F-Zero 99 - Machine Analysis

[@BIueFalcon]

Actual voice reveal after 15 or so years?! What a time to be alive

[@MetabolicFrolic]

Bro, thank you so much for this! Nobody else in the F-Zero community has something this comprehensive.

[@jonazo7188]

This video has helped me so much in this game already. I was playing Falcon since as a beginner I figured an all-rounder was my best option to learn the game. I switched to stingray and I finally got a sense of how to “plan” a race around your vehicle’s strengths and weaknesses. I tried your idea of not boosting over the dirt patches in Mute City. I’m learning to play to stingray’s advantages by trying to stay close to top speed as much as possible, learning how to effectively corner, and staying out of scuffles, and saving up boost for when I have a clear straightaway. I still haven’t gotten a 1st place yet 😂 but it’s coming, I can feel it! Mostly I can just tell that I’m racing with more purpose and strategy than before. So thank you.

[@notjeckup]

I’d like to see changes to the spin mechanic. Falcon could have a shorter cooldown which allows it to defend itself better or attack something like a front running fox

[@fawkes6352]

I just mained Blue Falcon because I thought it looked the best.

[@SerenadeURA]

I have been maining Blue Falcon since day one - the way it handles and the design are both my favorite of the SNES machines, and I'm a fan of the man himself. I've so far gotten a total of 2 first place finishes, once in a 99 on Mute City II and once on Port Town I in the Queen cup. I don't consider myself great at the game - I play it once or twice a week and don't extensively study optimal lines or anything, but I don't think it takes extensive knowledge to realize the Falcon is underpowered - though, in most competitive games, the "all rounder" is typically weak only because the tuning on the other characters fails to provide adequate tradeoffs - often because the willingness of the player to overcome the downsides is underestimated. I will say that I do think the Falcon's versatility is a greater strength than it gets credit for. The other cars have rules they have to play by to secure first, but the Falcon can freestyle most tracks. I've managed to stay neck and neck with the frontrunner Fox on Mute City thanks to the Falcon's handling and its health loss from boosting being similar to the Fox, but I can never seem to land the kill... I think this is a skill issue on my part, honestly. If balance was up to me, I'd just add a damage modifier to the Falcon so that it does above average damage when spinning or boosting into someone.

[@Tracequaza]

I mainly play stingray and I agree generally with this, the falcon's ability to change playstyle is useful in the chaotic nature of the game, and is definitely its biggest asset, just unfortunately not super useful. I would consider buffing this strength somehow when buffing the falcon, and maybe increasing its top speed to be a bit closer to the goose

[@Destroyah5000]

I've been watching your gameplay videos to help me get 1st with each machine, and putting these observations into one video helps greatly. Currently I have no idea how to get a single GP won (got as close as 6th as Goose), so I'm sticking with something more obtainable.

[@zyxyuv1650]

297/1419 = 21% win rate with Falcon 1769/3639 = 49% win rate with Fox 342/1625 = 21% win rate with Goose 499/2002 = 25% win rate with Stingray ------ Falcon has no real compelling gameplay loop or reason to use it. Falcon is supposed to have a maneuverability advantage but it's not implemented or working correctly to make any effective playstyle. Falcon doesn't even have much of an advantage with Grip. I'd fix it by giving Falcon some subtle enhancements like reducing their speed penalty on gravel so they can take a slightly different path or cut some corners harder than other racers. And other small enhancements like a reduced speed penalty from running into walls can make Falcon more unique without unbalancing too much. Another major thing they could do is to give Falcon a strong advantage on jump/boost pads so they're the king of jump and boost pads and can play a jump/boost pad meta with their own optimized routes. That's the main problem: there's no Falcon meta. Falcon is based around being average at everything but that was more appropriate for the SNES game and I don't think that works in multiplayer, it needs some kinda standout unique feature or playstyle.

[@Teknanam]

The reason to use Falcon is that you like its particular advantages it has over every vehicle match-up to match-up. -Better acceleration than the Goose and the Stingray. -Better grip than the Goose and the Fox. -Better top speed than the Fox. -Better handling than the Goose and the Stingray. -Better speed retention than the Fox and the Goose. -Better power recovery than the Goose and the Stingray. There is going to a worst vehicle just as there will be a best vehicle, but if the gap is small, it shouldn't matter. IMO, Falcon is closer to the Goose and the Stingray on the lower end than the Fox is on the upper end. And because of how close it is, I fear balance buffs to the Falcon. It'd be REALLY easy to overbuff the Falcon into the new king of the meta. Even with small adjustments. Or alternatively buff Falcon so little it doesn't change anything. I don't think anyone plays the Stingray for its gravel prowess, or the Fox for its boost pad prowess. If Falcon was best at those, it'd only really buff Falcon on those specific gimmick tracks. And the funny thing is, Falcon is already better at those kinds of tracks. After all, jump pads equalizing everyone mainly hurts Stingray and Fox. And Falcon is 2nd only to the Fox/Stingray when it comes to boostpads and gravel respectively.

[@Hermes_Agoraeus]

I wonder how many of those Fox wins were on Mute City, and what the rate would be excluding Mute City.

[@TMaister]

Because of times trials/time set it would make sense to buff other machines instead of nerfing Fox, really accurate analysis! Falcon is in need of one perhaps more boosting capability or acceleration

[@KirkWilliams300]

Nice Video! I really appreciate your takes and the experience you bring to the table with all the machines. As a predominately Stingray player who gets top 5ish consistently, I have some tips on how to alleviate some of the weaknesses. 1. Know how to front run, but be ok with knowing how to navigate yourself within the top 15-10 spot. Farm others for back pushes, skyway sparks, and hunt down foxes that fall behind relentlessly. The combination of these gives you the resources to comeback form minor mistakes and even over take the lead on lap 3 or 4 to ultimately win or get close to it. 2. Deathwind 1 is by far the hardest track to win with Stingray, not even a question. You cannot reliable win no matter your skill. To get yourself at least in top 10 or 5, save your spins for before dash pads because if you miss any of them, you basically die. Save boosts for stretches without dash pads and farm skyway sparks to save from a drop to a bad position. 3. Learn multiple ways to take turns, every worthwhile high ranking player knows your optimal lines as a Stingray. Knowing this will help keep you in good standing even if your best lines are cut off. This can also throw off players that attempt to sabotage your lines when you take turns unconventionally. 4. Sometimes, if you get pin balled to the point you have lost complete control, letting go of gas and letting the walls and others hit you back on course to make crazy recoveries. 5. Know where other machines use their boosts, you can save your energy by riding other people’s boosts, also force other Stingrays and Foxes into positions where they are forced to boost to recover. Either you ride their boast or you deplete them of energy to deal with you by the close of the race.

[@FZDLiam]

Great analysis

[@DeneuveYT]

Very solid analysis I agree the Falcon is not as consistent of a winner even in good hands but I fell in love with its drifting and ease of handling in general. I’ve been experimenting with a conservative playstyle going for two skyways a race which is pretty consistent compared to fox and stingray who’ll see one or none more often but sometimes the situation calls for maintaining a front run which is really difficult in it. I definitely enjoy the performance of the Falcon on the final gp tracks too.

[@gomifunecx99]

7:39 Poor Falcon, they did his car dirty.

[@lurch_deliberately]

Throwing down the gauntlet on us goosers, eh. Alright. Goose of the world, unite!

[@Ray_2112]

Resistance is futile, foxes!

[@timataio4290]

I think the point system for GPs also hurts the Falcon because it disproportionately punishes poor performances on earlier GP tracks (15th on Mute City gives the same deduction as 15th on Silence). Decreasing the length of the pit stops on mute city would help a lot imo. Falcon does have a faster first lap than Fox if he uses all of his boosts but the full energy refill is inherently biased towards Fox. It's still harder to frontrun on other courses with Falcon but it's at least doable.

[@NikoSoviet88]

The voice reveal is real, awesome video, amazing player

[@Goroh35]

Other ways of balancing would be for exampe to reduce the amount of steering you can do while boosting. It was fas less in the original anyway, and it would affect most the machine that boosts the most. It would be more challenging to dodge bumpers with Fox, but it would be just as fast and just as viable. Or simply randomize the bumper patterns for frontrunners.

[@EdgarCorona]

I like how you switched to GP Menu Music for the last but not least Wild Goose lol

[@Crystalgate]

A few things to note here. To start off, if turning works like Snes F-zero, the Fire Stingray just needs to get slightly below it's max speed to steer better. With slightly, I mean any speed less than top speed, even if it's less than noticeable by human eye. If you could keep it at 477 km/h, it would turn much better than at 478. Again, this assumes nothing has changed from the snes version to the 99 version. If it's true, then a lot could be gained if you're good at letting go of and then pressing the gas repeatedly so that the speed stays just slightly below top speed when taking curves. This is something top players may want to test. I do not know why the stat screen says that Wild Goose has better grip than Blue Falcon. Any reasonable interpretation makes the opposite true. I suspect that the skyway mechanic is a little bit screwing the Blue Falcon over. In theory, the Blue Falcon should not be inferior to the Wild Goose. It has less durability, negligible less top speed, but better acceleration, steering and boosting. In practice, it seems to either be inferior to the Goose at fighting in the cluster and taking advantage of the skyway or inferior to the Fox at front running. Also, when it comes to boosting capability, the Falcon is closer to the Stingray and the Goose than it is to the Fox. I think the Falcon may be a Jack of all the trades, master of none, but summed up, the stats are just a bit less than they should be.

[@MikulOnIce85]

I felt that comment about learning fox leading to crashing out often. Now that pro tracks are back, I'm having a few crash outs learning those courses because having an unfortuante touch with a bumper leads to me running into a wall and getting ko'd.

[@thomashartmann5625]

Crazy stats, my man

[@uberlaughingman]

Still haven't banked a 99 win with Falcon. I do love me some falcon, though

[@jerppursh7570]

Very cool video. I love seeing the discussions in the comments. Will we be getting in depth videos like this for the various circuits?

[@MengskGX]

Thought about it but just haven't put time into actually making it

[@notjeckup]

My goat

[@Youdrongo]

As someone trying to learn Stingray, I'm surprised to hear Sand Ocean is advantageous for that machine. Sand Ocean is one of my least favorite tracks--especially the Frozen version--and Stingray is the only machine I haven't been able to win a 99 with. It took less than a day for me to get a 99 win with both Fox and Falcon and I quickly realized the skill floor is significantly higher for Stingray. Coming from a Goose main, Stingray is _very_ difficult to adjust to.

[@Youdrongo]

Annnd just got my 1st win on MC1 because the Fox I was fighting for 1st gave me a free KO on the start of lap 4. I only managed to get to 1st because I focused on maintaining top speed away from the packs, something I'm not used to doing as Goose. Proof your analysis helped, I'd say.

[@Uncle_Troy]

Death Wind 1 and 2 are actually two of the easiest tracks to play with Stingray, IMO. Once you top out at 478, the machine is actually one of the best at cutting the inside edges of the track against the wind, especially when you're holding gas+drift while turning right. If you know when to brake and traffic isn't impeding you, the first boost pad on DW2 is very easy to gracefully cut into. Stingray actually has its biggest issues with Port Town because of how easily it gets bounced around and how punishing the chicanes are.

[@Rando88_]

This was great insight. Could you go a bit more in depth with the different tracks as well?

[@MengskGX]

I might do something like that. It's there a specific machine and track you have in mind?

[@JamesUK7]

A track guide of where and when to boost each lap or where to use a skyway would be cool@@MengskGX

[@Rando88_]

@@MengskGX stingray is my main. It would be cool to see how you strategize for different tracks/grand pris You’re totally right about DW1. I’ve had so many knight leagues go down the drain on that track. Top5 3 races in a row and then get ranked out just feels so bad

[@benjaminparker5044]

@@Rando88_a different video covering each specific vehicle and how they deal with every track would be a lot to ask for but extremely cool and useful. I’m also a Stingray player, though I haven’t played much for a bit, but as for the DW1 bit, I know I’m not *great* at the game, but I wasn’t sure if I was just terrible or going crazy or something because I struggle with it so much in GP

[@notjeckup]

Will there be more videos with commentary in the future?

[@MengskGX]

I'll do more l, just nothing planned at the moment

[@Hermes_Agoraeus]

Can we derive from your stats your GP win-rate (i.e., GP win/attempt) per vehicle? I'm curious to see how (quantitatively) each vehicle's (dis)advantages are evened out (or not) over the course of a full GP.

[@MengskGX]

That would require a much longer discussion about each machine and course, but quick answer, Fox is best, but if you're skilled with any machine you can certainly win with them all. A big variable is whos in your lobby.

[@Kris18]

This is a great video that goes into great detail! Very useful resource for new players, and even intermediate players. My only gripe is that you repeatedly call Fox OP; I disagree. Yes, yes, a Fox main saying Fox isn't OP. But hear me out: I think it definitely has the highest potential and maybe even just be outright the strongest machine in isolation/ideal circumstances, but it isn't *overpowered* , much in the same way an ace isn't *overpowered* when playing poker. I'm going to bring up some points I think you missed, but also some points I think you understated which are detriments to Fox. While a world-class Fox can often wipe the floor with the rest of the competition if there's not another world-class Fox in the lobby, I think your analysis pushes too close to "pick Fox, learn the bumper patterns, instantly win" or even just "pick Fox and instantly win". When you look at the end of a race and usually see a Fox at the top, you're often missing what goes into that, including the Foxes that didn't make it. I think this is very easy to forget when you become skilled at Fox, thousands of races in. Especially when your first main wasn't Fox which gives you something of a headstart on Fox since some skills and knowledge transfer over, like you did from Goose. You bring up being 2nd Fox against a 1st Fox, and how it puts you at a disadvantage, but I think you gloss over the ramifications of this. It means unless the 1st Fox messes up, you're going to fall back into the pack relatively quickly on most courses--whether it be by losing time on each turn/bumper or a bunch of Geese dropping on your head. And just the starting pad positioning--regardless of which pad you get--can determine if you even have a chance at 1st Fox. Add in bumps on the pad and you just have more RNG determining if you're eligible to win the race before it even started. And once you've lost (or never had) first and are in the pack, you're as good as dead as Fox. You're rarely getting out and are likely settling for 28th even if you're among the best in the world. And then when you *do* get a good starting pad and don't get screwed by bumps before lap 1, now you have to play flawlessly for four laps. As a counter to getting to race time trial in first, not only do you have the blues as you briefly mentioned, but any small mistake that would generally be a small inconvenience for other machines (or maybe just lose you 1st and get you a podium spot still) is now going to send you head first into the pack, or outright kill you when you turn into a pinball. Fox plays as close to death as much as possible while other machines pace themselves and wait for their moment to break away. All this, and we're talking about world-class Fox players. Those who aren't the best in the world--and despite how it may feel, that is the majority of them--are just going to crash out most races or place near the bottom of the human players. Anything less than perfection basically becomes failure. This is rather unique to Fox. You also mention as a pro for Goose that it does well in GPs, but you only gloss over GPs being a negative for Fox. Not dying while playing for the GP win across 5 courses is no trivial task on Fox. The threshold for a mistake ending your GP is so low that even after thousands of Fox races and hundreds of GP entries, it's still an accomplishment to me to win a GP. And y'know what? Even starting lap 1 in 1st and playing Fox like a TAS doesn't even guarantee a victory. On *most* tracks, a well-timed skyway or a KO can bring another machine into contention, which Fox rarely has an opportunity to take advantage of itself. Unfortunately it is less common when there's more bots, but I would like to *think* we balance around a full lobby, like we see in GPs at 10:00 on the timer. It is a genuine challenge to win these no matter how good you are at Fox, and I would venture to say that I would expect a lot more of other machines on the podium and winning than Fox. I could go on, but I think I get my point across, and it may just be us disagreeing on how heavily each factor weighs into being "overpowered" or what it means to be "overpowered", but the short of it is at the very very top level, Fox is the strongest machine. But usually only one or sometimes a couple Foxes can be at the top of a race. You need to get lucky to start and play flawlessly and close to death for four (or twenty) laps where other machines have much more leniency. Failure to do so just means death or placing so low you might as well have crashed out. Highest potential doesn't mean overpowered. Could the game benefit from giving small buffs to other machines to make them more competitive? Absolutely. But picking Fox isn't an instant and easy win.

[@MengskGX]

I'll go over these points more soon. Thanks for giving your opinions on Fox as my personal experience with Fox won't be like other peoples.

[@wolfboom2]

Theres a vid of your post that he made you should look in that.

[@zyxyuv1650]

hey Mengsk, I think Nintendo actually watched this video, listened to your analysis and read our comments. It's a small world, where else would a developer on the FZ99 team end up besides this video? You made one of the only critical machine analysis videos, so why not. I posted some ideas about how Falcon can be improved by giving them an advantage on jump pads, Nintendo actually did it!

[@MengskGX]

Version 1.3 was mostly good changes, its now Stingrays turn to get a buff

[@christopherdelacruz9728]

Rocket science be like

[@stefsmurf]

I honestly think Stingray max speed should be raised. In the original, Goose and Stingray had very close to the same durability, to the point where it was unnoticeable. The difference really was Goose was faster acceleration, while Stingray had higher speed. With the increased durability, Goose gets more speed boosts as well, while Stingray actually got less. (I believe it's 5 to 3.5 before they both redline.) Even with Stingray getting better recovery, it doesn't matter if it can't stay in the heal zone due to being more prone to being bumped out. (Which is absurd considering it's the heaviest car to boot.) Even raising it 5km/h would give it the rundown speed to catch up after boosts. It's that or just slightly increase the acceleration of Stingray. I can literally count the speed increase of the Stingray after 300km/h, that's how slow it speeds up. That, or make the durability a little more like it was in the original F-Zero tour.

[@Crystalgate]

How much the durability differs depends on what damage they take. Every machine has the same energy, but they lose (or recover) different amounts from different sources. For example, the Wild Goose in the original game takes the same amount of damage as the Fire Stingray (and Blue Falcon) if it collided with another vehicle, takes slightly less damage from mines and takes a lot less damage from the barriers (not to be confused with the black borders). As such, how much the vehicles can boost is completely independent to how much durability they have. The Fox, which is the most fragile machine, looses the second lowest amount of energy when boosting, just after Wild Goose. That the Fire Stingray can boost the least of all vehicles has nothing to do with durability, the game creators just decided it's so. Making it faster will help. It's still a strong contender for second best vehicle for good players, but awful for beginners.

[@stefsmurf]

@@Crystalgate By stating this: "As such, how much the vehicles can boost is completely independent to how much durability they have. " You mitigate your own statement, as it isn't a trail lap. Unless you really front run as a Fox the whole race, you will get hit by other cars. Even a nudge from behind takes a tiny silver of health away. As a Falcon or Stingray, this affects your ability to boost by lower your health faster than the Goose.

[@Crystalgate]

@@stefsmurf Okay, that's what you meant. I interpret your previous post as meaning the number of boost are dependent on the car's durability. Anyway, assuming worst case scenarios where the Stingray takes about 1.5 times the damage of the Goose, they end up loosing about the same number of boosts per hit. Likewise, they recover about the same number of boosts on pit stops for a certain amount of time.

[@afgcinc7206]

While I don't agree that Stingray should get a higher top speed, I am with you on it being able to hold it's own in a crowd. I think the intention was to nerf Stingrays so they can't just park in a crowd like Goose AND have steady top speed. Pinballing and just exploding in a Stingray when you have one of those "bad moments" is frustrating as you would think it would survive. So I would go with making it stronger against bumps from Falcon and Fox, but probably would leave everything else. That with some Falcon buffs I think would even out the field for 99.

[@t00nedd00d]

Very well done analysis! I'll be sure to use your tips when I inevitably try fox again Also just curious, why do people spam the R button when their spin attack is recharging? Or is it just because lol

[@MengskGX]

I can't stop lol

[@Ray_2112]

Kind of a reflex, especially at the start when you could need it all the time. It's funny how it sometimes feels like it takes forever to recharge depending on the circumstances.

[@zentember]

why does falcon have better grip and maintaining max speed on turns than goose when it has half a bar less grip? always been super perplexing to me. i'm not sure if your falcon analysis is complete. i think falcon excels in any course where it's energy refill rate is equal to it's per lap boosting pattern. red canyon is one example. sand ocean is another presuming the falcon uses back bumps. falcons can harass foxes too and have reduced crash out anxiety. i think there are japanese players exceling with falcon but we don't have access to their commentary because of a language barrier.

[@MengskGX]

Falcon is decent at SO but could only catch a Fox if they messed up and Stingray is far better. RC1 Falcon is easy to use here but Falcon would have to overboost early on to keep pace with Fox and the other machines can do about the same as Falcon. I'm judging Falcon based on the highest level play possible, thats where it falls short. I like Falcon on PT2, FF, few others.

[@zentember]

what did you learn by winning gps with the falcon? surely you are not trying to say that you won the gp because the other machines made mistakes. i think the falcon is allowed to have 1 or 2 blunders without suffering greatly and then it can recharge or use the skyway to clutch it out against other machines@@MengskGX

[@jonazo7188]

Wait your boost increase from KOs stays from race to race in GP?

[@MengskGX]

Yep, up to 7 KOs

[@GrayFoxGX]

I'm slightly disappointed how little attention the devs pay to balancing. F-Zero has never had good balancing in any of its games, which wasn't a problem so far but when you transition from offline to online play it becomes an aspect that needs a lot of attention and fine tuning. Maybe I'm just salty because I love playing falcon but have to cut my win rate in half compared to using fox, but it is what it is.

[@Teknanam]

They did pay some attention. They clearly didn't want the game to just be Stingray domination while Golden Fox is in junk tier like the SNES game. Blue Falcon is definitely in a way better place than the Golden Fox is in the SNES game. Look no further than Classic mode where outside the Death Winds, its hard to be competitive for 1st when you're a Fox. Though clearly they overtuned the Fox with the new mechanics so instead of merely being competitive, it became the new king. Falcon is competitive enough vs. the Goose and the Stingray, but Fox is way too stong at the moment. Either it gets nerfed, or the other 3 vehicles get buffs. It can't simply be Falcon getting buffed because Falcon will likely just take Fox's place, resulting in no real balancing being done besides changing the new meta king.

[@Ray_2112]

What's even more annoying is when they change it again and again with updates like they did in Mario Kart...sucks if you need to get used to something else multiple time, just because they can't decide the balancing properly...after 8-9 years. oO

[@afgcinc7206]

@@Teknanam I will say that it's ironic how original Master level DW1 is pretty much impossible to win with Fox, yet with boosting and online play Stingray gets the shaft on that course the most in 99.