Automobilista 2 December 2022 Development Update

Yeah I will admit that worry is not one based out of logic, which is why I also say right afterwards that I trust Reiza to keep a good balance

 

The problem with some comments, and these often get defensive or nasty replies, is when someone says the MP/SP in AMS 2 sucks and the sky is falling/the world is ending/Reiza should drop everything else to immediately fix it and AMS 2 will fail if they don't. Then, invariably, people who prefer MP/SP proceed to tell the person complaining that not everyone wants to focus on SP/MP, so quit whinging. I am using slashes because the same comments and complaints happen in both directions.

The reality is that AMS 2 is and always was a SP/MP title. Both aspects still need work. Both aspects are always being actively being worked on by Reiza.

The only twist in the story is that Reiza has shown in the past that they prefer to ensure that the vehicles in the game demonstrate some semblance of realism and plausibility before investing a lot of time into other elements. I have to agree with this strategy. When I encounter a title that may have many impressive features, but the physics are ****e, I immediately lose interest and will not invest time (or money) into that title because it bores me (WRC: Generations is the latest example of this). AMS 2, still far from perfect, shows what careful attention to physics can produce. It shows what careful attention to track artistry can produce. Only because these two things already exist do I then care about wanting to have a MP experience or an offline championship or a career mode or whatever. Without the physics and realistic locations, the rest is a waste of time--in my opinion.

Do most people agree with this approach? No. And the proof is something I have raised multiple times in the past. PC 2 was (and probably still is) more popular online than AMS 2, AMS, rF2 and several other titles. The same "horrible" MP that we are all grumbling about was apparently satisfactory for many years for a hell of a lot more people than are interested in hard core sims. How is this possible? Were all the people using PC 2 online idiots? I don't think so. I do think they had different expectations of what was necessary to have fun racing online compared to most of us here.

It took time to understand and refine the physics in AMS 2 from the mish-mash of quality levels and programming shortcuts presented in PC 2. But we are now very close to superlative levels of sim goodness compared to other available products. The same development and refinement process has to happen for the MP elements in the game so they will eventually work for more sophisticated needs. But if the physics were not worked on first, what would be the point? We could just play PC 2 and have the same experience. AMS 2 would be redundant in that scenario.

So, no need to try to prioritize MP vs SP--it's already been done and Reiza has explained a dozen times that MP will get as much attention as possible going forward...recognizing that there are limited resources and no, AMS 2 is not ever gong to compete directly with iRacing. Hopefully it will be workable for fun racing of all sorts, but there is no magic "free" iRacing-equivalent infrastructure to be pulled out of a hat.

 

if you spend 10 Mio$, to let them develop their own engine to get rid of many buggy concepts, then MAYBE.
With Madness Engine: NO

 

Thats what we thought and said back in 1999 when the first geforce 256 chip was on retail. The quantum leap still did not happen. Games today are basically like in 1999, apart from higher resolutions and better lighting.

 

Yeah, i mostly agree. Problem with gaming technology in general is: Mainstream progress mostly happens graphically. Other elements, like AI, physics, audio (audio physics should be a thing) etc. did improve as well, but not nearly in the same way as graphics.

In some cases, like AI in shooter/rpg games, even took steps back in many games. When i look at shooter classics like Half-Life 1, Far Cry 1 or FEAR... those games had really good AI back then. But look at todays action games: Their AI is often a lot worse than in those old games.

That's why every simracing developers basically have to create their own engines with physics and AI from the ground up, because there is no generally advanced physics and/or AI in any of the mainstream game engines. They have some funny ragdoll physics effects, but hat's mostly it.

 

Good point i'll pop the post in there aswell.

 

Cheers mate! And yes is'nt it just! This is what we wanna see more of the time!

 

The problem with MP for me is not in the technique, it is reasonably fine enough.
I only wish I could save my lobby settings in a template.
The problem I have is on the one hand with the settings that are used in many lobbies., Many arcade settings are used, no damage, no wear and tear, default setups, driving aids allowed etc. etc. And on the other hand with the ever-changing physics and FFB feel, and the large amount of cars and tracks requiring a qualification of significant length. There is no schedule so if I have to race within a few minutes,I can't prepare, A long qualification could make this possible (or in Game Scheduled races)
I don't think reiza is going to fix these things by removing certain settings.
I was able to enjoy myself with the Beta tests for a long time but they are now testing Just-Race and that is not for me and since the SP still does not give me satisfaction due to the mediocre AI, and the unreliable TT times, not playing seems to be the least frustrating option.

 

It would be nice to see more cloud gaming improvements (to lure console players to PC), as I don't think you can use external USB accessories with GeForce now (but maybe that's changed?).

On a similar note, it would be cool if devs could someday activate special AI through an online connection (to solve the issue of cpu cost for AI having player physics). Of course Sony will probably do something like this but we need an open source solution so smaller teams can benefit from a similar solution.

AMS2 really is like a time-machine though, and I don't see much competition on that front. Reiza needs to link up with Duke Media. Watch some documentaries/vintage racing then go recreate it in AMS2.

Now add in something to scrape all known media (in all languages) to create semi-perfect custom AI parameters and we're approaching the dream...

 

This harks back to one of my main points about the AI...

As everything else advanced and used more CPU power the trade off began as developers realised that whilst the AI had to be believable the other features were more important to the end consumer and pushed the AI further and further down the list of priorities when it came to CPU usage...

And whilst the engines we have for sim racing now are far from perfect, the way the physics has evolved over the last decade and a half in sim racing has squeezed the pipeline of whatever is the cause of the 4 core limitations... If we could use all of our CPU cores a lot of us wouldn't have many issues with the upcoming advances in physics and AI... But until that threshold has been broken, there's always going to be a compromise between physics and AI to get the end result...

 

Reading this forum be like:

 

Maybe everyone on this forum is a bot... Maybe all the conversations here are just AI's arguing with other than AI's... Maybe "real" racing is simulated and the "sim" is actually just a real car racing somewhere else...

 

There are videos on that. They show it is not good enough, but Driver61 have trophi.ai. The only problem is that I’ve signed up for it for a long time and nothing has happened

 

And is useful for real motorsport, although i'd like the pit strategies that the ai comes up with to be selectable by the player like the F1 games.

Is AI ready to take over Formula 1 strategy?

 

Absolutely! And if one area is massively failing over the other, then that area obviously needs more attention (If both legs are fine keep running, if ones broken spend the time getting that one fixed). In this case its the MP side of things that seems to have the more serious problems than the SP side of things.

Following on from my previous rather lengthy post about how good AMS2 can be online when it works,
I have to regretfully follow it up with this, as unfortunately its a rare thing, more often than not it is very problematic!

Its so sad to hear Metz here talking about moving his Sunday Endurance races over to another sim, which he does'nt want to do, and im with him on that, but had I have been in this server (could'nt attend this week as busy running a jam session), I would have been massively frustrated and probably have given up and just gotten on with something else, because even after the 2nd restart it would have just been a waste of time.

Its for reasons like this that AMS2 did'nt get onto LFM, its one of the most damaging things to the games reputation. I honestly do think with issues like this sorted, Reiza could sell so many more copies, still get onto LFM, and off the back of that sell even more DLC.

I'd say more but Metz has already said it, and shown it in the video here, and also he shows footage of exactly what happened, as it happened.What he says between 16:00 & 16:30 is so sad to hear!

 

Whilst the content is there for endurance races in AMS2, you can only replicate a sprint race in AMS2 offline or online...

Hence I can absolutely understand why leagues are looking elsewhere for that type of content... Someone recently tried to set up an endurance league for 100 minute races with a lot of good ideas and well thought out ways of encouraging people to stick with it for a full season... But there was just far too little interest for it to even get off the ground...

Again, much like the leagues, I can't blame the drivers for not taking AMS2 seriously with the MP experience being what it is...

I'd love to confidently race people from other countries in AMS2 like I can in every other sim on the market... Every time I do with more than 10 drivers it's just a gamble of if anyone's got a bad ping and if one does, the whole race is ruined for me as I'm left double guessing everyone's position...

 

Yes ive ended up being recorded in two different finishing positions on two different computers in the same race before and seen it as it happens.

That 1 hour 20 min race we had at Daytona was so damn good! So damned inspiring! But it is so damaed rare! If folks were experiencing that all the time AMS2 would be on everyones lips and drawing so many racers to it!

Atm it really is the main thing driving folks away, or keeping folks from giving AMS2 a try! The physics of any sim can always be improved, but in the early stages, that was what was holding it back, but now the physics are very much accepted as good, you only have to see the response on forums, youtube channels, and big simracing sites like Race Department with folks constantly saying stuff like, "no its really worth giving it a go now, I did'nt bother with it for a while but now the physics are great! Seriously its a different sim!"

But now the main complaint you hear is about the instability of the MP.