As more and more players get stuck into Stampede: Racing Royale and look for ways to be the very fastest on track, we’ve been having more community discussions around karts, and their performance stats. These are the numbers you see when selecting karts from the Garage menu!
We wanted to go under the hood on this one and share some extra info on what the kart performance stats mean, as well as some general insight into how we design and optimise the performance for Stampede karts.
Kart performance stats in Stampede: Racing Royale
Kart performance is designed to be simple and easy for players to follow, but also to be thoroughly balanced, and give players options that have genuine value.
Players will also have different styles and preferences for driving, which will suit them better to different karts, so our team aims to accommodate that with different kart handling styles.
Maps also play a factor here – our maps are purposely varied in design, so that some are suited better to a Light, Standard, or Heavy kart.
Let’s look at the five performance stats that every kart has, confirming what each of them represents. Most of this will not come as a surprise, but there’s some interesting detail in there too!
SPEED – The higher this number, the higher the top speed the kart can reach, when not boosting
ACCELERATION – The higher this number, the faster the kart will gain speed from a standing start, or from low speeds, without boosting
DRIFT – This stat dictates how fast the kart can go whilst drifting, as well as how strong the boost effect is after you’ve finished a drift
WEIGHT – The higher this number, the more that other stats such as Acceleration and Handling are negatively affected. It also affects the amount of inertia the kart can have, and how long it is affected for when struck by a power-up or hazard
HANDLING – The higher this number, the faster a kart is able to change direction and generally grip to the track
Every kart has a unique combination of these five performance stats, which can also be improved as you progress through Kart Mastery trees and unlock perks – like this one for the Behemoth Bruiser:
How are performance stats decided for each kart?
Before a kart is added to the live game, thorough testing and balancing is carried out, racing the kart across a wider variety of tracks to ensure it not only feels fun to drive, but also feels different to the other karts.
As you’d expect, the larger karts in Stampede tend to have higher Weight stats, whilst smaller karts are lower on Weight, but higher on Handling and Acceleration. Once the look of a kart is designed, our handling team create a performance setup for it that generally reflects what you’d expect a real-life equivalent to feel like. From there, it’s tweaked and optimised to give it a unique feel for players to check out.
Our team are always tracking feedback and data around kart performance to help us understand if tweaks should be made to existing karts, and to inform plans if any additional karts are being cooked up for a future update. We hope this breakdown on kart performance is useful, and look forward to reading more on how you’re mastering each kart in Stampede: Racing Royale!
