F1 2018 = Most Online Bugs Ever!

[moogleslam 47]

Precision Racing League tried to do their online pre-season league race last night on PC, and it was a disaster from start to finish.  All drivers are from North America, and do ping tests to ensure their connection is adequate, so bad connections did not contribute to any of this.  League Racing cannot take place with the current game bugs.  Our drivers have summarized the issues we experienced:

1. We set up an unranked private lobby, and everyone was able to join successfully.  However, multiple drivers were unable to select a car.  The select button simply wasn't available, even though there were clearly multiple seats still open.  We could navigate through different menus then return to the team selection screen, and occasionally, the select option would appear, but not to the point we could get it to work for everyone.  We tried recreating the lobby, using a different host, creating an online championship instead of unranked.  Nothing worked.  Each time we tried to find a new solution, it was a different set of drivers who could no longer select their car.  It wasn't consistent, so wasn't easily re-created.  Eventually we invited one driver at a time, let him pick his car, then we moved onto the next driver, and it worked until the very last driver.   Obviously having the host do this 19 times is very very tedious and time consuming.  We do believe the last driver may have caused issues because he has special characters in his name.  He has changed his Steam name, and we will re-test this soon.
2. At one point during our issue described in #1, we switched to classic cars to see if that would make a difference (it didn't), but after we returned to modern cars, 4 of the teams didn't show up.  We were stuck at 6 teams (same number as the number of classic cars from our previous screen).  We had to restart the lobby to resolve this.
   
3. Once we finally got all drivers in their car, and we started a short qualifying, three drivers were disconnected a couple of minutes into the session.  
   
4. We re-invited the three drivers who were disconnected in qualifying so they could participate in the race.  However, once we moved to the race, two drivers were able to re-take control of their cars, whereas the third driver was not; the Take Control option was grayed out and unavailable.
   
5. A couple of other times throughout the race, there were other groups of multiple drivers who were disconnected at once.
   
6. Each driver who disconnected was not removed from the circuit.  Instead AI took control of their car.  This was also true for the driver who was disconnected in qualifying, and who was unable to take control of his car at the beginning of the race; it was controlled by AI for the entire race.  We obviously don't want AI cars in league racing, because all they did was drive slowly, erratically, and cause issues with other drivers.
   
7. A driver was unable to get their engine sound to return to normal after exiting the pits.  It sounded like he was driving at a constant speed down the pit lane while actually driving around the track at racing speed, and he had to Alt-Tab out and back in to fix this.
   
8. We had one driver have a minor collision with another, even though there appeared to be no contact on the second driver's screen.  The first driver's car flew into the air, did multiple somersaults, then ended up underneath the track where he was stuck for ~15 seconds, with engine revving, and tires spinning and smoking, before finally being reset to the circuit.
   
9. In spectate mode, lots of cars (though not all), were constantly on the rev limiter around the entire circuit, and in every gear.
   
10. We had a major collision in the middle of the main straight, but the safety car was not deployed, and the damaged car just sat there for ~15 seconds before disappearing.
    
11. A driver randomly lost force feedback on his Thrustmaster T300 and had to Alt-Tab out and back in to fix this.
    
12. By the end of the race, out of the 19 drivers who started, we had only 3 human drivers on circuit, along with 9 AI drivers.
    

Codemasters, please tell us what you're going to do to fix this in F1 2018?  

What are you going to do to prevent it from happening in F1 2019 and beyond?  Can we please have an open beta so that you can have the community find these bugs and test online stability before release, not after.  If there are FOM limitations, I'm sure you could at least just give us generic cars with no liveries.  It's frustrating beyond belief that this not only happens every single year, but that it now seems to have become worse instead of better.

[Dark6031 0]

Totally agree with this thread.

I've been paying for this game since 2010, so 8 years of purchasing your games. How can you release those games and patches without testing ?

Every year is the same story, you break the game every time you release a patch. Where's the quality control department ? What is the testing department doing ? I honestly cannot believe this in 2018. You have been doing this for the last 8 years.....

I'm getting sick of your patch notes too:

Multiplayer

• Improved game stability and various other fixes

When I see this now, it means to me that you break the game. So elaborate those various other fixes....

Argghh I'm mad !

[dskxalive 20]

Good look getting a reply from anyone at Codemasters  :D They don’t like criticism. All we can do is hope FOM don’t renew their contract with them for future games... 

[NickDahy 0]

I wonder how much this has to do with Patch 1.0.5.   Every year it seems like the PC version always has the most bugs because it is a port.

We will test tonight on PS4 and I will let you know what issues we run into there.

[GeoshotTV 0]

Codemasters, please tell us what you're going to do to fix this in F1 2018?  

I don't work for Codemasters, thank god... but i can tell you what they will do: Nothing.

[iceman153 0]

There are some pretty basic game breaking bugs in that list, I'd like to hope they will get to at least those ones.   Just incase it's too much to read above...

• Drivers not being able to select a car in multiplayer lobby.  (note we re-created the lobby 4-5 times)
• By the end of a 50% quali/race, 18 of the 19 drivers had been disconnected at least once, and only 3 were still on track at the end.
• AI for disconnected drivers stayed on track all race, and they do not ghost or move out of the way.
• Loss of engine sound when exiting the pits (alt-tab in/out fixed this)
• Loss of force feedback (alt-tab in/out fixed this)

The rest of the issues are maybe harder to fix / easier to live with, but I think at a bare minimum these issues need to be addressed urgently.

[F1HungaryLiga 0]

NickDahy said:

I wonder how much this has to do with Patch 1.0.5.   Every year it seems like the PC version always has the most bugs because it is a port.

We will test tonight on PS4 and I will let you know what issues we run into there.

We just did a practice run in our league on PS4, 19 drivers + 2 spectators. Had the same issues that moogleslam described. Well, not all, but the game disconnected several players at once a few times, the rev stuck sometimes etc. Also, one of our drivers spun out, the car behind passed him, and got a 5sec stop-n-go for overtaking under yellow flag... We were planning to start the new season of our league next week, but it's delayed for indefinite time, because this game is simply unsuitable for such purpose. 

[Ste060686 0]

Omg, can't you just play? Honestly? Everything has bug, even a MacBook pro that cost 3000euros has bugs. Your body has bugs. Real f1 cars have bugs. Just play the game, which is awesime: a bug screws up your race? Whatever, it's not like you've lost something special in your life... Play that race again

[Lescadres 22]

Moogleslam forgot to say that the race was held last night in France on Paul-Ricard's track. The poor man should have made many turns in his grave...

We could also add that the track limits in France are not correct in the strict mode. Many players are able to race outside the lines and had no advises. 

[PrecisionRL 0]

Like Iceman mentionned, if at least the bugs that affects the lobby and online gameplay can be fixed we can live with the others for now.

[speeddemon8021 0]

Ste060686 said:

Omg, can't you just play? Honestly? Everything has bug, even a MacBook pro that cost 3000euros has bugs. Your body has bugs. Real f1 cars have bugs. Just play the game, which is awesime: a bug screws up your race? Whatever, it's not like you've lost something special in your life... Play that race again

Sometimes im ashamed to be the same species as someone like this,this is what evolution has brought us to.

[Ste060686 0]

speeddemon8021 said:

Ste060686 said:

Omg, can't you just play? Honestly? Everything has bug, even a MacBook pro that cost 3000euros has bugs. Your body has bugs. Real f1 cars have bugs. Just play the game, which is awesime: a bug screws up your race? Whatever, it's not like you've lost something special in your life... Play that race again

Sometimes im ashamed to be the same species as someone like this,this is what evolution has brought us to.

Ouch, this comment explains everything. If saying "it's just a game" about - listen carefully - a game, makes you doubt the evolution of the human species... Well... I'm with you man! I agree: if a kid's toy is so important for you, we do have indeed a big BUG in the evolution! 

[ThunderCats101 71]

Some people here are funny with "codemasters won't listen/do anything" guess we should just revert back to patch 1.04 or 1.03 and have cars teleport to pits yes? It's annoying that there are always a few things that are bugged/broken and don't get fixed in time before they start working on next seasons game I agree but that's not saying codies don't listen. 

[FRACTURED 30]

Ste060686 said:

Omg, can't you just play? Honestly? Everything has bug, even a MacBook pro that cost 3000euros has bugs. Your body has bugs. Real f1 cars have bugs. Just play the game, which is awesime: a bug screws up your race? Whatever, it's not like you've lost something special in your life... Play that race again

Ain't no "flashbacks" or "play that race again" in a league. 

[FRACTURED 30]

ThunderCats101 said:

Some people here are funny with "codemasters won't listen/do anything" guess we should just revert back to patch 1.04 or 1.03 and have cars teleport to pits yes? It's annoying that there are always a few things that are bugged/broken and don't get fixed in time before they start working on next seasons game I agree but that's not saying codies don't listen. 

They often listen, just not sure if they hear. There are cases where we know they haven't heard as entire threads get to multiple pages without a response.

The only thing I would put money on is that you can expect teleporting cars on launch next year too. 

[steviejay69 1,110]

AOR will be doing the same this weekend and for the next two weeks - Evaluation races.

I'll be sure to add to this thread but 7, 9 & 11 have already been observed frequently.

I would question the decision to hold an evaluation race on a track like Paul Ricard with obvious and documented track limits issues. Who does the planning? 

[LSKone 109]

I haven't had the chance to play much Multiplayer yet, but man, I guess we're off to a good start, again...

[F1HungaryLiga 0]

Ste060686 said:

Omg, can't you just play? Honestly? Everything has bug, even a MacBook pro that cost 3000euros has bugs. Your body has bugs. Real f1 cars have bugs. Just play the game, which is awesime: a bug screws up your race? Whatever, it's not like you've lost something special in your life... Play that race again

I understand your opinion, but let me explain my point of view, and I'm sure you'll understand mine as well.
We put a lot of effort in organizing our weekly races, and it took years to get 24 good drivers (20 regular + 4 substitutes), who are willing to make free every thursday night for some quality racing. We have two commentators, who are streaming and commentating every race for our ~500 viewers (not much, but good enough for us). What we expect from a full priced game is not much, just to work as intended. F1 2017 had bugs as well, even before 2018 is released (so after 1 year of patching), but okay, those were not game-breaking. The most usual one was that the host player disconnected between the formation lap and race start. Okay, made a new session, set the grid order manually, 10 mins and 20% of viewers lost. We can live with that.
But the fact, that we simply can't get this one to work properly because these serious issues is more than frustrating. Having bugs is one thing, but a full priced game being useless in a private online lobby is another one. I mean what the duck did these guys were doing in the past year? Drawing halos, recording audio for the interview questions and made this basic ranking system? Is that it? While F1 2011 on xbox360 could manage 20 players in a single lobby without issues, F1 2018 on PS4 or PC can't? This is wrong, and not just a bit. It's very disappoinging.

[Birkhoff 1]

Same problem for us, we have moved the start of the tournament next Thursday hoping that the patch will improve things .... at the moment I'm not at home and I do not know if today is out for Xbox

[moogleslam 47]

Ste060686 said:

Omg, can't you just play? Honestly? Everything has bug, even a MacBook pro that cost 3000euros has bugs. Your body has bugs. Real f1 cars have bugs. Just play the game, which is awesime: a bug screws up your race? Whatever, it's not like you've lost something special in your life... Play that race again

I really thought you were just at troll, but then you tried to back up what you were saying, so now I'm not so sure, but I'll bite either way and respond.

No, we can't just play.  We can't play at all.  If you read the first post, you would have understood that.  We have lived with bugs in this game for 8 years, and we will do everything we can to deal with them or find a work around, but currently, that is not even an option.  There are bugs and then there are game breaking bugs, and people use that term quite loosely to make a point, but in this case, we truly have bugs that break a portion of the game, and make it so that drivers cannot participate despite our best efforts.

When I go to play basketball, and the ball is totally flat, and my sneakers don't fit, and I am forced to spectate instead of play, and when I get stuck underneath the court for 15 seconds, no, it's not fun. 

[vincenzo19 19]

Ste060686 said:

Omg, can't you just play? Honestly? Everything has bug, even a MacBook pro that cost 3000euros has bugs. Your body has bugs. Real f1 cars have bugs. Just play the game, which is awesime: a bug screws up your race? Whatever, it's not like you've lost something special in your life... Play that race again

You sir, are the Codemasters DREAM! Sounds like they could sell you anything ;)

[NickDahy 0]

We had our test yesterday on PS4 with 14 players.  For the first lobby attempt I was the host had nat type 2 and we lost 3 players when the countdown to session ended.  The next time we got a different host with a better NAT and we all made it into the session.  So i think this might be something with NAT TYPE so keep that in mind....but then again we only had 13 on the 2nd attempt and not a full grid...

50 percent race - short quali - formation lap on - safety car on - Track France
Bugs Observed
1) 3 people in T300RS wheels lost their FFB and correct steering rotation during quali.  Were able to unplug and re-plug the wheel to get it back.
2) Formation lap - two cars were dropped into 1 gridbox slot luckily after the formation lap this was not an issue
3) Some people complained of some framerate issues, especially when people left.

Other issues observed in practice sessions:
1) Big framerate drop where everyone experienced.  I think it came right around a weather changing in 5 minutes so maybe that had something to do with it.   Frames up after a few minutes but the frames were literally like 5-10 fps.  If this happened during the race it would have completely destroyed it but it was during quali.
2) Spectating often results in showing drivers with full revs all of the time.

 

[Operator1 4]

FRACTURED said:
...The only thing I would put money on is that you can expect teleporting cars on launch next year too. 

I would put money on people putting money on the game again & again.

Exclusive license + sizable audience of loyal buyers = no financial incentive for functional quality.

[krabman 0]

Ste060686 said:

Omg, can't you just play? Honestly? Everything has bug, even a MacBook pro that cost 3000euros has bugs. Your body has bugs. Real f1 cars have bugs. Just play the game, which is awesime: a bug screws up your race? Whatever, it's not like you've lost something special in your life... Play that race again

If it was a small bug this would make sense, but when it completely ruins every single online session it becomes infuriating. All I want to do is race online with my friends but as soon as I start someone is bouncing on top of me and then the game turns into a slideshow. They said they were giving up with multiplayer for F1 2017 after about two months to work on this game, and all of the same glitches are still there and more. It’s a joke

[steviejay69 1,110]

Operator1 said:

FRACTURED said:
...The only thing I would put money on is that you can expect teleporting cars on launch next year too. 

I would put money on people putting money on the game again & again.

Exclusive license + sizable audience of loyal buyers = no financial incentive for functional quality.

Every single game F1 2009 - F1 2018. There were a couple of OK ones.

Major disappointments were 12, 14 & 15.

11, 16 and 17 were standard

I loved 10, 13 and potentially 18 IF it gets sorted

09 yes I have it but no Wii to play it lol think I played it half a dozen times on a mate's Wii