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Re: Is EA SPORTS F1 dead?

Look guys, here's the thing: I like F1 games. I love F1 games. The first F1 game that really got me into the groove was F1 2015, my nowadays second favorite F1 game, and since then, I played almost every F1 game save for 2016 and 2018.

However, as much as I love those games, I also criticize them if something is wrong. And ever since EA took over in 2021, F1 took a huge downfall regarding playability. The cars tend to oversteer a lot more, the AI are stupidly broken on several tracks, online play is horrible, and all the things that are important for an F1 game get worse and worse every year. It almost feels like EA wants to make the game so difficult and irritating for non Esports players that they just give up because they can't make money off the casual players.

See, the first F1 game with proper microtransactions was F1 2019, where you could purchase certain suits and liveries. The next being F1 2020, which introduced the Podium Pass. However, these are all Codemasters F1 games, and even if they wanted to make additional money from microtransactions, Codies still prioritized making the game suitable for all types of players.

Not so with EA SPORTS F1 games. F1 2021 was the worst F1 game ever in my opinion. Drifting cars, overpowered AI, Verstappen dominating everything, and a feeling that I would play Ridge Racer with F1 cars. The Braking Point story was great, but really, this game is the fricking worst. And while F1 22 was great at the beginning save for the frequent crashing and strong AI, it became worse pretty fast, starting with the massive increase in front wing damage effect, and then changing the handling model, which makes the cars harder to drive.

All I'm asking is: How good could these two games have been if EA didn't take over? Both of them would have been solid successors to F1 2020, and I would have had so much fun with them. But instead, I tortured myself for weeks and months just to get my hands on all the stuff from the Podium Pass, and I honestly regret that I did this.

And like I said: If F1 23 is getting Ultimate Team, I will not purchase this or any following F1 games. EA SPORTS is ruining F1, and apparently, I'm the only person that sees this because I loved F1 2020 and only looked for a viable successor.

18 Replies

  • mariohomoh's avatar
    mariohomoh
    Hero (Retired)
    3 years ago

    @LuckyNico92 Look at your words:

    • angry
    • dead
    • fricking worst
    • horrible
    • irritating
    • love
    • money cow
    • regret
    • shoveling grass
    • stupidly
    • tortured

    Do not deflect. As I said above, everyone will endorse your rejection of microtransactions. What we do not bite and honestly wished could come to an end is this hyperbolic language and unhealthy attitude towards a videogame. No one will validate that sort of sentiment.

    This is not downplaying the importance of videogames. It's a huge and complex industry, and the fact that we're here day in and day out just shows how much we care for the franchise and this community.

    Do not deflect. There's no "apparently I'm the only person..." going on over any concrete, relevant matter pertaining to this franchise. What you're being called out on, again, is this unhealthy relationship over an entertainment product. All this fuss over a rumor from an 85k subscribers youtuber. This kind of unfit overreaction.

    Personally, I rarely engage with your posts anymore because of this. It genuinely feels bad to be entangled in these unfounded levels of intensity you always resort to when expressing your "passion" for these games.

    TL;DR: Microtransactions and F1 "ultimate whatever" = bad

    Unbridled emotion over an entertainment product = unhealthy 

    Unbridled emotion over a rumor about an entertainmend product = unhealthy²

  • LuckyNico92's avatar
    LuckyNico92
    Seasoned Ace
    3 years ago
    @mariohomoh I am not saying that microtransactions should completely vanish. As I said before, Codies brought them in with the suits and liveries in F1 2019, and then the Podium Pass in 2020, so this is no EA idea.

    However, it's the crucial things in F1 games like handling, AI, and online play that EA keeps looking over just to insert more opportunities to make money, and that's not fair considering that every F1 game from 2015 to 2020 had its focus on the core gameplay, but everything changed to the absolute worst with 2021.
  • Ultrasonic_77's avatar
    Ultrasonic_77
    Hero
    3 years ago

    We've discussed the Ultimate Team concept of the F1 games before and I still fail to see any way that it could really work even if EA wanted to make it happen. I don't see it happening myself. In FIFA you can just play the game and completely ignore that FUT exists anyway.

  • ScarDuck14's avatar
    ScarDuck14
    Legend
    3 years ago

    I’m glad I’ve been busy all day/night and missed all this😁

    Nico please for your own sanity listen to everyone’s advice.  Take a step back.   It’s just a game. Games are about fun and enjoyment.  Both of which you’re not having.   

    When I get frustrated with this game I play Grid legends instead.  As it’s super casual arcade cheesy fun fun. 

  • LuckyNico92's avatar
    LuckyNico92
    Seasoned Ace
    3 years ago
    @Ultrasonic_77 I know that, and I don't play FIFA Ultimate Team. But FIFA is a football (soccer for you Americans) game, and it's fairly simple to develop. Just create a pitch, put 22 players on it, add a physics engine to it, attach game rules, done. And even if it's so simple and repetitive, it's still fun to play.

    F1 on the other hand is much more complex than FIFA. You need to develop tracks, AI, handling, car models, liveries, etc, etc. And EA always looks over AI and handling, two of the most crucial parts about an F1 game, which are important to make Single Player fun to play. For two years now, I can't play on Expert difficulty (80) because the combination of overpowered AI and drifty handling makes every race literally a nightmare. I can't play Two Player Career properly because EA doesn't maintenance the servers to make sure they run correctly when two players far away from each other connect. I can't play online with fun because all players are taking each other out. And worse, my patience is wearing down quickly, and soon, my brain will just blow up like an F1 engine when it suffers a mechanical failure.

    Seriously, the only chance that EA has is to release the chains from Codemasters and let them do their work, otherwise, we will never see any good F1 game again.
  • LuckyNico92's avatar
    LuckyNico92
    Seasoned Ace
    3 years ago
    @drewgriffiths What, the one on PS1? I already watched a video of it, and yes, it's pretty garbage compared to today's F1 games.

    You do have to consider that this was PS1, and back in the day, the devs didn't have the engine and development tech like we have nowadays.
  • LuckyNico92's avatar
    LuckyNico92
    Seasoned Ace
    3 years ago
    @ScarDuck14 Maybe I really should take a step back. I mean, with every update for F1 22 that arrives, I have some hope, but when I get disappointed like this every time because none of the crucial problems were taken care of, then I'm losing more and more confidence in the franchise.

    As of right now, I'm also playing other games, like Forza Horizon 5, The Crew 2, GRID Legends, and even F1 Manager 22, and if I want to be honest here, all of these games are so much more fun than F1 22, and I really enjoy playing them. Especially the latter, since I managed to get Lewis Hamilton to his 8th title, and this in 2022, where the Mercedes was nowhere close to being a championship contender car. And now in 2023, we have a dominant car because I mainly focused on research last year.

    So it's not like I have just F1 22 to play, and maybe you're right. If I get frustrated with it, I should play something else.
  • Ultrasonic_77's avatar
    Ultrasonic_77
    Hero
    3 years ago

    @LuckyNico92 wrote:
    @Ultrasonic_77I know that, and I don't play FIFA Ultimate Team. But FIFA is a football (soccer for you Americans) game, and it's fairly simple to develop. Just create a pitch, put 22 players on it, add a physics engine to it, attach game rules, done. And even if it's so simple and repetitive, it's still fun to play.

    F1 on the other hand is much more complex than FIFA. You need to develop tracks, AI, handling, car models, liveries, etc, etc. And EA always looks over AI and handling, two of the most crucial parts about an F1 game, which are important to make Single Player fun to play. For two years now, I can't play on Expert difficulty (80) because the combination of overpowered AI and drifty handling makes every race literally a nightmare. I can't play Two Player Career properly because EA doesn't maintenance the servers to make sure they run correctly when two players far away from each other connect. I can't play online with fun because all players are taking each other out. And worse, my patience is wearing down quickly, and soon, my brain will just blow up like an F1 engine when it suffers a mechanical failure.

    Seriously, the only chance that EA has is to release the chains from Codemasters and let them do their work, otherwise, we will never see any good F1 game again.

    I am not a game developer but to me it doesn't seem remotely obvious that FIFA was somehow an inherently simpler game to make, and given its larger market my guess is it's had significantly more total development resource put into it than the F1 games.

  • ScarDuck14's avatar
    ScarDuck14
    Legend
    3 years ago
    @Ultrasonic_77 F1 22 Has what 40ish drivers? 20ish teams? And 2 series.(Never counted) Whereas FIFA 23 boasts over 19,000 players across 700 teams and 30 leagues.

    Not to mention the drivers in F1 have 4 stats if you include focus. Fifa players have dozens, not to mention their height, weight, traits and skill moves.

    Then dozens off team formations and tactic permutations etc etc

    Much easier 😁.
  • Radoko34's avatar
    Radoko34
    3 years ago

    @LuckyNico92 

    I totally get where you’re coming from on this post. I’ve felt the exact same way for a while now, and it’s even why I made a game ideas list on a separate page on the forum! 

    But I couldn’t agree more with @mariohomoh and @ScarDuck14
    It is certainly very important that you let these things go. 
    Because whilst you, me, and lots of the community are struggling to understand/come to terms with the way the F1 game is being made, at the end of the day, there are countless other options for super-fun games you can play that won’t make you feel this way. 
    At this stage it seems like this is just something that EA/CM are going to have to deal with, to try and stop people abandoning the game so quickly. 

    I hope you understand where I’m coming from on this one. 

    Thanks.

  • TotosHeadphones's avatar
    TotosHeadphones
    Seasoned Ace
    3 years ago

    @LuckyNico92 wrote:
    @Ultrasonic_77I know that, and I don't play FIFA Ultimate Team. But FIFA is a football (soccer for you Americans) game, and it's fairly simple to develop. Just create a pitch, put 22 players on it, add a physics engine to it, attach game rules, done. And even if it's so simple and repetitive, it's still fun to play.

    F1 on the other hand is much more complex than FIFA. You need to develop tracks, AI, handling, car models, liveries, etc, etc. And EA always looks over AI and handling, two of the most crucial parts about an F1 game, which are important to make Single Player fun to play. For two years now, I can't play on Expert difficulty (80) because the combination of overpowered AI and drifty handling makes every race literally a nightmare. I can't play Two Player Career properly because EA doesn't maintenance the servers to make sure they run correctly when two players far away from each other connect. I can't play online with fun because all players are taking each other out. And worse, my patience is wearing down quickly, and soon, my brain will just blow up like an F1 engine when it suffers a mechanical failure.

    Seriously, the only chance that EA has is to release the chains from Codemasters and let them do their work, otherwise, we will never see any good F1 game again.

    Not meaning to sound rude but your knowledge of how games are developed cannot be boiled down to "Just create a pitch, put 22 players on it, add a physics engine to it, attach game rules, done."

    There's plenty to do -

    Code AI of players when not controlled by real life player.

    Control behaviour of each position of said player and how they interact when the ball is in possession, out of possession

    AI of players reacting to each mentality

    Physics of the ball, physics of the ball due to certain pitch conditions

    Collision physics

    Cloth physics

    Hair physics

    Dribbling physics

    Shooting physics

    How attributes interact with every action completed by players/AI.

    This doesn't sound very simple to me and with that I would expect bugs to crop up, as in any game.

    You may not like EA as a developer but it is disrespectful diminishing the work of the coders crunching to meet tight deadlines because of the expectancy of a yearly release.

  • TotosHeadphones's avatar
    TotosHeadphones
    Seasoned Ace
    3 years ago

    @drewgriffiths wrote:

    F1 2021 was the worst, @LuckyNico92 ?

    I can tell you’re a young lad and you’ve never played F1 98 😆


    After F1 97, playing 98 was like a kick in the nuts. They went overboard with the handling as it was a new regulation change with grooved tires

  • ScarDuck14's avatar
    ScarDuck14
    Legend
    3 years ago

    @TotosHeadphones wrote:

    @LuckyNico92 wrote:
    @Ultrasonic_77I know that, and I don't play FIFA Ultimate Team. But FIFA is a football (soccer for you Americans) game, and it's fairly simple to develop. Just create a pitch, put 22 players on it, add a physics engine to it, attach game rules, done. And even if it's so simple and repetitive, it's still fun to play.

    F1 on the other hand is much more complex than FIFA. You need to develop tracks, AI, handling, car models, liveries, etc, etc. And EA always looks over AI and handling, two of the most crucial parts about an F1 game, which are important to make Single Player fun to play. For two years now, I can't play on Expert difficulty (80) because the combination of overpowered AI and drifty handling makes every race literally a nightmare. I can't play Two Player Career properly because EA doesn't maintenance the servers to make sure they run correctly when two players far away from each other connect. I can't play online with fun because all players are taking each other out. And worse, my patience is wearing down quickly, and soon, my brain will just blow up like an F1 engine when it suffers a mechanical failure.

    Seriously, the only chance that EA has is to release the chains from Codemasters and let them do their work, otherwise, we will never see any good F1 game again.

    Not meaning to sound rude but your knowledge of how games are developed cannot be boiled down to "Just create a pitch, put 22 players on it, add a physics engine to it, attach game rules, done."

    There's plenty to do -

    Code AI of players when not controlled by real life player.

    Control behaviour of each position of said player and how they interact when the ball is in possession, out of possession

    AI of players reacting to each mentality

    Physics of the ball, physics of the ball due to certain pitch conditions

    Collision physics

    Cloth physics

    Hair physics

    Dribbling physics

    Shooting physics

    How attributes interact with every action completed by players/AI.

    This doesn't sound very simple to me and with that I would expect bugs to crop up, as in any game.

    You may not like EA as a developer but it is disrespectful diminishing the work of the coders crunching to meet tight deadlines because of the expectancy of a yearly release.


    Thankyou for covering everything I missed in great detail as per usual.   I hate being the dumbest on the board😂

  • TotosHeadphones's avatar
    TotosHeadphones
    Seasoned Ace
    3 years ago
    @ScarDuck14 Haha, to be fair you had said what I said but I didn't see it because this site doesn't work nice with mobile browsers!
  • ScarDuck14's avatar
    ScarDuck14
    Legend
    3 years ago

    I’m gunna say it again… F1 Championship Edition(Single player) is still hasn’t been surpassed.   

  • drewgriffiths's avatar
    drewgriffiths
    Seasoned Veteran
    3 years ago

    @LuckyNico92 The ones in the PS1 era prior and after F1 98 were miles ahead of 98 so that makes no sense whatsoever

    The first two were made by Bizarre Creations (F1 and 97). For 98, Bizarre pulled out if i remember correctly, so the game had to be shipped out to Visual Science. made from scratch and rushed out. The result was an absolute disaster.

  • drewgriffiths's avatar
    drewgriffiths
    Seasoned Veteran
    3 years ago

    @TotosHeadphones A kick in the nuts is polite way of putting it. Going from 97 to 98 was a bit like going from a championship winning V10 Williams to a clapped out Arrows… El Plan, Damon Hill style 😆

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