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Legend vs Expert difficulty - Too big a gap?

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I'm experiencing the difficulty gap to be way too big. Around 1,5-2,0 s. I did some testing on Baku in my McLaren career. Yes, I know that the McHonda would be far back there, but the gap between me and my teammate shouldnt be like this.

Dry, SuperSofts, identical setup, low fuel. About the same lap time was posted. Gave these results:
FP2: Expert: P1 with 0,7 s to both Mercs
FP3: Legend: P20, 0,5 s behind Button who were on softs

Then I did quali which was heavy rain affected. This on Expert. Never driven on the wets before at Baku, went straight onto 2 flying laps with no drive-out or practice in the wet:
Lap 1 gave me P1, then Ricciardo beat me with about 0.00.030 s (in other words very close), then my next lap following the first one directly beat him again with 3-4 tenths. That ensured me a P4 when I fast forwarded. In Q2 I just set one banker lap which was a safe P7 at the end of the session. Now Button was behind me by 1,1 s.

Now this is a huge difference. I might be bad at this game compared to others, but at the moment I can't play properly because Expert is too easy and Legend is too hard. This was all done with no assists bar the racing line btw. Any thoughts? Anyone experiencing sort of the same?

EDIT: Further into Q3 I set one banker lap which beat the Mercs by 1,8 sec. So pole for me, I guess.

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It is annoying, but it's better than the older games where there was a 4 second gap between difficulties lol. So slowly but surely we're  getting closer to a perfect difficulty set up.

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lots of people posting this point about the gap being too steep but unless it's the same over an entire season I think it's a moot point. 
The AI are tough at some tracks for sure but then the user will be stronger at some tracks than others also. 
Unless it's an issue on every track I can't see it being patched.

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Trux74 said:
lots of people posting this point about the gap being too steep but unless it's the same over an entire season I think it's a moot point. 
The AI are tough at some tracks for sure but then the user will be stronger at some tracks than others also. 
Unless it's an issue on every track I can't see it being patched.

Yeah I see your point, but I think maybe lowering the Legend times by maybe 0,5 s to even it a bit more out would be a good idea. I'm really pushing myself just to get P17-18 in qualifying while my teammate is up there in P8-10, which makes the driver expectation feature impossible for me. Guaranteed to lose points to it every weekend because I #1 Can't beat Button #2 Often can't meet the objective (this being the most possible one) 3# am never in the top 10 in the WDC which is McHonda's goal for me. So every weekend is just waiting to being fired. Being in a slow car I'm fine with, that's the magic of the R&D system, but then my teammate needs to be as slow and it needs to be possible to meet the goals set by the team. I spend much time trying different setups and perfecting them, to end up not being able to do the tyre test or the qualifying pace sim because I'm just too slow compared to the target times set by the game..

Yes some tracks are different, but for instance, Canada is historically my best track, and there I managed realistic results that one should expect IRL. Monaco on the other hand, a track I used to be pretty good at previously, couldn't do better than P17 in qualifying, and ended up spending the race being left for dead in P16, holding off the even worse cars behind. Meanwhile my teammate is in the top 6-7 ish. Sidenote: Button got the podium in Canada, while I barely managed a P10.

I just think the times should be somewhat lower. If not the AI times, then the Practice test times. Can't even do half the practice programmes on Legend atm. Then again, I might just be bad at this game compared to previous games.. Don't feel like it though.

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Trux74 said:
lots of people posting this point about the gap being too steep but unless it's the same over an entire season I think it's a moot point. 
The AI are tough at some tracks for sure but then the user will be stronger at some tracks than others also. 
Unless it's an issue on every track I can't see it being patched.

Yeah I see your point, but I think maybe lowering the Legend times by maybe 0,5 s to even it a bit more out would be a good idea. I'm really pushing myself just to get P17-18 in qualifying while my teammate is up there in P8-10, which makes the driver expectation feature impossible for me. Guaranteed to lose points to it every weekend because I #1 Can't beat Button #2 Often can't meet the objective (this being the most possible one) 3# am never in the top 10 in the WDC which is McHonda's goal for me. So every weekend is just waiting to being fired. Being in a slow car I'm fine with, that's the magic of the R&D system, but then my teammate needs to be as slow and it needs to be possible to meet the goals set by the team. I spend much time trying different setups and perfecting them, to end up not being able to do the tyre test or the qualifying pace sim because I'm just too slow compared to the target times set by the game..

Yes some tracks are different, but for instance, Canada is historically my best track, and there I managed realistic results that one should expect IRL. Monaco on the other hand, a track I used to be pretty good at previously, couldn't do better than P17 in qualifying, and ended up spending the race being left for dead in P16, holding off the even worse cars behind. Meanwhile my teammate is in the top 6-7 ish. Sidenote: Button got the podium in Canada, while I barely managed a P10.

I just think the times should be somewhat lower. If not the AI times, then the Practice test times. Can't even do half the practice programmes on Legend atm. Then again, I might just be bad at this game compared to previous games.. Don't feel like it though.
Then you will anger other people who think it is right on legend (me) so the best thing is a slider

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Trux74 said:
lots of people posting this point about the gap being too steep but unless it's the same over an entire season I think it's a moot point. 
The AI are tough at some tracks for sure but then the user will be stronger at some tracks than others also. 
Unless it's an issue on every track I can't see it being patched.

Yeah I see your point, but I think maybe lowering the Legend times by maybe 0,5 s to even it a bit more out would be a good idea. I'm really pushing myself just to get P17-18 in qualifying while my teammate is up there in P8-10, which makes the driver expectation feature impossible for me. Guaranteed to lose points to it every weekend because I #1 Can't beat Button #2 Often can't meet the objective (this being the most possible one) 3# am never in the top 10 in the WDC which is McHonda's goal for me. So every weekend is just waiting to being fired. Being in a slow car I'm fine with, that's the magic of the R&D system, but then my teammate needs to be as slow and it needs to be possible to meet the goals set by the team. I spend much time trying different setups and perfecting them, to end up not being able to do the tyre test or the qualifying pace sim because I'm just too slow compared to the target times set by the game..

Yes some tracks are different, but for instance, Canada is historically my best track, and there I managed realistic results that one should expect IRL. Monaco on the other hand, a track I used to be pretty good at previously, couldn't do better than P17 in qualifying, and ended up spending the race being left for dead in P16, holding off the even worse cars behind. Meanwhile my teammate is in the top 6-7 ish. Sidenote: Button got the podium in Canada, while I barely managed a P10.

I just think the times should be somewhat lower. If not the AI times, then the Practice test times. Can't even do half the practice programmes on Legend atm. Then again, I might just be bad at this game compared to previous games.. Don't feel like it though.
Then you will anger other people who think it is right on legend (me) so the best thing is a slider

Yeah I had it in my mind writing that though, that some people find that perfect atm. So yes, +1 to a slider difficulty scale.

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Thought I would chip in, in the hope they will lower legend AI a tad.

Legend is to fast,Expert is to slow.

I think there is no slider as it would require more testing. Limiting the difficulties helps with testing the game.

Cheers

Ross

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I second/third this. 

Legend is ridiculously fast but their aggression is wicked. Expert is too slow and their aggression is pathetic!

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Legend is too Fast and the tyre managment program is impossible, tried on Expert with med traction but didn't slow enough down was Almost 1 sec faster than my team mate at China
Tyre managment was too easy beat the target time with 1,5sec
Im in the middle of the Expert and Legend this is really frustrating When you cant play the game.
Havent tried Legend with Med traction could It be faster?

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There is no substitute for practice. I figured I could jump in straight to ultimate and was quickly proved wrong. Had to go down to expert. Refined my technique and progressed to legend quite quickly and can now easily purple the tyre management on all compounds and qualifying. Now working my way to ultimate pace.

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Moving the difficulty will only help some.  It'd ruin the game for others who find it perfect.  This forum is not a fair representation of the entire F1 community.

Assists can help with difficulty - add tc and raceline for more speed and higher difficulty, remove them and race on lower difficulty.  Racing line is the biggest assist in the game IMO.  

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OGFedfan said:
Moving the difficulty will only help some.  It'd ruin the game for others who find it perfect.  This forum is not a fair representation of the entire F1 community.

Assists can help with difficulty - add tc and raceline for more speed and higher difficulty, remove them and race on lower difficulty.  Racing line is the biggest assist in the game IMO.  
Which is why there should be one in between. 

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You need to change difficulty per track. Baku, Monaco, Singapore are definately expert level.
Bahrain, Canada, Austria are Legend level.
Do they Qualy run in FP2 and if you are way faster than the expected time up the difficulty from FP3 onwards

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Here's a proposed solution I came up with: http://forums.codemasters.com/discussion/45465/for-f1-2017-adaptive-difficulty#latest

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Almost every other racing sim I know has a slider for AI difficulty and we have been asking for this for 6 years yet codemasters continue to ignore it.  With F1 lap times measured in 100'th's of a second having 2 second lap time differences between difficulty levels is a joke.  2 seconds can be the difference between pole and end of the pack.  Only a small % of drivers will find the set difficult levels right for them leaving everyone else either too fast or too slow and thus zero fun in career.  As I said this has been a huge issue since the first F1 they made and after 6 years they still choose to ignore it.  A difficulty slider is the obvious answer or at least a lot more levels with perhaps 0.5 of a second between each level.

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For me it is the same, expert at china are 2 secs slower, legend my teammate buzz me by a second. This problem i have in bahrain and china but legendary team targets are exactly the right one. But in Melbourne i had a good time with expert ai. So what do you think, can i improve my lap time by a second by using manual gears? Atm i use automatic. 
Do anyone of u know the time difference in engine burst mode low med high? maybe half a second gaps?

But at all and in fact that the ai seems to be a little bit noisy in their level i give the +1 to ai slider ( But therefore i hope since the first game )

Finally i have to say that the game itself is great, driving the car makes a lot of fun! Really hope for some adjustments in ai at least some more sets between the existing.

n7 

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Yep, it's really getting on my nerves now. I've always driven comfortably on Legend difficulty on every F1 game, but the fact that I'm consistently over 1 second behind my teammate (Button) in Practice and Qualifying is pretty ridiculous, especially when I can't drop down to Expert because that's too easy.

I was involved in the Closed Beta, and I didn't have anything like these problems. Legend was appropriate, Ultimate was tough, and Expert was right too. Now, however (particularly in Career mode), it's impossible to keep up or be as slow as the AI depending on the difficulty.

This should be something addressed immediately in the next patch rather than waiting for F1 2017, because I think it's turning a lot of people off carrying on their career modes...

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OGFedfan said:
Moving the difficulty will only help some.  It'd ruin the game for others who find it perfect.  This forum is not a fair representation of the entire F1 community.

Assists can help with difficulty - add tc and raceline for more speed and higher difficulty, remove them and race on lower difficulty.  Racing line is the biggest assist in the game IMO.  
I'm already using the racing line for corners. Only assist I had on prior to this becoming an obvious problem. Added Medium TC. Still not much of an improvement, only slightly. 

Ironically I met my goals and beat Button in Austria qualifying, but I'm not expecting the problem to magically be solved here. Still struggled through the weekend more than I did on previous games on Legend. Though I could live with this, having to really push to beat Button - Hard, but possible, that's what I want. That's all I ask for. 1-2 s behind in same machinery is not possible, that goes for the practice programmes as well. Find myself having to push like hell to even hit the target times, then forget about getting green/purple tyre wear.. Another key problem that I mentioned, is that the driver expectations are impossible, and every race weekend is just postponing inevitable termination of contract.

Xyadas said:
There is no substitute for practice. I figured I could jump in straight to ultimate and was quickly proved wrong. Had to go down to expert. Refined my technique and progressed to legend quite quickly and can now easily purple the tyre management on all compounds and qualifying. Now working my way to ultimate pace.
At this point I'm strongly considering restarting my Career to see if that's the case for me as well. That I might've gotten better or something by going half a season. Also because my season is a mess with Expert being run in Melbourne and Baku (P2 there, lol), Legend the rest, DNF out of frustration in Spain and Monaco.

JJRosso said:
You need to change difficulty per track. Baku, Monaco, Singapore are definately expert level.
Bahrain, Canada, Austria are Legend level.
Do they Qualy run in FP2 and if you are way faster than the expected time up the difficulty from FP3 onwards
This shouldn't be an actual thing. The diff level should be set on start of season and be consistent throughout.

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I second/third this. 

Legend is ridiculously fast but their aggression is wicked. Expert is too slow and their aggression is pathetic!

Steamstank said:
Legend is too Fast and the tyre managment program is impossible, tried on Expert with med traction but didn't slow enough down was Almost 1 sec faster than my team mate at China
Tyre managment was too easy beat the target time with 1,5sec
Im in the middle of the Expert and Legend this is really frustrating When you cant play the game.
Havent tried Legend with Med traction could It be faster?
Practice makes perfect.

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At first I said that legend was too fast and I couldn't keep up. But I just kept on putting the practice in and played with the car setup., since then I'm keeping up and complete the targets. I'm enjoying it more now because I'm keeping up with my team mate. 

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Hill0 said:
At first I said that legend was too fast and I couldn't keep up. But I just kept on putting the practice in and played with the car setup., since then I'm keeping up and complete the targets. I'm enjoying it more now because I'm keeping up with my team mate. 
I don't have time for that. So I'd like a setting in between

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Hill0 said:
At first I said that legend was too fast and I couldn't keep up. But I just kept on putting the practice in and played with the car setup., since then I'm keeping up and complete the targets. I'm enjoying it more now because I'm keeping up with my team mate. 
I don't have time for that. So I'd like a setting in between

Sliders would be a great solution. This would give players the ability to gradually work their way up to harder difficulties without getting discouraged or frustrated in the process. 

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https://twitter.com/theleemather/status/768885762238603264

Lee said they're looking into this issues, so hopefully there will be a fix!

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