Rate the Sims: Community Edition | rFactor 2

Paul Jeffrey · Dec 23, 2019

We are looking to crown the 'RaceDepartment Community Favourite' racing game - get your votes in now for our next game on the list... rFactor 2!

Our dear RaceDepartment community. You folks are the most mighty fans of sim racing, often displaying an immense amount of understanding and depth of knowledge when it comes to our favourite hobby.

With sim racing and eSports in such a wonderful boom period of late. Gamers looking to have some fun with their virtual racing machines have never before had such a wide and robust variety of software to enjoy.

Now occasionally I've been in a position to rate new racing titles that have come my way, and almost every time I've received a wide variety of folks agreeing, or strongly disagreeing with my own opinions.

Opinions are great, but sometimes the opinion of one person, with their own likes and dislikes taken into account, can often give a bit of a skewed picture (intentional or not) to the greater cause in which said person is trying to explain.

As such, rather than doing one myself, and in the spirit of engaging some interesting community discussion, I thought it could be fun to let our own community rate each of the key sim racing / racing games available today.

As always with these things, please do try and respect each other and their opinions, and let's try to see if we can give a fun, but fair shake of the stick to each of the games included in this poll.

For transparency, I'm going to be featuring the following racing games over the next weeks:

I'm going to launch the article each Monday evening, and keep the poll running for a full week until the next new article is pushed live. So get your votes in quick!

Once I've completed the full list of games, I'll publish a final results feature, and we can award the winning developer the lofty title of 'RaceDepartment Community Favourite'!

Have fun, stay sensible and let the voting commence!

fireballr18 · Dec 25, 2019

Reiza could release the Supertracks

Lars Johansson · Dec 25, 2019

Gave it a 6. Far from my favorite sim but I play time to time mostly because of my friends( yes I have other friends also) who likes it, me I don't like the feedback from the
cars hard to explain but there is to much different feedback between the cars some is floaty and some is quite good. I personaly like raceroom,ac,acc and automobilista.
Merry Christmas again everybody.

M.Guenette · Dec 25, 2019

For me RFactor 2 has all the tools needed to be the best Simulation available today. I do quite a bit of offline racing and would very much appreciate a working AI Talent Editor. Games such as Assetto Corsa and Automobilista have the ability to edit AI talent through talent files or ingame with adjustable slider bars for individual parameters.
I see that RFactor 2 has this ability through the AI tuning option ingame but everything is greyed out and non functioning. I can only hope and prey that Studio 397 has plans to open this up and make this feature available. There are plenty of carsets out there for RFactor 2 but the drivers are inconsistent to say the least , with fast cars appearing up and down the order from race to race.
For me, this is only thing that detracts me from racing RFactor 2 more often. There is virtually no information on how to adjust AI talents on-line as well.
Studio 397 needs to take a little Critical Advise and put time into developing the missing Factor in RFactor 2 , and that is racing. Simply adding cars and tracks to the ever growing list is simply NOT enough. We as a community need Series that are adjusted with names, liveries and Talent Files that are adjusted or are adjustable to fully enjoy the "Racing" that is very much lacking and needed. The USF 2000 series are the only carset I have that has the proper fast drivers mirroring there real life drivers. So we know it can be done. If Studio would put in the time to properly set up a few of the many carsets available the enjoyment / racing Factor would increase dramatically. I would have no problem paying for a properly adjusted series that has been fully set up. At the very least Open Up and let the community know how to adjust our own Talent Files so we can stop seeing random grids each and every time we try to race.
It is for this reason I can only give it a 6

sentry87 · Dec 25, 2019

I believe you have to create a driver profile for a car then you can edit the a.i. drivers individual talents

mr Sw1tchblade · Dec 25, 2019

@M.Guenette try to search track aiws made by Mark Pearce at s397 forum.

BrunoBæ · Dec 26, 2019

I loved rF2 before the Steam "non-cooperation".
Eventhough I succeded the transfer to Steam.
But then all the bad stuff started.
First the mandatory massive double install of files (= both mod files and workshop files/cached)
Then trying to get rid of all the redundant files via symbolic links.
But before this symbolic link mess I began experiencing that the Steam rF2 crashed a lot more than my belovedand simple non-Steam rF2.
It all ended after 3x completely reinstall of rF2 after some unexpected crashes where rF2 after the 3rd reinstall refused even to start up.
So no sign of rF2 in my HD today.

Rating rF2 on the physics: 9-10.
Rating rF2 on graphics and ressource hogging: 1-2
Rating rF2 on file and workshop management: 0

Adsta · Dec 26, 2019

BrunoB said:
First the mandatory massive double install of files (= both mod files and workshop files/cached)

Nothing was stopping you pausing the initial Workshop download then unsubscribing from unwanted content.

9 from me.
rF2 is trouble free for me.
Only race online league.

Manfredk2 · Dec 26, 2019

7 from me. RF2 was love at the third or fourth look.

Looks and sounds imho worse than RRE but the general feel is much better and maybe realistic. If RRE some day will fix the AI, which is not working well on many tracks, it could be my number one.

Slapped · Dec 26, 2019

I'm not voting on this as given the outpouring of respect for this sim I can't help feeling that I'm missing something, well a lot actually.

The interface sucks, in fact it sucks so bad that if I actually get to drive I can't actually figure out how I got to do it.

And then when I'm driving it feels dead. There's no real information coming through the wheel. Oh there's few bumpy effects, and the SAT is there, but nothing that's giving me the feeling of being on edge with the car.

Graphically it's very much last decade, but hey graphics aren't everything, and I would totally accept this if I actually felt I was driving.

Sorry, I must be completely missing something here as I really don't feel it with rF2.

mantasisg · Dec 26, 2019

^^^ Those words "no information coming from steering wheel" is becoming such a cliche, that it is becoming funny how it reveals how a person is lacking understanding of a car. And I don't want to mock or offend. That is just true.

Graphically rF2 will depend so much on content. The best looking track so far is Le Mans by S397 that was recently updated. It definitely looks 2019 to me.

It is definitely easy to miss the goodness of rF2 as it is not presented as straight forward and takes a bit of time to get to know well. But so are other sims. Any sim I had I kept discovering stuff all the time - content, functions, community and all sorts of possibilities.

Rastas · Dec 26, 2019

7,because of all the mess right now,i hope some day they improve devmod also....

Doug62 · Dec 27, 2019

I was asked recently why do I use rF2 over other sims.
My answer was this,

Doug62 said:
Right from the start I described it as a castle in the middle of a 5 mile swamp.

Once your on track with it be online or off it's a great racing sim for the most part.
It's all the **** you have to wade through before you get there. This was more inline with the old ISI days when we were modding the game, after all, that was the hole point behind rFactor. So we thought modding rF2 was going to grow the sim as much as it did for rFactor, GTR, GTR2, Ledgends. All these sims had hundreds off third party cars and track.

Unfortunately rF2 was/is plagued with so many broken parts the mod community slowly disappeared to nearly none existent today.
End result is it doesn't have the content it should have after 6-7 years. We all have our preferences in cars we drive and tracks we like so even though it seems there's a good selection of both over all, there's really not that much for any one specific likes.

Another big hate most have is the none series. rFactor had/s multi car series that you just choose and play.
rF2 you have to go to opponent and set up the cars you race against. Then you need to do this every time you open rF2 to go to race.
I've setup the S397 GT3 packs mod that they join the race and I have made a skin pack for the S397 Tatuus F3 that join the track as a series without the need to go to opponents all the time. So it can be done, just very rarely. S397 are the worst as they think naming the cars teams, Example; "Porsche Cup #43, # 46, # 76 and so on. No team or driver.

The very best form off racing rF2 is online in a league IMO. The cars are there, the tracks are set for the season and your opponent are other sim racers.
Downside to racing in a league, it's a set time and day for the race. Often life gets in the way so you miss races.
The other is the software issues for online racing were it lags, looses connection, a number of other issues not related to your hardware or internet connection.
Though you can get some great racing just on the leagues practice servers. The way rF2 works there is a race after practice. Practice time can very from leagues or servers but even that's a good time to get skills racing other humans. AI maybe good in rF2 but humans are more unpredictable and race to a set skill level as you do. You fine yourself racing the same people at your level.
Winning races is good but it's the journey to get there that's the most fun. The battles along the way.

So you see rF2 can be very good, but it can also be very frustrating.
Not sure there is a great al-rounder sim. They all have their good and bad. It comes down to personal preference I think.

So that's the good side.

But my recent view off the devs are not so pleasing.
I find them dismissive off all the bad feedback. Not bad as in none constructive, bad as in not telling them they're doing a great job. To the extent they will ban people that disagree with their own hype about the so called high quality work their doing.
Reading through this thread highlights all that's wrong and for the time it's been ignored for. Most issues I've found are not because the coding is limited. It's the attention to detail that is causing issue that are being duplicated multiple times in the mods we are "paying" for. The feedback they say is so important to them is there on the forums. The repeated things that show up in all the DLC's but are not fix but repeated in the next one. Untested, unchecked or not fixed.

For me a Vote for the sim would be 8
But a -5 for the unneeded and repeated stupid untested and ignored feedback errors in all the DLC's. Lack off quality is astonishing!
Vote; 3 over all.

Keith_G · Dec 27, 2019

It is very interesting how different each persons experience is with this sim and I respect the fact that some find it terrible and others great. In my opinion it is the most alive experience I can have while racing in a sim and I really enjoy it! I mostly just race it offline and enjoy the feeling of the cars and tracks although that can and does vary greatly between content, both tracks and cars. However I really like the VR and taking the new Porsche GT3 RSR for a few laps on the Nurburgring or at Sebring is just an incredible experience that I find hard to duplicate in other sims. I'm sure the type of PC and sim gear you have makes a big difference but for real immersion I find it hard to beat. It is a bit of a mess with all the different pieces and parts but I don't really get bothered by that very much so for me it is a 9. Under the right conditions it is sublime and that is all I can ask for.

asITisWRiTTEN · Dec 27, 2019

1st = rFactor 2
2nd = rFactor 2
3rd = rFactor 2
4th = Automobilista

Enoneado · Dec 27, 2019

for me the best in feelings is RF2, but they must work hard to polish the UI, more licenses and multiplayer, i know is in development, the best in complete terms is AC.

Michel Bélisle · Dec 27, 2019

Will Mazeo said:
My fav sim, the only I play, the only choice if you want more imersion into a race since it's the one with more features when is about that part. Best tire model, great physics, the sim with more potential among all others in the market.
The only sim that offers almost all of what a real life series needs (like Blancpain... ahem)
But... I'll give it a 2
Bugs that take forever to be looked into let alone fixed, stupid limitations that should have been solved long ago, too much bad dev choices, low quality on most content, physics dude is just bad (I dont mean Borda, he is still great), art choices are just all over the place, no consistency, and many times when suggesting something all we hear is "it's easy, do it yourself", dafuq...
Should have rebranded and released a new sim when they had the chance.
My 2 cents... together with my 2 score

If I understand well, it is a great sim that sucks?

mr Sw1tchblade · Dec 27, 2019

Michel Bélisle said:
If I understand well, it is a great sim that sucks?

Isi engine is good. Sebring is awesome. Le Mans is good. Car visuals quality is like mediocre mods. No way they are close to iracing or ac. Gte bop is a place for long discussion. Gt3 bop-well forget about it. Also some issues as old as rf2 itself. And it cant use more than 2 cores of you cpu. And kill your 2080 rtx with its dated graphics. (i am rtx owner).

allen_race_dep · Dec 27, 2019

roadyroad · Dec 29, 2019

For me it's a 10 when I find a good combo, car and track. But unfortunately the lack of management of the Workshop makes this quest really hard. Therefore one of the main feature of rfactor2, its moddability, becomes a.major issue. Updates occur and mods are not updated, content you enjoyed yesterday become unusable. Ypu even don't know wether the former official content is up to date.

A real management of the Workshop, with quality control of the content before being published, helping modders to put the final touch, would change everything. This would bring quality content to rfactor2 for free to the users. For sure, I can understand the cost of this management (one person? 2?) would require new sales, which may be hard considering the age of rfactor2 (new sales are made with the dlcs).

Maybe "jus"t a cleaning operation in the workshop before closing its doors (no more content would be added anymore) would be a better option. Only the best mods and the official ones would be kept in the sim.

At the end it's a 6 for me, but I have high hopes it will be a 10 soon. rfactor2 suffers from content the developpers do not control, but content the sim needs to live. Just add some control and it will be the best sim out there. If not adding control is a way to promote and sell the official dlcs, well, that's bad practice imo.

avenger82 · Dec 30, 2019

roadyroad said:
For me it's a 10 when I find a good combo, car and track. But unfortunately the lack of management of the Workshop makes this quest really hard. Therefore one of the main feature of rfactor2, its moddability, becomes a.major issue. Updates occur and mods are not updated, content you enjoyed yesterday become unusable. Ypu even don't know wether the former official content is up to date.

A real management of the Workshop, with quality control of the content before being published, helping modders to put the final touch, would change everything. This would bring quality content to rfactor2 for free to the users. For sure, I can understand the cost of this management (one person? 2?) would require new sales, which may be hard considering the age of rfactor2 (new sales are made with the dlcs).

Maybe "jus"t a cleaning operation in the workshop before closing its doors (no more content would be added anymore) would be a better option. Only the best mods and the official ones would be kept in the sim.

At the end it's a 6 for me, but I have high hopes it will be a 10 soon. rfactor2 suffers from content the developpers do not control, but content the sim needs to live. Just add some control and it will be the best sim out there. If not adding control is a way to promote and sell the official dlcs, well, that's bad practice imo.

I don't understand what you mean old content becomes unusable. It's just not updated to latest graphics and occasional physics updates. Every sim that supports modding has varying quality of mods. Some don't need super accurate or tracks or cars as long as it's fun. Especially with less known tracks or cars it's often hard to expect premium quality.