Trials 2 SE v1.08 - my problems, issues and suggestions
I already posted this on the Steam-forums but after finding this official board it seems like the more appropriate place.
I just purchases Trials 2 Second Edition and I'm not disappointed. While it can be incredibly frustrating at times (right now even the "Medium" levels feel insanely difficult and I have no idea if I will ever manage to get any other Achievement than "every bone broken") it still manages to be rather fun and I will mostly revisit it as a fun "coffee break"-game. Trials 2 seems to be best enjoyed in small portions, I guess.
But I do have a few issues with the game that are rather annoying and that make it less appealing and less polished than it could be.
I hope at least some of these will be addressed in future patches (and I really hope that there will still be some):
* Controller support in game menus
At first I thought my controller wasn't recognized or supported (XBox 360 controller) but it actually works in the game itself. But even when the game asks me to press any button to continue or when the only option I have is "close" (like in the tutorial levels) ... it will only accept mouse or basic keyboard input. Having to take of my hands of the controller all the time feels very unnecessary and frustrating.
* Key remapping or at least enhanced controller options
It looks like one of the most requested features in the Steam forum and understandably so.
Even if that won't happen, at least consider adding alternative control options to the Xbox 360 controller. It's a game that only knows digital input ... that's bad enough, but why, oh why does it only allow input from the left analog stick and the analog triggers in the back? Please also make the D-Pad a possible control option and maybe allow acceleration through the right analog stick and/or the buttons ... all currently remain unused anyways, you could just add this to the current key-mapping. I actually rather like the current key-setup of the XBox 360 controller but I would love to be able to switch to the D-Pad for maneuvers that require very quick left-right input.
Right now I have to switch to the keyboard for things like "switch-jumping" which keeps me juggling between three different means of input to control a game and its menus that normally should not require more than 5 buttons to play.
* Why does Trials 2 make it so hard to see which levels I finished and how well?
Either I'm blind and simply didn't see it or there is no good indication to see an overview of the levels that I finished and the ones that I mastered with 0 faults.
This is information that should be in the "track list" but simply isn't. The track list only shows my current leaderboard rank for each level and it doesn't even do so right away! Frequently my rank will only show up on the list after restarting the game. Please, please add this simple information to the track listing, it should be a rather minor and easy change.
* Trials doesn't always recognize when I finish a track!
This bug seems to be closely related to the leaderboard rank not showing up in the track list. Trials 2 frequently doesn't recognize that I actually finished a track until I completely restart the game. For example: I finished every single track I unlocked so far and it still wouldn't allow me to advance to the next "medium" track, telling me that I had to complete at least another one. My leaderboard rank was missing from some finished tracks in the tracklist as well but replaying those levels would only give me the message that I didn't improve on my previous result (because I didn't). Restarting Trials 2 would unlock multiple tracks and make the leaderboard rank show up correctly. This happened multiple times.
* Window in windowed mode doesn't remember its position
I like to play my casual games (and I consider Trials 2 one) on my left monitor while monitoring other things on the right. While Trial technically allows me to do so even when in fullscreen mode (which is great) I still prefer those games as windowed applications because it makes it easier and faster to switch to somewhere else.
Trials let's me do all that, which is great, but it won't for the life of me remember its windows position. The window is always created with leaving a gap of about 20 pixels on the left and top egde of my primary monitor and using 20 pixels on my right one as well. Every single time I have to correct this. http://forum.redlynx.com/forum/image...s/icon_sad.gif
Please don't get the intention of this thread wrong, I'm not complaining, I rather like Trials 2, but there are some good reasons for looking forward to a new update.
Re: Trials 2 SE v1.08 - my problems, issues and suggestions
Quote:
Originally Posted by freibooter
* Controller support in game menus
At first I thought my controller wasn't recognized or supported (XBox 360 controller) but it actually works in the game itself. But even when the game asks me to press any button to continue or when the only option I have is "close" (like in the tutorial levels) ... it will only accept mouse or basic keyboard input. Having to take of my hands of the controller all the time feels very unnecessary and frustrating.
* Key remapping or at least enhanced controller options
It looks like one of the most requested features in the Steam forum and understandably so.
Even if that won't happen, at least consider adding alternative control options to the Xbox 360 controller. It's a game that only knows digital input ... that's bad enough, but why, oh why does it only allow input from the left analog stick and the analog triggers in the back? Please also make the D-Pad a possible control option and maybe allow acceleration through the right analog stick and/or the buttons ... all currently remain unused anyways, you could just add this to the current key-mapping. I actually rather like the current key-setup of the XBox 360 controller but I would love to be able to switch to the D-Pad for maneuvers that require very quick left-right input.
Right now I have to switch to the keyboard for things like "switch-jumping" which keeps me juggling between three different means of input to control a game and its menus that normally should not require more than 5 buttons to play.
Originally the game did not support controllers at all, and controller support was added as an afterthough just before the release. This is why the controller support feels so unfinished. We all are very informed about this issue, but for Trials 2 it's too late to fix it without large modifications to the menu code.
Be assured that problems like this will not be present in the future Trials games. In a game that needs as much finger dexterity as Trials series does, allowing the user to control the game in a confortable way is a key issue for us in the future Trials games.
Quote:
Originally Posted by freibooter
* Why does Trials 2 make it so hard to see which levels I finished and how well?
Either I'm blind and simply didn't see it or there is no good indication to see an overview of the levels that I finished and the ones that I mastered with 0 faults.
This is information that should be in the "track list" but simply isn't. The track list only shows my current leaderboard rank for each level and it doesn't even do so right away! Frequently my rank will only show up on the list after restarting the game. Please, please add this simple information to the track listing, it should be a rather minor and easy change.
* Trials doesn't always recognize when I finish a track!
This bug seems to be closely related to the leaderboard rank not showing up in the track list. Trials 2 frequently doesn't recognize that I actually finished a track until I completely restart the game. For example: I finished every single track I unlocked so far and it still wouldn't allow me to advance to the next "medium" track, telling me that I had to complete at least another one. My leaderboard rank was missing from some finished tracks in the tracklist as well but replaying those levels would only give me the message that I didn't improve on my previous result (because I didn't). Restarting Trials 2 would unlock multiple tracks and make the leaderboard rank show up correctly. This happened multiple times.
Track position update is delayed, because the server cannot recalculate position of 20000+ players every time a player passes a track. This is a design issue really. It would be much better to show your result of each track in the Your Stats screen (passed/not-passed, faults and time). This information could be updated immediately. Also a gold-bronze-silver rating for each track like in most racing games would help a lot to see where to improve.
Track unlock failure is a bug. It seems to happen if you are using a filter in the high score list screen ("team", "friends" or "country" instead of "personal).
Quote:
Originally Posted by freibooter
*
Window in windowed mode doesn't remember its position
I like to play my casual games (and I consider Trials 2 one) on my left monitor while monitoring other things on the right. While Trial technically allows me to do so even when in fullscreen mode (which is great) I still prefer those games as windowed applications because it makes it easier and faster to switch to somewhere else.
Trials let's me do all that, which is great, but it won't for the life of me remember its windows position. The window is always created with leaving a gap of about 20 pixels on the left and top egde of my primary monitor and using 20 pixels on my right one as well. Every single time I have to correct this.
http://forum.redlynx.com/forum/image...s/icon_sad.gif
Please don't get the intention of this thread wrong, I'm not complaining, I rather like Trials 2, but there are some good reasons for looking forward to a new update.
Our graphics engine was originally developed for console games, so PC windowed mode functionality is not implemented that well. Majority of console graphics engines ported to PC do not have any windowed mode at all. The windowed mode in the graphics engine is developed for debugging purposes, and was never intended to be used in a shipping product http://forum.redlynx.com/forum/image.../icon_wink.gif
This issue has already been fixed in our new engine version, as we need to scale/maximize/etc our windows in our new editors and tools. It's very likely that our next PC game will support windowed mode much better than Trials 2.