VOL. 8 END OF VOLUME REPORT

The hot pursuit is nearly over, as Vol.8 is nearing its conclusion. Before we move on to NFS Unbound Vol.9, we wanted to take a moment to look back on the recent weeks, how you’ve been playing and the feedback you’ve shared with us.

As we mentioned in our roadmap at the start of the year, player feedback helps shape the future of NFS. Part of our commitment back to you is to be open about what we’re hearing from you along the way, and sharing some of our own thoughts in response.

Before we get into the Vol.8 feedback however, let’s take a quick look at some in-game stats that we’ve collected. 

It’s no surprise that racers love fast rides, and as a result, the most popular PVP Pool were the Hot Pursuit S Tier events. In terms of cars, a mix of precision German engineering and glorious Japanese steel led the way for Hot Pursuit racers, with Audi, BMW and Nissan cars all in the Top 3.

Hunting them down, the iconic “Crown Vic” was chosen over one million times as a Cop Car, followed by the high-performance Porsche 911 Carrera GTS, and the staple of British motorways, the Land Rover Range Rover Sport SVR. Some of our virtual cops were also quite busy with the all-new Cop Career too, with the fastest player completing it in just over 12 hours of flat-out chasing!

Head on over to the community-run Subreddit and Discord server to let us know your thoughts on the data. We’d also love to hear what else you’d like to see in future End of Volume Report infographics.

Now, onto your feedback. There are a few important disclaimers we need to share before getting into it:

1. The majority of your feedback won’t be addressed during this year of live service. We’re a small team on a tight schedule and are working hard to bring you everything we’ve promised. We’ll make updates and refine features where possible, but most of the feedback is being collected to inform how we approach things in the future.
2. We will only be including feedback in these reports that relates to what we’re doing in NFS Unbound. There are certain frequent community requests that are outside of the scope of this project, and making any short statement about them would be unhelpful. Know that it’s heard and that your enthusiasm is appreciated, but we won’t be addressing those requests in these End of Volume Reports.   

If you’re new to the game and want a recap of the features we’re discussing below, please visit the Vol. 8: Cops vs Racers reveal blog. 

• HIGHEST RATED REPLY ON TWITTER:
  • I think it'd be nice for the Repair Kits from NFS Heat to return for use as the Racers in Hot Pursuit mode. I noticed that some of the race tracks rarely go through gas/repair stations. Making it difficult to survive the longest of HP race events.
    
• HIGHEST RATED REPLY ON IG:
  • More spaces for liveries and cars.

It sounds like you all have been really enjoying this throwback mode but there’s naturally a lot of feedback on ways to make it better which you can be assured will be taken into consideration for whatever comes next for NFS.

We can see that players agree there should be restrictions on resets, as racers tend to go out of bounds in order to evade cops and automatically reset away from them. Repair kits should be reintroduced, and there are too many (or too few) gas stations on circuits. Limiting the number of repairs through stations would also help balance things out. Something to consider here is that the world of Unbound was made way before we introduced Hot Pursuit, so there will be some inconsistencies with where we can have garage placements, something again that would be considered from the start for any future iterations.

Dev Response: We hear how players would appreciate being able to drive the Police cars in Free Roam and that it’s disappointing that they’re limited to the Hot Pursuit playlists and that there is a desire for more cop-focused modes. 

Quite simply, this isn't something we are going to be able to do for Unbound. We had to take into consideration how the systems worked and not get into a situation in Free Roam where people who don’t want to be targeted, get targeted. We would have loved to put more time and consideration for how something like Cops in Free Roam would affect the game, but to have the experience to the quality we expect, it wasn't possible in the time we had. 

Noted loud and clear though, that Cop play, modes and customisation are liked and you want more of it!

• HIGHEST RATED REPLY ON TWITTER:
  • Add the police cars in free roam please
    
• HIGHEST RATED REPLY ON IG:
  • Let us use and Customize the Cop Cars in Free Roam. Would be cool to use them Not just in Races

As with the Hot Pursuit mode, one of the biggest feedback points was to allow police cars to be used and customised in Free Roam. 

The spike strips are universally the most used tool, as it trips racers up the most. Universally it’s agreed that Pursuit Tech should stay in the Hot Pursuit mode, but racers should have the ability to use some tech too such as EMPs, Jammers, or Shock Rams.

Tyre reinflation should have a timer to know when the tyres will be repaired, and EMP should last a little longer. 

Dev Response: Great to see that Pursuit tech is welcomed back into the fray! 

We hear that some improvements and balancing would make the experience better overall, we have (as with everything!) many plans on how we could take Pursuit Tech further but these would be things we would take into account for the future of NFS (as is the purpose of all your feedback!)

• HIGHEST RATED REPLY ON TWITTER:
  • Not very fun due to the 1st and 2nd Cop cars being horrid to drive. Being able to use them in free mode so you can get a feel for them and tune them would have been good. Radar has way too much clutter making it hard to see where racers are. Respawns are sometimes awful for Cops.
• HIGHEST RATED REPLY ON IG:
  • I'll be honest, I was sort of hoping this update would allow us to make our own custom cop cars out of any cars in the game. That's my only note. Otherwise, keep it up!

It sounds like you generally liked the change of pace with cop progression and would love to see more about this future updates/games. With a cop-centric mode, it gives the cops more of an identity.

Some of the negatives surround the missions that don’t relate to a cop mentality. For example, it doesn’t make sense to have an objective which is ‘reach 200mph’ as a cop. Missions should be linked to relevant gameplay.

Another point we hear loud and clear - it’s fun to peacock, and not being able to use the cop cars in Free Roam means there’s less facility to be able to do so. 

Dev Response: It's great to hear that the Cop experience overall is liked and that players would love to see more! 

More Customisation, more opportunities for play and more freedom, check check check! 

It would be great to hear what kind of modes, plays and progressions you would like to see for the future! For example, would you want the choice to play as a Cop or a Racer for the whole game?

In response to “What customs were your favorite, and what customs would you most like to see?”:

• HIGHEST RATED REPLY ON TWITTER:
  • - Standard SCPD Style Cop cars since its Hot Pursuit theme
  • - This↓ [Picture of a Dodge Charger in a LSPD livery]
    
• HIGHEST RATED REPLY ON IG:
  • German Police Cars like a M5 and M3 and the missing Italian Ferrari, Alfa Romeo Polizia/Carabinieri cars

We’re happy to see cop customs have been really well received overall, with lots of people discussing other additions they’d like to see from the game. The SCPD 959 was the car that was brought up the most but every car has a fan.

Dodge Chargers, Lambos, and Camaros were all requested, as were some from previous NFS titles.

That being said, if given the choice, players would prefer to have the existing cop cars available in Free Roam than time spent on adding new cars.

Dev Response: Loud and clear on the Cop cars being used in Free Roam and for the future in more places in general rather than just a mode. 

Fantastic feedback on the types of Cop cars and customization you would like to see too! 

What about Cop characters? Do you want to be able to play as Cross or Shaw?!

• HIGHEST RATED REPLY ON TWITTER:
  • It is [meta] lol but when y’all adding the ZL1
• HIGHEST RATED REPLY ON IG:
  • Please add a separate S+ Playlist where the Regera and Evija is blacklisted from being used. It's disappointing when I want to use any other S+ car only to have zero chance against an Evija even if I drive flawlessly

Short answer - Evija is overpowered. Some have said that it killed the S+ Playlists for anything else. Once one person in the lobby selects it, the rest follow suit, so that they don’t lose races. Whilst some say the Regera is close to the Evija’s performance on certain events, it’s still too big a gap overall.

The 959 on the other hand is considered a pretty competitive car in the classes it can represent, and is well liked in general.

Dev Response: So! We knew that the Evija would be a beast (and a Regera killer!), but it was too cool a car not to add! 

For the future we want to overcome the issue of ‘Meta’ cars in general, which we already have a bunch of designs and solutions on what we would do but as you can imagine, a fundamental change to vehicle tiers and performance index like this, isn't going to be something we are able to do for Unbound but will be solved for the future.

Thank you all for staying with us on this journey and for all of your feedback! Now that we’ve closed the book on NFS Unbound’s 8th Volume, it’s time to look ahead to our biggest update of the year, and one you won’t want to miss.

Join us on November 19 (tomorrow!) as we reveal what’s coming to Lakeshore in Vol.9. Head to the NFS YouTube channel to watch it before anyone else, get notified via the embed above, and stay tuned across social for more news as it drops.

     -Team Kaizen, Criterion Games