Writing in-depth reviews of modded racetracks in racing games isn't something I do very often, so I hope that you bear with me as I post my observations and thoughts on your tracks. For this review, I'll be categorizing my thoughts in three ways: the standard observations and thoughts, elements of tracks that I strongly suggest you change, and notes about tracks which may be contentious among players, in this exact order. As it is, I'm ranking tracks based on how they would be perceived as natural extensions of the base game, and most importantly whether or not they would be fun for people to play in netgames, but I'll do my best to be fair to tracks that are looking to break out of this mold as well.
P.S.: I'll only be ranking racetracks here (for the most part), battle stages and special stages are outside of my area of expertise! Sorry!
So, my thoughts on lizard pack:
So far this pack only has 2 tracks, both of which are pretty and the layouts are decent to just drive through idly. In my eyes, however, problems start to arise once you actually play these in multiplayer; both of them start feeling too wide and open for their own good, and for strange reasons have insane amounts of rings given to you for going off the beaten path, making them unnecessarily lopsided for multiplayer play. Here's hoping you can get some ideas from my review to make the tracks more fun than you thought they could be!
Also, why are all of the tracks in lowercase that bothers me
That does it for the overall summary of the review. I found there to be comparatively little to say in general than there is about each track in particular. Without further ado, here are my write-ups on each of the tracks in the pack:
* Ray City:
Though the track is pretty, there's several problems present in it which I view to be due to its overall width and openness, as well as the unbalanced ring handouts.
Recommended changes:
* Remove the checkered line in the area exclusive to position. This can be confused for the actual start line of the track.
* Reduce the amount of item boxes per set. In what is a stark change from SRB2Kart, Ring Racers is designed so fewer players are allowed to grab new items; rows of item boxes are placed so as few as possible are placed according to the width of the road (a 1024 fracunits-wide road, or 256 fu in 1/4 scale, usually only has 3 item boxes per row, the idea being to place as few as can cover the whole road without there being gaps between item boxes; one or two more item boxes may be placed depending on if the road is surrounded by off-road).
* The gray springs at the very end of the track don't seem to work properly, as you can still hit a wall when going into them.
* Remove the back alley you can get to with the dash rings after exiting the tunnel you get to from the first tripwire shortcut. This shortcut is already potent enough in letting you cut a massive amount of the track and separating you from the rest of the drivers; the fact the alley lets you drive uninterrupted up until the very last stretch of the race (and even give you a ring box!) makes it unbalanced.
* Disable the last tripwire shortcut on the final lap. Any such shortcut at the very end of a track is generally not a good idea; as an example, 765 Stadium in SRB2Kart had a similar shortcut near the end of the track, which has led to upsets at the final lap of races, and now gets blocked off on final laps for its iteration in Ring Racers.
* The amount of rings you can get from ring capsules throughout the track is far too excessive.
* Remove shortcuts from the minimap. Tracks in the base game typically don't show these on their minimaps, and this leads to confusion over which split paths are commonly accessible or not. The minimap also has a lot of detail to parse as is.
Things to consider:
* The track's width and openness makes its branching paths and hidden routes not work very well.
This statement needs some elaboration. Ring Racers, like most other kart racers, is balanced around players running nearby other players as the game focuses on player-to-player combat, and overall interactivity between players. Branching paths in tracks are used to separate players from each other, serving as a useful tool for relieving players that may be too clustered among each other in a tight section of a track; this makes them a similar measure to making tracks wide. Since the main route of Ray City is already wide and open, with incentives for going to the outer reaches of the track, adding split paths separate from the confines of the main path makes the track unnecessarily expansive and helps reduce player-to-player interactivity, which is critical to the game's balance. On the other hand, subverting the game's design in a similar way to this can lead to a track being particularly appealing and fun to play, but in the case of this track I'm of the belief that this simply makes the track clumsy and awkward to play.
In looking for alternatives that I consider to make for better tracks, I found that setting the MobjScale to 2*FRACUNIT/5 (2/5 player scale, or basically just making the track 1.6 times smaller for those not savvy in mapping) makes the track more naturally spaced and brisker to play through, also allowing the branching paths to work better.
As a reminder, the fact this point is not among "recommended changes" means it's not something I ask to be changed instantenously, as it requires some careful thought on what the track aims to be and what exactly should change from it.
* Outside of the alley following it, the amount of distance you cut through with the first tripwire shortcut is unbalanced. Separating yourself from the rest of the pack and saving time is already good enough of a concept for a shortcut; in practice, the exact placement of it and the fact you're given OutRun panels (!) to cut through it make it more powerful than it probably should be. This shortcut also causes SPBs to spawn often, due to how far the player taking the shortcut can get from the rest of the racers.
* You can go through the tripwire in the section after the trick pad by doing a voltage drop. This may or may not be good.
* Misty Maze:
A relatively simple layout with pretty visuals and a few fun setpieces. Though, the overall simplicity of the layout makes resemblance to Misty Maze seem small, at least from what I remember of playing the levels in Sonic Megamix Mania, and the track has issues in unbalanced ring and item pickups and awkward openness, leading to a track that doesn't do much particularly exciting in my eyes.
Recommended changes:
* At the start of position, it doesn't look like there's any clear path to take to get to the starting line. This is, in part, because the HUD blocks the visible portion of the road that goes underwater. There's rings located besides this road that should probably be rearranged to serve as a hint for where you have to go during Position, but you can also use Ark Signs for this.
* For the stone paths that have midtexture walls, these walls should contrast from the road and be more visible overall.
* Right near the first set of item boxes, you should probably make it so you can't get under the sloped road, and into that grassy terrain just in general.
* Most sets of item boxes should probably have only 3 item boxes instead of 4, for reasons mentioned beforehand with Ray City.
* More time should be spent into making sure the loop works properly.
* As in Ray City, I also recommend that you disable the shortcut at the very end for the final lap.
* Change the item capsules with the two land mines to just one land mine. They're decently powerful items, especially on a downhill.
* Reduce the amount of rings the tripwire shortcut that bypasses the loop gives you. A shortcut generally shouldn't give you enough rings to be in ring overcharge. About 20 rings should do.
* Instead of the top path near the first underwater section giving you several 50-ring capsules, you should be rewarded with only 2 10-ring capsules, a ring box, and possibly an item the further you go down said path. Alternatively you could limit it to just a ring box and cut the path off early, which is probably more balanced.
* Why are there springs near an arch in the first underwater section?
Things to consider:
* Misty Maze is a long track with plenty of wide roads and long stretches of straightaways. For a track based on Sonic Megamix (Mania)'s Misty Maze Zone, and though it employs underwater and the clouds seen in Sonic Megamix Mania's eponymous levels, the layout lands on the simpler side of things. The openness of the track as a whole causes a similar issue to Ray City, where any branching paths make the track similarly excessive in space, though this is far less frequent than in Ray City; this compounds a feeling of the track being awkward and boring, due to how much time is dedicated to otherwise sparse portions of track. Shrinking the track as a whole, as proposed with Ray City, may be a solution for this.
* People might complain about the starting line being more or less invisible from underwater, especially since you have to make a turn you are blocked the sight of to get there.
* The track is very long for 3 laps: a race takes roughly 5 minutes in Gear 2, an issue compounded by the vastness of the track. 2 laps would be paced more accordingly with other tracks in the game, assuming no other changes are made to the track's length.
* Handing out orbinauts at the very end of the track can and will lead to some insane upsets. Likewise, placing a shortcut there means giving people taking the shortcut a free item to defend themselves with.
* The clouds at the end of the track that lead you to one of three dash rings seem very harsh on players; none of the tracks in the game that make use of cloud trampolines have mandatory sections this strict.
OTHER:
* City:
There being a fixed camera angle for the start of the special stage is a neat and interesting idea. Handing out a free SPB seems a bit too easy for a special stage, though.
