Track Difficulty Settings | Forums

[rlmergeuser]

Seen a few posts about this and one rather crazy rant saying no names lol. It might be a good topic though to open in a mature manner now that the Trials community skills have improved drastically since the release of Trials HD.

One of the main things user creators should be wary of is basing track difficulty on your own skills. Difficult sometimes to do as a good deal of what kind of obstacles you make, come down to whether you yourself can get over them in testing. To get a good feedback get someone on your friends list or a family member who has some or no trials experience to test your track and give you feedback on what they found hard.

Tip for pro players who also make tracks: If you can get through someones extreme track with 5 max faults that doesnt mean it isnt extreme, extreme difficulty can also be understood on what makes a good platinum time if the obstacles didnt cause trouble to you during play.

My tracks get tested by my girlfriend (little or no trials experience although she is improving..gz to her) and my able servant KatamariUK.

This is by no means a judge on 'how' you should make tracks, make them how you want, but some handy tips for creators out there.

Beginner: Rarely made these days, but usually the driving line is as flat as a pancake, thus providing no source of discomfort or any need to shift the riders weight.

Easy: Some bumps in the line and well done you used your first ramp!

The next set of difficulty settings ill range from easy medium (for example) to technical medium.

Medium easy: All about the flow in these tracks, it is possible to just hold down accelerate with some weight shifting required to get to the end of the track - Like wheres the ground

Medium technical: Still classed as medium, has a flow of sorts to the track but has the odd explosive and gaps in the course if you dont keep the flow and stops and starts with physics obstacles usually - Like under ground as a similar comparison

Hard: Idea of hard is that underneath it all there beats the heart of a medium track but it forces you the player to pull out the tricks. Tricks like bunny hopping, wheeling up ramps to gain more speed, flipping and throttle control etc. Distance between jumps are extended, few more explosives in tight places to penalise you if you dont get the jump perfect.

Extreme (oh noes): Rarely has a speedy visible flow and always bitesized, checkpoint / something extreme...checkpoint / something extreme and so on. Has almost vertical inclines alot of the time, (best extremes - 2-3 ways of getting over the obstacle and not luck based). One of the main sticking points with extremes now is that everyone has improved so much that they can sometimes feel like a hard track and adding a ton of explosives artificially raises the difficulty to extreme or perhaps ninja. Explosives are fine as long as your reward to the player for getting over the obstacle isn't another bang and or alternatively there is another checkpoint very closeby if you like blowing stuff up Either way extreme requires you to be at one with the rider and the bike.

Ninja difficulty: ?? maybe an idea for future trials difficulty category

setting difficulty should be based on what the 'general' playing community would find difficult, not what your pro player buddy says.

and as something to think about, if diabolic was released instead of inferno 2 at trials hd release would it be regarded as just as extreme for first timers?

hope this is a helpful topic =) feel free to add

[rlmergeuser]

Good thread, I now know that most of my tracks are Medium - Medium Technical.

I guess it's all relative, I love just holding the throttle and going over huge loops and jumps, so I find it difficult to stay to a 'hard' theme track where the flow is interrupted.

[Euphoric Fusion]

Definitely some good pointers there to get people moving in the right direction

[rlmergeuser]

Yeah, thats how i should of said it. Thanx for this thread man.

[rlmergeuser]

where is QC's bumping tool when you need it lol

bumpity bump!

[lespritdelescal]

I was looking for another thread and I found this one. This is a topic that all track creators should read.

If you don't have someone of a different skill level available to try your tracks out or want to keep things under wraps until you release the track, try comparing your creation to tracks included in the game. A lot of us take inspiration for some of our obstacles from ones that we found in the game.

I generally give my tracks a difficulty level according to the toughest obstacle required to complete the track.

[rlmergeuser]

I am actually having a hard time labeling 2 of my tracks as either hard or extreme. Maybe you guys could provide some input. I'm trying to figure out whether they would be considered hard or extreme to OTHERS, not myself.

_____
I've had a friend play them both, his skills are mid-ranged, both tracks gave him problems.
Since he had to resort to using the checkpoints to complete the courses, he did eventually get through "Track A", but since he (and I imagine many) players aren't very experienced in using the left-trigger, he couldn't even complete "Track B".

In "Track A" I find it harder to get through the whole thing with no faults than "Track B" because track A has more "variables" that don't always work in your favor.

However, track B *Requires* the player to use the Left Trigger (Break) extensively.

Maybe you guys can't tell me if these maps should be labeled as hard or extreme without seeing them/playing them for yourselves but if a track requires the user to use the left-trigger with a bit of precision, should that elevate it from a "hard" to an "extreme" setting?