With rF2 the problem is the more you play it the more problems you encounter. From small ones to pretty serious issues. Then you find out it’s already been reported many times, mostly long time ago, and roughly 9 in 10 it’s on ever growing TODO list (or not even officially acknowledged) and nothing seems to be done with it. Two of the strongest features: physics and AI haven’t been touched since S397 took over and even regressed in some areas. Then you find out about missing features, like no hybrid support, no proper drive train simulation, no transmission damage, and small things like lack of track map, input pedals widgets etc. Only thing that really improved is new content and graphics, but even with DLC cars there are still significant issues.The point was the game is superb even for a newcomer. After reading this forum I wouldn't buy it because it looks like the game is completely broken and old
Maybe, I don't need wipers, blinkers and mirrors for awesome cruising.
Now THIS is a great summary of OUR user experience
- Thread starter Kevin Karas
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doddynco
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See if you feel the same way in 5 years.The point was the game is superb even for a newcomer. After reading this forum I wouldn't buy it because it looks like the game is completely broken and old
Maybe, I don't need wipers, blinkers and mirrors for awesome cruising.
Maarten Nauta
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While this thread is quite cathartic its pointless and next month there will be further improvements to the broadcasting system that few people care about 
.
I have made my peace with rf2 in the sense that i wont buy DLC anymore to support development only if im really interested in the DLC.
.I have made my peace with rf2 in the sense that i wont buy DLC anymore to support development only if im really interested in the DLC.
mantasisg
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Thats not quite how it is. At least in my case. I don't encounter more problems in rF2, I encounter less of them as I learn about them and then in most cases can avoid them, or deal with them so there is no problem anymore.
However, with more time everyone certainly learns about problems that were unknown to them before. Although that does apply to good things too, you just learn more things. Especially if you start modding too, modeling, doing physics....
But it is true for the physics and AI. Not much we have got. The studio was certainly was focusing on graphics, content and what goes with UI and there were some core rF2 improvements too. Like a lot less freezes, faster track loading times... but who is counting good stuff, it arrives and just becomes something normal.
green serpent
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I could have chosen any number of literally rubbish UI's from racing games, AC was just what came to mind. Quite literally, go try to set up a race in the latest Forza. Then you will see what a total unmitigated piece of steaming horse shit a UI can be. Especially when you are drunk it is enourmously difficult to figure basic things like selecting the car you want, and the loading times by comparison make rF2 look like Concorde. I know it's not apples and oranges but try to not get stuck up on the details and understand the point. In no other game can I tweak and adjust MANY MANY different things, all in a package that with effort is at least usuable.
I come from photography so I like to use that as an example (and I enjoy bragging at every opportunity like Ermin). I have two rather high end mirroless cameras, one from Sony, one from Canon. I like to set up very basic things that make my job easy, things like being able to change the white balance on the fly insead of having to dig through menus, things like setting up different focusing buttons that have different paraments like single shot or continuous auto focus so I can shoot a dynamic situation as it unfolds before me in real time insead of having to change back and forth between different focusing modes taking my eyes off the action. Can I do these things? No I can't. There are so many dumb design decisions that l cannot even express how frustrated I get. These are two MASSIVE companies and each camera is 5k+ plus a pop. Again, this may not be a perfect anaology, but the POINT is that they absolutely suck when it comes it UI type stuff. Setting up bracketing on a Canon is absured beyond what you can imagine, and Sony does things which make you think there isn't one pro photographer in the whole company!
The rF2 UI is shite, but it DOES THE JOB. Better than most. Everything I want to do (almost) I can do, without too much fuss. That is better that 99% of products out ther, sim or not!
It's very far from perfect, but it is usable. Ultimately my point is, screw the bloddy UI and move on to physics, ai etc!
Give us dark mode and a couple other things, but move on, no need to overhaul the entire thing, focus on more important stuff.
Okay just my opinion, sorry about the passion!
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Kevin Karas
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Thanks! This is exactly what I am also thinking. Sure its an amazing sim, but is there something that works 100%? No. Some days ago I decided to to a couple of laps with the 911 GT3 R, because currently Im in love with that car. So I bought it - and the first time I jumped into the car my jaw dropped to the floor. I did not expect such a baaaad quality. Compared to latest cars like the Corvette for example, the Porsche should be given away for FREE. I can´t believe both are sold for the same price.
Also the fact that you need every car and track that is run in a competition series. The CS will never succeed with that. There are people out there wanting to drive a GT car in the CS series and they cant because they need to buy 5 other cars and 5 tracks. That can add up to 50 bucks for something you just dont want. That is such bad PR
Juergen-BY
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Never mind...i know its working, if the proper values are used for Track (AIW), Mod (HDV) and AI (RCD).
R.Noctua
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New sound, AI fix, user-friendly HUD? No! Only eSport and a competition system!
MP needs a base of active players, but without the basic tools there won't be any.
Every time I write such trite nonsense, I always wonder what dev is thinking. It feels like the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing - there are absolutely awesome things like tyre model, interesting licences, beautiful tracks and the rest of the shit.
Hopefully S397 will make the right conclusions at some point.
MP needs a base of active players, but without the basic tools there won't be any.
Every time I write such trite nonsense, I always wonder what dev is thinking. It feels like the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing - there are absolutely awesome things like tyre model, interesting licences, beautiful tracks and the rest of the shit.
Hopefully S397 will make the right conclusions at some point.
Recently I play RaceRoom and it feels much more like finished product. Sector3 is also relatively small studio too but they really keep improving the sim. They have good competition system that actually works and attracts enough players (at least in Europe you often have full grids). Now they’ve have new physics based FFB. AI is better than in rF2 IMO. There are some problems like game crashes (rarely but it happens).
iRacing also feels like finished product, but I played it only for few months because the it is way too expensive. It has problems with tires/ tire model etc. but other than that it just works.
R.Noctua
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AI is good, but its main disadvantage is that it doesn't make mistakes. I'd rather have an insane RF2 AI that can out off track than a static RR-AI.
I think it's valid to point out that you prefer product XYZ for whatever reason and they might be the more fleshed out products. But it also makes sense to look back at the history of those products and their development and what they are. iRacing and RR are completely different products. How big is the chance that iRacing devs or Sector 3 will have to worry about legacy shaders and the support of 3rd party content and how they integrate that into their UI? All the sims have very different feature sets and focus and I think this is a very critical point when we judge development and it's pace. Rain was never a thing in iRacing or in RR, but it's clear that it needed and still needs work in rF2, and this reaches from integrating it proplery in the UI, to tire developement and the visual and audio support for it, wich takes away resources from other areas - it's a logical consequence. The UI and competition system for RaceRoom and for iRacing are a result of many many years of work, in the case of iRacing over a decade. Do you want to make a guess how long the beta phase for the iRacing UI lasted? Or how long Sector 3 worked on the UI side of things while the rest of the sim is still pretty average? And I don't know if "new physics based FFB" is something to write home about for a product that was released in 2013, especialy not for rF2 users where this is gerne standard since ten years. Anyway, it's not bad to look beyond the horizon and see where different products excell, but the requirements and starting points for all those products are very different.
But they weren’t released in alpha state as in case of rF2. Perhaps they had less features, but they were working as expected. I didn’t play iRacing 10 years ago, but I think the competition system was working pretty good since the beginning, no?I think it's valid to point out that you prefer product XYZ for whatever reason and they might be the more fleshed out products. But it also makes sense to look back at the history of those products and their development and what they are. iRacing and RR are completely different products. How big is the chance that iRacing devs or Sector 3 will have to worry about legacy shaders and the support of 3rd party content and how they integrate that into their UI? All the sims have very different feature sets and focus and I think this is a very critical point when we judge development and it's pace. Rain was never a thing in iRacing or in RR, but it's clear that it needed and still needs work in rF2, and this reaches from integrating it proplery in the UI, to tire developement and the visual and audio support for it, wich takes away resources from other areas - it's a logical consequence. The UI and competition system for RaceRoom and for iRacing are a result of many many years of work, in the case of iRacing over a decade. Do you want to make a guess how long the beta phase for the iRacing UI lasted? Or how long Sector 3 worked on the UI side of things while the rest of the sim is still pretty average? And I don't know if "new physics based FFB" is something to write home about for a product that was released in 2013, especialy not for rF2 users where this is gerne standard since ten years. Anyway, it's not bad to look beyond the horizon and see where different products excell, but the requirements and starting points for all those products are very different.
IRacing and RR also have some legacy content that gets updated from time to time. Their graphics currently look a bit outdated too, but emphasis is on other features which I personally prefer.
I don’t know much about modding, but I think S397 doesn’t do much for modders to help them update legacy content. I think not much documentation or samples are provided for modders. Yes iRacing new beta UI has been in development for a long time, but the previous UI wasn’t bad.
Pure physics based FFB isn’t something unique as iRacing and ACC have it , but I believe even rF2 has some artificial effects added or enhanced in controller .ini files by default.
Pales
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If that was the case, every modder would have done it by now, and so would have the developers. You cannot fix a logic issue by adjusting a few lines within a notepad. Whilst the areas you have mentioned allow for things to be improved *slightly* it will never be a fix. The issue still happens, and I have witnessed it myself after extensive testing.
Should you wish to go down this route further, please provide a track with long straights and your adjustments, and I will be happy to capture a video of the issue. I am that confident.
You can slide in R3E, it depends on a car but at least small slides are possible in most of them. R3E has few generators of tire models and usually the older ones slide less. There is a difference in rF2, but who knows which is more realistic? In rF2 DLC GT cars slide too much and you could recover from most big slides, which wasn’t realistic. There wasn’t enough grip fall off in GT3 cars. It was too forgiving - at the opposite end of spectrum than iRacing in general. Not long time ago S397 made the GT3 cars a bit less forgiving so that past some point it’s hard to recover.
mantasisg
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Yeah, iiric aero sensitivity to yaw was increased. And now they are thinking about adopting new tire knowledge which they used in new BMWC1 and FPro. Which also a bit less slidey.
But wait. Are we measuring realism by how much and easily can you slide the car ? It is way more complex than that.
But wait. Are we measuring realism by how much and easily can you slide the car ? It is way more complex than that.
mantasisg
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It depends on a lot of things. First of all, what you consider crazy ? Then what content you are talking about in rF2, because there are some content which fits different kinds of perceptions, some allow crazy sliding, some moderate amount of it. Third, it depends on reality, what cars are we talking about.
I am not familiar with Raceroom too much, played very little of it. I remember I was sliding cars, although in general physics didn't impress me.
iRacing is notorious about it's challenges of sliding, most agree it is too difficult, also usually they get faster laptimes than RL, it is on rails driving sim, but there are some cars there which are better, there are some pretty good I'd ones I'd say.
AMS1 is awesome. rF2 is best to me, and I also have a lot of personal physics cars that boosts my personal experience with rF2.
AMS2 is too easy from what I often hear from people. I don't have AMS2, but it makes sense to come that is more of a followup to Project Cars 2 than to AMS1 (because of game engine).
R3E in that sentence can be replaced with anything.
mantasisg
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It's like I never played anything similar. I started on consoles with AC and PC and it was OK. You could slide sometimes and it was OK. But in rF2 you don't need to care too much. It's like you said about iRacing and rails. Every game is like on rails against rF2 to me. I can play with slip angle so much more than in any game. And almost everything is catchable. That's crazy to me and I love it. Hard to say how real it is.
I like something like GT3 and road cars. Almost everything is similar. New Formula is the best formula I played, it's so cool with this kind of possible "sliding". Everything is so alive because your input is always there.
You can't slide cars in R3E now. You can catch really small slides but everything else feels like scripted movie. You lost grip and only can watch 5 seconds of a movie. No input allowed.
Agree with iRacing, I discuss it with few people.
I like AMS1 too, it's like rF2 in some ways. AMS2 is sometimes rather easy and it's mostly strange. Feels a bit like AMS1 but with strange ME behavior. I am not sure they will build something consistent around ME. AMS1 was so good to me. Maybe next AMS will be on "right" engine
Well that at the same time sounds good and bad for rF2. But I suppose you are actually a good driver, otherwise it would make an impression you have entered an arcade in rF2, which can't be true. Although realism discussions are frequently going here, there used to be some complaints about how some cars were accepting too much of abuse. But new BMW and Formula cars seems to be fine, or at least a lot better.
To be honest, I also find it easier to overdrive cars in rF2 than in most sims, with some exceptions. Once I gave my friend who doesn't simrace, and doesn't even have a car or drives anything, and he was rather happy about how he could drive the car, it just felt correct (although he just drove it casually, and wasn't overdriving).
I think there is something great about rF2 that puts it in position that can be very comparable to reality, and car control is quite intuitive, natural. Unlike in some other games, there are things about their physics that you have to learn, because something about driving is unnatural and non-intuitive. I used to play AC so much in the past, there is some kind of pattern felt when overdriving cars, that is although slightly different in each car, still feels like the same action over and over and over again, feels fitting some cars more and some less. And once you understand that pattern it is relatively easy to drive over the limit anything there. In rF2 each "big moment" can be more subtle and more unique, even in same or similar cars in same racing session.
Speaking of realism, and how much it should be possible with sliding, what has to be done is good honest comparing to reality, normally fastest pro drivers with chad driving styles will overdrive their race cars just about where it is still possible to keep it going. Must look there and compare.
Plenty of nice overdriving moments in here, GT4 FTW:
And here is some huge huge moment with Lamborghini:
See, this is where we have a very different perceptions of what "working" means. The rF2 UI is "working" for me aswell. Same goes for the competitions system. But as with any system, there are areas where more work is needed. iRacing still hasn't managed to deliver a smooth online experience for big events, even after 13 years of development and despite the money that they request. It's actually an insult to the people paying for that service. In rF2 I get that system for free btw. rF2 is alot more fleshed out in some areas than many other products actually but many people just put those aside. The rain part coupled with real road is a very good example of that. But it is a product that was advertised as a product with ongoing development right from the beginning and those who haven't undestood this by now are looking for something that they won't get. It's very simple. How hard is it to understand that it is a sandbox? There will be new features implemented that are in development but that's basicly the same for any sim out there. There is a culture of WIP in game development as release cycles have sped up tremendously, not just for game releases but also for DLCs and updates to the core games. A lack of features is for me as bad as badly implemented features. The first is a sign of no execution at all while the second is a sign of bad execution and I sometimes prefer that they tried it atleast.
If you don't know much about modding how does it happen that you come to a judgement regarding the support? How does it come that we see people producing 3rd party content on a regular base, updating their content to current spec and that we are still able to use content that is years old despite huge updates to the core? What's up with the big update for the dev guide? Is that worth nothing? That was certainly not done in five minutes and it's work that needs to be payed aswell. How does it come that 3rd party content made it into the game and the competition system? If you really consider this as "not much help" then I would give you the advice to think twice what you wrote in that comment as the facts speak a different language.
Btw, I come from a modding community for a game where all documentation was basicly done by the modders and trial and error were alot more common than with rF2. In fact, it's the modders that developed plugins for 3DSmax etc. So people who complain about the lack of modding support for rF2 have barely any idea what they are talking about.
rFactor 2: the Linux of racing games. If it doesn't work it's your fault
Just be prepared to devote your life to working round its idiosyncrasies, get an IT degree, make allowances for its shortcomings and you'll be rewarded with a mostly enjoyable simracing experience.
Except Linux runs fine out of the box. Much better than Windows on my hardware.