Good game, some frustrating features

[Astobe]

Hello. Stunt Rally is a good game but there are some aspects that I find frustrating.

To me, a rally racing game isn't just a racing game on dirt tracks. The main difference is that instead of doing a lot of laps on a relatively small pool of tracks, with rally one does only one lap on many different tracks. In GT or F1 races, performance is based on perfecting timings laps after laps. In rally, performance is based on how well you can drive on a mostly unknown track.

But in Stunt Rally, the design of tracks and the lack of a virtual copilot favours the GT/F1 race style, because many tracks are what you like to call "tricky". "tricky" effectively something like "Lol you forgot there's a sharp turn after this bump, eat that rock". Of course one is supposed to slow down in this case, but one doesn't see the bump in the first place, hence the key role of copilots in real rally races.

The virtual copilot feature should be in my opinion be a priority goal. Ideally, it should be implemented as kind of an "overlay" on tracks, so that players can edit them and make their own track notes. This would have the added benefit to relieve track makers from the burden of doing it, and players could share their notes.

But I guess that's easier said than done, otherwise it would already be there. So in the short term I suggest to have two laps per rally stage: the first lap is a "reckon" lap. It has a large time limit. The idea is that the player can see where the dangers are on the track, but has to do it at a reasonably sustained pace but without damaging the car too much for the second lap, which is the actual race.

A second frustrating aspect are the stunt elements. I'm not a big fan of stunt tracks, because ruining a race because you didn't take a ramp perfectly and therefore crash-landed is not fun to me. I don't like pipes and loops either because most of the times you can't see 10 meters ahead there. I would like that the championships should clearly divided into stunt and no-stunt. It's very annoying to have to complete a stunt track in a middle of an otherwise "regular" championship if you don't like them.

The point system in use in the championship doesn't carry much meaning. Obviously one would prefer a ranking system, which implies "real" timings. But one can only get "real" timings from players, and preferably timings done in the same context. This is possible with the replay system. A great way to collect those replays and timings is to organise multi-player events, then ask for replays. This way, one should be able to get in the long run a collection of replays for a wide range of skill levels and cars to be used to by the game in order to show realistic rankings in single-player mode. This however implies that one must define a set of standard settings for championships and single race. Because the game offers a lot of options (boost/no boost, repairs, damage, ....), and it's probably too difficult to collect replays for every settings.

I suggest to create a subreddit for SR in order, among other things, to organise events and multiplayer games. Reddit because it's more popular than both IRC and boards like this, and it's therefore easier for people to get involved.

[CryHam]

OK, I'll reply.
1st thing. Don't tell me what to do, tell me what you can do. (Still, you can say what you'd like more, but it will likely be ignored or even deleted unless you are somebody I know since a while)
2nd. I'm not developing anymore, and even when I did, I do stuff I like and is fun to develop. If sth is too huge I don't do it.
3rd. If you don't like stunts or short looped tracks, well then this is likely not the game you should play.
They are not as difficult as you describe. Jumps don't require to be perfect. I can drive 3 laps on CrossJumps and not make 1 mistake. Ask Calinou how many he could, probably >20. BTW, why does it even matter, Backspace, anyone ?

Next.
This is SR, it's not F1, GT, .. (insert countless others) and even not WRC (they have long A to B tracks).
It's partly because of ogre terrain limitations, and because I like it more so.
Did you just say that in WRC a track is unknown? Man, they know it, drive it few times to have good pacenotes for later.

Point system is here: viewtopic.php?f=81&t=5938
"real timimgs" are already here, mine, driven with ES.
This what you wrote is months of dev and testing and ofc 100's of players. Do we even have 5?
I'm not saying it can't be better. Just that I'm not touching it.
Calinou is making that subreddit, I agree.

Champs are divided into rally and stunt. Even if they weren't, you have many ratings for each track, including Jumps, and can see them for all stages (before even starting a champ).
Shared stuff for tracks? Great. How about times for tracks first? Do we have a server with php for that? Nope.

Pace notes? Go ahead implement the code that would do them automatically.
We got minimap. That alone is enough. Arrow, checkpoint beam. What else.
Surely you need to know tracks. Even if you didn't, driving them makes you know them.
"recon" lap? Garbage. Waste of players time. You got single player, drive all you want to practice.

I wanted to add signs to tracks, but we didn't make the meshes and textures. And didn't want to add more batches to tracks. Also see 2nd.

Man I hate writing all that.

[Astobe]

Thanks for your reply. Sorry for the waste of time. Goodbye.