D4 pacenotes problem "solved"

[Crash McWreakit VR]

OK, so in DiRT Rally they got a "professional" (sic) co driver in the guise of Paul Coleman I believe to laboriously make the notes, quite well I might add, with a few mistakes, but hey anything for realism right? Then they sat him in a D Box motion simulator while he recorded the notes for each and every stage even capturing the stress and exertion of being tossed about in a moving seat for added effect. Brilliant, great commitment to the development of DiRT Rally. Most may well agree.

Now for DiRT4 they were kinda in a rush, maybe the lack of funds, or even the bosses needed a quick turnaround to capitalise on the success of DR for profit (allegedly) knowing we were eagerly waiting for a huge leap in game quality over DR. So what I believe they did was this.............

They wrote all the possible corners L4,R5, <L ! (caution) and distances etc on little bits of paper and put them in a hat. Then they walked around the offices at Codemasters HQ and got the staff at random to pull out a piece of paper until they had enough notes for each stage. Then they applied those to soundbites of our dear Nicky Grist who quite clearly never once saw a full stage of D4 let alone apply his immense talent and timing as a world class co driver to the game and sold us a dummy.

Obviously this is just me being somewhat sarcastic, but apart from the RX content, in my opinion this game still sucks donkey balls. I'm still playing it cos I won't be beaten but it still sucks.

[Porkhammer]

Well... the stages are randomly generated, so they had to record each corner separately. I don't like it either, but what other options are there in this situation?

I think the notes can be optimized, at least... that's what I'm hoping for. 9 times out of 10, I fail daily events due to late or incorrect notes. I have them set to earliest. :(

[tofued]

The notes are actually much better than they were in DR. You think they're good because there were fixed tracks where you can learn turns (and most of us surely did this), so you don't care about mistakes co-driver makes, but if you don't know the track, then they were complete hell, especially in Greece. In DiRT 4 pacenotes are pretty suitable for "blind" riding - timing is better, corner marks are better, speed of speech is good even for guys who don't know English well. Of course they aren't perfect either, but overall they're better than those in any other rally sim.

[Randomheppu]

In Dirt Rally the pace notes was not made very well. Only some parts I was feeling that those helped me. Dirt 4 have many wrong notes and timing problems. Do not know which is better. My opinion is that both ain't have even passable notes.

I think it could be more enjoyable to drive without pace notes at all. Only cautions included. This is the way how we do an amateur rally in Finland.

[Case]

It was mentioned several times that Nicky Grist was recorded in the D Box as well for D4. I believe he did record the individual tiles, not the individual corners

[Porkhammer]

Originally posted by Case:

It was mentioned several times that Nicky Grist was recorded in the D Box as well for D4. I believe he did record the individual tiles, not the individual corners

That would certainly explain the late notes.

[lich0]

Tight turns after a fast section are the worst. Co-driver is almost always late. I can't trust him.

[Arya]

Originally posted by lich0:

Tight turns after a fast section are the worst. Co-driver is almost always late. I can't trust him.

You can fix that through Options. Set it maybe 25% earlier, and you shouldn't have any problem.

[lich0]

I know about that and it doesn't fix it. I have the slider set to the far left, normal sections are too early for me but sometimes a call will come to late. Maybe it's personal and I can't get used to it.

[Randomheppu]

No excuse. Co-driver is late. No matter how early you ask the pace notes.

[Porkhammer]

Originally posted by 狼 Wolfey:

Originally posted by lich0:

Tight turns after a fast section are the worst. Co-driver is almost always late. I can't trust him.

You can fix that through Options. Set it maybe 25% earlier, and you shouldn't have any problem.

I have my notes set to earliest, and I still get some notes way too late - lost count on how many daily events I've wrecked as a result. :(

[r.phoebe]

Originally posted by Porkhammer:

Originally posted by 狼 Wolfey:

You can fix that through Options. Set it maybe 25% earlier, and you shouldn't have any problem.

I have my notes set to earliest, and I still get some notes way too late - lost count on how many daily events I've wrecked as a result. :(

I believe a "result" of the stage generater.
The game can "call" the notes for the corners/sections only when the applied tile is used.
Maybe someone from codmaster can explain if its true.

[[HUN] horwathb]

Seting it earliest is useless in fast stages like in australia in the forests... It was advertised "be brave" but I cant trust my co-driver, therefore I can be insane... worst case
To be constructive, i d suggest variable "playbackspeed" ofthe notes, so if there is a lot to read fast it could be rushed.

[Crash McWreakit VR]

it's not just the timing, some corners on Sweden for example are called as 4 and are way sharper even as tight as a 2.(hence my pulled froma hat comment)

Also the call "into immediate...." that NG would have in his real notes when a corner comes directly after another is missing because of the generator style of the notes.

For example, "right 6 (into) immediate left 5" this kind of information is imperative for setting up the car for either braking more or if no immediate corner but say 30m further then the note would be "right 6-30(m) left 5" read as one continuous note.

I have no problem with having the notes set earliest as is possible in the game hearing a sequence of 3 or 4 corners is no trouble, but its the information between those corners that is missing were this real life notes and means I now have to run a stage 2,3 or 4 times and try to remember where the bad calls or a sequence of corners is.

It is this kind of mistakes in D4 that makes it not a sim (handling aside) but a bad arcade game,

[Case]

TIL wrong turn call makes a sim bad arcade game for some reason.

[laff]

Originally posted by Trev65:

It is this kind of mistakes in D4 that makes it not a sim (handling aside) but a bad arcade game,

Do you mind explaining this logic please?