F1 competitive racing will die without anti cheat

[Wollcott]

Its gotten to a point where cheating in leagues has been so frequent, you cant do anything against it anymore. 

in this game its impossible to be flat out while upshifting into 4th gear in a low traction zone and usually this is the only way to determine with 100% certainty if someone is cheating. 

I do not understand how it is even possible to release racing games that are being played competitively by thousands (well, at least used to be, now the game is dead and nobody plays it)

and not include anti cheat software. For real, Codemasters and EA should not be continuing this series, ever since EA took over, competitive players have ran away from the game in huge numbers as handling, realism etc gets worse every year. 

i recently played iracing and what can i say: the F1 car in the F1 22 game is so far of the reality, its actually unbelievable. F1 2020 handling is actually closer to the F1 22 car than this years F1 game. just think about that. 

Online needs an anti cheat if this game series wants to survive. its enough!

[mariohomoh]

@Wollcott By "low" traction zone I guess you mean heavy or straight out "traction zone"? Sorry for being nitpicky 🙃
Traction zone is usually referred to parts of a circuit where the car is under heavy acceleration. Being F1 cars, their performance coming out of such slow corners will naturally be traction limited as the car does not benefit from the downforce and tons of extra grip that comes at higher speeds.

Back to topic, the game definitely needs better tools to and features to combat cheating and exploits. Not an easy thing to do when you need to keep a bunch of paths open to support multiple platforms and peripherals, but it's not like we don't have that already some other titles.

Regarding number of players, I'd love to see it actually laid out. My impression is that F1 is still trying to land on the eSports scene, as in it is still growing or consolidating its market. F1 games has yet to carve a place in the simracing community - so comparisons to ACC and iRacing have to consider that they're not even in the same consumer market yet.

And if they want their competitive scene to be broader and include pad users, then there's an even longer road ahead. The multiplayer experience leaves a lot to be desired, connectivity issues are still too prevalent.
I mention this broadening of the "competitive community" because the eSports scene of even established franchises like iRacing and ACC still needs to convince partners with deeper pockets to grow. Many still view it as too much of a niche in the videogame community for it to figure in the same echelon as other esports titles.
So Codemasters having a bigger and broader player base could be a good asset if they manage to leverage it better. That, and the F1 brand, obviously.

[Wollcott]

Yea i meant heavy hahah. 

Its definitely true and my impression as well that they are still trying to get into the esport scene but so far it is failing. If you look at vieweship its gone down by 50% compared to the 2020 E-sport season (yes, covid + lockdowns have an effect)

Also if you look at the esport players none of them is really happy with the game and also how the scene is run. F1 Esports is not really a serious competition, mainly to the nature of the game being very unrealistic but also things such as no LAN or exploits like fps glitch or cheats. 

Regarding overall competitive player base F1 was on a peak when 2021 came out. We also strongly noticed this in sign ups and new members on multiple bigger leagues we have to do with. 

This peak has been falling ever since the massive online issues a couple weeks into the 2021 game cycle with de sync etc going on and hit a new low couple months ago. Obviously this has nothing to do with cheats but mainly the issues of the game itself. 

Of course comparisons to real sims is difficult, but right now FOM and EA as we already mentioned try to grow bigger into the esport scene. But its a failing road as there are no pyramid scheme levels of competition. Its basically a Super League. If they want to establish themselves as a proper sim racing game with strong esport support and potential, they need to completely renew the type of game. 

Now pad inclusion isnt really an issue i think. Ive been on the pad until 2021 mostly and until then it was the superior device. I now since 22 vibration (which made the pad too good) is pretty much gone and gives no feedback anymore so overall both devices are pretty much the exact same in the way it gives feedback. 

which is still horribly bad compared to other racing games. 

Overall right now I do believe that the esport scene in the f1 game will die sooner or later as more and more drivers start to publicly criticize the game, which they havent done before. Alternative is still RF2 which has a good F1 support nowadays, especially since the F1 Arcades opened up. And you can even see most of them drivers playing different racing games as well more frequently, some have already taken part in competitive races and some have been very good actually. 

[mariohomoh]

@WollcottWe're mostly in accord here. The franchise needs to improve in some rudimentary ways like online infrastructure, while keeping on improving on the good progress they've made already in other aspects. If F1 23 comes in again with a strong focus on their "social" microtransactions features, that will be worrying.

As in, if their marketing is all about "look how you can have your own personal hub" instead of "look how we've improved the online experience and career modes", and we have to wait for release day to actually see if they've smoothed things out... Let's hope for the best.

When I noted pad users earlier, I did not mean to compare peripherals. Just player bases.
iRacing is PC only. ACC is mainly PC, then current gen – last gen version has ceased development and support. Both technically can be played with a controller, but realistically it's all wheel users. So if the competitive/esports scene will grow, that's the pool of potential players they've got.
Relatively speaking, Codemasters has a huge player base. And they've got the F1 brand, arguably the biggest one in motorsports. So if they find a way to leverage these assets and lay out a framework to draw in more players into esports, that's great potential for growth.

rFactor 2 has just blundered big time with their 24h Le Mans Virtual event. I wouldn't bet on that horse 😉

Edit: Regarding their recent fiasco:

F1 champ Max Verstappen ragequits virtual Le Mans race, calls it a 'clown show' 

Verstappen slams Virtual Le Mans “clown show” after disconnection costs victory