Racing Game Improvements...

Hey, I was prepared to post about my thoughts concerning forza 2 and how it compares to pgr3, but it all got a bit waffly and unfocused so I've binned that, but some "final" thoughts on how the genre could be improved will be listed here.

 

First off, The idea of racing your "ghost", your previous best attempt/time is a genius one. I'm not too sure who came up with it, but it's a great idea, probably many years old, but I think it's time for a change perhaps.  When I am performing some kind of time trial, my ghost provides a visual representation of if I'm up or not, but when I am very close to my ghost time, i.e. just behind, the thing just becomes too big a distraction a lot of the time, and generally I either completely miss the breaking spot for the lack of being able to see it, or risk breaking later than my ghost and inevitably miss the turn-in.  Perhaps it's just me who suffers from these complaints and I should shut up, but no, here's how we're gonna fix it people...

The Forza series have a rather smart system in-race whereby the racing line and the required braking is displayed on the track in a variety of colours.  Now, my suggestion is to take this idea and transpose your ghost's performance into a visual much like this.  So, instead of racing what the game considers the optimum line and breaking, it would instead show the lines and breaking performed by your ghost.  They could even colour it the ghostly blues and greys if they so wished.  I think this would be a better system, as you could then explicitly see what lines were taken and how late you braked last time round.  You could then see clearly see where you weren't maximising the track when turning out of the corner, or which apexes you are simply not hooking up.  Also this way, if you are especially slow, say you fall off the track, with the ghost line implemented, you won't lose the valuable information which you would normally, cos the ghost car would be on the other side of the track.

One thing I particularly enjoy with Forza is the recording of all the times and also the in-race telemetry.  Despite how much valuable information could be extracted from someone's driving style, a lot of it is useless in that respect.  If I'm honest the friction levels exerted on each tyre does not help me unlock where I went wrong, or where one of the top players are supremely better than me.  A lot of the time if I push on the telemetry I stay in the default screen, and watch the inputs the best in the world make.  It is actually quite shocking at times watching a replay of the best time on a time trial (where the car used is fixed) and have myself thinking, yeah the guy's neat but nothing mind-blowing, and then watching my best replay and getting a bit embarassed on how much my car is sliding about.  That being said I use the friends leaderboard to rate my skills, and for the majority of the time trial times (where it is the most equal, same car, no upgrades, tunes etc) I am the quickest out of the couple of friends who also play the game.

So yeah, my suggestion on how improving the telemetry is really a step towards the kinda telemetry that professional racing series, not unlike F1, are exposed to.  That being, I want the lap times posted on the scoreboards split into each timing section, so I can a better understanding on where the best are making the time/I am losing the time.  Along with that and an extension to the inputs that players put in, instead of what the current inputs are as shown in the telemetry at the moment, they should be recorded over time, plotted in a graph if you will.  And why not stop there? I would also like to have the "best" inputs plotted against mine - I would like to see where they get on the throttle quicker than me, where they brake later.  I would want all the inputs, throttle, brake and steering input available in graph form to be compared against my inputs.

Although most probably won't have the time or patience to explore this, I for one, would especially enjoy the opportunity to analyse and learn from this information, as I can't help feel for all the effort, the current telemetry in forza is a bit lacking, in that respect.

 

 

 

Here's just trying to sow some seeds...