Unbound Suggestions
Need For Speed Unbound has a really good foundation but is sorely lacking a lot of basic features that old and modern racing games have. It's a good game, but truly needs a few things worked out and I'm hoping these ideas can help put the game on right track
Car Viability
One of the biggest issues right now is the lack of proper balancing. The team has done good with the Pista when it was untouchable in B tier, but there are still cars in the game that are not properly balanced. The biggest offenders are the 1976 Volkswagen Golf MK1, Ferrari Testarossa, 1971 Nissan Skyline GTR, Porsche RSR, 240z Fairlady because of their insane torque numbers which makes racing against them virtually impossible for any car not in the small viability circle.
There are other cars that are grossly underpowered, all the muscle cars are poorly represented due to their inability to turn, and even on highway sprints, where they should be good, they are unable to compete with any cars they're racing against thanks to the game's emphasis on their weight being a big contributing to car performance.
For example, the Dodge Charger Hellcat being an S+ car puts it a crippling disadvantage when the competition are all cars significantly lighter and have maneuverability, highway or not, the Charger cannot accelerate like any other car beyond the muscle category because of the bias toward lighter cars.
The Porsche GT2 RS is another example of an underpowered car that needs to be retweaked as well, it's RWD and has the engine in the back, but for some reason the car operates like it's a drift car by nature, the back tires should not lose traction the way it does and not having 100% grip makes no sense when the GT3 RS has access to full grip.
Because the GT2 is primarily locked in S+, there is no viability for the car when the Regera exists, the Regera is the undisputed champ in S+ since 99% of the playlists in S+ are highway based.
It's Porsche's fastest production car, but is poorly designed in Unbound with no respect to its racing pedigree.
Car viability is something that needs to be looked on across the entire roster, and you can find a lot of broken builds for the top tier cars on YouTube.
Racing and Options
Unbound lacks options. Players are unable race on their own accord because the game forces you to have at least one other person present to have a good time online. Need For Speed is a racing game, we need to be able to race alone like in all the games before it.
People who want to Time Attack are locked behind needing to be chaperoned and being forced to race in traffic.
Traffic needs to be an option, and if the developers aren't willing then it needs to be adjusted, too many times do the AI not operate correctly and makes racing frustrating and unejoyable: AI traffic will merge from oncoming to incoming lanes just to get in the way as if showing the devs designed the AI to deliberately get in the way to cause mayhem but the AI might've been confused on its placing but identified the player was nearby and acted on getting in the way for the sake of manufactored challenge.
There's also the theory that racing and freeroam share traffic patterns, so players in freeroam can influence races by having a ghost affect on things in actual races, like if a player in freeroam hits a car by a gas station the AI will act as though it were hit and just remain stationary, so when players are racing and that gas station is on their route the AI that was hit in freeroam will just be standing in the road for seemingly no reason when the reality is someone in freeroam hit the car and that's what caused the confusion for those who were racing.
The traffic can be fine, as an option, but it should never be enforced. Players should have the ability to choose. If the developers need help just look at Grand Theft Auto or Need For Speed: Most Wanted 2005, where they ask the player if they want to enable traffic or not before a race.
Too many times are the AI placed in horrible spots, sabotaging racing lines, being in blind spots that no one can predict, unfunctioning during races, and so on. It all ruins a good race for people who just want a good time with no interruptions.
Burst NOS: Grip vs Drift
While Burst NOS is a fantastic addition, there are exploits that abuses the system.
Drift builds are currently the dominating meta of Unbound thanks to exploiting drifting to build full bars of Burst back-to-back, which puts it at a massive advantage over players who prefer grip.
Racing lines and fundamentals should have a more prominent role when it comes to racing success, but proper race etiquette doesn't have a role in Unbound thanks to the unfair advantage of exploiting Burst.
Drift built cars should have their Burst NOS gain adjusted so that they don't get it as frequently. Alternatively, grip cars should be given a mechanic that allows them to get Burst as frequently as drift does to make it fair.
As it stands now, the drift meta is the dominating force in the game that renders any other form of racing pointless. Look up SlideQT on YouTube to see good examples of the drift exploits.
Content Creator Tool
Before Unbound's development come to an end, the developers should give the community a racing tool similar to Grand Theft Auto that allows players to make their own races and download other races players have made.
The developers won't need to bother with constantly making playlists because the community can make their own and save them development time by making their own racing content: checkpoint placing, racing prompts like small ramps, traffic options, cop enabling, and so on.
Players can make cross-country racing on their own rather than the developers making an entirely new mode.
