Ideas that will improve the game loads

[Alex[RM-UK]]

Hey,

I really really like this game, it really does have loads of potential for an exelent game. But, there are a few thigns that I don't like about it, so I have come up with a list of improvements.

GUI
First of all I shall start with the GUI (Graphical User Interface), The background on the main screen really doesn't do anything for it, it's washed out, blury and overall not nice at all. Next is the buttons, there in a good place, but again they seemed washed out, maybe increase the opacity of them? Change the font, make it look nicer.

The Bottom left and right Orange buttons also are horrible, and very hard to find. You may think there easy to find, but I spent quiet a while trying to figure out on this one race where to exit. Maybe remove the Exit orange button, and place it underneath the rest of the buttons?

Next we go to Options, and that background makes my eyes go funny it's not pretty at all. You should also merge 'Screen' and 'Graphics' together, as they are pretty much the same thing.

Also that Top Left 'Audio, Misc, Game' Black and yellow thing at the top is not nice at all.

When you change view to anything other than Inside First Person Car view, you need to work on of GUI Guages, at the moment they are borning, with a see-through background, and plain white. Make them so there more intresting, nice to look at. Also there should be an Option in the Options to remove that stering bar! I really don't like it it's horrible and gets in the way. Just thing on how you can improve the GUI of it, then it will be sparkling.

The Map in races is also really annoyign, try adding some color to it, maybe even make it static so it doesn't rotate with the direction?

Basicly, what i'm saying heer is give the whole games menus and GUI a face lift, make them more pretty, stand out, something intresting. This will straight away make the user go 'Woah, Nice now lets see what the game has got!' At the moment it seems, 'Hum, ok looks a small game - proberly wont be very good'. First impressions are everything!

Training
Training levels......All I can say is 'Hum'. Very good idea and I like the trainning levels, but guys come on the cars?! They handel like a brick on ice trying to walk! Please make the cars 'default' handing much much better for the trainning levels. It's painful.

Next thing about Trainning is after you have finished them. For example, the one where you have to do 1 lap of a figure of 8, I managed to do it finaly with the 'defaul't brick handling, just as I got through the finish line, I handbrake turned the car and it hit about 5 cones. It then came up saying I failed because I HIT 5 cones AFTER I had finished. I was very annoyed, make it so that the game will stop counting how many cones, and the time once the player has passed the finish line. I noticed when I got passed the finish line, the timmer was still going up!

Graphics
Graphics are good in this game, but they could be worked on to make it EVEN better, for example I don't see much FSAA (Full screen anti-analysing), or just standard AA (anti-analysing). Reflections could also be a bit better, as there a bit bland atm (on the car body, not the Mirrors). That brings me to my next point, the mirrors. There in a very werid place to start with, they seem to be off-screen most of the time. Try and position the mirrors in a better place that the driver will actually benifit from.

Inside of the car needs a little bit of a work out, the graphics in there (sterrting wheel, dash board) don't seem to have many polygons in them, try making the sterring wheel more round for example, and add better lightign into the car - it seems very dark at the moment.

In the options under Display you can choose 'Digital Spedo' Onec this is selected to 'Yes' The Spedo/rev/turbo are now on the screen, but they are also removed from the dash board. Have an option for 'Digital On Dashboard, Digital on Screen, Digital on Screen and Dashboard, and analog with all the options up there'

Have different types of colours for cars, not just basic colours. Gradients, Flip Paint where you can set 2-3 different colours for the car, and it will change in the light. Add your own stickers to the car etc etc. A choice of Wheels, Spoilers, bumbers, side skirts would be AMAZING in this game. That would you could really customize your car and make it stand out from the crowd.

Cars
There should be a wider variety of cars, Forumla 1 racing car, rally cars, GTR cars, Normal cars, old classics (not too many), Pick Up's (like the toyota pick up trucks) make a large variety of them, would be amazing with loads more cars.

Pits
When you go into the pits, there should be other people in the garages, just walking around (if you can do that) or just sitting there, looking at a screen. Make it more realistic. You also shouldn't be able to stop at ANY pit stop, it must be yours!, when you enter the pits an arrow should show you which one is your pit stop, then you stop there and once you do, your car should be jacked up, and an LCD Monitor screen should drop down and you can view your car stats, other players times etc, then you have options to either back up into the garage and tweak your car, change car etc.

That would be amazing if you were to put that in, would make the game so more realistic.

Money
Don't have credits, the word credits to me sounds arcadey, and not worth having in my opinion.

There should be a Single Player Option, where you start off with say, £5,000 and there a few cars in-which you can buy for that price. You can then do the car up, say new gear box, turbo's, spoliers like I say before, wheels, drive chains etc. Make the car WORTH having and make it yours. You should be able to do your car up with different parts.

You then compete in differnt races and win more money. If you don't have the right class car you can't enter a race, how do you get the right class car? Win more races, save up and buy the right class car!

Make more of a Single Player option of out the game, one where you can really mod your car, add differen't componets, have money to spend on it. Tune it, test it. Have some test tracks like 100M test track, 500M, 1000M, full oval circuit for speed, Salom courses so you can test how fast and how well your car handles before you actually go and race.

I don't mean like just go on a circuit and drive around, how quick can you get to the end of this 100M straight, 500, 1000 etc.

Please, think about these improvements, this game has so much potential it's amazing, doing all of the above improvements will make the game brilliant!.

Please think about them, took me alogn time to type all of this out. At leat consider them.

Thanks,

EDIT: Anoother thing is Key Binding, alot of the keys are not binadle, which is highly annoying as they are the ones I use the most and are in a nice comfy position where my hands siits. These include the number pad keys, Home, Edn, Insert, Page up, Delete and page down. And also a few of the special characters such as @~<>?

Make this bindable, and that would be great too!

[the_angry_angel]

Nothing new here.

You have to remember that LFS isnt being developed like a normal game. Its a stage effort, and its not finished.

A ltitle tip for graphics - set up your graphics drivers to turn AA and AF on for LFS.

[Alex[RM-UK]]

What do you mean by a Stage Effor?

My graphics are up full on the card and the game, Full AA and AF. But still, there isn't much in the game.

Do you think any of the ideas I mentioned up there will be included in the game for final release?

[avih]

I think you mistakingly entered LIVE for speed forum instead of NEED for speed forum.

This is a simulation. The focus is on driving. NOT on default gradient color cars etc.

Indeed, improvement can be done in many areas, but they focus where it counts for sim lovers. And that's driving. Flashy stuff is secondary here.

[the_angry_angel]

Stage effort: As in S2 still isnt the full LFS product.

Each Stage (e.g. S1, S2, S3) builds on the last. Whereas we can expect that most of the games released through a publisher to be at the final "gold" stage, LFS isnt - so dont expect it to be 100% working or polished.

[Bob Smith]

You can customise all the colours of the menu buttons and opacities you know. ;)

[Alex[RM-UK]]

I know that LFS isn't final release, but I did not know that it was beeing built in stages.

So maybe they will work on the graphics, GUI a bit more. I just hope that they will do the single player part

[the_angry_angel]

We can definately see LFS being worked on more - esp the graphics in S3.

Like everyone else, except for scawen, I have no idea what single player stuff we'll see - as its primarily an online sim, but who knows :)

[Fonnybone]

']
So maybe they will work on the graphics, GUI a bit more. I just hope that they will do the single player part

Ok, maybe you haven't notice, on LFS's website, what does it say under LFS?
"Online Racing Simulator". Somehow, i think single player isn't that high on the priority list either.

[Gunn]

There's some interesting thoughts in your post Alex and most have been discussed in previous times so you are not alone in some of these ideas. However we must remember that the main areas LFS is trying to excell in are online racing and realistic physics. It is very much about high quality racing, something that is hard to find in any game and in most "sims".

For racing to be conducted fairly there can be no engine upgrades and parts swaps, those features are best found in arcade racing games, not because they are unrealistic, but for fairness in racing. If one racer gets it, every racer needs to have it too. You wouldn't bother competing if there was a chance that one or more of your opponents had a big advantage that ruled your car completely out of contention.

Things like people walking around, birds flying in the air, crowd movement etc are not nearly as important as correct physics, good online connectivity and a stable gaming environment, although they would certainly add to the atmosphere of realism.

The more movement, objects and high-res textures there are on your screen the more work your hardware needs to do, which can mean lower frame rates. Lower FPS is not the end of the world for many games, but when you are on the edge of adhesion with your foot flat to the boards and your hungry competitors are closing in you will want every precious frame you can get. ;)

Remember too that we are only at Stage 2 of the development of this sim. Even then we are in the Alpha phase of the 2nd stage, technically we don't yet have S2.

As the major parts of the sim are perfected I'm sure we will see some amazing enhancements and features but I doubt that LFS will ever shy away from the main goals of stable and fair wheel-to-wheel online racing. As PC technology improves we may see more things become possible across the board.

In any case we can look forward to the many improvements and developments that are already planned for S2 and on to S3. :)

[Hallen]

Adding to Gunn's very well stated explanation;

Thanks for the well thought out and detailed suggestion list. Not all your ideas will be welcomed by the group, but some of them will find plenty of agreement.

Don't be disapointed when you see that future releases don't affect what you are talking about, there is only so much the team can do over any given time interval. I think you will find that the racing environment and the sheer exhilleration of racing online will far outway any button or background goofyness (to coin a phrase). :D

[KiDCoDEa]

']GUI
The background on the main screen really doesn't do anything for it, it's washed out, blury and overall not nice at all.

mainscreen will most probably change and bg pic also. the blured effect is just a side effect of having a 1024x texture stretched. corner buttons are there to stay coz they are the best imo.

[Woz]

']
Graphics
Graphics are good in this game, but they could be worked on to make it EVEN better, for example I don't see much FSAA (Full screen anti-analysing), or just standard AA (anti-analysing). Reflections could also be a bit better, as there a bit bland atm (on the car body, not the Mirrors). That brings me to my next point, the mirrors. There in a very werid place to start with, they seem to be off-screen most of the time. Try and position the mirrors in a better place that the driver will actually benifit from.

AA and AF are normally set in your graphics drivers and hence you caan select any values you want for these.

With the mirrrors it is possible to move them. I run fov of 67 and have the mirror fully visible in every car. Look in the option and you will find the setting.

']
Have different types of colours for cars, not just basic colours. Gradients, Flip Paint where you can set 2-3 different colours for the car, and it will change in the light. Add your own stickers to the car etc etc. A choice of Wheels, Spoilers, bumbers, side skirts would be AMAZING in this game. That would you could really customize your car and make it stand out from the crowd.


You can add all the stickers and graphics to the car you want by creating a custom skin and then uploading to LFS world. Everyone will then see you skin when you join a race.

As for bumpers, skirts and spoilers... NO NO NO. LFS is not a bling sim its about racing. If these stupid bits of plastic ever get added to LFS I hope they have the same negative performance effects as they have IRL. But then for most boy racer cars its all about 4" big bore pipes that make the car loud in a car slower than mums shopping car becausse theey can't afford to insure it. The new trend also appears to be putting the speedo and rev counter bolted onto the Bonnet, WTF.

']
Money
Don't have credits, the word credits to me sounds arcadey, and not worth having in my opinion.

There should be a Single Player Option, where you start off with say, £5,000 and there a few cars in-which you can buy for that price. You can then do the car up, say new gear box, turbo's, spoliers like I say before, wheels, drive chains etc. Make the car WORTH having and make it yours. You should be able to do your car up with different parts.

You then compete in differnt races and win more money. If you don't have the right class car you can't enter a race, how do you get the right class car? Win more races, save up and buy the right class car!

Make more of a Single Player option of out the game, one where you can really mod your car, add differen't componets, have money to spend on it. Tune it, test it. Have some test tracks like 100M test track, 500M, 1000M, full oval circuit for speed, Salom courses so you can test how fast and how well your car handles before you actually go and race.


No. This is exactly the thing that makes GT4 so crap. When you can't drive fast enough you just buy more power and beat the others that way. It takes skill to make a slow car go fast and keep the speed in the corner. The thing that makes LFS so great at the moment is that you know when you win a race its down to skill, not because you have a car with more power, grip etc.

You might see mods like this after S3 but I hope the hooner mentatilty never gets into the core of LFS.

[BlackSpider]

Well said, well said. I agree on all points there, Woz. (When I was boy-racing, I just drilled a hole in th eexhaust to get louder... But then, I was poor. :fence: )

As for the credits thing. I agree, credits sounds arcadey. Perhaps 'Points' would be better. But not money. That's headed for bad places, as pointed out by the Wozzer.

[tristancliffe]

Whole-heartedly agree with Woz.

And remember, the Devs ARE NOT idiots - they know not to include ricer stuff like 'phat pipes' and 'pointless glassfibre NACA ducts that don't lead anywhere, and are coloured in by a 3 year old to look like carbon fibre from 30,000ft TM)

[snewham]

I don't like teh idea of this money, LFS isn't like any other game, the sole purpose of the game is based around the multiplayer aspect and the single player mode supllements that.

If you introduce money then it takes the skill out of driving the car.

Maybe if it was performance upgrades but maybe visual upgrades like spoilers, racing wheels, racing seats etc. (NOT RICING VISUAL UPGRADES) then that might be ok.

If you were to do something like that you could ruin the whole point of the game

[Cue-Ball]

I agree that the GUI needs work. I don't care about the background picture (which can be changed anyway) or the colors. I'm more concerned with the layout and the way the options are presented. Many of the options are somewhat cryptic and there are no tooltips or anything to tell you what they do. Also, I think that the options that don't get used as often shouldn't be given the same screen real estate as often used options. For instance, most people rarely if ever change their screen resolution or their graphical options. However; most people change cars and skins quite often. So the car and skin selection should get visual priority. Also, it would be nice if you could "step through" the GUI. Instead of the current way that you click into a menu, set options, click back, click the next menu, set options, click back...maybe the game should have you pick the type of play you want (single player, multiplayer, hot lapping), then pick your track, then pick your car, then pick your opponents cars and skill levels. This would make it quicker and easier to get up and running.

I also agree that more cars would be nice. Not a ton more, but at least one or two decent V8 cars. Right now there are NO V8 cars in the game, even though many of the most popular racing series run RWD V8 coupes and sedans.

I also don't really see the point of the credits in the game. But I sure as heck don't want to see money used or upgrades for purchase.

I disagree with most everything else in the OP's original post.

[Messiah]

or example, the one where you have to do 1 lap of a figure of 8, I managed to do it finaly with the 'defaul't brick handling, just as I got through the finish line, I handbrake turned the car and it hit about 5 cones. It then came up saying I failed because I HIT 5 cones AFTER I had finished.
http://forum.rscnet.org/showthread.php?t=201872&highlight=cones :D
(It's in my bookmarks and I really enjoy to paste it :D )

For the graphics part... oh come on, the GUI isn't THAT bad. I never really understood that everyone's saying that the game is awesome but the GUI sucks, I like it. :shrug:
For those who need FSAA they can enable it in their driver's options, where is the problem? Wait I try to call it *shouts* "PROBLEEEM? WHERE ARE YOU?" ... hm .. no answer .. I don't use FSAA anyway.

I agree with the small map in the upper left, sometimes - depending on the sky - I cannot see the map and drivers properly or where I am. I'd also like it in another position where it is not spammed and hidden under tons of messages sometimes.

Anyway... every great sim I have seen got bad graphics and graphics engine that was sooo slow... see, SODA, Viper Racing, SportsCar GT... were great games alltogether. But I still remember the slow graphics in Viper Racing. But LFS got BOTH of it. Awesome physics and AAA media content by a professional! :rasp:

The cars don't feel like a brick to me. They are similar to road cars but you can drive quite fast with them. If you switch from a fast race-car with aerdynamics and stuff to some road car... guess what it feels like? It's a very general feeling but after you pause to play or just getting used to the slower car it doesn't feel anymore like a brick. In my humble opinion.

For the money and car parts...
I think you mistakingly entered LIVE for speed forum instead of NEED for speed forum.
It has been discussed lately.. and before that.. and before that, and long before that time also.

Animated models for pit stops and simply put some life into the environment. Wouldn't be that bad, especially if you can turn it off as an option for the people with slower computers who may not handle the extra power needed very well. I won't completely doubt that this will be some feature of S3 or a following patch.

New cars and tracks will definately come but which ones and what classes... I don't think this is a real point to discuss for now since S2 full is still to be finished yet.

[uttoro]

Alex[RM-UK]

Hey, you came from NFSU? GT4? Liveforspeed isnt for dirvers: cant-take-a-corner-I-wanna-buy-another-suspension!

Some of the Gui thingies: you didnt found the right option. Ex.:GPS can be set static. Take a look again at the options! :)

How the GUI looks: I really like it as it is, but if you want the prettiestest GUI, ask the devs, maybe they make an Eyecandy-o-meter for the program, and you can pull it high enough.

Graphics: at the GTR cars hopefully there will be changes in gauges, and interior.

Cars: work in progress, but i hope Eric dont spend time on creating trucks.

Pits: you are right: shouldnt be able to pit any box. Ok, so have you got a good idea? Share it, please. About pepole walking around: this not makes a simulator realistic, it would be for your eyes. LCD: what do you want to check on it?

Money, buying things: ROTFL :D NFSU? STFU

Cue-Ball, I cant really understand you. LFS has the cleanest, btw the simplyest UI atm. The only change I agreee,is the tooltips for new users. Most of the racers are familiar with the options, as you see live the effect of what changed.

If you dont change your screen resoliton, dont click on that option.

Skin changing: simly select it, I cant see any easyer way.

Menu "step through" or whaterver: kinda strange you described your idea, but I count one click for the game menu, one click for the start button :)
Your menu would be sequential, maybe 4-5 clicks, why to click the car selection screen every time i want to race? The way S2 works, is much easyer.

BTW thanks, writing this post I recognized how genial, the GUI is in LFS! :)

About V8. FO8? Have you ever meet her? :)

Credits: Work in progress.

Guys, these are nearly not necessary changes!!! I honestly hope the devs wont spend time changing good things in LFS. Think about different weather conditions that randomly changes! That would be fun!

[Cue-Ball]

Cue-Ball, I cant really understand you. LFS has the cleanest, btw the simplyest UI atm. The only change I agreee,is the tooltips for new users. Most of the racers are familiar with the options, as you see live the effect of what changed.

Clean and simple are not the same thing. The GUI is "clean" simply because it only has rectangle buttons that are laid out in rows. It certainly is NOT simple though. If it were, there would not be so many comments in the RSC forums about "what does this button do?".


If you dont change your screen resoliton, dont click on that option.

Of course. What I'm suggesting is that the options that are used less should be less prominent. This is the basis of good user interface design, whether it be for a racing similator or a DVD player. The play and stop buttons on a DVD player are larger and given more prominent placing because they get used the most. Other, lesser used buttons are smaller or are tucked away so that only the things the user needs the most are shown the most. This keeps things simple and lessens confusion. The same thing goes for design of virtually anything.

Skin changing: simly select it, I cant see any easyer way.
It's obviously not easy enough since many, many people have asked on the forums how to change skins. And once you get enough skins the screen starts to get cluttered with them.

Menu "step through" or whaterver: kinda strange you described your idea, but I count one click for the game menu, one click for the start button :)
Your menu would be sequential, maybe 4-5 clicks, why to click the car selection screen every time i want to race? The way S2 works, is much easyer.
I'm not talking about the number of times you have to click the mouse. I'm talking about the number of times you have to navigate from one menu, back to the main menu, to another menu, back to the main menu, etc. Depending on what you want to do the current UI might be quicker. But I can guarantee that changing the layout a bit would make a lot of tasks simpler and more streamlined. Perhaps I can photoshop up something to explain my point a bit better.

About V8. FO8? Have you ever meet her? :)
Okay, so there technically is a V8 car in the game. But it's not a road car and it's not front engine. I'm talking about a front engine, RWD road car like a Mustang, Monaro, Charger, Corvette, etc. Not an F1 style car. I don't like or drive the open wheel cars at all, and neither do most of my friends.

[uttoro]

Ok, I got your point :)

So in the options, there should be easy mode, and expert mode, right? I agree.

[Cue-Ball]

I was thinking, not so much an easy mode and an expert mode. More like, if you're a beginner it should be very easy to click, click, click and start a race. Once you know what you're doing, then you can delve into the suspension settings, transmission settings, etc.

It should be really easy for a newbie to start the game, pick a track, pick a car, add some AI players, and drive. The more the UI helps step them through the process, the easier it will be. Similarly, when you first install the game and run it, perhaps there could be a wizard that takes you through setting up your graphical options, naming your player, picking a suit, etc. So that once that's done you probably won't need to go back to those screens again.

And putting in some "how a car works" and "how suspension options affect handling" information sure wouldn't hurt. A little info button next to each setting would help tremendously, IMO.

[Gunn]

... most people rarely if ever change their screen resolution or their graphical options.Not true at all. Many people change resolutions to take screenshots or make movies, others use a different res in multiplayer than in single player mode. ;)

[Gunn]

STFU
You know that kind of expression is really not required here. Differences of opinion are natural, but there's no need to show disrespect. :(