Tired of grinding

[ianism 1,307]

2 hours ago, Mike Dee said:

Oh I will fully agree with this. And I think the other big thing that would help would be to make the jumps in difficulty between each tier less severe. Maybe it was just me, but it felt like the AI was cutting significant chunks of time off of their average sprint times each championship. Either make those jumps less dramatic, or maybe make the total championship time spread larger? The perfect world would be something like the top 2 drivers of a championship are at the lowest difficulty % for the following championship and the bottom 5 or so drivers are at the higher difficulty % for the previous championship tier.

This way in Clubman the absolute top drivers are actually racing at a "slow" Pro pace and if you can beat them you are automatically somewhat competitive in the next tier. This way you don't see the entire field of drivers magically getting 10 seconds faster each tier, we still have a nice gradual spread that makes sense. If you beat a tier by only a dozen seconds or so by the end of a championship, you will most likely be in the bottom-mid group of the next tier. 

or just adding more intermediate difficulty levels?

[Kjell007 108]

I’m sure it is absolutely awesome on higher levels, but I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT THE PRO GAMERS HERE!! Actually I couldn’t care less of those on top tier, my concern is the lower levels so that average people can have a chance to enjoy the game as well. Because it is the average Joe that actually give this title a surplus that can ensure Dirt Rally 3.0, 4.0 and so on in the future.

Here is an example of hardcore rally driving I found on YouTube: 

No doubt this guy is very good, but the way the car behave, it really looks arcadish if you compare it to real life videos. I actually get the Need For Speed feeling when I look at this video. So this is how Codemasters wants us to drive!? Don’t get me wrong, DR 2.0 has the best handling of all rally games so far, but making people push beyond limits just make the game look like any other racing GAME.

Lastly, for pro gamers there should be two more difficulties IMHO after elite and master, called «Mayheme» and «Nightmare», this way Codemasters can make sure that only 5-10 people really master this GAME.

[Kjell007 108]

11 hours ago, nbates66 said:

They are actually.

Well, I started up a new Open championship now and the game gave me 6 rallies: 1) USA, 2) New Zealand, 3) Argentina, 4) Australia, 5) Spain and 6) Spain again! This is the exact same order of locations as a friend of mine got on his PS4 a couple of weeks ago. I hope to see those DLC rallies as well soon...

[Mike Dee 1,246]

4 minutes ago, Kjell007 said:

Lastly, for pro gamers there should be two more difficulties IMHO after elite and master, called «Mayheme» and «Nightmare», this way Codemasters can make sure that only 5-10 people really master this GAME.

The problem with this is that by default, players today believe everyone should be able to complete any difficulty. If they added 2 more, people would just shift their complaints to those and argue they are too hard. The "average" DiRT Player shouldn't get passed Pro/Elite - that is the definition of being average. The "good" drivers should be in Elite, but not always beating Elite and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

As for the video you linked, yeah that is Nevada running flat out for a WR. If we are using actual WR times, yeah most of those aren't going to look as "real" as WRC in real life does - because these are min-maxed to the extremes. But you don't need a #1 WR time to beat Masters; depending on the class you can be posting around the top #50 times and still beat Masters.

9 minutes ago, ianism said:

or just adding more intermediate difficulty levels?

Like actual new tiers for championships or just more fine tuning within those tiers? Because I don't think adding more will help, I think the real issue is there is no overlap on the tail ends of each tier. The fastest drivers of tier X should be competitive with the slowest drivers of tier Y just like in real life. Every championship has drivers who are better than the rest and others who are struggling to not be relegated. 

[ianism 1,307]

40 minutes ago, Mike Dee said:

The problem with this is that by default, players today believe everyone should be able to complete any difficulty. If they added 2 more, people would just shift their complaints to those and argue they are too hard. The "average" DiRT Player shouldn't get passed Pro/Elite - that is the definition of being average. The "good" drivers should be in Elite, but not always beating Elite and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Like actual new tiers for championships or just more fine tuning within those tiers? Because I don't think adding more will help, I think the real issue is there is no overlap on the tail ends of each tier. The fastest drivers of tier X should be competitive with the slowest drivers of tier Y just like in real life. Every championship has drivers who are better than the rest and others who are struggling to not be relegated. 

1st paragraph - 100% agree

2nd - actual new tiers. if you have one between open and clubman, the top drivers in the intermediate tier would have about the same times as the bottom ones in clubman, and the bottom ones would have about the same level as the top drives in open, no? in addition, this makes the career mode "longer".

42 minutes ago, Kjell007 said:

Well, I started up a new Open championship now and the game gave me 6 rallies: 1) USA, 2) New Zealand, 3) Argentina, 4) Australia, 5) Spain and 6) Spain again! This is the exact same order of locations as a friend of mine got on his PS4 a couple of weeks ago. I hope to see those DLC rallies as well soon...

when was the last time you completed a career championship or reset your profile? seems like it was before any DLC locations came out. not having done any career mode stuff at all would explain it too.

after Sweden came out, I retired every event in the championship which had been set upon release of the game (so it had each of the 6 base game locations), and I got an Open championship with Sweden, Spain, NZ, New England, Monte Carlo and Argentina. I finished it just after Germany came out, and now my Clubman one looks like this:

so finish (or retire) your current championship, and you should have the DLC stuff in there, assuming you've paid for it (and assuming you're not super unlucky and the randomizer thing that picks locations and stages doesn't screw you)

[Mike Dee 1,246]

11 minutes ago, ianism said:

2nd - actual new tiers. if you have one between open and clubman, the top drivers in the intermediate tier would have about the same times as the bottom ones in clubman, and the bottom ones would have about the same level as the top drives in open, no? in addition, this makes the career mode "longer".

I think we both agree on the fact overlap needs to happen, but differ on how to make it happen. I don't know if more tiers would really help that much compared to just expanding the edges of the current tiers. It is definitely a possibility but I look at it this way as my assumption to how it "works":

Current tiers: Open (50-60% difficulty), Clubman (60-70%), Pro (70-80%), Elite (80-90%) and Masters (90-100%)

Your tiers: Open (50-57% difficulty), Intermediate (55-62%), Clubman (60-67%)...

We both get at the same thing, yours just has more steps in-between. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I don't think making people grind 2+ extra tiers when they should be in Elite/Masters from the start will make more people play My Team. What I think we need to do is make that more like 50-63%, 58-73%, etc; just bump up the overall range to get those overlaps. It means that if you make it up to the next tier, you probably aren't getting relegated even if you have a poor performance.

[Pfei 106]

It doesn't matter what the difficulty is in "career". It's just for farming credits. There are no trophies/achievements attached to it so who really cares if you can "beat" it or not? I find the Community Challenges vs humans much more enthralling than a boring slog against AI. 

[Kjell007 108]

Thanks, ianism for sharing that picture with Sweeden in it. 😊 I’m on PS4Pro and I haven’t touched the Rally Career since the game was a week old or so. I’ll go through the Open now, so we’ll see what Clubman has in store for me.

I also agree that more levels are needed. I would like to see something like this:

Open division 3, Open division 2 and Open division 1 for Tier 4 players

Clubman division 3, Clubman division 2 and Clubman division 1 for Tier 3 players

Professional, Elite and Master for Tier 2 players

Mayheme and Nightmare for Tier 1 players

If it is a pain for Tier 2 players and above, the game should decide to put those players directly into Professional level based on for instance 5 online stages in Challenges, or the player could choose to start in Proffesional by choice.

My point is that more people and sim enthusiasts (as myself) should be able to enjoy this game, not only pro gamers belonging in Tier1 and 2.

[Mike Dee 1,246]

6 minutes ago, Kjell007 said:

My point is that more people and sim enthusiasts (as myself) should be able to enjoy this game, not only pro gamers belonging in Tier1 and 2

I think the inverse of this argument is that there is no reason you can't enjoy the game in the current state. There is nothing stopping you from having fun and only playing Clubman/Pro if that is where you end up. The "fun" doesn't have to be derived from finishing Masters. I understand a lot of people associate upwards progression being a requirement for a game, so that all players eventually move to the "top" tier, but I don't see the point of that in a racing sim.

I guess my question is "what do players gain by continuously driving against roughly the same difficulty of opponent?"

I quickly realized early on in my gaming career you don't get better by winning or competing against people of your skill level - you only get better by losing to people much better than you. I see the same thing for these difficulties - the people "stuck" in open/clubman won't gain much by racing against 3 different versions of that tier. They will only get better and faster trying to chase down the times of the next tier. 

[Kjell007 108]

1 hour ago, Mike Dee said:

I think the inverse of this argument is that there is no reason you can't enjoy the game in the current state. There is nothing stopping you from having fun and only playing Clubman/Pro if that is where you end up. The "fun" doesn't have to be derived from finishing Masters. I understand a lot of people associate upwards progression being a requirement for a game, so that all players eventually move to the "top" tier, but I don't see the point of that in a racing sim.

When did I say that everyone have to reach Master?? That’s exactly why I would add Mayheme and Nightmare which would be nice additions for pro gamers to have infinite challenge. And unfortunately this game isn’t a racing sim, it’s rally game for pro gamers.

1 hour ago, Mike Dee said:

I guess my question is "what do players gain by continuously driving against roughly the same difficulty of opponent?"

You don’t. Again where did I say that? Of course the difficulty will increase. And for pro gamers, as youself, you can choose to start at pro level. Why cannot others enjoy the ladder climbing? OAre they to dumb to enjoy that part of the game? Not worthy maybe? 🤔

1 hour ago, Mike Dee said:

I quickly realized early on in my gaming career you don't get better by winning or competing against people of your skill level - you only get better by losing to people much better than you. I see the same thing for these difficulties - the people "stuck" in open/clubman won't gain much by racing against 3 different versions of that tier. They will only get better and faster trying to chase down the times of the next tier. 

Well, that’s you. I am a rally enthusiast and I love games that simulates the real thing. In some aspects Dirt Rally 2.0 is close to being a rally sim when it comes to handling for instance, but in other aspects it is as arcade as Gran Turismo or a Need For Speed title. DR2.0 is primarily made for pro gamers, and not for real rally enthusiasts.

[Mike Dee 1,246]

2 minutes ago, Kjell007 said:

Why cannot others enjoy the ladder climbing?

THIS is the core of your argument. And on that point, I can fully understand why you would want more difficulties. DR2.0 really doesn't have much of a climb to it, even if you get to masters that is only 5 rungs to a ladder - not really much of a climb. So if the goal of adding more sub-difficulties is to give more for players to climb, I think that would be fine but would only benefit a small group of people (imo). I think a better allocation of resources would be to get the DR1 Custom Championships we used to have back where players select the length and difficulty of the championship.

[ianism 1,307]

3 hours ago, Kjell007 said:

Thanks, ianism for sharing that picture with Sweeden in it. 😊 I’m on PS4Pro and I haven’t touched the Rally Career since the game was a week old or so. I’ll go through the Open now, so we’ll see what Clubman has in store for me.

yeah, when I found out the DLC locations were going to be available in career (around the time the game released) I didn't play it until after Sweden came out.

[ZbP 13]

But do we agree that custom championship in my career is needed?

Besides earning cash/upgrading cars, it would solve the situation where 6x12 stages are too much/too little by personal preference.

[Kjell007 108]

On 5/31/2019 at 1:30 AM, ianism said:

yeah, when I found out the DLC locations were going to be available in career (around the time the game released) I didn't play it until after Sweden came out.

I progressed to Clubman now on my PS4 and both Germany and Sweden are among the six rallies. Thanks for the heads up. 😊

[Kjell007 108]

1 hour ago, ZbP said:

But do we agree that custom championship in my career is needed?

Besides earning cash/upgrading cars, it would solve the situation where 6x12 stages are too much/too little by personal preference.

I would rather say that custom championship in Free Play should generate credits! Freedom of choice is a good thing. 👍🏻

Codemasters still need to do something with the AI though: 

1) still too difficult on easiest level

2) Poland is significantly harder than any other rally

3) CPUs not affected by rain or rainy conditions

4) CPUs not affected when driving at night in pitch black

[ianism 1,307]

3 hours ago, Kjell007 said:

I would rather say that custom championship in Free Play should generate credits! Freedom of choice is a good thing. 👍🏻

custom/historic championships should gain credits relative to the difficulty you set. but you can use your own team and have to pay repairs

or they could just have custom championship in my team section with the same reward system

either would work fine.

[Opassac 163]

On 6/1/2019 at 11:49 AM, Kjell007 said:

I would rather say that custom championship in Free Play should generate credits! Freedom of choice is a good thing. 👍🏻

Codemasters still need to do something with the AI though: 

1) still too difficult on easiest level

2) Poland is significantly harder than any other rally

3) CPUs not affected by rain or rainy conditions

4) CPUs not affected when driving at night in pitch black

AI needs to be tweaked, sure... in some classes/events, AI is doing faster times than the WRs even in the Elite tier... But on the easiest levels, the difficult is right... I'm not a Top driver but i managed to pass the first and second tiers quite easily, even doing a lot of mistakes... You just need to practice more, and probably choose a easier/slower car category mate...

[ZbP 13]

@afahoy Yep, you nailed it. Once you've got family to take care of you just can't go 300hrs/month, priorities are with them as you surely know.