NASCAR The Game 2011 Q&A and Impressions

[BurghFan]

Quote: Originally Posted by y2j469

The illegal pit row entry penalty is starting to drive me crazy.

Yeah, that kept happening to me at Bristol when I would spin and end up down on the apron. It would make me go into the pits and say illegal entry when I never even wanted to go in the pits in the first place.

[Rules]

Quote: Originally Posted by poulka

I did pick this game up and I am impressed with it. The only problem I have is that when I run other tracks other than talladega my car just plows in the turn with a terrible push. I had this to happen on medium difficulty as well. I would greatly appreciate any help.

Start with simple things such as tire pressures and wedge adjustments to see if you can get the nose to turn better. Might even be a camber issue.

[Rules]

Quote: Originally Posted by petty43

ok after playing more i may need to take back number 6 . i think its my own fault.i most times stop and the very end of a gas run where i notice most of the ai stops 2-3 laps before me.while i am running my last 2-3 laps on wore out tires just hanging on there flying on new tires.i tried stopping sooner and it helped.i run 30 percent at x3 wear. you know the game would be greatly improved if they would quick patch the cautions and bunching up problems..then work on the other stuff,

Ok, now I understand what was happening to ya.

[Rules]

Quote: Originally Posted by scottyo60

Ok so quick impressions... I'm actually better at short tracks. I am awful at Daytona unless I am in first. I feel in this game you actually need to get a feel for tracks and race pretty realistically which in EA games I'll be blunt and say I never did. My spotter makes me mad as hell sometimes because he won't tell me someones there and just goes wow there's a surprise! no really? thanks for almost making me wreck. Lighting is incredible! wrecks are a disappointment and so is damage. I only see it on my car and I can get drilled and little to nothing happens. Also just cheesing around with cautions last night I found a huge exploit for short races at watkins. I started last and instead of breaking in the first turn I just went all out straight. took out people caution I was like 35. Did it again went to 24, did it again went to like 12... then with 7/8 laps took one more chance and went right at the leader... i guess i hit in front of him because we took caution to the checker and I won. Repeated this again and finished second... Idk how I feel about that, because I know there will be people who do this.

That is a problem as the car that caused the yellow has to drop back to the back of the longest line.

[olefivetime48]

Hey guys, did the xbox patch do anything? My caution lights are still on at every track.

[Senor Nascar]

Message to Developers:

Here are my concerns and suggestions for issues which should be fixed in future patches:

1. Obviously the caution issue which has been well addressed by numerous people.

2. The AI aggressiveness at bump drafting on Auto Club Speedway. I have been wrecked numerous times by the AI simply slamming into the back of me at a place where bump drafting is minimal.

3. The AI difficulty needs to be ramped up especially in Qualifying.

4. The lack of TIRE TEMPERATURE readings. I would really like to see this added in. If you do not know your tire temperatures it makes it really difficult to set up a car properly.

5. The small tire wear indicator needs reworking. It is very difficult to see how much your tires are wearing and if the insides, middle, or outside of the tire are wearing more than other parts of the tire. This is key info for finding out what is wrong with the setup and how to make it better. I would advise using a system like other games. Where the tires are blue, then green, then yellow and then red.

6. The AI needs help when pitting under yellow. Numerous times I have seen them run into each other on Pit Road causing a huge mess.

7. When Pitting, the DEFAULT should be a full gas tank not the opposite like it is now. You already don't have much time to make adjustments so it would be great if this could be reversed so I am not wasting time filling that meter up. If I want less than a full tank than I could dial it down instead.

8. I would like to be able to save more than 50 setups. I know it sounds like a lot but it really isn't if you calculate that you at least have one saved setup for each track (23) and when the update comes you will need at least another 23 for the 2011 models which will handle differently. I would like to see the number of allowed save setups to go up.

9. The spotter should stop saying all clear at odd times like when I am stopped or on pit road. It is just way overdone. Also for future versions of the game I would look at maybe omitting the comedic lines because although they might be funny the first time...they get real old real quick. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard the hot dog line. I would rather the spotter focus on positional info.

10. The bunching up of AI on certain tracks.

11. It was my understanding that there would be an Adaptive AI setting in this game. What happened? It could help solve some difficulty issues for some if it were to be added.

12. I think for future iterations try to make the default setup not so good out of the box. It really takes away from the need to work on your car. I know you are trying to appeal to people who don't want to work on their car but it just kills it for those who do.

13. The draft is way overdone at certain tracks. I think it greatly needs to be toned down overall. I think it will really help with the difficulty as well.

14. The online timer (even in private races) needs to go away. All other racer games have always had a ready up feature which works much better. Hopefully this can be addressed soon. F1 does a good job of this.

15. Better online stability.

16. The wheel support needs revamping. I play with a Porsche Fanatec GT2 wheel for Xbox 360. It is operational but is certainly not tuned for this game and the force feedback seems to come and go. After playing with the g25 on PS3 last night, I can honestly notice a HUGE difference. Hopefully you guys can look at all the wheels people are using and tune them for this game.

17. When your fuel runs out, it should not be an automatic DNF. There needs to be a chance to coast to the pits.

18. The AI needs to be more careful when coming out of pit road and onto the track (Auto Club Speedway is a good example of this) They move all the way over near the wall when not at speed yet and it causes major bunching. They need to stay near the white line till they are up to speed somewhere on the backstretch.


That is what I got in terms of immediate fixes to help get this game on the right path. I am sure I left out a couple of things but overall I think there is a good base here in this game (driving model and AI) and with these fixes the game would be much better.

[Aggies7]

Quote: Originally Posted by bluengold34_OS

I hope no one feels I mislead them at all here, I was giving my honest impression's of how I felt about this game(PS3 version). I posted the video's last night of me racing, and nothing was doctored at all. It sounds like the 360 version is really having some issues though. I will also say that since I got the patch, every time a caution should have come out, it did. I still love this game for the exact same reason I did yesterday, and the day before. On the hard-core mode(which I understand they took out of the 360 patch)with no assists on, it is challenging to win, and a lot of fun. I explained that career mode was thin on options, and I only raced 1 time on-line, but that one time was very smooth and we finished the race with no issues. I also explained the create-a car had no decals, but was just like forza. I have no interest at all if someone buys this game or not, but I gave my true, honest impressions of what I played on the PS3. I still feel like it's the best NASCAR game to date on a console, and I will not back down from that. I am not pointing fingers at anyone at all, but I will stand by my word and how I feel about this game. I do not bow to the pressure of how the majority feels, and I am no conformist.

Don't apologize at all. Yes this game is buggy but I am 7 races in to a season and love it. The game is what you make of it. Game is far from perfect but for a first try I will take it. Just hope eutechnyx take some advise prior to the next game.

[Brew]

I played for awhile last night and I have to saying that the racing itself is great! IMO this is the best Nascar sim to hit a console. Is it NR2003 or Iracing... of course not! Whoever expects that from a console racer especially a first year title are asking a bit much. Driving is a definitely a challenge but it isnt a frustrating challenge like Nascar 09.
Its a very fun challenge. I only put one bar of assist on for ABS, Traction Control and Stability Control and the feel was pretty realistic. You cant drive too hard into the turns and you cant just mash the throttle off the corner or your going to spin out. I found myself posting faster lap times when I went easy on the car then when I was driving really hard. I was impressed by the range of assists that you can use and you can definitely tell when you make a change.


My biggest gripes are the cautions, pit road crashes and AI cars piling up at times. Very frustrating as I did have it happen in a couple quick races but overall the game is a blast. All the issues that are there seem very fixable and once that is fixed... I think this will be a very fun game online and off.


The paint booth is a totally different story... the premise of it is very well thought out but poorly implemented. They say it is a 3D tool like Forza yet they still link layers to a certain part of the car and it shows when you try to move something to another area while it is still designated to another. I found it to be too much of a challenge to put any type of elaborate design or even simple striping all the way around the car without shapes not matching up and lining up right. Its not nearly as good as Forzas but with a few tweaks it could be a nice paint tool. The best part of the paint booth is the decal editor where you can make any logo you want but are limited to only 50 layers per logo which is a big disappointment for me. The worst part is that you cant copy things over from one side of the car to the other and that makes it very difficult to make it look uniform on both sides. I love designing cars and consider myself pretty damn good at it but the paint booth as of now IMO is worse than Forzas and even Midnight Club LAs. The lack of sponsors to choose from is disappointing and Im surprised they didnt put Goodyear, NASCAR race car, and Sprint Cup series decals in the sponsors as those appear on every Sprint Cup car IRL. It is too tedious to make on my own. Ill be much happier when they add the headlight and taillights and manufacturer decals in the 2011 car patch.

The lack of a true career mode(only one season) and more online options is going to kill the replayability of this title for alot of people but if you like NASCAR and love racing... I think anybody could have alot of fun with this game. A friend of mine who doesnt even like racing and always pokes fun at NASCAR played for over 2 hours with me yesterday and said he had to get it. I gave him a few tips starting out and eventually he was using the same amount of assists as me and was finishing in the Top 5 consistently on Medium difficulty.

Overall, I think theyve built a great foundation for a successful NASCAR game franchise and will only get better with future iterations. If you can deal with the issues and like racing especially NASCAR this is a must buy IMO!