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Mike Dee

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Posts posted by Mike Dee

  1. Posted

    1 hour ago, TugsNH said:

    I've just bought year one pass, what am I supposed to actually have? It said I'd get thr Colin Mcrae thing which I don't and I assumed I'd have all rallies which I don't. 

     

    Can anyone advise please? 

     

    Thanks 

    Is this on console or PC? Year One will unlock all of the original stages for DR1 for use in DR2, include new car classes like 2000cc and Group B RWD, and should give you a new tab in the main menus called "Colin's Challenge" (or something like that).

    I know on consoles sometimes you had to go to the store page and force the DLC to download even after purchasing - and specifically the xbox/sony storepage on the console, not just the ingame store page.

  2. Posted

    Logitech G27/G29 - fantastic entry wheels that you can easily put a few hundred, if not, thousand hours into and enjoy every minute of it.

    CSW - oh man now we start getting some feedback. You can't believe how much more there could have been.

    Accuforce/Simucube - holy ****. you can't can feel every pebble and kerb. half the time you forget this isn't your real car as you reach for a non-existent cupholder. 

     

    Basically an entry wheel like the G29/T150 will give you a fantastic experience. You can set world records with them and fight for top positions in championships in real events (CRSedmicky was driving on a G27 when he qualified for the first World Championship). But if you're willing to invest the money, the experience starts to become so much deeper. Is it worth the money? Up to you to decide, but if you love racing I can say it isn't uncommon to put more hours driving a sim-rig in a week than you do your real life car... sometimes 2-3x more virtual miles per day.

    The fancy equipment doesn't make you faster though, only more consistent. Consistency lowers times, but don't fall into the trap that you have to spend money to be fast on the best gear.

    The other huge component I see a few others mention - a wheel is only so good without a solid frame to mount it to. This doesn't have to be an expensive frame, but getting your body positioning to match that of a real car does HUGE things for the experience. I'd go so far as to say I'd much rather take a G27 on a quality Sim-Labs rig than a brand new direct drive wheel mounted to my desk. Basically a wheel + pedals gets you 80% of the experience, adding a sim-rig gets you another 10% or so. Upgrading from an entry wheel to a top of the line wheel won't get you a 10% immersion increase IMO, and therefore getting a whole package sums up to much more than just a single high end component.

    • Like 2

  4. Posted

    On 6/18/2020 at 7:16 PM, JZStudios said:

    None of that is new though, it's been done lots of times in other racing games, and it's always been boring or laughably dumb at best, or super obnoxious. NFS 2015 seems like it did a lot of that too.

    Yeah it isn't really new, but I don't see that as a bad thing. Yes other games have tried it and weren't able to fully deliver on it, but we have seen CM deliver on that kind of Dirt game before - D2 and D3 were fantastic in that regard (imo). So if D5 can capture the core game energy of D2 and D3, bring in some beautiful 2020 eye candy, and let their team just go BIG and a bit over the top with some flare to it all, I'm all in.

    I love Dirt Rally 2.0 and the intensity/excitement of it all, but I also have been wanting something I can throw on later in the evening just to kick back more casually while doing epic things with my buddies over. This game is definitely not going to be for everyone, and if you're looking for the next DR3 you're better of just booting up 2.0 and sharpening your skills there. But for those who are looking form something reminiscent of those late Friday nights with all of your friends in a voice chat racing around getting into wild shenanigans, I think this is going to deliver exactly what we are looking for.

    • Like 1

  5. Posted · Edited by Mike Dee

    • BMW E30 
    • Opel Kadett
    • 2001 Ford Focus - those chirps with every shift 😍
    • BMW M1 - best engine sound in game
    • Ford Mustang - delivering freedom to those TT leaderboards in the S2+ livery is extremely satisfying
    • Like 1

  6. Posted

    All I can say is I'm hyped for this. I understand lots of people want more gameplay videos and focus on the content, but D5 is trying to give you an experience. And the idea of the big bios behind the characters, the podcast interviews throughout the career, the energy all of the VAs are injecting into the game, and the sense that you're a newbie breaking into this big and awesome scene is what is really going to help sell that experience.

    We'll get plenty of gameplay clips closer to launch, and sure I want to see how good the wheel support is, but these videos are getting me more hyped and excited. It's bringing back that energy I used to get back in high school when a new game was getting ready to launch and you want to just explore all of that new content. This might finally be the game that can fill the D3 void I was left with. Rally has been a blast, but something about those older titles just helped create this sense of awesomeness you were a part of. All I can pray for is a killer MP portion that fully embraces freeroaming with friends in awesome compounds, cool as hell custom races with full lobbies, and fun party modes to mess around with other drivers until the wee hours of the morning.

    • Like 1

  7. Posted · Edited by Mike Dee

    On 6/14/2020 at 6:47 PM, Kjell007 said:

    The AI IS terrible in this game, firstly because of the flaws I mentioned before in this thread

    And this is where I'm telling you, you are flat out wrong. I can show you indisputable evidence. There is almost a full 20 second difference between DRY and WET pace. And we see another 20 second gap between Day/Dry and Night/Dry pacing (ignoring the usual 1 "fast" driver every group has). So the AI is affected by the environment and time of of day. I can't find anything else where you talk about "flaws you have mentioned before". The only thing you talk about is the AI being too fast, and it not being affected by weather or time of day. Give me something tangible that you don't like about the AI and we can actually discuss it. For now the only thing you've complained about has been proven to not work the way you describe.

    Here is a 50% AI pace at Chandler's Creek Reverse, Australia (DAY / DRY) - 7:33.009
    image.thumb.png.b886419ee2a176fb691c0239f849e0e9.png

     

    Here is a 50% AI pace at Chandler's Creek Reverse, Australia (DAY / SHOWERS) - 7:52.218
    image.thumb.png.1e018bd5951d0f1fa9df34cf0da22243.png

     

    Here is a 50% AI pace at Chandler's Creek Reverse, Australia (NIGHT / DRY) - 7:52.800 (IGNORING P1 7:34.767)

    image.thumb.png.30399cd47edb76ab6e750cd4a55466a3.png

     

    The other thing is you are saying the AI is insanely hard/unbeatable. The reality is that I've watch a lot of players go from not being able to beat Open/Clubman to winning Pro in only a few months. The AI is not that unreasonable until you hit Elite+ but it definitely will be fast. You have enough hours and KM's in this game that I think the issue is either in how you are approaching the game or your input settings - something is wrong/misconfigured that is causing you more problems than the rest of the playerbase. 

    • Agree 1

  8. Posted

    2 hours ago, Kjell007 said:

    but I wouldn’t mind if there were Legendary and Insane too

    That is pretty much what Elite and Master are - Master is literally based off of in-house times from Jon and the fastest drivers at CM. Sure there could be more difficulties, and in custom there are (Open in My Team uses "Easy" AI I believe which is around 50%), but for My Team 5 tiers already feels like enough to me. Adding more just for the sake of even easier initial difficulties feels... tedious? Maybe if they had a placement rally or something to help get you into the right tier from the start more than 5 would be ok. But I wouldn't personally want any more in the current format. As for the lower levels being too hard, I guess I have no choice but to really defer to your judgement because I thought they weren't that bad. They are minutes behind the "fast pace" on any stage, hell I'm pretty sure we even tested if you could beat 70% AI in R5s without ever leaving 4th gear and it was doable. So I don't really feel like saying they are way too hard.

    2 hours ago, Kjell007 said:

    It is not the same thing as saying I want the higher levels watered down - I really don’t understand how you came up with that??

    literally from your post on the previous page where you say AI is not for the fast drivers

    On 6/7/2020 at 5:23 PM, Kjell007 said:

    The top players can compete with each other in eSports or whatever - no need for CPUs. The CPUs and their AI are there for the not-so-good players

    You don't need to be a top player (read: esport try-hard/pro/whatever you want to call it) to beat Master. Master is still pretty significantly behind the WR's. So for everyone who is fast, but not esport fast, having very challenging AI is awesome. I understand now that you are only talking about the lower difficulties, but up until this point all you have said was "the AI is terrible" which most will understand as all of the AI. 

    • Agree 1

  9. Posted

    22 minutes ago, Kjell007 said:

    The times are good, but it looks like someone driving a Need for Speed game: The pro gamers reveiles the shortcommings of the physics and the handling model, in other words: It looks UNREALISTIC!

    You say it's like someone driving NFS but you don't say why it appears that way to you. Is it the lines they take? Is it the extreme precision and car control? You need to elaborate on what seems so unrealistic. At least provide a link.

    For example here is a video from our very own Community Manager PJ doing a run in the 2000cc at Scotland posting a top 250 time. Is his run unrealistic or unauthentic to you? That run would definitely be able to beat Clubman, Pro, and Elite - probably even getting him top 5 in a Masters Championship if not winning it. Sure he is using a smaller wheel rotation due to his F1 rim, but for the S4 it isn't going to magically make you jump from Clubman pace to Master pace by switching from 540° to 360°

     

    37 minutes ago, Kjell007 said:

    Instead of being ignorant, you should be thankfull for all the normal people who buys rally games.

    Where do you get the idea I am not thankful to them? All I am saying is that your idea that the fastest drivers should just compete online or in esports is marginalizing that playerbase as well. Some of the fastest drivers in Dirt really don't enjoy competing online or in clubs anymore. They want to kick back and just race a custom championship like everyone else, recreating cool scenarios and historic moments. That is why there is such a big range in the AI, and that the hardest difficulties should be designed to keep even the fastest drivers on their toes. No one wants Clubman or Pro to be impossible for 90% of drivers to beat, but a lot of us don't want to see Elite and Master watered down just so more players can beat them.

    • Like 1
    • Agree 1

  10. Posted · Edited by Mike Dee

    On 6/7/2020 at 5:23 PM, Kjell007 said:

    With over 30,000 km behind the wheels in this game, but still minutes behind. And this is supposed to be easy?!

    Honestly, and I'm not trying to sound like a **** here, it seems like you've wasted tens of thousands of km's by driving without a purpose or clear goal.

    With that much distance behind the wheel and that much seat time, you should be able to beat Clubman pretty comfortably. It sounds like you've just been driving, not actively driving. What I mean by that is you are not analyzing what you did wrong or where you can be faster. You aren't trying to do anything to increase your skill ceiling, you're just driving hoping something just changes within you and you're faster.

    Have you ever stopped to watch a twitch/youtube run of a stage you really like and see how someone faster than you would drive it? Have you ever sat down in time trials and actively tried to get much faster on a specific stage? Somewhere you can practice driving very aggressively and test out new techniques? No not DirtFish, that location only helps precision but not stage speed. 

    Quote

    The CPUs and their AI are there for the not-so-good players

    You also seem to want to exclude people from using a part of the game. CPUs and AI aren't meant for the fastest drivers? Since when? When has "legendary" or "insane" difficulty ever been in any game and not been designed for the top players? Sure, 100% AI shouldn't be balanced against the eSport drivers (and it isn't; the AI times are not even close and much slower) but it also shouldn't be so easy that everyone can stroll through the final difficulty. That was one of the biggest complaints in DR1 - the AI was pathetically slow at Masters. They fixed that for DR2.0

    • Agree 1

  12. Posted

    20 minutes ago, richie said:

    Absolute weapon. I should definitely drive it more, but man, the turbo lag is astronomical! You really need to mess around too much with gearing to minimize that. 

    Turbo can't lag if you never lift your right foot up 😏

     

    Seriously though, the Quattro needs to be driven like nothing else in the game. I have to jam the brakes so hard it feels like I'm doing stoppies with the car just to get the back end around.

    • Like 1

  13. Posted

    Have we already listed "Better player stats" on this wishlist? What do I mean by this?

    1. The odometers in Time Trial cars should work. Some people spend literally days in there over the life of the game chasing down different WR's, let me see how many miles I've ended up putting on the different Time Trial cars. Keep it completely separated from My Team, that's fine, but why don't we have more stats about what we do in Time Trials
    2. Give us just STATS about each game mode. How many miles/hours driven in My Team. How many in Time Trial? How many in online MP lobbies? How many in Colin's Challenges? That's literally 1 stat that I'd want to see in at least 5 different filtered styles; My Team, TT, Customs, Colin's, and Total. Expand on that; which car is used the most per location; per mode; classes, etc. These are all the cool little details car enthusiasts can eat up and love to do it. This is what let's people "bond" with the cars. You feel connections to them. 
    3. You have all of this online stuff, WHY AREN'T ANY OF THE STATS FROM IT AVAILABLE. Why can't I see how many total Daily events I have entered? Where is the stat showing my % of top tier placements compared to entries.
    4. Stage records should be easily available to see; we should be able to compare across cars/classes, against our own times in other classes/cars and compared to friends or the online community as a whole. If I pull up Sweet Lamb, Wales in a records/leaderboard style menu I want to see my fastest PB, and then be able to see my PB for every class below it too - let me then select the class and select a specific car to see that PB.
    5. We do cool things, let us obsess and go OCD over stats.

     

    • Like 4
    • Agree 2

  14. Posted · Edited by Mike Dee

    I had 15 minutes before a meeting so I hopped on that stage, so we have 30 entries so far. Sub 4:00 is very doable with a clean run, I'd suspect a 3:45 with the faster cars wouldn't be too hard either.

     

    @navernoe

    1. GTR has some tunes a lot of people like. They are not necessary to be fast or win though. Find what fits you well, find what lets you not fight the car, and you'll be fast. I race 100% stock tunes. It forces me to change my driving style on a per car basis, sometimes dramatically, but I find it more fun that way - because I'm having fun I race more and typically am faster because of it. Enjoy the drive and you'll be fast.

    2. No visualizations I can give you, but what helps some people is to think of it this way. Your job as a racer is to find the absolute shortest route between the start and end. This means taking an apex line that shortens a corner by 10ft, cutting over a curb during a super fast chicane of 6's to remove 30ft and maintain 10mph higher exit speed. Things like this are where the real time is at. Late braking helps, good throttle control can quicken your pace out of corners. But you want some real hard numbers? 

    100m @ 50mph takes 4.47387 s

100m @ 60mph takes 3.72823 s

    Leaving a corner 10mph faster and maintaining that gap through a 100m straight can take over half a second off of your times. Literally almost nothing else matters but conserving momentum. That is 99% of setting the stupid fast times. You also will need to start thinking like a circuit racer. Which corners are the ones you should focus on entry speed because they lead into consecutive tight cuts where you'll be in a low gear regardless? Which ones are worth sacrificing some entry speed to make sure without a doubt you hit your apex flawlessly and can be on throttle immediately for the 200m straight after it? This is where the time is

    3. Pace notes are weird and personal. A 4 Left in Argentina is a very different approach than a 4 Left in Finland even if you're using the same car. The real information is what is before/after any given call. "3L Opens 4 200(m)" you should be basically trying to take at the fastest "4" you can imagine because it an accelerating exit corner - it is literally designed to help you haul ass out of. But a "6R into 4L tightens" you need to be extra cautious on that approach because you'll already be unstable from slowing heavily out of the 6 and still need to keep it tidy for the tightens. Don't think about individual corners, think about the line into and out of it. The # you hear called after a corner severity, like the "200(m)" I used above [read: 200] it just is the distance after the last call before you act on the next call. So in that case it is a 200m straight after the exit of the 4.

    4. Any car is viable enough against majority of challenges you'll face. You can take what many consider "bottom tier" cars in any class and finish top 10 on the dailies with them. Skyrex was already linked, but go find what you find fun to drive. It's more satisfying to win with something you enjoy, especially if it is in a car most doubted.

    5. Engineer help you fix things faster, sooner, and for cheaper. More advanced is always better. If you have credits to waste BUY THEM ALL

    6. You can set WRs without "memorizing" the stages. I'd say most of the stages in game I know about 50% of any given part of the actual road pretty well. I know most of the "gotchya" corners on any stage, but a lot of my races I'm also going "oh yeah, this stage has those corners" or "ah damn I forgot about this terrible section was right here" for lots of it. This isn't to say you can get all WR's this way, because once the challengers come out the time starts to absolutely plummet. When the "Time Trial Gangs" show up from any of the Discords, you will see absolutely asinine things happen. 12 DS21's coming out of no where to steal the top of a leaderboard from the mini/fulvia and do it by like 20 seconds. Mustangs showing up in Finland/Wet to absolutely stomp Porsches and BMW M2's by 15 seconds on a Sprint. People chasing down sub-5:00 on a Long stage in Sweden in Group B... 👽👽👽

    • Like 2

  15. Posted

    On 5/15/2020 at 7:43 AM, gfRally said:

    Old timer here: how do I keep up on Discord, when I can come here in the morning and easily catch up?  Discord I have to wade though hours of chatter, very time consuming.

    Pretty much exactly what you just said. Use the forums to catch up on "bigger" more concise news and updates, while you use Discord to see what the community is actively thinking at that moment. It's a great place for quick one off topics and ideas that survive for 10-15 minute bursts. It's tons of info all over the place at once, but if you're familiar with how the old IRC chats worked back in the day it is essentially the same thing with more meme media integration 😅

  20. Posted

    41 minutes ago, warpengage said:

    Well, turning off the crowds does boost the FPS significantly. I was hoping not to turn them off entirely because the stages look a bit lifeless without them. But looks like that's what I might have to settle with. It's a shame with a card that should, in theory, eat this game for breakfast.

    You shouldn't have to turn them off completely; low should be good enough and is actually better because off does not remove the crowds, it just stops rendering them - they can still be hit for penalties...

    Maybe open up your Nvidia Control Panel and go into global 3D settings. Check to see if you might have anything overriding the game settings in there which might trigger the frame drops too.

  21. Posted

    2 minutes ago, warpengage said:

    AO as in Ambient Occlusion? Regular Ambient Occlusion, not the Advanced one?

    Correct. I know it sounds like a downgrade, it is, but it's the only thing I've found that will fix the frame drop bridge in Scotland. I get 90-110fps on average for my 3440x1440p monitor. In Scotland, I would drop into the 20-30fps range crossing that bridge. I gave up the AO for the stability. It's worth trying to just verify if it does help/hurt.

    What you describe is interesting as for the locations. Initially I say it's the crowds, top of Monte and Argentina hairpins are terrible due to those. The Poland one throws me off though, not sure how many people/crowds are right there. Let me do some stuff real quick as I finish up some work virtual meetings, but I'll try to boot those up and see if anything jumps out at me

  22. Posted · Edited by Mike Dee

    1 hour ago, warpengage said:

    I've been directed here, by PJ himself, because I'm wondering if any of you could give me performance tips. My card is a RTX 2070 Super, paired with an i7-9700K. However, despite playing on High, with crowds on Low and Screenspace Reflections off, I'm still getting places with as much as an 80% drop in framerate. Any suggestions?

    Sounds like throttling in some locations of the stage? Any specific ones you can point to for us where it always happens, or any common trend you notice like "specifically going from an open area into a heavily wooded forest part of the stage" or "always after turn X in location Y" so we can see if something jumps out to us?

    I've seen AO cause massive frame drops for absolutely no obvious reason - case in point the "frame drop bridge" in Scotland. Turn AO off or to low, completely fixes the problem. Only happens in Scotland too. My common suggestions are always -

    • motion blur - off
    • crowds - low
    • AO - low
    • Screen Space - low/off
    • Ground cover - low/medium
    • Shadows - medium

    I've also seen it be a GPU software issue. If you don't run custom fan profiles weird thermal things can happen. A buddy of mine will see his GPU just choke on itself once it hits like 60°C if he doesn't have the custom fan profile running. Basically he hit that perfect window between when the GPU fans would ramp up to increase cooling and where the GPU throttles itself until it can cool off a bit. GPU would throttle just enough to not force fans to increase from the default 30% to the next "step" at 50% fanspeed. Worth looking at your fan profile curve.

    • Thanks 1

  23. Posted

    On 5/3/2020 at 5:03 PM, DarkRedslayer said:

    I agree with most, except for this. They already place things purely for the sake of difficulty on the side of tracks, and some already launch you into the air for dipping even half a tire off. Its annoying enough as is, no need to make it any worse.

    Difficult =/= always mean more realistic.

    Though, I'd be willing to compromise if they add an assist option that softens the edge of the track or something, so people who want the most annoying experience possible can have it, while the rest of us just try to have some fun.

    I don't want to speak for @caerphoto but feel like I know them well enough to say this opinion on harsher off-track penalties/risks is aimed at both the circuit style "slight" offs trying to maximize every inch of the stage, but also is to help specifically address the egregious cutting possible in DR2. Some places like Poland, Argentina, and New Zealand allow you to drive DEEP off the main road with almost zero risk and huge rewards.

    • Agree 1

  24. Posted

    I stopped driving halfway through a time trial run, walked to a different room to get my phone for 2FA, and signed into the forums just to post this.

    Give us an option to turn on LIVE DELTA DATA in Time Trials.


    2019-04-08_14h27_59.png

    What do I mean by this? A perfect implementation would give us a simple green/red bar in the UI with a gap time from a selected ghost/your PB. Something similar to @bn880's RDA app which is immensely helpful when trying to shave those final few hundredths of a second. Being able to watch the real gap change based on how I attack a corner is crucial for determining the better strategy. Having raw numbers is so much more important than just using "gut" feel, or final stage time. So many variables are on the stage, and some of us dislike seeing the ghost on stage because it distracts us. 

    • Agree 1

  25. Posted

    Yeah I had been seeing this issue myself, but seems to have gotten better with the 1.13 patch for me at least. I always run stock setups too so nothing I can point to myself for, and I was seeing my windshield crack within the first 5-10 seconds of a stage in 2000cc and R5 cars. Completely random too, driving dead center of the road but always had some kind of bump/dip. No real fix I can suggest, just wanted to say you aren't alone =/

    • Agree 1
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