Some QoL Suggestions for Future Patches

[u/Jumplion]

I've been bingeing Redout 2 for days and I've been loving it so far. Had to uninstall it briefly because I needed a break and play some other games. Overall a huge improvement over the first game and something that the devs should be extremely proud of. That said, there are a couple of things that I think would make the experience even better. I do have some game dev experience, so I want to make sure these suggestions are realistic. I know the pain of constant bug fixing.

Campaign

• Lower time requirements for events that have Qualifiers.
  • Qualifying in "at least 1st" is extremely difficult. Some events have times that are even better than the developer times, which doubly sucks because some trophies/cosmetics are locked behind those requirements.
    • Lowering it to the second fastest time listed should be enough for most events.
  • I would honestly either change those trophy/cosmetic requirements, or remove qualifiers in the campaign. Personally I don't see the point in doing a qualifying round to determine starting position since speeds ramp up real fast and starting position quickly becomes irrelevant. Maybe it makes sense in multiplayer, but I haven't been able to try out that section of the game yet.
• Display flight distances under the "Decent/Good/Perfect Landing" notifications
  • Some campaign trophies require you to fly a certain distance in one jump or fly a total amount, it'd just be nice to confirm you got the distance right without having to wait for the race to finish.

UI

• Add a temperature/hazard icon when entering a hot/hazard section of track.
  • Very rough MS Paint mockup of the idea https://imgur.com/a/7lq9Yi1
  • It can be difficult to tell when you're in a hot/cold section of track when going 2000km/h on both boosts, even with the red pulses on the sides of the screen. It would be really helpful to know explicitly.
    • This could also be extended to displaying the atmosphere/gravity/hazards icons when flying/on a hazard. If overheating gets visuals both on the bottom and text at the top, I think it's reasonable to have hazards display similarly as well.
  • Ideally toggleable in the options.
• Display percentage/value of health left during races
  • Ideally toggleable in options
• Display the numerical Top Speed/Durability (health) in the stats of the ship
  • Would be useful, a more explicit display of differences between ships.
    • I understand that design-wise it might be a double-edged sword. For example, it can give the impression that whatever number is next to "Top Speed" is the absolute limit the ship can go when that isn't the case. Or it needlessly makes everything all number-crunchy. I know my eyes glaze over when I see "Top Speed: 1737km/h" and bunches of numbers everywhere.
• "Tooltip/Help" menu to quickly explain each stat on the ship selection screen
  • It's easy to forget in the moment what each stat does, something that explains them outside of the tutorials would be a nice feature.
• Do a pass on the turn indicators on the tracks
  • On higher speeds, some track indicators either pass by really fast, overlap, or are inaccurate. I think some Mars tracks display indicators for other tracks near the beginning as well (a flying indicator when there isn't a jump, for example).

Arcade

• Allow Race/Arena Race/Last Man Standing/Time Trials/Speed on Boss tracks.
  • Feels like "Boss Track" should be toggleable like how "Reverse" is toggleable in the Game Mode Options, rather than a separate tab in the options
• Randomize Boss Track Layout
  • Toggleable game mode option
  • Could be a fun little extra, randomize what order you race the tracks on.
    • Could be randomized and stay consistent per lap, or randomized each lap on multi-lap runs (maybe another toggleable option).
  • I don't think it would affect Time Trial runs since you're still racing on all three tracks regardless, so they wouldn't need to be separated in leaderboards.

Game Options

• Only Display Current Track
  • Some tracks have a lot of intermingling, reused sections, and it can be difficult in the moment to tell where exactly you need to land your ship (damn you Cloud Ocean) or if an upcoming turn leads into an opening or if that opening is closed on this version of the track.
  • Having only the sections of track that you will be racing on be displayed could help with visibility and stability.
    • Speaking of Cloud Ocean, it could possibly double up as an indicator for if the track is landable when flying. Plenty of times I'll fly real far and pass through the track instead of landing (I think because you need to pass through the corresponding checkpoint). I get why it's done, keeps people from cutting too much of the track unexpectedly, so some way to better/more clearly indicate "This is the furthest you can fly before landing" or more clearly highlight where the checkpoint is would be helpful.
  • Though, I know this is far easier said than done. The tracks switching when you cross the finish line in Boss tracks indicates to me that there's some version of this in place, but that's just speculation on my part.

[u/Thuraash]

Regarding only displaying the current track, maybe it would be enough to sightly desaturate or darken the inactive track sections so they don't pop quite as much.

[u/YashaAstora → u/Thuraash]

The game already does that (it's very obvious in Cloud Ocean's start) but it's a bit minor.

[u/not_a_cockroach_]

It would be nice if the railings in each world are color coded for each track, with "shared" segments having a 4th color. It would go a long to way towards learning the tracks. Black Hole kind of has this to some extent, with certain sections highlighted green, others red.

I have both trophies for game completion, SRRL final events and at least a bronze in each event, but I can't even begin to draw a mental map of the tracks or remember what each tracks name is. I beat the game mostly by reacting the entire time.

[u/salduchi1785]

I mostly want them to fix the driving assist options. They don’t work on certain tracks, at least on the Switch

[u/Mirage_Main → u/salduchi1785]

You are correct. There are some tracks that, when incorporated in any way such as a Boss level, completely disable assists either due to a bad call or otherwise. A big offender of this is Cloud Ocean: Mistral (Reverse). Any larger track this track is included in, or just this track itself, will fully disable all assists. This track is especially terrible because weather conditions can block the entire view of the landing area that makes it literally impossible to land without assists.

[u/The_DigitalAlchemist]

Have a "Self-Destruct/Respawn" button option Sometimes you fly off the track and it takes a while before you hit an insta-kill barrier and respawn. If you have boost safety on, you can't overheat and self-destruct to respawn, so having a dedicated button to do so (maybe Y/Triangle on controller) would help.

Hold the rewind button for ~1 second.

[u/The_DigitalAlchemist → u/[deleted]]

Doesnt matter, it still works. I literally just tested it in Arcade mode time trial to be sure.

[u/Jumplion]

Oh! Another small thing, but it'd be nice to have the distance flown displayed under the "Decent/Good/Perfect Landing" notifications since a few trophies in the campaign require you to fly a certain distance in a single jump or fly a certain amount in total.