Automobilista 2 October 2022 Development Update

Nah mate, apologies, it wasn't targeted at anyone specifically and I don't disagree that some more events like you said would be a positive, but look at it this way, until recently we didn't have TToTW, now we do, that at least shows that Reiza are mindful of these suggestions.

 

MP can be put to decent use currently however there are still too many occurrences of the de-sync'ing at start up, sessions getting stuck, players ejected for no reasons between sessions.
If connections are very very good the number of occurrences go down. So some leagues with exceptionally good servers and users can work with it with some success.
However when you have a league with people who invest hours of the week to prepare for a race that has a 50/50 chance to finish for them in the transition between quali and race or at the start due to de-syncing it's just a killer for the league.
All this is on top of the basic league management features missing: replays are impossible to scroll through. Different players have replays showing different things so it is impossible to really arbitrate any on track issues. Broadcasting is barely possible.
Flags are pretty useless assuming they come out: you do not get yellow flags, when you get them it is unclear in which section they are and what level of danger triggers them.
White flags for slow cars are in a similar condition.
Many people are still reporting pit stops are not carrying out the requested refueling and are forced to end their race when out of fuel.
Host migration is a problem for leagues as is the fact that the host cannot kick idiots when in open hosted lobbies.
Finally MP is very limited because there is little focus: there are a couple of operations (JR and simracing.gp) but little else in the way of focusing users so that there is some open decent racing other than leagues.
And all this is even forgetting any endurance considerations
In other words: yes MP can be used for friendly/amateur events lasting less than an hour, requiring no rolling start and no refueling, but not for events where people invest their valuable effort and time yet.
I think it is logical at some point that the component of users who are more MP oriented could use some more information as to what level of MP quality (at least from high level point of view) could be expected and even in very broader terms when.
It's a legitimate question.
Some words here and there in the forum by Renato hinted at a more solid MP and even endurance but not much more than that.
Hopefully the future brings good news and some words on where the MP of AMS2 is heading, as 2023 will bring more competitors and quite some users could migrate if they come up with a good MP platform in absence of a real development of AMS2 or at least a credible plan to address the issues.

 

I am hopeful and I am not even a big MP guy. I would much prefer an epic career mode that has different decades you can start in and play across car classes in those decades.
Imagine being able to start in the 1960s in F1 vintage gen 1 then progressing to Gen2 while also mixing is races of the mini cooper s and other vintage touring cars. Or you have to start in the Lotus and Mini to work you way up to F1.

Then you head into the 1970s with the formula retro Gen 1 and 2 while mixing in races with the RSR, C3 R, M1 and so on and then finally getting into the 80s and finishing up your career with the F1 classics, group Cs, and touring cars of the 80s.

Or you could start in the 90s or 2000s and work your way up to more modern f1,GT3 GT4s, stockcars etc. So many possibilities with the amount of content AMS2 has.

 

It will be interesting to see what LFM does to rfactor's numbers over an extended period of time. It had very similar player counts to ams2 before.

 

It will go up for a few months and then back down as new content drops for other sims and people's focus shifts. Same story when R3E ranked system or new FFB dropped, or whenever AMS2 drops a big content update. These games just have no organic growth left, it's the same few thousand sim racers jumping from sim to sim.

 

What car class are you seeing the snap or motion issues? I did some races yesterday with the F-Vintage on Kyalami and Hockenheim, and even thought they still wont overtake on the inside if side by side after a long straight, I am not seeing the unnatural movement you are describing.

What you are describing sounds like GPL where the AI moves from side to side as if someone was moving them with their hands. Here sometimes they do some weird moves but nothing like that. I played some Rfactor2 and they have improved but IMHO they are not better than AMS2 right now.

 

Don’t want to see any of you trying this.

 

that's all I wanted from AMS2, for everything else there are already better Sim titles... but... it turned out, AMS2 did not very well in this regard, setting up a quick multiclass race with changing weather with some ambient AI to replicate an NLS like endurance race in P2P sessions. Thast currently only possible in RF2, i-renting with loads of DLC or modded AC.

 

i don't understand why people always use iRacing as reference for a good rating system.
I use iRacing since more than 2 years and i have to tell that, if you are under 2000 you can always have hundreds of idiots who spoil your race.
In Rookie, D and C class there are many start crashes, people who push you out and seem never to care for their points though they pay for racing. Even in B and A class you can have heavy troubles.
Why? Because it is very easy with the right tricks to gain B in a few days.
So its true, you can have great races in iRacing, but it also can be the worst.
The story about best rating system is a fairy tale in my eyes.
It mostly works, because many users payd hundreds of $$ for their tracks and cars and WANT to be clean. But that doesn't save them from crashers and idiots.
So please, if you never raced iRacing, don't take it as reference.

 

Oh I agree Iracing ratings are pretty broken and could be improved but a least the rating means something. At least it means more than the current rating system in AMS2.

 

When real life perfectly simulates video games

 

haha.....before yesterday: "Reiza, please do something about this cheating. This guy is doing wall rides!"
Today: "Please Reiza, do something, I cannot wall ride! It should be possible!"

 

iRacing's rating system only somewhat works because it has the player numbers to facilitate match making. It's still prone to the same issues as the Pcars2/AMS2 system, but there's enough people to hold multiple splits based on rating. Even in the height of Pcars2 popularity, setting a minimum rating on a lobby prevented anyone from joining. You have a point about "sunk cost fallacy" possibly making iRacers care more about maintaining a good safety rating. Unfortunately, given AMS2's smaller numbers, I don't think proper matchmaking will ever be an option here unless there's a massive change in popularity. That ties into the discussions on leagues, p2p vs. dedicated servers, etc.

Personally, I feel the current AMS2 safety/performance rating system is effectively useless. It guages overall time in proximity to other cars without crashing, and not a recent performance of clean races. Anyone with an S rating could essentially go on rampages for months and never drop to an A. As for the performance rating, that's a whole other rant I could go on about weird weightings and how absurdly brutal it is for DNF's. 1800-2000 one below par race will set you back 5-6 wins, and a lap 1 incident is a 20-60 point loss. Part of that is the lack of high rated players to guage off of, but it's easy to get discouraged when a win is 1-5 points and a non-podium is 10-60. It took me ages to go from 1900 to 2000, but it took all of 3 unlucky races in a row to drop into the 1800's because of rammers.

I've been happy with AMS2 and Reiza's work overall, but the copy-paste Pcars2 rating system has been a massive disappointment. I understand rating systems have inherent flaws and quirks, but I don't understand why we waited so long for a direct copy of an already broken system.

Edit: Honestly, the rating and safety tracking over at Just Race has been pretty impressive from my limited experience with it. It's been fairly good at judging faults in incidents and acknowledging solo off track incidents. Even giving performance rating points for good quali performance. I know a lot of that is using AWS on the backend, but Reiza should get in contact with them on some sort of built in JR system. (P.S. sorry I can't race as much with the JR folks, change in schedule prevents me from racing with the EU time zones).

 

How is this different from iracing? I've seen people going from 5k rating to 3.5k in a week in iracing. That is why people like Benecke only use their 10k account to race big endurance races and play weekly with their smurf one which is 3-4k lower...
When you are in the top 1% it is always going to be much much much much harder to keep going up or even be stable than lose rating.

 

They have similar issues, but iRacing's system has more "headroom" to allow you to progress. Above 3-5k iRating is basically elite players, there is plenty of room to grow before you get into a level that is just the "chosen few." The climb up to that level has it's highs and lows, but because it's at least attempting to group you into similar level players, one mediocre race doesn't destroy your progress.

I'm not saying iRacing's system is perfect, I got trapped in IRX where I was way faster than the average simracer, but nowhere near the guys like Scott Speed or Yohan Harth (I think that was his name, properly quick driver). I just feel the punish/reward balance is a bit better.

The AMS2/PC2 system only allows a window of 300-500 points that a player "realistically" can be in. Anything sub 1500 is effectively 0 given the starting values. Players can drop further, but sub 1600 basically is an unknown quality with drivers given there isn't enough data to guage how good someone is. Above 1800 it aggressively punishes any slight mistake. At 2000 I had a DNF from being punted from a toxic player and lost 60 points, that's a 12% drop in my total progress from 1500-2000 in one race. That's a hefty penalty, especially when a win typically only gains a 1800+ player 2-5 points (about 1%). I don't have a problem with losses being punishing, as long as wins are somewhat equal in reward. iRacing can be just as brutal in punishments, but it gives way more points for above average performance.

The current system treats 1800+ as effectively 3-4k plus in iRating. Above that, it expects you to win every race, no matter what. Even with a 66% win rate, I was losing points because of the rare occasional incident. That 500 point headroom to grow becomes effectively 300 given the point balance becomes heavily weighted against the player.

 

Hoping Jaguar XJR9 too.

 

That´s how an ELO system works otherwise there would be huge rating inflation. I found it´s possible to quit races and not lose any rating so the system definitely needs work as it can be gamed to only increase in good races.

 

On iracing my pals PC was connected by WiFi
Everyone use to moan at him because his car was flashing in & out ( disappearing during online sessions ) , when he got a cable connection the flashing was no more

Iracings system simply removes offending car
(Distracting for others if bad )

not sure what happens in AMS2 but I suspect everyone suffers & micro pauses/stutters ?