Why do sim racing titles make such BAD video games?!
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- Опубліковано 2 сер 2023
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#iracing #ams2 #acc #rfactor2 #simracing - Ігри
Completely agree. There is a huge market out there which is entirely untapped. I am very curious to see how iRacing's career mode turns out. I would also love to see something like GTR 2's driving school or even the GT5 single player school/trophies mode in some of the PC sims like iRacing.
Man, you hit the nail in the head with this video - great one. The lack of progression is what I miss the most with these racing sims. Something that simulates a driver career, starting from low powered cars and progressing to faster machinery after you prove your worth would be amazing. Possibility to specialize in a racing series/car brands, etc...and I think this lack of options for careers come as well from the community and its posture that these are "simulation software and not games" - even though some of these sims are still closer to the old Enduro than to actual real racing.
Nice thought-provoking video. I'd never really considered it, but imagine a game that introduced you to trail braking, then set you some challenges to learn it, then kept an eye on your progress in that respect. Same for brake bias, camber etc. It would be a hit, I'm sure. I'm not that bothered by career-type progression, but learning racing techniques? Absolutely.
I don't think they are popular, but I found the ACC metrics useful. They tell you if you have overdriven a corner or could have taken it faster, for example. Pretty basic, but valuable.
Great video, and a very interesting topic of discussion. I’m probably not in the best frame of mind to comment impartially currently, given how I’m feeling with sim racing in general (it’s not a good feeling!) But I will say, I don’t know how I’d manage to have played these sims for so long without my UA-cam channel. It’s crazy the amount of basic stuff I’ve learned from kind and helpful comments to my videos. Things from changing tyre pressures in ACC to disabling default fuel refills in iRacing to make full use of the fast repair. All these little things, I’d never have known if I’d just been playing them on my own. It’s a shame that more casual players probably get to miss out on so much, due to the lack of a simple or informative UI. But I guess, like any video game, if you want to get really good at it, you end up doing research online.
Agreed Chris, even other 'Simulator' genres of games have SOME semblance of a tutorial or instruction as to how to play it the correct way. Flight Simulator, Truck Simulator; every single one of these titles would be absolutely dragged through the mud critically if they arrived without any guidance, yet it is so widely accepted and common in simracing titles for their to be exactly zero information as to how to play the game. The amount of detective work required for all of our fav sim titles is mind boggling to the average person, and I understand why some people buy sim equipment, play the titles, get discouraged and give up because they don't feel they have the time or the energy to invest the hours of research needed to learn how to play a simulator created by a developer who doesn't see the value in teaching you how to play the sim that they created.
Oh no! Why sad about sim racing, Chris?
I've been saying this all along, only Gran Turismo has almost ANY SEMBLANCE of progress or guidance built into the sim out of almost every popular simracing title out there. The thing is, there's a TON of gatekeeping and elitism in simracing that is resistant to making sims more accessible. Manufacturers like Moza and Cammus are chastised for selling what was previously high end sim equipment for affordable prices, and newer/casual simracers complaining about an aspect of a sim being incredibly difficult or inaccessible is met with gatekeepers puffing their chests at how easy it is for them without needing guidance or assistance being asked for. Hell I remember being new to simracing and complaining about how garbage the Rfactor 2 UI was and I was absolutely blown up on an internet forum about it a few years ago.
I think developers are slowly becoming cognizant of this, and I think it is time that the deliberate inaccessibility of so many aspects of simracing be phased out, and those who don't adapt should be left behind.
haha, this is spot on! Well done on putting a spotlight on this.
The entire reason is because of the consumer. I've frequently seen sim racers absolutely shun any idea of fictional tracks, for instance, because it's not a real place. This leads to every sim having the same cars, same tracks, no music, and no emphasis on anything but laser scanned tracks and physics. You could show the average person any of the current major sims, and they'd never be able to tell you the difference between them aside from maybe graphical fidelity.
This genre has been stagnant for 20 years now, and even GT7 has effectively removed the fun from it, by completely removing the progression and sandbox career mode.
I'm glad I'm not the only one thinking this way.
I loved the Race Engineer on PC2, however basic it may have been.
The F1 games have the practice programme but you can't choose them outside of career mode and now you only get a few per race weekend.
I think it was Dirt 4 had the academy which I thought was a really good way to improve when you didn't just want to do the best you can in a race.
If a title had something as detailed as the Flight School on MSFS2020 I would pay for that alone, whether you could race other cars on it or not.
Great video! Big fan.
GTR2 has driving school, a very detailed one at that. If you don't mind a bit dated graphics, it still drives very well.
@@steelin666 for 4.99 on steam, I don't see why not.
Thanks
I absolutely agree. It's only some simcade titles that actually make games, like F1 23. But even then, things are still lacking.
Other titles are just driving simulations. What I really want to see from sim is to simulate some of the things a real driver would have, and that is an actual team. Like, if I don't monitor how much petrol I use during practice, my engineer would surely be able to tell me. They should also do the calculations for me as to how much I need for the entire race, and work out a strategy if applicable. They could realize which tyres I am always locking up, and which kind of problems I exhibit in my driving and give me hints about what I need to change. It could be something in the setup, or "lift off the throttle smoother" (after all, the engineers can surely look at my telemetry, right?), or whatever else. They should actually show me the telemetry and point out what's wrong with it - I am a (virtual) driver, not an engineer, right?
Sure, they would be imperfect at first, but invaluable especially for beginners. Over time, I'm sure it would even become a great experience for experts and totally add to the immersion of a title.
One other thing is dealing with the rules and circumstances of the simulated series. Only a handful of games can even simulate rules like "you need to use two different tyre compounds in a dry race" or "you can only change settings x, y and z parce ferme, or "you can use DRS if within 1 second". And then of course, a real season, with extra circumstances like "you need to take care of your engine because you only get 3 for the season". Or things like success ballast.
I mean, just listen to the F1 race engineer conversations. Even these superstar drivers need a lot of help in getting their strategy and settings right.
I think this is spot on buddy!
I appreciate apps like crew chief and otterhud, but we shouldn't need them because those features should be in the sim itself.
I can't think of any sims that have setup tutorials, or coaching/training tools for new or novice drivers. I think that would be a good addition, also some skills challenges for intermediate and advanced drivers. Maybe a license system to access faster cars (in career mode). I also feel that sims are in need of better career modes, or any at all. I would like a sim to be released with enough content to complete a career mode, in various ways, without needing to buy any DLC. Extra content should only be there to add more options on how you progress through a career.
Bring a proper in-game racing school. Richard Burns Rally did it best, GTR2 and Live For Speed did it ok, Gran Turismo license tests can be fun but don't really "teach" anything. Otherwise you're bang on about all the other points... in-game telemetry tools, in-game race engineer to help setups based on basic feedback items, and career modes with progress of multiple tiers (like Race Driver series, but more sim like).
Agree. As a relatively new sim racer, the one thing that keeps discouraging me is the feeling that there is some secret to getting the most out of every game. Shouldn't feel like i have to do a night course to learn the ui of your bloody game.......that i paid for!
I agree, and to me, the key is an engaging career mode. But NOT something that resembles Gran Turismo or Forza, which pCARS3 tried to mimick, and is tailor made for an arcade understanding of driving cars and collecting, and not a motorsports career.
Instead, it should go towards what pCARS1 tried to achieve, but which lacked depth, interconnectedness. For instance, if you are hired by as a factory driver for say, ford, in a GT4 team and excell, you should be rewarded by getting to drive their GTE car. Higher tier teams should only be accessible with higher difficulty AI. And the goal of the game would be to win The Triple Crown - not simply an achievement to unlock - but an understanding that that's your goal.
Telemetry is something that really should be in sims. Wheel set up etc can be a nightmare 😮
I think one thing should also be taken in account, is that simracing games, at least now, are effectively sandbox games, and this will likely affect how to better introduce players to the game and organize their progress. Successful sandbox games should be studied for ideas on how to improve simracing.
Love the idea of more transparent content schedules (although not the main point in the video). Super frustrating to buy the only car in a class only to find out there’s a new car for that class coming in three months that you like better.
If people really want a "finished" racing-sim you have to play any old Simbin game. GTR1, GTR2, RACE 07, RACE-ON, GT Legends. These sims are great most them tutorials GTR1 even has Motec telemetry software included so you can print-out graphs of your best lap and you can overlay data too. The menu screens are easy to navigate. But people today don't want to play old sims everything is about online racing now. People would rather play a new racing-sim with dodgy physics and bugs but looks great rather than a old sim with dated graphics but with very good physics, no bugs and good A.I. That is sad to me. AMS 2 has been out for 5 years Rfactor 2 for 10 years and they are STILL releasing updates??? Finish the damn game. Updates are like a slow dripping tap when you're waiting for your glass to fill-up. These game devs today are taking the piss. I'm not buying another modern racing-sim again. They are all hype-jobs and when the online servers shutdown what's left???
I think sim racers are so focussed on the physics that the developers are also focussing on that and the ui and the rest is more an afterthought or they dont have the staff to have a few people be dedicated to the ui and making a tutorial. After all racing is a niche in the game industry and sim racing a niche in the niche. So limited budget, few staff and high expectations to make it really realistic so something needs to be prioritized and a tutorial that helps players for one hour or so is not so important than an DLC that brings in money or an physics update that improves the game for multiple hours for people and may bring some new people to buy the game.
ACC has a really tiny progression when you first start up a practice session. With goals like completing a lap, completing a lap cleanly, and some other stuff i cant remember. But that is pretty much it and no explanation of the menu to get to that practice session.
iRacing started to include some pop ups in their new UI to help people understand what everything does. No idea how good it is since i disabled it because i knew pretty much all it told me already.
That are the only 2 examples i can think of that have some kind of help for new people.
I recently got RaceRoom. I am enjoying it tremendously. Everything about it feels great. Yeah it doesnt look like acc or iracing but it feels and acts better in my opinion. Especially the braking model.
Runs poop for me in vr sadly. I like the handling & sound especially.
Raceroom is my go-to sim. I agree that it feels awesome, runs great and gives me loads of replayability. The cons for me tend to dissappear. The graphics, night ans weather don't seem to matter after getting behind the wheel. It's an awesome title.
Used to be my god to.
Then there were nearly no online races and lost interest
@@wwjnz9263 i agree completely. Hope to see you on track sometime.
@@jdemunter5235 yeah the servers tend to be a ghost town at times. But if can ever find an active 1, I find the racing to be clean, close, and exciting.
I’d love to hear what a product manager had to say because these are decisions sometimes mind boggling.
There's no sim racers in my town, without UA-cam I wont have figured out anything. Other than iRacing other sim dont even have official tutorials on youtube.
I’m 100% in agreement here, there’s got to be more than just AI and player racing. They should all come with a healthy career mode of some sort. Imagine ACC, AMS2, etc with a career mode? And please let’s not say ACC has a career mode when all I can drive is the lambo.
Amazes me that none of the six main modern sims have a proper career yet. Hopefully Iracing and AMS2 change this. There is a reason most sims I play are 20 years old.
There are two types of games in the racing world. Racing Games and SimRacing Games. Racing games often lack the physics of the real world but give the user a way to have fun with the "extras". SimRacing titles however put their efforts in bringing realism and competition to the table, the last one normally associated with multiplayer. Something in the middle is missing. A Realistic experience with all the extras to keep single player user happy. For whatever reason this is never a priority for such game dev companies, although we know (take Racing Life and other tools as an example) that you only need a bit of creativity to implement such "Extras" with very low effort. As of why are such features not a priority, and companies give more priority to "more of the same" (more cars and more tracks) might be connected with how such content are monetized. You would not sell an Carrer Mode as dlf, but cars and tracks yes
You be surprised at how simple it is to implement some sort of experience bar. And the effects it would have.
If you drive the same car over and over, it shows you have a high level with it. It’s arbitrary but adds so much.
Actually as a gamer first and sim racer 2nd. I recently made a large investment in a sim rig for this exact reason. Sim racing is a breath of fresh air for me because it is not like main stream predatory gaming titles
The sad truth with your first argument is most people just watch a youtube video called" how to start iracing" and theyll go in depth down to the ui/vs classic. The developers definitely take notice of this and feel they can cut corners and that snowballs into more and more egregious "skimpings"
Sim Racing software/platform should focus in physics first over anything else; the priority is simulate reality like tire contact patch, tire dynamics, chassis flex, temperature exchanges, and new features like time/weather progression and can generate data.. MASSIVE DATA.
in a game you have a mission, a path to follow your progress, badges, different difficulty curves, multiplayer, driving aids.
PPL want a driving game, then go to Forza, Grid, Grand Turismo, pCars2, F1 etc. Do you need a simulator, then go to rFactor2, ACC, iRacing (notice the difference want and need??).
A simulator is a punishing artifact because driving a car fast is not easy, and Racing games sell a false idea of what is racing; sure they are fun but not realistic, and been not realistic is what make them fun.
I would never prefer in a simulator dev time to be spent in UI when that time can be spent in improving the physics engine.
Sim titles always used to be a niche, that's why.
You hit the nail on the head.
A lot of it derives from the fact that these games don't cost enough. IRacing is far from ideal but does the best with most of what you're talking about and the obvious reason why is that their pricing funds development in a lot of areas.
One word to answer the age old question. Jank
Game Dev for more than a decade. The reality is that these are really niche games. Simcade titles with a wider audience have a lot more of what you want. Its really just a matter can them make money. Will a tutorial make more money than a new car pack that can be sold to the whole user base? Is there more money in selling another copy or milking whales? I guarantee the dev WANTS to do all those things. There just are never enough hours. I don't even know if lowering the bar is worth it. I think most people coming into hardcore sims have already played simcade titles. There is an inherent extremely steep learning curve that you're not getting past as a real casual, so why cater to them?
rfactor 2!!!!!!! amazing physics,amazing mods and for me the og but....... getting it too work omg
I disagree, I don't want a racing sim that has that RPG feel. Then it turns into Forza or Gran Turismo and they're basically just car collecting games.
iRacing does a TERRIBLE job of introducing the game to new users. TERRIBLE!
Come back Geoff Crammond!
Sim racing titles are meant to be "simulations" not games. It is all about realistic physics and FFB. The single player experience is always an afterthought. That is why simcades exist. They are games with some aspects of realism built-in. For a hardcore sim to be taken seriously, they have to invest most of their time in physics and FFB realism.
If they're not games, but only simulations, why do all of them include AI racing, championship modes and some even simplistic career modes? Because they're games, and that "it's a simulation, not a game" talk is just a shitty excuse to deliver a lackluster product.
@@steelin666 In the case of iRacing, the AI racing was introduced so you can train yourself for the multiplayer races.
@@steelin666 Nonetheless, I don't disagree with you. However, I know that the most of the developer's resources will be on the physics and FFB and everything else will suffer.
@@steelin666 Also, you have to consider that if you make a "sim", the sim racing community will be all over you if the physics and FFB in your sim is subpar.
@@LudwigBeefoven iRacing is an example of a successful simracing game, precisely because it's an excellent game. Excellent competitive online multiplayer game, to be precise.
Its physics were questionable for the most of its lifespan, but people didn't care, because they were able to have fun competitively racing and progressing through the game's license system. The physics were never the main focus of iRacing either, they were always mainly focused on delivering an engaging competitive environment, just like an online competitive game should. They're reaping a huge success because of that, and they're actually proving me right that it's good gameplay that's crucial for a racing sim to succeed, not extremely complex, intricate and lifelike physics.
Bad graphics and bad setup, and physics that are not real, strange awkward physics, overly odd and hard physics to call other games simcade. These games should be called bs-sim. 😂 Played ams2 felt like a speedboat round corners lol
If yall wanted games you'd play Grid Legends and PC3 lol
Sims are not video games.
Because they evolved from simulators?
Play GT7 and Forza?
Simracing as a genre is full of snobish gatekeepers who figured all the lacking stuff out for themselves - downloaded all the 3rd party apps, learned how to make setups, joined a league - and want the devs to focus on stuff they can't fix themselves, so mainly the physics and the content, and completely disregard stuff they don't need anymore, but others would. And that's the crowd the devs cater to, creating hollow products that are only appealing to hardcores who only need a bunch of well developed cars and tracks and working multiplayer to go back to doing what they're already comfortable with. Any slightly more user-friendly feature or game mode is considered "arcadish" (i.e. "childish") and an unnecessary detractor from tight focus that's considered needed to satisfy this narrow, self-centered hardcore crowd's needs. They basically hold the genre hostage with their futile pursuit of meaningless physics complexity, searching for that final degree of it that will somehow make it exactly like the real thing, even though it's impossible.
And that's why simracing genre isn't growing. Somebody should just disregard all the hardcore crowd, all the esports and sweats, and do a properly fun simracing game for normal people who won't overanalyze if the aero shadow is derived from actual shape of the car and properly modified by the density of the air, but simply want to go proper racing with sufficiently realistically behaving vehicles, which was already achieved 20 years ago. Fortunately, the F1 games are quite good at that, but of course simracers often call it arcade, even though nobody outside that narrow community would ever call it anything else than a simulation.
"And that's why simracing genre isn't growing"
As somebody who has been collecting data for the last years and now has a dataset of every month since 2012 (and this weekend's news will bring a new dataset), I can tell you that your assertion isn't supported by the data in any way, shape or form. The sim racing ecosystem is growing with regards to number of users, with regards to products offered and with regards to hard- and software companies surviving in a competitive market that includes many price ranges.
Oh, and BTW I don't disregard the fun you can get from an arcade racing game or simcades like F1 or Wreckfest.
@@WromWrom It's true that simracing is now larger than it has ever been, but the sim TITLES that we have are basically just the same thing. Different physics models, different interfaces, but they all offer pretty much the same package: mediocre AI racing, online multiplayer that requires the user to do more work than the games (LFM, RCO, joining a league...except iRacing of course!), bad user interfaces (rF2, original AC without CM, RaceRoom), outdated graphics...Just notice how the most relevant titles are the same for nearly a decade, there's very little innovation in the genre. All sims are pretty much the same, you just choose the one that you feel slightly better about the FFB. And most of the time it's about what you FEEL is better, and not the most realistic one (as 99.9% of the playerbase can't know what is realistic because they've never been even close to a racing car) - just look at AMS2 fans who were so adamant that the simulation was perfect just for the devs to constantly find new physics-breaking bugs to address, and ACC with its "mickey mouse setups".
@@WromWrom You're talking about a hobby, not a genre. The hobby may grow, while the genre may go backwards. That's the case. The numbers you track prove that. Most popular game, AC - almost a decade old. Another most popular game, BeamNG - not a racing game at all, just allows racing among several other activities. That's what AC transpired into nowadays as well. The undoubtly most popular simracing game, one that's not being tracked due to lack of data, iRacing - 15 years old.
New titles, on the other hand, hover around few hundred players, with one humble exception of ACC amassing two to three thousand. Not a story of evolution and groundbreaking progress, really, but one of stagnation and creative bankrupcy. Those games simply have nothing exciting to offer compared to established titles, and that's why they failed to capture their audiences.
hm, somehow u forgot speed.exe and grip.exe? I wonder why? Also everybody, 10 or 100 years old is probably the best online driver ever, so ...
Also games are not made 4u to enjoy but to make $$$.
They are simulations, not "games". The fun is the immersion and the (more or less) realism. You don't ask an apple to be an orange.
I guess a recent example of gamifying a sim could be PC3. (PC1&2 were sims, not the best ones but entertaining). You could tell it was a wrong-un. Didn’t know what it wanted to do, so did everything badly. All in the pursuit of the mass market forza horizon people.
How would the implementation of e.g. a race engineer like in PC2, or a simulated single player career mode detract from the simulation aspect? As far as I understand, except AMS2, all other sims are pretty much set on their driving models and aren't facing so many physics changes. Why not spend some development efforts in setting up better interfaces, UX, and game modes that support a feeling of progression?
it has nothing to do with the actual simulation and physics, it's about the interfaces and other features
Why a simulation would have AI racing, championship modes or even simple career modes (ACC)? Why do they have multiplayer mode? Multiplayer games are also games. Actual simulations don't offer any kind of competitive gameplay against opponents and simply allow you to take out a machinery on a virtual track and tinker with it. That's not what simracing games are. This "it's a simulation, not a game" talk only serves the purpose of making devs cater to one hardcore multiplayer fraction of playerbase and disregard everybody else.