Great Trials Game in an awful package
Hey there,
after playing for a few hours and reading through a few threads here, I think I'm done with this game for now.
I had a bad feeling when the beta came out. The whole game gave the vibe of a mobile game and it seems that it only got worse between the beta and the final product.
First off, the gameplay itself is awesome as ever. I play the series since HD. I'm everything but a pro. I only finished one extreme track once (!!!) and that was the pinnacle of my "career". What I'm trying to say is, I like riding the trials tracks of the Trials Series. I'm a decent average rider, I'd say.
Now, in Rising I'm at level 46 and the game just stopped for me. I can't unlock any harder tracks than "medium". I finished most tracks on gold and I have no idea at what level more tracks are supposed to be unlocked.
The contracts give like 200XP per race and some stickers and cosmetic item nobody needs or wants. The contracts that actually give a decent amount of XP are borderline impossible for me. In order to fulfil a contract I have to beat another rider, which is chosen randomly I guess, who is like 25 seconds faster than me? Is that supposed to motivate me or do the devs have some weird masochistic fetish?
And the cherry on top is, that if you do the contracts you pretty much destined to loose the race. And you have to sit through some idiotic animation of some random avatars. And as of right now, there are like three different (if not three than it's not much more) items in each category, so everybody looks the f*ing same and has the same animation.
In any case, I'm not willing to grind this stupid contracts over and over again in order to get a higher level. Those contracts are simply not fun. Seriously? Do 15x frontflips and backflip 8x with no fault on a helium? Just unlock the hard track as soon as I have finished all medium tracks. Boom. Done. Progression!
If I can't finish a track, I have at least a reason to try over and over again in order to unlock the next one. You know, like in every other game in like forever. Do you think a Mario game would be fun if you had to grind world-1 like 20 times just to earn enough coins and buy yourself a ticket to the next world? No! It wouldn't.
So basically I paid 40€ for a mobile game that locks it's content behind some stupid boring mobile free-to-play mechanic. And they doesn't even have the decency to allow me to pay my way to the next levels. Not that I would do that!!!
Unfortunately I also live in a country where refunds are not an option, so I'm stuck with this mess now.
@RedLynx: What is your suggestion? Will you implement an non-grindy way to unlock all the tracks? You know, the ones I paid for. So no in app purchases or bs like that.
I like to decide for myself how I want to spend my time. I'm a grown up and can totally do that. No need to force me to do the same thing a 100 times because ... I don't even know why anyone would ever do such a thing.
And I'd love to see this "stadium finals" gone I think. I say "I think" because I don't know if they are optional or not. It seems like they are not. But, they are very annoying events and have nothing to do with trials tracks anyways.
Just to round this up. Here are a few more things that make the package to a great mechanical game so awful (to me):
Lootboxes
Why are they in the game?
Why can't I skip the animation?
Why so many duplicates? For real! From my experience, at least 50% are duplicates. I had the same thing twice in the same lootbox a few times.
I'm sitting on like 20 boxes right now and I have no intention to open them. You somehow managed to make an addicting mechanic so tedious that I don't even want the rewards from it. *slowclap*
Map
Why a map? Because every Ubisoft game has to have a map?
The map is (as in Ubisoft tradition) cluttered with stuff and searching & selecting anything is unnecessary slow. And as I said, I only have unlocked a few medium tracks. So roughly half I would guess.
It's also constantly blinking with information I don't care about. Why are you telling me, that there is a record on a track that is like 15 seconds faster than me? The whole thing is extremely distracting. Everything is screaming for attention. Everything is "important". Even the things that are not on the map, are on the map with this stupid floating icons on the edges. If you need a crutch like that, you should probably think about, if your original medium for presenting information is the correct choice.
Track Central
Can't say much about this because it doesn't load anything. Well it did once, but since then the tracklist is empty. I got tired after a few minutes and left.
Performance
I play on the Xbox One X. Usually a pretty quiet machine. For some reason Trials Rising makes the fan blow all the time. Especially when anything with network is going on. Which is pretty much all the time. Even if the game is in the background the fan blows. And I know it's the game, because two seconds after quitting the game the whole system is silent.
What the hell are you doing? Mining bitcoin? This is a serious problem! I fear for the well beeing of my hardware.
Music
Not my cup of tea. But I found the slider to mute it. :-)
Multiplayer
Who thought it would be a good idea to force-feed us this competition aspect? I mean leaderboards okay, but this current implementation is just a vehicle to "excuse" your loot boxes, isn't it? I mean I always drive against 1 extremely slower and 2 much faster riders. Which in turn means, that even if I finish a track in a decent pace for me, I get mocked at the end because I didn't win. And I can't even watch the replay of the winning rider if I wanted.
Besides that. Everything takes a very long time because the game has to find and load other players data. Show it to me and at the end show some silly animation and all that stuff. You could however just let me play the damn track. Without loading anything from your servers, you know. The things that assumingly run on toasters in your office kitchen.
The good parts
I don't want to come around as too angry. ;-) So here are the things that are good:
* The tracks are absolute top-notch as usual
* The handling of the bikes is good as always
* The mini games are a nice little distraction. But why are they locked behind an XP wall?
* The tutorials are a good addition, even though I don't understand why even those are behind the XP wall? Why is the next lesson not unlocked when I finish the one before?
I really hope this grinding thing get's fixed. Everything else I can live with, but not grind. Life has too much to offer to waste it on sh*t like that.
Absolutely!! I fully agree
I have been playing trials since HD as well. And you hit the nail right on the head! i don't like how the game does not unlock hard maps when medium is complete and i don't like how skills games and university is all locked up as well.
I think they have done a lot of the locking to make people play more and give them more time to entice you to make micro transactions for store items. But the store is so bugged right now i wont be spending any money on this game.
You gave a solid review and feedback lets hope they listen!