My current Feedback (Wall of text)

[TheOnLY]

While I love the overall gameplay of GRIP it currently gives me a lot of frustration when playing the game for more than three races and it is caused by a wide variety of things. This feedback includes feedback for the public and the private build. I wont say too many positive things, because this post already is as long as a book. If i do not mention an aspect I like it or forgot about it.

The Physics
They are still annoying AF. The buggy collisions still happen frequently, but it is highly dependent on track and car. More about this in the car or track feedback.

Cars

I think you might want to make the cars collision boxes just a tiny bit smaller and /or have their edges more round.

Cygon Cyclone
The Cyclone really feels like a very light and agile car, but its top speed might be a little too high. It outperforms the Dominator in almost every aspect. It could use some more health though. Going form 0 to 80% damage by a single rocket might be a little to much.
Apart form some random too high bounces after landings, I don't have any problems with this car in therms of physics.

Terra Dominator
This car feels more average than the Cyclone, but is less fragile, so it doesn't get blown to the moon by a mine. Again no problems with physics here.

Terra Dreadnought
It was my favorite car until the Warlander wars released. Driving it well requires some planing ahead. It feels heavy, just like a tank should.
I sometimes experience bad physics with this car, especially landing at angle close to 45° or while wallriding. It isn't as bad as the Warlander though.

Vintek Warlander
I love the Warlander in terms of sound and and visuals, but I think it might be a little to strong overall. Muliplayer will show if this is true.
I am having the worst time with the Vintek in terms of physics. It randomly flips upon landing and even gets thrown off flat surfaces like the bridge in Alharta or the tunnels walls in FIC.


Tracks

Industrial
My least favorite. Not because I don't like the tracks design (i love how tight it is), but because it has a the most problems, of which most seem to be easily solvable.

Spoiler: show

First of all there are the tunnels. Every car collides with walls, throwing it around. I think the curvature might be a little too steep and raising the tunnels height could help.

Spoiler: show

These Arches are still a pain in the ass. They still aren't destructible. You crash into them when you aren't fast enough to go over them or slow enough to go under them. Additionally the car sometimes bounces up when landing, right into them.

Spoiler: show

These to jumps require you you to jump very accurate when you go fast and if you miss them you will come to a complete stop Not fun.

Alharta
2nd favorite. It has a lot more space to play with and I like it. I also like the new smaller entrance to this shortcut, but I think i should be widened just a little bit pushing the barrier back to the signs. Right now getting the shortcut depends on if the car has already settled from landing already or not.

Spoiler: show

[img]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/397833649938902558/3563023C352EE53AFB9A9D6F1DC704412F2DF296/[/img

There are some areas that are blocked off even though they shouldn't be. It is specially noticeable when driving the reverse version.

Spoiler: show

Transport
Not a fan of it.
To me it is too simple. It only has one route, you mostly drive in a tube and it hast a lot of obstacles in it that stop you dead. The player that uses more speedpads will usually win, cornering abilities don't really matter.
This part isn't too fun in reverse, especially if you get EMPed It is often buggy and you cant get up if you stopped right in front of it on medium engine speed:

Spoiler: show

Spedbowl
Very simple track. Again I am not a fan of that. It fully focuses around the battle aspect of GRIP.
Cars with a high top speed have a huge advantage. This one is 100% personal preference though.

FIC Outpost
Favorite. Its large scale is amazing. I love how it splits into different paths but you can still see the other ones. I has a great flow to it and almost nothing tho complain about. Only this seam isn't great because the cars body touches the ground and then the anti-fly-to-the-moon-code kicks in slowing the car down:

Spoiler: show

Pickups

As the devs probably know the pickup distribution isn't great at all.
I think duplicates should not be possible, as they only lead to cheap overtakes even when the opponent has a shield.
Picking up the same pickup over and over again is also quite annoying (nobody needs 4 miniguns). I think there could be a very simple system that reduces the probability of getting the same pickup again by x% each time the same pickup is picked up in a row. Once an other pickup is picked up the percentage resets. I thinks something between 25% and 50% would be good values.

But tweaking it even further that that isn't that useful until all pickups are in and quite final.

Firestorm
Not much to say about it. It is well balanced and works perfectly.

Scorpion
I like how you use them consciously so they don't just crash into the ground or objects. I think they shouldn't be able to navigate better or be more maneuverable. They are hard to dodge already.
The only thing that could use some improvements is the locking on. If the targeted car in hidden just for a very shot time the lock is gone (like behind the spikes in Alharta) and the rocket just lies into nowhere. I thinks the lock should stay for like 0.1 seconds to avoid this.

Quaker
It is balanced, its explosion range isn't too big, but I think my own mines should blow up if I drive over them, so I cant block certain locations for others while I still have access to them.They also shouldn't have a maximum lifetime, but there rather should be maximum amount of mines per player as it would prevent spam. There is no way of knowing when a mines lifetime will run out.

Gattler
Using this you have to consider what car is in front of you. It doesn't have a great effect on the Dreadnought, so you have to use it before jumps, but is highly effective against the Cyclone. I like it.

Assassin
Currently it is just a blue Scorpion that only targets the leader. I think it should be more diverse form the Scorpion.
It could hit the player from the front and not from the back (I think this is already planned, isn't it?). That way the shield isn't useful in defending against it. It also should be dodgeable, but just barely, slowing the player down in the process.

Aegis
Unlike most combat racers the shield only protects the rear of the car, setting GRIP apart from other games. It however covers a much bigger area than its visuals indicate (feels almost like a 180° angle). So it is possible to drift over a mine and be protected by the shield. It also makes it hard to hit players form the side with the minigun.
I also dont think that the shield should be rotatable to the front. Mines are already easy to avoid and having it rotatable makes the leader almost immune to them again (unless they are spammed).

EMP
People reading in this forum probably already know that I don't exactly like hate the current implementation of the EMP. Gradually slowing down after touching an unavoidable expanding grey orb isn't exactly exciting compared to rockets blowing you up into the air, requiring you to think and react fast or getting thrown around struggling to keep the car on track.
The bump isn't that great, too, as it throws airborne cars in all sorts of directions.

I will just quote myself from an other thread here:

I think the EMP is in a good spot in therms of how strong it usually is (its average effectiveness if you want to call it like that).
It is just that it effectiveness goes from one extreme to the other and it doesn't have that "Oh sh*t, I got hit!" feeling the other items have.
I think the best way to solve this is to compress its effect, making it stronger but shorter.

Something like the wheels locking up because the EMP disabled the magnetic suspension and the wheel hubs touch the cars body.
Just imagine a lot of sparks spraying out of them because of the high friction.

It could handle like suddenly using the handbrake (the car is still steerable at high speeds but slides around when it slowed down quite a bit).
This would require a reaction form the player to angle his car to not slide off the track and reduce the time the EMPs effect needs to be active, because it slows down faster, so it would achieve the same thing in less time. Additionally it could be more satisfying to the players getting hit because they can reduce the disadvantage they will suffer from getting hit by the EMP by angling their car properly before they get hit.

Gamemodes

Destructabe Vehicles in Races
I dont really have anything to say about the other modes, but these as I think these don't not work good at all.
Especially the lighter cars are too fragile (Clyclone from 0%-80 with one missile wtf?) and getting destroyed is game over. While it may work offline it does not do online. People that are destroyed will usually leave instead of waiting for the race to end. Same applies for the Elimination gamemode. DM on the other hand works because you just get a time penalty.

Multiplayer
For an early implementation it works great and the most annoying problems have already been fixed (always joining the same dead or broken lobby for example)
The only thing that does not work well is playing against high ping players. Their cars are immovable objects and if they lag you will crash into them while they can just keep going. I think their car on car collision should be disabled when players have ping spikes.

[potterman28wxcv]

I think cars should all have the same health.

That the dreadnaught has more strength, and thus reacts better to gattling/mines, it's all fine by me.

But that he has more health, I don't really like it. It feels unfair towards the other cars.

In general, I don't think it's possible to balance the cars both for destroyable and undestroyable - if they are perfectly balanced for undestroyable, as soon as one of them has more health, he becomes the best car in destroyable mode.

[Tathendal]

Regarding destructible cars, gotta say that I love those and always want it ON. Sometimes you get killed "unfairly" (e.g. get a good start and be at 1st, get no shield for 5 pickups and get 1 assassin and 2 scorpions in the butt), but generally works OK. Maybe you could nerf the weapons in terms of damage a bit, or give all cars a little more health? Or do a repair powerup which you get only if less than e.g. 40% of health and it repairs maybe 25%) Also when more powerups implemented, this can be balanced (you dont get missiles all the time when there are more powerups, or make them more rare).
BALANCING is everything ofc. You might want to think ahead the weapon balancing according to laps and player count (with more ppl you get destroyed more easily especially if you are first) so that they are most balanced e.g. with 8 racers and 5 laps. Also assassins and EMPs maybe shouldnt appear in the first lap, unless maybe for last player if (s)he is over 2000m behind. These kinds of things.

Speedbowl is a little boring for classic race, but fits perfectly for ultimate race. You gotta always think if you want to try and get away and gamble getting shields or stick with the pack maybe 2nd place and try to get missiles and gattlers etc this kinda things.

The arcs in Yuri are good IMO, gotta use boost to get over 'em or just let go of gas for a bit to not hit em when coming from the high tunnel. The tunnel enterance following that part is frustrating, but consistently doable with skill. Now, I kinda agree with you but on the other hand I want the tracks to be challenging. I like that I have to actually focus to get a perfect lap, and I like that I have to let go of throttle or even brake if I want to make sure I get the cornering /enterance/whatever right. And from these elements that bring you to full stop comes the balnce between Cyclon and Dreadnaught. I don't want the tracks so that you can go full throttle the whole thing. I like FIC outpost very, very, much too but it is in the edge of being too easy, due to the fact that there are only a few parts where you briefly have to let go of gas and probably 1 part where I use brake (in reverse mode last curves before the road splits and finish line follows). Increasing the height of tunnels I to reduce the collision I totally agree. Transport is fast, too (only couple of spots where I briefly let go of gas and 1 spot where I sometimes brake), but the obstacles are the great thing that make it interesting, so there I disagree with you. Transport reversed jump right after start I like, I like these kinds of things where you can totally f*ck someone with the right timing with powerups (MJAH MJAH MJAH!)

What you say about pickups, I generally agree. My solution to this would be that the pickups could be little less on the track and would often times require you to not take an optimal path, thus making you to choose between pickup and optimal line. That way you would also appreciate the powerup more, and maybe even save it instead of spamming it immediately in hopes to get a better one for just 2 seconds after. Also, the balancing thing. Assassins and EMps could be way more rare (increasing in chance the more further you are from the pack), but as said, this probably will be better once more powerups are implemented.

[TheOnLY]

Don't get me wrong, I want more tracks that require a good amount of breaking (thats why i love Industrials overall layout, it is nice and tight), but jumps aren't that predictable at the moment and I don't think they will every be. Sometimes the car randomly rotates into a direction while taking off, sometimes it changes its direction while landing.
And crashing in the places I talked about usually causes a pile-up of cars, slowing everyone behind it down.

The destructible car mode is just a lobby-cleaner. People who are destroyed towards the beginning of the race are very likely to leave because watching +5 minutes of a race you cant participate in is boring.

[potterman28wxcv]

Maybe you could nerf the weapons in terms of damage a bit, or give all cars a little more health?

I would nerf the Scorpion to be honest - it's a free hit (very easy to land at close range, unavoidable or barely) and 33% damage on the Dreadnaught.. A bit too high if you ask me.

The Quaker? You just have to be careful
The Gattling? Just go out of the way when you start taking damage
The Assassin? Well why were you first if your health was low and/or that you didn't have any shield? This one is a bit of a risk taking - wanna go for the lead? Fine, take the risk. But know that you might lose some health, and you're not 100% safe.

So, Scorpion aside, i've grown accustomed of this game mode - if you introduce health regen pickups, or if you nerf too hard the weapons, it kind of defeats the purpose of being destroyable.

That being said, I'd like to see a regen over time, or a regen per lap. Something the likes of 25% per lap would be nice.
Because right now, a 20 laps destroyable is just a last man standing.

Also assassins and EMPs maybe shouldnt appear in the first lap, unless maybe for last player if (s)he is over 2000m behind

It's fun to launch an assassin in the first lap - I don't see why you would like to forbid it

[potterman28wxcv]

Don't get me wrong, I want more tracks that require a good amount of breaking (thats why i love Industrials overall layout, it is nice and tight), but jumps aren't that predictable at the moment and I don't think they will every be. Sometimes the car randomly rotates into a direction while taking off, sometimes it changes its direction while landing.

I agree about landing - but I think it's a bug. I mean, when the car does a backflip on landing, it can't be intended, right ?
For the jump itself, I find them to be predictable - you have control on the roll of the car, but also on your jump length (by accelerating or decelerating). A good example is at the exit of the passage where you can destroy the building - if you turbo there, then jump, you will most likely hit the invisible wall and it will screw you up. However, if you turbo, and during the jump you decelerate, you will make it just fine right before the wall.

The destructible car mode is just a lobby-cleaner. People who are destroyed towards the beginning of the race are very likely to leave because watching +5 minutes of a race you cant participate in is boring.

Destructible should either have a low lap count (no more than 3 for example), or alternatively, should have respawnable cars. Like, 500 meters before the last.

Alternatively, we could imagine them turning into ghosts and firing to the other players. They would not be able to win the race anymore, but they could kill everyone on sight. Or is it too crazy of an idea ? :p

[Queadah]

The destructible car mode is just a lobby-cleaner. People who are destroyed towards the beginning of the race are very likely to leave because watching +5 minutes of a race you cant participate in is boring.

Players will accept almost any punishment as long as a reward is worth the risk. I'm linking this with my latest comment on the perk thread:
https://cagedelement.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&p=15982#p15982

[Tathendal]

Good points Potty and I personally agree (I don't frustrate on exploding 90% time because it is my own fault e.g. because I was reckless, and also I don't mind waiting laps for the race to end especially when the spectating gets better) but I was thinking more like in terms of the majority of players. Adding a bit of health to all cars wouldn't excaclty defeat the purpose IMO, what I meant that it would be only a tiny tad harder to explode a car. Well, I rarely play with Cyclone mostly because it explodes so easily (also low top speed is another big factor). But all cars shouldn't have the same health either. Dreadnaught should be able to take more beating than Cyclone, what's the point in calling it tank otherwise and also speedsters can brake and steer more to avoid mines etc. since they are faster to pick up speed again and have better handling etc, that is part of balancing the cars

edit. In the landing you can't throttle or steer unless you want to fly off course or do flips, unless you are perfectly aligned vertically and horizontally and z-axis wisely. In some cases though, you can use throttle to make your car go straight from landing, since the car's mass wants to continue in the direction it is already going. Though sometimes buggy, but this is a feature I very much like in GRIP (as I have stated in numerous threads already) that although being an "arcade" game, the physics are not arcade physics and it actually matters in all scenarios whether you press gas or not or steer or not.

[Chris_CE]

Cars/physics:

It's hard for you guys to give suggestions, as this is an extremely complicated thing, with a plethora of issues pertaining to collision issues inherent with PhysX and UE4. For instance, collision hulls have to be quite simple and can't be rounded as on import, UE4 will break it up into a bunch of pieces that have sharp edges/corners causing the car to catch on things. That said, none of the cars' collision is behaving how we'd like, so we're looking at redoing the hulls before the end of the year.

Also before the end of the year, we'll hopefully be making some substantial improvements to car physics and handling in general, as we're very aware that it can be quite frustrating and unpredictable. Along with that we'll take a look at vehicle balancing to make each car a worthwhile drive
note: the Warlander right now is essentially broken in that it loves to bounce and catch on things. I wouldn't recommend driving it much yet


Tracks:

Yuri:
1)The tunnel issues are pretty much all due to physics issues and not the design of them. If they're any higher they'll dwarf the car and make them look like toys.
2)Personally I like the arches being there, as they create a challenge. You need to control your thrust coming out of the tunnel as well as in the air. Bouncing up into them is a physics problem
3) I'll see what I can do here. I agree that it can be frustrating

Alhatra:
1) Again, the fact that getting into the shortcut is based on whether the physics behave or not indicates I shouldn't touch this until we work on physics.
2) I've fixed the barrier in the 2nd shot

Transport:
I've done a lot of work on this map in the past week, so wait until next patch to judge much more. I have to say though that the reverse wall to ceiling jump is one of the more interesting designs in the whole game, and I spent a long time tweaking it, so it's staying. I think it's a lot of fun and others have expressed so. The amount of times I've been EMPed or slowed enough to not make it up there is really slim

Speedbowl: Personal preference indeed. I know a few people who have it as their favourite


Pickups: I'm not going to get into this right now, as I really can't afford to discuss it with so much to do

Destructible cars: I agree that they blow up pretty fast. We wanted to tweak the damage values of weapons, as it's been discussed a few times. Then we can figure out if tank-ier cars should take more hits or not.

Also, maybe we should have cars respawn in races after getting destroyed, rather than have the players wait until the end

Sorry I didn't answer everything or go over all he posts in here, but I can't afford to do that for every post. Right now I'm improving levels and I'm sure you guys would like me to do that more than read the forums

Don't get me wrong, I want more tracks that require a good amount of breaking (thats why i love Industrials overall layout, it is nice and tight), but jumps aren't that predictable at the moment and I don't think they will every be. Sometimes the car randomly rotates into a direction while taking off, sometimes it changes its direction while landing.

This is precisely what we want to fix with the physics soon

[Tathendal]

Also, maybe we should have cars respawn in races after getting destroyed, rather than have the players wait until the end

Please no, it would defeat the purpose. I like destructible for that reason that you have to be really really careful with the damage and sometimes it means slowing down or taking risks. 2nd reason is that it makes the weapons actually matter, without destructible (or with respawn) even the mines are quite often very minor annoyance, with Dreadnaught you can pretty much drive through 'em most of times. The feel would be entirely different if you know your car will just respawn.

[omegalucas]

Also, maybe we should have cars respawn in races after getting destroyed, rather than have the players wait until the end

Please no, it would defeat the purpose. I like destructible for that reason that you have to be really really careful with the damage and sometimes it means slowing down or taking risks. 2nd reason is that it makes the weapons actually matter, without destructible (or with respawn) even the mines are quite often very minor annoyance, with Dreadnaught you can pretty much drive through 'em most of times. The feel would be entirely different if you know your car will just respawn.

I liked it in Firebugs (please don't kill me xD)
Just add it as a menu option. Simple as that.

[Queadah]

The option can be turned off so cars don't blow up. I think when you setup a MP with destructible, you know what you get. Having on top of that an option where you blow up BUT come back to life... meh. I'm with Tathendal.

Again, perhaps it's a good idea to associate blowing up (hard consequence) with a survivors' reward (collecting scraps from the wrecks to craft new parts later?). I"m referring to Rob's original idea: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3479&p=16011&hilit=perk#p15982

[Ryu Makkuro]

Yuri:
1)The tunnel issues are pretty much all due to physics issues and not the design of them. If they're any higher they'll dwarf the car and make them look like toys.
2)Personally I like the arches being there, as they create a challenge. You need to control your thrust coming out of the tunnel as well as in the air. Bouncing up into them is a physics problem
3) I'll see what I can do here. I agree that it can be frustrating

#2 I also like the challenge that comes from them. However, I don't like the anti-missile defense that comes with them. Honestly, the missiles hit them on my side so often I just stopped bothering even trying to shoot somebody near them. I would like to see those arches being destroyable though. That would be really nice.

#3 I think those parts are also due to physics. Unless you're driving a Dreadnaught on full Turbo on Wild engine speed, you're not going to crash into the sides of the tunnel... if the physics won't screw up. You have more than enough time to correct your line as long as the physics won't act up. Same situation with the valley entrance. As long as the physics won't act up, you can easily avoid hitting them. If you crash into them while physics didn't do anything... it's your fault only. The difficulty of Yuri is hard after all.

Transport:
I've done a lot of work on this map in the past week, so wait until next patch to judge much more. I have to say though that the reverse wall to ceiling jump is one of the more interesting designs in the whole game, and I spent a long time tweaking it, so it's staying. I think it's a lot of fun and others have expressed so.

Maybe a row of speed pads directly in front of that slope to make sure everyone will get up there? I love that part personally, it's the normal forward version that has a normal jump that I ain't very fond of. Especially when the approach to that jump is rather bumpy. I did mention few times I'd prefer if in forward that slope was actually a broken tunnel that goes completely downwards forcing a ceiling driving (unless someone wants to hit the wall dead on xD) and disabling that jump. But apparently I'm in minority here so I'll kindly shut up on the subject

Speedbowl: Personal preference indeed. I know a few people who have it as their favourite

I personally think that track shouldn't be even included at all when talking about cars balance etc. Nor should it be included into any tournaments etc. I know it's a homeage to the Rollcage, but in my eyes this is the "Noobbowl", as it's effectively "push forward to win" track.
In short, it's there for the sake of being there, just don't care about it.

Destructible cars: I agree that they blow up pretty fast. We wanted to tweak the damage values of weapons, as it's been discussed a few times. Then we can figure out if tank-ier cars should take more hits or not.

Also, maybe we should have cars respawn in races after getting destroyed, rather than have the players wait until the end

Well, I propose a much more simpler solution. Remove destructible vehicles from the Race mode altogether. It's a race after all, not a destruction derby. However in Ultimate Mode, the destructible vehicles should stick by all means. On top of that you can add an extra option when enabling destructible vehicles which would be "Respawn". That way everyone could set it to their liking and given that it's Ultimate Mode where blowing another player up gives you points and prevents them from scoring is a very effective tactic... well... it makes full sense to have destructible vehicles there.

In a race environment this really doesn't make much sense, as if you set 6 or more laps it is effectively last man standing. 5 laps will most likely be last man standing, 4 laps has a reasonable chance of it being that. I mean I blew up all the other 9 AIs in a matter of 3 laps (I was effectively just staying behind and shooting everything in front of me, gradually going through the pack while the Assassins dealt with the leaders). Even if you'd nerf the weapon damage, doing 10 laps (let alone 20 laps) would be impossible.

[potterman28wxcv]

Speedbowl: Personal preference indeed. I know a few people who have it as their favourite

I personally think that track shouldn't be even included at all when talking about cars balance etc. Nor should it be included into any tournaments etc. I know it's a homeage to the Rollcage, but in my eyes this is the "Noobbowl", as it's effectively "push forward to win" track.
In short, it's there for the sake of being there, just don't care about it.

It's a track where a high stake is put on weapons. I would understand if it's not included in any tournament because of its imbalance between the cars. But a combat racer is not just about racing, there is also the weapons part, and on which lane you want to go.

So, no, it's not the "push forward to win".

Destructible cars: I agree that they blow up pretty fast. We wanted to tweak the damage values of weapons, as it's been discussed a few times. Then we can figure out if tank-ier cars should take more hits or not.

Also, maybe we should have cars respawn in races after getting destroyed, rather than have the players wait until the end

Well, I propose a much more simpler solution. Remove destructible vehicles from the Race mode altogether. It's a race after all, not a destruction derby. [...]

In a race environment this really doesn't make much sense, as if you set 6 or more laps it is effectively last man standing. 5 laps will most likely be last man standing, 4 laps has a reasonable chance of it being that. I mean I blew up all the other 9 AIs in a matter of 3 laps (I was effectively just staying behind and shooting everything in front of me, gradually going through the pack while the Assassins dealt with the leaders). Even if you'd nerf the weapon damage, doing 10 laps (let alone 20 laps) would be impossible.

You're talking about playing against AIs, in which case yes it's easy to defeat them with destructible. But what about playing against real humans ?

I agree when the lap count is > 6 it becomes a bit of a last man standing, where you want to avoid any contact at all. Maybe adding a health regen solution could fix the problem.

However, with a lap count is around 3 or 4, it makes up for a different and interesting experience. I would not like to see it stripped away of the game just because of issues with high amount of laps.

My only issue with destroyable cars, is that the Scorpion is impossible to avoid, and is basically a free 33% damage.
Assassin ? Just brake and let someone go past you.
Gattling ? Get out of the way
Mine ? Avoid them
But scorpion ? It's just frustratingly unavoidable - even if you got a shield, you're not safe
(this is also the reason why I dislike Arena mode - scorpion missile feels way too cheap)

[Ryu Makkuro]

It's a track where a high stake is put on weapons. I would understand if it's not included in any tournament because of its imbalance between the cars. But a combat racer is not just about racing, there is also the weapons part, and on which lane you want to go.

So, no, it's not the "push forward to win".

Ok, drive to the bottom lane, then push forward to win. Even if you're going to include the weapons, a tank will just have to hit a speeder with a raptor or missile and that's the end of the story. Speeder will have to utilise entire arsenal to try and catch back, then is the issue of keeping up, let alone overtaking.

Honestly, this track should just be ignored completely in terms of balance, since it's catered towards tanks 100%. Heck, 200% since not only top speed but also weapons. Two things in which tank excels. Just leave it. #MovingOn

You're talking about playing against AIs, in which case yes it's easy to defeat them with destructible. But what about playing against real humans ?

I agree when the lap count is > 6 it becomes a bit of a last man standing, where you want to avoid any contact at all. Maybe adding a health regen solution could fix the problem.

However, with a lap count is around 3 or 4, it makes up for a different and interesting experience. I would not like to see it stripped away of the game just because of issues with high amount of laps.

My only issue with destroyable cars, is that the Scorpion is impossible to avoid, and is basically a free 33% damage.
Assassin ? Just brake and let someone go past you.
Gattling ? Get out of the way
Mine ? Avoid them
But scorpion ? It's just frustratingly unavoidable - even if you got a shield, you're not safe
(this is also the reason why I dislike Arena mode - scorpion missile feels way too cheap)

Well with AI it's not an issue of having a full lobby. On top of that AI isn't as aggressive with pickups as players are. This means that it will take longer to destroy a grid of 10 cars (9 AI + player) than a grid of 5-6 cars which would be your typical MP lobby. I'd be amazed if after 2 laps there would be more than 3 players left.

The problem with destructible vehicles in a race is that the aim changes from "be the fastest" to "destroy the others as fast as possible and don't let be destroyed". That doesn't matter in an Ultimate race, where you want to wreck others anyway but it makes the race no longer be a race. I mean what's the point of a race when you're not racing but just blatantly wrecking each other. It's basically elimination... just instead of the timer you have a health bar. Give an option to Elimination mode to toggle between timer or health bar and you're good to go.

Also, your solutions aren't as great as it sounds. Here's why:
- Assassin, you brake, then someone else gets in front, sees the note, brakes, you get past again etc. Just because you know the trick doesn't mean others don't.
- Raptor... well, if you can get out of the way, great. Chances are that you'll be in a tight tunnel from which you can't get out of the way, aka you're screwed, possibly more so currently than from a Scorpion since Raptor can almost one shot you and the shield won't help much.
- Mine... yeah, agreed. Just avoid, unless it's that one spot on FIC Outpost where you can't avoid, then just have a Raptor ready when using that route.
- Scorpion... well, a lock-on missile. You just have to make sure that it hits the rear when you have a shield (just don't drift) OR that you're wallriding. Wallride = missile in a wall. Same story with Assassin currently.

I think that in Arena, the shield should cover the whole car anyway. None of the "just from the rear", which works in a race but not in an Arena where you're... how to put it... surrounded from all sides all the time. And the last thing you want in arena is to have someone at your back.

That said however... pickup balancing is pointless right now. Wait till all are in, then something can be done about them, especially when the person responsible for programming them afaik is the same person that is doing the physics as well, aka Rob.

[Tathendal]

I'd be amazed if after 2 laps there would be more than 3 players left.

You would be amazed in quite many MP races then, at least of the many dozen of races I have had.

The problem with destructible vehicles in a race is that the aim changes from "be the fastest" to "destroy the others as fast as possible and don't let be destroyed".

Hmm, I have to say I disagree, most times if the 1st driver can get a little bit of lead to the others he can usually get shields in time to counter the assassins, so trying to get as much lead as possible is the best strategy. In Crash Team Racing powerups were imbalanced, you could consistently win with the strategy of being last until final lap starts because you would get all the OP powerups when you are last. I think destructible adds very much compared to pure racing, and very very rarely is about last man standing when talking 5 or less laps.

[TheOnLY]

Yuri:
2)Personally I like the arches being there, as they create a challenge. You need to control your thrust coming out of the tunnel as well as in the air. Bouncing up into them is a physics problem

I don't want them to be removed, I just think they should be destructible, so when they collapse their debris would then block the road beneath and you have to jump over it, instead of driving under them or use the alternative route, making the track a little more dynamic, like the destructible building in the last shortcut does.

Maybe a row of speed pads directly in front of that slope to make sure everyone will get up there? I love that part personally,

This would be an easy solution to this.

it's the normal forward version that has a normal jump that I ain't very fond of. Especially when the approach to that jump is rather bumpy. I did mention few times I'd prefer if in forward that slope was actually a broken tunnel that goes completely downwards forcing a ceiling driving (unless someone wants to hit the wall dead on xD) and disabling that jump. But apparently I'm in minority here so I'll kindly shut up on the subject

I would like to see that too, but i think it would be to different form the other parts of the track, as it is very simple and you pretty much only have to avoid obstacles. I think something in the middle would be good, so you can drive on the ceiling but also just do a jump. Maybe a ramp that goes to the other side of the tunnel (my favorite as it would keep the reverse route as it is currently) or just a hole in the tunnel where you jump through.

Spoiler: show

The blue would be just a hole in the tunnel or maybe even breakable glass that scatters when cars hit it.
Orange arrow is a speed pad because this route would probably be slower, because it is longer.

[potterman28wxcv]

It's a track where a high stake is put on weapons. I would understand if it's not included in any tournament because of its imbalance between the cars. But a combat racer is not just about racing, there is also the weapons part, and on which lane you want to go.

So, no, it's not the "push forward to win".

Ok, drive to the bottom lane, then push forward to win. Even if you're going to include the weapons, a tank will just have to hit a speeder with a raptor or missile and that's the end of the story. Speeder will have to utilise entire arsenal to try and catch back, then is the issue of keeping up, let alone overtaking.

Honestly, this track should just be ignored completely in terms of balance, since it's catered towards tanks 100%. Heck, 200% since not only top speed but also weapons. Two things in which tank excels. Just leave it. #MovingOn

Well maybe you could make the speed pads harder to take, so that a tank would have to move very precisely to take them, while a speeder would be able to take them all without any problem.

I mean, I agree that in its current state it's inbalanced, but I don't see why it should be completely thrown in the garbage can

You're talking about playing against AIs, in which case yes it's easy to defeat them with destructible. But what about playing against real humans ?

I agree when the lap count is > 6 it becomes a bit of a last man standing, where you want to avoid any contact at all. Maybe adding a health regen solution could fix the problem.

However, with a lap count is around 3 or 4, it makes up for a different and interesting experience. I would not like to see it stripped away of the game just because of issues with high amount of laps.

My only issue with destroyable cars, is that the Scorpion is impossible to avoid, and is basically a free 33% damage.
Assassin ? Just brake and let someone go past you.
Gattling ? Get out of the way
Mine ? Avoid them
But scorpion ? It's just frustratingly unavoidable - even if you got a shield, you're not safe
(this is also the reason why I dislike Arena mode - scorpion missile feels way too cheap)

Well with AI it's not an issue of having a full lobby. On top of that AI isn't as aggressive with pickups as players are. This means that it will take longer to destroy a grid of 10 cars (9 AI + player) than a grid of 5-6 cars which would be your typical MP lobby. I'd be amazed if after 2 laps there would be more than 3 players left.

No offense, but you clearly didn't play any Multiplayer game with Destroyable vehicles then. Because after 2 laps, in a 6 players lobby, there is usually more than half of the players still standing.

The problem with destructible vehicles in a race is that the aim changes from "be the fastest" to "destroy the others as fast as possible and don't let be destroyed".

The aim changes from "be the fastest" to "balance speed and sustainability". It requires a bit more thinking than "be the fastest" or "destroy everyone". In the first case, you're gonna be destroyed for sure - in the second case, you will focus on destroying others so much that you will lower your speed (because to destroy someone you need to stay behind him), and maybe a group of 2-3 people will take the lead and one of them will win, while you were still busy destroying people on the background.

I mean, just try yourself to apply the "destroy the others ASAP" strategy in a multiplayer game, and see what happens :p

That doesn't matter in an Ultimate race, where you want to wreck others anyway but it makes the race no longer be a race. I mean what's the point of a race when you're not racing but just blatantly wrecking each other.

The point is that it brings some more strategy into the race. In particular, the decision "should I go for the lead" is very important. If you go for the lead too soon, you get wrecked - if you go too late, someone else will be first. You're not "just blatantly wrecking each other" in a destroyable race. There is a lot more than that.

It's basically elimination... just instead of the timer you have a health bar.

A health bar that can stay at 100% for the entire race time. It already happened to me more than once during the few multiplayer games I have played. You can't assimilate the two - in elimination you are sure that there is going to be only one survivor in the end. In destruction, you don't, and in many cases there is half of the players that get to finish the race.

Give an option to Elimination mode to toggle between timer or health bar and you're good to go.

I disagree, it's completely different in terms of strategy. In elimination, you want to focus on not being last during the last 10 seconds so that you don't blow away. In destruction race, you focus on complex decisions involving your position, the items you have, and how close/far are the other drivers from you. Elimination is a short-term goal, while destruction race is more of a long-term one. You can't assimilate the two, again.

Also, your solutions aren't as great as it sounds. Here's why:
- Assassin, you brake, then someone else gets in front, sees the note, brakes, you get past again etc. Just because you know the trick doesn't mean others don't.

It's not as simple as that - you didn't take into account the time left for the assassin to reach you. You can faint a slowdown so that someone catches on you, and right when the assassin is going to strike you, you brake. Or maybe the other guy anticipated it, in which case funny situations can happen, but if you play this game for too long, the rest of the players can catch-up on both of you.

I mean, I know that others know the trick. But I don't see how it invalidates the strategy. It's more of a mini-game where your health is at stake, but also your short-time position.

- Raptor... well, if you can get out of the way, great. Chances are that you'll be in a tight tunnel from which you can't get out of the way, aka you're screwed, possibly more so currently than from a Scorpion since Raptor can almost one shot you and the shield won't help much.

Getting out of the way = turn to the right/left and slowdown so that the guy goes past you. Since the bullets have auto-aim and infinite speed, it's no use to just turn right/left. Unless you're in an area where you can change your lane, but it's very rare.

- Mine... yeah, agreed. Just avoid, unless it's that one spot on FIC Outpost where you can't avoid, then just have a Raptor ready when using that route.

When you play on Destroyable, it leads to an interesting choice in Yuri Industrial, when you arrive at the tunnel where you can dissimilate a mine where there's the pick-ups. Either you play extra carefully.. So you slowdown in order to not reach the pick-up wall, and you either avoid the mines or take the pick-ups. But then you're slower than usual. Or you go full speed on it - you take the risk of taking a mine, but at least you go fast.

[Ryu Makkuro]

Hmm, I have to say I disagree, most times if the 1st driver can get a little bit of lead to the others he can usually get shields in time to counter the assassins, so trying to get as much lead as possible is the best strategy.

I don't want to appear rude, but what the heck are you doing that you allow the 1st player to get a lead? 1st player should always be on everyone's aim.

And what's the point of shooting a single Assassin, when the shield will deal with it? I would imagine people would be smart enough by this point to shoot them in a row, rather than one every once in a while.

Well maybe you could make the speed pads harder to take, so that a tank would have to move very precisely to take them, while a speeder would be able to take them all without any problem.

I mean, I agree that in its current state it's inbalanced, but I don't see why it should be completely thrown in the garbage can

Truth be told... you can be more precise with a tank than the speeder class, due to the fact speeders react very quickly and strongly, which usually means reduced precision but improved responsiveness while tanks have a smooth rather slow response which can be more accurate, especially when someone is playing on a keyboard or even gamepad. In short... this wouldn't solve anything.

I'm not saying throw it into garbage can. Just don't bother with balancing anything with this track in mind. Because balance here will mean every car being pretty much the same or... a completely unbalanced mess on the other tracks. You can have some single class tournaments, for which speedbowl will work perfectly. Just don't include this track into any balancing talk whatsoever, cause it doesn't have a balance.

No offense, but you clearly didn't play any Multiplayer game with Destroyable vehicles then. Because after 2 laps, in a 6 players lobby, there is usually more than half of the players still standing.

What the heck are you doing there then? o.O

The aim changes from "be the fastest" to "balance speed and sustainability". It requires a bit more thinking than "be the fastest" or "destroy everyone". In the first case, you're gonna be destroyed for sure - in the second case, you will focus on destroying others so much that you will lower your speed (because to destroy someone you need to stay behind him), and maybe a group of 2-3 people will take the lead and one of them will win, while you were still busy destroying people on the background.

I mean, just try yourself to apply the "destroy the others ASAP" strategy in a multiplayer game, and see what happens :p

I did, worked great. The trick in MP is to not stay behind but keep wrecking those that want to get into the lead. With AI you can go from the last towards the front, since they are basically always a shortcut away from you, in MP you have to stick in the middle more and make sure the 1st player doesn't go away (which ain't that hard as long as you keep that in mind).

The point is that it brings some more strategy into the race. In particular, the decision "should I go for the lead" is very important. If you go for the lead too soon, you get wrecked - if you go too late, someone else will be first. You're not "just blatantly wrecking each other" in a destroyable race. There is a lot more than that.

If you go for a lead, and by that I mean a lead where the 2nd player can't do anything to you... you won essentially. Spam with mines and use the anti-Assassin routes as often as possible and the shield will do the rest.

Or you can go for the destruction route and just sit in a spot where you can keep the 1st place in check while still being able to destroy others. Aka "blatantly wrecking each other". If you know how, you can do a lot. And your perfect planning that tries to bring some strategy falls to nothing. Especially when there's a skill difference involved, which in public MP will always be the case.

A health bar that can stay at 100% for the entire race time. It already happened to me more than once during the few multiplayer games I have played. You can't assimilate the two - in elimination you are sure that there is going to be only one survivor in the end. In destruction, you don't, and in many cases there is half of the players that get to finish the race.

Well, technically speaking the timer ticks only for the last place. So as long as you're not last, you have "100%" of it all the time In destruction you can make sure there won't be anyone left... you just don't give a limit of laps, just like in Elimination.

I disagree, it's completely different in terms of strategy. In elimination, you want to focus on not being last during the last 10 seconds so that you don't blow away. In destruction race, you focus on complex decisions involving your position, the items you have, and how close/far are the other drivers from you. Elimination is a short-term goal, while destruction race is more of a long-term one. You can't assimilate the two, again.

Short-term goal? In Elimination all of those things you included in destruction apply as well. You can go for "not being last during the last 10 seconds", sure, but you can always go "let's be first and slow them down with mines so they fight between each other" or even stick in the middle and slow them down more directly etc.
But at the end of the day... it's still very simple. Your end goal is to be the last man standing. Be it through being 1st and just letting everyone else kill each other or killing everyone else by yourself (literally destroying or screwing them up so they end up last unable to overtake the 2nd to last place).

I mean, I know that others know the trick. But I don't see how it invalidates the strategy. It's more of a mini-game where your health is at stake, but also your short-time position.

I didn't say it invalidates, just that it's not so great I personally prefer to make sure I'll be wallriding when the Assassin is going to hit me or simply take a route that Assassin doesn't go through. Naturally that's for now although the wallriding may be effective against missiles in other way even in the future when Assassin has better pathing and hits from the front.

Getting out of the way = turn to the right/left and slowdown so that the guy goes past you. Since the bullets have auto-aim and infinite speed, it's no use to just turn right/left. Unless you're in an area where you can change your lane, but it's very rare.

Well, you're still going to get a lot of damage from the gun that way. And if you're running a shield, it would be more beneficial to not slow down and just try and get as much distance as possible or if you're in a tunnel aim for ceiling driving (through a wallride naturally), which can throw the aim off. Slowing down ain't as great of an option, since they can literally ram into you and then you're quite literally screwed completely.

When you play on Destroyable, it leads to an interesting choice in Yuri Industrial, when you arrive at the tunnel where you can dissimilate a mine where there's the pick-ups. Either you play extra carefully.. So you slowdown in order to not reach the pick-up wall, and you either avoid the mines or take the pick-ups. But then you're slower than usual. Or you go full speed on it - you take the risk of taking a mine, but at least you go fast.

There's also an option of checking the HUD if there's a mine there or having a Raptor ready. Solves your issue completely. Or if you have a lot of health just don't care at all, especially if you're driving a Dreadnought, although in that spot nothing will get thrown around due to speed and centrifugal force.

Mines should be more about screwing you up rather than dealing damage anyway. Bigger radius, almost no damage, and that bit more rare to get (that will be solved partially by more weapons in general).

[potterman28wxcv]

Hmm, I have to say I disagree, most times if the 1st driver can get a little bit of lead to the others he can usually get shields in time to counter the assassins, so trying to get as much lead as possible is the best strategy.

I don't want to appear rude, but what the heck are you doing that you allow the 1st player to get a lead? 1st player should always be on everyone's aim.

And what's the point of shooting a single Assassin, when the shield will deal with it? I would imagine people would be smart enough by this point to shoot them in a row, rather than one every once in a while.

It's not as simple as that. Your goal is not to dethrone the first, but rather to secure yourself a position as high as possible. It's better to secure your 2nd position rather than focusing on beating the 1st, and in the end finishing 4th or 5th because you didn't have enough to deal with the other guys, and someone else took the lead.

If you're last, sure you get a lot of assassins, but you won't stack them because you need to fire them away to make place for other more useful pickups. If you're close to second, now that's a position where you'd like to stack the assassins, but you don't really get enough of them anyway, and same for EMP. So yeah, in the end, it's quite rare when two assassins get launched at the same time.

It's not because people are stupid - it's because "kill the 1st" is not the goal when you're between last and 4th. To be honest, stacking assassins, now that would be stupid when you're last. Unless specific situations, or unless you really enjoy being someone's nemesis at the price of your position.