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[DiRT 4] Constructive feedback on the subject of car-feel and physics: The Ultimate Thread

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I am sorry, but I'm not buying "setups are just meant to be save".

Why does D4 need save setups?
There is already a gamer mode, for those who wants it save.

Rally is all about power oversteer and the rear stepping out (AWD and RWD). The argument that setups were deliberately made to understeer (like hell) is imho
a) more like an excuse because Devs didn't had enough time to get in-depth setups.
b) or a really strange decision because you see where it got D4 to and they should have known how it would be perceived in the end.
c) or they had/have a problem with a specific part in the physics system (tyres, surface, weight etc.) and not enough time to get it right.
d) or maybe gamer mode needs this kind of "save handling" to work like intended.

Anyway, fiddling with setups and making crazy (unrealistic) settings can merely be a temporary solution.
I am not a chief engineer (and neither do I have his mood swings), but I guess in reality engineers and pilots try to tame cars with setups, while in D4 were are trying to do the opposite.



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Why does every fucking stage have to be bumpier than Greece? Once any of the driving wheels lifts off the ground in the RWD you loose all momentum or you just simply insta spin. There are actually flat roads in the world. Most of the created gravel roads have a natural flow too them. They don't have strange bumps every 10 meters with camber allover the place that makes them undriveable!

Gaaaaaah It's not even fun anymore.  :s

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Yeah. I suspect thats deliberate choice because realistic stages arent "fun" or "exciting"

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gheeD said:
dirt rally was easy, because it was natural. dirt 4 hard cuz not
I disagree. Dirt Rally was easier, when you could hold the car on the track, because the grip levels where unrealistically uniform, what leads to a higher consistency and therfore more predictable powersliding. But when you hit the edges, everything got incredibly unpredictable and therefore harder in this aspect. So in Dirt Rally the difficulty everybody liked, was the act of balancing the car on a narrow track. Now that Dirt 4 features tracks with seemingly more variant grip levels and edges that don't want to kill you instantly, driving itself got way more interesting and more realistic this way. That makes it easier to get through a stage and do some realistic cuts, but harder to do it fast imo.

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fab1701 said:
gheeD said:
dirt rally was easy, because it was natural. dirt 4 hard cuz not
I disagree. Dirt Rally was easier, when you could hold the car on the track, because the grip levels where unrealistically uniform, what leads to a higher consistency and therfore more predictable powersliding. But when you hit the edges, everything got incredibly unpredictable and therefore harder in this aspect. So in Dirt Rally the difficulty everybody liked, was the act of balancing the car on a narrow track. Now that Dirt 4 features tracks with seemingly more variant grip levels and edges that don't want to kill you instantly, driving itself got way more interesting and more realistic this way. That makes it easier to get through a stage and do some realistic cuts, but harder to do it fast imo.
The edges have unrealistically low grip now and you cant lean or cut the tyres off track anywhere or you will go in a slide. Also oversteering and rear going bit wide into grass or in australia into a rising bank it will somehow accelerate the rear to launch it up the bank into a spin.

The driving doesnt make sense in dirt 4 and its very frustrating.

Basically totally opposite is true in my experience to what you said.

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gheeD said:
fab1701 said:
gheeD said:
dirt rally was easy, because it was natural. dirt 4 hard cuz not
I disagree. Dirt Rally was easier, when you could hold the car on the track, because the grip levels where unrealistically uniform, what leads to a higher consistency and therfore more predictable powersliding. But when you hit the edges, everything got incredibly unpredictable and therefore harder in this aspect. So in Dirt Rally the difficulty everybody liked, was the act of balancing the car on a narrow track. Now that Dirt 4 features tracks with seemingly more variant grip levels and edges that don't want to kill you instantly, driving itself got way more interesting and more realistic this way. That makes it easier to get through a stage and do some realistic cuts, but harder to do it fast imo.
The edges have unrealistically low grip now and you cant lean or cut the tyres off track anywhere or you will go in a slide. Also oversteering and rear going bit wide into grass or in australia into a rising bank it will somehow accelerate the rear to launch it up the bank into a spin.

The driving doesnt make sense in dirt 4 and its very frustrating.

Basically totally opposite is true in my experience to what you said.
The grip on grass is really low in RL too, so driving over it should indeed be dangerous and leads to spinning in some cases, like when you hit it with the rear. I don't see a problem there. The australian banks though... yes there is something off with them. Maybe they provide too much grip for the tires and thats the reason they go into rocket-mode on contact. The driving itself makes totally sense for the most part for me (RWD/AWD powersliding issue not included), so I think we'll just disagree on this one ;).

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fab1701 said:
gheeD said:
fab1701 said:
gheeD said:
dirt rally was easy, because it was natural. dirt 4 hard cuz not
I disagree. Dirt Rally was easier, when you could hold the car on the track, because the grip levels where unrealistically uniform, what leads to a higher consistency and therfore more predictable powersliding. But when you hit the edges, everything got incredibly unpredictable and therefore harder in this aspect. So in Dirt Rally the difficulty everybody liked, was the act of balancing the car on a narrow track. Now that Dirt 4 features tracks with seemingly more variant grip levels and edges that don't want to kill you instantly, driving itself got way more interesting and more realistic this way. That makes it easier to get through a stage and do some realistic cuts, but harder to do it fast imo.
The edges have unrealistically low grip now and you cant lean or cut the tyres off track anywhere or you will go in a slide. Also oversteering and rear going bit wide into grass or in australia into a rising bank it will somehow accelerate the rear to launch it up the bank into a spin.

The driving doesnt make sense in dirt 4 and its very frustrating.

Basically totally opposite is true in my experience to what you said.
The grip on grass is really low in RL too, so driving over it should indeed be dangerous and leads to spinning in some cases, like when you hit it with the rear. I don't see a problem there. The australian banks though... yes there is something off with them. Maybe they provide too much grip for the tires and thats the reason they go into rocket-mode on contact. The driving itself makes totally sense for the most part for me (RWD/AWD powersliding issue not included), so I think we'll just disagree on this one ;).
I totally agree with GheeD here. The might have got rid of the landmines from DR, but replaced it with icy grass instead. Grooved competition tires don't act like a slick on grass.

Tried the M3 in Sweden for the first time. It was pretty much undriveable with all the bumps upsetting the rear wheels. Once any of the rear wheels gets off the ground you lose the car.

If only we could try out these cars on the old DR stages. They make more sense.

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Its not really.. to same extent as we are talking here in dirt 4. Hooking the inside on the edge of the road or all the way to grass its like they behave as snowbanks do, sucking you in. The effects going offtrack are exaggerated and some weird forces accelerate the car when you go off the road only with 1 or 2 tires. And leaning on the high dirt walls in wales and australia you will accelerate up the wall, launching you on top of it and spinning you out. Its totally frustrating experience because it all feels totally fake and exaggerated, not natural.

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Made an another brake test spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/122WC37AHxbDadFtfdVrSItAoHLTW0J5v-xWaEV0OcSw/pubhtml
Can someone guess what cars are in this test and what is the road surface? ;)

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Thing about 1 wheel on slippery grass if we can go back to the relationship the suspension has with the other 3 wheels of the car. Stiffer suspension will be much less sensitive to this. Hence the reason why i started running higher bump.

Being bumpy surface people tend to think "okay obviously i need softer suspension to ride the bumps and promote oversteer/slide". This increases grip yes, but it effects the response the other 3 wheels will have on weight transfer and load. In reality you go with as much responsiveness (stiffness on the suspension as you can) as it allows you to run lower rideheight and distributes the overall grip and weight transfer of the car much more predictably and evenly.

In wet weather because theres allot less grip and traction available obviously you then setup your car to be softer on the suspension to makeup for the overall lack of grip.

For those that requested. here is the Mitsubishi  EvoX setup. I should also stress I added 2 spare tyres in the extra options for this car setup. I strongly recommend bringing 2 spare tyres with this setup.
http://imgur.com/a/It7cG
Adding 2 spare tyres will put more weight onto the rear tyres helping gain traction and making the rear tyres more responsive mid corner during slides.

@qmass , @chukonu

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gheeD said:
Its not really.. to same extent as we are talking here in dirt 4. Hooking the inside on the edge of the road or all the way to grass its like they behave as snowbanks do, sucking you in. The effects going offtrack are exaggerated and some weird forces accelerate the car when you go off the road only with 1 or 2 tires. And leaning on the high dirt walls in wales and australia you will accelerate up the wall, launching you on top of it and spinning you out. Its totally frustrating experience because it all feels totally fake and exaggerated, not natural.
Snowbanks suck you in, because they decelerate one side of the car on contact, leading to a rotation that may faces the car into the bank even more, regardless if you hit it with the rear or the front in the first place. Thats also true for vegetation, rocks and dirt banks alike, because the do the same thing. Some more, some less, based on impact and conditions. Yes, again, leaning on these walls and reaching near escape velocity is indeed off, but the rest, including grip on grass isn't imo.

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gheeD said:
dirt rally was easy, because it was natural. dirt 4 hard cuz not


ps. if u think hotlapping real stages is not rally u need to wake up to what wrc is. Because they study recce videos 8 hours per day, famous stages are driven for so many years the veterans know them as well as we do on dirt rally.
While I agree to an extent the difference is we got between 20-30km per location in dirt rally. Vs at least 100+km of stages per location in the wrc when you don't count the repeats of stages. There is way more to remember and they do change up stages often in real life as well.

Yes there is memorization at play but it's no where to the extent of knowing the perfect entry for every corner that the top players in dirt rally could do.

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fab1701 said:
Snowbanks suck you in, because they decelerate one side of the car on contact, leading to a rotation that may faces the car into the bank even more, regardless if you hit it with the rear or the front in the first place. Thats also true for vegetation, rocks and dirt banks alike, because the do the same thing. Some more, some less, based on impact and conditions. Yes, again, leaning on these walls and reaching near escape velocity is indeed off, but the rest, including grip on grass isn't imo.
Agreed, thats what happens in snow. But its not the case in gravel roads that are depicted in dirt 4. The physical effect doesnt in my mind reflect what is visually happening to the car on the stage.

And this is mostly with RWD cars that already are wack. R5 when tuned correct feels pretty great I think. Cutting corners on RWD cars the hooking effect seems off as the rear will snap and throw you sideways without time to react.

And to be clear what im exactly saying is not that grass grip is wrong or something. I'm really talking about the effect of using the off track to aid the car in turn or just cutting the track. How putting a tire off the main road causes weird behaviour in the car that makes playing frustrating.

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For those that requested. here is the Mitsubishi  EvoX setup. I should also stress I added 2 spare tyres in the extra options for this car setup. I strongly recommend bringing 2 spare tyres with this setup.
http://imgur.com/a/It7cG
Adding 2 spare tyres will put more weight onto the rear tyres helping gain traction and making the rear tyres more responsive mid corner during slides.
Thank you <3 <3 <3 I'll try it soon!

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gheeD said:
fab1701 said:
Snowbanks suck you in, because they decelerate one side of the car on contact, leading to a rotation that may faces the car into the bank even more, regardless if you hit it with the rear or the front in the first place. Thats also true for vegetation, rocks and dirt banks alike, because the do the same thing. Some more, some less, based on impact and conditions. Yes, again, leaning on these walls and reaching near escape velocity is indeed off, but the rest, including grip on grass isn't imo.
Agreed, thats what happens in snow. But its not the case in gravel roads that are depicted in dirt 4. The physical effect doesnt in my mind reflect what is visually happening to the car on the stage.

And this is mostly with RWD cars that already are wack. R5 when tuned correct feels pretty great I think. Cutting corners on RWD cars the hooking effect seems off as the rear will snap and throw you sideways without time to react.

And to be clear what im exactly saying is not that grass grip is wrong or something. I'm really talking about the effect of using the off track to aid the car in turn or just cutting the track. How putting a tire off the main road causes weird behaviour in the car that makes playing frustrating.
Ok, I think we're talking about different things here. So we agree on the weird wall-launches, grass grip and the snowbanks. Do we also agree, that dirtbanks/vegetation etc. can force a rotation and/or suck you in too? Maybe the effect on RWDs is just more noticable, because of the snappyness in the first place and not the road edges behaviour.

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Yes, as I stated it feels off, as in i acknowledge that effect should be there (and its a good rally technique to help the car rotate) but if you do it, it will snap the rear around you in an instant and you spin. 

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Ah ok. I thought you meant that hitting the road banks shouldn't have a great effect on the car in some way. You may be right, but isn't this technique you're mentioning mostly used with FWDs and AWDs anyway? I would say for the edges in the wales open fields this should be possible to use, on those more cliff-like ones in the forest though... seems a bit bold for my taste to do it there :).

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I am talking about both wales and australia, but my experience with finnish roads is that regardless of the car you want to have the front end as close to the inside as possible since the corners simply are cambered towards the inside and you can carry lot more speed by using the natural camber to rotate the car around a corner. In real life this is obviously a balancing act as if you really put the front tyres into the ditch on the inside there can be rocks and other stuff that can blow your tyre or worse if you are not careful. 

The foresty part of wales / and australia is biggest problem imo, the big cushions/banks on side of the road where you might put your tire just sort of accelerate your car too much into a spin, sort of same behaviour as a snow bank sucking you in (snowbank really decelerates the front end of the car that causes the spin and then sucks you in, but here it doesnt actually suck you in, it just somehow causes the rear end to snap) I think this is kind of related to same issues i find with the tyres lifting when you come to a corner with lots of roughness and different cambers, it sort of throws the car totally of whack. This wouldnt be such a huge issue i feel if the track design wasnt so extreme, everything is very rutted and rough and causes tyres to lift all the time and when you push the car hard it causes these behaviours to manifest often.

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Ok, I totally agree with what you just said, because you're right. But isn't that the description of the RWDs snappyness problem? I feel like this has nothing to do with the road banks and edges and just is the problem with the RWDs suddenly getting grip at the front, working like an anchor and throwing the rear out resulting in a spin. Then I understand why you said Dirt Rally was 'natural' in this aspect, because that didn't happen there. The reason why I brought up the road edges in my initial respond stating that Dirt 4 is in my opinion more natural feeling than Dirt Rally, was to argue that most of these edges now doesn't feel like they're made out of concrete and just throw you into orbit anymore and how that is connected to the difficulty, mentioning, that a higher difficulty doesn't imlpy a more realistic simulation. Yes, Dirt 4 dirtbanks now do some other weird things though, but the amount of edges where you can safely and realistically cut has dramatically increased imo.

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I actually find there are extremely few spots where you can safely cut.. if anything even less than Dirt Rally, although they both are very limiting with cut options. Michigan seems to be the exception, some tiles allow for some pretty aggressive cutting and the surface is just smooth enough to not send your car into 12 spins followed by 6 rolls.

Anyway, it's definitely realistic that grassy surfaces provides less grip than the actual road. But right now it's too excessive. The grip differential between the already overly grippy gravel and the grass/dirt/shrubs surface is so large that even the tiniest off with 1 or 2 wheels in a corner is almost sure to send you into an incident. And besides, it's not like the surfaces we're talking about are finely manicured sod like you would see on a popular closed circuit course (which is indeed extremely slick) but this is grass mixed with dirt and shrubs and bumps. 

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gheeD said:
I am talking about both wales and australia, but my experience with finnish roads is that regardless of the car you want to have the front end as close to the inside as possible since the corners simply are cambered towards the inside and you can carry lot more speed by using the natural camber to rotate the car around a corner. In real life this is obviously a balancing act as if you really put the front tyres into the ditch on the inside there can be rocks and other stuff that can blow your tyre or worse if you are not careful. 

The foresty part of wales / and australia is biggest problem imo, the big cushions/banks on side of the road where you might put your tire just sort of accelerate your car too much into a spin, sort of same behaviour as a snow bank sucking you in (snowbank really decelerates the front end of the car that causes the spin and then sucks you in, but here it doesnt actually suck you in, it just somehow causes the rear end to snap) I think this is kind of related to same issues i find with the tyres lifting when you come to a corner with lots of roughness and different cambers, it sort of throws the car totally of whack. This wouldnt be such a huge issue i feel if the track design wasnt so extreme, everything is very rutted and rough and causes tyres to lift all the time and when you push the car hard it causes these behaviours to manifest often.
I made a video of the problem:
https://youtu.be/DeiYI6HNKn4

Analysis and data:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JU_s33ms0UQJeoQLv5pFCozBr0QTHyYhXcMOIfegvoI/pubhtml

It seems that the inner rear wheel lifts off the ground when you hit the side of the road. When the inner wheel is off the ground, it doesn't have any grip and will suddenly accelerate.

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For those that requested. here is the Mitsubishi  EvoX setup. I should also stress I added 2 spare tyres in the extra options for this car setup. I strongly recommend bringing 2 spare tyres with this setup.
http://imgur.com/a/It7cG
Adding 2 spare tyres will put more weight onto the rear tyres helping gain traction and making the rear tyres more responsive mid corner during slides.

Wow, that is very cool. The physics is very advanced then since extra tyres in the back add weight to the back and make it more responsive during slides. 

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hawku0 said:
gheeD said:
I am talking about both wales and australia, but my experience with finnish roads is that regardless of the car you want to have the front end as close to the inside as possible since the corners simply are cambered towards the inside and you can carry lot more speed by using the natural camber to rotate the car around a corner. In real life this is obviously a balancing act as if you really put the front tyres into the ditch on the inside there can be rocks and other stuff that can blow your tyre or worse if you are not careful. 

The foresty part of wales / and australia is biggest problem imo, the big cushions/banks on side of the road where you might put your tire just sort of accelerate your car too much into a spin, sort of same behaviour as a snow bank sucking you in (snowbank really decelerates the front end of the car that causes the spin and then sucks you in, but here it doesnt actually suck you in, it just somehow causes the rear end to snap) I think this is kind of related to same issues i find with the tyres lifting when you come to a corner with lots of roughness and different cambers, it sort of throws the car totally of whack. This wouldnt be such a huge issue i feel if the track design wasnt so extreme, everything is very rutted and rough and causes tyres to lift all the time and when you push the car hard it causes these behaviours to manifest often.
I made a video of the problem:
https://youtu.be/DeiYI6HNKn4

Analysis and data:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JU_s33ms0UQJeoQLv5pFCozBr0QTHyYhXcMOIfegvoI/pubhtml

It seems that the inner rear wheel lifts off the ground when you hit the side of the road. When the inner wheel is off the ground, it doesn't have any grip and will suddenly accelerate.

Isn't it the LSD's job to feed the outer wheel with most of the available tourque when the inner wheel lifts? If it was a completely open standard  diff the tourqe would we equal between the wheels thus not giving the wheel with traction enough tourqe while the lifted wheel would accelerate freely.

So are the diffs working correctly?

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that would be in line with what ive noticed aswell. Its always caused by one of the tires not having contact with the ground

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