Wreckreation - Weekly Dev Update part 2
infoAbout This Title
What we're changing after the latest playtest
We closed the latest playtest last week so that we could spend some time working through the feedback and making changes without trying to keep the test build running at the same time. Some of the stuff we're doing is genuinely build-breaking, and it would have just been frustrating for everybody to try and keep a playable build running.
Some of these changes are bigger pieces of work, and we will need to test and iterate them ourselves before we're happy with them. We envisage the play test will stay closed for at least a few weeks, but we will keep you updated.
Crashes and collisions
One of the clearest bits of feedback we heard from the playtesters was that the game was too quick to crash you. Light contact with traffic could trigger a crash, touching walls could be too punishing, sideswipes could be treated as crashes rather than near misses, and parked cars could bring you to a rather more abrupt end than seemed reasonable.
Phil has been working through those one by one. Here's a video of the improvements he's made to make stationary cars less punishing.
It's worth noting that these reactions will continue to change because we've also been thinking a lot about traffic checking and how different vehicles should react when they hit traffic. There's quite a lot to cover here, so we'll do a separate post on this later but the video above shows where we are now.
Handling and drifting
Ben has been through the handling and drifting feedback from the playtest and pulled out the things he thinks we need to address first.
That includes kerbs spinning the car or lifting the front wheels enough that you lose steering, drift transitions, drifting into ledges and getting launched, and the handbrake allowing you to make very sharp turns without losing enough speed.
He's started with the drift fixes and we'll be testing those internally while the playtest is closed and continuing to work through the list.
There's also an intermittent problem with Boost Starts where the HUD tells you you've got one but the car doesn't seem to get the acceleration you'd expect, which is back on the investigation list.
AI cornering and navigation
Another thing we're looking at is the way the AI behaves through corners.
There was a bug that could make AI cars boost around corners, which obviously isn't great when you're trying to work out why the car in front can suddenly do something you can't.
Ethan has fixed that and has also slightly reduced the AI's base cornering speeds across most of the difficulty levels.
Here is the WIP on where we are with AI cornering.
Ethan is now back working on AI navigation which is one of those big pieces of work we mentioned. We want to change how this works so that the AI can take a more varied set of routes, including things like alleyways. At the same time, we've introduced the L train into the city, and that has also caused some issues for the AI, so there's quite a few things to do here.
Building the world around the racing
The other area we've been looking at is the world itself.
Russ has been concentrating on the Industrial District and, in particular, what that area needs to make the races through it feel more exciting than what we have had to date in the Downtown area.
He's reduced road widths, is adding split roads and alternate routes, and is working with our new artist Dan to pull some of the buildings in and generally tighten the space. This is taking everything we've learned from the city area, which has too many dead spaces, not enough clear alternate routes and too much uniformity of road width, and applying those rules to a new area. We'll then go back and look at the city at a later date.
The important point is that we're not simply building an open world and then trying to work out where the good races are afterwards. We're looking at what makes a route good to race and making sure the world supports it.
Russ has put together a one-sheet for the first Industrial race, focusing on the things that really matter and where alternate routes might work. We'll show you a bit more of that during the week.
There's plenty more in the playtest feedback that we haven't got to yet, but this is exactly why we've closed the playtest for a few weeks. It gives us some space to work through these things properly, test the changes ourselves and get the game into a better state before we ask everyone to jump back in.
We'll update you in the next few weeks about what you can expect to see in the next playtest build, but as we keep reiterating, we need to get the fundamentals right first, so that remains our focus.
What we're changing after the latest playtest
We closed the latest playtest last week so that we could spend some time working through the feedback and making changes without trying to keep the test build running at the same time. Some of the stuff we're doing is genuinely build-breaking, and it would have just been frustrating for everybody to try and keep a playable build running.
Some of these changes are bigger pieces of work, and we will need to test and iterate them ourselves before we're happy with them. We envisage the play test will stay closed for at least a few weeks, but we will keep you updated.
Crashes and collisions
One of the clearest bits of feedback we heard from the playtesters was that the game was too quick to crash you. Light contact with traffic could trigger a crash, touching walls could be too punishing, sideswipes could be treated as crashes rather than near misses, and parked cars could bring you to a rather more abrupt end than seemed reasonable.
Phil has been working through those one by one. Here's a video of the improvements he's made to make stationary cars less punishing.
It's worth noting that these reactions will continue to change because we've also been thinking a lot about traffic checking and how different vehicles should react when they hit traffic. There's quite a lot to cover here, so we'll do a separate post on this later but the video above shows where we are now.
Handling and drifting
Ben has been through the handling and drifting feedback from the playtest and pulled out the things he thinks we need to address first.
That includes kerbs spinning the car or lifting the front wheels enough that you lose steering, drift transitions, drifting into ledges and getting launched, and the handbrake allowing you to make very sharp turns without losing enough speed.
He's started with the drift fixes and we'll be testing those internally while the playtest is closed and continuing to work through the list.
There's also an intermittent problem with Boost Starts where the HUD tells you you've got one but the car doesn't seem to get the acceleration you'd expect, which is back on the investigation list.
AI cornering and navigation
Another thing we're looking at is the way the AI behaves through corners.
There was a bug that could make AI cars boost around corners, which obviously isn't great when you're trying to work out why the car in front can suddenly do something you can't.
Ethan has fixed that and has also slightly reduced the AI's base cornering speeds across most of the difficulty levels.
Here is the WIP on where we are with AI cornering.
Ethan is now back working on AI navigation which is one of those big pieces of work we mentioned. We want to change how this works so that the AI can take a more varied set of routes, including things like alleyways. At the same time, we've introduced the L train into the city, and that has also caused some issues for the AI, so there's quite a few things to do here.
Building the world around the racing
The other area we've been looking at is the world itself.
Russ has been concentrating on the Industrial District and, in particular, what that area needs to make the races through it feel more exciting than what we have had to date in the Downtown area.
He's reduced road widths, is adding split roads and alternate routes, and is working with our new artist Dan to pull some of the buildings in and generally tighten the space. This is taking everything we've learned from the city area, which has too many dead spaces, not enough clear alternate routes and too much uniformity of road width, and applying those rules to a new area. We'll then go back and look at the city at a later date.
The important point is that we're not simply building an open world and then trying to work out where the good races are afterwards. We're looking at what makes a route good to race and making sure the world supports it.
Russ has put together a one-sheet for the first Industrial race, focusing on the things that really matter and where alternate routes might work. We'll show you a bit more of that during the week.
There's plenty more in the playtest feedback that we haven't got to yet, but this is exactly why we've closed the playtest for a few weeks. It gives us some space to work through these things properly, test the changes ourselves and get the game into a better state before we ask everyone to jump back in.
We'll update you in the next few weeks about what you can expect to see in the next playtest build, but as we keep reiterating, we need to get the fundamentals right first, so that remains our focus.
Comments (0)