FFB and the Good Old Days; aka a nostalgia trip.

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by nickh158, Jun 12, 2015.

  1. nickh158

    nickh158 Well-Known Member

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    By far the most emotive subject in sim racing forums is the thorny subject of Force Feedback, with Racing Department`s RRE Force Feedback thread "wheel settings after update" alone garnering no less than 81000 views and a staggering 740 replies. And that was only one thread; there are several more on the same subject, and I suspect Assetto Corsa and Project Cars` forums are similarly overrun.
    So I got to thinking: was it always like this?
    Someone in some heated debate said it was, we just didn`t remember.
    I agree. I certainly don`t recall spending my entire waking hours scouring forums and endlessly tweaking settings to achieve the Holy Grail of sim-racing: a halfway decent Force Feeback setting.
    So, in a completely non-scientific, subjective, and some may say, biased test, I donned my rose coloured specs and loaded up my favourite driving game of the last 10 years: Ladies (not you Aline Senna) and Gentlemen, I give you... GTlegends:
    GTLegends.jpg

    So the eagle-eyed amongst you might have noticed that there are just 3 settings for the Force Feedback: 3 for the strength and one to reverse the forces.
    That`s three, yes, three settings. And when I went out onto Mallory Park in my Mini Cooper S, the FFB felt pretty much perfect to me: there was plenty of feedback from the road surface; when I ran onto the curbs, the wheel tugged just as it should, and oversteering/wheel-locking provided exactly the loss of resistance you`d expect. Maybe I`ll do a video....
    So where has it all gone wrong? How have we got to a point where one game has 37 different parameters, which a great many people seem to find unacceptable, when an 11 year-old game managed with three, which worked perfectly well?
    The Controversial Bit: I`m afraid I`m going to point the finger at our old friends, Early Access and `listening to the community`. Look back to 11 years ago. How were games designed back then?
    Certainly not with a few hundred grumbly forumites chiming in with their opinions.
    I expect it was just SimBin and a few dedicated beta testers.
    I hope SimBin Sector 3 will explain all to us lesser drivers :)
     
  2. nickh158

    nickh158 Well-Known Member

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    Edit: Also, GTLegends managed something Dirt:Rally can`t achieve, it recognised a wheel/pedal combo that didn`t even exist when the game was released.
     
  3. MikeJenkins

    MikeJenkins New Member

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    Three settings is overkill :)
    rFactor 2 gets by with just two :p (But mind, hacking the JSON file doesn't count)

    Things is, almost everybody thinks they are an expert on FFB sliders. It's the same with sports games like FIFA, Madden, MLB The Show. Dozens of forums filled with thousands of posts proclaiming the Holy Grail of perfect settings. What's laughable is that these self-appointed slider guru's often go from one 'perfect set' to an extreme opposite within days and yet people still hold them in high regard.
    Anyway, I wholeheartedly agree with (from this post)

    "Sorry I don't believe in the whole... personal preference thing with FFB. At the end of the day when we drive a real life car , do we get to choose what forces we do and don't feel before we drive off .....?...no we don't."

    And my all-time favorite on the issue.
    That said, if devs didn't give us the choice to meddle ourselves we'd be complaining about that wouldn't we?
    Face it, we can't have it both ways.
    (And FWIW I usally stick as close to defaults as possible unless something is obviously wrong...and I'm looking at you pCars 1.4)
     
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  4. Sean Kenney

    Sean Kenney Well-Known Member

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    A beautiful thing with the world today is there are so many options on so many levels. I think overall we are far, far better off...people are just people....we are weird, odd, complainers, over happy, sad, angry, lazy etc...
     
  5. machwebb

    machwebb Well-Known Member

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    I think the way it is in PCars is ludicrous. And worse than that imo is that the ffb is useless (literally)

    I used to think that R3E had too many but having been new to pc sim racing att, I began to appreciate the options because the wheels are so different. I don't change it for each car unless the overall is too strong.

    It is brilliant when it's right with just a couple of sliders though but then you have to like it.

    SMS have been a little scared to commit imo and just given a slider for everything, I really don't get why they have put so many settings per car.. It's a ball ache and a massive turn off.

    FFB should be global imo, the cars should feel different based on the physics.
     
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  6. MikeJenkins

    MikeJenkins New Member

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    Are we allowed to say negative things about pcars here? Is it safe? SMS have a big stick with a long reach. I ask because even the slightest criticism, no matter how justified, will get you perma-banned from the pcars steam forum and IP-banned from the official pcars forums.
    But the FFB in pcars has nonsensicallly named options - 'scoop knee', really? Too timid FFB in 1.3 and now massive clipping in 1.4. But of course, it's not their fault. Oh no. Dear old Mr Bell would never accept responsibility for anything. Iknow that. He said so.
     
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  7. mr_belowski

    mr_belowski Well-Known Member Beta tester

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    I gave up with pcars. Life's too short to waste time faffing with busted rubbish
     
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  8. machwebb

    machwebb Well-Known Member

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    mee too mate, I only fired it up this week to test the improvement the AMD beta driver made..Other friends on consoles play it too, so I want to engage with them in TTs..but it's just too bad...S3 has made me choose R3E over friends lol...like a really tasty but nasty girlfriend!!
     
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    Last edited: Jun 13, 2015
  9. Ernie

    Ernie Well-Known Member

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    Absolutely agree with that.
    Otherwise i don't understand why there is a need for sliders, which are changing the overall physics feel (e.g. Understeer or Lateral Force). In my opinion you only need sliders for FFB strength, damper and maybe smoothing. Also a minimum steering torque is helpful to get rid of the FFB deadzone on customer wheels. The rest should come right from physics. Sometimes less is more.
    Yes, steering wheels are different, but in the end they almost only differ in strength. ........... almost. ;)

    PS: And please don't let this thread turn into another "PCARS is bad" thread.
     
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