Need for Speed™ Unbound - Under the Hood: Lakeshore Online

[Braddock512]

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Welcome to Lakeshore Online - the multiplayer world of Need for Speed™Unbound. In this week’s Under the Hood article, we’ll share the details of what you can expect from online multiplayer in Lakeshore City at launch. So buckle up - let’s ride!

GETTING STARTED

To jump into the online experience, select Lakeshore Online from the main menu. Lakeshore Online is a separate and unique experience from the campaign mode, with progression specific to multiplayer. Don’t worry - you won’t be starting empty-handed. Certain milestones that complete in the Story campaign will unlock awards in Lakeshore Online so you’re not starting from scratch. In the Lakeshore Online garage, you’ll need to create your online character and select a starter car to get you going. You can tune your ride before joining a server and gather your party at the same time. You will be guaranteed to get into the same server together and ready to race if you matchmake to a server when everyone is ready. Party leader controls matchmaking for the whole party. Selecting PLAY will give you the option to Find Game, which starts you matchmaking into the server. Once you're in the server, you’ll be presented with the Lakeshore City Map to choose where to exit. Or you can stay in the garage and dive further into customization. RIDES is where you can purchase, customize, and upgrade your cars, and CHARACTER is for driver customization and personalization - get steezy. BANNERS are unique to Lakeshore Online as they give you another aspect of self-expression focused on how you represent yourself to other online racers.

You’ve seen the Under the Hood: Show Up and Show Off article (right?), so we’re not gonna dive back into car and driver customization. However, in Lakeshore Online your Banner is a representation of you and your ride to other racers in Lakeshore Online. If you want to impress ‘em, make sure you’ve given some TLC to your car and your driver before updating your Banner. To customize your Banner and make it pop, you can choose your Art, Stickers, and Audio. Art customizes the frame around your Banner, with numerous styles and colors to choose from. You can add a sticker to your Banner via the Stickers menu, and Audio - well, that’s for those of you that gotta be extra. Stand out when you win a Playlist with some extra oomph by adding Audio to your Banner.

Say cheese! It’s time to take a pic of you with your ride. Using your selected Pose, you can frame up the shot just the way you want, adjust the Driving Effects, and time it just right to get the full effect. Have fun with it - it’s your calling card. Make it stand out. Anytime you hit a garage to update your ride or your driver, swing by the Banner customization menu and update it there too to keep it fresh.

FREEROAM

Lakeshore City is your playground, so go play. Freeroam is just that - roaming free through the city of Lakeshore, from Kennedy Drive to Edgewater, North Oaks to Lakeshore Quarry. Explore the world of Need for Speed™ Unbound with up to 15 other racers on the server. Within Freeroam, you can complete Activities like Drift Zones, Speedruns, Speed Traps, and Jumps, grab Collectibles, or head to Meetups to participate in playlists of events. You can repair your ride at Gas Stations, or dip into a Safe House to upgrade and/or customize your car or driver, or buy/sell some rides. Remember - you gotta pay the cost to be the boss.

MEETUPS

Meetups in Lakeshore Online are where you get set up to prove your skills and show off your machine. Entering an online Meetup provides you with multiple race playlists in which to compete, with different tiers of cars required. Some are Single Tier Race Playlists, meaning only one Tier of car is required. Some are Mixed Tiered Race Playlists, so one race may need a Tier A car, while another needs a Tier S+ car. You’ll want to build up a stable of rides with different tunings and Tiers to guarantee you can compete in every online Playlist. You can always use a loaner car, but that’s like wearing someone else’s shoes. Completely up to you - or you can be a collector of fine racing machines. For each of the Race Playlists, you’ll see multiple events such as Street Races, Speed Races, and Corner King races, just like the race types in the campaign found at Meetups. Once you roll up to a Meetup and initiate a Race Playlist, you can invite everyone on the server (first come, first served - you snooze, you lose) or you can just invite members of your party. Up to seven other racers can join the race playlist. Once the first race in the Race Playlist starts, you’re in it to win it. Don’t back down. Win the Race Playlist to get the biggest payout - and the more racers in a Race Playlist, the more money there is to win and Bank. You can receive invites to a Race Playlist any time in Freeroam. If you’re in your garage, you’ll see the invite and can join from there - as long as you’re not too busy customizing your ride (or checking out some threads for your driver.)

LET’S PARTY

Grab three friends and tear up the roads in Lakeshore City with the Need for Speed™ Unbound Party System. You can create a party before jumping into Lakeshore City by inviting up to three friends, or you can invite friends to join you in-game via the Multiplayer Party Menu. (Note: If the server is full, they won’t be able to join your party if they’re not on the same server. Best option would be to back out to the Lakeshore Online menu and form your party to ensure you all join the same server).

• Wanna roll together? Party members can matchmake together onto the same server.
• Communication is key. Chat with other party members using in-game VOIP.
• Wanna keep it between friends? You can invite just your party to a Race Playlist, for some direct competition without random players messing up your flow.

DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS

Let’s talk details about Lakeshore Online:

• Lakeshore Online supports up to 16 players per server.
• Race Playlists can be played by up to 8 human players.
• Parties can be formed with up to 4 players per party.
• There is no Pause in Lakeshore Online. You can bring up the Menu, but the game will continue.
• Race Playlists require 2 or more players to kick off.
• When first booting up, you’ll be prompted to enable Cross-Play. Later on, if you prefer to race with only your platform, you will need to disable Cross-Play in the game settings of the main menu before going into Lakeshore Online.
• The more you race and win, the more XP you earn (It’s the icon in the top right corner of the screen between your car Tier and your Bank). Check out the Rank Based Challenges - they have the biggest payouts.
• At launch, Lakeshore Online Free Roam is set to Day time and does not change.
  • However, races in the Meetups’ Race Playlists will have variable weather and time of day.
• There are no Pinkslip bets or Sidebets in Lakeshore Online at launch.
• Cops will not be in Lakeshore Online at launch.
• Takeovers are not present in Lakeshore Online at launch.

PROGRESSION & UNLOCKS

While progression is split between Campaign and Lakeshore Online, your progress towards activities and collectibles is shared. So no need to go collecting everything twice, but consider your options - do you want to save some more bank in the campaign, or focus on them in multiplayer Freeroam to boost your bank in multiplayer? You'll only receive the cash once, so choose carefully. Your Star level of completion will show up in both campaign and Lakeshore Online.

Lakeshore Online has plenty of unique skill, playlist and rank based challenges that are separate from the campaign and unlock tons of new cars for purchase. Got a favorite ride that you can't purchase yet? Pin the Challenge to focus on hitting your goal, so you can easily track your progress at any time via in-game menu. There's also Story Challenges that can only be completed in the campaign, but will award you with sweet new rides directly into your Lakeshore Online garage.

Completing each of the Qualifiers and the Grand will get you:

• A pre tuned legendary custom build added to your MP rides
• A unique Driving Effect Tag
• Additionally completing the grand will unlock a new pose

Completing each of the Delivery missions in the single player campaign will unlock a custom build to be purchased in the custom online dealership:

• 13 Unique builds

Winning specific events over the course of the campaign will award a custom build added to your MP rides:

• 10 Unique builds

Completing a special event will give you:

• A unique custom build car
• A unique Driving Effect Tag
• A unique pose
• A unique horn

Various in-game challenges that can be completed over the course of the campaign will unlock four new Driving Effect Tags you can equip in the campaign or in Lakeshore Online.

In addition, all in world collectables and activities give various rewards as you progress, that are shared between Campaign and Lakeshore Online:

• Unlock 14 Driving Effect Tags
• Unlock 7 Driving Effect Samples
• Unlock 14 Poses
• Unlock 7 Underglows
• Unlock and Award 7 vehicles
• Unlock and award 1 legendary custom build

Lakeshore Online is where you’ll make your name, and we’re just getting started. What are you waiting for? Let’s go!

[TheRealJony]

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@Braddock512 wrote:

MEETUPS

Meetups in Lakeshore Online are where you get set up to prove your skills and show off your machine. Entering an online Meetup provides you with multiple race playlists in which to compete, with different tiers of cars required. Some are Single Tier Race Playlists, meaning only one Tier of car is required. Some are Mixed Tiered Race Playlists, so one race may need a Tier A car, while another needs a Tier S+ car. You’ll want to build up a stable of rides with different tunings and Tiers to guarantee you can compete in every online Playlist. You can always use a loaner car, but that’s like wearing someone else’s shoes. Completely up to you - or you can be a collector of fine racing machines. For each of the Race Playlists, you’ll see multiple events such as Street Races, Speed Races, and Corner King races, just like the race types in the campaign found at Meetups. Once you roll up to a Meetup and initiate a Race Playlist, you can invite everyone on the server (first come, first served - you snooze, you lose) or you can just invite members of your party. Up to seven other racers can join the race playlist. Once the first race in the Race Playlist starts, you’re in it to win it. Don’t back down. Win the Race Playlist to get the biggest payout - and the more racers in a Race Playlist, the more money there is to win and Bank. You can receive invites to a Race Playlist any time in Freeroam. If you’re in your garage, you’ll see the invite and can join from there - as long as you’re not too busy customizing your ride (or checking out some threads for your driver.)

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L.

A really big L.

Rip PvP in NFS Unbound.

This is the exact same story as NFS Heat back in 2019.

This is so sad.

From what I said in another thread:

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TheRealJony wrote:

It frustrates me that NFS Heat never did have a proper PvP system in the game like Speedlists from NFS 2015 (NFS Reboot) and NFS Payback. I would had played NFS Heat a lot more if it did have PvP.

From what I read in the IGN article:

"Multiplayer, meanwhile, has been tuned to be "as low friction as possible." When you go into the multiplayer mode you can drive around the world, meet up with friends, or just mess around. While there, "people will be pinging off race requests and playlist requests and you can seamlessly join any one of those events at any time,”

It sounds like NFS Unbound could have the exact same "PvP" system as NFS Heat.

In NFS Heat, you start a countdown for anyone to join the race you selected. Nobody joins. Then you restart the countdown several times in hoping someone joins, which nobody joins or just one player joins if you are very lucky.

Sounds it's gonna be the same story with NFS Unbound from what the IGN article describes.

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Such a shame that NFS Unbound won't have a proper PvP system like Speedlists and will just have the same flawed system as NFS Heat.

[OneVeeAll]

Huuuge L with the online SMH... 4 player party? & No cops at launch? WTF.

Many other things to list btw but those 2 alone * me off being that I already pre-ordered the game digitally. Horrible baiting in the advertising. 

[pascal_w_94]

Why is there no Day and Night Cycle in MP ? This is a big letdown. I hope they patch this in future.

[Markphyton]

We need more players on the servers only 16 is realy low, most of the races are empty or only 2 player.

[CyrisTM]

@MarkphytonThat's sadly too much when it comes to Modern EA. The last NFS game that had online features was either HP 2010 or The run.

But i get you. Unbound is suffering the exact same issue as Heat did. No Endgame. There is absolutely zero reason to play after a while other than customizing or just messing around in free roam. There is nothing to go for. No PvP (Playlists isn't PvP, it's a join a new game session and hope more than 3 people joins simulator). No leaderboards, nothing. There is absolutely nothing to keep you playing.

Just a reminder for EA. Need for speed: Pro street had more online features than 2015, Payback, Heat & Unbound combined and that is a 2007 game btw.

[Markphyton]

@CyrisTM you say right! the only one Need for Speed for MultiPlayer was NEED FOR SPEED WORLD. I wish a new NEED FOR SPEED WORLD will be come back. Yes of course NFSW have a big cheater problem but its only EA´s mistake! they Killed BLACK BOX Studios and Black Box make NFSU , NFSU2, NFSMW, NFSW. Maybe the Devs make the Online Multiplayer Better ^^ but i have seen we are ATM in Lakeshore Online VOL.1 maybe they make Sessions or something. I hope they bring more then this Multiplayer *. ( sry for my word * ).

Here a little Video: Need for Speed World in 2020! - YouTube