Trials Rising questions and improvements | Forums

[Fl4m3rX]

Hello everyone,

I started playing Trials with the Release of HD back about 10 years ago. Of course I got Evolution and Fusion right at release. But somehow I lost interest about 3 years ago. Maybe it was, because I achieved almost everything achievable, maybe because I bought myself a real bike and had tons of fun with it. Who knows. Anyway...

I was pretty decent at the game. Not the best, but one of the best. Except for the last DLC for Fusion (Awesome Level Max) I completed every single track across all three modern Trials games with all it's DLC with a platinum medal. And that's only because I didn't own the Awesome Level Max.

A few days ago I bought Awesome Level Max, completed it quickly with every track on platinum and had a lot of fun again. So I also bought Trials Rising now.


The game looks good in 4k and has some nice little details like the bike and rider getting dirty or flames coming out of the exhaust. And I always think "just give me the damn Mantis bike, I have all platinum medals in the other games, I know what I'm doing."
But it also has some flaws. And since I didn't know if they have been mentioned before, because I didn't follow the forums, I want to write them down here.


Improvements

- The game has some screen tearing. It's not really bad, but noticeable sometimes. Would be cool if it gets fixed. (Playing on an Xbox One X)

- We need a small friends leaderboard in the corner just like in the previous installments without pressing a button first. This goes for the track selection screen and when completing a track.

- We need an option for inverting the Y axis. I always rotate the camera in the wrong direction when buying/customizing gear. And it is annoying. An option so everybody can choose is never wrong.

- I would also like to see an option to turn off the HUD elements completely. I really don't need a bar showing me how far I progressed within the individual track. And if I could turn off the timer/fault HUD and let it only show the red/green times on each checkpoint I would use that too. Again, an option is never wrong.

- And we really need an option to turn off random ghosts! This is actually the thing that annoys me the most. I don't want to see random player's ghosts on the track. I want to see my own ghost and those of my friends. If I want to race a specific ghost I can still go to the leaderboard and choose to race against one individually. This is not only a cosmetic "feature", this affects the performance. And here's the biggest deal for me: Loading random ghosts everytime you choose a track lengthens the loading times dramatically almost to the point where they are not acceptable anymore. Trials was always this little game to play for a few minutes and one of the key elements was to keep the loading times as small as possible. Loading a track now with random ghosts takes ages. So please add an option to choose the ghost loading behavior.

- What is wrong with your leaderboards? It's not fun at the moment when you want to watch how the top player runs the track and then the replay is either broken or someone cheated their track time.
And how is it even possible in the University of Trials Transition track to gain 16 Checkpoints reached in the leaderboard?! There are only 15 checkpoints which is diamond, yet there are people having reached 16 checkpoints.

- I like the soundtrack. It fits the style of the game. But you need to add more songs. It feels like there are only three songs playing on repeat. :/

Questions

And I also have some questions. Maybe they have been ansered pre-launch in dev diary videos, but I didn't follow the progress. (for some games you get plenty of them and know the game and all it's mechanics and reasons for changes prior to its release) So if something was already answered you could just the link the official video, thanks.

- Why was the medal system changed? What was wrong with the old system where faults had a higher priority than time? Now every fault gives you +5 seconds and the only condition is the time itself.

- I've already noticed that there is a fifth medal now - probably called diamond. I just wanna know if the new diamond medal is just a new medal added on top to separate the highest tier into two medals, or if all the lower medals have been adjusted and diamond is basically the new platinum medal.
(But I guess it is the first option here, since I still need an additional 2,5 seconds for the diamond medal on the first track and I know from completing all Awesome Level Max tracks on platinum just a few days ago, that I didn't get that much worse.)

- Are there any other changes to the game's mechanics (wheel, bike, rider, etc. behavior) I should know?


Thank you all

[Scruffy McGuffy]

If you're going to mention screen tearing you should probably mention what platform, and if PC, what sort of build. I've heard it's a problem on PS4 especially.

Re ghosts I think you can adjust their opacity so they're invisible, or so I've read. I know it's not the same as not having them. My guess is they are there to encourage social aspects, and to see other outfits, so it doesn't feel like the solitary experience previous games were unless you went out of your way to explicitly add friends who play the game.

Diamond medals are for the top, top players. I think they skewed Gold easier than previous games, Platinum is about the same as before imo, then Diamond is an extra tier for the top one, two or three hundred players (extrapolating the data below to the current leaderboard count). Except for the Skill Game Power Up, which is quite easy to get Diamond on. jhop420 tracked the progress on these a while ago, and you can see how few players have them.

https://forums.ubi.com/showthread.ph...Diamond-Metals

[Fl4m3rX]

If you're going to mention screen tearing you should probably mention what platform, and if PC, what sort of build. I've heard it's a problem on PS4 especially.

Oh yeah, I forgot. I hope i can still edit my post. I play on an Xbox One X.

Re ghosts I think you can adjust their opacity so they're invisible, or so I've read. I know it's not the same as not having them. My guess is they are there to encourage social aspects, and to see other outfits, so it doesn't feel like the solitary experience previous games were unless you went out of your way to explicitly add friends who play the game.

Yeah, you can turn up the opacity to make them completely invisible. This way they aren't a distraction anymore. But they will still be loaded and lengthen the loading time. I just want the game to load my own ghost.
I can see the point of seeing others, their different gear and customizations and all. But I don't want the perfomance to be worse due to this. I don't need to see others gear. I just want to ride fast.

Diamond medals are for the top, top players. I think they skewed Gold easier than previous games, Platinum is about the same as before imo, then Diamond is an extra tier for the top one, two or three hundred players (extrapolating the data below to the current leaderboard count). Except for the Skill Game Power Up, which is quite easy to get Diamond on. jhop420 tracked the progress on these a while ago, and you can see how few players have them.

https://forums.ubi.com/showthread.ph...Diamond-Metals

Ah, thanks. Just like I thought. So I don't have to "worry" trying to get them. In Fusion I am under the Top 500 mostly. But I'm not that good.
It's a shame on the one hand that I won't get the highest medals. This will definitely trigger me a lot more times than it should in the future since I'm perfectionist an want to get everything done. xD

In the linked thread I read about a problem ocurring with the new medal system. (The one that faults are not a condition anymore)
On the more difficult tracks it will be possible to achieve a platinum medal without getting 0 faults. This was always a high motivation. Faults are not even mentioned on the leaderboards anymore. I don't think that was a good idea. :/

[Arzonyst]

You can load your own ghost only : open leaderboard of a track, select your own time as you would to watch your replay, then select play against (or whatever it's named, between profile and view replay, sorry I don't play the english version of the game )


Diamonds medals are for the very best players. I'm 163 on general leaderboard now, got only 6 of them.
The easiet one, by far, is the skill game named PowerBike.
Once you get your first diamond, time needed to get the other ones is displayed

Platinum are indeed easier to get on extreme tracks, with no 0 fault condition.

Even if it doesn't matter anymore, faults are still mentioned on the leaderboard
They made an exception for Ninja Tracks : they kept the old system for the leaderborad, and the fault number is the only condition to get medals.

(sorry for my english, it's not my native language )

[Scruffy McGuffy]

@Fl4m3rx,

Have you tried it in 1080p on XB1?

Agreed about faults. I preferred that purity of a low-fault run, where the leaderboards were sorted by faults first, time second. You may not be aware though, in Rising each fault is +5 seconds, plus there's the time it costs you to regain momentum and get from the checkpoint to where you faulted, which could be another couple of seconds. If someone is good enough to get a Platinum time with a 6 or 7 second buffer, then they'd probably get a faster time by replaying to 0 faults anyway.

Arzonyst is correct, get a Diamond anywhere to see the times on all tracks. Recommend doing that Skill Game, Power Up or Power Bike or whatever it's called.

[Fl4m3rX]

You can load your own ghost only : open leaderboard of a track, select your own time as you would to watch your replay, then select play against (or whatever it's named, between profile and view replay, sorry I don't play the english version of the game )

Yeah, I know. That's why I know that loading more random ghosts affects the performance. But this is too complicated. It should be way easier than pressing 6 buttons. Just like I said, I want an option for default ghost settings so I can choose any track with a single button press.

Diamonds medals are for the very best players. I'm 163 on general leaderboard now, got only 6 of them.
The easiet one, by far, is the skill game named PowerBike.
Once you get your first diamond, time needed to get the other ones is displayed

Good lord... I will not even dare to try. :'D

Even if it doesn't matter anymore, faults are still mentioned on the leaderboard
They made an exception for Ninja Tracks : they kept the old system for the leaderborad, and the fault number is the only condition to get medals.

Ahh, I see. Thanks. So there's still motivation to 0 fault the tracks.
When I first checked this I was on the leaderboard of the University of Trials and there, everyone who got 15 checkpoints got the platinum medal with 300k points, no matter the time and faults were not even mentioned. I thought it would be the same leaderboard system for every track.

(sorry for my english, it's not my native language )

Mine neither.

@Fl4m3rx,

Have you tried it in 1080p on XB1?

Nope. And I honestly don't want to. No offense, but I didn't buy a 2500€ 4K OLED and an Xbox One X to play on 1080p.

Agreed about faults. I preferred that purity of a low-fault run, where the leaderboards were sorted by faults first, time second. You may not be aware though, in Rising each fault is +5 seconds, plus there's the time it costs you to regain momentum and get from the checkpoint to where you faulted, which could be another couple of seconds. If someone is good enough to get a Platinum time with a 6 or 7 second buffer, then they'd probably get a faster time by replaying to 0 faults anyway.

Maybe they could. But they didn't yet, did they?!
I liked it too when the leaderboard sorted the players by faults first. And honestly, riding an extreme track with 0 faults is more impressive than riding it with 1 fault, but 10 seconds faster. And now with the new system the rider with 1 fault will be listed above the other player. That doesn't seem right to me.

Again, is there no text or video explaining why they did this?

[Scruffy McGuffy]

Maybe they could. But they didn't yet, did they?!
I liked it too when the leaderboard sorted the players by faults first. And honestly, riding an extreme track with 0 faults is more impressive than riding it with 1 fault, but 10 seconds faster. And now with the new system the rider with 1 fault will be listed above the other player. That doesn't seem right to me.

Again, is there no text or video explaining why they did this?

Is there a particular track you're referring to where people have Platinum times and faults? I know some leaderboards had clearly dodgy times with multiple faults yet somehow those riders were at the top, and if you tried to play them they'd probably play a while then break.

To play devil's advocate re your Extreme example. Say there are 15 checkpoints. Player A takes their time on each one, gets lined up, takes it slow, finished 0 faults. Player B races through it, doesn't hang about, keeps momentum, but screws up once. Is Player A "better" or is Player B "better" because they did 14/15 checkpoints faster than Player A? Again, just playing devil's advocate, I already agreed the previous faults then time system was my preference.

[Arzonyst]

Good lord... I will not even dare to try. :'D

Most of them are really, really hard. But if you want the diamond medal achievement, and/or the diamond time displayed for every track, here's where you should give it a try :

First, the Power Bike skill game. One sure thing : it's the easiest one in the entire game. Period.
You have limited gas, and just have to finish the track to get diamond.
Take all the time you need. You have plenty of gas to go the all way.
I got rank 2552 pretty fast, with 1/3 gas left on the finish line, and it gave me diamond with the maximum score. It's really not that hard


If you want to give a shot on a regular track, I think the easiest one is the Bali Blast stadium duel ( round 3)
Right now, 691 players got diamond here.

My other 4 are : Balloons Over Bagan in the easy tracks list, and monster mash stadium round 1, 2 and 3.
They were harder than the Bali duel, but at least I could get them.

Maybe I Fell Tower is among the easiest ones too.

I liked it too when the leaderboard sorted the players by faults first. And honestly, riding an extreme track with 0 faults is more impressive than riding it with 1 fault, but 10 seconds faster. And now with the new system the rider with 1 fault will be listed above the other player. That doesn't seem right to me.

Again, is there no text or video explaining why they did this?

I had the same feeling, at first.
I don't know the reason, but there is one thing I appreciated through my progression : the fact that it gave me two options to get gold or platinum medals on extreme tracks
I could have played it the old way, very carefully, trying to finish the track with a minimum faults.
OR speed play, knowing that a better fime would compensate for a couple faults.

In my opinion, option number 2 was a better training that a slow play, and I still had a chance to get medals and unlock the ninja tracks doing so.
And to be honest, I had more fun playing like this. When i got a fault, i was like "Whatever, let's try speedrunning the rest of the track, maybe I will manage to compensate for this fail" instead of restarting all over again.

Either way, when the time comes to try hard those extreme tracks, we need a good time AND 0 faults to maximize score and position on the leaderboard. The 5 seconds penalty is REALLY a run killer at this point.

Finally, it's not as bad as it looked first

That being said, I really appreciate they kept the old system for the ninja tracks.
Speed is meaningless when the real challenge is to reach the finish line before time out. And we get a reward when we manage to save a fault.

[Fl4m3rX]

Is there a particular track you're referring to where people have Platinum times and faults? I know some leaderboards had clearly dodgy times with multiple faults yet somehow those riders were at the top, and if you tried to play them they'd probably play a while then break.

Nothing particular, but I have seen guys with 0 faults somewhere in between all the 1 fault players.
And it seems like all the top players on the leaderboards are currently cheaters. It isn't fun to watch the top players at the moment.

To play devil's advocate re your Extreme example. Say there are 15 checkpoints. Player A takes their time on each one, gets lined up, takes it slow, finished 0 faults. Player B races through it, doesn't hang about, keeps momentum, but screws up once. Is Player A "better" or is Player B "better" because they did 14/15 checkpoints faster than Player A? Again, just playing devil's advocate, I already agreed the previous faults then time system was my preference.

In my opinion, option number 2 was a better training that a slow play, and I still had a chance to get medals and unlock the ninja tracks doing so.
And to be honest, I had more fun playing like this. When i got a fault, i was like "Whatever, let's try speedrunning the rest of the track, maybe I will manage to compensate for this fail" instead of restarting all over again.

I think we can all agree that the system used doesn't matter when going for the leaderboards. But I'm speaking of the skill range just below mine, where my friends are. It was a huge thrill to not **** up and make an error. And while still being "slow" (not really slow, platinum time limits were still pretty rough. Remember it's another skill range I'm talking about) it felt like they achieved something great.
The new system conditions a player to just run fast, while faults don't matter this much. The essence of Trials was always to play perfectly in terms of mistakes. Not anymore though and for the lower skilled players it will be enough to have the platinum medal. They will not go for a better run, even if the first one has mistakes.

The more I think about it, the more I actually hate the new system. The platinum medals had hard times at first, but what seemed even more impossible at first sight was the fact that it was asking for 0 faults consistently. Even on the extreme tracks. This is what made the platinum medals look legendary when someone new was introduced to them.

[Arzonyst]

It was a huge thrill to not **** up and make an error. And while still being "slow" (not really slow, platinum time limits were still pretty rough. Remember it's another skill range I'm talking about) it felt like they achieved something great.
The new system conditions a player to just run fast, while faults don't matter this much. The essence of Trials was always to play perfectly in terms of mistakes. Not anymore though and for the lower skilled players it will be enough to have the platinum medal. They will not go for a better run, even if the first one has mistakes.

The more I think about it, the more I actually hate the new system. The platinum medals had hard times at first, but what seemed even more impossible at first sight was the fact that it was asking for 0 faults consistently. Even on the extreme tracks. This is what made the platinum medals look legendary when someone new was introduced to them.

Totally agree with that. Getting platinum medals doesn't feel the same at all.
And I do not like it either when there are imperfect runs with a better rank on the leaderboard.

There was such thrilling moments in the other Trials games, reaching the last checkpoints with 0 faults on the timer...

Diamond medals can't replace all of that. Most of the players can only try to get as close as they can, but will never get them.
They should have done "old platinum +" medals with 0 fault condition, not "only a few players in the world can get it" medals.