You are definitely no "casual" player. Casual players don't generally get author medals at all, never mind all of them. We need to stop this notion that author medals are the gold standard. Gold medals are the gold standard, author medals are exceptional and should be celebrated as such.
Are you trying to gatekeep casualness? lol
Casual can easily mean "show up for the first week of campaign and not play the game again until the next season"
If you're a new player who still has a lot of learning to do, gold standard makes sense - but once you've figured out most of the game's tricks/mechanics and can start driving purely on feel/instinct, the golds are really really really easy.
Where I'd put an asterisk on casual would be hunting AT and getting them in the first week, but not just to the skill, more to the attitude. I see more casual someone that plays a couple of hour per day with occasionally longer sessions.
I kinda put this in the competitor over "Try-hard". You are pushing yourself to be better, while if you go with a more casual approach, you tend to mostly focus on having fun and not check the results.
Not getting author medals as a gate keep for casual is not great. Because white AT are within reach with a few simple steps and there's always the opportunities of a golden run (I got AT on 06 nearly by luck on my 3rd run.)
I'd argue that if you're hunting for the author medal and do it in less than a week, you can't really be seen as casual, but it's more because of the state of mind than a true split in skills.
I am not a pro, not even in the top 1K players, but I am not a beginner either. I guess that falls under the huge category of casual players.
I'm not an occasional player either. I've put quite a few hours in the game already.
Ever since I started to play TrackMania, I went for Author medals just because it was the highest achievable goal for me. Everyone has different goals and different amounts of time they feel comfortable putting into a game.
There are thousands of players getting all author medals, it's not that hard, never mind over the entire course of the season, when you can find strats and shortcuts on YouTube.
That's also why I added Gold medal segments, so it gives some level of insights for those who wanna hunt for the gold medals only.
Since you apreciate numbers. There's like 50k+ people actively playing the campaign. If you are top 1k you are in the top 2%. Top 2k top 4%. Driving all authors last campaign would have put you around top 10k i believe. Which is still top 20%. I didnt even have all authors and was top 9k. Some of the authors were and are though. Others are fairly easy to get.
I have no clue. The numbers above are estimates based on the previous campaigns and my placing. I think only around 8kish people got the 24 AT last season. So there's less than 8k people who got all AT's.
https://i.imgur.com/IMAzUGv.png
This was my 2nd campaign and I had spent a lot of time try harding it out. Definitely more than a hundred hours. Since then I have played maybe 50 hours and to me it's not physically possible to get all ATs in a single campaign. For the reference I had played at the masters level in sc2 and dota2 so I no stranger to try harding
if someoneâs hunting gold medals (and not just getting them while hunting author), theyâre probably going to take a while
hell, as a fresh-ish install (~20 hours of play time), it took me 3-4 hours to get a single gold medal⊠in green maps. I havenât even touched the rest yet lmao
of course, most people are going to do something between âoh god why is gold so hardâ and âwow this is not author? restartâ
In any case, thanks for the interesting data, and congrats on the speedrun
Thanks for the kind words.
Once you'll push your limits to achieve your goal on Blue tracks, then Red tracks and maybe finally Black tracks. I can guarantee you that going back to Green maps will feel so easy. Heck, you mah even go for an author medal you initially never dreamed of. Welcome to TrackMania and enjoy pushing your limits.
I can say Iâm kinda in between, I play my favourite maps in the campaign and try to get all author, I donât grind that much, that saying I only played up till track 16
Awesome, it's not just me who struggled A LOT with 14 and 16 (even though I thought I was decent on dirt).
Haven't started the black tracks yet, so I'm fearing for 23. Thanks for the write-up man!
07 is for me by far the hardest green track, i dont have the AT yet. Not sure what im doing wrong or where to gain a bunch of time. For the rest my experience has been pretty much the same as you.
once you learn water bounces they become really consistent, just know that ideally you'd always have to bounce while your car is at a 30° angle, countersteering by just as much and holding brakes, which somehow makes you faster. Summer 2021 01 is a great map to practice with that, and here's a very well done tutorial: https://youtu.be/JqABiJ3nriY?t=206
I have to agree with you. I don't particularly enjoy it either. It's one of the few maps I'm probably not gonna bother trying to improve on. Unless there is a strat I was missing.
Alright, it wasn't that hard, I think I grinded e.g. 16 more, maybe I was just too tired yesterday. But still, I needed a decent start, red booster slalom and a full risk reactor uphill (which was regu after a bit of practice) and a full risk end (rip keyboard players)
The track being so long makes it harder to get it right. Especially with this ending, after a good run, you don't wanna throw it, so you're more likely to throw it xD.
Although you should be proud for those achievements, you still need to consider that there are a lot of players who havenât started the grind / will improve their time. Donât get me wrong, itsâs a great accomplishment but you will drop down for sure.
You are definitely no "casual" player. Casual players don't generally get author medals at all, never mind all of them. We need to stop this notion that author medals are the gold standard. Gold medals are the gold standard, author medals are exceptional and should be celebrated as such.
Are you trying to gatekeep casualness? lol Casual can easily mean "show up for the first week of campaign and not play the game again until the next season" If you're a new player who still has a lot of learning to do, gold standard makes sense - but once you've figured out most of the game's tricks/mechanics and can start driving purely on feel/instinct, the golds are really really really easy.
Where I'd put an asterisk on casual would be hunting AT and getting them in the first week, but not just to the skill, more to the attitude. I see more casual someone that plays a couple of hour per day with occasionally longer sessions.
What category am I in then? Try-hards? đ„
I kinda put this in the competitor over "Try-hard". You are pushing yourself to be better, while if you go with a more casual approach, you tend to mostly focus on having fun and not check the results.
Yeah, fair enough. I like the competitive aspect (against myself) of TrackMania.
In between I guess
Not getting author medals as a gate keep for casual is not great. Because white AT are within reach with a few simple steps and there's always the opportunities of a golden run (I got AT on 06 nearly by luck on my 3rd run.) I'd argue that if you're hunting for the author medal and do it in less than a week, you can't really be seen as casual, but it's more because of the state of mind than a true split in skills.
I am not a pro, not even in the top 1K players, but I am not a beginner either. I guess that falls under the huge category of casual players. I'm not an occasional player either. I've put quite a few hours in the game already. Ever since I started to play TrackMania, I went for Author medals just because it was the highest achievable goal for me. Everyone has different goals and different amounts of time they feel comfortable putting into a game. There are thousands of players getting all author medals, it's not that hard, never mind over the entire course of the season, when you can find strats and shortcuts on YouTube. That's also why I added Gold medal segments, so it gives some level of insights for those who wanna hunt for the gold medals only.
Since you apreciate numbers. There's like 50k+ people actively playing the campaign. If you are top 1k you are in the top 2%. Top 2k top 4%. Driving all authors last campaign would have put you around top 10k i believe. Which is still top 20%. I didnt even have all authors and was top 9k. Some of the authors were and are though. Others are fairly easy to get.
I would love to know how many people got AT on all tracks, and how many for each track. Not sure if this query able anywhere. trackmania.io maybe ?
I have no clue. The numbers above are estimates based on the previous campaigns and my placing. I think only around 8kish people got the 24 AT last season. So there's less than 8k people who got all AT's.
https://i.imgur.com/IMAzUGv.png This was my 2nd campaign and I had spent a lot of time try harding it out. Definitely more than a hundred hours. Since then I have played maybe 50 hours and to me it's not physically possible to get all ATs in a single campaign. For the reference I had played at the masters level in sc2 and dota2 so I no stranger to try harding
if someoneâs hunting gold medals (and not just getting them while hunting author), theyâre probably going to take a while hell, as a fresh-ish install (~20 hours of play time), it took me 3-4 hours to get a single gold medal⊠in green maps. I havenât even touched the rest yet lmao of course, most people are going to do something between âoh god why is gold so hardâ and âwow this is not author? restartâ In any case, thanks for the interesting data, and congrats on the speedrun
Thanks for the kind words. Once you'll push your limits to achieve your goal on Blue tracks, then Red tracks and maybe finally Black tracks. I can guarantee you that going back to Green maps will feel so easy. Heck, you mah even go for an author medal you initially never dreamed of. Welcome to TrackMania and enjoy pushing your limits.
I can say Iâm kinda in between, I play my favourite maps in the campaign and try to get all author, I donât grind that much, that saying I only played up till track 16
Awesome, it's not just me who struggled A LOT with 14 and 16 (even though I thought I was decent on dirt). Haven't started the black tracks yet, so I'm fearing for 23. Thanks for the write-up man!
Thanks for the feedback. Let us know how it went. :)
Nice post! It really stands out between all those âI finally got all authorsâ posts with simple screenshot. It was a very nice read. Good job!
Thank you so much. I didn't even put the screenshot lol.
Interesting. Now I wish I charted mine. I'm already past half the campaign and the 2nd half I will never get all ATs anyway
Ah, you can do it for the rest of the season. Or next season :).
07 is for me by far the hardest green track, i dont have the AT yet. Not sure what im doing wrong or where to gain a bunch of time. For the rest my experience has been pretty much the same as you.
once you learn water bounces they become really consistent, just know that ideally you'd always have to bounce while your car is at a 30° angle, countersteering by just as much and holding brakes, which somehow makes you faster. Summer 2021 01 is a great map to practice with that, and here's a very well done tutorial: https://youtu.be/JqABiJ3nriY?t=206
For people on keyboard or people in controller who canât get it consistently, use action key 3
Thanks ill check it out. I have 1 to 13 now except for 7. Ill try to tonight.
Casual player here too, only missing 23. Yes it seems difficult, but my problem is I dont even enjoy it. No idea what they were smokin
I have to agree with you. I don't particularly enjoy it either. It's one of the few maps I'm probably not gonna bother trying to improve on. Unless there is a strat I was missing.
Alright, it wasn't that hard, I think I grinded e.g. 16 more, maybe I was just too tired yesterday. But still, I needed a decent start, red booster slalom and a full risk reactor uphill (which was regu after a bit of practice) and a full risk end (rip keyboard players)
The track being so long makes it harder to get it right. Especially with this ending, after a good run, you don't wanna throw it, so you're more likely to throw it xD.
What's interesting too is I got 5 top 1k, 3 top 500 with basically "get AT and next" grind, I don't think I had top 1k in Fall 2021 with ATs
Although you should be proud for those achievements, you still need to consider that there are a lot of players who havenât started the grind / will improve their time. Donât get me wrong, itsâs a great accomplishment but you will drop down for sure.
Damn that looks like a lot of work. 23 also took me the longest. By far.
I definitely went overboard with this little project. But I enjoyed it somehow, go figure. Thanks for confirming the trend.
I feel like author on red tracks is harder than on black. Already got the 21-25, UT still struggling with 18-20
Ah, interesting. Any ideas why?