Milestone games - why so much hate?

[KG_03]

I decided to write this post as a constructive criticism to Milestone games hoping that it will change something.

Within past years I see that negative comments start to be more emotional, negative and I wonder why really not much have changed in the way Milestone is creating their games.

If you look back to year 2013 when MotoGP 13 was introduced you might notice that the ideas and features didnt change much. They sell us the same formula every year but packed in a different paper.

Why do I think so?
-identical bikes set up
-the same excessive amount of off track grip
-no damage to the bikes
-the same copied bugs from one title to another
-exactly the same multiplayer features and no improvement at all
-no customisations of field of view, steering sensitivity, deadzone, often locked keys for binding.
-same career features
-no advanced or simulative physics
-and other stuff related only to MotoGP, MX GP or Ride series.
-exactly or even worse multiplayer features
-the same respawn time
-same lobby countdown

Even if something new shows up, like manual start or different tyres compound simulation (in MotoGP18) then those features are broken.

But most of all what is annoying: lack of proper developer - customer communication. The community manager replies only when there is game release or when positive comment occurs. Support platform was paralised because it seems to be the only way to pass any feedback. We were told so many times that Milestone is a small company...but which company can afford to release few titles each year? Why no one from the team can treat us seriously and reply to us clearly why for so many years of blind support we cant get basic features that car racing games have?

So now we move to Ride 3. Is it bad game? In my oppinion no. Is it good game? No either... Why? Because it is way too simplified and has very few new features. And most of all has the worst multiplayer experience ever. Such a big project which should be mainly oriented for multiplayer experience falls exactly at the start when you enter a public lobby.

Someone might say that new engine, bikes customisation and sounds are lot of work. New beautiful tracks required a lot of work too...no doubt. But since the release of Ride 1 few years ago we got in Ride 3 exactly the same features despite we loudly, year by year ask for improvements in certain points. If you look closely most of bikes and gears are directly taken fron first Ride game - same leathers, helmets boots.. Even a bug of no option to set up Suter MMX 500 bike is present in Ride 3...after so many years. And if you notice even same broken 2D dasboards are in Ride 3.

We asked for:
-qualification for multiplayer
-lobbies browser
-possibility to lock onboard view for races
-customisable field of view
-more realistic physics
-more customisation for controls
-damages
-on track start lights
-manual starts and penalties
And many many more, but none of above was made. Milestone released few games made on UE... But how many new features were created for next games in comparison to MXGP3? Why multiplayer and physics every year are at the same poor level? Some expect arcady riding and some want more simulative approach to the game. So why even pro physics are as easy as rookie level and more advanced players have nothing to look for in Milestone games? All the game difficulty lies in stupid AI and ridiculous times to achieve. Riding motorbikes is mainly about skill and reflex. Not ability to use best view or choose the fastest bike.

You might say I am not enjoying what I got. Well maybe you are right. But i cant stand that a company which is a monopolist on motorcycle games market treat us, customers like idiots offering exactly the same features for past 6 years and we politely buy their games becuse we have no alternative.

The biggest pain occured when as an answer to our requests and complains about too hard career, devs dumbed down the physics. Not to mention that multiplayer experience reached the worse experience ever with lobbies where there is no possibility to browse, set up perferences and mute all players what forces us to listen to some idiotic comments.

Not to make it any longer... I hope that this post will be shown to Milestone project leaders, that you Milestone will finally make a quality control better, give us the features we ask for every year and level of experience which other licenced racing games offer. I really doubt that when MotoGP 19 will come out we will see any of new features but rather updated liveries and tracks...hope I am wrong.

[G Westy]

Stuff the features until milestone can fix the game. Fix the game then add the good stuff is the way it should be done. The game still isn't fit for release months after release. Even small game studios manage this... But not milestone somehow.

[girlracerTracey]

I have now reached the point of losing all faith in this developer. I no longer care about Milestone or their arcade orientated racing games. They seem more interested in making kiddies games than anything else with dumbed-down physics and invisible assists and grippy grass and grippy off-track terrain. RIDE 3 started off as being, shall we say, just "annoying" in specific but crucial respects, like all modern era Milestone games (again I mention grippy grass and grippy off-track terrain and the incredibly ridiculous aspect that ruined the whole experience in that you could run over the track edge with no protest from the tyres or the bike itself, and thereafter unrealistically adjust your racing lines accordingly to run over the track edge to shave lap-times, bearing no relation to real life circuit racing, plus the dumbed-down physics on the lower echelon non R category road bikes, with their arcade style overly forgiving handling). But yes the PRO PHYSICS handling on the R category race bikes did show some potential, some promise, although spoiled by the grippy grass.. However, there was no attention paid to the online part of the game. Which is unforgiveable in a racing game. Just as there was no attention or skill in development applied to the crucially important online aspect to the game on motogp18.

Then what happens?

Well instead of the ridiculous and annoying arcade aspects present in the game in the PRO PHYSICS mode being sensibly ironed-out, which were spoiling the experience of the half decent handling of the bikes in the R1, R2, and R4 categories, what do Milestone do? They release patch 1.08 that dumbs down the handling/physics of the bikes in the PRO PHYSICS mode to match..

So yes I have now completely lost interest in Milestone.

I will most probably never buy another of their motorcycle racing games in the future.

Roll on BIKE SIM EXPERIENCE which I understand is due for release on pc later this year. I hope it gives the more experienced players what quite understandably and perfectly reasonably they crave for..namely a decent level of realism. Oh and an online mode that was not rushed out on a Friday afternoon in Milan.

That might sound overly critical but my comments could have been more outspoken and "direct" believe me..

[ACE]

Originally posted by girlracerTracey:

Roll on BIKE SIM EXPERIENCE which I understand is due for release on pc later this year. I hope it gives the more experienced players what quite understandably and perfectly reasonably they crave for..namely a decent level of realism. Oh and an online mode that was not rushed out on a Friday afternoon in Milan.

I haven't heard of BSE until now. I hope it's a game changer!

[KurtAshing]

Join me, lets not buy any more game from this ♥♥♥♥ developer until they fix at least this Ride 3. No demo No buy. Let do something for them to hear us. 6yrs of experience is I think enough for them to give us decent game not this every year half broken games.

[ACE]

Originally posted by KurtAshing:

Join me, lets not buy any more game from this ♥♥♥♥ developer until they fix at least this Ride 3. No demo No buy. Let do something for them to hear us. 6yrs of experience is I think enough for them to give us decent game not this every year half broken games.

Preach!

[Desperado]

One life lesson is "You Can't Make Everyone Happy". It doesn't matter what Milestone (or any other developer) does" there will always be people who hate it. Every forum for every game made has people making angry posts at the developer. Customers typically believe that a game should've been programmed specifically for their exact taste and not for thousands of gamers who all want different things.

Milestone has steadily improved their games and they really have a monopoly on this genre because there really isn't another developer making anything close to what Milestone is making. IMO, they're on the right track... again there isn't a single decision that can make that will put them on a path where some gamers wont be angry. So they have to stick to what they're doing and listen to some constructive feedback, but not let anything disrupt their progress.

[KG_03]

I was waiting for your comment Desperado as we already had some discussion about Milestone games, and the longer we talk the more often I have a feeling that you work for them or have sth in common with developers.

Yes I agree, no one will never ever make everyone happy. But thats why there are "options". You say that Milestone improve their games. But please notice that those improvements are limited to better graphics and sounds. Within past few years there is a tencency 1-2 improvements per title. All other is almost the same. There are some current standard which racing games offer, and we, motorcycling enthusiasts are forced to accept below standard games. I don't want to repeat myself - all what I ment I wrote in first post.

So how long we must wait to get a motorcycle game that will offfer at least half of the options which top car racing games offer?

All other features like physics, simulations, bike set up, user preferences all stuck in 2013...
Multiplayer? Eh...since the introduction of UE in MXGP 3 it is a major step back. There aren't many people who will say its good because it isn't.
It lacks major features like lobby browser, qualifications, possiblity to lock onboard view, can't mute all players.

Unfortunately there is also no reply to constructive critics. Year by year we ask for the same things. And in Ride 3 it seems that the development time was mainly consumed by new tracks, engine and livery editor. All other was unchanged. The lastest changes in physics shows how Milestone treat us - like a bunch of kids that want easily win - but its not true.

And its not like I want to call everyone to boycott Milestone games. No...all I want to go through a tough wall which stands between us customers and developers. For years it seems there is a hard blocade somewhere in that way.

I don't play any other than motorcycle games so I can't say much if on other forums there is more or less criticism. However I am really angry when I buy new Milestone title and I know what I can expect.

[ginomoto]

I do not even know what to say after so much discussion and complaint and Milestone did not even say it, but one thing is certain after this UE4 was introduced the game does not work well, as far as I know in Ride 2 it did not have those bugs forwho did not have this UE4, I can be wrong, I expect an opinion from you.

[KG_03]

Ride 2 had 2 major problems:
-multiplayer stability (radom disconnections)
-vsync problems (frame drops when vsync was turned on)
And if course it didnt support 60fps.
I have nothing against UE4. But I think that Milestone is afraid or incapable to add new features. Whenever something new shows up its broken or do not function properly. So to aviod problems, they remove it in next game or simplify. Examples?
-manual start in MotoGP18 which didnt work in multiplayer
-compounds and damage simulations in MotoGP18 which were dvertised as a new feature but in the end they were way too much simple
-simplified multiplayer which didnt change at all since introduction of new engine
-simple AI following one fixed line, or simplified physics

[milestoneage]

I call it MILESCRAPSTONE...They really dont't care ...total CRAPSTONE..

[KentuckyKid#69]

Why so much hate? Simple, because they keep ignoring what most of the community is saying. Sure not everybody is going to be happy with everything but having the same or even worse bugs in the second and then third game is unacceptable. Most bugs could be avoided by testing the game and not rush it to make sales. That mentality we launch and then we try to fix it is what made EA the bad reputation they deserve to have.

Numbers don't lie, the game is down to less than 240 active players a month and it is not even three months old. What tells us that most people do not see enough content (Multiplayer) to keep coming back to the game. They should rethink what they are offering or at least work with their community to understand what the customer is asking for. I know a couple of people not buying any more Milestone titles, in fact three of my friends didn’t even bother to buy Ride 3.

[girlracerTracey]

For my sins since 2013 I have organised numerous online league championships on xbox 360, xbox one and PS4 both U.K. based championships (open to all who wished to compete on a global basis) and also I was joint organiser for the motogp Italian based championships for two years. I have organised more championships than I can remember and I actively competed in all races that I organised. Both on motogp and RIDE 2. Week in week out. Sometimes up to four individual rounds of multiple championships all taking place in one week. Sometimes more.. Some of the fastest guys in the world raced in these championships. Guys who regularly topped the global leaderboards in all classes on Pro Physics.

Guess what? Since the release of motogp17 and its arcade leaning Pro Physics the leagues collapsed due to lack of interest. Experienced and very fast players walked.. Most moved over to car racing "sims" such as AC and PC2. And frankly who could blame them?

Then with the advent of motogp18 and RIDE 3 on UE4 we don't even have a functional online part to the game any more..

It's died. League racing hardly exists now on Milestone's current crop of m/c racing games.
No one bothers because notwithstanding the bland dumbed-down mediocre arcade style physics there exists no stable online platform to race on..

It's an unadulterated shambles..

This is the true reality of where "Mildly-Stoned" are heading.. It's both pathetic and tragic at the same time.

[Jee Willikers]

I think at this point since the Milestones takeover, there isn't anymore excuses for them. They are going on 7 years developing these games and by now, they should have gotten it (somewhat) right by now. Yes, you can't make everyone happy but the satisfaction of their games should be around 95% and not the opposite. And instead of trying to re-invent their games and creating more problems, they refuse to fix the majority of the old problems we had with their games. All these years of playing, I tolerated all the bugs they continued to create and not fix but RIDE3 online gameplay, I can not tolerate. The worse I have ever experienced and whoever decided to go this route, must have been smoking on some really strong stuff. Like I mentioned earlier, there are no more excuses. They should have gotten it right by now but instead, make it worse every year.

[Axe]

Just a couple of points. I know this is marketed (LOL) as a sim but has anyone ever seen a sim game that behaves like a sim? Maybe you have but it's a genuine question.
I haven't really, I just think the term at best is used to 'imply' a certain mono-purpose game but never really hit the mark in real terms.

It's because of this that I wonder why so many expectations are far higher than I think should be the case with these so-called sims.

I understand the facts of poor customers service and poorly made games and even poor publishers and developers but as for expecting all these game-sims to define real life multi thousand (?) pound racing sims well to me is rather a lot to ask.

[KurtAshing]

I personally dont expecting a real “sim” because i didnt ride IRL this kind of bike (test some, but not this fast)” so I cant tell if what Im doing in this game is closer to reality.

Im expecting more because they already done it. Look at sbkx 2010, they have really good bike setup and physics (for licensing issue, they cant do this in motogp, i get it) but why they cant do it here in ride. Riding outside the track also a big gamble in that game too which is totally contradict here. AI also is much better there, they can feel you unlike here.

Another one is the demo, in ride 1 they did release a demo before releasing full game. But now they cant, why? Because they know that prospect buyer will back out once they test their game. They know the problem but for whatever reason they dont want to fix it.

One more, in the release of motogp18, everyone cant shift in 1st gear in online race but they fixed that before this game even release. And now it is still present here, same dev same engine. Its show they dont want to fix it so when they release a new game they will call it “much better” game than the previous. Same with online, same p2p way, but why remove the option to make your own public lobby? This was also a complain in motogp18 but I understand its a really big change and need more time to fix but at least give the option for collision off even in the way of voting the same way we vote for bike and track.

I expect more because I have basis that they can and they will if they want according their own previous games.