Now THIS is a great summary of OUR user experience

Thank you for sharing your experiences and knowledge. Actually in case of the CS I'm totally fine with where we are as a beta and I accept it being unfinished. That's the nature of implementing a feature trying to make it better while relying on feedback on it, which I think they mostly do.
Not mentioning the average 0-2 drivers across all races But that's, again, due to the bad user experience

 

For my rfactor it is the best in sensations and driving, despite all its failures, CEO priorities, and bad decisions, I am still hopeful that things will be fixed, but for now I doubt it, I use VR and about two years ago I said that In VR I can't ride in all the cars live, when there is a good driver I like to get in their cars and learn, you get it with the + and - sign, two years later it is still broken, that with changing the code a 1 for a 0, which is done in less than 30 seconds, it is repaired, because they still do not repair them ... which tells me that they are a disaster, I agree with you in many things, but definitely in rfactor and the address is currently what what's up!!!

 

New owner bought it recently and it's not possible to create sudden changes. Most people are rather slow to change directions so if the new owner helps we'll see it in one year at minimum. It's like you have new money but money can't build games.

 

Yes that's true maybe it changes, BUT I have the fear that MS Games will make it worse. They want to build different games (24h, BTCC, NASCAR etc.) ontop of the rF2 base physics. So at the end S397 might be faced with even more work to do and short deadlines established by MS Games to push out products/base code. And we all know what that means. Sadly It's rather common these days.

I really hope I'm wrong with that

 

You could be right. Money doesn't automatically mean good direction. What I saw in gaming industry it's mostly about luck. Great talent meets money and everything was awesome. Everything else is worse. You can have money but not talent or opposite. Sometimes you don't have anything. Most people with money are rather dumb and are not able to build anything awesome like good game. Everybody has different motivations. It's complicated but I would be optimistic until we see otherwise. rF2 could be an overall king soon if they work on it a bit.

 

For me, (and only me) I enjoy the experience of driving; not the competition against another person (because I'm quite bad at it). Just driving and feeling the car and sensation of "been there" and from time to time race against the Ai.
I'm aware of the limitations of the physics engine and the exploits that can be done to it, but it's my choice not to use those fantasy config to have an advantage.
Also been a track creator I value to be able to run my creations in game, that leaves out many current sim; and between AC and RF2 I deeply enjoy the driving experience in RF2.
As I say that's only me (that I'm actually still using the old UI), because deeply enjoy the driving experience in the game (sim), the point explained are understandable and should be fixed.
At least I hope that rFactor 2 became the sandbox for future games of MSG; I see Formula Pro been a sandbox for the future Indy game; that will bring physics upgrades and adjustment that many people has ask in the past and maybe new features and the core engine evolve over time (physic base simulation?, soft body simulation?, even better tyre model simulation including temp?).
I'll continue to enjoy the engine and keep adding new creations to it; just for me and the few others that enjoy my content.

 

Little off topic from my side...Do you have a link to community mentioned on your post?

 

It´s german, but if you want to take a look at, visit our homepage www.germansimracing.de or our discord https://discord.gg/H5kYJqmfhE

 

I´ve never looked that way at the Formula Pro. That could actually be a truly valid point.

 

So this is actually a statement I like, especially the "making sure we get our tyre model right" part!!
https://forum.studio-397.com/index.php?threads/rfactor-2-physics-info.70229/

 

I need to vent.

I've been an old lurking rF2 fan from years past. Because of covid, work and private life I haven't touched my simrig in a few months. Today I decided to reinstall rF2 and scratch my Le Mans itch while listening to the hyperpole qualifying. I install rF2 and after 30 seconds the quick 3,5GB download finishes and Steam lets me know it's ready to play, only to be quickly letting me know the game is 'validating' and downloading a 30ish GB worth of content. No biggy, I can wait.

After 5 minutes everything is validated, I fire up the graphics settings, set post processing to high, sync to video, AA to 2X and VR to none for now (I do intent to race in VR, but I remember the last time the UI bugged out in VR while assigning controls, plus I decided it would be more comfortable in pancake mode to assign the controls). I fire up the sim and am greeted with a wizard! My oh my, this has improved indeed. I enter my name, and go through the steps to setup my controls. So far so good. Impressed with the new changes, a much needed improvement on the usability front. After the wizard it offers me a selection of what to install. I want to race at Le Mans, so click the premium content option and proceed to wait another 5 minutes for 98 items to finish installing. No biggy, part deux.

After another wait I open controls to assign wipers, lights, limiter and reset VR button and make sure to unassign any gears (not the first time I'd blow the engine because of a miss-press, but fortunately no gears are assigned apart from the up and down ones). I select my trusty old Ligier P217 (the only LMP car with a drivable interior in VR) on Le Mans, edit the car setup, and for some reason am greeted with a 2 minute long black screen. After two minutes I try to move my mouse around to find out what's happening only to see the left bar appear with Force setup and the other setup button which I've forgotten as this point (select setup?). I click on force setup to see what'll happen and the rest of the UI appears, I select the Le Mans setup, hit force setup, double check the double asterisks are behind the correct setup and exit out of the screen. I go to the opponent setup screen and find that for some God awful reason rF2 still has this annoying habit of selecting your car as the only opponents. I add some Orecas and some GTE cars, increase the number to 105, strength to 100%, exit the screen and hit exit game to change to VR mode.

I change graphics settings, set VR to HMD+Mirror, start the sim, enter sim and hit race. I know rF2's loading times are a bit on the long side, but that first Le Mans load took 7 full minutes. Slightly miffed at the long waiting I don't bother to check my setup, I just want to go out on track and get a feel back for the driving after such a long break. I hit the reset VR position button, I am positioned nicely behind my wheel, I press the clutch, select first gear and drive off only to be greeted by a very weird sensation. The more I turn the wheel, the lighter the wheel gets, as if you're driving backwards. I pause, check the settings and notice the yaw compensation is set at 20%. I change that to 0% and go out on track again. Clutch, first gear, exit pits, no feeling whatsoever now. Exit pits, release limited and can confirm: I have no FFB whatsoever now for some reason. Undrivable. Exit to garage, exit session, back to main menu to try and find out what's what.

Because I'm using my old T300RS (as the 'main' rig is not connected atm), I decide to simply load the T300RS preset and try again but oh dear, I have to redo the controls again. No biggy part 3, this isn't my first rodeo. Assign throttle, brake, clutch, gear up, down, wipers, lights, limiter and VR reset. Exit settings, hit race, wait for another minute, hit race: steering wheel isn't centered. When I rotate all the way to the left the wheel centers which means I can't turn left. Exit to garage, controls, hit center wheel on the calibration page, exit, hit race. STILL no FFB. Starting to get frustrated now. Exit session, exit game, open TM control panel, check everything, all is OK. Restart rF2, hit race, wait another minute or 2, hit race, reset seating position, clutch, first gear, throttle and away we go. Out of the pits disable the limiter and thank God, it seems like we have FFB again. I approach the first corner, check my mirrors, hit the brakes and my engine sound disappears. I take the corner and the only sound I hear is either engine, tyre noise or curb noise, but never all three together. Exit to garage... check sound settings... number of sound effects is set to 1 for some reason. Increase that to 16, exit menu, hit race, still only one sound. Exit session. Check the sound settings in the main menu, still set to 16. Hit race, wait another 2 minutes, hit race, STILL only 1 sound at a time.

At this point I give up. I spent half an hour just trying to cruise around Le Mans in the P217. I go to the forum to see if anybody else is mentioning audio issues and I see a thread called "Now THIS is a great summary of OUR user experience". I read a few replies, and here we are.

I'm very sorry for the hard working developers on this excellent sim, but the user experience out of the box is atrocious at the moment. I'm sure I could spend another hour tweaking stuff, finding out why my menu keeps blinking in and out of existence and why I only hear one sound at a time, but my free time is very limited and valuable and I really, really just want to just cruise somewhere and enjoy my evening without getting frustrated. Uninstalled, for now.

 

@RDG gotta restart rf2 after changing that setting

64 is the best option, too.

I hear ya though. (Ooh! Nice pun!)

 

Maaaan, thanks for that story! What an absolute prime example of the topic of this thread. I really dont understand how people can say its accaptable and easy or a good user experience Without being subjective you perfectly nailed my feelings about rF2 that i had everytime i fired it up in the last couple of years. Well written, Sir!

 

At risk of asking too much: this should not be information you only find out after visiting the forums. A basic function of a UI is to communicate things like this to the end user. A small "*" after the text with a ( * Requires a restart) at the bottom would've sufficed.

FYI: I reinstalled after an hour because I was watching onboard with the Glickenhaus on YouTube and listening to radio Le Mans and the itch came back hard. Fortunately the settings were still present so I didn't have to setup my wheel again and it still had Le Mans in the P217 against a field of GTE/LMP2 cars present, so that was somewhat nice. I remember last time enjoying the RSR-19 in AMS2, so on a whim I decide to change the car to the RSR and hit race. Big mistake, as the field was now comprised of only RSR-19s (why does it do that...), also the RSR interior is in real need of a facelift. It looks nothing like the '17 RSR in iRacing or AC, but that's another topic. Exit session, revert to P217 and reset the opponents. I was running out of time, so I skipped qualifying and went into the race right away. Had a decent start, decided to take it easy in the first laps to get used to the sim again. After one lap, full course yellow, and after 2 full laps behind the safety car I decide to call it quits for the day. I forgot about the flag rules setting...

So yes, in a nutshell: despite the new UI, the fresh install experience is really not great. I'm going to reinstall ACC and AMS2 tonight and see how that will go, but I have a feeling that'll be relatively smooth sailing compared to rF2's experience. Such a shame as rF2 has the best Le Mans experience out of any sim on the market.

 

The bug should be gone by now, should have been gone within.. oh, I don't know, a week? But here we are.

As I said, I hear ya. I'm not defending anything here, just giving info. That's what most troubleshooting on here is - it's not giving basic game instructions, it's finding out what obscure thing has gone wrong and the known steps to fix it.

 

I'm not sure what the bug exactly is, but it seemed a bit weird to me that the default setting for the audio was set to 1. I mean, the experience is really bad with the audio set to that and I'm sure even the lowest end computer could run a setting as low as 4 without hampering the experience like that.

 

The bug is it randomly changing to 1, generally from a default of 64. It's been happening for a while now. Shouldn't be happening, shouldn't be something that needs to be known by a user.

 

Ok, that explains. I thought it was part of the default new user experience, which it shouldn't be. That's actually a relieve.

 

The bug isn't that the default setting of the audio is 1. The bug is that whatever setting you have, it is being changed to 1 when the game boots. As Lazza stated, this bug has been known for several weeks and you'd think they would have squashed it by now.(especially when the 3 prong development process is supposed to PREVENT bugs such as this occurring in the the default version of the UI. 64 is the max setting for the number of sounds and several users here have recommended you change your setting to 64 and then reboot. 64 does not seem to impact most systems these days. FYI @RDG, the UI can't be expected to notify a user of the need to reboot when the UI isn't aware of the problem. This is just something users here found out on our own.

 

Love that story!

But, and I'm not being a dick or anything, but, if you uninstalled rF2 you'll have to do all of that over again next time!!

I remember fannying about with rF2 for months, yes months, before things started to *click*.

Anyway, good read, much love !