Multiplayer in F1 2015

[LiteralZero 0]

Since we announced F1™ 2015 back in March, we’ve had a mountain of questions surrounding the multiplayer experience in the game. We know a lot of you spend a massive amount of your playing time battling wheel to wheel with players from all over the world so we wanted to give you a quick taste of the sort of things that have changed for F1 2015. We asked game designer Steven Embling to give us an outline of multiplayer in F1 2015.

What are the key changes to the online experience in F1 2015?

“We use the new Hopper matchmaking system for F1 2015 meaning we offer players a wide variety of preset session types they can take part in. The session type spans various circuit type preferences, ability levels, race distances and more. Players can easily search for the kind of multiplayer session experience that they want, making the online racing experience in F1 2015 even more exciting.

After you’ve decided what type of session you want to search for, F1 2015 allows you to play other game modes while the game does all the hard work so you never have to wait on a searching screen while matching takes place. Want some last minute practice on a particular circuit? Just queue up for your chosen Hopper and then go set your best lap times in Time Trial mode.

Also new for F1 2015 is an innovative experience we call the Feature Race. This is a specific lobby set up to correspond with the real life Formula One season. As Formula One moves on from circuit to circuit so does the feature race in F1 2015 to recreate the real world championship.”

What lobby customisation options will be available to players?

“There are a multitude of options available for custom online lobbies in F1 2015. Hosts can choose exact specific details for the lobbies, such as equal car performance, weather, damage on or off and much more. New for F1 2015 is the ability for lobby hosts to include practice sessions for the full weekend experience in addition to qualifying and race sessions.

Being able to independently set up practice and qualifying session lengths alongside the number of options that hosts can change, make the custom lobby perfect for racing with your friends or even setting up your own F1 2015 online league.”

And what’s available for players spectating on a race?

“Should the player join an in-progress session, or retire either by choice or from terminal damage, they can spectate sessions. As well as all the on-board cameras there are also trackside TV cameras available which give a fantastic broadcast style viewing perspective. When in the garage within a Practice or Qualifying session players can even view onboard live feeds of other cars to aid in learning the racing lines directly from the session leaders.

This is an amazing way to learn from other players in your session or to find out where they are weakest!”

So there we have it. The changes to the multiplayer experience in F1 2015 give you more control when finding or creating the type of session that you want to play, giving you the power to race exactly how you want to.

F1 2015 will be released in the UK, Europe and Australia on July 10th, North America on the 21st and Brazil on the 24th.

[Ayrtonkee69 0]

Can't wait to use the spectator cam in quali when you know your lap times aren't going to be any faster. All the other things haven't really changed by the looks of it. Hoppers aren't really clear for me yet. Is it some kind of real-time time trials?

[WayfaringWalrus 0]

Hey @LiteralZero, are we able to have a full grid of AI along with any human players? e.g. If I wanted to play with a friend in a private lobby, could we have a full grid of 20 cars still? Thanks :smile: 

[LiteralZero 0]

Ayrtonkee69 said:

Can't wait to use the spectator cam in quali when you know your lap times aren't going to be any faster. All the other things haven't really changed by the looks of it. Hoppers aren't really clear for me yet. Is it some kind of real-time time trials?

So the way hoppers work is you queue for it, then you can play offline game modes while your multiplayer session is put together. 

[moogleslam 47]

Some of that is nice, but for the most part, you're talking about things that aren't relevant to league racing at all, and you're even talking about features we already had; "equal car performance, weather, damage on or off" - really?

I've posted a set of questions on the forums a couple of times, most of which are related to league racing, and nothing has been answered, so I'll just go ahead and answer them myself?  Please confirm I got these right.  I'll update if I hear otherwise.  The answers are incredibly disappointing at the moment. 

1. Will there be dedicated servers, or if not, will there be improvements to the netcode so that sync issues and disconnects are mitigated?

No

2. On PC, have you fixed the issue of being disconnected if Steam goes down?

No

3. Have you removed the hidden steering assist and Traction Control from gamepads, and made using a gamepad a disadvantage rather than an advantage (or at least equal)?

Initial reports indicate parity between gamepad and steering wheel.

4. Will setup values be changed to real world values instead of the 1-11 scale?

No

5. Will online grid sizes be increased to 20 to match the real world?

No, still limited to 16.

6. Will there be any League specific features, such as allowing the host to define grid positions, and have the host be the only one who can select "Go To Track"?

No

7. Will pit stops be manual, meaning we control the pit speed limiter, the driving, and are responsible for stopping in the correct spot in our box?

No

8. Is there now a force cockpit view for League races?

No

9. Has the sidepod glitch been fixed?

No

10. Is it possible on PC to communicate with our Race Engineer, or is that only on console?

No. Console only.

11. Has corner cutting been fixed, and has the auto-slow when off track been removed/replaced with a better means to manage running off track?

@justbiglee indicated corner cutting & the penalty system has been reworked.  No info regarding the removal/replacement of auto-slow when running off track.

12. Are there pit boards?

No

13. Is there a feature to export results on PC?

No

14. Can replays of online races be saved?

No

15. Is Pro mode equivalent to Sim mode, where we now have something that feels like iRacing, Assetto Corsa, rFactor, etc?

Pro mode is only different from other modes in that it is a full race weekend (3 practice sessions, 3 qualifying sessions, 100% distance race), has all assists banned, has the HUD turned off, and forces cockpit view (so not really something we couldn't do before).  However, at least one site (Team VVV) has reported that the handling is closer to a simulation than the arcade feel of past F1 201x games.  

16. Doubtful, but I'll ask anyway, as other games are starting to do this:  Will there be multi-format online racing, meaning Xbox ONE and PC drivers can race together?

No.

17. Has the "V-Sync" bug been fixed on PC, whereby a high framerate would cause erratic wheel behavior with certain wheels (G27 for instance), and turning V-Sync on was one way to solve it by limiting the framerate.

No

18. If we damage our front wing, is there now the option to NOT have it replaced during a pit stop?

No

19. Will there be native support for VR headsets?

No

20. Can we select our own car numbers for online races?

No

21. Can we join/leave/rejoin the online practice session at any time, and can you join any session right up until the cars go to the grid for the race – i.e. you can join mid-way through qualifying, or even after qualifying, with cars that join late starting from the back of the grid.

No

22.  Can you rejoin a race if you get disconnected?

No

23. Can we adjust our Field of View and seating position in the cockpit?

No

[hrusa2cz 0]

Hello! I have a few questions.
1) Is there splitscreen multiplayer? If not, why ? It was one of the most requested features for F1 2011.
2) Is there online coop ? If not, why ?
3) Can we create online championship that will remember points and so on? (like coop mode in 2014) If yes that would make up for the missing coop.
4) Can we add AI cars into an online race ?
Thank you for answers! I have already preordered but I want to know what I bought :)

[scottishwildcat 187]

My guess on the (apparent) lack of splitscreen multiplayer is that they'll give us the same excuse as Project Cars:
http://www.projectcarsgame.com/faq.html

[hrusa2cz 0]

@scottishwildcat That is pretty stupid excuse. So splitscreen can be locked at 30 fps and there you go. The same thing with Motorstorm, Dirt and F1 2010. Sequels to all these games had splitscreen because people wanted it !

[scottishwildcat 187]

hrusa2cz said:

@scottishwildcat That is pretty stupid excuse. So splitscreen can be locked at 30 fps and there you go. The same thing with Motorstorm, Dirt and F1 2010. Sequels to all these games had splitscreen because people wanted it !

I don't disagree, though I suspect in practice they might have to lock it even lower than that, or reduce the visual quality a bit as they did in previous F1 games IIRC.

[Danform123 0]

So you can still create your own custom lobby? Can you kick or at least vote to kick the idiots who just ram or brake test you?!

[Greed3789 0]

So I guess this means co-op is confirmed out :(
Oh well won't be buying this for a while

[Tomi1997 25]

CO-OP ? @LiteralZero 

[moogleslam 47]

Tomi1997 said:

CO-OP ? @LiteralZero 

I think you just answered that...... there is Literally Zero Co-op in the game :)

[SamuelTrautman 0]

cant for the life of me understand why you add feature race to run with the real championship yet by the time the game is out we are half way through the real championship, or am I missing something here?

[Cylinder 0]

Tomi1997 said:

CO-OP ? @LiteralZero 

I want to know that!

[Lescadres 22]

8. Is there now a force cockpit view for League races?

Moogleslam : I don't think codemasters will ever put this element into force in their games because they are affraid to lose sellings from drivers who are used to drive with T-Cam.

I think that league organizers will have to do it themself if they are courageous...and they won't because they'll lose drivers !

At the end, no one is going to implement that, sadly... 

[moogleslam 47]

Bobino12 said:

8. Is there now a force cockpit view for League races?

Moogleslam : I don't think codemasters will ever put this element into force in their games because they are affraid to lose sellings from drivers who are used to drive with T-Cam.

I think that league organizers will have to do it themself if they are courageous...and they won't because they'll lose drivers !

At the end, no one is going to implement that, sadly... 

We've done it in the top division of one of our leagues before, but it had to be a gentleman's agreement.  It works, but it could be so much easier.

[DarkRedslayer 43]

I'm curious about the co-op. As it was the only mode I played out side of career mode. Though I played career mode way more. If both are out I don't really see a point in buying the game.

[Daugaard 2]

It is confirmed that both co-op and career mode is not in F1 2015

[Tomi1997 25]

Is there still 16 players then the rest will be filled by AI?

[scottishwildcat 187]

matt231985 said:

I hope not. AI in multiplayer races are nothing but mobile chicanes...

Just like certain real F1 drivers in real life, then...

[Madmaz116 111]

Daugaard said:

It is confirmed that both co-op and career mode is not in F1 2015

This is the biggest mistake ever....why the hell do Codies insist on taking stuff out of their games that people want?...jokers

[moogleslam 47]

Madmaz116 said:

Daugaard said:

It is confirmed that both co-op and career mode is not in F1 2015

This is the biggest mistake ever....why the hell do Codies insist on taking stuff out of their games that people want?...jokers

So they can add it back in at a later date and call it a new feature.  Just wait.  It'll happen.

[LFCNZ 0]

Wondering if ability levels are entered manually or whether the game figures out how good you are and puts you in games with players of similar level?

[Mitchell7x 0]

LFCNZ said:

Wondering if ability levels are entered manually or whether the game figures out how good you are and puts you in games with players of similar level?

I really hope it is at random. I race against drivers of my level in leagues, the public lobbies are there for me to sit back and relax a bit. Call of Duty also made a huge mistake with skill based matchmaking with Advanced Warfare