Re: F1® 24 [Megathread] Handling Feedback
Some observations (Using a MOZA R9 setup with SRP pedals, No Assists):
- The Maximum Wheel Rotation is set to 400 degrees by default, but the steering animation in the game locks at 360 degrees. Even increasing the Max Rotation doesn't change the 360 degree lock in the actual car. After setting the Max Rotation to 360 degrees to match the game's animations, the cars immediately felt better and more responsive.
- There seems to be a considerable throttle deadzone, even when the Throttle Deadzone setting is at 0. After making sure my pedals were calibrated in MOZA Pit House, I was seeing throttle response immediately in the calibration chart there. But, when I go into F1 24, the deadzone still exists up to around 20%-30% throttle. This causes situations where the throttle just doesn't respond coming out of low-speed corners. Normally you'd want very little throttle as you're exiting the apex to work your way up to full throttle, but the throttle response just isn't there at all until around 30% or so. So the throttle feels like it's doing nothing until it's suddenly doing too much. EDIT: This feels more exaggerated in F2 cars and is slightly less noticeable in F1 cars.
- I've had a couple times where, when looking in the mirror, I see the DRS open, then close and open randomly near the end of a straight. I can't tell if it's just an animation bug, but I notice that time gets lost sometimes when that happens.
- The low-speed grip out of turns feels more exaggerated, to the degree that it feels like there's a TCS assist happening, even with all assists turned off. But, it's either all or nothing. High throttle while turning = spin (as you would expect in low gears). High throttle after getting the car straight = instant grip with no tire spin at all. So, it's like there's not a gradual drop-off or increase in traction as the car is turning vs when it's straightening out. The traction is either there, or it's not. EDIT: I believe this may be getting caused by the default throttle curve in the game (or how it translates to MOZA hardware, wheel/pedal setups in general).
- When traction is at 100%, it doesn't appear to be affected by any surfaces, on or off the track. Below are some videos that show this - cars GAINING time with two or four tires off-track on straights.
- Adjacent to the above regarding it feeling like there's a TCS assist happening when it shouldn't, there are also certain straights (so far only tested on Bahrain and Singapore) where the car just randomly starts slowing down, even at full throttle. It's always near the end of the straight, which makes it feel like there's also a braking assist kicking in when it shouldn't. It's not something like bumps messing with the momentum of the cars, it's that the cars literally just start revving down as though I've let off the throttle when I haven't.
- It's almost like there's no linearity or smoothness in throttle increase/decrease, or traction gain/loss, and that's what's making it unpredictable. Both the throttle and traction just sort of....jump when they jump.
- Spending more time tweaking the setups, the handling itself changes dramatically when messing with ARB and Camber settings. In general, weight transfer and turning feels a lot more natural with softer setups (low ARB, lower suspension stiffness, lower tire pressures). But by the time it all starts feeling noticeably better, some settings are at their minimum, or close to it. (ARB, tire pressures, and camber in particular). The issue here is that by the time you've softened a setup enough to be able to have the right level of turn-in and oversteer, it's not going to be able to be as competitive. It almost feels like everything on the cars are WAY too stiff by default (which also is exacerbating unpredictability), but particularly the ARBs feel more "broken" than anything at default stiffness.
- Braking to throttle transitions really don't feel good with engine braking active. Part of me wonders how much this may be fighting with the handling model as well. Turning off engine braking garners much more control when braking and exiting corners.
Overall, the handling doesn't necessarily feel "broken". Perhaps the best way I've heard it described is that it feels like there's something really good here, but it's maybe not doing what it was meant to do in certain places.
