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?

 

[Akra]

Given your struggles in specific sections, I'm not very convinced by your arguments here, honestly. I'd give it a bit more time, especially if you're overly used to DR or RBR like a lot of people who are currently struggling with the game.

Give it more time, why? Will the physics actually improve? Will the AI speed up? I'm doing things in this game which Colin McRae couldn't do. You can watch a replay of a car and tell this isn't right. If you honestly think this is what a car is like to drive, then most of this forum could be a WRC champion. Whilst I do think sim racers suffer from the attitude of "if it's not hard, it's not realistic", I don't think thats particularly at play here. You can do completely impossible things in these cars, that if you tried in real life, you'd end up dead.

Granted there are times when you think "hey this car, on this stage, in these conditions isn't a million miles off", and then you jump into a 1980s Peugeot 205 and bend space time with tyres Michelin would dream of making. The first set of cars you get (the Fiesta and the Adam) are by far the worst offenders, but it's quite obvious with most FWD cars, and rears it's head again with 4WD cars that can't do proper donuts and power slides. Quite simply, the tyre grip is far too high.

 

[Coffer]

Give it more time, why? Will the physics actually improve?

A very large chunk of people, on Steam and elsewhere, are reporting that, after adjusting, the game feels significantly better. Unsurprisingly, the basic 2-hour period that Steam gives you for trying or refunding is nowhere near enough. The only issue is the way the rear grip functions, which I think CM have acknowledged, so I'm expecting a fix soon.

Will the AI speed up?

Yes. Once you get out of the early classes and especially the early championships it gets significantly faster. The difficulty setting is not the only thing that influences the AI pace.

I'm doing things in this game which Colin McRae couldn't do.

Frankly, nobody is the best at everything. There were things that even he couldn't do, just like how, in F1, Schumacher was not a very good qualifier and could not, for example, exploit something like how Hakkinen would greatly unsettle the car on entry for a better line.

A lot of it really does sound like you're judging it based off DR and easily misinterpreted old videos. Comparing it to actual RL telemetry would give you a much better indication. Even then, given the shorter stages in DR and D4 compared to real life, you can get away with much bigger risks than what real drivers would take, so you will never get a fair comparison in that sense.

Give it time.

 

[Akra]

We're going to have to agree to disagree, because what you're saying IMO, is just apologetic and wishful thinking, wanting this game to be better than it actually is. If this is realistic, we need to bin every sim racing game in the last 20 years, because there's no way they are simulating the real world, if this is what cars drive like. Of course, this isn't what cars drive like, as anyone who has driven a car at any decent speed will tell you. Even my road car is more challenging at speed than these machines.

You say I'm misinterpreting videos, which is actually a bit insulting. Is every rally video wrong, and somehow this game is actually more realistic than...real life? We've got 4WD cars that can't do donuts, FWD cars that autocorrect at high speed in gravel, and cars with no weight transfer. There's massive glaring issues here, it's got nothing to do with misinterpreting videos, and very basic physics. I'll happily compare telemetry, if you can show me where Dirt 4 has telemetry.

DiRT 4 is a good game. But simply is not a simulation. It cannot do what real cars can do because the grip levels are too high. It stops you from doing donuts, it stops you from doing proper power drifts, it stops you from doing proper Scandanavia flicks, and it forces cars to autocorrect at high speed. It's pretty obvious. Taking more risks and driving even more unrealistically does not make the game more realistic, it just shows the problems more.

Great game. Not a good simulation.

 

[Coffer]

we need to bin every sim racing game in the last 20 years

One look at the current batch of circuit sim racers should show you that this is an actual problem - circuit simracing has stagnated greatly over the last 10 years at the very least.

You say I'm misinterpreting videos, which is actually a bit insulting.

You're going to have to get over it.

We've got 4WD cars that can't do donuts, FWD cars that autocorrect at high speed in gravel, and cars with no weight transfer

On all of those 3, you're well and truly doing it wrong if you're actually struggling with any of those.

Just tried it. No issues doing anything in that video. In fact, it's a lot easier than in DR, where, in many places, I had to rely on weird, unrealistic gimmicks to get something like that working.

The first part is the only one I can give you, as it lines up with the one big issue of the physics right now, but even then he ****s up more than anything else.

No issues here either in modern cars. In older cars, yeah, somewhat, but they did say that they're working on it.

It cannot do what real cars can do because the grip levels are too high.

Simply put, you're making too many mistakes or going too slow if you can't break the grip, especially on the front. The rear will be fixed, but even that can still be broken just fine.

it stops you from doing proper Scandanavia flicks

This just about says it all, doesn't it? This one is entirely on you and harms pretty much every other argument you've raised.

 

[Thomas Lambaerts]

Yes, downgrade. Gearbox failures isn't everything. Please compare even breaking sound(squeal less), engine sounds is a less raw as well. If you can't hear difference then...

Did you change the sound settings from "flat" to the right speaker setup? I put it on headphones. It sounds wonderful in my Logitech headset. Much better than on my simple pc speakers.

 

[Akra]

One look at the current batch of circuit sim racers should show you that this is an actual problem - circuit simracing has stagnated greatly over the last 10 years at the very least.

lol what. So...this game is great, but everything else is terrible? Is that the route that's going down? If your honest opinion is that then I guess there's no point in debating. But I do have some magic beans and a new simulation I can sell you. It's called The Crew, and it's super realistic. My alien mate said so!

Just tried it.

In the 8 minutes between your post and mine, you managed to watch 11.5 minutes of videos, and load Steam and DiRT4 and go test them out? That's remarkable. To go at that speed your time travel machine would need to use the same tyre model as this game. You've also not shown me this magical DiRT 4 telemetry yet that will prove your point.

Simply put, you're making too many mistakes or going too slow if you can't break the grip, especially on the front. The rear will be fixed, but even that can still be broken just fine.

It is of course a ridiculous suggestion, to suggest that if your car is doing impossible things then you're simply not driving fast enough. Driving faster (well beyond what the real car is doing) is just making your car do...even more impossible things. I never said you can't break grip on the front, I said the grip levels are too high. The rear grip corrects itself at high speed on a loose surface. I've said repeatedly that the rear grip is a far bigger problem, in multiple threads. If you're going to rip apart posts and quote individual parts to try and look smart, I suggest being careful with what you quote and not projecting.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with liking the game. But please, just because you like something doesn't mean it's realistic. I love Assassins Creed. Not going to be going back in time through memories to be a pirate any time soon. It's just to just like a game and admit it isn't super duper ultra perfect.

 

[Pär Öqvist]

Is it just me or is there an invisible steering aid? The in game wheel don´t match my steering inputs I had to turn it off as it got so annoying but there appear to be big heavy super duper magnets on the gravel that whenever I drift wide it do the best to keep the car stable and on one path. They are also helping stabilize the car when on the gravel and make the steering feel a bit lump.

I don´t recall Dirt 3 having this it just had excessive grip but no active steering control? Feels kind of frustrating not being in control of the car and somebody else takes over.

Dirt Rally don´t have this that´s for sure. This is a bad move I would think or nobody else feels like it. Maybe when on a gamepad it´s the dream since it really helps you drive super smooth.

If I would redo the initial calibration. Would it be enough to start a new career or do I need to reinstall the game? Thinking since I didn´t have everything configured they thought me of being half a rookie or something and maybe I get stuck with a seperate driving model due to that? I don´t run any assists triple checked that unless they hid some setting extremely well. Also I am not expecting a sim out of DIRT 4 it´s a sequel to DIRT 3 not Dirt Rally but this is the first Dirt title where I felt I can´t disable all steering aids.

 

[samekyo]

@Coffer
Hi! I recommend you try going sideways with any R5 car on wet Wales, I would appreciate seeing an onboard of you doing so. Also you might want to try the following- speed up the car on a straight piece of Welsh road, preferably most wet surface possible, and then just press brakes. Don't try to manage breaking the RL drivers do, just press it to the metal. Observe the distance it takes for the car to fully stop. You can then compare that to dry RX track if you want, but even without that you will see that there is too much grip preventing the car to powerslide over long corners on gravel, and breaking distances are just way off.
For rest of people I would say Subaru STi NR4 is not bad, breaking distances seem to feel the best out of all cars. Still grip is so high, that engine cannot cope with wheel spin (wheels cannot loose the grip, so no powersliding). You can breake a grip briefly on breaking points, but as soon as you throw the car into a corner and apply full throttle magic dissapears.
I for one am not hoping to get D4 physics, because I consider those to be on pair with D4, but at least ONE car in D4 has breaking distances OKish while in DR there was none.
EDIT: Forgot to mention that Subaru I was talking about behaves really nice on Dirt Academy during tutorial, it actually feels like different game.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Is it just me or is there an invisible steering aid? The in game wheel don´t match my steering inputs

Soft lock should fix that.

 

[Case_]

You know there's something fundamentally wrong with the game when you jump into a RWD Group B monster, take it to a Wales gravel stage in heavy rain and no matter what you do, you just can't get the car to oversteer into the corners. With all assists off, on sim handling.

That's just not right.

I even purposefully tried to mess with the car's setup to induce oversteer. Didn't really help.

The only time I was able to get the rally cars to oversteer in the game was when I touched the grass. That's almost guaranteed non-recoverable insta-spin in pretty much all instances.

The sad thing is, landrush and especially rallycross cars feel much, much better.

 

[Andrew T Fearby]

I agree!

DiRT Rally has many imperfections, but at its core is an engaging & addicting driving package. DiRT 4 flips this experience on its head - It's improved on its immediate predecessor in so many aspects in Rallycross and off the stage, but I really do not like the core driving experience, more realistic or not, on the rally stages

After some deliberation, I decided to refund it and wait until I can get it in the bargain bin. Speaking of bargain bins, I also picked up RBR yesterday and wow. I honestly found the game of over 10 years old to be the more engaging experience. Add some NGP physics and I found it even better, too - definitely will be playing a lot of this and more of DiRT Rally in the future

What is NGP physics?

I agree!

DiRT Rally has many imperfections, but at its core is an engaging & addicting driving package. DiRT 4 flips this experience on its head - It's improved on its immediate predecessor in so many aspects in Rallycross and off the stage, but I really do not like the core driving experience, more realistic or not, on the rally stages

After some deliberation, I decided to refund it and wait until I can get it in the bargain bin. Speaking of bargain bins, I also picked up RBR yesterday and wow. I honestly found the game of over 10 years old to be the more engaging experience. Add some NGP physics and I found it even better, too - definitely will be playing a lot of this and more of DiRT Rally in the future

 

[Jan Larsen]

The sad thing is, landrush and especially rallycross cars feel much, much better.

I know this isn't realism at its finest, but IF the rallycross cars are better, would it be possible to use them in rallies instead of the normal ones? Like an unlimited class or something (RDRC season 2...)

 

[Akra]

I know this isn't realism at its finest, but IF the rallycross cars are better, would it be possible to use them in rallies instead of the normal ones? Like an unlimited class or something (RDRC season 2...)

Not right now, it's locked the way it is. But there was DLC for previous DiRT games that unlocked everything. But before we get to that point I'd like to hope they'll just fix the physics. The rest of this game is absolutely brilliant.

 

[Jan Larsen]

Been driving for the past few hours, my first taste of the game. The FWD cars have traits of real FWD rally cars, but as is said, the rear lateral grip is too high, makes them easy to drive though. Contrastingly, my first vehicle purchase has been the Hyundai R5, now I feel the rear lateral grip is too low, once you go past a certain angle, its unrecoverable. I cant say whether this is realistic or not (for obvious reasons), or if it can be fixed in the setup, but its a difficult car to drive fast, at least around Wales. Sounds and graphics are great. Career also well done. Stages are so so; as said graphics are great, but is missing road surface details (bumps, holes etc). So far the observations I've made.

 

[Dennis May]

I fell in love with the land rush RWD buggy.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

I know this isn't realism at its finest, but IF the rallycross cars are better, would it be possible to use them in rallies instead of the normal ones? Like an unlimited class or something (RDRC season 2...)

Season 9 * and that would be unlikely regardless to be honest. There is enough cars in the game, and I see no reason to add highly unrealistic cars to the mix.

 

[Jan Larsen]

Sorry, S9.
Point taken, but it would certainly be a blast to drive modern 600+HP cars on real rally stages

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Sorry, S9.
Point taken, but it would certainly be a blast to drive modern 600+HP cars on real rally stages

It would be awesome indeed. Not for a league, but for just having great fun!

 

[Jan Larsen]

Ole, are you cooking up something for us for S9? Plans in motion already? I'm missing my bi-weekly rally fix.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Ole, are you cooking up something for us for S9? Plans in motion already? I'm missing my bi-weekly rally fix.

We would need Codemasters to have the leagues (now called club) function actually in-game working to be able to test different stuff there.
I also would need to get my hands on the game in some way, which I am not able to at the moment. (Others in the RDRC-Crew are testing already )

However, we are already talking about the ideas for next season, what to do better, what to change and so on