Have Your Say: Wet Weather Sim Racing - Is It Even Necessary?

[Paul Jeffrey]

We often hear cries from the community about sim X not having rain effects, but do we even need weather in a modern simulation?

Looking at the numbers, it appears that very few people actually enjoy racing online in wet conditions, with many drivers struggling to compete effectively with their rivals out on track and in many instances the race ends in a shower of spray and rage quits throughout the field. Very rarely do you have a satisfactory online experience in a wet weather racing environment.

More and more modern developers are now bringing either static or dynamic weather conditions to their simulations, however some of the key players in the market still retain static, dry conditions when selecting a race. Assetto Corsa, RaceRoom Racing Experience and Automobilista are key examples of popular racing simulations that don't cater for those looking to get a little damp on track, so do we actually need weather effects, or are they more gimmick than game changer?

The question today is:

Weather and rain - Essential feature or occasional distraction?

Please let us know if you genuinely feel that weather is an important part of your sim racing experience, or if driving in rain / sleet / snow is just something you check out periodically, with no intention of getting under the skin of the feature in question.

Have fun debating, and leave your comment below!

 

[sjb266]

I loooove wet weather in racing games... mainly against AI or hotlapping though.. Pcars.. DriveClub.. Not so much forza..

I wouldn't really want to be racing iRacing in the wet though.. there are enough yahoo's on there in the dry divebombing.. i can only imagine the carnage in the wet!

 

[ale9357]

Putting wet conditions in a proper driving simulator it's not an easy task for many reasons. Things like tyre behaviour when temperature changes or progressive track drying are very difficult to reproduce in the accurate way a simulator is supposedly aiming to and that's way nowadays you can find wet conditions only in arcade,or sim-cade games.

Anyway,the lack of rain in driving sim doesn't change my experience. It will become necessary for me when it will be implented in a proper way.

 

[The-IC]

I quite like rain and night for the atmosphere, but its not essential for enjoyment of a sim for me...

 

[MSKbeans]

Depends on car and track.
I've had some awesome wet races beating others usually few seconds lap behind.
But then you get the Devil car n track combo, no matter what you do, the barrier will be hit in many places.
5 of them and DNF from damage.
No wet race in a series (Euro) not real series.
I'm from UK wet hmmmmm na don't rain in England. Lolol

 

[Ivan Richard Navarro]

for real simualtion real weather condition.
Assetto Corsa, RaceRoom Racing Experience and Automobilista are engine limited, for this they have not weather.
Weather is essential for to replicate reality.
Players who prefer static weather, they prefer to win easy.

 

[Steve Bird]

Definitely. For a sim to be an all rounder it has to have rain in my opinion but as stated by ale9357 it has to be done properly.

It truly is a leveler on the track. Smooth throttle and steering control is required and people that constantly complain about slamming their car into the armco need to realise that planting the throttle and jerking the steering will always end in tears

 

[Serj]

Yes, the weather changes must be in real sim, otherwise its not complete sim.

 

[apex11]

When i used to do karting and even track days i'd start panicking days before about the weather...now this wasn't because i was scared of driving in the wet, after all I have been driving cars in the wet for decades on the roads which can be far far dangerous places than a race track, it was simply because to me nothing beats being at a race track in glorious sunshine and blue skys.... believe me standing around a race track when its pissing it down can be soul destroying and horrible, its no fun, knowing your family is huddled under a cheap brolly as you do 15 mins track time then 3 hours standing around is a pain.....
This has made me dislike rain, so much so that i hate it in 'sims'....
If its there its fine i may use it for a time, but mainly i'll simply set up dry races i dont care if its not available at all.
Added to that its not really fun driving in the wet...well it IS fun maybe for a bit but you have to cut your speed down and drive well under the percentages you can exploit in the dry.
For me it ruins a track day.

Also many driving games make driving in the dry seem like its a wet track or even ice, so when they then make the track wet virtually its like they don't understand exactly what a wet weather tyre is doing F1 wets are incredible the amount of water they can remove as you drive give grip that you could never imagine.
Having said all of that as an effect PCars rain was stunning to look at, but i hated when the 'career' races made you have to drive in rain....

 

[Vincent.C]

I hate wet tracks and rainy weather but I think it's important. Because it adds more challenge with dynamic weather. Very good drivers on dry tracks and good drivers on wet tracks are not always the sames. It adds randomness on race. So definitely it's now important.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

i appreciate the producers of sims holding back on the rain because it simply means their algorithms are not good enough to simulate it. I'd rather have that then a graphically pleasing weather system which fails to reproduce the often chaotic nature of adverse weather.

 

[Steve Bird]

When i used to do karting and even track days i'd start panicking days before about the weather...now this wasn't because i was scared of driving in the wet, after all I have been driving cars in the wet for decades on the roads which can be far far dangerous places than a race track, it was simply because to me nothing beats being at a race track in glorious sunshine and blue skys.... believe me standing around a race track when its pissing it down can be soul destroying and horrible, its no fun, knowing your family is huddled under a cheap brolly as you do 15 mins track time then 3 hours standing around is a pain......

Been there, done that. I also remember when you turned in the spray from the front wheels used to drown you and also spray up into your helmet. Cold, wet but so much fun

 

[mister dog]

A complete sim needs to cover it IMO as people race in the rain and in the night in real life. Tech has come far enough nowadays for devs to simulate it properly too. And that's aside from the added challenge and atmosphere it brings to racing games which are also plus points to me .

 

[cr4wl3r0]

IMHO a "simulation" must try to simulate every aspect of what it' s trying to simulate: so simulating weather condition is essential in this case, and of course simulating every other aspect of a car race/driving is imprtant (like for example accurate modelling of collisions and so on....)
The only true limit should be the computing power available ATM.......

 

[Arne Dopudja]

Ill just say - Race07, Gtr2...

People are hell bent for 100% grip, perfect conditions because muh hotlapping. I prefer the challenge of urcentanity like real men.

 

[MoerasGrizzly]

It's not neccesary, it's not a deal breaker for me that, say, Assetto Corsa doesn't have wet weather. But it does add a lot to the experience. I've been playing a lot of Codemaster's games lately, Dirt 4 and F1 2016, and the variable weather conditions in those games really change the way one approaches the race. Having to adapt to changing conditions is what seperates the hotlappers from the good race drivers, and it can bring some very surprising changes to the usual field. Just look at F1 and how rain can change the dynamic of the entire race, or how endurance racers at Spa or the Nordschleife have to deal with there being rain on one part of the track whilst the other part is dry. I'd rather have variable weather done not perfectly but still impacting the race rather then no rain becuase it can't be done perfectly.

 

[mantasisg]

I would love them very much. But I think that public online racing would stay rather static anyway, because most people are static and always looking for comfort.

 

[Boby Kim]

Most games suffer from good physics and or AI pitstop behaviour during dry....so don't even start thinking about implementing wet conditions.

 

[Nibiru Cataclysm]

Couldn't care less...

I would far rather that development time was put into things like amazing FFB, optimised graphics, sound quality and configuration options, tyre modelling, WORKING AI and proper soft body damage modelling.

I don't give a crap about:

animated pit crews
cut scenes
cardboard cutout zombies in the crowd
background music
replays
virtual careers
swaying trees and grass
virtual race engineers
achievements
VR support

 

[elrollaor]

not the most important but is a nice posibility to make some rain races ,rf2 does it right and iracing is in the way (if i'm not wrong)