A little question about SHIFT

[Apollo87]

So, I'm seriously considering purchasing NFS:Shift so I decided to rent it today and after spending a few hours playing (I'm currently on Tier 2) I find that the physics feel a bit odd, I know there was a patch that fixed some of the bumpiness, but I feel it still feels like quite a jumpy ride, though there are some times that the car handling makes perfect sense but sometimes I just can't get a hold of the car.

So my main question was if the physics eventually grow on you because I really want to like this since a lot of GTP users are racing online and I'm really looking for some online races.

I've yet to try some of the pad settings posted here since I won't be able to use my wheel in a very long time, so perhaps that solves some of my problems with the handling of the cars.

Thanks in advance for the opinions posted here.

 

[niky]

Removing some of the steering sensitivity for the left analog stick helps, but there's really not much of a solution for the physics issues on the PS3 (apparently, on the PC, it's an entirely different story).

Are you on pro-physics, everything off?

The physics are a love-it-or-hate-it-affair. A lot of us find them inconsistent. The realism depends entirely on the situation and how you drive... certain driving styles expose the hidden assists meant to make the game more "fun"... while a strictly textbook driving style gives you a much more realistic experience.

Supposedly, the wheel makes it 100% better... but since my G25 is still broken... I can't test that theory out...

 

[darkos]

Shift is not 100% simulation game like rFactor or GTR, treat it like arcade game, half simulation half arcade actually. It gives so much fun in the same time make player furious so much that you want to throw it through the window.

You need to experiment with settings to make this game playable.

 

[Apollo87]

Yes I'm playing on pro physics only with the ABS turned on, and I'm glad to hear that the inconsistency in the physics is not just me and my useless driving, I'll keep playing and I'll try some of the pad settings and see if that makes it all much better.

And I'm totally with you on the furious side, there were times I thought "Yeah this game is actually ok" and some other times I just think it's downright fruntrating.

 

[niky]

The thing I hate most, really, is that you can be driving cleanly, right on the edge, and lose the car completely by tapping the brake or throttle slightly at the wrong time... while at other times, you can be completely hotdogging it, enter a corner way too fast or turn-in way too late, and all that happens is that you're given the opportunity to execute a picture-perfect drift and gain "aggression points".

Aggression and Precision points are your guide in molding your SHIFT experience. If you're looking for something simlike... try to minimize your aggression points and maximize your precision points. By doing so, you adhere to a driving style that shows SHIFT's game engine off in its best light. This doesn't help with the bumpiness... but at least it makes it more of a challenge.

 

[boxox]

Leaving aside the physics questions til I'm in a better mood (though I will mention the only aid that seems to be always-on is anti-flip and Shift distinctly lacks the usual Forza-style auto-steering-lock aid ), you definitely want to play with the steering settings to get the most out of the game. There are recommended settings for pad users here.

Generally the problem I find with the default setups is that rather than being "neutral" they're tuned for mid to high oversteer on most cars, things like equal front and back tyre pressure, equal (sort of) front and back downforce, quite high rear antisway settings, about twice as much steering lock (25-30) as you'd use on anything other than a really tight track, etc. Compounding the problem, they don't actually allow you to adjust many things until you've levelled the player up to about tier 3, and for many career events you can't tune the car you drive, so you're stuck with the default setup and have to resort to setting controller settings rather than car settings to deal with it.

As others have said the game is really what you make of it, they're not kidding that you can go fully precise or fully aggressive, the game will adapt around your style and match the AI and players found in PUGs to suit what's in your profile.

 

[darkos]

Right Now Only ON LINE gaming is the best part of that Game. Having a wheel like DFP or DFGT make this game at least 25% better.

We still have to wait until March to see it there will be any extra DLC content for PS3, like Ferrari's for X360. And even if not, then GT5 will be released in the end of this year, so long life Shift 👍

 

[boxox]

I never play online, mainly just duelling vs custom AI and playing around modding the game. So again, it's pretty much what you make of it

 

[femki]

Read this thread for better settings for pad users on SHIFT:

https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=124470

It really helped me to gain better control of the cars once I turned the deadzones to smaller values.

 

[NC_2_VA]

I never play online, mainly just duelling vs custom AI and playing around modding the game. So again, it's pretty much what you make of it

What is custom AI?

 

[boxox]

The drivers are made up of about 3 dozen or so personality files like this:

<prop name="Name" data="Mr Chunky" />
<prop name="Reactions" data="0.4" />
<prop name="Intelligence" data="0.8" />
<prop name="Race Ability" data="0.8" />
<prop name="Qualify Ability" data="0.6" />
<prop name="Passing Ability" data="0.5" />
<prop name="Stamina" data="0.5" />
<prop name="Defending" data="0.3" />
<prop name="Risk Taking" data="0.5" />
<prop name="Aggression" data="0.3" />
<prop name="Adrenalin" data="0.3" />
<prop name="Pressure" data="0.8" />
<prop name="Concentration" data="1.0" />
<prop name="Randomness" data="0.3" />
<prop name="Mistakes" data="0.7" />
<prop name="Grudges" data="0.4" />
<prop name="Antagonist" data="0.0" />
<prop name="Mass Modifier" data="100" />
<prop name="Front Grip Modifier" data="1.0" />
<prop name="Rear Grip Modifier" data="1.0" />
<prop name="Performance Index" data="0.3" />

which then get run through two other tweaker files that control how their decisions are weighted as the race goes along. One's for randomisation and gives parameters like

<prop name="Name" data="Aggression" />
<prop name="Minimum" data="0.4" />
<prop name="Maximum" data="1.0" />
<prop name="Random" data="0.2" />

the other sets how the weighting of different decisions is affected by what happens in the race (this is something like 150 parameters all up) with stuff like

<prop name="Driver Ability - Track Status Fraction Added" data="1" />
<prop name="Driver Reactions - Adrenalin Fraction Added" data="0.3" />
<prop name="Change Per Second - Pressure" data="-0.045" />
<prop name="Nerve At First Sector" data="0.7" />
<prop name="Ability At Penultimate Lap" data="0.005" />
<prop name="Urgency in TimeAttack" data="0.2" />
<prop name="Add Concentration - Steer To Line" data="0.02" />
<prop name="Steer Assessor - Distance To React" data="2" />
<prop name="Driver Mistakes - Factor Speed Error" data="0.4" />
<prop name="Speed Match - Comfort Rate" data="0.3" />

So lots of fun to be had tweaking this stuff and seeing what things do (they are apparently a bunch of finite state machine states). The main thing for tweaking it is to make the AI behave sensibly for very long races with damage enabled, by default it's sort of like the developers said - ok if the races are scaled down to 5 laps, that means we need this many crashes and this many mistakes to make the race exciting. But if you scale that up and turn on damage they can never finish so it helps to make them a bit less crazy.

There's a sample mod that is a good starting point (most parameters 0'd) here.

 

[Apollo87]

Ok, so I fanilly got to spend some more time with the game and I'm returning it tomorrow, what's really odd is that my opinion on the game really hasn't changed much, there are some times I'm playing and I think I'm totally getting this, but theres others that I just can't make sense of the physics.

I tried some of the setting for the pad posted in the other thread which made the game significantly better up until I upgraded my car and it became hard to control again, I seem to struggle specially getting out of a non-intentional drift since the pad is still a little too sensitive and I whiplash or take a lot of time to get out of the spin.

Overall I don't think it's a bad game actually there are times that I find it very enjoyable, just that as some of you said the physics are a bit inconsistent, the bad thing about this is that I still don't know wether to buy it or not.

 

[MannyMoenjack]

Ok, so I fanilly got to spend some more time with the game and Iñm returning it tomorrow, what's really odd is that my opinion on the game really hasn't changed much, there are some times I'm playing and I think I;m totally getting this, but theres others that I just can't make sense of the physics.

I tried some of the setting for the pad posted in the other thread which made the game significantly better up until I upgraded my car and it became hard to control again, I seem to struggle specially getting out of a non-intentional drift since the pad is still a little too sensitive and I whiplash or take a lot of time to get out of the spin.

Overall I don't think it's a bad game actually there are times that I find it very enjoyable, just that as some of you said the physics are a bit inconsistent, the bad thing about this is that I still don't know wether to buy it or not.

The question of physics aside for the moment, I totally understand where you're coming from. The stock cars in the game, in most cases, seem to "make sense" and handle pedictably. When you start the upgrades, it seems like playing a different game.

So much of the handling of the upgraded cars is based on the tuning settings, that if a car isn't set up correctly it feels like a hovercraft. When the tuning is set correctly (or nearly so), the car "makes sense" again. It drives like you expect it to.

There are upgraded cars in the game that nobody to my knowledge, has been able to tune correctly, so that they behave realisticly, but only a few (mostly BMW's to my disgust).

So basically this isn't a game that's easy to pickup and zip through. It takes a while to either work up your own tuning or you can find a lot of them here in the Renown Tuning thread.

 

[darkos]

the bad thing about this is that I still don't know wether to buy it or not.

If you want to buy then better chose one for X360, the DLC for shift is much more interesting and sadly for us it's for x360 only. Also you probably will never had experience with slowdowns. But on the other hand there is no decent wheel like G25 or DFP for xbox so if you playing using pad i think it's ideal for you.

 

[Nigo]

Ok, so I fanilly got to spend some more time with the game and Iñm returning it tomorrow, what's really odd is that my opinion on the game really hasn't changed much, there are some times I'm playing and I think I;m totally getting this, but theres others that I just can't make sense of the physics

it's funny how many people RETURN games because "something" is wrong with it. I would have to return all my games then. Seems to be an american habit. In European shops you mostly can't return used games (unless the manuel is missing or so)

since the pad is still a little too sensitive and I whiplash or take a lot of time to get out of the spin.

reduce the steer lock solves it. Plus, steering gently at corner entry is the key to avoid oversteer - weirdly, just like Enthusia. Steering widly at corner entry seems to be a key-word for "I want to drift" (needless to say, reality is different)

 

[Apollo87]

The question of physics aside for the moment, I totally understand where you're coming from. The stock cars in the game, in most cases, seem to "make sense" and handle pedictably. When you start the upgrades, it seems like playing a different game.

So much of the handling of the upgraded cars is based on the tuning settings, that if a car isn't set up correctly it feels like a hovercraft. When the tuning is set correctly (or nearly so), the car "makes sense" again. It drives like you expect it to.

There are upgraded cars in the game that nobody to my knowledge, has been able to tune correctly, so that they behave realisticly, but only a few (mostly BMW's to my disgust).

So basically this isn't a game that's easy to pickup and zip through. It takes a while to either work up your own tuning or you can find a lot of them here in the Renown Tuning thread.

After reading your comment I went and took some stock cars for a spin and I can't agree with you more, it was easier to drive a Viper than my upgraded Cayman, albeit the Cayman has a higher point score but it was really incomparable.

If you want to buy then better chose one for X360, the DLC for shift is much more interesting and sadly for us it's for x360 only. Also you probably will never had experience with slowdowns. But on the other hand there is no decent wheel like G25 or DFP for xbox so if you playing using pad i think it's ideal for you.

For better or worse I don't have an X360 so I'm gonna have to wait and see what they roll out on march, and I moved recently so my DFGT is still at my parents house and probably won't have it till april or early in the summer.

it's funny how many people RETURN games because "something" is wrong with it. I would have to return all my games then. Seems to be an american habit. In European shops you mostly can't return used games (unless the manuel is missing or so)

If you read the first sentence of the first post you would've noticed that I didn't purchase the game but decided to rent it first, and a look below my avatar would reveal that I'm not from the US but from Mexico, and I'd personally love if mexican stores had the return policies found in the US, since here just like in europe you can't return something unless there's something wrong with it from the factory or something like that.

reduce the steer lock solves it. Plus, steering gently at corner entry is the key to avoid oversteer - weirdly, just like Enthusia. Steering widly at corner entry seems to be a key-word for "I want to drift" (needless to say, reality is different)

I already fiddled a with the pad settngs and yeah the stock cars made total sense but when I upgraded my car it just became waaaaay harder to control, sadly I didn't get the chance to tune the car itself which really could've made a lot of difference.

And I'm totally with you on the finesse needed to avoid oversteer but as I've stated in previous posts, there are some times that the physics make total sense to me and the cars behave predictably but sometimes I just can't get a hold of a car.

 

[arvore]

Hey boxox i was wondering if you could check out the files regarding starting positions in the online races because they don't look perfectly ramdomized-like in 3 online races in a row always the same player gets the pole


Thanks in advance man.👍

 

[boxox]

Can't find anything in data that governs it in \tracks (where the grid positions are defined) or \properties (most 'rules'), quite likely something that happens in code. Can't really look in the code, only the data.

Although I did find there was originally going to be qualifying for position, fuel use by difficulty, and tandem drift events.

 

[arvore]

Can't find anything in data that governs it in \tracks (where the grid positions are defined) or \properties (most 'rules'), quite likely something that happens in code. Can't really look in the code, only the data.

Although I did find there was originally going to be qualifying for position, fuel use by difficulty, and tandem drift events.

Thanks for the effort anyway man 👍