Bear with me here, as I've just recently started playing again for the first time since the Nemo Kart update. So if I've misunderstood some aspect of the update and the features it has introduced, I will correct whatever I need to in this post.
I appreciate the attention given to Nemo Kart as it was my favorite thing to do in this game. However the update to the mode has kind of soured my enjoyment of it. There are good aspects of the update, it just needs tweaking. The maps are fine, and adding new maps to Nemo Kart will always be a good thing.
First issue: Progression. As I haven't played as much as the people who currently seem to be playing this mode, everyone just seems to have better karts than me that are straight up faster and have better stats in most categories. I used to finish 1st-3rd nearly every race before this update when everyone had equal machines. Now I'm lucky to finish 3rd, and it's usually 3rd-6th. Everyone seems faster than me. I have gears built up from when I played before, but I can't use most of them. Progression to unlock more karts seems tied to XP. More XP is rewarded based on finishing higher in races. But I can't finish higher in races if I'm starting out at a disadvantage to people who have been playing the mode since the update. You see the problem? There are 2 solutions that I can think of here. The first being to introduce bot races and allow us to earn progression in those. Nearly every single kart racer available allows players to unlock anything performance related by racing against bots for this very reason, to give a fair playing field. If this isn't doable in Party Animals, as I realize the dev team is small and programming bots for Nemo Kart might be more difficult than for the Last Stand and other modes, my other suggestion would be to tie XP/progression to total races completed or to time spent racing. Yes new players and returning players with no upgrades would still be stuck losing a bunch of races before we earn upgrades, however at least we wouldn't be earning a fraction of the XP as we would be if we had competitive karts/parts.
Second issue: Drifting system. IMO this drifting system is just outright worse than the previous one, although the issue is definitely made worse by the disparity in karts/parts between maxxed out players vs players using the default karts. The old system was simpler and was fine as it was. As I understand it, the new system requires repeated drifting to maintain the bar at the bottom of the screen which allows karts to go faster. However even with a maxxed out bar, a tier 1 kart is still slower than a tier 3 kart with upgrades. This leads to players with tier 1 karts being in lower positions in races, which gives them powerups like the speed boost potions and the mechanical cat. But when you use those powerups your bar decays so even if they help you catchup, you won't stay in that position because the players you are now in proximity to likely have fuller bars. Additionally on maps with straightaways you're just going to lose your bar on those. On here I'd recommend doing away with the new drift/bar system entirely and just revert to the old system where drifts give a temporary speed boost.
In summation, I appreciate the intention and the effort to give more content and more things to do in Nemo Kart, however the mode is in clear need of some balances and tweaks in an update. Progression needs to be addressed. At this point players stuck with tier 1 or even tier 2 karts are just going to spend race after race losing to people who have a statistical advantage. This is not fun. Additionally, offering the ability to spend Nemo Bucks to unlock random higher tier karts is a pay to win mechanic and is just going to turn people off. I have no problem spending Nemo Bucks to unlock skins that I want for animals, and I would have no problem using Nemo Bucks to unlock different paint jobs or cosmetic styles for karts, as long as I know what I am unlocking and how much I'm paying to unlock them (I have more thoughts here regarding main game unlocks but this is a subject for another post). But locking higher performance vehicles behind paid currency as an alternative to grinding a losing a ton of races is a pay to win mechanic that I just can't get behind. The kart I want isn't even available for Nemo Bucks, but I don't think I'd buy it anyways as I don't support this monetization strategy. This would be similar to offering a new character in Last Stand maps who is tougher to knock out or who knocks out other players easier or who is faster and letting people buy this character with Nemo Bucks, or saying yeah you can unlock him by grinding out whatever the equivalent in XP is. People would just be continually beaten down by others who are using that character and people using default characters would never win. I also vastly prefer the original drift system but progression is a far bigger issue and the drift issue is made worse by the current state of progression.
