Need For Speed Heat - General Discussion

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Considering that wheelspins are most likely fixed win-rates, we have no idea if the inclusion of clothing rewards even affect that at all. It could either have a considering impact with your chances of getting a car (a good one at least), or it could have no impact at all and dig into something else.
 
You guys are really making me want to use a cross dressing character and post it everywhere here.
 
The game gives you hints, but never makes it clear that, in the early stages (up to Rep Level 25 or so), you're really hopeless against the cops. Which is counter-intuitive because in other games such as GTA and even other NFS the police at 1 star/heat is ridiculously easy to deal with.

Once you figure out that Heat Level 1 is the same as Heat Level 5 sans the aggression and extra gadgets the cops use, the game becomes more manageable. Game the system by doing sprints which end near safehouses. With luck, you can get home safely at Heat Level 2, which is enough to bump your Rep up every night until you get to Level 300 or so. Then you can try your luck against Heat Level 3, but even then the difficulty doesn't make any sense.

Biggest issue though is how the progression itself doesn't work the same as the older games, even Rivals. In MW you unlock Heat Level 3 by beating Vic and, with the cars you have at that point, you can manage just fine. Also, in NFS Heat you see spike strips deployed at Heat Level 3, which breaks tradition in NFS in a bad way, because spike strip has always been higher tier than roadblock. Destroying cops is inconsequential, since they give so little Rep for the effort you might as well just (try to) evade.

Indeed, the game sells itself as a vintage NFS experience but doesn't play like one. Sure, the night races are reminiscent of NFS Carbon (I think Underground had a different aesthetic), but I was expecting to see police akin to MW and Carbon and I got something closer to Undercover instead. Combined with inconsistent race difficulty (Medium is way too close to Hard, to the point it's indistinguishable sometimes) and too easy drift scores it makes the game worse than it could've been.

Well, at least I haven't run into any bad sounding car yet.
 
Am I the only one who doesn't care about what the character wears? I just pick the least offensive looking clothes on day 1 and forget about it. Then again I can't remember the last time I went shopping for clothes IRL so I might not be the target audience for this part of the game :lol:

The cop situation is a weird one. IMO early in the game they are too hard, but late in the game they are too easy. So this makes the "sweet spot" of challenging but still beatable cops very, very narrow. Probably when you're level 20-30 and your car is around 250-300 PR. Once you're past that, well there's no point baiting cops anymore because you can just blast pass them and escape before they even started the chase. Even less reason when you've reached max level for yourself and your crew. But again, I should say that despite being a long time fan of the series I'm not a chase aficionado so my assessment of the cop system is always going to be quite superficial.

Re: Payback vs Heat. IMO Payback is very good except for the offroad handling and speedcards. If those two are fixed (like in Heat) then I would put Payback on par with Heat. Story goes to Payback, map design and handling goes to Heat. Everything else, they are very very close (as you'd expect, because they're basically the same core game). I respect HyperSpeeder's passion but IMO overanalyzing games like NFS is counterproductive. The devs probably don't even think as much as you do :lol: If it gives me good fun for 3 months and there are no massive game breaking glitches/bugs, it's good enough for me. I've learnt not to expect greatness from the series. As long as it's not Undercover/2015 level bad, I'm a-okay ;)
 
Am I the only one who doesn't care about what the character wears? I just pick the least offensive looking clothes on day 1 and forget about it. Then again I can't remember the last time I went shopping for clothes IRL so I might not be the target audience for this part of the game :lol:

The cop situation is a weird one. IMO early in the game they are too hard, but late in the game they are too easy. So this makes the "sweet spot" of challenging but still beatable cops very, very narrow. Probably when you're level 20-30 and your car is around 250-300 PR. Once you're past that, well there's no point baiting cops anymore because you can just blast pass them and escape before they even started the chase. Even less reason when you've reached max level for yourself and your crew. But again, I should say that despite being a long time fan of the series I'm not a chase aficionado so my assessment of the cop system is always going to be quite superficial.

Re: Payback vs Heat. IMO Payback is very good except for the offroad handling and speedcards. If those two are fixed (like in Heat) then I would put Payback on par with Heat. Story goes to Payback, map design and handling goes to Heat. Everything else, they are very very close (as you'd expect, because they're basically the same core game). I respect HyperSpeeder's passion but IMO overanalyzing games like NFS is counterproductive. The devs probably don't even think as much as you do :lol: If it gives me good fun for 3 months and there are no massive game breaking glitches/bugs, it's good enough for me. I've learnt not to expect greatness from the series. As long as it's not Undercover/2015 level bad, I'm a-okay ;)

Jumps work well to get rid of cops but it's not any jump, there are specific jumps in the game which completely block the cops' ability to follow you. Last night I was in a drift-tuned 180SX and escaped the police at Heat Level 4 (with Damage Reduction and Repair Kit) by doing that. This game is not really centered around the chases... Only utility of chases is to increase multiplier. Real Rep gain is in the races!

I have a tendency to overanalyze but you're right, lol, best to just have fun. This game has some frustrating bits but contrary to what I said it's not a complete trainwreck either.
 
You can't think of this game like MW. You have to play it in the same way you would play Rivals (at least, if you were one of those people who mained Turbo+Jammer).
 
You can't think of this game like MW. You have to play it in the same way you would play Rivals (at least, if you were one of those people who mained Turbo+Jammer).

It was useful for grinding, this setup. I think this automatically implies the big nitrous bottle is better for night events, right?

Also, is there any use for lower rated cars?
 
Jumps work well to get rid of cops but it's not any jump, there are specific jumps in the game which completely block the cops' ability to follow you. Last night I was in a drift-tuned 180SX and escaped the police at Heat Level 4 (with Damage Reduction and Repair Kit) by doing that. This game is not really centered around the chases... Only utility of chases is to increase multiplier. Real Rep gain is in the races!

I have a tendency to overanalyze but you're right, lol, best to just have fun. This game has some frustrating bits but contrary to what I said it's not a complete trainwreck either.

Yes the jumps are designed to get rid of cops immediately. I think it's just how the game was built honestly. The challenge is not how to escape cops. It's how much rep you can get and then escape without getting busted. It's true messing with cops doesn't give you much rep, but their presence in and after races is enough of an annoyance when you're trying to build rep! Remember you can't start an event unless you're free of cops, and at heat 5 the minimap is literally always crawling with red arrows.
 
Yes the jumps are designed to get rid of cops immediately. I think it's just how the game was built honestly. The challenge is not how to escape cops. It's how much rep you can get and then escape without getting busted. It's true messing with cops doesn't give you much rep, but their presence in and after races is enough of an annoyance when you're trying to build rep! Remember you can't start an event unless you're free of cops, and at heat 5 the minimap is literally always crawling with red arrows.

I can say that car stealth in this game tends to be better than in GTA-style games, lol.

It's really a shame how it only comes alive when it ends. The story is short, then all there is to it is reach Level 50 and unlock the Ultimate parts. It's not a showstopper in a racing game, where you're encouraged to try and buy all the cars (reason why the system of NFSU2/NFS15 sucks!!!), but the police doesn't serve any purpose once you get everything. In MW at least you had unofficial "ranks" in the Rap Sheet with different police text depending on your records.

Unfortunately with this studio change and global crisis I think EA will just let the game die, which would be a disaster IMO. It could still use a fair bit of optimization in every platform and at least a couple cars, not even that many.
 
Heat was dead the moment it had a 2019 release date. Everyone is probably focusing on next-gen platforms by now.
2021 is a year of crossgen - there wouldn't be AAA releases for next gen exclusively, except few PS5 first party games. Next gen will be pricey(450$+) and M$ already confirm that they don't want to see exclusives for XSX in 2021, so I don't expect big sales for nextgen consoles in near future. With crossplay there wouldn't be any reason to release something for nextgen exclusively.
 
Since this was half price on the PS Store, i decided to finally buy it.
I've played for 3 nights now and have some initial comments I'd like to share to see if they are the general consensus or if I just need to step my game up/am looking at things the wrong way.

I picked the Mustang as my starter car, normally I don't go with the muscle car option but I felt like everyone else would pick the M3 and the Nissan so wanted something a bit different. I'm happy I picked it because it sounds amazing and has so far served me well.

In terms of physics, I do feel there has been an improvement over the previous games but still the grip handling could be improved. I find that initiating a drift still gets the car to turn in a bit faster then driving normally, so I find myself initiating drifts especially for the sharper corners just to reduce the amount of braking I have to do. Maybe I need to be equipping different parts to fix this, I haven't quite figured out how all the different parts affect the car yet.
On the flip side, with the limited drifting events that I've done, what is going on with the drifting? Maybe its the RX7 that I'm using not being good for drifting but the car snap oversteers on entry most of the time, then doesn't have enough torque to hold the massive angle it snapped into. Again maybe I'm using the wrong parts here but I feel like the parts labelled drift should be good for drifting. The car at times is so uncontrollably slidey that I've refused to take it out at night because any police chase would be inescapable.

That leads me onto my next point which is the police. With lower level cars, the police are incredibly difficult to escape. You simply lack the speed to be able to avoid getting rammed constantly or to escape without them immediately catching up. I'm aware that certain jumps will stop the cops from following, but when you're new to the game, map knowledge isn't great, so you quickly find yourself no where near a jump and before you know it, busted. I do enjoy that police chases can last more than 3 seconds now, but they should really scale to the car you're driving. I've read a few times that they get easier with a faster car which may be "realistic" but for a low level new player it is certainly more frustrating than fun.

Speaking of frustrating things, why would you want to play online, when the servers are shutting down every what seems like 30 minutes. It almost seems pointless when you have to quit back to the lobby and join again, why wouldn't you just play solo so you don't have to deal with that. On top of this, when the server shut down warning appears, it stays there no matter what you're doing. Trying to take a photo, now you've got server shut down message in the photo. Just really don't understand why that needs to be there in the photo, the rest of the gameplay i can understand, but when I'm taking a photo I expect there to be a clean, "hudless" image.

For some positives, I really like the visuals of the map, there are plenty of locations clearly intended for photos and the neon lights everywhere give the game a nice vibe. As has been stated by others, the traffic is a bit on the low side sometimes, and can leave the city feeling a bit deserted, but once you're in a race or a cop chase, you quickly forget about that. As for map/road design, I'm still exploring but I'm enjoying it so far, each area has its own vibe and can be distinguished from the other areas. Having a beach to drive on is also pretty neat. Customisation is a gradual improvement from the previous games with a few more parts and less restrictions which is nice.

I am having fun with the game so far, but as with every need for speed recently, there have been a few features of the game that need some adjusting.
 
On the flip side, with the limited drifting events that I've done, what is going on with the drifting? Maybe its the RX7 that I'm using not being good for drifting but the car snap oversteers on entry most of the time, then doesn't have enough torque to hold the massive angle it snapped into. Again maybe I'm using the wrong parts here but I feel like the parts labelled drift should be good for drifting. The car at times is so uncontrollably slidey that I've refused to take it out at night because any police chase would be inescapable.

For drift use speedcross parts and it should drift well enough to finish the events, the full set of drift parts just handles weird to me. I do remember reading some people said it is possible and it is better with drift parts but I find it way too frustrating to figure it out.
 
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.
 
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.
Unfortunately there is no way to tell which event you already won. Than again you don't gain anything for winning all the events.

For people that complain about the useless night racing once you hit lv50. You will find pointless racing during day too once you buy all the cars. In fact I'm driving mostly at night right now because I can do more things during night time. I don't care for money and prefer messing with cops than racing ai.
 
So, once again the money bug strikes on my game... For the second time lost all my money with no reason at all, while I was playing (no errors or black screens) and outside my garage door while my car was parked in idle...

2nd time this happens... Starting to get fed up of this game...
 
Since this was half price on the PS Store, i decided to finally buy it.
I've played for 3 nights now and have some initial comments I'd like to share to see if they are the general consensus or if I just need to step my game up/am looking at things the wrong way.

I picked the Mustang as my starter car, normally I don't go with the muscle car option but I felt like everyone else would pick the M3 and the Nissan so wanted something a bit different. I'm happy I picked it because it sounds amazing and has so far served me well.

In terms of physics, I do feel there has been an improvement over the previous games but still the grip handling could be improved. I find that initiating a drift still gets the car to turn in a bit faster then driving normally, so I find myself initiating drifts especially for the sharper corners just to reduce the amount of braking I have to do. Maybe I need to be equipping different parts to fix this, I haven't quite figured out how all the different parts affect the car yet.
On the flip side, with the limited drifting events that I've done, what is going on with the drifting? Maybe its the RX7 that I'm using not being good for drifting but the car snap oversteers on entry most of the time, then doesn't have enough torque to hold the massive angle it snapped into. Again maybe I'm using the wrong parts here but I feel like the parts labelled drift should be good for drifting. The car at times is so uncontrollably slidey that I've refused to take it out at night because any police chase would be inescapable.

That leads me onto my next point which is the police. With lower level cars, the police are incredibly difficult to escape. You simply lack the speed to be able to avoid getting rammed constantly or to escape without them immediately catching up. I'm aware that certain jumps will stop the cops from following, but when you're new to the game, map knowledge isn't great, so you quickly find yourself no where near a jump and before you know it, busted. I do enjoy that police chases can last more than 3 seconds now, but they should really scale to the car you're driving. I've read a few times that they get easier with a faster car which may be "realistic" but for a low level new player it is certainly more frustrating than fun.

Speaking of frustrating things, why would you want to play online, when the servers are shutting down every what seems like 30 minutes. It almost seems pointless when you have to quit back to the lobby and join again, why wouldn't you just play solo so you don't have to deal with that. On top of this, when the server shut down warning appears, it stays there no matter what you're doing. Trying to take a photo, now you've got server shut down message in the photo. Just really don't understand why that needs to be there in the photo, the rest of the gameplay i can understand, but when I'm taking a photo I expect there to be a clean, "hudless" image.

For some positives, I really like the visuals of the map, there are plenty of locations clearly intended for photos and the neon lights everywhere give the game a nice vibe. As has been stated by others, the traffic is a bit on the low side sometimes, and can leave the city feeling a bit deserted, but once you're in a race or a cop chase, you quickly forget about that. As for map/road design, I'm still exploring but I'm enjoying it so far, each area has its own vibe and can be distinguished from the other areas. Having a beach to drive on is also pretty neat. Customisation is a gradual improvement from the previous games with a few more parts and less restrictions which is nice.

I am having fun with the game so far, but as with every need for speed recently, there have been a few features of the game that need some adjusting.

You nailed it, that's exactly what I think about the game as well.

When it comes to drifting, IMO the Showcase parts are best avoided. It seems that, despite promoting oversteer, their onroad trait adds friction, which kills your speed when drifting.
 
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For drift use speedcross parts and it should drift well enough to finish the events, the full set of drift parts just handles weird to me. I do remember reading some people said it is possible and it is better with drift parts but I find it way too frustrating to figure it out.
You nailed it, that's exactly what I think about the game as well.
When it comes to drifting, IMO the Showcase parts are best avoided. It seems that, despite promoting oversteer, their onroad trait adds friction, which kills your speed when drifting.

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.
 
For people that complain about the useless night racing once you hit lv50. You will find pointless racing during day too once you buy all the cars. In fact I'm driving mostly at night right now because I can do more things during night time. I don't care for money and prefer messing with cops than racing ai.


Yeah but if you don't have all cars it would be better to earn them during night which is much more interesting.
 
Yeah but if you don't have all cars it would be better to earn them during night which is much more interesting.
Yes, it would be much better. Having parts of game focusing on money or xp alone is a terrible idea.
 
does anyone knows when we will see next Black Market shipment? I thought it would be Monthly and now I don't see any news about new one...
 
does anyone knows when we will see next Black Market shipment? I thought it would be Monthly and now I don't see any news about new one...

Ghost/Criterion are in a super awkward position where they are not only having to relocate the majority of staff back to the UK, they're having to do so with a global pandemic and outdoor movement restrictions going on. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't hear anything for another month or two.
 
They aren't moving that many people. Most of the people rejoining Criterion are from Ghost UK, not Gothenburg. They work in the same building.

However, I do believe they are hiring more people at this time.
 
They aren't moving that many people. Most of the people rejoining Criterion are from Ghost UK, not Gothenburg. They work in the same building.

However, I do believe they are hiring more people at this time.

That's good to know.

I imagine updates may have been put on the back burner with all that going on.
 
Apparently they ended up canning a PvP update. Not sure if that was a result of the studio change or something else.

I assume the Black Market stuff is still business as usual.
 
The fact they didn't even say a word about how they'll handle the game or what is gonna happen from here on is not a good look. Even No Limits, the mobile game, had an announcement that the updates for the game will continue despite the current issues.
Would be cool if they let us know if support is finished, or if it'll just be a hiatus until they figure out how to handle the pandemic situation/moving to criterion - because right now this looks abandoned and all we can do is guess.
 
Last time I loss faith in this game the update came. It gave me little hope... Now the hope is gone again. I am still playing from time to time. But I don't know.. Such potential, such a waste..
 

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