Automobilista 2 May 2024 Development Update - The Road to V1.6 Pt1

Listen, I really like the game, I am excited about the update, I enjoy coming here and chatting with you all about what it's like and getting excited about what's coming, but... nobody owes us anything and I think it is really kind of frustrating for the devs to see stuff like this. Just saying. What are you most excited about for what we know is coming?

 

There's a difference between a target date and a promised date. Just sayin'

 

We are all hyped. I think such complex things need time. For me personally its ok when its coming later but I think it will be here in September (dev update anf update itself).
I like Reizas communication, better than Kunos, there is nearly no communication at all. Thats more frustrating for me.

 

And it seems like some people have chosen a target date and saying that’s the one Reiza gave

 

I can only say with my DD wheel, I have never felt such a complete feeling of what a simulated car is doing. I've never had such confidence in pushing to the limit as I do with the new physics feeling and I am actually a bit quicker now too. I find AC rather primitive nowadays sorry but I've loved AC for a long time but it is now showing its age a bit compared to AMS2, in my humble opinion. I find there is still a little too much 'rattle and grind' in the FFB, and I still have not re felt the delight of a Group C car accelerating and 'sitting down' on its tyres (aero effect) which I did when the group C cars were first released. Otherwise it is truly wonderful.
edit:
however credit where it is due @Coanda as the default setups play a big part in that feeling and confidence too. Although it was best at the time, I can't say I ever felt the same level of confidence with rF2 even with a perfect setup too but haven't used it in a few years so I may just be blissed out on AMS2.

 

When you say rattle and grind are you referring to the AMS2 FFB? I have been looking at my hardware FFB settings on my CSL DD this week and I get that if I have the FEI (i think it's effect force) too high or interpolation off. I don't know if your base has the same settings, but is there something similar in there?

 

Oh mate! I am very sad for you and your pain...we live in a time where a delayed game update causes such a discomfort to the user base that I really start to be worried about the whole gaming industry and it's user base.

I fear most of us will not survive the delay, some others would leave their houses in despair and start a detox course from gaming and cure their souls in pain...and this is the best scenario!

How cruel can be gaming...

(Very sarcastic mode OFF)

 

Lolllll what just chill renato literally said earlier that its a matter of days for the dev update and a matter of weeks for the update, thats still on course to be end of summer

 

Idk, I think @Majestic raises a reasonable point. Reiza are notoriously horrible at estimating the time it takes to do something, but keep announcing (not necessarily promising, but announcing) dates or timescales that then tend to be correct in a generously estimated 5% of cases. One would expect that this doesn't happen time and time again, alas it does. Especially to someone who isn't accustomed to the Reiza way of doing stuff that may be a little offputting.

Not quite a topic I'd enter full defense mode on.

 

Just two words:

 

There is likely a perfectly good reason for the delay, be it licensing (absolute nightmare), squashing bugs (absolute nightmare), finishing up new content, general polish, or a variety of other things. All these things take time, often more time than anticipated.

Rather than just drop small unfinished piecemeal updates, Renato and Reiza have opted to hold off and give us the highest quality product they can at the cost of having to wait for an indeterminate amount of time.

We're all excited for the update, otherwise we wouldn't be here, but try and remember that the game is being developed by humans and there are a plethora of moving parts in making something like this come together.

Basically. It'll get here when it gets here. Enjoy the ride in the meantime.

 

Looking back at every announcement in the last 2 years that i have been playing AMS2 i noticed the reasons why there is always a delay is that there was always a plan to add feature X and Y, but on the way they find they can also make Z and W in the same update so they work on it further until that is done too.

Would i want everything to release right here and now and always on time ? Yes absolutely. Is it reasonable to expect everything to release when it is announced ? Not really, especially since Reiza are their own boss and decide themselves when an update is done and ready.

 

Okay, here's my two cents (more or less, depending on inflation of course):

I get that we're excited. All of us are. And heck, I'd probably be taking a bigger part in this crazy update-expectation-posting mess myself if I didn't at least have beta access.

That being said, and this is just my personal take on this, I am afraid that the absolutely massive excitement and corresponding descend into madness in this thread means that we are unlikely to get any other major Development Updates in the future, and the same goes for any predicted time frames for an actual release. There's just too much pressure on, and often too much backlash against Reiza when the development of the actual update as well as the Dev Update post takes longer than planned. Traditionally Reiza have been known to under-promise and over-deliver - one of the things that I personally always loved - but while trying to be more transparent towards their user base, it has gotten to the point where the build-up tension caused by the promises of new features and content has become detrimental to their efforts and well-being (remember, Renato & Co. are living, breathing human beings with lives and often families of their own!).

Why and how both the Dev Update as well as the upcoming 1.6 game update take so much longer than expected and are subject to repeated delays is something that may be hard to grasp for the external observer. And I will admit that I wouldn't quite get it myself if I hadn't experienced the dev side of this exact same thing myself in the past.

Most people probably don't know that, but I am a modder myself (usually just not in the sphere of simracing). And while I was working on one of the biggest and most ambitious mod projects so far (more than a decade ago), I remember being in a very similar situation. Our team was constantly finding new ways to push the envelope of the game engine further and further, which in turn enabled more sophisticated game design for our mod, and combined with (sometimes game-breaking) bugs and issues that popped up at the worst time possible, this lead to an increasing mountain of bugs to fix, necessary improvements and countless "low-hanging fruits" of new features and content. This also caused a major disruption in our initial plans for the update. Not only did this make our initial pre-update dev posts obsolete to some degree, but it also made it both impossible to release the mod update "as is" as well as keeping any self-imposed deadlines. And even if this was a non-profit mod project that all of us were working on in our spare time (granted, I think I was between jobs at the time so I had plenty of that available!), we were pretty much in crunch time mode, with our minds solely focused on getting the mod update done and published.

As a result I decided to keep putting all efforts towards the update release itself, with only minimal public communication until then; any work put into more elaborate dev update posts quickly would have become obsolete, on top of only delaying the release even further. (Not to mention that this would only stoke the flames of hype even further, thus increasing pressure on the team even more - something we really didn't need at the time.)

So keeping this experience in mind, I understand Renato's current stance, and I would very much be (pleasantly) surprised if we are going to see such elaborate Development Updates going forward. That is, at least not until AFTER the actual game updates are released.

On a side note, I also want to urge everyone to temper their expectations to some degree. Yes, 1.6 is going to be a massive improvement in many ways. IMHO it looks like many of the still outstanding issues and peculiarities of the sim are going to be fixed - if not completely, than at least to a considerable degree.

That being said, if you always hated AMS2, this ain't gonna change your mind. Just move on. It's still AMS2, just a whole lot better. But if you previously enjoyed the sim, chances are you are gonna enjoy it even more. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. So yeah, keep that in mind while you are waiting for the mythical 1.6 update to arrive... And let the chefs cook in peace FFS!

 

I would agree if I wasnt already annoyed with that user constant mumbling about it. I guess for new users it can be frustrating, but it was explained many times already in the last few weeks.

 

Also want to add to this...whenever the 1.6 drops I just hope that the community can deliver the feedback in a civil manner. Whatever the devs did over the past couple of months they did with the intentions of pleasing this community.

 

The crazy thing is that Microprose Grand Prix 1 still is the gold standard for AI.

Maybe its just a trick of my mind or false nostalgia but I always remember the AI to be challenging, to obey blue flags rules and be able to race in a believable way.

I remember the first time I saw Microprose Grand Prix 1, the graphics were mind-blowing.

It really is amazing how far things have come and how we take what we now have for granted.

 

If I may, I'd like to add my 1 cent.

/stream of consciousness ON
I completely understand both Reiza but I also understand the guys frustration, and honestly I think that only a minority is a bunch of young kids that just want everything and now.
The point is that, as human being (at least I talk for myself), I have:
1) My "social/actual/real" life made of work, family, kids to raise, paying bills, etc etc.
2) Then I have my "passions/hobbies/happy thoughts" life and this is what charges my batteries for all the other duties.

The latter is built so that I acquire targets (new projects, new things to develop, new adventures), I associate a timing frame to these targets, and then I usually enjoy more the waiting and the analysis and thoughts and imagination prior to achieving the target itself.
The issue and frustration arises when the target is clear, defined, almost visible, but the timeframe not only is not clear, but is continuously moving and soon becomes completely unreliable.

Reiza could also stop here every development, and still to me we would have the most fun and authentic-feeling sim out there. Already today, in my opinion. I am not blaming Reiza for any delays or for any missing parts on the sim. They never ever promised a delivery date, and the current status is more than acceptable.

The issue arises when you just hint great things, you suggest sloppy timeframes whistling, you somehow hook people attention, hopes, you become people "happy thoughts"....and then you just leave them there with continuously moving timeframes, with a structure that just collapses and then re-builds differently from time to time (monthly dev updates, then only 3 dev updates, then probably no dev updates till the update).
Again, Reiza has the right to do really whatever they want and in the way they want, simply because we are not owed anything.
But still there are ways of doing things that are just a bit more frustrating than others.

I still have a lot of hype, though, Go Reiza Go!!!!

/stream of consciousness OFF

 

19 octuber v.1.6

 

sorry to say that, but you can't hype up people for months and then expect them to be patient

if you want to avoid the current situation just keep silent until you actually have something to deliver

 

I cannot wait to get page 200 full to reach thread limit and stop reading bull$&@t. I’m collaborating a bit with this one