Early Experimental Preview of Career Concept

So, I have a question related to the Wydra:

AFAIK, so far, it has featured in no time trials, missions, scenarios, campaigns, or anywhere in career mode. It seems to me like y'all added it in just because it would be fun, and I certainly would not want to see it gone from the roster, but if career mode is the main focus of BeamNG.drive development...why add it in the first place when it doesn't seem to have any place in the core gameplay?

I get that it's slow and not exactly the easiest vehicle to drive, but it just seems so bizarre to me that every other vehicle has featured in at least one mission, time trial, scenario, or campaign at some point. The bus got a whole campaign and mode to use it in - and even the Covet Unstable got a couple missions in 0.29.

Is this lack of gameplay for the Wydra down to a lack of features necessary to make gameplay for it work well (like being able to place checkpoints on water), or is it due to the Wydra being incompatible with the direction intended for gameplay development (like being too slow and unstable to force players to use in a mission or scenario)?

I ask all of this because a while back, James wrote this sentence about the Adventure branch:

It seems to me like an amphibious ATV which can go practically anywhere around any map would fit perfectly into the "Adventure" branch quite nicely, but I can get why the Wydra's probably not the main focus for now - I just want to know if it will ever feature in any of the official gameplay stuff.

 

Thank you for the thorough and fast response (considering it's the weekend). I'm very happy that this is the direction you are going for and I've been always dreaming of BeamNG providing that experience. As for the last point, I am completely fine with WCUSA being the only focus for the time being. I'd much rather prefer a single fleshed out map with lots of interest points and a dense featureset, than 10 maps with thrown around challenges and an integrated map changer (basically what you can already do with freeroam). After all, SLR and NFSU2 maps aren't bigger and they never felt limited.

Overall I think that BeamNG has a strong RP side that hasn't been explored yet and Career is where it's gonna shine at. So far it has always been Freeroam and Challenges that plop you in and provide you with all the tools without consequences of your actions. It's cool to see the cars crash, but it's a lot cooler when it unexpectedly happens. It's also very satisfying to be feathering the throttle around the city and finally be able to unleash the beast. I've been playing BeamNG for hundreds of hours and have always been either at 100% throttle or 100% brake, and as I played in Career Mode, I realised the feeling of actually driving the car like a real car. Changing the gears at 2.5k rpm, staying inside the lane, parking in a spot in reverse, following traffic and keeping distance. And then letting it loose - dropping the clutch and having fun in the 90bhp FWD car spinning its left/right tire, weaving between traffic, etc, but still being careful to not obliterate my car. The current Career mode while barebones provided an insightful perspective of actually 'driving realistically' in BeamNG. And with all the current systems it will lead to fun stories of when you upgraded your turbo, but not your radiator and then went on to race, only to find out on the 2nd lap you are overheating. Or trying to pull a large load, but your clutch is slipping. Things that most games don't even bother to simulate, and others like SLR tried to, but poorly.

 

PWEASE I PAID TOO MUCH FOW MY HDR MONITOR

 

Thank you for your thoughtful and detailed response, and I'm glad to hear my Garage quick travel issue was a bug!

Your reasoning to not have immersion-breaking instant repairs on the road makes total sense, and I think is indeed a good fit for career mode. Freeroam will always exist for people to go wild in and reset whenever, and making crashes have consequences in Career mode is a good distinction from Freeroam.

I'm also happy to read from another of your comments that "[the current use of owned vehicles in challenges] isn't the planned behavior for Career Mode"! That was honestly my biggest concern, but this point and others you made in post #321 set me completely at ease. I'm also glad the team is going to be focusing on Career Mode in WCUSA before extending it to other maps.

Your energy for Career Mode is contagious, and I think BeamNG's arguably most important game mode is in great hands with you and your vision. Keep up the great work and community engagement!

 

Career mode is fantastic, even in this early stage, and I bet that is showing in your statistics.

I agree with most of the feedback already provided but I would add:

1. There should be some data (power, torque, weight...) in the parts menu so you could see the results of your choices. It should also be available for your garage, on sale cars, etc.
2. Probably planned, but taxi, bus driving and similar "unlimited" play modes in addition to missions would be great to earn money and extend gameplay. In fact most "grinding" play modes (hauling, garage to garage...) could be part of that, leaving missions for more singular play modes (racing, pursuit, etc)
3. It would be nice to have a more simy, less arcadey interface at least as an option so you don't always have uninmersive arrows, points, etc. That interface could be based in a GPS unit that can be added to every car.

 

It’s in Garage to Garage…

 

Hello!

First off: OMG YES HOLY SHIT WYDRA IN CAREER MODE

Second: that's understandable - I'm guessing it's because the Wydra's population values are too low for it to show up in the dealerships? That's probably why the other off-roaders (Stambecco, Piccobuggy, Aurata, Dunekicker, Rockbasher) also don't show up in the dealerships?

Third: Will there be water-based missions for the Wydra? While I don't really expect them to show up in WCA (there's not enough deep water for it to have much use), places like JRI, Italy, ECA, and Utah all have great rivers/river systems which the Wydra is adept at navigating.

Ah - I don't tend to do G2G, so I wasn't aware of that. I was also more referring to missions specifically made for the Wydra (or at least, being able to purchase it in the dealerships) - randomly getting it in a G2G mission isn't really what I'm after, and honestly, I wouldn't mind if the Wydra was removed from G2G, as I doubt it's fun to get it for that mission type.

 

In the latest version of the career pre-alpha, I did see a 6x6 Stambecco once on the laptop car purchase menu, but not in subsequent uses of the laptop. I think the Stambecco and other off-road vehicles just have (appropriately?) low appearance chances at the moment.

 

Sorry if someone already mentioned it and I don't think it is a feature.

I noticed that you carry over point from one drift mission to the other.
As example: I played "Parking Lot By Night" and got about 10k points (2 stars). After that I played "Dockyard Drift" (7k points = 3 stars) and already had the number of points from the previous mission.
But if you fail a drift mission the points will be deleted.

I must admit, for a bad drifter like me it really helps to achieve better results

 

Ahhhh so that's where those points come from, I was really scratching my head about them Great find

 

Ive played the career mode for a good bit now and i gotta say that im very very pleasently surprised how well it already works!

• I love the presentation of buying a car, the little camera going around after you buy the car is really cool and makes it feel like an achievement
• while i feel like money is currently earned a little too easily i do think that the general gameplay loop is fun even if its a bit faster than i would like. Some people dont like long grinding but im personally quite fond of it
• I like the selection of cars for sale, nicely balanced and they fit their respective dealerships well.
• I feel like the benefits and progression of the Branch XP and why you should care to play all types of events is not really that obvious to me and i feel like that needs a little more work, clarifying why one should get more xp of each branch

Though one thing has been bugging me a little:
We have not heard anything about a story being in development for a long time and i dont know if there still is plans for one. I personally really love the way the story is told in "A Rocks start" and the bus campaign. While it surely doesnt need like anything huge, something of an end goal, motivation to keep playing and somethign to get invested in would be really nice. The issue with many modern racing games is that you just lose motivation quickly without an actual goal or story to guide you along your gameplay. Even just a basic goal like winning a race, or getting a certain ammount of money would be sufficient but SOMETHING should at leats be there, otherwise it just feels a little empty and pointless, even if it is very fun.

 

BeamNG.roguelike confirmed

 

if you go to map and set the computer as a waypoint it works again