Chase Challenge Mode

[Fry]

Right, so today I was playing Need for Speed: Carbon, an interesting racing game. Anyway, one of the boss fight types was called a "canyon duel". Basically, it had two parts to it. In the first part, you had to chase the car in front of you, and stay atleast a set distance away from him for a certain amount of time. If you got too far behind from him, you would lose the first part. In the second part, you had to stay in front of the other car, and not let him catch up with you. If you were able to stay in front for a certain amount of time, you would win the second part.
I think that, in addition to the weapon duels, we could have a similar system with car chases.
Here's the clincher: we wouldn't have to make any custom track/checkpoints for it.
All we'd need to do was constantly measure the differences between the two cars. A player would win/lose the chase when either:
-The cars got too far apart.
-One car loses the lead.
-One car stopped completely.
Any player who challenges another player wouldn't have to choose from a track, they would simply drive around different parts of the map at top speed, trying not to crash. The only vehicle truley capable of doing that is the NRG-500; any other cars/bikes are simply too crash prone.
What do the other developers think of this? What kinds of challenge modes can we create with this theme?

[tomozj]

awesome

I think it's really good.

[ooshie]

actually...I love this idea. One of the best yet. I love getting into chases.

A player would win/lose the chase when either:
-The cars got too far apart.
-One car loses the lead.
-One car stopped completely.

The only vehicle truley capable of doing that is the NRG-500; any other cars/bikes are simply too crash prone.

There is a way around that. Make it so you lose if the car is stopped completely for 5 seconds.
One thing I'm worried about, how will the game know who is in the lead, and if the lead is lost???

If anything we could make it so you have to destroy the persons car who started the chase. That way the player who started it is always on the run, and the second player is always chasing.

[dab]

how will the game know who is in the lead, and if the lead is lost???

If the goal is just to stay away from someone, then there really is no "leader" per say.  Just the escapee.

I actually like that idea Fry.

[Fry]

Keep in mind this isn't a full-fledged suggestion, just putting it up there as a concept we could work around.

What I'm concerned about mostly is the length of the duel. We ideally wouldn't want to have both parts in a single duel, right? I'm thinking the person who challenges someone else, the challenger, would have to chase. The challenged person would have to dodge.
Then that would only flip if the old challenger accepted a challenge from the old challenged person.
So A challenges B.
  B accepts.
    A starts chasing B.
      B successfully evades for the time. B wins. END.
      B crashes, or A gets ahead. A wins. END
      Either of them time out. Both are refunded. END.
  B declines.
    A gets their money back. END