14 DAY TRIAL // The latest Need for Speed reboot was launched a couple of weeks ago, but it's not really in the news, and there are some good reasons why that is happening. The developers have just pushed the first update for this game, and it just goes to show why rubber-banding is not a great thing.
Need for Speed was supposed to be a reboot of the series, a return to the core of the franchise. Unfortunately, despite the fact that it looks simply amazing, and it has a lot of customization options, it's way too short, and it needs to be always online, at least on the PC. The community reacted promptly by not buying it.
Don't get this wrong, the Need for Speed from Ghost Games is a great experience, and if the studio is given another chance, they are probably going to be much better at it. Now, they have also released the first update for NFS, and you would think that it's a good thing. It would be if not for the first entry in the changelog.
Rubber banding is real and annoying
Some game developers were talking a long time ago how it was easy to make really smart AIs, but it was very difficult to make them stupid enough to be competitive with humans. Racing games have had this problem for a long time, and rubber banding has been used quite a lot.
Some of you might notice in racing games that if you race really well, you can leave the opponents behind, but somehow they manage to get back in the race really fast. The same can happen the other way. If they do too far ahead of the player, they tend to slow down.
"One of the big talking points that we’ve seen has been 'rubber banding' or 'AI Catchup.' Taking this feedback on board, the work is already underway to balance the AI, and this will be live alongside the first Living Game update," write developers on the official blog.
According to the changelog, the "AI Catch Up" is now more balanced, the new Wrap Editor comes with better mirror functionality, better color picker, first look at neons, x30 new pre-set wraps, and various bug fixes, tweaks and improvements.
The update should be live and available for all platforms.