Nascar heat 5 help, is it me or the game.... maybe time for a refund

[themetallikid]

Ok, I’ve been trying to give this game its fair shake as I mostly enjoyed NH4, and even though this is more like NH 4.5, I wanted to like it just as much as 4. But I’m into roadblocks that have pretty much broken the game for me, and I’m debating about looking into a refund and just going back to 4.



If there is something I’m missing in the settings, please tell me…I’ve looked over my career settings several times and I do not see where to make any adjustments to remove these 2 issues or make them more tolerable.



1) Rival system – is anyone else thinking this system is broke in NH5? Its been a joke the first 2 seasons I’ve raced in my career starting on dirt tracks. I generally try to run a clean race. There is going to be some bumping in dirt tracks cause of the nature of how the cars navigate the turns however, I do not intentionally misdirect cars, take them out or even slam the inside to use them as a temporary wall. For most of my 1st year and also my 2nd year, on average I have had about 6 or 7 drivers absolutely livid with me. I apologize to try and keep the on track driving legitimate, but eventually they become rivals. The most I’ve had has been 9. 9 out of 24 drivers have been outraged at my driving. Even on races where had maybe 1 or 2 light bumps during corners…never rear ended, never slammed cars. Even Tony Stewart, who lapped me 2-3 times my first year starting out, and I literally had no interactions with on the track complained. On this note as well, the drivers have 0 motivation to race around me to race my car, they only know the lines they are stuck on and you cannot race around them as they push you all over. I have settings setup to minimize collision stability with their cars and have their stability minimized as well, still I get pushed around like a go kart.



I kept driving through my career thinking that when I got better specs for my car I’d be more competitive and maybe less contact. By the time I got my car upgraded enough to compete, I pretty much have 15 rivals, 0 friends and every race is pretty much a scripted disaster waiting to happen (more on this below in #2). At this point, I cannot complete a stage without being purposely driven into, slammed into the wall or most races spun around into the infield area. This then results in me falling behind in positions and never being able to recover. What is up with this system? To never have gotten a congratulatory video, or anything and have 15 rivals out of 23 drivers is unrealistic the way I drive. For full disclosure, I have a wheel/pedal setup, mounted on stand in front of my tv. I’m not a controller wanna be, I’ve been playing racing games my whole life….if it was a difficulty setting or something resulting from my driving, I’d be happy to adjust it, but I cannot find a setting and my driving is good enough to take 1st places and have friends and only 2 or 3 rivals in NH4





2) Rubber banding – HOW DO I TURN THIS OFF!! This is basically real world track Mario Kart. My car is upgraded to a 95/95/95, and there are several things I’m not understand and some inconsistencies. First, practice and qualifying times. For examples sake only, my practice goal time is 19.214. I can nail that my first lap, lets say I get a 19.005. I then go to qualifying, round 1 my goal is 18.875 (this exact time gets me 12th and into 2nd round), and lets say I qualify with a 18.589. Round 2 of qualifying my goal is now 19.234 and I can’t break 19.300 for my time. Your talking over .500 second difference using the same car, same track….So then I skip out of qualifying and stay in 12th. Now when the race starts I’m cranking out 18.7’s all day, while going around traffic. So why the extra difficulty in round 2?



Speaking of inconsistent times….DISCLAIMER* I realize in the truck/car series’ there is drafting and its more of a thing to get a run where you can sometimes pass and then sorta stall…but these are dirt tracks and not a lot of real drafting is going on. Your car is your car and your line is your line, there isn’t a lot of aerodynamic testing of lines going on. So how is it that my 18.700’s can get me from 12th position up to 2nd (god forbid I lead a lap) during the first stage finishing the stage 3.0 behind 1st but 2.5 ahead of 3rd place, but then during the 2nd stage my 18.700’s aren’t good enough to keep me in the top 5. The final stage I’m usually able to gain a place or 2, but again same drive times and stuck in 3rd or 4th. When combined with the issues in #1 above, the stages are predictable….stage 1 I usually can get up front and lead a lap or several…however with about 5 or 6 laps left I will get passed by 1-3 cars like I’m standing still….they will all pass me and go about 0.5-1.5 seconds ahead of me….then stall out but able to stay ahead of me. Stage 2 is when I usually get spun around and wrecked into the wall….usually ending up back in about 10th or so…which is ok, I don’t mind working my way back up, but its literally impossible to gain ground. Meanwhile the leaders are catching up and lap me during stage 2. However they also lap 9th place as well. So now I’m the 2nd car 1 lap down and while 9th gets the lucky down to restart stage 3 on the lead lap, I am now the lead car 1 lap down and cannot progress higher than 10th.



Again if this was a result of my ****ty driving or bad pit strategy it’d be understandable, but this literally happens like clockwork every race.



This last race I did on my lunch break, the same scenario played out, I quit the race adjusted my difficulty from Hard to Normal and tried again. I skipped practice/qualifying and started at the back of the pack, within 5 laps I was in the top 5. I would expect this in some sort of timing with a 95/95/95 car….however I again got to the 3rd place and could not gain ground on the first/second place cars. Enter Stage 2, starting in 3rd I thought ok this is where I make my move….which I did and was in first by about 2.5 seconds for about 10 of the 16 laps….then the usual issue came….the 3 cards behind me, magically caught up to me, passed me, while slamming me into the wall….I spun around, and ended up in 9th. I was not able to gain any ground, but got passed by the 10th place car and the lead car…again becoming the 2nd car 1 lap down and thus at the end of stage 2, becoming the lead car 1 lap down and frozen in the 10-12th places as 13th was 2 laps down.

[BurghFan]

1. Yeah, the rivalry system is ridiculous for the most part. There is a setting to turn it off though in this years game. On PS4 hit square when your in the main career window and scroll down and you should see it.

2. Turning driving assists off seems to help a little with rubber-banding, but there is still no real balance to be found as far as AI difficulty.

[themetallikid]

Quote: Originally Posted by BurghFan

1. Yeah, the rivalry system is ridiculous for the most part. There is a setting to turn it off though in this years game. On PS4 hit square when your in the main career window and scroll down and you should see it. 2. Turning driving assists off seems to help a little with rubber-banding, but there is still no real balance to be found as far as AI difficulty.

1. I tried looking for it, and I can turn off draft partners, but I didnt see anything regarding the rival system, I'll have to look again.

2. I have all the assists off on my settings, and the cpu settings as turned off or min/max'ed out to help even it out, but its still a mess.

[pk500]

This game is trash. It's essentially 2020 DLC that should be sold for $20 and instead is being sold as a new game for $50. Add that with 704 Games' standard practice of fleecing customers on DLC paint jobs, and I'm done with this series.

One other criticism: 704 still is using the damn Unity Engine for this game. That platform was released in 2005 for mobile gaming, and a legitimate gaming company is still using it for a major CONSOLE release 15 years later?

Child, please.

[brandon27]

It's not you; it's the game. Sadly, it's that simple.

[UFCMPunk]

Quote: Originally Posted by pk500

This game is trash. It's essentially 2020 DLC that should be sold for $20 and instead is being sold as a new game for $50. Add that with 704 Games' standard practice of fleecing customers on DLC paint jobs, and I'm done with this series. One other criticism: 704 still is using the damn Unity Engine for this game. That platform was released in 2005 for mobile gaming, and a legitimate gaming company is still using it for a major CONSOLE release 15 years later? Child, please.

Yeah I have NASCAR Heat 4, not getting 5. I wish Codemasters could get the license to do NASCAR games. I hear much more positive reviews about their game and I wanted to give F1 2020 a shot but can't find it anywhere yet.