Latest Roadmap Update - October 2021

Hello sim racers...

Roadmap day!

The latest and greatest from the world of rFactor 2, no available for your reading pleasure..

https://www.studio-397.com/2021/10/roadmap-update-october-2021/

 

Nice to see driver labels back, they will be useful for those who like them. It would be very nice to see a better HUD, completely new, which we could see a relative box splitted by classes or general to complement those labels.

 

back the labels, great decision, wise is to rectify

 

2 things interesting for me =

- New RC very very soon
- "brand new Release Candidate build that will include a couple of new physics features".

 

Yep!

 

I will trade driver labels for sparks myself . Although I understand that many wanted the driver labels so it's good to see.

 

Well checking the last blog with the tracks, they are hinting at an overhaul of the particle system. I also read that Ilja recently worked on rF2 so there might be a chance to finaly see some improved particles in rF2. Also nice to read that some physics updates are planned for the next RC. Let's hope it's something substantial.

 

Ilja = good things!

 

Great news!
Thank you!!

 

it's 100% sure that he has made the new windscreen rain drops effect, I respect s397 devs, but they dont know how to do that.
I hope he has added smoke, dirt particles, and sparks.

I'm interested only about :
- Shadows fix
- New helmets PBR
- New safety car
- New BMW GT3
- Ai fix
- PBR update for all the paid DLC cars
- Dirt, smoke, sparks, and graphics improvements
- New tracks
- New features like AI selection, % water and wetness at start on a practice session...


Big thanks, I hope you will update all my list next year.

 

A true genius, I hope so too

 

Did they add support for DD Controllers yet or should I stick with the Joypad for now?

J

 

If I understood correctly, driver labels won't make an appearance in the regular build until December because they're going into the next release candidate?

 

I already see an issue about driver labels. Looks like their scale don't have relation to the distance from the view camera point.

Although aesthetically way more pleasing and seems a lot more logical than mile high hard to read ones that were used before which made no sense.

Another thing is that I like to also see nationality of a player. Usually it is nice to know.

Anyway, I hope development speeds up. I don't think it is so great when driver labels is the accent of the progress. But, at this point even that makes me pretty happy, and actually adds up to motivation to actually race online.

 

That's how I read it. But the RC may be compatible so it won't really be an issue (depends what the physics things are).

Can you explain that a little more? I suspect "support" isn't quite what you mean.

Those are trackside shots. I'd wait and see.

When? Not on live labels, surely?

 

You are right, I haven't thought about it. It could even be a photoshop illustration of how it is planned to look like.

And as for flag. Yes of course. On the labels, it could be fitted behind the number for example, IDK. Assetto Corsa had pretty good driver labels design, it was pretty minimalistic wasn't too outstanding, but still was easy to read quickly anytime (I think perhaps this illustrated example in the roadmap is a bit too bold). It had flag, maybe it is not necessary, it is just nice that there are all these countries in the world and we all can be united by this passion to race as long as people are interested and can afford it. By the way, it also had color coding to warn about connection quality of a player - yellow was poor, and red was terrible, it was useful.

Edit: Memory may have failed me slightly, in AC scale wouldn't change as much as transparency of the label, I should come back to simracing lol, I am about to forget everything.

 

When i read cannot talk much about what we are working on, I always get the impression its licensed content and I can fully accept that. But surely they could tell us more about fixes, code, optimization, tires, physics ect... that the studio is working on. The RC will tell us in point form, but if they have made a major step in any area they could at least tell us more details in the roadmap.

 

You said the magic word. Sparks. This would be amazing, especially for older f1 cars

 

The fact they aren't saying much maybe tells the actual story.

 

Besides the positive points in the roadmap and the blogs I would like to point out an issue that is connected to the Halloweensale mentioned in this roadmap. I actually visited the Steampage to check if the DLCs for rF2 are included in the sale. I mean, I have most of the content but this - once again - shows that there is sometimes zero sense for golden opportunities when it comes to marketing desicions surrounding this product. 80 % for the basegame is indeed a bargain, but the DLCs are where you make things interesting for customers. Checking the storepages of all the competing products like ACC, AC, AMS2, RR and even AMS1 they all offer their DLCs at a discount. I am certainly not someone who wants to have everything for free but I will explain where the issue really is. We currently still have a situation where you need all content that is raced in any of the competitions. So people are about to spend a few hundred Euro if they want to get all the premium content that is on offer. So now you have two big problems at once: you have products that are first of all more approachable and offer a more fleshed out online experience while they offer their content for alot less. If you can explain to me in any way that makes sense, how you want to compete with a product that offers 3 high quality tracks for 7,79 while one single rF2 track costs 7,99 with the best offer being 4 tracks at a price of 24,60 Euro while not offering a matchmaking system that screams BETA? I don't get it.

This isn't just about the users of today but people who would be racing in your CS in the future while being not put off by horrendous paywalls. Have you ever heard of the concept of economies of scale?