A quick rundown of future bug fixes and improvements
I had my fun screwing around with cars, boats, planes, and even a hovercraft in The Crew 2, but now I’m playing the Waiting Game. As you can see in this roadmap for 2018, Ubisoft plans to add two new vehicles each month and, most notably, PvP lobbies in December. In the mean time, the developers will be issuing bug fixes, improvements, and generally getting started on their long-term support plans.
On a live stream this week, community developer James Rees and senior community developer Arnaud Fremont spoke about The Crew 2 team’s priorities and player feedback since launch last month.
At the top of the list, Ubisoft is looking to clean up cheats and exploits, which are currently a “top priority.” That includes checking leaderboards for suspicious scores — some players are AFK farming.
The team says it’s aware of compatibility issues with driving wheel peripherals, bugged waypoint navigation, and an issue preventing players from switching their “favorite” vehicle. The latter bug is already fixed on PlayStation 4, and it’ll be addressed in the next patch for PC and Xbox One.
Lastly, the developers are aware of problems with wall riding. In certain situations, it’s faster to haphazardly grind against a wall or guard rail with your car than it is take a corner properly in a race.
In terms of improvements, the Crew 2 team is looking at rebalancing loot rates and the rate of progression. Specifically, they’re thinking about a slight increase in purple (epic) loot for Hard mode.
Some players have found that headlights don’t illuminate the road enough, and I’m definitely in their camp. Due to the sheer size of the map and variables in play, “it’s going to take quite a while to investigate.” The topic is “a huge technical decision that could have impacts [on performance].”
Another big one for me is the AI and its blatant rubber-banding ways. It can be a big pain, especially in the longer events. “Right now, we know that there’s a particular amount of frustration with Hypercar events, and we’re looking into that more specifically to start off with,” explained Rees. “However, AI obviously reacts in different ways in lots of different events based on the disciplines, based on the situation, based on the terrain. It’s not basically just one tweak that we’ll then apply out to all of the AI in the whole game, it’s much more complex than that. This isn’t anything near a quick fix.”
Ubisoft notes that tweaks to the user interface are on the to-do list (the exit button is “a bit tricky to find”), as well as improvements for “the feeling of gravity” when taking jumps and possibly dedicated keyboard remapping for cars, planes, and boats. Before signing off the stream, Rees acknowledged fans’ desire for on-the-road navigation lines à la The Crew 1, but he didn’t make any promises.
“One of the main focuses for us with The Crew 2 is to make sure there’s something to do for all different kinds of players, whether you like just driving around in Free Roam, whether you like focusing on beating those leaderboards, whether you are just grinding the events [and] you want to be the first one to hit the max Icon level, we want to make sure that you have enough to keep you entertained.”
