Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown Discussion Thread

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fwyflyer
Couple additional comments on Season 4 now that I have driven a bit of it...

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6. The economy is still borked so the GRIND is real. Many will not finish the Solar Crown Pass even in 4 months time. I have done 7 levels beyond the 20 I got free so I will finish it but I am fairly determined in that regard. I finished the last solar pass in about a week...
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The ultimate irony here is that TDUSC Devs also screwed up the daily rewards. Many were apparently complaining about not getting any xp or coin for doing the daily tasks even when the daily tasks showed they had been completed....
 
Heads up for everyone needing Solar Pass levels (and XP).

There is a very quick method for grinding XP and the Solar Pass this week.
The Live Event includes a race at the race circuit near the hotel, for the Mercedes-AMG GT R or Camaro ZL1 1LE. The race only takes 1m55s to complete, and earns you >5k XP and Solar Pass, so you can complete a Solar Pass level in about 10 minutes. At that rate you could complete the whole 50 levels in about 9 hours of grinding this one race in the next 4 days.

Also, the AMG GT R is one of the cars with the "100 wins" task at level 60.

EDIT - Someone uploaded a pic of Can Bernat area on Ibiza, so I now have all but 2 roads on Ibiza (1 in Can Bernat and 1 in Talle...? (the bottom right area)
 
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Just an FYI, the August Mid Season Update letter from Alex VII is out in the Steam News Section: Highlights: Update probably around Sept. 10, 2025. As part of the update: 1) SARD is being permanently removed. 2) Poker in the Casinos is delayed in order to make sure there are no networking errors adversely affecting play. And, 3) Daily XP should work again.

Meanwhile, most of us are really waiting on the Season 5 economy corrections and graphical optimizations (probably in the latter part of October)...
 
fwyflyer
Just an FYI, the August Mid Season Update letter from Alex VII is out in the Steam News Section: Highlights: Update probably around Sept. 10, 2025. As part of the update: 1) SARD is being permanently removed. 2) Poker in the Casinos is delayed in order to make sure there are no networking errors adversely affecting play. And, 3) Daily XP should work again.

Meanwhile, most of us are really waiting on the Season 5 economy corrections and graphical optimizations (probably in the latter part of October)...
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To be fair, the daily rewards have ALWAYS worked for me and still do, for whatever reason they've only broken for some people and not others which must make it a difficult thing to fix because they've had to identify why.

Although, now that I've got to level 60, ran all the special races and reached "endgame" I'm not particularly motivated to play at the moment.
 
So, the midseason update did finally grant me the GPS Coordinater achievement that I had earned 11 months ago.

Some of the AI was fixed.

They successfully removed SARD.

As for the Casino (who cares...solid waste of resources...should have been moved to Year 3)

But, perhaps most importantly, they failed to fix the daily reward issues for many users.

So, overall, I will give the Mid season Four patch a D+. Why a D+ instead of an F you might ask? Because this patch is one of the few that caused less serious issues than it actually fixed.

EPIC Failures thus far... Season 1: Network instability and lack of credit for finding gas stations, meeting areas, etc.. Season 2: Ruined economy. Season 4: AI that had no idea where the Streets were, much less the lanes on the streets or the directions of said lanes. Multiple Seasons: Abysmal FPS on mainstream PCs and consoles, SARD.
 
sirjim73
To be fair, the daily rewards have ALWAYS worked for me and still do, for whatever reason they've only broken for some people and not others which must make it a difficult thing to fix because they've had to identify why.

Although, now that I've got to level 60, ran all the special races and reached "endgame" I'm not particularly motivated to play at the moment.
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Pre Mid-season four patch, I was unsure whether or not I was receiving the coin or experience from daily tasks. I was unsure because the Daily Tasks would correctly show completed the moment I finished them but I never saw corresponding coin or experience being awarded.

Today, I specifically tested for it when I had one daily left. Moreover, I checked my balance, did the task, and then checked to see whether I gained 25k coins for doing the task. I did not.

Have you done a similar test recently? Or am I missing something obvious. Is the reward given non-contemporaneously? If so, where and when?
 
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fwyflyer
Pre Mid-season four patch, I was unsure whether or not I was receiving the coin or experience from daily tasks. I was unsure because the Daily Tasks would correctly show completed the moment I finished them but I never saw corresponding coin or experience being awarded.

Today, I specifically tested for it when I had one daily left. Moreover, I checked my balance, did the task, and then checked to see whether I gained 25k coins for doing the task. I did not.

Have you done a similar test recently? Or am I missing something obvious. Is the reward given non-contemporaneously? If so, where and when?
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I did the 4 circuit races and 7 races dailies today by running a Live Event race (the one at the race circuit that requires pre-1990).
I exited the race after 4 wins, saw my 25k being added, then reran the race another 3 times.

In both cases I saw the green 25,000 top right hand corner below the credits total running down and my credits total increasing by 25k at the same time, as is the "norm".

I assume you are not seeing the green 25k top right, when you should be. I've no idea why it works for some of us and not all.

I'm sorry to hear its still messed up for you (and I know it is for @breyzipp too from the reddit page). It was already ridiculous to not be fixed prior to the mid season patch, it's even more so knowing the patch has not fully resolved the problem.


Just one aside, I've noticed they've increased the "grind" for the live event with this patch - it now requires 150 points instead of 50 points. Doesn't bother me too much as I'm using those races to build a car towards 100 wins and to gain XP (still at level 63) , but it's another enforced grind on top of all the others they keep adding.
 


Watching Tv Milo GIF by Gogglebox Australia
 
After admitting the launch was so bad, you would think they'd be generous and throw something hard to get at people like me who have little intention in coming back to grind for a garish livery.
 
sirjim73
I did the 4 circuit races and 7 races dailies today by running a Live Event race (the one at the race circuit that requires pre-1990).
I exited the race after 4 wins, saw my 25k being added, then reran the race another 3 times.

In both cases I saw the green 25,000 top right hand corner below the credits total running down and my credits total increasing by 25k at the same time, as is the "norm".

I assume you are not seeing the green 25k top right, when you should be. I've no idea why it works for some of us and not all.

I'm sorry to hear its still messed up for you (and I know it is for @breyzipp too from the reddit page). It was already ridiculous to not be fixed prior to the mid season patch, it's even more so knowing the patch has not fully resolved the problem.
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The daily rewards stopped working for me yesterday, having worked for me all the way through till now. Personally I blame @fwyflyer :lol:
 
Anyone playing this what are your thoughts, I bought gold edition on sale PS5 but I’m having trouble signing in to my Nacon account it’s so annoying!?!? Haven’t played the game yet and bought it months ago. Any where I can get help. I’ve asked on Twitter/ X too thank you
 
fwyflyer
The next Solar Crown letter is now available at:

store.steampowered.com

Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown - Solar Club Letter: September 2025 - Steam News

Season 5 arrives next month, so let’s get into the details!
store.steampowered.com store.steampowered.com
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To be fair, there are a lot of what appear to be fairly significant changes and additions in Season 5.

I noted in particular the significant changes to Crown race payouts (1m per race for Ruby shown) which potentially make these a lot more attractive for replaying (so far, I've only run each Crown race once as they're not economical currently to be bothered with grinding them).

Also, at last you'll be able to sell any of your cars.
And not one sticker in the Live Rewards in Season 5 :lol:

The monetisation bit is concerning though. The previous solar pass level 50 cars will only be available from the mid season added online shop, requiring diamonds to purchase. 3 cars/body kits also in the online shop per season requiring diamonds. AND new clothes requiring diamonds as well...

The only possible positive there is the mention of free diamonds available to collect from the online shop each week. But how many and what do you have to do to "earn" them. It does say diamonds and not diamond, so it's more than one diamond per week :lol:

Hoping that the taxi missions are better implemented in TDUSC than they were in The Crew 2 where they are an "endgame" thing since they have very low bucks rewards.
 
I think my favorite part of the Solar club Letter is the reference(s) to specific optimization teams. Hopefully, that means they are finally giving real priority to making this game run on mainstream computers rather than just on high end hardware. And, while I can appreciate the better looking surf and shadows/lighting, my preference would be to see a 10-20% boost in framerates with promises of future boosts in additional significant jumps. Still, I will give the graphical optimizations the benefit of the doubt until such time as I am able to give them a try for myself.

As for the economy, literally all they had to do in the interim was manually increase the Ruby Crown's payout in Season 3. Leaving the economy in such ruin for so long is simply inexcusable. So, while I am encouraged by the changes to the economy FINALLY, I cannot help to think it might be a case of too little, too late.

As for the Taxi Missions, well, we have now been doing Delivery Missions ad nauseum for months on end as a direct result of the failed economy. So, at this point, new Taxi Missions (which are glorified delivery missions much like the upcoming detective mode) will likely feel more like old content than new content.

What I didn't see were direct references to AI traffic. Hopefully, they will no longer stop randomly, invade opposing lanes, etc. The AI makes a mockery of the Traffic Circle in Ibiza. Moreover, traffic circles are comically the most dangerous places you can drive in this game.

What I also didn't see was removal of unintended curbs, dustpiles, etc., that have been plaguing delivery missions since their inception. I don't mind losing rewards for hitting a cone (which I could see), but don't take away points because the map artists are incapable of making an actual driveway entrance (rather than plopping a dual sided raised curb sidewalk in front of the driveway). where is this fix?

The next best improvement I saw was a change to FRIM. I didn't see it coming at all. But, I am incredibly pleased with the proposed changes.

As for the clothing stores... Let's see. What is the point of clothing if they cannot make it work well on player avatars. While we are at it, why do player avatars look so bad? Could they perhaps have ankles. Can some dress up in heels? I mean this is supposed to be a lifestyle game, but player avatars look like avatars from the 80s. I cannot remember a game from the last two decades with Avatars done as poorly as they are in this game. Throughout The Crew, TDU[1], TDU[2], etc., Avatars looked demonstrably better than they do here, and their clothing was not occluded, knees and dresses didn't stick through coats, etc. Long story short: In the absence of reasonable Avatars, devoting ANY additional time to clothing is a complete WASTE OF RESOURCES. Either fix the avatars or jettison the clothing. The phrase, "Putting lipstick on a pig...", comes to mind when thinking about clothing in TDUSC.

TLDR: While there ARE positive changes coming, Devs continually fail to see and correct more fundamental issues like daily tasks, daily payouts, avatar quality, etc.

P.S. Don't get me started on Diamonds. Devs have yet to fix the fundamental game issues. As such, in my mind at least, they have not earned the right to ask for or demand additional real money transactions. At present, this title should still be in early release status.
 
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Still feel like this will be worth installing again some day, but until then, it's just not worth the hassle.

A shame, as the car sounds - especially how nicely they captured the Abarth - are really quite pleasing.
 

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