Hey everyone, it’s Ben again!Before getting into specifics, I just want to say thank you to everyone who took the time to test the new drift system and share detailed feedback. A lot of you went well beyond a quick “feels good / feels bad” and really dug into what was working, what wasn’t, and why. That kind of feedback is incredibly valuable, and it really helps shape where things go next.
I also really appreciate the positive comments. It’s reassuring to hear that many of you are already finding the new system more controllable, more predictable, and more fun to experiment with. That said, there were also some very clear and consistent areas where things still need work.
As before I am going to share a bit more of the 'behind the scenes' detailed thoughts below for our paid members including what my specific next steps are.
But I also want to give everyone the TL:DR which is that from the feedback I am going to focus on further improving responsiveness and control during and after a drift, while tightening up car consistency and fixing edge cases like boost and gearing behaviour.
Below is a lot more detail on all of that.
Top 5 Action Areas from Your Feedback
Drift exit is too slow / stickyMany players reported that the car tries to cling on to the end of its drift rather than exiting in a timely manner, particularly at high speed. I tested it again after reading all of this feedback and, on reflection, I agree.
Steering responsiveness and vehicle weightA lot of you pointed out that counter-steering can feel sluggish on some cars, while others feel too floaty or heavy. This is closely related to the point above, but separate enough for me to split it out here. I understood this to mean that trying to widen (and maintain) your drift can take too long, on top of trying to exit the drift taking too long.
Sky Track and obstacle-heavy track performanceSome players noticed that the new drift system struggles on fast jumps and tight, obstacle-laden sections of Sky Tracks. This might be because of the increased drift speed that comes with the addition of Boosting to the drift system, I will need to look into it more closely to be sure.
Car-to-car consistencyWhile some vehicles feel excellent, others are still unpredictable or sluggish. I’d like to try to get an understanding of why some cars feel less good than others (and to see if it’s a subjective thing, or if there are some cars that are provably bad!), before committing to fixing it one way or another.
Boosting while drifting in a low gear will force the car up to a much higher speed than should be possible in that gear, but doesn’t change gear. This one should just be a matter of ensuring that the automatic gearbox is allowed to work properly during a drift, previously it hasn't needed to because you couldn’t really change your speed!
Immediate Next Steps
There’s 2 things I’m going to start working on right away. The first is the most-mentioned issue from the above list: Drift Exit. I’d really like to get to a point where you can exit a drift cleanly, without it feeling like the car is not quite able to straighten itself up the last few degrees. I don’t want to lose the long shallow drifts though, so this will be a bit of a balancing act.
The second is actually a known issue from the point of releasing the system to you all: Cars rolling over when drifting. Fiona and I have both noticed this particularly on the Solomon-Hirsch Headbanger, but the majority of people that mentioned it over on Discord were saying the Hooper Powerslave was the one to watch for random barrel rolls.
After that, I want to focus on handbrake and steering response, Skytrack behaviour, and car-to-car consistency as the next areas to fix up, but that will come after we’ve seen how these initial changes feel in practice.
Your Feedback Continues to Matter
I’d love to hear your thoughts on the planned changes, both straight away (have I picked the wrong things to focus on?) and once they make it into a patch for you to test first-hand.
I’d like to try rolling access out a little wider once I’m done with this set of changes, but I haven’t cleared that with Fiona yet!
Thanks again for all the time, energy, and care you put into testing. I’m excited to keep refining this with your guidance! I’ll get back to you soon, with news of how the fixes are going and when we might see them in a patch…
Note from Fiona: there is definitely not a patch this week (we have been hogging THQ's bandwidth with all our patches!). Will let you know when we submit the next one though.