When I saw that I was thinking how the hell did I miss your run when I searched on YouTube yesterday for Trials HD Command Respect?Originally Posted by jook13
Then I saw the video name - "respect", with no description, and only one keyword - "respect". Lol...
Maybe you don't care, but I'm sure a lot more people would see this replay if you called the track by its full name and at least added "Trials HD" and "o SKUMBAG o" to your description or keywords... more keywords couldn't hurt either.
Anyway, I added your replay to the leaderboards.![]()
Its no big deal, I put that up to show skum a while back.
Malachyte - Nice work bring this back to life Doctor Frankenstein
I just wanted to put in my two cents about ninja levels:
Ninja "levels" are subjective - It really depends on who is playing the track - It seems to me that if the track has a low fault count then it is considered easier - I disagree with this logic - to me if a ninja track has a lower fault count it means it has a driveline worth playing - It has replay value - IMO the tracks that are getting portrayed as the harder ninjas are that way because no one wants to play them - for example badlands is much harder then ambidextrous - but badlands has a great driveline with great techniques so many people play and replay it bringing the fault count down to zero - ambidextrous is not really a standout ninja track so not to many people play it and therefore it's perceived as a much harder track then it actually is.
A hard obstacle for the sake of hard without good a technique (and more importantly a technique that can be learned to be done consistently) is not hard in the sense that an obstacle should be - it's hard in the sense that jumping off of a building and living is hard - there is nothing to learn how to do - it's random luck - because AM 2, AM 3, Bounce, Superhuman, etc. have been zeroed and treetops has not treetops is seen has harder - and i guess it is but who cares if it's harder or if it is ninja level 29 - if the cameras are upsidedown and backwards with gravity on a rotation hinge and you have to jump 99 blue electric boxes without checkpoints it's the hardest thing ever but who cares - levels make no sense if we base them on faults and/because-of inconsistent obstacles.
I realize that what is inconsistent is relevant and that what I find to be inconsistent another may not - Also it is and was not my intention to dis life or picklez, those tracks are just the two I find to be grossly exaggerated as far as difficulty goes.
-ML
11.489 on Pond Skippin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmZg5MhQPV8
Added to the leaderboards. Funny you posted this just now because I was working on that track yesterday. I came really close to clearing that rock towards the end like you did several times, but gave up on the idea and went for a slower 0-fault run. Nice work!Originally Posted by jhitman
Thanks! I hope to keep this thread active and keep the list of tracks up to date for as long as possible.Originally Posted by MurdocLoch
Before I reply to any of your specific comments I'm going to quote what I said about this subject myself in jhop's old Ninja thread:Originally Posted by MurdocLoch
I'd still like to reply to some of your comments specifically though, because I would definitely like the difficulty of these tracks represented as accurately as possible on these leaderboards.Originally Posted by Malachyte
Of course, which is why I'm always open to hearing as many opinions as possible, and open to the idea of moving certain tracks between levels, or even off the Ninja leaderboards altogether.Originally Posted by MurdocLoch
I agree that this is the wrong approach to determining the difficulty of a track. You obviously can't just compare your fault counts on a tracks you've played through once compared to ones you've played through dozens of times and practiced a lot on. However this has never been my approach to analyzing Ninja tracks. For me, I've either played a track once or twice, or I've put a ton of work into it. There's really no inbetween. Once I've played a track a couple of times I either decide to practice it relentlessly to go for a 0-fault run or save it for later.Originally Posted by MurdocLoch
This makes it easier for me to analyze Ninja tracks because comparing one "first run" to another seems fairly accurate, and comparing how long it took to 0-fault one track compared to another also seems accurate. Now I understand that players like yourself and JJ are far better than me still, but here are the approximate stats I've come up for myself:
Level 1 - 50 to 200 faults on first run, 2 - 6 hours of practice to 0-fault.
Level 2 - 200+ faults on first run, several days of practice to 0-fault.
Level 3 - Ran out of time or faults on first run and in some cases even the second run, several weeks to several months of practice to 0-fault. ( I know I only have AM-2 to as a reference to use at this point. )
Level 4 - Ran out of time or faults more than three times before finishing the track. (Yes, I actually ran out of time on Treetops 6 times before finally finishing it. I never ran out of time or faults more than twice on any of the Level 3 tracks.)
Obviously I will have to adjust these "cutoff points" as I improve, but they seem to work well for me now.
I have only played through both of these tracks once, but based on my initial runs I disagree. Badlands took maybe 15 minutes and a few hundred faults, and I ran out of time on Abidextrous once before completing it on my second try, and my run was still worse than my first run on Badlands. On a side note I certainly agree that Badlands is a much more well thought out track - the drive line as well as the scenery. I do plan to try to 0-fault both of these eventually, so I'll see how long they each take me.Originally Posted by MurdocLoch
I agree, but I don't think that very many obstacles in the tracks on this leaderboard are like this. You of all Trials players should understand that even an insane obstacle that feels like luck to overcome at first can be learned with a lot of practice. Take your 1st place run on Inferno II for example - pushing that TNT box with your front wheel. If I tried that I'm sure it would feel like luck to me whether I got it or not, but after practicing as much as I'm sure you did, you started to learn more consistent techniques. The same is true for any obstacle in Trials. I took a REALLY long time to learn a semi-consistent strategy for the 8th obstacle on AM-2, but the more I practiced, the better I got. For the first few WEEKS I was working on this track that part always felt like luck.Originally Posted by MurdocLoch
I disagree again, sorry. Treetops is clearly significantly harder than any of those. First of all, Superhuman is one of the easiest Level 2 tracks - I had only a couple hundred faults on my first run and it took me less than a day to 0-fault. AM-2, AM-3, and Bounce are all insanely hard, but I think more people play them compared to Treetops simply because they are more well known. Lots of people in the Trials community have heard of you or RedRider686, but not as many have heard of Lifeonaboard. In addition, AM-2 and Bounce have been around a lot longer than Treetops. I know that AM-3 is a more recent track, but c'mon, you can't tell me JJ wouldn't eventually 0-fault Treetops if he put his mind to it. He just decided to work on AM-3 instead.Originally Posted by MurdocLoch
Once I've put more time into Treetops and other Level 3 tracks besides AM-2 I will be happy to re-evaluate my opinion, but for now based on how long it took me to even PASS Treetops compared to any of the Level 3 tracks makes it stand out.
First of all, if someone tried to submit a supposed Ninja track to these leaderboards which they claimed to be Ninja simply because of any of that stuff - upside down cameras, lots of obstacles with no checkpoints, etc. I would not add it. I agree, that would be stupid. However Treetops doesn't have any of this... In fact it doesn't even have a single custom camera or physics obstacle as far as I can tell, and the checkpoints are as close together as the drive line allows for. Sure the obstacles are all insanely hard, but I believe that consistent techniques can be learned for all of them with enough practice. In addition, I'd say that while the design is fairly minimal, Treetops is very creatively built and I kinda like the look of it. Even the obstacles have a certain flow to them when you do them right, unlike a "messy" track like Ambidextrous.Originally Posted by MurdocLoch
I don't think it's a matter of what you find inconsistent versus what other players do. If you practiced the obstacles you currently find to be inconsistent, you would learn them consistent techniques for them eventually (more quickly than most players I might add), even if that would take several hours to several days of practice, depending on the difficulty of the obstacle. When I first got into Trials a few years ago I felt like getting over the pile of boxes at the beginning of King Of The Hill was all luck. Now I could do it 100 times in a row with my eyes closed, so to speak. The beauty of Trials is that when you really get down to it, there are virtually no "random" or inconsistent factors, and even the most insane obstacles can be learned over time by strategy, technique, and muscle memory.Originally Posted by MurdocLoch
All of that being said, if you think there is a better way to arrange the tracks by difficulty than the current Level system, please let me know! I think discarding the level system altogether is a bad idea. I like knowing how much time I can expect to dedicate when I set out to 0-fault a Level 1 track Vs. a Level 2 or Level 3, and the Level ratings really help me with this.
/Sorry for the novel of a post...
Holy **** that is one long post!
Malachyte -
An obstacle can require just as much if not more skill/technique and be overcome with less faults/time if it is properly designed with proper techniques - If you've learned all the techniques from am 2 and another track uses those techniques then you're going to get through it faster and with lower faults - This makes the track seem easier than it actually is - Once the techniques are learned it does not make the obstacles less difficult - Throwing poorly designed and spaced obstacles with misplaced checkpoints together is hard - And while you're right that you or I or JJ or anyone can spend the time to learn how they work and even zero fault them it does not make them harder in the sense that they should be - let me explain what I mean by should be - there are certain skills and techniques that trials requires in various degrees throughout the game - weather it's spring jumping, switch jumping, landing on a slanted surface, all of these and more can be used, together and apart to create difficulty in obstacles - adding a poorly placed camera or blocking the view of the rider is a way to make the game harder, not in the way that it "should be" but in a way that makes the player uncomfortable - and while there is, as you say, a way to learn how to do these uncomfortable obstacles I feel that it's not at the core of what skill/technique we use to play/rate the difficulty with - It's hard but not for the right reasons - the upsidedown camera comment was just an exaggeration - my point is that those tracks are a bit uncomfortable
perhaps you got though badlands quicker because of heetsauce's design and not because it requires less skill - it requires skills you have already learned
I'm not really sure that the level system is wrong or needs fixing - I think it's better then nothing at all - I just wanted to have a conversation about acquired skill vs unacquired skill - BTW I really enjoy this conversation and look forward to continuing the discussion
-ML
track made by ML- i would put this on par with AM-3 in terms of difficulty, level 2 or 3?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLCmfLhbFXA&hd=1
Nice to see this topic alive and well again.
I have nothing against the different levels of ninjaness, BUT; I hate to go through 3 different difficulty levels when i'm trying to find a certain track (if i don't know in which difficulty level it is).
So, what i suggest is; just have a one list including all the tracks regardless of the difficulty level, and in alphabetical order, and have like 1-3 of these little faces after the track name:Telling how hard it is. One face meaning it is a level-1 ninja, and 2 faces meaning it is level-2 ninja, and so on.
This way I could just find the creators name and see all his different level of ninja tracks in one place without having to look one track from 3 different places. Would make it easier to find a spesific track.
Hope that makes some sense.
edit: oh and BOO! the only ninja track that i have ever bothered to 0 fault, isn't even on the list
Dost.