10 Things I hate about WipEout Pulse

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Originally Posted by phl0w

Seriously, the Barrel Roll technique is one of Videogames' history worst designs ever, right up there with Snaking in MK. Actually, it's one concept, button combination and effect, all the same, plus they're both extremely annoying

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Sorry to veer slightly off topic here but I wanted to comment here :)

Most members of the hardcore Mario Kart community (which is surprisingly large and dedicated) think that "snaking" (back and forth mini turbos) is what make time trialing so INTERESTING in Mario Kart Double Dash and Mario Kart DS. It does add nuance-- ordering of mini-turbos, the line through the course that allows the most mini-turbos, the speed of mini-turbos, the consistency of the mini-turbos. I think that much the same could be said about barrel rolls for time trialing in Wipeout Pure and Pulse.

My problem with snaking in Mario Kart isn't the technique per se, it's the terrible strain it puts on your hands to implement it. At one point I was somewhat highly ranked in Mario Kart DS (maybe 30th in the U.S. and 130th in the world, amongst perhaps 600-800 dedicated participants?) but retired to save my wrists. Barrel rolls, in contrast, just aren't that taxing on the hands-- at most we are talking about 5-10 per lap rather than dozens and dozens of mini-turbos in Mario Kart.

Personally, I think the main issue with barrel rolls are that they can't be consistently done in head-to-head races and multiplayer because of the framerate. For time trialing, however, they work well and DO add several layers of strategy and planning to the process.

Anyway-- I completely understand that some of you long-time wipers dislike the barrel roll, and I'm sure that coming Wipeout games will be good even if the mechanic is scrapped.

But I DO hope that, whatever takes the place of barrel rolls, adds a similar level of complexity and nuance to the racing mechanic. We do NOT want obvious perfect laps that can be achieved with a few days of practicing! (At least, not in my opinion :) )

''We do NOT want obvious perfect laps that can be achieved with a few days of practicing! (At least, not in my opinion )''

Oddly enough, though, that's exactly the way real-life present-day racing is. Coming as near as possible to doing perfect laps despite the competition getting in the way and altering your lines is the challenge real-life racers face, and find satisfying to achieve. And they don't even have the additional complication of weapons. It's been the typical situation of racing since the first closed-course automobile racing venues were opened in 1907. Brooklands being the more notable of them. Something about the simple concept must be fairly good. :)

Perfect laps may be obvious to anyone. The point in wipeout is to get a faster perfect lap. While it may take only days to master perfect laps, with some tracks you could argue that the absolute fastest perfect lap could take years to master. Ex. Portokora vs. Spilskinanke. I wonder how many in the forum consistently manage PL on Spilskinanke, nevermind have a perfect lap that they felt they couldn't improve on.

On the topic of racing complexity - isn't the whole idea of wipeout's racing complexity supposed to be centred on the speed? Faster speed class, more complex.:?:

Oops, it occurs to me that I shouldn't use the word "perfect lap" because of its historical use in Wipeout games to mean a lap in which you haven't hit any walls or opponents.

What I really mean is, the "ideal racing line that permits execution of a lap in the shortest possible time in the absence of other players or weapons fire." In the perfect world, there would probably be only one ideal racing line-- but because players differ in their skill levels and choices of ships, there may be multiple ideal racing lines.

If you look at older racing games that have a large following, one continues to see better and better lap times being achieved. Mario Kart 64 was released in 1996 but lap times and race times CONTINUE to be improved, even very recently. This is a testament to the complexity of the MK64 gameplay and the committed (obsessive?) driving by its fans.

The barrel roll adds incredible complexity to time trialing in Wipeout Pulse and Wipeout Pure-- the number and position of possible barrel roll locations is very high, and varies based on play style, pitch control and ship selection. Nearly three years following its release, I don't believe that lap and race times are anywhere near reaching a plateau in Pure.

But if there were no barrel rolls, and players only had to map out one turbo boost point ('shroom spots' as we call them in Mario Kart) and hit as many boost pads as possible, we would see most experienced players achieving similar lap times after several hundred attempts. Cursory study of the "Arena" forum page and the time trial pages indicates that this isn't the case. Hell, I am a relative n00b at Wipeout and recently submitted some no. 2 and no. 3 lap times in Pure that were achieved with the Zone ship, of all things ;)

I agree, Medusa, that speed per se adds difficulty and complexity to racing lines. But part of the reason is that, in Wipeout Pure and Pulse, speed increases air time, and hence opportunities for barrel rolls. Ideally, I would like a game that raced on Vector or Venom speeds, have many opportunities and strategies possible for obtaining faster lap times :)

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Originally Posted by Lance

.... that's exactly the way real-life present-day racing is. Coming as near as possible to doing perfect laps despite the competition getting in the way and altering your lines is the challenge real-life racers face

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This is another philosophy that I honestly haven't considered much :) My belief is that, ideally, there should be as much variation in possible strategy and execution as possible-- to provide incentive for continued innovation. But other folks may feel differently!

As simple as WO1 and WO2 seemingly are, the times continue to be improved after more than 11 years, and even the top pilots are well separated from each other despite some intense challenges in which a very large number of laps and hours have been put in. And that is without any change in the stats of the ships or consoles whatever. The challenge and extreme difficulty of making driver performance more perfect and more consistent is still there. I'm not even sure if the perfect lines have been found, since continued effort has managed to whack whole seconds off some times of these very old games just in the past few months. The longevity of their challenge and interest is really extraordinary. They're currently pushed to the side because there's a new game to explore, but their time for being played will come again.

Glad to hear that time trials are still active with the older games-- perhaps I am inflating the importance of barrel rolls :) I'm sure that SL will make sure that, whatever mechanic is used in future iterations of Wipeout, that it keeps the gameplay complex and interesting.

Off-topic here, but I am embarrassed to say that I never owned a PS1-- which of the Wipeout games would you recommend going back to first?

All of them. ;-) The thing is that all three offer a different challenge and are quite different in style. Personally, I recommend 2097/XL, but you better have a look at "which do you like best"-discussions from recent years.

I couldn't agree more with Lance: It is amazing to see how lap and race records can still be improved significantly after so many years. Personally, I come back all previous WipEout games every once in a while and have a go at some of my times. In terms of the joy, the challenge and the longevity of finding that perfect lap, that perfect race you simply don't need barrel rolls - likings and dislikings of this new mechanic aside.

Ben

with all the br-craze ... why don't you guys switch to zone? because zone is not only about the best lane, but also about focus over serveal minuts and your skills with inconsistent speed-classes.

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Originally Posted by jacen

why don't you guys switch to zone? [...]

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[...] with inconsistent speed-classes.

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That's why. ;)

Plus, you're not being rewarded with lap times. Naturally so, as it doesn't make any sense, but records are what I'm after.

Getting a bit in to the game, grid 10 now, and with the higher speed/classes,
Rapier in particular, the slight annoyance at BRs is growing in to a raging frustration!
just the fact that there's been problems with the implementation of this feature
in Both pure and pulse should be enough to eliminate it from the next game.
never mind the tekken combo needed to perform it and the cartoonish or 'unrel' mechanics of it ..

:bomb

For those who want to know their limits in term of highest speed they can handle : zone is definitely the challenge especially on Pulse.

With Fusion zone mode the speed was not increasing after zone 60
Zone mode of Pure was pretty boring due to tracks with no real interests.
Zone pulse simply rocks ( unlimited speed , tracks coming from the original game , 16 tracks !! ) and could be my beloved mode if i can't find good condition to play online ( with trusty WZ people who doesn't quit tourney in the middle and 2nd condition : no lag )

Zone is great yes, I hope those new tracks soon to be available for download, will have a great zone mode too. Zen FTW

One more thing I find a bit annoying in Pulse, especially because it's such a fast game:
The animation when you've picked up a weapon/item. It's not the animation itself, it's the time the animation takes till it really shows you the weapon.

When you're racing and you're in a fight or you need energy, you directly have to know which weapon/item you've picked up to make a fast decision. But to decide you need to know which weapon/item you've picked up and it needs too much time till you know it (even though it's already just a short moment) because of the animation.
I would get rid of the animation completely. No popping in, no drop-down, nothing. You fly over the pad and you can directly see what you've picked up. Just like in all WOs before Pure.

It's really an important element where functionality is over eye-candy.


Yes, Colin, that's a hint for WOHD ;)

I couldn't agree more...

An other thing i hate is the eliminator mode:bomb. At first I thought it was great and fun to play between the races in the grid, but in the higher speed classes, particularly phantom, it's just ridiculous. I doesn't feel like a test of skill, but test of how many quakes and repulsors you can get. Luck plays a big role, as you must hit ships with low shields. If they have much energy left when you are just softening them for the opposition, so theoretically you can hit with every weapon from every pad without getting a single kill.

I think it would have been better if they removed the superweapons and lowered the energy, so that when you hit someone, they die. That would, in my opinion, make the mode dependant on skill, and therefore more fun.

Eliminator mode? Uh, clearly it's not advertised as a mode that requires serious skill for a reason, on the other hand you do need some skill, the theoretical possibility you put fourth for an apparent lack of killing would be the result of the player in question NOT playing the mode correctly. Think a little more tactically, for example fall to the back of the pack when you pick up a quake, don't just fire off a good weapon as soon as you pick it up wait for the AI ships to fight each other then move in to finish them off and obviously ships get a little energy back after crossing the line each time so maybe wait a little before attacking them too. You can end up destroying ships with a missile, I mean any ship not just the ones with weaker shielding.

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Originally Posted by Lusshan

I think it would have been better if they removed the superweapons and lowered the energy, so that when you hit someone, they die. That would, in my opinion, make the mode dependant on skill, and therefore more fun.

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What you mean one hit kills? Oh yes how very skillful.

online games.

if I'm the last in a game coz everybody else has quit don't give me a DC! :bomb
I got 25 DCs now and for sure 20 I got this way ..

should be an easy fix with an

if

then

statment

Which all goes to prove that BASIC could solve everything.

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Originally Posted by zargz

online games.

if I'm the last in a game coz everybody else has quit don't give me a DC! :bomb
I got 25 DCs now and for sure 20 I got this way ..

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didn't anyone say in here that you can wait 15 more seconds for the game to quit automatically and then it wouldnt count as a DC. on the left bottom of the screen you can see a clock counting backwards, if that time as passed it shouldnt be a DC anymore, dunno if it works though.

Exactly I thought it worked but it doesn't seem that way .. :?

aaargh! 27 DCs now..
ok, I'll try to remember that nr and check after but i almost 100% it doesn't work ..

anyone knows for sure?

coz I think there's a delay you can wait for the counter then you check and you don't have a DC
but after a few games it is there.

ya, im getting dc's for no reason as well. heck, i got 6 in the first hour online..