Career Mode is MISERABLE to play: Weather, Fuel and AI

Oh, and doing well in your race? Set to score decent points? Don't worry: the game will sabotage you - maybe it rains, maybe your engine dies, maybe the AI gain five seconds a lap on you all of sudden, maybe the corner you had no problems with for the last twenty five suddenly spins you out and sends you flying - all of these and more and just ready and waiting to ruin your day. 

I hear you in some of those things you said.

1. True. Every time I face a rainy session, whether Qualifying or Race, sometimes it's both, I become the mop that the AI uses to wipe the track with. It's ridiculous how quick the AI are in the rain, especially if you need to run a dry setup in a rainy Qualifying just because the race is dry.

2. I take it you never heard of easing the throttle. Coasting and short shifting are not the only ways to save fuel. I had this problem with over fueling once in Monaco, in which the fuel consumption was insanely quick, and I knew that I wouldn't finish if I didn't do anything. So once I hit a good speed through a turn and another corner was approaching, I eased the throttle out of the very turn. This in turn allowed me to move quickly without consuming too much fuel, and eventually, I finished the race. So it's just because of your driving style and the high fuel consumption of your car (dunno how many fuel efficiency upgrades you have), and it's not really a bug.

3. While I do relate to it, especially recently in Austria when Russell spun me around, I have to say that the AI DO take damage if they hit you. I don't know what damage rate you run, but this usually happens on Simulation damage rate.

4. Oh, please tell me about it. In my current My Team Career save, I did not touch the difficulty slider, it stayed at 74 since Round 1, and while I had little to no problems in Monaco save for the few front wing scratches in Practice, I got completely destroyed in Silverstone. And while I fought for a podium in Melbourne with a two stop strategy (which I couldn't achieve by the way), the AI wiped the floor with me in Spain. And in my first Career race in Jeddah (back in my very first My Team Career in Season 3), my teammate Lewis Hamilton destroyed me, and the other drivers were very close.

You should know that Codemasters made F1 games up to F1 2020, which was the last game that solely Codemasters made. Ever since 2021, you can tell that EA ruins the entire franchise. And honestly, even though F1 22 is far better than 2021, it's still so much worse than most Codemasters F1 games like 2015, 2017, 2019, but especially 2020 was the pinnacle of F1 games for me, I don't know how you see it.

@BauersomeWelcome don’t know if you see it but there’s a recent thread where we conspiracy theorists are sharing our frustrations. That are all remarkably similar. Well except rain. Last year every race. This year very occasional.  And there are lots off posts complaining that it doesn't rain enough.

last year I found it rains more if you constantly finish higher than your teams performance ranking .  Being punished for doing well

And I’d like to say yet again. Everyone said I was imagining things and there’s no conspiracy: For me its nice to know I’m not alone 👍

EA pay more than most to secure sports licenses.  FOM love money.   They will stick with EA.    

1. Weather -- Yeah, wet weather is tough, at some tracks practically impossible.  Qualifying is worse, bad enough that I see rain forecast for a quali session then i figure that's a good opportunity to take a set of engine components if need be.  Once upon a time I liked an occasional wet race because it was possible to compete with the AI.  I think the AI just needs to be nerfed a bit.

2. The fuel usage on the race strategy screen isn't calibrated correctly once you start making fuel consumption upgrades.  Pay attention to the amount of fuel you're burning in free practice and in the race strategy program and fuel accordingly.

3.  The AI can be a bit sporadic but I don't think there's a better AI in any other racing game.

4.  Difficulty levels are wildly different from track to track.  I'm as competent at Bahrain as I am at Japan, Spa or a few others, yet i have to set the difficulty level 10 clicks lower there to be competitive.  

They have a mountain of time trial data that they could use to normalize the AI performance to actual human ability.

---

@ScarDuck14 wrote:

Ok tyre temps. Ai no longer have carcass and surface temps on. They only have surface temps on . We think.

So of you have tyre temps set to carcass and surface. Any track that you have to watch your tyre temps: the ai will (if your as average as me) dominate you.

I figure no point in have carcass temps on all I’m doing it hurting myself. So I now just set tp surface and for the most part ai track to track are more consistent

---

O.o" Like... really? Jesus...

I've been suffering more this year with tyre temps but I thought it was due to new regs tyre temps at 70 C...

@dancrodriguesNoticed a while ago in a race at Hungary 80 Ai destroyed me despite I wasn’t racing that bad: Then had a look at replay and noticed in cockpit cam the ai cars all had same temps. Which had me scratching my head. Following race at Spa. Ai all had upgrades. Whereas my one failed: But was over 2 seconds a lap faster than ai. Then I turned my tyre temps to surface. And now my temps in cockpit cam match the ai

Now race to race my pace compared to the ai is better balanced 

@ScarDuck14I would never - ever - replay a bot cockpit cam to get their tyre temps - at most I would turn the PS5 off and return in a few days, when I had calmed down. haha

Thanks for the tip mate! Gonna set that too!

---

@sc31245 wrote:

They have a mountain of time trial data that they could use to normalize the AI performance to actual human ability.

---

@sc31245  100% agree. I’ve suggested they use this and race practice program data to set AI levels on the old CM forum before a few times before.