Having put more hours into AMS2 in the last two-weeks than many entire racing games I owned for years, I happily agree with the sentiment that 1.6 is the most substantial update this game's had. Having just completed the first big event in my co-owned League Server (2.4 Hours of Spa), I'm looking forward to hosting another big event next week. Further improvements to aspects like physics are of course welcome, but personally, I think 1.6 has made enough of a leap in key areas that now, as a player, I'm more interested in seeing future additions to aim for polishing and enriching the game, than overhauling core-gameplay. Before listing requests, here's my honest thoughts about Multiplayer, how I spend most of my time on racing games, and what I mostly cared about in this update. 1.6 has substantially improved online racing across the board, from wheel to wheel racing, disconnects, and syncing… But it is behind the competition. AMS2 is now a viable alternative to ACC, LMU, Raceroom, iRacing, etc, but only by its finger tips. The game is still extremely prone to bizarre visual glitches like cars flying across the screen at Rolling Starts, teleporting on-track, and furiously wiggling in the pits. Many of these are funny, but also very distracting in the midst of already chaotic races, and in the worst case scenario, leads to incidents which just don't occur in other online racing games, especially to players suffering hitches like one of the competitors in the Spa Race we just streamed. Unlike the physics, it's an area I don't think AMS2 can afford to rest upon without losing a potential audience. Should these problems remain, people will get frustrated in the long-run, and move back to a more stable platform, or perhaps, just a more forgiving one. If I only had three words to describe AMS2's MP in 1.6, they would be "Fun but harsh," and quite a few of the requests relate to making the game more accommodating to all-players. Priority Feature Requests: -Adjustable Repair Rate Even with Low Damage Scale, pit-stop repairs take so long that it effectively ends a player’s race. Sometimes this is realistic, but things like 15+ seconds to repair only a F1 Ultimate Gen 2's front-wing isn't. As a result, to accommodate anybody outside of the hardcore audience uninterested in driving 2+ laps behind everybody for an accident that's already punished them, my only alternative option as a host is to turn damage off completely, removing the tension of being able to have an accident severe enough to total the vehicle outright, which is part of the enjoyment in racing. Being able to adjust the repair rate seems like a sensible addition that wouldn't impact the current experience for those who like it, and is in line with other options already in the game that can also be accelerated such as tire wear, fuel usage, time of day, etc. It's equivalent to things like the Fast Repair option in iRacing. -Rejoining Online Races Should someone no longer be in the session, voluntarily or (more likely) involuntarily allowing them to rejoin from the Pit-lane to have a fighting chance would be great (iRacing). Even better, would be if AI takes over their car, and upon rejoining, allowing the player to take back control of their vehicle, and resume the race with minimal time lost (Codemasters' F1). -Toggle AI Control This option sort of exists via driver swap with the AI when pitting, but this simply can't compare to being able to toggle AI control of the player's car, freeing them to go to the bathroom, answer a call, or karate chop a home invader. Whether it's attached to a button toggle (AMS1) or just occurs when you enter the pause menu (GT7, Forza, F1), either would be a pivotal convenience feature. -Cancel Repairs During a Pit-Stop When a player mistakenly leaves on repair "all" damage, they can be trapped inside the pit box for minutes, effectively ending their race, or in the case of this user, even when they didn't select it. Having the ability to cancel current repairs (LMU) resolves this. -Rolling Start HUD There's an option to have manual control over rolling starts, but should the player be out of position, they can be instantly disqualified. Other games (LMU/ACC) have a dynamic HUD clearly communicating to players of all skill experience levels their speed, position, and distance from the start-line, to minimize any confusion that can be caused by a single driver error. It's not just for brand new sim-racers, even veterans like Dave Cam are understandably confused by race-start procedures with no HUD informing of who is doing something wrong. -Menu Functionality The UI's functionality is sub-optimal, with lots of little annoying quirks such as selecting options via the pointer even while scrolling with the mouse-wheel. Imagine if Windows did that… worst case scenario though was actually best demonstrated by one of my league racers, who accidentally left the match and couldn’t race (due to being unable to rejoin races) despite selecting and visually confirming “No.” -ICM Overhaul The ICM has several dated-components with quite glaring faults. A. Its existence isn't communicated at all to new-players, with no visual indication in any HUD option until its assigned button is pressed. B. Fuel, Tires, Brake Bias, etc, are listed by relatively small tabs in a single-page, rather than separating these options (LMU/GT7) into pages that are much quicker to glance at in the middle of racing, freeing players to make adjustments with eyes on the road, not a lower-third menu. C. Pit-Stops are very inefficient to change in this menu. If somebody forgets to setup a Pit-Stop ahead of the race, adding fuel from 0 liters to 100 in an LMPH car takes 15+ seconds, at least on my McLaren GT3 Fanatec. I've heard racers panicking over VOIP realizing they made this mistake, and unsure if the ICM can reach max-fuel before entering the pits. There's multiple solutions to this problem, whether it’s speeding up the input selection response time, or adjusting by fuel laps rather than liters, or something else; bottom line, the current implementation is needlessly cumbersome. D. The menu's functionality isn't always operational, I've had several occasions where selecting "Request Pit Stop" in the ICM gets immediately cancelled for no discernible reason, only for the Request Pit Stop Button on my wheel to work in the same race. E. Pit Stops themselves don't have any audible cue for being confirmed or cancelled, nor is there any confirmation about what the pit-stop itself is going to include. In hosting several races, players have complained about going into the Pits, and the crew not Refueling or Changing Tires despite those options being selected in the ICM. Having the Pit-Board Icon say "X Fuel, Y Tires" would really help them. F. Pit Strategies have options which aren't available in the ICM, the most obvious being to change Front or Rear Tires only. GT7, LMU, and Codemasters' F1 Games are all strong examples of MFD's that are user-friendly, responsive, and useful for players of all skill-levels. Overhauling the ICM to compete with these would make AMS2 a far more seamless experience. Feature Requests: -Adjust the Size/Transparency of HUD Elements Individually Self-explanatory, currently there's HUD arrangements players have set up in other games which aren't possible in AMS2. -Auto Toggle for Headlights, Wipers, & Pit-Speed Self-explanatory, and in-line with other things the game already allows players to automate such as the Clutch, Gearbox, Rolling Start, etc. I'm aware some of these things are automated if left unbinded, but this isn't clearly explained to players, and having the Auto be a third option along with On and Off (LMU) gives players more control during gameplay. -Custom Event Presets In a game as rich and diverse in content as AMS2, it'd be great to expand upon this legacy feature from PC2, allowing players to setup their favorite custom events which can be saved and started instantly, rather than configuring each by-hand. PC2 only allowed 4 Custom Presets, increasing this would be vital for players to take full advantage of this feature. -Time of Day Presets Because of Live Weather's immense precision and detail, setting up a Sunset or Dawn race can be challenging to pin down for anybody that isn't immediately familiar with the racetrack's time-zone and season changes. It's important to keep custom-dates and times for advanced players, but simplified presets like GT7 or Forza would make setting up Custom Events faster and easier for new and casual players. -Enable & Disable Pit Strategies Currently, pit-strategies are assigned to specific cars, IE, maxing out the fuel in an LMP2 car [75 liters] means that selecting this strategy while driving an LMPH car requires players to go into the ICM and add fuel mid-race. Yet, despite this, it's currently impossible to exclude irrelevant pit-strategies (R3E) without deleting them, nor can players make general options like a "Max Fuel" preset that will apply for all cars. -Remembering Class/Vehicle List Selection It's great being able to scroll through vehicle types such as Karts, Dirt, Formula, etc. However, this option doesn't get remembered by the UI, meaning the player has to start with alphabetical, and select the tabs every time. It either leads to people just using the Alphabetical option and scrolling through the full list even when it's not convenient, such as going from Go-Karts to Superkarts, or having to click the tabs menu 1-6 times depending on vehicle-type. Remembering the player's last selection, or being able to favorite classes would make setting up offline and online events much easier. -Improved Racing Line I've not heard a new player not complain about the racing line in this game due to its inaccuracy for most cars. From DPIs to GTEs and P3s, I’ve heard novice-players driving them talk about either ignoring the racing line's breaking points, or just turning it off completely. It's pretty obvious the racing line needs to be better tuned to account for the differing speeds in this game. -Overhauled Collision Physics Racing wheel to wheel in this game is often hair razing, but sometimes for the wrong reasons. While Madness Engine games have often done a unique yet brilliant job of communicating the vehicle's body-roll when going through corners, they've always suffered from questionable collision physics regardless of the games damage settings, offline and online. The smallest taps can send vehicles out of control, the biggest shunts can result in less punishment than you'd expect, and there's always this sensation of the car bouncing the moment it comes into contact with anything more than one time. Collisions are incredibly difficult for any Sim to nail, but making them more consistent if not more realistic would make racing in AMS2 at all levels in all modes of play, more fun. -Fixed Automated Rolling Starts Whether it's P3's at Cadwell Park, F1 V10 Gen 1's at Canada '91, or via desyncs in online-lobbies, automated rolling-starts are just not a reliable option in this game. The strangest thing about the system currently is not its consistency, but its inconsistency. The AI will react different to the same car/track/condition combos. My laymen assumption is the AI can't keep up with the complexity of their car's physics; what it can save when driving over a curb in one instance, it can't in another. I don’t doubt that any proposed solution is far more complicated to implement than it sounds, but regardless, it would be greatly appreciated, because frankly, as of now, I'm not sure if this option should even be available to players with how outright broken it can be at times. -Server Side Custom Liveries Currently, the game requires liveries to replace ones in the game, and everybody to have the same liveries installed on their computers to see each other's custom paint schemes. It's absolutely way better than not having any option for any paint scheme at all, but being able to upload Paint Schemes to a database (iRacing, ACC, GT7, etc) would go a long way to personalizing the game for players conveniently, rather than only being an option for advanced users. Quality of Life: -Remove "Starting Pit Stop Cinematic Camera" Option in the Menu. The option doesn't actually exist in the game currently, so its inclusion in the menu just adds confusion. -Updated Broadcast HUD Replay and Director HUD is new, but Broadcasters are still seeing the old leader-board that doesn’t show the complete list of drivers, and widgets like driver comparisons actually clip over the default locations of things like the game’s static track map. This should be updated to the Broadcaster too, both for convenience, and consistency. -Labeled/Color Coded Tire Selection Icons and visual examples of Soft, Medium, Wet, etc, would make it easier for players to keep track of what they're using and have the option to use. -Tire Wear and/or Pace Estimates Currently, the only way for a player to know what their pace is on a Tire, or how long it lasts is to do it themselves in a practice-session. That's great for those who have the free-time, but many Sim Racers just want to hop into a session, play, and be somewhat competitive even in a car or track they're not as experienced in. Almost all modern Sims have this feature, some like LMU even have it built directly into their core-HUD. -Registering Inputs Turning On & Off Mid-Game I assume currently this is an Engine limitation, but being able to re-plug a device without restarting the game would minimize unintended incidents/frustration during races. -Show Buttons Pressed & Attached Function in Assignments Menu Having so many options available, it's not unreasonable for a player to forget what precisely "Button 33" does. Being able to see exactly which input and what assignment it has (Raceroom) would be hugely convenient. -Separate Damage & Tire HUD I don't see why more detailed Tire-Info needs to be combined with the Damage Indicator, it should be an option to decouple them. -Offline Gameplay Options in Race Menu It's rather illogical for things like Fuel Usage & Tire Wear to be in the options menu for offline-play, especially when online-play has these options present in the realism settings menu. Being able to customize Tire, Fuel, Damage, etc, to Custom Events would go hand in hand with the Custom Preset Feature requested earlier. Some events justify 4x tire wear, others don't. -Showing Joy# For Assigned Controllers in Assignments Menu This is a problem stemming from Windows, and how it attaches a # to each "Joy, it's label for any kind of Controller. So should your wheel go from Joy1 to Joy2, and all of your assignments in AMS2 are Joy1, you currently won't know that's the case unless you're already familiar with this Windows bug, as the game's assignments menu currently doesn't attach the # to each Joy controller. -Selecting which Cameras to Auto-Rotate between in Spectator/Replay Instead of having to manually select each camera placement via mouse or the number keys, or selecting "all" that strictly cycles between every camera even when it's not suitable, being able to select cameras like playlists in a MP Search engine like Titanfall 2 or Black Ops 6 which are then cycled is a small but very useful feature for Race Directors. -Allowing Spectators in Private Matches with a Race Director & Broadcaster Currently, when there's a Race Director & Broadcaster, the match has to go Private, and no one else is able to select a spectator role. There's multiple reasons somebody would want to spectate a match that's broadcasted, whether it's to capture extra angles, host an alternate stream, or just be able to watch the race on their own terms with the permission of everyone, this would only give more options and agency to players. -Customizing Countdown to the Race Start Currently, the countdown to a race start has to be 2:00 minutes, and it has to kick players who fail to hit button. Being able to customize the countdown, use a ready up vote like the pre-race menu, or allowing a host to control the entire event themselves, are all sensible options that'd benefit AMS2's MP. -Steam Profile Pictures on in-game HUD standings This made drivers not just easier to identify (PC2) but personalized events with friends. The option should have a Toggle for those that want the HUD info but don't want to see their buddy's Anime Avatar mid-race. -Adding Tilt Options for Player Perspective in Cockpit Configuration Menu This feature exists via key-bindings, yet isn't present in the bespoke menu. -Color Coded Radar Rather than Cars In the heat of the moment, this method is much clearer for players to understand they're in potential danger, and where said danger is (ACC, LMU), rather than attaching this color to a small moving object. -Quick Chat+ Shortcuts -Incident Indicator -Tire Compound Used Shown on in-game HUD -Customization for All Cameras (Roof, Bumper, etc) -Colored Sector Times with Delta Under the Rear View Mirror -Amount of Laps for Fuel & Energy Displayed on in-game HUD -Car Badges w/ Spectator Names -Pit Confirm Button Can Also Cancel -Sounds for Pit Stops Confirmed and Cancelled -Faster Fueling Increase/Decrease in ICM Menu -Headlight Flash Function -Corner Names HUD Widget -Phase Cars During Cooldown Lap Online -Safety Car Indicator on Static Map -Favorite/Save Servers -Server Codes to Copy/Paste & Join Instantly -Show Ping# in Lobby HUD Next to Username I joked to a friend after writing all this "But you see, racing games are simple games and dEvS aRe JuSt LaZy..." AMS2 is already doing so, so many things, many that I've not seen in other Sims, let alone other games; these requests are just that, not demands, and after 1.6's success, I can't doubt Reiza's passion for their game, nor their desire and ability to realize it even further in the time to come. Happy Holidays! Thank you for reading this novel!
A well thought out post that makes excellent points and full of information that I am sure Reiza will find valuable.
If I may add to the list of really well-made requests, I would also suggest the ability to scroll through the replay timeline. You can't have to watch an entire race to find a specific moment. It would also be useful to be able to assign one or more buttons to adjust the master volume while driving.
I’m new to AMS 2, having done a lot of ACC. I agree that the start procedure needs improvement. I also think the flag system is weak. I’ve had races where cars in front have crashed but there’s no yellow flag or slow car ahead warnings. The map needs to show this too, like ACC. If this can be improved it would give us half a chance to slow down and avoid adding to any carnage ahead. A chequered flag waver at the end of a race would be nice too,
