rFactor 2 | Competition System Released In New Build Update

Paul Jeffrey

Premium
Studio 397 have released a new build update for rFactor 2, adding the much anticipated first pass of the new competition system to the title.
  • New build includes minor fixes and new competition system.
  • Races due to start on Thursday within the system.
  • Further development will be ongoing throughout the coming months.

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From the release notes:

Today is a good day. Today is a new build day. You may have heard on the sim racing grapevine something about a new competition system within rFactor 2 that is under development..? Yes, that’s right, our December build update is here and a very first pass at organizing rFactor 2 multiplayer action has come with it, marking a very important line in the sand for us here at Studio 397 as we continue working incredibly hard to ensure the simulation delivers an experience our users demand.

The Competition System is now live as part of this build update, with the first racing events due to be uploaded and set to begin on Thursday December 24th.

November Roadmap | More Details On Competition Roadmap: Click Here.

Before we talk about the changes that have come as part of this new build release, let us remind you a little about why we want to include a competition system within the software in the first place.

Online racing, from a local level all the way up to organized and professional esport activities are an important aspect of the rFactor 2 journey, and have for a long time been very well represented by the many numerous community created sim racing leagues throughout the world.

Whilst these leagues are doing an incredible job of offering sim racers outstanding opportunities to race their favourite cars within the simulation, we realize that for the largest part of our user base racing in scheduled league events isn’t always the most convenient or accessible way for them to get involved in online multiplayer action, and finding servers that host content they want to race, at a time in which they would like to race it, has proven to be more difficult than it ideally needs to be.

Driven by a desire to offer quality racing for everyone, in a structured and organized way that increases the opportunities for our fantastic community to get involved, we have devised a new competition system within the software, one that offers up regularly scheduled racing in a variety of different car and track combinations within the sim and brings with it an element of matching together drivers of similar skill and ratings, to help streamline and improve the racing experience for our users, and put the emphasis back on what is important – getting on track and having fun.

Of course, this new system has been developed with expansion in mind, so what you will see as part of the new build today is certainly going to grow and expand over time – with so much obvious potential to enhance our multiplayer experience, we have taken the decision to adopt a cautious and regimented approach to deployment. What this means in reality is that we intend to spend time at each phase of development taking onboard community feedback in regard to how the system is working, and what features and behaviours the community would like to see brought to the system in future builds. By adopting this approach, we aim to maximize the potential of the system based on how it is used, and how the vast majority of people would like to use it going forward, to collectively develop something that adds genuine value to your sim racing experience within rFactor 2.

Before we take a look at the system in its current initial release status, it may be useful for those of you who missed it within the November Development Roadmap to have another look at our planned ‘mini’ roadmap of development over the coming months:

Ratings — are probably one of the most anticipated features, and one of the reasons for not having them active right from the start is that we want to test our algorithms on real-world data before publishing anything. Our current philosophy is to have a single rating system that encapsulates both your skill and safety record.

Protests and decisions — are also high on our roadmap list as we will no doubt have situations where an incident will need to be reported and evaluated by our stewards. Our goal here is definitely to let the in-game systems do a lot of the (easy) work here, monitoring when you cut the track or commit other offences and directly handing out penalties. At the same time we are aware that not everything can be decided by robots.

More competition formats — are things we will probably gradually introduce but as a feature they certainly need to be mentioned on any roadmap. We intend to run our GT championship, various hotlap styles, some completely new formats as well as more “league style” competitions in the system.

Roles and team based driving — will be added to allow multiple drivers to share an “entry”, or car, in a competition. Roles can be defined so teams can also have a manager or race engineer. Other roles are stewards, race control, and cameramen to facilitate broadcasts.

Broadcast integration — is probably another feature that will be gradually introduced, but obviously when broadcasting sessions that belong to a competition, we want to make sure that overlays showing standings, points, participants and calendars accurately reflect the competition they’re a part of.

Offline Championships — will be added once the online part is running smoothly. We will leverage the features we use online to also facilitate offline championships, where you can race against our AI.

These features will take us well into 2021, and we will revise and update them as the year progresses.

These features and developments will largely be driven by how the system is adopted by the current and future rFactor 2 racing community of course, and should be taken as a broad guideline as to our development intentions rather than a set of absolutes. We are exceptionally keen to ensure this development phase is driven by the wants and desires of our community racers, as we look to build something together than improves and enhances the overall experience of racing within rFactor 2.

With that all said, let us take a look at what has changed as part of the new build today.

  • Fixed v-sync not working
  • Fixed an issue where certain car classes would not show in a session
  • Various minor graphical bug fixes
  • Fixed issues with aspect ratio
  • Added competition system
So that’s it for the new build update, but it certainly isn’t the end of the rFactor 2 story this month. Tomorrow afternoon we plan to release our new Endurance Pack 2 DLC, adding three pretty fantastic new cars in the form of the Cadillac DPi-V.R, the LMP2 specification Ligier JS P217 and the brand new GTE Chevrolet Corvette C8.R… three cars we are sure you will enjoy racing just as much as we have enjoyed developing over the last few months.

From all at the studio, enjoy the new build and have a great Christmas and New Year!



Original Source: Studio 397

rFactor 2 is available now exclusively on PC.

Got questions? Our community have answers! Check out the rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment for a great way to engage with your fellow fans of the simulation.

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“Before we take a look at the system in its current initial release status, it may be useful for those of you who missed it within the November Development Roadmap to have another look at our planned ‘mini’ roadmap of development over the coming months:”

Am I missing something? Where did we take a look at it in it’s current state? No screenshots and no guide on how to use this much anticipated system exactly?
 
“Before we take a look at the system in its current initial release status, it may be useful for those of you who missed it within the November Development Roadmap to have another look at our planned ‘mini’ roadmap of development over the coming months:”

Am I missing something? Where did we take a look at it in it’s current state? No screenshots and no guide on how to use this much anticipated system exactly?
How am I supposed to be able to use the new features when I can't use the new UI, due to my mouse pointer not working properly? Three years development for this? Jeez...
 
I like they implemented a competition system, according with the new times and great for the simracing, i only hope they don't use ACC where someone hits you back and you loose some SA, i think this is injustice and if you hit someone at back car you are the only guilty of that accident, so you must lost part of your safety rating, there's a lot of drunken drivers they think they can win a race on first turn, so a better SA system with more damage level will make better public races
 
Did you press the DELETE key accidently, this key toggles the pointer on and off.
I've assigned a key to toggle the cursor on and off, that is not what I'm talking about. The mouse cursor works normally most of the time, it's only some buttons that don't work. For example : when I move the mouse cursor over the gear wheel to change settings, the cursor disappears. The same with the game exit button: I have to click and click on where I think that the cursor might be, without actually being able to see it, takes ages sometimes. It makes the UI unusable in its present state.
Sometimes I can select things, and sometimes the cursor is invisible. Tried 3 different mice, in all my games. The only scenario where it doesn't work is rF2 with the new UI, in VR mode.
In the old UI it works normally in VR, an in the new UI it works as it should in pancake mode. I almost have the feeling that S397 hasn't tested it adaquately in VR. As long as the old UI is still available, I can live with it. The new competition mode is only available in the new UI, which is a bit of a bummer. I know I 'm not the only one having problems with this, if a lot of people can't even access the new competition mode due to not being able to use the new UI, I guess S397 have shot themselves in the foot again...oh dear, what a cockup..
 
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I really hope the competition system brings in more online users, I'd love to race RF2 online outside of league racing but at the moment it just doesn't exist

Agree, and I might be one of them. I'm not a "hard core" simracer and I've been out of Rf2 for a while now. A competition system that does'nt require full devotion to a league might bring me back to my beloved Rf2.
 
I really hope the competition system brings in more online users, I'd love to race RF2 online outside of league racing but at the moment it just doesn't exist

It is the one thing that is missing really, isn't it? I am hoping that implementing RF2 on Simracing.gp will help as well
 
I've assigned a key to toggle the cursor on and off, that is not what I'm talking about. The mouse cursor works normally most of the time, it's only some buttons that don't work. For example : when I move the mouse cursor over the gear wheel to change settings, the cursor disappears. The same with the game exit button: I have to click and click on where I think that the cursor might be, without actually being able to see it, takes ages sometimes. It makes the UI unusable in its present state.
Sometimes I can select things, and sometimes the cursor is invisible. Tried 3 different mice, in all my games. The only cenario where it doesn't work is rF2 with the new UI, in VR mode.
In the old UI it works normally in VR, an in the new UI it works as it should in pancake mode. I almost have the feeling that S397 hasn't tested it adaquately in VR. AS long as the old UI is still available, I can live with it. The new competition mode is only available in the new UI, which is a bit of a bummer. I know I 'm not the only one having problems with this, if a lot of people can't even access the new competition mode due to not being able to use the new UI, I guess S397 have shot themselves in the foot again...oh dear, what a cockup..

Hi! What HMD you have? Don't have same problems in VR. Actually game works much better in new UI.

Could you make video of your problem and I could help
 
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The competition system sounds interesting! Hopefully it allows for 100+ drivers to sign up for a single race so it will automatically split into multiple servers?

P.s. is this the normal way of how fonts are rendered in rf2?
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please stop taking your case as a generalization...
I know I 'm by no means the only one having this problem, it's been a talking point for weeks on the S397 forum, without any reaction from S397. If they'd at least acknowledge that there is a problem for some people, it would be a start.
Be lucky you can drive in VR using the new UI, that's all I want too. Not too much to ask for a UI that's been in development for three years..
A quote from S397s forum, from someone who has the same problem, just one example from many.
" New UI with VR using the flat mirror menu: mouse position doesn't seem to be accurate. Some UI elements are not clickable even when the pointer is on the element. You have to search for the right spot to activate UI element. In other words: it seems that the "real" mouse position is somewhere else than where the cursor of flat menu is. "
Go take a look over there at the bug reports thread, and tell me if the new UI is even remotely finished :confused:
 
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I launched rF2 for the first time after the recent updates (december track updates and this update). The first thing i tried was the Ring Endurance - and it has messed SCN in new version.., Im pretty sure these objects shouldn't be there, and they weren't there in the previous version. Seems like there is no beta testing prior releases at S397. :(
 

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I launched rF2 for the first time after the recent updates (december track updates and this update). The first thing i tried was the Ring Endurance - and it has messed SCN in new version.., Im pretty sure these objects shouldn't be there, and they weren't there in the previous version. Seems like there is no beta testing prior releases at S397. :(

Are you sure you're not loading a 3rd party version and not the Official version?
 
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