F1 2015 F1 2015 - Codemasters Current Development Plans

F1 2015 The Game (Codemasters)

Graham Laing

Retired Staff
In case anyone has not seen this info, here is a post taken verbatim from the Codemasters forum. It was written by Dnote, the CM Community Manager :-

Hi,

I have some updates from my latest discussions with the development team.

Upcoming Patches

PS4: We submitted a new patch to Sony this morning, they turned it around a lot quicker than we expected, so it is now live in most places (Japan will follow shortly). This adds support for Sony’s new Event feature which came out on Wednesday.

PC: We are currently testing an optimisation patch for PC, centred around specific Intel technologies (that will lead towards DX12 improvements in the future). As our partner for the game, Intel have been working with us on this to help get more out of the game on high-end PCs.

All Formats: We’re continuing to work on bug fixes, but haven’t decided on the dates for the next round of patches yet that focus solely on fixes.

Requested Features

Given our focus on fixing F1 2015, and our commitment to providing another game next year, we’ve had to make some hard decisions on what we can and can’t do when it comes to updating F1 2015.

Safety Car: This is a significant amount of work, which touches on many systems within the game that are active during a race. Implementing it into F1 2015 just isn’t feasible with the time that we have and the risk involved with how much it could break.

Career Mode: This is a complex game mode that would tie into the core elements of the game and would require many months of development time for a large portion of our team, which means we’re not going to be able to add this to F1 2015.

Changing Features

Whilst we’ve investigated the work required to add new features, we also looked into some of the changes that have been requested.

Penalties: Technically, this system is working as intended. It is a complex system that tracks the behaviour of the driver and awards penalties based on the severity and frequency of their misdeeds. In some instances this means that corner cutting on certain circuits isn’t penalised as strictly as you or us would like.

To make it more severe in general would have ramifications beyond our desire, we have a game that appeals to enthusiasts such as those who are reading this, and much more casual players who probably don’t even know the forum exists. What we need is a solution that benefits both groups of players. This isn’t a solution that is possible for F1 2015, but we’re going to do our best to make sure it is there for the next game.

AI Drivers: There are some very detailed and lengthy posts on this forum about the behaviour of the AI drivers. Our AI system was built from the ground up to be the best we’ve ever done in any of our games. It comes at a price though, the AI drivers’ behaviour is built from a massive pool of racing data, which essentially teaches them how to drive around every circuit in the game in as close an approximation of their performance in real life (at the time the work was done). Generating that data, validating that data, then testing scenarios with the AI drivers is a lot of work.

Given our commitment to the next game, we’ve tasked our AI programmers with improving the system and introducing more variables, specifically with the race strategy for the next game. AI though is one instance where we are moving resource off of F1 2015 now, except for critical bug fixes. There have been some issues called out that have been attributed to AI, but might actually be related to other things, like the physics system, which we will continue to look into.

Season Updates

There has been a request to see some updates that have happened over the season since we launched the game.

We’re looking at these, they might be easy, they might be hard, but they do carry with them a need to go to Formula One and the teams for information and approvals, which takes time and may not come out in our favour. But we’ll let you know what happens with this when we have more information.

Multiplayer

We're still working on this and the more information you can provide us on the issues you're experience with online multiplayer, the better. Lozzy has been posting in some of the threads about multiplayer issues, please help him out with providing any information he's asking for so he can get it into the right hands within the dev team.

Source
 
MMmmmm .......... In season updates unlikely, things that may be too difficult and break the game.

Sorry, but I've got this funny feeling that we've been here before .......... :O_o: :cautious:


This is a favourite scientist of mine. He has a great way of explaining things to simple people like me :)
 
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Actually I like the AI, just because they don't give up easily.

However F1 2015 was heralded as the version where in-season updates would be incorporated, but now it looks 'difficult'. This was their plan for F1 2012 (I think), where things like the DRS zones would be updated later in the season. This is because DRS zone were announced just before a race by the FIA, so when the game releases they had to make assumptions on the zones.

Later on (in F1 2012) they discovered that it was too hard to change the zones, as it effected other parts of the game, and was too much work

The same applies to tyres taken to a track, they can vary and not be as predicted at the beginning of the season.
 
Actually I like the AI, just because they don't give up easily.

Yes, I agree. However it seems as if they had the right idea and made the AI competitive, but stopped halfway through the development of this feature and didn't finish what they started. For instance, a slower driver doesn't go off track to comply with blue flags or race you during qualifying.
 
If only they would have Career Mode and Safety Car...
I will be very surprised if either one of those happen to F1 2015. They have outright told us on their forum that things like race weather forecasts, fixing the pit exit lights etc are just too much work and won't get fixed. My guess is, apart from major bugs outstanding and some token season updates, it's " Next Year". There goes that song again. :sleep:
 
Here is an update (October 22nd) from Dnote, I have just selected the relevant sections, and skipped the bit about their Community Manager :-

Patches!

PC: The previously mentioned optimisation patch for PC is almost ready, there are a few non-development issues that need to be resolved before we can push it out to Steam though. This patch has taken longer than expected, so we've managed to get a few more fixes in there than we were originally expecting. As soon as we have an actual date for this patch we'll let you know, we should also get patch notes in the next few days for it as well.

PS4 & Xbox One: These patches are sitting behind the PC patch, once the above is out the door we'll have a better understanding of the time frame for them and what will be in them. This largely comes down to shared resources such as QA being available (in the volumes we need), but we're not anticipating any issues with these at the moment.

Seasons Updates

We're actively working on some season updates, the details of which will have to remain a closely guarded secret for now. As with any changes to the visual assets, we need to go back to Formula One and the teams for re-approvals, once we have those approvals we can tell you what we're doing. It might not be everything you expect, but there are updates coming in regards to this. It also helps if we have nice shiny pictures to show you of the changes, rather than just a written list, we might even do a blog post!

12k Resolution

Intel have kindly lent us three 4k TVs, for various reasons. But all we're really interested in is seeing what we can do with F1 2015 on them. To this end, in addition to their normal work, a few people on the team will be attempting to add support to the game for 11,520 x 2160 resolution. We'll let you know how it goes and how many gaming PCs we burn through in the process!

The Next Game

We're going to want to talk about it a lot, informally, soon. So just a heads up, that when we do, it doesn't mean we're dropping F1 2015, it just means that we have a timeline and plenty of ideas and plans that need to met if we're going to get it out on time next year and it is our intention that you're part of those plans.

Source
 

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