rF2 | Development Roadmap For January

Paul Jeffrey

Premium
Another development studio to release their next monthly 'Development Roadmap' is Studio 397 - the Dutch team showing off what's been happening in rFactor 2 in recent weeks.

Having posted to the world just a few short days ago, Studio 397 have released their January Development Roadmap for rFactor 2, giving us all a look at some of the things that have been happening in rFactor 2 of late, and a look at a few upcoming items schedule for the simulation in the near future.

Oh, and don't forget to watch the race video from Sim Formula 2020 to catch yours truly on commentary duty :)

rFactor 2 Development Roadmap - January

Hello everybody, we hope you have all had enough time to read and digest the December roadmap? Here at the studio we have all enjoyed our holidays and are back in full force for the new year. It’s time to put on your racing gloves and fasten your seatbelts to blast through the first roadmap of 2020, all lights are green!

New User Interface

A lot of people have tried out the new user interface and provided feedback. We’ve been collecting this information and are scheduling a new “public beta” update next week.

We changed the way series, track and car selection works in the main menu, returning you right back where you came from instead of always going to the dedicated race menu. Talking about that race menu, nobody liked the way we loaded the favorite servers every time you entered that menu, so that now happens only once (and allows you the option to manually refresh later). Ultimately we will make the whole loading asynchronous, so you never have to wait for it.

We made the replay slider draggable for replays so you can quickly find that scene you were looking for. A few problems that prevented the client from downloading components from a server that was hosting them were addressed and they are now correctly downloaded and installed again while showing you the progress. Brake wear and tire temperatures in the garage after you’ve been on track with your car are back, which should help you analyze your setup. An issue where you could start driving again in a session after being disqualified was fixed. The intermittent issue where the pace car did not correctly load was also addressed. Tyre flex is now again being applied correctly to the visual model.

Unrelated to the UI, we fixed the join lag which accidentally slipped in after some internal refactorings.

We also have an exciting director mode in the works. Taking our broadcast tools from rFactor 2 and allowing you to stream and control the broadcast overlay easily. That also means we’ll start shipping a configurable, customizable overlay. More news on that in our next roadmap.

Looking Back at Sim Formula 2020

Thanks to all of you who visited the event or watched the racing being streamed live. The MECC in Maastricht was the perfect venue and the collaboration with InterClassics meant plenty of eye candy, with the city providing many opportunities for a great night out in between the four days. Overall the event was a big success, with both the esports convention and the student workshop drawing a lot of attention before the big crowds hit Sim Formula and InterClassics on the weekend. The exhibition area where lots of different hardware could be tested saw rigs in constant use and I think many visitors got introduced to the depth and experience of simracing that we have all grown used to. Saturday’s hotlap competition in the main auditorium saw people pushing hard on the virtual circuit of Maastricht. The three races on Sunday crowned Risto Kappet the overall winner, beating the four other finalists for the top spot on the podium.


Assisting Aspiring Game Developers

As well as continuing to improve upon rFactor 2, making time to support young aspiring game developers is something we value here at Studio 397. Members of our UK based team have been invited to a student event at Warrington & Vale Royal College to provide support and advice to students starting their game developing journey. Before the event, students will be taking part in a week-long game jam to which they must produce and pitch the best game idea to industry clientele. The work produced will be entered into a competition, and judged by industry guests, including one of our very own artists, Joel Pattie.

The event will commence from Monday 3rd February and run through to Friday 7th February. Students will be broken into teams of 4/5 members, and must produce a solid example from their idea generation. Tasks will include the creation of a Game Design Document, Level Planning, and 3D environments representing a level in their game, with each industry guest offering support and assistance to help the learners understand how the industry operates. Studio 397 will be providing 5 copies of rFactor 2 to the team awarded best voted game idea!

GT3 BOP Update

Over the past month we have been working on updating our GT3 cars to level performance as best possible. Our hardcore test drivers have put in a lot of laps to ensure a more equal performance across the board, ranging from qualification pace to performance over a full fuel stint. That has lead to the following adjustments for the cars:

  • Radical RXC GT3: -30kg weight penalty
  • BMW M6 GT3: -30kg weight penalty
  • McLaren 650S GT3: -5kg weight penalty.
  • Audi R8 LMS GT3 2018: +5kg weight penalty.
  • Porsche 991 GT3-R: -1.5% engine torque/power output.
  • Bentley Continental GT3: +10kg weight penalty, -2% engine torque/power output.
  • Callaway C7 GT3-R: -2.5% engine torque/power output
  • Aston Martin Vantage GT3: +15kg weight penalty
Unchanged are the McLaren 720s GT3, Audi R8 LMS GT3 2019 and Mercedes AMG GT3. Expect these updates to come in later this evening.

Tracks

The environment art team has been recovering from last years work load and setting about improving our core generic assets as well as starting work on some new projects which we’ll be able to share with you in the coming months. That said we do have a few updates to share with you this month. We’ve got a full update to the latest technology for the Monaco Formula E track coming which includes many upgrades over the current release version. Additionally, we’ve made some small tweaks to Le Mans to address a few common complaints.

Competition

We are confident that 2020 will be an exciting year, both for us in the Studio but more importantly for simracers (obviously rFactor 2 drivers will have more fun, and yes you can use that as a bumper sticker). In the December roadmap we revealed a glimpse of the future by announcing 4 major endurance special events, so let’s elaborate a bit more on those now. The first three will be the Sebring 12 hour, the Nordschleife 24 hour and the rF24 Le Mans race. The fourth one will be announced later this year. These races will be partially based on invites and have qualification routes for entry for everyone else.

That’s not all. In roughly a month from now our new rF2 GT Pro Series and rF2 GT Challenge Series will kick off. Our First Pro Series season will last for three months and will be handled by invitation and a hotlap qualifier. After this season we will have people moving up from Challenge Series to compete for the prize money in the 2nd season of GT Pro Series. The Challenge Series will be fluid and can consist of multiple splits, giving everybody a chance to climb through the ranks, so don’t worry if you are not a hotlapper, you will have your chance to prove your racecraft and quickly advance to the top tier!

rF2 Roadmap Jan.jpg


The GT Pro Series will be broadcast live and the top split in the GT Challenge Series will be broadcast as well. Invites will be sent out in the upcoming week and qualifying will start in two weeks time. Based on the results there, the Pro Series Grid and the Challenge Grids will be determined. Look out for our announcement and more details shortly!


Original Source - Studio 397

rFactor 2 is available exclusively on PC.

Throw down a new thread on the rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment if you want to ask our awesome community anything about this popular racing simulation.

rF2 Roadmap Jan 2.jpg
 
I wish rF2 hire x4fab from Content Manager, he can release the UI in 2 weeks, and probably can fix every bugs, add AI slipstream, remove AI on/off brake....all we dream, x4fab can do it.
I have closed rF2, disgusted.

I'm leaning this way as well, just saw the AMB2 UI images, use AC CM every single day, can't get my online group to even consider running another series with rF2...I've been with rF2 since way back when, waiting, waiting, waiting...

What is good about it is very good, but the balance is not good enough, my advice...

Drop everything else and get that UI up to sim racing standards, it's a mess. CM fixes mod issues with the touch of a button, I just get depressed every time I attempt to run rF2, WAKE-UP!

Signed,
A Loving Fan Who Is Losing "That Loving Feeling"
 
Priorities are what's bothering me. Letting bugs and mistakes hang around for years while pushing new content and whatnot.
IMO Reiza are really good at handling those sort of things. If there is something reported at release, it is often hotfixed within days, sometimes even hours.

As a fanboy I really wanted rf2 be a success and I still do, but it's really hard to keep the hope up when still today it feels like I'm playing some sort of early access title. It's just so many little things that gets no attention.

I remember when Nords was released and I was watching SRPs first go on the track. What a horrible experience he had.

Now if I was a first time user and this was my first experience with rf2 I would refund it and never look back no matter how good the driving feel is.
You have to mess around with the plr file, delete shader and cbash files manually. You really have to know this sim inside and out to get a decent experience out of it and even if you do, you more often than not get disappointed for one reason or another.

Lately I've gotten in to ACC and even if it's GT3 only I'm still enjoying it very much on a daily basis. I often get 3 really good races per day thanks to the competition servers.
I've decided not to get more content for rf2 until I see some serious improvements for the core game. I'm talking bug fixes, working skin transfers, random stuttering, improved AI. I want a more user friendly experience overall.
 
rF2 has so much potential but like others here I'm getting fed up with the pace of development. I wish S397 would concentrate on bug fixes to the core game rather than release expensive content that lacks real quality control and testing prior to release. I don't want to beat the devs up here as they have also done great work the past while (Nordschleife, Porsche cup car, Le mans being some positive examples) but the sim continues to s miss some core features.
No drop in and play multi-player is a major shortcoming. ( I don't want to join a league and commit to designated races., R3E is a great example of drop in and play MP experience ).
rF2 also lacks proper simulation of a manual transmission. This is another major flaw for me and I have no faith it will come to the sim either. Searching forums, people have been waiting for this feature for years...
Graphically, improvements have been pretty small over the year's I have played, with a horrible draw distance bug that just never seems to get fixed in any update.

I could go on and list more glaring flaws with the sim but I don't want to keep going over the same old arguments you have already read...

The greatest driving experience can be found in this sim IMO, but it really does miss some key features. I want to continue supporting the game but the lack of clarity around implementing some of the key features and bug fixes I have mentioned is making me reconsider any future support for the title.

I appreciate S397 is a small team, but I fear (and guess!) that poor decision making has
caused crucial areas of the sim to be neglected .

Hopefully S397 will reconnect to the voice of their customers and start concentrating on bug fixes and improvements prior to releasing more content or focusing on other projects.
They say hope is usually the last thing to die...maybe that could be true with rF2.
 
I was and to an extent still am pulling for rF2 because the more great products we have the better it is for us as consumers, but S397 have made it pretty clear offline racers like myself are not a priority for them and honestly their past year of developement while having some successes has also had many misteps and mistakes that have still not been addressed properly.

Content can't continue to move rF2 forward if said content continues to be plagued by QA issues that to this day have not had fixes for them. Shotty AI performance on newer content, GT3 dashes on GTE cars, position lights in the wrong spot on a car, missing textures from wheels, performance issues on newer tracks, and what others have said above make the content difficult to keep supporting because at this point if there is an issue it isn't guarenteed that we will see a fix for it.

Add to this that the new UI that feature wise for offline racers is pretty much identical to the old UI despite literally years of feedback on what improvements we wanted to see, it just becomes a big head scratcher. People will argue it's just a beta, they are focused on getting multiplayer stuff finalized, but honestly that stuff is just excuses to me. They have so much feedback on what the community wanted from the UI, and it is a far cry from what the community wanted at this stage. Add to this that S397 are asking for feedback on what changes we want to see in the new UI and it just makes them look tone deaf to their users.

The new UI while necessary has taken way to long to develope. The lack of any big improvement in the offline department of the UI is greatly disappointing, and their competitors are making improvements at a much faster rate than what S397 are managing. If they can't get things turned around not only from a QA standpoint on content, but also increasing the speed of their developement, rF2 will become a bigger back marker than it already is.
 
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I'm leaning this way as well, just saw the AMB2 UI images, use AC CM every single day, can't get my online group to even consider running another series with rF2...I've been with rF2 since way back when, waiting, waiting, waiting...

What is good about it is very good, but the balance is not good enough, my advice...

Drop everything else and get that UI up to sim racing standards, it's a mess. CM fixes mod issues with the touch of a button, I just get depressed every time I attempt to run rF2, WAKE-UP!

Signed,
A Loving Fan Who Is Losing "That Loving Feeling"

Or simply Install rf1
So much better ... perhaps they can sell
it later as rf3.
 
The one and only thing good about rF2 is the feeling of driving. And not even with official paid mods. Some of the best cars is a free Lamborghini street car, ASR Formulas, and stuff by rastadrifter. Isn't it odd that even official paid car mods come out with questionable default setups?

Sorry but S379 is not getting another Euro from me any time soon. Not with their current attitude. Nurburgring is still a horrible mess - garage section destroys frame rate to 20, despite lowering game settings while every other official-unofficial track has no problems. But unfortunately I have to write my complaints here, because devs are not responding on their forums, and I don't see any news on roadmap about fixing things. Just "plans" for new content "in future".
That is all we get - looking back and looking forward, while UI is worse garbage than the old one, still loading favourite servers at every option change, a second long fade animation between button presses etc. WTF?
 
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Time goes by and it looks that 2020 is the year in which rF2 is falling completely back on my side.
Don't have the time to race 3 or 4 sims seriously.
From my perspective the strong focus on e-sports only satisfy a handful of people, while the average consumer does not benefit from.
Tons of things must be changed to match up.
The worst is the communication in total. But ok, accept the style they are handling things. I don't look back in anger, I just look around and spend my time with the products which delivers the best quality for me. If rF2 is part of it: ok, if not, it's not worlds end.
 
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. I'm willing to forgive everything, any bugs and mistakes, but a HUD... is the most uncomfortable thing I've ever seen.
I agree, the latest one is awful.
So you can either make your own as I did or download one of the 19 listed in the workshop, of those 19 a few have numerous different layouts.
I have no problems with complaints but what annoys me is complaints about default items in user moddable software with 3rd party content available.
 
I agree, the latest one is awful.
So you can either make your own as I did or download one of the 19 listed in the workshop, of those 19 a few have numerous different layouts.
I have no problems with complaints but what annoys me is complaints about default items in user moddable software with 3rd party content available.
I downloaded a third-party HUD software - it doesn't scale to 1440p + too cumbersome. As far as I understood, it's impossible to make it like in ACC or Otterhud in RRE. :unsure:
 

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