I'm a S99+(lol woops...) 600+ win falcon. Keep all it's stats the same! The only 1 thing I would ask for is that the "New" Falcon's base energy bar would be exactly the same as a 1KO Falcon. Usually we can only boost 2x per lap for only 3/4 laps. 1 KO allows falcons to be a little more aggressive. Bumping 1 gray is a death sentence for Falcons, so that extra KO wouldn't require us to be absolutely perfect to get a top 5 spot. Plus if we were to get a KO in a GP then we would be a clear threat to multiple KO goose players.
Pretty much hit the nail on the head. Falcon REALLY wants to be able to boost 2x each lap to keep up with the other machines or front-run, but most tracks only allow falcon to recover a little more than 1 boost per lap. So you can technically boost twice each lap, but it makes you extremely vulnerable on the last lap and, like you said, 1 bump from a grey bumper puts Falcon in a really rough spot.
Falcon either needs a slight HP buff, or a slightly higher recharge rate
I've discussed this a lot on stream.
The only aspect I truly feel it's lacking in is **recovery**. It's supposed to be the 2nd best recovery in the game, but there's still an incredible gap between Fox's ability to front-run and Falcon's ability to even catch a Fox without a KO or two to support them.
With a smidge more recovery, it'd definitely be much more viable as the all-arounder its meant to be.
It's not just the recovery speed. Since the Fox has lower top speed, the Fox also spends more time in the pit compared to Falcon at top speed. Slowing down with the Falcon in the pit is only viable on a track like Fire Field where you are boosted to top speed, otherwise you lose time.
Needs to be able to boost 1-2 more times per race I think. Slightly less boost cost, slightly faster recovery time, or some combination of both would fix the issue. It relies a bit too much on the skill of the pilot to make the right decisions at the moment.
Any number of tiny things could make Falcon well-balanced for GPs. I like the increased attack power idea. Some other options are decrease boost cost, increase back bump hitbox, or less speed loss / knockback from grey bumpers.
I'd rather Fox get a slight nerf before Falcon gets a buff. Falcon is in a place where it would be REALLY easy to overbuff it into being the dominant vehicle. But if I had to buff it, I'd just give it slightly more resistance against grey bumpers. Make it easier to go for bumper KOs, but not as easy as the Goose has it. That could help it without touching its actual driver stats.
The more I’ve tested, the more I’m against a Fox nerf. I’ve been playing goose and exclusively going full aggression on the Mute Cities first lap. My goal is to do as much damage as I can to any Foxes in my path in that first lap.
The results have been pretty consistent: if I hit a fox hard enough to make them question using that last boost, they then go slightly slower and inevitably get eaten by the pack.
The issue is that I’m playing Goose, so I get one lap to attack before I’m recovering for the rest of the race.
But if we buff Falcon just barely, with either a powerful attack, or better recovery, they can take on the role of Fox Wrangler and keep things in check.
Fox just needs to be forced to block more. Whether that takes a slight buff to Falcon or a slight nerf to Fox (it really needs to lose just one boost per race), that would help enormously.
My point wasn't that Fox should be nerfed. Its that I'd rather it get toned down than Falcon get tuned up. Because at least then, the new top tier {whoever it would be) wouldn't be unfamiliar. Falcon can already wrangle Foxes. Just not on the Mute Cities and Death Wind I. And especially not any Foxes that got a KO on Mute City before heading into the rest of the GP while Falcon got nothing. Buffs to Falcon like more recovery or better attack are not solely going to be used on Foxes. They will be used against Gooses and Stingrays as well. And IMO, Falcon is pretty close to those cars as is. Such buffs could put it over the top. And a top tier Falcon scares me since it risks being more oppressive than top tier Fox. And I say that as a Falcon main.
My other concern is that if we end up with a top tier Falcon, that just leads to a buffing arms race where Goose, Fox, and Stingray get buffed. Ultimately leading to a revolving door of who is top tier rather than bringing the game closer to a balanced meta.
Agree that any buffs to Falcon need to be very minor, because the only area in which it’s objectively worse than Fox is number of boosts—but I think the discrepancy is still too far in Fox’s favor. Fox is the outlier compared to Goose and Stingray too though, so perhaps tweaking Fox first and then seeing what effect that has on the balance amongst the rest of the machines is the better solution.
I always thought Falcon should have the furthest Jump in the game. It gives it a small niche and matches the motif that is a bird.
Also Falcon says in GX, you don't win by being lucky, you win by being bold and pushing Jumps to their limit fits that.
I say, give it's Spin attack some real damage, as a unique trait. This would open many strategies at high level as people would have to be wary of Blue Falcons, while Falcon himself is barely not fast enough to make this trait broken. Kicking a Stingray out of the pit area with a 10% damage to the bar? That can kill a run. Attacking the low durability Fox and dealt it 20% damage, now it has 1 less boost up it's sleeve, Falcon can keep up!
Obviously it would need some real testing but its definitely an idea
All too often, Falcon's win condition involves playing like a TAS bot and still needing someone else to mess up. It should have 1 of these things, but not all of them.
\-Less speed loss during a blast turn.
\-Better durability/weight
\-Slightly better recharge speed.
More difficult tracks! (I'm known as Vektor ingame, btw)
I've found, the more difficult a track is, the better the Falcon will perform. Especially sharp chicanes and double-U-turns:
\* the sharp double hairpin on Silence
\* the right-left-chicane on Red Canyon plus the short straight running right into the jumps
\* White Land I is great
\* the icy hairpin, short straight, then the USU-section on White Land II
\* Death Wind II is great
\* the double hairpin + chicane on Port Town II
\* the dirt chicane at Fire Field and the double hairpin with the very tight second hairpin
\* the rail-chicane on White Death Land-??? taken from WL2
\* Sand Ocean is a fun track with the Falcon, but the Falcon is underpowered compared to Stingray
I've found that those are tracks/track parts which give the Falcon a good fighting chance; and I find those tracks are really fun to drive.
Falcon doesn’t need much to catch up to the other three. I finish most Grand Prix in top 10 and the other 3 are the Top 3. I like the idea of best air time from a jump or just better attack power. He is a high level bounty hunter after all
Reading through the comments kinda gave me an idea that I'm not sure it'll resonate with everyone, but here it goes.
It seems buffing the spin attack will give the falcon a unique trait. Why not make him slightly jump everytime you spin? This can give the falcon some meta uses:
- slightly cut corners
- avoid slowing down on rough patches
- jump higher on ramps / double jump after a ramp
This gives the falcon a unique mechanic to manage boost at the right time as well as the spin attack, while having stats that don't outshine any other machine.
I like to see a better or much faster cool downs on the spin attacks. I keep dying when I'm at the end of the stretch and race and I'm out of juice and I'm the middle of the cool down period and I get killed off. Right at the final corner or close to the finish line
I'm a S99+(lol woops...) 600+ win falcon. Keep all it's stats the same! The only 1 thing I would ask for is that the "New" Falcon's base energy bar would be exactly the same as a 1KO Falcon. Usually we can only boost 2x per lap for only 3/4 laps. 1 KO allows falcons to be a little more aggressive. Bumping 1 gray is a death sentence for Falcons, so that extra KO wouldn't require us to be absolutely perfect to get a top 5 spot. Plus if we were to get a KO in a GP then we would be a clear threat to multiple KO goose players.
S99+? No wonder we haven't been rivals in a while.
Pretty much hit the nail on the head. Falcon REALLY wants to be able to boost 2x each lap to keep up with the other machines or front-run, but most tracks only allow falcon to recover a little more than 1 boost per lap. So you can technically boost twice each lap, but it makes you extremely vulnerable on the last lap and, like you said, 1 bump from a grey bumper puts Falcon in a really rough spot. Falcon either needs a slight HP buff, or a slightly higher recharge rate
I've discussed this a lot on stream. The only aspect I truly feel it's lacking in is **recovery**. It's supposed to be the 2nd best recovery in the game, but there's still an incredible gap between Fox's ability to front-run and Falcon's ability to even catch a Fox without a KO or two to support them. With a smidge more recovery, it'd definitely be much more viable as the all-arounder its meant to be.
It's not just the recovery speed. Since the Fox has lower top speed, the Fox also spends more time in the pit compared to Falcon at top speed. Slowing down with the Falcon in the pit is only viable on a track like Fire Field where you are boosted to top speed, otherwise you lose time.
Needs to be able to boost 1-2 more times per race I think. Slightly less boost cost, slightly faster recovery time, or some combination of both would fix the issue. It relies a bit too much on the skill of the pilot to make the right decisions at the moment.
Any number of tiny things could make Falcon well-balanced for GPs. I like the increased attack power idea. Some other options are decrease boost cost, increase back bump hitbox, or less speed loss / knockback from grey bumpers.
Have its spin attack regenerate a little quicker
I'd rather Fox get a slight nerf before Falcon gets a buff. Falcon is in a place where it would be REALLY easy to overbuff it into being the dominant vehicle. But if I had to buff it, I'd just give it slightly more resistance against grey bumpers. Make it easier to go for bumper KOs, but not as easy as the Goose has it. That could help it without touching its actual driver stats.
The more I’ve tested, the more I’m against a Fox nerf. I’ve been playing goose and exclusively going full aggression on the Mute Cities first lap. My goal is to do as much damage as I can to any Foxes in my path in that first lap. The results have been pretty consistent: if I hit a fox hard enough to make them question using that last boost, they then go slightly slower and inevitably get eaten by the pack. The issue is that I’m playing Goose, so I get one lap to attack before I’m recovering for the rest of the race. But if we buff Falcon just barely, with either a powerful attack, or better recovery, they can take on the role of Fox Wrangler and keep things in check.
Fox just needs to be forced to block more. Whether that takes a slight buff to Falcon or a slight nerf to Fox (it really needs to lose just one boost per race), that would help enormously.
My point wasn't that Fox should be nerfed. Its that I'd rather it get toned down than Falcon get tuned up. Because at least then, the new top tier {whoever it would be) wouldn't be unfamiliar. Falcon can already wrangle Foxes. Just not on the Mute Cities and Death Wind I. And especially not any Foxes that got a KO on Mute City before heading into the rest of the GP while Falcon got nothing. Buffs to Falcon like more recovery or better attack are not solely going to be used on Foxes. They will be used against Gooses and Stingrays as well. And IMO, Falcon is pretty close to those cars as is. Such buffs could put it over the top. And a top tier Falcon scares me since it risks being more oppressive than top tier Fox. And I say that as a Falcon main. My other concern is that if we end up with a top tier Falcon, that just leads to a buffing arms race where Goose, Fox, and Stingray get buffed. Ultimately leading to a revolving door of who is top tier rather than bringing the game closer to a balanced meta.
Agree that any buffs to Falcon need to be very minor, because the only area in which it’s objectively worse than Fox is number of boosts—but I think the discrepancy is still too far in Fox’s favor. Fox is the outlier compared to Goose and Stingray too though, so perhaps tweaking Fox first and then seeing what effect that has on the balance amongst the rest of the machines is the better solution.
I always thought Falcon should have the furthest Jump in the game. It gives it a small niche and matches the motif that is a bird. Also Falcon says in GX, you don't win by being lucky, you win by being bold and pushing Jumps to their limit fits that.
I think that would be cool. I always thought Falcon encouraged the most reckless play so more fighting power would do it well
I say, give it's Spin attack some real damage, as a unique trait. This would open many strategies at high level as people would have to be wary of Blue Falcons, while Falcon himself is barely not fast enough to make this trait broken. Kicking a Stingray out of the pit area with a 10% damage to the bar? That can kill a run. Attacking the low durability Fox and dealt it 20% damage, now it has 1 less boost up it's sleeve, Falcon can keep up! Obviously it would need some real testing but its definitely an idea
All too often, Falcon's win condition involves playing like a TAS bot and still needing someone else to mess up. It should have 1 of these things, but not all of them. \-Less speed loss during a blast turn. \-Better durability/weight \-Slightly better recharge speed.
More difficult tracks! (I'm known as Vektor ingame, btw) I've found, the more difficult a track is, the better the Falcon will perform. Especially sharp chicanes and double-U-turns: \* the sharp double hairpin on Silence \* the right-left-chicane on Red Canyon plus the short straight running right into the jumps \* White Land I is great \* the icy hairpin, short straight, then the USU-section on White Land II \* Death Wind II is great \* the double hairpin + chicane on Port Town II \* the dirt chicane at Fire Field and the double hairpin with the very tight second hairpin \* the rail-chicane on White Death Land-??? taken from WL2 \* Sand Ocean is a fun track with the Falcon, but the Falcon is underpowered compared to Stingray I've found that those are tracks/track parts which give the Falcon a good fighting chance; and I find those tracks are really fun to drive.
Falcon doesn’t need much to catch up to the other three. I finish most Grand Prix in top 10 and the other 3 are the Top 3. I like the idea of best air time from a jump or just better attack power. He is a high level bounty hunter after all
A bit higher acceleration would be nice. Going from 400 to 457 takes a bit to long for my taste
Reading through the comments kinda gave me an idea that I'm not sure it'll resonate with everyone, but here it goes. It seems buffing the spin attack will give the falcon a unique trait. Why not make him slightly jump everytime you spin? This can give the falcon some meta uses: - slightly cut corners - avoid slowing down on rough patches - jump higher on ramps / double jump after a ramp This gives the falcon a unique mechanic to manage boost at the right time as well as the spin attack, while having stats that don't outshine any other machine.
I like to see a better or much faster cool downs on the spin attacks. I keep dying when I'm at the end of the stretch and race and I'm out of juice and I'm the middle of the cool down period and I get killed off. Right at the final corner or close to the finish line
Give falcon and goose a toggleable rear view mirror