TylerDurden4321
Member
I just watched this interview with Paul Coleman from Codemasters, makers of the DiRT and GRiD games.He mentions the challenge of getting players to experience the full complexity of vehicle dynamics and the fun of mastering them. This got me thinking about this topic.
At some point the driving line became a thing in racing games, because the average player is not particularly great at judging braking points and how much speed can be carried through a corner, but playing with the AI dumbed down and never having close races so spinning out can be caught up again isn't fun either.
Not long after, the Rewind feature became a prominent feature in racing games:
Lately sim and sim-cade racing games seem to be going away from this trend again (corrected version*):
[yes, I excluded open world and bike games, games that are a little too arcade, all the F1 games, lots of smaller Rally games and some important PC sims, feel free to correct my list, if I missed some very important games or remembered the feature-set of some games wrong (and no, nut sure about Forza 7, but highly likely that I got it right)]
Are too many players happy to be bottom-feeding and miss out on the fun of challenging themselves and mastering game mechanics and that's why it's best if these features are taken away?
Or is this just patronizing, elitist bullshit? They were always purely optional features after all...
+++ UPDATE +++
At some point the driving line became a thing in racing games, because the average player is not particularly great at judging braking points and how much speed can be carried through a corner, but playing with the AI dumbed down and never having close races so spinning out can be caught up again isn't fun either.
Not long after, the Rewind feature became a prominent feature in racing games:
Lately sim and sim-cade racing games seem to be going away from this trend again (corrected version*):
[yes, I excluded open world and bike games, games that are a little too arcade, all the F1 games, lots of smaller Rally games and some important PC sims, feel free to correct my list, if I missed some very important games or remembered the feature-set of some games wrong (and no, nut sure about Forza 7, but highly likely that I got it right)]
Are too many players happy to be bottom-feeding and miss out on the fun of challenging themselves and mastering game mechanics and that's why it's best if these features are taken away?
Or is this just patronizing, elitist bullshit? They were always purely optional features after all...
+++ UPDATE +++
Kazunori Yamauchi (CEO of Polyphony Digital the makers of Gran Turismo) said:Hi everyone.
Let me explain a little about why we decided to get rid of the Driving Line and change to a Driving Marker.
As you all know, the driving line is a feature that was added for real beginners who do not know were on a track they should be driving.
The line is continually displayed, and the braking point was also adaptively displayed according to the player's vehicle speed and the estimated turning speed in the corner.
This was very effective as a beginner feature, but it also had a side effect.
It was inhibiting players using the Driving Line assist, to advance to a state where they would no longer use the Driving Line feature.
One of the fun aspects of driving on a circuit is in imagining the invisible, fastest line around a corner from the visible corner shape, and driving your car through that line.
However the Driving Line assist feature left too much of an impression because it was so useful; and it was drawing all the attention of the player to just following a displayed line. A player like this only sees the driving line; they don't see the shape of the corner anymore.
Once you are able to control a car to a certain extent, figuring out where to drive on a corner, the strategy behind it, is an important element of the fun in driving.
The better that you become at driving, the peak of enjoyment becomes greater, and I think everyone knows this well.
But the driving line reduces the number of players who will progress to the next level, to enter a realm of enjoyment that arises because of your improved skill.
The Driving Line reduces the number of people proceeding to the next stage.
And it's because unless there is some sort of special reason, a typical player will never think of willingly turning OFF a useful feature.
That means a player will be playing Gran Turismo without ever discovering an important piece in the fun of driving, and seen in the long run, I started to think that it has more demerits than is obvious at first. It increases the number of players who get bored of just tracing lines; getting bored before they really realize the true fun of driving.
That's not to say I'm totally against driving lines, and the driving markers we implemented may not be the only or best idea, but I think it is a point of compromise between two opposing objectives; to take care of beginners who are experiencing everything for the first time, while not interfering with the advancement of a player to the next stage where they can really enjoy driving.
We await all your feedback.
Lastly, a big thank you to all of you who are participating in this test.
I'll post more again if the opportunity presents itself.