Now THIS is a great summary of OUR user experience

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Kevin Karas, Jul 6, 2021.

  1. Seven Smiles

    Seven Smiles Registered

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    ISTR it was automated several releases ago (last year?) but that doesn't guarantee a) it worked in all cases b) it still works.
     
  2. davehenrie

    davehenrie Registered

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    I always 'assumed' they were cache files. Another in the steps taken to speed up loading. The trouble with cached files, if you have an update to content, those files are now out of date or conflict with the new items.
     
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  3. Seven Smiles

    Seven Smiles Registered

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    Yes but it's easy to put version or date stamps in the cache files and throw them away when new content or a new program version comes along.

    (I'd really like to know why load times are just as bad when I run the same track/vehicle combination a second time in the same rFactor session. On the face of it all the data has already been loaded into memory so you can re-use it, thus loading "should" be instant.)
     
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  4. RDG

    RDG Registered

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    One of my gripes is that I want to tinker with the graphics in order to find the optimum settings for VR, but it is made very difficult to compare graphics settings because you can't change them while on the track and it takes ages to load. You load up medium post processing, enter game, find that it runs smoothly, want to try the high settings, exit session, change video settings, hit race, wait a minute or 2, and by that time I've completely forgotten what medium looked like... I've resorted to using screenshots to compare, but it's just not very user friendly this way. It would really help immensely with the user experience if they could find a way to reduce the loading times.
     
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  5. Andy Bonar

    Andy Bonar Registered

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    Try this out
    https://sim-site.netlify.app/blog/2021-02-20-rfactor-2-settings-widget
    It allows you to create presets for gfx settings, and you load them at the click of a button....along with other things.
    It is a really helpful tool
     
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  6. Kevin Karas

    Kevin Karas Registered

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    Oh maaaaan. Ready the dev blogs always makes me sooo angry!

    The new HUD question was ask so many times and the answer we get is "No we do not update it. There are enough 3rd party solutions."
    I mean what?! Is that really a serious answer to that question? They will keep the 2007 style in car UI just because others are providing solutions? There would not even be the need for those 3rd party tools, if the vanilla one would be usable. It has bugs, relative display is a joke, information missing, all packed in a hard to look at style! All, except the style, transfer over to the 3rd party HUDs because they are dependent on the bad rF information.

    This is an absolute prime example of how far the teams awareness of the situation is from reality and it makes me sad and angry.

    It's almost like they actually don't want rF2 to be a success.
     
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  7. pilAUTO

    pilAUTO Registered

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    For my part, while I am grateful that S397 answered my 3 questions, I am extremely disappointed with the answers, really.

    This concerned 3 things :

    Improvement of the physics engine + updating of the 55 S397 cars in particular in terms of tire model (all or almost all) + optimization of the performance of the graphics engine.

    The answers do not meet my expectations.

    But hey, I'm sick of alerting S397.

    I have been alerting them for 5 years on these subjects as well as on others (I had another nickname at the time).

    It is true that the improvement of rF2 is slow but constant, really constant.

    What tires me is not the slowness or the errors (UI .......), it is the prioritization of S397 which seems incredibly bad to me.
     
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  8. Remco Majoor

    Remco Majoor Registered

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    I mean, the stuff they did were really needed. Now that the graphics are acceptable, they are slowly shifting towards other important things. If they don't do what you want, doesn't mean that their priorities are bad, it just means they aren't the same
     
  9. Kevin Karas

    Kevin Karas Registered

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    I agree the HUD for example is not a high priority (for nearly 10 years now), but they also said physics is not a priority and I never heard a thing about really improving UI user experience. The only thing I can see is eSports and CS, while the rest (except physics/FFB) is years behind the competitors. I mean it IS been spoken about all around the community not only here. Look at the numbers: rF2´s average player count per day is around 500!..... 500! All around the world! Constantly decreasing this year
    upload_2021-9-30_11-6-5.png

    While this thread has over 13.000 views in the last 3 months. That should actually be very alarming to the devs
     
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  10. Maarten Nauta

    Maarten Nauta Registered

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    The priorities of S397 might not be "wrong" for S397 (well its debatable... but who knows maybe focus on esports got them that Alonso company deal) but they are not the priorities of the playerbase. That makes these CS blogs and to a lesser extent the roadmaps so jarring to read. I also dont understand why someone like Paul Jeffrey cannot do some more honest/2 way communication. Its all this "tune everything negative out" kind of approach.

    On the HUD and the UI they did actually try to overhaul both but the results are not great. HUD was a couple of years ago.
     
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  11. MotherDawg

    MotherDawg Registered

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    Ermin... I feel your pain man... "rFactor 2's physics broken something to that effect made me very popular with the community"

    Some people, when they see other telling it like it is, if it ruffles their feathers, you get shed loads... even if it's spot on:

    "for you to actually make money as a business there's a user experience you need to make it easy to buy, you need to make people understand what they're getting and then, you need to make sure that it drives right at that pinnacle that you're promising them... the tires...
    the tires... they need to be fixed"

    Thank you Ermin.

    Oh I yearn the days of ISI. :(

    P. -S. but I like editing config files!
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2021
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  12. Lazza

    Lazza Registered

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    Ermin ain't here man.
     
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  13. Kelju_K

    Kelju_K Registered

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    Just the other day, i was said to: "Kelju, since you are hardcore rfactor fan...."
    At first i laughed, but then i realized, that i have lost so many sim racing friends to other sims and some have just stopped racing altogether after quitting rF2.
    In their eyes i AM a true rfactor2 fan!
    Just because i'm still here. And still play the game.
    Realizing that, i also realized that same goes for everyone here. EVERYONE.
    No matter if you are a "fanboy" or more critical fan of the game. Everyone still playing, and participating discussions in this forum is a true fan of the game. Everyone else have left.

    So considering that, it's no wonder that sometimes emotions get the better of us.
    Reason we are all still here, is that we have belief in this simulation, and it's possibilities.
    We see the potential this game has "if only they would do things as i would like" :D
    I think that is propably the biggest reason most of us still hang on. We have dreams of how this game could be the best of all, if done right (right in our minds that is).

    Everybody who gets in to sim racing these days, will get into a crowd or community larger than just one game. That community plays or have played most of the sims available. That's where the word of mouth information gets in to the new simmers out there.

    That word of mouth information has to get more positive for this game (to succeed).
    What we say in here, doesn't really matter. What we say in the community larger than this game does.
    That's were the true potential is to get more sales.
    If we race in another game or participate that part of the community, and this game comes up, what we say in that situation matters so much more than what we say here.
    We all know what the positives are, and that's what we always bring up in that conversation. But that list is getting shorter as other sims progress, and it already sounds like a broken record. It's not enough to convince more people to get in. We need to be able to say: "this and that is not an issue anymore". Or "this and that has gotten better". "There are actually more players nowdays" etc.

    There seems to be failure to communicate between the fans of this game and S397.
    It seems that S397 devs blindly trust that when their vision of this game comes true, the above mentioned word of mouth changes it's tone, and everything will be good.
    That will not happen if the current user base is not catered to satisfying level aswell. We need the stuff that we believe is important too, to have a say in that word of mouth reputation.
    So even tough it might seem that our visions are selfish, treating them only as such is not gonna work. No matter how well the S397 vision will come true.

    If this was a marriage (between the devs and users), some serious marriage counseling would be needed.

    Could we achieve that on our own????
    I hope everybody here, users and devs alike will think about that.

    Thanks
    Kel
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2021
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  14. Kevin Karas

    Kevin Karas Registered

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    Amen
     
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  15. Binny

    Binny Guest

    as a user and seeing the steam charts on rf2 it seems a marriage councilor would be useless, users are talking with their feet and walking away or having a break I'm having 1 and at the moment have no idea how long it could be or if it will end up in divorce.
     
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  16. FS7

    FS7 Registered

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    After the last game update rF2 stopped working for me. I had to delete the userdata folder and reconfigure every single thing all over again, rF2 redownloaded workshop content I had already unsubscribed, it took me a very long time to get things working again.

    Every single time I play rF2 I have to run the rF2 graphics configuration first to make sure everything is correct (rF2 has this odd habit of changing my resolution and refresh rate for no reason). Today I tried playing the game after a few weeks, I ran the graphics config, it had the wrong resolution & refresh rate selected, I changed to the correct settings (1080p60fps) then started the game. Things looked fine, I picked FR3.5 & Silverstone GT, a combo I've run many times before. It took forever to load the track even though I'm sure I had run this combo after deleting the userdata folder and reconfiguring everything. Loaded my setup, tried to drive out of the garage, the game was running like crap, choppy framerate. I quit back to the main menu, checked the in-game graphics settings, even though I had set to 1080p60fps in the launcher before starting the game when I checked the in-game settings it was set to 24fps. I changed it to 60fps, confirmed it, tried the same FR3.5/Silverstone combo again, it took forever to load then the game crashed. I checked all settings in the launcher again, loaded the game, checked the in-game graphics settings again, then loaded the same car/track combo again, after a long loading time I was finally able to drive a few laps.

    I game should not be this difficult to set and run properly. I have rF2 installed on a SSD and it took me 15 minutes from the time I first launched the game until I was able to get on the track and drive a few laps, this is totally unacceptable imo. I have a bunch of other games that run fine and only needed to be setup once. rF2 needs some major work in terms of optimization, I have owned rF2 since late 2016, I've had to reconfigure and fix things a bunch of times over the years, every time I try to play the game it takes me a very long time adjusting settings before I can finally get on the track and drive some laps.
     
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  17. Kevin Karas

    Kevin Karas Registered

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    Yep! At least there is some sort of new tiremodel in newer cars, but not yet implemented into the popular cars
     
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  18. mantasisg

    mantasisg Registered

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    Well, this is fantastic lol

    I hope rF2 won't get totally put on hold soon, because clearly having other projects with Motorsports Games, such as upcoming Nascar game is equal to having more "Grand Tour" game situations. It is never going to be ideal for us, rF2 fans.
     
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  19. davehenrie

    davehenrie Registered

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    I had a somewhat similar experience. I normally drive in the FULLSCREEN mode at 1080p. (which is 19x10 if I recall) My screen is capable of 1440p (25x14?) I choose the lower rez for in-game fps improvements. I recently used the window'd option instead of fullscreen and the video kept reverting to the 1440p setting. Even after changing the rez with the config tool & ingame, the option would bounce right back to 25x14. I reverted to Fullscreen and the changes took and were saved properly.
    I just don't have any experience with the two window options instead of fullscreen so I can't say if that is normal behavior or not.
     
  20. U. Daniel

    U. Daniel Registered

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    If you use windowed mode, you have to use the same resolution as Windows
     
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