My two Cents about the Handling

[Sausehuhn]

I had a 12-race tournament today and a few thoughts about the handling came to my mind. I just want to write them down before I a) forget about it again b) I want to know if anybody thinks the same and c) because I've enough spare time as it seems.

So: Compared to Pure (and that's the only handling you cold compare it with, besides of WO:HD of course) I really see some minor differences that... well... make the game hard to enjoy (at least for me).
I've that feeling that the ships react very direct and sensitive. That means if I'm on a straight and I'm not on the perfect line and make a turn to correct that, I always slam direclty into the next wall or at least my racing gets worse.
I did not have that with Pure.
Another thing: Even though you would think that, because of the more direct handling, you could now make 90°/180°-turns and alike easier than in Pure. Well I can't. I always have that feeling that the ships need a long and hard airbrake turn combined with as much sideshifting as possible and some off-the-gas-action.

I have to say that's really annoying. Especially because there are a few tracks I just can't follow the perfect racing line (or something close to it), because if I make a turn without airbrakes it's not working and if I do use the airbrakes, then it doesn't work either.
Good example for that: the long curves at The Amphiseum and some turns of Metropia.
I just see me slamming into the walls. I can go for the 1st nonetheless, but it's just not that much fun if you recharge your energy after every weapon pad because your ship makes wild left-right turns on the tracks that are just not corrigible because of the game's handling.

Never experienced this that drammatically in Pure.

Anybody feels the same?

[mdhay]

50% with ya there, Sausehuhn.

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah I think I'm 50% with you too. I find the controls really twitchy so totally agree with your first point. It feels like the handling was designed for analogue which, technically, the PSP has but because of the lack of any resistance in the analogue nub it's very difficult to get any subtlety out of it. And the d-pad seems programmed more towards the extremes of the analogue.

While I agree with the end result of your second point, to me it seems more about the shape of the tracks than the handling here. The tighter turns often seem to have less of a straight lead-in. Personally, I prefer the more interesting layouts.

[lunar]

Totally with you on the over-sensitive handling at least, especially on sweeping corners like at the Amphiseum and on twisting mag-strips too. Pure`s handling would have taken these so much more accurately and smoothly. I started Pulse on external view, and found that unlike in Pure I could time the corners okay with it, but it was just way too twitchy for me, in the end, and I`m having much more success with the corners on internal view now.

[Dogg Thang]

One thing I guess I should chime in on is that I feel far more in control of Pure's handling than Pulse's only until Rapier and then especially Phantom. For me, Pure just broke down in Phantom when it came to handling and it was like steering some sort of hyper wild animal.

Pulse, for me, is a lot more consistant. If I could have Pure's Flash handling at Phantom speeds, I'd easily prefer Pure's but, as it is, Pulse wins out on Phantom and that's the class I like to play.

[Sausehuhn]

Hah! That's funny mate. For me it's exactly the other way around :D

[lunar]

it was like steering some sort of hyper wild animal.


I agree, but that`s why I think I`ll prefer Pure in the long run. The mad feeling isn`t quite there in Pulse.

Pure was such an exciting game, for me, and I`m not sure I feel the same way about Pulse. Something about the handling or possibly the tracks, as you say, doesn`t give the same buzz.

[phl0w]

Funnily enough I fired up Pure today on a 2-hour-train-ride after trialing for this week's Challenge. I started with Porta Kora and Blue Ridge (Phantom of course) and was amazed how direct and tight Pure's controls felt and how well I did despite my playing Pulse exclusively over the last couple of months. Sure, the floaty feeling isn't quite there, but then it's just aesthetics in Pulse either and doesn't have that impact on physics like say in 2097 or 3. I totally agree on the ships' being way too sensitive on straights. I am a Piranha-Phantom-only player and sometimes really have difficulty keeping the beast in a straight line- I wonder how one can race straight ahead with one of the better handling ships :dizzy Add sticky walls to that and it can get VERY cumbersome and annoying. Dogg's totally right with stating that Pure's physics are much more consistent. If it weren't for Pure's awful framerate (even more noticable after playing Pulse for so long) I'd totally go back. Tracks are much more "wipeout" and the Piranha looks way better :nod
For what it's worth, Sausehuhn, here's some techniques I find helpful with Pulse's physics: Firstly, especially on Phantom, I airbrake BEFORE turning, that way the ship's headed for the apex, I can release the brakes and only apply slight adjustments with the d-pad.
Secondly, WO's old counter-airbraking does work in Pulse too, you just don't airbrake, but want to sideshift away from a corner to airbrake into it as the sideshift happens. Looks a bit like the AP's driving if you pull it off correctly.
Sorry if that's old news for you (most probably), I thought I mention it, because I don't really experience the sort of turning problems you described.

[Frances_Penfold]

I put a couple hours this weekend into Pure lap times (in Freeplay mode) and was struck by the physics difference with Pulse as well.

I'm not sure how much I like one more than the other-- except to say that the absence of Freeplay mode in Pulse is sorely missed. Seven laps in a Speed Lap event isn't nearly enough for hot-lapping.

It would be cool if WOZ'ers starting playing both Pure and Pulse consistently, and thus were active time trialing and online play available for both games. Pure is just too awesome to abandon for Pulse, IMHO.

[Egg]

... and the Piranha looks way better :nod

Lalalalalalalaaaaa

Not listening!

:b

[phl0w]

Let me be more specific: Not the default skin, but the alternative livery of Pure's Piranha is the best ever!

[Vincent_VII]

hmmm... my two cents:

The air brakes don't really brake at all. They work more like stabilizers in Pulse.

The ships don't really "swing" in Pulse. Then again the only track that would require it is O7. I was not too nuts over Pure's handling but I did like the ability to swing the ships that had been sorely missing in Fusion. I think Pulse's handling is a giant step in the right direction but the ability to "drift" needs to be given back.

side note: The biggest issue I had with Pure's handling was that it felt like emulated NeGcon inputs on the D pad. I never knew what it was that rubbed me the wrong way about the game but now that I have a NeGcon, I do.

[Lance]

I airbrake BEFORE turning,...

Qirex pilots have been doing that since.... hm... WO1! :D

[RJ O'Connell]

^ ...and have stopped after WO3:SE. The way Feliks Levovich is running things don't expect that to change.

Now, personally, I like the increased responsiveness of the handling - it can become twitchy at times, but hey - anything that floats is automatically better than Fusion. I like the hadnling better than in Pure because there were times that I felt like I had to airbrake at every single corner at any speed level above the now-defunct Vector.

[jklasdf]

i thought it was way harder to control the ships in pure. i like pulse a lot more cause the handling seems a lot more solid.

[zargz]

I prefere pulses handling over pures.

[Sausehuhn]

I noticed I have less problems when I use Assegai, which is a good thing. So maybe it's also my ship choice that was wrong. Anyway: I had less problems with other ships in Pure than I have in Pulse.

And then there's always that damn barrel roll that do not execute. I tend to don't use them anymore if there's too much action on the screen - and that's not uncommon with hard AI

:brickwall

[Asayyeah]

Max your EGX is fantastic on Arc Prime black i can tell you.

About my feeling on the handling & Pulse, i passed through many levels.
1st was : Wow cool and fast, then i prefered Pure for some obscure reasons and finally i am convinced by the physic of that game : you ve got plenty of possible airbraking techniques, mixed with multiple BR locations and a way far better pitch control for Dpad.

[TearsToShreds]

Does your last line refer to Pure or Pulse? :)

[phl0w]

He definitely means Pulse. Because the pitch control was close to non-existant in Pure ;)
However, I have to disagree on the airbraking techniques. Maybe there are really more, seeing that ships are much more responsive in Pulse and don't require you to be that precise (to achieve a PL, that is, you DO have to drive precisely to clock a fast lap nonetheless). Even the heavy Piranha can be flung around corners in so many different ways, while in Pure your options to take a corner in the "Beast" were pretty limited. I don't think, though, that all, i.e. techniques in Pulse, of them are equally effective, what narrows your options on Phantom down to about two. To take precise lines, cut apices straight and all the stuff that matters for fast WO laps, you still have to rely on the brake and/or steer+sideshift cornering found to be the most effective since Pure.

[Lance]

^^^^}apices{ :D :+ :rock

[phl0w]

Yeah, well... the mixed blessing of having learned Latin and Ancient Greek, but no spoken language in school, except of course for English...

[Asayyeah]

Yes i mean Pulse :)

Apice = Apex ?

MAybe i was a bit too much enthusiastic about 'plenty of different ' airbrakes techniques :paperbag . I just wanted to say apart from the wellknown sideshift and airbrakes ala pure, they add an interesting new fonction to the airbrakes everyone knows is when you press one airbrake constantly while turning. I must reckon i had few difficulties at the beginning with that new way of airbraking on curves. And it's pretty difficult at that stage for me to think which is better to adopt or not as a best technique.

[lunar]

I see what you mean, I`m not sure about that Pulse braking yet. I still take those Amphiseum 180s the Pure way: brake tapping then sideshift out. But maybe I need to train myself to do it the Pulse way, it`s just hard to believe that such long braking can be healthy for your lap times.