I just bought an xbox one and it sucks. the invite system is broken and the 300 thousand dedicated servers are garbage. the connection on call of duty is actually better on the ps4. why did they change the friend request system? the new followers system is stupid. everything that was great about the 360 seems to be gone. anyone else feel the same way?

Nobody deserves anything. It's mostly random. What did the other eight people do to deserve getting ahead of you two? One (all?) of them took you out and they zoomed by. The only way to avoid that is to be far enough ahead that any bombardment won't kill your ranking, which isn't always possible, but it's more possible in Mario Kart 8 than any other game in the series.

If you want the game to always give you what you need to get ahead or stay ahead, then that rule needs to apply to everyone, and it wouldn't accomplish anything. It could work if you're racing against all AI, but it can't work with all human players (which is why it's so easy to beat the AI in Mario Kart 64, by the way).

It's random. Sure there's a formula, but it's still random. The game isn't screwing you or helping you or favoring other players. It's just being random.

I think being in 10th place on the last item box of the race is what made you have no chance. ;)

I just played several races specifically looking for these "trends," and I just didn't see them. On the first item box of each race, there was about as much variety as you could expect. I got a red shell in third place, the guy in front of me got a coin, the guy in front of him missed the boxes completely, someone behind me shot a green shell (I was playing on the gamepad so I couldn't see what everyone got). That's pretty much the whole gamut of first-item-box weapons. In the rest of the race, I spanned from second place to about sixth and got most of the items except the super mushroom, lightning, blooper, blue shell, and boom box thing in all of the races. I got hit by lightning maybe three times total in the races I played, and got blooped at least once each, which means other players (but not everyone in a cluster) got those items at some point.

I saw one guy get a star at the same time I did, but that's the only instance I saw in five races of someone getting the same item as me (except for mushrooms, which, like I said earlier, are over represented in this game across the board).

I got bombarded in the first race a few times and still placed fourth, and I drove pretty horribly in the rest but didn't place lower than fifth.

All that to say.. I just don't see the problem. If you drive well enough, you don't NEED to rely on items to push you ahead. If you get them and can use them to change your position, then that's perfect, but you can't expect it. Driving flawlessly and using items smartly gets me a top position pretty much every race in which I can actually pull those two things off.

I just did a few races to test the "Trends" debate and surely enough, EVERY SINGLE ITEM I GOT, The other racers around me got either the same thing or similar. Whenever I'd get triple Mushrooms, the other players around me would get either triple mushrooms or Infinite Mushrooms. Whenever I'd get the star, at least one other player near me would get the star. Whenever I'd get a green or red shell, other players around me got red or green shells.

This item distribution needs to be patched badly. Make the further back players get speed boosts, shells and items to help them catch up and players in the front of the pack get items to help defend themselves. It's not that hard of a problem to solve. When you're in first through 3rd, you get a better ratio of defense items, 4th-8th, you get the average ratio of good offense and defense items, 8th-12th, you get better offense items. Simple solution. This needs to be fixed badly as it makes the items you get useless.