The Elephant in the room

[Cote Dazur]

I want to share a concern that I have about AMS2. It does not seem to be discussed, but when comparing how many player actually play the game, I am very worried this game will get any traction ever. It is no just less than other SIM, it is very very little, particularly as it is new.

I would love to hear what Reiza think of the abysmally small amount of user.

How many use a game does not reflect on how good it is, AMS2 is good, but not having user, hence no money coming in has to be some how worry some for Reiza and by consequence to existing user.

By all the coverage here in RD and all the superlative in this thread, you could be tempted to think that this is the next big thing for SIM racer. Not so much, why is their not more players?

 

[dwightyone]

Some people like to wallow in "we told you so" when it comes to AMS2 and the Madness Engine. Sad, bitter, lonely old men- that's what they are!

Nah seriously, I don't get the hate because let's be honest if Reiza wanted to make a jump to a modern engine in modern times then as far as I can tell their options were limited anyway. I don't think they can code to the level to make their own engine so how many on the shelf racing engines are there that a tiny little development studio can afford to buy in to - not many I bet. I think Slightly Studios made them an offer they couldn't refuse as there weren't many other options. Maybe peeps should stop the gas lighting and just accept once and for all that Reiza and the Madness Engine are now inextricably linked and instead of slagging them off, then perhaps, they shouldn't say anything at all or just buzz off. Though I do find the slagfest mildly entertaining at times. Where is Andrew WOT of late btw? At least he has a bit of humour with it or makes it a bit more interesting to read.

Anyhoo. More Kart tracks please Reiza? And maybe another in-between Kart which is faster than the 390 but not as ballistic as the sporty 125.

Edit : He's seven to eight posts back.

 

[Lefthook]

There are several reasons this game isn't doing better than it is.

1) The dedicated server sucks. There is no control and considering Reiza are known for their F1 style cars, we still can't do a formation lap with a standing start. Admins can't do anything but advance session. There are still issues with people getting disconnected and the general netcode is not great to be honest. No control over the grid or removing a silly penalty someone got, unsynchronized GO lights causing pileups at the start. It's embarassing.

2) The feel and handling is off on a lot of cars. This is the hot button topic of course because everyone gets defensive about handling/physics. There are still things wrong with this game in this regard and guys are quick to defend and say that person has their ffb setup wrong or that they haven't spent time tuning, etc but the cars do feel off to a lot of people. The Brabham does things that just make no sense and it is really noticeable. I'm running the GT3 and GTE with zero TC and just abusing the throttle and that is not correct behavior. The tires/grip also feels too grippy under the limit and not grippy enough at the limit. This leads to snappy behavior that is also frustrating. There are also occasions where simply adding more wheel lock cures understeer and that just feels wrong. Some cars do feel great though, so I personally believe it can be fixed but we are over a year out of beta and these things are still really noticeable.

3) The ai is still terrible. It got decent for a while and I quite enjoyed it but now it is terrible again and running an offline championship in most cars is an exercise in frustration.

I laugh at the "Well look how bad ACC was out of the gate". Yeah it was, that is true. But within 9 months of release they had addressed a lot of issues to the point that the player base spiked massively. (I don't really play ACC to be honest) The major issue in regards to car handling was the tire model being single contact patch and that was improved. The majority of beefs were that it wouldn't run well and was unplayable in VR, whereas the majority of the issues people are mentioning with AMS2 are the handling. Sure there are trolls that are gonna say the Madness engine is only capable of simcade level and you're not likely to change their mind, but there are a lot of non-haters out there that don't like the way the game handles either.

Things can certainly still be turned around here IMO, but the stuff I mention above needs to be addressed for that to happen. Some of the cars just don't feel like cars and people are noticing. I trust in Reiza, but if I am honest I am getting a bit p***ed off.

 

[dwightyone]

Yeah some cars absolutely suck in AMS2 whereas others are great.

 

[b)b]

AMS2 has zillions of car categories while Kunos has only 2 to care about in ACC for concentrating all their efforts on them for fine tuning and making them simrace crowd pleasing.
The comparison is not really fair. Sure, some cars are bound to be better than others in AMS2, there are so much of them! It will improve.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

Afraid it's not just individual cars, but more fundamental issue with driving model. Lefthook has done a very good assesment of what feels off with the physics. Can it change, hopefully, but in my book it should have been number one priority for the studio to focus on, not all that scattered across diferent categories content with some of a very questionable quality.

 

[Lefthook]

Afraid it's not just individual cars, but more fundamental issue with driving model. Lefthook has done a very good assesment of what feels off with the physics. Can it change, hopefully, but in my book it should have been number one priority for the studio to focus on, not all that scattered across diferent categories content with some of a very questionable quality.

Good post. The part that sucks now is that Reiza are so fed up with people bashing the "physics" that you can't post these kinds of observations without being attacked on their forum. If some of the issues can be "dialed out" using setup changes, well then Reiza need to give us better default setups, but I suspect the issue goes deeper than that.
Right now it is a very unbalanced feeling driving the game. There are times it feels spot on, but many you just think "that felt wrong". Like take the Brabham BT44 around Laguna Seca and you get this very unnatural understeer that feels...canned for lack of a better word. There are a few oddball things like that in the game which ruins the immersion. You get odd behaviour like that and suddenly you don't feel like you're driving a car anymore. AMS1 felt like driving real cars so I believe they can fix it, but I'm not thrilled with the way they are handling things at the moment.

 

[BlaKArg]

Ain't that the case with pretty much EVERY sim, except for ACC for obvious reasons? (That it has way fewer cars...)

AC has horrible driving cars (I'm talking Kunos cars, which honestly in general are way below the level of the best mods).
rF2 some cars drive like ****.
R3E I haven't driven enough to comment.

Hell AMS1 may have the most amount of great driving cars.
But as far as AMS2, the cars that feel great, I would put above anything else out there. Some cars are really weird and feel wrong, but there's so much content that I really don't mind putting aside the cars that are messed up to focus and enjoy the ones that drive great, cause as a whole package, AMS2 beats anything else out there, for ME.

But I absolutely love the driving experience in AMS2, so I get that if someone doesn't gel with it, the flaws will appear bigger/worse.
This happens to me with rF2, I don't like the driving experience there so all its flaws are magnified to me.

The potential for AMS2 is off the charts. Cars like the Ultima GTR which drive great out of the box... a few tweaks like on steelcast27's setup and it's a PERFECT driving experience. I truly believe Reiza will eventually get all (or most) of the content to that level.

 

[Deleted member 197115]

AC has horrible driving cars (I'm talking Kunos cars, which honestly in general are way below the level of the best mods).
rF2 some cars drive like ****.

If AMS2 felt just as "horrible" as AC, I personally would be a very happy man, and I am sure SteamCharts would reflect that as well.

 

[Lefthook]

Ain't that the case with pretty much EVERY sim, except for ACC for obvious reasons? (That it has way fewer cars...)

AC has horrible driving cars (I'm talking Kunos cars, which honestly in general are way below the level of the best mods).
rF2 some cars drive like ****.
R3E I haven't driven enough to comment.

Hell AMS1 may have the most amount of great driving cars.
But as far as AMS2, the cars that feel great, I would put above anything else out there. Some cars are really weird and feel wrong, but there's so much content that I really don't mind putting aside the cars that are messed up to focus and enjoy the ones that drive great, cause as a whole package, AMS2 beats anything else out there, for ME.

But I absolutely love the driving experience in AMS2, so I get that if someone doesn't gel with it, the flaws will appear bigger/worse.
This happens to me with rF2, I don't like the driving experience there so all its flaws are magnified to me.

The potential for AMS2 is off the charts. Cars like the Ultima GTR which drive great out of the box... a few tweaks like on steelcast27's setup and it's a PERFECT driving experience. I truly believe Reiza will eventually get all (or most) of the content to that level.

Ultima is a great example of a car that feels great I agree. I also agree that the setup does need some tuning.
The problem I have is that many of the cars that do handle great aren't popular (i.e. the Ultima). Everyone wants to drive the big name cars and many of those have the issues I describe. I'd also like to see some BOP in a couple categories as well. I adore Group C, but what is the point of having 2 cars I can't race against one another?

 

[BlaKArg]

Ultima is a great example of a car that feels great I agree. I also agree that the setup does need some tuning.
The problem I have is that many of the cars that do handle great aren't popular (i.e. the Ultima). Everyone wants to drive the big name cars and many of those have the issues I describe. I'd also like to see some BOP in a couple categories as well. I adore Group C, but what is the point of having 2 cars I can't race against one another?

I agree with this, also with the GT3's and the McLaren being so much faster than the other cars in the class.

No one denies that Reiza has work to do, but what we already have is, to me, the most dynamic, fun and challenging sim out there.

I'm gonna ignore AndrewWOT's comment considering he grabbed the "SteamCharts" card (please... since when has popularity had anything to do with quality).

 

[Deleted member 197115]

I'm gonna ignore AndrewWOT's comment considering he grabbed the "SteamCharts" card (please... since when has popularity had anything to do with quality).

Isn't that what this particular thread all about, players count?

 

[wolftree]

Right now it is a very unbalanced feeling driving the game. There are times it feels spot on, but many you just think "that felt wrong". Like take the Brabham BT44 around Laguna Seca and you get this very unnatural understeer that feels...canned for lack of a better word. There are a few oddball things like that in the game which ruins the immersion. You get odd behaviour like that and suddenly you don't feel like you're driving a car anymore.

The FRetro low-speed understeer comes from the combination of a differential that doesn't open smoothly enough in low gears combined with very small front tyres. It's somehow typical for these cars but most people seem to think it's exaggerated in AMS2.

There's a long thread in the forums discussion various issues with the FRetro:

Formula-Retro drivability

After testing these cars yesterday after the release, and today doing some hotlaps and long runs with my friends, we got some conclusions about the...

forum.reizastudios.com

You can post your impressions there, it's not as these cars haven't been critiqued before. What people don't like is sweeping statements applied to the entire game based on anecdotal evidence or using stuff like Steam Charts as a surrogate for simulation quality.

 

[Gevatter]

If some of the issues can be "dialed out" using setup changes, well then Reiza need to give us better default setups, but I suspect the issue goes deeper than that.

I think it's both to some extent. From what I read in the forums there currently is an issue with longitudinal grip generation on most cars, that makes them hard to spin and makes them grip up in a weird manner if they do lose the rear. There's also still some of that diff issue where is snaps open and shut instead of opening more smoothely. I do hope for an update to those in the next patch.

If you look at Steelcast27's Youtube channel there are very usable setups for a lot of the cars, and I agree that the stock settings (I'm not calling them setups) don't make for neither a very good first impression nor good driving in a lot of cases. Just like AC was generally understeery and rF2 was generally oversteery, AMS2 stock settings are plain weird for some cars.

 

[maelstrom]

If you look at Steelcast27's Youtube channel there are very usable setups for a lot of the cars, and I agree that the stock settings (I'm not calling them setups) don't make for neither a very good first impression nor good driving in a lot of cases.

And therein lies the problem! The default setups in a racing game should make the car stable and reasonably easy (but not fast) to drive - something that allows you to get into the game without having to dig deeply into the technicalities of setting up the car. They should provide a basis to build on when you want more speed/better handling. AMS2 default setups generally don't do that for me. You shouldn't need to download setups to make a car usable (I'm not talking about being competitive here). The only other sim I have loaded at the moment is ACC and in that I can pretty much jump into any car, select the default setup and have some fun driving. You certainly won't be that competitive but, after a bit of practice, you also won't be struggling to stay on the track.

I think that a lot of people who bought AMS2 have been put off by the fact that the cars seem too skittish. Not all of us are alien-level drivers who have the time to spare to really tune the car for best performance. I suspect that's probably why plenty of people have bought AMS2 but not that many use it.

 

[TShrimp]

And therein lies the problem! The default setups in a racing game should make the car stable and reasonably easy (but not fast) to drive - something that allows you to get into the game without having to dig deeply into the technicalities of setting up the car. They should provide a basis to build on when you want more speed/better handling. AMS2 default setups generally don't do that for me. You shouldn't need to download setups to make a car usable (I'm not talking about being competitive here). The only other sim I have loaded at the moment is ACC and in that I can pretty much jump into any car, select the default setup and have some fun driving. You certainly won't be that competitive but, after a bit of practice, you also won't be struggling to stay on the track.

I think that a lot of people who bought AMS2 have been put off by the fact that the cars seem too skittish. Not all of us are alien-level drivers who have the time to spare to really tune the car for best performance. I suspect that's probably why plenty of people have bought AMS2 but not that many use it.

I underlined the key word..."for me" that I think is important as we talk about AMS2, and appreciate you putting this in. I, on the other hand, find most of the cars I drive very approachable with the default setups. However, just like every sim I have owned, I will start looking at tweaks online (or just play around with the settings myself) to make things better. No different for AMS2 then it is for AC IMO. I admit, I am not into the Formula style cars or karts, so maybe it is the cars I choose compared to some of the others.

 

[chrisbrown]

I'm very grateful to AMS 2, thanks to it many people (including me) knew about AMS 1, it was love at first sight!!!!!! AMS 2 is ok for casual races with some track and cars combos.

 

[WPxNJ]

Two simple lists. "Steaming Manure Pile" and "Drives Nice". Have they ever been compiled? Or is the quest to find cars that steer and rotate a journey of self discovery?

Do AMS2 purchasers even agree on which cars are a waste of time and broken messes?

 

[orange400]

Hard to find a reason to play this when I have AC and AMS 1. But I think AMS 2 could still find a spot among them if it manages to excel as a fleshed-out career mode option. Also with strong gamepad support it could find its niche as a "hardcore simcade" of sorts, filling the role Project Cars 3 was generally hoped to be.

That approach would be ideal for a successful console port, which in turn would bring in funding and help grow a sizeable online playerbase if crossplay is possible.

 

[BlaKArg]

Or is the quest to find cars that steer and rotate a journey of self discovery?

You have obviously not played the game in months.

 

[wolftree]

And therein lies the problem! The default setups in a racing game should make the car stable and reasonably easy (but not fast) to drive - something that allows you to get into the game without having to dig deeply into the technicalities of setting up the car. They should provide a basis to build on when you want more speed/better handling. AMS2 default setups generally don't do that for me. You shouldn't need to download setups to make a car usable (I'm not talking about being competitive here). The only other sim I have loaded at the moment is ACC and in that I can pretty much jump into any car, select the default setup and have some fun driving. You certainly won't be that competitive but, after a bit of practice, you also won't be struggling to stay on the track.

I think that a lot of people who bought AMS2 have been put off by the fact that the cars seem too skittish. Not all of us are alien-level drivers who have the time to spare to really tune the car for best performance. I suspect that's probably why plenty of people have bought AMS2 but not that many use it.

AMS2 cars easier to drive below the limit and more predictable now than they have ever been, thanks to v1.2 and consequent updates. This goes for the popular GT3/GT1/GTE content, for the modern Formula stuff, most of the slower club racing classes (Caterhams, Trainer/Vee, Ginettas etc.) and most of the historical content. The older Formula cars are still problematic and some of the more extreme stuff (Copa Truck, Superkarts) still remains broken. This "can't get around the track without spinning" stuff is either a mirage from months ago or a severe FFB issue affecting a particular user. You also don't need anything beyond the default setup for the vast majority of the cars now.