best update so far, i hope more things like this show up in the future
NASCAR is not my cup of tea but I appreciate the different experience of racing around ovals. It was quite fun. I could finally try oval tracks featured in the game since the release, having some proper cars for oval racing at last 
What I don’t appreciate, however, is inconsistent AI in American Thunder Tour. While in NASCAR races I raised the difficulty level from 5 to 6 for more challenging competition, in other events I had to lower it from 5 to 4 because all of a sudden opponents turned out to be faster than they should be. Rubber-banding was well too obvious. It seems you still don’t know how to create the engaging experience of endurance racing without allowing AI to use cheats…
P.S. One intro cinematic for the entire tour in career mode is not enough.
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I think the no upgrades was a menu bug. They could be upgraded out of the career menu. Agree with most of your points entirely though
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I found this post on another thread from a T10 Dev which explains why the upgrade option was removed for these races.
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I’d like a link if you have it so I can answer.
Im sorry, I didnt know how to do a link thats why I just screen shot part of the post.
A quick search to the dev on the forum found the post:
@vipco12 by pressing the chain at the bottom of a post or reply, you copy the link to it (should show up on browser and phone)
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i just have to say it… FRR is not working at all, it always penalizies Faster drivers, becouse even if u are not at fault, but u were driving faster than AI can, u will get penalty, but on other side if some noob drives his car way too slow and rams someone off track, guess what… he gets no penalty, cuz ai can drive his car faster there…
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Yep, it’s extra punishing for faster players.
I lose 0.5 seconds for a bad off-track line and get another 1.5 seconds penalty on top for “time gain”. Yeah, maybe compared to your crappy AI but it wasn’t a time gain at all.
In a Multi-Class Nordschleife lobby lately I had to go off-track into a barrier to avoid a major accident because the lower class driver swerved to the left side of the track in the last moment.
I lost over 3 seconds and because I overtook the lower class car off-track I got an insane distance penalty. Would’ve been better to just start-ghosting through him. But that’s not really authentic.
The system is simply not very potent.
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Thank you @PizzaEnjoyer685 for your help. Appreciate it & thanks for finding it for me.
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I did not enjoy Update 14 gameplay.
I’ve never been a NASCAR fan, but driving the cars and races was OK. The AI were OK, but they never drove in a large pack, like NASCAR I’ve seen on TV. The races were long, and my shoulder began to hurt from fatigue, on every race.
Then the American Le Mans series started off in the rain at Sebring. The AI cars were unbelievably faster than me in the rain. They were ramming my car out of the way, and breaking suspension parts of my car. I completed the race, but wow… My experience with the AI was ridiculously bad.
I was disgusted and quit playing immediately after the Sebring race event. And I never returned to try the next race, or any later races or events.
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So, yeah, tried it, and it totally works. You’ve saved me from having yet another horrible time, and I’ve enjoyed racing my modified V8 Supercar.
What it means in the end is this is a 100% avoidable yet deliberate UX issue. Which also means I could probably have had a better time last month, and I was robbed from the opportunity. So it kinda makes me more mad.
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well off track penalties are part of problem, but fast players are even more penalized in case of colisions. how many times i was driving side by side with someone in my low downforce tune, chilling on inside of corner, and leaving space for 2 more cars on corner exit… but no oponent turns into my rear wheels, we got glued, i got spun out… and get 2s penalty…
While next race i see some noob divebombing and pushing off 2 players off track, while he getting no penalty… cuz he drives grip meta.
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It’s just another half baked update from T10 almost exactly like drift mode. I’ve always been taught that if you’re going to do something, do it right! Why take the time to give us table scrap game modes? The gameplay is beyond shallow and seeing that it’s becoming a trend my enthusiasm for FMs future is dissipating quickly.
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You said you would bring back FOMO stuff later in the year we had the last update and where is it , why ask what ones we are most interested in just add them back
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I was disappointed with update 14. I saw it was NASCAR and thought “meh”. Then I decided to give it a go and try to enjoy it as you never know…
Tried the first career race and ended up having to do a few “restart race” as the AI smashed me to pieces within a few seconds. Eventually finished the race and though “meh”. Tried multiplayer and it was obvious some people are really into NASCAR, which is fine. Trouble was after a couple of practice laps I could see I was going to be very uncompetitive so happily left others to enjoy it. Didn’t return to NASCAR multiplayer.
Back to career then. I can usually compete with the AI level 8. Not a chance in this series. The speed of the AI coupled with a terrible experience with my own car (too much wheel spin and just not fun in general) caused me to quit NASCAR career too. For good. Decided the reward fomo car wasn’t worth it for me. Didn’t even autopilot it.
Overall I’m glad it was included in the game for the fans, as I was for the drift update, but it just wasn’t for me.
Today I’ve completed the last race in American Thunder Tour: the Sunset Peninsula round in NASCAR series (I play races in random order), and this was probably the worst singleplayer racing experience I had during 400h spent with this game.
Earlier races in this series I could complete on difficulty 5 or 6. This time even on level 4 opponents turned out to be faster than me. We had the same PI but they clearly had much more power. How?
I’ve managed to finish on 4th place only because there was a crash and ridiculously massive jam on third corner, and then I blocked opponents who turned out to be absolutely unable to pass me, closing to gap between us only to brake right behind my back.
At this point, after more than dozen updates, AI having issues like this is just pathetic. Thankfully, it’s acceptable and doesn’t cheat in most races.
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I had the same experience @Draugnimir . Overpowered A.I. that I couldnt catch on difficulty 6, or difficulty 5 as those in front took off up to 16 sec’s ahead of me & the cars I was ahead of were no threat as anytime they closed in on me they were too easy to block as they hit the breaks & quickly dropped back. I like NASCAR & was looking forward to this Tour but it was’nt the fun series i’d hoped for due to this.
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Ai driving is trash need to be better address keep getting smach into
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I love the idea of adding new disciplines to the game, hopefully they’ll add indy cars, past gen f1 cars or even some rally cars, tracks, tires.
About the AI, it’s really BAD, even on the highest difficulty it doesn’t make any sense, they slow down on straights, when they’re close to the bots they forget how to drive properly, they let you pass easily, the first 3 are still uncatchable after the first lap, it’s boring, I really don’t understand where those “improvements” are that they talk about so much in the updates.
Now, about the FRR, they’re a complete joke, they don’t make sense, they don’t have consistency, they’re not severe enough to make players avoid them.
It doesn’t make any sense that a player hits another player on the first turn and the player loses more than 15 positions while the one who caused it will at most receive 4 seconds when he won’t lose positions in the race until the end.
I hate to say this, but it should be like in Gran Turismo, there should be braking zones on the straights of the track so that the player with a penalty is forced to brake and that his penalty has a real impact during the RACE and if he does not take it, he is instantly disqualified.
There are very few players at the moment and continuing to be “flexible” with toxic players is a real lack of respect for players who try to have a clean race.
Forza has a really good handling model, maybe it is not the most realistic (there are no puddles on the track during the rain or an optimal line) but its driving is extremely fun and challenging, nothing more is needed
People have to understand that this is not Forza Horizon, being a slow player has nothing to do with being an unsportsmanlike toxic player.
You need to start being stricter with penalties, make them enforced DURING THE RACE, the toxics don’t mind losing 2 positions at the end due to the penalty time, but making them slow down for 4 seconds during the race and losing several positions will spoil their party.
Come on, gentlemen of T10, you can do better.
Happy holidays to everyone!
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