Suggestions - May 2025

First of all I enjoy the major part of the game. However I have a number of points of criticism and question that I want to address in a constructive manner:

1) Co-Driver
- Sometimes after a crash in a stage I want to check in the replay whether I just didnt pay enough attention to the codriver or whether the call was misleading or too late. However I cant check that because the codriver cannot be turned in the replay! Why? Why? Why?
- In a rapid sequence of fast corners that ends with a hairpin, the call for the hairpin comes way to late in many instances (especially noticeable in Japan and Mediterraneo)
- on a very long straight the timing of the call for the following turn is often poor and too close to the braking point with no reference points mentioned (see Kenya)
- the linking calls "and" and "into" are used inconsistently; "and" usually means that there is a very short straight section between too turns, "into" means the abscence of any straight, however you cannot trust this interpretation in most cases
- The "crest" call is my biggest enemy. The codriver tells you calmly that a crest is coming up - no matter if it is a long flat crest or a steep sharp crest that almost makes you jump.
- very often the codriver tells you a useless number of metres like 30 or 50 but the following call comes too late for the corner, why not use the shorter "and" which basically means "30" or "50"?
- The call "caution" which is used very often SHOULD ALWAYS be followed by the reason for the caution, so that you can adjust your driving style and speed to the danger instead of just going unnecessary slowly. However most of the time "caution" is not followed by an obvious reason. For the same reason I would personally prefer the reason for "dont cut" especially when it is an armco. The call "slowing" ist used inflationary and has lost any meaning for me.
- Some road details that affect driving a lot are barely ever mentioned by the co driver. E. g. "bad camber" or "downhill" or "bad bump". Dirt Rally 2.0 pacenotes where way more detailled in that sense. Especially in tight turns it makes a major difference if the turn leads over a steep downhill section that hasnt been mentioned. (see Mexico and Japan for great examples)
- I guess a pacenote editor would be very welcomed by most players.

2) Locations
- Croatia feels so weird to drive for me. It feels like the cross section of the road has an extreme triangular shape with the inside half of a corner with "good camber" and the outside half with "bad camber". Is this an accurate representation of reality? It feels like something pulls you out of the turn as soon as you go over the middle line of the road.
- Why no real stages for Portugal and Sardegna? Would love to see them.
- I dont know for sure whether road degradation effects the amount of gravel pulled onto tarmac stages from cuts. If so then the graphics of the game make it very hard too see.
- In real life WRC crews have gravel/ice crews that scan the stages for patches of ice/gravel/mud in order for the codriver to include that information in the pacenotes. I would love to know where to expect especially slippery parts of the tracks - e. g. in the patchy-ice areas of Monte Carlo.

- The jumps in Estonia at least in one stage whose name I cannot remember are ridiculous. The codriver NEEDS to call a "brake" warning. Otherwise you are almost guaranteed to jump right into the woods.

3) Vehicles and physics
- The class 1997-2010 is badly balanced. The Citroen C4 is several seconds faster than the other cars. It might be realistic because it is newer than all the other cars but why cant we split the class into to classes, say, 1997-2004 and 2005-2010? That would probably make the competition a bit more interesting.- Is the unrealistic center point of rotation really a thing? I can only believe the analysis videos I have seen so far. If so, it should be.
- I tried to make my car (Polo 2017) bottom out on the very big jumps in Estonia to test the suspension physics. However even if I set spring strength to minimum, ride height to minimum and fast bump to minimum I couldnt make my suspension fail and I barely bottomed out. That should clearly not be the case.
- I have massive problems with the WRC 1 cars on asphalt. They feel very unnatural to drive and the rear end is very unstable under braking and on entry to slow corners even with toe in and locked differentials on the rear and the brake balance shifted forward to about 70%. I dont know whether thats how they should feel but the problem is especially prominent in Croatia.

4) UI and Clubs and Time Trial
- I cannot understand why the "Clubs" menu had to be designed the way it is. It takes several more clicks and a few very short loading screens to check your list of clubs to see which rally is run using which class of cars. The menu in DR2.0 was way more convenient to handle. The same applies to the tuning setup menu.

- It would be great to have a little indicator in the "pre stage" menu to see quickly whether you have got any damage to repair instead of being forced to click into the tuning-->repairs menu.
- A reminder to change the tyres would sometimes be convenient as well because it is easy to miss the tyre menu.

- Why actually do the "Tyres" and "Repairs" menues have to be hidden in the "Setup" menu? Unnecessary clicking work is the consequence.
- Why can I not filter the leaderboards in the clubs setting for my friends. I would love to compare myself to my friends in the club mode!.
- An example: If you want to know, where in the overall leaderboard you stand after, say, 4/10 stages in the clubs mode, you cant find that out. The only information you get is the standing of the stage you just finished and in the end you can view the overall leaderboard.
- Why cant I check which tyres the other players where using after the stage? In real life the drivers know which tyres their competitors have taken.
- When I start a clubs championship using a custom livery and quit the mode after a few stages just to come back after a break, I notice that when I reload the championship my custom livery is gone and I am driving a grey car. That kills the immersion for me.

- There should be a general button to turn off ghosts instead of having to deactivate them in every stage separately in time trial.

- Hardcore damage should be on in time trial to punish major cuts or unrealistically far jumps.

5) Performance and Graphics
- The brightness level of the road when playing with different cars on different stages in cockpit is changing dramatically and very annoying. I can barely see the road in Mexico and Sweden when using some of the cars despite trying everything with the games brightness option and my monitor settings. It can be tweaked using the Engine.ini file but why do we need that work around?
- The weather effects are still ugly, even after the update that was especially designed to address that issue.