Automobilista 2 April 2021 Development Update

Almost in all games, with oflline options available, single palyers are much more than multiplayers.
But devs should keep in mind that it is the multiplayer features what makes the popularity of a game and attracts others to try the game in even offline mode.
Keeping leagure organizers happy and ease their works on that; will result more leagues will result more players/streamers/watchers/adverts...

 

Have to disagree here.

Have been a long time Iracing user and took part in several hundred races in that time (from 2013 – 2018) but the more I took part in online races the more I noticed how frustrating, time-consuming and also boring (only modern GT cars seem to be popular for online racing, all those nice vintage cars like the Lotus 79 or the Camel GTP/GTO cars didn't go official often) it can be. All my weekends and free time was dedicated to racing. So I decided to stop dedicated online racing two years ago because it was always the same cars (as mentioned: GT cars) and same tracks (although Iracing has a large variety of tracks). Personally the fun was lacking: just jumping in a car and having a good time, that’s what I’m looking for today. Not having to worry about too ambitious competitors who probably will rearend you and all the time you spend on practicing for the race…? For nothing.

That’s why I’m always open for good AI. It’s quite astonishing that even Iracing has AI now, and it is pretty awesome tbh. With AI I can choose the cars I like on tracks I like with the conditions (weather, race length etc) I like. I don’t have to stick to a schedule, I don’t have to join a league. I’m no student anymore, my time is limited during the week so I welcome situations where I can just get behind the wheel and start a race when I like to.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want MP to be neglected, I know that it is very important and I really like racing online when the people around me know how to drive fair. However I think having a good AI is important also and it is time for modern sims to have better AI than twenty years ago.

 

Cant wait! excellent work Reiza!

 

I prefer single player for few reasons:

1. I can play when convenient without sticking to a schedule
   
2. If I want to play 2 rounds of championship one after another, I can,
3. I'm not ruining someone's race (and wasting their preparation time) when I make an error (sorry AI)
4. I can easily restart the race after I mess up and have little fun running last a lap behind
   
5. I love niche series or weird, mad up multiclass series (F1 and Formula Trainer anyone?) with none interest from other potential participants

There's a lot more reasons that I'm not interested in typing on the phone. I wish MP in AMS2 would be epic, and similarly the single player experience. I totally get why MP is important but please try to understand that SP is equally essential. Thanks

 

For players looking for more fun (like me) than the stress of competitive multiplayer, the development of AI is very important, i hope AMS 2 continue in this path..

 

It is okay mate! Disagrement is part of a constructive argumentation process between two parties, and I definitely understand the arguing behind AI defensors.

Scheduled iRacing races are of way lower quality than any organized league racing though. So yea, basically iRacing is the same as public lobbies of the other sims, but well populated and with a rating system behind it.

The 'real' MP experience is league racing, though, and that is what I'm defending here. I believe no AI can replace the enjoyment of building a team of friends, practice online together for an upcoming race weekend and then getting real on the track.

By no means I want AI to be neglected either! In fact, I've been actively reporting AI misbehaviours on the approriated forum thread. And make no mistake: if the AI becomes awesome, I too will enjoy many hours of myself pretending to be Ayrton in the 1991 championship

 

Have to jump on the "Single Player" train here as well. I did some MP racing in the past on iRacing with the usual MX5 Cup and Skip Barber. However, it became very annoying very fast when people tried to win the race in the first corner. On top of that, I'm just not that competitive anymore and could care less if I win or not. I do enjoy the "Touristenfahrten Server" from @Shriukan where one can find a nice group of people trying to fly through the Green Hell as fast as possible.

 

What's funny to me is that people having bad experiences with the MP just give up and go play single player instead of trying to educate the race is not won in T1 or whatever the case may be.

I understand it can be frustrating and really hard to get any sort of message across in the heat of the moment but giving up on it is just not an option in my book. Once you race with people you have a connection with it really becomes a different story. Facilitating those connections is far more valuable than any sort of rating system will ever be imo.

 

Yes, me too, I'm a singel player. Why?
I can do what and when I want it to do, I don't need 'friends' to race, no one is angry about me, I'm not angry about someone else. I can take the series, car, track I like to take.
But if I want to race against others, TimeTrial is the best way to do this (for me). I can do it whenever I want, too.
So, for me SP with good AI is most important as well as TT, I hope that REIZA expand it like it was in AMS1.

 

I commented earlier that I didn't like the possibility of Nascar on AMS2.

But I forgot to commend the idea of launching American tracks with 3xGTE and 1xDPI cars. sounds like imsa weathertech sportscar championship.

Spot on!

 

Yes, NASCAR before the COT-car was great, but then,...., the same like ChampCar with the Panoz in 2007,..., not the same as before .
IMSA cars, OK, IMSA tracks,- - come on you guys ! Bad weather is forecast the next few days.......

 

Ummm, you realize the update and DLC is coming at the end of May...?

 

I know, but it's way too long till then

 

I'm a live and let live kind of guy, well perhaps not always on the track. Both game modes have their qualities and need TLC from the developers in equal measures. Again, the more players, the more resources will eventually be allocated to the stuff I enjoy.

 

I'm a huge fan of GTE and particularly sad that in real life these cars are going away. So, i'm genuinely excited to see them added to the sim but there's a very real drawback here.

These cars are modeled very well in rFactor2 as well as iRacing. Just like with the GT3 cars, when you release cars that are modeled to a high level in other sims, it's only natural to have a comparison and I don't think this will result in a favorable outcome for AMS2 at the moment. We still need realistic TC and ABS settings (no ABS in GTE of course) at the absolute minimum not to mention some improvements in how they behave and drive.

 

Why not?

Edit: probably should have read the rest of your post properly. But I still don’t think it’s fair to assume they won’t be up to standard before they’re even released.

 

I race in VR. Every bit of resources I can free up for a better looking VR experience, I'll take it. If that means sacrificing 3D trees, Im all about it. The 2d trees in AMS honestly look fine to me. Make it a switchable option maybe, but given the current environment, money cant buy you more performance right now, and VR needs a LOT. The hardware just isnt available. I think 3d trees would require me to turn settings down enough that it wouldnt look so great in VR.

Im running an RTX 2070 Super, which I assume is above average, and it's relatively current, and AMS2 in VR can make my computer burst into flames without too much work. One thing I love about AMS2 is the well-calculated tradeoffs for graphics.

 

I cant agree more than that. How COT disgraced NASCAR.

Indy for me is ultil 2002 .. after that is just downhill in terms of "boner racecar".

 

That's a very different thing, I think. I do totally agree with you. The fact is that I think a good multiplayer experience is a LOT easier to facilitate than a good single player experience. The AI being good is the first hurdle, but it's also the most basic.

I think you need some kind of campaign/evolving dynamic championship mode to really have a proper single player experience. I would buy the game over again if they could create some version of that. Whether that's a career of earning money to buy cars, or whether that's successive championship seasons modeled moving up in car levels in a given class, I don't really care. Heck it'd be fun just to have a multi-year season against AI that had names and personalities that stayed consistent. My old console games from the 90s had drivers with personalities and skill levels and you'd know their names and how to race against them. Man I wish a real sim had something like that...

So with that in mind, I dont think I've played any racing sim over the past year or so that I felt had a good single player experience. That's why I race online. The console racing games know how to do it, but I've not played any PC games that have a compelling career mode of any sort. Maybe you guys just mean "good AI for single races" when you say single player? Frankly, the TT mode is the coolest thing to me although it's utility is limited these days due to all the changes since their incarnation. I think maybe Project Cars 2 had something like what Im talking about, but the actual driving experience left a lot to be desired so I never really dove into it. AMS2 is so much better.

I agree and disagree. I think the fun of good AI is that if you make a mistake, you're not ruining other people's days. The stakes are lower and you can do it whenever you want. But I also think that against AI you can have a "story" baked into the experience, especially over a championship season. I think there's a major appeal to that if executed well.

 

Other benefits of AI that I rarely see mentioned:
- You can pause the race
- The field is usually less spread out. Public lobbies usually mean 1 alien, 3 people reasonably fast and consistent, 5 people fast but make mistakes every other lap, 5 people who just crash all the time and 5 people who seem to be driving on the track for the first time ever.

With AI, the spread is closer.

Also:
- Easier to fill a 30+ car grid
- No waiting times for end of session etc.