F1 2016 - NOT a wargame

[JudgeDredd]

Excellent news

Hey guys,

We've just set a brand new patch live, you can find the notes below.

Added the Master difficulty option to bridge the gap between Expert and Legend.
Changed the tyre rules so the tyre you start the race on counts as mandatory for the race.
Corrected a few translation issues.
Fixed a bug that could cause race sessions to occasionally never end.
Fixed a number of crash bugs.

Anything you spot that isn't the way it should be, please let us know.

I KNEW there was something wrong with the jump from Expert to Legend!  :))

[JudgeDredd]

If it's any consolation I just qualified 22nd at Catalunya  :'(

It's going to be a lonely race  :)

[Grim.Reaper]

Glad to see the patch...but at least for me, unless they put in a "super very easy" mode, that won't impact me anytime soon:)

[Rekim]

I put in my first couple of hours over the weekend and had a great time. It turned out that my antiquated Logitech racing wheel is supported and appears to be up to the task. I love the player aide which displays the optimal driving line and breaking zones. It really helps with learning unfamiliar tracks, which is all of them at this point.

Anyone have advice for how to setup MDF controls on a racing wheel. I have 6 buttons to work with, minus one for DRS.

[jomni]

 You may also need comms / radio control of that matters.

I'd like to thank JD for sharing his thoughts and promoting this game.  I'm only exposed to F1 via the Singapore Grand Prix but I can foresee this game is a real time sink.  I think I have F1 2014 but this one is really interesting and rewarding even if you are at the bottom the pack. It's definitely good on beginners with assists turned on. Practice programs are fun themselves and teach you to be a better driver.  You spend more time practicing than racing. My goal is to eventually remove that racing path assist and increase AI difficulty to a comfortable but challenging level. 

Sochi is a turning track compared to Bahraina and Shanghai.  Tracks are narrow and walled.  Would be pretty scary with lots of cars at the same time.

I finally managed to perfectly nail the track familiarity program. And almost perfected the tire program. Doing the full 100% time allotment helps.  Practice (and race) time is too short at 25%.   Not enough laps to turn it to muscle memory.  And during the race, not enough laps to recover from a pit stop.

[JudgeDredd]

My pleasure.  O0

The game really shines in full race weekend. I like to use ALL the time given to me but I realise not everyone has the luxury of time nor wants to spend that long on one game (6.5hrs?) so you can skip or fast forward any of the sessions and even end them.

And there's always the mid-session save...so doing full race distance doesn't have to be 2 hours...you can do as much or as little as you like. Like I said, if you do use the mid-session save, I'd highly recommend saving at the beginning of a long straight and when coming back in, jumping onto Time Trial for a few laps to get yourself "in the zone".

In the last iteration (and all previous games) I ran in 50% mode during the race. It's harder to recover from a Safety Car situation or a Virtual Safety Car on anything less than full race distance.

I put in my first couple of hours over the weekend and had a great time. It turned out that my antiquated Logitech racing wheel is supported and appears to be up to the task. I love the player aide which displays the optimal driving line and breaking zones. It really helps with learning unfamiliar tracks, which is all of them at this point.

Anyone have advice for how to setup MDF controls on a racing wheel. I have 6 buttons to work with, minus one for DRS.

Glad your old wheel is back in business.

I use, predominantly, 4 buttons and the D-Pad on my wheel.
The two buttons behind the wheel are the gear shifters (obviously)
The four buttons over on the right hand side of the wheel are used for DRS, looking back, bringing up the Comms menu and brining up the car status (fuel, tyre temps, tyre wear etc)
The D-Pad is used to navigate the menus

As mentioned previously, Comms is really best done through a headset because activating comms by a button to navigate the menu is awkward - there's just not enough time (5 seconds I think) to look down the list, find the right one, use the D-Pad to navigate to that option and press the button to communicate...MUCH easier saying the phrase.

I've attached a list of the "spoken word" used when pressing the comms key. Pretty much what it says in the menu you bring up, but I find it handy to have a printed list so I don't have to remember or even look at the on screen list.

I find using the practice sessions very, very useful. At Sochi, I was waaaay off the pace because I didn't know the track. I was locking brakes, running off the track, crashing into other cars, too fast into corners, too slow out of them. After the 3 practice sessions, I qualified 3rd. It's incredibly rewarding to get that progress through the weekend.

[jomni]

I think saving during pit runs would be best.

Thanks for the headset suggestion

[Rekim]

Thanks for the info JD. I had no idea voice commands were an option. I have use a headset so explore this further.

As for the MDF, do you use them to make car adjustments on the fly, or monitoring only? Not sure one could be competitive at the higher difficultly levels without adjustments (brakes, engine mode, etc).

[JudgeDredd]

I use the MFD to display tyre wear for determining whether I can pull a few more laps out the tyres before I need to stop, though generally you can tell your tyres are wearing...I think it;'s modelled very well in the game - I can definitely feel when my tyres are getting old.

I also use it extensively to change the fuel mixture - often moving from Standard to Rich and occasionally moving to Lean to build up a reserve that I may need for a fast in lap and fast out lap.

I haven't changed brake bias and generally never do. I'm playing through my career with (for the most part) one of the offered setups with some minor changes (mostly wing). Next season, I plan to do some testing of changing the setups to see how they affect my car.

I would like the game to simulate testing...so giving a few extra tracks to use for testing and limiting the testing time and I'd like that within the career mode too. Maybe in a future installment of the game.

[Grim.Reaper]

Echo other people's comments....lot of good advice in this thread and if I didn't see it, would have never purchased.....

Still a lot of learning to do, but no regrets at all...someday I will actually complete a race itself:)

[Grim.Reaper]

By the way, started to remove some of the assists....didn't realize how helpful they were until I no longer had them.....reducing traction control was ok, but then I started on breaking assistance and I couldn't keep my car on the track:)  Gotta practice with that....

[Grim.Reaper]

Kicking butt tonight!  Got my lap times down to 1:37, leading the field so far.....starting to get the hang of things.

[JudgeDredd]

I just raced Catalunya in Spain last night.

Example of tenacity...

I qualified 22nd (because I had put the difficulty up!). I raced full race distance - 66 laps - in the rain. It was throwing it down for the whole race. On wets for the entire race with 1 pit stop on lap 35. I was lapped twice by Hamilton - and pretty much lapped twice by all the drivers up to something like 10th place and my team mate lapped me once too.

And I finished the race. It took around two hours (1:48 per lap). I wanted to give up. I don't like Catalunya anyway and the weather made it really difficult - and add on seeing your team mate lap you  :'(

Driving in the rain requires a huge amount of concentration because it's just so hard to race in those conditions.

[JudgeDredd]

Meant to say in the video above that Raikonnen tagged me on lap 34 - twat - but he did have to come in for a front wing change 

Also if you watch the steering wheel, I'm hack-sawing at the wheel to keep it in a straight line - and that mirrors my movements on my wheel...it was that hard to keep the car on the ground.

I would also say the wet track is well modelled. Go off the racing line and you lose a lot of traction. Stay on the racing line and it's slightly better...a bit more grip but not like being on rails.

I pitted on lap 34

Also - I said it was going to be a lonely race. It wasn't...I had lots of blue flags to keep me company  :(

[JudgeDredd]

By the way, started to remove some of the assists....didn't realize how helpful they were until I no longer had them.....reducing traction control was ok, but then I started on breaking assistance and I couldn't keep my car on the track:)  Gotta practice with that....

And they will tumble away.

The reason the braking assistance change is so much more noticeably is because it's on or off iirc. Traction Control assistance can be reduced. Switch Traction Control completely off and you may well notice the difference.

Immersion will come with removing those...but I'd always recommend keeping as many on as keeps you entertained on the track...it's a game afterall - not a challenge in patience.

For myself, I don't take the cockpit view...I take the T-Bar view. That's my preference. Maybe next season I'll take in the cockpit view and embrace it. The T-Bar view is easier to learn circuits because you have a better idea of what's ahead. I also have Traction Control on medium, though I'm toying with removing that next race.

The other thing I have been able to do is reduce the difficulty from Legendary to the new Master level. I'll see how that goes. I've got Monaco next...that'll be a tough one