This thread exposed thoughts about categories for Carbon games.
Update (06/02/2015) : reorganized categories, and some fixes about differences between consoles...
[section=Need for Speed: Carbon (PC, PS2, PS3, GCN, Wii, Xbox, Xbox 360)]Categories
- Career any%
- Career any% (segmented)
- Career 100%
- Career 100% (segmented)
- Challenge Series Sub-categories
- Console : PC, PS3, Xbox 360 / PS2, GCN, Wii, Xbox
- Starting Class (?) : Exotic / Muscle / Tuner Variables
- Edition : Standard / Collector
- Version (PC only) : Initial / 1.3 / 1.4
- Transmission (?) : Automatic / Manual [section=Need for Speed: Carbon - Own the City (GBA, NDS, PSP, Zeebo)]Categories
- Career any%
- Career 100%
- Game 100% Sub-categories
- Console : GBA, NDS / PSP, Zeebo Variables
- Transmission (?) : Automatic / Manual
Hey Grim !
Ow, yes ! Sub-directories depending on car class is missing. A Muscle run would be longer to start than a Tuner or Exotic, so some tricks are needed. That's a good idea. I'll add it to my post.
Transmission is a good point too. I should try playing with Manual transmission...
My bad.. you are right for CE cars. So, what do you think I need to change for this game ? Maybe the only category that need to be separated is Challenge Series, no ?
And yeah, I realize that a AllRewardCards% is a little too much. I'll let it in the optional list for now and we'll see.
EDIT : I just saw Ewil answer in my other thread. Maybe we have to consider it before I edit the CE section.
Does it really have to be a variable since one setting is always faster than the other one? I just don't see the point :)
I can't recall any racing game that has faster automatic transmission and imho runs using it should not even be accepted, because that's like not using flare cancel in Tomb Raider. It definitely wouldn't be accepted on SDA.
Thanks for this remarks. So, we need to separate PS2, GCN, Wii and Xbox from the rest, because, as you say, the game is different in difficulty and number of opponents in races.
I will edit my first post tonight to make it more precise and readable.
NFS is a arcade racing series, so I think it make sense to consider that some of us would only drive with automatic transmission. If we were talking about simulation racing games, the manual shifting might be necessary. Personnally, I rarely used manual transmission, only for Achievements.
The reason for using manual transmission is that the automatic shifts whenever you reach a certain rpm, which is not a good idea before a corner. With manual, you simply let the engine rev a bit more and you save one downshift.
Similar case is when you drive uphill without powerful engine. Automatic usually lets the rpm drop quite low before it downshifts while with manual you can stay in lower gear and high rpm for more power.
There are also cases when the automatic simply refuses to upshift to top gear. I've seen this in one of the latest NFS, which doesn't even have manual transmission option. It's really annoying when you're going 300kmh on a highway with 5th gear and just can't force the game to shift to 6th gear :)
I've been playing this game a lot as of late and I've been slowly routing the game with the Exotic start. Grim also helped me a lot by explaining me the tuning mechanic, that helps a lot during the runs, and I should do a decent run on the next month (i'm a very unskilled player).
It seems the topic of the moment is about the transmission, if I may add my opinion on that, i think you shouldn't separate the categories. As mentioned by Grim, manual shifting can give you an extra boost and that can be nicely exploited by a good player and if someone doesn't want to make the transition from automatic to manual, then it's their loss. The goal of the run is to finish in the quickest time and separating the categories doesn't sound right. I say that mainly because I would be one of those people running on automatic, first because my best controller is broken and my replacement doesn't have a functional R2 and L2 and second because I've grown used to it.
As mentioned by JessicaSix, the PS2 version is very different from the other version, as you don't have traffic during a race and the Cops/Crew challenges are more active than on the more recent version. From visual comparation, the loading times looks about the same, but those other elements could be enough to separate on it on category.
About branching on the different car classes (exotic|tuners|muscles), i personally think they should be added on the same leaderboard and we should just add a column to it in which we should select which car we started during the submission (would be similar to the "Route Variation" column in the Sonic Adventure DX leaderboard [http://www.speedrun.com/sadx]).
I'll try to keep in touch on this forum as I want to run this game on the future (not on a hardcore manner, but at least respecting the game with proper routing and strats).
Yeah, car classes could be added as a variable, although it's a similar thing like transmission. The goal is to finish in the quickest time, so why would you pick a slower class? :)
Grim, from what I understood, even if you don't add the variable colunms and put the information in the rule's section, in both cases the times would be put on the same leaderboard, there wouldn't be a exotic/manual WR or a Exotic/Automatic WR or a Tuner/Manual WR and so on... only one WR for the any% category. The variable just adds more comparison value as the manual times would be faster than the automatic ones, and the same way when you compare one class with another, but no category separation.. I didn't understand what you meant on your last message.
In my case I choose automatic for the reason I stated above: I don't have a good controller to use the manual transmission (both R2 and L2 are broken), which makes me use automatic, to which I'm already used to. I'm perfectly alright to run in this setup, because I'd run this game to have fun and relieve nostalgic moments with this game, not taking it too extremely, like i've been doing on all my different speedgames i've picked up so far.
I'd be super fine without having the variables on the leaderboard, it wouldn't change anything for me, as I'd still use automatic for my runs, the one extra thing I'd have to do is to write my setup (automatic + class choice) in my comment for the run, when I submit one.
The main thing is that we take speedruns differently, you do a monstruous job pushing the game to the extreme (like your pro street run that I was gladly able to watch live), whereas I don't do even half of what you do, not striking for the best outcome possible, beacuse I'm not a good player.
Having the variables is interesting when you have a good amount of runners, because when people who is new to the game looks at the leaderboard, they would be able to see which strats are used and which are safer and which are faster. But since NFS speedruns are not that popular and we wouldn't have that many runners, i'd have to agree with you that adding variables would be just unnecessary information.
And... I'm back. I've modified my first post. It's now clean, and I hope it reflects what we discussed here.
What's the final word about transmission ? Will it be a variable or not ? Because we already have 2 runs on the boards, using automatic.
I've encountered a little bug, I think. On PC (1.4), there's a sprint in Silverton that makes the game crash. I'll report which one after another test.
(My upload speed is veeeeeery low, so don't expect to see my runs before july. Sorry for the delay.)
I've added variable "Segments" to get rid of half of the categories. Hope you like it.
EDIT: I've also changed timer to "Time with/without loads" since people are running this game on different platforms and also the loading times with Fraps recording are noticeably slower.
