Hey,
today I wanna talk about drifting. I'm one of admins of the biggest The Crew Facebook fangroup - The Crew Social. I've asked our members about their opinions on drifting mechanics, what changes they'd love to see. Here's some of them:
"More 'turnable'"
"The drifting mechanics are fine for the most part. What bothers me is that you can't get full lock when counter-steering. At least with a keyboard.
The scoring system is also kinda odd, as it encourages just drifting back and forth. On top of that, I can't use manual transmission, as the buttons I use on every single game cannot be used in this one, because, apparently, opening windows in garage is important enough to hard-map the button."
"Actually drifting in The Crew is arcade and so easy. Handbreak to drift initiate is needless, same like clutch kick. Tire traction is also very weird in driftspec."
"from my point of view...it's different like in other racing games and it;s a good thing, but on the other hand the car is too slippery, like the road is actually ice and not concrete.....in real life you need to use the handbrake, is not that easy to just enter into a power slide by just turning the wheel.....if i want to slide alot i play dirt games haha....but is good that we have in the crew too....for me i just like to freeride with a muscle and making power slides if possible...with the stock ones of course, that the real deal..."
"Earning points is ******ed as well. It's most important for them to sway from side to side rather than do actual drifts."
"Drifting in games Grid 1 and 2 was kinda good to me....If they could create it like that,would be great.... Like many guys said countersteer is really annoying...."
"Mainly, more controllable and realistic. All games that are based on realities, has high scores because people quickly learning driving model and is mostly similar to other games. In The Crew you don't have full control of the car while drifting. We can't control drift by throttle, also steering is not response immediately (Fault of assist. On steering wheel is good and old gamepads). Also in The Crew when I drift feel like, all cars have AWD drivetrain."
"I think that this mode must be different in 100%. Something like GRID Autosport, cause it's to difficult for a lot of players. Like drift zones... better angle - more points.
Hmm... better acceleration when the car is in drift, like in real life... We will get longer drifts and do it with bigger angle. And bigger steering angle for wheels... for me drift cars should have modificated camber and off-set, I wanna change it as I like. Now the cars are too high for me... There are some things that I would change, but the gamę is not only about drifting. We have arcade handling and It's good, but Monster Trucks and Bikes have some other things like "wheelie" etc. I think that drifting will be a lot better with something realistic. Like when the driver's head is lower - bike goes faster, but it has more traction and handling. You can't turn into a curves the same and it's so realistic. With bigger camber in cars you will do better drifts and have more control with your car when it's in drift but without drift the car would have less turnable and more handling."
"I think the mechanics work great with a wheel setup it could be a bit harder(realism) but for a new spec im happy how it turned out dont think the mechanics needs an overhaul only a little tweak but overall its good"
"Drifting in The Crew could be something like in rfactor... simulation not arcade"
I agree with most of them. From point of view of someone who can't immedietely countersteer, I have big problems to go straight in drift car, it slides too easilly. Handbrake should initiate drift, or at least rapid turning, not every move you make. It'd be awesome as well if we could set track width and camber, I mean 3-4 options. I'm a drifting noob, but I see people opinions are more or less similar.
What's your opinion, guys?
For me, the drifting mechanics would be totally okay if it wasn't for that idiotic steering lock on keyboard. I used to play with a steering wheel and back then I wouldn't complain about drifting at all. I liked drifting. I usually scored a huge amounts of points granting myself a position in first 100 in most summits. But now that I have to play on my keyboard I really see that problem. Which is idiotic. I don't get why would anybody think that it is a good idea to prevent us from... essentially turning. And I will tell you, turning is in fact quite important in a racing game.
Generally, it feels like physics engine has a lot of trouble with slides. Not only in drift cars. I mean, why would a drifting RWD car (lets say a highly tuned Challenger) slowly loose RPM while sliding and being given full throttle? Bacause that's what I see happening a lot. There is something wrong with torque management. And don't get me wrong, The Crew has some great, lovely handling physics, but sliding is and has been broken since I first saw the game back in... 2014? Well, since PC beta.
While using a wheel, or a d-input gamepad, it is sorta easy for some players (btw easier with a gamepad, than wheel imo, but i prefer the wheel), which is fine BUT, the overall controll (no matter if wheel/d-input gamepad, normal gamepad, or keyboard) is just weird. Sometimes it feels like everything you do is based on luck only, sometimes not (imo), and thats because the physics seem to have a problem with slides like Aleks0waty already said.![]()
Because my wheel is broken and I can't afford a G27. Well, I can. But I'd rather finally get a 200SX. I do have a gamepad from my XBOX but I hate using it (any gamepad for that matter actually) therefore I stick to my keyboard. And believe me, I am okay with a keyboard. It's like saying FWD cars can't be fast. It takes some skill and time to master them, but they can get you some good lap times too.Originally Posted by Lt._Ding_Chavez Go to original post
Back to TC. After playing some doriftos I think that the physics are based around the weight of the car rather than around tyre-surface relation. It is kinda like all of these mods for GTA 5 for "better drifting" and things like that. They change some values, but the only difference that they make are the basic forces influencing your car. They don't make drifting mechanics better, they just allow you to have more stupid looking slides with zero traction.
The physics are whatever for me, I'm not expecting much from an arcade game that doesn't have superb physics for it's regular racing anyway. They don't bother me a lot, when I first played the beta I thought they were absolute garbage, but when I actually bought the expansion and got around to adapt to the physics I'm pretty much okay with it. Could be better? Yes, if I could actually feel the traction loss on cars instead of feeling like I'm sliding on ice, but overall I don't mind the physics as they are, like I said, is an arcade racer, you can't really expect much.
But now what does bother me is the scoring system, literally everything is wrong with it.
I'll start by how you can score anywhere on the tracks, making it possible for people to do the infamous arab drifting/swerving from side to side. And that is not the only issue, you can also only run a small section, like a nice S shaped corner of the track back to back to make points easily while ignoring the rest of it where you can't score much.
Gran Turismo 5 and 6 have a nice scoring system that The Crew should take a look at, and maybe implement some of it's ideas. For example only being able to score in scoring zones, which are usually a section of 2 or 3 corners connected. That itself would stop the nonsense of fishtailing, and if they make the scoring zones usable only once, would as well stop people from abusing parts of tracks while ignoring others.
The way points are awarded is also very poor, it should take in consideration angle + speed instead of just filling the bar based on how long is the drift.
I guess that's all I have to say about it, I don't mind the physics as much as I mind the scoring system.
Drifting falls apart on all arcade games in one way or another, you can not expect an arcade which is by nature is phony to be realistic. To get good drifting The Crew would need to move toward sim, then cars would be easier to drift and would do what you expect them to do. I have never understood the rational for arcade racer games, it is not that they are easier than sim racing games in fact they are just as hard to be at the top of the leader-boards as sims, and getting use to the unrealistic handling of arcade games always takes getting use to because it is not what you logically would expect a car to do.
I like The Crew with its' big open world map and it is far better than some other arcade games like Need for Speed or TDU regarding handling but it still is an arcade game and thus fails in realism in that regards.