James Baldwin comments on the McLaren 720S GT3 Evo in AMS2 1.6

If pointing out that treating esport player like real life team is deemed irrespectful, have fun in your echo chamber. You do realise James most likely have other priorities right ? I don't think you really measure what this game is going to face once people settle down and start competing on LFM after the beta stage...
The lack of data provided on how to approach car setup is alarming and you cannot expect folks part of gaming community to all want to do their busy work to just play a game. If the info is not presented clearly and transparantly you just end up with situation like James' video (and others I linked). I like doing this and figuring stuff out, hence I want to discuss this, that's not the majority though.

James stated at the beginning that he will just use an existing setup because that should be good enough to evaluate the game using the top drivers as reference in the leaderboard, I can't blame him and none of you should as there is no other way to get a good base for your car and evaluate the game currently. Get some way to import setups or the right place to download proper racing setups and then we can argue that his reviewed was biaised, until then he just approached the game like most would (and I also been recommended to do that by some members here in other threads...).

I raised concerns on how his evaluation was dismissed and badly treated, and also how the game engine limits seem to shine through and not clearly explained. I remind you the wording for the TC was wrong until last week, was it wrong since the game released ? I mean how should one figure stuff out...Wiki then ? Where it is mentioned that engine braking will blow out your car if set above 5 (I run it way above that and never had that issue...) ? Also is the wording on this correct at all : lower value for engine braking means more engine brake and higher means less, based on how the TC text was wrong (but apparantly should have been clear enough through interpretation that nobody ever cared in the past 4 years) it is highly confusing to see the reverse be correct in that case.

This game is on the right path with 1.6, but lack of proper community support will be its downfall if not addressed. There is a reason Kunos titles are more often than not a success, hint : it is not because their game engine is the best.

 

The aim of AMS2 to is to be a motorsport simulator. As mentioned earlier, real motorsport teams are not sitting in the lab saying 'tire pressure is in the perfect window of 27 +- 0.5' like people do on ACC. They're constantly testing and checking and adapting based on conditions. I never understood why people keep asking things like 'WHAT IS THE CORRECT TYRE PRESSURE IN THIS GAME??!' (which I have seen elsewhere). As far as I understand it, AMS2 simulates this need to react to conditions for you just as for any motorsport team (in an emergent fashion).

I cannot understand how people think a game that prescribes a specific tyre pressure window under all circumstances is realistic. It might be enjoyable, and take the setup part of the equation out of their hands which may be what they want. But it's not as immersive a motorsport simulator if it does that.

As for the discussion RE the video; I think the key points are a) He ran a really weird UNREALISTIC setup (23 FARB, 1 RARB??); b) the entire aim of the video was to comment on the realism of the car; c) people in the know (including, apparently the person who literally built relevant parts of the tyre model) rightly felt that it was an unfair test. The quality of a test is independent of who conducted it; that's science!

 

But that's why we don't pay any attention to them because they don't know what they're talking about.

TBH I wouldn't fret that much about setups or competitive people. Setup changes are either obvious or they don't make any difference (think about that and you'll realise it's true - if you can't tell the difference moving a slider one way or the other makes then it obviously isn't making a significant one)

 

Nevertheless the facts existed that (a) The game had just been updated (b) All the setups had been deleted and (c) the leaderboards had been wiped.

That makes his test flawed ( amongst some other reasons that have already been pointed out over and over) There's no point hand wringing over why that was - it's not a crime to test a game in a flawed way. There's no geneva convention stating that all sim racing games need to provide tyre data. But, his test is still flawed regardless.

That's all it is, he did a test, said some stuff about a game but the stuff he said made little sense because of reasons. There's nothing deeper about it than that.

At which point you came along, perhaps buoyed by the time of year to tell us that James is the new sim racing messiah whose words are golden nuggets of knowledge that we should all bow down to and heed.

But no it's just a kid whose dad bought him a go kart when he was 8 who ran out of money before he got to join F1 and date someone in a girl band. So, instead, he bought some sim racing gear and now (going by the gofundme I saw) he possibly pays to enter GT3 races - and he, as we've seen, tested a game in a flawed way and reached some flawed conclusions that even he said were not facts and just his opinions. End of. As you say James most likely has other priorities. How many views the video got, how much ad revenue it gets etc.

There's no conspiracy. The world isn't ending. Kunos will just carry on developing AMS2 as they have. There's no need for any melodrama. Grab a mince pie and open your presents.

 

*Reiza

 

You do realise that I am asking this because it was pointed out that James was using inappropriate tyre pressure while temperature were fine to dismiss his critics right ? So either it matters or it doesn't. Also for safety purpose manufacturer and tire gauge manufacturer are required to provide guidelines on the optimal range. This range is not a full bar wide in real life, as you all like to make analogy to it constantly. Also, I hope you all will come down to earth and understand that your real life examples you keep throwing at people include real professional team working on getting tires into the right window of operation with equipment, tool and expertise players won't have. Don't all be so full of yourselves to pretend to ask players to just do that on their own without guidance, this is ridiculous and pretty arrogant.

I stated earlier, if you want James to have a proper test of your game, like you want all users to have the best experience, provide a proper setup to try the car with as guideline. If the default is what is deemed proper, then yes, expect the never ending situation that people express their bad feeling on the game telling its floaty.

Regardless, I understood that none of you want to really help avoid the situation that most people will run into : getting bad time trial setups (despite current player often telling that it is the place to go). If anything James video highlighted that very problem really well and instead of making sure this cannot happen, people here jump on him for giving his feedback when using what he expected to be an appropriate setup for the condition he was testing the game in. Why is it his fault ?

This is exactly what most new player will do as well. How should a new player know this and have a good first experience with the title ? Yes, by test and error for the more dedicated players (you already lost most "plug and play" players by that time though, they will probably stick to meta setup and bash the game for bad physics). Just bare in mind that for other parameters though you have a very limited range of value you can test, for tire pressure we are looking at a very wide range going in 0.01 increment where the operation window is only limited to a certain range (i.e. most values will be innappropriate in any condition, which begs the question why the range is not more limited especially toward the upper end, but whatever), without any guidance in game on how to approach it, maybe use the quick tips on loading screen to help with that, for example when entering a timetrial clearly writing in the loading screen that setup may be innappropriate for racing, instead of providing tips with no relevant info at all.

 

Good point well made.

No it isn't because most new players are not going to have 100k youtube viewers or any viewers holding the delusion the player knows what is or isn't realistic nor are they buying or trying a game in the context of creating a video.

When I bought half life 2 my motivation wasn't to create a video saying "Half life 2 : is it realistic?" - nor was I expecting Gabe Newell to sit in his office fretting about what I thought about the guns. I bought it to have fun playing a game. And that was my same motivation for buying and playing AC and AMS 2 too.

And that's why most people buy computer games. To play them and have fun.

Most people are not buying games so they have something to sit on youtube waffling at a camera about. Hoping to generate enough income so they can quit their day job or avoid having to get one. That latter idea - I can see why people want to do it - creates a few people who are trying products in a completely different context from 'new players' and their opinions really don't matter.

 

I like James's videos and enjoy what he says, but it did seem a bit odd that the two main criticisms were too much engine braking (caused by the setup he changed) and the FFB vibration (using a custom file anyway) when he took his hands off the wheel. When do you ever drive with your hands off the wheel? I tried it myself and yeah, take your hands away and it wobbles but as soon as you hold the wheel, that force is giving me the road noise and vehicle vibration that you would feel through your body and don't get in a sim. Pro tip kids: keep your hands on the wheel.
If you are going to make money discussing how realistic something is, then make it not realistic, then complain it's not realistic, I think you need to expect some pushback.