A couple of criticisms I have with the game:
1. Spectating should be a bit more intuitive. It took me a long time to figure it out. When there's somebody doing better than I am by a certain amount, I can be sure that I'm doing something fundamentally wrong. That's when I go into spectating mode and watch that person.
When I go into spectating mode, I switch from auto to manual. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I can't switch away from auto, and I have no idea why. When I'm in manual, I have to go to the scoreboard and right click the person I want to spectate. First of all, I had no idea what the scoreboard key was, because there's no reason to ever use that key normally. Between that and the fact that you have to right click the person, I probably would have never picked it up if it wasn't for the existence of a post in these forums of somebody else having problems doing the same thing.
2. Loops and wallrides. I'd be beating a dead horse if I went any further, but I'll just say that the veering off that happens in loops is very annoying, like mrbish82 said.
3. I also have a big problem with maps that take camera control away from the user. With the exceptions of wallrides and loops, of course. I don't know why map makers are allowed to do this. I've never actually seen this ability used in a way that I would consider good or necessary.
Now the next things are personal problems or just aren't Nadeo's fault.
I seem to have a hard time finding fun in this game. The only thing to do, really, is beat the other players in that particular race. So when I come in a place below third, it's not a good feeling. I was thinking about it in a race the other day, and this is what I came up with to describe it: "Fun in this game is like a mythical creature. It's rare, but every so often you catch a glimpse of it, and it's really beautiful. Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, it's gone again."
Apparently there's some huge ability to pick up on the perfect "line" that I'm just not getting. When I get a really awesome time, I'm usually left wondering "how did that happen?!" Even the high placing victories often seem hollow because it's essentially dumb luck to me. I've had a few players try to explain the way to pick up on the perfect lines, and I thanked them, but it doesn't really seem like something that can be explained in words. I'm hoping that I'll pick up on that skill eventually, but I really have no idea how.
And yes, accumulating LP may also be a goal, but that system really exacerbates the above problem. Before I knew it, I was almost at 10,000 LP, and the servers it wants me to join are full of people so good with such robotic precision, that I'm lucky if I even show up in the first page of the scoreboard at the end. Even then, I'm getting bunches of LP by placing terribly. Maybe it'll balance out as the game gets older or something, but I hate having to choose servers rated as far below me in average rank so I can occasionally end up in the top three.
And then there's the fact that it seems like there are very few Americans playing this game. When I look at USA in the server list, there are a bunch of servers, but only like 5-10 players combined. Most of my fond memories of TMForever involved a cool clan of English-speaking players whose server I frequented. I find that having a social element to the game improves it significantly, but most of the time few of my opponents speak English.
This post ended up being several times longer than I anticipated, so thanks if you read through the entire thing.
Edit: And while it is "realistic" to be blinded by darkness when entering a tunnel and be blinded by light when exiting, I don't think it's a very good gameplay mechanic.
Edit: I have to try really hard to keep my frustration from coloring my post, because otherwise I end up with statements like something I wanted to post that wouldn't have been constructive: maybe there's a connection between the total frustration quotient of this game and the complete lack of any American flags compared to French and German flags. Maybe we can't take the masochism.
Edit: Just found this awesome mod with RPG elements on a server with active admins. This is just what I needed.
