Steam reviews are tanking, an update on issues would go a long way to showing the community some goodwill

[mshagg 44]

Midnight here in Australia, a bit over 7 days since the early access went live and 5 days since public release.  Of the 737 reviews on Steam, 241 are negative.  A 'mixed' review rating on Steam is a pretty significant issue for any game, let alone an anticipated title like this.  The sad thing is, so many of the reviews are "great potential, let down by significant issues".

For those of us that want the game to be the best it can be, and who are providing detailed feedback on the problems as we see them, we've been faced with radio silence for a week now.

An update from Codemasters (beyond 'were looking into it') would go a long way to instilling some confidence into this highly engaged community and I'm confident would stem the flow of negative reviews.  It's win-win.

You can talk real with us.  We know this stuff is hard.  You can even get technical, explain some of the challenges.  In a simulator-focused community you're going to get so much more respect by being open and transparent than you will going to ground.

[paint21 51]

The Thing is, The time they waste explaining every single nuance of the problems to you could very well be used to fix these exact same issues. Just give them a bit of time, Rome hasnt been build in a day either.

[SirPhilMcKraken 279]

That is the problem with Steam's review system, most people will see a mixed review as middle of the road and probably only worth buying in a sale. DR2.0 has its 2 large issues but that is it, the rest of the game is brilliant but this is what people latch onto.

Plus its always the vocal minority and silent majority situation.

[Pfei 106]

What is worrying me is the effect that all this negative review-bombing could have for the future of the game. Metacritic is even worse than steam. I think even the Steam percentages are doctored by Valve. Look how far you have to scroll down to find the first Recommended review, and even that review is full of criticism: https://steamcommunity.com/app/690790/reviews/

I think that if DiRT 4 never happened many of these review bombers would be giving CM the benefit of the doubt. Codies had to nail this release, but hiding "always online" in My Team and the "missing" FFB effects is really causing some damage. Let's hope the situation reverts itself when the main issues are addressed.

It's also sad to see the fighting on social media, especially some personal attacks I have seen aimed at Christina. This release has brought out the worst toxicity in what was already a toxic enough community.

 

[LittleApple 47]

Read those negative reviews, most are positive about the game but are borderline boycotting it due to always online for career.

The games pricing along with the always online and doubts about FFB has scared many people away from it.

If Codemasters stick to thier word and support the game for the next 6 months that should be plenty of time to resolve both the problems that are being highlighted in the reviews.

[I. SoSlo 45]

it could hurt future sale and games?

unfortunately it doesnt matter how good the game could be/is.

everyone has an opinion and the reviews are showing how people feel about some game breaking issues.

none progressive hand brake and FFB issues alone are bad and i saw game advertised as a sim? really?

 it may have went over better had codemasters advertised online career mode?

RACENET....well have your progress wiped out a few times and you will never play career mode again, EVER. why not give opt out of online/leaderboards or something?

having problems with racenet on the dailies and weekly events too.

you cant stop hackers.... so punish all the paying customers and alienate them to.

i pre ordered the deluxe on pc

i will not pre order games anymore!

just look at whats happening to other large developers and publishers, lol

dont give gamers what they want and wonder why sales/reviews are as they are?

my bad if i said career mode, i truly am sorry, lol

[Mike Dee 1,252]

35 minutes ago, LittleApple said:

due to always online for career

IT IS NOT CAREER MODE.

 

This is something people need to understand - career mode is something you complete, My Team is not something you "beat" and finish. I know you aren't saying it is, but man is it getting really annoying seeing that everywhere.

[Riggs 1,668]

The problem is that there's way too much salt and people don't even try to understand and just bash a negative review straight away, even though they only have 30 mins played. There needs to be some serious evaluation of reviews by Valve, because many of them are just ridiculous. Some of the negative reviews will switch to positive with time, as bugs get fixed.

People are also making a big drama about the "Always Online", while this is totally false. The "Always Online" status is only for My Team which englobes the online gameplay as well and I hope it doesn't change just because a bunch of kids, who haven't even explored the main menu to its full extent, demand it. 

It's not how it starts, but how it ends. Keep it strong because we're here to support you.

[bn880 543]

1 hour ago, SirPhilMcKraken said:

That is the problem with Steam's review system, most people will see a mixed review as middle of the road and probably only worth buying in a sale. DR2.0 has its 2 large issues but that is it, the rest of the game is brilliant but this is what people latch onto.

Plus its always the vocal minority and silent majority situation.

With all due respect the vocal minority and silent majority may have the same opinion.  You just do't know that the majority are happy with everything, this is why you have reviews.

[bn880 543]

26 minutes ago, CatBadders said:

IT IS NOT CAREER MODE.

 

This is something people need to understand - career mode is something you complete, My Team is not something you "beat" and finish. I know you aren't saying it is, but man is it getting really annoying seeing that everywhere.

Because it is called Career somewhere in the menu  "Career Races and Challenges"   "Career Rally".    But the point is a Career is a thing in a game, and in this game too, here it is UNDER Online MyTeam thing unfortunately.

[I. SoSlo 45]

career is always online.

you cant earn credits,buy cars, hire upgrade crew and cars. in freeplay.

so i can see why some people are upset.

all can have opinions without name calling. or maybe not. lol

[grancab 21]

Dirt rally 2.0 have the same bugs/faults for pc users that Dirt 4 got since release data up today and the limited content of Dirt rally(very limited seat/view adjusment range, no keyboard indications on screen, strange lighting behavior, wrong stage times, auto-wipers always on, some bad text and codriver translations on non english versións, unaccurate car interiors/dashboards, no "modding" liveries allowed, only four rally locations/two real stages per country, and some more that can't remenver now...) plus the "non road effects FFB" and the "always connected" career mode.

Don´t you see the problem?... a year and a half later codies give us almost the same unpolished product.... with a very good physics.  

[FLAW3D 477]

I think there is too much wrong now for Codies to give any details, Digital Foundry have really shown up how poor the PS4 Pro version is, They didnt even talk about the awful HDR implementation.

FFB works as it should imo its just *****

 

It seems Dirt Rally 2.0 released 12 months to early imo. 

[Rigle 54]

I honestly don't understand the issue with the always online thing....maybe because I haven't experienced a problem with it. Mine connects very fast and is almost unnoticeable.

I guess if you have slow internet or no internet at all this would be a problem.

CM already released a statement why it was necessary as well.

[Myrvold 75]

3 hours ago, Pfei said:

What is worrying me is the effect that all this negative review-bombing could have for the future of the game. Metacritic is even worse than steam. I think even the Steam percentages are doctored by Valve. Look how far you have to scroll down to find the first Recommended review, and even that review is full of criticism: https://steamcommunity.com/app/690790/reviews/

I think that if DiRT 4 never happened many of these review bombers would be giving CM the benefit of the doubt. Codies had to nail this release, but hiding "always online" in My Team and the "missing" FFB effects is really causing some damage. Let's hope the situation reverts itself when the main issues are addressed.

It's also sad to see the fighting on social media, especially some personal attacks I have seen aimed at Christina. This release has brought out the worst toxicity in what was already a toxic enough community.

It is not review-bombing. It's not hundreds on hundreds that write very similar reviews. It is on overall more positive reviews than negative. However, with the RaceNet issues the first couple of days (which the link you show, also shows the reviews are from), and the lack of road feel in steering wheels, it's no surprise that people are disappointed. For a sim-ish game to be good, you need a feel in the wheel. For people to be happy, half the game being unavailable due to server issues on a service they have had for years through more than one game release is poor.

Steam percentages are not doctored by Valve. You are sorting by "most helpful (week)". And then you get the reviews the most users have clicked "helpful" on. That's the users, not Valve.

And yes, the personal attacks, the non-serious shitposting is idiotic. Constructive critique is the way to help. However, it's not just the simrace community, it is how things are these days. The ones spewing out most idiotic stuff, to provoke and get a reaction, get's moved up, as all webpages wants traffic. Thus making more people do it, and common decency is just gone.

2 hours ago, CatBadders said:

IT IS NOT CAREER MODE.

 

This is something people need to understand - career mode is something you complete, My Team is not something you "beat" and finish. I know you aren't saying it is, but man is it getting really annoying seeing that everywhere.

But it is the mode you need to play to be able to buy and upgrade cars and your team, which you need to have fully upgraded to be able to fight for the top positions in the online events. So when you are unable to progress your cars and team outside something that's always online. It's no wonder why people get fed up when the online service flat out didn't work for quite some time after release.

36 minutes ago, Rigle said:

I honestly don't understand the issue with the always online thing....maybe because I haven't experienced a problem with it. Mine connects very fast and is almost unnoticeable.

I guess if you have slow internet or no internet at all this would be a problem.

CM already released a statement why it was necessary as well.

Because RaceNet didn't work for quite some time for Deluxe owners (relatively speaking, as the window was 4 days). And when we were told it was fixed, the same poop happened again. Yes, we (Deluxe owners) got compensated 1 mill creds for it, but it kept people out of an integral part of the game for evenings (EU-time) straight.

[Rigle 54]

2 minutes ago, Myrvold said:

It is not review-bombing. It's not hundreds on hundreds that write very similar reviews. It is on overall more positive reviews than negative. However, with the RaceNet issues the first couple of days (which the link you show, also shows the reviews are from), and the lack of road feel in steering wheels, it's no surprise that people are disappointed. For a sim-ish game to be good, you need a feel in the wheel. For people to be happy, half the game being unavailable due to server issues on a service they have had for years through more than one game release is poor.

Steam percentages are not doctored by Valve. You are sorting by "most helpful (week)". And then you get the reviews the most users have clicked "helpful" on. That's the users, not Valve.

And yes, the personal attacks, the non-serious shitposting is idiotic. Constructive critique is the way to help. However, it's not just the simrace community, it is how things are these days. The ones spewing out most idiotic stuff, to provoke and get a reaction, get's moved up, as all webpages wants traffic. Thus making more people do it, and common decency is just gone.

But it is the mode you need to play to be able to buy and upgrade cars and your team, which you need to have fully upgraded to be able to fight for the top positions in the online events. So when you are unable to progress your cars and team outside something that's always online. It's no wonder why people get fed up when the online service flat out didn't work for quite some time after release.

Because RaceNet didn't work for quite some time for Deluxe owners (relatively speaking, as the window was 4 days). And when we were told it was fixed, the same poop happened again. Yes, we (Deluxe owners) got compensated 1 mill creds for it, but it kept people out of an integral part of the game for evenings (EU-time) straight.

I also have the deluxe version and started playing the first hour it was available. Still never had a single connection issue. I wonder if I was only certain servers that were an issue. Like maybe the servers in Europe werent working as well as the servers here in the US.

[Mike Dee 1,252]

2 minutes ago, Myrvold said:

to be able to fight for the top positions in the online events. So when you are unable to progress your cars and team outside something that's always online

That's the thing though - it's an online mode you are trying to gear up to be competitive in, why wouldn't you do it online? I understand that people like the nature of having to fund your rally experience with credits both in the garage and in the service stops, so not having that mechanic in the offline championship modes is a bummer. But the requirement to keep all online content connected for validation checks when that same content will be used to control the competition and esport scene is pretty reasonable. I think that CM's biggest issue is that they didn't make a second "ported" copy of the My Team - remove the dailies/weeklies from it, create a second bank account for credits in there, and just give everyone complaining the mode they are asking for. They'll still complain that they are missing stuff and it should transfer over to My Team, but it should fix most of the problem.

[RodgerDavies 934]

2 hours ago, CatBadders said:

IT IS NOT CAREER MODE.

 

This is something people need to understand - career mode is something you complete, My Team is not something you "beat" and finish. I know you aren't saying it is, but man is it getting really annoying seeing that everywhere.

Not really with you on that front.

 

"Career" implies ongoing, season after season to me - things like Football Manager you can have a 'career' of as many seasons as you want. And as mentioned above, it's called 'career' in game...

 

9 minutes ago, CatBadders said:

That's the thing though - it's an online mode you are trying to gear up to be competitive in, why wouldn't you do it online? 

I could be wrong, but I imagine there are several folk like me who like the idea of the seasonal 'career' mode but indeed have no intention or ability to ever trouble a leaderboard. I'd like to do the occasional online race or event but don't want that to be dependent on my offline experience - especially when I have only a few hours of gaming time per week. DR1 got this balance spot on (access to any car for online mode), IMO, but I understand frustration with the way it's been designed here. That said, I don't think that in itself warrants the negativity in a lot of the reviews.

[CodingRacer 115]

For me the problem is that Codemasters/Christina promised too much (again). It's fair to create hype, but too much artificial hype creates frustration when problems appear, even more after Dirt 4.

Since the release of the first Dirt Rally they changed the attitude to say "this will be awesome guys", "we are listening", "we might or might not have something great coming", "patch in 2 weeks", "this will be added after release", and so on. When you play the role of being cool and close to the people, it's easy to find out when you are not honest. And people can make mistakes once but when the same story gets delivered we learn.

Dont get me wrong, the game might be entertaining and good, but when you promise gold make sure to hear the complaints when you don't deliver it, or the privious silly mistakes come back. 

Customers need to think about what they are buying, and take a breath before accepting what the marketing team is saying. This applies for any product really. 

I'm really sceptical about the DLC bit, I'm almost sure there will be no more seasons. Instead as I see it, they are just selling the game split in 2 parts, so £20 extra per copy. 

They should put the head down and say "sorry, we really make a lot of mistakes and we will try or not to fix them". Instead it seems to be the same route as Dirt 4: "We are listening, in 2 weeks". They radio silence will be postponed 6 months this time.

I think I own every single Codemasters rally game since I was a kid and loosing a loyal customer is as easier as cheating. They can still fix things but there are a lot of things to change. I really hope there is still someone that is a "Genius at play" and not a "Racing ahead", because some of us are "Racing somewhere". 

And at the end, this is a game, first World problems. So enjoy it if you like it and complain if you feel like that. 

[Myrvold 75]

3 hours ago, CatBadders said:

That's the thing though - it's an online mode you are trying to gear up to be competitive in, why wouldn't you do it online? I understand that people like the nature of having to fund your rally experience with credits both in the garage and in the service stops, so not having that mechanic in the offline championship modes is a bummer. But the requirement to keep all online content connected for validation checks when that same content will be used to control the competition and esport scene is pretty reasonable. I think that CM's biggest issue is that they didn't make a second "ported" copy of the My Team - remove the dailies/weeklies from it, create a second bank account for credits in there, and just give everyone complaining the mode they are asking for. They'll still complain that they are missing stuff and it should transfer over to My Team, but it should fix most of the problem.

However, I don't see the reason why the actual offline competitions (Career rally and career rallycross) should need an always online. I've seen the reasoning that you need to have a natural progression with the cars, and that they want to control that people don't cheat their way to more money and fully upgraded cars. But really, is that an issue at all? If a person mods in loads of money and then distance on all cars so they suddenly sit with all cars upgraded. That doesn't impact the competitions or esport anything as long as those are controlled like everything in that part of the game are today.

I fail to see the logic. What it does however, is forcing people to grind quite a bit to be able to have at least one upgraded car in every class, preferably two or three as one car in a weekly/career championship, means that you cannot use it in another.

Again, there is zero logical explanation on why an fully offline mode should have always online.

[Myrvold 75]

3 hours ago, Rigle said:

I also have the deluxe version and started playing the first hour it was available. Still never had a single connection issue. I wonder if I was only certain servers that were an issue. Like maybe the servers in Europe werent working as well as the servers here in the US.

I would guess there is a larger player base in Europe vs the US, and that's why.
However, RaceNet have been through DiRT Rally and DiRT 4. It shouldn't have had these issues with only deluxe players in DR 2.0

[bn880 543]

Right, if at least the used car marketplace was actually composed of people selling their used cars, but not even that.  There is no real benefit for users for it to be always online.  Why not have two Teams/Careers, one off line one online.  There problem solved.

[Grumps82 36]

Fear not gents. Allegedly :


"Short Stage : No Stone Wall"
"Long Stage, : Stone wall"
 

 

Did anyone ******* test this game ? 🤨

[Mike Dee 1,252]

1 hour ago, Myrvold said:

people don't cheat their way to more money and fully upgraded cars. But really, is that an issue at all?

Repairs cost money. How does one guy who has modded in $1 Billion credits in a tournament not have an unfair advantage? 

[Myrvold 75]

26 minutes ago, CatBadders said:

Repairs cost money. How does one guy who has modded in $1 Billion credits in a tournament not have an unfair advantage? 

You need, what. 20-40k in in-game currency to fix a car through a rally? That's one event win, or a couple of daily events. It's nothing.