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Career Mode/AI problems

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After doing 7 races in career mode with the McLaren i'm still really enjoying the game and it's a huge improvement over F1 2015 but the AI problems are really starting to take the fun out of the career mode, along with the AI upgrades that seem to mainly apply to the midfield/backmarker teams.

  • Ultimate AI in light rain(probably heavy rain as well but haven't had any in career so far) are around 1-1.5 seconds slower than their dry weather pace which means that when it rains i'm the fastest on the circuit by quite a long way and winning in a McLaren(5th fastest in pecking order atm). My Canada race was inters in both quali and the race which resulted in pole and an easy race win. In the dry i would likely have been back end of the points in a normal race with no AI retirements/AI holding each other up.
  • Russia was one big slipstream/DRS train which to me confirms the slipstream is OP still, it was mentioned in the beta but wasn't changed, for me it seemed on F1 2011 Turkey levels which doesn't make for a fun race at all. Maybe it was just the way that race went for me as it hasn't been a problem anywhere else but Baku's straight is next lol.
  • Monaco the AI are much improved compared to previous years but still a little slower than ideal, i got pole and race win in the dry and i'm not great at Monaco tbh, if Ultimate were around 3/4's of a second faster that would be on par with other tracks i'd say. No idea how slow they are in the wet at Monaco but it's probably well over 2 seconds slower based off of other circuits.
  • Canada qualifying Hamilton, Rosberg, Raikkonen and Verstappen all went out of Q1 because they didn't set a time, i was passed by all of them at the end of Q1 coasting back to the pits so they were all out on track, not sure if it was a bug not recording their times or that they had just come out right at the end on out laps. It made for a race with only Vettel and Ricciardo behind myself on the grid so wasn't much fun, particularly with the race being light rain.
  • AI are so inconsistent when overtaking, i have actually seen them make some good overtakes and even a couple on me when i was nice to them on the brakes lol. But for the most part they will back out or slow down massively on the apex/run wide and it ruins most battles. It also makes the AI seem slower than they are at times as they will cost each other multiple seconds battling with each other. It was mentioned in the beta but clearly hasn't been fixed.
  • In 25% races the AI seem to have zero tyre wear and set their fastest laps in the last couple of laps on what should be fairly worn tyres. It's not a huge problem but it means that they are around 3/4's of a second faster than they are at the start of the stint, i can still do laps within a second of my best by the end of the race but i can't set personal best lap times. Doesn't seem to be a problem in 50% races so maybe just a 25% distance issue or maybe i'm not good enough on worn tyres lol.
  • Haven't had a single SC yet on the game even though i've seen some things that would cause a SC, i've had two VSC's so the SC is on but nothing yet. I guess i've just been unlucky not to see it as watching the youtubers career modes they have all had at least one i think.
  • R&D development is going to create equal cars if it carries on in it's current pattern in my career. Toro Rosso made massive upgrades and went above Red Bull and are qualifying within 3-5 tenths off the Mercedes, then Red Bull came to Monaco with two upgrades and moved back up to 3rd in the pecking order and are just behind Ferrari. Mercedes and Ferrari have made zero upgrades, nothing from Williams either as they have fallen back into the midfield behind McLaren, Toro Rosso and Haas are now close to them after an upgrade. Manor and Sauber are now in the midfield battle after big upgrades. The top teams need to develop more because it's unrealistic to have Mercedes and Ferrari bringing zero upgrades to the first 7 races and just letting every other team catch them. Judging by what Red Bull did, it's like they wait for a team to overtake them then bring a couple of upgrades to the next race to leapfrog back. But overall the pack is closing up and the top 5 teams are probably now within 7 or 8 tenths with my McLaren at the back of the front 5 teams atm and not really able to compete with the top 4 teams that are all within half a second(Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull, Toro Rosso). As a result me and Fernando pretty much have 9th and 10th on lock in qualifying with me occasionally getting higher around 7th or 8th(dry weather pace, pole in the wet lol).
  • With a few more upgrades i'll probably have McLaren within half a second of Mercedes by the halfway point of the season, assuming Mercedes and Ferrari don't bring multiple upgrades. The R&D system overall is a brilliant addition but it needs some tuning with the AI development, the top teams should upgrade much faster than they do, as it currently is the field will be equal in a couple of seasons, maybe 3 which would be a real shame. I don't know whether the performance resets(in the order the cars finish the previous season) between seasons to prevent that from happening.
  • Team progression for the player seems a little fast as well, McLaren are always capable of bringing any update to the following race(i thought midfield and backmarker teams were meant to take 2 or 3 races?) and to already close the gap to the front from around 1.4 in Melbourne to 0.7/0.8 by Baku is a little much, but it's mainly because Mercedes and Ferrari haven't moved, if they had the progression would probably be fair enough.

But yeah overall i like so much about this game and i'm enjoying the handling and also the dry weather pace challenge from the Ultimate AI but those things are frustrating me a little. With those things fixed the career mode would be brilliant, it's already the best career mode i've played in an F1 game but it's a shame that currently it doesn't reach the potential that it could. I'm sure many of these things have already been mentioned by others but i wanted to post my impressions all together from playing career mode and racing the AI so far. Hopefully some or all of these things could be fixed.

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In response to your upgrade points:
I agree that player upgrades can go a bit too fast. But I like to keep it realistic for myself so I for example only upgrade every 2-3 races. Although, the further you get in upgrades, they become really 'expensive' and you won't be able to upgrade every single race anyway.

Ferrari and Mercedes will upgrade as well. Trust me. 
In my career mode I drive for Haas, and I'm currently JUST above Toro Rosso in terms of performance. Williams have overtaken both Red Bull and Ferrari. But Mercedes has all of a sudden done 3 upgrades at Hungary and are now massively in the lead again. When I went to 'next weekend' into Germany, Ferrari did 3 upgrades and was above Williams again.

So in conclusion: Have patience, the other teams will upgrade. 
And if you really don't like the pace of you upgrading your own team so fast, keep yourself from upgrading every race and keep it realistic for yourself. 

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