F1® 24 [Megathread] Handling Feedback after patch 1.3

I posted my feedback earlier but it got removed because of spam for some reason. I think it was because I edited it to include a link to the podcast episode Casey was on. I removed that.

@EA_Vendcera 

My feedback below is based on my setup where I play on PC with no assists and I use a Fanatec Podium Wheel and wheelbase along with CSL V3 pedals. I also exclusively do league racing so my feedback is going to be based on the equal performance car in TT and the Grand Prix game modes.

The handling prior to the patch I thought had some issues but overall, even with the goofy turn in and the seemingly infinite lateral grip in high speed I thought it was still a huge leap in the right direction and it was a solid foundation that only needed a little bit of tweaking to make it the best feeling F1 game in the series by a mile. 

Following the update, a lot of the issues in the launch were obviously addressed. The tyres no longer have infinite grip in the high speed corners and when you exceed the lateral grip they let loose quite violently which is exactly what you would expect. 

However that's where the positives end for me in the updated handling. I've made my voice heard repeatedly in this thread on the issues I have with the updated handling but I'll try and summarize all of them below.

Pretty much everything I enjoyed about the launch handling system seems to have been gotten rid of or dialed back excessively. My biggest complaint is the same as @GregStarz  and @seichrotierer where the FFB doesn't feel even close to the same. Doing TT was fun before the patch because I understood what the car was doing and I could push it and intuitively feel where I was losing time and when I pushed a corner and gained time I could feel it before I even looked at the delta. Now I just do laps the same way over and over again with no feel from the car and when I lose time I have no idea why and when I gain time I have no idea why because the car feels the same in both scenarios. I'm still able to put in lap times that put me in the top 5-10% in TT leaderboards but the cars just feel horrible to drive with fast setups and it feels like I just get lucky when I can string a solid lap together. Overall this makes the experience of lapping with the car and working on setups a laborious instead of joyous experience. 

I agree with @seichrotierer that prior to the patch the handling was very reminiscent of the W13 or the Dallara IR18 on iRacing. It obviously wasn't as good as that but it was heading in that direction and I don't think anyone expects this game to feel like iRacing however, the fact that the cars handling felt closer to that than it ever had was a huge indication to me that things were headed in a positive direction that was clearly focused on making the handling feel as realistic as possible. The updated suspension kinematics system in this game was also something I could immediately feel and all of the changes together led to a game that didn't drive like any F1 game before it and I think that was a good thing. 

The braking in the launch version I felt was perfect and when I locked up it looked like it does when drivers do it in real life and it was in the same type of situations. I hate to keep bringing back up iRacing but the braking in the launch of this game felt VERY similar to that where you almost have to be afraid of the brakes and it was easy to lock up if you held the brakes for too long or if you carried brake pressure into the corners. This was great because you could come off the brakes and coast the car through the corners and feel it grip up more than it would if you tried to hold brake pressure into the corner. This made intuitive sense because the tyres can only do one thing at a time effectively, if you're using them to slow the car down then you can't also use them to turn and expect to get as good turn in.

I listened to the episode of the F1 Explains podcast that @cm_caseyringley was on and it was awesome to hear him say that a common misconception people have is that making things more realistic will make them harder, since, as we all know, these cars are the pinnacle of motorsport and have more downforce than they've ever had and huge sticky tyres. That's an excellent summation and I would say it holds true everywhere except braking. The braking is one of very few areas where making it more realistic actually makes things harder but I thought the launch handling implemented this perfectly, it was very realistic and it was rewarding when you got it right which made the cars even more of a joy to drive.

In the updated handling the braking feels almost exactly like it did in all the previous F1 games and I have to try really hard to lock my front tyres now. Not only that but the amount of brake pressure you carry into the corners no longer feels like it affects the turn in performance like it did before. Sure if you carry way too much it will mess up the turn in but if you only carry a little then it feels the same as it would if you didn't carry any which isn't how it felt before and it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Something else that was really nice in the launch version was that you could tell most of the downforce came from the floor of the car because if you kept your minimum speed up then the car would have more grip. In the updated handling it no longer feels like the speed of the car affects the amount of grip it has. There's a noticeable upper bound on the amount of speed you can carry into some corners and nothing about the way you drive seems affects that in a noticeable way. Obviously IRL there's an upper bound on the grip of the tyre which is greatly affected by how hard you're pushing it into the track which is something that increases with the downforce which then also increases with speed in these cars since it forces more air under the floor thus energizing the venturi tunnels and pulling the car down to the track more. It doesn't really feel like these systems are in play anymore in the new update like they were before or if they are then you at least can't feel them like you could before. 

I really could go on all day about the things that the launch version of the handling did right and how much better things felt because of the amazing FFB giving very detailed information on what the car was doing and those things made intuitive sense to me based on my experience driving single seaters in iRacing.

Clearly there were some issues with the launch handling but now from the outside looking in it feels like you all panicked pre launch when people like Alex Gillon threw a fit and then you threw the baby out with the bathwater and gave people something that felt familiar in the hopes it would make them happy but the truth of the matter is that literally nothing you guys do is ever going to make everyone happy and when you take a bold step of completely reworking the way handling feels you're obviously gonna encounter even more resistance than you normally would. People don't like change. 

None of us here have any idea what driving an F1 car is actually like, neither do Alex Gillon or the other content creators who complained. Someone who does have this experience however is Max and if you all consulted with him on the handling in this game and he told you that it was realistic then I think you all should have had the confidence to stand by that and make only the minor adjustments that were needed to the handling. If making the game fun AND realistic is the main goal then I think you all were much closer to achieving it with the launch handling than you are with the updated handling. It obviously had some unrealistic goofy things about it that could be fixed but it was immensely fun. Driving the cars now just feels like the same ol thing as years past and to have had something fun and then have it taken away makes it suck even more.