Is Dirt Rally a Game?

[likewise 19]

Firstly I am a console player on PS4, My first game was Dirt2 which I absolutely loved and played the crap out of it... it was a truly "fun" racing game. I'm sure that the pundits will disagree as it was more "arcade" than Dirt Rally but it kept me interested and having a good time either online or off. The problem I'm having with DR is that the "fun" (for me) has disappeared... Yes, the game looks good/runs pretty smooth/and has good physics (supposedly) but all the fun is gone... that is unless you like being 25 seconds behind the leader and you just did a stage without hitting anything... I have played every Codemasters game since Dirt 2 (Dirt/Grid/F1) and all those offer "beginner and elite" levels so I'm not sure why CM decided to start DR in basically "pro" settings. It makes it really difficult to "keep going"... In the F1 series you can "lock" the game to "legend" status and make it as hard as the game can offer but it still caters to the less competent driver, or more importantly it gives a novice a chance to win and eventually learn! With Dirt2 I started with all aids on and now with DR I'm driving with no aids but if Dirt 2 was as hard as DR then I might have called it a day and moved on to basket weaving or something. I'll continue to play it but in reality it doesn't offer me any rewards to get better, just endless frustration... I guess I suck at rally... bring on F1.

[Porkhammer 78]

Dirt Rally was designed that way. Winning involves a lot more than clearing a stage without hitting anything. It doesn't work that way in real life, so naturally it doesn't work in Dirt Rally. You need to add speed to that consistency, which will take a lot of time and effort to master. If you're not willing to put the hours and effort in, you'll be stuck 25 seconds behind, every time.

Letting "novice" people win by driving badly is hardly rewarding, and they will never learn anything.

I'm happy DR is like this. The "reward" is you becoming a better driver.

[V8SC 0]

Hi mate,  perhaps your mental reward system is not suited for rally, rally is about being satisfied with knocking points of a second off your times, its about grinding, you will find the reason you are not progressing is that you are not progressing with your driving style and lines,  watch a few vids on rally driving, learn to master the fine points and your times will start improving.
DR is a game that offers a huge scope for improvement.
F1 cant be compared to rally, rally drivers are the most skillfull on earth, dont doubt that for a second, f12015 is a fun game but its a very easy racing, i hardly have to think when playing it, i can sit back, zone out and go with the flow and win every race, thats the opposite of rally, you really have to think about your driving, theres so many more variables in rally.
F12015 Wont make you a better racer, its boarderline full arcade imo, DR will make you a better racer, it will even make you a better F1 driver.
Stick with it but maybe you need to view it with different eyes and different expectations,  and find a few cars you really like and stick with them so you get to know the cars well,
cheers

[DocStrangelove 165]

Why do you have to win to enjoy a game?

The great majority loves this game no matter how they suck. Personally I don't know anyone who tried the game and didn't love it, no matter if they finished last. I sucked too in the beginning, but I loved it and kept going (and I still suck sometimes).

I'm not a hardcore racing sim guy, but I've played DR for almost 400 hours, as opposed to Dirt 1-3 with a total of maybe 40 hours. Not because I'm a sim freak, but because it is such a ton of fun.

[Operator1 4]

Playin' vidya games fer "fun??"




          

[Darhour 3]

Honestly, I hate the word fun because it is a fetish to which we get enslaved. I totally despise being a slave to such fetish that is totally illusory. Rallying is more of a pragmatic element that makes us quite in parallel with the physical and the chemical laws .eg, damaged radiator will result in engine defect and breakage which is a realistic thing, not fun. 

[RyuMakkuro 6]

I like winning. I don't think anyone here doesn't. But I like earning a win, not being given a win,. There's a difference. In DR you have to earn the win, compared to how most games are doing things nowadays. I would say it's a lot more satisfying that way once you do it.

Games are naturally meant for fun. Which is why you need to make sure that you buy a game that is suited to your needs. If you expect to win by doing nothing while playing on the easiest level, then this game is not for you. It's for those that like to work for their fun, so to speak.

[Darhour 3]

Fun in a very limited dimension as stimulant not addiction and in pursuit of the endless need of wanting fun over and over again which will rather drown you into despair and depression. Games, when played positively, do not contribute in having fun but rather acquiring many intellectual elements that would serve in daily life and be at your disposal for personality's structure. My apologies for such philosophical perspective, but games were not solely created for fun and winning purpose. Fun and winning are only the 25% percent of gaming purpose.

I do agree with you on the winning side that makes you carrying on and progress in-game, but we should not be deterred by fun and entertainment and start blaming the devs for not being clownish enough. lol

[JZStudios 631]

That's right, no fun. People don't play games for fun. Don't you know how games started? The life skills that games such as Pong, Tetris, and Pac-Man gave to the world are still affecting it today.

[cjl9 12]

Porkhammer said:

Dirt Rally was designed that way. Winning involves a lot more than clearing a stage without hitting anything. It doesn't work that way in real life, so naturally it doesn't work in Dirt Rally. You need to add speed to that consistency, which will take a lot of time and effort to master. If you're not willing to put the hours and effort in, you'll be stuck 25 seconds behind, every time.

Letting "novice" people win by driving badly is hardly rewarding, and they will never learn anything.

I'm happy DR is like this. The "reward" is you becoming a better driver.

What Porky said!

[Darhour 3]

JZStudios said:

That's right, no fun. People don't play games for fun. Don't you know how games started? The life skills that games such as Pong, Tetris, and Pac-Man gave to the world are still affecting it today.

Yes. I bet my reply was both subjective and objective. 

[RodgerDavies 933]

Darhour said:

Fun in a very limited dimension as stimulant not addiction and in pursuit of the endless need of wanting fun over and over again which will rather drown you into despair and depression. Games, when played positively, do not contribute in having fun but rather acquiring many intellectual elements that would serve in daily life and be at your disposal for personality's structure. My apologies for such philosophical perspective, but games were not solely created for fun and winning purpose. Fun and winning are only the 25% percent of gaming purpose.

I do agree with you on the winning side that makes you carrying on and progress in-game, but we should not be deterred by fun and entertainment and start blaming the devs for not being clownish enough. lol

Personally, I think that's a limited view of 'fun'. I play DR for fun, certainly - I'm not doing it to make myself more intellectual (that boat sailed long ago!), but for entertainment purposes.

The question to me is what different methods people find for having fun. There is no one single answer and one person's pleasure is another's poison. 

For me, that added realism of difficulty greatly increases my immersion and thus my enjoyment of the experience. Knowing I have improved my own abilities and overcome a 'difficult' game is what I find enjoyable, but I'm certainly doing it for enjoyment. I struggle to empathise with those who don't find the same entertaining, but to each their own. 

[Darhour 3]

There should be fun to attain that desire, but it can be harmful and almost nonexistent beyond excess. We are always in need of desire, though. 

[TonyRickard 17]

Porkhammer said:

Dirt Rally was designed that way. Winning involves a lot more than clearing a stage without hitting anything. It doesn't work that way in real life, so naturally it doesn't work in Dirt Rally. You need to add speed to that consistency, which will take a lot of time and effort to master. If you're not willing to put the hours and effort in, you'll be stuck 25 seconds behind, every time.

Letting "novice" people win by driving badly is hardly rewarding, and they will never learn anything.

I'm happy DR is like this. The "reward" is you becoming a better driver.

No matter how we spin it, "driving" a WRC or similar rally car competitively is for the very vast majority of DiRT Rally users a complete fantasy. Having an endless supply of replacement cars when we break them whilst being immune from injury even more so. Real rally drivers don't get to drive the same stage a zillion times to perfect their stage times.

Personally I prefer to virtually drive something that feels more realistic, hence I prefer DiRT Rally to other rally titles. That said the competition against AI is pure fantasy so it might as well have achievable targets. Beating the AI equivalents of Ogier etc. is hardly a comparison with what would happen in real world rallying no matter what level we play.

[Spokster 0]

The first mistake you make is trying to compare Dirt Rally to Dirt 1,2 and 3, which is wrong because Dirt Rally is more Sim oriented and Dirt 1,2 and 3 are arcade oriented.

The second mistake is approaching the game with winning in mind, Dirt Rally is not about winning right off the bat, it's about survival and learning to drive rally cars, that's also the reason all cars are available fully upgraded from the get go in Custom Event in the main menu, so you can practice.

The last mistake is maybe the most important one: Giving up, this game requires effort, and if you don't like putting in the time and enjoying the learning curve, then this may not be the game for you, but if you feel like continuing, ask anyone thats started when they played this game for 40 hours, we sucked, some less then others with some experience in other sim games like Richard Burns Rally, but we sticked to it and look where we are now, I eat Master Championships for breakfast now and after 12 stages I'm ahead of the competition by at least 2 minutes.

Don't give up, it's so much more rewarding to win something after you put a lot of time and effort into it, trust me.

[dgeesi0 305]

i dont get why people always try and break down and pigeon hole everything.

if its fun game and enjoy it .that should be enough.the word sim to me is stupid.

rbr is sim no its a game.its not realistic.people just love labels.

video games are not realistic.

[Spokster 0]

dgeesi0 said:

i dont get why people always try and break down and pigeon hole everything.

if its fun game and enjoy it .that should be enough.the word sim to me is stupid.

rbr is sim no its a game.its not realistic.people just love labels.

video games are not realistic.

People make the labels so it's easier to find something they like, only reason they do that for games.

[Darhour 3]

dgeesi0 said:

i dont get why people always try and break down and pigeon hole everything.

if its fun game and enjoy it .that should be enough.the word sim to me is stupid.

rbr is sim no its a game.its not realistic.people just love labels.

video games are not realistic.

Yes! Thank God! Someone mentioned RBR is not a sim and it never was. It wasnt even a rally game honestly. It is more like a based off tarmac circuit game exactly like AC. The feeling on gravel surface is almost nonexistent and the shifting gap is unreal and the physics are still revolving around tarmac no matter what. The car cannot handle too many undulations and crests without crashing it or without losing pace. Try to compare Sweet Lamb from RBR with the one we have in DR; DR version is clearly at least more realistic. I reckon RBR fanatics would toss spears at me, but thats my experience with both games after reasonable hours of driving.

[TonyRickard 17]

Spokster said:

I eat Master Championships for breakfast now and after 12 stages I'm ahead of the competition by at least 2 minutes.

Don't give up, it's so much more rewarding to win something after you put a lot of time and effort into it, trust me.

My interpretation of feedback is that the entry levels are possibly too hard for novices to be competitive with the AI and the top level is too easy.  IMHO it should be possible to progress by being competitive at the multiple levels the game provides, so the levels seem a bit too close.

FWIW I have some real world rally trophies because in the real world the entry level amateur series are miles apart from world championship level. Totally incomparable!

[dgeesi0 305]

nah i think the only thing that needs adjusting is the masters should be alot harder.

most people commenting on ai to fast are new.in a few months time they will be pretty easy way past it.

[BadD0g 0]

This argument comes up a lot, and I don't think we've really come up with a good compromise.

Full disclosure: I definitely think it's right that the game is hard, and I do definitely want a difficulty above Masters. However, I think the problem with the easy difficulties isn't that they're too hard, it's that there's no rally school to help new players ease into it. Even if the easy difficulties were easier, people would still complain about the next difficulty and so on. If there was a rally school that let you compete with 'super easy' AI after learning the techniques, I think people would be much less intimidated when they move on to the regular championship AI.

Unfortunately, we all know that isn't going to happen, and they're most likely never going to change the difficulties in this game either. Hopefully the next game will have enough time and budget to work in a proper rally school.

[FloatingGrass 0]

Pff. Of course it's not a game. It's a sandwich.

[cjl9 12]

dgeesi0 said:

nah i think the only thing that needs adjusting is the masters should be alot harder.

most people commenting on ai to fast are new.in a few months time they will be pretty easy way past it.

What he said! In fact it seems EASIER to win Masters championships than some of the earlier rounds.

And, with the Alpine, it's easy to win every stage of every rally, too.

[PaulRacer 0]

The AI is crazy hard. I'm currently battling away in Elite and was thinking I am utterly hopeless at the game until I decided to check the leaderboards. 

In the world of PS4 out of 2400 times posted, only 17 people were quicker than the AI time I had to beat. My time was 74th fastest. While this does show how challenging the AI times are on Dirt Rally, I can't tell you how relieved I was to find out that I'm by far not the only one struggling.

Now I've discovered this, I don't mind fighting against  these crazy times, but it's understandable that people are becoming frustrated with such a punishing difficulty level. 

[JZStudios 631]

Operator1 said:

Playin' vidya games fer "fun??"




          

I actually agree with you on this one.

dgeesi0 said:

video games are not realistic.

Well, there's realistic, and then "Sim." So far, there's not been a true sim, because it would literally need to take EVERYTHING into account. Which makes the entire sim racing community stupid frankly. For example, the aerodynamics testing. In a real time "sim" you can make a downforce curve, or potentially an actual air flow sim, but a limited one. You'd need a super computer. I could get more technical, but yeah. Car sims are impossible.
I also wouldn't argue with @Spokster or you might end up owing him $50.

TonyRickard said:

Spokster said:

I eat Master Championships for breakfast now and after 12 stages I'm ahead of the competition by at least 2 minutes.

Don't give up, it's so much more rewarding to win something after you put a lot of time and effort into it, trust me.

FWIW I have some real world rally trophies because in the real world the entry level amateur series are miles apart from world championship level. Totally incomparable!

I also agree. A while ago in the original complain about AI thread, I actually ran some benchmarks and made a spreadsheet of the AI times. I suppose I might want to redo it now they've been "adjusted" but the only difference from open to masters was like 1 second for sprints and 2 for longs. That, and the rest of the field in masters is a bit tighter together. So basically, from the get go you were playing against masters level AI.