Automobilista 2 V1.5 Officially RELEASED - Now updated to V1.5.0.5

We have already had these discussions in just about every past release thread, ad nauseum. There is never a time when iRacing has anywhere near 9,000 people online. You often can't find viable groups of people to race in most series, even on that platform. People are congregated in a very few, popular "championships." Kudos to iRacing for structuring their whole offering to channel customers into these limited streams, which provides viable competition on a daily basis and a nice variety of experiences--but only over a whole season.

Scheduled races would help, but would force people in to restricted channels just like iRacing.

Leagues, by definition, also force people in to restricted selections. Leagues need better controls and some long-standing bugs fixed to make AMS 2 more suitable.

But as a sandbox, to put together a more casual "random" variety of races with semi-random groups of people online, the MP is working better than ever. The baseline is the old PC/PC 2 MP that, despite all the problems and complaints, somehow had participation numbers higher than all of our vaunted sims even years after release. How do we explain this? Obviously, the expectations of we tiny minority of serious sim racers do not align with the majority of the population of gamers who, based on actual usage numbers, were somehow able to enjoy spending their time racing PC 2 online year after year.

Will AMS 2 MP ever compete with iRacing? No. Will it ever be stable and functional enough to become popular for league usage? Perhaps--but we can see Reiza isn't going to promise anything in advance when expectations are so high. Will it bring in PC 2 levels of participation (which would be phenomenal relative to other sims) since it already today works better than the MP in PC2? Unlikely, because the base sales of a hard-core sim will never approach anything close to something designed to appeal to console users (who outnumber hard core sim racers by a ratio of about 100 to 1).

 

I do as well. I've played or play AMS2, AC (even re did my own AI lines on multiple tracks), Raceroom, iracing (yes I paid for an online service to race their AI), PCARS1, PCARS2, PCARS3 (Yep I purchased it to try it), ACC, AMS1 (with VR plug in), RF2, Dirt Rally 2, GTR2 (with VR plug in), F122 and F123.

I've played with the AI listed in the above games and I still would rather play AMS2's AI.

 

Screenie from last Thursday, it was actually closer to 10K :

 

I guess with the new focus on wet weather phyiscs, this video could be important

 

People are more interested in organized matchmaking and hop in to race with little practice, than spend a week or two preparing a given round of a race.

15 drivers per race is now a good number for a league. 10 years ago, a good number was 25.

 

I would love to have some simple matchmaking too honestly, it feels like such a obvious thing to have for easy to join online races. I haven not been sim racing 10 years ago and frankly even with 15 people per race i am having more than enough fun. But would i want a full lobby of 32 with simple matchmaking ? Yes definitely.

 

Yeah you are right.
At least if they know there is a high probability that most of the drivers will be forced out because of some glitch in the online system

 

Your first "never" postulate is not correct.
But your second is.
I was a long time member and my two favorite cars could almost never get enough participants (just 6-8) to become official.
My favorite cars was the Nizzan GTP and the Lotus 79.

ByTheWay: Do I have to say what class allways got customers?

 

This trend is not just happening on AMS2 though.

 

Is that some kind of an argument or a defence for the AMS2 MP system?
If it is an argument then it must be some kind of lowest common denominator "argument".

 

Disliked for something that really bothers me in AMS2 forums when it comes to MP discussions: the "AMS2 will never be iRacing" argument.

No sane person is asking AMS2 to become the new iRacing... this argument usually deflects the discussion to "AMS2 vs iRacing", instead of focusing on AMS2 MP longstanding issues.

 

You are on here, incessantly, complaining about how unusable MP is, right down to your signature which has gone through iterations of damning statements about MP. "AMS2 is not league friendly, move on." is the current version.

Then move on, because you repeatedly show how little faith you have that it will be fixed even after a MP update drops and Renato spoke candidly about their aspirations and also the reasons for not promising things they may not be able to keep.

I have played hundreds of hours in MP, 95% of the time without issue. It isn't dead, I set servers to 16 and they are often full. I am in a group that runs leagues and right now a community league is being run between AMS2 communities. It is not broken or that would not have been possible.

Nobody is claiming the MP is perfect, there are loads of things that could be improved I'd personally love to see a save settings preset for hosting, but even when changes are made you aren't happy, it still isn't good enough to even be worth enjoying within its constraints.

So take your own advice, move on.

 

All I can say is that the "it is what it is and if you don't like it move on" argument sounds very defeatist.

 

It isn't what it was a month ago but you guys are still here dumping on it because it wasn't good enough for you.

That sounds defeatist to me.

 

I would be happy with both populated leagues and an effective matchmaking system that can deliver proper online racing. Problem is, the latter is sucking people out of the former in most platforms. Now more than ever you need to be relentless in the work needed to organize and promote a league, and it has to become a complete and enticing package to gather people, otherwise it fails to gather traction. In the past, a proposal of a championship, some basic organization and marshalling, minimal promotion and you could get 20 people to race. Now you need a hell of a lot more of work for the same result.

 

It is exactly what it was a month ago in our experience. More and more I'm starting to think that if you just make an ingame lobby with a not too big crowd you seem to have way less issues, disconnects and/or glitches than when you try to go the serious route with a dedicated server. Just a theory of mine (and I have seen others suspecting this), but that would go some way in explaining the differences.
Today I heard there's a bug now where there is lag with the green light for example where some people see it faster than others. Another Gremlin to add to the list if true.

 

AMS 2, even if it had perfect multiplayer will never compete on Iracing or ACC's level of online racing. And that's because simracing fans (like almost every fandom) are super tribalistic about their favorite thing and none of us are exempt from this. You're not gonna make someone who already spent $100+ on DLC switch over because of a multiplayer experience that's on par or slightly better than whats already being offered. I didn't buy Iracing because the AI is better than AMS 2's despite single player being the only thing I properly care about. I bought it because it's the only modern sim with a more polished and varried oval racing experience. You bring in new players through polished unique experiences, something they can get no where else, and there are way more sims focusing on multuplayer rather than single player.

 

Your problems don't give you the right to disrespect me, judge me and insult me.
I'm not your friend, so moderate your terms and prejudices well.
For the rest I won't waste time with a person who, instead of exposing arguments, dedicates his entire message to talking about his problems and insulting another because he is frustrated.

I'm really sorry about your family, but that doesn't give you a blessing for your behavior.

 

So Reiza lied about improving it?

I never claimed it was perfect, but it does work and work is being done on it. I enjoy what I have now and hope for more improvements, if people don't want to wait and trust that Reiza will do their best, then they are free to go get extorted to enjoy iRacing, a game that is 15 years old.

I personally do think that Reiza are aware of the shortfalls and will fix them if they can as and when they can.

 

Don't put words in my mouth, especially blanket statements like that...