Yeah some can be high risk for high reward. Such as the skip on one of GLXY’s levels where if you mess it up you can hit a moving wall and fall. There’s also some of those on Paradise I think. But yeah it’s a speedrun game, you shouldn’t remove skips unless they’re totally unfair sort of skips, OR unless they’re unintended (such as a skip from Khromidro where you’d phase through some glass, this then got removed later).
2 Likes
I rarely get first due to it.
I see them nearly every game
You shouldn’t get mad at ball race because it has shortcuts. It’s a race and without shortcuts, the game would get boring and have no replay value at all. A lot of them require a lot of skill to pull off and instead of complaining about skill based moves in a primarily skill based game, you should just practice the shortcuts and play some more ball race. It requires a lot of practice and familiarity with the controls and levels and lowering the skill celling by gutting shortcuts entirely is not a good idea IMO.
1 Like
Never said they should be removed entirely. Time and time again I’ve said shortcuts that provide a quicker route through the course are fine, but ones that allow you to skip the whole map are ridiculous.
I would also like to recommend this neat little phrase “If you can’t beat them, join them” It’s a racing game, not a walk in the park.
3 Likes
As you can see if you take the time to read through the posts, the topic has progressed. I’ve realized smaller shortcuts are actually a good thing. And just because it’s a racing game does not mean there should be shortcuts that allow you to skip the entire course.
i think every racing game I’ve ever played has had shortcuts, whether intentional or not, and unless they’re REALLY unintentional like the phasing through glass i mentioned above, then they probably shouldn’t be removed.
1 Like
What kind of racing games do you play? Most I play maybe have a few user found shortcuts, and the rest are all intentional. But almost none skip the entire course.
I mean, I don’t really have any choice but to learn the shortcuts if I ever want that first place bonus, but it just kind of defeats the purpose of the entire course if it just skips it.
mario kart is pretty cool.
keep in mind ball race isn’t traditional vehicle racing around a course, you get from a to b not going through a course until you’ve completed all your laps.
I don’t really want to reply to this anymore, all currently known skips are fine, but I do have one thing to mention, which skips do you mean that skip the entire map? (also some skips can require some precision)
you could also just not play with people who do skips 
1 Like
I know that it’s frustrating sometimes to see some skeleton pull off an insanely hard skip to ignore basically 90% of the course while everyone else is racing normally, but I think the shortcuts are good for ballrace, it would be too straightforward and basic without them, and a lot of them take a lot of genuine skill and practice to pull off.
And this is coming from someone who prefers to speedrun the courses with no shortcuts.
3 Likes
I’d rarely complete a game trying to do this. Someone takes shortcuts almost every time I play.
Then don’t
I mean that’s a matter of opinion, as my points are as well.
See I find this even more challenging than taking the shortcuts (other than built in ones). I just get annoyed with the shortcuts. I mean sure, now that I’ve been playing for almost a week, and I’m familiarizing myself with everything, I can learn them. But as a newer player, it’s just down right disappointing. You’re out in front, you think you’re going to win your first race, then you take a look at your time and realize 22 seconds was super slow compared to mr. shortcut’s 10 seconds. All that racing around for nothing.
if this was the case then minigolf shortcuts should also be removed or blocked.
1 Like
Mini golf isn’t a race, and you can easily watch how other people hit the ball without being “behind” because it is stroke based, not speed based.
Doesn’t matter if you watch someone hit the ball, if you don’t know the power or precise angle you will most likely oob
2 Likes
In my opinion
Ballrace and minigolf are the same
i think learning the shortcuts are part of the skill of playing ballrace / minigolf
3 Likes
I suppose you and @Drrabbit have a point, along with everyone else. It won’t change the fact that it’s a bit annoying to me, but I guess I have no other option other than to learn the shortcuts. I guess I’ll take @Spookz advice:
EDIT: I like how the title got changed lmao
4 Likes
Hey remember when, in Mario Kart, when you try to go through a shortcut you have noticed and tested around and a wall phases into this plane of existence and stops you so you drop to dead last
3 Likes
As a mario kart wii modder, I can say that avoiding unintentional shortcuts in your designs can be very difficult.
I made a track a long time ago, where I found an unintentional shortcut before I even released the track. It wasn’t too broken; Taking it was faster but you skipped a set of item boxes.
I do agree that there are some shortcuts that are too broken (looking at some of the Summit shortcuts) but there are a lot of them that are either totally intentional (most of the GLXY shortcuts) or aren’t all too broken (most Oasis shortcuts).
Shortcuts belong in a racing game, and most racing games have them. Even Super Monkey Ball, which Ball Race is loosely based on, has shortcuts on most of its courses, but you skip collectables while taking them.
Yes, you get 1st place taking a “broken” shortcut, but you don’t get melons which could add even more units onto what you would’ve gotten. Do you take the long path and risk not getting 1st, while being able to pick up some melons? Or do you take the shortcut, guaranteeing 1st place but without getting a single melon?
For speedrunners, these shortcuts are a godsend; but for casual players they can be annoying when someone who’s studied the maps already use them. The response? Learn them yourself. A lot of the ‘broken’ shortcuts are broken because they’re easy. The ‘broken’ shortcuts that are difficult are not broken, they’re challenging and a lot of the time just don’t work even if you do them near perfect.
So yes, extra large, super simple shortcuts could either be made more difficult or totally blocked, either by adding something visible in the way or making them not as effective (like making a slope steeper).
6 Likes
no. leave them in. this is the very reason old school games were good. just like crouch jumping in source games.
keep games more “analog”, so there’s multiple ways of playing them - stop dumbing down everything.
the shortcuts are fine.
3 Likes
I’m just talking about the shortcuts that skip the whole map and are way too easy but idk why anyone’s still arguing over this since I made a concluding response above.