Last Year, it was fun just trying to stay up, and if you made it to the end you got points.. now you have to beat a guy? Really? I thought that is what the PVP version is for (which is cool so there is a choice)..

Thanks for making what should have been a relaxing lark.. into another frusterating experience.... sigh.

what's that about? the guy, is that the NPC that can be beaten if you get a disconnect? (yeah happened)

no srsly if this post is about the race against the NPC for the 40 Q pictures, and it is a complain about the difficulty (which is kind of not really clear, even after reading the post 3 times) then you should probably google a guide for the race instead of complaining about it.
The NPC race is porbably the easiest thing there is, there is really nothing that easy in sto as the race.

...Didn't you have to beat a guy last year too?

For the "Fastest Race on Ice",

I've been disqualified for sliding off the track plenty, but only "lost" once. I've had other people on the track with me who got ahead of me and I still "won".

All I can say is, every time I've run it successfully I'm the only one signaling the race official to start.

I came in 3rd on "Fast and Flurrious" once. Every other time I either slid off the track and disqualified, or just plain came in after. Now that you can get something for just completing it, I might run it more often.

Oh, and don't forget that the "lemming plunge" over the cliff doesn't work anymore; the loophole has been closed according to the Devs.

Yeah, the only times I've lost were from falling outside the bounds the first couple tries.


OP: Have you tried doing a dodge/roll on the sharp turns, to stop your sliding and change your direction? It's incredibly handy. With that technique, I've been able to keep sprinting most of the rest of the time, which lets you gain lots of distance on the NPC. Even if you only do it on the longer straights. Hope this helps.

(also, you are in "shooter" mode, right?)

Have Q turn you into a Devidian and fly around the corners and sprint through the straight-aways. You should win everytime as long as you do not make a mistake.

I have been learning more about ground movement in this race than nearly any other mission or event in the game. I wish more missions integrated this varied movement environment.

I use "jump" and take my finger off the forward direction key to control direction, speed and how much I slide. Sometimes I stop completely before sprinting. All done in shooter mode.

I won my first race easily and the next few days I ran it 6 times each day or more to win. Lately I'm winning on the first or second try.

I think they killed the ability to race in one of the alternate forms Q changes you into with the last patch. No idea why. I guess people were having too much fun with it.

Yes. its exactly the same.

I think some of us take for granted how difficult the race is for those who have just started as we ran it countless times last year, and have run it over a hundred times so far this year!

You do get used to it and in fact the only real way to have problems this year is to run while the snowman event is on as those pesky snowmen seem to take immense glee at keeping you frozen on the start line