Feedback from new user
After getting to my third season I have a few pieces of feedback. This includes pro and the recent 1.6.2 update on iOS
1) The lap counters seem to be a little off, Spa has 40 laps which is close to its real counterpart (44) while Monaco has 19 - about 25% of its counterpart (78). I understand not wanting to wait the entire 78 laps since I prefer the slow simulation but some races could be extended and others reduced to meet more with realistic lap counts.
2) The aggression meter should change into perhaps two different settings for the player to have a little bit more variety in their race strategy. I propose instead of a bar that goes from 0-100 where conserve will save both fuel and tyres, regular is a standard running and aggressive will wreck tyres and use fuel that you have an option of a MIX-1, MIX-2 or MIX-3 for fuel (1- use less, 2-regular, 3-use more) and the aggression allows you to decide on how aggressive your style will affect your tyres keeping the same conserve, regular, aggressive 0-100 mix. This gives you the ability to conserve fuel but push hard or use fuel to gain a speed boost while saving tyres because it's too early to change.
3) The option tyres actually seem slower in the race. I can start a race on the prime and go full aggressive until my first stop and go from 18th to 4th. Then leaders like HAM and ALO will pit and put on prime while i put on option and lose out even when i stay aggressive.
4)2014 season - It is too easy to get top10 positions when you have just the aero upgrade in the "lower" teams like Cat and Maru. I was regularly getting podiums when racing for Saub with two upgrades and now I'm leading the championship with 3 wins and 2 2nd places with Lotus with all 4 upgrades. Only HAM has beaten me thanks to his team getting the exhaust upgrade. The game is just too easy because of the amount of cash coming in or the upgrades are too good or the opponents are far too weak.
5) The amount of overtaking is insane. It's hard to keep up with who is where as maybe two cars drop behind me and two get ahead. What is going on?
6) Pro- Could we have some stock or 'old school' car liveries (example being the Mansell era Williams or Alonso's Renault from 05/06) to change up the aesthetic.
7) following on, the car graphics are so nice it's a shame we don't see them often enough.
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Kinichie commented
In no way was I trying to complain about the choices you made regarding point 1 with the lap counts for various races.
My current design of names and teams is very much a Formula Legend set. Fangio and Schumacher racing, with Prost, Senna and Clark also among the mix.
Perhaps some of the old school tracks can make an appearance in the Oldschool mode? Buenos Aires, Adelaide, Imola and Estoril?
Can I make a suggestion in regards to the 'Red Ass Ring' - Can its name be changed to its former name of Österreichring or just Spielberg Ring. I don't really like that Red Bull have commercial rights of the circuit but I don't particularly like being the 'King of Red Ass' either :P
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Wow - thanks for all the feedback Kinichie. Firstly - the game is meant to be "fun" rather than a true-to-life F1 simulation, so there are some things that have a random element to mix them up a bit - the downside of that is that it produces some weird/illogical outputs sometimes.
1) As you probably worked out all laps take the same amount of time in FL, so making Monaco 78 laps would make it a much longer length than Spa! I'm looking into adding variable lap lengths depending on the circuit, but it's not a high priority right now.
2) I like the idea of a fuel mix - I'll think about how I can incorporate.
3) Options certainly shouldn't be slower than primes - by default they are 0.5s per lap faster, but of course wear, fuel load and driver aggression can impact the performance on a lap-by-lap basis.
4) I'm working on balancing the difficulty as seasons progress. The AI upgrades are only brand new and it looks like I need to be more generous handing them out. Also working on another plan to increase the intelligence of the AI cars by using the strategies employed by real game players - feeding them back into the AI cars.
5) On the overtaking.... remember it's over a whole lap (and a lot can happen on a lap - see the last lap of Montreal on the weekend!). This can be exacerbated by the not-so-smart AI deciding to put a group of cars into conserve mode while the guy behind is put into full aggressive mode, then vice versa the next lap - resulting in some weird results. As I said in (4), I'm working on a plan to overcome this.
6) Good idea with the old-school liveries. I'm actually looking at recreating specific seasons, or "eras" including the tracks & rules (e.g. refuelling!).
7) Heh - this is something I was thinking about recently! I want to find a way to feature the car graphics more prominently - I think my artist has done a great job and agree they feel a bit wasted right now.
Once again, thanks for the detailed feedback - I really appreciate it.
Nathan.