Serious manager game?

[Templer]

I enjoyed the predecessor a little - excellent presentation - but I never found it to be a serious, challenging manager game.
And now, the 23 version?
Is this worth now €55 for a serious, valuable pastime?

[WhattyWhatWhat81]

Really depends on how much €55 means to you and of course what you mean by a "serious, challenging manager game". The game is far better than the 22 version imo but lacks depth in many areas and becomes too simple, too quickly... even on the hardest settings. At the advice of another poster here, i have imposed my own restrictions on how many development and research i allow myself to do each season and have still taken a struggling McLaren team to be driver and constructors champions in 4 seasons.

Some areas (not all) that lack depth or create frustration:
- Tyre choice seems to have some but not a huge impact on performance
- Tyre choice over a weekend seems to be AI generated... i.e. you don't seem to get to choose what tyres go back to the manufacturer at the end of each session. E.g. you 'save' sets of soft or medium compound during qualy, but then, without choice, the AI selects a set (or both) to go back prior to the race. This makes strategy planning difficult.
- The staff impact is a little curious.... Their rating matters but they don't seem to offer strategy advice like you would expect. The game chooses how much fuel you need for a race, let's say 60 laps at 1.6Kg per lap = 96Kg which you can then alter by 5 laps either way allowing a load of between 88Kg and 104Kg. Nobody in the team suggests whether running light and conserving fuel is better or worse than running excess fuel and a high engine mode for a particular race
- In race can be frustrating, the slightest lockup or running wide can result in the driver stopping and waiting to return the track... often dropping to the back of the field even late in the race when the field is spread out. This isn't at all realistic and could really do with a fix.

This is just a feel, but the game can be fun. I sense that once your team "makes it", then it will be rather repetitive. So imposing your own rules to make it harder can increase longevity of the game.

[[NEL] Pizza delivery guy]

I still think this game lacks so many aspects to make it an enjoyable manager game. I have said in other threads to.
The game lacks realism. The game is not real, because you are only playing against yourself. There is no driver transfer market, or engineer transfer market, there is no sponsorship market (getting or changing sponsors for example), ... One checks other managing games like Football Manager or Motorsport Manager even, they are way more real. You can interact with so many more things in the team that can actually have an impact.

One of the things that pisses me off the most is the driver market. I can hire whichever driver I want, whenever I want, from wherever I want with 0 objections. The only objection is the driver wanting to go to your team depending on the team reputation you have. No one will come to take drivers away from you, no one will try to make an offer to a driver you want to try to keep him/her, ... Same goes for engineers for example too. I don't think it can be that hard to add that to the game when other games have it.
The talent of the new generated drivers is the worst thing ever. There are no new super-talents. All of them are horribly bad. By the time they can be decent, they are already over 30 years of age. Why!? Why not generate some 80 level 18 year old drivers that are very good? I mean isn't that what happens in reality? Maybe not every year, but from time to time there should be really good talents coming up. And again, same goes for engineers.
Another thing that should've been added is loaning drivers. If I hire a young driver as a reserve driver, I should be able to loan it to an F3 or F2 team for example. Or to an F1 team.

About the sponsorship, it should be easy to make sponsors eligible. For example, if I have the Haas team and I am winning championships, I should get the option to switch to some new sponsors that offer me money and can have a good bank account for the team. Why? Well, it looks like now I can hire a driver for 25 million and pay without any worries. Because there is no worries. I tried several teams already, and I never went bankrupt so far. This should be revised. One thing is meeting the cost cap, another is having a budget to pay for the whole operation. And this game being a team management game, this should be part of the task.

There should be new things happening, events, new engine suppliers coming, some leaving, drivers getting injured in crashes and missing races, ... I mean it's like you are playing 2023 over and over again, just drivers changing with the years. Nothing ever happens. By the time this game came up, they knew Audi and Ford would join F1. Why not make it happen in the game? Make Toyota (or a fake Yotoya) come back. Make an 11th team join the grid. Change the order of the races. I mean... Just make it more real.

For a race weekend there are many things wrong too.
1) Tyre wear does not seem to affect the IA as much as to your team. When I get tyre wear, the IA with fresh tyres blasts past me. When it's the other way around, they hang on with a competitive pace. And I mean like them having softs with %38 and me having mediums with %85.
2) Like the guy in the comment above says, sometimes you are trying to save a tyre compound for the race, but it gets taken away just because and you get left with very used up tyres that leave you in a s**t position.
3) Overtakes make no sense. You can see situations like a driver with the DRS open staying behind another driver with no DRS for a whole straight like in Spa or Miami for example. I can understand some drivers are better than other overtaking, but in a straight line with DRS and they don't have the brain to go to the side and pass with ease?
4) Rain made sense in 2022 game. Here, if it's not raining hard, it takes forever to get the track wet enough for inters. Not real. The AI always know the perfect lap to come in, but because you have no idea how it will behave, you can lose many chances with it.
5) You can have a driver taking a corner, another driver comes from the back and crashes into your driver, and your driver takes the penalty out of nowhere. There are many situations like this that make no sense.
6) There should be things happening, like when there is a crash with debree on the track, one should have a risk of puncture. Never happens.
7) When there is a red flag, one should have the option to change the race approach of the driver. For example, if I was managing the tyres and not pushing or using the ERS (important for a boost in the starts), I cannot modify it. I can only change tyres, but nothing more. One should be able to modify that during a red flag.
8) If I have only 1 new front wing, and I put it in the car, if it breaks, the only option I have during the weekend is to emergency manufacture the same one. I could have 6 front wings of a previous spec, I cannot use them. Nonsense. Teams do that all the time in GP weekends in real life.

And one final step. One cannot see the history of what has happened. There is no hall of fame or something like it, where you can see the world champions of each year (drivers and constructors). You can only see few years back. And the statistics are not even correct. I can have Tsolov being champion with me in Alpha Tauri and then Mercedes for 7 years in total, when clicking on him it will only say 4 titles. I mean how hard can it be to make it right? The game is already very simple made, and they still have so many mistakes

So, in conclusion. If you like playing strategies during races and changing drivers to your liking, this can be an interesting game. They made it harder than the previous game, so it can be challenging. But if you are expecting a full team managing game being able to put your hands in most of team affairs, this is not the game for you. Motorsport Manager is way more realistic about this for example.

[riquelmeone]

tough feedback but valid points. I for o e am verybhappy with the game, but I also just bought it a couple of weeks ago (fyi, it should be muuuuch cheaper than EUR 55). I got it for 22 pounds from the playstation store.
I also never played last year’s game, so this is new and exciting for me.
But yes, things could be improved, similar to 99% of games? So, nothing out of the ordinary here.
The thing with massive changes like new engine suppliers, different tracks or injured drivers, I think the license stops them from doing that. Sure, it would add some dynamics, but I can imagine that the contract they have with the authorities does not allow such changes.
And yes, the statistics can really be improved. There should be an element of roleplay added where you could follow the career of a driver or create a story around the history of any of the teams.

[Drysyn]

there are so many things wrong with this game lately... manager game yes... serious manager game... not on your life.

[Goul]

Dont buy it full price, its basicly a Driver update with a 10 bucks DLC worth of changes from last game

[Templer]

Originally posted by Goul:

Dont buy it full price, its basicly a Driver update with a 10 bucks DLC worth of changes from last game

I've done that now, there's a quite good sale going on right now until February 29th, 2024.
I wish the F1 Manager was deeper, you could tinker with the engine for example.
There are already a few patches out and for the current price I don't want to complain - I've already had a few hours of fun behind me.

[LyghtWayve]

Originally posted by NEL Pizza delivery guy:

I still think this game lacks so many aspects to make it an enjoyable manager game. I have said in other threads to.
The game lacks realism. The game is not real, because you are only playing against yourself. There is no driver transfer market, or engineer transfer market, there is no sponsorship market (getting or changing sponsors for example), ... One checks other managing games like Football Manager or Motorsport Manager even, they are way more real. You can interact with so many more things in the team that can actually have an impact.

One of the things that pisses me off the most is the driver market. I can hire whichever driver I want, whenever I want, from wherever I want with 0 objections. The only objection is the driver wanting to go to your team depending on the team reputation you have. No one will come to take drivers away from you, no one will try to make an offer to a driver you want to try to keep him/her, ... Same goes for engineers for example too. I don't think it can be that hard to add that to the game when other games have it.
The talent of the new generated drivers is the worst thing ever. There are no new super-talents. All of them are horribly bad. By the time they can be decent, they are already over 30 years of age. Why!? Why not generate some 80 level 18 year old drivers that are very good? I mean isn't that what happens in reality? Maybe not every year, but from time to time there should be really good talents coming up. And again, same goes for engineers.
Another thing that should've been added is loaning drivers. If I hire a young driver as a reserve driver, I should be able to loan it to an F3 or F2 team for example. Or to an F1 team.

About the sponsorship, it should be easy to make sponsors eligible. For example, if I have the Haas team and I am winning championships, I should get the option to switch to some new sponsors that offer me money and can have a good bank account for the team. Why? Well, it looks like now I can hire a driver for 25 million and pay without any worries. Because there is no worries. I tried several teams already, and I never went bankrupt so far. This should be revised. One thing is meeting the cost cap, another is having a budget to pay for the whole operation. And this game being a team management game, this should be part of the task.

There should be new things happening, events, new engine suppliers coming, some leaving, drivers getting injured in crashes and missing races, ... I mean it's like you are playing 2023 over and over again, just drivers changing with the years. Nothing ever happens. By the time this game came up, they knew Audi and Ford would join F1. Why not make it happen in the game? Make Toyota (or a fake Yotoya) come back. Make an 11th team join the grid. Change the order of the races. I mean... Just make it more real.

For a race weekend there are many things wrong too.
1) Tyre wear does not seem to affect the IA as much as to your team. When I get tyre wear, the IA with fresh tyres blasts past me. When it's the other way around, they hang on with a competitive pace. And I mean like them having softs with %38 and me having mediums with %85.
2) Like the guy in the comment above says, sometimes you are trying to save a tyre compound for the race, but it gets taken away just because and you get left with very used up tyres that leave you in a s**t position.
3) Overtakes make no sense. You can see situations like a driver with the DRS open staying behind another driver with no DRS for a whole straight like in Spa or Miami for example. I can understand some drivers are better than other overtaking, but in a straight line with DRS and they don't have the brain to go to the side and pass with ease?
4) Rain made sense in 2022 game. Here, if it's not raining hard, it takes forever to get the track wet enough for inters. Not real. The AI always know the perfect lap to come in, but because you have no idea how it will behave, you can lose many chances with it.
5) You can have a driver taking a corner, another driver comes from the back and crashes into your driver, and your driver takes the penalty out of nowhere. There are many situations like this that make no sense.
6) There should be things happening, like when there is a crash with debree on the track, one should have a risk of puncture. Never happens.
7) When there is a red flag, one should have the option to change the race approach of the driver. For example, if I was managing the tyres and not pushing or using the ERS (important for a boost in the starts), I cannot modify it. I can only change tyres, but nothing more. One should be able to modify that during a red flag.
8) If I have only 1 new front wing, and I put it in the car, if it breaks, the only option I have during the weekend is to emergency manufacture the same one. I could have 6 front wings of a previous spec, I cannot use them. Nonsense. Teams do that all the time in GP weekends in real life.

And one final step. One cannot see the history of what has happened. There is no hall of fame or something like it, where you can see the world champions of each year (drivers and constructors). You can only see few years back. And the statistics are not even correct. I can have Tsolov being champion with me in Alpha Tauri and then Mercedes for 7 years in total, when clicking on him it will only say 4 titles. I mean how hard can it be to make it right? The game is already very simple made, and they still have so many mistakes

So, in conclusion. If you like playing strategies during races and changing drivers to your liking, this can be an interesting game. They made it harder than the previous game, so it can be challenging. But if you are expecting a full team managing game being able to put your hands in most of team affairs, this is not the game for you. Motorsport Manager is way more realistic about this for example.

These are good points.

[Dutchy_71]

It's a waste of money i think. Bought it discounted for 10 euro's and still i feel free games on my phone are better. (motorsport manager and f1 rush)

[Boganforce]

As a newcomer to the F1 Manager series and a Motorsport Manager vet I can say this is worth it if you can get it on sale. It's not as nuanced as MM but it is fun and immersive. The presentation is very good as are the graphics and audio. I can watch an entire race and be thoroughly entertained.

[Templer]

Originally posted by Boganforce:

… a Motorsport Manager vet I can say this is worth it if you can get it on sale. It's not as nuanced as MM but it is fun and immersive. The presentation is very good as are the graphics and audio. I can watch an entire race and be thoroughly entertained.

Word for word you hit the nail, Sir.

[Oggmeista]

what? lol no way, is it (beep) worth that i got it for £8 (UK pounds) and i'm still questioning whether it was worth it with all these inconsistencies, 55 phat ones, that's daylight robbery pal!...and you are the one who would be getting robbed.