If you don’t have a VR rig, you want this. If you do have a VR rig, you’ve got a very difficult decision to make.
-Tom
Downloading now!
I know it’s almost the end of the month, but if you guys do the Monthly Challenge, it’s basically much much shorter than the monthly challenge in DiRT Rally. The whole thing took me slightly less than an hour in total. I believe my final time was something like 57 minutes for the 12 stages. They all take place in Michigan in various states of fog and mist.
Fog is interesting isn’t it? You get to see so little in full fog, and the little you see is hurtling toward you at a speed of your choosing. The feeling is not exactly fear, it’s just uneasiness in the pit of my stomach.
I just started the career after doing the first set of academy lessons. After you complete a career event, can you go back and run it again to go for some leader board times? I finished 2+ seconds behind @Rock8man and I’d like to try and get a little closer, but I don’t want to retry the event and erase my progress.
Yeah, you can run career events again. I failed miserably at one of them, and then ran it again, getting a gold medal the second time.
Boy I think I’m rusty. I was never great at Dirt Rally, but I’m definitely having some trouble in 4.
Is tuning vehicles necessary to do well. I hate tuning vehicles in games. I just like to jump in and drive.
What difficulty are people using? I’m at
AI: Demanding
Restarts: 5
Auto Repairs: Off
Anti-Lock Breaking System:1
Off Throttle Breaking: Off
Auto Wipers: On
Exterior Cameras: On (but I’ve never used them)
Launch Control: Off
Stability Control: Off
Traction Control: Off
Difficulty Bonus 83%
I don’t think it’s necessary to do well, but every car I’ve tested in Dirt 4 appears to have been set up to be as neutral as possible. They even had a stab at making the Group B predictable, whereas the Group B in Dirt Rally would attempt to murder you at every turn.
You’re probably going to want to mess with the brake balance, suspension and diff settings to loosen things up, but the cars should be consistent and drivable without doing so.
I’ll have to go check my settings when I get home today Rob. I think I’m on the “Champion” pre-set, which was the hardest preset, with no messing with the individual settings.
As far as tuning. I’m the same way. I haven’t touched the tuning at all. In DiRT Rally I only messed with tuning when they opened it up to Steam Workshop, so I could download other people’s tunings, and use those. I found this one guy from Sweden who had really good tuning for nearly every surface in every car. I loved using his stuff.
But until they do that with DiRT 4, I doubt I’ll touch the tuning stuff.
The last game in which I dug deep into the tuning system was Sega GT for the Dreamcast, I think. After that, games like Forza and such made it easier and easier to tune and not dig into the nitty gritty. And so I’m pretty far removed from that stuff now.
As for difficulty, it can vary. For example, I can have a really easy time in a Ford Fiesta, but a really tough time in a Subaru 1995. An easy time in a Subaru NR4, but then a hard time in Lancia Delta S4. They all drive really differently, and it takes some getting used to.
I really enjoyed today’s Daily. It’s a long descent stage in Wales in a Peugot 205. I had a lot of fun with that. As the name implies, most of the stage is pretty steep downhill, so you have to decide how fast you’re willing to get.
I haven’t actually had a rally in Wales yet. I may have to give this one a try later.
I’ve been having a devil of a time with Australia. It isn’t so purely fast as Michigan, and it isn’t purely technical either, and the transition between the two is really killing me.
The only bone I have to pick with this game is when you’re on a track, and on the same track, you see an exact duplicate of a turn you just saw on the same track. Now, seeing that turn on a different track is okay by me. But on the same track, on that same run? The odds of that happening in real life, where you see the same thing again, are just soooo low. In real life you’d see some variation. That’s why even in tracks that are less distinctive in DiRT Rally like Finland and Sweden, you still don’t see an exact repetition of a turn. All I ask is that in their algorithm, they make it so there can be no exact duplicates on the same run.
Different topic.
Yeah, Australia really gives me a difficult time too. As does Greece actually. There’s so many uphill and downhill portions that really trip me up in Greece. Australia also gets really tricky that way as well. Michigan is rarely too far up and down, and is a great high speed track for the most part. Michigan reminds me of Finland from DiRT Rally, except it’s easier. It’s like Baby’s first Finland. And since I could never learn to handle Finland in DiRT Rally, that’s a good thing for me.
The duplicate corners problem is a bit of a pain, and I suspect that they’d also have trouble generating stages a la DiRT Rally Greece, with long sections of switchbacks.
I do like Michigan, though I also had a great run in Wales I want to post later.
I picked this up during the Autumn sale today. So far super impressed with the game. I think it does a much better job of teaching you how to drive than any of the previous Dirt games, and the career is more forgiving to start (even on the “simulation” setting). Just out of curiosity, what does everyone think of the non-rally disciplines in the game?
Those times when you’re happy you’re not in VR.
Finally picked this up during the sale. Using a G25, does copying the settings from Dirt Rally work or is a whole new beast?
I’m on Fanatec so I can’t say for sure for Logitech. For me the primary difference between DR and D4 is the hand-holding in car se3tups, as the default for every car I’ve tried so far has been a lot more neutral in D4, with a significantly more docile rear end, even in monsters like the Group B cars.
That has led to me changing a couple things on my wheel, (shortening the max rotation, raising the FFB and turning off Fanatec’s drift mode), but I didn’t notice a pressing need to make wholesale changes.
This is leaving Game Pass at the end of the month. And, yes, this thread is a testament to the fact that I already bought it on Steam at launch and played it eventually stopped playing it and went back to playing DiRT Rally instead.
But something about playing it on Series X, it just felt better. Maybe I am getting a better framerate than I was originally on the PC? I’m not sure, I don’t measure these things or bother putting on a FPS meter or anything. Anyway, I kept playing this all weekend when I had a few spare minutes here and there. And it was on sale for $5, so I bought it again.
I’m still not sure why I’m enjoying it more now.
After I got done with the Rally campaign, I did the historic Rally campaign.
I have to admit, this is the correct way to introduce players to rally I think. Put them in modern cars first and THEN put them in the more historic cars. The order in which you tackle the DiRT Rally games (60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s) has the difficulty like a mountain. 60s cars are not bad, and then 70s cars are really tough, then 80s cars are almost impossible to control, and then 90s cars are easy and then modern cars are cake. With chocolate frosting.
I’m almost done with the Historic Rally now. I’m going to have to find a new podcast game where I can just turn off the sound and listen to the podcast while gaming.