Players who have reported long load times during night races in Need for Speed: Heat should have a better time now, thanks to the game’s 1.4 update. This patch not only aims to reduce load times but also fixes crashes and resolves an issue in which first time players were unable to earn Bank or Rep rewards. Update 1.4 comes in at just over 2 GB on PS4.
To improve the game’s load times at night, some of the bells and whistles that normally appear—like fancy visual effects, smoke, or fire on spectator’s cars — have been toned down or removed. This, the developer admits, is not ideal, but it’s a quick solution that will help you get into a race faster. But not to worry, these effects will be coming back in a later update once load times are otherwise optimized.
Developer Ghost Games is committed to ensuring Need for Speed: Heat is up to the standards of the community. Players are encouraged to keep submitting feedback to make the developer aware of prominent issues that arise. And considering Heat had more players during its opening week than any other Need for Speed game this generation, there’s likely no shortage of feedback coming in.
Here are the game’s latest patch notes, courtesy of the Ghost Games team:
Need For Speed Update 1.4 Patch Notes
Environment – Night race intros
You’ve reported long loading screens before the start of races, and we have made an effort to reduce these. While we hope you’ll notice this improvement, you might also notice something else. When you play after the update, the visual effects will be less spectacular during the intro and start of a night race. More specifically, there’ll be no fancy lights, smoke, fire or spectator’s cars. While this isn’t ideal, we wanted to improve the stability and reduce loading times in the short run, and we are aiming at bringing back these effects in a future update.
Fixes
No Bank or Rep rewards awarded for playing the first races in the game.
Some players would not earn any Bank or Rep rewards when they first played the game. Prior to the update, this could be resolved by restarting the game – which should no longer be necessary now, as it shouldn’t be happening anymore in the first place.
Inventory sync error
There were rare cases where upon choosing “Play Solo” or “Play Online”, players would be prompted with a message that their local and online inventories do not match, and asking if they wanted to sync them. In a few cases, when choosing yes, Bank and cars would disappear, while story progression and Rep level remained.
We’re sorry this happened – it should now no longer occur, and players should find the Pre-Order and Deluxe cars again in the dealership to purchase for 0 Bank.
Crashes & Freezes
You reported that using community wraps or wraps with a high amount of layers could cause some issues. We’ve taken a closer look, and this should no longer cause the game to crash.
Additionally, we fixed some other instances where the game could freeze or crash, which should increase the overall stability of the game client.
Other fixes:
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Fixed an issue where trial users could experience an extended black screen when they first launched the game.
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Fixed an issue where players were unable to invite crew members using the search function.
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Fixed an issue where using a specific controller on PC could crash the game.
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PC – 09:00 UTC
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PS4 – 10:00 UTC
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Xbox One – 11:00 UTC
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PC – 852 MB
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PS4 – 2.167 GB
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Xbox One – 2.63 GB
The general consensus around Need for Speed: Heat says it’s a competent racer, giving long-time fans and new players alike lots to enjoy. And with the lack of microtransactions, the more consumer-friendly approach seems to be working, as shown by the number of people playing since launch. It remains to be seen how that will play into the ongoing support of the game, however.
[Source: Reddit]
