Bezrider wrote:Some good points made and unfortunately this is the way things are heading, you get ten players complaining they cant handle the cars and they need more grip and on the other hand you have one guy saying can we have a bit more sim in the driving.
Who do you think they are going to listen to?
Biggest problem being that gamers as a whole are notoriously averse to change. Most of the complaints could be summed up as: 'this sucks because it doesn't work exactly like in NFS/Burnout'.
Unfortunately for us, what makes Ubisoft a great company is, they give their talent and IPs all the resources to succeed. Like Assassin's creed for example. The first one wasn't very good, it wasn't such a huge critic or commercial success, but Ubi management knew that they had a potentially great franchise so they dutifully listened to the feedback, went back to the drawing board, and made the game the audience wanted. Assassin's creed II was a smashing success and the most acclaimed title in one of the greatest franchises of all time. But I can't stand playing a game in third-person view so I don't mind the game mechanics being dumbed down to the point of silliness.
There's no doubt in my mind they're already planning for The Crew 2. I think Fergus hinted at that in an interview soon after launch. Based on the nature of the market and their 'active' customer base, I'm not optimistic about the arcade nature of that second game.
MadManCK wrote:It does make sense if they make the FA as easy as possible to serve the Mario Kart-Need For Speed audience. But it does not make sense to nerf the Hardcore mode.
Unfortunately it does, for hardcore players to have a chance. That's the one thing Tixier said he, Fergus and Branchu wholeheartedly agree on: that hardcore players do not have a 30% disadvantage over arcade players as was the case in TDU1. The FA mode pushes the game into such looney tunes arcade territory that hardcore can only become too arcade as well.
He told me they would reduce the wheelspin on the CTR3, which i loved the way it was. But i have to admit that nobody else from our group or the devs was able to drive that car on my settings (540 degrees, HC on T500RS) they were all spinning almost instantly. So making that car more drivable was already done before the release and even more with last months patch. And at high tuning levels it is still a handful, so they were right to do that. All cars should be competitive in PvP after all.
You know, after playing on the keyboard for over a month now, I understand it. Sadly, it's like third-person view (chase cam). That shouldn't even exist, but devs have to adapt to players' die hard habits. There was a time when 3D accelerated graphics made cockpit views impossible but on the most powerful PCs. The generation that grew up with consoles was used to play with toy cars, from the third person obviously, so third person view became the standard. The industry being risk averse, it's remained the standard to this day. I consider it a cheat but 99.99% of players wouldn't even consider trying to understand that point-of-view at all. Same with keyboards and controllers. Controllers are fast becoming the norm even on the PC, keyboards are still the only controller to many players, and steering wheels are still a minority even though they have gained in popularity in recent years. The devs have to make sure the game is optimized for controllers first, the keyboard second and wheels third, just like they have to make sure the game runs best on mid-spec PCs and consoles rather than the uber high end segment which represents only 20% of the PC crowd and 2% of the overall base.
And i'm under the impression that the analogue controllers and wheels respond much worse to The Crew than the modern wheels and controllers. From the feedback you can notice that g27 users have more complaints about cars handling. Same for some controller players.
Tixier complained that Logitech had stopped supporting its wheel drivers a long time ago so that might have something to do with it. I know that I'd strongly recommend against buying a G27. If I had to upgrade, it would either be Fanatec or Thrustmaster. Probably Thrustmaster for the 1080° rotation and the fact that Thrustmaster are establishing themselves as the market leader with great quality products.
All influencers liked the direct responsiveness with a controller and were blown away with the wheel. Changing that was a big mistake, especially after that positive feedback.
They already planned to "work" on the controller setup (Hervé told me) and have only made things worse and indirect afterwards. Certainly not better.
And for a development team who say they listen to their players, that is the exact opposite of what they should have done.
The thing with the Influencers is, it's mostly a PR operation. I'm willing to believe the team is genuine about appreciating it and even finding value in it, but they still have to answer to the marketing department first and foremost. That's who gets the final word. Second, I think there's a demographic difference between the influencers (whose ages ranged from mid-20s to mid-30s and with even a 45 year old French guy) and the most active group of users on the forums who seem to be mostly teenagers, including very young teens. So I guess in the eyes of marketing, the influencers don't really represent the customers they're targeting the most aggressively.
That's one of the things that worry me most about the way the game is headed. The looney tunes arcade side of the game appeals mostly to younger players and they react more passionately about the things they don't like - anything that makes the game harder basically. At the same time it turned many older players away from the forum, especially among the core fanbase from the TDU days. Because of the "enthusiasm" gap, the devs disproportionately get their feedback from the young players who have the marketing department's ear mostly.
complaints about the handling are controller related. But they complain about handling because they don't know how that works. Base handling is very good in The Crew. An indirect controller setup can destroy a lot of feel for the cars.
Sadly it doesn't matter. Whether on the critical or consumer side, perception is what matters. A lot of players, especially young ones, pick up the controller and if it doesn't feel right, they're angry. They instantly complain on social media. It's even worse if they've heard about that other oh so perfect racing game that looks so good and feels so right from the start. That's it, you've lost them. Maybe with some patience you'll get them to tweak their settings and a few days later they'll come back and say that after all it wasn't so bad. Too late. Whenever someone checks the IGN or gamespot forum, searches The Crew in Google or Youtube, he'll see thousands of 'handling sux', 'Ewww PS2 graphics', 'physics are horrible' comments. And the majority will refuse to hear a thing anyway. Every other racing game they've played didn't need adjustments. NFS, Burnout, Horizon 2, all they had to do was pick up the controller and they could take 90° turns at 200 without losing grip and chain drifts without even trying.
What shocked me was how many so-called PC players whined because they didn't get a console gaming experience on the PC.
But this team, or at least part of them, were also responsible for releasing the HC mode for TDU1. A totally unrealistic but fun driving mode. That mode required a lot of skill.
I disagree with that. HC mode to me is the only realistic driving simulation I've ever experienced. I know it had severe limitations because the engine was both too simplistic and obsolete for the realistic physics it needed. But something like the simulation of weight transfer through the steering wheel for example, is something that most hardcore sims don't even come close to. I've never had the raw, visceral experience of throwing a Viper's weight around in any sim I've played. Sure, I knew of the engine limitations so I knew when not to go too far or too fast because those limits were quickly apparent when pushing the cars, but driving in the game like I used to in the real world (I'll be honest I'm chronically incapable of obeying speed limits which is why I only drive when I absolutely have to nowadays) netted the most immersive, real driving experience I've ever had on the PC. Forza 4 came close on the controller, but I'll probably never know because I have no plan on buying a wheel for the X360.
Now that Tixier made the physics engine that HC mode deserves? Forget it, most mind blowing experience ever by far. I'd never put my wheel back in the closet.
Maybe they can release a real HC mode for The Crew in the Future. As i think they underestimate the demand for a real challenging driving mode. Even kids who have never driven a car, like a challenge, but only if it is good.
The Original HC mode drove many people away with obviously unrealistic quirks, but still many others remained and the reason Atari greenlighted TDU 2 is because there were still over 6,000 people driving concurrently in a single day. Logging in randomly, it was striking to see mostly H signs.
I believe an HC mode is the kind of feature that would be done to reignite interest in the game right in time to promote a new season pass, just like weather and rv mirrors will probably be released for free but in time to generate interest in new paid content (remember Fergus hinted at a 6 month wait time due to the technical difficulty which could lead to a happy coincidence). But players will have to show there is enough support for it, and of course the devs have first to get the game in good working condition. Oh and the community managers will have to stop telling forum goers that they'll never get a simulation mode. That would be a first step.
