DiRT 4 So, first impressions? Where does it stand versus DR?

[Helmut Skrdla]

Title says it all. It's available now, so for those with much more skill than me, how does it fare? Especially compared to Dirt Rally?

 

[Thomas Lambaerts]

That I agree with, it seems like there is little air.

The biggest air i have gotten so far was in wales. Long straight-ish section had gotten me way up in 6th gear, suddenly 2 jumps behind each other. Second one was not like the big jump finland style but because the road kept going steep downwards i got some really nice air. And suspension damage offcourse...
Oh and i have noticed that in wales the surface has 2 colors. Grip levels are different. There is grey gravel and brown-ish gravel or mud like. One of them gives my car a lot more understeer than the other.

@Eckhart von Glan I have done around 10 pro tours now. It's fun. Works great if you've completed the career mode thing, i think. Keeps the game interesting for a bit longer. But like Ole said, it's basically random matchmaking for 4 to 8 player multi
If you enter it, just wait until it finds 4 or more other players and it chooses random stages.

 

[Case_]

just had my stage do me a wales stage mid-length at highest complexity, midday sun. awesome! i could hardly see the track in the shadows and had forgotten where i had mapped my light to, lol

Speaking of headlights and shadows, is it just me or did we lose the awesome dynamic shadows on night stages going from DR to D4? The night lighting seems a lot more flat to me now. The dynamic shadows were so cool and life-like...

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Oh and i have noticed that in wales the surface has 2 colors. Grip levels are different. There is grey gravel and brown-ish gravel or mud like. One of them gives my car a lot more understeer than the other.

Like it was in DR in both Wales and Sweden(very noticeable there). It's not as big difference in Sweden in D4, oh, and the snowbanks are from my passenger-experience not as realistic in D4 as in DR.

 

[Rob Every]

It was the same in DR rallies, Greece had rocky gravel and sandy gravel that was awful, Sweden had basically gravelly ice and pure ice that could take you out in a flash and Monte had hidden ice and snowy ice and tar.

Wales was pretty consistent, just trickier in the rain, but you basically spent every event up against a hillside, concrete block shaped like piled dirt or a drop, so it was narrow

 

[john14]

visually I didn't see so much development especially for environment.also I think dirt rally almost has much better graphics.for the system optimization is friendly look like.driving is maybe little bit smooth about turning and spins include.I have no wheel controller I like semi-simulation driving so I'm not a big fan of hardcore simulation experience I prefer more arcade driving with logitech f710 and it's as enjoyable as dirt rally.dirt effects on the car surface more realistic also in dirt 4.but most spectacular think is about we can customize the racecourse length and it's complexity.it's so cool.having more weather condition options that's good detail too. maybe to compare that 2 games is too early for me.I might more play the game for complete comment to the comparison

by the way car models and number variety look like so rich in dirt 4.

 

[Jan Larsen]

Right, 8 hours in and more observations made. First, Michigan is terrible, really generic and really flat and boring. Sweden I just hate.
But what is more wierd is that I suspect the physics are very location specific. Picking the 208 in Wales, Australia feels fairly normal, however the 2000 Impreza (not THAT much different than the 208 - same principle) at Michigan is nearly impossible to drive with very odd slipangles and a ton of rear brake that cant be adjusted no matter how far you turn the slider.
Continuing to Sweden you're presented with asphalt like grip, but with the odd slipangles present again, but this time even more extreme. Its impossible to initiate a constant slide and the self-righting stuff makes the car really unpredictable.
Asphalt is like the car floats over the track, or the tires are made of wood, but at least its fairly enjoyable and the graphics are great.
Cars; the R5's completely irons out bumps, Baja trucks style. Jumps are barely there, small bumps dosent exist (ironed out by the car), big jumps barely let the wheels come off the ground. Sounds are still great.

 

[tunaphis]

Dirt Rally at first was a pain in the ass,It was hard but I knew somehow if I kept at it...
Dirt 4 gave me a few wow moments but the lack of crashing was a growing concern.With over a thousand DR hours (on/offline) I can't beat these AI drivers after reaching level 30.Maybe I'm just too old to be blind rallying @ 10/10th's.

 

[LuMue]

I wonder who put all the fences into the beautiful australian outback

I really think about writing an email to the 'Australian Farmer Association' to ask if they can advise all farmers to remove their fences when a rally takes place there It really makes me ready to kill

 

[bogani]

Right, 8 hours in and more observations made. First, Michigan is terrible, really generic and really flat and boring. Sweden I just hate.
But what is more wierd is that I suspect the physics are very location specific. Picking the 208 in Wales, Australia feels fairly normal, however the 2000 Impreza (not THAT much different than the 208 - same principle) at Michigan is nearly impossible to drive with very odd slipangles and a ton of rear brake that cant be adjusted no matter how far you turn the slider.
Continuing to Sweden you're presented with asphalt like grip, but with the odd slipangles present again, but this time even more extreme. Its impossible to initiate a constant slide and the self-righting stuff makes the car really unpredictable.
Asphalt is like the car floats over the track, or the tires are made of wood, but at least its fairly enjoyable and the graphics are great.
Cars; the R5's completely irons out bumps, Baja trucks style. Jumps are barely there, small bumps dosent exist (ironed out by the car), big jumps barely let the wheels come off the ground. Sounds are still great.

The 2001 Subaru was strange in DR and it's strange in D4. No matter what you do setup wise it just feels soft and mushy, never stiff and precise. The weight shifting almost seems to be delayed. Like you have the trunk filled with water.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

so far i have been very positive about d4 and i still love it, however with 10 hours or so under my belt the following points are a bit off:
heavy rain: heavy rain in australia (and probably also in other places) means: sorry, we installed a wiper system that does not do its job properly and so visibility is about zero. hell, even my KIA wipers at home do a better job than this. i may understand it on historic cars, but yesterday's online event featured the current subaru and that should have proper fast wipers installed;
light during daylight: the woods in wales are proper dark in the shadows provided the sun shines. however, switching on the lights on the car doesn't help one bit, which is plain weird.
textures: the spanish village, the treetrunks at the roadside in wales, the farms in australia, all of these have rather bland surfaces, probably too make them look more generic in a generically done stage, if you get my meaning. this is no problem while playing, but it does make the replays look a tad stale at times.

(all of this may be due to my not running the highest settings in graphics but the second to highest, though.)

end of gripe, back to the game tonight, need to do my sixth rally in that first larger cluster in career, and thx codies for the first gifted car, looks good!

 

[Matthew Allington]

I tried the Alpine in Sweden and I thought that the grip was insane I wasn't expecting a little rocket that barely slid on the snow...

 

[Case_]

BTW, today's patch has a little mention in it:

"Tuning differentials now functions correctly"

But looks like nobody knows so far now what it actually means and what wasn't functioning before.

 

[bogani]

BTW, today's patch has a little mention in it:

"Tuning differentials now functions correctly"

But looks like nobody knows so far now what it actually means and what wasn't functioning before.

The tourque bias was wrong and pointed out in the pre release testing. Full front bias meant full rear and vice versa. This only affected the 4WD cars.

Unless anything else been altered thst is what I know.

 

[Case_]

Thanks! But if this is true, then placebo effect is even stronger than I thought, because I could've sworn moving torque bias full rear actually made the cars oversteer more

 

[Pär Öqvist]

Level 25 now. I haven´t found a car to truly love. They did fail with their arcade modelling a bit. No disaster but they did it better in some cars in previous Dirt titles. I do like the stages in general though you sometimes think you see the same corner sections on the same stage. Though the fog that make you go completly blind and you have to guess the corners is more stressful then fun. I don´t have any problem with the visibility in rain there is some if you focus but the fog is red flag conditions

Rallycross is almost as booring as in Dirt Rally but here I appreciate it´s a lot easier so I don´t have to spend that much time on these bad rallycross tracks. They are built for the audience not the drivers. I wish they would do rallycross like Rallisport Challenge. It´s arcade why run it in realistic settings you don´t fool anybody with this handling model anyway.

Haven´t touched Landrush much but it´s a slightly better form of rallycross from what I tried still not quite what I am after. If they ever release Wreckfest I hope that is it At first I hated the crosskarts but I am getting used to them but the twitch oversteer tendencies is not all that great. Can´t touch kerbs. Codemaster have put major flaws in every car so far. I have mostly rented cars I only invested in a 2001 subaru. Upgraded it a bit but it seem to destroy the fun of the handling with each upgrade even further.

Also AI is so inconsistent. You have stages where they just destroy you and you wonder how it´s even possible they do the lap times. Particularly the latter stages I guess they have destroyed the car because they then tend to suffer a lot. But it´s getting challenging now the second last section of rally championships I am not fighting for the win anymore. Need to unlock the A upgrades I guess or I need a better car then the 2001 Subaru. Previous Dirt titles they felt more on the level with you. I guess they released the title before doing all the balancing.

 

[Case_]

Rallycross is almost as booring as in Dirt Rally but here I appreciate it´s a lot easier so I don´t have to spend that much time on these bad rallycross tracks. They are built for the audience not the drivers. I wish they would do rallycross like Rallisport Challenge. It´s arcade why run it in realistic settings you don´t fool anybody with this handling model anyway.

Really? I feel like Rallycross handling is easily the best in the whole game and the most "sim", feels very natural and "makes sense" to me.

But it´s getting challenging now the second last section of rally championships I am not fighting for the win anymore. Need to unlock the A upgrades I guess or I need a better car then the 2001 Subaru.

Upgrades only affect part durability in Dirt 4, not car performance like in Dirt Rally.

 

[Thomas Lambaerts]

I wonder how the mid engined cars feel in D4. Because they were way to easy in dirt rally. I used to own a Lotus Elise. Mid engined cars grip, and grip and grip until you either understeer into a tree or the rear end loses it. Then there is no way back. So you end up with the rear against said tree and die
So with the added weight in Dirt 4, they should be more of a pain in the ***

Edit: So i did a couple of runs in de lancia 037.
First things first: DEAR GOD that engine note
second: It drove just fine for me. Just a little more rear toe in for more easy oversteer handling. And way longer gears, This game standard gearboxes feel way to short for me. Lower than 3rd on standard box hardly ever happes.
What i did notice however (in line with the diff patch). Could it be more setup stuff is backwards? I adjusted front camber. From 1° to 1.67° ( could be negative dunno just added more front camber). Yet the car felt like it had less oversteer. But i didn't touch rear camber, i left it at 2°

 

[Pär Öqvist]

Really? I feel like Rallycross handling is easily the best in the whole game and the most "sim", feels very natural and "makes sense" to me.



Upgrades only affect part durability in Dirt 4, not car performance like in Dirt Rally.

Maybe it is but the tracks is so bad there is no fun to be had in it. I don´t see the point in running bad real tracks in an arcade game like this.

Yeah don´t notice any improvement. I still get the preprogrammed gear or engine or brake issues on the last stage of every competition at the same rate as before. It seems like you really don´t have to invest anything in my team at all to be fully competitive.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

encountered my first bug in the game yesterday when i finished a stage in wales (3rd stage in that four stage event paired with a four stage spanish event) and there were absolutely no people around on the final stretch, no cheering spectators, no photographers, no marshalls and weirdest of all not even the chap you have to stop at right at the very end showed up. The desk was there with an open laptop, the little van stood a little apart, but - noone around. It had a nice spooky feel to it, even though it was just a bug in a game. next stage, everything was back to normal.

 

[function9]

Maybe it was a chupacabra attack. Do they have those in the UK?