Need for Speed Racing Games

From the first day of playing this game, I’ve been an advocate of adding the possibility for the host of an online game to choose which assists and handling mode can be used in that game. For the last couple of weeks I’ve had a sneaking suspicion that maybe the latter is actually possible. Today I feel this suspicion has been confirmed.

I usually play with Normal handling mode because it’s what’s most competitive online. Several times I’ve struggled with grip and while still driving well, my laptimes has been well off what I’ve done before. This is what prompted me to think that maybe the host doesn’t play on Normal and that the other players adopt his setting. Today after six laps (two plus four) on Laguna Seca, where my best lap was more than two seconds slower than what it should have been, I asked the host if he was on Pro, Experienced or Normal. His answer was Experienced. I take this as a confirmation of my earlier suspicion.

While I’m glad that it’s actually possible to do this as a host, I think it’s just sad that it’s impossible for others to see which handling mode is being used in a game. It shouldn’t only be visible, it should also be possible to filter on this. If you want to find a Pro game, then you should be able to select this when you’re looking for a custom race. Of course, today’s online game selector is 100 % useless, so more important things needs to be done first.

cem_ea_id.BobbyVey wrote: Guys ru absolutely sure about this on line driving assists thing? Did some1 actually tried to host the race with all his assists off and then was beaten by noobs with all the assists on? Maybe this is an automatic feature, in a way the session keeps the host's settings and applies them to all other players?
Otherwise I can't believe the could such a stupid overlook.
About no assist being faster...not every1 of us are so darn skilled MFs to be faster with them off, I just want them off to have more fun and challenge.

from a September thread... http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/308612.page
That's what I suspected at the first place, I even didn't started to play online. I'm glad I was right. Search filter would be fine, well for noobs at least. I don't have any problem to drive whatever the settings are.

All settings should be the same for everybody to avoid unfair advantages. Of course, this does not have to be mandatory.

I agree game selector is completely useless

and by the way, I think I saw you online today =) for a brief second... and you left

You probably did, and it was the consequence of the useless game selector. I hate driving the supercars, so I prefer rating 14.00. Trying to find a game with this setting can be a challenging affair that really wears on your patience. Over and over and over again I end up in unrestricted, 6.00 or 10.00. I wonder which IDIOT thought it was a good idea to toss people into game with different settings than what they actually asked for. I’m not the most experienced online gamer out there, but I strongly believe that through the history of online multiplayer games, there has never been a game that is worse than Shift on this particular area. I almost hope that the patch – if it ever comes – won’t fix this and other crucial things, because then I can with ease put this game to sleep and move over to Modern Warfare 2. If they however do a stellar job on the patch, I might stick around, but I’m starting to doubt the competence of SMS.

This is actually good news for me, I always play on experienced mode with all assists off and manual clutch and gear-change, and I can still win online races .

I really dont like the normal handling , its makes it feel too arcade , it sort of defeats the whole point of playing Shift for me.
The normal mode sorts of creates an artificial effect of sucking the cars down on the track round corners , in experienced and pro I can use my own lines to take corners , which makes it more fun for me to play.

The people who rely on aids to drive are going to get caught out then if they find themselves in assist off Pro race , They will need to be more versatile in the way they drive.

Im just interested Bradbury, which format are you playing on PC, PS3, XBOX ?

I'm on PC.

Upon finding out about this possibility, I could use it to my advantage by practicing a lot offline on hard, and then keep hosting games online. Most people online are used to driving on normal, so they would be caught off-guard when they join my games. Unfortunately, I can’t stand being the host, so it won’t happen.

cem_ea_id.Bradbury wrote:I'm on PC.

Upon finding out about this possibility, I could use it to my advantage by practicing a lot offline on hard, and then keep hosting games online. Most people online are used to driving on normal, so they would be caught off-guard when they join my games. Unfortunately, I can’t stand being the host, so it won’t happen.

IM doing a new career on a modified ai setting its set to 80/95/100 easy/normal/hard respectively in order.

and man its a challenge.

Something came across my mind while reading this. Do u guys think there's a difference in handling level between normal with all the aids switched off and pro level itself?....if ya know what I mean

If you mean Normal without assists contra Pro without assists, then yes, there is a big difference.

Really? I've never paid much attention which mode was on, I treated them as a 'preset' features. Thanks Brad I gonna look into it today

yep there is... the grip level is higher on Normal, and the center of gravity is lower *more stable*

it's all in the data... of course you CAN make Normal harder than on Pro... if you want... but why would anyone do that?

I haven't unpacked my game because I will probably mess something up and I won't be able to apply the patch when it comes. If I had it unpacked, I would try to change both grip and centre of gravity to something insane just to see if it's possible to go online with these modified files. If it is, then I'd bury this game for ever.

You can patch... just need to unpack again after the patch, just rename your backup pakfiles back to pakfiles and you're go... and of course, you need to re-mod your game after the patch

and I can already confirm the mods work online...

you can bury the game early if you want, or you can try it out yourself =)

I have the no-bling mod and the sunmod, and both are applied online, physics files, I'm not sure, because I can't see too much difference yet... haven't really put it to crazy values though

Yes and it´s called CHEATING.

And do you think EA cares whether people cheat online or not? NO - hell no.

Poul