Open letter from Devs

Here it is,
Aristotelis
Hello guys.
I was reading the forum this weekend, between work for the next hotfix, and at some point I got hit by a, not so gratifying, realization.

First of all, let me start by thanking all of you for being so active in AC and in our forums. Thank you for the bugs reporting and thank you for the features request. Yes I know some of you might think I just got crazy, looking at all the features requests that this forum is full with, but let's be honest. It is also your contributions and activity that keep us pushing, so yeah it's all part of the game and when we are not mad with you for asking so many features, we really like you :D

But...
AC is a driving simulator. Yes I know, you want a thousand more features for multiplayer and a thousand more fixes for AI so that you can race. I accept that. We are working on it. Please don't abuse me about it on this thread and let all the above out of it.

But...
It is a driving sim. If you bought it and you're using it and you like it (you are free to not like it of course) it is because you like cars... and driving. We do too and believe me, we go into a great deal to make the driving as good as possible. Laser scan tracks (yeah yeah ok, zandvoort is not LS), highly detailed and accurate driving model, officially licensed cars and so on...

So...
Where are the driving threads? Where are the circuit hints and tips and line discussion threads? Where are the car setup and car handling and driving technique threads?

Let me explain what I mean one thing at a time.
Circuits.
After iRacing (all hail Lord Kaemmer he deserves it, like it or not), AC is the second sim to have almost (yeah,yeah..) of its circuits laser scanned.
Before iR you could drive on a circuit and take almost any turn in the most classical way. Wide on turn in, apex, wide turn out. Do the widest arc, change the apex position depending what follows, that was it. With iR and AC now, you got all the little cambers changes and elevation changes and bump details that we didn't had before. And yet, nobody is talking about each circuit little secrets. Just to make an example, I haven't saw any discussions about how you need to stay in the middle of the track width on the turn in of Vallelunga's "Semaforo" curve or the early double apex you need to take at "Campagnano"... In real life, people go to those turns and look who is driving the track for the first time and who knows the "secrets" just by looking at their lines.
There are tons of other secrets on all the other circuits. Heck we even did a partnership with RSR Nurburg so that we could take their thousands laps knowledge of the Nordschleife and put the correct braking, turn in and apex points that real drivers use on the real track...

Cars.
There are thousands of people out there that still do not know that you should lower the pressure of the road tyres and even more on the semislick tyres to make the road car behave better on the circuits. They do not know they should use as much camber as possible at the front of the road cars... it is limited anyway, so everylittle helps.
I see no setup specific discussions on the race cars. Even interesting features we put in, like the fact that you need to "break in" the soft tyres in GT3 cars, are being reported as bugs usually, because "my car must be perfect anytime, every time, all the time".
Where are the discussions about long distance testing with a mercedes C9 for example? Which turbo boost is better to use to save fuel and tyres but have the best performance?
I see lot's of discussion about which conditions are "more realistic" because aliens are 3 secs faster than the real life or whatever.
I say **** it! I don't care about that, put it on whatever conditions you like, but let me know about the line and why you choose that setup instead of another and how you do that turn in that condition. Talk about driving you know!

I could go on forever... Someone will probably think I'm getting old and/or frustrated by work so I just want to rant about something else. But to be honest I'm not, and I'm not surprised the situation is like it is, because I've been through all this since 1998. I've been league admin, big forum admin, made mods, made a blog, even made a wikipedia about car setups and handling (something is still saved here I think http://flyingpigpedia.wikifoundry.com ) and I know by experience that people have little interest on their actual passion and seem to enjoy more complaining and asking for extra stuff.
But I'm still curious to understand why and willing to risk my face on it and ask people to do differently.

So, please don't stop asking for more, don't stop criticizing the bugs and our work. Continue doing it. It's normal, it's needed, we -almost- like it... :D

But please discuss more of the passion of driving. I think it will make this place better for everybody.
 
Couldn't agree more on this one "people have little interest on their actual passion and seem to enjoy more complaining and asking for extra stuff". They always forget this is a game which cost more or less just USD60.

By the way sim racer is just another type of racing gamer meaning no guarantee they can drive or even race properly & to be honest i believe at least 90% of sim racers are in this category so what one can expect them to share ??

And of course the other 10% will prefer to keep all those secret by themselves so they will always have the advantage when competing to others so ... :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
@LazyBug My experience is that people in forza, nfs shift series and so on are much less prone to sharing "the secrets" of for example setups or the best lines. Sim racers have an unspoken rule that driving skill triumphs all and it is the final test of fire to share your setup and still be the fastest. And many times the fastest racers will still be the fastest after sharing their setups. Unless your part of a team in an ongoing league.

I think, although I respect and partly agree with his points, that they should open their eyes a little towards for example the online (G)UI of more "arcadish" games like nfs shift, forza and so on.

To me, to be totally honest, the graphical user interface of the online racing for AC is way out dated. Part of it is just text, which I guess is just fine, but it seems too rough. It's just a list and there you go. Some icons which arent really well designed. It does certanly not look 2015 to me, compared to other titles. Presentation does lift the experience. Also if you make it that sterile most people that will play are the hardcore sim racers that pre book and participate in a seasonal league.

Although I dont miss all the crappy drivers and kids from nfs shift, I do miss the fun spontaneous short races where everyone joined in and the tracks were randomly selected after each race.

All this content in AC and I use very little of it. Some seem happy enough to just drive the GT2 cars at spa all day long, I am not one of them. But the only combination that you can trust are available is GT2 at spa, online.
I think the sterile, out dated and for many hard to understand server system GUI is part of creating this.
 
I'm very much in the uneducated camp here and would also love to see discussion threads of the type mentioned above. But, and I know KS are a small team, can they not think of a way to educate the masses about camber, tyre pressures etc, rather than hope it will just happen through the community and for people to somehow know of and seek out such information?

I'd love them to be able to simulate output from a pit crew so I could at least be fed generic info about each track and car (maybe just type of car) to point me in the right direction for making set-up changes - it'd make it all less daunting and encourage me to learn more.

As it stands I often don't know if over/under steer is due entirely to my driving, the track itself or car set-up, so I don't know what to 'fix'. The set-up screen does have explanations of what changing roll-bar stiffen does etc, but relating the words to what I feel when driving is difficult for a relative new comer like me.

I'd also love to see a video feature where staffers or trusted community members do a few laps of each track and chat about car set-up, race line, kerbs to avoid, common mistakes etc. Maybe if KS and race department buddied up to get it started the community could then take over and develop the features.
 
You would like to see it and you could find such videos and articles in various places, both in video form and written. However, the devs of a certain racing sim can not count on internet communities to spark the interest for peoples interest in complicated car setups and understanding driving skill.

I think it is deeper, if you want to aim at a large a crowd as possible to buy and continue to use the sim/game. You have to, as a developer, spark a sense of storytelling in an individual matter. You have to make the game continually spark the interest for participation and thus motivation of learning and getting better. Because the reward of doing so must be defined by the _presentation_ of the sim/game.
Hardcore sim racers will sit down and read advanced science articles on exactly how various setup changes effect the car. That group though is probably not very large, and not much to rely on in terms of high sales numbers and big revenue.

This is done partly by creating some what of a career mode, improving AI and making the racing more fun and interesting at the same time as rewarding/sparking motivation to continue.
I believe though that the more certain goal for making it long living, keeping people to continue using the product, is online racing against real people, where they already can use a chat to communicate (important imo). But this part needs developing. Possibility to share setups online. Simpler way of seeing exactly how the servers are set up. Much easier way of setting up servers and so on.
This is off course what the letter was asking me not to do, come with more demands of more features, but I do think they need to step back and perhaps not invest the insane amount of time in detail in one part and almost forget another. This is what has happened in my opinion.
 
@LazyBug My experience is that people in forza, nfs shift series and so on are much less prone to sharing "the secrets" of for example setups or the best lines. Sim racers have an unspoken rule that driving skill triumphs all and it is the final test of fire to share your setup and still be the fastest. And many times the fastest racers will still be the fastest after sharing their setups. Unless your part of a team in an ongoing league.

I think, although I respect and partly agree with his points, that they should open their eyes a little towards for example the online (G)UI of more "arcadish" games like nfs shift, forza and so on.

To me, to be totally honest, the graphical user interface of the online racing for AC is way out dated. Part of it is just text, which I guess is just fine, but it seems too rough. It's just a list and there you go. Some icons which arent really well designed. It does certanly not look 2015 to me, compared to other titles. Presentation does lift the experience. Also if you make it that sterile most people that will play are the hardcore sim racers that pre book and participate in a seasonal league.

Although I dont miss all the crappy drivers and kids from nfs shift, I do miss the fun spontaneous short races where everyone joined in and the tracks were randomly selected after each race.

All this content in AC and I use very little of it. Some seem happy enough to just drive the GT2 cars at spa all day long, I am not one of them. But the only combination that you can trust are available is GT2 at spa, online.
I think the sterile, out dated and for many hard to understand server system GUI is part of creating this.

"The fastest racers will still be the fastest after sharing their setups" .. yeah may be but I not sure if fastest racer like Greger Huttu or Ben Cornett who hold tons of WR in AC do willing to share their setup ??

I personally dont believe they willing to share .. or probably will modify a bit here & there if they do share cause they want to keep a little bit to themselve so they have the advantage when competing.

By the way dont get me wrong; I totally understand & have nothing against this .. you cant expect Mercedes share their setup tips to other Formula One teams to help the other teams beat their own (Lewis Hamilton & Nico Rosberg) drivers :D:D:D
 
Well I cant speak for you but I get the impression that you are focusing a little too much on setups as being such a big thing. Arcades like NFS Shift are known to being able to exploit, setup tweaks that makes you take corners in completely out of control unrealistic ways, basically forcing grip that shouldnt be there.

This is not the case in AC. Give a really fast guy in AC a default setup and he will drive a lap time faster than 95% of the other people.
The more I race with AC and get my lap times down, I notice I almost every time expect taking the default setup further from it's original state would give me a bigger advantage, and when I learn the physics and track I notice the fastest setup for me lies very close to the default. If you just learn to adjust gear ratios and down force you will be close enough most of the time in my experience.
 
Well I cant speak for you but I get the impression that you are focusing a little too much on setups as being such a big thing. Arcades like NFS Shift are known to being able to exploit, setup tweaks that makes you take corners in completely out of control unrealistic ways, basically forcing grip that shouldnt be there.

This is not the case in AC. Give a really fast guy in AC a default setup and he will drive a lap time faster than 95% of the other people.
The more I race with AC and get my lap times down, I notice I almost every time expect taking the default setup further from it's original state would give me a bigger advantage, and when I learn the physics and track I notice the fastest setup for me lies very close to the default. If you just learn to adjust gear ratios and down force you will be close enough most of the time in my experience.
Mmm no i not really focusing too much on setups now .. at the beginning like 2 years ago YES but now NO. I do very much agree to what you say about "driving skill triumphs all" thing actually. I started to experience this not too long ago after like 2 years of sim racing.
My point from the previous post is about "I dont believe those really fast guys willing to share their setups" .. not that i need it but just i dont think they will share.
 
Dunno what to say. I agree to most of it.
The cars and tracks are top notch. The physics and FFB is great!

But i really miss some features. Like manual start. Manual pit speed limiter. I dont want it to be automated. It takes away so much realism. More flag rules, black flag etc. Dunno how to fix it, but the general experience when racing on non-community servers is poor.
 
Off couse, meaningful to add is arcade-titles I mentioned were using dedicated servers. This make a big difference. But t would be possible to create a system that allows servers that behave like those dedicated servers did, randomization and so on.
@Daniel Holst Black flag exists I believe. I got black flagged after not slowing down as told after going to far off track in a corner. I got put in pits not being able to drive out on track again during that race.
 
The passion is lived while driving, not while sitting in a forum at work.

There are already so many guides out there (for tracks, cars, driving, setup...) there's no forum thread needed for it, just a short google search.

But there are forum threads needed regarding the missing features, the bugs, the errors...


I understand that it is a problem for devs only reading about the bad things,
but that's just how it is. You should be aware of that long before making your own game.
Forums are always filled with negativity towards your work, that's what they are here for :)

Those who have nothing to complain?
They play the game, they don't feel like wasting their time in a forum :)
 
But to me people are just too greedy wanting too much thing in one single game. I like to suggest to make this game a final note that what car or track or feature it going to have & then thats it. Want more ?? Wait for AC 2.

People will never satisfy even all the tracks & cars & useful features that are exist in this world are all already in the game .. trust me on this.

So why make life so difficult. Give more complain even more, go make your own game then.
 
That's the problem with pre-purchase, PR lies and the fanboys shouting "it's only Beta, this will be fixed at release" or "It's only Beta, that will be in the release version!"

If people would purchase after the game reaches version 1.0 and go through (non paid) reviews then many many many threads wouldn't exist in forums.
 
This is done partly by creating some what of a career mode, improving AI and making the racing more fun and interesting at the same time as rewarding/sparking motivation to continue.

I think the graphics and physics and feel is awesome in AC, but in the limited time I have to race at night, I stare at my icons and have to pick and choose what to do. A daily challenge in Dirt Rally, or another 2 stages in my championship? Or do I advance my LONG career in pCars and see what contract offer pops up? Or do I try another short race in SCE where I feel the cars are a little more approachable for pick up and play? Maybe a lap challenge on DTM13 for RRRE? Unfortunately AC gets neglected... No currency to earn, no rankings or ladders to improve upon. For those with anything less than total commitment, I can see AC getting left behind.
 

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