1. #111

    Multiplayer suggestions

    Hello,

    before I start suggesting new stuff, first of all, thanks for making such a great game. It's been a blast so far.

    However, the online multiplayer as it is now lacks a certain punch and unfortunately doesn't seem to be on par with the single player experience. Here are a couple of things I kindly ask you to consider.

    1) Counting faults in Multiplayer-Trials
    You guys got it right for Supercross. Every fault counts as minus one.
    This is why I was confused when I played Online-Trials: Here, it is "first to the finish line, faults don't count, points get deducted if a player finishes X seconds behind the winner". Apparently, this is true for both Trials and Hardcore-Trials. For me, this goes against everything the trials series stands for; most noteably, getting 0 faults on a track.
    In fact, this setting promotes quickly hitting the B button when a jump goes wrong and it would take some time to recover. A reset to checkpoint is often faster and allows for getting back into the "line" of the track much faster. Hopefully, you agree that this should not be the point of Multiplayer Trials (hitting the B button everytime something goes wrong to save time, instead of trying your best NOT to fault).

    A quick fix would be: Just do it like in Supercross. Deduct one point for each fault, or one point for each two faults on harder tracks (1 point for each three faults on extreme).
    A proper fix would greatly increase the DNF timer (say, to one minute or depending of track difficulty) and would determine the winner of the race exactly the way the track leaderboards are handled (faults beat time), while at the same time a DNF can still occur to prevent players not finishing on purpose.

    Please reconsider adding/editing this as an option, new playlist, or whatever way you see fit.


    2) More Heats/Rounds
    As of now, for me at least, it takes quite a while to find opponents (and getting past the undefined()-bug and not having my console freeze on me). So when the racing actually begins, it's over a little bit too fast, I think. Please consider increasing the rounds played in every playlist.

    For example:
    2 Tracks/3 Heats in Supercross
    3 Tracks/2 Heats in Supercross
    3 Tracks/1 Heat in Hardcore Trials.


    3) Increasing the DNF timer in multiplayer, turning it off in private matches
    I understand that you want the multiplayer to be a fast-paced experience, but from what I can tell by the reactions of fellow players, it is too unforgiving and no fun especially for newer players to get eliminated right before the finish line. Please consider increasing the time limit to at least 30 seconds on Beginner-Medium tracks and 45 seconds on Hard and Extreme. This should suffice for slightly worse players to get to the finish while at the same time keeping the pace up. Considering private matches, an option to turn it off completely would be nice. After all, you're amongst friends, and it is not very unlikely that the skill gap between players is huge, therefore DNF can happen a lot.


    4) "Tearing" issues in Multiplayer
    While playing any single player track, the game sometimes exhibits a graphical behavior commonly referred to as "tearing". As you most probably know, this is V-Sync related.
    Sometimes it happens randomly, but there are tracks that show tearing almost everytime at the same spot (for example, "Way of the Ninja", about halfway through the figure eight, at the obstacle that follows the pile of cable drums). All in all, it happens rather seldomly and I can deal with that.
    During multiplayer racing however, picture tearing happens all the time, up to a point where it really affects player performance (read: my performance). Apparently this is in place to account for lag. Now, I'm only a Perl/PHP/etc programmer and don't have any clue about advanced network coding, but from a player's point of view I'd say:
    If there's lag to account for, let the opponent's avatars lag in any way you see fit (averaging their position or letting their bikes skip back and forth), but please try to keep my picture output in one piece. From what I can tell, this is what other racing games do as well. It's just not pretty to look at (tearing ususally doesn't really bother me, but here it is too prominent) and can really lower player performance during a race.

    5) Online Private Matches
    There are two things in private matches that could be adressed.
    Firstly, having the option to customize the "randomize" button. As in: Which difficulties? Which type (supercross/trials/both)? Which source (built-in/downloaded/both)?
    Secondly, when adding new tracks, they are all sorted alphabetically, which is not a bad thing. Having the option to sort by difficulty would be more practical, though.


    6) New playlist/gamemode: Trackmania Style Time Trials
    Perhaps you know "Trackmania". In this PC game, a multiplayer session can serve as many as 32 or even more players. But this is not what I'm getting at, 4 players is fine.
    It's about the mode Trackmania uses for online play: It's "just" a glorified time trialing over a set amount of time, recording each player's best attempt until the time limit for the round is reached.
    I think it'd be perfect for Trials Evo, recreating the single player time trial experience online in a very short, frantic time frame: "Get that good run within 5 minutes".
    Basically, the round would start and everybody can race as they wish, as many times with as many restarts and finishes as they want (as many tries as they manage to squeeze in while the round lasts). After x minutes, the round ends. A ranking table is displayed, showing off each player's best recorded attempt. Next round/track starts.
    During the round, other players can be displayed as ghosts (not necessarily needed). Needed however is a real-time representation of each player's current top attempt (a temporary leaderboard) displayed on screen, in Trials' case, just a list of four different faults/time combinations for each of the players. Think of the excitement when being in fourth place around the 4:00 minute mark, only to get that one good run in just before the round ends and jump to #1! Or being in #1 position the whole round, only to be beaten in the last 5 seconds. Oh, it'd be great. Of course, longer tracks would have a longer round limit.


    7) "Open" Private Matches
    Now here's where it gets funky: Private Matches are great. Unranked, full control over what is played, long sessions, racing 20min at a time.
    Too bad, though, when nobody of your friends is online. An option to switch to "public unranked lobby", so it can be found by others (not only friends and last players met via invite) would be awesome. This would of course require some kind of lobby browser, with the ability to name the lobby, or even a "quickjoin/join/create unranked lobby" option. Maybe this is a little bit too much to ask for.


    These are my suggestions. I hope a dev reads and likes one or two of them.

    Thank you for your time.
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  2. #112

    Re: Trials Evolution: Feedback and Suggestion Thread

    on single player i want to see a ghost of the rider not just a name at the top a proper ghost would be really good and will make the game better' make it as the proper graphics of the bike and rider and just make it see through.
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  3. #113

    Re: Trials Evolution: Feedback and Suggestion Thread

    I want to be able to earn medals in private matches! It's really annoying when demolish one of my times in a private match with friends yet it doesn't count towards anything. Why? A time is a time.
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  4. #114

    Re: Trials Evolution: Feedback and Suggestion Thread

    I would love to be able to play a public match with four of my friends, instead of only being able to play private without ranking up. I know this would increase leaderboard boosting but i would rather at least get my experience by playing with my friends.
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  5. #115

    Re: Trials Evolution: Feedback and Suggestion Thread

    I love your game guys!

    One missing thing is a great database that could be accessed on your website to compare all our stats to the one of our friends!

    That's something that is really missing to my collegues & friends.

    Hope you'll be able to add that function to that already nice game.
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  6. #116

    Re: Trials Evolution: Feedback and Suggestion Thread

    Suggestion: Track Central Subscription

    Basicly just like how youtube works.
    You play someones track you like it and you want to see if he releases other great tracks and you have to check everytime ( I have this problem with the dude that makes the portal tracks). Just add an extra option at the track options "Subscribe to Creator" and you are subscribed to him. Then onto looking them up:

    You get an extra selection icon ( In the area where you can pick RedLynx Picks, Highest Rated * or Most downloaded *) in there you see the tracks of Creators where you are subscribed to.
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  7. #117

    Re: Trials Evolution: Feedback and Suggestion Thread

    Perhaps you know "Trackmania". In this PC game, a multiplayer session can serve as many as 32 or even more players. But this is not what I'm getting at, 4 players is fine.
    It's about the mode Trackmania uses for online play: It's "just" a glorified time trialing over a set amount of time, recording each player's best attempt until the time limit for the round is reached.
    I think it'd be perfect for Trials Evo, recreating the single player time trial experience online in a very short, frantic time frame: "Get that good run within 5 minutes".
    Basically, the round would start and everybody can race as they wish, as many times with as many restarts and finishes as they want (as many tries as they manage to squeeze in while the round lasts). After x minutes, the round ends. A ranking table is displayed, showing off each player's best recorded attempt. Next round/track starts.
    During the round, other players can be displayed as ghosts (not necessarily needed). Needed however is a real-time representation of each player's current top attempt (a temporary leaderboard) displayed on screen, in Trials' case, just a list of four different faults/time combinations for each of the players. Think of the excitement when being in fourth place around the 4:00 minute mark, only to get that one good run in just before the round ends and jump to #1! Or being in #1 position the whole round, only to be beaten in the last 5 seconds. Oh, it'd be great. Of course, longer tracks would have a longer round limit.
    LOVE IT
    trackmania is the game I was in love with before I found trials! they are similar ideas. Trials just adds a great level of technique into their game.

    Something would have to be done about the extreme matches though... you wouldn't want people to take too many runs at those (time limit would have to be too long) or be cut off by the time limit either.... this seems like it would only really be feasible in this form for B,E,M... but maybe not...

    Multiplayer times should count in single player leader boards!
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  8. #118

    Re: Trials Evolution: Feedback and Suggestion Thread

    Love the game, although 1 thing really annoys me.

    If you just slightly touch something with your head you bailout like you just hit the object at full speed. Why did you make this gameplaychange? In Trials HD you had the chance to lean back to avoid the fault.
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  9. #119

    Re: Trials Evolution: Feedback and Suggestion Thread

    A few suggestions:

    1. Allow times on private multiplayer to post to leaderboards
    2. Provide an indicator (checkpoint index) and adjustable index counter for checkpoints for custom sequence triggering
    3. Provide for feedback text when providing ratings on custom tracks
    4. Provide a controllable "bump" feature in track editor to move objects by x-pixels or degrees vs. trying to "feather" the triggers for fine moving.
    4.a. Allow for direct number entry for location
    5. Issue with Player filter (Riding). Triggers when the rider is in the air (not desired when trying to externally detect a crash condition). A trigger for "crashed" or ejected would be good. Admittedly, I may need to use the crash trigger with filters for this. Still working on it.

    Thanks for the great game! Please take this as constructive, the game is great!
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  10. #120

    Re: Trials Evolution: Feedback and Suggestion Thread

    I would LOOOOOOOVVVVEEE to be able to organise downloaded tracks myself into play lists. There are so many works of art I would love to show my friends and it would be a lot easier if I could place them in a 'favourites' folder. In that sense it seems really weird that you can search for tags but can't organise a list into tags for playing.

    Also, I feel it's something that actually an oversight that needs to be fixed where after you play a track it dumps you back to the starting menus when you exit. If you change the view to 'list' idealy you want to back out to that list with the cursor on the last track you played.... not back to the very start. ever. damn. time.
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