Drive Club PS+ edition

[mizzou]

This free "demo" to PS+ users is pretty meh...

I always feel like I would enjoy a racing game, but when I play it, I find it boring. Dirt was probably the last racing game that I really enjoyed and sunk some time into.

Pretty graphics, OK driving experience, completely missing crash physics.

How the heck do people release or develop racing games on these consoles and not even include any crash physics whatsoever? That is completely unacceptable.

 

[purbeast0]

Lol this finally actually came out? Way too late for me to care about it. I was looking forward to this game too until the incompetent devs released the full game and flaked out on this version.

 

[artemicion]

How the heck do people release or develop racing games on these consoles and not even include any crash physics whatsoever? That is completely unacceptable.

Eh, I can understand not having super detailed, realistic crash physics in a pure racing game where crashing isn't intended to be a meaningful component of the gameplay.

Just like you're not supposed to crash through the barriers and mow down spectators standing on the side of the road. That's why they didn't implement "car-impacting-human-spectator physics."

If you want to crash cars, play Burnout. When I want to mow down bystanders in a car, I play GTA.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Eh, I can understand not having super detailed, realistic crash physics in a pure racing game where crashing isn't intended to be a meaningful component of the gameplay.

Just like you're not supposed to crash through the barriers and mow down spectators standing on the side of the road. That's why they didn't implement "car-impacting-human-spectator physics."

If you want to crash cars, play Burnout. When I want to mow down bystanders in a car, I play GTA.

I don't know what world you're in but when people play racing games they will crash and not having any physics for hitting a barrier or another car is pathetic.

 

[Lil Frier]

It's not about letting you crash for fun. It's about the idea that you shouldn't be a crappy driver, slap 15 walls at 120 MPH, and suffer little-to-no damage. I mean, throwing in traditional rubber-banding racing physics (not sure if Driveclub has that), and it's a crutch for bad driving that sucks.

 

[Qbah]

Downloaded it, played one race, deleted.

I don't think racing games are for me. Graphics were OK, I guess. I was crashing left and right and that didn't change the car's steering much. Dunno, it felt really boring in general.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I'll try it later and see what I think. Not hopeful but for free it's worth a shot

 

[artemicion]

It's not about letting you crash for fun. It's about the idea that you shouldn't be a crappy driver, slap 15 walls at 120 MPH, and suffer little-to-no damage. I mean, throwing in traditional rubber-banding racing physics (not sure if Driveclub has that), and it's a crutch for bad driving that sucks.

Haven't played Drive Club but crash physics were pretty rudimentary in GT and Forza games as well.

It's easy to criticize the lack of sophisticated crash physics as armchair game designers on a Internet forum, but the reality is I'd rather these game studios spend their time on other aspects of the game rather than go through the laborious task of designing sophisticated physics and associated graphical assets on an aspect of the game which basically shouldn't happen unless you're playing the game wrong or poorly (crashing).

I'd also say that there are gameplay considerations to take into account as well. Trolls intentionally crashing into other people during races are a problem in all racing games, but I imagine it'd be worse if they could cause permanent, crippling damage to other racers.

I would actually advocate a system to address this that is LESS realistic (i.e., if you cause a certain number of deliberate crashes, the game flags you as a troll and any future crashes will slow the troll's car down but have zero impact on the victim).

 

[Lil Frier]

Just for the sake of curiosity, how does one determine a "deliberate," crash?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Haven't played Drive Club but crash physics were pretty rudimentary in GT and Forza games as well.

It's easy to criticize the lack of sophisticated crash physics as armchair game designers on a Internet forum, but the reality is I'd rather these game studios spend their time on other aspects of the game rather than go through the laborious task of designing sophisticated physics and associated graphical assets on an aspect of the game which basically shouldn't happen unless you're playing the game wrong or poorly (crashing).

I'd also say that there are gameplay considerations to take into account as well. Trolls intentionally crashing into other people during races are a problem in all racing games, but I imagine it'd be worse if they could cause permanent, crippling damage to other racers.

I would actually advocate a system to address this that is LESS realistic (i.e., if you cause a certain number of deliberate crashes, the game flags you as a troll and any future crashes will slow the troll's car down but have zero impact on the victim).

Forza at least makes the game sort of realistic in that you get deformed models and poor handling to the point of being unable to compete if you crash too hard.

 

[logicweb]

Downloaded it, played one race, deleted.

I don't think racing games are for me. Graphics were OK, I guess. I was crashing left and right and that didn't change the car's steering much. Dunno, it felt really boring in general.

From the childhood i have hated racing games just do left and right thing is not for me it's not that i can't play racing games but their is nothing to do in it just steer left and right while i love games with more functionality.

 

[cmdrdredd]

From the childhood i have hated racing games just do left and right thing is not for me it's not that i can't play racing games but their is nothing to do in it just steer left and right while i love games with more functionality.

Not all racing games are the same. For example, there are people who are into racing in real life. They follow it, know all about the cars, know what each adjustment on a real car does, and are passionate about competition. Some racing games allow you to replicate a real race on a real track with a car that handles similarly to the real thing. You can drive your dream car on a track you'll never be able to get to. Most people will never drive a Pagani Zonda R on the Nürburgring in Germany. You can do it in Forza and have access to all the adjustments. Gearing, weight distribution, suspension adjustments etc.

It's more than pressing the go button and making the turn.

 

[artemicion]

Just for the sake of curiosity, how does one determine a "deliberate," crash?

Several factors. Angle of impact (unintentional would be a very slight angle, a deliberate impact would be far more severe). Placement on the racetrack (impact on a straightaway vs. during a turn). Frequency of impacts (game could forgive the first one or two, then start punishing you after that). Comparison to the "line" taken by other drivers. Speed of impact (i.e., you accelerated into a turn to hit someone that would have sent you careening off the track if the other car wasn't there).

Wouldn't be perfect, but you could easily implement something that could catch the worst offenders. Wouldn't want an overaggressive algorithm that generates false positives, but even a rudimentary one would be better than nothing.

 

[Lil Frier]

Most of that sounds like something that could easily be done improperly. A person online might just be bad and/or new to the game and unsure of how to drive. A person could be trying out new setting (particularly turning TCS/STB off for the first time) and have really bad problems. Someone could be adjusting to a manual transmission and not slowing down enough when downshifting (something that causes really bad control loss in Forza). It already ghosts you out if you drive backwards, and that's basically the only thing where you can truly see poor behavior taking control, as opposed to a lack of skill.

 

[artemicion]

Most of that sounds like something that could easily be done improperly. A person online might just be bad and/or new to the game and unsure of how to drive. A person could be trying out new setting (particularly turning TCS/STB off for the first time) and have really bad problems. Someone could be adjusting to a manual transmission and not slowing down enough when downshifting (something that causes really bad control loss in Forza). It already ghosts you out if you drive backwards, and that's basically the only thing where you can truly see poor behavior taking control, as opposed to a lack of skill.

Not really. If you accelerate INTO a turn and crash into someone, that's deliberate, not incompetence. I've seen it online. Some dipshit sees a line of cars slowly taking a sharp turn at the proper speed and they can't resist causing mayhem by slamming on their accelerator into those cars.

If you're taking a straightaway alongside another car and you sharply veer into the other car, that's deliberate, not incompetence.

I'm not talking about cutting out people who aren't following the track line endorsed by the world's professionals. I'm talking about the obvious stuff you see occasionally online.

 

[cmdrdredd]

This is the only free game I've deleted. It's riddled with microtransactions. Way too many cars locked out until you buy the correct pack and there's too many of them. So to get the few cars you might want to try (cause the stats are good) you need to buy 2 or 3 car packs at $5.99 a pop. That's on top of the full game to unlock some cars that aren't available at all in the free one (I understand this). Then there's multiple packs for $2 that have new races to participate in and there's tons of those.

Just a bad business model on top of a racing game that feels slow and has poor physics.