F1 2017 Weird car behavior in corners? (massive understeer, 4-wheel drifts)

F1 2017 The Game (Codemasters)
I'm in China in the Haas right now in career mode on 110% using the G27, and no matter what I do, several corners feel absolutely nasty right now, almost as if none of the added downforce or mechanical grip relative to 2016 actually works.

Comparing my line to the AI's in several corners, I get significantly less grip at any point during the corner than they do, which usually results in general massive understeer and sometimes a very weird 4-wheel drift, almost as if the car snap understeers for whatever reason. This is especially bad on turn 1, but happens in other corners as well, such as the second part of the fast chicane (there's zero grip on exit, while the AI seems to absolutely floor it), the double left-hander, or the right-hander before the back straight. In particular, especially compared to last game and to AMS's Formula Ultimate cars, I've found almost no way to get the car to enter a controllable oversteer using the throttle. The only thing that's worked in that sense so far was locking up the rears intentionally, then applying just enough throttle to maintain a slight portion of that resulting slide, which seems to be gaining me about two tenths on turn 6. Usually, however, applying even the slightest bit of throttle just causes massive understeer, almost as if traction control is enabled.

As well, the response from the FFB in a lot of places does not match up with what I'm expecting, and especially what I'm seeing in the Formula Ultimate cars in AMS. There's no feeling of understeer whatsoever, as the wheel reacts no differently regardless of whether there's more grip to be had or I've gone past the limit. The traction's no better, as the cars are much more prone to crazy death slides where the wheel does not respond until it is much too late. The nastiest thing of all is that when I intentionally test out how the wheel responds when I initiate a spin using the throttle by losing the rear, the wheel doesn't seem to actually do anything - all throughout, the front wheels of the car stay completely straight, just like I saw in rFactor 2 before refunding, which should never ever be happening in a car like this.

I've tried changing almost everything about the setup, but to no avail. The weirdest thing of all is that running less downforce actually makes the car better, almost as if the added grip from running higher wings does not materialize at all. At the front there's usually no grip whatsoever, with the AI's apex grip looking crazy high compared to my own, while at the rear it constantly feels like the car has traction control up until a point where it just spins wildly. It's better in the rain, but not by a whole lot.

Has anyone else had any issues with this? My laps are ultimately still pretty decent, as I can just about set a time within 0.1s of Grosjean in one-shot qualifying when testing out my current setup (1:34.4 I believe), but the car is an absolute nightmare to drive and I feel there's at least another second on the table, if not two. The other tier 2 cars feel no better right now - while I can't recall the exact times, a quick two-lap test in time trial showed that the Haas is around 3 tenths faster than the Force India and Renault and a whopping 8 tenths faster than the Toro Rosso, all of which struggled with the aforementioned understeer in turn 1 and before the back straight.
 
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I also have this problem in 2017 (T300RS wheel). Massive understeer for me in lot of corners but not only in China but everywhere. (i am driving in sauber). I have to downshift more than AI or other people on youtube etc in corners so i can make it through the corner ( so downshifting more than you are supposed to)
 
Have you tried to tweak the setup and create more oversteer on the car?
Yes, it just led to spins. Ultimately creating more UNDERsteer gave me a couple of tenths, but I've still got nowhere near as much grip as the AI. I can just about get within 4 tenths of Grosjean in qualifying and beat him in the wet, but the added downforce is making me a sitting duck on the straights and the front grip is hardly any better, not to mention that the new setup is completely destroying my front-left tyre. I tried multiple things on the run up to the back straight: keeping it at a different angle not only gave me no more AND no less grip than before, but it also prompted no response from the force feedback, and the same could be said for applying the throttle, where it really does feel as though the car has traction control.

Probably the most striking discovery was that accelerating a bit in the very short buildup between turns 1 and 2 and then applying no more than 10% braking while driving in a straight line causes the front-left to lock up. This never changes regardless of my setup. There's seriously no grip whatsoever.

What I've also found is that the problems only seem to happen in long corners. It doesn't matter if they're fast (turn 1), medium-speed (the two consecutive left-handers after the fast chicane) or slow (turn 2), the AI will have significantly more mid-corner grip. In fact, I can almost make up for it in the traction zones (turn 6, hairpin, final corner to an extent), where the AI seems utterly incompetent, and that matches up with my earlier findings in Australia where they seem to absolutely suck out of corners if they can't exploit their mid-corner grip.
 
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Quick update: Managed to qualify P11 after the qualifying end-of-session bug with a time that would've put me 9th on the grid otherwise at 1:34.390, 9 tenths faster than Grosjean's real time and 2 tenths slower than Magnussen's real time. The problems are very clearly still there. I've heard some people say that changing the rear ARB might help, but to no avail. I've now gone to 5 different extremes with my setup and the only thing I've managed to figure out in any way was the 4-wheel drifting, which seems to be a result of the weight transfer being very extreme in this game compared to AMS. The AI is still as preposterous as ever in long corners, though being only one tenth off Grosjean on 110% even in spite of that is encouraging. Taking a number of unorthodox lines that would never be taken by these cars may have partially helped mitigate the problem, but these lines would be hopeless in real life, so I'm still confused.
 
Out of curiosity, I see you talking a lot about your vehicle setup, what kind of settings are you using in for wheel settings?

For starters, '17 no longer defaults to a '270 lock so you may want to go into the controller settings and edit that, as if your wheel lock is at a high setting it could make it impractical to turn and would create understeer like this. A second thing to try is to put your steering linearity in game up to around 25-35, that should instantly give you more responsiveness as that kind of sounds what your dealing with. On the default settings this game can be damn near impossible to handle long corners and quick direction changes.
 
Very interestingly, Jimmy Broadbent just ran into the exact same problems on race day in the exact same car.

Out of curiosity, I see you talking a lot about your vehicle setup, what kind of settings are you using in for wheel settings?
Usual stuff in the logitech profiler for the G27 at 360 degrees (100% overall, 0% spring and damper, 0% centering but enabled, use special steering wheel settings, 360 degs, allow game to adjust settings). In-game I have 0% everything (sensitivity etc), and most FFB things at 100% with the exception of less relevant things like off-track FFB which I toned down to stop the wheel from rumbling so much.

For starters, '17 no longer defaults to a '270 lock
Every game defaulted to 900 for me if anything. I have it set to 360 in the profiler to keep it 1:1 with the in-game wheel, just like 2016, and the way the in-game wheel turns is no different from how it did in 2016 where it all felt completely fine (or AMS with its soft lock in open-wheelers, whether at 450 or 360).

I see no reason why the problem would be with the wheel settings, especially as directional changes are completely fine right now.
 
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I actually went the other way and put linearity to 20. Improved massively turn entry by being more responsive. But it's a bit wobbly on the straights. Need to fix that. But car felt much better in China. Still turn one can be a bit of a trouble, but only if I overdrive the car.
 
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Regarding the FFB, I'm starting to get the distinct feeling that the on-track effects are every bit as meaningless as the rumble and off-track ones, if not more. I'll make a quick test with the overall FFB turned up to the maximum but the on-track effects set to 20%, which should bring it much more in line with 2016.
 
Very interestingly, Jimmy Broadbent just ran into the exact same problems on race day in the exact same car.


Usual stuff in the logitech profiler for the G27 at 360 degrees (100% overall, 0% spring and damper, 0% centering but enabled, use special steering wheel settings, 360 degs, allow game to adjust settings). In-game I have 0% everything (sensitivity etc), and most FFB things at 100% with the exception of less relevant things like off-track FFB which I toned down to stop the wheel from rumbling so much.


Every game defaulted to 900 for me if anything. I have it set to 360 in the profiler to keep it 1:1 with the in-game wheel, just like 2016, and the way the in-game wheel turns is no different from how it did in 2016 where it all felt completely fine (or AMS with its soft lock in open-wheelers, whether at 450 or 360).

I see no reason why the problem would be with the wheel settings, especially as directional changes are completely fine right now.


Trust me, it's 100% wheel settings. And the wheel rotation is *270 for parity. Try out 30% linearity and LMK.
 
Trust me, it's 100% wheel settings. And the wheel rotation is *270 for parity. Try out 30% linearity and LMK.
Only made it worse as the wheel was no longer 1:1 due to the responsiveness at the center obviously being shot by the increased linearity. No changes in the handling besides that. And no, with the G27 it's never 270. Without the profiler it's 900, and with the profiler it's what I set it to, namely 1:1 at 360. If it's different for other wheels, then that's an argument against ever "upgrading" to another wheel.
 

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