EA SPORTS WRC Survey Hints At Possible New Features, DLC

EA SPORTS WRC Survey Hints At Possible New Features, DLC RD.jpg
The EA SPORTS WRC development team is looking for feedback about potential new features and content, while an update is provided about upcoming hotfixes and VR.

Images: Taken by OverTake/RaceDepartment in-game

More content and features could be on the way to EA SPORTS WRC – the official World Rally Championship simulation.

Released last November, there has been a steady stream of hotfixes and quality-of-life updates, but no new content.

EA SPORTS Fan Feedback Survey


While the foundational updates will continue first and foremost (more on that below), a survey has been published to gather driver feedback.

Upon booting the platform, you will be greeted by an interstitial screen inviting you to take part via a QR code.

Included within the 30-question research piece are run-of-the-mill questions about which modes you like or dislike and where you find your sim racing news. But there are also possible hints are a future roadmap for the title.

EA SPORTS Fan Feedback Survey New Features


It is not year clear if EA SPORTS WRC will be a platform that is updated over time or will receive yearly releases – Electronic Arts’ recent Q3 FY24 earnings slides mistakenly refer to it as “EA SPORTS WRC 23”.

However, specific questions about how much people typically pay for DLC and potential ‘additional features’ could insinuate that it is here to stay.
  • Of the questions asked, the following six potential new features are discussed:
  • Additional features to customise my liveries
  • Sharing and downloading vehicle tuning setups
  • An in-game hub to share my creations
  • An open training area (e.g. DirtFish from DiRT Rally 2.0)
    Editing pacenotes
  • A mode where you can create your own stages
All of those could be welcome additions. Other questions include your favourite era of rally car, how likely a DLC purchase would be and how much you have paid for DLC in different games.

Speaking of additional content, the following items are highlighted:
  • Locations/tracks (read, stages)
  • Vehicles
  • Licenced cosmetics (liveries, decals, racing suits etc)
  • Original/fictional cosmetics (liveries, decals, racing suits etc)
EA SPORTS Fan Feedback Survey New Content DLC


The latter are unlockable via the Rally Pass system, which has only seen fictionalised designs to date. While some cars have the option of multiple real-world designs, there is clearly scope for more.

No official word has been given yet if further car models will arrive as paid or free DLC – although that didn’t stop us from daydreaming recently.

Further Fixes, VR, Esports And Season 4 Inbound​

In an episode of The Racing Line, a semi-regular Twitch show where EA provides racing game updates, a brief update was provided in terms of near-time WRC changes.

Before Season 4 – which includes a new Rally Pass and set of Moments – arrives in April, there will be another patch.

EA SPORTS WRC Fiesta Kenya


This is set to include a fix for crashes when using ultra settings in Monte Carlo, support for the Turtle Beach VelocityOne steering wheel plus further framerate and performance enhancements.

“For those with VR, it is still in the works and hopefully we can give you an update soon as to when it will be dropping on PC,” said James Bralant, Social and Creator Manager for Racing at EA.

“EA SPORTS WRC Esports is still in the works too.” This follows on one-off competition held in Poland late last year won by Joona Pankkonen.

What would you like to see first of all in EA SPORTS WRC? Let us know in the comments below.
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About author
Thomas Harrison-Lord
Thomas Harrison-Lord
A freelance sim racing, motorsport and automotive journalist. Credits include Autosport Magazine, Motorsport.com, RaceDepartment, OverTake, Traxion and TheSixthAxis.

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Comments

G
Large Style said:
1) To be pedantic for a moment, a 90Hz VR headset need only lock to 45 fps if using motion smoothing / reprojection. Same theory if running higher or lower native Hz.
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I agree with everything you wrote except this partly, yes you're right 90hz "works" with 45fps motion smoothing / reprojection but this is unplayable for me personally and I'm not alone with that. I cannot stand those artifacts. I need 90hz(so fps) locked for a good experience. F1 22/23 is developed by a completely different team according to CM/EA so there's still hope that this VR implementation goes well.

Let's hope that they manage to solve the stutters and that they go for a proper implementation: IF they implement quad views foveated (which would take around a week or two maybe of development, according to Matthieu Bucchianeri), then we could have a great experience in VR, yes also with the Unreal Engine.

But that's only IF they have really good dev's there at EA/CM and until now that doesn't seem to be the case, but it only takes ONE good dev to fix it all, so there's still hope.
 
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Metla
Premium
I think anyone with a general understanding of the issues is aware that the limitation is the engine itself, and that UE as evidenced by ACC AND WRC isn't a good platform for Race sims.
 
G
Metla said:
I think anyone with a general understanding of the issues is aware that the limitation is the engine itself, and that UE as evidenced by ACC AND WRC isn't a good platform for Race sims.
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I surely agree with that. It's definitely a terrible choice that engine, not only performance wise but also for the visual effects(see the rain effects video's of DR2/WRC for example but also the TAA artifacts which are even visible in youtube video's).

But read this: https://github.com/mbucchia/Quad-Views-Foveated/wiki/What-is-Quad-Views-rendering?#unreal-engine-support

It IS possible to fix the performance issues for a large part, it's implemented by Pavlov and it works great. The results in DCS are also stunning.
 
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D
Metla said:
I think anyone with a general understanding of the issues is aware that the limitation is the engine itself, and that UE as evidenced by ACC AND WRC isn't a good platform for Race sims.
Click to expand...
VR capabilities do not make or break a good Racing Sim.
But this is how I see it, VR only crowd might have different, more lopsided perspective.
 
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Large Style
gamma123152 said:
...yes you're right 90hz "works" with 45fps motion smoothing / reprojection but this is unplayable for me personally and I'm not alone with that. I cannot stand those artifacts. I need 90hz(so fps) locked for a good experience.
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Fair enough.

For me on my Reverb G2 I've found that using any of OpenXR's 3 motion reprojection systems indeed has unpleasant and distracting artifacts to the extent that I'd not want to use them, but instead I use SteamVR's motion vector based reprojection / motion smoothing in "WMR Settings for SteamVR" and the artifacts are in all honestly barely noticable to even none.

Obviously that won't be as smooth as native 90Hz but as I don't notice issues at 45 fps reprojected using that system I don't try for more fps and I crank the graphics up instead. Just sharing on the rare off-chance that helps :)
 
Large Style
Metla said:
I think anyone with a general understanding of the issues is aware that the limitation is the engine itself, and that UE as evidenced by ACC AND WRC isn't a good platform for Race sims.
Click to expand...
While it seems clear to me and is perhaps the general understanding that you're right by UE not being ideal for simracing, I'd personally be my usual (annoying) pedantic self and say that ACC is / can be a good and enjoyable experience (in VR). It does feel a little simplistic, but if I dare say it, GT3 cars don't exactly push boundaries of extreme handling & physics.

I'd agree that ACC in UE doesn't feel as advanced or deep an engine compared to pretty much any other simracing engine, but I think it's still good and deep enough to have fun with. I also very much like racing on Ride 4 (using UE4) which again doesn't feel like a hardcore sim, but is still a decent approximation, and a very capable and fun racing title,
 
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D
Metla said:
Which is why my comment wasn't focused solely on VR.

In fact, I didn't even reference it.
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Hard to guess then what criteria you personally use to gauge what is good sim or not. ACC is the second most played sim on Steam, guess that renders your point "moo"?
 
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D
Large Style said:
I'd agree that ACC in UE doesn't feel as advanced or deep an engine compared to pretty much any other simracing engine, but I think it's still good and deep enough to have fun with. I also very much like racing on Ride 4 (using UE4) which again doesn't feel like a hardcore sim, but is still a decent approximation, and a very capable and fun racing title,
Click to expand...
What UE in ACC has to do with "advanced and deep" simulation. It's only graphics engine, separate from Kunos own physics engine. Some people are just, shrug.
 
Metla
Premium
The point being that just putting a car game into UE doesn't produce fantastic results, either in gameplay, features, graphically or performance wise.

And yes, They state its just handling the graphics, yet the games still play and run poorly.

ACC is by far the best implementation yet of a game in UE, and look at the resources, time and expertise required to get it to that level, and it still needs a powerhouse PC, VR is subpar, and Kunos have gone back to their inhouse engine.

I'm also not a huge fan of how ACC drives, But that's subjective and I wouldn't really be able to explain or verify what aspects I don't like about the driving model.

I hope the failure of WRC and rennsport drives companies away from UE and they choose engines based on capabilities rather then ease of getting it to market.
 
D
Metla said:
I hope the failure of WRC and rennsport drives companies away from UE and they choose engines based on capabilities rather then ease of getting it to market.
Click to expand...
The problem is that there is nothing to choose from, unless you have sophisticated proprietary engine that requires large group of engineers to understand, support and maintain it to keep up to today's image fidelity standards. Only big pockets AAA studios can afford it these days. And it's not always working, look at FM8 (proprietary engine) and EA WRC (UE4), WRC is killing FM8 in image quality, without investing into graphics engine development, training people on proprietary engine, etc.
UE is a standard, and you can just hire people familiar with this engine and have them starting contributing on day one, and have core people focus on other things instead, like gameplay, AI, content, physics, etc.
 
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Metla
Premium
No argument there, the ones with the big pockets are making deliberate choices to cut corners and production costs by releasing sub-standard products on unsuitable and under cooked platforms.

All the more reason to not give them any money for their poor efforts, or to champion these efforts to others.

Pity your second point about this being a strategy to focus on gameplay elements has never eventuated.
 
S
Is the API telemetry the same as DR 1 and 2 ?
trying to find out if it will work on my motion rig.
 
Large Style
Andrew_WOT said:
What UE in ACC has to do with "advanced and deep" simulation. It's only graphics engine, separate from Kunos own physics engine. Some people are just, shrug.
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Dude, respectfully, just read comments for what they are without trying to dissect absolutely everything everyone says, then throwing back pieces that you simply don't like or agree with into our faces in a conversational manner that's borderline confrontational. I / we are just trying to have a friendly discussion here (which you will no doubt argue that you're doing the same).

I'm not going to explain much as I don't have the time or patience to explain everything to those who don't / can't seem to understand comments on a fundamental level - but my point simply was that I find ACC to feel good while not feeling that advanced or deep in terms of physics & handling simulation. I don't care how it works under the hood and that was never the focus of my point of that you can have a subjectively good racing title in UE.

I don't understand your "shrug" comment though. Who are your referring to and what did you mean by that?
 
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Mathieu Labbé
- Hardcore mode where grip is reduced and damage is less forgiving.
- Better tires management in rally, with event tire allocation and tire selection which does not throw away the used tire once you put a new tire on the car.
- Proper triple screen support.
- Wales and Corolla/Celica WRC.
- Asphalt physics that are believable.
 
D
Large Style said:
I don't understand your "shrug" comment though. Who are your referring to and what did you mean by that?
Click to expand...
If you didn't imply that ACC physics is lacking because of UE, I need to give it another read.

Large Style said:
I'd agree that ACC in UE doesn't feel as advanced or deep an engine compared to pretty much any other simracing engine
Click to expand...
 
Large Style
Andrew_WOT said:
If you didn't imply that ACC physics is lacking because of UE, I need to give it another read.
Click to expand...
Blimey, you really do read between the lines far too much for the purpose of a good conversation.

I made no such implication. I wasn't saying that ACC doesn't feel as advanced or deep an engine (compared to other titles) because it was using UE. That was just your interpretation and mind that just read it that way. I was instead simply stating my perception of ACC's use of it's physics & handling capabilities is a bit lacking within the game itself, as opposed to directly or even solely due to the engine itself.

Therefore your presumption if not accusation is wrong. You'll no doubt then want to argue that it's all the same regardless and your points are still valid, but if that were the case then you'd continue to be wrong.

So yes, you do need to read what I wrote again and perhaps try to let that sink in. I'll spell it out for you (again) anyway, but I'm not going to keep doing that as I just can't be arsed...

I wasn't saying the UE was the cause of any lacking, and that what I stated (or implied if you will) is that I simply find ACC's physics and handling to not be as deep (or deeply engineered) as other games - without pointing the finger toward any suspected cause or reason other than the game itself.

A bit of friendly advice - if you're so insistent to chime in as much as you have been, and if you want to be part of a healthy discussion, the you'd do well to interpret less, understand more, stop picking holes in everything everyone says, and stop taking comments out of context then twisting words solely for the purposes to support your personal beliefs. This isn't a competition, it's all subjective, so there's no point in you trying to prove your opinions as if they were fact because not only is that dumb, but I for one respectfully really couldn't care less what you think. I'm not trying to be rude or offensive, but it's like you're just hanging around, sounding off everywhere, looking for a verbal fight and jumping at every opportunity to do so.

Say what you will in your impending defense of your apparently undiable wisdom, I ain't gonna read it as I'd rather scratch my nut-sack instead.
 
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P
Mathieu Labbé said:
- Hardcore mode where grip is reduced and damage is less forgiving.
- Better tires management in rally, with event tire allocation and tire selection which does not throw away the used tire once you put a new tire on the car.
- Proper triple screen support.
- Wales and Corolla/Celica WRC.
- Asphalt physics that are believable.
Click to expand...
What you need for first, second, and last items, is a tyre model. DR2.0 didn't have one, and I have not seen any evidence pointing to this game being different there.
 

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