How to play Valley and Lagoon?

[Herman]

I'm rather good at playing Stadium, but I'm a disaster at Valley and Lagoon. There isn't really a way to opt-out of playing those though, so I'm just going to have to learn it. And I know there are people here who actually like these modes; so I'm hoping you can offer some advice.

So far I did notice that both modes as slightly more playable with the gamepad, because of the subtle input possibilities. But the effect is a lot smaller that I expected. I'm still tapping the analoge stick to go around gentle curves.

Valley
In Valley so far I've learned to constantly tap the steer, and never hold it. I also read that that you can tap the breaks before a jump to straighten out the car. I've yet to master that.

Lagoon
And in Lagoon you can't really steer while going full throttle, so going half throttle should solve that right? Nah, it doesn't really. I just let go of the throttle completely slightly adjust and go full throttle again. But I'm still so bad that I'm happy with a bronze medal.

[Jelleh95]

Valley, in my experience, relies very heavily on lifting off and braking, even in midair on some maps. I've found the subtle inputs with analog steering to definitely be key, especially when offroading. I haven't found braking to be particularly useful when offroading, but lifting off when in doubt has saved my skin more times than I care to mention. I've found drifting to be very useful when making sharp turns on asphalt, but going too sideways while drifting can slow you down a lot, even when offroading. Valley takes a lot of practice, and I'm still not exactly a master at it. I find it to be very fun though, and I hope you come to like it as much as I do.

Lagoon on the other hand... I'm afraid you are on your own here. My incredibly robust fifteen hours (sarcasm, by the way) have led me to argue that Lagoon is flawed from a physics standpoint, and is thus more luck-based than skill-based. It functions exactly the opposite of all the other environments when it comes to standard fullspeed asphalt steering versus drifting and offroading. Basically, drifting and offroading in all the other environments increases the sensitivity of your steering when compared to normal fullspeed asphalt driving. In Lagoon however, fullspeed asphalt steering is ridiculously oversensitive while offroading and drifting renders your steering borderline unresponsive. This basically means that when you go from drifting or offroading to an actually grippy surface, you absolutely HAVE to line it up perfectly, or you are going to end up flinging your car clean off the track in your panic to regain control. I don't know about you, but it makes more sense to me that someone who is offroading would experience a feeling of relief when entering an asphalt section of track, because they will have more control on asphalt. Unfortunately, you don't have a great deal of reliable control with the Lagoon car whether on asphalt or when offroading. And it doesn't help that they've also added slick roads and grippy sand to throw you off even more. Honestly, I seriously doubt you are a bad racer by any means. I just think you are being figuratively r@ped by Nadeo and their friggin' Rollercoaster Lagoon. But take this paragraph with a grain of salt. My hour count in Lagoon in comparison to all the other environments isn't exactly substantial.

That's all the input I have for now. Feel free to ask me any questions. I'd like to think I'm fairly well-versed when it comes to Canyon and Stadium. I've pumped almost 400 hours into the TM2 version of Canyon and my collective hour count between Nations Forever and the TM2 version of Stadium adds up to well over 100 hours. It would be great to talk to someone about TrackMania that actually cares about what I have to say and doesn't relentlessly kiss its @ss. :D

[Aldherrian]

Valley is the hardest of the four for me. You have to be very careful on the speed, don't hesitate to let go of the throttle instead of braking I'm actually stuck at the BlackValley, I usually get tired out of endless retries before I can get better than a bronze medal... Those jumps and walljumps are killing me...

Lagoon on the other hand is turning out to be a nice environment. I mean, there's a lot of variety. Asphalt, sand, wood, dirt, they all react differently. Asphalt reminds me a bit of Bay but it's just that you must not be afraid of going all for it in a curve, it will most likely make it even with a 90° turn at 300km/h.
Sand is trickier especially because you're usually thrown onto it from a road with a jump. At first, I prefered to slow down to get used to the controls and after a while I managed to a least try going in it full speed. But it's still dangerous !
Wood is the worst, I think. You can't really turn properly... except on a speed-up block where wheel is free and you risk messing up your direction.
It's tiring though that in Lagoon the so-called magnetic roads don't work at all at very high speed (like 400kmh). A messy turn could just throw you out the rollercoaster.
Actually, the one thing I hate is probably the fact that some tracks demand tremendous precision or are a bit dumb. One that ends with 3 or 4 ending block just after a wallride in wood where you just can't see where you're going, don't remember the number. Or the one where you have to jump very high onto a mag-road just after a narrow turn at full speed on wood (#143)

Some tracks are rad but I can't help but think that some others are hard for nothing. Maybe it's just why you can't really grasp how to go faster on these environments ?

[Sir Dennis]

Go back too the old trackmania that is good, this game is rubbish

[Aldherrian]

Setting aside your opinion on this game, OP's asking stuff about Valley which is in TM² and Lagoon which is not yet in TM² but will be at some point so what's wrong in seeking ways of improvement ?