Patch 1.5 | Vehicle tweaks to improve the experience

[iBesaid]

Most of the cars have horrible gear/top speed relation. They sound horrible at top speed basically cause the last gear reaches the limit to early (bad transmission settings). (You could fix this easily in hours, the cars are already made, they just need different gears values to feel and sound natural at top speeds)

Since 1.5 It's actually worse to enjoy slow driving cause this stupid "boosted launch", just glitches the car and never can stop unless you handbrake it. If you tap the brakes when you are going very slow car just stops and goes reverse then the same happens if you tap the throttle to compensate and make it stop, the car just refuses to stop unless you use the handbrake or let it stop without touching the brake. On Controller is less painful but still annoying. Just add a different keybind for reverse, please.

Another change I saw it's the first person view inside the cars. Some of them moved the camera more centered. Guys, please, we need FOV inside the cars. Some of them had height camera issues and they been fixed but it's very annoying to drive watching my wheel and my hands on the left side of my camera.
Since there is a lot of differents likes and preferences in this topic you would just do better to add camera settings for first person view in cars:
- You can't see what's infront cause the car is so huge or the wheel is massive ? Settings > Move the camera Y position.
- You can't see on your sides ? Settings > First Person view in Vehicles FOV.
- You like to have your camera centered in the car ? (Cause you drive a McLaren F1 daily or cause you actually never drove) Settings > Move the camera X position.

AI Traffic still horrible for immersive players. Noticed the traffic lights turn 80% of the time Green when the player is getting close. I'm guessing to make the AI traffic move and avoid blocks, resulting on even more immersion break.

 

[Iferrebee]

I have driving the cars. Motorcycle is my prefer vehicles

 

[Wenceslaus]

- FOV for cars/vehicles is something I really miss in 1st person and I think that would fit the game.
- the need to use handbreak to stop sometimes is really annoying but even simply trying to accelerate calmly is almost impossible in fatser cars. I think that the make the vehicle accelerate slow-ish unless holding shift could solve it... perhaps.

 

[SpookyFX]

AI Traffic still horrible for immersive players. Noticed the traffic lights turn 80% of the time Green when the player is getting close. I'm guessing to make the AI traffic move and avoid blocks, resulting on even more immersion break.

I did not see this in my first playthru on the first release, but DEFINITELY did notice this on the patched before 1.5. I was hoping that was a bug but now (still there in 1.5) it sounds like it is by design.

I mapped the "hand break" to my left foot pedal controller (actually on my floor for my left foot) so it more or less just feels to me like normal breaking.
.
But I am not a "car guy" in any way so "normal" for me may not work for others. The bottom line is that driving should feel easy and comfortable for any player even if it means adding driving AI to the car to assist the player to overcome unintuitive controls. There is no justification for driving in these type of games (not a car race simulator) to be difficult expect in very unusual situations like hydroplaning on ice. It is not like we as the player character are just now learning to Drive a car. It should be as easy as when we use a gun or take a shower in the game. Or riding a horse in all other games including Witcher.

I expect the player to have a challenge if they are racing across the dessert on gravel, over ditches while dodging small trees. But it should not require Nascar skills just to drive home to my apartment at the end of a mission.

 

[iBesaid]

I did not see this in my first playthru on the first release, but DEFINITELY did notice this on the patched before 1.5. I was hoping that was a bug but now (still there in 1.5) it sounds like it is by design.

I mapped the "hand break" to my left foot pedal controller (actually on my floor for my left foot) so it more or less just feels to me like normal breaking.
.
But I am not a "car guy" in any way so "normal" for me may not work for others. The bottom line is that driving should feel easy and comfortable for any player even if it means adding driving AI to the car to assist the player to overcome unintuitive controls. There is no justification for driving in these type of games (not a car race simulator) to be difficult expect in very unusual situations like hydroplaning on ice. It is not like we as the player character are just now learning to Drive a car. It should be as easy as when we use a gun or take a shower in the game. Or riding a horse in all other games including Witcher.

I expect the player to have a challenge if they are racing across the dessert on gravel, over ditches while dodging small trees. But it should not require Nascar skills just to drive home to my apartment at the end of a mission.

Using the handbrake as a normal break makes the car slide at low speeds and U turn at high speeds. The car just needs to do what you make them do. Any extra stuff they do as "help" will only be annoying and make the car even more unpredictable.

Best example of a proper driving for most of the people is GTA V:
- Simple handling, cars don't have any extra help for turn or do donuts, player has full control over the car making it friendly for everyone no matter if you are a car guy or not.
Opposite example is NFS 2015:
- The amount of help and AI trying to correct players driving made the cars absolutely a nightmare to control, literally imposible to predict what the f the car was about to do (kinda ironic cause the game was about race with cars).

Adding a keybind for the reverse would fix this issue cause the car would stop without reversing after brake.

 

[Bartinga2077]

If you tap the brakes when you are going very slow car just stops and goes reverse then the same happens if you tap the throttle to compensate and make it stop, the car just refuses to stop unless you use the handbrake or let it stop without touching the brake. On Controller is less painful but still annoying. Just add a different keybind for reverse, please.

This I agree with. Had to search which tap the handbrake was keybinded to to bring the vehicle to a complete stop. Would be better if the vehicle just stops as long the brakes are pressed, and only goes in reverse when the brakes are let loose, and pressed again and vice versa.

 

[SpookyFX]

Using the handbrake as a normal break makes the car slide at low speeds and U turn at high speeds. The car just needs to do what you make them do. Any extra stuff they do as "help" will only be annoying and make the car even more unpredictable.

Not for me, but I set up my game so that the hand break and the back up key "break" both engage together so that may be the reason why.

JUST on Nexus alone, 379,891 people agree the PC car controls "as is" are frustrating:

 

[batouyukinawa]

I'll admit, 1.31 driving was superior. You could even on the controller break then hit the gas and V would down shift. It actually gave you
control over you shifting in a way. Bring back old driving model. Or hell, someone will just make a mod for it soon enough.

 

[Metzger28]

I'm glad this is getting some attention. I do like how responsive the vehicles are now in general (some of the cars were just impossible to drive at anything more than a medium speed before) but it's almost like the "real" to "Arcade" scale was tipped a little too much.

People kept saying during the preview stream and in various videos/articles that cars feel heavier. No, I don't think they do. In fact, they feel "stuck" to the road, perhaps, but they feel much lighter. Even big behemoths are a lot less likely to lose control.

On top of this, the new gear/transmission simulation appears broken. Cars don't shift like they used to, and there's no reverse gear - cars just stop moving forward and immediately rush backward at similar speed. Brake and reverse lights don't work properly, if at all, and lights get stuck on to varying degrees when you exit a vehicle. I've also seen the headlights on my car turn off when I get hit from behind.

I'm hoping that CDPR is aware of this. I'm absolutely loving every single change EXCEPT to the aspects of the driving that just seem a bit wonky. On the flip side, I'm walking a lot more in-game and taking in the city to a greater degree than before. Haha.

Post automatically merged: Feb 24, 2022

 

[lowtechgeek]

... It should be as easy as when we use a gun or take a shower in the game. Or riding a horse in all other games including Witcher.

This is a really good idea. There should be an option for the car to just automatically follow the road, like the horses in Witcher 3 or Zelda:BotW. Then the [turn left] key could be used to change lanes left or turn left if it's available and you're already in the left lane, and same for the [turn right] key. Maybe even incorporate some localization to account for RHS or LHS driving in different parts of the world.

I expect the player to have a challenge if they are racing across the dessert on gravel, over ditches while dodging small trees. But it should not require Nascar skills just to drive home to my apartment at the end of a mission.

Haha agreed!