You can say it all ya want, but it's not changing! Breaking away from the pack is harder now, and frontrunning is harder now, that's just how things are in Mario Kart 8, and I for one very much like this as it's what makes acceleration more important than ever!

Also what good bikes and karts are you talking about? You already start the game with most possible stat combinations!

Red Shells are very easy to avoid. Not overpowered at all.

I've consistently got first, or at least top 3, with Toadette and Wild Wiggler, beating the mobs of Pink Gold Peaches and Mortons.

It comes down to skill, and acceleration does help.

Reds also take limited land path. You can purposefully move yourself to force them to hit other things.

But, with the addition of say coins (no defensive power) you also get crazy 8 and the super horn. So there is still tremendous fair play and level defensive options.

At least now you have a rare chance to escape the blue shell too.

Rosalina is part of the cruiser weight class in between metals and the normal weight along with DK,Waluigi , and Roy. The Heavies are Bowser, Morton, and Wario. Yes there are optimal setups because if you try and go for an acceleration based setup, you end up with both less acceleration and less speed than a cruiser setup towards speed. Obviously inferior. If two players that know how to get the best speed out of a track race and they get the same item in the first item grab, The one with the higher top speed will quickly be out of reach. A heavy player that knows what they are doing is only threatened by another heavy.

Acceleration especially doesn't matter considering all of the natural ways of gaining picking up speed in the game.

Red shells ARE WAAAAAAYYYYY OP in this game. Also, there's simply too many of them in the item balance. It used to be that green shells would appear 2-3 times more often than red shells. Now they seem practically equal. I can't tell you how many times I've been in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd online...only to get hit by a red shell and come to a complete stop. Then, as I'm trying to start again, there's a massive hoard of players all grouped together in 4th-9th, and as they pass by, they nail me with another red shell and every other item in their arsenal. And then, in a matter of 3 seconds, I've gone from top 3, to 10th or lower. So maybe I WILL have to try switching to a vehicle with better acceleration. It makes playing online very frustrating sometimes otherwise.

PS: I DESPISE the coin item. There are plenty of coins on the tracks, and part of the strategy is getting as many of them as you can while also preventing your opponents from getting them. Plus, it's just useless to anybody in the top half of the pack.

Red shells really aren't that threatening because they always zoom straight into what ever item you are equipping. Green shells can hit you from the side. Red shells are also easily avoid in any track with walls.

You should add Lightning, the horror

Air horn is awesome against blue shells but tough to use against red shells for me at the moment.  I was wondering how to dodge the blue shell since I saw a thread awhile back stating you could (didn't read thread).  I soon found out that the air horn is the main weapon against the blue shell (besides slowing down and letting the second place person move to first to get hit (sometimes blue shells still go after you though if you don't make switch soon enough, or at least that is my previous experience in the past few MKs).