Automobilista 2 v1.5.5.2 Introduces Less Forgiving Tires, All-In DLC Pass

pz666 said:

I don't disagree with most of these points... Aside from there is a need to be in fear of crashing... If I am doing the wrong thing I should fear a crash, not easily get passed it like I have the skills of a racing god like SVG... It's a very important tool for learning how to control a car and what to do to the set up to help me control the car... If there wasn't a need for fearing a crash then we shouldn't see any crashes or lazy spins when drivers are alone on track in real life either... Nor would racing gods like Craig Lowndes use the same tools to find the limits as I do as he regularly spun in practice to find the limits...

iRacing isn't the ideal where you fear death at the slightest slide, AMS1 and rF2 are far closer to the ideal than anything else for my tastes currently (AMS2 1.4-1.48 was close at it's peak slip too), it's not impossible to drift on modern slicks if you have the skills... If you don't have the skills you should fear a crash or a spin... Especially on stiffly sprung cars like the defaults in AMS2 carry... Just like I do on most good Pacejka or rF2 tyres...

I remember your lengthy thread on the forums where you complained about how bad the 98T was... I quite liked it back then... It was a fun car to hustle around the track and there was a penalty for not taking care of it... Now it's all about laptime and I have to go well passed the limit to learn from what is happening for my tastes... Where as back then I was happy with it's close to AMS1/rF2 feel so I could hotlap it endlessly...

It's that kind of dissonance that has me convinced that there's still something on a level beyond what the devs have in their control that has an effect on the output of grip from the SETA tyre model in the Madness engine... It's also why some people say the C9 is a challenge post 1.5 whilst others say it's a slot car racer... I never found a car undriveable in AMS2 after they fixed the diffs for 1.4... But many said that was the case... And it's not just the 2 extremes of floaty or grippy... For some like myself it goes up at the end of the curve after the FFB and other cues tell us it's gone...

Hence and I'm sure some may have noticed in my many rants since 1.5 I have refrained from calling other sim racers "arcade drivers" or "gamer racers" who enjoy AMS2 now (Not that there's anything wrong with being that if any readers of this post are, our opinions will just clash far more)... They're just most likely getting a different experience on their PC and if the end of the slip curve is low enough on their end they'll have a harder time controlling the slides as a result...

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I stand by all i said back then. All you seem to say seems based on your own personal impression of what is "difficult", and that these games should be "difficult", and that steping out of this ideal very tight slip angle envelope should result in a spin or a crash. And i say, that is just an outdated notion, based on older games and older implementations.

Now i am not defending their current implementations, but i agree with their premise that race cars are not front limited generally, and that they can get sideways, and reeled in almost at will, just that that probably won't be the fastest way.

IF anything, all these sims need MORE controlled wheelspin, not getting sideways or spinning for no reason. Most sims make braking hard and late really easy, and coming out of corners sideways really hard, when IRL its actually the opposite.

I'll get you going sideways. It's a little like the ams 1 cart mod. Maybe this will help, all that I know this is right, now. My wheel no longer clunks hard to the left in the pits, turns out damping on the base, a lot of it. Didn't affect strength. About the fear of crashing. If I'm not mistaken People said the game was designed to have ffb clipping slightly. I've made the cars come alive. For driving feel it was not obvious to me fully. I had to dial up filters and damping on the base. It's almost as if now I'm getting intended behaviour. Think I got it just right, not too heavy steering and a rubber feel, not too easy to control since the damping will hide some stuff and not too difficult if you hit the turns right. These cars are now like wild horses you hit on the behind. The opposite of grainy such as over doing the ffb in acc. Less is more but in ams 2 damping is where it's at.

No Sim is as sensitive to ffb apart from acc and this, as this sim. I think the refinement from the last patch is increased. Had to change the ffb after I rejigged my perception in another Sim. The best rush and good driving came from the hitech gen 2 model 1. At Oulton so nothing technical but what an experience. A few more patches of this and who knows

Logitech pro in compat mode, so the g932 too

Ffb at 50, lfb 0, FX 24, damping 50.

On the base itself 11.0 Nm which would be too much except it's not really at 11, filter on 10, damping on base at 50 also.

I think it's excellent for what it's worth but a technical masterpiece not quite yet but what an experience. It's closer to rubber than ever and not grainy. So the patch did push the ball down the field. For that and other cars I suppose, it's real good. It's more like pushing a car round a track than not, it's top shelf stuff. If you're just hurling open wheelers around the track it's good. There's holes yes but when you're forced to drive properly you get the rush and fear of a sort as it's easier to control, you guys seem to be wishing for.

Same with the 23 Indy cart, totally insane. Can't wait to do the V12 and 10 again. Previously had it like that but it was too sedate. I think this game is designed to put the foot down and plaster it. It's not as technical yet as an acc, but it kinda makes up for it. The only cars near that would be latest K bow and new Porsche GT3 in ACC.

I think so much of the last 20% of the titles enjoyment or purpose is locked away in the ffb. Night and day. You can fish tail with control out of the pits with such a setup in the Indy. The throttle is really good to use in this patch. Like you've got thunder under you. It's encapsulating driving well. Not kidding. Though less technical, surely that's driving aspect's a part of the vision

adamb said:

The main difference to me, sim racing is 90% driving feel while flight sims are also about operating aircraft systems, navigation and authentic environment (cockpit, sceneries)- these are all unrelated to actual physics. So if engine performance or flaps extended flight dynamics are 10% off to real life, it's not a big deal. Sim racing the other hand is all about the car behaving realistically to realistic driving inputs.

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Well it is a mega hyper big deal when the flight sim is used as a real training tool ; not sure any other sim than X Plane is able to give you real flight hours. I would say that, on the contrary, simracing being inaccurate isn't a big deal, especially because the driver will find the driving technique to adapt and be fast.

Iracing, although being wrong is some physics aspects, is popular and the professional drivers are fast by using driving techniques they wouldn't use IRL. It is still REAL RACING at the end, who cares about the 100% accuracy? That's why focusing on the racing aspect, before any other one, was a clever move and the right way to make a racing sim title. I am not in the Iracing target, but I must admit it has been in the right direction from its beginning and others sims made many years to learn the lesson. This industry is really slow and stuck in visions from 30 years ago, which have been absolutely obsolete for many years. They have been focusing on tire modelling, and imo Raceroom has at last found the most satisfying one (after 10 years!) but... nobody cares (which other sim has great physics for all of its cars?) and the players base is low. Iracing has been criticized since its launch, went theough various updates and critcized chouces, and still proved to be wrong currently and... nobody cares, people just come back to it and pay a subscription. Those who care don't count they are a minority and the majority just tells them to go play to their favorite game.

At the end tire modelling isn't that crucial. Something believable and fun, and maybe more challenging than real life (AMS2 being.not in that direction explains the special hate it receives ; GTR2 times again...), is enough.

We read that on RD all the time : graphics (neverending RRE complains), immersion (life around the track, marshall, spectators...), proper AI (something Iracing gets right apparently), competitive ranked system are the crucial aspects that most players care about.

Devs should stop considering these products as technological challenges ; without a big publisher they won't be able to reach their goal before too many years, if they even reach it. These products are just games and should be treated as games : what is necessary to have fun? To make people come back to the game and use all of the offered features? Is the promise of the Graal quest of the perfect tire model, which won't ever be fully accepted by the community, enough?

I would be much more interested to know about innovations in modding tools than another promise about a new revolutionnary tire model which will be just believable after 10 years of early access like time.

Remember the insane graphics and figures about AMS2, that 99,99% of us didn't understand, to explain how good the tire model was? But now there is no graphics, just some adjustments by feeling the car and searching where the wrong number is in a specific parameter. That is no more than that, the believable feeling of the xar is what counts after so much technology display with super graphics and models. I'm not criticising Reiza, the team has been doing a fantastic job and I hope they'll reach the goal of perfect tire modelling (although reading Renato's comments makes me think they could stop trying to do it ; finding the wrong number must be absolutely difficult now) but at the end, on the last step of the tire behaviour, on the limit,it is just a question of having a believable tire model whatever its complexity is.

F_B said:

But what else could he honestly have said? "Sorry guys, but we don't really understand the Madness Engine, let's see what happens if we tweak it a bit here and there." That would have been an absolute disaster from a marketing point of view and even more people than at the beginning would have given the product absolutely zero chance. Everyone who wants to sell something tries to sell and present their product with the best words, that's the ABC of advertising. Every sim dev does it. And please don't come up with the argument that they should have used a different engine. This was a conscious and deliberate decision on the part of Reiza and it is pointless to continue discussing it at this point. It is what it is and in my opinion it was a good decision, even though I was not a friend of Pcars 2.

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Of course not, but between admitting ignorance and the 'we know what is right, if you don't like it the go out' attitude there are plenty of alternatives in communication.

"We agree with you ad we are working on it, please continue supporting us" is usually perfect...

Damage Inc said:

I think what would be better is the one Durge has championed several times (IIRC), by that I mean like you have Unity and Unreal....you have an engine (I believe this is what Marcel Offermans is aiming at? Could be wrong!) that people can license to build their sims (F1, Rally, BTCC etc etc etc) on top of, but the underlying physics engine is at it's core the same and is leading edge physics. Unless that is also what you mean...then yes I agree.

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Not sure about what you're trying to state but Unreal and Unity are graphics engine. The engine Marcel Offermans is working on is a whole physics engine using the open source Godot graphics engine (basically, there are only these 3 options to get an operationnal graphic engine with many devs with knowledge).

About one physics engine to rule them all, Rfactor2 is probably the worst choice. Nascar Ignition has been quiet an experience... and I think the physics engine has been used for The Gran Tour the game. In other hands than S397 it seems this engine is an atrocious tool. Proof is the lack of a really active modding scene compared to its predecessor and AC (to be fair it may be also linked to the active development of the game which can cause issues with mods previously developped).

Offering a development plateform like the one Marcel Offermans is working on seems a good idea as it will lowered the eevelopment costs for future B2B customers. But only one choice is quiet dangerous. With only 3 options for the graphics engine, we already read usual neverending complains, imagine if there was only one graphic engine available. With only one physics engine we will get that result were people not liking its feeling, and it will happen, will reject it, there will be haters ("another unoptimized ugly UE game!" ; just replace UE by Marcel Offermans' engine name). Imo it makes sense to go the B2B way, letting other professional teams do their game end deal with their community. It is better for everyone, shorter and cheaper developments for dev teams and probably more games for the final users, games which won't be broken by new developments of the base engine.

Avo77 said:

Of course not, but between admitting ignorance and the 'we know what is right, if you don't like it the go out' attitude there are plenty of alternatives in communication.

"We agree with you ad we are working on it, please continue supporting us" is usually perfect...

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I would say that Renato is one of the friendliest devs I've encountered so far. And if people keep coming up with the same self-made "facts" then I would probably tell them in my forum to look for another sim also. I guess they're just tired after the 100th remark if their physics are right etc. Stefano from Kunos did that as well, I've seen many experts come and go in the old Kunos forums years ago.

F_B said:

I would say that Renato is one of the friendliest devs I've encountered so far. And if people keep coming up with the same self-made "facts" then I would probably tell them in my forum to look for another sim also. I guess they're just tired after the 100th remark if their physics are right etc. Stefano from Kunos did that as well, I've seen many experts come and go in the old Kunos forums years ago.

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Especially from people who have no knowledge of what is under the hood of the sim (or about car dynamics) and yet they pretend to push forward their theories/solutions when they have nothing to do with the problem at stake

roadyroad said:

Not sure about what you're trying to state but Unreal and Unity are graphics engine. The engine Marcel Offermans is working on is a whole physics engine using the open source Godot graphics engine (basically, there are only these 3 options to get an operationnal graphic engine with many devs with knowledge).

About one physics engine to rule them all, Rfactor2 is probably the worst choice. Nascar Ignition has been quiet an experience... and I think the physics engine has been used for The Gran Tour the game. In other hands than S397 it seems this engine is an atrocious tool. Proof is the lack of a really active modding scene compared to its predecessor and AC (to be fair it may be also linked to the active development of the game which can cause issues with mods previously developped).

Offering a development plateform like the one Marcel Offermans is working on seems a good idea as it will lowered the eevelopment costs for future B2B customers. But only one choice is quiet dangerous. With only 3 options for the graphics engine, we already read usual neverending complains, imagine if there was only one graphic engine available. With only one physics engine we will get that result were people not liking its feeling, and it will happen, will reject it, there will be haters ("another unoptimized ugly UE game!" ; just replace UE by Marcel Offermans' engine name). Imo it makes sense to go the B2B way, letting other professional teams do their game end deal with their community. It is better for everyone, shorter and cheaper developments for dev teams and probably more games for the final users, games which won't be broken by new developments of the base engine.

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Yeah that's what I meant, an "engine" none specific, that others can license. By that I mean a physics engine that does everything to a high degree of accuracy, where the ones developing it can concentrate solely on that and not waste any time, getting licenses for cars and tracks and modelling cars etc etc, just physics guru's, something along those lines is what Durge has talked about a few times in comments here (IIRC). But I was waffling a bit (prone to that as my wife can attest to!).

Damage Inc said:

Yeah that's what I meant, an "engine" none specific, that others can license. By that I mean a physics engine that does everything to a high degree of accuracy, where the ones developing it can concentrate solely on that and not waste any time, getting licenses for cars and tracks and modelling cars etc etc, just physics guru's, something along those lines is what Durge has talked about a few times in comments here (IIRC). But I was waffling a bit (prone to that as my wife can attest to!).

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It is just a more friendly rfactor 2. Hopefully with LMU's development, S397 and MSG have found a recipe to offer a better tool to developpers. Wmand we know from Nascar Ignomition that switching to another graphics engine is a possibility. Even with a too complex physics engine for external teams, after LMU, and this game has to be really polished for that, MSG could sell its services to help other devs to make their games with the engine. It is something very .common with IT solutions and would provide a regular revenue to MSG with low risks. That's something I assume Reiza would not be allowed to do unfortunately with the Madness engine. Maybe that's something they will be able to do thanks to the team's involvement in the Straight4's game on the specific subject of tires. You pay Straight4 for the engine, you pay Reiza the consulting about thev tires, that's something also common in the IT industry. About the Madness engine, Codies could offer the engine and the consulting but I assume potential developpers fear the engine's bad image and the level of Codies' dedicated team (is there still former SMS employees still working there?).

Richard Wilks said:

I stand by all i said back then. All you seem to say seems based on your own personal impression of what is "difficult", and that these games should be "difficult", and that steping out of this ideal very tight slip angle envelope should result in a spin or a crash. And i say, that is just an outdated notion, based on older games and older implementations.

Now i am not defending their current implementations, but i agree with their premise that race cars are not front limited generally, and that they can get sideways, and reeled in almost at will, just that that probably won't be the fastest way.

IF anything, all these sims need MORE controlled wheelspin, not getting sideways or spinning for no reason. Most sims make braking hard and late really easy, and coming out of corners sideways really hard, when IRL its actually the opposite.

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I believe I even made this exact point you are trying to make now in your thread about the Lotus 98T which is boring to drive now before I realised you thought it was too hard to drive...

It's not just my own personal impression... It's that of many that these cars are simply too easy to break traction and apparently experience wheel spin and never find a loss of grip that results in a spin... Especially in first gear with over 1000nm of torque...

You can drive like a complete hoon and be fine and more often then not the faster way is to push well past what should be the limits of the tyres grip... From what the default cues tell you...

AMS2 was easier than the other titles back then and was headed on the right track if they removed some the of longitudinal grip that made the 98T easier than the other versions of it in existence... The other cars in that pack also suffered from this along with the R89C and GTP... Before 1.5 all of these cars were believable... Now they fit more in a car collection game where physics don't matter...

As of now the cars still feel closer to that ideal only coming out of the pits on cold tyres... As soon as they heat up the whole simulation aspect of drving a car on the limit is about exploiting the slides that go past that limit... No matter the car... Driving smoothly and looking after everything is not where you gain laptime...

Locked brakes, not really a problem in most cars...
Have an understeer moment... Just turn into it, you'll get grip...
Powerslide becoming difficult to control with throttle manipulation, just mash it you'll be fine...
See a puddle on a corner like the final one at Snetterton, don't worry about it, slicks are fine...

In case you need a video of how to exploit the extra grip beyond the limit...

pz666 said:

I believe I even made this exact point you are trying to make now in your thread about the Lotus 98T which is boring to drive now before I realised you thought it was too hard to drive...

It's not just my own personal impression... It's that of many that these cars are simply too easy to break traction and apparently experience wheel spin and never find a loss of grip that results in a spin... Especially in first gear with over 1000nm of torque...

You can drive like a complete hoon and be fine and more often then not the faster way is to push well past what should be the limits of the tyres grip... From what the default cues tell you...

AMS2 was easier than the other titles back then and was headed on the right track if they removed some the of longitudinal grip that made the 98T easier than the other versions of it in existence... The other cars in that pack also suffered from this along with the R89C and GTP... Before 1.5 all of these cars were believable... Now they fit more in a car collection game where physics don't matter...

As of now the cars still feel closer to that ideal only coming out of the pits on cold tyres... As soon as they heat up the whole simulation aspect of drving a car on the limit is about exploiting the slides that go past that limit... No matter the car... Driving smoothly and looking after everything is not where you gain laptime...

Locked brakes, not really a problem in most cars...
Have an understeer moment... Just turn into it, you'll get grip...
Powerslide becoming difficult to control with throttle manipulation, just mash it you'll be fine...
See a puddle on a corner like the final one at Snetterton, don't worry about it, slicks are fine...

In case you need a video of how to exploit the extra grip beyond the limit...

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You see, you just wasted a lot of time making this post, because i never said i agree with Reiza's current interpretation either.


But i also dont agree that the way is to just go back to have the instaspins and the "stiff at the limit" cars of games of old.


Ironically the video you posted shows me a car that has excessive LATERAL grip compared with its longitudinal one. Hence the easyness of the "lock and still turning" moments.

The patch of this article has made the lockups more punishing though.

pz666 said:

I believe I even made this exact point you are trying to make now in your thread about the Lotus 98T which is boring to drive now before I realised you thought it was too hard to drive...

It's not just my own personal impression... It's that of many that these cars are simply too easy to break traction and apparently experience wheel spin and never find a loss of grip that results in a spin... Especially in first gear with over 1000nm of torque...

You can drive like a complete hoon and be fine and more often then not the faster way is to push well past what should be the limits of the tyres grip... From what the default cues tell you...

AMS2 was easier than the other titles back then and was headed on the right track if they removed some the of longitudinal grip that made the 98T easier than the other versions of it in existence... The other cars in that pack also suffered from this along with the R89C and GTP... Before 1.5 all of these cars were believable... Now they fit more in a car collection game where physics don't matter...

As of now the cars still feel closer to that ideal only coming out of the pits on cold tyres... As soon as they heat up the whole simulation aspect of drving a car on the limit is about exploiting the slides that go past that limit... No matter the car... Driving smoothly and looking after everything is not where you gain laptime...

Locked brakes, not really a problem in most cars...
Have an understeer moment... Just turn into it, you'll get grip...
Powerslide becoming difficult to control with throttle manipulation, just mash it you'll be fine...
See a puddle on a corner like the final one at Snetterton, don't worry about it, slicks are fine...

In case you need a video of how to exploit the extra grip beyond the limit...

Click to expand...

So you're basically using an obsolete biased video to try to make a point, although rhis video has been used in another thread and received real footage showing an F1 drifting that probably are going to reappear here.

The point isbm that you did not mention the video from the same channel abiut the last update with its quiet confusing description : "it's not that but it's a step in the right direction and the big slide effect (the main critic in the former video) has disappeared but it is not what I want it to be because I manage to do comparable lap times without the heavy sliding". And as always, he just drives Formula cars so not even 50% of the sim. Yeah right...

He probably have found a way to exploit a specific behaviour for only one type of cars and can't repeoduce it in others. And right now he just states that the big slides have been solved but there is still more sliding than in his favorite sims, which is probably more realistic as many has shown on real footage. That's just cheap argumentation and you should not base yours on it.

And let's face it once for all, you have lost your personal war against a game (yes a war against a game, do you realise that?), just let it go and come later to check the next updates, maybe at one time you'll like it. Your life will benefit from that, that's my piece of advice. I did it with AC, ACC, AMS2, keeping an eye on the updates and feedbacks, and came back to those games when 8 thought they became interesting enough. It is less frustrating and you avoid many ununjoyable hours of simracing.

To make you understand I really apply that piece of advice to myself, I can tell you about a current example with X Plane 12. Few days ago the real time wearher stopped working. As I had installed few days before 2 plugins improving the feature (with accumulated snow and water in no snowy or rainy conditions), I got frustrated. I read it was a regular issue in X Plane 12, whereas it has never been an issue in X Plane 11. So I felt at the same time more disappointed but better overall knowing that it was a well known issue. I've just been staying away from the gqme and will come back again when I won't feel the need to make further testing of the real weather feature and the 2 associate plugins anymore, or to check a new update and see whether it is fixed. No need to jump on forums and express my disappointment.

Another example from a few weeks ago : Raceroom. The last update was for me a game changer and an absolute amazing achievement after 10 years. Question of taste but I felt I had found the best driving experience of all time. Great but, the adaptive AI, which was a great feature, got broken, and it got also over hyper agrsssive to a point ot w1sn't immersive at all. I just stopped playing the game and wait. And an update as just been published this week with AI fixes. Maybe it is fully fixed, I'm going to check. But I've aboided weeks of frustration and disappointment.

Just let it go.

roadyroad said:

Renato should stop reacting to the same neverending comments because unfortunately his communication has been getting quiet confusing and may become counterproductive : "we are right but not perfectly right but better than the other sims but we will keep updating our game to get closer to them".

A better way to state that would be explaining exactly where the reality (his view on the reality) is between AMS2 and ACC. Is it halfway? 20% closer to AMS2? Or 20% closer to ACC? With that information in mind, at least we would know where the game is heading to. For sure, it is easier to suggest that to do that excercise but it would help to decrease the level of neverending critics about the driving, at least for some time.

I fully agree on the "driving on rails" feeling we have been used to in most sims since their beginning, which have prevented them to feel 100% natural, which imo is felt immediatly when you just launch the game for the first time and feel in control of a car with 4 wheels making contact to the ground. Only a few ones managed to get that natural feeling : the old LFS (not a fanboy at all, I've only played the demo many years ago), RBR.

I think that modern rally titles, although far from the sim accuracy of their circuit racing counterparts, provides a more natural feeling (although not on the RBR level) just because of the fact they try to be believable before being perfectly accurate. And I think that's what Reiza is trying to achieve with AMS2, implementing this believable aspect while refining the sim aspect to get a perfect combination. Which makes it different and disturbs our habits. The rallycross part of AMS2 feels absolutely natural imo.

We should remember that all titles with so many categories will always be more realistic on some cars and less on others.

I watched an interesting video about how unrealistic Iracing's GT3 cars feel for a real GT3 driver and he has to learn a driving technique he think is not usable IRL. But fact is that the coach shows him videos were he used it IRL. And on the other side, the GT3 driver shows the coach a video of him in a Nascar race using a lot of countersteering which the coach thought was unrealistic. Both are much more competent simracing drivers than 95% of us, drive IRL and still have opinions on driving techniques and tires behaviour. Considering this discussion between 2 professional people, imagine the discussions between all simracers and developpers about a bunch of cars. What would be required is a competent real driver, also competent in simracing, for each category or car. That's big money and more developments (so even bigger money).

Anyway, good news such a fast update, few weeks after the Le Mans content. Reiza's rythm and quality of updates just show a high level of profesionnalism and the team doesn't disappoint.

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Wow thanks for the video! Loved it.