansion, taking the right path will always lead to you going high; take the left one for easier jumps.
Also, highly recommend hitting tricks off of every jump you can. The boosts from that add up incredibly quickly.
I love how that daisy clip is always shown when bad luck is mentioned about this game 😂
The mental gymnastics I did when you said Melody Motorway😭
The Tri-Cup Raindow Road has always been easy for me. It's one of my favorite tracks.
“Piranha Plant Pipeway” is “Piranha Plant Slide” and “Melody Motorway” is “Music Park” in the US
17:33 the middle ramp with the master sword opens based on the 3 spin boosters in the corridor before, all 3 of them need to be hit for it to open up
My friend and I both watched this video and it's super interesting how different our predictions were:
He basically said Special and Egg cup and I agreed, but personally I've always struggled on Egg Cup courses the most. I'm a pretty skilled player who plays online with other people who play a lot, so putting me on Excitebike or Mute City where I have no chance of making a comeback if I fall behind always hits the hardest. Meanwhile Yoshi Circuit and Dragon Driftway are some of the most technical courses in the game and take a lot of practice, so people who have played the course more than me have a huge leg up. There's no middle ground where I feel like I can get comfortable and that always feels like my downfall.
I've been working on getting 3 stars in all 200cc cups recently, and, in my opinion, Special Cup is by far the hardest. It's the only one that I've needed to use smart steering on.
Special cup took me years to get 3 stars on 200cc. I experimented with many different carts and tires and characters to find whatever worked best
@@angry3195 One day I'll get around to beating it without smart-steering.
@@hiddencitypictures Did you do it
@@GamerThatExists Not yet. The DLC has kept me busy recently.
I would love to see this concept be expanded to about 1,000 people doing this to get a wider range of numbers
i did a double take when you said Melody Motorway instead of Music Park 😭 are there regional differences with the names of the courses?
I'd never heard the name "Music Park" until your comment and yes, it's "Melody Motorway" in the British English version of the game
Other track differences include
Koopa City (UK) -> Neo Bowser City (US)
Toad Harbour -> Toad Harbor
Bone Dry Dunes -> Bone-Dry Dunes
Melody Motorway is a way better name anyway
@@bigh2947 Rock Rock Mountain -> Alpine Pass???
Piranha Plant Slide -> Piranha Plant Pipeway
I didnt know music park was different but I like the name better
@@EmperorPenguin1217and then DK Summit to DK Snowboard Pass
For a better player, the methods used to determine difficulty here become pretty moot:
- Times falling off
- Placement
- Fatigue
A good player won't fall off, will 99.9% of the time get 1st place, and playing the tracks over and over again is just like a time trial so they won't really get lost of forget the racing line. At the end of any specific cup, a good player's average placement will likely be 1.01 or 1.00. So it would be much harder to determine difficulty objectively.
I guess it's kinda good that someone not so talented at the game did this challenge, because it shows the actually difficulty of the track for casual players, but watching basic driving errors being chocked up to track difficulty is a bit misleading on difficulty. Tight turns, brake drifting, landing early on gliders, shortcuts, bagging strategies, counter drifting, etc, would make this experiment much less volatile.
I appriciate your dedication to have large sample to be as scientifically accrute as possible, but fatigue probably plays a part in making the later track harde. Maybe next time take a well rest before moving to the next cup.
massive tip for new players you can break while drifting to get tighter sections while keeping your turbo
You did not have to do every track 50 TIMES but the fact you did is amazing. Incredible work!
The DLC cups being hard is acurrate. In 200cc spent about 2-4 hours in total getting 3 stars in the first 8 cups, then 8 hours just beating the DLCs. I'm shocked to see Dragon Driftway not ranking much higher, since even with brake drifting, that track is the send of hell. Atleast in my experience.
It took me over 2 years to get 3 stars on mirror mode bell cup. Every other cup I managed to get 3 stars relatively easily (including all of the DLC), but for whatever reason super bell subway on mirror would trip me up every time.
Video definitely needs way more views for how quality and interesting it is. Great vid!
Having just done Time Trials of all of the original tracks (to unlock the gold wheels), I have to say that Special is actually one of the easier cups. It took me significantly less time than the 4 DLC cups. Neo Bowser City can do one. Now I have 3 out of the 4 golden unlockables, with only the golden glider left to obtain.
4 golden unlockables? Are you including the gold steer wheel for online too?
@@kobotics227kart wheels glider golden metal mario is my guess
@@Jay-jx3vp oooooh riiiiight... i forgot about gold mario!
Legendary stuff, thanks for sharing science. There’s a huge difference between 150 and 200 cc in some tracks, especially Bowser City, who may not have been the hardest at 150. (I’d guess Rainbow Road). Wouldn’t have bet Baby Park to be the easiest neither, this course gets so item loaded chaotic.
Its so weird seeing music park being called melody motorway
The fact that you did so well in Bone Dry Dunes that it didnt even show up in the Top 5 hardest but failed terribly at MUSIC PARK?!!?!? makes this entire experiment questionable at best LMAO
still a great video, thx for your sacrifice :')
Melody motorway tripped me up cause in the us its called music park
The amount of work here is crazy. Amazing video, mate!
I haven't watched it yet to see how you standardize selection, but I will add this:
Flower Cup was the last "modern" cup I finished in 200cc because of the oddly-shaped, narrow track, barely any power-up boxes per row Shy Guy Falls. It ended 70% of my attempts at it. Even Neo Bowser City was easier for me for whatever reason.
I know you said a disclaimer at the end about this, but some players struggle with one track, while another person excels at this track. While I always failed the NES Rainbow Road, my girlfriend got top 3 placements most of the time, she sucked at babypark, I got 1st all the time. So it would be cool to see how the ranking would be influenced by comparing the data of many people.
And I think you should always either dismiss the first 5 trys for each track or focus solely on those trys. After 5 attemps, you should know the basic track layout and drive better at this speed (even thought your stats dont reflect that, most even get worse for the 5 attemps, I guess because you got tired, tilted or something)
I think asking which is the most difficult cup has a very subjective answer. Everyone has their own skill level.
The first cup I ever played was the special cup with my friend, I beat him that day so it’s my favourite by far
I think the worst thing about those musical notes is that stupid smile on their faces. It's like they were smirking at you after they just flattened both you and your vehicle.
While your character can't be killed I can't imagine they'd be feeling too good after that.
I won't lie, as someone with more experience in this game, calling some of these tracks difficult is painful lol, but for average players, I suppose the ranking is fairly accurate
13:50 wait, how did I never notice that shortcut?
I was today years old when I learned Dragon Driftway wasn’t Drag’n’Driftway.
Doing this whole thing at 200cc was wild, I applaud the bravery
in british, music park is called melody motorway for some reason
and in british, piranha plant slide is called piranha plant pipeway which makes more sense
Honestly, I’m always thinking different from everyone else, but the lightning cup was the first one that came up in my mind for some reason
hmm I think you really should have done this on 150cc since most, if not all, of these tracks weren't designed with the speed of 200cc in mind so that probably screwed with your values just based off of what courses had the tightest turns
A thing I didn’t hear so far from anyone (also haven’t looked for it tho) is that in 200cc it’s pretty good to brake while drifting to adjust the drift direction. You keep drifting while braking but you have to beware off braking to long and stopping.
Also works pretty well in 150cc if you took a turn too sharp.
My favourite cup is special cup... and I finish 1st almost all the time at every course
Ribbon Road was the Rainbow Road of Mario Kart Super Circuit (GBA), IIRC.
The name fits, what the hell.
There's a Rainbow Road in Super Circuit and it pretty tough
You and everyone who liked your comment have obviously no idea that there is a rainbow road in Mario Kart: Super Circuit.
I've played super circuit, ribbon road was nowhere near rainbow road in difficulty
No. Super Circuit has a Rainbow Road.
7:33 since I played way too much Mario Kart 7 I was genuinely surprised to see call this track the hardest of the cup. (I genuinely think that the banana cup is the easiest in the game)
Would it have been better to determine standard deviations and confidence intervals (or like a t test or something) for each cup to determing definitively if one cup was harder than another. The values for bell and special were so close that I don't feel that simply looking at an average would be a good measure of which cup is harder
but great video nonetheless!
The turns that has two of them going left and right, you can actually go straight, skip the first turn and drift the second, makes it a lot easier and actual racers use this a lot
Fascinating that 3 out of the 4 mk7 tracks in this game made it into the top 5 hardest.
I actually found the Flower Cup took me the longest to 3 star on 200cc. Shy Guy Falls is deadly without practice
I had no clue that music park wasn’t the name for all English languages! Melody Motorway really threw me off!
big blue on 200cc is one of the most fun mario kart experiences out there
Neo Bowser City is my favorite track but I ain’t playing that on 200cc, you’re crazy for that one
No. Way. Another Kai?? Its you me and the fire ninja fr
would love to know where the remaining cups would fall on the list!
I made a separate list for the booster pass cups if you wanted to check that out. Should give you an idea how they all stack up.
I hope this will help: you can hold b while drifting to do a slower drift. It allows you to take turns tighter. Also, you can just tap r or zr to do a hop, it changes your direction. You will slow down a bit after using them, but it allows you to take extremely tight turns.
Yeah, he kinda knows that. He talks about brake drifting several times in the video.
Maybe I'm weird but the hardest cup for me was consistently the one with Piranha Plant Slide. I lost on that map 3 times before doing it perfect, and I remember getting 2nd on another of the maps. Special cup only took me two tries to 3 star
Before watching the video, I just wanna say the Star Cup has always given me an especially hard time.
Gave a like just for the dedication of racing each track 50 times! I would've been impressed with 5!
Liked the video although you should’ve used 150cc because that’s the standard and lots of the tracks aren’t meant for 200 and some of the problems you had were very beginner problems
I think the funniest part about MK8 Deluxe's base courses that are native to MK8, is they feel so raced on and used (and they're ORIGINALLY from the Wii U, is at this point it feels almost like they're retro courses that should say what game Console they're from like N64 and GCN tracks do lol
SNES rainbow road in Mario Kart 7 was like going into battle for me as a kid. The 3DS was my weapon and I was prepared for war.
50 runs each is a lot of data, so kudos. In my more anecdotal experience as an advanced player 100%ing the game with triple stars on each cup at each difficulty, the Bell was by far the hardest. But restarting it over and over again meant I'm now quite adept, maybe even fond of Neo Bowser City from repeated play. Special, was obviously hard, but I found it much easier to clear than the "middle" tier e.g. Leaf and Egg.
I'd say a substantive difference in casual play vs completionist play is that once you develop enough familiarity, the tracks themselves cease to be your enemy and your highest barrier becomes your actual opponents. Very "simple" tracks like Excite Bike, i.e. induce chaos in a way more ostensibly difficult courses don't. RNG and AI spoil your run way more than your own mistakes.
If it is harder for you, it is harder for everyone else.
The list(I made this before he showed the list in the end):
Mushroom cup-55.25
Shell cup-54.14
Star cup-54.04
Egg cup-53.94
Lightning cup-53.76
Flower cup and crossing cup-53.65
Leaf cup-53.37
Banana cup-53.1
Triforce cup-52.22
Bell cup-50.98
Special cup-50.75
Rainbow Road (Special Cup) was the bane pf my existence when playing through the GPs on 200cc the first time. Interestingly, Neo Bowser City didn’t give me that hard of a time. Probably cause at this point I was somewhat used to 200cc. That and I also switched up my cart config.
15:48 mute city is sooo easy if you've played XGRA. I even used an inside drift bike and absolutely smashed it on 150cc.
This video was so funny an entertaining, I know that sounds like such a bot thing to say but I have so much appreciation for it so I don’t even care
This is great! There is one variable that you didn't account for though, and that's that you aren't very good at the game. :/ Also using full standard is an interesting choice. It's not bad, but it makes much more sense to just use meta.
I forgot that music park is also callled melody motorway😭😭
I forgot it was also called music park untill looking at the comments of everyone being confused by the name
as someone who just recently beat 200cc after many a fail, I 100% agree with the cup placements, tho (personally) i would argue that super bell subway is a little more difficult than neo bowser city. if you brake immediately after MTing before the extra sharp turn, you can make it (barely) a majority of the time
it was an entertaining video, there is a lot that can be improved on but as you mentioned you mainly do 150cc where I normally practice on 200cc. one big tip I can give is that you don't need to trick off every trick ramp, like the last turn on super bell subway, that turn you kept falling off on music parkway (melody raceway), as well as that one turn on tic-toc clock should be better if you drifted off the ramps instead tricking them. it'll make turns like those easier and you'll have a better approaching line. I would also recommend releasing your mini turbos early as the purples are hard to control if it's not a straight away such as the snake on neo bowser city. practice them before doing to more harder stuff, doing these can make you brake drift less even (most tracks I don't brake drift at all on 200cc). best I can do is help you practice in case you wanted to throw in chaos for your friends
Not even watching mario kart videos, but damn that is an impressive commitment, great video :)
I tried 5 times in the 3 most hardest tracks and my mind is fucked already.
Dk *| 15,00 - 1,00 | p5-5*
Neo bowser *| 10,40 - 4,60 | p3-5*
Rainbow road *| 13,20 - 1,60 | p5-5*
Rainbow road get a good average, but was the more stressfully
Ah yes, favorite pastime, watching Mario Kart videos despite having only played the game like 4 times.
Man that og mk wii menu ost 😢❤
I remember when I was grinding for gold mario, it took me an ungodly amount of tries to finish the triforce cup because of god damn highrule circuit, which is only made worse because of its the last course in the cup so each time I failed I had to do the whole cup again
Just finished the video. When I saw the title of your video I was positive the Bell Cup was gonna be the hardest. Super Bell Subway has made me rage quit more than any course in the game. Worse than Rainbow Road because at least Rainbow Road has a Shroom less shortcut on 200cc. But that damn subway fucks me on the last lap. Every. Damn. Time. It got #2 spot. Makes perfect sense.
That wild woods comment was like a stab in the heart
Great video, it would be interesting to see how different skill levels would rank tracks differently
I must say, never in my life have I flown out of bounds on tides turnpike
10:00 melody motorway?!?
its called melody motorway instead of music park in europe and australia
I remember when I was trying to get 3 stars on every cup and special cup took me 3 weeks while the others only took 5 days combined.
In 200cc I still can’t deny the special cup, Rainbow Road does not compute with me in that mode… but let’s see!
Totally fair in Triforce Cup being a top two candidate, Ice Ice Outpost in particular is not hard to complete, but offers little room to get far ahead of CPUs because the roads are so narrow, and the computers are willing to do the only hard thing about it, the ramp shortcuts