V3NOM's Feedback Report
Hi guys and girls, I would like to share my experience and thoughts on having played both the closed and open beta.
Graphics: 8/10
- Nature of the world looks amazing and the way it adapts to the weather changes
- Car detail is touch and go, whilst some parts of the cars look great, others lack detail
- Road surface is by far the biggest problem I find with regards to the graphics, it looks like clay/molten plastic.
- Buildings for the most part are horrible when you get up close to them with very low res props inside.
- Draw distance of the traffic is too low as i constantly have traffic appear and disappear in visual range.
- Vehicle smoke and dust particle count can definitely be increased, make it adjustable in the options for systems that can't handle that level of volumetric effects.
- Lighting, also touch and go, it doesn't appear to be consistent and is overly intense in some area's of the cities.
- Vehicle lights are too low and weak, either increase the projection distance or add an option for dim & brights
Gameplay 8/10
- Car handling is pretty decent on xbox 360 controller and keyboard for and arcade style racer. (i don't expect this game to have the same handling as Assetto Corsa or RFactor2)
- AI is terrible, they are too aggressive and ramming, also it appears there is a catch up system in place which really ruins the experience, should also have an option to turn on or off.
- Traffic was by far the most problematic thing I encountered in the game. from vehicles looking like they have broken suspension, to there being so much traffic it was impossible to make it past them without going 30kph and the draw distance was part of this problem making multiple spawn directly in your path.
- Vehicle gravity is too intense when going over a certain jump threshold causing vehicles to drop instantly
- Waypoints tend to work inconsistently, spending most of my game time in a crew of 4, so if 1 of us switched to raid, boat or plane it would change the waypoint to "as the crow flies" waypoint.
- Weather changes aren't synced between all players as some experience changes sooner than others, this also applies to environmental objects, eg: animals, hot air balloons and traffic
- Collision/hit boxes on some vehicles exceed the vehicle's geometry and are just too big, boats have the biggest visual example of this.
- Lack of landmarks and iconic areas is a downside for explorers and roadtrippers.
Audio 9/10
- Car engine sounds were good but some were clearly made by a sound engineer, edited heavily or just poorly recorded.
- The vehicle chassis and environmental sounds are outstanding (coasting down the mountain in a Z28 and hearing the feint suspension sounds as the car reacted to the road was so good and accurate along with the sounds of nature.
- Duplicate use of some sound samples took away from the new/unique experience of some vehicles.
- Track list is very small and limited also some songs did not fit the genre's they were allocated to, there are thousands of insanely good artist out there and I feel that the budget allocated to the OST was minimal or you don't have a team that can correctly associate music with a racing game. Whatever the reason the tracklist is very unimpressive with just a few standout tracks that really did make the radio experience whilst driving awesome. ShoutOut!!! to Battle Tapes - Dreamboat who made the road trips have an awesome vibe!
- RUF 3400 K - RR is excessively loud to all crew members besides the driver.
Overall 8/10
I play alot of games, from Battlefield, ESO, The Division to my racing games, The Crew, Assetto Corsa, RFactor2, Project CARS, the F1 series. With that said I find this game most enjoyable, especially with my friends. We spent hours at a time traveling and enjoying what the team at Ivory Tower has built. If the team can take a step back now and work on refining the product they have created it can have an amazing life span. Lets stop trying to build the biggest and now focus on building the fullest and immersive open world racing game. The addition of boats and aircraft is a huge step in the right direction for an open world game. If Ivory Tower and Ubisoft could focus on the things that we the community have a problem with rather than trying to push new content it will keep the player base and therefor encourage players to invest into the game.
Final bits
- Ability to change all controls is a must, being unable to change the confirmation and cancel option on xbox controller is a problem as my gear up and accept option in the same button meaning I have to reverse at the start of all vehicle events.
- The CREW phone app was incredible to access vehicle and hq fast and effectively without having to zoom out on the map every time.
- Individual car odometers are now gone and I enjoyed seeing how far I traveled in each vehicle as opposed to the new system that only show's 1 vehicle.
- Racing in the dunes with offroad vehicles is too stiff, there is no sense of thick sand or resistance you just go slower and the dunes are too closely spaced.
- Several graphical glitches from trees to buildings and mostly boats standing above the water (I will make a new post with images of the items and locations)
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to try the game and be part of the process to make this into something incredible. I will continue to update this post with changes and recommendations provided by other community members.
Till next time,
V3NOM
3 people found this helpful
Junior Member
Junior Member
This is an accurate account on the issues i have experienced. I agree with the points you make on the way-point issue, headlights in the dark, car sounds and handling. The traffic is overkill trucks everywhere!
