Simulation - 10/10. Usability - 1/10.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by dylbie, Sep 9, 2019.

  1. dylbie

    dylbie Registered

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    Firstly let me state here that I am a self confessed rF2 fanboy, and I've been modding cars on and off for the last 5 years so it is without doubt my number one sim. It is really difficult for me to write a post like this but I feel I'm compelled to after the last few weeks experience using the sim, seeing leagues fail, and two whole evenings wasted just trying to host a server for me and some friends.

    A friend recently stated: "What's the point of the world's best rollercoaster, if the steps to the station are broken?"

    I've just seen a league which was regularly getting 30+ drivers per season (63 in one case) now dwindle to almost nothing. And mostly because of complaints of "I can't get this to work" or "This wont load" or "It keeps freezing/crashing". Is it coincidence that there is an exodus?

    I spent two evening messing around with port forwarding and trying to sort out loopback issues, only to eventually get nowhere and be stopped racing with my friends as a result. Why should it be this hard to set up a fun server to mess around with friends?

    I'm now seeing someone independent single-handedly creating really great UI and UX tools for single player. Why is this work not being done and rolled out by Studio397? Why are they not employing people who are doing the work, even if only on a consultancy basis?

    The new UI looks great and will be great I'm sure, but what we saw is just a HTML version of what we have now. I'm sure there will be tons of new features eventually, but I am honestly scared that time is running out and people are going elsewhere.

    I see time and again in the roadmaps more DLC and eSports promotion. I understand this fully, but I get the sense that all the focus is almost solely on endurance racing eSports now. What happened to rFactor being good at ALL types of motorsport?

    I want rF2 to be the best it can, and once I'm driving there is no doubt in my mind that it is by far the best simulation out there. But what is the point of that if it is inaccessible to most users?
     
  2. Nielsen

    Nielsen Registered

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    Sorry I cant help you but Ill be watching this thread for possible solutions/answers.
    I had a similiar problem that made me give up on rf2 some month ago.
    In my case both the player.json and multiP.json became corrupted every time the game crashed.
    And it suddenly began crashing at random moments.
    And after I became bored of save&copy all the settings from the orig files into the new virgin jsons I just gave up.
    But lets see what answers you get.:)
     
  3. Rui Santos

    Rui Santos Registered

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    This :rolleyes:
     
  4. Gevatter

    Gevatter Registered

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    There's a bit of variation in RF2 if you take the free cars into consideration, but what you describe is the flavour of the current sim generation. GT3/GTE is what everyone wants to drive, with that come the endurance races. It what moves copies at the moment, so everyone is doing it and every sim has the same content. I personally wish there was more historic S397 content done to the quality of the latest DLCs. Touring cars from the 60s or 70s, maybe historic endurance cars from the 50s to keep with the theme?
     
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  5. Gonzo

    Gonzo Member

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    can you provide those files and tattach them here? Json files are easy. maybe those can get fixed easily.
    Why do you think those files are corrupt? What is the result?

    Try to validate there with tools like this:
    https://jsonformatter.curiousconcept.com/
     
  6. Nielsen

    Nielsen Registered

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    @Gonzo
    Hehe you dont need some fancy prog to verify that the 2 files get "corrupted" every time the game crashes.
    Opening the files in notepad reveals that all content is deleted and the files are more or less empty.

    Help ins

    EDIT: The linked post was when I still believed that the problem could be solved. Now I dont - anymore :)
     
  7. ADSTA

    ADSTA Registered

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    So explain to me why, even on the rare times that rF1 or 2 has crashed to desktop or locked up, I have never in 12 years using rf1 & 2 had a single json or cofig file get corrupted.
     
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  8. lagg

    lagg Registered

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    Because you are a lucky guy?
     
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  9. Marc Christopher Harris

    Marc Christopher Harris Registered

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    As another self confessed rf2 fan boy, both as a runner of leagues, and as a driver, and as someone who works in user experience for 10000 people at a hospital.

    It breaks my heart to see without doubt the best simulator experience (once you are driving the car) in a shroud of unnecessary hoops to jump through for a user to get the point of driving the car.

    I echo everything Dylbie says. I sigh every time I see the new blueprint. Each time focussing on eSports and DLC, instead of the fundamentals of any tool. Getting the user to the end product as quickly and efficiently as possible.

    The amount of people I know who have given up on rF2 now, because of game crashes, being unable to join servers, losing patience with manually editing config files in notepad, corrupted jsons and even the complexity for admins of servers and creating mods and veh files to just have a specific car for a league is far too many.

    It was me who came up with the analogy above.

    You could have the world's greatest experience waiting for you. But if you've had a terrible journey to get there, then your experience will be negative, even of the positive.

    Please, please sort out the above before it's too late. Get a user experience expert on board, and work with them.

    Rather than doing what you THINK is right, work with the user, o(which unlike other Sims we have a great community) more to get something that IS right.
     
  10. ADSTA

    ADSTA Registered

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    If that's how luck rewards me, it sounds like it crashed and now I get corrupt and empty luck. :(
     
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  11. Nielsen

    Nielsen Registered

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    Hehe thank you lagg.
    You spared me of getting irritated by such a trolling rhetoric question.
    Just like: Now Im 70 years old and hadnt got cancer - so dont tell me that you have got it when you are only 50 years old.
    o_O
     
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  12. Gonzo

    Gonzo Member

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    I just wanted to help, as a workaround. I never had this issue, so there might be a bug that needs to be fixed. When does it crash? Is it reproducible?
     
  13. Gonzo

    Gonzo Member

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    Me, too. Never ever, not with plr, not with json plus I am testing the beta.

    Dev's cannot fix what they are not aware of, so let's stay constructive and try to narrow it down an reproduce it and then send a bug report. As I was a user in the beginning i had the same opinion, but been a developer myself over years now helped me to understand what's going on.

    Bugs cannot be fixed if we smash the dev's or the product with a hammer. There are good guys working on it now, but they require precise bug reports to stick their heads into billions of lines of code to address them. I never heard anything about corrupt files before and I am in testing since the beginning of rF1!

    So let's come up with something that really helps. Let's try to force this bug, note the steps to reproduce and I will fill the form to allow them to fix it.

    Doing content does not hold of any code improvements, those after different people, so calm down a bit.
     
  14. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Registered

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    I had corrupted .json files on crash when I had too aggressive caching policy set in my Windows.

    When this check box was checked, it was causing that on my system:

    upload_2019-9-10_11-1-1.png

    OS warns you against doing that, and it is a valid warning :) Not saying that's your problem, but something to check.

    However, I think it is worth for rF2 to get feature that handles such corruption silently for the user, it is simple feature.
     
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  15. Nielsen

    Nielsen Registered

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    Here we go.
    Im saying I have (had) a similiar problem - but you have NEVER ever NEVER had this problem - so...
    Yes so what?
    Hehe and who have to calm down a bit?

    It is somewhat wellknown that such kind of inductive "logic" cannot prove anything.
    Like I have never seen a black swan - so black swans dont exist.:rolleyes:
    The only thing I have said is that I got bored of repeting copy/paste content into these corrupted jsons - so I stopped using rF2.
    No big deal - for me at least.:)
    But I got interested in this thread because I could maybe learn something new about this goofy little issue(s).

    EDIT: thanks @Wolfy
    Ill check that out next time I try to install rF2.
    I have just copied your post.:)
    Im using W7 but havent seen this menu - but as said Ill check it out next time I play with the old lady ;)
     
  16. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Registered

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    this menu is in Device manager for disk you have game on. It could also be Intel RST bug/setting.
     
  17. Nielsen

    Nielsen Registered

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    @The Iron Wolf
    Thanks again.
    Actually asking my old memory again I HAVE seen this menu.
    And without checking Im pretty sure Im running it checked.
    And again your idea isnt bad. And using some good reasoning this could be the reason behind (some) of these incidents.;)
    ThumbsUp
    ---
    EDIT: Hehe just checked:rolleyes:
    1.png
    EDIT2: Ah I see I use the same safeguarded setting as you - doooh:D
    So this shouldnt be the reason.
    Dammit:p
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2019
  18. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

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    That's a strange request.

    For info, when I've had corrupted json files they're totally empty - 0x00 filled (normally indicates end of file/stream), not empty text or anything like that. The game could detect this and take steps to rebuild from scratch (and should probably keep backups somewhere until the root cause is found) but despite this being reported quite some time ago nothing has happened.


    *Oh, and re: title, I'd give simulation 7.5. -1.5 for lack of weekend rules (configurable qual format, tyre rules, etc etc), -0.5 for wet weather shortcomings, and -0.5 for trees ;)


    ** annnnd inb4 the inevitable question: https://forum.studio-397.com/index.php?threads/possible-failed-startup-cause-empty-jsons.61035/
     
    Last edited: Sep 10, 2019
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  19. The Iron Wolf

    The Iron Wolf Registered

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    Well said on simulation's shortcomings, however rules you mention can be written as plugin. Although there's problem that there's no way to force AI to follow them, but for online sessions that's doable.
     
  20. dylbie

    dylbie Registered

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    Guys this is way off topic. Emptying json files is bug in it's own right, but only a tiny part of what I'm talking about here.

    My point is:
    The user experience is so bad that people are literally turning to inferior simulations as they can't get over the hundreds of hurdles preventing them from having an enjoyable experience.

    And this is exactly what I mean. You have to be a developer, work in IT, or be REALLY into computers just to get things set up properly. This is a terrible thing, and beyond the reach of maybe 95% of users. Users who just want to load the game and have a quick race. Or set up their own server for their friends.

    And your last point about trying to 'force a bug'. My complaint isn't about a bug. It's about a fundamental neglect of UX since the rF1 days.

    As far as I can see, over the last couple of years, rF2 is focused almost entirely on established endurance leagues who have experienced admins who know their stuff. A considerable amount of the small leagues are failing as they lack the experience and understanding of how to manipulate the software for their needs. But most importantly, they don't have the drivers because they've all given up and gone to 'plug and play iRacing'. How is this going to increase new players if the only thing available to them are leagues like VEC - which are probably too daunting to the more casual player.

    I've been silent about this issue for maybe 3 years. Hoping that things would improve after the S397 takeover. But now I'm starting to lose faith. We're now 3 years down the line, with a preview of a HTML UI version almost identical to what we have now.

    I really want rF2 to be what it has the potential to be - the best vehicle simulator. Whether it's open wheel, sports cars/endurance, touring cars, historic, karts. And I want everyone to be able to access it, from all levels.
     

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