10 Things I hate about WipEout Pulse

[Sausehuhn]

Obviously inspired by this thread.
Don't get me wrong, I like Pulse, bot nonetheless there are a few things that really get on my nerves. Let's share our thoughts about that.


01.
Just Single Race and Tournament in Multiplayer mode. I really miss eliminator here. At least modes like Head-to-Head would have been possible because there are no weapons that may not target because of lag.

02.
Hard AI is good - but why has it to be more aggressive than Fusion's? The race feels like a battlefield. Very often no fun and very frustrating. I know there's also Medium and Easy, but I want an AI that is hard to beat because of the racing, not because I'm fired by everyone.

03.
Some tracks really are no fun. Yes, they are simply no fun. They are not like "oh I hate that track because of that and that but I like in some way". I mean that they are really no fun. And yes I'm talking about Outpost 7 here, too. Everyone who knows how much I loved Citta Nuova should think I love Outpost 7 as well. But I don't. The whole track seems like a mess to me. Maybe I'll change my opinion about that in future, but all the races I had so far were simply no fun at all.

04.
The freezing. You take a screenshot in photomode and suddenly the game freezes. Same for online play. I had that so often now that I really think twice about using the photomode or pressing buttons too fast.

05.
You can't see which races a tournament contains. You just see the number of tracks and that's it.

06.
Just 5 skins savable. Seems to be the same for custom grids. Why?

07.
The leech beam. God I hate it. Well, at least the way it's been done. I like the energy drain thing, but the effect it has to you ship is just awful. When there's somebody who already gets my energy, why the hell has my ship to go uncontrollable left and right as well?

08.
The menu design. I don't hate it, but Pure's menus just seemed so... pure. I miss the minimalism in the menus and sometimes it seems like there were some bitmaps thrown together rather than being concerted.

09.
Sometimes the Magstrip feature seems to be overloaded. I can't agree with most people who say that the feature is used wisely in all cases. I don't mean the number of the Magstrip sections, I mean the parts of the track where they are used. There were plenty of sections where barrel rolling is impossible because of the Magstrip feature. I don't say I don't want it in general, but at least at some sections I think "why?".

10.
It is still not possible to barrel roll if there are too many contenders on the screen. Lame.


Surely, if there's going to be one thread that lists all the positives sides of Pulse I will have no problem to list more than just ten.
But as much as I enjoy Pulse and it's refining (woho - no roof grinding anymore!) I'm not quite sure yet if I like the game more than Pure. The game is fun, sure. But there are these things (I did not list all here) that make me unsure if I should like the game more than Pure or not.
I guess it will take a few months till I can finally say which game I like more. But that's my point of view for now.

[ZenDJiNN]

Great post.

I agree with a couple of points, especially the one concerning AI (Hard mode). If it was out & out racing then that would be pretty OK, but when they just blow the crap out of you, especially when you've had an otherwise really great race, it just seems a tad annoying!

I haven't got anywhere near as far as outpost 7 yet, but one thing that i have found is this..... when i first started a track and thought that i didn't like it, i later found out that this was mainly due to my lack of experience with said track. There are still a few tracks so far that i'm not that keen on, but the more i play the easier they get, so it's OK.

As for "Photo Mode", i really love it, and have had NO problems whatsoever with it. It's never locked on me or frozen etc, and i have taken hundreds of photos.

The one thing that i perhaps would like to see is the ability (in Photo Mode) to select a Bigger (Better?) resolution of the saved picture. (And perhaps a Video Mode would be nice also) Apart from that i find it's a really good thing.

I agree it's a shame about the 5 Skins thing, especially with the Skin Editor available. I can't see the point of doing all those really great skins when you've nowhere to put (Save/Store) them. ??

Leech beam - A pain maybe, but it's not that bad. As for the menu design, i haven't really found anything about it that i don't like. I love the way the menus come to the front or sink into the background.

The "Magstrip" is weird, because although i don't mind it too much, it can be a real bother when you hit the walls & effectively come to a halt..... that part of it i really don't like, but the idea is good.

As for the barrel roll, i was wondering what that was. Many times i've been racing & went to do a roll, only to find that nothing was happening..... quite frustrating, but nothing that i can't live with.

All in all, i really like Pulse, but i'll also still keep playing Pure, because they are (in many ways) quite different and each has it's own good/bad points!

[phl0w]

Great post indeed. All aspects covered that I too think where not thought out properly. Especially not being able to view the tracklist of tournaments, the overboarding use of mag strip sections even where this simulated gravity isn't needed in the first place. It seems to me, it should prevent newbies from bottoming out %)
Freezing, hell yes! I have yet to quit Pulse properly! It froze EVERY time, whether I was pressing buttons too fast while watching stats or in Photo Mode (which, I'm sorry, is useless anyway).
I couldn't agree more on the tracks. I already said that I think they have a very generic feel to them, as in that they share too many bends and combination of bends and of course scenery and textures with each other. When I watch pictures here on WOZ from Pulse, most of the time I can't even recognize the track! Only very, very few offer a unique character of any sort (Platinum, Arc Prime and Outpost 7 come to mind, which are so distinctively different, that you actually "feel" you're racing a different track). I hope the downloadable tracks are more like Wipeout tracks and less randomly generated. If you can't come up with new exciting tracks I'm fine with the ones from WO1-WO3 in a new pretty package too, you know!
I have yet to use another ship than the Piranha, so I can't comment on the A.I. The Piranha is pretty much the best ship with loads of speed and an unbreakable hull. In Eliminator I usually get killed like 3 times and with its speed Single Races are like Time Trials because once in the lead no ship can keep up with it. Head-to-Head A.I. is a joke, I can bounce like a rubber ball around the track and still finish first. I don't hope there's some sort of catch-up logic involved...

All criticism aside, I like the floaty feel (which, unfortunately is nullified more often than not through unnecessary mag stips) and playing online is great!

[lunar]

Here`s my answers to your debating points, Max.

1. Didn`t realise there was no multiplayer eliminator. Would have been a nice novelty for me, but won`t particularly miss it.
2. I thought the AI has made great strides, certainly racing faster and more realistically than Pure. It may or may not be too rough, but the way they race as a pack feels real enough.
3. Haven`t raced enough tracks to comment yet, but I like them all up to Amphiseum.
4. I`ve had some freezes logging off the in-game browser, but that`s the only time.
5. Online it shows you the tournament races once you`re in. Would be nice to have had some preset tours, like Alpha, Beta etc, but not a biggie.
6. You can keep the bitmaps of the skins offline through the copy and paste function.
7. I think the Leech Beam rocks. It doesn`t steal too much energy, and getting a lock on the leader, then sucking out his life force with your purple tentacle is too much fun. Getting leeched isn`t fun, but picking up a turbo, shield or mines and getting rid of a leecher is great.
8. I like the menu, better than I could do myself.
9. At first I wasn`t sure about Mag Strips, but I really think they`re cleverly implemented. They give some wow moments, and the cutting down on Barrel Rolls with them is a good thing. Overall the way the impact of Barrel Rolls has been cut down is brilliant, I think. I love the half track mag-strip on De Konstruct, a nice idea. There are individual places where I might have preferred to fly free, but that`s just small points of track preference.
10. There must be some reason why this happens in AI races, maybe it was too hard to fix. I can live with it.

Overall I`m just loving the game, and taking it very slowly. The only thing I would have seriously done differently is to make the handling less sensitive on the nub, but that`s probably just me and I`ll get used to it, or develop some new skills somehow. I think maybe I liked Pure`s handling more, it was totally wild. But it`s too early to say, in fairness, and I haven`t raced fast classes yet. Pure was a dead duck until you reached Rapier - then it started to go nuts.

[Colin Berry]

A few answers

We simply did not have time to add more events to multiplayer, multiplayer testing is far more complex and takes far longer than the single player game. Hence only single race and tournament.

Hard AI, the harder the AI the more likely they are to use a weapon as opposed to absorb it - that does not mean use it against the player, it means use it in general, the difference between medium and hard is around about 6% less likely to absorb, 2% more likely to hold, 4% more likely to fire

Tracks... its odd how people see things different. The designers of the tracks (Karl and I) both see Outpost 7 at the one we are the most disappointed with, yet some people really like it. Personally I think Tech De Ra is the best Wipeout track of any iteration, including the numerous tracks created and scrapped over the years. Its up there with ghost valley 1 ini snes mario kart as a track that is a joy to race over and over, for me anyway.
To call them randomly generated.... well thats just not true and its a bit dismissive to the time effort and dedication that went into them over the past 18months. Criticism is fine, it how we improve areas and indeed I would say the areas I'd change would be to add a few more jumps in general and also I would undo the decison to have a black / white for every track, some work very well, a couple dont. I do know though that a lot of time effort and care went into the track and environment generation, its an area I particularly value highly. I think it is a strong line up of tracks though there could probably have been an extra harder track in there, it should have been outpost 7 but its a little frustrating, but I have 100% faith in the track building process and the ability to come up with tracks of our designers, indeed I know we have the best people for the job. Looking back throughout each Wipeout, all of them have had tracks that some people disliked and some loved, its the nature of the beast, being unable to please all.

None of the tracks share bends, they are all designed individually and whilst some bends may end up similar, none share the same data at all. they are all constructed afresh (aside of course white / black versions of same environment)

For the record the download tracks are one very technical track, two middling tracks and one easier track

Photomode freezing, hrm, I'm unsure what to say about that as it works fine for many people. It certainly isnt a useless feature though, granted some people wont like it or use it but some will. To call something useless because someone doesnt like it, is a little excessive and is opinion. Personally I think its a cool way of showing off custom ships.

Which brings onto 5 skins allowed...
All the skins are held on the server so a line had to be drawn somewhere.
Would I prefer it to be more, of course I would as would the team, but it is a decision based on server side issues.
If only 10 people created skins ever then 100000 skins each would be fine. But we have to assume X amount will use it and set limits accordingly. Well, I say we, I am genuinely unsure who handles that decision on actually file size dedicated.

The leech beam slows a ship whilst connected and slightly disrupts its handling, it is a powerful weapon, but then it has a % chance not much higher than a quake. like many weapons its fun to use annoying as hell to be hit by.


Menu design comes down to personal taste I guess.

MagStrip use, I think there are two sections maybe I'd revise, but on the whole I think they work well, it was quite a step to put them in given the misgivinigs aimed towards the locked feeling of fusion, so we deliberately only used them in half the tracks. Yes it reduces some barrel roll opportunity, but then for some thats a good thing.

Barrel roll not working properly surrounded with other ships.... we improved it a little but not enough the barrel roll inputs are frame based and more ships together means the frame rate can dip (even if you do not notice it it can slip a frame or two for a split second) with the pack racing AI its more likely.


I dont want this to seem like an ultra defensive reply, no game is perfect. We've tried to make strides with Pulse in some areas where Wipeout has never been - online play and web side integration for example, and we've also looked to refine elements such as controls, acceleration, damage and loss of control caused by each weapon etc. For the most part, I think we got it right. I think the game is far more playable than Pure for me its the least frustrating Wipeout off the bat and certainly the most instantly fun. Is it perfect, no (no game is) and criticism is taken on board when its considered and not simply opinion vs opinion, but we value criticism as much as we value praise, but then we can never listen to everyone because A and B might be directly opposed in opinion, as such we can only aim to please the largest number of people not all.

Praise helps us see what people like and how we can keep making them happy, criticism helps us mprove things and see where we are going wrong. so its all good, as long as its constructive. Although I retain the right to listen to no one but my inner demon (aka foxxy)

[eLhabib]

As much as I see the MASSIVE improvement over Pure when it comes to playability and 'instant fun' how you call it, I still have to agree with the criticism on 2 points.

- The menu design is nowhere as slick as Pure's (HUD design is the BOMB, however)

- And yes, I too feel that some of the tracks are boring, not challenging, and lack personality. Tech de Ra? C'mon! It feels like you are going straight the whole time, except for the last chicane!

On the other hand, Talon's Junction and Arc Prime are probably amongst my favorite tracks of all time, but not quite as perfect as I consider Ubermall, Blue Ridge and Chenghou Project. Y'know, I feel like Pure's tracks had so much more personality and uniqueness to them! Staten Park, for example, was absolutely gorgeously moody the first time I saw it, even though it was fairly simple as a track.

Oh and before I forget: the new Zone mode implementation is PERFECT. DON'T.EVER.CHANGE IT.

[Roz]

Curious how people can see the same thing, differently.

I for one, prefer these tracks over Pure's. For me, they are much more unique and distinct.

Tech de Ra? C'mon! It feels like you are going straight the whole time, except for the last chicane!

You musn't be playing it on Phantom them. Try not to steer and see what happens It's far from a straight track, it's just crazy fast, and I dig it.

As for the menu, I prefer it over Pure's. For starters, the game doesn't make you hit start or X 500 EFFIN' times over and over again. Seriously, to boot Pure is a pain in the arse, going through all those menus and sub menus and start screens every single time I wanted to play it. As for Pulse's menu, I think it's great. Clean, simple, organized. The way it should be. I wont say a more stylish design would've hurt it, but cmon, as far as organization goes, it's dead on. And I suppose that is the most important feature in a menu.

About the only thing I'm really disliking is the bugs/freezes. Pulse gives me that feeling of unstable that I don't like in games. Anyway, I can live with this I guess. Online makes up for it

Oh, AND WHERE'S FREE RACE?!

[lunar]

I agree Martin, Arc Prime is great. Reminds me of Burgertown in its movement, so I like it. And that damned dip in the wall still tricks me in both directions. It`s so tempting to go the wrong way. Maybe it`s just me, but that seems like clever track design.

[Colin Berry]

- And yes, I too feel that some of the tracks are boring, not challenging, and lack personality. Tech de Ra? C'mon! It feels like you are going straight the whole time, except for the last chicane!

On the other hand, Talon's Junction and Arc Prime are probably amongst my favorite tracks of all time, but not quite as perfect as I consider Ubermall, Blue Ridge and Chenghou Project. Y'know, I feel like Pure's tracks had so much more personality and uniqueness to them! Staten Park, for example, was absolutely gorgeously moody the first time I saw it, even though it was fairly simple as a track.

I love the speed of Tech De Ra I love the way both the directions play and the opportunity for air hang time and clever use of turbo for over taking people mid air, and I like the open walled section because although not tricky per se, in pressure multiplayer high speed games it can be harder than before because psychologically it gets to you and that is something I think is pretty cool when a section that you can do fine in time trial can suddenly become trickier due to pressure and I just think it flows really really well, and to me it stands out visually and looks really cool too.

I love vertica white because its blisteringly quick, and basilico white because when you nail it at phantom its a rush.

I actually prefer to have more of the challenge come from the opponent than the track, admittedly the HARD AI may still be easy for some veterans but thats where I hope online can play a role. Of course the tracks shouldnt all be simple, but I like them to flow and not frustrate. But I accept there are people who want the tracks to really challenge them too, I dont think Vertica black or outpost 7 are easy.

Oddly I think Ubermall whilst a nice track is actually fairly simplistic, easier than something like fort gale for example, but then fort gale has sections that let you breath as well as sections that hurt.

I think maybe if all the Pure tracks had been playable bothdirections then some of the individual charm would have been lsot of some of them. I think whilst the black and white runs work well in the most part, its something that shouldnt be a rule. But then some of the ones I am not as happy with, other people like.

sigh its late

[q_dmc12]

01.
Just Single Race and Tournament in Multiplayer mode. I really miss eliminator here. At least modes like Head-to-Head would have been possible because there are no weapons that may not target because of lag.

I have to second (third/fourth/whathaveyou) this, this is the one thing I am irate about - I hope it becomes available as downloaded content...one can only hope....

At least for adhoc if nothing else...

[phl0w]

That's why I only race the White runs properly. I was never a big fan of producers' cheating content just by making tracks reversible. They could have at least change the time of day as someone mentioned, like they did in WO1.
There's not even one track where the Black run is actually better (maybe Amphi due to its White version's poor trying to recreate the Gare d'Europe jump, which feels a bit pathetic to me). Now go figure.

[infoxicated]

You make some stupid sweeping statements sometimes phl0w.

The amount of time and effort that went into working out environments and tracks where two unique varients could be achieved was far from cheating - it was an attempt to get as many tracks as possible into the game with the limited art and design resources.

Now you go figure.

[phl0w]

They are supposed to be "sweeping", however, it's not my intention to generalise things. I only express my opinion and it is my opinion that reversible tracks are no valid content (afterall it's not a concern that only affects Pulse), at least not enough that allows one to boast about 24 tracks, no matter the "effort" put into them. There are many people out there and on these boards that crave those Black runs, but also many that could do without. I just don't like them, both reasons why mentioned in my previous post.
Besides, this is the "10 things I hate about Pulse" topic, right?

[infoxicated]

Yes. You're right, it is.

And you told us your dislike of the alternate tracks early in the first page of this thread, but here you are 22 pages later harping on about it. Now go figure.

[Colin Berry]

maybe Amphi due to its White version's poor trying to recreate the Gare d'Europe jump, which feels a bit pathetic to me.

Little known fact to share with WoZone
The Amphiseum was originally designed for Wipeout Pure, it was designed to be Sinucit, but we were never quite happy enough with it, so put it on the back burner and chose the track that ended up as Sinucit. We returned to it for the Pure downloads, but again we didnt get it how we wanted it so it stayed in the back ground. Come Pulse time we returned to it as priority and tweaked it, the tilted long straights and horse shoe bend were redone slightly and we actually cut a 'stepping stone' section out.

The jump has nothing to do with Gare d'Europa, its like saying Talons Junction is trying to recreate Karbonis' start grid because they both have a start grid

In hindsight I probably wouldnt have done Black and White versions for every environment, but many of them work really well for me. But then in hindsight I wouldnt have included Outpost 7 in the game, yet many people like it, which shows you cant ever please everyone, so all you can do is put effort in and trust your instinct.


Incidentally, blue ridge was also Sinucit at one stage, and sinucit started life as hrm.. maybe sebenco.... Karl might know

[phl0w]

Now that is an answer I appreciate (and one that makes me feel guilty to "sweep" over certain aspects of the game at times).
Thank you for the inside scoop!

[Chrono]

Well you got the Amphi right because I greatly enjoy both white and black versions.

[Alucioj]

Obviously inspired by this thread.
Don't get me wrong, I like Pulse, bot nonetheless there are a few things that really get on my nerves. Let's share our thoughts about that.


01.
Just Single Race and Tournament in Multiplayer mode. I really miss eliminator here. At least modes like Head-to-Head would have been possible because there are no weapons that may not target because of lag.

02.
Hard AI is good - but why has it to be more aggressive than Fusion's? The race feels like a battlefield. Very often no fun and very frustrating. I know there's also Medium and Easy, but I want an AI that is hard to beat because of the racing, not because I'm fired by everyone.

03.
Some tracks really are no fun. Yes, they are simply no fun. They are not like "oh I hate that track because of that and that but I like in some way". I mean that they are really no fun. And yes I'm talking about Outpost 7 here, too. Everyone who knows how much I loved Citta Nuova should think I love Outpost 7 as well. But I don't. The whole track seems like a mess to me. Maybe I'll change my opinion about that in future, but all the races I had so far were simply no fun at all.

04.
The freezing. You take a screenshot in photomode and suddenly the game freezes. Same for online play. I had that so often now that I really think twice about using the photomode or pressing buttons too fast.

05.
You can't see which races a tournament contains. You just see the number of tracks and that's it.

06.
Just 5 skins savable. Seems to be the same for custom grids. Why?

07.
The leech beam. God I hate it. Well, at least the way it's been done. I like the energy drain thing, but the effect it has to you ship is just awful. When there's somebody who already gets my energy, why the hell has my ship to go uncontrollable left and right as well?

08.
The menu design. I don't hate it, but Pure's menus just seemed so... pure. I miss the minimalism in the menus and sometimes it seems like there were some bitmaps thrown together rather than being concerted.

09.
Sometimes the Magstrip feature seems to be overloaded. I can't agree with most people who say that the feature is used wisely in all cases. I don't mean the number of the Magstrip sections, I mean the parts of the track where they are used. There were plenty of sections where barrel rolling is impossible because of the Magstrip feature. I don't say I don't want it in general, but at least at some sections I think "why?".

10.
It is still not possible to barrel roll if there are too many contenders on the screen. Lame.


Surely, if there's going to be one thread that lists all the positives sides of Pulse I will have no problem to list more than just ten.
But as much as I enjoy Pulse and it's refining (woho - no roof grinding anymore!) I'm not quite sure yet if I like the game more than Pure. The game is fun, sure. But there are these things (I did not list all here) that make me unsure if I should like the game more than Pure or not.
I guess it will take a few months till I can finally say which game I like more. But that's my point of view for now.

1. I agree, I wish theyd add Eliminator, having played Eliminator in the Grid setup Ive really enjoyed it and its one of my favourite events now. Maybe they will add it in time?

2. Yes again I agree, Rapier for a relative newbie like me is a shoot em up fest. Ive so far managed a silver in a Rapier race on hard, an achievement Im proud of specially since I use the Piranha but im not going to lie my flying style is similar to that of a pinball wizard game and Im constantly absorbing anything I pick up so I dont explode; Its certainly going to take me a while to adapt to the Rapier speed and im thinking the more familiar with courses I become the easier itll be but Im going to try alternating between the Piranha and the AG Systems to see if better handling helps.

3. Everyone is going to have their preferences and their hates track wise, Ive already started to enjoy some and not others just how it is.

4. Yep I suffered the freezing a few times online and once during normal CPU play and its frustrating as hell. It doesnt happen often enough to be a major issue for me and the normal game mode vs CPU was because I pressed buttons too quickly. Online Ive regularly posted my issues with the server on these forum pages but I think this is normal with online games?!

5. Yes again it would be handier to see which races are in a specific tournament because then you could practise a track you arent as skillfull on beforehand.

6. As someone else posted Im guessing the trade off between load times and online capablities?! And obviously how much space the site is willing to allow to us users.

7. Hehe I dont see this as an issue, its a feature of the game and we have to deal with it. What kind of game would it be if every weapon has a beneficial effect.

8. The menu design doesnt bother me so much, I never played Pure so maybe your argument is valid but I find navigation easy enough.

9. Thats just design issues I guess but Im overall happy with the layout of tracks and you cant please everyone.

10. Yep that is very annoying as its a skill I use lots

Overall Id say Wipeout Pulse is an amazing game for me. I am new to the PSP nevermind the Wipeout game on the PSP. I did have WO2097 but that was years ago and my skills have degraded it appears.

None of my PSP games are without flaws; for example in PES6 the player sprites cut up like player heads seem blocky and almost see through which annoys me, as well as WOPulse I have Sega Rally, FM2008 & Pro Evolution Soccer 6 but for me gameplay is the most important aspect of any videogame and all my games, WOPulse included, have this.

Yes there are issues but I dont know any videogame that doesnt have some sort of issues however if the overall enjoyment factor of the game is on point then you have a winner in my view and Wipeout Pulse certainly wins for me.

[Rapier Racer]

Maybe the bomb could be sorted for HD as the current idea of this weapon is horse ****. It was decided that making it time out and explode after a fixed amount of time was a fabulous idea, I suppose I agree Pure got a little bomb clustered here and there. However, what you, SL, have actually done is nothing but punish faster players and give a big advantage to slower ones. If your going to implement a system like this then do it properly and make the bomb time out faster or don't have that in the game at all, its not fair that a bomb from the previous lap which should no longer be there explodes in my face or requires me to take extreme evasive action only for it to blow up just as I've passed it and make life much much easier for the guy behind. I was racing someone I think it was Ash Omen, he deserved to win the race after nearly 5 laps of kicking my ass on Arc Prime black, but he was robbed by a bomb on the bridge which blew his ship off the side, probably left by some slower ship on the previous lap, which allowed me to take a cheap victory, he was pissed, and so would I be, and have been.

I think a better idea would be to do away with this time out crap and just have it so the bomb can hurt the ship that dropped it, that way if no one hits it then it remains for the next lap and the person who set it will have to try and avoid it just like everyone else.

[Frances_Penfold]

Hey Rapier, I could be wrong about this, but I thought bombs and mines CAN hurt the dropper in Wipeout Pulse?