Is rf2 too difficult? [lack of online players / leagues struggling]

Empty Box.. The racing, the physics, the dynamics, there IS no sim next to rf2 currently.

If you (too) are only in it for the graphics - which is not far off actually- then you really belong in the pcars/AC/RRRE(?) -forums

Enjoy your pointless hotlapping in those sims...

 

The problem are not the graphics. The IMO main problem is, it seems personaly for me, there is no general plan behind (ISI) to get rf2 into a stabil & final release. Everything feels to me like 2 steps forward and 3 back with every new patch, like a "never ending story". This feeling makes me (admin of a simracing com) uncomfortable with rf2 and for the moment i stopped everything to push rf2 into our com, because i`m really afraid to get to much complaints from our drivers...

 

Yeah LOL exactly the guy is nuts, one video he turned the strength right up and his rig was visibly dying. I enjoy his chat alot and the guy can drive, great aggressive driver.

Exactly he doesn't rabbit on and on and whoop whoop himself. Stays humble and doesn't have an ego, i like this. Would love to race with him.

 

Thanks for that. I really liked the technical driving point of view of that specific video I linked by him, almost reminded of me of something that Niels H could do. Very analytical of how he drove the car, what it was doing, why he lost time on a corner relative to his previous lap, etc. Hope he has more like that one.

 

The reasons is little of everything you guys say. Also times change(or more right to say world), making money for living is more harder and stressful every day(dollar and any other currency worth less every day) , which make people unwilling to put any more energy to games. But rf2 definitely take time to dealing with and people actually becoming asocial in time of internet. Personal contacts are more and more rare among 25 year old population and above. Many of rF1 players become older, many of them maybe don't play games anymore(specially in leagues), as they must care for families and working for living. So this is also loss for rF2. And in this area rF2 is struggling, to attract more new fresh users. Also a bugs like "join button" don't help with that. "Get mod" function is also so so( i am not accusing anybody but this is very important specially for newcomers and developers is definitely not imagine this function working like this(so so)). All in all the people, that really dealing full time in league with rF2 right now is either unemployed, young people that living with parents, or "rich"people(people with enough money to fully enjoy own life or careless people), which is actually small number compared to whole population. So the majority of potential rF2 player is in middle (most busy)class, which unfortunately rF2 don't appealing to them right now.

 

Those PS2 graphics are modders fault to be honest. Besides some exceptions, they just do quick conversions, which ends in those PS2 graphics style as you said, which I agree. For example, I changed that groove texture at Sebring for a FSR event weeks ago, and that thing alone already improved quite a lot the visual experience. Example here. Now if you also edit the tarmac textures, grass, kerbs etc etc with modern textures (like from the ISI tracks you mentioned) the results can be much better.

On the other hand, some broadcasts have low quality due to the bad performance of the game, especially if you want to run with good settings and > 20 cars on track without performance hit. In that aspect it's more ISI's fault, for not having a solid graphics engine.

We should have all of this, hopefully

 

Everyone pointed some aspect of the "problem", my 2 cents are these:
Hardware specifications : they are not a problem if you don't want them be it, I play without antialiasing and with detail turned to medium on a dual core with a ATI HD5750 , not a fancy GPU, in 1600 x 1050 , with frames capped at 60. I'm really happy of the graphics and performances.
Difficulty: The problem is not that is difficult, is that it's too good. I mean, RF1 have tons of MODS, but how many are just "MEH!" ? A lot, I would say, the most part. RF2 has much less content (car wise) but they are all so good that people keep jumping from a series to the other without settling. You know this from the constant ask for new contents that people beg to ISI.
Difficulty part 2: Yes, more accurate is the sim, more deep you need to dig it. Personally, at 38 y/o I often feel guilty to spend several hours on RF2, there are a lot of things to do at home. And in this condition, when I have some time, I take a car and run some laps, It's so fun that I can't focus on a specific track or car, a even less with messing with setups. Setups are a science on their own, and it's amazing how most car can change a lot with just slight modifications.
So, turning good with a car, require to stop using other cars, dedicate more time than many people have.
Many times, people compared driving a flight sims, well, there is one difference that can't be overcome:
I can learn to fly a jumbo, sitting on the toilet every morning, just reading and learning the freaking manual.
But I can't make a single lap with a kart if I don't spend time driving, and driving require that: there is no cat jumping on you lap, there is not phone ringing, there is no door ringing, there are no chores to do, there are no people visiting that you must entertain, and so on. This cut the avaiable time a lot. You should not be surprised why racing simmers are on average younger than flight simmers.
Another problem is that a lot of people found "home" in a RF1 mod, they have found what they like, and probably are now quite good with it. Shifting to RF2 would mean restart from scratch. I always sucked with RF1, until real Feel plugin made FFB have some meaning, to me, jumping to RF2 has been a salvation, but I understand for other it will be an inferno.

 

Thats not right comante it always depends on the plane u fly and u are comparing a jumbo jet with a million aids built into this thing to get it going as it should with a kart that has no aids at all. And i don't think u are able to land a bf109 with just reading a manual sorry, that takes a lot of practice too. And if you go into combat sims where competition is forced into the sim u even need a lot more practice and u gonna dig into all the other stuff that comes with it like in a racing sim.

 

Ernie, I dedicated most of my "computer time" to combat flight simulations, and in all honestly the "read the f££$ing manual" part, makes for 80% of the time you need to invest. Not only manuals are 3-4 hundred pages only for flight systems, there are manuals for combat procedures and maneuvers. You can't train them if you have not studied them beforehand. Sure, landing and refueling are some of the most intensive experience, but you know, usually you don't need to land "faster" than another pilot, and if things doesn't convince you, you can always abort and retry. For combat situations, it's a game, so you accept to face risks that often would lead to an abort mission just to stress your skill, but again, knowing what do to, and how to instruct your wingmen, is much more important than being able to fly at 100 fts / 500 KTS.

I'm not saying that it's easier, but that you need to invest your time differently, and you need different skills. Unless you make Aerobatics, you don't need to be able to repeat the same tiny movement 50 times in a row like driving around a track need. Flying a plane you have time to drink, to answer the phone, even to leave the seat and open the door (god bless autopilots), and even to read the freaking manual, checking maps, everything that you can't make at 200 Km/h on a track.

 

WOW, you couldn't be more OFF... Both the staff at my league and my entire team consist of guys 25+ (~35 avg.) with jobs, own home and most even have kids and wifes too...

All depends on your definition of "full time" ofcause ?

 

I think its pretty the same amount of time u should invest in both. Sure for flightsims there is more about flight techniques and maneuvers but in racing u still should know all the basics. And at some point you start digging into it a bit more to know all the systems of your car and how they behave under diffrent circumstances. And if you are able to drive your constant laps around a track u gonna start to mess with the setups and theres a new huge pile of information you wanna learn if you want to go faster. Most of my expierience i have in ww2 planes so i didn't have that autopilot feature except for singleplayer where the ai takes over and thats the same for rf2 in singleplayer. You can always pause your game in some way which is clearly not manageable for online games because u gonna destroy the enjoyment of everybody else who has to wait. And in a race u can always go to the pits and do your stuff, if you would race in real life you would also need to pit if u had to visit the bathroom.

 

I wish we could move away from the video discussions, its a bit off topic imo as it seems to be about opinions on what is a good video and what is not.
Those discussions really need to be in the comments of a youtube video because you'll never win.
Moreover: if someone gives 10 statements on something in his video, and 1 of those is inaccurate, most people will disregard the other 9 statements as well, because they finally found something they are right about and they aren't afraid to show it.

Personally i'm even surprised anyone would watch rf2 reviews or whatever, you got the sim don't you? you really need the opinion of someone else? what do we gain by watching it other then comparing an opinion vs our own?

 

Yeah, have to agree there. we only got a handful of young folks in our league (and most of them will jump leagues anyways chasing their fix for the next exciting bit) and the majority are peeps in their 30's and then going up all the way to 70 years old.
we got relatives racing , most people have families, jobs, other hobbies, etc.
Some will practise like madman, others just show up on race night. maybe they don't like practising, maybe they don't have the time, but the racing still gets done.

But a league enables people to dedicate themselves as well. you don't need to spend a week on the setup, or lines, of fuel level, strategy, in most communities this is all shared and you just have to ask or admins prepare stuff for the drivers. big time savers.
All you usually need is a bit of practise and then some.
it doesn't take too much time (unless you are keen on winning races and championships, then its a different ballgame but that's your choice)

Being foreveralone.jpg as a driver roaming servers without being loved, now that's a time consumer, nothing satisfies you, its hard to compete, you don't have enough info and do not receive enough feedback that help your skill levels.
I feel for them, really I do.
Ok I don't. but I could.

 

I agree.

Besides, sometimes I get the impression reviewers pretty much judge the car, not the sim. If the car is easy to control and lets you drive sideways without breaking a sweat, they will like it- just as you would like such car in real life At the same time it is extremely rare for a reviewer to say anything about how accurately given car is reproduced in a sim - simply because they don't know that, same as we.

So it's like taking a car for a test drive and telling us what you think of it. It's not really informative if you want to know something about realism of simulator. I find NASCAR and IndyCar broadcasts more informative than reviews, because you have ex race drivers telling you what drivers are going through right now. They also talk about tires, track conditions, etc.
During this years Daytona 500 it was mentioned that drivers have water temperature and pressure gauges in favorable place, simply because these are two most important gauges. I can't imagine an Average Joe being happy if he had to pay attention to such things during his simulated race.
I remember Takuma Sato's accident at Iowa (two years ago?), when he had a likely podium finish, but got too close behind lapped car. He lost so much downforce he went straight into wall. They said it feels like if someone would lift the front of your car up - you can turn wheel left and right but get very little response. And then, in contrast, I hear complains from simracers during our Indy 500, that they have to lift off while behind another car and that it's no fun at all Oh, for heaven's sake - it's where thrill comes from, where overtaking becomes difficult and risky and yet many people want to drive Indy 500 like it's Daytona 500

Yeah, drafting is tons of fun - I agree. But if in given race it's not realistic, then it shouldn't be there.

Hosting various kind of races (including many ovals) has led me to a simple conclusion - people often ask for maximum realism, but judge by fun factor. This is why they often choose fun factor over realism.
This is why rF2 may actually turn out to be too difficult sometimes - because it's aiming to do what a simulation should do.

 

Empty Box makes a lot of sense. A fair amount of the problem does come down to something I alluded to earlier (and got attacked a bit for, think some thought I was an iRacing fanboy), which amount to timing and modding.

Essentially comparing iRacing and RF2 you have apple vs Linux. The former is pretty and just works, the latter can be wonderful to use but you need to spend a lot of time working on it to get it right. Sound familiar?

iRacing has an advantage that they are making all the content themselves and can limit the amount of tracks and cars being run at any given time with series that change track on a weekly basis (and that makes people try things they wouldn't otherwise consider and then they discover they like them - see skippies). By having just a sensible selection of content to run at a given time, the userbase isn't ridiculously split.

[as a sidenote, I think even iRacing is now offering too many series and this has stretched participation a bit thin on the road side, and leagues have exacerbated this, especially where some are cannibalising lower-participation series]

iRacing also schedules races reliably, which helps, I know when I can get a race. All the information is in a central place, so even the low participation series aren't a problem, I can review past races and see when they go off, or look in the forums.

Finally, there are active practice servers, separate to the main races, where you can practice with other drivers before going off to race. The value of these is immeasurable, and they're a lot of fun. It gets people engages, communicating with each other and forms a sense of community, and encourages people to practice before they race. Combined with known race times it's easy to plan your racing, you can always get a good practice session and when you're ready you race. Simple.

iRacing content is largely consistent in standard and getting it working is a piece of cake. This is a product of that closed environment. I'm a linux user so I do prefer things to be open, but I can see the advantages.

RF2 has issues here. As noted previously, 14 people driving on 6 servers (plus another 50 empty ones) isn't great tbh. As I pointed out earlier and EB noted, the interface for joining races is terrible, as you have no idea where any given server is in its racing cycle (ie how long til the race kicks off). There is no filter, and it's practically impossible to join most servers, with very little indication given of why in most cases. I'm a techie so I can often solve the problems if it's simply not having the mods but even I can't figure out some of them, but the reason the servers are empty is that most people can't be bothered with that level of hassle.

I get that the mod community work hard, but the standard of some of the content is pretty terrible. I realise that I'm not a modder so some will flame me for that, after all what right do I have to say this? But again, pulling heads out of the sand for a moment, newbies trying this stuff out will take one look and go eugh and wander off. Not just because of the poor graphics but the poor road surface, dire physics of some modded cars, etc.

So, in short:
- Terrible MP interface
- Impossible to figure out how to get on a decent public server (and as has been alluded to elsewhere terrible driving, iRacing public rooms are generally not too bad, mainly due to practice)
- Inconsistent mod quality
- When the hell are the races starting? Will the server still be around when I've done some practice at that track? Oh bugger it's gone, that was a waste of time. Well in that case I'll just drive the tracks I know. [cue a situation where only a few car/track combos ever get actually raced]

I'm not looking to bash RF2. Frankly the karts are amazing and I prefer RF2's physics to iRacing (except the L49 which is bloody beautiful), and if the online side was fixed I'd never drive anything else. I'm not sure of the solutions, but then one cannot identify the solutions if one cannot determine the problems.

PS and yes part of the problem is that the community will never agree what needs doing. Strong leadership is the only way to fix these things, as working with the community is like herding cats

 

I'm sorry if I offended you Luis.

Seriously though, didn't mean any disrespect. And I agree, its more about the interaction with other drivers. and when someone is unprepared that often means lots of incidents. and that means lots of people leaving the server after half a lap, even those whom where just a victim of circumstances.
I'm pretty sure most unprepared drivers are trying their best but its generally just not good for racing and it gives public racing a bad reputation.

We had a public league race last sunday, reasonable turnout as well for once. race1: 7 out of 18 finished. race2: 7 out of 16 finished.
The reasons where varied, one member had a ctd causing his car to inflict others, there where pickup racers not knowing what was expected, and the usual contact stuff even the best drivers have from time to time.

But all in all it was the public nature of the event which saw so many dnf's. in a closed environment its just miles better as the circumstances can be controlled easier and the levels of trust are much higher.

 

In my experience, the average age for league members is about 48. I actually had several guys who were in their 70s. Most of them had some sort of racing experience and were just looking for an outlet. These people seem to have more free time than I do because they have older and more self sufficient kids. I myself am 37 with a 7 year old who is actually becoming more interested in racing. For example over the weekend he spent a few hours being my spotter and loved it. rF2 isn't your typical game like GT5, Forza, pCARS and so on. It attracts real racers which tend to spend their time in leagues and don't post here on forums. I think people are underestimating the user base of rF2. Just because you look at the matchmaker at random times and only see a hand full of people online doesn't mean leagues never use it. I think it is time I do some RRD graphs of the matchmaker so people can stop claiming it never goes over 14 total users.

 

This contains data thru November

http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/rF2_mmstats_v1_03/VolbyDay?:embed=y&:display_count=no

Aggregation is on player-hours IIRC.

Check out server by day or mod@track by day tabs. Other tabs might be useful, too.

You can also adjust event date to get all-time stats back to August.

Edit - Sorry, actually you'd want the Vol by Hour view which gives you player counts.

Average daily peak usage looks like was around 150-250 users.

 

I've got a bit tired of iracing, the last 2 seasons I've selected a series ( a car which has a set selection of tracks) I've practiced & got familiar with the car, then iracing goes & releases a new car & most people move to that one
(due to mainly hype it think) , now there is more content / choice but it out weighs members so unless your constantly buying the latest content & following the crowd your not really benefitting from their online structure fully.

also a rental service (subscription) mixed with as purchase system (buying cars & tracks) is flawed in my opinion,
if you stop paying the rent/subscription you then can not access your purchases, it should be one or the other
(purchase or rental/subscription )

 

I just threw this together real quick. This is just the total current users on all servers (including passworded servers) at any given time. Not much data in here yet but I will leave it running.

http://getmod.srrs-racing.net/mm/

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