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  1. #1

    The Issue With Handling And How To Fix It.

    Hello guys, I'll introduce myself first, I'm G, I play racing games and often like to go fast in them. I dont have a rich history in racing games like some people here, but over the last couple years of The Crew and The Crew 2, I have gained a lot of knowledge on driving in these games. I Like(d) to go for leaderboard times, got multiple world records in my days of TC2 so far. I like to think I know enough about the handling in TC2 to give my opinion on it. There are enough things that this game gets right, but I have a big gripe with some others, lets get into it.

    The First Problem

    To put it short, the way the steering is translated from input from the gamepad (or in my case keyboard) to the reaction in the game is bad.
    From my understanding, the translation from input to reaction requires a piece of software to translate the sometimes rough inputs to a smooth input for the car.
    If you imagine an extreme example, driving on keyboard; you press arrow or A, without any software in between, a program would interpret that as 100% input instantly. so in the car you would instantaneously lock your steering wheel all the way to the side. As you can imagine this will be very, very hard to control. This is what the software controls through multiple "Filters". There are two filters i want to talk about today, For lack of better terms i will call them "steering filter" and "speed filter". I will get into the latter of those two a bit later. The problem with the steering filter in the game right now, is that it is set up too strongly.
    What i mean by "Too Strongly" is as follows; The game tries to smoothen out input so much, that doing an action takes a long while to complete. a small comparison to what it used to be vs what it is now. https://i.imgur.com/ePHr8Ik.mp4 (slowed down 6x) the m4 still has old handling while the 599 has new handling. as you can see the m4 just takes less time to complete a max angle to max angle movement. It seems to me the new handling has a slightly stronger steering filter.

    Now why am i blaming this on a steering filter and not on some general sensitivity setting? a friend of mine brought to my attention the settings in assetto corsa, specificaly the "Filter" setting. a slider from 0 to 1, in which you can adjust the strength of said filter. first an example of what a good sensitivity could look like. this is a filter setting of 0.93 for my friend. https://gyazo.com/bfd15052bb516bc1ab6886b54a5dc0d5

    and now see what happens when the filter setting is turned all the way up to max
    https://gyazo.com/2f735741b2d2c35667c1fb5f5d01a16e

    as you can see it takes a long time to go to max steering lock. any type of chicane you wanna do like this will be a pain in the bum because it takes forever to put the wheel in the right direction again after the initial turn in. this looks exactly like the issue with the new handling to me.

    maybe also interesting is a comparison to FH4, which i consider to be vastly superior in terms of how responsive the handling feels (forza has other issues though)
    https://i.imgur.com/rC00w48.mp4 (slowed down 6x). as you can see forza is so much faster, this creates a much much more satisfying steering response in my opinion. I feel more in control, and i can do chicanes with no problems.



    A Possible Solution To The First Problem.
    The two most obvious solutions to fixing the filter is either adjusting the current filter, or giving us a filter slider like assetto corsa where we can determine ourselves how much filter we want to use. since it is pretty sensitive, we only really need the tail end of the filter slider, from 0.9 to 1.0 (10 steps in between should be enough i think, but testing is required). Naturally i much prefer the second option. seeing how the handling is right now, and knowing there are some people out there who do like it like this, it will be almost impossible to satisfy everyone with just a single filter. Giving drivers the option to lower the filter strength in the settings would be the best solution in my eyes.

    The Second Problem
    Remember i mentioned two filters? the second filter i mentioned ("speed filter") serves a similar job to the steering filter, but does something slightly different. the way it works is quite simple in theory. It limits the maximum steering angle achievable at higher speeds. This is actually a big problem for me in forza, i have a fast car, want to turn in, the car turns in quickly and then it just refuses to steer in any more after that. https://i.imgur.com/nnyw19s.mp4 here is the filter in action, you can see the steering being limted while going fast, and the more i slow down the more angle the game allows me to get, up to max angle when standing still of course.

    I find it hard to say if this is a problem right now with the regular filter limiting me on most disciplines, but i definitely get the feeling that sometimes the cars have grip to turn harder at high speeds, but the speed filter is not letting me. It shows up in the most obvious way when driving Drag cars. when you get up to speed, no matter what you do with tunes, the car will not turn the wheels more than a tiny bit. I fully understand this is a protection method to not spin out, but i want control over how much i am protected. I think it would be nice if we got the option to adjust the speed filter as well in the settings. (maybe even on a per discipline basis if testing shows issues with a general slider)

    The Third Problem
    Now this one will be a little more difficult to visualise the actual base of the problem. In one word this problem would be "Bodyroll". the combination of the current suspension and anti-rollbars with this handling does not seem to be built for the sheer amount of grip that these cars have gotten (especially when pro-tuned). when turning this hard, with the grip we have, a lot of cars just tend to roll. this results in some unwanted steering characteristics. for one, the bodyroll means that the inner tyres in the corner have less pressure on them, this creates understeer. the ARB's dont really do anything to counteract the rolling of the car. if anything they just make the car so stiff that the tyres on the inside actually lift off the ground. as you can see in this image from a friend.
    the problem is summed up pretty well by the following picture.


    Possible Solutions To The Third Problem
    the solution to this bodyroll issue isnt just one thing. there are multiple things to consider, but i'll give some options that make sense to me.
    1. completely overhaul how ARB works, making it handle like it does in real life. I'm not a sim guy, far from it, but the bodyroll problem needs a fix.
    2. overhauling the suspension and ARB to make them work with the grip we have.
    3. lower the grip of the cars to work with the suspension and ARB we have.
    4. lower the center of mass for each and every vehicle that shows signs of bad bodyroll.

    Which of these is the most achievable for the developers, and which is the most fun for the players, i do not know. it will require testing, and perhaps not just one single change but a multitude of changes. ultimately the decision how to solve the problem is up to the developers, i'm just here asking for it to happen one way or another.

    Problem 1 and Problem 3 are the biggest issues for me personally. if Problem 2 is very likely to not be a very big deal once Problem 1 is solved, but i dont know that for certain, it will require testing.
    Also possible is that when these things are adressed, a whole horde of other problems might surface, but those obstacles can be tackled when they arise in testing.

    Thanks for reading my small novella, feel free to comment your opinions or ideas, or constructive critisism if you think i am wrong.
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  2. #2
    Looking forward to see some of these fixed hopefully.
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  3. #3
    I can only agree about the steering filters and bodyroll, these are just too much. The Eclipse present on the picture in fact spent most of the track on 2 wheels, not just one corner and It's quite comical that It's still fast somehow while being so uncomfortable.
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  4. #4
    I will agree with G that problem 1 and 3 need to be sorted first, the delayed steering on the keyboard is a painful experience and I am definitely not okay with it.When going for decent times the on tracks with twisties/chicanes it is such a pain to nail those sections cleanly because the delay makes the experience quite inconsistent, now add the bodyroll / 2 wheeling to this delay makes the experience even worse. because with the bodyroll you can't countersteer in time to negate it because of the steering filter.

    just like the eclipse, many of the other updated handling Street Race Cars suffer from this, the Hypercars are also no exception to this, so to any devs reading this thread please look into it as the experience with driving the cars in this state is just a frustrating one.
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  5. #5
    Very well and detailed post, brought things to the table that made me realize why some things happen in my game. definitely need to do something about these issues
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  6. #6
    I fully agree with the highlighted issues. It is seriously getting on my nerves now how hard it is getting to control all the cars with the new handling, it just keeps getting worse. I also have gripes with the body roll and slow shifting, like especially slow shifting, why does that exist in a game that is a full-fledged arcade game? If I wanted a real experience, I would be leaning towards a driving simulation game and not this one. I came here to have an enjoyable arcade experience. Please do something about that too.

    I love what you guys do to bring your best to the table and not abandoning this game. I seriously hope you consider reading these points and perhaps ask these experienced players to let you help them. I am sure these problems won't be brought up by players who don't play this game often, it is players like us who have spent a considerable amount of time into this game knows the problem and wants to continue having fun. There is a reason why I prefer this game over other arcade racing games.

    This is extremely detailed by the way, good work here G for highlighting the main issues with the handling. Hopefully, something good comes out of this.
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  7. #7
    Totally agree with Geforce on all points
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  8. #8
    Good job G, thank you for your effort.
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  9. #9
    Yeah the slow shifting just makes cars like the r34, ford gt and muscle cars a pain to drive. I just want to drive the fairlady and not lose speed each time i shift, but i guess that may be too much to ask.
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  10. #10
    Anykeyer's Avatar Senior Member
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    Dec 2009
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    Points 2 and 3 are connected, you cant change one w/o affecting another. Handling update increased steering limits (point 2) and this is exactly what caused increased bodyroll (point 3).
    Increase it even more and you wont be just driving on 2 wheels anymore, you'll roll it upside down.
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