Need For Speed Heat - General Discussion

[Chikane_GTR]

Question what's the point of the air suspensions? do they have any use or just show?

 

[WanganDream]

Appearance only.

 

[Silent Drifter]

Well, went out on Thanksgiving night with my friends, and ended up getting NFS Heat for $30 at Walmart. I'll probably try it out sometime Friday, but while I was waiting this past week, for the sale. I decided to pop in NFSU2 for old times sake. Still had my save from way back when too, and it's still enjoyable for me, as it was back then.

 

[BLiTZ]

Because Most wanted fanboys always wanted a muh story in a nfs game.

Stories in a racing game have always been cringe. Carbon and Most wanted themselves had cringy stories that made no sense at all.

For me, ultimate cringe was TOCA Race Driver on PS2, but it was such a novel idea at the time that it spurred you on to complete the game and take the ****er that killed your dad out in the last race!

In terms of NFS, my first experience was NFSU, so I've always been used to a degree of a story.

To this day (and despite its comic book cut scenes being a shadow of the first game's cgi cinematics) I still regard NFSU2 as having one of the best progressions of any game (Kaido Racer came close), forcing you to explore and do side challenges in order to unlock new cars and parts.

I've recently watched BlackPanthaa's let's play series and it brought back a lot of memories. I never realised that the AE86 was OP and only chose it as I'd just discovered Initial D and was always surprised that I managed to complete the game with it.

From NFSU2 onwards, the story lines became cheesier, trying to hard to mimic FATF and somehow the stories became shorter, less of a reason to progress and more of a series of training missions to get you up to a mid level for online play.

I never played Payback, but watched some footage online. The one thing I will say it does best is help with NFS's biggest issue, it's identity crisis.

Like I say, I started at NFSU, so to me NFS is meant to be about illegal street racing and (lower end) tuner cars. To those who started earlier, it's all about the exotics and cop chases. The modern games have tried to bring the two together and at times its jarring.

So at least Payback had the poor people in their tuner cars going up against the rich people in their hypercars which sort of worked.

I think it'd be good if they made a game set in specific times. The story could start in the 80's/90's, you're there in your Foxbody, going up against 70's muscle cars with only the odd Countach or Testarossa for super car company.

Fast forward to the 00's, the 'retired' racer is forced back onto the streets where the kids are all running Civics and Eclipses. You rise to the top, but get into some 'interesting' business arrangements.

Skip to present day and you're living the life of luxury, you have the pick of all the best hypercars money can buy (or can be 'acquired' just don't ask) but people are out to take you down.

The possibilities with lighting, music and story would be epic imo

 

[Bloodytears]

I didn't say it was bad, but it was so short. Everything happened like in a week of real time. I know, shouldn't start it when completed the game to level 50, but approached it fairly in a slow car, but it took 2 hours or so to breath through. Some demo version of games have more story to offer than Heat.

 

[NLxAROSA]

Stories in a racing game have always been cringe. Carbon and Most wanted themselves had cringy stories that made no sense at all.

That's what I liked about the original TDU. No ******** story, just racing/exploring/collecting and that's it.

That said, I don't mind the NFS:Heat story and I think it's not that bad, it's just completely useless if you focused on Day/Night racing to open up the map/unlocks first. I really liked the side story missions where you get the cars from NFSU and NFSU2, but I suppose that's because I'm wearing nostalgia glasses with regards to those two games.

The only thing I still want post-story is to have all events available with decent rewards (400+) so I'm not grinding the same five or so when grinding for money or rep. And maybe more leaderboards and decent MP.

 

[rallymorten]

Hey, guess who's back? And yes, for once, that reference is not only intended, but somewhat topical as well. So enjoy it. Oh, and sorry for any heart attacks I may have caused to those of you that got a notification about this post.

I wonder is there going to be some Map expansion DLC's like in Most Wanted 2012.

..I feel like that's a ridiculous amount of map that's normally obscured from view and serves no other purpose than "connect Palm City to the mainland when you look at the map because that's definitely a major factor in world design, amirite GTA?" that at least parts of it will have been made with an eye to the future. I mean, beyond the first row of hills, that's currently just wasted resources, as is the curious amount of detail in some places. Then again, 2015 did much the same thing, so it wouldn't be the first time Ghost's pulled that trick.

We may get S14 in DLC.

..I'm not saying it's outright impossible and will never happen, but there is a difference between simple marketing and actually teasing future content. A little along the same lines as when people discovered that all Porsches in the VLN had Gran Turismo banners and thus Porsche was definitely for realsies coming to GT6.

If it's ever present at an official EA/NFS event, then yes, there's a case for speculation. On that note:

we seem to have enough cars for a JDM pack based on speculations (RX8 and Eclipse GSX).

"Speculation"? As in there's some sort of evidence to back these up that I should be able to find something about at relative ease? Asking because, while I admittedly aren't keeping as close an eye on NFS as I am on other things, all I've come across is the usual collage of "I want these cars plz add" that lists every single 90's "JDM" that may or may not be a Toyota, so if there is anything to this, that's interesting.

I think it'd be good if they made a game set in specific times.

Driver '76 but it's a NFS game? While I think it's an interesting idea, there's a lot of ways in which it could become an absolute disaster. What a perfect segway this is to the rest of my post. Prepare for bibles. Yeah, I did just do that.

Story-driven racing games can work if done right. Not a lot of them are "done right", hence most of them feel rubbish and might as well have been cut in favor of improving the rest of the experience. That's about as TL;DR as I can possibly go on this topic.

Going a bit more into it:

Because someone brought up ToCA Race Driver, while I cannot speak out about the first one (still very much on my radar), I'll stick my neck out and say Race Driver 2 hits a spot. It sort of works, but mostly because of the ridiculous characterisations and stereotypes at play. The french primadonna, the brazilian with a second-place-is-the-first-loser mentality, the aussie.. aussie, really. And then there's every single time Rick and Mandy share the stage. Cheesy one-liners galore!

It's not an impactful or meaningful story in any way, but it's a good Gouda cheese in a similar way to most 80's and 90's action movies - and it knows it and revels in it. It helps that the game underneath is solid, too, but we'll get to that.

Heat is a little along those same lines. Ghost have finally decided that NFS games should be cheesy and are rolling with it - and most of the time, it works. We'll get back to that as well.

A story can only ever make a good game better (or ruin them) - but it can never ever make a bad game good. FlatOut 3, for instance, will always be horrible, even if it had the best story in the business. Slightly exaggerated example, maybe, but it highlights my point perfectly. If you just want to tell a story, make it a movie. Or a YouTube series. Or whatever. Just don't make it a game.

Oh, and if you do make it a game anyway, I have just one criteria: either make it meaningful to the point of pondering if I've actually spent the last few hours playing GTA IV, Spec Ops: The Line, or even The Last Of Us, or be at least decent cheese. Bonus points are awarded if you're the rare case that combines the two and does it well, but if you can't (or won't) do just one of them, I'd say to focus your efforts on making the rest of the game as good as possible.

That got a little sidetracked, so it's fortunate that I've only got one more thing to say:

Shaw should've gotten more screen time though, dude's basically a gift from God every time he shows up.

..yeah, I would agree with that. Shaw is arguably the closest we've been to mozzarella since.. well, Cross, to be honest. Cross was good cheese, helped by how - while he does appear a few times and sends perhaps just a few too many voice messages - he's generally used sparingly and doesn't overstay his welcome. He's generally well-paced. Shaw never quite operates on the same levels, but he's above and beyond just about every other character in a Ghost game combined. Just.. don't overuse him like I overuse sarcasm, amirite? Would you look at that, a joke where I'm the butt. #relatable.

 

[WanganDream]

I heard that the RX-8 was scanned for racing games. And the guy at TCP Magic USA, a tuner related to Speedhunters, testified on Instagram that the RX-8 would be added to Heat. (All posts related to RX-8 have been removed from his post)

A reddit user was taking a screenshot of the reply.

It is important to have doubts about indefinite information, but there is some credible information about RX-8.
Also, about S14, they seem to reveal information on Friday. It will be clear in a few moments whether this is just a collaboration or if S14 will really be added.

 

[T0MMY3688]

"Speculation"? As in there's some sort of evidence to back these up that I should be able to find something about at relative ease? Asking because, while I admittedly aren't keeping as close an eye on NFS as I am on other things, all I've come across is the usual collage of "I want these cars plz add" that lists every single 90's "JDM" that may or may not be a Toyota, so if there is anything to this, that's interesting.

The post above mine posted about the RX8.

As for the Eclipse, there was a post from Speedhunters Instagram story asking anyone has access to a clean ‘99 Eclipse GSX. The speculation is that Speedhunters are trying to get a clean stock Eclipse for photo reference but nothing is really confirmed.

 

[rallymorten]

Interesting, and a double-whammy at that. Yeah, those two examples are textbook speculation, what with Speedhunters being an EA thing and all that. Definitely plausible.

 

[LeGeNd-1]

Just bought Heat thanks to the Black Friday sale. Only got 2 hours of gameplay in so far (thanks to a certain Mr Hamilton who needs beating), but wow I'm pleasantly surprised. Having finished Payback recently its memories are still fresh in my mind, and Heat is clearly an improvement in every area. Graphics are a lot better during daytime, and nighttime is almost as good as 2015. The city is gorgeous and being smaller than Payback actually makes it more cohesive and there are no wasted areas (seriously, I never spent more than 5 minutes in the barren southern desert area of Fortune Valley). The story is pretty typical for an NFS game so far, not as fun as Payback but at least it's non-intrusive and the characters don't grate like they did in 2015.

The handling is much more tolerable and as advertised, gripping is actually usable and not a handicap. I'd rate it 8/10, with 9.5/10 being MW 2012 (Payback was 6/10 and 2015 was 2/10 ). My only complaint is that tapping the throttle induces a drift too easily (even when live tune setting is set to brake drift). I'm hoping it will improve with the higher "Race" parts because I want to be able to feather the throttle through a turn and still keep a smooth line instead of drifting (ala Black Box games). On the other hand, the drifting is very intuitive and surprisingly requires a lot of finesse to maintain and end. I was caught by surprise the first time and plowed straight through the colorful course dividers My starting 180SX is still very slow though so this impression might change later on. And on that note, the 180SX seems to be the starter car for a LOT of NFS games (NFSU2, Prostreet, Undercover).

The day/night gimmick is alright. Personally I think it would be better and less immersion breaking to have a natural cycle instead of the LSD-trip switch, with cops naturally getting more aggressive as the sun sets. But being able to choose when to drive at day/night is good too. I just wish there isn't such a stark distinction as to where to earn bank/rep. Maybe make it so you still earn rep during the day, but highly reduced (like 1/3). Vice versa for bank at night. It just feels like a needless divide to extend the short story mode IMO. Personally, I'm not big into cop chases, so night mode is going to be useless for me once I beat story mode. Which is a shame because the city at night is gorgeous.

Some complaints: the HUD is getting more and more messier with each game it seems. There are multiple layers to every menu and some of the choices aren't obvious. The objectives menu (tapping right on d-pad) is so confusing at first. Maybe I just need to get used to it but Burnout Paradise and MW 2012 are still my template for functional & clean open world driving game menus. Also the initial loading time is still painfully long. Another issue is lack of controller configuration. Seriously who thinks it's a good idea to assign horn button to L3 instead of R3 ??? It sounds like I'm sending a Morse code when trying to drift or make sudden maneuvers Character customization is also unnecessary. Better spend that modeling time on more bodykits Ghost. This isn't GTA. Music wise, it's to be expected stuff from NFS. Usually I only find 2-3 good tunes to salvage from the scrapheap jukebox, and it's no different here. I like Tycho's Easy best. So atmospheric when you're chilling in the garage. Almost as good as Glam Bucket from Undercover

And lastly some question for you all experts. Since money is quite hard to come by in early parts of the game, is it more worthwhile to tune your stock engine, save up for engine swap or save up for a better car? Also, can you swap parts between cars without restriction (I know not all cars can accept all engine swaps)? Like if I sell my 180SX for example, would it be better to strip it of parts first before selling it so I can use it on other cars? Finally do you ever get more than 5 garage slots? I've only seen the 1 garage so far and finding more safe houses don't seem to unlock more slots.

 

[T0MMY3688]

My only complaint is that tapping the throttle induces a drift too easily (even when live tune setting is set to brake drift). I'm hoping it will improve with the higher "Race" parts because I want to be able to feather the throttle through a turn and still keep a smooth line instead of drifting (ala Black Box games). On the other hand, the drifting is very intuitive and surprisingly requires a lot of finesse to maintain and end. I was caught by surprise the first time and plowed straight through the colorful course dividers My starting 180SX is still very slow though so this impression might change later on. And on that note, the 180SX seems to be the starter car for a LOT of NFS games (NFSU2, Prostreet, Undercover).

You can almost eliminate throttle drift if you have traction control on, the car will only slide if you pull the handbrake. Some cars are really understeer with traction control on, Dodge Challenger is just awful and Evo X is badly understeer last I tried it. While the Ferrari 488 I got lately seem to skid a bit even with traction control on, Countach, Evo 9 and M3 E30 grips very well when traction control is on.

And lastly some question for you all experts. Since money is quite hard to come by in early parts of the game, is it more worthwhile to tune your stock engine, save up for engine swap or save up for a better car? Also, can you swap parts between cars without restriction (I know not all cars can accept all engine swaps)? Like if I sell my 180SX for example, would it be better to strip it of parts first before selling it so I can use it on other cars? Finally do you ever get more than 5 garage slots? I've only seen the 1 garage so far and finding more safe houses don't seem to unlock more slots.

You can use your starter and upgrade it to max stats (likely requires engine swaps) but if there is another car that you like just switch to it. Money comes by easily later in the game. I think buying a new car might be cheaper in some cases, engine swaps are very expensive on certain cars. Parts like the crankshaft and ECU can be swapped between cars and I heard engine swaps can be swapped if both cars supports the same engine.

Also, you can't sell your starter 180SX for some reason but you can remove the newer parts you bought and move to the other car. I'm not too sure about the garage limit but it is definitely more than the 8 display slots, I have 19 cars in my garage at the moment. The safe house around the map is just places for you to bank your rep during the night.

 

[LeGeNd-1]

You can almost eliminate throttle drift if you have traction control on, the car will only slide if you pull the handbrake. Some cars are really understeer with traction control on, Dodge Challenger is just awful and Evo X is badly understeer last I tried it. While the Ferrari 488 I got lately seem to skid a bit even with traction control on, Countach, Evo 9 and M3 E30 grips very well when traction control is on.



You can use your starter and upgrade it to max stats (likely requires engine swaps) but if there is another car that you like just switch to it. Money comes by easily later in the game. I think buying a new car might be cheaper in some cases, engine swaps are very expensive on certain cars. Parts like the crankshaft and ECU can be swapped between cars and I heard engine swaps can be swapped if both cars supports the same engine.

Also, you can't sell your starter 180SX for some reason but you can remove the newer parts you bought and move to the other car. I'm not too sure about the garage limit but it is definitely more than the 8 display slots, I have 19 cars in my garage at the moment. The safe house around the map is just places for you to bank your rep during the night.

Cool, thanks for the tips 👍 I haven't tried traction control yet because in past games it kills your cornering speed. Will it still drift if you tap the brake (not handbrake) using TC on? Ideally for me, tapping throttle = no drift, tap brake = drift, handbrake = big drift or U-turn. Also doesn't this kinda makes the drift style (throttle/brake) choice useless? Probably will become more clearer once my car gets faster though.

Good to hear about the garage slots. I was getting worried because in the garage icon it only shows 'Swap Car (5)". I assume it's tied to your rep level then.

 

[T0MMY3688]

Cool, thanks for the tips 👍 I haven't tried traction control yet because in past games it kills your cornering speed. Will it still drift if you tap the brake (not handbrake) using TC on? Ideally for me, tapping throttle = no drift, tap brake = drift, handbrake = big drift or U-turn. Also doesn't this kinda makes the drift style (throttle/brake) choice useless? Probably will become more clearer once my car gets faster though.

Good to hear about the garage slots. I was getting worried because in the garage icon it only shows 'Swap Car (5)". I assume it's tied to your rep level then.

Usually it doesn't drifts at all if you tap the brakes only the handbrake can force it into one, the only car that skids a bit even with traction control on is the 488 GTB and Huracan. If you want tap brakes to drift, you can switch the drift style back to brake, tapping the accelerator shouldn't make it drift.

'Swap Car (5)' actually meant you have 5 cars in the garage, probably your deluxe edition cars.

 

[LeGeNd-1]

Usually it doesn't drifts at all if you tap the brakes only the handbrake can force it into one, the only car that skids a bit even with traction control on is the 488 GTB and Huracan. If you want tap brakes to drift, you can switch the drift style back to brake, tapping the accelerator shouldn't make it drift.

'Swap Car (5)' actually meant you have 5 cars in the garage, probably your deluxe edition cars.

Well that's the confusing part. On my 180SX, TC off, drift style brake, tapping the throttle still breaks out into a drift. I installed race tyres and diff and it's a bit better, but doesn't eliminate it completely. Will have to try TC on and report back 👍

Ah so that's what it actually means Makes sense now.

 

[astrarobotica]

And lastly some question for you all experts. Since money is quite hard to come by in early parts of the game, is it more worthwhile to tune your stock engine, save up for engine swap or save up for a better car?

I haven't gotten super far yet, but engine swaps do show you max potential horsepower, so it does help to gauge potential performance a bit. The engine swap level requirements can be pretty high and they're not particularly cheap either, so early on buying a car with a higher base performance number is usually the simpler choice. It seems like engine swaps get more interesting later on when you have a bit of money to spend and you want to experiment and go a little nuts.

 

[LeGeNd-1]

I haven't gotten super far yet, but engine swaps do show you max potential horsepower, so it does help to gauge potential performance a bit. The engine swap level requirements can be pretty high and they're not particularly cheap either, so early on buying a car with a higher base performance number is usually the simpler choice. It seems like engine swaps get more interesting later on when you have a bit of money to spend and you want to experiment and go a little nuts.

Yeah I'm aware of the level and cost requirements for swaps. My thinking is that the cost of a new car + upgrades is going to come out roughly the same, and you have no guarantee that the new car is gonna handle well. Whereas with engine swap you can see there and then what the projected performance benefits are. I think I'm gonna stick with the stock engine and tune it as far as it could go, and if that's not enough just buy a new car. Save the swaps for when I've beat the game and unlocked everything, as you said 👍

The swaps along with the handling map already makes this game a lot more interesting from a performance tuning standpoint, and all that without the use of terrible MT-based speedcards system. Amazing to see what Ghost can do if they're not just trying to please the bean counters.

 

[astrarobotica]

Yeah I'm aware of the level and cost requirements for swaps. My thinking is that the cost of a new car + upgrades is going to come out roughly the same, and you have no guarantee that the new car is gonna handle well. Whereas with engine swap you can see there and then what the projected performance benefits are. I think I'm gonna stick with the stock engine and tune it as far as it could go, and if that's not enough just buy a new car. Save the swaps for when I've beat the game and unlocked everything, as you said 👍

The swaps along with the handling map already makes this game a lot more interesting from a performance tuning standpoint, and all that without the use of terrible MT-based speedcards system. Amazing to see what Ghost can do if they're not just trying to please the bean counters.

Yeah I agree. I stayed far away from Payback for that reason, but I played a bit of 2015 and I always felt the tuning system was a bit too complicated for such an arcadey game. The handling map is such a good way to simplify that while still giving us the freedom to alter a car's handling.

 

[Sage Ages]

2015's tuning system was simple enough to understand. The cars just handled like ass no matter what you did to them

 

[Bloodytears]

Well that's the confusing part. On my 180SX, TC off, drift style brake, tapping the throttle still breaks out into a drift. I installed race tyres and diff and it's a bit better, but doesn't eliminate it completely. Will have to try TC on and report back 👍

Ah so that's what it actually means Makes sense now.

Dunno about Nissan, but c63 with drift set up sliding from simple turning, without much applie from either gas or brakes. The thing is you can't change angle easily with a gas, when live tune set to break. With all ultimate parts and v12, c63 can't hold the grip no matter what, slight turn and you on style in an angle have only one choice to control thortle.

 

[LeGeNd-1]

Yeah I agree. I stayed far away from Payback for that reason, but I played a bit of 2015 and I always felt the tuning system was a bit too complicated for such an arcadey game. The handling map is such a good way to simplify that while still giving us the freedom to alter a car's handling.

Yeah 2015 was a mess. None of the slider descriptions do as they said, and even with trial & error I can never get consistent results between different cars I had a drift Huracan there and all the settings were tuned for understeer Truly one of the most painful racing games I've ever played in my 20 years of gaming lol.

Dunno about Nissan, but c63 with drift set up sliding from simple turning, without much applie from either gas or brakes. The thing is you can't change angle easily with a gas, when live tune set to break. With all ultimate parts and v12, c63 can't hold the grip no matter what, slight turn and you on style in an angle have only one choice to control thortle.

Well that's probably because you have too much power. Have you equipped maximum on road/race parts?

I wonder how close to Black Box era games' handling we can get with the higher level cars/parts, but anyway, I should stop hanging around here and get playing so I can find out for myself

 

[NoStopN]

After last night's Gran Turismo racing, I checked the PS Store's Black Friday deals. The deluxe edition was down to $42, so I decided to get it. Twenty minutes later, I was dealing with that jerk Shaw. Three hours later, I was tired & went to sleep. This will be a good fill in for the next week. Work messed with my hours, so I'll want to crash cops for fun & I'm not happy with Gran Turismo's choices for daily races either.

 

[turk1993]

I have a graphical problem with this game, some of the textures don't load and there is alot of pop in in textures. I need to stand still for 20sec to let the texture load, and its not like the textures are high quality ore something. they are one of the lowest quality textures i have seen lately in a racing game. Its really anoying and disturbs me when driving. I enjoy the game its one of the better NFS games lately but i hope they fix this problem. My pc specs are GPU: GTX 1080 OC - CPU: I7 7700K 4.7GHZ - RAM: 16gb DDR4 2886mhz - STORAGE: Samsung M2 NVME 970 PLUS 1TB + Toshiba hdd 2TB 7200rpm 64mb. I tried on both drives but got the same problem.

 

[NoStopN]

@turk1993 I get a similar experience & I'm on a PS4 Pro. EA, the kings of send sub-par titles out as a cash grab.

 

[cudwieser]

After last night's Gran Turismo racing, I checked the PS Store's Black Friday deals. The deluxe edition was down to $42, so I decided to get it. Twenty minutes later, I was dealing with that jerk Shaw. Three hours later, I was tired & went to sleep. This will be a good fill in for the next week. Work messed with my hours, so I'll want to crash cops for fun & I'm not happy with Gran Turismo's choices for daily races either.

Be careful. The cops really do bite back in this game. Unlike nfs of old going toe to toe with cops is akin to bear baiting. You'd better have a way out before laying on a beat down.

 

[laserviper]

Just wanting a bit of clarification on something. After the 1st event of the driving story I have to build my own vehicle for the rest of that line right? Looking at the off road one but I don't have any suitable vehicle at the number being asked

 

[SomePlayaDude]

Just wanting a bit of clarification on something. After the 1st event of the driving story I have to build my own vehicle for the rest of that line right? Looking at the off road one but I don't have any suitable vehicle at the number being asked

You're always welcome to just put off-road parts on your current car, and swap it out whenever you need it for whatever occasion of racing you're doing.

It's really all about those parts, not the car. It's possible to beat the game with your starter car only.

 

[flatdarkmars]

Just wanting a bit of clarification on something. After the 1st event of the driving story I have to build my own vehicle for the rest of that line right? Looking at the off road one but I don't have any suitable vehicle at the number being asked

You do need your own vehicle. I find the off-road events can be done with a car far below the recommended performance level, as long as it's set up for off-road use.

 

[SestoScudo]

No v12 swap for the 458 Italia!!!

I wasted 208k for this car

 

[NoStopN]

Be careful. The cops really do bite back in this game. Unlike nfs of old going toe to toe with cops is akin to bear baiting. You'd better have a way out before laying on a beat down.

As I've found out. Everybody jokes about certain cars, like the Dodge Challenger, being heavy like a tank, but they aren't tank strong. I get busted almost any time I drive mine. The fragile RX-7 is more capable to turn on a dime & let the cops fly by a turn that I make. It's basically my go to for every mission & race.