Gameplay discussion

[El_Cid]

Until we try it with our hand we cannot say but... from the impressions till now the idea of this lack of air control is something I dont like very much. Of couse this is only my opinion.

But i have to say that... to me the "air control = progaming oriented game" makes no sense.
It is just one of the many things that made Trackmania an unique game at my eyes not something for "pros".

Just can't wait to try it out by myself eheh (like everyone here i guess xD)

[banjee]

Just can't wait to try it out by myself eheh

exactly

[Mac_Matrix]

I don't really mind the apparent lack of an airbrake. I watched the Dreamhack finals and the cars seemed to take off from jumps fairly predictably (that is, if they turned before the jump they ended up tilting the other way in the air all the time). Plus the lack of an airbrake resulted in some spectacular crashes

[eyebo]

As an avid track tester, I find the lack of airbrake appealing. It means less noobish tracks, I hope. Why? Because noobs like to use air control as an excuse to do all kinds of really awful things in their tracks. And when you criticize them for it, they reply that you have to use air control. Air control IS a legitimate part of the game. TM is designed with it. So it's quite hard to argue against it. Well, now we don't have to.

But as a driver, I will really miss air control (if indeed it's gone forever). One of the styles of tracks that air control was most advantageous on was RPGs and Trial maps. Wow! You could pull off all kinds of crazy stuff and ensure a good landing. Air control is an amazing ingredient to any good drivers repertoire of tricks. Also things like being able to turtle while upside down... thats not really realistic... but it's always been a great trick that saved the day in some tight spots.

Interestingly, TMO didn't have near as much air control as TMS and Stadium. So perhaps in that respect it's a return to the TMO style.

But I try to remind myself constantly... TM2 is a brand new game... designed from scratch from the ground up. I'll do my best in the future not to compare it to anything before. For me it's always the new driving experiences that bring the most pleasure. I love seeing new innovations in old environments. And I'll enjoy even more seeing new innovations in new environments, either from Nadeo in regard to physics or from builders inventing entirely new styles of tracks.

Bring on the sticky wallrides and the epicly huge loops! Bring on the awesome GP blocks and cliff roads! Bring on the twisting multilevel tunnels! Bring it on! Bring it on! I'm ready for TM2!!!

[Romain42]

As an avid track tester, I find the lack of airbrake appealing. It means less noobish tracks, I hope. Why? Because noobs like to use air control as an excuse to do all kinds of really awful things in their tracks. And when you criticize them for it, they reply that you have to use air control. Air control IS a legitimate part of the game. TM is designed with it. So it's quite hard to argue against it. Well, now we don't have to.

I believe that's the optimistic way to think it.

Noobs will continue to make the same kinds of really awful things, but they'll just have one argument less to argue it.

As we know, air control enables the driver to manage the ugly jumps a bit better. Without it, those ugly jumps may become even more random and/or unsmooth, which enables the noobs to make worse and worse LOL-maps... Thus, it could even make this kind of track more annoying. After all, sometimes i wonder if it's not wanted: "i make a track which is such random that i have 1 chance over 2 to beat a pro there".

I am also curious about the gameplay of the canyon car at very low speed in very sharp turns... Lots of people wondered about the rapport of canyon with tech maps. With the custom blocks feature, players could build tighter roads or sharper turns and it could lead to significantly slower/more technical maps. But does the behaviour of the car suit to this? We didn't see slow turns until now... But we know the acceleration seems huge at start, the driving may be a bit jerky. ^^

[El_Cid]

I am also curious about the gameplay of the canyon car at very low speed in very sharp turns...

Me too...

I could understand what you think about air control etc but... personally i can't imagine trackmania without all the tricks (where air control is one of them)

[wiidesire-2]

so what I saw from the footage is, that you can brake in the air but you can't control it how you jump it.

When you turned a little bit left or right before the jump then you screwd it up, but if you make no mistake before the jump, the jumps are still easy ( personally that's why I hate keyboard, because you can't control it that way as you can do it with controller).

but I could be wrong, but I saw that you can brake in the air, that's enough for me, I don't need to turn in the air.

[Alter-Fox]

Air control kind of equalizes driving skill for tracks made by bad drivers.
If you have a really bad driver (kind of like me) who tries to make a really stunty map. They need to be able to validate it themselves, so they need to be able to do the stunts. That can definitely mean shorter jumps that what a normal driver can do.

Air control can let better players actually drive the map without overshooting jumps and missing checkpoints and stuff. For a time my most-awarded track on TMX was a map like this because the tricky landings and odd placement of obstacles made for a challenging WR hunter for 'normal' drivers. (Now my most-awarded map is a near-fullspeed rally track, but that's beside the point).

Of course, no air control also means I can make this kind of map specifically designed for me to win on...
Everyone else will have to reverse for checkpoints...

[Trackmaniack]

Here's one thing only experimentation on the beta will tell us. I don't think they've removed -all- the air-control, as it's been proposed that you can still brake midair. Now whether that levels your car, or just reduces your jump height/length, remains to be seen (at least by me)...What I think happened is that Nadeo realized they may have "overdone" air control with TM-Wii and TMDS, in which you could spin your car either way in mid air using the arrows...and so they're scaling things back a bit...

[Mac_Matrix]

Also things like being able to turtle while upside down... thats not really realistic... but it's always been a great trick that saved the day in some tight spots.

Wasn't that only possible because the physics model for the stadiumcar didn't have the mudguards?

(hint - physics uses the original stadiumcar model, which lacked mudguards, front and rear wing ... I think. )