Frustrations with rF2 in its current state.

Discussion in 'Wish Lists' started by jerrymcc, Nov 23, 2012.

  1. jerrymcc

    jerrymcc Registered

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    I bought into rF2 at the beta release and have full confidence it will be great ..... sometime.

    Honestly, I've lost interest, as many others I expect, in the development in the last few months, because so little seems to be happening.

    But would like to focus on a couple of points that still bug me, and probably many others:

    1) The main interface: Why is it so convoluted now? You have to page through car after car, track after track, to select anything, and only get a picture to see what you selected, if at all.

    Back to statements I, and others, have made in the past. What is wrong with the rF1 interface? Clean, simple, informative. I expect ISI wanted a "fresh, modern" UI to compete with console games and shift, forza, etc., but honestly, it's just clunky and cumbersome. I know eventually a 3rd party could rewrite it but why should we have to? I realize the XUI in rF1 may be a little utilitarian for some, but the original was just fine.

    2) Please get the sounds and cam files out of the locked mod install. I change those all the time in rF1, and they have no effect on the physics or consistency of the mod. I think these are personal taste items, and can greatly improve the enjoyment and "realism" of the experience for the user. Sadly, many modders either don't care too much about these, or are limited by available options or time, so they are often not optimized. Plus, there is a lot of personal preference in these files.

    3) Finally, the only things I was hoping for when transitioning from rF1 to rF2, are still barely implemented: better tire model and weather/rain. Though getting better, these are far from finished/optimized. As everyone, I like better ffb and graphics, but with 3rd party additions to shaders etc. rF1 is still getting better and better. It seems like ISI has learned nothing from the amazing development modders have accomplished with rF1.

    I would have gladly paid $20-30 2 years ago to get better tires and weather in an rF1 update.

    I'm still hopeful, but don't know if I'll live long enough to see the finished product, lol.
     
    2 people like this.
  2. Guy Moulton

    Guy Moulton Registered

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    I don't see how track selection could be trimmed down (unless instead of paging through tracks, they were listed like in other sims, or we saw thumbnails on one page) but I agree 100% about car selection. It's ugly having to page through all the cars in each mod in order to get to a car you want to drive and choosing All Cars is amazingly clunky.

    The mods should be listed in pages and then you select that mod you want then the cars within the mod- thumbnail views would be better than pages. The worst is when selecting All Cars. When content comes out (some day) it'll take you 20 mins to find 1 car!
     
  3. pay2021

    pay2021 Registered

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    I agree with the thumbnail selection, because of that i choose the list view.
     
  4. Murtaya

    Murtaya Registered

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    It could be better, but to be honest, the tracks and cars are in alphabetical order. People have been finding stuff according to the position in the alphabet for lets see...... um quite a few years now ;) I understand that knowing the alphabet or times tables is now like witchcraft but.......

    Now if they could just sort out the bezels hiding information when using a triple screen setup that would please me.
     
  5. jtbo

    jtbo Registered

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    Number 1 on list I would think that is modern style, if we look any software these days, they seem to force user to do one thing at the time, going from one bit to 2nd bit to 3rd bit without ability to work as a power user and go straight to the point.

    For example compare settings you get from windows xp right clicking destop and selecting properties. Now how many objects of those require additional steps in Vista and Win7?

    Also compare amount of mouse movement needed, lot more moving in more modern versions, of course all other software devs have jumped into bandwagon and copycat what MS did.

    This modern way is very frustrating, time wasting and hurts my wrist when I have to use computer with those modern operating systems.

    Thus I dislike it and I really would like to see UI that has cars in tree view as tree view is still probably most effective way to handle lot of stuff.

    I prefer smaller things closer each other over big things far apart, so in this respect, new method is something I dislike, not limited to rFactor2 of course.

    If we have 20 vehicles here, then MAK-Corp's 20+ similar kind of vehicles are wanted to be run together, that is already 40 pages of cars to go trough, having all cars and all mods installed you have hundreds of pages of cars organized in alphabetic order so that you have to look for Pontiac or Firebird going trough those pages depending how one has named vehicle.

    Then after some time there are thousands of them rendering all cars mod useless as one has to spend frustratingly long to find vehicle.

    Probably there are some that will make new UI mods, but it would be nice that default UI would be firstly usable and secondly pretty.

    Then why to use all cars mod?

    Well for me reason is that I don't like to be limited into few tracks mod has to offer, I want to use all tracks I have installed and as I don't use online there is really no point of making vmods for the matter.



    In rf1 also fonts used were quite big, something you often see in consoles and small screen devices, for example ingame messages like wrong way etc those fonts were quite large and thick. I see same thing in rF2, but you could do smaller thinner fonts and place them well, which would make messages more professional looking, varying bit with size, more important bigger, less important smaller. That is what I would do with UI elements.

    If I'm honest, thick lines, thick fonts does look a bit like child would of been choosing the look, thinner elements gives impression of accuracy and precision, while thick elements are more of attempts to stand on own legs but being bit insecure so making bit of extra effort, or something like that, but this is only impression visual styles give me and I know that is faulty impression, but I think that is something that could be improved and which would make product appear more what it is for those seeing it first time.

    I can be of course wrong, but that is my impression.

    Also I understand that thick elements can be rfactor way, desired style that tells this is rfactor, but I hope it should not be stick on just because that is what is wanted as there could be better ways to say this is rfactor.
     
  6. boxer

    boxer Registered

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    Agree on the interface..I find it counter intuitive and frustrating to use. Everything is hidden one never knows what is selected... I gets very frustrating one after a long race load you realizing you are racing your Clio against an F1 field.
    My preference would be something in the lines of GTR2 or rRF1 style menu system.
     
  7. jtbo

    jtbo Registered

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    One thing I forgot to mention is that accept and cancel are not on same sides every place, sometimes you accept left side, sometimes right side.

    Reminds me of old Microsoft ad that had ok and cancel on wrong side as ad was done with Mac. Very easy to miss, not important at all, but it can give bit of laughs.
     
  8. Butch Nackley

    Butch Nackley Registered

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    I agree the UI does have a very console feel to it. That should not be the case with a PC title, especially one that isn't going to be a multi-platform game. I (as did many) hated the way Oblivion UI came out, compared to Morrowind (PC version).
    It seems nearly all PC games these days have these not so well thoughtout UI menus.
     
  9. CdnRacer

    CdnRacer Banned

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    This is the only thing that annoys me.


    Other than that, complaining about the UI? ummmmmmm......k.
     
  10. ORA-Oldie

    ORA-Oldie Registered

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    I never liked the UI from day one, and no one I know likes it.... so please ISI, listen to us and change it.

    The second thing I disliked from day one is opening the Launcher instead of just going straight to game.. and then having to restart the Launcher again if I want to change from Online to Offline.... so please ISI, listen to us.. cut out the Launcher and let us get straight into the game without having to close it to change over.

    /silly old blokes 2 cent rant
     
  11. Butch Nackley

    Butch Nackley Registered

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    It is just we think there could be a better, more useful and easier way to do it. Currently we have nothing in the game compared to what will be added in 2, 3 or 5 years from now. Just imagine the mess it will be trying to find a track or a car set you want out of maybe 1000's of cars/tracks.
    I feel a design with more logic could be made. Heck, even FSX type menu would be an improvement when it comes to finding objects. The carousel method is not very good and I doubt I even have 10 car sets to choose from. When I get 100's, I will be too put off by the mess of a UI to even want to hunt for a set to drive.

    I'm on Vista and within minutes of installing this OS, I found the 'Classic' mode because it is just far more productive than the silliness that is default. Latest means greatest is not always the case. Sometimes it is just plain dumb.
     
  12. DurgeDriven

    DurgeDriven Banned

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    Speak for yourself. :)

    UI's dont worry me, less time I spend in them the better. :)

    As for the launcher just leave it open, uses 17mb of ram
    Opening and closing rF2 does not bother me either.


    The tracks and cars are in alphabetical order ........... look at list view.
     
  13. Pits

    Pits Registered

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    He's far to attractive to argue with Oldie.
     
  14. JJStrack

    JJStrack Registered

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    what we need is a decent list of content with filters for the mods properties. So we could have a filter for car Class (Street, Rally, GT, Open wheeler etc.) a filter for the Decade (1980's mods etc.) and so on. And also we need a "search" function.
    For those mocking about the alphabetical order: Often the Names of mods are not what you remember them to be. Lets say you have 100 cars in your list, and you search that Mercedes 190 E mod, which is listed under the Name 90's DTM Mod. But you don't remember that.
    What i personally hate the most is still the mod system. two days ago, i wanted to race the ARI F2 2012 mod, but it included such ****ty tracks as watkins glen 0.2 etc. which i deleted long time ago...so i had to find them all (in the correct versions) download them from damn slow servers (Joesville 1.1 somehow took me 30 mins to download) and so on. It just sucks!
    We NEED to get rid of this stupid mod system! Why not just let the server check, if you have the right track and car installed and you are ready to go?
     
  15. MarcG

    MarcG Registered

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    The UI does'nt need changing IMO, it just needs more options. I would perfer everything thats in the PLR file to be in game under an Advanced Section or something. Having to edit an ini file everytime you want to make a change is very 1990s computing, having it ingame saves the effort of closing and starting the game over and over again when you change single values.
    Have it work so that when you change an Advanced Setting the game automatically reloads the PLR thus no need to close/start again.

    I know there were a few good UIs made my community members for rF1 so if ISI are to leave it to them for RF2 they could at least say so, otherwise this whole thread is just something they will ignore and we're all wasting our breath!
     
  16. Butch Nackley

    Butch Nackley Registered

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    Here is a shot of FSX 'Select Aircraft' page.
    You should be able to see how easy it is to find a given plane out of hundreds. A page with thumbnails that can be scrolled down. Simple, quick and effective, especially when you have a large number of planes. You can even filter things, if you want. It is a much more user friendly system than the carousel method used in the rFactor 2 Beta.
    View attachment 5085
     
  17. jtbo

    jtbo Registered

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    Formula two cars are not to be found from F, they start with numbers, what a nice mess it is when there comes few another mods that start with same as Formula two, then you have Formula car, some other car, yet another car, formula car, hundreds of those, still sounds good?

    Colours are good in UI, with some kind of tree view it might be just fine.
     
  18. rer8

    rer8 Registered

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    IMO the UI is one of two road blocks to new and seasoned users of rF2. Everyone already knows what the other road block is.
     
  19. Butch Nackley

    Butch Nackley Registered

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    Yeap, that is my concern too. I don't think people are thinking about what its going to be like when there are a lot of car sets in their game. It will be a nightmare. There may very well be a better way to do it than the FSX suggestion I made. But from my experience with rF, F1C and FSX, FSX certainly has the easiest most effective selection page of any I have ever used. In fact, Aces really didn't make may changes to it over many years of FS. No need to change something that works so well.

    If someone has a better idea, please share it.
    What I would like is click on a Select Car icon. A page opens with thumbnails of the installed cars (scrollable for when there are more car sets than will fit the screen). Click a car set you want and the Showroom page opens similar to the way it now does.
    The good thing about thumbnails is even if you forget the name of a mod, you can see it. And no need to wear out your LMB trying to get through the carousel. Save the LMB for shooters ;)

    I'm all for simple and effective.
    I don't really want a menu that becomes a minigame trying to figure out where the car I want is hiding. I doubt very many people really want that either.
     
  20. JJStrack

    JJStrack Registered

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    :D they should make a little super mario game out of finding the right mod. and you first have to win a special fight to get it! But to play it, you first have to find all the secrets in all levels!
     

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