18th September 2020, 2:10 AM
Oh cool, I made this. I don't remember making it but I made it. Maybe I should update it with cheese/jellyfish hats? Ah, who cares...here's my list.
![[Image: qIUXspo.png]](https://i.imgur.com/qIUXspo.png)
EXP Hat is a stupid design decision, I explain it in the picture.
Since GP is pointless, so is the Kong hat. The act of grinding EXP is pretty trivial but at least it has some sort of effect.
Cowboy hat is stupid. Stupid broken. You can fly straight to the finish and benefit massively from PR2's shoddy physics engine which lets you clip into pretty much everything.
Crown is solid! You're essentially making other players non-factors in normal races and granting the most annoying hazard new platforming applications. While nerfed in Deathmatch, it's still the best hat there.
Santa Hat is probably even more broken than Crown is, given that it has so many insane applications and exploits you can pull off with it. Sure, ice physics are annoying, but for the benefits that the Santa Hat gives you it is worth it.
The Moon Hat isn't as broken as those in its tier but an increase to your jump power and air time is nothing to scoff at, considering it's a platforming game and that it affects your every jump. For precision purposes it's not recommended since it goes against your muscle memory (which is unfortunate since every damn player of PR2 nowadays solely cares about trap/frusts levels) but normally it has little drawbacks. Old Moon hat would be placed firmly with the Kong hat. Maybe even in its own tier because it didn't even have a purpose in-game, or any actual purpose whatsoever. Thank you Jiggmin, very cool!
Propeller Hat nets you even longer air time than the Moon Hat, which can allow you to completely skip over long horizontal sections of levels, and for precision purposes, it's incredible. Too bad that latter thing never sees much use because of the ubiquity of hat machines in those types of levels.
I don't have the Artifact myself (someday!) but I can imagine how it functions - once you get over the reversed lateral controls it's essentially a free Speed Boost which is stupid good. However, a 30 second time limit is a drastic drawback. If you can speed through a longer level in that time it's absolutely worth it, but its drawback is too severe to be placed with the big boys.
Top Hat's good! Well, whenever it can be used, that is. Skipping right through Vanish Blocks laterally is good, well, whenever you can do that. Long columns of Vanish Blocks don't tend to be too common, but hey, if they're there, you can ride up 'em all the way to the top with no physical strain. Vanish Blocks see more use than something like Crumble Blocks so in comparison to the Cheese Hat it's quite better.
Cheese goes in "Solid applications". It's essentially a sibling to the Top Hat, in that they completely diminish the negative effects of a block or change their properties in a beneficial way. Crumble Blocks tend to be infrequently used because, really, their explicit purpose is to waste your time. Which isn't really fun. Breaking a lot of them at once by diving into them is fun though I guess. Laggy particles, ahoy!
Jump Start...it's hard to talk about. If there's a level filled with mines and you think the Crown is too slow, here's your option. In multiplayer races, it gives you, well, a jump start...but that doesn't tend to be all too useful. It has niche uses, but hey, uses are uses.
The Thief Hat is the first hat in the multiplayer tier, and I don't really get it. If you want the powers of another player's OP hat, why not just...use that hat yourself? The only hat that's any difficult to get nowadays is the Artifact. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use this hat, like, ever. It does look stylish, though!
The Party Hat. Yeah, lightning is annoying. But why repel one hazard when you can repel, like, the rest of them? Lightning is scantly used as an item in most deathmatches because it's annoying and arbitrary as hell. I've only ever seen people use the hat on one level, Candy Land, and even then there's better options. And again, this effect only comes into player when there's other players. Cool.
The Jigg Hat is probably better than the Thief Hat or the Party Hat because it has some at least a solid (albeit really niche use, it's definitely better than Thief or Party), and if you can manage it, squashing people's heads is a fun thing to do. You can also do some wicked skips with it if you have a friend, but you will rarely see it used practically in any race unless someone's memeing. And again, it only has use in multiplayer. Cool way to get it, though!
Jellyfish goes in the multiplayer tier. For deathmatches, Crown is still the king, but it's an okay alternative. Better than its multiplayer contemporaries, that's for sure, and you can probably screw over some people in CQC with it.
Overall I'm not really pleased with PR2's hat balance. In the future, I would like to see non-player affecting hats tossed right into the rubbish bin (chiefly the EXP hat, because there's no reason NOT to use it in most races), and the introduction of far more hats like the Propeller Hat or the Top Hat that have some tangible gameplay benefit, with said gameplay benefit not only applying in player-to-player interactions. PR3 did this far better than PR2, with the plethora of hats that did exactly that, although there's always some outliers. You can see some suggestions I've made in one of the threads I posted.
To surmise this wall of text, here's some rankings:
My favorite hat aesthetic-wise is the Jellyfish Hat. So fashionable.
My favorite hat gameplay-wise is the Moon Hat. The gravity change is really fun!
My least favorite hat aesthetic-wise is Kong Hat. Ugly!
My least favorite hat gameplay-wise is the EXP Hat. You know why.
EXP Hat is a stupid design decision, I explain it in the picture.
Since GP is pointless, so is the Kong hat. The act of grinding EXP is pretty trivial but at least it has some sort of effect.
Cowboy hat is stupid. Stupid broken. You can fly straight to the finish and benefit massively from PR2's shoddy physics engine which lets you clip into pretty much everything.
Crown is solid! You're essentially making other players non-factors in normal races and granting the most annoying hazard new platforming applications. While nerfed in Deathmatch, it's still the best hat there.
Santa Hat is probably even more broken than Crown is, given that it has so many insane applications and exploits you can pull off with it. Sure, ice physics are annoying, but for the benefits that the Santa Hat gives you it is worth it.
The Moon Hat isn't as broken as those in its tier but an increase to your jump power and air time is nothing to scoff at, considering it's a platforming game and that it affects your every jump. For precision purposes it's not recommended since it goes against your muscle memory (which is unfortunate since every damn player of PR2 nowadays solely cares about trap/frusts levels) but normally it has little drawbacks. Old Moon hat would be placed firmly with the Kong hat. Maybe even in its own tier because it didn't even have a purpose in-game, or any actual purpose whatsoever. Thank you Jiggmin, very cool!
Propeller Hat nets you even longer air time than the Moon Hat, which can allow you to completely skip over long horizontal sections of levels, and for precision purposes, it's incredible. Too bad that latter thing never sees much use because of the ubiquity of hat machines in those types of levels.
I don't have the Artifact myself (someday!) but I can imagine how it functions - once you get over the reversed lateral controls it's essentially a free Speed Boost which is stupid good. However, a 30 second time limit is a drastic drawback. If you can speed through a longer level in that time it's absolutely worth it, but its drawback is too severe to be placed with the big boys.
Top Hat's good! Well, whenever it can be used, that is. Skipping right through Vanish Blocks laterally is good, well, whenever you can do that. Long columns of Vanish Blocks don't tend to be too common, but hey, if they're there, you can ride up 'em all the way to the top with no physical strain. Vanish Blocks see more use than something like Crumble Blocks so in comparison to the Cheese Hat it's quite better.
Cheese goes in "Solid applications". It's essentially a sibling to the Top Hat, in that they completely diminish the negative effects of a block or change their properties in a beneficial way. Crumble Blocks tend to be infrequently used because, really, their explicit purpose is to waste your time. Which isn't really fun. Breaking a lot of them at once by diving into them is fun though I guess. Laggy particles, ahoy!
Jump Start...it's hard to talk about. If there's a level filled with mines and you think the Crown is too slow, here's your option. In multiplayer races, it gives you, well, a jump start...but that doesn't tend to be all too useful. It has niche uses, but hey, uses are uses.
The Thief Hat is the first hat in the multiplayer tier, and I don't really get it. If you want the powers of another player's OP hat, why not just...use that hat yourself? The only hat that's any difficult to get nowadays is the Artifact. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use this hat, like, ever. It does look stylish, though!
The Party Hat. Yeah, lightning is annoying. But why repel one hazard when you can repel, like, the rest of them? Lightning is scantly used as an item in most deathmatches because it's annoying and arbitrary as hell. I've only ever seen people use the hat on one level, Candy Land, and even then there's better options. And again, this effect only comes into player when there's other players. Cool.
The Jigg Hat is probably better than the Thief Hat or the Party Hat because it has some at least a solid (albeit really niche use, it's definitely better than Thief or Party), and if you can manage it, squashing people's heads is a fun thing to do. You can also do some wicked skips with it if you have a friend, but you will rarely see it used practically in any race unless someone's memeing. And again, it only has use in multiplayer. Cool way to get it, though!
Jellyfish goes in the multiplayer tier. For deathmatches, Crown is still the king, but it's an okay alternative. Better than its multiplayer contemporaries, that's for sure, and you can probably screw over some people in CQC with it.
Overall I'm not really pleased with PR2's hat balance. In the future, I would like to see non-player affecting hats tossed right into the rubbish bin (chiefly the EXP hat, because there's no reason NOT to use it in most races), and the introduction of far more hats like the Propeller Hat or the Top Hat that have some tangible gameplay benefit, with said gameplay benefit not only applying in player-to-player interactions. PR3 did this far better than PR2, with the plethora of hats that did exactly that, although there's always some outliers. You can see some suggestions I've made in one of the threads I posted.
To surmise this wall of text, here's some rankings:
My favorite hat aesthetic-wise is the Jellyfish Hat. So fashionable.
My favorite hat gameplay-wise is the Moon Hat. The gravity change is really fun!
My least favorite hat aesthetic-wise is Kong Hat. Ugly!
My least favorite hat gameplay-wise is the EXP Hat. You know why.
![[Image: aGf8Xvh.png]](https://i.imgur.com/aGf8Xvh.png)
