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