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All I know is, when I see a blue shield opponent in online battle, I am royally screwed on all sides.

lost card at bugis junction, card name KEISKE, with a ex spec skyline er34 and ex spec rx7 fd3s, if found, contact me by forum PM or on discord @Falbere#7361

Revision 10 is here.

https://mobile.twitter.com/initiald_as

MRS, Supra, R32, R34, NSX, NB8C, and Evo VII are all up.

Surprised that there aren't any nerfs.

It begins tomorrow, April 19th for online battles.

This post has been edited by SonicSP on Apr 18 2016, 03:10 AM

With that said, there'll be 3 cars that have been given buffs for the 4th time...

I'm still seeing quite a bit of S15s especially long the higher ranks, so I'm actually surprised they are still not nerfed. I guess their win and usage rates are not high enough to justify that.

Though a part of me is also relieved since my highest ranked card uses a S15 and has no other cars on it.

This post has been edited by SonicSP on Apr 18 2016, 06:59 AM

I'm also thinking the same way on the AP1, ZN6, and ZC6 as with the S15. I'm still shocked that R35 wasn't nerfed, despite its formidable blocking power that proofed too much for most players

Do you have to be behind to receive the end battle boost? Or does it work even if you're in front?

Also, I'm curious to know the reason they introduced this system.

This post has been edited by holnivek on Apr 19 2016, 03:38 AM

To put it simple, it doesn't work on story or time attack mode, work slight on in store battle and works indefinitely on online battle mode.

1. The longer you stay behind your opponent, the more boost you'll be using up hence leave you with none to overtake your opponent in the end.
2. The more you scrap walls or receive huge speed loss over time, the heavier the boost deduction to your boost.
3. The more gold drift you make the more addition to your boost system, front car has higher tendency of getting gold drift than behind car.

Again, this can only be seen very obvious in online battles. As for offline battles, well you can just ignore this.

This post has been edited by -=SHINN=- on Apr 19 2016, 04:20 AM

Well it doesn't apply to offline battles but the main reason it's in place for online is to counteract the game's lag. Initial D is a one-on-one race on a very narrow roads where things like blocking plays a very important role.

If you play a first person shooter game for example, players tend to get angry at people with high pings/high latency. This is because the latency between the servers mean that position is very hard to narrow down and they usually can get some advantages because of that, usually in the "hard to get hit" department. For this reason, some players purposely slow their internet to get this. I don't know whether it's still a big deal in multiplayer FPS nowdays, but it was back in the day.

It's the same thing here. When a lag happens, it means that the server/your machine has to make "guesses" at specific position of a car. Remember that at any given moment, both players are doing things at the same time and reacting to what they see on the screen, and at certain points lag means that what's happening on both sides can be different. It is not unusual for example for both players to "lead" because of a lag, and then when the lag is over and the server finally receives the data and knows who did what, it corrects it and both players see it. For a game with Initial D'a gameplay, designing how online battles work without changing the core elements of the basic gameplay is hard.

The reason the gold drift system comes into play is to essentially give an extra element to the gameplay that will help determine the fair winner. While getting gold drifts does help, as SHINN mentions, other things like how many walls you scrape also come into play as does your normal course performance.

For the record, I should note that Sega has pretty strict network requirements for this game so it's not like any slow modem arcade can join. In fact, if you are in the system, if your latency becomes high enough, the servers won't give you any games because it's problematic.

Even with those strict low latency requirements, lag is just unavoidable in online games from time to time and just making it run like an offline LAN game is just impossible.

======

In past games, some players purposely stay at the back to get gold drifts so they can catch up to you and pass you with a monster boost. In D8, that mostly doesn't work anymore since gold drifts are a lot easier to do from the front and a lot harder in the back. There is a monster boost that you can take advantage near the end from the back but because you need a lot of gold drifts to get it in the first place, both players have a strong incentive to stay infront for long as possible for most of the race.

While it sounds like online battles are all about gold drifts this post, it's not. Your normal course skills is still extremely important, as are other things like blocking and lining. You'll have a hard time getting gold drifts without a decent mastery of the course and because you need to lead in the first place to even attempt them, you'll need to be good in order to do that. It's just that at higher levels of play in online battles, every player squeezes everything they have because a win can come by the smallest of margins.

This post has been edited by SonicSP on Apr 19 2016, 10:47 AM

Thanks Shinn and Sonic for the detailed explanation. So does that mean only the car behind can utilize the boost? The car in front can accumulate the boost, but won't actually be able to use it unless it falls behind?

Regarding lag in online battles, I don't think I experienced much lag in Extreme Stage online battles, even though PS3 was connecting to what I presumed to be JP servers. I wonder why Sega won't bother to let IDAS machines in NA to connect to their servers. It shouldn't be that bad, or at least they can just add a second server in NA. Really hoping to play some online battles and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

If a player played much better and earned that "end battle boost", they will get it anywhere, regardless of whether they are leading or behind.

The monster booster from the back strategy works like this: a player will lead for most of the race, accumulate as many gold drifts then right at the end, they will purposely drop back and let the other car pass by 100 meters or so before going and using the monster boost to overtake.

The reason why they do is is to take advantage of the battle boost. The battle boost is that boost a player gets when they are behind in the race (as long as it's not turned off before the race, which requires mutual agreement). When you are behind, you will get that boost, however this boost cannot be used to overtake an opponent, it can only be used to catch up as its turned off right when you reach the lead car.

The "end battle boost" and "battle boost" are two different boosts and by combining them together at one moment, it makes one powerful boost and seeing how it is at the end of the race, it is impossible for the opponent to come back - assuming it work. This tactic is most popular in Hakone because it's not so hard to get gold drifts and the straight away at the end ensures smooth sailing for boost. However, it can be done everywhere else albeit with much more difficulty.

Still requires quite a bit of skill to pull off though, it's more of something that increases the chances of success than a cheat of sorts that anybody can use. They are risks associated with the strategy as well, for example if your "end battle boost" turns out not to be strong then you may have given up a lead for nothing, so you better hope you did it rightly. I've seen players try it on me in an online match and fail and it is for this reason that I don't use it but some high rank players are good at it though.

Also, a strong "end battle boost" will not necessarily happen if both players performed the same. In that case, the game will just give a weak boost to both players, which is helpful to whoever is leading at that time.

It's been a long time since I played online IDES, but I have to say that the experiences feel very different. The online games like D6, D7 and D8 feel much more immersive that it's even hard to tell you are playing an online game, unless you read my above post and see the signs where you can see the things Sega does to make the lag hard to see. You'll have a hard time even telling the difference between an online race and an offline race.

It's not just the US, if an arcade over here were to have bad connection, even if they were subscribed to All.Net, the servers will not give them games because the latency makes it very hard.

But the real issue with the lag is that it creates an uneven playing field as well as experience. Sega can ignore that for a console game but for an arcade game where you want players to come back and pay money again every time, it would be more difficult. At the end of the day, us overseas players are minorities and if we are going to connect to Japan, Sega will want to make sure we don't degrade the exlerience for everyone else over there since they are their main market and target audience. At the end of the day, we make far less money for them and are just an afterthought. Coincidently, this is probabaly why there hasn't been an English translated IDAS game in ages.

There are a few more barriers involved. The first of which are the timezones. Arcades are businesses and they have operating hours, the vast time differences between the US and Japan will make it harder for the US arcades to even be at the same time where they'll be players playing.

A better idea would be to make a server in the US but this has some limitations currently as well. The first off is that there isn't enough of a player base in the US for this to happen. It would not be worth the cost for them to do it. Even for us non-Japan countries in Asia, our playerbase is nowhere near enough for a server of our own. The reason why we have an option to join Japan's servers is because we are close enough that latency is not an issue sometimes, so some of our arcade Internet can pass it because Japan is not that far from us. If the US just happens to be in Asia and closer to Japan, you would have gotten that option too just like we eventually did.

Sega did consider letting US have online connectivity back when D8 come out but it never came through. It's probabaly because the arcades weren't willing to pay for it, not enough players, because connecting to Japan and keeping up is difficult, or a combination of these

Remember that in order to get the ALL.Net access, the arcade will need to pay a monthly fee in addition to an extra fee for each game played while the game is connected to the system. That means for each game you play even if it was not an online race, that would include Story Mode and Time Attack games as well. This is in addition to the arcade having internet connection that is really fast. Another thing that complicates things is that JPN machines are not meant to be sold outside Japan in the first place and most North American arcades with D8 uses JPN.

This post has been edited by SonicSP on Apr 20 2016, 03:44 AM

If those machines were EXP there's still a slight hope for them, I would say. JPN machines are totally impossible to connect to ALL.NET at all outside Japan as the region for online opponents are specified in Japanese areas. So unless if your areas are specified to Hyogo or any areas in Japan, you won't be able to go online. Also, I can't seem to understand why they take JPN machines instead of EXP machines. Price difference maybe but by taking JPN machines you have already given up the capability to go online. This is what I had in mind actually, ain't sure if the arcade management over there have the same opinion.

First step is actually get EXP machines and the black server.
Second subscribe to ALL.NET with SEGA approval.
Third play at 10am-10pm +0800 GMT for maximize online opponent numbers.

This post has been edited by -=SHINN=- on Apr 20 2016, 03:50 AM

That makes more sense now. I'm familiar with the battle boost from ID2/3, but I haven't played in a while, so the gold drift boost is something new to me. I'm not too concerned about it seeing I won't be playing online battles, but just something I'm curious about.

From what I've seen, only Round 1 has ID8 machines in the US. Other arcades (such as Gameworks) only have up to version 3 or 4, and even then, those machines don't work properly (no license, broken card reader, etc). Since Round 1 is a Japanese franchise, my guess is it's natural for them to use JPN machines instead of EXP. Kinda sucks for ID fans like me though, since if it were EXP there might be a slight chance that we'll see online battles for US players.

No wonder, Jap franchise. Yup after all, I remember seeing the US, Thailand and Philippines area for EXP website during first week of D8 launch. My guess is, it didn't work out, so they pull off those 3 areas. I was pretty excited that time because it was going to be the first time we get to meet US players. But sadly it didn't turn out like that.

This post has been edited by -=SHINN=- on Apr 20 2016, 04:46 AM

I think cost is probabaly the reason, since I think they charge less for JPN region machines. But I think part of it is because when they first bought the machines, online may not be much of a thing, then when it was time to upgrade to the next version, they kinda have to stick with the same region.

Still to even have D8 in US a pretty big deal I think. I lived and studied in Wisconsin for three years, I wasn't able to find a single IDAS machine in that state and the closest thing I found was a Wangan 3 machine two hours away in Minnesota. New Japan-based games are hard to find in the US, most arcades I went to when I travelled around the country rarely had new Japanese games. It's either new American games or older Japanese games. But I guess part of it is because arcade chains like Round 1 aren't near where I lived.

This post has been edited by SonicSP on Apr 20 2016, 07:34 AM

Good morning from South East Asia. I am new here on this forum, hope to meet your acquaintance. Lonely Driver Shinn senpai, yo!

Haha let me guess, Izrin from northern side? Haha I forgot to reply your question, ya I'm back in KL permanently for now.

@-=SHINN=-
You should be a detective! Permanently sounds spine-chilling but home is where the heart is, right? I've just only renewed my ID7 to ID8 with DNET subscription a couple of hours ago hahaha. Funny question, how do i acquire more Countdown Voice selection?

Keep the DNET subscription I think. Each month you will get a few and it would accumulate.

@SonicSP
So far, DNet has distributed 6 sets of countdown voice selection to my id. I was wondering if there was a way I could unlock more, maybe through Legend of Street mode by completing specific mission request, like for example ; making Iketani faint in multiple of 5★ or more? hahaha.

This post has been edited by Izi on Apr 20 2016, 11:30 PM

Unfortunately, it doesn't give you another way to unlock it to my knowledge. I think they do this just to give you incentive to keep subscribing every month.

This post has been edited by SonicSP on Apr 21 2016, 01:41 AM

@SonicSP
I see, alright noted ;ThumbsUp;

Is there any site that shows what conditions to fulfill for the weekly Infinity Side? Getting tired of blind-attacking blindly when the conditions aren't obvious.

http://nahmake.web.fc2.com/initial-d_as8_infinity-side.html

Week 20

Rough guide from Google Translate: Do not be released to rival = within <= 40m at finish

Butchigire rivals = +80m finish

Kimero a blind attack = execute 2 blind attacks (passing with lights off; not sure how to get the exact trigger for it.)

Kimero a shortcut (hit the gutters; usually only applies to Momiji Line and Tsukuba)

Go in the simulation ③ = Pass after hitting Section 4

Nice. Thanks, man.

Lights off when you're confident you can pass the opponent. You need to completely pass and shock him/her before you switch the lights back on. Only then it counts (there'll be a notice that pops out to indicate that). You can even leave your lights off when you pass him/her and then fall back to pass him/her again. Just make sure the notice pops out.

This post has been edited by Saint on May 9 2016, 08:16 AM