What features do we want to see in a future DIRT Rally game?

[caerphoto]

It appears the era of DR2 will come to a close once the Flat Out DLC is out, and so we begin to think about the next game in the series. No, not DiRT 5 - that's a different subject entirely, and I hope Codemasters learned the lesson from DiRT 4 and don't try to cross the two streams again. Push D5 in the 'fun, more arcadey' direction, and build on that.

No, this is about DiRT Rally 3! From chatting on the DiRTy Discord server the past year or so, a few common topics have emerged regarding the strengths and weaknesses of DiRT Rally 2, so I thought I'd post this list here, to be kept updated as y'all reply, of things we want to see from the next game.

I'll try to prioritise the biggest things first, but obviously there won't always be agreement about the ordering of such, so this isn't meant to be definitive. Here's a few things to get the ball rolling:

• Better tarmac physics
  The gravel and mud feels great, the ice in Monte feels pretty good, the snow feels good too, but it's fairly commonly accepted that the tarmac physics aren't good. Spain is the worst offender, with rear ends that tend to wander around on their own, with no feeling through the wheel about what's happening. It all feels too slippery and vague. It's less apparent in places like Germany and Monte Carlo, due to the nature of the roads there, but it's still a problem. Hopefully the acquisition of SMS can bring some expertise in this area, but mainly we want the tarmac to feel more precise and sharp, and to be able to feel what the car is doing more. If anyone has a better way of explaining this, please do chime in.
• Extra, extra long stages
  Who doesn't want to run up one side of Col de Turini and down the other in one go, starting and ending on dry tarmac but crossing the ice-covered peak in the middle? Wouldn't it be great to run the entire New Zealand stage at once, through the twisting coastal road then heading inland for the crazy high speed sections? Give your car's brakes the workout of their life with the entire Panzerplatte! Plus as @HoksuHoo says, there should be longer intervals between services, at least in the higher difficulty levels - we should have to strike a balance between pushing hard, and preserving the car.
• Improved weather
  The weather effects themselves are fine, but one thing DiRT 4 did really well was letting you choose weather independently of time-of-day. Add in some kind of dynamic weather system like in WRC8, too, for that added element of unpredictability. And bring back the occasional fog patches 😄
  < added 2020-10-08: something else that would be amazing, although perhaps is a bit optimistic, is the option for snow in some locations where it makes sense, so we could for example have a Wales where it goes from cloudy and rainy one day, to proper Sweden-like snowy the next, completely changing the character of the stages. If we could do the reverse with Sweden, all the better 😄 >
• Properly punishing damage (+@ApexAzimuth, @bn880, @HoksuHoo, @nPiipo)
  'Hardcore' damage seems overly generous - you can bump into verges, bounce over rocks, and bottom out over jumps with virtually no problem, the car keeps happily chugging along and handling doesn't get noticeably affected. Give us the option of having realistic damage: if we bump a rock, it actually bends the axle, or breaks the suspension for that wheel; bottoming out over jumps causes major suspension damage or worse; rolling the car several times ruins the bodywork and possibly deforms the car enough that it doesn't go in a straight line properly. Have some actual consequences for crashing beyond just a few seconds time lost and a bit of a repair bill. Of course, this should be optional, because sometimes we just want to chill out and chuck a car around some forests for a bit, but it needs to be there. Another thing I think Dirt 4 did quite well was parts just plain wearing out, and this could possibly be improved by having the potential for random parts failure, e.g. lights, power steering or windscreen wipers - stuff that makes finishing the stage more difficult, but not impossible. Something else that would help the stages feel a bit more 'interactive' is if things like leaves or snow getting stuck to the front of the car could affect airflow and maybe cause your engine to overheat.
• Make being online-only meaningful (+@Mike Dee, @Yaggings)
  I get it, online is here to stay. Some aren't happy about that, but if that's the way things have to be, make it worth it. Have an official organised global ranking system, with persistent tiers and divisions, so people can race against others of a similar skill level and feel like they're actually accomplishing something - much more exciting to finally finish 1st in your division and get a promotion, than to be told you were 3467th fastest on that arbitrary weekly event. See Yaggings’ thread on the topic for more ideas here.
• Expand on the potential of Clubs
  Following on from the online thing, build Clubs fully into the game, no need to visit a website to set things up. Give us more control over the events: vehicle restrictions, multiple classes per event, more flexibility in how stages are arranged, etc. Give us a proper API so we can build our own club websites that load in live game data.
• More varied stages (+@dgeesi0)
  I think it's generally agreed that WRC8's stages are fantastic in design (in both the colloquial ‘really great’ sense, and the more literal ‘thing of fantasy’ sense). The variety of environments each one takes you through is great, even if the fidelity sometimes isn't. I get that DR(2)'s stages are based on real-life locations, and they're still great fun to actually drive, but it'd be great if we could have some more interesting 'features' in each stage, like towns, cliffsides, rivers, that sort of thing, even if it's at the expense of being true to life. Wales is already pretty good in this regard, with the wind farm, the riverside sections, the logging camps and of course the Sweet Lamb complex. More of that in other locations! In addition, it'd be great if at least some of the stages could be properly narrow, as in barely-wider-than-the-car narrow. This also ties in with the below point about staying on the road.
• Driver education
  This is another thing DiRT 4 did really well, imo: all the interactive training courses in DirtFish teaching you the basics of rally driving. RBR had a similar thing, and in both cases they're enormously helpful to players trying out a 'serious' rally game for the first time, players who'd perhaps otherwise jump in a car, crash repeatedly until they give up, then get a refund off Steam. Heck, even experienced players can learn things from these courses.
• More incentive to stay on the road
  The roadsides are often rather too forgiving, meaning it's often fine to go wide on a corner because there's no penalty for doing so barring the occasional rock or tree. It'd be an improvement if this was at least less predictable: sometimes you'll get lucky and it'll be fairly smooth short grass, but other places might have very rough ground with bumps that'll ruin your suspension, get your car stuck or just be super muddy and slippery. Cutting corners or going wide should carry a significant risk.
• Fix RaceNet's reliability problems
  It's unacceptable that a system so integral to the game is so unreliable. Even going down for maintenance for an hour or so when a patch comes out seems absurd when an MMO like Guild Wars 2 can have a major expansion release with basically zero downtime.
• Photo mode (+@nPiipo)
  Another one I can't believe I forgot, given how much I've enjoyed using the third party camera mod, but a game as good-looking as DiRT needs a photo mode. Just imagine the social media possibilities!
• Easily shareable tuning setups
  DR1 did quite well here with the Steam Workshop integration, but it could be even better. Perhaps being able to export a setup as an encoded string of text, and import likewise? That way people could easily share setups on social media, forums, etc, and it would be cross-platform.
• More FFB options (added 2020-10-08)
  I get that the aim in DR2 was for the force-feedback to accurately replicate what you’d feel through the wheel in a real rally car, but we’re not sitting in real rally cars, we’re sitting at home, so we miss out on a ton of information that would inform our driving: g-forces, vibrations through the seat, rumbling felt through the pedals, and so on. As such, it would be great to have the option of simulating these forces through the wheel, even if it’s not strictly realistic. I know that was done to some extent with the FFB update that added vibration effects controlled by the Suspension slider, but that felt a bit shoehorned in. It would be better if there were dedicated sliders for these effects.
• Smarter cockpit view (+@FlatOverCrest) (added 2020-10-08)
  This is kind of a pet peeve, but at the moment the HDR autoexposure algorithm seems to be a bit primitive, and often makes things too bright or too dark. It should almost always base exposure on the road, not your car’s dashboard or the sky or some random tree. In addition, the weather effects when in cockpit view should take into account the fact that we’re looking at a 2D screen (or two of them, in VR), and can’t focus past raindrops etc. as we can in real life.

So that's my initial list. If you have any suggestions, post them here and I'll add what I can to the list. It'd be super helpful if you could go into some detail about what you want, so rather than, for example, just saying "better FFB", say what precisely the problem with the current FFB is, and what you want to feel from it. The clearer you can be about what you want, the better the chance of the devs actually taking it on board.

edit: added some more things

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edit: some things from other comments here:

• VR (from @Flens07)
  Can't believe I forgot this one, but yeah, VR should be there from the start.
• Triple-screen support (@Drummeer, @FlatOverCrest)
  Along similar lines as VR, proper independent triple camera-per-screen support. Using nVidia Surround to make 3 screens act as one doesn't cut it.
• A more in-depth career mode (@dani211212, @Jack4688, @ForeverYoung08, @ApexAzimuth, @HoksuHoo, @Opassac)
  The career in DR2 feels kinda lifeless and machine-generated - there's no real sense of a real world the championships take part in, no real consequence for losing, no real interaction with 'your' team. Something more is needed here - perhaps not to the extent of the F1 games with their cutscenes and interviews and all that, but maybe more like WRC8, where you can visit your team's headquarters, choose research directions, try out for new teams, and so on. The progression could also do with being a little smoother and more believable, perhaps starting with a low-end car and small number of stages and events, then building up in a more organic way, rather than just having more and more stages per event.
  edit: additional input from @Docut and @bn880: don't make the single-player parts always online, or at least make it much more tolerant of connection issues. I get it that you want to prevent cheating etc., but I'm not sure the decision to tie the single player championship Team stuff into the online daily/weekly/monthly/etc. events was such a good idea, because far too many people have reported problems with losing progress or being stalled in the single-player championship due to RaceNet/Steam issues.
  Also: livery editor! Let us make it feel like our car.
• Meaningful tyre choice (@bn880, @bogani, @HoksuHoo)
  Almost nobody uses the Hard compound, because it seems pointless. Medium is plenty for any service interval in the events presented in the game, and even Soft works fine a lot of the time. Tyre wear needs to be more severe if it's to be meaningful, with the tyres wearing down to a much lower level of grip, and even having a higher risk of punctures the more they wear. Being able to rotate the tyres if they're wearing unevenly should be an option, too, and there should be some kind of live tyre monitoring - temperature, pressure, wear and so forth.
• Improved menu UX ( @somethingthing, @XenialJ, @bn880)
  Things like FFB and graphics options aren't explained at all, when they're often very important to the experience of driving. The big document Codies released a few months after DR2's release, explaining how the input system works in detail, was really good, and it'd be nice to have a similar thing for the graphics settings, but there should also be some text or example images in-game too.
  Beyond that, though, the interface doesn't do a great job of giving you information about events up-front - you often have to load the event and wait before you know what's going on, and sometimes are forced to drive a stage when you're not ready. There's also too much jumping in and out of different menus and having to wait for 'Communicating with RaceNet' spinners.
• Better pacenotes (@Deltone91, @bn880, @HoksuHoo)
  The pacenotes in DR2 are ok, although timing could obviously be better in several instances, but they're also a bit simplistic. This might be fine for beginner rally drivers, but it would be good to have an 'Advanced' option where the co-driver gives more detailed information about what's coming - camber information, line suggestions, 'minus' and 'plus' refinements, more references to specific landmarks, etc. Moreover, if there was a system in-game (or even an external file we could edit, if the UI work is too much) whereby we could adjust the timing of the notes, that would be amazing. And of course if we could make our own fully custom pacenotes that'd be even more amazing.
  < added 2020-10-08: As a minor addition to this, something @Yaggings mentioned: a more “human” co-driver. I mean no offence to Phil Mills of course, but because he’s so professional and able to remain calm no matter what, it can sometimes feel like he’s not really in the car with us, and doesn’t react believably to what’s happening with the car.
  Also related, per @somethingthing: being able to ask our co-driver things like how far until the end of the stage, for those who like to play without a HUD. >
• More 'normal' visuals (@RGgiac, @bn880, @HoksuHoo)
  Now, just to be clear, I personally don't think DR2's graphics are 'cartoony' or anything of the sort. The real world can be very bright and colourful. However, the game does tend to show a somewhat idealised version of the real world - beautiful sunsets, blazing hot sunny days, impressive stormy skies. That's fine occasionally, but we need a more 'common' look - some more overcast weather, sometimes duller light, less of the beautiful sunbeams shining through misty forests, less hazy softening of the late afternoon sun. Yes, these atmospheric conditions do sometimes arise, and they make for good promotional screenshots (and us photographers love them 😄), but they're not that common in the real world. Give me a damp, overcast and slightly gloomy Wales any day, with the pretty skies being an occasional treat.
  One important aspect of this is the haze - I get that it was apparently done for performance reasons, but it's not a great look.
• Better sequential gearbox simulation (@bn880)
  Even in Manual Sequential, the gearbox has an automatic 'clutch nanny' that prevents the engine from stalling, even though in real sequential boxes such as are modelled in the cars in game, manual clutch operation is required for this. We should have a transmission option like 'Manual Sequential with Clutch', that properly simulates how sequential gearboxes work, and would obviate the need for the 'Clutch Override' option in the Assists menu - you'd just choose 'Manual Sequential' if you didn't care about using the clutch, whereas at the moment you must use the Clutch Override option if you want to be able to clutch-kick in sequential cars, something you can't do if a multiplayer host has disabled assists.
• Penalty for over-revving (@bn880)
  There is no penalty for over-revving the engine. No damage, no wheels locking up, nothing. Doing something like this should result in instant terminal damage, destroying your engine and gearbox, or at the very least cause the driven wheels to lock up, resulting in loss of control.
• Better 'loss of grip' physics (@bn880, @bogani)
  Gravel is largely believable, and feels good, however there are a few cases where the cars seem to have too much grip. Flooring the gas pedal in a RWD car and making the wheels spin is no problem: the car pulls away just fine, no fishtailing or spinning uselessly in place. Same in corners in AWD: you can apply full throttle and the wheels just grip, like there's some hidden traction control going on. This seems particularly evident in Monte Carlo on the ice sections - despite the cars not having studded tyres, they seem to have an almost magical ability to accelerate even with wheels spinning.
• Better jump physics (@bn880)
  Consider spinning masses on the vehicle, and changes of rates of spin and how they should affect the vehicle mid air. Currently jumps can exhibit some weird behaviour.
• Better class balance (@dgeesi0)
  Some classes in DR2 are very well-balanced - R5 in particular is very even. Other classes, there are cars that are just pointless to choose unless you want to make things more difficult for yourself (e.g. Metro 6R4 in Group B). Obviously the cars are in their 'historically correct' class, but maybe there needs to be some BOP-like system for making all the cars useful, although possibly not in all game modes (time trial for example might be exempt).
• Clearer DLC policy (@watzcoc, @Strittan)
  I'm not personally in the 'bah rehashed content ripoff' camp, but it's clear that releasing the remastered DR1 locations steadily over the course of a year wasn't popular with everyone, especially given the lack of clarity around what will be released and when. Add in the somewhat coercive bundling and it left a sour taste in many people's mouth. Honestly, each previous location being £3.50 or whatever was, imo, perfectly ok pricing, but it would have been nice to have a bundle of all the locations for like £15, rather than the weird split Rally+RX mix we got. I get that it's a business, and that these things take work, but I think in this case the way the DLC was sold was the problem, not really the mere existence of it.
• More locations in the base game (@Strittan, @StanleyGoodspeed)
  I know the stages take a lot of resources to make, but it's generally expected these days that there needs to be a lot of content available at launch included in the base game. 6 is not enough. Moreover, having the equivalent of three of DR2’s long stages per location would be fantastic (and of course more would be even better, but I’m trying to be somewhat realistic 😄)
• Better in-game social features (@Mike Dee)
  In DR2, about all you can do when you see someone's name in a leaderboard is view their Steam page (or Xbox/Playstation profile). It'd be better if more could be done in-game - viewing profile info, sending friend requests, even in-game (voice/text) chat once both parties agree to it. This sort of thing makes players feel like part of a connected social group, rather than like they're competing against AI with weird names. Moreover, it makes people feel invested in the game and the community, thus more likely to stick around (and buy DLC 😉).
  < added 2020-10-08: per @PJTierney, something that'd be cool for multiplayer would be (optional) staggered starts: rather than everyone starting together, they set off at 1 minute intervals, like in real life. Bonus points for being able to see the ghosts of other drivers, so you can clearly tell when you have (been) caught up. >
• Better soft surface modelling (@bn880)
  The surface degradation in DR2 is a cool feature, and definitely adds some challenge, but the way the surface degrades seems a bit random - the ruts don't seem to really follow driving lines, instead tending to be all over the road. In addition, although the surfaces are soft/loose, we never seem to get stuck in them. This is particularly apparent in the snow, where you can drive through half-metre-deep snowdrifts with no problems; this ties in with an earlier point about needing more incentive to stay on the road - one of the risks of going off should be the possibility of getting stuck in mud or snow.
• Sensible field of view adjustment (@HoksuHoo)
  Let us set the vertical field of view in degrees, so there's no need for weird calculations just to figure out what we're seeing. Moreover, either have the FoV adjustment affect all views, or have separate adjustments for each view (like Forza does).
• Better rallycross AI (@HoksuHoo)
  AI qualifier times are all over the place - you can beat the AI in your session by miles, only to have the times from the other heats be far quicker. The AI also seem to be a bit blind to your presence on the track, and make some odd joker lap choices sometimes.
• Rework the upgrades system (@HoksuHoo)
  It feels artificially 'gamey' to be able to upgrade your car, when in real life this sort of thing just doesn't happen, since the rules would forbid it. It's fine to improve your team, and their ability to diagnose and fix problems, etc., but upgrading your car is not realistic.
• Frame rate limiter (@HoksuHoo)
  Since the display driver limiters don't seem to affect the game, and lead to weird stuttering if you turn vsync off, there should be an in-game limiter.
• More ‘scenario’-type stuff (@Jack4688) (added 2020-10-08)
  The Colin McRae scenarios are a cool idea, and it’d be nice to have them as part of the main game, either integrated into career mode (a bit like the WRC games), or maybe even as part of online, like as daily/etc. events.
• Other drivers on stage (@ThunderboltSix) (added 2020-10-08)
  There doesn’t need to loads of them, but being able to catch up with, or be caught up by, other drivers on stage would really help sell the immersion, that the other names and times on the leaderboard aren’t just randomly generated.
• Stats, stats, stats! (@Mike Dee, @Philigula)
  All the numbers! How many miles we’ve driven (in each car, and in total); how many times we’ve rolled the car, most popular stage, most popular car, how many posts we’ve knocked over, how many spectators we’ve killed avoided at the last second. And so on. Related to this, per @michaelf, is UDP support on consoles. It’s already on PC, and allows for cool things like bass shakers, external dashboard displays, and @bn880’s RDA application, so having it on consoles would be great too.

edit: thanks for all the suggestions, folks - have added more to the list

edit: add more suggestions, and re-ordered some of the things based on popularity or necessity

🙂

Edited October 8, 2020 by caerphoto

[bn880]

Agree with the initial list totally.

Adding a few more that I noticed.

 

• Option to disable clutch nanny - to permit stalls and usage of clutch in sequential cars.  Currently there is a computer saving you from using the clutch as an assist and you can't turn it off.
• Jump physics revision - to consider spinning masses on the vehicle, and changes of rates of spin and how they should affect the vehicle mid air.
• Tyre allocation, and utilization revision - ability to check tyres at end of each stage and swap them between corners.  Ability to pull out your rear spare(s) and throw them on the car.  Along with longer rally events the soft tyre would actually wear out more and people could use mediums / hards.  To be honest we need a much better visual representation of the tyres, ideally while on the car to be able to judge the wear.
• Improvements in handling simulation on gravel when extreme (TT pace) driving takes place;
  • there are exploits especially with riding at full lock (much worse on tarmac)
  • exploit with being able to change steering too quickly left/right to full lock to be physically possible IRL (promoting and rewarding extremely low DOR settings for unimaginably fast large movements of the steering.  For example you get rewarded for 180DOR)
  • exploit where locking up wheels or pinning throttle does not lose you time in many situations where you should (most problematic on tarmac but issue is there on gravel IMO as well)
  • performance overall on gravel is too good for many vehicles, I have not checked if it's a power issue, or just overall too much grip
• Downshifting Exploit -  You can down shift way too fast , which won't even blow up an engine or gearbox with the over rev, but will add additional braking performance and won't even lock all your wheels and send you anywhere.  This is one of the worst offenders at the top levels and eSports I think.

Edited February 5, 2020 by bn880
downshifting exploit added

[bogani]

Overlook the tire/grip effectiveness. As of now the tire model is too efficient in doing both lateral and longitudal work at the same time. 

For instance, just throwing the car mentally sideways reverse entry and just pin the throttle in the WRX Supercars is often the fastest way to get through a hairpin. More throttle control should be needed to extract the most amount of grip. 

Same goes with rally. When watching the big boys onboards they gradually increase throttle input through a hairpin and out of it. In DR2 you don't need to manage the grip as much. 

Adding tire temps and expand on the tire wear aspect should make it more interesting. 

All in all, it's very very good, but improvements can be made everywhere. The OP explained the tarmac/rear end issue in a good way 👍

[Von4wd]

I don't speak English so I hope you can understand me:

• Photorealistic graphics
  Nobody talks about it, but personally I think graphics are one of the most important things for a game to be immersive. Developers need to understand that DiRT Rally is not an adventure / action franchise, the graphics are good, but very cartoonish. It would be great if DR3 had a more realistic color palette and lighting. Granturismo Sport, DriveClub, FH4 or even RBR are good examples of racing games with realistic graphics.

[Madhun1967]

Full GpA /B  car line up 🙂 

Slow speed physics ,with weight , and the transfer of it.

Modern tire physics 

Longer stages 

that's all 🙂

 

[RookieOne]

Want some Toyota

[dani211212]

-Better, (deeper) Career Mode, with Team Championship points, and Teammate.

-Livery Editor, 

-Dynamic Weather

-and of Course Ford Focus 2003/05 :)

[Jack4688]

I’m not going to be able to contribute anything meaningful in a technical sense and most of my hopes for DR3 are mainly about car and stage content, so as that’s purely subjective I’ll leave those out. But there were a few things that bugged me about DR2.0, but still it had been the best rally game ever released imo.

1. Career mode should start you off in a ratty old Peugeot 205, not a priceless classic - the Fulvia.

2. Career mode should gradually increase the number of rallies per season. If it goes up to 9 that would be a good balance and still introduces some rally rotation to keep it fresh.

3. Some rules around when certain rallies fall in the calendar would add realism - starting your season on one of the snowy events, then round 4 is another snowy event makes no sense at all. I usually attempt to account for this by the internal commentator in my head saying “competitors were met with unseasonably cold weather as the Värmland Rally got underway in July” 😑

4. I would like to see your career follow a more realistic path i.e. your buy a POS old 205 riddled with damage and you can’t afford to buff out every last scrape and dent but after a few rallies you start to gain sponsorship and can then rent an R2 for example. After a good season you earn a works deal in an R5. This is just an example if you started your career in the current day, I’d also like to have the option to be fixed to a particular era - but perhaps this could be a new game mode, similar to the Historics mode, but you start with a year (let’s say 1992) and the cars available each year follow that timeline.

5. Apart from Sweden and perhaps Monte I’d like to see all manner of seasons available in each location as per Project Cars 2, including a light covering of snow. I imagine Sweden would need to be completely re-scanned to model it without heavy snow banks etc. and possibly the top of the Col de Turini would be the same, so that’s why the exception for those two. However being able to drive New Zealand and New England each in spring, summer, autumn and winter would be cool.

[Flens07]

VR-support is very important for me

Pacenotes more like DR1 - it must not be spoken by  proffessionals, in DR1 it was better than in DR2

the GUI could be made easier to use - The menu structure in DR2 is very nested

most points of the users, who wrote over my input here are also important so didn´t repeat them again...

[dgeesi0]

i think the main priority as many know should be nailing tarmac. im fine with how dirt gravel is as are most. nail tarmac you have a master class of a game.

events - my own personal want is narrow stages. we never get this which is frustrating. especially when it actually brings all of the rally excitement together because of narrow events. speed , danger , skill. , fun. also some of the events missing from dirt need to be explored. like corsica, japan , Manx . mix some of the events up with narrow stages.

remove always online. every sunday grab wheel lets have a go. racenet down. no dirt rally. adding always online was a bad idea. it didnt work. let people just play.

balance car classes. this makes slower cars in same classes pointless to drive. as often cars like a brilliant evo for eg have no chance against a lancia delta. so people will just drive the lancia delta because its so much more faster. many stages between these two its 10 seconds atleast difference if you can drive em. make that level or closer...some of the slower cars in this game are the most fun to drive. like the metro 6r4 for eg. but against the pug 205 t16 or lancia delta it has no chance of winning.

[ForeverYoung08]

For me personally the most important thing would be a deep career mode with

- create a team

- progression through car classes, e.g. junior => R2 => R5 etc. with historic rally invitational events

- hire engineers, staff, additional drivers

- a customizable difficulty level (like the slider in the F1 games)

[Deltone91]

In order not to repeat what has already been said..

- More detailed and precise notes (in Italian there are many wrong ones, I keep reporting them but they have never been corrected so far), or at least the possibility of being able to modify them through a pacenote editor integrated with the game. And the voice of co-driver a little more realistic and with adrenaline! We are in a rally race, not on the sofa!

- More realistic unexpected moments (stationary cars in the middle of the road, some photographer who moves late..)

Cars:

- Toyota's, one cannot forget a brand that has written the history of rallies!

- WRC 1.6 class (2010-2016), to get the WRC+ class would be a real miracle! 

- More F2 Kit cars, 3 are very few compared to what existed (Xsara, Megane, Astra, Escort, Sunny ..)

- Super 1600 class

Locations: all of DR2.0 with Sanremo, Corsica, Safari Kenya.

[Sith Metal]

Full game from launch, with proper full on dlc, not being drip fed the full game like DR 2.0.

[Hamreus]

! Dirt rally 1 and 2 stages as expansion packs right from the start. Not wait a year to be able to play them. !

Play all weather conditions in Time trial. I don’t think it has to be different leaderboards for ex dry night and dry day. If you drive faster on daylight just drive that then if you want to climb the leaderboard.

[Daytrader]

Better graphics and no paid dlc.

[Jack4688]

1 hour ago, Daytrader said:

Better graphics and no paid dlc.

You’d better come up with a business plan to make DLC free for this nichest of niche games then

[StockTunesOnly]

4 hours ago, watzcoc said:

Full game from launch, with proper full on dlc, not being drip fed the full game like DR 2.0.

I'll be honest, I liked the drip fed DLC. It wasn't like it was painfully spread out, it was only 2 weeks between content drops right? I can understand wanting all content day 1 of DLC, but doing it the slow way definitely helped keep people coming back as well as helped stir up media attention during each release. That and it gave me a chance to actually drive some of the cars I would normally just leave in the garage. Just my 2 cents though

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Let's get to what I really want to see in DR3 or future titles though, and something I haven't seen discussed nearly enough, a proper driver social experience included.

What do I mean by this?

• Currently Dirt Rally has a pathetic in-game social interaction between players
• We have zero ways to compare with other drivers
• We have zero context about other drivers
• The social aspect of the game feels like nothing more than a leaderboard
• We have zero ways to continue interaction with other players we meet/see
• We have no way to get invested into the community or game

Think about a normal interaction with someone; I'll pick on @caerphoto for my example. Here is how an interaction currently plays out

1. Join a random MP custom championship Caer is hosting
2. Race with some fun drivers who are equal speed to myself
3. "Hey these drivers are pretty cool, I wonder who they all are". Can I learn more? Click on driver and select "Profile"
4. Takes me to the Steam Profile page...
5. ...
6. All interaction is basically dead in the water. I have to friend request him to even start building any kind of in-game interactions.

What should this interaction be?

1. Join a random MP custom championship Caer is hosting
2. Have fun races, decide I want to learn more about some of these drivers
3. Click on driver name -> profile -> it takes me to an in-game profile page about the driver
4. The in-game page shows me a ton of fun, useful stats about Caer; it shows me his most driven car and his favorite class; we can see total distance driven; it lists top class completed in My Team; we find stupid stats like # of rolls, repairs, dnf's, etc; 
5. Holy ****, this Caer guy is actually pretty cool! He even drives the E30 (best car) more than anything else!!! I should totally add this guy to my...
6. IN-GAME RIVALS LIST. I shouldn't even need to say this, why are rivalries not a thing? Imagine being able to tag up to 5 drivers you run across on leaderboards or MP lobbies as your rival; they are highlighted in result screens after races for you, maybe you get in-game notifications when they beat a time trial record you had set, maybe the game even suggests events to you based on things like "your rival Caer just finished 27th in today's Sweden Daily Event - can you beat him??"; we can even let the game suggest rivals to you when it notices you finish within 5% deviation of some driver consistently.
7. We even can notice Caer joined a team (in-game teams/driver clubs would be amazing) which is active in team-based Weekly/Monthly/Club events. Now we even have more people to compete with on a personal level since we are fighting against Caer's teammates!
8. Oh ****, look this in-game profile page even lists what clubs Caer is active in! Now I'm learning of even more communities and people to engage with, finding even more personal reasons to keep coming back day after day.

 

Do you see where I'm going with all of this? We need better ways to interact with our fellow players. Driving is not something like CoD or other FPS games where you only care about dropping in to a quick one-off match and then forgetting everything about that match when you queue for the next. We thrive on little details, stats, made up drama and battles between drivers. I get tons of random posts on my profile page of Steam by people I never have met before with things like "kicked your ass in the Kadett at El Rodeo/Wet in Time Trials! Cheers from Sweden 😜" and it's stupid things like that which keep me constantly active in the game. Friends on Discord or the forums posting "challenges" where we see who can set the fastest times in a car/stage combo.

It's things like this which give incredibly long legs to a game, they are the things which build your dedicated playerbase that will keep returning for years. We will find our own fun, challenges, goals, and inspirations to keep playing but we need access to these details. We need stuff to get invested into. Why do you think all of these driving teams/websites exist and have diehard drivers within them? They help foster communities and player interaction with each other. We need to foster better player interactions in-game. As it stands now there is none, and it kills me because of how amazing it could be.

[Docut]

(Not sure if I'm accidentally double-posting... )

The always-online is the only thing I need (gotten rid of) for a sequel. That's it. Wasn't able to play the single player campaign all today because their servers were down (even though they insist I always be online). And it's not the first time. I was also planning to buy DLC of the tracks I really liked from the previous game, but there's no point since I might as well just play DR1.0- at least I can do so. Otherwise I'm out unless, like the first game, they give it away on the humble store or something.

 

 

Edited February 7, 2020 by Docut

[Rallycameraman]

I started a similar thread in the DiRT Rally series suggestions section of the forum, but I guess no one goes in there. 
 

Number 1 for me is a new game engine. The EGO engine is outdated now. The series deserves something better. 

[caerphoto]

Man, this imaginary Caer sounds way cooler than the real one @Mike Dee 😄

[PJTierney]

1 hour ago, Rallycameraman said:

I started a similar thread in the DiRT Rally series suggestions section of the forum, but I guess no one goes in there. 

This thread will go in there in the near future, but I'm leaving it here for a while so that it gets more traffic 🙂 

Suggestions being a subforum above DR2 now will have more people visit it in the future, especially since we're nearing the end of DR2.

[caerphoto]

49 minutes ago, PJTierney said:

This thread will go in there in the near future, but I'm leaving it here for a while so that it gets more traffic 🙂 

Suggestions being a subforum above DR2 now will have more people visit it in the future, especially since we're nearing the end of DR2.

On that note, would it be possible to reduce the size of those forum banners a bit? On my desktop they're so big you can't even see the actual main forum below them.

[PJTierney]

28 minutes ago, caerphoto said:

On that note, would it be possible to reduce the size of those forum banners a bit? On my desktop they're so big you can't even see the actual main forum below them.

I can't do it myself, but will check in with the people that can.

There's a bunch of changes planned for the forum in the future that affect all titles.

[Daytrader]

16 hours ago, Jack4688 said:

You’d better come up with a business plan to make DLC free for this nichest of niche games then

I just want one fair price for a complete game at launch, we had it for like 15 years of gaming, lots of other companys bring out full games at launch, with no paid dlc, cmon, we even had to pay for all the tracks that were in dirt rally 1.

[Jack4688]

10 minutes ago, Daytrader said:

we even had to pay for all the tracks that were in dirt rally 1.

I’m yet to see a valid argument for why this logic holds any truth.

Some, not necessarily all, of us bought game A. Game B comes out later on and some of the content from A is made available in B. We purchased said content in game A therefore we have paid for it forever more and we demand it is free.

With respect, you nor I know how much time and resource goes into the refresh of the DR stages into DR2.0 so how can we comment on how much it should cost? There is an easy way to make your feelings known on the cost of the DLC - don’t buy it.