Need For Speed Heat - General Discussion

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Sage Ages
Y'all picked an interesting time to complain about lack of support.
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FH4 is still getting content updates because there were lots of cars in the pipeline. All of the cars we got in FH4, starting with the Renaults, are from that list leaked months ago. Furthermore, Forza struck the deal with Toyota out of nowhere, which instantly gave Playground at least 10 extra cars to add, and they've been milking the brand even before the pandemic (which is BS IMO because those are cars we had in FH3 from the beginning and Mitsubishi got a free pack instead of Playlist milk).

NFS on the other hand has been moved to a different studio. Of course, you can expect the content is ready for release, but adding it to the game is a different task altogether.

Unfortunately, that's probably not the only reason, considering EA charged quite a lot for the McLaren F1... They were probably expecting few sales. I'm not even sure if they were expecting Heat to be a (relative) success, because the game does feel unfinished in several areas... Although FH4 when released also felt unfinished, as did FM7 and most other games on the market today, racing or not.

IMO Playground's support hasn't been the best, but at least it exists as of April. For people playing FH4 it's almost as if the pandemic never happened. Meanwhile, Ghost/EA/Criterion/the powers that be haven't even added custom controller configs to Heat yet, and that is not only one of the most requested features by the fanbase, it's also easy to do from a programming perspective!

It's true that we can't be harsh on devs right now, but EA can't use the pandemic as an excuse forever either. I'm on the Xbox and FH4 is still getting updates, Moon Studios has recently issued a significant update to Ori and the Will of the Wisps and Ninja Theory wasn't motivated to delay Bleeding Edge, which is an online-only game.

The pandemic is being a really hot time for gaming, yet EA goes radio silence with NFS Heat. Weird, isn't it?
 
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Odds are they're not saying anything because there's nothing concrete for them to say. They don't want to establish any expectations, especially in an uncertain situation like this because things can (and have) change at a moment's notice.

This was the case before the pandemic and it definitely isn't changing now.
 
I feel like I should reassess this game a bit.

Strong points:

- Map is pretty good, not terrible like I said
- Beautiful graphics at night (reminiscent of NFS Carbon)
- High Heat races are very intense, especially at Level 5
- The garage looks amazing and each spot makes a difference
- Ability to fast travel from the garage
- You can switch upgrades on the fly (VERY useful for clearing collectibles)
- Most car sounds are accurate
- Exhaust sound tuning (a first in gaming?)
- Grip physics is ok, drifting is less useful in races and even detrimental to performance
- Time Trial events are interesting for the most part
- No stories are forced on you (not even the main one)
- Cars you unlock aren't unique, you can always repurchase them
- Forged engines

Weak points:

- The story is very short and ultimately irrelevant to game progression
- Road textures look as if they're from a PS3 game (maybe better on PC?)
- Strong rubberbanding reminiscent of the older games, makes certain events unwinnable
- Cops are too difficult early on and can kill you with heavy blows
- Cops are on the easier side later on, rarely use killswitch on you, rarely set spike strips/roadblocks up
- Damage during the day makes it annoying to hunt for collectibles
- Car level an imitation of Forza PI, but no meaningful class system, so there's no balance to speak of
- Blue Star cars (no body upgrades for them)
- Ferrari FXX K locked behind Crew Level 50
- Ferrari doesn't even let you put Toyo Tires or Falken on their cars (Ferrari fault not Ghost)
- Drift physics a step back from Payback, car too unwieldy, feels worse than Forza as well
- Engine swaps a gimmick to make you grind more money for maximum performance
- Engine swaps render the exhaust sound editing feature a little pointless
- The soundtrack is very, very bad overall (I will always skip "Coisa Boa") despite a handful of good songs

I've seen 7.5/10 thrown a lot for this game and I'd say it's accurate, but the past games are definitely underrated next to it.
 
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Wolfman_UK
Quick question - is there an easy way to identify which events (In solo play) you have done but didn't win? Including those which state you must come 1st. I have done a couple of races with what appears to be a vastly underpowered car (on hard difficulty) and want to do them again to win.

Have only had the game a couple of days so still learning it.
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The blue icon around the event on the map changes to a laurel/wreath when you win. Otherwise it's a simple circle. Note that in events with 2 difficulty levels (based on your car PR) you have to win both levels to get the wreath. The AI difficulty in the settings doesn't affect it.

linksracer
So I've taken these recommendations and swapped the drift/showcase parts out for speedcross parts. Definitely noticed a difference as the car was able to hold slides way better. But still for slower speed corners (which for some reason the drift events seem to have a lot of), the car is still overly sensitive and grips up too quickly. Maybe this will improve over time as the car receives more performance mods to boost power, but it just seems really clumsy and awkward trying to get around these corners. I'm still yet to take the drift RX7 out at night for fear of being busted so I'm yet to do some of the night drift events, maybe they're a bit more open then the day events.
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IMO just forget the drift events until your car is at least 300+ PR. Even with speedcross parts the slower cars still has too much grip. Also don't forget to turn off traction control and lower downforce to minimum.
 
LeGeNd-1
The blue icon around the event on the map changes to a laurel/wreath when you win. Otherwise it's a simple circle. Note that in events with 2 difficulty levels (based on your car PR) you have to win both levels to get the wreath. The AI difficulty in the settings doesn't affect it.
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You don't have to win the event to get the laurel. The icon doesn't change. Second or first place both get the same icon. There is no way to tell which events you have won and which ones you haven't.
 
strela
You don't have to win the event to get the laurel. The icon doesn't change. Second or first place both get the same icon. There is no way to tell which events you have won and which ones you haven't.
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Need podium maybe?

I heard laurel events boost your heat level easier at night but when I ran one of the Discoveries at night without laurels I got bumped up to heat level 3 anyway.
 
strela
You don't have to win the event to get the laurel. The icon doesn't change. Second or first place both get the same icon. There is no way to tell which events you have won and which ones you haven't.
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The icon does change. I got so bored with grinding the oval one day I decided to check the map and noticed some races only have circle, and others have laurel. I made sure I won every race that doesn't have a laurel in both difficulties and now I have all laurel icons. What I can't say is whether 2nd or 3rd place also converts the circle to laurel, because I never finished in those places.

HyperSpeeder
Need podium maybe?

I heard laurel events boost your heat level easier at night but when I ran one of the Discoveries at night without laurels I got bumped up to heat level 3 anyway.
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The first race you do at night always gives a bigger heat increase than subsequent races, even though the rep is the same. I did a massive write up a few pages back on how you can game this to get to heat 5 as quick as possible.
 
LeGeNd-1
The icon does change. I got so bored with grinding the oval one day I decided to check the map and noticed some races only have circle, and others have laurel. I made sure I won every race that doesn't have a laurel in both difficulties and now I have all laurel icons. What I can't say is whether 2nd or 3rd place also converts the circle to laurel, because I never finished in those places.
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There's a possibility it's a podium that you need, because many challenges in the game don't require win to complete. One example is High Heat races, you don't have to win the race to earn the part, which was sensible on Ghost's part, but you still need minimum finishing position (I think down to 4th place you still get the part).

LeGeNd-1
The first race you do at night always gives a bigger heat increase than subsequent races, even though the rep is the same. I did a massive write up a few pages back on how you can game this to get to heat 5 as quick as possible.
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Thanks, I'm gonna read it!
 
HyperSpeeder
Thanks, I'm gonna read it!
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It's on page 62 if you need help. TLDR basically just do one discovery race, then do laps of the oval and the jump/speedtrap on the front stretch. Easy heat 5 and not much cop activity. Then you're free to do whatever you need; high heat race, blackmarket mission or hit up the highest rep races with max multiplier.
 
LeGeNd-1
The icon does change. I got so bored with grinding the oval one day I decided to check the map and noticed some races only have circle, and others have laurel. I made sure I won every race that doesn't have a laurel in both difficulties and now I have all laurel icons. What I can't say is whether 2nd or 3rd place also converts the circle to laurel, because I never finished in those places.
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I knew it from before but tried it again yesterday just to be sure it didn't change with the latest update. I still have quite a few races that I haven't finished. So I went to one race that I never attempted. I finished 2nd and the laurel was there. Won the same race after and the icon didn't change.
 
I've hit a couple bugs (no rainbow nitrous for me) and, after looking around, as of last week, the community liaisons were still gathering the reports. Me thinks this game will see at least one more patch/DLC.
 
HyperSpeeder
I've hit a couple bugs (no rainbow nitrous for me) and, after looking around, as of last week, the community liaisons were still gathering the reports. Me thinks this game will see at least one more patch/DLC.
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I hope there are a few bug patch updates in the works since I've noticed a few bugs with this game.

A few that stand out to me include; the way point not working/showing up when a destination is set, some of the rear bumpers on my '65 Mustang seem to be glitched out and just reflect what I'm guessing is the road surface, in some of the race start cinematics, if a character is talking their head sticks out through the hood instead of being inside the car (only happened to me once but it was very noticeable), it is possible to get stuck in some areas without the game re-setting you which is particularly annoying if you're doing a mission at night in a cop chase so can't restart/fast travel (cop rammed me on a jump, I landed sideways on a fence and was stuck, couldn't move as that part of the fence wasn't an object and the game wouldn't reset me).

Also there's the trees that seem to have endless momentum and will spin off to the depths of the universe, but that's just amusing.
 
p78
So somebody told me i should drift on Drag Tires, i tried it out, and i liked it.
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Drifting on Drag tyres has a very similar feel to Payback's handling model, which I think is superior when it comes to drifting. Barring the fact cars wheelie when using nitrous, Drag tyres are a God send for drift builds.
 
FT-1
Drifting on Drag tyres has a very similar feel to Payback's handling model, which I think is superior when it comes to drifting. Barring the fact cars wheelie when using nitrous, Drag tyres are a God send for drift builds.
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^this and you don't need nitro for drifting to be honest so wheelies aren't the problem. Cars seems to accelerate during drift on this tyres.
 
MroczMR
^this and you don't need nitro for drifting to be honest so wheelies aren't the problem. Cars seems to accelerate during drift on this tyres.
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That's true, but I always end up pressing the nitrous button subconsciously. I've even pressed it on challenges where you have to complete races without using nitrous. :embarrassed:
 
strela
I knew it from before but tried it again yesterday just to be sure it didn't change with the latest update. I still have quite a few races that I haven't finished. So I went to one race that I never attempted. I finished 2nd and the laurel was there. Won the same race after and the icon didn't change.
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OK, so probably the laurel is for coming in 1st, 2nd or 3rd then. Still silly that they track how many attempts for each race, but not number of wins. The UI in this game really could use a lot of work.
 
LeGeNd-1
OK, so probably the laurel is for coming in 1st, 2nd or 3rd then. Still silly that they track how many attempts for each race, but not number of wins. The UI in this game really could use a lot of work.
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Guess people got angry at the achievement for winning all the events in Payback, lol.
 
Sage Ages
I'm gonna take a guess that the high longitudinal grip and low lateral grip are what make drag tires desireable here.
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The way I see it, when you drift in this game, the car's rotational momentum overwhelms the forward one. Technically in a rear-biased car whenever you apply gas during drifting you tend to drift in a wider arc, because the load on the tires has an angle, so the car will not just tend to spin, but also move forward.

What happens in NFS Heat is that, when you initiate a drift, the car seems to simply pivot around its center of mass, which means that applying gas will not widen the arc when you drift, which results in the car moving to the inside of the corner the further you drift, which makes it very difficult to maintain the drift. The forward component of the load on the tires is not enough to maintain the car's forward momentum, which makes the car want to spin all the time, losing much speed in the process.

Furthermore, Ghost nerfed drifting in order to prevent drift boost, but the way they did it was too simple, it seems all they did was increase friction in "drift mode". This is why Speedcross parts help with road drifting, as they lack the onroad friction of Showcase parts. The irony here is that the opposite does not happen! Showcase parts are horrible for offroad drifting and easily outclassed by Speedcross parts. Offroad drifting feels more natural as well.

The reason why Drag tires are the best for drifting is because drag tires have very little lateral grip, which means the lateral load on the tires is less, which in turn causes the rotational momentum to not overwhelm the forward one as easily. Unfortunately, they're also very unresponsive and make changing directions even more difficult.

tl;dr One of the worst drift physics I've ever seen, only reason it isn't the worst in any NFS is because in NFSU2 you had FWD cars topping drift leaderboards. NFS15 and Payback actually felt like drifting, Heat does not.
 
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Drifting was nerfed by reducing the forward force applied to the car in a drift. This affects all cars and it doesn't really matter what parts are installed.

Showcase parts will among other things, decrease a car's tire grip, gear efficiency, and increase aerodynamic drag. I assume these things aren't doing many favors for maintaining speed considering the lack of "drift boost".

I have not actually checked what the speedcross parts do, but I do know that they will convert a car to AWD which probably helps with maintaining speed. Not sure what's going on with tires or anything else but they could be different or even have more grip than showcase parts.


Don't overthink the actual physics of what's going on, because a lot of the drifting and offroad stuff is faked.
 
So looks like the only difference between Showcase and Speedcross parts that I can find are that Speedcross parts will make your car AWD (35/65 split for RWD cars, 50/50 for FWD).

Drag tires are interesting. They only reduce lateral grip on the front tires. Rear tires get increased longitudinal grip. Steering rate is slower and less yaw torque is applied in a drift.
 
Most people think that you need an oversteery car to drift, but actually the opposite is true. You need an understeery car. The understeer is then balanced by the rear tyre wheelspin so the whole car moves forwards, but sideways. It is this critical paradox that often trips up racing games that has botch job physics. They either don't drift well, or they need a separate physics/game mode for the cars to drift properly. The easiest way to know how good a racing game physics is, is by feeling how natural the drifting is. And I don't reserve "good" for just simulation games. Driveclub and Driver San Francisco for example has very natural drifting movements despite being an arcade game. Whereas with Codies' Grid games the non-specialised drift cars cannot handle large slip angles at all, even if they're road cars with non slick tyres.

IMO the tyres and parts in this game are just simple grip multipliers. Speedcross suspension and diff reduces the grip so you can actually slide the car, and the addition of the drag tyre helps to add a touch of understeer so you don't spin out and keep maintaining that sideways movement. IRL you would just tune the suspension, LSD, tyre pressure etc. But no such thing in NFS so we just gotta make do with these coarse adjustments by swapping parts. The problem with drag tyres is if your speed drops too much, then linking drifts is a lot harder. This is why I just use speedcross tyres now. The game's scoring mechanic prioritizes lots of small drifts more than one big drift anyway.

The first Underground is probably the most natural drifting feeling in NFS for me. Since then it just gets weirder and weirder, culminating in the crab walking in 2015/Payback. Heat is better but not by much.

Sage Ages
So looks like the only difference between Showcase and Speedcross parts that I can find are that Speedcross parts will make your car AWD (35/65 split for RWD cars, 50/50 for FWD).

Drag tires are interesting. They only reduce lateral grip on the front tires. Rear tires get increased longitudinal grip. Steering rate is slower and less yaw torque is applied in a drift.
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How did you figure out this info? Do you have access to debug/dev mode on PC?
 
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Sage Ages
So looks like the only difference between Showcase and Speedcross parts that I can find are that Speedcross parts will make your car AWD (35/65 split for RWD cars, 50/50 for FWD).

Drag tires are interesting. They only reduce lateral grip on the front tires. Rear tires get increased longitudinal grip. Steering rate is slower and less yaw torque is applied in a drift.
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I wonder if with this info we could use Speedcross parts for more than just drifting? Worth testing!
 
Are they ever going to let us customize the controls? It's a little bit pathetic how this isn't a thing yet. Using the bumpers to shift is just plain awful.
 
So today, I gave another try on maxxing a VW Beetle. This time around, I used these settings:

Suspension: PRO On-Road
Tires: ELITE On-Road
Differential: SUPER Track
Drift Style: Brake
Steering Sensitivity: 0
Downforce: -5
Traction Control: ON

I love the result. The On-Road parts make the car less sensitive on high speed along with the TC on. The problem with Drag tires is that it prompts the car to wheelie whenever I use NOS on corner exits (which can be bothersome on consecutive corners). With these settings, the Beetle shines on technical tracks.

The NSX 2017 is also less twitchy at high speed when you equip on SPORT On-Road suspension, but the TC is off.

I'm tuning the non-meta cars at the moment. Gotta give the 911 RSR a rest.

Another underrated car? The AMG GT C Roadster. I swapped it with the 5.2 V12 and it goes like stink. I turned down the Downforce all the way and yet it handles the corners effortlessly.
 
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