DriveClub by Evolution Studios [PS4]

[Billy Idol]

Game is getting better and better. SP is now a real challenge! MP is still a bit slow and wonky though. But I really need to unlock all cars first to play online: had an online race with an unlocked car which didn't count for me at all.

 

[scf]

BTW: Online still doesn't work for me, unless I'm just too unlucky to try it during evenings when it's overloaded...

Do you mean that the game says that not connected when press triangle, and has this red error text while racing?

Evo wrote on fb today that continue to improve and things should get better in the next 24 hours.

 

[HTupolev]

Personally I don't like water shaders which are really, really bad which is especially glaring when compared with the rest of the assets

Yeah, the water frequently sits poorly in its environment. It's usually painted in large smooth waves and nothing else. Modeling the glittering and "roughness" caused by waves of different sizes viewed at different distances, and how these regions change across a water surface, seems like exactly the kind of thing that DriveClub would be doing. But nope.

 

[Graham]

I was teasing of course. But I would never trade the current lighting for fake brightness

Problem is, all I did was 'auto levels' in paint.net. That's not fake brightness in any way, it's just a balanced image. I was playing the game in the evening too, on a fairly well calibrated TV. Playing during the day (or with faster cars) will likely make the problem much worse.
I get that it can add challenge in certain cases, but my early impression is they have gone too far with it, and the exposure system is the big culprit - being happy to expose to a small patch of bright sky - ignoring the overall balance of the image, such as that example. That logic works fine if the typical scene is fairly low dynamic range, or (in the case of night driving) the bright points jut happen to be game play critical (lights on the road).

I'm a big fan of using a weighted luminance average to determine a starting point for exposure.
Not going to lie though, it's a *really* hard problem.

I would like to see how Graham's opinion on both the lighting and AI ends up after a few more hours with the game ...

Yeah. We'll see.

 

[Xbat]

Just downloaded Driveclub today and I must say I'm very impressed with it so far.
Awesome graphics and the perfect mix of simulation and arcade in my opinion. The only thing I can really fault at this early stage is that I wish it had more cars I think a hundred would of been nice.

 

[DJ12]

Must say I agree with Graham. I love the game but some parts of the day night cycle are unplayable where you can see virtually nothing.

Just because they can do all these effects doesn't mean they should and it didn't mean it works well either.

I do like all the lighting but they really should look at the settings and make it more realistic.

In cockpit view for example, with the low sun shining through some trees you cannot see anything apart from the gang shadows flicker all over the screen

 

[Globalisateur]

Must say I agree with Graham. I love the game but some parts of the day night cycle are unplayable where you can see virtually nothing.

Just because they can do all these effects doesn't mean they should and it didn't mean it works well either.

I do like all the lighting but they really should look at the settings and make it more realistic.

In cockpit view for example, with the low sun shining through some trees you cannot see anything apart from the gang shadows flicker all over the screen

I find the hood view really balanced between the excellent visibility (important when it's dark or too sunny) and the realistic handling of the cars.

I don't even understand how people can even do decent laps with the other views available. Or I must be too much accustomed with the hood view in racing games since damn too long...

 

[DJ12]

I use hood view now to avoid the reflections on the windscreen, but your image shows what the problem is, you cannot see the edge of the road (When viewed on my phone, now I'm on the PC I can see it). This is not realistic.

 

[Arwin]

I finished the whole game with motion controls and the cockpit view. The only time I had trouble seeing the road was one or two races in India where the sun blinded me imho quite realistically - ie most of the time I could still see where I was going but a couple of turns I had to guess. I thought it was actually really great how well the dynamic range was, with really bright sun but still seeing the rest properly as well.

 

[HTupolev]

I tend to use hood view in DriveClub as well. Gives a bit better height then bumper cam, and for DriveClub's handling I think its positioning might be a little more helpful. It's a bummer with visibility on the lower part of the screen, though. Would be neat if they had more camera options, like a cam above the windshield on the front of the roof.

 

[Graham]

http://i.picpar.com/4Agb.jpg

And also with auto levels:

I genuinely find that pic aesthetically *much* more pleasing.

I too have settled on the bonnet cam, I just get too frustrated otherwise.
I'm starting to wonder if some kind of auto levels algorithm could be used in real time.

 

[macabre]

I have switched to the other Club so we can level that up faster . Bummer that the game took away my cars that get unlocked by Club Level. The Zonda is my favorite...but I guess we`ll hit L15 soon enough.
The online stuff didn`t work at all for me yesterday , today was fine most of the time- it`s so much more fun with the ghosts and duels.

 

[Graham]

Ugh. This game is irritating me more.

The completely arbitrary penalties are stupid. They feel like they were shoved in at the last minute to force balance the game (I swear I had a cornering challenge's blue line cut a corner and give me a penalty). The core game is really good but little things are driving me up the wall. The difficulty is all over the place. Some events are trivially easy, while some are genuinely taxing.

The game desperately needs a rewind feature.

Just completed the 'punching above your weight' race. What a perfect example of the problems in the game. Intentionally limited visibility. Inconsistent corner flags (where yellow can be full speed or 40m of hard braking). Incredibly narrow track with 11 lane hogging, *totally oblivious* AI that arbitrarily are much faster than you, then suddenly drive *much* slower. 4 laps to go from 12th to 1st. Full speed wall collisions where you hardly take a scratch, but just feather touch the wall in the wrong place and *boom* 180 spin.

I also had the audio glitch out twice. First I had no engine sounds, then it was continuously playing about 3 copies of the penalty chime... over and over and over (even in the menu).

And I bloody hate the drift events. The scoring seems arbitrary. They aren't fun.
I'm going to persevere I guess. I just wish it was better, there is so much potential here - and when it isn't being infuriating it's genuinely fantastic.

 

[HTupolev]

Ugh. This game is irritating me more.

The completely arbitrary penalties are stupid. They feel like they were shoved in at the last minute to force balance the game (I swear I had a cornering challenge's blue line cut a corner and give me a penalty).

I get why the penalties are there, but the implementation is problematic. Gently tap a car, get a collision penalty, engage in a violent enough collision to kill off the population of a small country, the game doesn't care. And the game needs indication to show where corner penalties are.

Inconsistent corner flags (where yellow can be full speed or 40m of hard braking).

Hehe yeah. They're a good idea, but it sometimes feels like the guy who placed them is the co-pilot from RalliSport Challenge 2.

And I bloody hate the drift events.

I haven't figured out how to play them at all.

 

[PePePL]

And also with auto levels:

I genuinely find that pic aesthetically *much* more pleasing.

I too have settled on the bonnet cam, I just get too frustrated otherwise.
I'm starting to wonder if some kind of auto levels algorithm could be used in real time.

Well in fact I think that there is some kind of auto level / HDR also implemented, but it creates black crush every time you are driving in the direction of a sun or even a bright sky. It really annoys me. Not only visibility is extremely limited but the graphics are looking much worse because of that. All environments become dark grey. I think that developers put too much effort into tiny details compared to general image quality stuff like AA and HDR.

 

[orangpelupa]

"SONY give meee the PSP editioooooon arrrrgh !!!1111 one one one"

there's less and less people crying that in reddit and ps forum. maybe They caved and buy the game.

 

[Arwin]

Don't worry Graham, punching above your weight is the only of its kind. It's horrible and hard.

The corner penalties aren't arbitrary - they vary in severeness according to how much advantage the game thinks you got from the incident. If you cut a corner by leaving the track with two front or back or both wheels, you are eligible for the penalty, just like in reality. Same for collision penalties.

 

[Billy Idol]

For me, the game hasn't been inconsistent at all so far...the penalties are quite clear.

But I agree, autoleveling would make the visibility much better and at the same time the graphics much better. I don't have a big problem with driving with bad sight...but often the beauty of the game is just buried behind all dark (can't even see if flags are yellow or green until the last meters. I hope they patch this with the weather update.

Other than that...love the game...and it is really challenging now: I am in the pro trophy part. Online is also quite fun, except for people who can't drive and just arbitrarily crash into you...

 

[Arwin]

For me, the game hasn't been inconsistent at all so far...the penalties are quite clear.

But I agree, autoleveling would make the visibility much better and at the same time the graphics much better. I don't have a big problem with driving with bad sight...but often the beauty of the game is just buried behind all dark (can't even see if flags are yellow or green until the last meters. I hope they patch this with the weather update.

Other than that...love the game...and it is really challenging now: I am in the pro trophy part. Online is also quite fun, except for people who can't drive and just arbitrarily crash into you...

See, now I'm beginning to think that my eyes are better or my TV is really better. Can you or Graham give me a specific race as an example so I can check if my memory isn't just too rosy?

 

[Xbat]

This game really just gets better and better, I dont really understand the moaning about the penalties either or the few times the sun blinds you. I've been blinded by the sun many times while driving in real life maybe you guys in the UK dont know what the sun looks like.

Just the other morning at about 6am I was driving up a hill directly into the sun and had to almost stop because I was completely blinded, the power of the African sun

Maybe you guys are using the wrong rgb settings. I've noticed the auto setting on the ps4 doesn't work correctly if you got your tv set to full rgb.