Need for Speed Unbound - General Discussion

  • Thread starter Famine
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After a break, got my BRZ up to A+. Looking for a new car to use, I heard the Civic is a good choice.
 
A stability patch has gone live today: https://www.ea.com/games/need-for-s...bound/news/under-the-hood-january-2023-update

It's a shame they haven't fixed the Pista issue, or the issue on consoles where you have to press the d-pad/stick in any direction twice when first entering a menu in car customisation, but at least it seems like we're getting some information on the content update in March.

Need for Speed Unbound Update 1.1.4 (aka the January Update) delivers stability improvements, some balancing changes for a couple of cars, and more.

BALANCING

Golf GTI 1976

  • Rebalanced the Volkswagen Golf GTI (1976) to reduce its acceleration in high gears
  • Fixed an issue with the Volkswagen Golf GTI (1976) that caused its gearbox options to not affect its top speed, as expected
Koenigsegg Regera

  • Reduced the top-end acceleration of the Koenigsegg Regera and adjusted its cornering ability
VOIP

  • Improved the quality of VOIP for our PS5 players
SAVE GAME ERROR/PROGRESS RESET

  • Added a warning message when the game fails to autosave correctly to reduce potential of lost progress
PC MIN SPECS WARNING

  • Added a warning message when the game detects a below min spec configuration
STABILITY IMPROVEMENTS

  • Multiple stability improvements to reduce the potential for game crashes
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We are currently working hard on delivering our first content update to Lakeshore and are looking forward to sharing more details with you in March!
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While I appreciate they have reaffirmed their commitment to providing a live service model, waiting until March to share more details (it doesn't even sound like the update will be released in March based on how it is worded) is pretty disappointing, especially with Unbound having no virtually no endgame appeal in its current state. :boggled:
 
FT-1
While I appreciate they have reaffirmed their commitment to providing a live service model, waiting until March to share more details (it doesn't even sound like the update will be released in March based on how it is worded) is pretty disappointing, especially with Unbound having no virtually no endgame appeal in its current state. :boggled:
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I completely agree, the single player career path didn't last very long and with no end-game content I imagine many players have already abandoned the game and moved on to something else. The patch feels underwhelming too. I understand that we had the Christmas break to contend with but the game has been out for 2 months and this patch boils down to 3 car balance fixes, a few crash fixes, and some warning messages. It's not a good look. It feels like they've either reduced the team size massively or have moved the majority of them over to work on the content update. I hope it's the latter but even then the next update needs to be pretty big in order to justify a further 2 months of waiting before we even get information, let alone an update date.
 
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Whatever the March update is, would be overshadowed by both the forza games (for me atleast). It's very slow start to live service, one that doesn't give me much hope.
 
FT-1
While I appreciate they have reaffirmed their commitment to providing a live service model, waiting until March to share more details (it doesn't even sound like the update will be released in March based on how it is worded) is pretty disappointing, especially with Unbound having no virtually no endgame appeal in its current state. :boggled:
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I saw the Tweet yesterday and thought "Oh cool, that'll make a good news piece for GTP".

Turns out the big announcement for January is that there'll be a big announcement in March.
 
Utterly disappointing given the state of the game. They balanced 2 cars online but left probably the most toxic one there is (the Ferrari Pista in B class) as it is. I've played this game to death, over 100 hours already, but with an update this small 2 months after launch and the game being in a pretty terrible state, it doesn't look good. I'm lowering my expectations for this game going forward. Real shame, I thought Unbound had a lot of potential to it.
 
The game is in a terrible state ? I must have beeen missed this in my 85hrs playtime in single and multiplayer.

Looks to me here after the same strange overdramatizing as also with Horizon 5.

IMO the game is realeased, works well in single and multiplayer and that could be it. I do not expect to get anything more. Everything from now on is a great bonus for free and not necessary for me.
 
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DC2_Evan
Utterly disappointing given the state of the game. They balanced 2 cars online but left probably the most toxic one there is (the Ferrari Pista in B class) as it is. I've played this game to death, over 100 hours already, but with an update this small 2 months after launch and the game being in a pretty terrible state, it doesn't look good. I'm lowering my expectations for this game going forward. Real shame, I thought Unbound had a lot of potential to it.
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Thing is, is that the Pista isn't the only offender when it comes to its specific exploit, it's just the worst offender. I've seen '17 NSXs & Murcielagos in B-Class, Huracans & McLaren F1s in A-Class, Huayras & AMG GTBSs in A+, and several others that I can't specifically recall currently. What I'm really hoping for is that rather than tackle just the Pista and calling it a day, Criterion will attempt to fix/re-balance all these problem cars in one fell swoop, hence there not being any mention of the Pista this time around. I'm thinking/hoping since they've said we won't get content updates (or at least news of content updates) until March, that if there's going to be an update in February, it'll have a large amount of car balancing adjustments.

Also, apparently the update introduced a bug where Logitech G29 & G920 users with both the shifter and wheel paddles equipped can access all 8 gears on (seemingly) every car, regardless of whatever transmission the car has equipped. :indiff:
 
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Ak1504
The game is in a terrible state ? I must have beeen missed this in my 85hrs playtime in single and multiplayer.

Looks to me here after the same strange overdramatizing as also with Horizon 5.

IMO the game is realeased, works well in single and multiplayer and that could be it. I do not expect to get anything more. Everything from now on is a great bonus for free and not necessary for me.
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Multiplayer has an entire class where you can only drive one car due to an exploit in the gearboxes, it might "work" but it's definitely not working as intended. Single player is better IMO but even then once you pass the short story mode and collect the things scattered around the map you're left with not a lot. The content feels severely lacking for a £70 game.
 
Moglet
The content feels severely lacking for a £70 game.
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I absolutely cannot understand such statements. The game has even more cars then Heat afaik. Maybe I'm getting old but when i see what quality and amount of content i got from games 20 years ago and nowadays then its living the dream. And yes there are a few bugs here and there but that is far far from a "terrible state".

These constant exaggerations nowadays are just utterly terrible.😑
 
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Ak1504
I absolutely cannot understand such statements. The game has even more cars then Heat afaik. Maybe I'm getting old but when i see what quality and amount of content i got from games 20 years ago and nowadays then its living the dream. And yes there are a few bugs here and there but that is far far from a "terrible state".

These constant exaggerations nowadays are just utterly terrible.😑
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I wouldn't say it's in a terrible state, that was someone else, however it doesn't feel updated enough to warrant the price tag over Heat IMO. It has more content than Heat, sure, but £70 worth? Competing with things like God of War in terms of pricing? Not quite. The current prices it's selling for feel more realistic.

Although knowing how these things work it was probably out of their hands which is all the more reason to not launch a half arsed game in the first place. It was likely rushed out for Christmas to catch the increased sales period.
 
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I was pretty impressed how polished the game felt and how stable and good it runs and the loading times are a dream. Same with Grid Legends.

So another statement that i can not really undertsand when i read half arsed game released I'm sry.
 
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Decent loading times and running well are the bare minimum a game should be achieving in 2023. I agree on a lot of things though; the overall presentation is pretty polished, the UI looks great and the way the music and menus tie together is pretty neat too. I also like the cartoon effects and the way the characters are represented, and the graphics in general are very good.

Where the game falls down for me is the lack of end-game content (this alone isn't an issue but the story is so short that I'd list it as a problem), lack of multiplayer content, and the mediocre user experience (not bugs, I haven't seen many actual bugs in my playthrough).
 
I also never understood what people mean with "endgame" content especially in race games. I have nearly hundred or in case of Forza couple hundreds of cars to play, tune, paint them so i have a lot to do and i hope i will be done before the next game gets released lol.
 
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I haven't played Forza Motorsport in a while so I don't know how they handle it but Horizon's endgame is covered by Horizon Festival Playlists. They contain weekly championships, races, photo challenges, treasure hunts, EventLab creations, store content, online modes, rewards, objective challenges and more. These are updated every week and they're still doing this for Forza Horizon 4 even though the game came out over 4 years ago. Even without the Festival Playlist the Horizon games are enormous and the main bulk of the "story" content takes a very long time to complete.

I'm not saying that Need for Speed needs to offer this level of support as I think that's unrealistic for a team of their size but something other than just replaying the same few race routes over and over would be nice. I'm hoping the March announcement will reveal some good content we can get stuck into.
 
There is UI issues, the biggest of which is the race invites covering your car information when you are in the garage trying to build something. The race payouts online are half or a third as much as they were in Heat for 3 races vs 1, the level cap online is entirely to low and can be hit in a week or 2, cars sometimes have a mind of their own, broken cars with over 1000 hp in the lowest tier of cars due to gearbox swaps. I love the game, don't get me wrong, but its not in a good place. I have alot of fun with it, but I also had fun in Battlefield 2042 at its lowest point. Just a really disappointing first update 2 months after launch, and waiting for another 2 months to fix things are actually broken.
 
I just bought the game since it's at 50% discount in Steam.

My experience so far is "it feels like driving drunk". What's wrong with the car controls? It feels so bad...
 
Marty_Debiru
I just bought the game since it's at 50% discount in Steam.

My experience so far is "it feels like driving drunk". What's wrong with the car controls? It feels so bad...
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When was the last time you played a Need for Speed game? If you didn't play Payback, Heat etc. then the handling may feel very weird at first as it's not like most other racing games. Even coming from Heat I struggled with the car in the intro.
 
Moglet
When was the last time you played a Need for Speed game? If you didn't play Payback, Heat etc. then the handling may feel very weird at first as it's not like most other racing games. Even coming from Heat I struggled with the car in the intro.
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NFS 2015 and never actually got used to the handling there. I'm used to irl racing and games like GT7 so imagine...
So far I have find it easier with grippy builds and just occasionally a drift if needed. But damn those B class races I look like a drunk clown.
 
Marty_Debiru
NFS 2015 and never actually got used to the handling there. I'm used to irl racing and games like GT7 so imagine...
So far I have find it easier with grippy builds and just occasionally a drift if needed. But damn those B class races I look like a drunk clown.
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If you're used to realism then it will definitely feel very strange. I found that in the lower classes it was better to drift everywhere, as you can get a bit more burst nitrous that way, but you should try out both ends of the slider as well as somewhere in the middle. One slightly frustrating thing at lower levels is that you race in the city a lot and so you frequently hit kerbs which will really throw the handling off. Full grip builds will lose grip entirely when hitting or dropping off a kerb, causing the car to drive straight on, and when you re-gain grip the car will lurch in the direction you're steering in. This really made the game difficult for me in the early few hours.
 
50% off both editions, it took them exactly 2 months to already chop the price in half.

Still not sure I want this or not, how does the game play for an adult who more hates than likes all the cringy “yo-dude“ teen slang and palace + other clothing branding?

62AD8C5D-EB9D-462E-BCDA-9151371901E4.jpeg
 

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