"Will there be more options for the future from the driving perspective?”
The current track collision is not too severe, it is recommended to refer to the second test for optimization. ”
When will the picture quality of the big world be upgraded again, and the scenery points will also need to be increased!”
This happened during the Need for Speed Mobile (Need for Speed Mobile Game) player meetup, where players continued to provide feedback on the game experience to the game's producers and planners, as well as suggestions for future improvements to the gameThe game producers and planners listened carefully and patiently answered players' questions, saying that they would continue to optimize some questions, and sometimes they were surprised by players' creativity and said that they would consider whether to add them to the game.
The reason for all this is that "Need for Speed Rider", produced by Tencent TiMi J1 Studio and authorized by EA, has received a lot of feedback from players in the past three rounds of testing, so it was decided to invite content creators and players to meet the game production team offline on December 22 and 23 respectively to "match" and put forward their own suggestions and ideas.
I've also been involved as a player, but I've been thinking about some questions before that: will the official really optimize based on the massive feedback from players?Or will the development team really accept being taught how to play by the player?
And after I experienced this player meeting, I finally understood what kind of game ecology Need for Speed wants to present to players, and the height it wants to achieve.
Break the shackles of the racing category
For players who participated in the test of Need for Speed Racer, the optimization results of the game and the direction of game content updates are obviously the most important for them. In fact, Need for Speed has actively replied to player reviews and collected player suggestions to optimize the game through the official platform in the previous three rounds of testing.
In this offline meeting, Need for Speed showed players the optimization results and thinking about the future development direction.
We don't want to just do pure track racing, we want to open up the pattern, so that the open world racing can land on the mobile platform, and there is more room for gameplay and imagination. Hao Sheng, the producer of "Need for Speed Game", said when talking about product positioning, the focus of traditional racing games is more focused on the competitive level of single player immersion, firstly, too much attention is paid to the handling of each corner and the victory or defeat of a single game, which often leads to high emotional pressure on players, and secondly, there is a certain lack of social and interactive levels;At the same time, players also have a strong demand for realistic racing games.
That's why Need for Speed has set the tone of a 'multiplayer world with refreshing drift driving' from the very beginning. Hao Sheng said.
First of all, at the level of "refreshing drift driving", Haosheng said that as a racing game, the underlying logic of "Need for Speed Racer Game" must revolve around "racing", combined with real physical feedback and realistic racing feel. However, there is often a high threshold for overly realistic feel, and what "Need for Speed Game" wants to bring players is an easy-to-use, grown, and in-depth control experience.
Based on my own experience, Need for Speed has a very different drifting feel from common racing games, with a moderate rotation speed after drifting, a longer drift time than many games, and impactful body feedback, but still under controlAt the same time, there are also "red zones" in drifting, that is, drift spins, which also make the driving, drifting and collision feedback of Need for Speed closer to the weight of reality.
Haosheng also took real racing cars as an example, in simple terms, the so-called drift is through the control of steering, throttle and brake, so that the tires lose grip to achieve rapid body rotation, continue to fight and smoothly pass the corner. At the same time, in the real world, there are also show-off skills such as catapult start and tire burning.
Need for Speed Game restores this very well in the game, by adding the setting of "brake" and "throttle" in the game, so that players can restore the operation of real cars in the game. Of course, the game presents this effect more "exaggeratedly", after all, this kind of operation in the real world has a lot of damage to the car.
But as mentioned above, "Need for Speed Game" wants to bring players not only high-realistic graphics, but also easy-to-use operation thresholds and growth.
In Need for Speed Game's track structure, there are not only corners that can reflect technical design, but also a large number of straights that can be driven exhilaratingly, which is designed to reduce the emotional burden of players. At the same time, in the third test, the official weakening of the drift red zone (i.e., oversteer caused by drift) greatly reduced the threshold for players to get started. According to Haosheng, it will not make new players have negative feedback at the first experience. Players can achieve precise control of the car and track in the race again and again, and get a better game experience and results.
In addition, Haosheng revealed in this meeting that "Need for Speed Rider Game" will update more levels in the future, but unlike traditional racing games, "Need for Speed Driver Game" will combine the topography of major cities, and the city will be presented in the form of regions, adding N tracks at the same time, it will also become a digital city that players can explore for a long time.
Hao Sheng said, "We don't want to just do a few tracks and do things hastily, since it is a world racing game, we need to think about how to give players a more sincere experience of the world." ”
And how to break through the previous game format of racing games, "Need for Speed Racer" puts it on the "heat tracking" mode.
In Heat Chase mode, players can take on the role of a street racer who can complete an evacuation after multiple races, or choose the role of a pursuit team to evict a street racer vehicle.
From the perspective of game mode alone, heat tracking is not new, it has appeared in the previous titles of Need for Speed. The key point is that the heat tracking mode of Need for Speed is an asymmetrical confrontation between 40 real players, which is obviously a huge breakthrough.
Haosheng revealed that in the process of developing the thermal tracking mode, the development team discussed countless times, and overturned it internally at least three times, and constantly pushed it back and started over. Even today, it's not quite what the team imagined. But the idea is unwavering, Need for Speed Racer must be something new and fun for multiplayer, not just about it. ”
This was fully demonstrated in the third "Hurricane Test", such as the addition of "Evacuation Gameplay" in the heat tracking mode, where players can actively reveal their location and engage in head-to-head battles with the pursuing team. In street races, racers also have the option to engage in a "public enemy duel" where they compete fiercely against other street racers, with the winner getting the opponent's vehicle and heat.
In the open world, Need for Speed has made a series of groundbreaking designs around the diverse demands of players.
The big world of Need for Speed is still a traditional single-game experience integrated in the game lobby during the first and second tests, and the third test completely integrates the system, gameplay and open world. This bold change not only provides players with a stronger sense of immersion, but also provides the possibility to add scene interaction, social interaction, and other diverse gameplay.
In the open world, a large number of players want to experience casual gameplay, and in response to this part of the demand, the 100 million square meter terrain map of Need for Speed includes a variety of tracks such as urban roads, off-road mountain roads and dirt roads, as well as buildings and road conditions set around the racing car.
What touched me the most was that I could choose a car I liked and enjoy the pure pleasure of driving. Players can even leap to "fly" the car onto a moving ship to take photos, or crash a hot air balloon. Yes, in Haosheng's vision, everything in the big world of Need for Speed should be interactive, and the ways to play should also be diverse. And in the future, the big world will also carry out in-depth linkage with the real world to create more immersive digital scenes.
But not only that, the world of Need for Speed is divided into different areas, each of which has a variety of exploration content, such as in the single-player story, players can learn more immersively about the background of this world, different racing cultures, and so on through dialogue. In addition, there are challenges such as drifting, leaping, and taking photos, as well as quests such as driving a truck to rescue.
In response to the social needs of players, Need for Speed has designed a car following function, which not only allows players to achieve social interaction, but also complete all challenges by following the car.
Haosheng introduced that in the future version, thirty or forty gathering points will be built in the big world, which will include different tracks and a variety of multiplayer gameplay, bringing together players with the same purpose, so that players can achieve deep social interaction from the initial encounter to the later stage driven by tasks and gameplay.
Despite all of this, this is just the tip of the iceberg of Need for Speed Racer's improvements and upgrades over the past three rounds of testing. According to the information at the meeting, in the future, we will see different types of vehicles such as sports cars, hybrid electric cars, and old carsIn terms of car modification, the game has added graffiti special effects, optimized the vehicle modification system, and increased the modification workshop, vehicle modification score and modification parts branch, providing players with more diverse modification gameplay.
It can be seen that whether it is the shaping of the realism of the game, the core breakthrough of the gameplay mode, or the diversified gameplay of the big world, "Need for Speed Game" has achieved the construction of a "multiplayer world with refreshing drift driving". But the development team was clearly not satisfied with this, as they did, holding an offline player meetup and continuing to make the game better by listening to the players' voices.
When the player is facing the online game planner in person
The players are far more professional and demanding than I imagined, and this is the deepest impression I left after attending the offline meeting.
At the end of the third test, some players put forward suggestions on picture quality, ** and operation feel, etc., and the official also replied to the player's feedback in a timely manner, saying that it would be optimized at a fixed point. These questions are actually the most asked questions by players at this offline meeting.
For example, some players asked if they could add dynamic weather such as night and rain, and interact according to different weather. For example, in the third beta version, the development team made deep adjustments to Unreal Engine, removing the ban on mobile high-resolution and adding dynamic shadows, resulting in more realistic lighting effects, more detailed character and environment modeling, and smoother animations. These changes also make the game look more realistic.
Higher image quality also means stronger hardware support, "Need for Speed Game" game planner Knife Tower added that in the future, it will be adapted according to different devices, first to ensure that players have a smooth experience while presenting more exquisite scene performance.
In response to players' demand for interaction in weather scenes, Haosheng revealed that in the future, the big world will make more dynamic interactions around extreme weather. "Imagine what happens when a racer encounters a tornado”
Of course, there are also players who have put forward professional opinions at the operational level, such as the track guidance instructions are not obvious enough, the collision penalty is too severe, the hope that heat tracking and racing ranking are separated, the racing ranking cars can be reused, and the countermeasures of the pursuit team are enhanced in the heat tracking mode, and the pursuit team generation logic is adjusted.
To put it simply, based on the feedback provided by players who participated in the second beta, Need for Speed was quickly optimized in the third beta version. For example, in Thermal Pursuit, the capabilities of the pursuit team have been upgraded to include Call Support and Active Interception skillsand new convenient features such as supply station search to further enhance the gaming experience. There is also the collision feedback and guidance mentioned by the players, and in the three tests, it also met the players' demands by reducing the drift red zone and enhancing the image quality.
The official emphasis on player feedback is obviously fruitful, and from the perspective of players from different channels, players have already changed from the initial "picking" to "a lot of praise" and "looking forward to going online".
Through this player meeting, you can understand that Need for Speed pays enough attention to the player group. In addition to the gameplay level, the official can be said to respond to the "diverse" needs of players. For example, in the KOL field on the 22nd, some content creators mentioned that they wanted to add "no UI** video" to better present the game scene.
The official answer is that these requirements will be included in the game optimization list. Haosheng said that "showing the game scene" has become an urgent need for a large number of players, and in the future, it will provide users with more exquisite scenes where people and vehicles coexist, and at the same time make more logical adjustments to the scene, rather than saying that it appears in this scene inexplicably.
In the Need for Speed series, players are praised for the abundance of modification and personalization systems with a high degree of freedom, and Need for Speed continues this tone.
Vehicle modification is divided into two parts: appearance modification and performance modification, of which performance modification includes six modification parts: engine, air intake, exhaust, transmission, suspension, nitrogen, and in the appearance modification part, including vehicle painting, paint, surface decals, exterior parts, personalized decoration (underbody lights, tail decorations, etc.), and the adjustment of racing attitude. Players can spend mod points and a small amount of Rewan Coins to unlock more powerful mod parts and change their driving style.
Although some players at the scene expressed their hope to directly obtain the props and vehicles required for modification through direct purchase and other forms, Haosheng said that whether it is vehicle acquisition or modification system, it is hoped to guide the user's activity and implement the concept of freedom in the big world. Paying users may be able to obtain it in advance through purchases and other means, but for medium and light players, they can also obtain resources to obtain vehicles and complete modifications through free channels such as completing missions, combined with asymmetrical confrontation mode, so that players can compete fairly.
He also added that Need for Speed does not want to rely on numerical values for commercialization, and will introduce more universal paints around vehicle painting in the future to eliminate users' concerns about waste.
Another player said: "At the moment, generic camouflages are not suitable for some vehicles with lower bodies. Haosheng gave a clear reply that all models will be gradually adapted in the future.
During this nearly three-hour discussion, I could clearly feel that the atmosphere gradually evolved from "players want to know" to a group of gamers discussing how to make the game better. It is also the importance of Need for Speed to player feedback that makes me confident that Need for Speed can realize the perfect vision of a "multiplayer world with refreshing drift driving" and go further.
The new world that Need for Speed wants to build
But my question hasn't been fully answered, and I'd like to know where the development team balances the adoption of player suggestions.
The development team adheres to the fundamentals of the game's establishment, including the refreshing drift driving experience, the asymmetrical confrontation gameplay mode, and the large world that implements the concept of multiplayer. "We're going to tweak some of the shortcomings, such as the drift feel, the camera angle and tracking, and we're happy to cater to a lot of niche needs, and we're going to think carefully about the needs of players, and their feedback is crucial to the game." ”
But the fundamental direction must not waver. He affirmed.
Does it need to be so granular?I asked.
For this problem, he said that in the current game market, there is no shortage of high-quality games, including open-world games, there are also a lot of open-world games, today (22nd) players put forward suggestions, behind this is that many players have expectations for this game, with the multiplayer world as the foundation of the project "Need for Speed Game" can not turn a blind eye to the voice of users, the team hopes to raise as much as possible, enrich the game experience, so that players can find what he wants in this big world.
To be honest, daring to face it does not mean that the official is not worried. Haosheng believes that in such a prosperous game market, the player group has even experienced the game more or more deeply than the developer, and the participation of players can provide additional perspectives for the development team and help the product to reach the desired height. On the other hand, the information of the official and the player is often misaligned, and sincere communication can eliminate the misunderstanding between the official and the player community that should not exist.
In his opinion, in the current era, the needs of some content creators are not niche, and the ideas of creators represent the needs of specific players and fans to a certain extent, and even seem to be extremely unpopular needs, and there may be a large number of players with different identities and needs such as leisure and car enthusiasts.
If a racing game wants to break the circle, it is not only necessary to achieve a breakthrough in gameplay, but also to explore and meet the diverse needs of different users. ”
From consolidating the underlying logic of the racing experience, innovating asymmetrical confrontations, and developing multiplayer big world gameplay, we can see that the Need for Speed team has a wealth of experience and deep understanding of the racing category, and they want to roll this track into a new format. It could even be said that they have done a key part of it. The official's insight into the needs of the player group and the listening to the voice of the player group can show that they want to create a world that can not only bring an immersive experience, but also meet the diverse needs of players and achieve emotional resonance.
Need for Speed is still a while away from officially meeting players, and its gameplay mode and development of content that can be experienced in the world are still in the early stages, but judging by the quality and attitude expressed by Need for Speed at this stage, I believe it will bring a disruptive change to the racing category.