Wreckfest | Update, Free Tracks, Stability Improvements And More!

[Paul Jeffrey]

A new update for the popular Wreckfest game is here - and it's packed with goodies.

• Update time - two new, free tracks
• Stability improvements
• AI now us DLC cars in game

Been a while since we had ourselves a good and sizeable update to Wreckfest, and for those of you itching to get out and do some smash and grab racing in new content, the wait is finally over folks! Yes, Wreckfest update time is upon us again, and the good people over at Bugbear Entertainment have been kind enough to bestow upon us not one, but two brand new tracks for players to enjoy - at the delightful price of zero pounds / euros / dollars or your currency of choice.

While free tracks are always a welcome inclusion for any game (unless the game is FIFA, in which case adding racing tracks would be weird), this new update to Wreckfest also includes a few useful and welcomed improvements and fixes to the game, including the very much needed update that lets AI drivers use the various DLC cars within the title - strange that wasn't in from the start, but hey ho.

Banger Bash DLC

• Three new DLC cars
• A hearse...
• A stock car...
• The sweeper...

As well as the goodies and changes fresh from the wand waiving update gods, Bugbear Entertainment have also developed, tested and released a brand new DLC, aiming to both increase the content within the game, improve players enjoyment and bring in some money to the studio to feed those hungry mouths of the development team and their families.

Lucky for you, the new DLC looks like a rather tasty one, as it adds three new and quite unique cars to the game, and can be purchased individually for around £3.29 or comes as part of the DLC Season Pass for the game.

Those of you with a fancy for reading developer change logs, this next bit is for you:

CONTENT

• Added support for the new DLC: Banger Racing Pack.
• Added two new tracks: Kingston Raceway (Oval and Figure 8 layouts) and Mudford Motorpark (Oval and Derby layouts).

SYSTEM

• Fixed memory defragmentation issue with AMD display devices that caused severe slowdowns in multiplayer lobby especially on PC.
• (PS4) Game no longer infrequently crashes after completing a weekly or monthly tournament challenge.
• (XB1) Save data no longer gets unintendedly overwritten when switching accounts in certain edge cases.
• (PC) Game now automatically detects input devices even when they're plugged in while the game is running.
• (PC) Local backup system now correctly backs up previous save data whenever there's a title update.
• (PC) There's now a 10 second cooldown before trying to match the cloud save data, eliminating bogus conflict messages.
• (PC) The cloud conflict popup should no longer hide behind the game window.

GAMEPLAY

• When selecting a vehicle, game now waits slightly longer before actually selecting the vehicle to prevent inadvertent loading from starting when browsing vehicles.
• Score detection is now more robust, eliminating cases where the player receives no score even though they clearly hit an opponent with enough force.
• Score is now received based on how much damage the player inflicts to the opponent and not plain momentum.
• The car is now reset to a certain initial speed and first gear is automatically engaged also in the demolition derby events.
• In custom events, it's now possible to choose "Same As Player" as the AI Player vehicle, making AI Players use the same vehicle as the player.
  This works even with tournament reward vehicles, making it possible to create for example an all DoomRig race.
• AI now makes use of DLC vehicles in multiplayer, custom events and most career events.
• AI now makes use of Gremlin also in Class A.
• Panels are no longer getting permanently stuck on vehicles but are released correctly after the vehicle has deformed, preventing deform related glitches on panels.
• Adjusted collision geometry of the concrete barriers to reduce glitching when hitting them especially in multiplayer.
  Note that the collisions are still not perfect but improved nonetheless.
• Fixed roll cage weights for Grand Duke, Wildking and Little Thrasher.
• Reduced DoomRig armor protection slightly.
• Fixed engine flame emitter location of Raiden.
• Fixed invisible bumps around the middle intersection on Hilltop Figure 8.

TOURNAMENT MODE

• Tournament rewards are now correctly received when the player has entered tournament event selection screen and the tournament mode has been initialized (you can tell when the player counts appear in the event selection screen, and targets are shown in the tournament details view for monthly and weekly events).
  Rewards from the past challenges are be awarded retroactively and should appear correctly in the "Statistics" tab.

AUDIO

• Race: Player & AI distance attenuation both adjusted for smoother fade-out at 25 to 100 meter range.
• Race: Loudness balancing adjustments & EQ settings tweaks for all player vehicles.
• Bandit, Buggy, Dominator, Gatecrasher, Killerbee, Rocket, Sunrise Super & Wild King: Adjusted idle-to-mid RPM range for slightly louder engine sound (lesser dynamic range).
• Little Thrasher: Fixed broken soundbank.
• Roadslayer: Fixed DSP settings and loudness calibration issues.
• Optimized DSP effect usage of all player vehicles for a lesser CPU load.

Original Source: Bugbear Entertainment

Wreckfest is available now on Xbox One, PS4 and PC.

Got questions? Let our community help you out! Start a new thread at the Wreckfest sub forum today.

 

[GetSome]

VR needed. My racing group has mostly people with VR setups. We'd all get it if it had support. As is, we're excluded. Doesn't meet our minimum needs. It's a shame, looks fun.

 

[Slapped]

This game is both awesome and frustrating ....just when you think 'I'm going to win'....then get t-boned off track or a bloody Bus comes at you driving the wrong way ....fantastic fun .
Feels really decent on my TS-XW Racer and while I use clutch / H-Pattern to drive I like that sometimes when changing gears it does not engage instantly resulting in a small pause before you are rolling forward again, this can be annoying also .
The new DLC cars are great, especially the Stockcar (personal opinion) as it looks like a IRL race with just these cars on track....well, until the wrecking starts
Great work all round with this very unique Game

Tell me about it. Never in my history of gaming have I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory so many times.

It's bloody marvellous though - it's so unpredictable.

 

[M D Gourley]

It's bloody marvellous though - it's so unpredictable.

100% agree ...fantastic fun

 

[Slapped]

VR needed. My racing group has mostly people with VR setups. We'd all get it if it had support. As is, we're excluded. Doesn't meet our minimum needs. It's a shame, looks fun.

Err, no you're not excluded, you just need to play the game how everybody else does - on a flat screen.

Ok, I'm a total VR junkie, and while it irks me that I can't play certain games, like Wreckfest, in VR I'm certainly not excluded from enjoying them as I can play them flat.

Exclusion in my mind means that you can't play the game at all due to some physical or medical condition. Just because a game doesn't support your particular prefered playing style does not mean that you're excluded.

 

[Bob Silver]

I know, right? I came back to Wreckest after quite a long time and the FFB seemed different. At first I thought it was just me - but since you noticed that too, the FFB must have changed. It's not bad at all but it used to be better.

Get JannesBB "Classic Summer 2018 FFB profile" from the Workshop and you're good to go : )

 

[MarkR]

We've had so much fun with this update tonight on Xbox One - smashing up your friends has never been so satisfying! It's the big hits you have no idea are coming that make this game - boom full-on broadside and over the Armco you go!

Some of the new (or maybe newer tracks as we haven't played in a while) like Tri Corner Wild with jumps and concrete barriers on the run-off areas have so many opportunities for destruction. We noticed there were loads of new sound effects too.

So good I'm happy to have bought it twice - PC and Xbox - and always immediate fun to jump straight back into. The gamepad controls are also superb on Xbox One, Forza quality level.

 

[Canauos]

Please, can you integrate Track Ir and VR support ?

 

[troch22]

You can play this game in VR with 3rd party software.. Its not the best, but for this type of game its doable, as I also only race with VR titles.

 

[MarcG]

You can play this game in VR with 3rd party software.. Its not the best, but for this type of game its doable, as I also only race with VR titles.

I've found VR hacks to either work very well (GTA V for example) or not just worth it, rather wait patiently for proper developer VR support with this game.

 

[BorisK]

I miss the rear view mirrors. Difficult to dodge the blows from behind.

 

[M D Gourley]

A few screen shots of the new DLC

 

[ShredatorFIN]

Ever since they changed the FFB a while back, it's never felt the same as it originally did for me. I loved wreckfest on release but I haven't been able to set it up and get it to feel the same as it used to, even though I installed the mod that was supposed to help. Shame, as it's a great game.

I'm on a Fanatec CSL elite if anyone has any suggestions on how to get a decent driving feel back?

They didn't change any of the car physics according to lead developer Janne, back when people complained about it (around console release). Just the FFB values. And the old FFB (straight from devs) is in Steam Workshop

Tbh for me it feels just the same as in 2018, by using the 2018 FFB. Which is, not the greatest FFB on earth (it never was) but decent enough. There's very clear difference to the current default FFB

There's other alternative FFBs in the Workshop, might want to test all of them to see if something feels ok

Edit: Actually, it seems currently I have "Natural FFB" in use, not the "2018" one, my bad. While I have both in my subscribed mods, but seems I've used a different one lately. Anyway, test all of them.

 

[Jonathan Young]

They didn't change any of the car physics according to lead developer Janne, back when people complained about it (around console release). Just the FFB values. And the old FFB (straight from devs) is in Steam Workshop

Tbh for me it feels just the same as in 2018, by using the 2018 FFB. Which is, not the greatest FFB on earth (it never was) but decent enough. There's very clear difference to the current default FFB

There's other alternative FFBs in the Workshop, might want to test all of them to see if something feels ok

Edit: Actually, it seems currently I have "Natural FFB" in use, not the "2018" one, my bad. While I have both in my subscribed mods, but seems I've used a different one lately. Anyway, test all of them.

Thanks, I appreciate it. I'm going to install it again and give it a go, but something has changed. With or without the mod, last time I tried it, the FFB was hugely different and basically no fun. I guess it could be something at my end, but heaven knows what.

If someone has a CSL elite or similar wheel and could share their setting (in game and on the wheel), I'd be super grateful.

 

[ShredatorFIN]

Thanks, I appreciate it. I'm going to install it again and give it a go, but something has changed. With or without the mod, last time I tried it, the FFB was hugely different and basically no fun. I guess it could be something at my end, but heaven knows what.

Yeah that's what I first though as well, after console release (and the accompanied PC update). I went to their official Discord to complain about it actually, along with many others.

The lead dev Janne appeared there, and when people claimed the physics have been changed to arcade, he seemed almost offended and irritated by it, stressing in very clear manner that they did not change the physics at all, and they wouldn't study real cars for years (behavior and values of the cars are based on real counterparts, according to him) just to waste it all by making it suddenly "arcade" because of console release.. or suddenly insert some arbitrary values.

He seemed proud of the physics, in a way hardcore sim developer would, and defended it. Stressing that they didn't change a thing, and all that people feel with this "New arcade feeling" is the changed FFB (it was indeed changed for console release, something I still don't quite understand, because the new FFB feels clearly worse) and lot of placebo. Then he offered the old FFB profile in the Workshop.

I can't be 100% sure but I think he is speaking the truth. Why wouldn't he. Maybe we remember the "old FFB" in nostalgic light, and maybe there was some placebo involved indeed, with many of us. At least in theory, by using the correct FFB file, it should feel the same as in summer 2018 (Steam 1.0 release).

According to some people who were more closely involved with Earlier Early Access (I didn't play the game at the time, because I was tired of the slow updates and forgot about it for years... so I wouldn't know), the game was at some point much more sim-ish in it's handling. But that phase is long gone, I hear. Wreckfest has changed a lot along the EA years, I think at some point it had pitstops and individual part wear (!)

But what we got in Steam 1.0 release, should be still there, minus the default FFB. Unless the developer is lying, which I don't see very probable.

 

[gunner25]

always excellent ollice su:

 

[WPxNJ]

Incoming update again-5.6 GB downloading...heck of a hotfix

 

[Timo One]

Ever since they changed the FFB a while back, it's never felt the same as it originally did for me. I loved wreckfest on release but I haven't been able to set it up and get it to feel the same as it used to, even though I installed the mod that was supposed to help. Shame, as it's a great game.

I'm on a Fanatec CSL elite if anyone has any suggestions on how to get a decent driving feel back?

I am the same. The damage was hilarious back then too.

 

[Slapped]

Incoming update again-5.6 GB downloading...heck of a hotfix

Yeah, this bastard is going to wear out my game library QLC SSD.