Playing in the Galactic Grand Prix II! - F-ZERO 99

On March 23rd/24th, FZD challenged every pilot in the galaxy to participate in 3 GPs in a row, with the total amount of points from those GPs being counted towards an overall standing.

Knight League - I got a good start on MCI and then opted to wait with my skyway and use it at the standard spot as I usually do. In hindsight, and in this kind of hectic lobby, it looks to be a better idea to use it earlier, and then collect sparks for a second skyway to use on lap 3/4. In any case, I still ended up with a pretty good 12th position.
On Big Blue I had a pretty decent lap 1, but on lap 2 I just felt too eager to keep bosting as I would in a standard lobby. In hindsight I should have been a bit more cool and not use my normal boost as much. The skyway was also not ideal as I missed the dash-plate entering it. Then on lap 3 I again boosted when I really shouldn't have, and right after that I unfortunately crashed pretty hard which put me in a very hard-to-comeback position. I desperately tried to get a last second skyway, but in the end it wasn't enough (but even if it was enough, the last lap would have been extremely hard to survive with my energy-level being as it was).
Rating: 💩

Queen League - My second lap had some flubs on MCII, which forced me to use some extra boost to just barely survive on the last safe rank (phew!). I then got my second skyway on lap 3 and was still doing fairly ok energy-wise going into the last lap. I drove it decently I think, but still only finished 58th in the end. Not sure really what I could have done differently except driving a little cleaner here and there and maybe gotten a better start.
I maybe should not have boosted at the end of lap 1 on PTI since I was in a pretty good position already, and that way I probably would have gotten enough sparks for a skyway earlier on lap 2. Instead I got it later, and waited until lap 3 and used it where i normally would, which maybe wasn't the best idea either. Lap 4 went went ok, but since I had already used my skyway I dropped down in the rankings a lot.
I had an aweful start on RCI, but as I climbed the rankings as the lap went on, my thought-process was that I didn't need to boost to survive the lap, and would then use my skyway early on lap 2. Well, turns out I should have used my boost...
Rating: 💩

King League - Just like on MCI I think I could have maybe used my first skyway earlier on MCIII, but it still turned out pretty well with getting a golden CPU bump right after the skyway. I then tried to go for a grey CPU-bump but failed miserably doing so, which cost me lots of positions and speed. I got the skyway early on lap 4, and had good energy still left in the tank, so I should have used it earlier than I did to take advantage of my remaining boosts.
Absolute aweful start on DWII, and it only got worse from there. Not much else to say, just want to forget about this one lol.
Rating: 💩

Overall thoughts: I took a break from the game after the last GGP and started practicing the game again the week leading up to this event. In hindsight, that was definitely not enough time, and I especially didn't get enough ideal practice, as I was just able to play in standard lobbies which is a very different type of experience compared to a stacked one such as this one. I also watched some of Daizen's gameplay (here's their VOD from the event:    • 【F-ZERO99】第二回 FZD Galactic Grand Prix...  ) to get an idea of how to play in this kind of lobby with Stingray. But theory-practicing can only get you so far - you need to actually implement these strats yourself in practice to truly learn from it. Ideally I should have tried to participate in some of the japanese stacked lobbies hosted by flan776 (  / flan776  ) since that would have been really good practice for this type of lobby. But I live in Europe and have a day-job, so it wasn't really an option this time unfortunately.
In general, I think my focus was too much on driving the game "normally" as I would in a standard lobby. Instead, I believe my mindset for these lobbies should be much more survival-focused, with trying to keep track of my position and my skyway-meter more and where to use it optimally. Also important is to know when the golden bumper spawns depending on the situation. But to do all that, I definitely need more experience and practice.
For the next GGP (announced to take place in May), I hope to somehow get better suited practice leading up to the event. Hopefully I can do a little better then. In any case, I want to give a shoutout to FZD for hosting a splendid event! Despite not doing well results-wise, it was still a fun experience and I definitely learned a lot (which I think is the most fun of all).
Lastly, congrats to ねとあ(NTR) for being the new Galactic Champion!


Timestamps
0:00 Intro
1:52 Mute City I
4:46 Big Blue
9:44 Mute City II
12:49 Port Town I
15:40 Red Canyon I
20:03 Mute City III
22:58 Death Wind II
26:15 Results

Played on March 24th, 2024.