Nascar 2011 The Game

[TCrouch]

That's exactly what I think. Here's the post I just made at OS (sorry for constantly copying/pasting):

I've alternated between having a great deal of love and a great amount of hatred for the game, in almost even amounts.

I think you can have a lot of fun in short sprint races where you don't have to worry about pit strategy and cautions, but that's a huge portion of NASCAR racing to take out of the equation.

I'm glad I'm not reviewing this one. I'd really be in a tough spot

I would sum it up like this:

In its current state, it's not worth a purchase for anybody wanting anything other than a quick, short race against AI cars that can be fun to race, but sometimes a little overaggressive.

HOWEVER...

I haven't seen a development team so actively involved with communicating to their audience their intentions and desire for ALL feedback (not just the good stuff). I, possibly naively, think that they can actually sort some of the horrendous stuff out--like yellow flags and pit AI. That's the stuff that usually takes the most tweaking to fix, and it's actually fixable. It's not like it would take a complete re-write of the AI to make the game driveable. It's actually very good at RACING, but not good at the ancillary stuff around the racing environment.

So I would say if you're looking for a complete NASCAR experience, hold off for probably a few months and save yourself some aggravation. Check back around June and see what it's become. I'm pretty confident it will become at least a close representation of the sport--but as it stands, it's like a Cliff's Notes version of a NASCAR event.

...but if you are the type that wants a full career mode and stat tracking, avoid it entirely, as that's not something that just suddenly gets patched in.

[TCrouch]

And from the official forums, the Devs listed all of the things they're currently fixing/investigating. If they truly fix these issues, it will actually be worth a purchase for most.

Bugs:

* Fix lack of Caution Flags - To Be Fixed
* Fix issues with the A.I. exiting the pits and then pulling straight up the track - To Be Fixed
* Reconfigure the damage to improve the look and add more debris on impact - To Be Fixed
* Fix Cautions Lights being illuminated all of the time - To Be Fixed
* Improve the PS3 voice comms - To Be Fixed
* Fix the Rolling Starts Online/Offline so the cars begin in the correct formation and together - To Be Fixed
* Fix the instant wrecking during Online Rolling Starts - To Be Fixed
* Fix the Lobby Race Start Counter freezing - To Be Fixed
* Fix Spotter saying “Clear” too often - To Be Fixed
* Improve general stability and freezing issues - To Be Fixed


Improvements:

* Change the Gas indicator so it defaults to full in the pit stop interface - To Be Fixed
* Draft effect both on the car and visual to be tweaked - To Be Fixed
* In Private games, the host will start the timer when they are ready - To Be Fixed
* Add support for the Porsche GT2 wheel - To Be Added
* Add support for the T500 wheel - To Be Added
* Allow the HUD to be completely turned off - To Be Added
* Free up the A.I. cars so that when they are hit by a player they will get loose - To Be Fixed
* Ensure only Carl Edwards performs a back flip - To Be Fixed
* Add the ability to change your Online Car - To Be Added


Investigating:

* A.I. being overly aggressive when bump drafting the player
* A.I. difficulty being too easy when qualifying
* A.I. pitting problems causing them to collide in to each other
* A.I. bunching on certain tracks
* A.I. slamming their brakes on for no reason
* Hitting the wall often turns the car ending up with the player facing the wrong way

[pk500]

Holy shite, that's quite a laundry list. Sounds like this game needs:

[Rodster]

Hehe PK that's a tiny list compared to the laundry list of bugs etc for Gran Turismo 5.

[TCrouch]

You have no idea, PK. It's an absolute mess as it stands now. Granted, NR2003 wasn't the Holy Grail of Caution flag AI, either (or racing AI), but I was hoping for more from something released 8 years later.

[DChaps]

This has to be a case of the publisher telling the devs we must release by "X" date, get code as workable as possible and fix the rest later (if at all). As a product manager/software developer I am always interested to know the true story behind these types of design decisions. Rarely is it a case of people just being plain stupid or incompetent, even if the end result appears to make it look that way. The scenarios Terry is describing are absolute show-stoppers, so unless they just have zero QA and unit testing, there is no way that stuff makes it to release without everyone being fully aware of it. Their thinking must be that it is already over a month past the Nascar season start and their initial published release date, and for whatever reason wanted to time it with the Shift 2 release. Being that this is the only Nascar game in town for the consoles, they must be banking on people buying and waiting for a patch, or assuming the Nascar crowd is going to eat it up regardless of the bugs. Interesting and frustrating no matter how you look at it.

[TCrouch]

Yes. And now I'm reading all over that there's catch up AI in. I haven't seen it, but I wouldn't doubt since so many people are reporting it.

I know when my car tagged a wall and was driving like a pig, I struggled to pass cars all race long. There were times when 4 or 5 cars got by me and just dusted me. I've also outrun the cars pretty well, but I think what people are considering catch up AI is the possibility of the AI cars not "falling off" as much as they should during a long run. They seem to stick to their low line and drive hard even at the end of a green flag run, where I have to back off and cut the corner wide, etc.

But they have been incredibly good at relaying and responding to feedback (I was requested to join a team of a few guys to communicate issues back to the developers), so I'm encouraged.

I'm cautiously optimistic at this point, which is better than I could have said yesterday. But right now, steer way, WAY clear of this one, Don. I think you're spot on with your assessment, though. They initially said that they'd have it out in time for the season, and then I bet the publisher put their foot down and they HAD to release it on the 29th.

[DChaps]

I checked out their official forums and found the following on their FAQ:

http://forums.eutechnyx.com/threads/349 ... READ-FIRST!

Updated: 27th March 2011:

Q. Will the AI be realistic in the way of fuel consumption and tire wear?
A. Yes, the A.I. operate under exactly the same conditions as the player.

Q. Do you have full control of the car under yellow flags and down the pit road?
A. Under yellow, you do not control the car in to the pit road, only under green.

Q. Will the A.I. bumpdraft realistically? Alos, will we see the 2-car breakaway?
A. Yes, the A.I will bumpdraft, as well as perform 2-car breakaways. Players will also be able to do this.

Terry, would you say that these statements are all false based on your experience so far? It seems like many of the posts I have read here, OS and iRacing forums would say otherwise.

[TCrouch]

#1 is questionable at best.

#2 and #3 are true.

If #1 is true, then they have the best setups known to man, as the car will rotate flawlessly, at full speed, from start to finish of a green flag run. But I have no way to actually analyze data since I can't see lap times to chart whether they're actually adjusting or not.

[TCrouch]

I swear I'm not making this up:

I just went in to a practice session at Martinsville to see if I could turn some laps and be competitive in the race.

The first lap, I see the pit entry barrels strewn all about turn 3 and a car nose-in to the outside retaining wall, smoking the tires.

What I then saw down the front stretch was cars actually PILING UP INSIDE PIT ROAD. I mean cars like jumping up on top of other cars.

What I realized when I stopped and looked was that cars were turning around on pit road and driving out backwards...so they were exiting the turn 3 entrance, making a sharp left (right through the barrels, littering them about the track), and then continually slamming into each other as they tried to pull a 180 and head back around into turns 3 and 4.

It created a combination of huge pile ups every time I entered 3 and barrel-dodging from the yellow barrels that got plowed around.

I'm absolutely stunned sh*t like this happens. Anybody who played this for 1 or 2 days would see this, which means the publisher DEFINITELY pushed them to get it out immediately with no alternative.

[b_assassin]

I may just wait to start my career until the proper 2011 vehicles and points system is available, so I've just been playing single races thus far. Generally speaking, the game drives pretty well, but they just missed it on a lot of the finer details, which happens when a game isn't given enough time for polish and bug fixing. I was honestly pretty skeptical about this game, given the general disdain Europeans have for Nascar, I wasn't expecting a UK dev to be able to deliver a believable Nascar experience, but too Eutechnyx's credit, it drives pretty well IMO. I'm going to hold on to this one in the hopes they get a few patches out there to clean up the bigger issues.

I haven't been playing long enough races to run into the pit and caution issues, but if they are as bad as described, I'm glad I've been running shorter races. Sounds like they are trying to fix this stuff through the patch.

Other nitpicks:
- 2010 car roster? For shame...
- visuals are all over the place, especially the lighting and shadows
- cameras are generally buggy, with rampant clipping with interior vehicle geometry, you can see clipped driver hands sometimes in the non-wheel cockpit view, hood damage doesn't seem to be rendered in cockpit view (at least I haven't noticed it).
- game just falls a part visually in replays, all cars have statically rendered tires and wheels, dynamic shadows appear broken due to draw distance issues with far cameras, can't watch the race from proper broadcast camera (my fav thing to do in replays), driver hands are animated, but steering wheels aren't...
- is it me, or do half of the 'night races' just all occur at dusk? I recall an announcement that the had to cut day/night transitions before the game shipped? if they couldn't handle the lighting transition, they should have just locked these races to night time.
- there is no proper progression to the 'race weekend', I can't practice and tweak my setup, you just get dumped right into qualifying then into the race.
- playing on 'very hard' AI setting and have yet to need to tweak my setup to be competitive.

I hope they get the chance to keep tweaking and fix bugs, there is a decent racing game in there I think, just needs more time and love.

[GB_Simo]

There's a 'work in progress' indicator now attached to the list of bugs Terry provided earlier. If you're following the work being done on this game, have a look here:

http://forums.eutechnyx.com/threads/813 ... post125586

Nice to see a developer taking the time to provide an update like that. Much better post-release support than some companies I could mention.

[toonarmy]

I passed on this game upon release due to all the bugs being reported. I picked it up earlier this week when I found it for $29.99. I really like this game. The massive patch is supposedly coming very soon, so I figured why not grab it at that price. I know there are massive problems with online and longer races, so I am just doing Career Mode with 10% races and also doing the challenges until the patch is released. For someone who is not obsessed with setups and perfect realism I think NASCAR 2011 does a heck of a job of making for fun racing. The menus and presentation are cool. The graphics are more than passable. The drafting is implemented well. But most of all the handling is solid and the game is addictive. It's going to be awesome when they release the 2011 season in the patch and clean up many of the bugs. Bottom line is that this game kicks the s*** out of EA's NASCAR games and makes for a solid base to build upon for future NASCAR editions. Hopefully they will add the additional series in future versions, as well as make the career mode a bit more engrossing. Also, they really need to get the champagne out of the celebrations in the winner's circle. This is not F1. Odd that the developer put that in there when all they had to do was watch several end of race celebrations to see what they look like. In any case, NASCAR 2011 has been a pleasant surprise for me.

[TCrouch]

It's taken them over 2 months to even finish that patch (that was supposed to be done in Early May).

The short races work, and they're generally fun. But the AI bunches up ridiculously at some tracks and comes to an almost-stop in the corners, making it frustrating to run with them from race to race. But the absolute worst part of the game (that I refused to believe until I read about it over and over and then started experiencing it myself) is the fact that it can BURN UP YOUR FFB WHEEL.

That's absolutely insane. I had my FF just turn off and my wheel start making horrible grinding sounds playing this game. Too many reports out there about it blowing up their wheels for me to even try it until I see the patch released. I've still got it on a shelf, but with a controller it doesn't feel like NASCAR racing to me, and with a wheel it will explode. That and I have to race short sprints just to be able to finish a race without the AI cars annihilating each other.

This game doesn't beat ANYTHING in its current state. The driving model is actually really good, but it can't even hold a candle to "finished" racing games.

[Teal]

I'm going to go back and repurchase the last EA NASCAR game. Loved that one.

[toonarmy]

It's taken them over 2 months to even finish that patch (that was supposed to be done in Early May).

The short races work, and they're generally fun. But the AI bunches up ridiculously at some tracks and comes to an almost-stop in the corners, making it frustrating to run with them from race to race. But the absolute worst part of the game (that I refused to believe until I read about it over and over and then started experiencing it myself) is the fact that it can BURN UP YOUR FFB WHEEL.

That's absolutely insane. I had my FF just turn off and my wheel start making horrible grinding sounds playing this game. Too many reports out there about it blowing up their wheels for me to even try it until I see the patch released. I've still got it on a shelf, but with a controller it doesn't feel like NASCAR racing to me, and with a wheel it will explode. That and I have to race short sprints just to be able to finish a race without the AI cars annihilating each other.

This game doesn't beat ANYTHING in its current state. The driving model is actually really good, but it can't even hold a candle to "finished" racing games.

That sucks about the wheel issue. Just as a pick up and play game for someone wanting to do some casual short races I think it does beat the EA NASCAR games due to the handling model alone. Just an opinion of course. From reading the developer's forum it sounds like the patch is going to iron out most of the major issues and make this game a whole lot better for people wanting more than a casual game of short races.

[TCrouch]

I'm going to go back and repurchase the last EA NASCAR game. Loved that one.

I've read comments from a few guys that NASCAR 08 actually plays really well after all the patches they did to it.

And I'm pretty confident that NTG 2011 will be really good after a few patches, too--that's the ONLY reason I still have it collecting dust on a shelf.

[F308GTB]

FYI - patch for the 360 version is out. Need to give it a shot tonight.

[TCrouch]

I'll paste what I typed up over at OS. I didn't put it over here because I didn't think anybody cared hehe:

I'm going to try to keep this level-headed, as I've been so furious at this game for so long, but I just tried 4 short races at lunch. I deleted all of my prior save games and data, so I had to set it up like a brand new profile.

I set the AI to Very Hard and the control to Legend (didn't see anything about Hardcore?). I wanted to do more "testing" in the first few races just to see what I'd have, and then run one short race at the end of my lunch hour to see how it played out to finish one.

First Test: Martinsville
I am decent at getting around Martinsville, so I decided to give it a shot. I loaded up a quick race, which I naturally forgot had NO PRACTICE. Straight to qual/race? I still think that's one of the worst design decisions ever. So I head on out for a qual lap, not having run the NTG2011 handling model in well over a month. I discover it's obviously a lot more forgiving than iRacing, and I putt-putt around the track, clipping the inside curb and generally being very slow.

I qualified 43rd...which was a good sign. Even on Very Hard at most tracks I could qualify near the front in my sleep before, so that was nice. At the start of the race, I'm able to run 3 wide with the AI cars through the corners, and they're taking very believable lines. I work my way up to 27th in about 10 or 12 laps, using both the inside and outside lanes to pass cars. Eventually I get a wiggle and an AI car dives underneath me. I don't notice it, move down, and get turned. Totally my fault--but a YELLOW FLIES!!! Holy crap, color me shocked. I don't pit, and I'm still in 27th. As far as I know, a spin was an EOL penalty? So that was off. But I hammer down again, pick up another 5 or 6 spots, and end up turned again due to my aggression. However, both times a yellow flew, so I was shocked.

I was actually having fun.

Second Test: California
I like to test at California because it's such a tough track to get the AI right on. The entries are so varied and the track chews the tires up so much that if you have something wrong, it's magnified. A few warts showed up here, but it was only one race so I'm not sure what to make of it yet. The AI cars took some REALLY weird lines into the corners. Some would drive it so hard down into the corner that they would be chewing that RF up--but they kept it up for quite a while, like they weren't losing time at all. I'll have to keep an eye on this. However, I qualified 24th using the standard default setup. I was able to work my way into the teens pretty easily by just managing my corner entry and beating guys into the corner. There were two very different lines here run by the AI, which was encouraging. However, with the default setup, getting it into the corner at the same pace as the AI cars had me tearing up my tires, and after 6 or 7 laps they were dusting me and I was dropping back rapidly. I'll have to test this more tonight, to see if running the high groove (or loosening the car up) will help. Another caution, but this one caused by the AI on a 3-wide attempt into turn 1. More encouraging sights.

Test 3: Daytona
I started a Career just to see how that first race would go. Using defaults again, I qualified 6th (instead of 1st, which was way too easy to do before!). The guys up front were Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick, etc. Believable. I get a nose under Gordon heading down the backstretch and end up falling in line behind Stewart, who's leading. I drag my brake to avoid plowing him in the @$$, tuck up behind him, and am shocked at how easy it is to stay stuck on his bumper. Gordon ended up catching up, and the 3 of us started yarding the field. However, a 4-car train caught us on the outside and managed to power past. No two car tango, but it was still fun regardless. I backed out after about 10 or 12 laps of that, as I was starting to run out of time for a short race to finish.

Final Test: Michigan
I know my way around Michigan, so I figured this would be the best place to test an actual race from flag to flag. I set it for 20 laps so it would still be relatively short, and qualified 9th. To my surprise, the biggest AI issue of the day appeared here. Coming out of 4, the vast majority of the cars slowed to a crawl. I blew by the first few on lap 1, and then within a couple more laps took the lead. Their qualifying laps were fast, so something about side by side racing coming off of 4 scares them, which can be a problem.

Through 20 laps, I gained 7.8 seconds on 2nd place and won in a sleepwalker of a race. So there's the good news--I didn't have catch up AI that kept them 3 seconds behind me the whole race. The distance from me to Jimmie Johnson stayed consistently increasing. However, the AI off of 4 was bothersome, but I only saw them for about 4 or 5 laps. I'll need more time to really see if it's a huge issue or not.

At the end of my hour for lunch, I had one thought in my mind:

"Damn that was fun. Can't wait to try it again tonight."

Considering that's about the furthest thing away from my prior thoughts on the game, I'm pretty shocked. And my wheel didn't bug out on me during any of the races. It moved a little oddly when it went to a caution flag menu or something, but overall it was pretty smooth.

My biggest tests will be tonight, when I actually add pit stops into the equation. But considering how fun the AI was to run with and the frequency of yellow flags, the pitting under green may or may not be a problem anymore for me. I'll certainly find out tonight.

It may not be perfect, but at least it seems playable.

[DChaps]

Thanks for posting your impressions post patch Terry. This game frustrated the hell out of me too because it seems to have the makings of a pretty good Nascar sim, but just completely unfinished and buggy. So clearly an example where they were forced to release far before it was ready. Did this patch update the season with correct drivers and paint schemes?

[TCrouch]

There's DLC for that coming in a couple weeks. But I just ran a 125 lapper at Richmond when I got home and saw some of the same issues.

First, the cars all roll around single-file and never vary. Think Gran Turismo type AI. In an oval game, that's not good. I wanted to be able to screenshot as I looked down the front stretch and saw 28 or 30 cars nose to tail in a single line at speed. Kind of sad.

I ran over 100 laps under green conditions since they never change up their lines or anything--just follow each other around. Once they had to pit, 2 yellows ensued almost immediately. Busch didn't pit on the first one, and then immediately tried to pit on the restart, which was seriously whacked AI. When he did, he collected another car and created another instant yellow.

Overall, it was a snoozer of a race. The AI warts and pit issues still exist, but I pitted under green and lost the exact amount of time I should have, so I don't think there's any "slo mo" pitting going on.

[toonarmy]

I got the patch for the PS3 yesterday, which supposedly includes the DLC (455mb). Haven't played enough to know if the patch does much or not. People over at the official forum for the game do not seem to be too impressed with the patch lol.

[TCrouch]

Tried some more this past weekend, and cars still bunch up off of turn exits way too much for me to have fun with it. That and the AI cars try to bump draft so hard at plate tracks that they frequently turn you and wreck you if you wiggle even the slightest amount. I can't finish the first race of a career, so I have a tough time wanting to play it.

[toonarmy]

Put in a lot of hours with the patched game yesterday and part of today. The one downside to the patch is now my game freezes quite a bit in the online area, whereas it was not doing that before. Once I got into an online race everything was fine, other than the morons who keep quitting mid-race when they were behind because they want to keep their stats high. I finished my 2010 season in career mode and spent several minutes trying to find out how to advance to the next season. I did a search on the web and found out a "career" is only one season in this game. WTF?!? I started a 2011 "career" and found the AI to be about the same as before. There are some updated tracks and the new points system. Damage has been changed, but not for the better. Front-end damage now occurs for the smallest of things. I know NASCAR cars are sort of fragile, but a rubber traffic cone should not take off most of my front end as it has done a couple of times in this game. The game still has some bad issues with pitting. Twice now in longer races I have pitted and then after the cut scene that shows you exiting pit row my car has been involved in a massive pileup stacked like 3 cars high at the end of pit row. Of course the user has zero control of the car until the car gets back onto the track so it really sucks to race all those laps then be put out of contention with crap like that from the cpu. One bizarre thing I saw was this morning in an offline race. A gaggle of cars exited pit row as I came down the front stretch, and rather than following the road that integrates them back into the mix they just went straight across the track sideways at warp speed upon exiting pit road and took out several cars like a horizontal guillotine. That's the only time I've seen that happen. At times I really love playing this game, while at others I'm left scratching my head.