Am I missing some fundamental concept for drift zones?

[nealbo85]

I've platinumed 2 other NFS games without much issue and in payback I'm not even having much trouble with speedruns so far which I understand is a sticking point for a lot of people. BUT these drift zones are killing me.

 

I have my drift car maxed out, I'm going into the zones and all corners as fast as I can, at a sharp an angle as possible, hitting the multipliers and getting 4x, boosting to maintain it and holding the 4x until the end. But for example where I need 70K for 3 stars I'm getting a max of 50k. 

 

It's taking me maybe 10 or more attempts at each to get the 3 stars and others seem completely undoable. 

 

Is there something I'm missing? Should I actually be going slowly or weaving left and right on the straights? Any help would be appreciated because this is going to take me an eternity to complete with my current method.

Edited December 20, 2020 by nealbo85

[Congors]

Was struggeling aswell until I tuned my Lamborghini huracan to rear heavy... whenever you've got room wiggle the rear around. Worked for me

[PerryToxteth]

I was having trouble too, until I switched to the Mazda Rx7 as others had suggested here. I never had full speed in the drifts, there is a sweet spot on the  Accelerator that is optimum for drifts. I found keeping it floored would result in spin-outs. 
  On some of the drift runs, look for wide areas in the straightaways that you can drift into (I.e. dirt patches). That will help keep the multiplier up. Don’t crash into any obstacles like guardrails, that will instantly drop your multiplier.  If you are nearing the end and need points, pull off a donut and you can get a up to a couple grand, depending where the multiplier is at. And, play in the multiplayer Free Run. There is less traffic than in the main game. 
Good luck! 

[yowzagabowza]

I actually used my off road vehicle for most of the drifts. I found that maxing out a drift car made it unwieldy and just led to constant spin outs. 

[based_gigachad]

I would recommend the RX7 too, would also recommend switching to manual transmission for drifting as even though I play racing games in automatic, when it comes to drifting sometimes an upshift or downshift can mess with your rhythm/momentum.

[Muldec]

I'd suggest to try them at night rather than in plain day to minimize the NPC traffic (removing a lot of struggle to avoid incoming vehicules).

 

I was suggested to use the Huracan also, and to burn NO2 while drifting to ramp up the multiplier VERY quickly. By doing this, I find it easier than before;

[stpatty]

If you switch to manual transmission and stay in 4th gear you'll get better scores during drifting. I used the derelict Nissan fully upgraded and I played around with the tuning menu too, I forget what the options are called but whatever makes the back end come out a lot. Really though it seems like 4th gear is magic, so try that first.

[nealbo85]

Thanks for the tips everyone, really helped me out. What I ended up doing was switching car to the Nissan fairlady, maxed out, rear heavy, multiplayer free roam (or whatever it's called) for less traffic, weaved on straights rather than boosting. Made things much much easier and went from 10 attempts per activity to just 1 or 2.