With the game releasing without major day1 patch coming, I feel I can post my experiences. I'll update this with each patch.
[Edit]
Update 1.6 released: it is a first tentative attempt of fixing #9 below. Everything else still broken.
[/Edit]
[Edit2]
I was too generous: this is unsalvageable. The AI outside of race weekends is broken too, and in races lots of variables do nothing or are just bizarre. For example, tire temperature doesn't impact degradation but the other way around. Changing temp stats to anything else just changes the temp readouts, tire degradation is identical.
AI is so 100% absent that in wet races it is only scripted to pit when the track is dry. If it rains for too long AI will simply drive until the tires explode and everyone DNF. Even if they have a minute lead they won't pit. There is no AI, at all, so they can't have any dynamic race events, compound delta, meaningful strats or anything because it will expose the AI as not being programmed yet.
This game is so broken, empty and unfinished it is just smoke&mirrors behind a pretty UE facade. People are calling it a scam and I can see why. It will take a year at least to fix this. All they can do is call this a public beta and give everyone a free key to next year's game.
[/Edit]
{Edit3]
Frontier announced the next update will be the last significant one, thereby only actively supporting this broken release for a month or two. This means that in this 'authentic F1 simulator' changing the setup of your car will never have any kind of impact on the car's performance, the AI can never adapt to anything other than rain and the financial side remains comically unbalanced.
[/Edit]
Tl;dr it's a gorgeous looking race management game which is, due to being clearly rushed, fundamentally broken during race weekends and very shallow outside of it.
I'll just post ten issues:
1) Tire sim is completely non-functional. The delta between soft and hard tires is just a few tenths of second. As such softs are pointless, and you always go for one-stoppers. Undercuts can't work, and nobody ever does them. DRS rules all.
2) AI is not just poor, but wholly absent. They stick to their original strat and will only deviate when it rains. Safety Car a few laps before the pit window opens? They just drive slow laps behind the SC and pit when the race restarts. Lost a wing? No worries, just ignore. I had Verstappen be lapped twice by Williams because he just carried on without a wing. Undercuts? Don't work because of broken tire sim, and if they did work AI wouldn't use them or defend against them.
3) wet conditions are broken. AI keeps the wets on when the track dries but wets are barely slower than slicks even when the track is bone dry.
4) crashes look excellent, usually, but have nothing to do with the race. You can see a car dive headfirst into a concrete barrier only for him to lose a few seconds and have no damage. Massive multi-car crashes often only result in brief yellow flags. Crash animations are pre-programmed and happen in fixed locations.
5) blue flags/quali outlaps are broken. You will typically lose +-5S when overtaking a backmarker, and the backmarker also loses massively. In quali everyone always stays on the racing line. You can intentionally ruin other cars' lap by timing your outlap or inlap well.
6) broken setups. Setting up your car in free practice only gives a flat boost to the driver. Setting downforce to min from max doesn't change the car performance at all, top speed is identical. The boost is also minimal, so you can skip the sessions for a barely noticeable performance loss.
7) Heat largely does nothing at all. You can push tires 100% of the race no prob. A medium-soft with constant full attack is always the best strat.
8) broken finances. All teams largely earn the same per race, and it's insanely much. With Williams you can constantly upgrade many facilities at once, rush all productions and still earn money.
9) broken part development. You can tell the engineers what to focus on when designing parts, like low/med/high speed corners for wings. The correct answer is always "all of it". It takes a few days more and results in godmode components. Williams will dominate at the end of the first season.
10) broken driver progressions. Stats never decrease, so for the first 10-15 seasons current drivers will always be superior.
Again: for a management game it looks gorgeous, and the UI is, though sub-optimal, flashy. The game itself is however broken on every level resulting in a shallow and frustrating experience. I was looking forward to this a lot, and while it may be fun for people with no knowledge of F1 at all, this is the first time I refunded a game that actually launched.
Some people were gambling on a big day1 patch but due to previous experiences with Frontier and their rushed products I had little hope. Since they just posted they are investigating some of the core issues and deploying fixes will take time, I feel it will be weeks if not months before this game is in a release worthy state.
For what it is worth, if they can fix the above the game has potential to be a really fun though somewhat shallow F1 manager. I'll keep an eye on updates and might buy it again later. For now: stay far away if you have any understanding of F1 at all.
[Edit]
Update 1.6 released: it is a first tentative attempt of fixing #9 below. Everything else still broken.
[/Edit]
[Edit2]
I was too generous: this is unsalvageable. The AI outside of race weekends is broken too, and in races lots of variables do nothing or are just bizarre. For example, tire temperature doesn't impact degradation but the other way around. Changing temp stats to anything else just changes the temp readouts, tire degradation is identical.
AI is so 100% absent that in wet races it is only scripted to pit when the track is dry. If it rains for too long AI will simply drive until the tires explode and everyone DNF. Even if they have a minute lead they won't pit. There is no AI, at all, so they can't have any dynamic race events, compound delta, meaningful strats or anything because it will expose the AI as not being programmed yet.
This game is so broken, empty and unfinished it is just smoke&mirrors behind a pretty UE facade. People are calling it a scam and I can see why. It will take a year at least to fix this. All they can do is call this a public beta and give everyone a free key to next year's game.
[/Edit]
{Edit3]
Frontier announced the next update will be the last significant one, thereby only actively supporting this broken release for a month or two. This means that in this 'authentic F1 simulator' changing the setup of your car will never have any kind of impact on the car's performance, the AI can never adapt to anything other than rain and the financial side remains comically unbalanced.
[/Edit]
Tl;dr it's a gorgeous looking race management game which is, due to being clearly rushed, fundamentally broken during race weekends and very shallow outside of it.
I'll just post ten issues:
1) Tire sim is completely non-functional. The delta between soft and hard tires is just a few tenths of second. As such softs are pointless, and you always go for one-stoppers. Undercuts can't work, and nobody ever does them. DRS rules all.
2) AI is not just poor, but wholly absent. They stick to their original strat and will only deviate when it rains. Safety Car a few laps before the pit window opens? They just drive slow laps behind the SC and pit when the race restarts. Lost a wing? No worries, just ignore. I had Verstappen be lapped twice by Williams because he just carried on without a wing. Undercuts? Don't work because of broken tire sim, and if they did work AI wouldn't use them or defend against them.
3) wet conditions are broken. AI keeps the wets on when the track dries but wets are barely slower than slicks even when the track is bone dry.
4) crashes look excellent, usually, but have nothing to do with the race. You can see a car dive headfirst into a concrete barrier only for him to lose a few seconds and have no damage. Massive multi-car crashes often only result in brief yellow flags. Crash animations are pre-programmed and happen in fixed locations.
5) blue flags/quali outlaps are broken. You will typically lose +-5S when overtaking a backmarker, and the backmarker also loses massively. In quali everyone always stays on the racing line. You can intentionally ruin other cars' lap by timing your outlap or inlap well.
6) broken setups. Setting up your car in free practice only gives a flat boost to the driver. Setting downforce to min from max doesn't change the car performance at all, top speed is identical. The boost is also minimal, so you can skip the sessions for a barely noticeable performance loss.
7) Heat largely does nothing at all. You can push tires 100% of the race no prob. A medium-soft with constant full attack is always the best strat.
8) broken finances. All teams largely earn the same per race, and it's insanely much. With Williams you can constantly upgrade many facilities at once, rush all productions and still earn money.
9) broken part development. You can tell the engineers what to focus on when designing parts, like low/med/high speed corners for wings. The correct answer is always "all of it". It takes a few days more and results in godmode components. Williams will dominate at the end of the first season.
10) broken driver progressions. Stats never decrease, so for the first 10-15 seasons current drivers will always be superior.
Again: for a management game it looks gorgeous, and the UI is, though sub-optimal, flashy. The game itself is however broken on every level resulting in a shallow and frustrating experience. I was looking forward to this a lot, and while it may be fun for people with no knowledge of F1 at all, this is the first time I refunded a game that actually launched.
Some people were gambling on a big day1 patch but due to previous experiences with Frontier and their rushed products I had little hope. Since they just posted they are investigating some of the core issues and deploying fixes will take time, I feel it will be weeks if not months before this game is in a release worthy state.
For what it is worth, if they can fix the above the game has potential to be a really fun though somewhat shallow F1 manager. I'll keep an eye on updates and might buy it again later. For now: stay far away if you have any understanding of F1 at all.
Last edited:
With a few of the OP upgrades you can comfortably win every qualification on wet tires. Literally the most comically stupid, worst possible, never-seen-before-absurd strategy/choice is a winning strategy in this game. It is not just the worst race management game literally ever, being vastly outclassed by even the almost five year old $6 mobile game "motorsport manager 3", I honestly don't know how to make a worse game without intentionally going out of your way to do so.
