F1 Games - General Discussion

[MagpieRacer]

First signs of life for F1 '23. Be interesting to see what new features they conjure up this year. Hoping the fresh start part means they're going to move away from the copy/paste of the last 2 games.

 

[Famine]

Hoping the fresh start part means they're going to move away from the copy/paste of the last 2 games.

One thing that intrigues me is they added the 2023 Alfa Romeo to F1 22.

That could hint at a move to live service, although I hope that before they do that there's a serious rework of the environments; the Pirelli Challenge stuff in F1 22 really highlighted how 7th-gen they look unless you're doing F1 speeds.

 

[Veinz]

The grip/traction in 22' was really frustrating and enough for me to quit playing a month or two after release. It makes no sense that the F1 cars in iRacing are easier than the ones in the official game. Hopefully this is something they improve because it feels like this has been getting worse over the years.

 

[Famine]

This is the discussion thread for an article on GTPlanet:

F1 23 Teased as a “Fresh Start”​

With the 2023 Formula One World Championship season set to get underway in a little under two days, EA has started to tease this year’s iteration of its annual official game of the global motorsport series...

 

[Mercia]

Was rumoured to be a new engine coming this year around the release time of '22 so I hope that's what it's referring to.

No doubt the game had grown very stale and with issues still no fixed in favour of sports cars and F1 Life is had become very frustrating and I had skipped it for the first time since '18.

Needs a big overhaul, some new ideas and a next gen graphics update to start building that trust again.

 

[Matt Stephens]

Decided to revisit F1 22 recently after not playing for about 6 months. Took about 5 minutes before realising why I stopped, the pretty much non-existent feedback on what the car is doing leading to inevitable spins without warning, the lack of content but with the addition of features no one ever asked for - sofas lamps and rugs and supercars that handle like pants. If anything the addition of the supercars just even further reveals the underlying short-comings with the games physics engine.

Have to agree with the comment about the visuals as mentioned above by @Famine , the 2014-2015 assets really are showing their age, a “fresh start” with the visuals is long overdue.

If the rumours are true that this years game looks to expand on F1 Life to F1 World - adding even more pointless crap that adds nothing to the game besides sprucing up the main menu, …expectations are indeed very low.

 

[Noname0529]

Please do not buy EA products

 

[ProjectWHaT]

First signs of life for F1 '23. Be interesting to see what new features they conjure up this year. Hoping the fresh start part means they're going to move away from the copy/paste of the last 2 games.

The original tweet was removed because there was an error in the picture; it was missing Yuki Tsunoda and they misspelled "Valtteri Botttas"

I do hope they have changed the engine as it'll be 16 years old this year, but at the same time I hope they don't switch to the Frostbite engine.

 

[Matt Stephens]

Still using Ego engine going by the updated website.

Going by the copyright info at the bottom I think it’s safe to say F2 is still in the game, that it’s also highly likely the story mode is back - makes mention of mild language and can’t think of any other need for this unless is was during a part of cutscene dialogue.

Going by the fact they have gone through the effort of adding VR functionality (on PC at least), as well as ray tracing within the Ego engine, makes me think that unfortunately there are no plans to switch engines any time soon.

Their new WRC title does appear to be making the jump to Unreal Engine going by job advertisements a while back, so I guess it could be a possibility one day, just not anytime soon. Fully expecting F1 23 to be more of the same sadly, but would love to be proved wrong.

 

[QTheRacer_31]

F1 22 was the first I skipped. Only a PSVR2 version would make me buy F1 23. We’ll see 🤞🏻

 

[Jezza819]

I might be in the minority but I really like F1 '22. The one thing I don't like about it is that I can never tell when the battery is being deployed. I've only got a hint by watching the drivers hands flicking something on the wheel. It doesn't seem to be very intuitive as to what the situation in the race is when it's giving you the extra power. That has led to some spins in corners when that extra power kicks in and rotates the rear end around. Or it's being deployed as you're coming into a braking zone and overshoot your braking area a little bit. In F1 2021 you got that green light flashing on the wheel screen when battery was being deployed. I wish they would go back to that.

But other than that I'm having fun with it. I like that I can feel what the car is doing and where the edge of grip is. Once Fanatec issued updated wheel settings for the game that took a lot of the understeer out of the cars, it really made the game much better.

It's got one of the better AI's out there. The AI cars will make moves to defend against the overtake but they will stick to the rules and only make the one move instead of weaving or doing something stupid.

I don't know about the different game engines and things like that and if they're crap or not but I really do like F1 '22 and I will certainly be picking up F1 '23 when it comes out.

 

[d25bev]

I'll believe it when i see it. Every time they've alluded to an overhaul or big improvements, it's released in pretty much the same state as it's previous version.

 

[Famine]

The original tweet was removed because there was an error in the picture; it was missing Yuki Tsunoda and they misspelled "Valtteri Botttas"

Ahahahaha - I wonder if they picked that up from our article

 

[brockie]

Sorry would need to be running on ue5 before I’d buy. I stopped playing properly when GT 7 came out and the last decent one was ‘19 - that’s still the best imo

 

[j-2k]

A NU START

 

[Mercia]

@marioho What says the F1 game community? Is there anything news wise came out we should be aware of?

Is a new engine expected? Overall positive changes or is everyone ready for the same again?

 

[MagpieRacer]

Still using Ego engine going by the updated website.

Going by the copyright info at the bottom I think it’s safe to say F2 is still in the game, that it’s also highly likely the story mode is back - makes mention of mild language and can’t think of any other need for this unless is was during a part of cutscene dialogue.

Going by the fact they have gone through the effort of adding VR functionality (on PC at least), as well as ray tracing within the Ego engine, makes me think that unfortunately there are no plans to switch engines any time soon.

Their new WRC title does appear to be making the jump to Unreal Engine going by job advertisements a while back, so I guess it could be a possibility one day, just not anytime soon. Fully expecting F1 23 to be more of the same sadly, but would love to be proved wrong.

It'll be interesting to see if they have a new version of Ego or just updating the old one. In-house engines can be perfectly capable, however if they do just update the old one and keep adding to it then it will be held back.

I personally don't understand the obsession with everyone wanting stuff on UE5. The engine is still only as good as what gets put into it, UE5 isn't a magic solution to cure ageing engines. Gran Turismo, Forza, rF2, all use in house engines to extremely good effect. MotoGP games of recent years, SBK22, last couple of NASCAR games have been Unreal Engine and have all been pretty poorly received, and in the case of NASCAR, absolutely terrible. Whereas ACC using Unreal to reasonably good effect.

 

[marioho]

@Mercia there's no F1 community anymore... Not without you 🫶

Anyways:

• There were talks of an updated game engine. Either a new Ego or an entirely new one, we don't know. That fizzled out though, and the rumour mill says it's been postponed to F1 24.
• Rumours that this will be the last David Greco title. If so, it remains to be seen how much of his vision and pending features list will be baked in... I'd hope for better physics, FFB and controller support, but given that the revamped engine was postponed, if this is indeed his last jab at it, I'd expecteven more strangled up iteration of what we got in F1 22. Now that supercars hit dead in the water, perhaps we get at least a more fleshed out F1 22 handling? Without the traction issues and with beter FFB
  • What I mean by his vision is his long ambition for better "fundamentals", giving proper simulation of suspension geometry, tyre model (pressures, temp simulation), ride height etc. It's like getting new crayon colors to draw a better picture. The franchise still does not have the full spectrum of colors he needs for the drawing he had in mid for the F1 handling.
• Apprehension as to how Codies/EA will manage the silly things. The F1 Life, Supercars etc. Career and My Team modes have been left in the dust for a while now, no meaningful new features or even evolution to speak of – you're still left driving a broken upgraded car from season 3 onwards. So if they double down on that with so many things pending a rework... The franchise is not in a good state
• A few relevant bugs have their support concluded with no fix for F1 22, specially on online. A "we've stopped working on this issue, but we'll investigate it further for future releases" kind of message. This just adds to the aforementioned apprehension.

All in all, feels like another interstice title to me 🙃

@MagpieRacer

Whereas ACC using Unreal to reasonably good effect.

And with ACC2/AC2 confirmed to be made on Kunos' proprietary engine again.

 

[MroczMR]

I usually buy F1 games on big sale even "One season behind". But if this going to have PSVR2 support than probably day one buy for me

 

[dfooster]

I might be in the minority but I really like F1 '22. The one thing I don't like about it is that I can never tell when the battery is being deployed. I've only got a hint by watching the drivers hands flicking something on the wheel. It doesn't seem to be very intuitive as to what the situation in the race is when it's giving you the extra power. That has led to some spins in corners when that extra power kicks in and rotates the rear end around. Or it's being deployed as you're coming into a braking zone and overshoot your braking area a little bit. In F1 2021 you got that green light flashing on the wheel screen when battery was being deployed. I wish they would go back to that.

But other than that I'm having fun with it. I like that I can feel what the car is doing and where the edge of grip is. Once Fanatec issued updated wheel settings for the game that took a lot of the understeer out of the cars, it really made the game much better.

It's got one of the better AI's out there. The AI cars will make moves to defend against the overtake but they will stick to the rules and only make the one move instead of weaving or doing something stupid.

I don't know about the different game engines and things like that and if they're crap or not but I really do like F1 '22 and I will certainly be picking up F1 '23 when it comes out.

You can switch the ers so it's only being deployed whilst you hold the button down. I find this to be much better to control rather than the default press to activate press to deactivate as you're not having to take your eyes off the road to see if its on or off as its all done by touch..

 

[Jezza819]

You can switch the ers so it's only being deployed whilst you hold the button down. I find this to be much better to control rather than the default press to activate press to deactivate as you're not having to take your eyes off the road to see if its on or off as its all done by touch..

I've got it set to automatic deployment. There's no way I could control it manually. I don't have that level of focus it would take.

 

[Peter.]

The original tweet was removed because there was an error in the picture; it was missing Yuki Tsunoda and they misspelled "Valtteri Botttas"

I do hope they have changed the engine as it'll be 16 years old this year, but at the same time I hope they don't switch to the Frostbite engine.

6000 man hours in Canva this.


F1 2020 was my first F1 game in about 8 years and it really was an incredible return. It's a shame that they haven't just stagnated but regressed since then. 22 made meaningful steps in the sound, graphics and the physics felt a little bit more detailed but was super frustrating because of the slip angle flaws. To top it off, they took all of the actual (classic) F1 cars out of the game to give us super cars that literally no one wanted. The less said about the Sims aspect on top of it too, the better.


I hope they don't make me want to skip it, because I really saw the writing on the wall for 21's initial release and opted to skip it but fell under the pressure of an even worse launch and bought 22.

 

[Mercia]

Spoiler: Language warning

 

[marioho]

By the way, it's been confirmed that David Greco left Codemasters. He posted on his LinkedIn and Traxion made a piece out of it.
There's a goodbye thread on EA Answers and all.

Apparently he's leaving to join a new racing studio. I heard there are some ex-SMS (Project Cars) devs in the mix too, but this is all speculation.

 

[Mercia]

Apparently he's leaving to join a new racing studio. I heard there are some ex-SMS (Project Cars) devs in the mix too, but this is all speculation.

Hmmm

GTR Revival from Ian Bell with the original GTR2/SimBin crew announced

Seems cool ,but we already have a top sim for gt cars in acc so, i wish they did something else,unless it be historic cars, tracks. I loved simbin gtr1 with the vipers and Porsches, and gt legends with the mix of old cars like corvettes, camaro, de tomaso..

www.gtplanet.net

 

[marioho]

Heh, I was hoping for someone other than Ian Bell to be honest 🫠

 

[Veinz]

The series is in shambles, my expectations are even lower for 23.

 

[MagpieRacer]

Heh, I was hoping for someone other than Ian Bell to be honest 🫠

If they can deliver on a combo of pCars and GTR then I think it will be good. But not relevant to F1 other than the possibility of Greco going to that studio, which I don't believe is where he is going anyway.

Whoever takes over from him will still run into the same issues that he inevitably will have, the limitations of the engine and balance of realism vs accessibility. If F1 '23 isn't moving to a new engine, that's pretty bad news, unless as @marioho says above, DG was able to get a swathe of elements that he wanted in the physics. But that's asking a lot I think.

What I think can be guaranteed is if they go into the announcements with things like F1 life expanding, more supercars etc, the backlash will be intense and long lasting. F1 2020 was the first top tier F1 game since 2013 (in my opinion) and hasn't been beaten, '21 and '22 are both significantly worse in many ways than '20. And that's nothing to do with EA, they didn't ruin the physics, lower the graphical quality and persist with the same bugs that have plagued the game for nearly a decade. So by developing and persisting with pointless fluff rather than focussing on improving the core game would, at this stage, be a huge error in judgement.

Sadly I fear we will get a rehash of exactly the same career mode we have had in the past 3 games, launch spec cars, more supercars and a more intense podium pass. If that proves to be the case, it'll be the first F1 game I skip since F1 2009.

 

[Mercia]

Heh, I was hoping for someone other than Ian Bell to be honest 🫠

Haha its just the timing that's interesting. It could be something completely different of course.

I know you have a lot of time for Greco but the handling on F1 was always in question, I'm not that hyped by a new project from him.

 

[m355y]

Having posted somewhere the other day about F1 2021 and 22 being a regression from 2020 I'm kind of reassessing after playing them both again. I don’t think 2021 is - I think that just lacks the classic content, it's still pretty nice to play and adds stuff like more pronounced underbody damage etc and new circuits like Imola and Portimao which are nice. I've enjoyed it. Where I think they've struggled is getting the new physics and handling model right with 22 - it's just less fun to play, I can see what they were going for with it but the result is that the steering is understeery and....delayed, so its hard to have confidence in where you're putting the front of the car. It's not just the new F1 either, the F2 feels off too. So I do have hope that if they can get the handling right for 23, they still have a pretty nice game.

It just starts to feel dated too. I think where 2020 was clearly the peak of the mountain was graphically, subsequent games are no better visually which is weird when you think 21 and 22 are supposedly fully next gen optimised? I don't see any improvement running F1 22 to 2020 running on the Series X. In lots of ways 2020 looks a bit crisper to me.

Limitation of the engine maybe?