u/SnooRevelations8916

I’ve been paying attention to the quality of my lobbies that I play in for a while, and have taken notes and analyses of my progress (both climbing and falling), and I’ve come to realize over time that as you climb higher, the quality of your lobbies (who is in them) matters way more than I could have imagined.

For instance, earlier this week I was mainly playing in day time NA lobbies (1-4 PM EST), and found myself matches with players primarily around 7500-8500 VR, meaning I was often the highest in the room. As a result, regardless of how I personally played, there were numerous instances of me having poor results, and subsequently, massive VR losses (-80+ for a bottom spot). Because of this, I found myself falling all the way to 8600 VR, as the game attempts to “push” me toward the average of the room.

The next week, I curated my lobbies, searching for ones where the average was 9000+, and each time I found a top lobby, my gains were exponentially better. Wins provide more VR, and losses take away less. However, the caveat is that you need to be skilled enough to win in these higher lobbies, or else you will stack losses.

The most interesting thing I noticed, however, was that the lobbies I was in (8000 or 9000), actually played very similarly, much to my surprise. The unpredictability and chaotic nature of this game is evident in both low and high lobbies, so my results were largely the same in placements after each race, I even did slightly better in the higher lobbies, as there is less spam. The only difference is that an 18th in a low lobby is -100 for me, and in a high lobby it could only be -35 or so, whereas a 1st in a low lobby is maybe +12 and in a high lobby it could be as high as +50!

Bottom line is, for those who want to climb VR, don’t discount high lobbies! They are MORE rewarding and LESS punishing, so long as you are fast enough to compete. My advice is to add people above 9000 as friends and join their lobbies so you can gain experience.

Missed out on a solid 300 VR because of two absolutely ABYSMAL races but otherwise I feel good, hoping this is enough for top 50!

Had the greatest worldwide session of my career today, successfully reclaimed 9000 and pushed past it, I have broken through the wall!

War is over… I’m so happy…

TIMELINE

Dec 25 - Got the game
January - 8000
February - 8500

HARD-STUCK

March-May - Study all intermissions and practice in discord lobbies

May - 9000!!!

Ignore the ending, hope to attempt this online! It’s not terribly difficult.

EDIT: Shortcat has a vid explaining this, I’d check it out!

Link to my Intermission Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Oi1Nb3E4ZZXV_L-MKZ20FH1zBSzuiA90c-5f5_VMflc/edit?usp=sharing

This was a project that took me many weeks to complete. I started back in March, and have been studying every single intermission in the game on and off since then, working a few tracks a week, until I had completed them all. Some tracks took no more than a few minutes to race through, find a cut or two, and move on. Other's took numerous attempts, trying to find the most important spots to use my shrooms, and places where valuable skips and strats may be possible. I created a reddit post a while ago where I shared my biggest tips on practicing intermissions, and the majority of my thoughts with that post still stand. I will link that post at the bottom of this post, so you can check that out.

Today, I mainly wanted to discuss, briefly, my overall thoughts on intermissions after having played through them all by myself in VS, and my overall process with them.

What I did was I went into VS mode, disabled coms, turned items to Triple Shroom+Star+Food Bag, and went one by one, studying each intermission in the game until there were none left. The method by which I did this was organizing my tracks into cups, and then finding each track that led to those specific destination tracks. So, if I was to practice "Whistlestop Summit Intermissions", I'd play every single intermission that leads to WSS, doing each a few times before moving on to the next. When I was done, I'd mark them a specific color based on how comfortable I felt with that intermission, then I'd move on.

After evaluating my completed chart, I noticed that the majority of intermissions I marked as "Revisit" or "Decent" are in the Mushroom and Flower Cup, which makes sense as those ones have a vast amount of cuts and strats, as there is a lot of terrain. The intermissions in the snowy regions, and those with a lot of water, tend to have less tech and more narrow pathing, meaning those ones (KTB, SVP, DKSP, SHS, etc.), only took a few reps before I felt comfortable. I made note of which ones to revisit, which were important, where vehicles were like trucks and helicopters, etc.)

Following my completion of these, I can confidently say that around 25% of all intermissions in the game are completely useless "Drive Forward" simulators, with very little tech. I'm mostly talking about ones leading to and from Bowser's Castle/Airship Fortress, or Koopa Troopa Beach/Starview Peak. These ones would be good to frontfun, as there is limited tech and comeback potential. The remaining 75% have some instances of useful cuts and shrooming/bagging potential, especially ones that lead to and from Acorn Heights, Boo Cinema, DK Pass, and Whistlestop Summit.

All in all, I can also confidently say that as a result of studying these intermissions and applying what I've practiced online, my VR peak has skyrocketed from 8500 to 8930, and my "average zone" has risen from 8400 to around 8750, simply by studying and practicing these intermissions, so they ARE beneficial, and I hope to hit 9000 soon.

Let me know your thoughts below! Feel free to reference the chart for your own practice! I have my post linked here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MarioKartWorld/comments/1s7uw81/how_to_efficiently_and_effectively_practice/