Universal Ridge Racer Slipstream - (by NamcoBandai Games Inc.)

Discussion in 'iPhone and iPad Games' started by Sanuku, Dec 18, 2013.

  1. awp69

    awp69 Well-Known Member

    Oct 30, 2009
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    Strangely, the framerate on my 4S used to be pretty solid. It actually seems worse after the update.
     
  2. Capronissimo71

    Capronissimo71 Well-Known Member

    Sep 5, 2011
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    Tried on iPad the new update but i noticed just a little more fluid frame rate, but far from optimal performance. On iPhone the frame rate was quite enjoyable even before this fix.
     
  3. bilboa

    bilboa Well-Known Member

    May 23, 2013
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    Which iPad model are you using?
     
  4. chief78

    chief78 Well-Known Member

    Jul 24, 2012
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    The difficulty (at least in extreme challenges) is just as hard, with the AI pulling constant d-bag nudge moves until I finally hit a wall. Still no customized control option, I didn't see a mention of iCloud sync, and still no MFi support. They pushed another update that did NOTHING that "fans" have been asking for. I'm done
     
  5. Capronissimo71

    Capronissimo71 Well-Known Member

    Sep 5, 2011
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    Retina iPad
     
  6. bilboa

    bilboa Well-Known Member

    May 23, 2013
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    There have been several Retina iPads now though. The iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad Air and new iPad Mini all have "retina" screens. I'm just wondering which one of those you have.
     
  7. ironsam80

    ironsam80 Well-Known Member

    Dec 14, 2010
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    #367 ironsam80, Feb 14, 2014
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2014
    The framerate is significant better on iPad air after the update. Now i can be more precise on my drifts and cornerings plus it is much better on how the game looks without so many frame drops... One of my best iOS racers got even better! Nice done, nice done!
     
  8. bilboa

    bilboa Well-Known Member

    May 23, 2013
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    I just noticed another change in the new update. If you look at the car stats icons, you'll see they've gotten rid of the numeric rating for drift angle, I'd guess because they got lots of messages from people who were confused by its meaning. Instead it now shows a slider with at one end a car in a mild drift, and at the other end a car in a severe drift, and the slider is closer to one end or the other for each car. That gets rid of any confusion we might have about the intent of that stat. In particular, you can now see that the Fiare is indeed intended to be less drift-oriented than the Bayonet. Of course just because that's their intent doesn't mean it necessarily works that way, so I'm not dismissing the fact that you find it easier to drift with the Fiare. For me though, I've found that the Bayonet, with the drift angle slider all the way right and traction slider all the way left, comes closer to reproducing the feel of dynamic cars in Ridge Racer 6.

    The fact that we're even disagreeing about this though highlights something about this game in comparison to the console versions, which is that the cars don't behave as dramatically different in the iOS version as on console. I don't think anyone who tried a dynamic and standard car in Ridge Racer 6 would for a moment dispute that the dynamic car is much more drift-prone, whereas in Ridge Racer Slipstream you really can drive either style with any car.
     
  9. jonnyb086

    jonnyb086 Well-Known Member

    Dec 28, 2012
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    Framerate is waaaay better on ipad air. Any slowdown is minor and never dips below what looks like 30fps. But most times is locked around 60fps and buttery smooth.
     
  10. Capronissimo71

    Capronissimo71 Well-Known Member

    Sep 5, 2011
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    Ah ok! It's a iPad 4
     
  11. bilboa

    bilboa Well-Known Member

    May 23, 2013
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    Hmm, in that case it's a bit odd, since I get almost completely buttery smooth performance on my iPad 4 after the update. Have you tried completely powering off and restarting your iPad? Also, are you up to the latest iOS version? I'm running 7.04. I'm pretty sure no one would have a problem with the way it performs on my iPad now, but I have been known to be less critical of graphical performance than some people, so I suppose I could just be less discerning than you. Or it could be there's something different about your device than mine.
     
  12. bilboa

    bilboa Well-Known Member

    May 23, 2013
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    I guess I'm still enjoying the game a bit more than you, but I agree about the d-bag AI. I feel they've gone a little overboard in this game with making the AI aggressive for my tastes. I like they way they are in the console versions better. They try to block you, and occasionally nudge you a little, but mostly the console version makes things difficult by just making the AI faster. This game, especially in the later races, feels closer to being a car combat game. I enjoy me some car combat games, but I'd rather Ridge Racer be more about clean fast racing. If I want car combat I'll go play Asphalt 8, or Split Second on my Xbox.
     
  13. rapaleeman

    rapaleeman Well-Known Member

    Dec 20, 2013
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    I noticed that too about the numbers. Weird.

    As for the styles, the Vita version literally has every car listed the same and you can adjust how you want to drive in a menu making each car seem like a skin rather than a unique vehicle.

    The cars here at least make some distinctions in their base stats. The Bayonet is probably supposed to be the dynamic car as the Danver in Class 03 is the dynamic car and default stats more or less line up. The Fiare is more than likely the normal car and the Wild Gang is the mild car. Could be just a speed thing that is throwing me off in determining which is which.

    The update for me has done basically nothing. I play on an iPhone 5 and haven't really noticed anything other than the frame rate not taking a hit when all cars are on screen. Randomly before the update it would dip the frame rate for a second or too, nothing serious or unplayable but noticeable. Haven't seen it do that yet.

    Not 100% sure what else they did. Difficulty appeared to be the same to me too. Maybe they adjusted the sliders to make more of a difference or maybe it was just a stability update for other devices. With the update though my hope for a content update isn't completely gone now. Still skeptical, but not gone.
     
  14. H4nd0fg0d

    H4nd0fg0d Well-Known Member

    Mar 30, 2010
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    Still having an absolute blast with this game. Even with no content update. Love the Prophetie, is an absolute drifting beast!!!
     
  15. bilboa

    bilboa Well-Known Member

    May 23, 2013
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    Me too. It's extremely fun driving, and it seems like every time I think I've mastered a car and am getting the most out of it that I can, I realize there there are new techniques I can learn to go faster. The driving model is quite deep, but also well suited to virtual controls. I'm finding it especially fun to get better at using ultimate boost. On some more curvy tracks, if I can build up 3 nitro tanks, then I can start doing almost continuous triple boosts lap after lap. It's really fun to be at the back of the pack half way through the second lap, and then start triple boosting my way through corners and to the front of the pack by the end. This technique works well on the Island Circle and Crossbay Tunnel tracks. A lot of tracks seem to have too many straights for this to work though.

    One thing I noticed in the extreme battles is that the AI cars are all fully upgraded, and they always use auto boost, which means they have boost even if they haven't done any drifting yet. This means that on tracks which aren't very curvy, you basically can't compete unless you also use auto boost, since there aren't enough curves to build up boost by drifting as fast as the auto boost builds up. I personally wish the AI cars didn't use auto boost unless I did, since I enjoy the strategy of needing to drift to build up boost.

    I've currently hit a wall though in the class 3 extreme battles. I'm at the Danver Extreme tab, race 3, and can't seem to get even 3rd place with either of the class 3 cars I have, which are the Prophetie and the HJ6000. The Prophetie is fully upgraded, but the HJ still doesn't have fully upgraded running gear, so maybe that'll make a difference. Has anyone here beat that race yet? If so, which cars, settings and driving techniques did you use?
     
  16. rapaleeman

    rapaleeman Well-Known Member

    Dec 20, 2013
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    I used the Prophetie all Stage 04. Running gear Drift setting at one off from the left and the grip all the way left. I also used EX Nitro and I had to put on Auto Nitro. I drifted like normal but since I was running auto I didn't have to worry about holding the drifts on the straights or boosting into them so it was easier to get back to center and start speeding up. I focused specifically on getting around the course without hitting any other racer or the walls. Nothing major but the AI, while not aggressive per se are always super fast so blocking them helped some.

    I did what I always do when running auto nitro and hit the nitro on the longest straights while slipstreaming the rest of the way. The only real tip I can give is to always keep a tank of boost in the bank for the final 1/4 of the last lap to stay ahead if you are leading or to take the lead by slipstreaming and hitting the boost.
     
  17. GregB

    GregB Well-Known Member

    Sep 4, 2009
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    Just wanted to chine in and add that this is still my most played racer of late. Something about it just hits the sweet spot.
     
  18. bilboa

    bilboa Well-Known Member

    May 23, 2013
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    Thanks rapaleeman. I tried your setup and ended up getting 1st place on my fourth or fifth try. I ended up doing a triple boost at the end and shooting from 6th or so to 1st over the last couple of bends. I then tried to repeat my win to see if it was just luck or if I'd actually improved my skills, and was only able to come in 3rd on the next few tries.

    I have some mixed feelings about this game, especially for the extreme challenges. I really love the driving mechanics, including drifting, boosting, ultimate boost, and how many ways there are to combine different driving techniques to keep going faster than than I thought possible, and I think that's what mainly keeps me coming back to it. What I dislike the most is the AI. The extreme amount of rubber banding, and how aggressive they are about hitting and ramming me, while it makes for a difficult challenge, actually ends up cheapening victories, because they feel too random and unrepeatable. I can clearly see that I'm improving, because my lap times are going way down, and I'm much better at avoiding hitting other cars and barriers, but winning races seems to be unrelated to how fast my lap times are. There are definitely some strategies to make it more likely that I'll win, like slipstreaming whenever possible and making sure I reserve at least one boost tank for the end of the last lap, but even if I'm executing all those strategies perfectly, there seems to be a large random element to whether the game lets me win.

    In the console versions of the game, at least Ridge Racer 6 and 7, the rubber banding is definitely still there to some extent, but the aggressive hitting that the AI does in Slipstream is almost completely absent. The console versions still get very difficult. There are plenty of races in the later stages of the campaign where I've spent a whole evening or more just repeating and practicing a race in order to win. However there isn't the same cheap losses where I'm doing really well, and then an AI car flies past me and bashes me into a wall before I can respond, causing me to instantly lose 30 mph and ruining my race. The console version makes things more difficult by just making the AI cars go faster and make fewer mistakes, which forces you to drive more perfect races. I wonder why they chose to change the AI this way for the iOS version.
     
  19. rapaleeman

    rapaleeman Well-Known Member

    Dec 20, 2013
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    @bilboa

    Glad it worked out.

    With as much time as I have spent with the game, I don't think the AI is that aggressive unlike the stupidly violent Drivatars in Forza 5. I think they are actually just really stupid. They appear to be programmed to be on one racing line and within certain distances from the other racers at any given point.

    That's all well and good but when you put in the unknown of the player and the AI goes nuts. This is why some turns are easier to take with and without AI racers present at the same time. The moment you hit one of them to nudge them or accidentally bump them due to an error and they will start attacking you to get back on their line. Leave them alone and don't get in their way and they are perfectly tame and not unlike their console counterparts. They also seem to react violently to the other AI racers which I find kind of amusing.

    While I prefer the console/arcade versions of the AI, I found the AI in Slipsteam to be kind of easier to progress and beat, especially if you aren't very good at Ridge Racer. Sure the Battles are a chore but I thought the game was pretty easy to flow through especially since outside of the final race in each section, all of the other racers seemed to be scaled to you. You can win pretty much every race without an upgrade (the battles notwithstanding).

    That may be why they changed it. I was making a lot of errors up front in the first several tiers and was still able to complete them. It could also be they were trying to make the in app boosters more appealing as they do negate most of the AI traits that can be annoying.
     
  20. H4nd0fg0d

    H4nd0fg0d Well-Known Member

    Mar 30, 2010
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    To the contrary, I kinda like the on track savagery. Makes things interesting, more intense. The initial banging while dicing to the front and drifting thru esses amid a pack of cars is rather satisfying. I think it to b a favorable nuance to the game play. I've pretty much mastered the tracks and precise car control. Most of my errs occur when I miss an onscreen control arrow. Other than the slow earning, this has been my go to racer since it dropped. No longer keep RR3, GTracing, but I do keep A8 on tap. My only gripe with A8 is tht there is no control option for touch steering with manual throttle. Truly redic n a game ruiner for me personally.
    Back to RR, I have tried auto throttle with brake induced drifting and have much more success with manual throttle lift drifts. Feels like I have much better consistency and control with very minimal loss of momentum. Especially thru multiple ess drifts. Just two cents, maybe try it for yourself sometime.
     

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