10 Things I hate about WipEout Pulse

[Lance]

I'd prefer that it not remain intact for single-player. While I've sometimes raced without using weapons myself, it always ticked me off when a backmarker AI ship I'm passing hit me on the last lap with a weapon that screwed up a new single-race record time to put in at the top of the records tables. I'd rather be able to set difficulty levels by making the AI simply race better. That would also make me improve my own skills. The difficulty of racing online against live humans depends on the humans, and it would be easy to find someone as good as or better than me, which at this point, I can't [race online, that is]; hence my interest in making single-player AI better.

[G'Kyl]

Same here, I'd love racing games to be about racing and nothing else. But then weapons are an integral part of WipEout and for the most part an extremely cool and well done one. Hence, I don't bother if a game is built for battle racing or whatever one might call it. But yes, I'd like to turn them of as well - only when you do it becomes so much more apparent how bad, or let's say: unskilled, any WipEout AI is at real racing.

[Lance]

Someone suggested that ships that fall way behind should be eliminated instead of hanging around to be lapped and to hit you with rockets or mines in pure vicious unsporting revenge. It takes away a bit of the reality of racing to eliminate the probability of lapping slower competitors, but still... maybe....

[Colin Berry]

To be honest it going to be unlikely to lap ships in Pulse, except on easy mode maybe.

The difficulty changes by increasing AI performance both in terms of racing and weapon use, however the racing increase is far more marked than the firing. What we do find is that some tracks have a few more weapon pads that the AI path over so those tracks seem very weapon heavy, where as some tracks are less so. Also with the pack racing the AI has more opportunity to fire as proximity etc is part of the use conditions

there is no aggression stat per se, simply use absorb keep, these change over difficulty settings although I cant recall if they also change per speed class its been ages sincei looked at them


As for 333
It was taken out late on due to time issues
For it to be in, the game would not be out for a while longer, and that was not an option

[Lance]

Thanks for your reply and participation here, Colin.

I haven't said this any time recently, so... > It really is great to have the game designers as members of the forum.

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A request: Please consider making the next Wipeout less weapons-heavy in single-player single-race mode, by whatever method would be required. In every other mode [apart from time trial, of course ;D ], heavy weapons activity would be great.

[RingoSpoon]

I think its great Pulse is 'Weapons Heavy' as it gives you a taste for what to expect online

[rdmx]

True, but online when you are in the middle of a pack, it's horribly hard to get out of there because of all the weapons fire. You end up falling back too far, consequently no one can target the leader, and the leader speeds off undisturbed by weapons fire

[G'Kyl]

Now there is something to be considered for future online modes! I agree, it is far too easy for a good player to get way ahead of the pack while the rest has to battle it out and therefore hardly stands a chance of winning. As annoying as it would be for single player races, online races need a weapon similar to Rollcage's worm hole: You fire, it aims for the leader no matter where he is, and pullls him right beside you. Beside you so you can't fire at him the instant he gets pulled back, that would be unfair. Or would it? Dunno...

I'd also like to see a catch-up option - again: only for online races. Outrun 2006 might not have been the most realistic racing game , but hell was it fun online when you where ALWAYS racing it out right up to the finish line!!! Such a speed increase would serve the game best if it kicked in as long as you fell behind a certain distance and got stronger if you fell behind even more. But it shouldn't be there as soon as you have the one racing before you in sight - otherwise those last miles before the finish line would mean an unfair disadvantage for a good pilot who was running first up until the last stretch, and that should be avoided.

Ben

[ZenDJiNN]

True, but online when you are in the middle of a pack, it's horribly hard to get out of there because of all the weapons fire. You end up falling back too far, consequently no one can target the leader, and the leader speeds off undisturbed by weapons fire

Happens to me all the time!

But seriously, it IS a racing game, and if you happen to have Poll Position then chances are, if you have a fast ship & you're good & you know the track, you'll speed away & stay 1st for the duration of the race, letting the others fight it out behind you.

A solution that i like is just to turn the weapons "Off" as it makes it a pure "Racing Environment". It would be good if you could perhaps select what weapons were going to be used in a race (before the race) or maybe have a "Minimum, Medium & Maximum" Pre-race weapons choice (Maximum obviously being "Full on").

[Dogg Thang]

Not having the weapons on changes eveything. As much as I get absolutely slaughtered on single races, there hasn't once been a Head to Head on the grid that I didn't get gold first time. And time trial goals don't seem to be punished by poor racing.

I actually had one yesterday that I was tempted to save the ghost for as it was quite funny - Phantom Outpost 7, I did a pinball impression from start to finish just bouncing off the walls and still got gold with 6 seconds to spare.

So as much as the racing skill of the opponents goes up with difficulty, the weapons fire seems to matter much, much more.

[borell]

Pulse is a truly great games, and there are not many things that annoys me. Anyhow, let me mention the most critical annoyance.

-- No race time, or best lap time, is displayed at the end of tournament races. I wonder if this will have the effect that it is more rewarding to play a series of single races instead of setting up a tournament. I think I would prefer a series of single races where one keeps track of the players' scores for each race via msn or some other chat. This would work well as long as one plays with friends.

[phl0w]

I did a pinball impression from start to finish just bouncing off the walls and still got gold with 6 seconds to spare.

Sad, but true. They might as well have put a checkbox instead of the medal, that says "didn't get eliminated". Because the way it is, completing Time Trials is no achievment. And in this case the newcomer-accessability-argument doesn't hold either because getting a Gold medal for a pure awful run can't be satisfying, let alone motivate to get better at the game. My grids are chequerd with "completed" Time Trials and first-lap Golds in Speed Lap events. Did I play them again to improve my time? No, because apparently it was good enough to gain the highest achievement possible. Right now I'm at about 215 Golds which took me approximately a fifth of the time I invested in Pure for the same amount of Golds. Granted, that it wouldn't take that long now that I know Pure in and out, but Pulses tracks are new for the love of God, and still... I don't think the argument that the tracks shouldn't necessarily be the challenge, but the competition, is a valid one, seeing that WO's long-term playability has always come from Time Trialing -> Machine vs. Track.

[JABBERJAW]

Barrel roll question:

I guess this is for colin, For HD will that not being able to barrel roll with other ships around still be in? If so, is there another way to implement it without the 50-50 chance it might work? If not, it would probably be better without it. The reason I ask is I personally like trying to get good times in single race as well, and in order to do so, this means you need to get into first immediately, to get the BR to work.
Also, is there any work being done on the BR for pulse as a download and/or in US version? I know this has been worked on, but that is really frustrating when doing the move correctly and nothing(and actually slowing down a little because of the inputs).

Maybe ditch it for SR?

[Colin Berry]

It will be addressed for HD one way or another

[Medusa]

*ditch them ditch them ditch them ditch them*

Hope springs eternal in the human heart...

[RingoSpoon]

I think removing the BR would be detrimental - I love the extra dynamic it gives when used with the turbo boost

[zargz]

*ditch them ditch them ditch them ditch them*...

I second that medusa.

yeh, dich'em!

[ZenDJiNN]

Re: Barrel Rolls, i've gotta say that i really like them. I would rather either have the option to turn them ON/OFF or keep them all together! I find them really useful at times and they've often given me a needed boost just at the right time. They're really useful in TT's and just plain fun to do!

[Sausehuhn]

If it's the Barrel-Roll animation that makes it difficult with the framerate, then it's also possible to do the speedboost without the animation, isn't it? It makes no sense anyway

[tapioca]

And i guess the main problem is to animate the internal view, because it requires a 360° for everything on screen except the HUD (and not only the player's ship as in external). Well… The speed increase already happens (more or less) on a 3-turbos pad, no matter how many opponents on screen…

So if i'm right, maybe you could just simplify the internal view anim (i don't know… a quick blur and the HUD shaking). That could even enhance the barrel roll ease of use in cockpit view, because even if it's more impressive like it is right now, it can be really tough to keep your line at high speed when you don't see the track for a second. When the screen rotates and then when ship nose aims at the sky.