I own nearly everything, 807 hours since 2013, but I'm done.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Kondor999, May 21, 2020.

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  1. Kondor999

    Kondor999 Active Member

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    Update: I'm reinstalling from scratch to see if something is wrong with my setup. In the meantime, if any of you guys have a TS-XW or TS-PC wheel and have good FFB, I'd really appreciate it if you could help me out and share what you did.

    This is extremely painful for me to write, but it's honest heartfelt feedback meant to hopefully help my once-favorite sim get back on track one day.

    I've been with R3E from the beta, I own nearly every piece of content that's been released (2 cars and a few Swedish tracks excepted). I have always been a big supporter, and a couple of years ago voted R3E my favorite sim over on RaceDepartment. I am not a troll or habitual complainer. I have 807 hours invested in the game.

    But you have really lost your way. R3E now drives a lot like iRacing, and that is a huge step backwards in the (tire) physics department. And then there's the FFB, which went from "Really Good" to "Worse than Forza".

    I've been driving in amateur SCCA competition since 1983 (and autocrossing before I had a driver's license), so I'd like to think I have some vague notion of how a car should feel at the limit. R3E had really good FFB/physics (with minor exceptions here and there) until this past December. Since then, it's gotten steadily worse every time I try it.

    There is no useful feel at all with the default FFB. No amount of tweaking has helped this. All I've been able to do is make the centering force stronger (with the center boost), but there's still zero warning or information about what's really going on with the car. Of course, with 10 different FFB sliders, the number of permutations is insane.

    The new Group 5 Capri and 320 are nearly undriveable. It feels like the tires are totally disconnected from anything I'm feeling through the wheel. I appreciate that these must have been somewhat tricky cars to drive IRL, but I've driven a Protofab Capri (a single test at Road Atlanta in 1987) and I didn't insta-spin coming out of the pits at 50mph, I assure you. I've driven big-block Corvettes with spool diffs. I've driven a Cobra replica with northwards of 600hp in a 2500lb nose-heavy car. I've driven the widowmaker 930 on skinny 80's radials. I've driven a 420whp supercharged S2000 in the wet. But driving that Capri is like a guessing game. It's nothing like any car I've ever driven in the past 35 years.

    Back to the FFB (TS-XW wheel): We have a 31-page thread on the FFB that's a testament to just how bad it's gotten. There's more FFB anguish in that thread than even PCars 2 had. I suspect a lot of people have simply given up and moved on. Which is what I'm doing.

    I started with a new profile tonight (yet again) and (yet again) wasted 2 hours of my life trying to get something that felt anything remotely like a real car. Today, I repeated this exercise in futility. At this point, I'm asking myself "Why bother, when I can go play AMS2 or rF2 or AC and instantly have great FFB?"

    I have no idea what's going on, but this is a mess. I shouldn't have to dig through a 31-page forum thread, when I can just boot up AMS2, rF2, AC or ACC and the FFB is instantly good, with only 1 or 2 settings.

    There was a long period from 2013 until around 2016 or 17 where the FFB was similarly terrible (I'm not sure when it got fixed, I had given up for a long time), so I've been through this before with R3E. I'll certainly keep checking back every few months to see if you sort it out.

    Regardless of this, thanks for all the fun you've given me these many years. I really wish I could just revert back to the pre-December physics/FFB changes and get my favorite sim back.
     
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    Last edited: May 22, 2020
  2. MarcG

    MarcG Active Member

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    Sounds like you're just burnt out, same thing happened to me with Elite Dangerous. Uninstall everything, step away for a few months then come back and Install with everything Fresh and see.

    Or, in the meantime read the Group 5 thread posted by Alex in the other forum today, as they're the ones with the proper data to put into the game, so it may be wise for you to ignore want you "think" they should drive like - again perhaps better after a break (you did delete setups right?!).

    It's funny how perceptions differ, for me the FFB (T300) got much better with the last big December Update and I rate it fairly close to RF2, I feel very connected to the road in all variants (again akin to RF2) and can easily grab snap oversteer or feel understeer and adjust accordingly in a variety of the cars. It could well be you've suffered from "over tweaking", again a complete break & then re-install may help.

    Finally, just to nitpick but; "I suspect a lot of people have simply given up and moved on." , your suspicion is wrong, the Steam Charts clearly show a gradual increase of driver numbers since 2013 and they're currently as high as they have ever been (ignoring the March abnormality when Lockdown started and everyone jumped on Steam for 4 weeks at least!).
     
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  3. Vale

    Vale Well-Known Member

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    Really interesting analysis and very eloquent. I put my same feelings down to being an old timer using an out-of-date control device but it seems that might not be the only explanation. Are we in the minority thinking that, though?

    I have never raced but have worked in racing and saw a lot of crazy stuff but never a car spin out in the pitlane on the speed limiter yet that´s my life with the Gr5s now.

    I definitely agree with you that the car handling is not what it was and prefer the older styles on RRE as they were not the same as AMS/RF2 or AC. A lot of good things have happened in this game since I started playing but there are a few I wish had stayed the same - "realism" being very subjective as we saw with the recent debate about the Porsche handling.
     
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  4. Winzarten

    Winzarten Well-Known Member

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    ehm :)
     
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  5. Vale

    Vale Well-Known Member

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    Ha ha ha! I remember Coulthard and Moreno both crashing going into the pitlane in Adelaide 95 but not Monsieur Crashjean´s finest work.
     
  6. Kondor999

    Kondor999 Active Member

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    I'm certainly not burnt out or anything. Those 807 hours took many years to build up. I very much enjoy all the other sims I mentioned. I chose to stop playing R3E for a couple of months to give them time to sort out the new FFB. As I said, I've been through this before and it took a couple of years that time.

    I'll try a complete re-install as my last-ditch effort to rescue the game. I've been deleting the entire Simbin folder in order to ensure that nothing carries over from a settings standpoint. Still the strangest-handling cars I've ever encountered - either IRL or virtually. And this is coming from someone who loved the 934 and Group C's from the very beginning (ie I'm not someone who gravitates toward the easier cars like the GT4's and GT3's). I haven't tried everything yet. So far, the Gr5's and 934 (my previous favorites) were so bad that I didn't really want to waste more time struggling with it (when I could be enjoying AMS2 with zero configuration effort, for instance).

    What I am not getting is how every other sim (with the exception of iRacing) seems to feel quite similar to me, but R3E (and iRacing, with its bizarre tires) is now the distinct outlier. Even without my real-world driving experience to provide a baseline reference, that would make me strongly suspect that something might be wrong with R3E. Like I said, hopefully there's something wrong with my install.

    I very much hope a complete reinstall somehow solves the issues I'm having. I really did enjoy this game for many years.
     
  7. Olaf Hülse

    Olaf Hülse Well-Known Member Beta tester

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    If we're going that way: 944 hours since 8th September 2016. And I regret not a single hour. I'm happy with the sim. Everytime I try a different, I think 'Why isn't this more Raceroom-ish?' I love the feel of the cars, there's no way I'm stepping back from it (At least I think so now). Hope we'll meet again SoonTM on track again in Raceroom!
    Greetings
     
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  8. Alex Hodgkinson

    Alex Hodgkinson KW Studios Developer

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    A year ago I sat at a dinner table with Romain Dumas and Hans Stuck. We discussed the VW IDR as we'd just launched the competition in game and I was at the Nürburgring for the IDRs first public appearance.

    Anyway, Mr Stuck was insistent that our IDR had no grip/was too slippy whereas Romain was telling me it had too much, especially at low speed.

    I'm getting a feeling of déjà vous with this thread!
     
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  9. Kondor999

    Kondor999 Active Member

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    The purpose of mentioning the 807 hours was not to brag or burnish my credentials, but rather to indicate that I didn't just start playing, and have some considerable history/investment with the game. Hopefully it goes some way toward demonstrating that I am not just a forum malcontent who spent 30 minutes with the sim and gave up without even really trying.

    And it's unlikely that I would play for that long if I wasn't a big fan of R3E to begin with.

    I am curious, how do you reconcile the very different feel of the cars in R3E vs the other major sims? Do you play those other games (rF2/AC/ACC/AMS2)?
     
  10. Kondor999

    Kondor999 Active Member

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    Possibly! Your point is well-taken. But I'm not really talking about small details of one particular car, but rather I've lost my ability to understand what's going on with any of the cars.

    I have zero problems in every other sim I have. R3E is (now) the sole exception (well, except for iRacing!). It pains me to say this, as I absolutely love what you did with the initial iterations of the 934 and Group C cars (the latter of which I haven't tested yet). I think I might have been one of your first YouTube subscribers ;)

    I just find it interesting that all the other sims seem be converging, where skills learned in one translate well to the others (and even skills IRL can be used in-game). And yet in R3E (at least with my install and set-up), I can't tell what in the world the car is doing.
     
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    Last edited: May 21, 2020
  11. Vale

    Vale Well-Known Member

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    I have AMS1, AC1 and RF2. AMS1 is tougher for me regarding steering the cars but I haven´t spent enough time on config and haven´t tried all the cars. AC1 I think is the most accurate feeling of all them in terms of car handling and Rf2 just seems a little average in all areas and I get that distant feeling you mention aout RRE. The fact these games allow you to mod cars does give them an advantage as if you don´t like how a car handles you can download other ones and edit or make your own versions.

    Alex is definitely right about drivers and their opinions as from day 0 and MS DOS all racing games have had a driver ambassador proclaim "this is just like driving my real car". It´s probably becase they are humans and they drive differently - how many F1 teams have had drivers who prefer totally different setups yet come within milliseconds of each other on one lap? If it works with drivers, it also has to work with developers as they are obviously going to develop a car they can manage, which might not be as driveable for other people.

    I think it also comes down to why people play and the realism versus fun debate. I don´t find truck or bus sims very appealing as it seems like paying to simulate doing a very mundane job but there is clearly a market for them. Would a brain surgery sim where you have to have milimetric precision or you kill the patient be winner? Maybe, yes maybe not. A real brain surgeon would probably say the game was not realistic enough.

    A racing game for me should be a mix between fun and challenge but not so hard to master that it puts you off and not too easy to be boring or totally implausible but I don´t really want to spend hours adjusting caster angle or ride height either or trying different controllers and settings when the previous ones worked fine with the cars before they were changed.
     
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    Last edited: May 21, 2020
  12. Alex Hodgkinson

    Alex Hodgkinson KW Studios Developer

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    I really think you must have something going amiss on your system, either with your hardware or something within your RaceRoom install.

    All of the developments are geared towards recreating the feeling I've felt in my 22 years of real world Motorsport experience. I've raced and driven everything from superkarts to a Nissan GTP, a gt1, 934, formula ford, radicals, a corvette stingray, Goodwood winning Mustang and a gt4 BMW just to mention the first that come to mind.
    For 7 years before I joined sector 3 I was clocking up 35,000 miles a year at race circuits.

    I feel the happiest right now I've ever felt about the cars we've updated lately, hence my opening sentence.

    Interestingly, I've been asked numerous times if the convergence of car behaviours across the sims is something we'd aimed for. It's confusing to read you feel so differently about that.
     
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  13. Kondor999

    Kondor999 Active Member

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    I trust your judgment and agree that there must be something wrong my install in that case. I'm in the process of doing a complete re-install of R3E to see if it fixes the problem.

    Do you have any suggestions for my wheel in particular? It's a TM TS-XW (typical belt-driven). When the new physics/FFB dropped in December, I was easily able to get in there and figure out what settings worked well for me:

    https://forum.sector3studios.com/index.php?threads/ffb-guide-december-2019.14067/page-13#post-192833

    As you can see, I was quite happy back then.

    I really appreciate you dropping by to address this, and I hope that I haven't come off as some sort of know-it-all. Your real-world experience is certainly more extensive than mine. If you're happy with the sim, the problem pretty much has to be something on my end.
     
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  14. SwaggerJacker

    SwaggerJacker Well-Known Member

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    I don't have a problem with the car and wheel communicating me, tire temps and bad setups and all. What I still can't understand is why (to me) the cars feel like they're rolling on marble. The road feel is very very smooth. I thought I had it figured out a while ago, but I was just robbing peter so to speak. This puts me in the extreme minority, I get that. But that's okay. For years the road feel was not like that for me. Now it is. Sims go through cycles, therefore, I never leave permanently. Take a spin here or there. Wait for the new latest and greatest. Rinse and repeat. So much about sims is subjective, but isn't it so with life in general? Anyway, This has always been an amazing sim for me; love it. I've no doubt I will continue to do so.
     
  15. Winzarten

    Winzarten Well-Known Member

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    Racing games like Grid and Dirt sure. Racing simulators like R3E, ACC, RF2.... nope. Their main goal is simulation of the cars behavior. And its funny that you mentioned AMS as being hard, because AMS is regarded as one of the best sims when it comes to car control, force feedback and behavior over the limit ;)

    You don't need to fiddle with setups, especially with casters and ride height if you struggle to complete one lap. That is usually a driver error, not a car setup error ;)
     
  16. wesker6664

    wesker6664 Member

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    IMO that's a strong evidence that something is very wrong in your system, i don't experience that at all. To me the handling is becoming better and better (absolute top job M. Hodgkinson), and RRE cars behave in some kind of natural and believable way, something i often can't find in other sims.
     
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  17. Vale

    Vale Well-Known Member

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    If you review my exact words, I hope you´ll see that I mentioned AMS to be tougher on steering, not on other elements and that I was missing seat time in the game to be able to adapt, improve and work on controller settings - basically because I bought it on sale and have stuck with RRE as my main game for now.
    It´s interesting that I seem to be the one to blame for losing control when I wasn´t doing it before (greenwod excepted as I could drive that with TC off) and we know the cars in question have been changed.

    I think most of us will agree that there is a huge level of subjectivity to sim racing and 100 people will all find something different to complain about when any change happens so it is a thankless task for the developers as if they listen to everyone they will be a dog chasing their tail - I am a happy customer regarding FFB and VR since I don´t use them, for instance but how many people have complained about very specific problems they had with those functions, which other people will not recognise as problems?
     
  18. MattStone

    MattStone Well-Known Member

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    I remember this feeling when I started Sim Racing many many years ago

    I spend most of my time in the GT1 cars and love them BUT I still get the same feeling as you when I drive something like the Group 5 cars or GTO classics!

    The reason we get this feeling is because we want the car to grip as per our personal expectation!
    The mind set you have to have is to drive according to the grip of the cars design (game developers) expectations

    Basically it means if the car feels icy you are probably driving the car too fast, braking too late, and throttling too hard.
    It's all the "too's" that make the car feel like it's on ice!

    When you adjust your expectations to the cars designed physics you will start to feel like the car has grip; it might not have as much grip as another car or another sim but you'll start enjoying the game and most importantly start to appreciate the differences between cars and car classes

    A trap that we all can fall into is to blame the setups!
    Most of the default setups are pretty good in R3E and adjusting setups will shave maybe a second off a 1:30ish minute lap. What shaves off the most time is driving the car within the cars designed capability & knowing the tracks braking and turn-in points, and racing lines.

    There is no sense adjusting setups if you don't know the cars capabilities & the track and the best way to understand a cars capabilities and track is getting consistent laps out of a default setup time and time again; only then you can start to adjust setup and understand and feel how it's changed the cars behaviour...good or bad

    Changing from sim to sim can make it difficult to develop correct expectations
    To me, iRacing always feels much icier than R3E
    Initially coming from iRacing I always felt R3E was too grippy
    Now if I go back to iRacing I feel iRacing is too icy and it takes some time to adjust my expectations

    The same thing can apply when switching cars all the time (even if you are playing the same game) as you never develop the correct expectations.

    Stick to one car; drive it to death until you feel like you are in total control because that's when you know your expectations are in line with the developers.

    NOW when you change to a different car stick with the new car for awhile until you understand and develop the correct expectations for that car.

    Then you will be able to switch between the two cars because you have a clear understanding and expectation of grip performance of each car and will adjust your driving style quickly to match.

    So in summary
    1) Drive to the game developers expectations of a car and
    2) Watch out for those bloody too's..... they will screw you over every time
     
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  19. Winzarten

    Winzarten Well-Known Member

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    Well, considering that you're one of the very few that are not enjoying the group 5 update, it really seems to be you and your choice of control (keyboard). By using a digital input, you're doing what Grosjean did on that vid - appying full throttle instantly on cold tyres. In any powerfull RWD cars without TC it will send you for a spin. And it is something that is replicable in all current sims.

    Yes people complain about FFB, but that is a constant that is present in any sim. Like, some people praise the FFB of ACC, but for me it is the most bland FFB from the current sims, especially once you are over the limit.

    Look, I also have cars I struggle with, like I'm currently playing a custom championship in AMS with the V8 supercars, and boy do I mow the lawn a lot. But I don't blame the car, or the developer. I blame myself for not driving the cars as they are supposed to be driven. So I try to identify my mistakes (like going into a corner too fast, no using the throttle to help turning, trailbraking too mutch..), and fix them... lap after lap. Just by proper driving I'm shaving seconds from my lap times.

    Your mistake is simple to identify, fixing is harder, because you refuse to move to an anolgue controller, or apply driving aids.
     
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  20. Loki-D

    Loki-D Member

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    I feel for the op. Notbthat I have issues with rr I think its the best you can get for offline racing and the ffb on my tspc racer on the newer cars is rather good.

    However...

    for me offline sim racing and ai is getting stale, and my pc is starting to misbehave and some parts are surely need to be bought. But the ps5 is around the corner and being a PlayStation ex fan I'm tempted to quit pc and go back. I find the games outside of sim more interesting to on console rather than these half baked ea and survival fking games im done with them. I want to play a soddin finished game. Rf2 I've given up on acc pretty much there its only ams2 and rr keeping me playing the pc until it goes again. Mb cpu ram? God knows I have a new psu and gpu so can't be them. The thing just crashes and doesnt boot at all doesnt even power up. Until left for a bit

    So its actually its pretty much on the cards for ps5 Im Hoping my tspc racer will bring me a bit of the same feeling when sims come to it like acc or maybe even ams2. If there's a adapter for it lol

    Im came to pc hoping for moddable ai and a betterboffline experience than the console racers at the time, racepro forza. Mainly the sim experience is far greater but there's not enough variation offline for us even the cars are mostly becoming the same with the same old tracks. Hotlapping testing and hot racing with ai is becoming boring fast lately for me.

    And I've tried iracing online and found i just didn't have the time to commit to get competitive.

    So.....

    I'm yes im well burnt out with my pc so your not the only one mate.

    I have some money left on steam so when rr sale comes ill be spending that on content on this, as I think this sim deserves it with the effort they put Into their ai and updates. I know ams2 ai is still in progress but I see too many pc2 flaws and ones im not sure they can rid of easily. I wish someone would reinvent the wheel on ai. I really do......
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2020
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