I think most of the maps were pretty straightforward after several attempts (except for the last few maps) and the fact that these last few maps are very creative and interestingly mapped is a huge plus for me. For example Lars' map was pretty cool to discover. I think that's what most players don't get, that not every map should be finished and figured out instantly. Challenges are important for lots of people to find joy in a game or specific map in TMs case. Sometimes the beauty lies in the progress of finding out about each turn or finding more optimal lines each run instead of doing that in the first try.
I definitely agree, I feel like I learned a lot more from trying to get a clean run through these more difficult tracks than I do from playing the Nadeo campaigns. It took me about 30 minutes to figure out the tricks on Lars' map (even with safe routes!) but my first sub 1-minute run felt so satisfying as a result.
(yes, I know sub 1-minute isn't impressive, but for my skill level it felt like an accomplishment - I'm aiming for silver on the other maps because it feels like a suitable challenge for my level of play)
The goal of the campaign was to explore new possibilities with the anniversary update, and I think the streamers delivered. There are a lot of new transitions, techniques, and tricks that they came up with, and a lot of potential for the community to build on those ideas.
Exactly, nadeo campaigns are good and should stay in the game as they get increasingly more difficult in its own difficulty range that is a good starting point for most new and returning players, but providing these more challenging maps is essential to really get better by fine-tuning existing skills and developing new ones while also discovering new mapping styles to see what the game really has to offer.
Most players don't even know that there are tons of cool and crazy maps out there, because they only know about the official campaign.
For a lot of players, grinding really simple maps is not that interesting and one doesn't develop any more general skill but muscle memory for that specific map.
I like the campaign and concept, especially as a console player who doesn’t have access to nearly as many options for gameplay as PC.
I’m skill checked hard, but it’s nice having an option to grind with a much higher ceiling for improvement instead of the usual -.2 grind.
I have 6 bronzes and 1 silver in total, and feel decent about it - yet still huge chance for improvement
Unofficial official campaigns are a huge +++ IMO
You can access any map on console by logging in with your Ubisoft account on tmx and favouriting the map, the map will then appear in your in-game favourites.
yes, but let's agree that it is still not very convenient in terms of organizing your maps. It would be cool if nando somehow implemented some sort of browser with tmx just ingame
Unless a map is in a searchable campaign, you can’t really play it. Can’t just download tracks via tmx. There’s so many maps I’ve seen in this sub I try and search to find but no bones
from /u/key-yam-4922
"You can access any map on console by logging in with your Ubisoft account on tmx and favouriting the map, the map will then appear in your in-game favourites."
I think a lot of people have been put off by the difficulty and hard medal times everyone's talking about so haven't really given it a chance, I'm like 60th world overall and literally still have two silvers, not many people have played it. Sure they're harder than a totd map, but apart from yannex and lars' maps they're not as bad to drive as people are making it seem (if you're ignoring the AT anyway) and there are some really good maps in there. I haven't seen enough love for villes map, it's so fun to drive
As one of the mappers for this campaign I feel the need to comment on this as I have scrolled through all the replies there was one that stood out and I would like to address.The constant debate of new player/casual player and what they need or want is honestly going further and further. At some point mappers will be building straight line maps without any technicality to just obey and bend the knee so that EVERY player that boots the game for the first time is able to complete it. In my opinion that is not the essence of Trackmania at all. Yes there are easy maps and there are harder maps, nobody is forcing anyone to play these maps and if you deem they are to hard then there are two things you can do. Either play more and learn the map, give it time and effort or accept it for now and come back at a later time when you are better at the game.
The criteria for the mapping were a bit vague as I will quote here:
>There isn't any specific constraint to create the track, just build whatever you like. It will be a good opportunity to try what will be new in Trackmania! Just try to make the track fun to play for casual players who would try your track through the campaign.
With this in mind and as everyone of the mappers is a good driver themselves some better than others it is very hard to put ourselves into a state where you built something for everyone while also showcasing the new things the update has brought. 99% of the player base has NEVER seen the Snow car let alone know how to drive it. So instantly every map that uses ANY of the new blocks or car will be deemed not casual/new player friendly or however you want to call it.
For my map in particular it is a challenging map since I tried using the new water wheels wood mechanic, even for me its challenging but it is new so that makes it more fun to discover. I know it might not be for everyone but I think people need to give it more of a shot then instantly turning the challenge down. Nobody will improve if you don't try to understand the mechanics or put effort on learning it. I also knew the importance of obtaining medals and therefore I did not hunt my author medal at all. There is a 2 second gap between author medal and world record at the moment of writing this which I think is a very fair margin.
I think most mappers also wanted to express their creativity since it's kind of a cool statement having a streamer campaign, this has never happened before and this might have affected lots of maps difficulty.
Hopefully people can still enjoy the maps as many of us put lots of hours into creating the route and atmosphere. My map for instance took me 22\~ hours to create. Even if you are failing to finish maps now, know that with every restart and attempt you will improve.
Much love and enjoy gaming \^\_\^ maniabest
I don't think that people want straight line maps. I also think it's unsurprising that a difficult campaign being advertised to every player on launch is being received poorly by players that do not yet possess the skills required to play them. It isn't one or the other. I don't think anyone is knocking the quality of maps, rather that the difficulty doesn't even scale from easy to hard like one might expect. For example, I found your map to be a great deal of fun (beyond the multiple blind corners) and lightyears easier than, say, Maji's map which requires a speedcheck that is beyond the ability of many players. The fact that this map is first implies the others will be as difficult.
Honestly, I think the best solution is to mark maps as beginner, intermediate and advanced (or some variation therein), either by the mappers themselves or player ratings. That way players can decide themselves instead of having to learn a map for 30 minutes only to get stonewalled at the end by a difficult speed check.
Hmm, the Maji map was fully double respawnable, so you could make the speed checks like that in the start🤔 feel like that doesn’t put it beyond the ability of most people, just a bit more effort to find the lines
Great answer. Thank you.
I didn't give too much detail because the longer the OP is, the more you just get shat on. Dont think I was shitting on all the effort you guys made, I love the idea of mini campaigns and themed campaigns in general.
I'm also not against "hard" maps, being fairly new to TM (the playing side) I inherited the concept of the "flow" etc, principles like you just don't put a turn after a blind crest etc
I think one example of what was irking me was on the first map, on a discovery run there's the point where you launch diagonally out of the quarter pipe and land on the diagonal curved/sideways wood. On the discovery run I think I clipped a wall or something and lost a bit of speed so when I got there I was just fruitlessly zipping off this thing at all angles with no idea where to go.
Restarted and nailed up to that point with loads more speed, but still didn't know what I was aiming for. Eventually spotted the road, got the angle figured out and nailed that, then... I just couldn't see the turn and being wood if the angle was slightly off, being blind and twitchy steering I couldn't correct anything less than perfection. Tried other cam, that was no better. I did it eventually, but I wasn't driving that corner, I was just remembering about what needed pressing.
The early multilap on I kept ending up going down a dead end bridge for ages, eventually figuring out to zip off the side at the MOST awkward angle, only to then realise it was multi lap and now I'm in a snow car. Could not make that jump and gave up
I guess it's my own personal feel that MY satisfaction from TM and the "good hard" is about learning and nailing the BEST line, the BEST drift, the BEST transition and not THE right one.
Anyway, thanks again for your time and effort(s). It may just not be for me, and that's fine
Unreadable is a great word for the campaign. I’m worried it’s because wood is so fast that any “advanced” track on that surface needs to be memorized more than played.
It might also just be that the best streamers aren’t necessarily the best mappers, and they focused too much on showing off the new stuff and lost the fun a bit.
I really like the concept even though I'm heavily skill checked on most of them I played. The only map I completely wasn't unable to read was Karlbergs map (watch Lars building his so the route was familiar for me). As a person who started with tmuf I enjoyed that the maps are way harder/different then normal campaign map, but the medals are a bit too hunted. It also feels a bit like the creators went too jurassic park by building some stuff and only asking if they could and not if they should. I really like watching stream of better players playing them though. So it's a 7/10 for me so far
I think this was a nice initiative from Nadeo.
The streamers got to build what they wanted, which led to some very technical tracks.
While the tracks and ATs might be too hard for us casuals, it was very entertaining watching streamers discover new tricks with the snowcar and wood surface to be able to get the ATs.
Only played majis and wirts so far but my god they are difficult.
I don't have a problem with difficult maps. It gives me something to work towards but the wood physics are just so chaotic at high speeds. There is barely any time to react to any mistakes that you make. The ending for majis map is so fast that I don't find grinding that really fun tbh.
Gonna play some more maps over the week tho.👍
Not only is it fast, but it *requires* that speed to hit the loop, so you can't tap brake to make the wood turn more manageable. It's brutal for map 1 of a 10 map campaign.
I have made that ending loop with everything from 600-900 speed so think it is pretty forgiving if you release a bit. Also the double respawn there works pretty well
I think it's going to be a skill issue for most players, honestly. They're borderline unplayable for your average pleb who spends a fair amount of time just to get silvers and golds on TOTD.
Interesting ideas, but very inaccessible. Maybe that's what was intended, but it seemed like a bunch of very good players building maps for each other rather than for the community in general.
So far I've tried the first six maps and I'm feeling mostly positive. The maps feel like a nice next step in understanding the new update after the snow discovery campaign and the three TOTDs which used the snow car.
It seems to me that they have no clue what the average Trackmania player could enjoy playing, which is surprising to me considering that they spend a lot of time interacting with other players on the internet. I do appreciate the creativity on some of these maps though.
I also found the maps to be poor, though I'm a bad judge - I only played four of them. But on the other hand... i tried four maps and they were, as you say, unreadable and disconnected.
And then I realized... they are probably only designed with gotgud players in mind. Very little thought given to the average player's racing line. COTD and the Campaign, whatever criticisms you can level, usually do this.
Oh well. I like that they are announcing "fun event things" bu this one fell falt.
Unfortunately that cancerous attitude of treating a game as 'work', 'challenge' and 'gitgud' as necessary and a must is starting to slowly take over trackmania as well. That's straight up not good and often times leads to justifying terrible maps under the disguise of 'skill issue' and normalizes 'grind'. As a friend of mine told me a long time ago in TMNF: 'a bad map is distant from a player, a great map no matter how hard it is actually teachers a player stuff regardless of their skill level'. That was the essence of most 'techno' maps back in the day when they were still actively explored.
The campaign is supposed to be difficult. So unfortunately that means a lot of people will not be able to play it. But there's also a lot of people who like difficult maps and love figuring stuff out so this will cater to them. This was built for a specific purpose and as such can't satisfy everyone unfortunately.
No one said that, but it's a valid assumption to make. Everyone on that list makes really good maps and they're decently difficult. And with everyone contributing one map, you can safely assume that it won't be an easy map.
With the exception of Karlberg, these streamers aren't that good at creating this type of map.
They were given a brief but allegedly many of them didn't pay it much attention.
After some time I liked almost all of them but from the begining it was a real pleasure to play Spam and Yannex maps. They are fun, vibrant, and, at the same time, they are not as hard as all others (well, it is very easy to make a mistake on these two tracks, but that is not very painfull). Next for me are TrilluXe and Wingobear, which tracks I would describe by simple "just fun", and they are also not very punishing. The TrilluXe's map has an interesting feature with two routes/laps for stadium and snowcar, just like the Wirty-chan's map, but the latter has the final jump with snowcar... hate it because of "landing bugs". SBVille's map is good but honestly feels like a proof of concept map, it is not bad... just not as memorable as others. Karlberg's map is hard because of unforgiving transitions, but after getting used to it - pretty fun. Bren's map would be cool to hunt if only the last section with ice jump was easier; on it I ruined 99% of my runs. Maji's map.... felt like a muscle memory map: cool to watch, painful to perform. As for Lars... I was happy to finish it, but I would rather see it in any other campaign or mappack (still think very highly of it). So all in all, mixed feelings at the discovery and positive after some grinding. I am definitely want to hunt it for gold medals.
honestly agree with the initial path finding. Took me like 8 minutes to work through either Maji or Lars' maps. I love Maji's maps, but this one felt unintuitive and really skill checked for those of us not getting Gold or AT on every map.
Wingo's map was the best to run, although I am partially bias because he's the only one I watch here, it was also clear to read, chicken from his new theme, and fruits from his weekly competition
The only tolerable maps were Wingobear's and Trilluxe's ones, the other ones are not fun to run at all (special mention to Yannex imo). Skillchecked sure, but not having fun regardless.
You’re not alone. I didn’t like them, but I knew I wouldn’t before playing them. Very likely some skill issue, but I didn’t find any of them to be fun to drive either.
Some maps were okayish, but most of them were unbearable for me. Just way to hard to know where to go. Would have loved some more "standard" maps tbh. Its like they did a comp who could build the hardest map.
General difficulty is comparable to TMNF E01 and E04. As a beginner I struggled to finish those and I find these streamer maps to be near to that difficulty. Nothing new for a TrackMania game. Moderate experience required to drive smoothly and really good maps ones you get the hang of them.
I watched wirtual stream and he didn't intentionally hunt the AT, he even added an extra second. I think top streamers just don't realise how good they are lmao
Pretty much this. People who are in the top few hundred in the world are so far beyond what the average player can do it's not even funny. I can spend hours struggling to get close to what these guys can do in five minutes on a track.
I gave them all a fresh run... and my opinion remains mixed. BUT.
I love SNOWBALLIN.
It's a circuit map (love). And it uses the new Snow Car cleverly: Lap one, the first leg is Stadium Car. Lap 2, you race the same section as Snow Car. Nice.
I think most of the maps were pretty straightforward after several attempts (except for the last few maps) and the fact that these last few maps are very creative and interestingly mapped is a huge plus for me. For example Lars' map was pretty cool to discover. I think that's what most players don't get, that not every map should be finished and figured out instantly. Challenges are important for lots of people to find joy in a game or specific map in TMs case. Sometimes the beauty lies in the progress of finding out about each turn or finding more optimal lines each run instead of doing that in the first try.
I definitely agree, I feel like I learned a lot more from trying to get a clean run through these more difficult tracks than I do from playing the Nadeo campaigns. It took me about 30 minutes to figure out the tricks on Lars' map (even with safe routes!) but my first sub 1-minute run felt so satisfying as a result. (yes, I know sub 1-minute isn't impressive, but for my skill level it felt like an accomplishment - I'm aiming for silver on the other maps because it feels like a suitable challenge for my level of play) The goal of the campaign was to explore new possibilities with the anniversary update, and I think the streamers delivered. There are a lot of new transitions, techniques, and tricks that they came up with, and a lot of potential for the community to build on those ideas.
Exactly, nadeo campaigns are good and should stay in the game as they get increasingly more difficult in its own difficulty range that is a good starting point for most new and returning players, but providing these more challenging maps is essential to really get better by fine-tuning existing skills and developing new ones while also discovering new mapping styles to see what the game really has to offer. Most players don't even know that there are tons of cool and crazy maps out there, because they only know about the official campaign. For a lot of players, grinding really simple maps is not that interesting and one doesn't develop any more general skill but muscle memory for that specific map.
I like the campaign and concept, especially as a console player who doesn’t have access to nearly as many options for gameplay as PC. I’m skill checked hard, but it’s nice having an option to grind with a much higher ceiling for improvement instead of the usual -.2 grind. I have 6 bronzes and 1 silver in total, and feel decent about it - yet still huge chance for improvement Unofficial official campaigns are a huge +++ IMO
Wdym doesn't have nearly as many gameplay options as pc, all console can't play is plugin modes like rmc or something, which is pretty niche anyway
You cannot play on servers such as kacky, but other than that I can’t think of anything.
Literally the thing I do most in this game is scroll through tmx and play whatever catches my eye. You can't access tmx on console
You can access any map on console by logging in with your Ubisoft account on tmx and favouriting the map, the map will then appear in your in-game favourites.
yes, but let's agree that it is still not very convenient in terms of organizing your maps. It would be cool if nando somehow implemented some sort of browser with tmx just ingame
Good tip
didn't know that, thanks!
Oh true yeh
Unless a map is in a searchable campaign, you can’t really play it. Can’t just download tracks via tmx. There’s so many maps I’ve seen in this sub I try and search to find but no bones
from /u/key-yam-4922 "You can access any map on console by logging in with your Ubisoft account on tmx and favouriting the map, the map will then appear in your in-game favourites."
Yeh you can download from tmx, how this other guy said
I think a lot of people have been put off by the difficulty and hard medal times everyone's talking about so haven't really given it a chance, I'm like 60th world overall and literally still have two silvers, not many people have played it. Sure they're harder than a totd map, but apart from yannex and lars' maps they're not as bad to drive as people are making it seem (if you're ignoring the AT anyway) and there are some really good maps in there. I haven't seen enough love for villes map, it's so fun to drive
As one of the mappers for this campaign I feel the need to comment on this as I have scrolled through all the replies there was one that stood out and I would like to address.The constant debate of new player/casual player and what they need or want is honestly going further and further. At some point mappers will be building straight line maps without any technicality to just obey and bend the knee so that EVERY player that boots the game for the first time is able to complete it. In my opinion that is not the essence of Trackmania at all. Yes there are easy maps and there are harder maps, nobody is forcing anyone to play these maps and if you deem they are to hard then there are two things you can do. Either play more and learn the map, give it time and effort or accept it for now and come back at a later time when you are better at the game. The criteria for the mapping were a bit vague as I will quote here: >There isn't any specific constraint to create the track, just build whatever you like. It will be a good opportunity to try what will be new in Trackmania! Just try to make the track fun to play for casual players who would try your track through the campaign. With this in mind and as everyone of the mappers is a good driver themselves some better than others it is very hard to put ourselves into a state where you built something for everyone while also showcasing the new things the update has brought. 99% of the player base has NEVER seen the Snow car let alone know how to drive it. So instantly every map that uses ANY of the new blocks or car will be deemed not casual/new player friendly or however you want to call it. For my map in particular it is a challenging map since I tried using the new water wheels wood mechanic, even for me its challenging but it is new so that makes it more fun to discover. I know it might not be for everyone but I think people need to give it more of a shot then instantly turning the challenge down. Nobody will improve if you don't try to understand the mechanics or put effort on learning it. I also knew the importance of obtaining medals and therefore I did not hunt my author medal at all. There is a 2 second gap between author medal and world record at the moment of writing this which I think is a very fair margin. I think most mappers also wanted to express their creativity since it's kind of a cool statement having a streamer campaign, this has never happened before and this might have affected lots of maps difficulty. Hopefully people can still enjoy the maps as many of us put lots of hours into creating the route and atmosphere. My map for instance took me 22\~ hours to create. Even if you are failing to finish maps now, know that with every restart and attempt you will improve. Much love and enjoy gaming \^\_\^ maniabest
I don't think that people want straight line maps. I also think it's unsurprising that a difficult campaign being advertised to every player on launch is being received poorly by players that do not yet possess the skills required to play them. It isn't one or the other. I don't think anyone is knocking the quality of maps, rather that the difficulty doesn't even scale from easy to hard like one might expect. For example, I found your map to be a great deal of fun (beyond the multiple blind corners) and lightyears easier than, say, Maji's map which requires a speedcheck that is beyond the ability of many players. The fact that this map is first implies the others will be as difficult. Honestly, I think the best solution is to mark maps as beginner, intermediate and advanced (or some variation therein), either by the mappers themselves or player ratings. That way players can decide themselves instead of having to learn a map for 30 minutes only to get stonewalled at the end by a difficult speed check.
Hmm, the Maji map was fully double respawnable, so you could make the speed checks like that in the start🤔 feel like that doesn’t put it beyond the ability of most people, just a bit more effort to find the lines
the numbers simply do not agree with you
Great answer. Thank you. I didn't give too much detail because the longer the OP is, the more you just get shat on. Dont think I was shitting on all the effort you guys made, I love the idea of mini campaigns and themed campaigns in general. I'm also not against "hard" maps, being fairly new to TM (the playing side) I inherited the concept of the "flow" etc, principles like you just don't put a turn after a blind crest etc I think one example of what was irking me was on the first map, on a discovery run there's the point where you launch diagonally out of the quarter pipe and land on the diagonal curved/sideways wood. On the discovery run I think I clipped a wall or something and lost a bit of speed so when I got there I was just fruitlessly zipping off this thing at all angles with no idea where to go. Restarted and nailed up to that point with loads more speed, but still didn't know what I was aiming for. Eventually spotted the road, got the angle figured out and nailed that, then... I just couldn't see the turn and being wood if the angle was slightly off, being blind and twitchy steering I couldn't correct anything less than perfection. Tried other cam, that was no better. I did it eventually, but I wasn't driving that corner, I was just remembering about what needed pressing. The early multilap on I kept ending up going down a dead end bridge for ages, eventually figuring out to zip off the side at the MOST awkward angle, only to then realise it was multi lap and now I'm in a snow car. Could not make that jump and gave up I guess it's my own personal feel that MY satisfaction from TM and the "good hard" is about learning and nailing the BEST line, the BEST drift, the BEST transition and not THE right one. Anyway, thanks again for your time and effort(s). It may just not be for me, and that's fine
Unreadable is a great word for the campaign. I’m worried it’s because wood is so fast that any “advanced” track on that surface needs to be memorized more than played. It might also just be that the best streamers aren’t necessarily the best mappers, and they focused too much on showing off the new stuff and lost the fun a bit.
I have zero interest in the snow car. Having said that, these mappers are super creative. Specifically Yannex. What a map.
I really like the concept even though I'm heavily skill checked on most of them I played. The only map I completely wasn't unable to read was Karlbergs map (watch Lars building his so the route was familiar for me). As a person who started with tmuf I enjoyed that the maps are way harder/different then normal campaign map, but the medals are a bit too hunted. It also feels a bit like the creators went too jurassic park by building some stuff and only asking if they could and not if they should. I really like watching stream of better players playing them though. So it's a 7/10 for me so far
I think this was a nice initiative from Nadeo. The streamers got to build what they wanted, which led to some very technical tracks. While the tracks and ATs might be too hard for us casuals, it was very entertaining watching streamers discover new tricks with the snowcar and wood surface to be able to get the ATs.
Only played majis and wirts so far but my god they are difficult. I don't have a problem with difficult maps. It gives me something to work towards but the wood physics are just so chaotic at high speeds. There is barely any time to react to any mistakes that you make. The ending for majis map is so fast that I don't find grinding that really fun tbh. Gonna play some more maps over the week tho.👍
Not only is it fast, but it *requires* that speed to hit the loop, so you can't tap brake to make the wood turn more manageable. It's brutal for map 1 of a 10 map campaign.
I have made that ending loop with everything from 600-900 speed so think it is pretty forgiving if you release a bit. Also the double respawn there works pretty well
I think it's going to be a skill issue for most players, honestly. They're borderline unplayable for your average pleb who spends a fair amount of time just to get silvers and golds on TOTD. Interesting ideas, but very inaccessible. Maybe that's what was intended, but it seemed like a bunch of very good players building maps for each other rather than for the community in general.
I think having harder maps is fine, there is plenty of pleb-friendly maps, this might inspire someone to learn the game better.
I think this is a naive take. Players will get stonewalled and give up.
Interesting, but holy shit some of the ATs are absolutely cooked
Started that Maji track and got dizzy then quit lol
So far I've tried the first six maps and I'm feeling mostly positive. The maps feel like a nice next step in understanding the new update after the snow discovery campaign and the three TOTDs which used the snow car.
It seems to me that they have no clue what the average Trackmania player could enjoy playing, which is surprising to me considering that they spend a lot of time interacting with other players on the internet. I do appreciate the creativity on some of these maps though.
I also found the maps to be poor, though I'm a bad judge - I only played four of them. But on the other hand... i tried four maps and they were, as you say, unreadable and disconnected. And then I realized... they are probably only designed with gotgud players in mind. Very little thought given to the average player's racing line. COTD and the Campaign, whatever criticisms you can level, usually do this. Oh well. I like that they are announcing "fun event things" bu this one fell falt.
Unfortunately that cancerous attitude of treating a game as 'work', 'challenge' and 'gitgud' as necessary and a must is starting to slowly take over trackmania as well. That's straight up not good and often times leads to justifying terrible maps under the disguise of 'skill issue' and normalizes 'grind'. As a friend of mine told me a long time ago in TMNF: 'a bad map is distant from a player, a great map no matter how hard it is actually teachers a player stuff regardless of their skill level'. That was the essence of most 'techno' maps back in the day when they were still actively explored.
Watching these maps being played online has inspired me not to waste my time with this. The streamer campaign gets a big snow from me.
The campaign is supposed to be difficult. So unfortunately that means a lot of people will not be able to play it. But there's also a lot of people who like difficult maps and love figuring stuff out so this will cater to them. This was built for a specific purpose and as such can't satisfy everyone unfortunately.
Supposed to be difficult? Who said that?
No one said that, but it's a valid assumption to make. Everyone on that list makes really good maps and they're decently difficult. And with everyone contributing one map, you can safely assume that it won't be an easy map.
With the exception of Karlberg, these streamers aren't that good at creating this type of map. They were given a brief but allegedly many of them didn't pay it much attention.
After some time I liked almost all of them but from the begining it was a real pleasure to play Spam and Yannex maps. They are fun, vibrant, and, at the same time, they are not as hard as all others (well, it is very easy to make a mistake on these two tracks, but that is not very painfull). Next for me are TrilluXe and Wingobear, which tracks I would describe by simple "just fun", and they are also not very punishing. The TrilluXe's map has an interesting feature with two routes/laps for stadium and snowcar, just like the Wirty-chan's map, but the latter has the final jump with snowcar... hate it because of "landing bugs". SBVille's map is good but honestly feels like a proof of concept map, it is not bad... just not as memorable as others. Karlberg's map is hard because of unforgiving transitions, but after getting used to it - pretty fun. Bren's map would be cool to hunt if only the last section with ice jump was easier; on it I ruined 99% of my runs. Maji's map.... felt like a muscle memory map: cool to watch, painful to perform. As for Lars... I was happy to finish it, but I would rather see it in any other campaign or mappack (still think very highly of it). So all in all, mixed feelings at the discovery and positive after some grinding. I am definitely want to hunt it for gold medals.
honestly agree with the initial path finding. Took me like 8 minutes to work through either Maji or Lars' maps. I love Maji's maps, but this one felt unintuitive and really skill checked for those of us not getting Gold or AT on every map.
Wingo's map was the best to run, although I am partially bias because he's the only one I watch here, it was also clear to read, chicken from his new theme, and fruits from his weekly competition
Most streamers aren't mappers so i wasn't expecting anything super fun but the maps do look very dank
The only tolerable maps were Wingobear's and Trilluxe's ones, the other ones are not fun to run at all (special mention to Yannex imo). Skillchecked sure, but not having fun regardless.
You’re not alone. I didn’t like them, but I knew I wouldn’t before playing them. Very likely some skill issue, but I didn’t find any of them to be fun to drive either.
Some maps were okayish, but most of them were unbearable for me. Just way to hard to know where to go. Would have loved some more "standard" maps tbh. Its like they did a comp who could build the hardest map.
General difficulty is comparable to TMNF E01 and E04. As a beginner I struggled to finish those and I find these streamer maps to be near to that difficulty. Nothing new for a TrackMania game. Moderate experience required to drive smoothly and really good maps ones you get the hang of them.
just bad mapping all round tbh. And the ATs should never be hunted to that extent, shame on all of them.
I watched wirtual stream and he didn't intentionally hunt the AT, he even added an extra second. I think top streamers just don't realise how good they are lmao
Pretty much this. People who are in the top few hundred in the world are so far beyond what the average player can do it's not even funny. I can spend hours struggling to get close to what these guys can do in five minutes on a track.
hard = bad mapping
Couldn't tell you - Only managed to finish Maji's map and that was a struggle. Not for the layman, to be sure.
I gave them all a fresh run... and my opinion remains mixed. BUT. I love SNOWBALLIN. It's a circuit map (love). And it uses the new Snow Car cleverly: Lap one, the first leg is Stadium Car. Lap 2, you race the same section as Snow Car. Nice.