Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Gets Updated, Here's What's New And Different

I'm sorry Nintendo but "No stability, no update"

Great to see this stellar title still receiving the tweak treatment!

The extented invulnerability and the better items when far behind sound interesting.

Might have to check this out to see how it feels.

Does that blue shell tweak mean that the player in 2nd won’t ever get caught in the explosion as it hits player 1? If so, I have mixed feelings...

Welcomed update...Would be nice to have race times of all the racers next.

While you're at it:

1) Remove the squid item. It isn't fun for either victim or attacker. Just annoying. There's a difference. Items should be fun for the attacker.

2) Stop heavily penalising players for being good. The computer calculating what to give you based on your position is ridiculous. Sometimes it takes up to fifteen seconds to get: a coin.

3) Coins are not items. Only on track, please.

4) Make shells smaller but slightly faster, so it takes more skill to hit people.

5) Sort out the online tournaments, so that you can queue to join a Five, Ten, Fifteen Race tournament, so that online races feel like they have a point, instead of race after race for nothing.

6) Set up a fixed No Items Tournament in the options. Player made tournaments should be reconsidered.

7) Give the second player their points when playing 2P Online. Why am I not getting those points permanently if I'm playing as myself??

My biggest issues with MK8.

@gaga64 I don’t think so. It sounds to me like a bug fix for times where, if the first player is close to the finish, the blue shell would ignore them and go for the second place player instead.

@gaga64 no

Did they really need to give better items to anyone? How about turning down the amount of times lightning appears by like less than half of what it is now?

I honestly didn't expect this. I figured the game was already balanced enough, considering it had a significant Wii U "beta test".

What about the Piranha Plants? Just one for a given player or just one on the whole track at a time?

@thesilverbrick: They obviously changed the game balance by giving two items at a time.

And the mission to make Mario Kart even less chaotic than it was continues... I like Mario Kart 8 and all, but with all the overall nerfs to the items and stage hazards I think they're losing what makes Mario Kart unique in the first place.

This update gives me a little more confidence that we may see some new DLC after all.

I fell foul of that blue shell issue for the first time just the other day. Glad they're saving me the effort of swearing mortal revenge on any more cartoon representations of strangers.

@vitalemrecords @slider271 cool, thanks

Nice! Good to see Nintendo still cares about this game.

@HappyMaskedGuy1

I wholeheartedly agree with points 5, 6 & 7. Your other points I personally don't mind but each to their own.

I'd add to those by asking for:

1) only one blue shell per race OR no blue shells after 1st place has crossed the halfway point of the 3rd lap.

2) a return of the online points system to what it was originally - i.e. it's a zero sum game - to gain a point someone has to lose a point & the number of points given/removed is weighted by your points total relative to those who you've beaten/lost against.

The new system is terrible and means that you could accumulate 5000 points by just finishing in the middle of the pack in as many races as required...

It used to be difficult to push your score over a certain threshold - now you just need to race more and not finish in the last couple of positions...

To me this is a major kill-joy and is the main reason I've dropped off of MK8 online!

I'd love to hear someone explain Nintendo's logic behind this system... It is totally baffling to me...

Nice update, but I still want them to bring back Team friendly fire. My favorite you-tuber's MK8 videos haven't been the same. At the very least they should make blue shells hit first place mo matter who's team they are with.

I've been playing the original on my SNES mini. What a game. It's not perfect, - the endless stream of items hurled at you when you're in first place can be very irritating - but it's still a game based very much around attaining a high level of skill.

With each new Mario Kart and even with each new update, the game is dumbed down ever further. Why worry if you suck and are last? The game will endlessly shower you with items to make up for your staggering incompetence. And if you're in first, you had better get used to being pounded by blue shells.

I get that it's not Gran Turismo, but it's getting dangerously close to brainless random chance party game territory now.

I would say get rid of blue shells, or stop letting first get pounded because they race better :/

@Yorumi

As much as I love Nintendo they still seem to exhibit schizophrenic behaviour.

With the Switch they seemed to have learned that a huge part of their user base are adults that want sleek, good looking technology (as opposed to say, the Wii U). This realisation seems to be backed up by things like inclusion of the crazy hard 200cc option in MK or the design choices of BOTW - leaving the success or failure of that experience very much in the hands of the gamer.

But for every one of those decisions they seem to make another which seems to serve another agenda (or audience) completely...

The gimped online points system which I already mentioned that can only be there to stop poor vulnerable children from feeling bad that they have a lower score than other players... Or their generally underwhelming overly-somplified online gaming experience that again, seems to cater to kids.

Switch vs Wii U surely shows that their biggest audience are adults but there seems to be a section of the board room that stubbornly keeps them anchored in 'simple kiddy' mode...

Drives me nuts!!!

Can we have the old point system back capped at 9999

@BiggerBoat This isn't a challenge particular to Nintendo. Any game that is competitive and gathers a "pro" crowd almost instantly faces very hard choices. Pro players are just no fun to play with if you want multiplayer gaming without a huge commitment. They can bring prestige and attention to a game, but they also want it to cater to people who play for 1000+ hours. Follow any multiplayer online game and you'll see similar struggles.

Mario Kart certainly has the reputation of immense popularity with less dedicated gamers, so the default situation is going to go in that direction by necessity.

I do think there's a point at which hard lines are going to have to be drawn in many of these games, which means balancing and essentially developing two games. Expensive, but maybe what needs to happen. Pro side vs. Fun side right on the top menu. Good luck getting enough pro players for an online match, though.

Nice updates.

@HappyMaskedGuy Glad to know that someone else hates having coins as items. Rather annoying when you are in first and all you get are coins.

@thesilverbrick Same here.

@aaronsullivan

Going by the old system, couldn't you just be matched with others with a similar points total & thus similar ability? Also, in the instance that you are matched with a group of much more/less skilled players - the handicap system means that the points you gain/lose are relative to that difference...

The old system dealt with varying skill levels perfectly.

Unless I'm missing something?

"+ Extended the invulnerability period after spinning out or crashing."
Been calling for this for awhile. Hope the days of suffering three consecutive shell spin-outs that drop you from 2nd to last are over.

So now once 1st place crosses the finish line, and the blue shell was already targeting them, it will continue on past 2nd place to pursue them beyond the finish line? Am I understanding that update correctly? If so, I'm mixed on my feelings, as I'm glad 2nd doesn't have to get screwed for a blue shell that was on it's way to the 1st place person, but 2nd place is the new lead dog that's still "in play", so... time will tell, I guess. As far as better items in the back, it's about time. Hopefully there will be less single/triple mushrooms and more actual get-you-back-in-the-race items like Bullet Bill and golden mushrooms. I hope lightning and blue shells haven't been increased though.

@OorWullie
Highly unlikely... if MK8D does get DLC, then we will probably not get MK9 on the Switch, which I guess would be fine with a lot of DLC instead.

I'm fine with the Blue Shell... but NO Blue Shells on Lap 3... or a lot more Horns for 1st place on Lap 3.

There should be zero chance of getting 2 coins with a double-item box... I also think a reward for having 10 coins should be: no coins from item boxes.

I hate the Plant... all it does is mess me up... I wish I could throw the item away when I get it... the only good thing it ever does is eat the Blooper.

I like how the Blooper reduces everyone's traction, but obscuring your vision is really stupid. Everyone should get covered in ink and lose traction... I also love how a shroom or speed strip get rid of the ink.

@HappyMaskedGuy The biggest thing I want from MK is just smash bros levels of item customization. It's pretty sad that despite Mario Kart now being 25 years old, it has yet to do what Smash Bros has done in terms of item control since day 1(18 years ago)

@Oat I totally agree. Would sort my hatred of coins and feckin squids.

Stock battle, stock battle! That's all I really want!

I kind of would like some sort of double-dash mode even though I know it will never happen. Also would like to see dlc. I do realize that the dlc for the original Mario Kart 8 came a long while after the release of the game. I’m willing to wait for possible dlc.

Always up for an excuse to pop Mario Kart back in for an hour or two. Looks like I got one for tonight!

@BiggerBoat Matching you with similar skill levels does nothing about the actual features of the competition. For instance, pro players would rather there be no blue shell or offer a skill-based solution to deal with it. Players who want the fun of dramatic play without pressure to become super-skilled enjoy the items knocking the front player down a peg and the better items going to the back players to keep each race a series of crazy events.

Ability isn't really the difference between pro players and players who just want to have fun. The best the old system can do is separate the dedicated pro-style players further out from the other players. That can help, but the systems are the same at all skill levels so both groups (and those with mixed feelings) all have frustrations if you make the game mechanics favor one style over the other.

@HappyMaskedGuy Pretty legit suggestions for sure.

@aaronsullivan

It would be nice if there were a plethora of options to play around with yes, but my main gripe is there wilful obfuscation of the points system.

I could live with stock settings if only I could look at my points tally & actually have it mean something... I just don't know who the new system serves..? There must be an underlying logic behind the decision & I'd love to know what it is...

Hopefully when their paid online goes live there will be a change of approach - though I'm not going to hold my breath!

@HappyMaskedGuy
"7) Give the second player their points when playing 2P Online. Why am I not getting those points permanently if I'm playing as myself??"

Actually you can do it right now. I'm not sure fo all, but you must have different account for 2P on switch, create with accounts.nintendo.com and register on console, then choose it when playing 2P online. Try.
My friends plays like it. If that not work try to google, my friends take points both when playing online.

I don't think we will get any dlc updates such as karts, characters or new tracks as it is the deluxe version of the original.

I do hope we see Mario Kart 9 on the switch in a couple of years though and not switch 2.

Let us switch between two held items...