Team chase, what is ?

[haenry]

Sadly it is very buggy. The detection for the last player who passes a checkpoint doesn't work at all. We played with a 6v6 and 7v7 and it was always the third player who had to go first through the next checkpoint.

I can't reproduce this bug. I played in 5vs5 and the 5 players of the team had to cross the checkpoints. Do you know what were the settings used by the server you played on?

I have no idea. We just joined the fullest server
But I can try to find them out

EDIT: Apparently it was not a bug, but our oponents were always just 3 players. I failed to see that they were only 3 players because the times between runs were super short and the oponents' cars were hidden.
I always assumed that the oponent team was equally strong as ours. That was my mistake, sorry :$

[weerwolf]

I think the king of the lobby and masters is not needed in trackmania. TA records would be fine
TA is also doable on multilaps, but ta tracks are plenty out there. Also most of us use 1 of the controllers out there. If the map also ends as a normal TA map - those systems would work as is. Masters are the ones with the highest serverrank

2 cents, keep the change

[Eole]

We released a new version of the dedicated server with the fixes mentioned previously.

The biggest bug is that the time sometimes does not count, even if you pass the cp correctly, due timing/delay issues or whatever. Had before a Match where I passed the cp correctly by about 0.0013 seconds and it counted as fail, if the gamemode is competitive something like this should never ever happen.

It is also fixed in the new script.

Chase

• New setting S_CompetitiveMode, default value: False. In this mode only players that take a slot in a team during the warm up can play, the others will have to spec until they can get a free slot in a team. The match can be paused using a command, players are sent back into warm up and the match can restart only when both teams are ready. This mode also applies stricter rules than in matchmaking. If a team has less players than the other team, it lose the round and the match is paused until both teams have enough players. The scores can be set using a command and a round can be stopped before the end the same way. see
• New setting S_WaypointEventDelay, default value: 500ms. Put the waypoint events in a buffer for 500ms to avoid errors in the checkpoint order check. see
• New setting S_PauseBetweenRound, default value: 15s. Allow to set a pause between the rounds. see
• New setting S_WaitingTimeMax, default value: 600s. Allow the players who are waiting for a match to play on different maps. see
• New commands Command_RoundPointsClan1 and Command_RoundPointsClan2. Allow to force the scores of the teams. see
• New command Command_SetPause. Allow to start a pause before the next round. see
• New command Command_ForceEndRound. Allow to force the end of the current round. see
• Fix : S_MinPlayersNb can't be set to less than 2. see
• Fix : force the right default labels visibility.
• Fix : the UI sometimes crashed at the end of the race because of the scoring gauges.

[novationx]

Soon Paragon League will make some Cups in Chase .

Awesome!

[Palteza]

Hey Chase developpers.

.1st thing, a bit late, but congratz for this wonderful mode, this is so nice to play, I'm one of the biggest fan !
.2nd thing, congratz to the Paragon staff who is pushig this mode by using it for new competitions. Nice initiative, I think this mode is dedicated to competition (playing/watching). Btw, Paragon staff and Chase developpers are not the same personns, right ?
.3rd thing, as one of the biggest fan , I'm so sad when I see no active server of this mode in Stadium. Especially when you saw the joyfulness coming from all players at the launch of this mode. At this time I was bored by the game, this new mode made me very enthusiastic

Then there must be reasons for this "failure" (don't say : general audience of the game, sarcastic boy !). This mode is so great that we must call it as it is, a (little) failure. Out of respect for the developpers.

I'm telling the main reason to my mind :

This is not an intuitive mode if you don't get explained well. Players arrive on the server, read the instructions of the mode ... or not, and play ! This is the "or not" the big problem.
If you don't make the effort to read the rules, you start to play, obviously doing bullshit. If no one is stoping you (during a started match) to explain the rules (I always try to explain people directly when they arrive ... I'm not a general case ), you keep driving forward like a retard, everyone is irritated, everyone is living (bored players waiting for nice games, player who didn't give a fuck to understand). People who don't wanna make the effort to explain others (95%) linked to people who don't wanna listen (30-40%) make the real life of this mode in public : almost unplayable unless you're playing with at least 3 friends (not very common).

This for me the main reason, matches in good conditions are not automatic at this moment on this mode ===> can't work.
Technical reasons are minor points (I know the mode has been optimized ... it was still very good at the start!). This was not the point.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If there is a main problem, let's try to solve it. Come on, save this great mode !

What do we wanna obtain ? EVERY pilote BEGINNING to drive a run on this mode knows EXACTLY the rules.
How can we obtain this result ? Making sure people have understood the rules, obviously !
How ? Forcing them to read.

I have no solutionS, but one at the moment.
What about creating, only at the 1st connexion on the server, a multiple choice questionnaire. You have to answer good to access the next question(s). No need plenty of questions of course, only the number necessary to drive in good conditions : knowing that the last pilote of a team at a CP must be the 1st at the next CP, that this pilote's name is displayed on the screen. We could stop here the questionnaire, you can drive at this point. But we could add the comprehension of the point system for example.
Like that, make 2 or 3 questionnaire windows, with like 3-4 possible answers each time : only the good one is giving you the access to the next. Make the windows impossible to close unless you're answering well. You can even add a timer if you answered bad to have a new try (the time to read the rules). People are in spectator mode during this time.
When the window is closed, you're sure the driver knows how to drive this mode.

Maybe it looks a bit too much serious, but that's my point of view : you don't wanna make the effort to read and apply the rules ? Then move on
This solution erases the problem of trolling drivers annoying every one (themself included).

The team composition is also not that clear. You could consider changing its display. But it's very secondray.


There may be other solutions. I know a bit about development and I propose here a light solution. Surely there are mainy solutions, but light ones may be tough to find.
As it's built, this mode is not playable in public. Technically, it's so pro. Let's pass the last step by making it user-friendly. This would be a waste of energy not to improve this side !


Dunnow who are the developpers, they must be working on other stuff.
I remain at your disposal to work on this (even if I won't be that helpful in development ) if you want/have time.


Congratz again

[Hylis]

Thanks for you good words for the mode. It was made to both illustrate a team mode that requires synchronization & a matchmaking. Having it on Paragon is a cool opportunity to observe how it behaves in a great competitive environment like that. And you are right that there are obviously a lot of thing that can be improve, including how to welcome new players on it, but we are chasing after time at the moment on something else, on turbo! (btw, a questionnaire is indeed a good thing to avoid people avoiding to read )

[HubbleSM]

After playing chase in the last paragon league chase cup, I think this mode has a lot of potential.
We saw a lot of close matches. Sometimes there has been just a few thousands of a second between the teammembers. A simple fail of 1 player can destroy the whole run of one team. It brings a new aspect to Trackmania which is teamplay. This all is a lot of fun and a great playing experience.

But as already said by some other guys here in this Forum, there are some things that have to be improved.
We don't even need completely new things in Maniaplanet to improve the experience especially for the spectators.

For example we already have a "dynamic cam" in Shootmania. The camera shows the action from the top and always follows the players on the map. If the players are close together, the camera zooms in. If the players are far away from each other, the camera zooms out. That would make it easier for streamers and spectators to follow the action. Koenz made this cam manually in his stream, but if we have a cam like this already in Shootmania, why not in Trackmania, too?

Also we need a clear overview of who has to pass the next checkpoint first. Maybe show it in the top left corner for the red team and in the top right corner for the blue team. Otherwise spectators can only guess who is next to pass a cp.

Also there could be some cool features for the players.
For example we could have an option to only show the cars of your own team. If both teams are close together, it's sometimes really hard to notice who is who.


I know you guys from NADEO have other things to do right now, but I hope you will read this and remember some things if you have time again to focus on Maniaplanet. Thanks for this great gamemode