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How do you rank your favourite coasters?

ThomVD

ThomVD

Giga Poster
I've been thinking about it for a while. How do I rank my top 10 for example. Here are some things to think about;

Do you look at the entire experience from the moment you step into the queue until you leave through the exit? Or do you just rank them purely based on the coaster aspect (the track, the layout, the forces, etc.), not taking everything else in account?

Another thing to think about, do you count the best ride you've had on the coaster? Your most recent ride? Or is consistency the thing to look at while ranking? What about night rides? If something is meh during the day but great at night, how do you rank it?

For now I've based it mostly on just the coaster aspect, but I'm thinking about ranking it as a whole attraction. This can still mean that some unthemed fantastic coasters rank higher than wonderfully themed mediocre coasters; All that matters is which overall experience I prefer. I'm still not sure though, I might change my top 10 up a bit soon. When it comes to which ride on a coaster I look at, it has been a bit of a mix of all the things I mentioned above. I still don't have a consistent way of looking at it though.

I've also noticed inconsistencies in my ranking list. Vliegende Hollander is higher than a lot of coasters which have better coaster parts in my opinion. Yet, Black Mamba is below Expedition GeForce while I do prefer BM's overall experience. So after having a thought about it I might change things up.

What is your view on these things?
 
I rank my coasters based on how much I enjoy riding them, simple really! :p

Of course, you could break down this "enjoyment" into different factors. How adrenaline inducing a ride is, how fun a ride is and the theming are of course all important factors!

Rides that rate high in my rankings because of the adrenaline rush they give are e.g. Skyrush and I305. Rides that rate high because of a high fun-factor are Phoenix and Winjas. Finally, Vliegende Hollander rate high simply because of it's theming/story (since both ride experience and the water feature are quite mediocre tbh).

The overall park experience is also important though. A decent ride in a mediocre park wouldn't rank high for me. An example of this is Joker's Jinx at SFA. While other spaghetti bowl rides rank among my top coasters, this particular version at the horrific SFA rates very low for me..
 
andrus said:
The overall park experience is also important though. A decent ride in a mediocre park wouldn't rank high for me. An example of this is Joker's Jinx at SFA. While other spaghetti bowl rides rank among my top coasters, this particular version at the horrific SFA rates very low for me..
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Thinking about that, I'm sort of mixed about it. At one side I enjoy some rides more in better parks because I'm in a better mood and it just gives me a better feeling. On the other side, a mediocre ride in a crappy park stands out more to me. I sort of enjoyed the Vekoma Tornado in Hellendoorn because there simply wasn't any other thrill coaster there. I even re-rode it a couple of times. Place the exact same coaster in for example Liseberg or Europa Park, and I'd strongly dislike it/not care for it as much. Same goes for rides like the looping star in Slagharen, Formule X in Drievliet and Falcon in Duinrell.
 
andrus said:
The overall park experience is also important though. A decent ride in a mediocre park wouldn't rank high for me
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Not sure about that. Skyrush, bizarre and colossos are top 10 whether they're in Europa or a council estate garden!


My formula seems to vary from one day to the next but enjoyability is high on the list, consistency is also important, hence egf being out of my top 10. theming can lift it a bit but not hugely. My mood and the weather can come into the equation too!!
 
I think it all depends on how much I enjoyed the ride and what I would rather ride. For example, if I could only ride one more coaster, I'd prefer to ride Boulder Dash over all the others. Then I continue down the list with that method.
 
ThomVD said:
andrus said:
The overall park experience is also important though. A decent ride in a mediocre park wouldn't rank high for me. An example of this is Joker's Jinx at SFA. While other spaghetti bowl rides rank among my top coasters, this particular version at the horrific SFA rates very low for me..
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Thinking about that, I'm sort of mixed about it. At one side I enjoy some rides more in better parks because I'm in a better mood and it just gives me a better feeling. On the other side, a mediocre ride in a crappy park stands out more to me. I sort of enjoyed the Vekoma Tornado in Hellendoorn because there simply wasn't any other thrill coaster there. I even re-rode it a couple of times. Place the exact same coaster in for example Liseberg or Europa Park, and I'd strongly dislike it/not care for it as much. Same goes for rides like the looping star in Slagharen, Formule X in Drievliet and Falcon in Duinrell.
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Yes, that is true! To me it's two different things though:

1) A nice park with a good atmosphere can improve any ride (and vice-versa a shabby/filthy park can worsen the experience).
2) A bad ride line-up can improve an otherwise mediocre ride (and vice-versa a good ride line-up can make the ride experience seem worse compared to the other rides).


I just have to make a comment on the smaller dutch parks you're mentioning too, since I went there to all of them this summer! It's just my personal opinion though, so don't be mad :p I just couldn't resist to reply! Here it goes:

I think Helledoorn was a nice little park with a great dark ride shooter, a funky indoor coaster and a beautifully themed rapids ride. Even though they lack a good thrill ride, I still think the quality of the Vekoma Tornado is way below the other attractions of the park. Hence I would rank it among my very bottom rides.

I agree with the Slagharen scenario though. Slagharen is a nice park too, but lacks any good rides. Except Looping Star. This Schwarzkopf ride actully seem really good when you compare it to the rest of the rides in the park!

Drievliet is on the other hand one of the **** parks I've ever been too! And even though Formule X as a coaster probably is much better than Looping Star I enjoyed it far less. Place the ride in Slagharen though, and I've probably enjoyed the ride A LOT!

Finally, Duinrell is a kind of special case. It's a unique park with a great atmosphere; inside a forest (below tall, grown up trees and everything!). Yet it lacks any good ride. I guess the family coaster Dragon Fly would be good for small children, but it's just too lame to do anything for me as an enthusiast. Same goes for Falcon; if you've never been on a thrill ride before, it might blow you away. But it's just too blad to do anything for me. So Duinrell is a case of a great park (atmosphere wise) with mediocre rides really.
 
andrus said:
I just have to make a comment on the smaller dutch parks you're mentioning too, since I went there to all of them this summer! It's just my personal opinion though, so don't be mad :p I just couldn't resist to reply! Here it goes:
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I won't get mad :p . I respect anyone's opinion, and I'm very interested in reading people's opinions especially about things like small Dutch parks. Because parks like that never get discussed on the forums, so I won't turn down a chance to have a talk about them. I do seem to be disagreeing with you a lot, but that doesn't make me think less of you at all. In fact, it gives us something to discuss about which is always good. Agreeing on everything all the time is boring, right? :)

andrus said:
I think Helledoorn was a nice little park with a great dark ride shooter, a funky indoor coaster and a beautifully themed rapids ride. Even though they lack a good thrill ride, I still think the quality of the Vekoma Tornado is way below the other attractions of the park. Hence I would rank it among my very bottom rides.
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I agree with pretty much everything you said. Atmosphere-wise, I thought Hellendoorn is the nicest park in the country excluding the big three (Efteling, Toverland and Walibi). The forest setting was nice, and it had a lot of decent family rides. The roller skater was well themed, the shooting dark ride was possibly my favourite ride in the park, etc. What I meant though is that there aren't really any rides that are remotely thrilling. The Tornado and the top spin were pretty much the only things that come close. That's why I enjoyed Tornado more than if it was placed in any of the bigger parks. It's still not one of my favourites rides of the park though, and ranks pretty low in my coaster favourites list (the indoor roller skater was a lot more fun).

andrus said:
I agree with the Slagharen scenario though. Slagharen is a nice park too, but lacks any good rides. Except Looping Star. This Schwarzkopf ride actully seem really good when you compare it to the rest of the rides in the park!
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I actually hated Slagharen with a passion :p . The atmosphere and operations were crap, the rides were closed half of the time, the staff was rude, etc. So I'm guessing you visited the park on a better day than I did! The Looping star, freefall tower and the bizarre chairswing were the only rides I enjoyed. I would probably even enjoy the Looping Star more if it was in a different park, because my mood was quite bad and the place was just such a disgusting dump. Did you hear that the Looping Star might not open anymore? Time for Slagharen to buy Olympia Looping as a replacement :wink: .

andrus said:
Drievliet is on the other hand one of the **** parks I've ever been too! And even though Formule X as a coaster probably is much better than Looping Star I enjoyed it far less. Place the ride in Slagharen though, and I've probably enjoyed the ride A LOT!
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I thought Drievliet was pretty decent actually. Had a nice day out with Tilen and I really liked Formule X and the afterburner. But place Formule X in a park like Europa Park or Liseberg and I wouldn't re-ride it.

andrus said:
Finally, Duinrell is a kind of special case. It's a unique park with a great atmosphere; inside a forest (below tall, grown up trees and everything!). Yet it lacks any good ride. I guess the family coaster Dragon Fly would be good for small children, but it's just too lame to do anything for me as an enthusiast. Same goes for Falcon; if you've never been on a thrill ride before, it might blow you away. But it's just too blad to do anything for me. So Duinrell is a case of a great park (atmosphere wise) with mediocre rides really.
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It's hard for me to comment on Duinrell because I went on a special winter event and only the area with the coasters (and the frisbee/chairswing) were opened, but I did see the potential of it being a really lovely park during summer. I enjoyed Dragon Fly for what it was, and Falcon was my first vertical lift/beyond vertical drop coaster so it was something new for me, and I liked it. Not amazing, but smooth and decent enough. Again, place it in Liseberg and I wouldn't care about it. I will revisit Duinrell in the summer so will have more of an opinion about it then.
 
Adrenaline inducing, fun level, and how it matches my expectations. Take Prowler for example, I had never been on a GCI, didn't expect much, and it absolutely blew any expectation I had, out of the water. It was also a lot of fun. Didnt do much adrenaline but it shot up my list. X2 is simply adrenaline and every time I ride it, still to this day, I get a little nervous.

I tend to keep my expectations low for rides, so I rarely get disappointed when I ride a new one that I consider top 10 worthy.
 
I guess it's two-fold:

First, the ride obviously needs to be fun. Tough to rank a boring or mundane roller coaster highly.

Second, the ride needs to be reridable. Why is Ravine Flyer II, Maverick, X2, Skyrush, and Outlaw Run top ranked for me? Because they are roller coasters you could ride all day, every day; while still giving just as good a ride as the first time you ever stepped foot onboard.
 
I rank my rides mainly on how much fun I had but some other big things that factor in ranking for me are smoothness and airtime. For example two of my favorite coasters are Intimidator 305 and Millennium Force. Although I love both rides a lot Millennium is easily the better for me out of how smooth and non aggressive it is. Nitro vs. Apollos Chariot. I love them both but Nitro is crazier and Apollo is smoother and relaxed with a decent amount of airtime. My rankings are always odd and its gotten tougher to fit rides into my list. I would say that a good 20-30 of some of my favorite rides could be interchangeable because they are all so great.

With my rankings its split up into Fab, Quality, Whatever and Absolute crap. So my top 10 and a couple after are Fab, Quality is pretty much rides I think are great and love a lot these are interchangeable as in they can be anywhere within the group of 30 or so but I try to order them as well as I can. Whatever rides are non violent plus ones, wild mouses, and coasters that are meh. They arn't horrid or amazing they are just kinda bland non threatening rides pretty much. Finally Absolute crap is your rough old woodies, rough fair creds and vekomas.
 
Mine is based pretty much on pure enjoyment and thrillingness...even though the latter isn't a word. The theming of a ride, even though increases the overall experience of a coaster, doesn't affect the enjoyment of the actual thing, unless it interacts with the coaster, then in my opinion that contributes to the overall enjoyment.

To be in my top 10 a ride needs to be rerideable, in a way that I'll just never get tired of it, Montu, Shambhala and White Lightning are pure examples of this, I could ride them all day and be über happy.

I don't give a **** if the rest of the park is a hell hole, if the coaster is good, I'll credit them for it, I love The Swarm for example but Thorpe Park? Bleuggghhhh.
 
For me, I factor in the elements, and how good the coaster provides those elements, smoothness, intensity, the overall ride experience, and if I have to resort to it- theming.

Elements: My #1 is Goliath at SFGAm. Mainly because of how intense, unique, and smooth it is. It features good airtime(some of the best in the park tbh), good inversions, and the speed is just insane.

Smoothness and length: I don't necessarily factor everything about the ride's smoothness, but I still consider it. For example, I enjoyed Screaming Eagle at SFStL, even though it's a 40 year old PTC woodie. It had tons of airtime, and was very long. Not to mention I was sitting in the back. However, I did not enjoy Storm Runner that much. I enjoyed the launch and the top hat. And that's pretty much it. I had an extremely rough ride on it, and it was very short. I was also sitting near the back.

Overall ride experience: Outlaw Run was very fun, because of RMC, the theming in the queue, the fact that you were speeding through an Ozarkian forest with no control. And the lapbars on an inversion made things interesting.

Theme: This is only for bad-ish coasters. If a coaster is lacking in some categories, then theming would boost the score. For example, Mystery Mine at Dollywood is an extremely rough Euro Fighter, with superb theming. If it weren't for the theming, then the ride would be atrocious. *Note: I haven't been on Mystery mine, I'm just going off of reviews.

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My top ten would be:
1. Apollo's Chariot (Busch Gardens)
2. Nitro (Six Flags Great Adventure)
3. Diamondback (King's Island)
4. Tatsu (Six Flags Magic Mountain)
5. Alpengeist (Busch Gardens)
6. Intimidator (Carowinds)
7. Kumba (Busch Gardens)
8. Maverick (Cedar Point)
9. Banshee (King's Island)
10. Behemoth (Canada's Wonderland)
 
I rank them by level of enjoyment I had while riding it. This includes theming or immersion to the ride's theming, comfort, and of course design.
 
I've tried making a few numerical-based systems for this over the past couple of years (because I like numbers :p ), but only fairly recently created one that actually works well.

I rate all 'good or better' coasters I have in my count on the following criteria:

Excitement - How much thrill/adrenaline/enjoyment the ride provides. /20

Features - Quality of layout/forces and diversity of elements. /30

Comfort - How comfy the trains/restraints are and smoothness. /20

Novelty - The level of uniqueness of the ride experience as a whole. /5

Re-rideability - fairly obvious. /15

Length effectiveness - Consistency of pacing and how well the rides length suits its features. /10


It then generates each coaster a score out of 100 and this helps me to order all of my top 50. It's quite in-depth, but its the best way to differentiate between coasters that would otherwise be in large clusters. It's not perfect and I don't think it would necessarily work for everybody, but the point allocation to each criterion works very well for my own personal rankings.

Obviously the main problem is that the scores I give coasters may depend on my mood at the time, so sometimes I will go through all the coasters with a very similar score to the one I have just added and if necessary, adjust them accordingly.
 
Ultimately, just how much I enjoy it.
As the number has grown though and I've ridden more top tier coasters it's gotten pretty hard to simply ride and I say "X was more enjoyable than Y"

So now it's based off how much I enjoy it, re rideability, forces, layout, elements. But it's not like "X has 3 airtime moments, Y has 5, but Z has 4 and a better layout" it's still kind of a gut feeling.
It's still getting harder so I kind of have a top few, and the rest are just an amorphous blob :lol: not enthusiastic enough to actually make a concrete ranking.

This is why MForce is still #1 after 14 years, I love it and it's the definition of re-rideable. I like the layout and does just enough, while more forceful ones may be less comfortable, or other smooth ones just don't give me quite the same feeling.
Though Fury may finally be the one to top it, since it appears to have all I like with MForce but more.
I'm not sure if I want to split my list into steel and wood, the experiences can be so different and seems unfair to traditional woodens a bit.
 
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