Keyboard control

[Squizzo]

How is it? I'm playing with the original Grid now, and that is completely playable with a keyboard. Someone here who played both and can give a good comparison between them?

[Diana]

Well i can play fine with keyboard this game,on medium AI Difficulty,all assist off except ABS,stability and traction.
I beat three time this game,with 0 lost races :D,its easy if you know how to control your car,at the very end of the game is a bit hard because there are super cars and you must know how much you press acceleration key,also drifting is a bit hard too,in the rest is super easy.

[Squizzo]

Thanks. I still have an old wheel too (I was a super fan of the most realistic sims in the past but now i don't have time to dedicate to them so I changed my focus on arcades/light sims) so, is the AI challenging after a while at the highest difficulty (with a wheel or keyboard)? I mean, the first games of NFS franchise were not so great in this aspect in the past. It would be nice not to give the AI 10+ seconds at the end of a race like in too many "not too much realistic" racing games out there... :P

[Tydo]

Originally posted by Squizzolo:

I mean, the first games of NFS franchise were not so great in this aspect in the past.

To start with, none of the usual NFS "i win" shortcut shenanigans on the tracks, there are none in Shift. The minor cutting that you can do is usually not worth it and will invalidate your lap time in any case.

In NFS terms, Shift is an anomaly - a half-sim arcade/console racer - and also why EA dropped the series after Shift 2 and the producing studio went on to make a more full-blood sim (Project Cars) after that without EA.
You might say it was too hard for the usual NFS casuals and did not meet the numbers/popularity EA demands for a title in that franchise.

It is the closest to SIM any NFS title has ever been. Again, that is in NFS terms... you still have a indestructible car, damage is only cosmetic, there is no tier wear or tire temperature to deal with, you arguably have more grip than you should in some cars and there are none of the usual sim hassles.

In terms of AI, well, when have you ever seen good racing AI anywhere? Some are just more awful, with 'rubberbanding' or giving the ai overpowered cars or have them ignore the need for grip (always 100% traction) and perfect steering + bouncing players like a flipper in a pinball machine.

On normal I think it is about where the Grid 2 "ai" is. On hard it is better. But first corner or 3 are always messy brawls and you must expect severe framerate drops until the field is a bit spaced out. It is as if it gridlocks its own mind (and your CPU) when multiple of its car are competing for the same piece of road.

It does have a handicap though, it is not keen on braking late and hard before corners.
And it will not take corners at 'yellow' bestline speeds - though on hard it will take it very very close to that.
Meaning you can (and have to) take advantage of that if you can manage the risk.

On hard the not so obvious speedcap for the ai on the faster cars is removed = no speed advantage just by going over about 250km/h. On normal you can use that to play catchup on straights. That wont save you on hard, you have to come out of the corners at good speed.
Not sure what it is like on easy. Maybe they also have a weight and power handicap on top of that.

[Squizzo]

Well to be honest yes, there were some good/great racing AI examples in the past, especially on the most realistic sims (like the ones from Papyrus) but yeah, I know that in those sims they had to do it not to ruin the overall experience, while in arcade/light sims it's usually a wreckfest at some point. I am ok with some flaws and helps to the AI (or the fact that it acts like kamikaze) in a game like Grid and this Shift (I asked about this because they seems a lot similar and finally a nfs game different from the others), the problem is, for example, that in Grid the challenge can be good or extremely bad based on what class you play (example: do a race in Spa with a touring car and you will have a challenging race, do it with prestige class and before the Eau Rouge everyone slows down to 10kmh, or lose a lot during the lap in other places). So I'm hoping for a more balanced behavior of the AI in this one.