ps4 DiRT Rally (& the XDBX League)

[Protocawl 2,971]

[ UPDATED: DiRT Rally is on sale on the UK/EU PS Store for £11.99 (or the € equivalent) until May 24 & on the US PS Store for $11.99 (or $13.99 for the VR Bundle) until May 22! ]

 

"DiRT Rally is the most authentic, challenging and thrilling rally game ever made, road-tested over 80 million miles by the DiRT community. It captures the essence of what makes rally unique like no other game: that white knuckle feeling of racing on the edge; trying to remain in control of your emotions as you hurtle along dangerous, undulating roads at breakneck speed, aiming to squeeze everything out of your car whilst knowing that one crash could irreparably harm your stage time.

It’s the ultimate test of a driver’s skill, and the ultimate in high risk, high reward gameplay.

The first time you play DiRT Rally may be a little daunting. Not many drivers finish their first race without a crash, and even fewer will win their first event. The game is designed from the ground up to be an authentic simulation of real world rally. The good news for you is, real world driving techniques are applicable to every section of every stage in the game.

A better understanding of rally driving techniques will lead you to become naturally faster as you gain confidence and understanding of the car you are driving and the surfaces that you are driving on. It is much easier to add speed to a good technique."

Couldn't have said it better myself. Long story short: DiRT Rallly is probably the best rally racing simulation game out there. Brilliant mechanics and physics, beautiful graphics, great collection of iconic rally cars of past and present, plenty of different locations and game modes. Even the best racers can often make mistakes in rally and that's the beauty of the sport.

 

Available Rally Types:

Rally

Hillclimb

Rallycross

 

Game Modes:

Championships (SP career)

"Start out at the bottom and work your way to the top of the rally world. Hire a crew chief and engineers to build your competitive edge as you race the most iconic cars from rally history across the rally, hillclimb and rallycross disciplines."

 

Online Events

"Take on the DiRT Rally community via Daily, Weekly and Monthly RaceNet challenges to earn in-game currency rewards or take to the track in online multiplayer rallycross races."

The online challenges are a great way to try out different vehicles in different locations and in different conditions.

 

Leagues

"Get together with friends and run your very own racing league, or join an existing one within the vibrant DiRT Rally community. You can join as many leagues as you like and they are fully customisable all the way down to the weather conditions."

This is the mode we could make the most use of on the crew scale, organise crew rally championships.

XDBX DiRT Rally League: https://www.dirtgame.com/leagues/league/102999/xdbx-casual

 

 

Locations: Monaco, Wales, Germany, Finland, Sweden, Greece, England (RX), Norway (RX), USA (Hillclimb)

 

Some iconic cars from the game: Mini Cooper S, Renault Alpine A110, Ford Escort MK II, Lancia Stratos, Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500, Audi Sport quattro Rallye, Peugeot 205 T16 Evo 2, Subaru Impreza 2001, Ford Focus RS Rally 2001, Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X, Volkswagen Polo Rally (2010s), Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak, Audi Sport quattro S1 PP

 

Some official hints and tips for the game: https://www.dirtgame.com/uk/about#hints_tips

The only thing I personally kind of dislike about the game is that you can't drive a specific rally car unless you've purchased it and that process can take a lot of time and trial & error, because earning money is rather slow in the beginning and you don't really know which car suits you best until you've bought them and tried them out. It's a very small issue overall, though.

 

Verdict: DiRT Rally is a must-have for any true rally fan and rally simulation enthusiast, but if you're a casual gamer and/or mainly an arcade racer just looking to try out rally racing for a change, you should look into getting DiRT 4 instead. There is nothing arcade-y about this DiRT game - it's all about simulating the real thing.

 

I'm already running an XDBX league in DiRT Rally, so if you have the game, do let me know! Skill level doesn't matter at all, just looking at having a fun time together!

 

 

Here's a taste of what the game is like:

 

Rallycross (RX):

 

Edited May 18, 2018 by Protocawl
Fresh sale

[Dodge 7,248]

Im really bad at it, but I'd play

[LimeGreenLegend 4,171]

I have it, am also really bad and have only played it in vr. 

[skip_rat 447]

I have it somewhere, it was too much sim and too little fun for me. Shame as I really enjoyed previous dirt games.

[Beez 5,091]

I am really bad too and have not played it too much because I got worried it's sim handling would throw off my limited driving skills in GTA too much but I'm all for giving it a go with the crew.

[Protocawl 2,971]

3 hours ago, Dodge said:

Im really bad at it, but I'd play

You suck at everything, Dodge!

3 hours ago, skip_rat said:

I have it somewhere, it was too much sim and too little fun for me. Shame as I really enjoyed previous dirt games.

Sounds like DiRT 4 is the one you could try out in the future, mate, it has arcade driving mode as an option. That should be much closer to the older DiRT titles in that sense.

[DavidCore89 7,402]

Still have the disc somewhere, not sure if I'd play again as it takes a lot of practice and concentration and I haven't played for months.

Bought DiRT 4 when that came out, but I listed it on eBay. The fact that the stages are always randomly generated is bullshit, no way to learn the stages.

DiRT Rally is definitely the best rally game ever.

[Protocawl 2,971]

7 hours ago, DavidCore89 said:

Bought DiRT 4 when that came out, but I listed it on eBay. The fact that the stages are always randomly generated is bullshit, no way to learn the stages.

Up to personal preference. I quite like the near-limitless amount of new stages in DiRT 4 for example.

 

 

I'll also open a DiRT 4 thread tomorrow and it's also on sale on the PS Store for EU members right now until 23:59 UTC November 15, don't know about NA or AU stores. Believe it was about £24.

[DavidCore89 7,402]

Hardly limitless.

Once you've done a few stages, you start to notice that a lot of the corners are near identical, regardless of country. Stage generator is crap.

They can't fool me with shit like that.

[Protocawl 2,971]

1 hour ago, DavidCore89 said:

Hardly limitless.

Once you've done a few stages, you start to notice that a lot of the corners are near identical, regardless of country. Stage generator is crap.

They can't fool me with shit like that.

Which is to say you CAN technically learn the stages as long as you've encountered the bits that make that stage up before. There's just a ton of different combinations of those bits.

[DavidCore89 7,402]

But because there are no stages actually in the game, it lacks a time trial leaderboard and the ability to have leagues like DiRT Rally. It also doesn't allow the player to gauge their improvement and learn from mistakes because they can't try to improve on the same stage.

Racing against the clock is what rally is about, but they decided to scrap all that and add a terrible stage generator instead. DiRT Rally was truly awesome, but instead of building on that they took 5 steps back.

I know it's aimed a bit more towards players who just wanna get on and race a stage, any stage, DiRT Rally was criticised for being unforgiving, but DiRT 4 doesn't appeal to rally fans as much.

[Protocawl 2,971]

"We’ve given you the tools to create your own events, it’s up to you to carve out the experience you want. Whether that be super competitive, just for fun, or somewhere in between, it’s your call. Your League, your rules."

I went ahead and started a league for us, with the first season being completely casual, the just for fun kind - basically a warm up to get into it, see how it plays out.

We'll start with the easiest vehicle to drive as well - Mini Cooper S

The season starts next Sunday. There's 3 events, each has 2 stages. 1st event is in Monte Carlo, 2nd in Greece and 3rd in Wales. Specific stage conditions and everything should be visible on the League page.

The way seasons works is very flexible. I've set so that everyone has 23hrs to finish each event. 1st event on Sunday, 2nd on Monday and 3rd on Tuesday. You can finish each event whenever you have time within those 23hrs.

To join the league, you have to sign in to RaceNet/make a RaceNet account. Otherwise it says I can't invite you.

League name is: XDBX Casual.

@Dodge @LimeGreenLegend @skip_rat @Beez @DavidCore89

Edited November 18, 2017 by Protocawl

[Dodge 7,248]

Mondays and Tuesdays might be difficult for me to do. But I'll try.

[Protocawl 2,971]

7 minutes ago, Dodge said:

Mondays and Tuesdays might be difficult for me to do. But I'll try.

You can just start up the game and run the stages whenever you can during the day; they'll probably only take about 10mins total this time around, but if necessary, I can still change the days for the events. It's incredibly flexible and customisable! I could even make an event last a month if it was necessary!

Edited November 18, 2017 by Protocawl

[Dodge 7,248]

Sent a request to join the league.

FYI for everyone, It's easier to do this on a PC.

[Protocawl 2,971]

Definitely do this on PC or tablet!

https://www.dirtgame.com/leagues

Make sure you're signed in and have your platform set to PS4 as well.

[DavidCore89 7,402]

Sorry, I won't have time to get back into rally at the moment. Plus I'm not really a casual racer, I'm a perfectionist try-hard who takes racing quite seriously, probably too seriously for people here  

All my racing time is used to prepare for league races. As much as I love DiRT Rally, I don't really wanna be switching between surfaces as it slows me down.

IMO it would be better to run 6 stages over a week with restarts off, a week gap between each rally, if you ever do something on a larger scale that is. DiRT forums might be a good place to advertise if you do decide to expand on your idea.

[Beez 5,091]

Mini Cooper S from the 1960's is the easiest car!?  I'm not disputing that but it is still very difficult in my opinion. I did a few warm ups today. 

[Protocawl 2,971]

3 hours ago, Beez said:

Mini Cooper S from the 1960's is the easiest car!?  I'm not disputing that but it is still very difficult in my opinion. I did a few warm ups today. 

It may or may not be. I haven't tried all cars, but considering the handling and speed characteristics of the Mini, I'd say it's possibly one of the easiest to drive, at least for me it is. In any case, this 1st season is very short, won't be behind the wheel of the Mini for very long.

If I remember correctly, it tends to understeer, so breaking earlier than you'd want to brake should improve your control over it. I'll give it a spin later, see how it was. I'll see if I can provide some more tips for improved control over the car.

[Beez 5,091]

Yeah, the brakes suck and its FWD so you need to get braking done early and then back on the gas so the wheels pull you through the turn. If you try to brake in the turn it pushes bad and just goes straight.

[Protocawl 2,971]

53 minutes ago, Beez said:

Yeah, the brakes suck and its FWD so you need to get braking done early and then back on the gas so the wheels pull you through the turn. If you try to brake in the turn it pushes bad and just goes straight.

It's all about tweaking your setup a bit. I just gave the Mini a few runs on both tarmac and dirt and the main overall adjustment for this little bugger is to move the brake bias more to the rear to get rid of the understeer and create slight oversteer. Also, shortening the gear ratio and playing with the throttle coming out of corners will help considerably. Breaking early for tight turns by tapping the brakes will still help as well. Also, if you're on tarmac, you'll want to stiffen the springs a lot, and loosen them on dirt stages.

Setup changes make all the difference and they're not as complicated as they seem at first. I'll help you guys understand how the setups work with some assisting footage tomorrow. They'll improve your driving experience massively when done right.

Edited November 24, 2017 by Protocawl

[Protocawl 2,971]

On 11/18/2017 at 9:45 PM, Protocawl said:

https://www.dirtgame.com/leagues

Make sure you're signed in and have your platform set to PS4 as well.

@LimeGreenLegend

That's where you can send a join request to the league. League name is: XDBX Casual

 

 

[Dodge 7,248]

@Beez, try turning off the traction control and the stability control. Leave ABS on. It'll make car feel more alive. 

[Protocawl 2,971]

2 minutes ago, Dodge said:

@Beez, try turning off the traction control and the stability control. Leave ABS on. It'll make car feel more alive. 

Totally forgot that someone can have those turned on in the game... I turn these off where ever I can these days, you can feel the car a lot better.

[Dodge 7,248]

The RWD cars I need some assistance turned on. But not the rest.