| Naveronasis: Blog2: Reviews and Thoughts on FS/Min... | 30 Apr, 2013 |
| Naveronasis | (7 comments, 1524 views) |
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I got 2 new reviews for you. I had another review requested from a friend on the stream however I don't do canyon and am currently too bad to log a meaningful time but you can check out his map as well in the sidebar. I post my reviews on the individual pages and try to give them a full, written out log of my thoughts rather than a simple "aye mate good track here's your award"
So let me talk a little bit about how I feel about Full Speed (FS) maps and Mini. Mini: Mini maps to some extent compared to Nadeo tracks are more or less true to form however in my own personal experience I have an acute dislike for them. To me they have always been a way for people to game Ladder points by putting 250 people on a server and putting up a time attack timer for like 60s-120s to rapid-fire match results for LP. I got a little redundant there but the point was made  On one hand I blame Nadeo, their LP system basicly favors players who play a lot more than players who play well since there's no risk of losing LP other than becoming inactive but that doesn't mean it should be a permission slip to mass produce mini/micro/lol maps to take advantage of the system. Not to say there aren't legitimate servers and legitimate map makers. In fact I would bet that the majority of people who make maps and make servers are on the up and up in their intent. But for all the good intentions, particularly in TMF/TMU the system was abused largely in part to Mini/Micro/LoL so I tend to avoid them. Besides I want a race experience, every game I know of from ridge racer, to motor storm, to Gran Turismo, to mario kart has lap timers in excess of 40 seconds. Why sell your self short?
Full Speed: Again remember I self identify as a separatist and I make no apologies for being weird and rejecting things that are otherwise widely accepted by the community but the standard FS map is a plague on the TM community. Which is odd because even I make a few FS maps my self but heres the grind. Normal FS maps tend to be chalk full of completely unnecessary speed traps that exclude all but the most elite of players. So maby your sitting at home and thinking to your self... But Nav, there's tons of people playing FS and clearly there's a wide range of skill's involved you can see everyone's finish time" Yes and I can tell you from running lan events and my own personal server that there are hundreds of people in my own experience, thousands+ outside of my experience who will NOT play TM because they go to server after server and faced with extremely unforgiving and impossibly difficult maps. And you can make the excuse "well they can find a server better for them-self" but the truth of the matter, those servers are uncommon, usually only run Nadeo tracks, and have 0 players in them. And i blame that largely on finding one is so difficult that rather than go though the effort those players quit before they get a chance. So whats the solution? well for one, stop putting in impossibly unforgiving speed traps, they basically exclude people as well as make the maps largely pass fail instead of a wide gradient on skill. And 2 stop putting in impassible checkpoints, nothing is more frustrating to a new player than being caught in a situation where they finally make it over that loop, that jump, that wall-ride to find out they just weren't going fast enough and resetting to CP offers them no way out they simply have to start over again. we as content developers can do better. Even if you don't care about what "noobs" can finish or not noobs can grow into decent players if given a suitable environment to learn in. Anyway enough out of me for one day, and hopefully get to some more upbeat blog posts in the future
If you want to see a Full Speed map with 100% completable checkpoints take a look at Moon Beam in the sidebar. |
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| MrA writes ... | 17, May, 2013 |
Just on the layout of your blog post, it can be much easier to read if you split your text in to paragraphs . 
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| arzgaa writes ... | 16, May, 2013 |
I entirely agree on your point about unforgiving fs-maps. Pretty much the worst type of map you can come across. Back in my earlier days playing a lot of maps like that prob had an impact on me turning away on most of fs-maps nowadays. Sure there are good and enjoyable ones as well, should just let the past be the past 
Anyways,good read and keep it up 
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| kata78 writes ... | 04, May, 2013 |
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I agree with Hans Holo ... and i see what you mean ...
I try to build tracks where you need skills but are also playable for noobs to learn them ... Thats what i always say RESPAWNABLE CHECKPOINTS .... I think a big problem is, that there are so many builders but only expert track builders award expert track builders .... So best of the week, best of the month always the same builders with often tracks i cant drive without trying 1 or 2 hours ;-) So on my server KATA'S DOME Click for info on KATA'S DOME you only find maps with respawnable checkpoints ... and my tracks also comply to this rule ... |
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| winter writes ... | 02, May, 2013 |
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Thanks for the review man.
Personally when I build I have just about zero regard as to how newbie friendly my tracks are. I generally build tracks for the pros to hunt and they seem to enjoy them quite a bit. I have to admit coming over to TM2 with the influx of new players have given me some new perspective on what is a hard track or not. People really struggling on tracks I personally feel is crazy simple. Rime which you reviewed is a good example of what I consider a really easy track. As for FS being bad for TM I just cant agree with you. Mostly since I love FS, and alot of other people also loves it. But hey, I respect your opinion and the way you prefer things. Aint fun if we all do the same thing 
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| zarexz writes ... | 01, May, 2013 |
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/sarcasm on
Yes, I find you a weird seperatist guy
/sarcasm off Anywho, about the popularity of (too) short tracks. I've learned that most (casual) TM players can't or don't want to remember more then (let's say) 10 turns per track. Most of them don't really care about the tracks themselves. Just log on, have a couple of laps and log out again. Tracks with more then 10 turns require practise to memorize all the turns. So usualy unfit for this (casual) situation. A lot of fullspeed tracks have unrecoverable traps indeed. I don't like it neither but I can understand why. You see, these traps do ad to the experience because if you're not always certain you'll be able to make the jump, it feels really great when you do. It will also make you a better driver. The problem is finding something inbetween. There are servers with short, simple and boring tracks, good for beginners. There are servers with friggin great but sooo hard to finish tracks for all the pros and wizzkidz. For us, old and just not good/fast enough it's really hard to find decent servers. Just my thoughts on this. |
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| Hans Holo writes ... | 01, May, 2013 |
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I kind of agree with what you wrote about Full Speed, but it is not the FS-Style itself that is to blame. What you describe are poorly designed tracks. There are a lot of well built, thought through FS-Tracks.
The Full-Speed-Hans
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| Naveronasis writes ... | 30, Apr, 2013 |
| Completely forgot to include the canyon map, its up there now though. | |