Tm great again! [possibilities]

[Royalpbj]

Yo everyone,
During practice we've been talking about the potentials of tm, the things that we would find fun and potentially profitable if executed well. Will mainly write about tm2 stadium, as I think it's the most played environment.

Many of us would like to see the game grow. Some Ideas we've had were inspired by features in other big games , I'll
list some of them, we can all discuss more ideas or expand on these.
These are "major change" ideas, basically making a complete game, and maintaining. Takes a lot of work, effort, but it can greatly pay off.

1. Official professionally made competition maps per x weeks/months, and having a 1v1 ranking ladder based on that.
Let's say a map pack with 3 maps every month, and a ranked matchmaking on those maps in 1v1 format driving to 7 points on each, something of that nature. To give ranks a better meaning, to have something to play for, to be motivated to reach those high ranks, by earning them by high level of skill.

Also could be variety of matchmaking for the different styles. dirt 1v1 tech 1v1 fs 1v1 and maybe combined 1v1.
You can see most, if not all, of the popular esports games have these features. They make it all highly competitive, addicting even, and people could create content around it (streams/videos of climbing etc)



Things like that bring and keep people in. Having seasons with prizes, even better. Skins maybe, tags, planets, anything really.
Collecting uniques, earning something, having that one thing not everyone has, is a thing that drives gamers to go hardcore in games.

2. Continuing with that, official skins, maybe customizing 'items' such as different wheels, spoilers, body shapes that you can customize to your taste ingame. Having rarity to them adds even more desire to collect.
I know there are skins and such made by the community, and they are awesome, but a new player has no clue about all of that, until they see someone with a special car.

This idea really is just to benefit the developers with micro transaction opportunities and make it so you can have those collecting/trading even type of goals ingame which also keeps/brings more players potentially.
Crucial element to a lot of these is "Official". The community does a lot, but that's only good for the community, it doesn't help the new players, which doesn't help the game grow.

if there could be a mix of community and official stuff, that'd be the best. Official items/skins could be of higher quality.
Maybe the voted best community created skins of the month become official, that could be a motivation for creatives to join the game.

And again, these things are also in the big popular games. All of them have skins, microtransactions of such sort.

3. Implementing something such as TM exchange into the game, to have it easier to access, download/upload replays, maps. Once again new people only find out about that when they ask around if they even realise there is something out there.


These are in my head at the moment, we've probably talked about more stuff. Pretty much the community drives the community and keeps things alive. I'm sure people would help out making official things be a reality. It could help the game grow, which can generate more income, hire more people to deal with these stuff, and you have a good income source and then you can focus on other projects such as tm turbo, questmania, or what you may have in mind. It's always easier with a good income source.

TL;DR 1v1 ranked ladder, items, ingame tmx etc

Comment, discuss, argue, post your ideas, make this shit pop up, make it visible. Don't let it go into silence, tm has potential baby.
#MakeTmGreatAgain #brexit Kappa

[dignitaspac]

Great ideas mate!

[suptimal]

Hello , here I mainly agree with the things said above ;

The game has a great possibility with the current tools used by the community, which is not everytime rightfully used (why not make the most popular custom objects added in the official titles ?). And why some of the most interesting sites from the community are not in the game inself (TMX or Maniapark?)

For me the biggest problem with the current way to get at the top of the ladder is a bit wrong. I mean the way to be of the on top of the ladder isn't great (it's basically a lot of grinding ... and a little bit of skill). So I'm totally with the idea of an "Official Matchmaking" with competitive maps changed every month. But not only for 1vs1 ... but and 2vs2 , 3vs3 or even 5vs5 (why create clubs or groups when it's not showed anywhere and almost useless on trackmania !).To create an competitive ladder showing the real skill of the players. But it seems that NADEO doesn't agree with that because it makes some players with no-rank, and the strength of the current ladder is you just need to connect on a server to get points. One way to get rid of that is making the 1vs1 ranking the "Official" ladder , or ... just not display it!

Another thing that can make beginners struggle to going competitive is the skill diference , it is really demotivating to play against people that were pro players or have 7 year experience everytime ... The creation of divisions or leagues with players (50-100?) from the same level can motivate some players to improve. Which can be also displayed to show the level of the player.

The third thing that at the moment the people at the top of the ladder isn't even showed at the front page ! When you enter to a title pack (like Stadium) , there's place to set the ladders there (with the news for exemple). It's an easy and very usefull way to bring the interest in the ladder , there's nothing more that having more visibility and fame has a player ... to play well ! And I agree with the idea above to add this with custom skins or more !

That's all I wanted to add from this side even if I think , the main problem is the lack of new players (or a lot of players) trying to get good at the game.

[Royalpbj]

Yep @suptimal . Adding things like these could increase the ability to make content for viewers in the game, which could market the whole thing and eventually get more players. And with a good ranking system, even keeping the players.

[Palteza]

Nice ideas.

The main challenge of Trackamania² is this point (for the IG part):

The community does a lot, but that's only good for the community, it doesn't help the new players, which doesn't help the game grow.

The gap between community and new players is way bigger on TM² than on previous games. Nowadays people coming in the game are casual and don't want to invest much time in a community effort (generally speaking). A not refreshed community is the deathblow for this game. But you can always encourage people by giving them the tools. And the tools are existing thanks to Nadeo, and the community.

So you have to consider both aspects: please the casual with your idea of ladder/matchmaking 1v1 2v2 ..., and also work on the connexion between (still) existing community and new players to convert them (tools integration).
The community can't be that magic, it doesn't have the control to close that gap, it's in developpers' hands with the work on the plateform.

[Palteza]

Sorry for double post, but a nice example of a community tool integration with the maniacalendar widget in ESL tittle pack. This kind of (nice) integration on Stadium would build the bridge between casuals and community. Just an exemple, that could concerned other tools.

When you enter tittle pack:
http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/621940eslcalendar1.jpg

When you click on a date:
http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/592624eslcalendar2.png

When you click on a competition:
http://img4.hostingpics.net/pics/761982eslcalendar3.jpg

[Rasque]

Btw, MX also has an integrated page in the game. If i'm not wrong, its 'MX'

[Skadi]

I kinda agree with all stuff in Royal's first post. By the way I'd like to highlight one detail which I worked together with Symbiose on.

About the rating system, a couple of weeks ago, we worked on a rating system used in chess (or even in CS:GO I think) called Glicko (and Glicko-2) Rating System.

Basically, it's an ELO system with some improvements such as the "Rating reliability" (called Rating Deviation or RD in this system). If you need more infos about this Glicko system, visit the Glicko website itself or even wikipedia. Here is a PDF about the Glicko-2 system and how to apply the algorithm.

It's mainly made for 1v1 matches but with some improvements/modifications, we may use this for every XvX format. With it, we could rate every player on every competition (ESL CPS/SNC, ET STC/NC, TMM TC, SLS, M.v.M, GA, ESWC->MC and so on). I already gave it a try on Excel but unfortunately I needed to use a loop-macro and I had no time anymore to learn how to do this.
---
Also Suptimal said one interesting thing that I already said to Hylis. Adding the most popular custom objects in official titles might be a good idea.

[Hylis]

Just to say it's in the spirit of what we are working on. The solution may be somewhat different, but there are some of the key elements we want to address with this work:

The gap between community and new players is way bigger on TM² than on previous games.

work on the connexion between (still) existing community and new players to convert them (tools integration).
The community can't be that magic, it doesn't have the control to close that gap, it's in developpers' hands with the work on the plateform.

Palteza is right and the goal is to enable new players to easily connect. And the calendar is a good example in that spirit. We have work to do before being able to explain more our solution, but it's a big subject at the studio.

[lukakas157]

Make 'patents' like from CS:GO

I was very addicted to play TMNF in the past and I did not know why. And now I'm addicted in CS:GO and I do not really like FPS.