A data scientist has developed a tool to determine which Mario Kart 8 racer and car configuration best suits your playstyle from all possible customization options.
Parisian economist and data scientist Antoine Mayerowitz calculates that when you unlock all the drivers, car bodies, tires and hang gliders, there are 703,560 possible combinations in Mario Kart 8. However, many of these combinations are the same, and Mayerowitz says there are actually only 25,704 statistically significant unique possibilities.
After analyzing the more than 25,000 Mario Kart 8 combinations, Mayerowitz developed a tool to help players find the right combination based on their playstyle and skills, using the popular Pareto efficiency model named after the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto.
In simple terms, using the Pareto model-based Mayerowitz tool, players can filter out the "sub-optimal" option and then assign weights to performance variables such as speed, handling, acceleration, and weight based on their playstyle. This will provide an optimal set of configurations called Pareto fronts, which perfectly match the player's unique playstyle. Even more subtle gameplay variables like the amount of time players spend off-road and using mini turbos are taken into account.
Of course, the debate about the best configuration for Mario Kart 8 continues, and there are various player-created tools online to support different points of view. But what makes Mayerowitz's tool unique is that it uses this special mathematical model and allows players to set weighted variables according to their unique playstyle. Ultimately, though, we all know that the ultimate variable that determines Mario Kart will always be: