Hi there,
me and my friends are having huge fun with FM6 and while it’s very polished right off the bat (as per usual), we noticed some things we think may be easily optimized for an even better experience. The following points are based on our experience in private multiplayer lobbies, which is the part of FM6 we play the most. This list contains things we would love to see improved or added. By no means is this list to be seen as a demand! We simply wish for the game we love to get even better!
1. Setting “Cosmetic Damage” for the lobby does not affect players with their personal assysts set to “simulation damage”.
In FM5 the lobby setting would always overrule the player setting for damage. Setting the lobby settings to “cosmetic” would result in all players racing with cosmetic damage, even the ones that have “simulation damage” selected. In FM6 players that have selecte “simulation damage” will experience damage to their car, even if the lobby settings are set to “cosmetic”. Is this intentional or a bug?
2. Please make the “limit aggression” drivatar option available in private multiplayer lobbies
The drivatars are behaving very badly, attacking you in corners and even on straightaways, ramming into your back or sides… no matter what level you put them in. This results in many restarts for our races, because drivatars usually destroy us during the first corners, since we’re always running “simulation damage”. We are populating our private lobby with drivatars, because we are only 4-6 guys racing together and it’s way to empty on the track without drivatars.
3. Please make “Spectate” available for the lobby host.
Normally I host our private lobbies and have quickly noticed that I’m not able to select “spectate”, while everbody else can. Quite a bummer. Is this intentional, a bug or because of technical limitations?
4. Can you include a button “Quit and Spectate” in the race menu?
The spectate mode is awesome and I love to see it’s back again! At the moment if I crash my car very bad at the end of a lengthy race, I sometimes decide not to keep going. At that moment I would love to be able to simply select the spectate mode without going back to the menu and going back into the same race, experiencing all those loading screens. A simple option in the menu like “Spectate” that is followed by a message box that says “This will end your race and put you in spectate mode. Do you really want to end your race?” that can be answered with yes or no and sends you right into spectate. I’d LOVE that!
5. Car liveries not loading, colors wrong
We noticed that sometimes random players will have their cars shown with stock colors, without their liveries or chosen color.
6. Distinction between real players and drivatars in mini map
While the return of the HUD element that shows players ahead/behind is great, it would be nice to be able to see WHAT is close to you: a person or a drivatar. So a short blink at the mini map could offer even more information if there was a simple color distinction between actual human racers and drivatars. Including this as an option for private lobbies would be more than awesome!
7. Make “players ahead/behind” HUD element switchable between distance and time
Even though the HUD element is extremely useful as it is, most of my friends would actually prefer to see the time others racers are ahead or behind instead of the distance. Maybe you could add an option in the HUD section where one can specifiy if it shown in distance (default) or time.
8. Show human racers before drivatars in lobby list
When you are waiting in a private lobby, drivatars and human racers are wildly mixed together. Because of the amount of racers possible, friends can get lost at the bottom of the screen, so that you actually have to scroll the list to find them. This is a little annoying and it would be way nicer to have all your friends up at the top of the list. If this is not possible and even though I could not make out a certain logic the list is sorted by, please make drivatars and human racers more distinct… the very small logo at the start of every line is not that easy to recognize.
9. Show player badges instead of the small logo for player entries in the lobby list
Instead of showing just the racing helmet logo for every player, why not show a smaller version of their actual badge? This would also help to find the players you are looking for in a list quicker.
10. Re-entering lobbies
In between races, player may need to leave the lobby to buy, tune or customize a car. After that, they need to join via the friends app or the party app, if there is an open party. Sometimes this doesn’t work and the player who wants to rejoin needs to be send an invite by players already in the lobby. In FM5 there was the always present “join lobby” message in the bottom left, where you only had to press the option button on your controller and it would bring you right back to your multipayer lobby. That was great! Please bring it back!
11. Host cannot change lobby settings after race
Right after a race, as long as one player remains in the race result screen, the host cannot change any settings for the next race. Every player needs to be back in the lobby screen before changes can be made again. Even then, the host has to continously check the options and back out again, because just waiting in the options screen will not make them available as soon as everybody is back, the host has to back out of the options and go back in. Mildly annoying.
12. Buy cars that are lower than the selected class
When we are racing in B class for example and the host has set a restriction to B class (so that drivatars will race B class cars, too), maybe somebody wants to try a new car. Sadly the “buy car” list contains only cars that are in B class already. The host now needs to delete the class restriction, the player who wants a new car needs to enter the “buy car” menu again and is now able to select the car he wants. After he is finished the host needs to set the class restriction again. This could be way easier if the player could actually pick cars from all classes, up to the one where the restriction is set and is thn forced to load a tune or to do a quick upgrade.
13. Drivatars don’t chang car class when host changes restriction
After racing in a certain car class in a mixed lobby of human racers and drivatars and the host changes the class restriction, the drivatars will not automatically update and remain in the “old” car class. The host now needs to change the drivatar level for example in the lobby options. This will refresh all lobby drivatars to use the new car class, as set by the host. After that the host needs to change back the drivatar level. It would be less annoying if the drivatar cars would change as soon as the host changes the car class restriction.