(Post edited 2018-02-08. Bugs that have been fixed have been marked blue.)
Yesterday I asked players on Mania Exchange and in the ShootMania Discord what bugs or missing features in the game they'd like to see fixed. Immediately there was a flood of feedback. I've compiled most of it into this post. Additionally, I've added some requests based on observing the issues players have had over these past few months since ManiaPlanet 4's release, usually comments from players on TM Discord.
Don't get me wrong, the game is overall great, and a lot of bugs have been fixed over the past few months. So a big thank you for all the work that's been done so far!
So these are ones that were either overlooked, or perhaps are harder to address than others. And maybe some will never be fixed. But I'm going to write about them anyway, just in case.
Edit: Added colors:
RED = What I believe to be most urgent
BLACK = Annoyances and other bugs
GREEN = It would be nice to have, but we've lived without it this long.
BLUE - Fixed since this post was originally made
GAMEPLAY
GENERAL
- TM: Fix the rearview camera so the car isn't blocking the entire view.
Applies to all 4 environments
- TM: Cam2 doesn't stay with car when respawning upside down
Example: https://streamable.com/29qus
Is this why upside-down Lagoon CPs have been set to be unrespawnable?
- TMStadium: Cam 1 moves during countdown, causing some players to be sick.
Apparently it doesn't move correctly when driving either.
Report: viewtopic.php?p=290008#p290008
- TMStadium: An option to use MP3 skidmarks instead of MP4 ones.
The MP4 skidmarks badly affect some players' driving.
- TMStadium: Sometimes the game thinks you're in water when you're not.
Example: https://youtu.be/D8_mmIuU1KY?t=14 (thanks to Eyohna)
- TMLagoon: Lagoon continues to have a speedbug in rollercoasters
Important to fix, as rollercoasters are heavily used by mappers.
- TMLagoon: The little dirt bump in grass CPs is annoying to some.
- TMValley: Game crashes while saving large replays
Each train car is it's own ghost. Replays become too large because of trains.
- TMValley: You get a speedboost when landing on moving trains and train cars
- SM: Projections for custom water (items) should be at the level the water is placed at, not at ground level.
Prevents wallhacks.
GRAPHICS
- Better AntiAliasing.
Time to retire FXAA and try something better?
Or at least give us the option to try something better if our systems can handle it.
- Render distance for details & 2D textures needs to be increased.
Grass and other 2D textures aren't visible when they're beyond a certain distance.
Especially bad for rendering videos.
- The "TDOSDN" bug.
The z-index of a TDOSN face behind a camera-closer TDOSN-face is higher than it's supposed to be.
It's a big problem for item creators. We had this bug in MP3. MP4 fixed it. But now it's back.
Report: viewtopic.php?f=571&t=42337
SOLO / LOCAL PLAY
- TM: No intros shown when playing single player maps using new UI.
This is demotivating to track builders to make intros when players can't see them.
- TM: Splitscreen mode is missing
- TM: Your PB ghost should always be assigned to "G". Other opponents assigned to "O".
Currently, when picking "drive alone", the last run (which is usually disabled with "G") must be turned off with "O", and it will count unfinished runs as well. Though, when you have both a PB and a last run which is different from the PB, the last run is designated to the "G" button again.
MULTIPLAYER
- TM: Missing option for backwards camera while spectating
- SM: Royal overview cam doesn't zoom in anymore
Report: viewtopic.php?f=469&t=42269
- TM: Dedimania records not saved when you skip a map manually.
This is common when playing RPGs. I don't know who's responsible for fixing it.
Edit: Okay, pyplanet seems to not have this issue? Maybe an issue with other controllers instead.
- TM: Apparently under certain circumstances the car changes size, like in Turbo.
This happened during spam's weekly.
Example: https://clips.twitch.tv/HonestIncredulousSpaghettiUWot
CREATIVE
TRACK EDITOR
Building:
- ALL: There could be a counter that turns on automatically to show how close you are to using your quota of embedded items.
It would be very useful!
Validation:
- TM: No time difference shown at CPs while driving validation times.
This makes it difficult to improve your author time.
- TM: An easy option to save the replay of your validation run to the folder of your choice.
Saving:
- ALL: Can't save maps with periods, colons or slashes/backslashes in the map name.
You could do it pre-MP4. This makes it difficult to update maps while maintaining the same UID.
- ALL: Turn on item embedding by default.
I see people all the time forget to turn it on. Just have it on my default. There's no downside.
- ALL: If a map is started in one mood (e.g. Day) and time of day is changed with the Dynamic Time of Day feature to another static time of day (e.g. to Night), the GBX header will falsely claim it is a Day map in the saved map file, even though visually it's a night map.
Perhaps the mood name should change based on whatever time of day it's closest to.
MEDIATRACKER / REPLAY EDITOR
- SM: Broken replay editor
More info: viewtopic.php?f=564&t=41754 (private beta forums link)
- Camera Custom with anchors in the MT is partially broken
If you switch the replay, the camera jumps to the next one with its previous relative position.
- Trails do not start and stop correctly.
- Fog does not start and stop correctly. It's always there.
- SM: Sometimes if you move the red position cursor back a little, the projectile will be only a white beam. All color is gone.
You have to move it back to the right a little to get the effect back.
MESH MODELER
- ALL: Lag increases over time until it finally crashes the game
- Old TitlePacks are incompatible with items created in Mesh Modeler
They show up as bright red.
USER INTERFACE / USER EXPERIENCE
GENERAL
- Inconsistency in UI and UX across the game.
I've heard this is possibly the focus of the next major version of ManiaPlanet. I hope so.
- In-game updater should support resuming downloads.
A common source of frustration is when updates stall and have to restart over and over. I've seen many users have this issue every time there's an update. So, in addition to resume-able downloads in-game (or as a stop-gap measure):
- An easy way to download updates outside of the game without having to download all 5 titles
Many players would prefer this. A notification about the update in-game. A quick way to download the update using your web browser, install, and continue playing.
- The same as the two requests above, but for TitlePacks, especially larger ones like RPG or F1.
- Mouse cursor does not disappear after a few seconds of not moving it when you switch from SM to any TM title.
- SM: Game does not give mouse focus back to the OS immediately when you tab out of the game.
You have to click a few times to get it back, which is annoying..
SOLO / LOCAL PLAY
- TM: The big speedometer can be distracting. Add an option to toggle it.
- TM: Old gameplay UI is used often, instead of the new one.
For example, when loading a map or replay from Windows, or Install & Play from MX.
- TM: Opening maps (or replays) from the browser (install & play on MX), or from Explorer, opens the file in the titlepack currently open (e.g. Competition TP) instead of the titlepack where the file was made (e.g. TMStadium).
CAR SELECTOR
- Add an option to play with random vehicles/skins.
Right now if you delete your selected car, the game defaults to choosing a different random car for every race. I love it! I want this as an option to choose normally. Make the first skin in the list be called "Random" so you can choose it and have the game pick a different car for every race.
FILE LIST
- ALL: When viewing a folder of replays or maps, there's no way to jump to the end of the list or jump by 10 pages at a time
- Better sorting:
A column for environment.
A column for date the map or replay was saved.
MULTIPLAYER
- Favorite Servers Tab is missing
Makes it very difficult to find servers and develop a community around them.
As of November 2017, this was half-fixed. Favorite Server can be found in title overlay, but not inside the title itself.
- Missing "select all" button for map selection when creating matchsettings
If you have 50+ maps to load, it can become tedious, and even risk the next:
- The script often crashes when selecting maps quickly while setting up matchsettings, thus making you have to close the game and start all over.
- Laps mode. After 10 laps (sometimes less), the CP times are gone.
It happened on Spam's stream last Saturday if you want to see proof of it.
Haagse took a screenshot of a guy called Belek who, according to the CPs is driving in 1st position, while he is probably driving closer to 25th position. In Spam's video you can see the CPs at Lap 9 are gone and he is moving up to 1st position (same as everyone). CP times shown are Nadeo ones, so it's not a controller issue.
More info: viewtopic.php?f=601&t=42355 (private beta forums link)
TITLEPACKS
General
- Give TitlePack creators the option to change maximum embedded LM quality for maps created in their TitlePack.
It would only add 5 to 20 MB per map file. RPG TP is already nearly 4GB. 20MB is nothing. High or Ultra LM is beautiful. Let's enjoy it while driving, not just for screenshots and video renders.
Original request: viewtopic.php?p=290182#p290182
TrackMania 2 TitlePack
- Update needed for full MP4 compatibility. Bring multiplayer back.
Many players used it for hosting competitions and for building tracks.
MX misses hosting Multi-Env Knockouts, as we used to do every week.
Worried that not enough players have all 4 titles?
In a recent strawpoll, 59% of voters on MX own all 4 TM2 titles.
- Ability to build with other cars in Stadium when using Multi-Env TitlePacks
We already know how Stadium feels with other cars. We already know Canyon was great in Stadium. Valley and Lagoon probably would be as well. This only affects Multi-Env TitlePacks, so please grant us this freedom to expand the possibilities of creativity.
Platform TitlePack (Canyon)
- Waiting on update for full MP4 compatibility.
Can't it be updated with Canyon Maker? I've heard a surprising number of people who are begging for this to be updated.
- Solo campaign tracks are broken. Updated versions are on MX.
MANIA EXCHANGE
REPLAYS
Mania Exchange has a problem with replay uploads. And you may be able to help us solve it. It's actually the
#1 most requested thing we hear about on MX. "When are you going to fix replay uploads?"
So, there are obviously thousands of maps built in the TMStadium title on MX. Many players enjoy playing on servers or in local play in the Competition TitlePack, and other TitlePacks, but we'll use Comp for this example. Maps that were built in the TMStadium title are often loaded onto servers in the Competition TitlePack and played. The resulting replays are saved with the esl_comp@lt_forever TitleID.
On Mania Exchange
we currently don't allow replays to be uploaded that were driven in a different TitlePack from the one the map was built in. The main reason is we don't want someone to take a map built in TMStadium, and drive it a TitlePack with modified physics, and be able to drive a better time than otherwise possible.
What we need is
some way to verify that the replay driven in a different TitlePack was driven using the same physics as the TitlePack the map was built in.
Perhaps the game could look at the map and what title it was built in (TMStadium). If the physics of the titlepack you're currently driving in (esl_comp@lt_forever) matches the physics of the original TitlePack, then save the replay with the TitleID of the original TitlePack the map was built in. Or have some way we can verify the map is using the original map's physics.
Your help would be much appreciated, and I know many players on MX would appreciate it as well!
Thanks to florenzius, shadow, riolu, Vulnerra, Haagse, Dennis, BushMonkey, Ozon, Lucario, Eyohna, amin22, Racho, Clearvision, Keissla, Voyager006, Flood, Chocolleight, ChallengeSY, Marius89, Lars, HYPE, and Toffe for contributing to this report.