Rfactor2 has become easy and boring (kinda).

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by green serpent, Apr 5, 2021.

  1. green serpent

    green serpent Registered

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    Let me qualify the title of this thread so people don't get mad. I'm not commenting on the actual physics engine itself, I'm commenting on the content that S397 has been making and my subjective preferences as to how the cars handle, not the quality or realism (okay, maybe just a small dig at the realism).

    I recently made a video explaining how I think S397 should make more lower power/easy to control cars for newcomers to the title. While I still believe that S397 should continue to make easy cars such as the Alpine, I've come to the conclusion that most, if not all the new content is so easy to drive that the sim is becoming boring.

    Now I hate to state the bleeding obvious, but driving any car on the absolute limit and getting world-class lap times in rF2 is not easy. I'm aware of this. I'm not really talking about lap times and winning races, I'm talking about general car control. And yes I know there has a lot that's been said about setup exploits or driving exploits, I'm not really talking about that either.

    I've been driving a lot of recent content of late, and what I have noticed is that I can drive the car with very poor and sloppy inputs, not smooth at all, and I just can't get the car to experience a sudden loss of control/grip mid corner. The operative word being sudden. Even when I am at the absolute limit mid corner, I have to do something VERY aggressive to get the car to break away. Even then it's very progressive and easy to control, at no point in time is the loss of grip so dramatic that I am a passenger and just along for the ride. Granted, corner entry and corner exit can still be tricky, but as far as mid corner not much finesse is required at all to maintain control/achieve decent lap times. It's like there is no edginess to the handling mid corner.

    Driving some of the older content by comparison is a revelation. The AC Cobra, the Palatov, the Howston G6 among others, it's like the intended purpose of these cars was to kill the driver, and as a result they are very challenging, engaging and rewarding to drive. Breath on the throttle a little too hard in some of these beasts and you'll be facing in the wrong direction in a heart beat. Over the limit handling is still controllable, but driving with precision at all times is a must. It's not that the physics were totally different, just that the type of car was more challenging.

    I've watched a lot of racing/on board footage in my time, and cars sometimes do, in fact, experience a sudden and complete loss of rear-end grip mid corner when they are right on the edge, even lower powered cars. Sometimes the drivers can catch it, but sometimes they can't. As mentioned, I am basically never experiencing this sudden and complete loss of grip mid corner, and when grip loss does occur, it's very progressive and thus easy to control. I've also been experimenting a lot with green track conditions, with not much improvement.

    Just to further clarify what I'm saying so I don't get off topic replies, lift-off oversteer/oversteer under braking = check, snap oversteer (from over correction) = check, corner exit oversteer = check, but mid corner total loss of rear grip = basically never.

    I do really love easy to control cars as well, but what really drew me to rF2 was trying to master the challenging cars with just the right amount of throttle and steering input. So, I'm not really sure if mashing the throttle mid corner and jerking on the wheel with almost no consequences is a thing in real life, because I have not driven those specific cars, so I'll leave that question to people who have more knowledge than I. Generally I think S397 make very high quality stuff, but I would personally like S397 to make at least some cars that have challenging and edgier handling. I'm finding the new stuff a bit easy to control/lacking consequences for poor inputs, and honestly a bit boring as a result. In the mean time I will continue to enjoy 3rd party mods and the old stuff!

    Cheers.
     
    Ho3n3r, Mauro, Nieubermesch and 2 others like this.
  2. John R Denman

    John R Denman Registered

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    Realtime simulation software of any kind is at best just a simulation.

    Vintage cars tend to be set up with vintage bias ply tires. Newer cars may be set up with radials compounded with the latest technology tire frosting. Control at the limits and even a bit beyond, has always been the #1 goal in race tire design. That doesn't automatically translate to to a simulation version.

    Simracing covers a wide range of skills, from novice to expert. Experts know how to find the ragged edge and tune every element of the suspension; they know how to use data but the last round of fine tuning always comes with feel and testing.

    Edgy handling results far more crashes in multiplayer mode, especially when half the field are novices. I think S397 may have some opposing forces in satisfying all levels of simracers. As for realism, until you've experienced the track and reached a point where you can feel if the right rear tire needs a tad less rebound on a critical turn exit, its nearly impossible to really judge.

    I got bored of online racing (rF1) about 10 years ago after running a league for a few years, and took a break for a few years. Came back about 6 years ago and pretty much just run laps in various cars and tweak the physics for a handful of select personal mods.
     
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  3. Filip

    Filip Registered

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    Norma Lmp 2, Porsche GT3 Cup, McLaren Mp4/13.
    Just to name a few cars in which it's very easy to experience sudden complete loss of grip
     
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  4. green serpent

    green serpent Registered

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    Fully agree that most cars used for online racing should be somewhat easy to drive and forgiving on the limit to lessen the amount of shit shows every race. However, throw us mostly offline players a bone with some more interesting/difficult content too! Look at the diversity of the old content compared to the new. Yes the old content was never a complete or cohesive package, I think ISI was obviously saying "this is what can be done" and wanted to leave it up to modders to flesh it out. Hopefully these things will come in time.
     
    Mauro likes this.
  5. green serpent

    green serpent Registered

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    I'll be sure to revisit that content, thanks.
     

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