I find Vortex at KI to be extremely rough (on me). The main issue is that I am tall, so I don't fit very well in the Arrow cars - and especially if I have to sit in the back of a car.
So weird because I loved that ride... Height is definitely a factor for discomfort experience, but then there have been other times where someone is in pain who's similar in size to me and I just my sanity.
I have no issue with acquired roughness, I think... ? So, that feeling when a coaster is just old? That's fine. What I hate is janky poor design. Unless it is by fluke producing an experience that "feels right". Like, I would argue Ultimate managed to create a similar ride experience to the weird outerbanked, unpredictable manoeuvres RMC have brought to the table. They feel right, and righter still on RMCs obviously, but I don't know exactly why they're ok whilst other rides trying to be crazy and unpredictable fail.
I rode Thunderbolt at Coney this year and Jesus Christ... It truly redefines poor manufacturing. No transition was right, nothing felt right at all. It felt hard? Hard. Yeah...
I remember having a discussion with Lain yeeeeeeeears ago about prog rock and how it so often doesn't feel right or flow, and Lain arguing that's the point though. I tend to just dislike things that don't conform to some expectation of progress or feel... melodic? Jazz is mostly terrible, too, because it takes a tune and just sticks a bunch of notes in for the sake of it, or that's how it seems to my ears. And a lot of coasters are the same. Eurofighters, especially Saw and Mystery Mine's outdoor section, are good examples of this, where there is no... pattern, no theme, no story progression, no melody. Whatever. There is nothing natural or right about the way it transitions from one element to the next.
Kings Islands Vortex, however, has progression. I love it's weird first drop helix thing, and how it saves the batwing highlight for relatively late in the layout. I think Nemesis is possibly the best example that everyone mostly agrees on of what I'm talking about, where each element feels in the right place... Even that final corkscrew feels right, because it comes at a time when you think the ride is over. So even though it catches off guard, it feels appropriate?
This is mostly subjective nonsense, but most of the rides I dislike for being uncomfortable aren't rough, they're just poorly transitioning. There are examples where the opposite is true, often B&Ms feel a little too perfect and soulless (though never objectively bad) and something like Colossus, who's progression is too predictable and thus boring, as well as being rough.
Thunderbolt is the new absolute worst. What a pile of absolute junk. Wrong, on every level. Garbage. Absolute garbage. They need to go back to their day job of building kiddy flat rides.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Rode Goudurix again yesterday, and that lap was even worse than the one with you! I think there's worse coasters than this, but Goudurix isn't too far behind either.
