Next game should be like NFS Rivals or Hot Pursuit

[Ray]

I'm tired of this laid back Forza esque ♥♥♥♥♥♥ story gameplay. I need some fast paced Hot pursuit or Rivals like game.

[JonBBYG]

So, do the bare minimum, right? Just races and cop chases. No story, no drift or drag races, no customisation, hell not even performance upgrades and tuning. A plain simple map (like Forza) with no urban areas.

Three little details though:

1. NFS Rivals has a story (It's an afterthought, probably added after the core game was completed but it's still a story)
2. NFS was doing the "♥♥♥♥♥♥ story gameplay" long before Forza Motorsport was even a thing, let alone Horizon.
3. Does Forza Horizon have a story? Where? Unless Papa Fernando counts as a story....

[Ray]

My comparison with Forza is mainly due to the fact that the newer titles are extremely grindy such as Heat and Unbound. I don't remember Most Wanted being this grindy.
Plus there's barely any incentive to buy new cars in this game since I completed the campaign in Heat with a mid tier car.

Older titles forced me to upgrade and buy new cars which eventually led me to buy the best car in the game. There's barely any structure in the singleplayer mode.
I guess this game was made for multiplayer which I don't care about.

[JonBBYG]

I do agree with many of the points that you make here, though. The combination of economy/story structure in this game (and in Heat up to a point) doesn't really incentivize or even allow you to buy a new car. But MW2005 and UG/UG2 are even more grindy than this. We didn't know any different back then. Also it helped that the story/single player structure for these games is far, far more interesting, entertaining and fun than this game.

And, yes, single player in this game is an afterthought, which is really bad for people like me and (I am guessing) you; I prefer not to interact with other people in my video games, I'd rather go for a beer or coffee with my friends if I want to communicate and have fun.

Hot Pursuit 2/HP 2010/Rivals (I'll even add MW2012 here) are really good for what they are. What more can you do or add to them? Maybe more cars and more customisation and tuning options, maybe a story. Would that make a huge difference? Rivals had all these, but it's been let down by it's handling...

[Ray]

Originally posted by JonBBYG:

I do agree with many of the points that you make here, though. The combination of economy/story structure in this game (and in Heat up to a point) doesn't really incentivize or even allow you to buy a new car. But MW2005 and UG/UG2 are even more grindy than this. We didn't know any different back then. Also it helped that the story/single player structure for these games is far, far more interesting, entertaining and fun than this game.

And, yes, single player in this game is an afterthought, which is really bad for people like me and (I am guessing) you; I prefer not to interact with other people in my video games, I'd rather go for a beer or coffee with my friends if I want to communicate and have fun.

Hot Pursuit 2/HP 2010/Rivals (I'll even add MW2012 here) are really good for what they are. What more can you do or add to them? Maybe more cars and more customisation and tuning options, maybe a story. Would that make a huge difference? Rivals had all these, but it's been let down by it's handling...

My NFS journey started from Underground 2. So I don't care about multiplayer in NFS at all.
Another reason why I mentioned Rivals and Hot Pursuit is the sense of speed.

I just finished playing Heat and the sense of speed is severely lacking. Installed Rivals to compare and the driving feels almost dangerous in that game while in Heat, I'm literally yawning even if I'm touching 200 mph. The starting car in Rivals felt faster than a fully upgraded Corvette in Heat.

Story also felt inferior to old NFS such as Most Wanted and Carbon. Not because the story in Most Wanted was Oscar worthy but due to the fact that it didn't take itself seriously. They just went all out. The story and characters in Most Wanted felt goofy and hilarious. Bottomline is, I enjoyed it a lot. Whereas in Heat, I didn't care about the characters or their problems.

That's why I want them to stray away from doing story since they just want to play it too safe.

[JonBBYG]

[quote=Ray;594009760474424041
That's why I want them to stray away from doing story since they just want to play it too safe. [/quote]

I disagree with this one. Just because I suck at driving, let's say, it doesn't mean that I have to stop driving a car and use a bus, bike, whatever... I have to get better at this.

Heat showed some promise, the story was consistent and it made sense in the context of game progression, whether you liked it or not (I did). NFS 2015's game structure and progression was kind of good, despite of the story elements being ridiculously cringe worthy.

So, I'd rather have them do their best, even if the result isn't that good, than not do anything altogether. Because then, we could generalise the whole thing and say 'why make a new game if it's not going to be any good at all'.

[Ray]

Originally posted by JonBBYG:

[quote=Ray;594009760474424041
That's why I want them to stray away from doing story since they just want to play it too safe.

Heat was okay. I would've liked it more if it was my first NFS game. Campaign felt like an afterthought. I think it just took 10 hours for me to complete the campaign.

They don't seem serious about the campaign from what I've played. I guess they wanted to introduce the League system as soon as possible which I guess is the multiplayer aspect of the game.

If that's how they want to tackle the campaign aspect of the game, I think I'm better off tbh. All of it just just leads to multiplayer. Don't know how it is in Unbound. Hopefully it is not short at the very least.

[JonBBYG]

Have in mind that Heat's development and life cycle was cut short because EA shut Ghost (the studio) down. The League is there, there is also a very strong Pro Street element at daytime, and also a crew system is in the game (that was for the multiplayer probably). They did nothing with any of them because... they were shut down.

In my opinion Heat was the best game of the current NFS generation; the story was OK (at least wasn't offensive for my brain) the cops were challenging and integrated into the story and it looked good too. I think Heat should be the starting point for the next game, then add stuff from the other ones (speed and adrenaline from Rivals, feel and atmosphere from 2015 etc.)

[Ray]

Originally posted by JonBBYG:

Have in mind that Heat's development and life cycle was cut short because EA shut Ghost (the studio) down. The League is there, there is also a very strong Pro Street element at daytime, and also a crew system is in the game (that was for the multiplayer probably). They did nothing with any of them because... they were shut down.

In my opinion Heat was the best game of the current NFS generation; the story was OK (at least wasn't offensive for my brain) the cops were challenging and integrated into the story and it looked good too. I think Heat should be the starting point for the next game, then add stuff from the other ones (speed and adrenaline from Rivals, feel and atmosphere from 2015 etc.)

Wasn't aware about Ghost games. Disappointed but not surprising. EA is known for closing studios on a whim. I guess (hope) most of them were just transferred to Criterion.

And yes I agree, definitely needs more aggression. I would also appreciate some offensive mechanics to deal with cops. Most Wanted implemented it really well by making specific structures which could be destroyed to take out cops which forced you to learn the map. Personally, I want gadgets like Rivals or Hot Pursuit. It just adds another layer to the game.

Soundtrack imo also needs some work. Personally, not a fan of chill, laid back songs while driving. You could have one or two songs in the roster but majority should be high energy songs.