Comment by Etherlord87
2 years ago
You have a lot of options to choose from. How to pick the truly best option? Let me show you a method, in which you arbitrarily pick 3 out of 6 attributes and then use an artificial, unintuitive interface to choose an optimum trade-off between them. And once you do, my super-amazing method will tell you what combination to use, easy!
OK I might be an old bitter cynic, but the beginning got my hopes up for something clever. The only value I see here is explaining the Pareto frontier, but it doesn't take a genius to independently figure out, if you have 2 attributes, and someone else has one of the attributes at least equal, and another higher, that someone else is a better pick…
Of course, what the article doesn't even touch, is that some attributes could get worse results as they get higher: imagine having an acceleration and speed so high that you effectively can't steer your car.
Also a pedantic argument could be made on the cosmetics possibly actually affecting performance…
Not entirely sure what you're looking for.
If you don't want to use the "artificial, unintuitive interface" (bit rude IMO) you could just google "best mario kart setup".
The selection of attributes is not exactly arbitrary. AFAIK speed has always been by far the dominant stat in mario kart, then acceleration. Choosing e.g. better handling at the expense of speed is an immediate disadvantage. If your problem is that this doesn't help you to choose atteibutes in the general case, take it up with the chaos of the natural world...
This article solves a problem people have (not knowing what setup to pick) in a very stylish way (subjective) and teaches the reader something along the way (what a Pareto frontier is).
Not a particularly constructive comment if you ask me.
Just because the selection is "correct" (e.g. gives best results in practice) doesn't mean it's not arbitrary.
The article starts with the premise and fails to deliver. The visual layer of the article is nice. But ultimately the example of using the Pareto's frontier is a FAIL because it doesn't deliver on its promise of finding the best kart setup.
I thought it was a clever relatable way to explain the concept of the Pareto frontier. And that of the 703560 builds, you can pick just 14 and choose among those depending on what you prefer was a surprise to me.