Basically, for me, having played GSC from the start, through AMS there are minor issues that i know could use updating in the sim, based on how much i have played it, but i understand some are unecassary based on the vision the developers have/had. And depends how you use the game (online, vs offline champs, series etc). Minor issues like how some cars/drivers names/classes are all muddled and presented differently between series when in the same race screens, multi-class racing /ALL Cars/Tracks is noticible. Its not a bug but little things like that i guess.
More serious issues, the pit entry at Brands always becomes full of stuck cars returning to pits after a race, a car will hit the wall and become stuck, and block the rest, you need them to pass the pit line so your championship points are counted, (sometimes it calculates your points, sometimes not if this happens on other tracks) so i have to park before the pit entry so i can push the stuck cars along, this happens 100% of the time at the end of all races at Brands for me.
A lot of cars have terrible turning angles and can't reverse themselves when stuck, just drive continuously at the wall, plodding along a few feet every few mins
. Pit walls, widths and entry walls could of been widened a bit, and all garage heights, (For FT) along with all pit entry having a collision/wall revision, some pit entries and garages cause standard reiza cars and mod cars to clip/ hit the walls. Whats the point of having accurate to life road if it doesnt work in the game? We have official fictional content, so also the pit entries could be more flowing, less like sphaghetti, and fictional to suit the lowest common denominator turning angle. Looking at you, FTruck!.
Another bug in the system is the randomised chance that if your game crashes or you cancel a quali session or a race once started, (like when your kid demands you do
) when you open the game again and 'resume' with your championship, it may have skipped to the next session or track in the championship instead of restarting the cancelled event (does anyone know why this happens on some tracks and some not?).
Breaking of blue flagged cars or non hotlapping cars during quali when being lapped in the middle of a straight or mid corner, most often ruins races where they cause crashes, detract from immersion. I just learn to work around them as i know some of these things are related to the game engine and couldn't be fixed? But, funnily, i find some modded cars handle blue flags almost perfect, and overtaking off the fastest line ive observed in mod cars so i wonder?.....umm.
Upon reflection, theres lof of minor things and major things depending on how you use the game, and how you use the software, but like a game like Skyrim, you understand its not perfect and the base game engines are finite in their ability to to be used ongoing to keep up with tech evolution. So like all games, and for business model, left and the new game is made, but the new ones start a new fresh base of problems and so, you'll never get that 'perfect' platform, until quantum computing is used for them this will always be the case.
Track editor, anyone? Its a shame Sims don't have more 'gaming' activities within the sim, having spent so much time in it, i wonder what else could be implemented, such as in game track editing, changing kerbs, type, colour, grass/sand options, reverse layouts AIW..these things could really offer people like me a whole lot more that would be worth paying for IMO.
TL/DR So yes it's a great working sim, polished in lots of important areas the best it could be, but with some bugs and issues in a few key areas.
Sims are still influenced too much by the corporate, an RPG SIM is where its at
Apart from the tracks, do we need licensed cars, really, its a video game, an illusion and i'm sure 90% of sim gamers would crash a real race car first lap. How 'accurate' does everything really need to be seeing as the 'real' world is also constantly changing? Why chase corporate approval, we are free to create at any moment, why limit anything about what you do to suit someones elses version? Surely sim racers need to also ask themselves, how important is the illusion of a licensed car skin over a fictional one, and as most would never drive any of these cars in the game in real life, how would you know if the sim is simulating a true as can be physic or not? Some expectations from gamers also needs to mature a little still, to not be pulled into a advertising feedback loop of, 'licensed content! must be betteeerrr!'...
Anyways, of course when i was younger i used to take games serious, now im very casual so whats important to me will be different to you, but i still 'feel' when playing sims that the corporate identity is a bit of an infection, (its limiting rather than expanding) I 'think' its good to attract new (paying) customers by having real-world represented content, but not the best 'source' to look for a 'creative' base for creating 'new' things; how things are expressed in games
is free of the money as a motivator identity situation. The racing car world is dominated by money as its reason for existing top-down, the ego-dreams of the people have thier own motivators that make it happen...so that becomes outwardly expressed in the identity, but video games then 're-create' this world with its limitations, they are fake plastic illusions, so you can still be 'sim', but free of financial obligations. Conscious co-creation is a thing.
Being on lockdown means i waffled on more than needed (not sorry
)
P.S. this obviously means i have a lot of hopes for sim racing to progress but fun and form-factor equally with a sustainable base physics architecture. The real world doesn't change its physics, you operate around it, same should be for sims once new technology is developed for it.
