Need for Speed Unbound - General Discussion

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Mercia
There's a 10 hour trial for EA members (EA Play? I forget what it's called) or early access came with the Palace Edition pre-order.
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Yes. And for EA Play Pro you get unlimited early access.

-Fred-
the stupid brake to drift mechanic is still a thing
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They hid the option pretty well (it's not in the games 'controls' menu, but in the 'handling' menu for the cars), but you can have 'tap brake', 'tap throttle' or 'both' (default) to initiate a drift.
 
Played several hours and...there are some things I do not like. At all.

  • if you're going to have environmental objects you can smash through, commit to it. Fully. I feel like there's more things I can't smash through than those I can. That fence looks like something I should be able to smash thro—and I'm dead.
  • There are far, far, far too many goddamn cops. They're around every corner and it is genuinely aggravating. It's easy enough to avoid them (for the most part) and this is largely more so annoying because I'm in an ND, but it's to the point where I'm purposefully ramming into them because I'm just tired of trying to swerve around every alleyway, shortcut, or parkway to avoid them.
  • You lose your money when arrested. This made me turn the game off. It's not that it's specifically a punishing mechanic, it's more so...why would I ever want to engage this now that I know this is what could happen? Why not use the old mechanic of impound strikes? Get to 3 or 5 (whatever it was in 2005) and you're car is seized, and if you want that car back you'll have to pay a hefty price. Losing my credits that I busted my arse for? Get all of the way the 🤬 out of here with that.
  • There aren't any places to hide unless you happen to luck into the one spot the cops aren't frantically searching around. Give me something to get them off of my back and not immediately have thirteen (or thirty-seven, it seems) cop cars swarming my immediate area with no way to get back to a garage.
  • Why the hell is there a cooldown on gas station repairs? Why is it that every modern day game tries so unbelievably hard to remove every natural advantage the player could have (all in the name of "difficulty) and gives them all to the AI (again, all in the name of "difficulty")?

It's something of a shame too because the pursuit system is really good, and it reminds me of MW 05, except far less balanced in your favor (modern day game design 101, it seems). Change those two things, or hell, just lessen the amount of patrol vehicles on the road and decrease their search cone radius and all is good. And, yes, I know you can turn the engine off and achieve the latter result and that's great. I like that too.
 
Terronium-12
Played several hours and...there are some things I do not like. At all.

  • if you're going to have environmental objects you can smash through, commit to it. Fully. I feel like there's more things I can't smash through than those I can. That fence looks like something I should be able to smash thro—and I'm dead.
  • There are far, far, far too many goddamn cops. They're around every corner and it is genuinely aggravating. It's easy enough to avoid them (for the most part) and this is largely more so annoying because I'm in an ND, but it's to the point where I'm purposefully ramming into them because I'm just tired of trying to swerve around every alleyway, shortcut, or parkway to avoid them.
  • You lose your money when arrested. This made me turn the game off. It's not that it's specifically a punishing mechanic, it's more so...why would I ever want to engage this now that I know this is what could happen? Why not use the old mechanic of impound strikes? Get to 3 or 5 (whatever it was in 2005) and you're car is seized, and if you want that car back you'll have to pay a hefty price. Losing my credits that I busted my arse for? Get all of the way the 🤬 out of here with that.
  • There aren't any places to hide unless you happen to luck into the one spot the cops aren't frantically searching around. Give me something to get them off of my back and not immediately have thirteen (or thirty-seven, it seems) cop cars swarming my immediate area with no way to get back to a garage.
  • Why the hell is there a cooldown on gas station repairs? Why is it that every modern day game tries so unbelievably hard to remove every natural advantage the player could have (all in the name of "difficulty) and gives them all to the AI (again, all in the name of "difficulty")?

It's something of a shame too because the pursuit system is really good, and it reminds me of MW 05, except far less balanced in your favor (modern day game design 101, it seems). Change those two things, or hell, just lessen the amount of patrol vehicles on the road and decrease their search cone radius and all is good. And, yes, I know you can turn the engine off and achieve the latter result and that's great. I like that too.
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I agree about the smashables, they've caught me out a few times during races and it is infuriating having to restart because you absolutely cannot catch up with the AI. Especially as the one in 1st always seems to scream off into the distance. I've found the cops pretty easy to avoid in my B class 240Z though, there's a countdown timer for them spotting you so with enough speed you can just drive past them if all you want to do is bank some cash at a low cash level (Level 2, for example). Higher levels may be more of an issue but that's why I don't bother reaching those levels unless I'm in a faster car. I did the same with Heat.

Losing your cash when you get caught was a Heat thing too IIRC, so I've got used to that. It's part of the risk vs. reward gameplay system; do you stay out and do more races to increase your bank while increasing risk, or do you play it safe and head back to the safehouse but progress your time towards the end of the week? I don't mind that so much, although I do have concerns over how much cash you can actually earn in the later game as I'm currently struggling to pay for 1 car let alone multiple.
 
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With Heat I had very specific cars to tackle the highest heat levels. Couldn’t do that with just any car. I was also very specific about where I engaged the cops so I knew where and how to lose them.

Since I’m nowhere near having all upgrades unlocked (or the cash) and I don’t know the map too well yet, I think about 2 is the highest I’d be comfortable with at the moment. Going higher is suicide with my current ride.
 
There is some contrintuitive mechanic that could do something with you car at high speed. Mainly experiencing this when driving S+ M3 Legendary available in MP. Like you running really fast, making turn, its good to some degree but for whatever reason you car can suddenly make donut or 90* turn.

Afaik, you can counter this in NFS15 with turning off stability control, but I can't find this setting in NFSU
 
inCloud
There is some contrintuitive mechanic that could do something with you car at high speed. Mainly experiencing this when driving S+ M3 Legendary available in MP. Like you running really fast, making turn, its good to some degree but for whatever reason you car can suddenly make donut or 90* turn.

Afaik, you can counter this in NFS15 with turning off stability control, but I can't find this setting in NFSU
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I had this occur once in an A-class car, I braked to drift for a hairpin and the car just came to a halt by doing a handbrake turn to a stop from high speed. It was very weird, it was OK after a restart.
 
Picked this up on Series X, and I must say, it's been pretty fun. A few infuriating bits like my car suddenly veering off to the left or right after a jump, but still a solid experience. The customization is wonderful as well.
My only real gripe is how after you significantly damage a cop car, the siren malfunctions like in GTA and starts wailing in distorted tones. As someone with sensitive hearing, it's uncomfortable to listen to, buuuut it gives me more of an incentive to wreck them quickly.
Overall it's great fun. 👍
 
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Just a heads up to anyone with Game Pass on Xbox; EA Play is included as part of that and it includes the 10 hour early access trial. Some people didn't realise this as it was a little bit hidden away at first! Don't rush through the single player mode though as it gets locked once you qualify for the first weekend event
 
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ICEYOU3
Ahh well I'll likely wait for a sale then, not sure if I want to drop 70 on a NFS game lol
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Me neither. Got a month of EA Play Pro and I expect to be able to finish the career within that time. So that’s 15 EUR.
 
Terronium-12
Played several hours and...there are some things I do not like. At all.

  • if you're going to have environmental objects you can smash through, commit to it. Fully. I feel like there's more things I can't smash through than those I can. That fence looks like something I should be able to smash thro—and I'm dead.
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I can agree with this. There have been quite a few times when I've tried to go off the beaten path to escape higher-heat pursuits, only to run into the one tree in an entire field that can't be taken down.
Terronium-12
  • There are far, far, far too many goddamn cops. They're around every corner and it is genuinely aggravating. It's easy enough to avoid them (for the most part) and this is largely more so annoying because I'm in an ND, but it's to the point where I'm purposefully ramming into them because I'm just tired of trying to swerve around every alleyway, shortcut, or parkway to avoid them.
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What I'm more curious about is how the game determines when to call for reinforcements for the police. I've had chases on Heats 3 & 4 with just one or 2 cops on me for several minutes with no backup calls, and I've also had a couple instances on Heat 5 where I've had 5+ cops on me, not including a helicopter, and the game decides to make a backup call, despite me already being totally swarmed. TKOing cop cars on sight has also become my preferred way of avoiding a chase, especially if I'm on my way to a meetup or a safehouse. The fact that cheesing them is the best method of avoiding a chase is a little blegh.

Also, totally hate the Heat 4 Undercover Camaros. Specifically, I hate that they don't show up on the minimap when patrolling. It's incredibly annoying trying to duck and weave around cops avoiding a chase, only to come around a corner and one of the Camaros is in front of me. Since I've slowed to a crawl avoiding other cops, it's a guaranteed pursuit, which is very frustrating. Strangely, you can hover over them on the big map if they've spawned in, even though their symbols also don't show up there.

Terronium-12
  • Why the hell is there a cooldown on gas station repairs? Why is it that every modern day game tries so unbelievably hard to remove every natural advantage the player could have (all in the name of "difficulty) and gives them all to the AI (again, all in the name of "difficulty")?
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The cooldown is an improvement over the system in Heat, where you would only get 3 gas station repairs at night. I'm kinda ok with the cooldown system, because theoretically you can go much longer during the day/night cycle without issue.

That being said, my problem is that the cooldown timer (which IIRC is 4 minutes) is the same no matter what at every heat level. IMO this should scale with whatever your heat level is. 4 Minutes is fine at Heat 1 because cops aren't too much of a threat and it's relatively easy to get out of chases. However, Heat 5 is a different story when you have the fastest cop cars, as well as the F-150 SWAT Trucks on you, and by Week 2 you're pretty much guaranteed to get to Heat 5 almost every night if you're trying to maximize profits. IMO it should scale down by 30 second increments, with cooldowns at Heat 5 only being 60-90 seconds or so.
 
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Mercia
Have to say they really nailed the daytime lighting especially (game looks great overall) driving the city reminds me of that Matrix demo from a while back.

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I actually would play this if wasnt for those stupid cartoony effects.
 
5+ hr of cruising in Crown Vic and collecting collectables(its useless for every other activity). I am not RnB fan, but gosh ost is good. Few good Slavic tracks.
 
NotThePrez
I can agree with this. There have been quite a few times when I've tried to go off the beaten path to escape higher-heat pursuits, only to run into the one tree in an entire field that can't be taken down.

What I'm more curious about is how the game determines when to call for reinforcements for the police. I've had chases on Heats 3 & 4 with just one or 2 cops on me for several minutes with no backup calls, and I've also had a couple instances on Heat 5 where I've had 5+ cops on me, not including a helicopter, and the game decides to make a backup call, despite me already being totally swarmed. TKOing cop cars on sight has also become my preferred way of avoiding a chase, especially if I'm on my way to a meetup or a safehouse. The fact that cheesing them is the best method of avoiding a chase is a little blegh.

Also, totally hate the Heat 4 Undercover Camaros. Specifically, I hate that they don't show up on the minimap when patrolling. It's incredibly annoying trying to duck and weave around cops avoiding a chase, only to come around a corner and one of the Camaros is in front of me. Since I've slowed to a crawl avoiding other cops, it's a guaranteed pursuit, which is very frustrating. Strangely, you can hover over them on the big map if they've spawned in, even though their symbols also don't show up there.


The cooldown is an improvement over the system in Heat, where you would only get 3 gas station repairs at night. I'm kinda ok with the cooldown system, because theoretically you can go much longer during the day/night cycle without issue.

That being said, my problem is that the cooldown timer (which IIRC is 4 minutes) is the same no matter what at every heat level. IMO this should scale with whatever your heat level is. 4 Minutes is fine at Heat 1 because cops aren't too much of a threat and it's relatively easy to get out of chases. However, Heat 5 is a different story when you have the fastest cop cars, as well as the F-150 SWAT Trucks on you, and by Week 2 you're pretty much guaranteed to get to Heat 5 almost every night if you're trying to maximize profits. IMO it should scale down by 30 second increments, with cooldowns at Heat 5 only being 60-90 seconds or so.
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And I think this is why I sound far more...disgruntled than I actually am — I haven't played an NFS game from start to finish since 2012, so I have no idea what's been done since; how it's improved or worsened, etc. Though, make no mistake, the things I've complained about do annoy me but it won't prevent me from playing further.

On the subject of not having played anything since 2012...when did NFS release? 2015? I remember playing that too and went pretty far with it, but the physics ultimately did my head in. :lol:
 
Terronium-12
And I think this is why I sound far more...disgruntled than I actually am — I haven't played an NFS game from start to finish since 2012, so I have no idea what's been done since; how it's improved or worsened, etc. Though, make no mistake, the things I've complained about do annoy me but it won't prevent me from playing further.
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Yeah, I'm one of those weirdos that has played each of the newer games, objectively recognize their faults, think they range from poor to decent at best, and still manage to find some enjoyment in each and play them for 100+ hours. I can definitely say that Unbound feels like it has a significantly stronger foundation than all of the Ghost NFS games, thankfully.
Terronium-12
On the subject of not having played anything since 2012...when did NFS release? 2015? I remember playing that too and went pretty far with it, but the physics ultimately did my head in. :lol:
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Indeed. I played the single player and multiplayer of that game quite extensively, and to this day I firmly believe that the physics of the game were, among other things, not built for the map the game found itself in.
 
Tried it a bit, pretty fun with a controller, but steering wheel support seems really bad, the steering lock is only 360°, which makes it very hard to drive.
 
Been having a lot of fun with this. Anyone figure out a good way to make money quickly? I seem to be barely scraping by and using the cars from the qualifiers, with the odd cheap car I bought. Any tips here? Any way to restart the caree?
 
Purely my personal opinion. Feel free to agree or disagree. Played on EA app (on PC).

Positives:
  • Visuals: Very pretty, looks much better than Heat or Payback, with a much cleaner look overall. Day time especially has the biggest jump in quality. I feel like it needs a bit more color during daytime.
  • Map is good: Varied enough to not feel samey, city layouts are very well done for race courses.
  • Handling: Much more predictable than Heat and actually has a decent grip option.
  • Story: Although predictable and cliché, it leans into it hard enough that it works out.
  • Cops: Tiering of cops is an excellent idea and they don't feel like they will murder you at 2 stars (in you B and A class cars) like in heat.
  • Upgrades: The system is carried over from Heat works very well here. Multiple driving styles can easily be achieved in the same car. The new kits are seem to be a higher quality than the prior ones, and new rims are much appreciated.
  • Voice Acting: Really nice to see effort put in here. The cop chatter especially stands out as great.
  • Character Customization: Very well done. Was pretty skeptical but it has won me over.

Middlings:
  • Car List: Very minor improvement over Heat while losing some big ones like Audi. Not many cars caught my interest after playing heat. Only went after the Eclipse, Emira, Countach, Z, Corvette C8.
  • Customization and Upgrades: Again, only a minor increase over Heat, while being really good quality. Forged engines are gone, and maximum engine output maxes out at 800ish for most engines.
  • Takeovers: Not very interesting and gets old very quickly (about the 5th time) and they don't pay much.
  • Courses: Most of the races happen on the right side of the map. Driving to each event gets tedious after Week 2, especially for the "Special Events" like car delivery or Uber driving that require driving across the map almost always.
  • Graphical and Stability bugs: Will hopefully be iron out. Had one where my entire screen was a bugged out smoke texture that persisted till i quit the game (the UI was still working). Seems to drop a lot of frames randomly from a locked 72 to as low as 20. This happens the longer i play the game.
  • Photo mode: Barren and a wasted feature.

Negatives:
  • Art style: Not a fan. Had hoped to turn the smoke and other effects off fully. But got used to it. However, the 3d characters stick out like a sore thumb.
  • Physics: Get extremely unpredictable once bumps, kerbs and jumps get involved. Drift still is faster than grip. Spins out randomly mid corner sometimes.
  • AI: Extreme Rubber banding, even when at the top off the classes. They drive past like I'm standing still sometimes, and don't get affected by cops at all.
  • Cops: Very shallow system apart from the tiers. Needs some sort of pursuit breakers. They don't have the same physics as the player, can accelerate from 0 to player speed in under a second. They also only focus on the player during races (especially annoying when 2 corvettes ram you off at 97% race completion). Very annoying in B and A, become nearly useless at the top of S and S+, showing very poor scaling. Much less aggression than in Heat. Zero reason to interact with cops for progression.
  • Control Scheme: Still cannot be customized.
  • Grind: Feels tiring from B to A+. Gets a bit easier for S and above.
  • Event: Very poor variety. Only Sprint, Circuit and Takeover events get repetitive and boring after a while, which is worrying because of the campaign length.
  • Single Player: Very short. About 16 hours, without rushing. Not much to do after other than collectibles. Event variety would have helped here. Feels like Deja Vu from Heat.
  • Multiplayer: Barebones and lack of cops and shared offline/online progression hurts a lot. Races barely filled with more than 4 people, even though the lobbies are full. Day time only is a big miss.

Overall, it is easily worth the $10 for EA Play Pro. Can easily be completed in a month, if played little by little. Don't think that it is worth full price. Instead get Heat and install Unite till Unbound is atleast half price for an NFS fix. It will need a really good post launch support to keep alive for a long time. Also worth noting that nothing about this game feels like "Next Gen", or worth the 3 year gap. Feels like a Heat v1.5 because of the same underlying issues.

As it is right now, it is a solid 7/10 (about 6/10 for heat and 7/10 for Unite mod on Heat). Can go upto an 8 with good multiplayer events and expansions.
 
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Moglet
Not entirely though, even with the "Cloaked" option selected you still get the cartoon effect tyre smoke. For some people that's still too much apparently, I'm not sure why it's such a huge issue myself.
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I don't find it an issue at all either, works really well I find. I notice a lot of people who have issues with it haven't played the game.
 
Has anyone done a comparison to see if a grip build would be faster than a drift build?

If you play about with the sliders and switch the drift mode, you can take corners like a traditional racing game, but I don't know yet if that would be "meta" or not.
 
Restarted the career. There's no dedicated option for this, so it's renaming/deleting the Savegame folder. :lol: Anyway, off to a much better start this time. Having some experience and knowledge of the map helps dealing with higher heat levels straight from the start. Also avoids spending cash on things I shouldn't have in the beginning. Easier to win races too (I play on challenging). 👍
 
If there's one thing that's been disappointing is the separating of the 'story' world from the online world. In Heat when they were combined I thought it worked quite well to make the game world feel more alive as you could see other players driving around playing their own missions and races, and you could even drive past races that were happening in game which was a neat touch.

The problem with the online races on Heat is that they only pulled players from the server that you're in, which was capped at 16 anyway, so with some players doing story missions etc. it would often be hard to fill a race with more then 2 or 3 people.

The solution for me with Heat, and I would have loved to have seen it here, is to go the GTA route and pull players from all servers for races with you leaving the game world server to go to a server specific to the race.

I feel like separating the worlds hasn't led to the fix they maybe thought it would, it's still not always easy to get a decent player count in a race even if they're not doing the story in that sever anymore, and it's still limited to 16 players max.

To me this hinders its long term playability, the same way it did for Heat.
 
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Small gripe from my end: if you don't meet the criteria for the qualifier on Saturday, you can just repeat the Friday until you do. This feels weird. Why handle the qualifiers like this when they could have been events on the map with entry criteria, just like some of the other events (which also require cash/class)?
 
NLxAROSA
Small gripe from my end: if you don't meet the criteria for the qualifier on Saturday, you can just repeat the Friday until you do. This feels weird. Why handle the qualifiers like this when they could have been events on the map with entry criteria, just like some of the other events (which also require cash/class)?
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The whole qualifier and buy-ins system is weird in general, it feels like they set out to make the game feel more like a high risk high reward type thing but then realised that players could very easily become blocked from progressing or would get frustrated at needing to restart the whole career if they didn't qualify. It feels very short-sighted.
 
Moglet
The whole qualifier and buy-ins system is weird in general, it feels like they set out to make the game feel more like a high risk high reward type thing but then realised that players could very easily become blocked from progressing or would get frustrated at needing to restart the whole career if they didn't qualify. It feels very short-sighted.
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A calendar could be useful for endgame content, e.g. (semi-) randomized events with a limited availability and specific criteria and rewards (e.g. build a A-class Mustang drift car within these ratings to be able to enter, win a skin, car or whatever). But for career, just put 'em on the map, either with entry criteria, or whenever the player has progressed enough, or both.
 

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