Snaking and Piracy

[ShadowMarth]

Whaaat?

[Pilot_51]

A better comparison, snaking is just about the same level of cheating as shadow freezing. But I see snaking to be worse because of the whole moral thing, I think the basic style of racing should remain about the same through all MK games. While in MPH so much changed from previous games in the series and it's my first Metroid game, so I don't have the whole moral of previous games on me, but I still recognize it as a glitch (or unintentional ability) that I don't want to use against anyone competitively.

[leafgreen386]

SHADOWMARTH! I didn't know you were a 57 year old azn woman! A quote, "Snaking is cheating." That's proof enough it was you. No?

Anyway, on a more serious note...

What makes snaking cheating? Is charging a MT cheating? Is releasing said MT on a corner cheating? Is releasing multiple MTs on said corner cheating? If none of the above are cheating, how is simply doing a MT on a straightaway cheating? I'm sure every one of you have incorporated a Straight Stretch MiniTurbo (no, I did not just make up this term... I will refer to these as SSMTs from now on) into your route, in some mk game, on some course. You would've done so to be faster, or to reposition yourself better, so you could take the next corner easier. Well, what if... you were to do multiple ones? Your first one might put you out of position, so you would do another, in the opposite direction, this time, but WAIT! Now you're out of position again. Better go the other way. So, now you're in position to take a tight MT around a corner, which, after you release, you choose to use another SSMT for an extra boost of speed, which puts you into position for taking another corner. Snaking is no more unnatural than using multiple MTs on a corner, which, if you watch the CPUs, they don't do. If you wanted to follow the game with "the way it was meant to be played," you would not even do that. But we all do. We've all done that since MTs have existed, whether we knew about snaking or not. Any even mildly competitive player, that had no idea that this was called snaking, or that it even existed and had a name, that had no online access... if they were to perform that series of SSMTs on accident, they would try to repeat it. They would try to practice it, so they could do it on other courses, and on command, so that they could beat their friends easier. This was me in MKDD. I actually used snaking initially to combat the slowness of lightning, from the moment that I could MT effeciently - being so small it was easy to do. I eventually realized that this was possible in certain places at normal size. I used it in a more limited form than I do in mkds, however, I always tried to fit in as many boosts as I could on a course. I had no idea that there was an online community.

That sequence would have the same effect as doing multiple MTs on a corner - giving you continuous boosts of speed as long as you keep MTing. Several courses have many twists and turns (ie. Yoshi Circuit or Peach Circuit). Snaking on these courses is not much different than driving them normally... only a few extra MTs in some places, aka a few SSMTs. Yet you wish to condemn snaking? All snaking is, is taking a course normally, while adding in SSMTs to keep a boost. On some courses this requires more SSMTs than others. Let's take a course such as Rainbow Road... a so-called "anti-snaking" course. It is in fact just the opposite. Since snaking is just stringing SSMTs together, anyone who doesn't snake, one would also assume doesn't use SSMTs. There are several several places on RR where you can use SSMTs to give you a boost. I can keep a boost almost the entire time thanks to SSMTs, yet I rarely use a left-right MT pattern, except when the turns force me to. That's what snaking is - keeping a boost the entire time, regardless of direction. To define snaking as the left-right pattern you use to stay on a long straight such as those on F8C is a fallacy. The point of snaking is to keep a continuous boost, and oftentimes, in order to do that, you must boost multiple times in the same direction. There really aren't that many long straightaways in this game. Therefore, when you perform multiple MTs on a corner, such as in that long cave in rYC, and then you MT to go around the next corner, and then again to go around the next, you're actually snaking, if only briefly. Your "morals" are a fallacy.

I wish everyone could just agree not to do it, but it's not going to happen.

The problem with that plan is that everyone does do it, to varying extents, whether they realize it or not.

Yeah, snaking gives you a "little boost of speed" just like SRB does

Actually, each individual MT does give you a "little boost of speed."

[ShadowMarth]

And under normal circumstances, a regular starting turbo would as well. But when either is exploited, in SRB or Snaking, it is cheating.

[leafgreen386]

I love the way you completely ignored the entire rest of my post.

[ShadowMarth]

It was too long. Break it down. I've probably refuted each and every point a dozen times, you probably weren't at all paying attention to the main argument that it is an exploit, and I'm freaking tired of this argument.

[leafgreen386]

Maybe you have, maybe you haven't. Stop being so lazy and read it. I could've submitted the whole thing as one big block of text, but I seperated it into two, so be glad of that much.

[nmaster64]

SM fails. Leafgreen nailed it.

I've been beating my friends at MK games for years using MiniTurbo, I don't see how just using it in a more l33t way is cheating. It's a skill, not an exploit.

That's like calling no-scope sniping in MPH cheating. "That's not fair, your only supposed to shoot that weapon from long-range. It wasn't made to be used up close like that." MT was made for a little boost of speed around corners, but with practice you can have another use for it. Just because that wasn't it's original intention doesn't mean it's cheating...

It's not like MKDS is the first game to have a divide between player skill levels based on if they know a single skill or not. It's not unlike the seperation between people who can and can't wavedash in Smash Bros...I'm not gonna call the wavedashers cheaters just because I can't do that...I should also point out many of the skills/moves in Smash Bros ARE glitches, but people don't say it's cheating. People learn them and adapt them...and the game evolves...but it's not cheating...

[ShadowMarth]

Once again, you're comparing built-in mechanics to snaking, which is clearly not intended... Same argument I've been over 1000 times.

[Mario Famous]

I think Nintendo put the possibilties of snaking in the game on purpose. It's impossible to be time trial ghosts without snaking. It's also impossible to get a 3 Star ranking on all the coarses without snaking. As I look back on recent MK games, you couldn't really snake because there was not really a need to up until now.