Last TrackMania 2 + Maniaplanet 4 - First impressions + Bug report

Discuss everything related to Trackmania 2.

Moderator: English Moderator

Post Reply
User avatar
GhostOne
Posts: 26
Joined: 02 Aug 2018, 17:03
Location: France

Last TrackMania 2 + Maniaplanet 4 - First impressions + Bug report

Post by GhostOne »

/!\ Warning, my English is bad. Excuse me in advance if inconsistencies appear, I'm using a translator, be understanding and imaginative.^^

Hello everyone, I discovered for a few days the new Maniaplanet 4 through the release of TM2 Lagoon.

I have all TM since TMUF, but I am not necessarily an expert, so I apologize in advance if a solution to one of the following problems is obvious.
I also specify that TM are for me the best video games in history, just before the RedLynx Trials.
I absolutely love all the environments since the first ones. (a special love for Canyon, the slap of my life)

Any comments, opinions, thoughts or solutions concerning near or far the various points that will follow are welcome, even if already answered by others. Feel free to share your experience, beginner or not.

My Computer: Intel Core I5 4690k, 16Go RAM, AMD Radeon RX 580 4Go.
Windows 10 64bits Family reinstalled for the occasion from a bootable USB key. (Maximum cleanliness)
TrackMania Lagoon Steam version.

I play only Solo campaigns, since always. Multiplayer does not concern me.
I play only with Xbox 360 controller, and in camera 1, far and high. (thanks TM Turbo)



1) Once Maniaplanet installed via Steam, then launched, big download bug to be able to launch the title Lagoon. I think I was not the only one. The transfer of the "High Definition" texture pack of 1,1Go was completely freezing, never at the same place (rather at the beginning: 4%, 14%, 7%, ...), then to revive itself, or not raise at all, depending on his mood.
I ended up changing my default browser in Windows, from Internet Explorer to Firefox, and it worked, but only on the second attempt because it still freezing at first, hot!
I doubt any link, but I give the information, if it can save someone.
I find it incomprehensible and risky, that once the installation via Steam finished, that we still have to download some pieces of the game, it was not the case just before. This problem may spoil the joy of some who can not do anything.
By the way, just for information, where are these 1,1Go and the rest? What is the path of the game files of this Steam version?

2) The home page of Maniaplanet is incredibly confusing, I can not find a way to arrange the windows of titles properly.
I have the 4 TM2 + a 5th custom title, I would like to have only 5 identical windows of the same size, I do not ask for the moon.
But no, there are big, small, empty, full, arranged in a non-symmetrical way, it's like the souk.

But there is worse: When I try to store it a little logically by putting at least my 5 titles in the 5 large windows, at restart, it's always the bazaar again, and Maniaplanet decides otherwise and move everything in his own way, and without apparent logic.
Is it shocking only me? Can not we arrange, delete or resize these damn tiles?

3) Whenever I restart the game, I have to go back to set the graphic options "Water Reflection + Pattern Reflection + Bloom + Motion Blur" that I always deactivate (the first two are to gain performance, and I hate the last 2), but they recover themselves respectively on "Medium + High + Medium + On" at the game closing.
Very tiring. A way to stay as we have chosen?

4) I can't display the names of solo opponents (world records), the "²" key gives nothing. This is not possible anymore?

5) I can't play both replays from other players as well as my best personal ghost at the same time (as it has always been possible in TM as far as I can remember).
I feel that my ghost is not always my "personal best" but is sometimes my last run, often messed up, and which I don't care. Tell me that I have seen badly, because I do not even understand its reason for being.

6) To play with my ghost as an opponent, but without its visually materializing, I feel that it should be masked (G key), but that is not enough, and that it is also necessary to hide the opponents (O Key) which it would be a part.
Two moves instead of an instantaneous one since always. An explanation?

7) When I want to play for example with the world best ghosts, I can select the top 10 when I discover a new track. But once I realized a time on this track, to thank me for my performance, the game will not allow me anymore, and until the end of time, only to select 9 opponents, because my own ghost, too ashamed it be, remove one of the "slots" of the bests of each classification.

And if I liked the world #10, I can not anymore play against him? Or even know his nickname or his time?
Tell me there is something I did not understand.
Moreover, we can only select among the 9 bests ghosts of a category, but not beyond, the 20th, the 30th?

(In all the RedLynx Trials, we can choose and play against any ghost of the world, by walking in the pages of our friends, national, or world rankings
Even Trials 2, released in 2008, offers at least to wander in our friends, national and world rankings of a track and see all the nickname having finished with their best time and mistakes number.
Of course, we can also navigate in the whole national and global rankings, how we do without it for now on?)


8) The analog triggers of a modern controller (Xbox 360) are not optimal to play a game like TM (On/Off throttle/brake), I can not give them other simple commands, they therefore become useless!
The central button "Home" is not recognized either. It's starting to make waste.
It's hurting to have all these dead inputs on his pad and having to look at his keyboard every 2 minutes. (very convenient in the dark...)
Are there not solutions? (Without third-party software I mean, refused answer!)

9) When I win a new medal and choose "Improve", my ghost buddies are all deselected.
I have to go back to the menu and select them again one by one! Everything worked very well before, it would have interpellate me.

10) Now a particularly "dirty" bug.
When I finish a run, the "Improve - Choose Opponents - ..." menu is displayed. But the different commands available to navigate up or down in this menu (Left Analog Stick, D-pad, Keyboard Arrow Keys) do not answer right away. We must first insist several times to go down, so that the menu finally decides to obey, and go up then becomes possible.
But if I only try to go up as soon as the menu appears, nothing will ever happen! We must therefore insist on going down so that we can then be "apt" to go back up.
It is not presentable, especially since this bug occurs automatically at each end of the race.

11) Another bug, more rare, on the same end-of-race menu, is that the first two options "Enhance" + "Select Opponents" are simultaneously highlighted, so you have to guess on which one is placed. This graphic bug disappears instantly when you go down the menu, leaving only the right option highlighted.

12) Another bug, rarer, but it happened 6-7 times already: At the end of the race, but also at validating its opponents, large windows with black background appear from nowhere, with sorts of color command lines, including "compilation errors", and nothing else responds to the controller. You can only return to the menu with the keyboard-mouse, but "Give up" do nothing. You have to leave the map to restart it.

13) What a disappointment for me this new HUD compared to the "digital liquid crystal" display style before, discreet, neat, and effective.
At the time of the advent of the 4K, I find it incomprehensible to increase the proportions of these informations, and so consistently. The chronometer (center low) has grown to the point of encroaching the vehicle, and the analog meter, do not talk about it, it ate too much Big Mac.
In addition, some other informations are useless: the traveled distance (is it to refuel?), "Laps" writing, "Race Time" writing.

About me, I need only the speed in Km/h (bottom right corner) and the intermediate time differential (centered high). For the solo, all the rest is just useless calculations, field of vision clutter, and distraction.
Less is more!
Is there a way to delete items or move them? To decrease or change the fonts?

14) The validation code to be able to use his Planets is laborious to re-obtain, I do not even know how I succeeded. And besides, I do not know why, but now I have to pay for all my 3D Skins (vehicles models created by modders) that I had already paid and used. Fortunately it's a monkey money. All that is very clumsy.
To know, that 3D Skins are bugged when unlocked, they are displayed as a full grey original model, then select a neighbor model and then return to the right so that it looks good and turns on himself.

15) To change 3D Skin during the game, you have to go out of the title and go back to the home page of Maniaplanet, then go to Options> Profile> Models, and finally come back in the game.
Even worse: when we launch the game (from Steam for sure), this option is not present, we must launch the title Lagoon, to leave, to finally choose our 3D Skin!
All of this is to be completely reviewed in my opinion.
By the way, how to access this Options menu that appears on the left with our pad, then navigate, without having to look at his keyboard? Is this planned?

(It would be great if we could choose the 3D Skins of our choice and even assign them to our solo opponents, in game, just from the pause menu.
But even better: Change them in real time race! A touch for swap 3D Skin, another for swap 2D Skin, with engine sound changing + 2-3 small homemade effects ... Waouh, the slap!!! Do you really want people talk about TrackMania? Who else can do it apart TrackMania?)


16) I noticed that at the Valley release, but on Lagoon it is even more flagrantly: The 3D Skins seems under-sized (about 10-15%) compared to the origin models, to say that they were usually the same size as the CanyonCar, or at least it did not shock me so much on Canyon. I have the impression that there is about the scales between environments, or that ValleyCar + LaggonCar are bulky monsters, or that all 3D Skins are slightly miniaturized. Nobody noticed?

17) Apparently something has changed in the block of the game and for example 3/4 of the maps "Push Forward" would have become wrecked. The mappers who have no-lifed weeks to create them must be disgusted if it's true. I hope there are strong reasons behind this, or a specific project to achieve such deep changes.

18) What has become of the Medals Solo Ranking??? I only see the Skill Points Solo Ranking. I found interesting this ranking by medals which proposed a second competition very different. Besides my rankings were quite different from one to another on each environment, it gave information on my skills and other players too. It may be due to the fact that, with great disappointment elsewhere, Nadeo medals do not represent anything anymore in this new TM Lagoon. What a mess and neglect, these medals were particularly well adjusted on the previous 3 TM2.

But where is this ranking? I had partly bought the TM2 for this one, clearly. Has Nadeo communicated a minimum on the withdrawal of this feature? (important for me, and historical in the series by the way)

19) I can not find the summary window where you can see the best exploits of each player (or myself) and analyze the maps on which they have collected the most Skill Points? Has it also been removed?

20) Too many environments takes place at night in Lagoon, as in the other 3 TM2 besides, we do not see much. I hate this in racing games, and especially with the scrolling speed of a TM. We are in 2018, we are aware that we can do night in video games. Why not fog to cut with a knife to change? More seriously, we especially need depth of field, especially that TM2 is magnificent.
I stop here.


Well obliged to note, after only a few hours of this new Lagoon, that Maniplanet 4 brings many small negative things, but overwhelmingtly, and the addition may seem more than salty.
Thank God, the waiting times to official attempt have been removed, the community has been waiting for, but that would never have existed. All the same to greet, because it was not livable.
The pleasures of gameplay coupled with the graphics engine are still as exceptional, extraordinary, and without equivalents. We take slaps all the time. Fortunately, because these various bugs and inconsistencies taint the experience by their diffuse presence, scattered here and there. They are waiting for us at each crossroads.

More precisely, it is not so much the bugs that disturb, it is often forgiven easily. What frustrates so much is rather the fact of regressing and of turning back "in a forced march" on achievements that one thought indeliable, especially just after a TM Turbo which for me does not exist and is already forgotten.

TrackMania has a monstrous potential, it is still ahead of his time.
I dream of a well-finished and well-crafted "TM2 United Star Edition", with new environments, top-notch solo campaigns with hundreds of Nadeo maps + hundreds of selected maps from the community, all with general rankings, by environment, by official and unofficial maps, ect...

I also hope that Nadeo is aware of the value of the treasure TMUF Star Edition, historical heritage of humanity, and that they will do everything (A plan + B + C...) to take care and keep its servers and leaderboards alive, until at least the extinction of the Human species. After, will have to see...



Long life to Nadeo.
Long life to TrackMania.

Thank you in advance for your help and your opinions.
To you the microphones.
Last edited by GhostOne on 10 Aug 2018, 20:43, edited 2 times in total.
Hylis
Nadeo
Nadeo
Posts: 3962
Joined: 14 Jun 2010, 11:58

Re: Last TrackMania 2 + Maniaplanet 4 - First impressions + Bug report

Post by Hylis »

Thank you to you, for both your patience with the system we designed and writing this post.

And thank you as well for you belief in Trackmania.

TMUF was indeed quite solid and it's also why it was difficult to go even further. And even more because 'further' could mean different things according to different players. I also believe that Trackmania is a game ahead of his time, like you say, and we intend to prove it one day or another ^_^

To answer your question about the 1.1 GB files download, you can find and change the path in the launcher. It's a way to be able to change from one game to another. Another innovation that is incompatible with other system and makes it instantly longer to develop and more complicated for players. Making TMUF right from the start would have been impossible by the way. So, the two games are from a different life cycle. And I hope we will go toward a great one.

Thanks again.
User avatar
GhostOne
Posts: 26
Joined: 02 Aug 2018, 17:03
Location: France

Re: Last TrackMania 2 + Maniaplanet 4 - First impressions + Bug report

Post by GhostOne »

Thank you Hylis to have read my post, and for honoring it. I hope that you become acquainted, and that it will serve something.
I can't imagine how much a game like TM is complicated to develop, but I'm not hurry, and I have a huge faith in you. I'm sure that you love the game as much as the fans.
With TM2, you manage to set the bar even higher than the perfect game that you have already done, it's so rare and powerful, can you succeed.

For information, the path of my "ManiaPlanet.exe" is "C: \ Program Files (x86) \ Steam \ steamapps \ common \ ManiaPlanet_TMLagoon", but this folder size is 108 Mo.
And my "Maniaplanet" folder size, without skin, in "C:\Users\###\Documents" is 112 Mo.
That's why I asked where the rest is, because I don't see it...

And good news, I solved a first problem, the "3":

3) By going to configure oneself the options with "ManiaPlanetLauncher.exe", it remain stable in Maniaplanet as we choose, and it do not move anymore. But If I configure only in Maniaplanet graphic options after the installation, the 4 options which I talked about reset at every launching.

Now I hope that others will participate too, for help or opinions.
Last edited by GhostOne on 10 Aug 2018, 20:07, edited 3 times in total.
User avatar
TMarc
Posts: 15441
Joined: 05 Apr 2011, 19:10
Location: Europe
Contact:

Re: Last TrackMania 2 + Maniaplanet 4 - First impressions + Bug report

Post by TMarc »

Regarding the paths, Maniaplanet uses 3 different:
- the setup folder (like steamapps or c:program files(x86)
- the user data folder (windows documents - > Maniaplanet)
- the games and title files folder (c:\program data\Maniaplanet)

And it is in the latter (subdirectory packscache) where you will find the big title packs.
If you install title packs manually they might reside in your user data folder.
User avatar
GhostOne
Posts: 26
Joined: 02 Aug 2018, 17:03
Location: France

Re: Last TrackMania 2 + Maniaplanet 4 - First impressions + Bug report

Post by GhostOne »

Thank you very much TMarc, it's very clear.

I hope that it will serve others.
Last edited by GhostOne on 10 Aug 2018, 17:53, edited 1 time in total.
Hylis
Nadeo
Nadeo
Posts: 3962
Joined: 14 Jun 2010, 11:58

Re: Last TrackMania 2 + Maniaplanet 4 - First impressions + Bug report

Post by Hylis »

I'm sure that you love the game as much as the fans.
Many people loves it for different reasons, and that's also why I love it and that it's so hard to focus on what it should be.

We have to follow three main directions at the same time: an instrument to create, a game to play and a discipline to compete.

And in each direction, there are many major topics to work on. At least we have work to do!
User avatar
GhostOne
Posts: 26
Joined: 02 Aug 2018, 17:03
Location: France

Re: Last TrackMania 2 + Maniaplanet 4 - First impressions + Bug report

Post by GhostOne »

I imagine you have many requests of any kind. A demanding community is a community that loves.
The bigger and perfect is the ship, the harder it is to maneuver.

It's reassuring to know that TM is always at the center of your attention, and that you have plans for him.

I was so disappointed by TM Turbo, a pop-corn game that we never reinstall.
It took me a long time, but now, I do not blame you because I suppose you did it to please your editor and to support greater ambitions for the real TM. I probably would have done the same thing for TM's sake.

TM2, despite my long post, has never been so good with currently 4 successful environments that have personality, exhilarating gameplay, and sublime aesthetics.

However, I played Lagoon again, and my whole bug report (and incoherences) is confirmed many times.
For me and for this moment, Maniaplanet 4 is a clear regress in my solo ranking practice.

Take all your time to advance, don't worry, and keep fun to develop this wonder.
Post Reply

Return to “Trackmania 2”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest