PC1 Finally given up with career mode

[Jonathan McLeod]

After putting over 50 hours into the Project Cars career mode, starting all the way from tier 8 and the go karts, I've finally given up with it and deleted my save. At it's best this game is very good, sometimes the driving sensation feels absolutely spot on, but it comes with so much frustration.

A few of the issues I encountered:

• AI are still clearly not affected by the weather conditions in the same way as the player is. Which means if I have the game set at a fun difficulty for dry conditions, as soon as it rains I have no change. The AI drive far more quickly than is humanly possible in the wet.
  
• The AI is abysmal. Some of the worst AI I have ever seen in a racing game. Seriously, Geoff Crammond's GP3 had better AI back in 1999 than this game has.
  
• It feels like every single race in the career mode it starts raining during. I did a quick count of around 20 career races I did, and in 80% of them it started raining during the race. Completely unrealistic and it exacerbates the other problems the game has.

 

[Hor-hay]

Also the AI's performance is very inconsistent with different cars and tracks.

 

[xnorb]

It feels like every single race in the career mode it starts raining during.

From a marketing standpoint that's a clever move.
People LOVE rain, it's maybe even the #1 requested feature by the masses.
So a race without rain lacks that special punch -> career mode needs MOAR RAINZ!

Looking at Yorkie's videos they even set up their league races to have rain starting
or starting in rain and stuff like that.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great feature and next to day/night cycle weather simulation
should be in about every game (especially love the real time/weather feature of pCars)
but when i set up a race for myself, it's not raining and sunlight 95% of the time

 

[William Wester]

You may be right that it's the #1 requested feature but for me I "never" race in the rain on any of my sims if I can help it. I don't know what it is, it may be related to the depressing effect I always had when attending IRL races during lousy weather - a mental thing. A bright and sunny day I'm happy, and overcast and raining day I'm sad - I'm going to lean toward clear and sunny in my virtual world

 

[HypoToad]

So that's why Codemasters love rain, I worked out that well over half the races in F1 2014 were rain affected, and couldn't work out why.

 

[Ryan Soucy]

How many combos of cars and handling characteristics did Geoff Crammond have to program for? Exactly 1 so it better be darn well perfect, you've got nothing else in that game. SMS is snakebit by their scope creep. Its nice to launch with 45 cars, but they would definitely been better served by releasing with 25 perfect racing experiences, then surprise/reward owners with 2-3 cars a month.

As for the rain, I must be lucky that I haven't seen nearly as much rain as you have. I am only on year 3 (but easily 20-25 hours in), but the only real deluge I've experienced was a DRM race in Donington. It started pouring buckets with 2 laps to go and everyone was slithering around. It was tense and very difficult, but had I not made a couple mistakes, I would have snookered some positions off of the AI.

You know why people usually don't create solo races and practices in the rain? Because it is really HARD to race in the rain!! If we're sitting down to have a nice fun spin in a cool powerful car, why would we want to frustrate ourselves with a slippery surface. We spend hours tuning to INCREASE grip, why check a box to reduce it by 33%?! I am GLAD they put rain in the career, otherwise I would never race in it. I wouldn't doubt I am getting better at racing in the rain because of career mode.

 

[Hor-hay]

Racing in the wet is a joke in some cars, Formula Rookie in the wet:

 

[Ryan Soucy]

I don't know if 80% AI is a good barometer of much. I could beat those guys without using the gas pedal...

 

[Ace King]

80% is around newbie level strength! lol

 

[Hor-hay]

missing the point much lol

 

[HypoToad]

I have played about a dozen races in career and only twice it rained, then I pitted and changed tires and all was fine again, also the AI seem very good, they keep out of your way and don't ram you off the track like in the Codies games.

 

[St3fan]

I've spent like 80 hours in PCars, finishes 2 le mans, 1 24h Bathurst 1 25h Bathurst (1% length of course), and last week I moved Steam to my new hard drive, and I lost my career savings, my FFB settings, my wheel button bindings, my setups, everything
Now I restart a new career, all kinds of bugs pop up such as wheel rotation angle somehow changes even though I just reset it in the control options
And yes the AI is ridiculous in the rain. I don't know which one makes you frustrated, my personal experience is Lotus 98T. It always rains half way at Zolder, and the AI is just impossible

You know what's crazy?? I have my "new year resolution in sim racing", in which I listed "unlock ****** achievements in PCars", and now I lost all my career progress!

 

[Flying Kefran]

last week I moved Steam to my new hard drive, and I lost my career savings, my FFB settings, my wheel button bindings, my setups, everything

The same happened to me. For all my other games on Steam, the save is uploaded to Steam servers. So I have nothing to do to get them back when I change hardware or reinstall my PC.
... Unfortunately, Project Cars save does not work the same way and you will lost everything if you do not back-up the save manually.

 

[dineontitan]

I gave up on it quite a while ago. Just started a new career mode with Caterham in F1 2012, edit the ai a bit and it's a very good game. Plus the tier progression gives you a lot of opportunities to win championships even with Caterham