My oh my, how times have changed...
I should point out before this giant wall of text begins (as you can probably tell, this is that post I was talking about earlier), I don’t expect MANY of these features to be present for a good while. But I guess it would be nice to see them added in future updates and patches, wouldn’t you agree? By the way, if I missed anything, let me know and I’ll add it in here.
So I’ve run through this entire thread, at least the posts that were made in the last few months, and I’ve combined your own ideas for things that could improve this game with a few that I came up with. Perhaps these would make for useful patches that everyone who’s played The Crew at some point, would LOVE to have. I’m not going to even say anything else at this point; here are the ideas. I'll start with some technical issues, then move onto some ideas for new features that we came up with.
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First things first; a patch that allows you to play offline, and get rid of the microtransaction system. Crew credits are self-explanatory, but the fact that you’re required to have an account for whatever system you’re playing on, and an active internet connection just to play is a legitimate complaint that I’ve had against The Crew, and is essentially my biggest problem with it. How I can imagine this working is, if you lose your internet connection, you will get to keep whatever it is you’re doing, except all of the other players you see in sessions will be replaced by AI drivers with generic first names (like in the prologue), Quick Co-Op/Crew Co-Op and PvP events will become unavailable. In addition (and this is another major thing), being kicked back to the title screen when you lose your internet connection should no longer be an issue with this. I’m one of many that would like to see this; not because Test Drive Unlimited 2 did it first and it is a great idea, but because there are people that prefer to game offline and not have a PSN/XBL connection while gaming.
This is a personal one for me...it has to do with the game using your PSN avatar in-game. I don’t like that there’s no way to allow this game to NOT publicly display your avatar all the time while playing this game. So, I have an idea to remedy that: if you found a nice image, did some croppity-crop magic in whatever image-editing software you've got (by the way, the aspect ratio of your image should be 1:1), and saved it onto your PS4, I think that there should be an option in the menus that allows the game publicly display that instead of your avatar (I completely understand that a strict family-friendly filter would need to be developed in conjunction with this, and that all the images would have to go through this first). Or, barring that, have an assortment of avatars that you made and allow us to pick one of them to use. I don’t believe this should be too difficult with the resources that both Ubisoft and Ivory Tower have at their disposal.
The country should actually feel more populated with street racers by increasing/multiplying session size; I can imagine a major netcode update that triples the session size. The netcode would also have to be heavily optimized so that it can handle that much pressure with very few hiccups. I know that there are some developers that have created MMOs with netcode so good, it can handle over 50 people (if not more) in a single lobby/session at one time; I'm sure that I am thinking of ArenaNet's Guild Wars 2 when I say this. If those guys can do it, both Ubisoft and Ivory Tower can not only learn how to do it as well, but they can learn how to make it work very well. How about 48 player sessions, and 16 player crews?
A livery editor where players can create their own vinyls and potentially share them with others. Any stickers you create and save will go to a "Custom" stickers category where you can make your very own free-of-charge stickers to put on as many cars as you would like to, using a livery editor reminiscent of “Photoshop Lite”...or a watered-down GIMP, if you prefer. I imagine this would make a decent DLC add-on if it was this detailed and had some of the features Photoshop has. (Key word:
some) I'm not even 50% positive that compatibility with those Wacom tablets could be a key thing...but again, who exactly knows what Ivory Tower is plotting and scheming?
I’d like to create and save replays of races/missions that I really enjoyed. Driveclub lets you save replays of events you’ve completed, and view them at a later time. The “Share” button is okay for this, but I’d like to see my race from the viewpoints of cameras, helicopters, other parts of my car, and even the POVs of the other people I raced with. Perhaps the triangle button can be used to do this. Of course, the longer it took you to complete the mission, the longer it’s going to take to save it.
Let us choose what kind of session we want to play in, instead of dumping us into a session with players we’ve never met before. Want to play with close friends? Club members? By yourself, even? I think there should be an option on your mobile phone menu for that. If you were in a session that wasn’t public, you could invite other players in, and maybe start a PvP game with them if you were feeling like it.
I would bring back the Faction Missions “St. Louis Setup” and “Way Out West” (these are missions where you have to lose a 5-star wanted level in varying conditions), albeit at $4,400/110 RP payouts each time you complete one of these missions. I would have to believe there's room for at least ten more "Lose a 5-star Wanted Level"-type faction missions on the map.
A full-blown event editor that heavily expands on the one for FreeDrive Challenges, with a model similar to Test Drive Unlimited 2’s “Challenge Editor”, except here, you could place up to 128 checkpoints (including the start line). You can make your very own races or faction missions, test/save/publish them, and even vote for your own routes (or others you've bookmarked) to race on in PvP. All of these come complete with 1 to 7 AI opponents (going one step further than the devs will probably intend, you can even pick what names the AI opponents are, and visual-tune, but not performance-tune their cars) and the condition to complete said mission being “Finish in the Top 3” if you make the race long enough (usually if you take 12 minutes or longer to complete it).
An overhaul on the PvP mechanics. I can think of...
- 1. Two new PvP Lobby Types
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Hardcore (The rule set of these lobbies are different from normal PvP, in that...
*Your driving aids will be locked to “Hardcore”
*Your transmission will be set to “Manual”, or “Manual With Clutch” if you’re using a wheel
*Collisions and Traffic will be locked on
*You have a life bar (how big it is depends on the spec you're using). If it empties, you go into spectator mode for the remainder of the event.
*Even though these options cannot be changed, the mechanics make up for it by multiplying any rewards you get [except LP] in Hardcore lobbies by 1.5x their normal amount.)
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Tournament
*Single Elimination (One-on-one best 2-out-of-3 matches. You lose the match, you're out of it)
*Double Elimination (Same as the above, but if you lose one match, you're placed in a Loser's Bracket. Lose a match while in this bracket, and you're out of the tournament.)
*Series (All drivers compete in a set number of races - 3, 5, 7 or 10. The driver with the most points at the end is the winner.)
You can host one of the following kinds of tournaments among your friends, their friends and rivals, along with your rivals and their friends; you can also send other players who don't fall under any of the above categories an invitation to this tournament. These would mostly be for-fun affairs unless an eSports organization wanted to showcase this game...
*You would decide whether or not there would be a bronze-medal match in the tournament.
*A tournament can either be held in one day, or over a period of time.
*If you're co-ordinating this tournament over the internet, you would also have to find a time where all participants would be awake to start the tournament.
- 2. Four (as of 3/31/16) new PvP Modes
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Speed Run (Drive fast and keep at least two tires on the road, if the event takes place primarily on asphalt.)
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Capture (Collisions are locked on for this. Players must go into each other’s zones, collect their markers and bring them back to their base to score points. If you're not holding anything, you can ram another player to steal their marker. The player with the most points at the end of the 5 minute time limit wins.)
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Follow the Leader (Private Lobbies Only; you and your buddies must complete a route within a set amount of time. However, only one of you can see the next checkpoint, and that person changes with each checkpoint.)
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Speedtrap (Same as in the Summit qualifiers; you have to go through the radars at as high a speed as you can. Highest average speed through all the traps when time is up will be the winner.)
And some extras...
Separate cars and bikes into two separate lobbies (have an option so we can only pick one or the other).
The ability to select the weather conditions and the time of day for each round.
Several events having multiple specs (meaning you pick the event first, then you pick a spec to run it with. None of the events run all eight specs, and some only run one spec.)
I’m imagining how Blitz Brawl or Crown events would go when the cops get involved.
If even a fraction of what is listed here makes it into the final game via a patch/update, I feel that The Crew can be something that can be called the dictionary definition of "iconic"...you know, rather than the Ubisoft definition of "iconic".
That’s all there is for now; even I felt this wall was larger than most on this site. Again, let me know if you think I missed anything and I’ll add it in as best as I can.
