Automobilista 2 V1.3.7.1 Officially Released!

My favourite private lobby race was earlier this year, when half of the grid had to go in for a second pit stop, because the first attempt at a mandatory tyre change pit stop ( tyre wear x 2 and 45 ish minute race ) their pit crew refused to change their tyres.
There’s a reason why I racing and ACC have a more active player base, they have decent online. If AMS2 could sort their online out, I’m positive they could have a share in ACC levels of success.
Full disclosure I don’t own I racing or ACC as they are not my cup of tea, but there is no denying their popularity and success and linking it to great multiplayer experiences and also they bop their GT3’s so that the grid isn’t 90% McLaren, but that’s a whole other story.

 

Apples and oranges. They both great but ACC is not far away form being diversified. That's because ACC is not aiming to be. At least not nearly to a degree of AMS2. Just because ACC is not very diversified does not mean its a bad title. It's an excellent sim if you're looking for this type of racing. If not then AMS2 is the right one for you. There are aspects of ACC that are way better than AMS2 and other way around.
Also, it's possible to like both

 

Netcode is one thing, but pings and packet losses are often inevitable. Especially if host's connection is not the best and this is often the case in AMS2 lobbies powered by a domestic broadband of various quality. Not saying this is the case in your example, but I've seen plenty of weird behavior where it wasn't the game's netcode fault. Even I've seen connections dropped from dedicated datacentre hardware, that was classed as DDoS by the hosting provider... Plenty of things can go wrong (and often do!).

Agree though that there's a lot of features bugged (pit stops, eh?) or missing overall. Multiplayer needs some love for sure...

 

Part of that is just the nature of online racing. I've had clean side-by-side battles with people on multiple continents, then other races you can't get within a car length without netcode acting up. It's improved massively since the early access release, but it's got room for improvement (on day one you couldn't get within 3 car lengths without someone getting sent to space). iRacing has dedicated servers running events, and I'm not sure about how ACC runs it's backend.

 

I usually have solid experiences in GT type, but openwheels are a lot less forgiving and contact is seldom ever good.

 

Players and host connection quality will always play a role in MP issues and netcode, but AMS2, or rather thr Madness engine itself, seem to cope worse than the competition.

Im (and was) in a couple of AMS2 discord leagues and the image of the game on MP is terrible. To put it lightly, people are calling the game 'a joke'

 

Which is a shame, given there's good content and fun to be had. I know part of it is just the bad rep from using the Madness engine over a more "reputable" one. Some of the most fun I've had in simracing has been in AMS2, the best Discord group I've joined has mostly run AMS2. I like the other sims, but I don't get quite the same detail in AC, iRacing, or ACC that I do in this. Part of that is just personal preference and that RF2 was too clunky for me to get dug into. It's just sad to see multiplayer numbers slowly dwindling off, although I know summer is a bit of a dry season for online racing anyway.

It just feels like showing your favorite new band or song to a friend. You love it for all of the reasons it's good, but your friend's first impression highlights details you've overlooked because you've become so familiar with it. That's how AMS2 feels right now: a good sim buried underneath an awkward, clunky exterior.

 

For me this is my #1 sim since some of the recent car fixes but I am hesitant to call some of my sim friends back to it until I am sure they will have a good experience. Great car handling is an important piece of that, but other things factor in as well

 

Well, since everyone's chipping in their MP anecdotes, I feel I must say that my batch of buds and I [about 10-15 people, many different timezones] have had very few issues with the MP. The lobbies have worked perfectly with no dropouts and rubber-banding/slight desync has occurred, but rather rarely in comparison to the F1 games we are used to.

 

Sorry people but AMS2 has lost a lot of gamers....Reiza has to put the status of the game in alpha or beta back....and then give us in 2024 a finished product...a great MP must to have priority and of course a great driveability of all the cars.....when this is not possible so they have to put less content and so they have time to focus on learning the Madness Engine.....

 

AMS2 has lost so many players that the average amount of users slowly rises month by month. I wonder how that is possible.

Back to Alpha/Beta? How does that even work? How do you un-release a game? Nobody would take such a status change seriously. Also how can a product that is meant to be ever evolving be finished? And how does the team get paid if they don't have updates to entice new players?
It's easy to talk without giving it much thought.

Many users are of course getting tired of the bugs and limitations of MP (even moreso those coming over from pCars), but people just don't understand that improving MP isn't just a "snap of your fingers". Serious time and resources need to put in to study a MP model that would work for Reiza, the game and the users. Then the devs need to learn how to create a MP system and netcode from scrap or hire someone with the needed skill already acquired. There is already the rest of the season pass to do as well as career mode. As much as it sucks to hear it, we might only be seeing MP improvements once the initial plans are done. It is what it is. MP has its issues, but it is playable.

 

I agree with you but i am one of this tired users.....and when they in the beginning of the development had putting more focus on a playable MP as on ad and ad more content so i think this was a better choice....but yes they have to pay also all the bills i understand that....but when you compare with Iracing they don't have the newest version of the tracks and nobody cares about this because they have a good MP system...

 

The thing is, you and I know that. You and I know Reiza is capable of delivering it (eventually). But the fact is that AMS2 is a released product, and the people outside the Reiza's forum bubble likely expected a much more honed MP for a released game as we currently have 2 years after its official release.

Yes, playable at a casual level - no question. Implementation of scheduled races could mitigate this bad image AMS2 MP has, even with such a sketchy experience, as long as sluggish cars are used, instead of the F1 ones.

It really sucks seeing AMS2 getting a bad rep because of MP, when its core is actually amazing. If everything goes right, the experience of racing in AMS2 is unmatched.

 

I think AMS2 will be a great learning experience for Reiza, both in terms of its qualities and its limitations, planning this difficult balance between delivering more content with fewer bugs.
I would like but I find it difficult for a studio still in small proportions to create its engine, I think Reiza would do much better to develop her game in an engine she produces herself.
I know that I will displease some here, but if I were asked in the first 2 years between AMS1 and AMS2 which Sim you were more excited to play, I would say without a doubt, AMS1, of course I trust and I know that Reiza is capable of delivering such a product good as any other Studio, but I still feel that AMS2 was not a step forward for me in terms of product compared to AMS1.

 

Been having a gt4 championship and really enjoying the Porsche in it, feels so connected. I have noticed however that if you try to brake in anything other than a straight line it wants to pirouette, this is with abs on the default setting of 8 and with rest of settings at default I believe. Anyone know if that is normal for this car?

 

AMS2 will only slowly rise because of the online issues. Remember the release of version 1.3 and what it did for AMS2? So many you tubers making videos titled - buy AMS2 now, AMS2 has sorted the sticky diff, AMS2 feels like a sim at last! It received so much praise and got so many people excited and involved. It was a great time.
But then as time goes by of practising hot lapping, practising against ai, you then feel ready to go online, where you are met with the most unloved and undercooked system.
If you are a regular player in I racing, ACC, raceroom, AC or GT and you fancy giving AMS2 a run because of the online hype, you have an expectation in your mind of what multiplayer is and how it functions. Then you are met with the massive disappointment that is AMS2 online and shortly there after, the game gathers dust in the steam library and people give up on it again.
If you go on you tube or twitch and compare how many people stream AMS2 compared to any other modern pc sim, they are nowhere to be seen, because content creators can’t trust it to work. Because the content creators aren’t constantly using it in either their rotation or as their main sim, people lose interest again and reduces free advertising for Reiza and hype.
The next big release or the “V1.3” of 2022 needs to be online related to get interest back up.
There’s probably more hype for Rennsport than there is for AMS2 and that game is in alpha. It’s had lots of hype from E sports drivers and content creators and what was one of their lead selling points, yup you guessed it, incredible online multiplayer experiences to be had!
Decent online, means more content creators streaming it and making videos on it and these factors play a large role in a sims success, hype for new dlc and it’s life span.
No one is suggesting online is easy, but it’s very very important to the success of a sim. All it takes is Reiza to communicate ( not one of their strong points admittedly) with creators, forums and social media and get us hyped and buzzing again that an online system has been agreed on, the team or company has begun work on it, we expect the beta online to be available by quarter four 2022 and we are really pleased with it.
This sim should be one of the big boys!

 

Hello everybody,

as I expressed some time ago, (perhaps among the first) the MP in AMS2 is absolutely unusable for having online leagues.
it is so scarce that it is considered at the level of an ALPHA stage as a software development. It has infinite bugs and is very limited on many points of view comparing it to other sim-racing.
The product as I have already said has been launched for two years already, and the Reiza team has done nothing to make it at least sufficient and functional.
when I hear the user "Shriukan" who is (a big Reiza supporter) say that MP in AMS2 will be developed after the download of new contents and after fixing all pneumatic models and some parts of physics, saying that at least MP is there it is even if it is what it is, it makes me smile. MP is a port of pCars1 (in a painful stage) where SMS never developed it after 2015 it was released, and not even after the release of pCars2 in 2017 did they develop.
So we inherit an old MP from 2015 with endless bugs and never developed for other features. I mean the Reiza Team for AMS2 after the release of version 1.3 should stop and change their development plan, combining physical development and tyre model with the MP one, and avoid leaving new content, but only releasing once MP has reached an average sufficiency.

We need to be objective and all of us who love AMS2 ask for development in the field of MP and anyone of the Sim-Racers I ask to dedicate themselves to AMS2, they all tell me the same thing, MP sucks it is useless to dedicate yourself if you then have frustrations when you compete.

 

Before the last update the F-V12 was probably to fast, but I could match the driving style of the AI. They were only lacking on top-speed,
Now I match their Top-Speed but I'm lacking grip which make me slipping and sliding through corners where the AI seems to be on rails.
So on Silverstone 1991 difficulty 107/70 I will be on pole-position but in the race my tires get warm and will be overtaken corner by corner by the AI, they are on rails where my rails is gone.

 

Just to clarify, I have no idea if or when MP work will happen, it's just my perception of the current day situation of Reiza's priorities, hence my precise use of "we might see". For all I know, it might happen sooner or it might not happen at all.

 

@James Lee GTE
@ John Manetti

That's exactly how it looks, thanks for these open and clear words!
Who is looking as a real simracer nowadays only a driving simulator against AI?
A simracer without league-ready multiplayer with proper TV streaming tools and lots of admin tools, is nowadays only a toy of oldschool enthusiasts who like to drive for hours down the Nordschleife with retro cars from the 70s and 80s against a comparatively weak and unrealistic AI.
Is this really what we've been waiting for here? After AMS1, where everything was ready for league races and where the online man-against-man races ran almost perfectly?
Battling against many other simracers in a realistic and bug-free environment is exactly what simracing is all about and the birthplace of our (e)sport.
That's why 90% of the demanding simracers in the world drive AC, ACC, RF2, RRE and of course IRacing.
A good multiplayer mode is the guarantor for sustainable sales of a sim title even after years.
Too bad, too bad.... AMS2 has so much potential, but apparently the wrong singleplayer fanbase, and a too small dev team that still looks at the multiplayer mode stepmotherly.
Unfortunately, I have no choice but to wait and hope for RENNSPORT. Because everyone there has recognized what makes a modern racing title.... E-sports and TV broadcasts and real competition with 30-40 human drivers!

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