Really disappointed with this gamePS4

[GearBoxBandit]

Cheers lads,

Note that my opinion only reflects to the ps4 version of this game and mostly the singleplayer.
Since it's 4 months after release of this game I would like to share my opinion over project cars 2 and would like to hear you're opinions too.

First of all, I need to say that I loved PC1 even though it wasn't perfect. I think it was revolutionary to have a game with such driving physics on a console. After I enjoyed the first game so much, I was quite hyped for the release of project cars 2. Hyped and ready to play, the first disappointment. Many bugs. Too many. So I waited for the first patches to fix some of the game braking bugs that appeared. Now after 4 months and nearly 3 months not playing this game, many of those bugs still haven't been fixed, and the more you play the more bugs you will find, even today. What really got me furious is that some bugs that appeared in the first game got carried over to PC2. And these are not those kind of bugs which happen just under special circumstances, the bugs I am talking about are so obvious that it is really a shame that those aren't fixed at this point. Maybe my expectations are just too high because I always have in mind which huge potential is in this game. And the worst thing for me is the performance on the standard ps4. I really don't care about graphics that much as long as the overall performance is good but that don't seem to be the case here. For example race around an oval track like Daytona to recreate a 24h race. Even without more than 20 cars on track it is nearly impossible to feel just a glimpse of joy if the game is so laggy as it is.
I don't want to sound like a whiner because there are so many good things they added or have been improved (Multi class races, real pit stops, variety of cars and tracks for example) but I always have the feeling of being a software tester playing a game with a ****** quality.
Am I really alone with this feeling I have?

I hope once i have enough money for my new computer I can change my opinion about PC2 to something that can live up to my expectations I had with this game.
Btw sorry for my bad English.

 

[Sentry87]

Ps4 owner, been playing this game since launch. Shakey start, the game is very ambitious.

There's been issues like the save setup bug which has been fixed. Now with the next patch hopefully the issues that have been plaguing the online community gets resolved.

However, there's nothing game breaking. There's so much depth to this game, some of which you have stated.

All that matters is continued support from the dev team, releasing several more patches can help. This is not pc1 with new cars and tracks, it has a new tyre model, improved physics and ffb. Expecting it to be bug free at launch is an unfair expectation

 

[FOG-Smokebeer]

Did I read the other day 10yrs of Iracing ?? and there still working on tyre models etc

 

[EddyHawk]

I play almost only offline and I don't know what serious bugs are you talking about in singleplayer, the serious bugs are in online but playing alone I've never had problems with the game, in fact, for me PC2 have the best offline mode on race games, I love custom races where I spend hours of pure enjoy, the only "serious bug" in offline mode is the rain, the AI is stupid with that weather but the good thing is that this problem is already fixed with the next patch and other than that, I have not seen any bugs that breaks the game.

I have the Ps4 version too and yes, there are some tracks that have little fps problems but nothing serious, fps drops last less than a second and this happens in one or two parts of some tracks. Today I played a race in Daytona with 32 cars, with sunset and night time and I didn't have any problems with fps, the only track that had give me some serious fps drops is Nurburgring GP but changing the weather I solved the problem, some tracks are worst in fps with a specific weather, just changue that and you will don't have problems.

I have a friend that has PC2 in computer with ultra settings and God, the game is gorgeus, FPS, textures and lighting are a lot better but you need to spend a lot of money to have a computer that can run this game on ultra.

 

[SestoScudo]

Pc2 is an ambitious game. The stuff it has put some serious punishment on the consoles.

Gt5 was also an ambitious game that made the ps3 suffer serious punishments. Its disappointing how those features of gt5 were dropped like dynamic time and weather. I hope future project cars games dont compromise or drop features.

 

[FOG-Smokebeer]

Pc2 is an ambitious game. The stuff it has put some serious punishment on the consoles.

Gt5 was also an ambitious game that made the ps3 suffer serious punishments. Its disappointing how those features of gt5 were dropped like dynamic time and weather. I hope future project cars games dont compromise or drop features.

I remember when pc1 was going to come to ps3 hehe

 

[Wolfe]

Since the 3.0 patch weeks ago, only playing offline, none of the remaining issues have impacted my enjoyment of the game very much either. However, I will admit it helps to be familiar with some of the pitfalls.

That includes how I've more or less given up on 25+ car grids on my PS4 Slim, but with 5-19 other cars in a variety of weather conditions, the game performs just fine at least 90% of the time. And I am sensitive to input problems or nasty framerate fluctuations. It's also a supreme sim for just hotlapping or drifting. No AI issues or lobby disconnections there.

 

[CodeCmdr]

I mainly enjoy multiplayer racing, and for that, Project Cars 2 is a complete failure. The process of finding a race is really tedious and inefficient, and it discourages people from trying out different tracks and classes. All the community plays is GT3 on the same 5 tracks. In Gran Turismo Sport, even though there are fewer tracks, there's actually more variety because the matchmaking system encourages people to play all of them. PCars2 also has no matchmaking (and its DR/SR system is a joke), so I hardly ever find races with equally fast/slow drivers.

But it's not just the game design that's really bad, the implementation is full of technical faults. Multiplayer sessions crash frequently, and there's game-breaking lag whenever people join a session.

All the great stuff about PCars2, such as dynamic time of day, weather, track conditions, and its superior physics, is worthless due to all the game design flaws, bugs, and performance problems. Unfortunately, SMS don't fix a lot of the issues. Even their CEO denies a lot of the bugs; e.g. he told me that "blue screen" crashes on the PS4 due to game-version mismatches in multiplayer sessions wasn't a bug.

 

[David Brooks]

There's been issues like the save setup bug which has been fixed. Now with the next patch hopefully the issues that have been plaguing the online community gets resolved.

It hasn't been fixed. It's been morphed into a slightly different version of the same problem. Yes you can click save over existing now (which was the original bug). But if you click save to a new slot and select a slot that is already occupied (to overwite it) it is hit and miss as to whether it actually saves.

Plus there are issues where if you choose save to a new slot the previous setup you had gets moved from the track specific location to the all tracks location. And potentially that violates the naming rules. That is, you can't have a set up saved against Spa for example called High Wing and then save another setup for the same car against Monza also call High Wing. I have ended up using a naming convention of prefixing the track name into the setup name, but then this kind of defeats the point of having track specific 'folders' and leaves me with not many characters to describe the setup. And don't get me started on that editable description field. That has a mind of its own and is completely unreliable.

In short it is still broken and needlessly clunky.

PS love the game. It just frustrates me sometimes.

 

[Sentry87]

It hasn't been fixed. It's been morphed into a slightly different version of the same problem. Yes you can click save over existing now (which was the original bug). But if you click save to a new slot and select a slot that is already occupied (to overwite it) it is hit and miss as to whether it actually saves.

Plus there are issues where if you choose save to a new slot the previous setup you had gets moved from the track specific location to the all tracks location. And potentially that violates the naming rules. That is, you can't have a set up saved against Spa for example called High Wing and then save another setup for the same car against Monza also call High Wing. I have ended up using a naming convention of prefixing the track name into the setup name, but then this kind of defeats the point of having track specific 'folders' and leaves me with not many characters to describe the setup. And don't get me started on that editable description field. That has a mind of its own and is completely unreliable.

In short it is still broken and needlessly clunky.

PS love the game. It just frustrates me sometimes.

Understandable, I don't use track specific setups. Just a high down force and low down force setup for each car. Save setups works for me.

 

[Wolfe]

@CodeCmdr -- I love this game, but I've taken it to heart from the rest of you that the online experience as of now is far from where it should be, and I'm sorry for those of you who are primarily interested in multiplayer.

It doesn't surprise me, though, that multiplayer is biased toward easy and fast cars on what I assume must be easy and fast tracks. It's always been that way in most racing games I've ever taken online.

 

[Scaff]

I mainly enjoy multiplayer racing, and for that, Project Cars 2 is a complete failure. The process of finding a race is really tedious and inefficient, and it discourages people from trying out different tracks and classes. All the community plays is GT3 on the same 5 tracks. In Gran Turismo Sport, even though there are fewer tracks, there's actually more variety because the matchmaking system encourages people to play all of them. PCars2 also has no matchmaking (and its DR/SR system is a joke), so I hardly ever find races with equally fast/slow drivers.

But it's not just the game design that's really bad, the implementation is full of technical faults. Multiplayer sessions crash frequently, and there's game-breaking lag whenever people join a session.

All the great stuff about PCars2, such as dynamic time of day, weather, track conditions, and its superior physics, is worthless due to all the game design flaws, bugs, and performance problems. Unfortunately, SMS don't fix a lot of the issues. Even their CEO denies a lot of the bugs; e.g. he told me that "blue screen" crashes on the PS4 due to game-version mismatches in multiplayer sessions wasn't a bug.

While I agree that Project Cars 2 really does need matchmaking, I don't agree that the DR/SR system is a joke, if PC2 had matchmaking its a system that shows a lot more potential that its currently being used for.

I've also found that one antidote to the lack of rooms (aside from GT3 at Spa or Monza) is to either join a league or simply start a room yourself, as I've found whenever I do (Formula Rookie at a range of tracks being a favorite of mine) you get quite a few people joining them who are also looking for something different. Its not as good as a robust matchmaking system, but its certainly an option.

The 'game-breaking' lag when people join a session is no such thing either; its annoying to say the least, but its a short stutter if someone joins during qualifying or practice, and has no effect on a race at all. Its far from game-breaking. I find the number of glitches and exploits (pit lane glitch, tyre grip glitch, tyre re-gen glitch) in GTS to be far closer to 'game-breaking' than a bit of stutter when someone joins a lobby!

As far as overall issues on-line go, I find PC2 to be no worse than GTS. They both have issues, both crash out at times, I've personally had far more blue-screen crashes in GTS on-line than PC2, with less on-line time in GTS as well. The GTS forums also show this is not something that's limited to me either.

I certainly wish that PC2 had no bugs, issues or problems at all; however that's also unfortunately an unrealistic expectation (as every other title around demonstrates), but I do see them working to fix those issues and bugs.

 

[GearBoxBandit]

My problems with this game:

- The whole setup thing is so buggy and therefore pretty useless for me to get into it. It is just so frustrating and i really don't see it worth wasting my time with it.
- The penalty system is a complete joke. I don't know how many times i got rear ended by the A.I and received a penalty on top of it for doing nothing.
- Multi Class Races are great especially those with GT3 GTE and LMP2. The Problem is that the LMP2 class is only one and a half seconds faster than the GTE cars. That's really not realistic and makes multi class races with the A.I complete useless. Also the A.I is struggling to get through slower traffic which results in LMP2 cars driving behind GTE cars for several laps.
- Half of the standard setups i tried are undriveable. You can't tell me that it is normal to loose the rear end of a car by braking with just 50 % pressure.
And that happens to me really a lot.
- Game speeding up in slow in corners. I don't know if it just happens to me but in my first race in this game after release i witnessed this bug on COTA on the first turn. After entering the corner the game speeds up to nearly twice the speed making the car uncontrollable with cars going side by side. This bug happens on a lot of tracks with sharp angle turns. Drove it yesterday 4 months after release again and this big still appears and got me seriously furious.
- Pit strategys the same as the whole setup thing.
- Skip to the end of quali session has the same bug as its predecessor.

As these are only some of the bugs or problems with this game (In Singleplayer Mode) i have to deal with there is no point for me to get into the multiplayer of this game resulting in even more frustration. I know that it is nearly impossible to create a bug free software but there are so many bugs still there 4 months after release and that's really a shame. I have the feeling this software was never tested on PS4 before releasing it. And that is really a shame because the overall game had a much higher potential of becoming the best racing game which frustrates me even more.

 

[Harry Freq]

Did I read the other day 10yrs of Iracing ?? and there still working on tyre models etc

Iracing is more of a service than a game in those 10 years SMS have released a number of racing titles. Two completely different business models.

 

[Scaff]

- The whole setup thing is so buggy and therefore pretty useless for me to get into it. It is just so frustrating and i really don't see it worth wasting my time with it.

Its certainly annoying, but it can be worked around (shouldn't need to, but it can).

- The penalty system is a complete joke. I don't know how many times i got rear ended by the A.I and received a penalty on top of it for doing nothing.

what aggression level are you running, as personally only found this if you set the aggression to full on 'Senna on a bad day'.

- Multi Class Races are great especially those with GT3 GTE and LMP2. The Problem is that the LMP2 class is only one and a half seconds faster than the GTE cars. That's really not realistic and makes multi class races with the A.I complete useless. Also the A.I is struggling to get through slower traffic which results in LMP2 cars driving behind GTE cars for several laps.

Agree, LMP2 should be quicker than the GTE, to the tune of around ten seconds at something like Silverstone.

- Half of the standard setups i tried are undriveable. You can't tell me that it is normal to loose the rear end of a car by braking with just 50 % pressure.
And that happens to me really a lot.

When are you changing gear?

Its most likely not the braking, but shifting down too early and compression braking locking up the rears, rev matching can only go so far and if you brake into too low a gear, at too high a road speed this will happen. PC2 is one of the few titles to actually get this right, AC is very similar and GTS allows you to abuse the crap out of it.

- Game speeding up in slow in corners. I don't know if it just happens to me but in my first race in this game after release i witnessed this bug on COTA on the first turn. After entering the corner the game speeds up to nearly twice the speed making the car uncontrollable with cars going side by side. This bug happens on a lot of tracks with sharp angle turns. Drove it yesterday 4 months after release again and this big still appears and got me seriously furious.

I've never personally come across this one at all, any chance of a video?

- Pit strategys the same as the whole setup thing.

Agree

- Skip to the end of quali session has the same bug as its predecessor.

Nope, this is fixed and was fixed on the last patch. I commonly skip to the end on both practice and qualifying and have not had the bug hit me once since the last patch.

 

[fernandito]

When are you changing gear?

Its most likely not the braking, but shifting down too early and compression braking locking up the rears, rev matching can only go so far and if you brake into too low a gear, at too high a road speed this will happen. PC2 is one of the few titles to actually get this right, AC is very similar and GTS allows you to abuse the crap out of it.

Allow me to adding as a follow up to the "you might be downshifting too soon", which is another common reason as well for some people spinning around when decelerating.

All those having trouble with braking and losing the rear before entering the corner, please check the engine braking setting in the ecu/engine/gearing tab.

Most of the times devs have left it set to very harsh parameters like 1, and even zero, resulting in too much engine braking when you reduce speed, with the inevitable outcome of a spin afterwards. If a car has 10 engine braking positions, then go for a 5 or 6 and you'll see how much the car behaviour under deceleration improves when braking. Does it have 8 in total?, then go for a nice 5. Does it have 5 only?, then go for 3 or so.

You can also try nerfing brakes strength a little bit, and displacing the braking power to the front a little more too, although if you do this last then tail braking with racing cars such as GT cars on slicks won't be as effective.

Some tiny adjustment on the coast ramp will also help under the most extreme cases. This will do it for the Mercedes amg gt3, on loose setups, just as one of those "extreme" examples.

Correct tyre pressure for each type of tyre and always taking into account track temperature, which in my opinion it is the most important parameter to check before tuning everything, is also capital. For braking hard and not losing control too.

 

[eran0004]

Pc2 is an ambitious game. The stuff it has put some serious punishment on the consoles.

Gt5 was also an ambitious game that made the ps3 suffer serious punishments. Its disappointing how those features of gt5 were dropped like dynamic time and weather. I hope future project cars games dont compromise or drop features.

Good luck with that. As long as you have a limited hardware you need to compromise. For example, GT5 compromised by having low anti-aliasing, limiting the field to 16 cars and not doing motion blur. To mention a few things.

 

[fernandito]

What I don't like in project cars 2 is te behaviour of the other open wheels that are not the x. In pc1 openwheelers like FB were a blast, regardless it was more real to life or not.

Are there any issues with the skick tyres on fc, fr and fa, both hard and softs?, is there anything particuar on these cars about the other setup stuff when using default loose?, Competition tyres still feel unsafe.

Is it a downforce thing?, i've tried that too, I mean going equal in the front and rear, and the fa on slicks continuesto be a danger the moment you turn the wheel a little bit "further". These cars do suck indeed, b ut the x of course. With that one you go on rails. Tyes "issue" then?

 

[Scaff]

What I don't like in project cars 2 is te behaviour of the other open wheels that are not the x. In pc1 openwheelers like FB were a blast, regardless it was more real to life or not.

Are there any issues with the skick tyres on fc, fr and fa, both hard and softs?, is there anything particuar on these cars about the other setup stuff when using default loose?, Competition tyres still feel unsafe.

Is it a downforce thing?, i've tried that too, I mean going equal in the front and rear, and the fa on slicks continuesto be a danger the moment you turn the wheel a little bit "further". These cars do suck indeed, b ut the x of course. With that one you go on rails. Tyes "issue" then?

Unless the track temp is really cold you should avoid running softs.

It may also be worth trying the stable set-up rather than loose, as an understeer bias to the car is going to help, which is what I tend to run with most open wheel cars in PC2.

I've not run the FA, B or C in a while, but have just restarted career with Formula Rookie and have no problem with them at all, and done quite a bit in the Formula Renault and again found no issue with it either.





One thing to remember however is that with any high downforce car, the limits are far higher, so going over them doesn't require a great deal, so in some circumstances taking the wrong line, hitting a curb or steering a bit more can result in it biting.

 

[coltsjugg]

I havent had a problem with Project Cars 2 in a while. Though today a guy did a 1 37 at daytona road, in a GTE Ford, and wondered why i left. The top time in gt1 timetrials is 1.35?

 

[adam thompson]

I need to play project cars 2 more hehhe. I have both project cars 1 and 2 on PS4, limited edition 1 and collectors 2, great games, fantastic track lists and car lists a lot of variety. I play with controller on both and I play Gran Turismo and Forza a lot more and going from them to project cars it’s so different and I struggle with project cars 1 I used to play it heaps and do well and now ahhh I dunno maybe playing with settings to much. Project cars 2 I found some good controller settings off super Gt on YouTube and it really helps physics again are just different. I’ve never had any bugs breaking the game in 1 or 2. I really gotta do my career mode project cars 2 as I race against the a.i and offline mode. Great games though can’t wait to see what other car packs we get and I used to wake up early with project cars 1 just to download the new monthly car pack heheh just after 12 am lol .

 

[dQuim]

I'm on a standard PS4 and I've given up on races with 20+ cars as I just don't think the console can handle it. I was doing the Lamborghini Super Trofeo career race at Road America and I'd say the FPS was dropping down to 10 on the first lap, and then every subsequent time I drove down the pit straight it would drop down to around 20 or so. Then, because performance is taking such a hit, the dynamic resolution switching kicks in to put you on a lower resolution. So, not only is the framerate suffering, the visuals are taking a hit too.

Curiously, FPS in practice and qualifying sessions isn't anywhere near as bad as race sessions. Maybe its because the cars are all spread out and not bunched together like they are at the start of a race session?

Hoping for more optimisations in future patches. Not holding my breath though as I think the base PS4 is operating at the peak of it's powers at the moment.

 

[Cluck]

I havent had a problem with Project Cars 2 in a while. Though today a guy did a 1 37 at daytona road, in a GTE Ford, and wondered why i left. The top time in gt1 timetrials is 1.35?

1m37 in the Ford GTLM? I'll happily stand corrected but I don't believe there is a chance in hell that it was a legitimate laptime - that's 5s faster than the current WR on the PC leaderboards. Now I know it's possible to run faster, in certain conditions, in a race than in time-trial but not by 5 seconds. Are you sure that this person didn't cut right through the bus-stop?

 

[The_American]

- Multi Class Races are great especially those with GT3 GTE and LMP2. The Problem is that the LMP2 class is only one and a half seconds faster than the GTE cars. That's really not realistic and makes multi class races with the A.I complete useless. Also the A.I is struggling to get through slower traffic which results in LMP2 cars driving behind GTE cars for several laps.

Make sure to use AI strength > 80 as this will make the AI use low downforce aero on high speed tracks like Daytona and Le Mans. This may help increase their speeds. Also I sometimes substitute LMP1 for LMP2 in a multiclass race. LMP1 will fly by any modern GT cars on the banking and straights, no problem with speed differential then.

 

[FLX1981]

I got gifted pcars 2, had one relatively enjoyable evening with it, then it killed my T300.

This appropriately sums up my experience with SMS games in general as well.

 

[Raging Bull]

As the three wise men would say, "Ambitious, but rubbish". Maybe that's a little harsh, as there are some good things about PC2. Unfortunately for me, the bad things overshadow the good.

I really tried and tried to like this game, but I finally gave up. Maybe they will fix the issue's, but until than, I have found a fantastic driving game to play.........

And that fantastic game is the original Project Cars. I am finally having a great races again.

 

[Sentry87]

I just find it impossible to go back to pc1 after playing pc2. Just everything is better about it. Track count, car count, physics, ffb, weather, multiclass racing, a.i., animated pit stops, race engineer. Like I said, if this game gets the same continued support as the original you'll enjoy it better than pc1. Remember the pc1 you're playing now is 10 patches of fixes. Pc2 we haven't even gotten our 4th.

I'e had some great races, 1 hour sprints to 12 hour endurance. I've also had some bad races which were entirely my fault. Running in the top 5, ten hours into a race only to put the car into a wall trying to force my way past a back marker. This is racing.

 

[Raging Bull]

I just find it impossible to go back to pc1 after playing pc2. Just everything is better about it. Track count, car count, physics, ffb, weather, multiclass racing, a.i., animated pit stops, race engineer. Like I said, if this game gets the same continued support as the original you'll enjoy it better than pc1. Remember the pc1 you're playing now is 10 patches of fixes. Pc2 we haven't even gotten our 4th.

I'e had some great races, 1 hour sprints to 12 hour endurance. I've also had some bad races which were entirely my fault. Running in the top 5, ten hours into a race only to put the car into a wall trying to force my way past a back marker. This is racing.

It's true, PC1 wasn't too good until all the patches it got. I do hope that PC2 ends up the same way. But in the meantime I just can't play it anymore.

With PC2, I just can't seem to have a good race. Especially endurance races (Which I like the best). The AI is always twitching like someone who doesn't know what their doing playing on a controller, AI crashing into me as well as other AI cars (And I don't mean in a good realistic way), playing for an hour or more setting up a car only to do a race in the same exact conditions and have the car behave completely different, etc...

I know some people will think it's just me, but I don't have these issues on PC1, or Assetto Corsa.

The live track is great, but I can't help feel that that's what killed this game. To much game power and focus on that and not everything else. My ideal game would be PC1 with the new driving physics (same AI though), manual pit stops with pit people, being able to see the headlights in the rear view mirror, time change more accurate, and of course the new cars and new tracks. That would have been a perfect PC2 game. I feel what they tried to do should have been a PC3 game on a new console system. But that's just my opinion.

Trust me, I really, really want PC2 to be good, and I hope at some point it will be.

 

[Sentry87]

I'll give you that, LT 3.0 could've benefited from more advanced console hardware, don't believe pc has some of the issues consoles are having atm. Let's hope console version of pc2 can be further optimized over the span of the next year

 

[Hilazza]

It's true, PC1 wasn't too good until all the patches it got. I do hope that PC2 ends up the same way. But in the meantime I just can't play it anymore.

With PC2, I just can't seem to have a good race. Especially endurance races (Which I like the best). The AI is always twitching like someone who doesn't know what their doing playing on a controller, AI crashing into me as well as other AI cars (And I don't mean in a good realistic way), playing for an hour or more setting up a car only to do a race in the same exact conditions and have the car behave completely different, etc...

I know some people will think it's just me, but I don't have these issues on PC1, or Assetto Corsa.

The live track is great, but I can't help feel that that's what killed this game. To much game power and focus on that and not everything else. My ideal game would be PC1 with the new driving physics (same AI though), manual pit stops with pit people, being able to see the headlights in the rear view mirror, time change more accurate, and of course the new cars and new tracks. That would have been a perfect PC2 game. I feel what they tried to do should have been a PC3 game on a new console system. But that's just my opinion.

Trust me, I really, really want PC2 to be good, and I hope at some point it will be.

I feel Livetrack is probably the best thing about the game. PC1 was too static for me. Even in wet conditions it felt like nothing was changing.

I thought this was supposed to be a simulator. Well Racing is also about dealing with variability and changes.
Too many times if not most of the time in PC1, I didn't have to change my Qualy setup from my race setup. Now from the beginning I always make a race setup even in qualifying. The tyre pressures, temps and camber now have a much more realistic approach which help when it comes to race setups and dealing with Livetrack.

Plus the biggest thing is livetrack in wet weather. Its frankly brilliantly done. The only exception where they need to fix it is the occurence of absolutely massive puddles on a lot of tracks that would have better drainage systems.