Handling tuning and tips
Hello NFS fans!
I'm Andy Manches, a designer at GHOST. We're especially pleased that in the upcoming Need for Speed, alongside many other options, you'll be able to tune your cars' performance characteristics, including their handling on the streets of Ventura Bay.
Handling is very subjective — it's all built on personal preference. We listened to community members and followed their advice, learning all sorts of opinions about which previous NFS games you enjoyed playing and which you didn't.
At times it seemed to us that the only logical solution to please players was to bring back tuning so you could set up handling exactly the way you like it.
We made this as easy as possible by adding a main slider that can be set toward drift or grip. Whichever way you move it, the corresponding sliders below will shift, and comprehensive changes will be made to the driving style. But you can go even deeper, setting each slider individually to make the most of your car's capabilities and become a tuning master.
I recommend digging into the handling, pulling on everything you can and adjusting by feel. Below are some tips to help you achieve the result you want. They describe certain features in more detail.
Introduction
For simplicity, handling can be thought of as three modes:
- Driving without drift (option A).
- Transition into drift (option B).
- Driving with drift (option C).
Each handling slider changes the behavior of at least one of these stages in a different way.
If you move any of these sliders, the main handling slider will shift too — toward drift or grip. It's a kind of overall indicator of your handling style; it can also show you what effect your changes will have. Very clear, but it's only the tip of the iceberg. Several sliders open up an infinite number of combinations, and among them you're sure to find the one you love.
Keep in mind that every car handles differently, meaning the sliders will affect different cars in different ways.
Drift stability system [effect: closer to C]
Turn the drift stability system on or off? This is one of the most important decisions you'll have to make. It's on by default and provides a stable, balanced drift style, similar to the one in NFS Rivals. If you turn it off, you'll be able to drift at wider angles thanks to a higher chance of sliding. It's a choice between risk and reward. In theory, with the system off you can rack up far more drift points, but it takes a certain skill to control the car.
Another important difference between these two settings is how the car behaves when you countersteer during a drift. With the system on, it brings you out of the slide and restores traction.
With the system off, you can maintain or increase your drift angle by steering the wheels in the direction of travel so the car slides out more. In this case, the most effective way to exit a slide is to let off the gas.
And finally, with the system off, you can pull off a double drift.
Brake slide system [effect: closer to B]
Essentially, this is the ability to enter a slide using the brakes and steering. The system is on by default, which provides more convenient and responsive handling. If you turn it off, driving will feel more like classic NFS (Underground, Most Wanted, etc.).
The car will now be stable under braking. You'll be able to brake through corners and take them more precisely than with previous slide options. Drifting is still possible, but among other things you'll have to yank the handbrake!
The trick here is that if you tune the car for full drift, it will slide anyway even with the brake slide system off. At that point you don't need to use the brake — a turn of the wheel alone is enough to send the car into a slide.
Handbrake strength [effect: A, B, C]
You probably think it's illogical: how can a weak handbrake be on the drift side when it should be as strong as possible? However, in Need for Speed a "strong" handbrake means "excessive," which lets you spin the car 180 degrees relatively easily at any speed — one of the key moves against the cops in the open world.
For drifting, though, a weak handbrake is better — it's more sensitive, letting you keep your speed while you can flick the wheel and go into a slide.
When set to the right level, it's also indispensable for a series of side-to-side slides and lets you pull off interesting gymkhana moves.
Steering angle [effect: A, B, C]
Widening the steering angle is another popular way to set up a car for drifting. It increases the slip angle when turning to reduce traction, and it also lets you straighten the wheels in the direction of travel during a drift.
However, I decided that fine-tuning this parameter wouldn't hurt my car, which I set up for grip.
Grip recalls some features of earlier NFS versions like NFS Underground. In those games the brake pedal was used to adjust speed through corners rather than to enter a slide. Entering a drift with the steering was almost impossible, and the handbrake remained the main way to do it.
That's still true today if you set handling to full grip. I think that kind of setup will feel a bit stiff, especially when it comes to extremely high speeds!
If you share my opinion, try setting everything fully to grip and choosing the widest steering angle. Maybe that extra angle was just what you needed to get through a corner or two when you had understeer.
Front and rear tire pressure [effect: A, B, C]
Tire pressure can be changed with two sliders: one for the front tires and another for the rear. It can be thought of as a grip parameter — another way to fine-tune grip levels on brand-new tires.
The effect will be the same whether you reduce grip on the rear wheels or increase it on the front. The front end will become more stable compared to the rear, which will affect cornering speed, and in some cases it will be difficult to initiate a drift using only steering.
The opposite is also true. With a more planted rear end, it will be harder to initiate a drift, and stability will be higher. This will help you understand how the car will behave and stay more confident on the road.
Don't forget to buy all the parts to upgrade your suspension — this will unlock the full adjustment range on all sliders and access to the most advanced settings.
See you on the streets of Ventura Bay!