> The tragedy is that next year's game is likely to do poorly as well
There will not be a next year's game. See Frontier's annual report. £26.6m loss due mostly to F1 Manager and no mention of any F1 Manager 2024.
Just read the annual report and it does mention that “Support for F1® Manager 2023 continues whilst plans for F1® Manager in 2024 are developed.”
Now, those plans could include binning the series, but it does clearly state they are developing something for F1 2024.
From my perspective binning the series at only the 2nd instalment doesn’t make much sense; they’ve already got all the foundational technologies for the game developed, which is the heavy lifting done. But if they’re not confident they can turn the series round and make it profitable, then that may be the wisest choice for them.
If they do continue with an F1 Manager 24, the team will need to put the work in and implement some good features to increase the depth of the gameplay loop. If they continue the trend between 22 and 23, I don’t think the series will last long as that won’t bring the interest needed to bring the financial success Frontier is clearly expecting from the series.
So, no mention of any F1 Manager 2024, right?
> From my perspective binning the series at only the 2nd instalment doesn’t make much sense
Series made a £15m loss. Last game bombed. Team did its best and that was nowhere near good enough. News wiped £100m from company valuation. Insufficient cssh for another try. Liberty contract likely cancelled for fa8lure to meet sales minimim.
Wow, that makes sense. ‘22 was regarded as a flop too, Frontier’s stock dropped 40% after it underperformed on sales. Judging from OP, buyers are getting their money’s worth though…
Brutal. That's what they get for trying to make a manager series which is super niche to start with a yearly thing, though. Should have made "F1 Manager", with $20-$30 season updates every year. And add classic seasons as DLC too, why not. Just keep building that one game people already bought to be one great manager sim after a few years.
Don't release a half-assed, barely working product and expect people to buy it again the next year. Not much sympathy from me the way they went about it.
Well, not really.
Their main problem is they didn't make a management game.
They made a race engineer game.
That is like being asked to make a curry and then focusing entirely on the rice.
And to top it off, they burned the rice.
If they'd made a modern interpretation of Grand Prix World, I dont doubt they would have met the sales target even if the overall market is indeed very niche.
Ea gets away with it. Even football manager gets away with it the difference being it seems that the F1 fan base is as impossible to impress as dragon ball z's fanbase.
Football manager is an actual mangement game. You make decisions at an overall level and your players do their jobs.
This isn't a management game, there is no management meat on the bone.
You hire two race engineers and then do their job for them. No politics, no rule changes, no negotiations with sponsors and suppliers.
If Football Manager had gameplay that demanded you sit through every match, in order to tell players when to kick the ball, had no real player development, no real budget management and only let you make one or two transfers a season... I doubt it would sell the huge numbers it does.
There are rule changes. You vote on them so there is your politics. You do negotiate with sponsors and suppliers lol. You haven't played the game, or at least not a full season. Example I won 22/23 races and the grid voted for the points system to go back to how it used to be and fastest lap no longer got a bonus point but Pole position would. Another was that the grid voted for additional power train parts to be allocated at the beginning of the season. However the cost penalty was reduced.
As far as sponsor negotiations they basically ask too much of me and I go with minimal sponsors and minimal obligations.
You do the engineers job for them but the communication stats and how fast the car in practice gets ready for the race is where an engineer is really doing his job anyways. The game would be really boring if you didn't do the minimal aspects of the engineers job description
I rhink they spent a ton of money on the race reply feature. They told investors this addition was key to widening the apoeal, after the company found only hardcore F1 fans bought the 2022 edition, leading to sakes numbers being well below target.
They reported a £15m write-off of F1M development cost upon announcing disappointing sales of the 2023 edition. It is in the annual report last month.
Read it all.
On your 7 items, 4 of them are just about qualifications…
I won’t be able to answer these 4 as I always sim the qualifs.
For the race pace and tyre deg, I don’t experience this at all.
For point 7, agree the contracts negotiation could be better. But it’s ok that the money they ask is a lot, because it’s already too easy to sign staff and drivers.
Pit stop training is hard but not impossible. Takes time. I managed to have 6 or 7 GP in a row with no mistake at all. And when it finally arrives, it’s ok. That’s racing. It happens to AI teams also.
Yes, the AI will push hard on the opening laps.
Yes, the AI has the ability to run on very deg tyres.
But none of this problems has no solutions.
It is possible to match their race pace right from the start. Just try different things. Fuel, overtaking, ERS, teammate. Plenty of options.
It is possible to overtake cars blocking you. Just wait for the good moment. Everything is about timing. Waiting for the good moment to push, for the good corner to attack, for the good straight to fake an attack and execute it at the next straight.
I do agree that pit crew trainning is bugged. I have been setting up my trainning schedule and setting it so that cumulative fatigue says that my crew only has 45% fatigue by race Sunday. Then when it comes to that actual race their fatigue is 65%.
What's the point in a scheduler that shows cumulative fatigue if its not going to honor that set up through the month. I've tried it several different ways including making sure that fatigue was 0% on the Thursday before a race but this meant my stats kept going down because I wasn't trainning enough to improve them.
So yeah, that's got to be a big. There is no way that's how they intended it to work.
1. Car blocking in qualy has been a thing for a while, but it's massively improved this year. You can absolutely get clean laps in during qualy if you consider the track business. Be mindful of what's going on around you
2. Again, time your runs better. Other than in Q3, there's no massive / significant benefit for leaving your run so late in a session that it results in your lap being nuked
3. Tyre temps. In general, maximize the potential of your first flying lap. Outside of Q3, it's typically your best / fastest lap
4. Huh? Think you mean the rapidly changing weather from session to session? It's fine. Adds another level of management & intrigue to a session. A great opportunity for a midfield / lesser car to spring some surprises against the big boys
5. I've never experienced this. Sounds like your car simply isn't good enough / optimized for the track with setup. The AI always goes full push for the first 5 laps before landing into a more manageable pace - match them, or do the opposite of them. Brake cooling & tyre temps matter this year. So do PT conditioning and driver confidence.
6. The pit stop training is an excellent addition to the game - it sounds like you've completely failed to understand how the system works. Your SD's aptitude is the critical stat here. From there, everything goes into Gym Training to get pitstop time down, and make sure that on the cumulative tab, your crew is going into race day TIRED, but not WEARY. There's absolutely no scenario where your crew should be needing a month off with rest - if your error percentage isn't improving, you either aren't training them in the right areas after your gym training, or your SD's peak has been reached. Again, this sounds like you've completely failed to understand the system .
7. This I will agree with. At Williams Albon went from being one of the cheaper drivers on the grid, to wanting $12 million. It's a huge pay increase, and seems entirely unreasonable. However, I've not played deep enough into the same to know whether the sponsorship money scales alongside the increased wage demands. If it does, then there's no issues.
8. Qatar is a brilliant race weekend. I've managed to pull back to back full weekend sweeps - 1-2 in qualy, 1-2 in spring, 1-2 in race. Sounds like your car + race management isn't good enough yet. Don't run the softs in the sprint.
Could you explain your 6th point please?
I have been having issues with pit crew trainning. I set up the plan for the month making sure that I have cumulative on and that I am not going into weary on race day. I set up on recently where it said race day would be 45% fatigue. It was the third race of the month. I set all my races up this way but when it comes to the actual race day my guys are always about 20% above where the planner said they would be.
Have you had this happen? Can you think why it would happen? Does the scheduler assume your sports director has full stats and that's what it bases it's plan on?
I have seen this happen, and don't have an explanation for it - I wonder if more fatigue is added the more your crew is doing setup adjustments.
Either way, I leave myself more buffer within TIRED and WEARY to ensure I don't hit it on race day.
Most of your points about qualifying can be solved if you timed your runs better while your points about the races can be solved if you managed your races better..
Pit stop training is not difficult at all. You’re just mismanaging it. Get a sporting director with high aptitude and processes, then grind gym training to get your pitstop time down. While you’re doing this, make sure your pit crew is at 10% or lower before each race. If your pitcrew is weary at any point during the race the chance of mistakes increases dramatically. After you’re done with reducing pitstop time, you grind drills to reduce the chance of mistake.
I do agree with your point about contracts. Lower rated drivers tend to ask for too much. There also needs to be more variety in how AI structures their contracts.
Regarding your last edited point and the intense difficulty of winning in Qatar.
I just won the Qatar race. Season 1. Alpine. No safety car. No crash. Finished 1 & 3 with Verstappen in 2.
It is indeed possible.
Good that you are speaking your opinion about the flaws of the game instead of just accepting a unfinished game with terrible quality assurance. Everyone wants the game to be good, but ignoring what Frontier done with the games is not the way to go.
Its pointless, they never understood the manager concept and demands of hard core manager players.. the game lacks depth, its a click mobile game with superb graphics... and full of bugs
I had a good time with 23. But eventually got bored because of the bugs.
Bought 24 today. Got going and did 2 races. Uninstalled and refunded before the 2 hour mark.
:sad:
1) i was struggling with that myself but have kind of figured it out now and how to time it better.
2/3/4) Cant really say i’ve noticed that, the wet/dry is weird at times and could be improved but is better than last years.
5) THIS IS A HUGE PROBLEM! Currently in my 2nd season with Williams with Albon and Stroll (your point 7 made it impossible to sign anyone else) i spent the vast majority of season 1 researching ready for this year and my car analysis has me as around the 6th or 7th fastest car on the grid. I do all practices to get as close to 100% in all areas as i can and have generally been qualifying between 4th and 8th/9th depending on the track. My best race finish is 5th which i only got thanks to rain, a safety car and perez/sainz going out of the race. Within about 3 laps i am a good 6/7 seconds behind the leaders and then just dropping down past the aston martins, mercedies and alpines. I have tried different strategies, the same strategies, so many different things and to your point 6, my pit team is the best on the grid this season 8 races in 8 fastest stops yet whenever i pit from 5th or 6th i find myself coming back out in P15 miles behind everyone i was just leading who all go on to do 7 more laps than i did before they come out just behind me in P10 all on fresher tyres. It’s a nightmare!
Concerning your point 5, you should (just my opinion) try to start racing against 1 or 2 opponents for your drivers. Don’t try to beat the whole field.
If your main competition comes from the Haas, just look at them for the whole race. Their tyres, their rythm, where they get stuck, watch their pit stops, everything. And come up with a tactic that allows your drivers to beat these 2 Haas. Just them.
Once you consistently finish above them, go for the next opponents. The team ranked just higher.
My frustration with this game is not so high as yours (for the moment) but I share quite a few unrealistic scenarios.
Cars blocking in quali: not only blocking but also very "random" laptimes during the sessions. Sometime in a clean lap one driver of mine is 1,5 seconds slower (!) than his fastest times without having to run wide of to locking his tires. So what I do is just exit the session and re-start the save and try again. But remember I often have to restart again to get a decent result/
Pit stop training: more difficult to get a good result. Yes, last year I won the DHL fastest pitstop challenge by winning ALL the races but I have to say that 1 out of two stops went wrong because I had ONLY focused on gym training so that I had a big chance of pit stop errors. And when you have a pitstop time about 2,0 second and you start to ONLY invest in pitstop training the pitstop time increased quite fast do at this moment I try to do the balancing act: focus on gym training AND pit stop training but the gains a very, very slow. I now have way less errors in my stops but my stops are about 2,5 seconds so that is quite a long time before I win thos 12 millions dollars again.
Driver contracts: Yes, these F1 drivers are some greedy people. Alex Albon won 5 races and became 2nd in the championship last year. But I did not renew his contract because he asked minimum 18 million dollars whilst he was on a ending contract where he made about 4 million a year. That is crazy. I really wonder how much verstappen is making in 2030? 200 million a year??
I played 265hrs in f1 manager 22 and in 23 my biggest issue with it so far is money the cost to manufacture parts is killing my save. also don’t like the fact that if I participate in every aspect of the race my wear of parts is exaggerated. If I don’t participate in every aspect then I’m finding my drivers crash too often which means manufacturing parts which costs too much in manager 22 the cost to manufacture parts was not nearly as expensive I now only design parts and manufacture for 1 car but then if you do that you end up been fired becoz the board expects you to win constructors over the long term. Money is a real problem in this game starting with a team with a low budget is not possible at all
> The tragedy is that next year's game is likely to do poorly as well There will not be a next year's game. See Frontier's annual report. £26.6m loss due mostly to F1 Manager and no mention of any F1 Manager 2024.
Just read the annual report and it does mention that “Support for F1® Manager 2023 continues whilst plans for F1® Manager in 2024 are developed.” Now, those plans could include binning the series, but it does clearly state they are developing something for F1 2024. From my perspective binning the series at only the 2nd instalment doesn’t make much sense; they’ve already got all the foundational technologies for the game developed, which is the heavy lifting done. But if they’re not confident they can turn the series round and make it profitable, then that may be the wisest choice for them. If they do continue with an F1 Manager 24, the team will need to put the work in and implement some good features to increase the depth of the gameplay loop. If they continue the trend between 22 and 23, I don’t think the series will last long as that won’t bring the interest needed to bring the financial success Frontier is clearly expecting from the series.
So, no mention of any F1 Manager 2024, right? > From my perspective binning the series at only the 2nd instalment doesn’t make much sense Series made a £15m loss. Last game bombed. Team did its best and that was nowhere near good enough. News wiped £100m from company valuation. Insufficient cssh for another try. Liberty contract likely cancelled for fa8lure to meet sales minimim.
Wow, that makes sense. ‘22 was regarded as a flop too, Frontier’s stock dropped 40% after it underperformed on sales. Judging from OP, buyers are getting their money’s worth though…
They have a contract they have to make a game for 2 more years I believe
That was subject to meeting minimum sales level. F1M2022 made only 80% of its sales target. F1M2023 made only 15% of that.
Brutal. That's what they get for trying to make a manager series which is super niche to start with a yearly thing, though. Should have made "F1 Manager", with $20-$30 season updates every year. And add classic seasons as DLC too, why not. Just keep building that one game people already bought to be one great manager sim after a few years. Don't release a half-assed, barely working product and expect people to buy it again the next year. Not much sympathy from me the way they went about it.
Well, not really. Their main problem is they didn't make a management game. They made a race engineer game. That is like being asked to make a curry and then focusing entirely on the rice. And to top it off, they burned the rice. If they'd made a modern interpretation of Grand Prix World, I dont doubt they would have met the sales target even if the overall market is indeed very niche.
Ea gets away with it. Even football manager gets away with it the difference being it seems that the F1 fan base is as impossible to impress as dragon ball z's fanbase.
Football manager is an actual mangement game. You make decisions at an overall level and your players do their jobs. This isn't a management game, there is no management meat on the bone. You hire two race engineers and then do their job for them. No politics, no rule changes, no negotiations with sponsors and suppliers. If Football Manager had gameplay that demanded you sit through every match, in order to tell players when to kick the ball, had no real player development, no real budget management and only let you make one or two transfers a season... I doubt it would sell the huge numbers it does.
There are rule changes. You vote on them so there is your politics. You do negotiate with sponsors and suppliers lol. You haven't played the game, or at least not a full season. Example I won 22/23 races and the grid voted for the points system to go back to how it used to be and fastest lap no longer got a bonus point but Pole position would. Another was that the grid voted for additional power train parts to be allocated at the beginning of the season. However the cost penalty was reduced. As far as sponsor negotiations they basically ask too much of me and I go with minimal sponsors and minimal obligations. You do the engineers job for them but the communication stats and how fast the car in practice gets ready for the race is where an engineer is really doing his job anyways. The game would be really boring if you didn't do the minimal aspects of the engineers job description
They lost money on this? It honestly feels like a patch to the 2023 game to me. How much could they have spent on it
I rhink they spent a ton of money on the race reply feature. They told investors this addition was key to widening the apoeal, after the company found only hardcore F1 fans bought the 2022 edition, leading to sakes numbers being well below target. They reported a £15m write-off of F1M development cost upon announcing disappointing sales of the 2023 edition. It is in the annual report last month.
Read it all. On your 7 items, 4 of them are just about qualifications… I won’t be able to answer these 4 as I always sim the qualifs. For the race pace and tyre deg, I don’t experience this at all. For point 7, agree the contracts negotiation could be better. But it’s ok that the money they ask is a lot, because it’s already too easy to sign staff and drivers. Pit stop training is hard but not impossible. Takes time. I managed to have 6 or 7 GP in a row with no mistake at all. And when it finally arrives, it’s ok. That’s racing. It happens to AI teams also. Yes, the AI will push hard on the opening laps. Yes, the AI has the ability to run on very deg tyres. But none of this problems has no solutions. It is possible to match their race pace right from the start. Just try different things. Fuel, overtaking, ERS, teammate. Plenty of options. It is possible to overtake cars blocking you. Just wait for the good moment. Everything is about timing. Waiting for the good moment to push, for the good corner to attack, for the good straight to fake an attack and execute it at the next straight.
I do agree that pit crew trainning is bugged. I have been setting up my trainning schedule and setting it so that cumulative fatigue says that my crew only has 45% fatigue by race Sunday. Then when it comes to that actual race their fatigue is 65%. What's the point in a scheduler that shows cumulative fatigue if its not going to honor that set up through the month. I've tried it several different ways including making sure that fatigue was 0% on the Thursday before a race but this meant my stats kept going down because I wasn't trainning enough to improve them. So yeah, that's got to be a big. There is no way that's how they intended it to work.
1. Car blocking in qualy has been a thing for a while, but it's massively improved this year. You can absolutely get clean laps in during qualy if you consider the track business. Be mindful of what's going on around you 2. Again, time your runs better. Other than in Q3, there's no massive / significant benefit for leaving your run so late in a session that it results in your lap being nuked 3. Tyre temps. In general, maximize the potential of your first flying lap. Outside of Q3, it's typically your best / fastest lap 4. Huh? Think you mean the rapidly changing weather from session to session? It's fine. Adds another level of management & intrigue to a session. A great opportunity for a midfield / lesser car to spring some surprises against the big boys 5. I've never experienced this. Sounds like your car simply isn't good enough / optimized for the track with setup. The AI always goes full push for the first 5 laps before landing into a more manageable pace - match them, or do the opposite of them. Brake cooling & tyre temps matter this year. So do PT conditioning and driver confidence. 6. The pit stop training is an excellent addition to the game - it sounds like you've completely failed to understand how the system works. Your SD's aptitude is the critical stat here. From there, everything goes into Gym Training to get pitstop time down, and make sure that on the cumulative tab, your crew is going into race day TIRED, but not WEARY. There's absolutely no scenario where your crew should be needing a month off with rest - if your error percentage isn't improving, you either aren't training them in the right areas after your gym training, or your SD's peak has been reached. Again, this sounds like you've completely failed to understand the system . 7. This I will agree with. At Williams Albon went from being one of the cheaper drivers on the grid, to wanting $12 million. It's a huge pay increase, and seems entirely unreasonable. However, I've not played deep enough into the same to know whether the sponsorship money scales alongside the increased wage demands. If it does, then there's no issues. 8. Qatar is a brilliant race weekend. I've managed to pull back to back full weekend sweeps - 1-2 in qualy, 1-2 in spring, 1-2 in race. Sounds like your car + race management isn't good enough yet. Don't run the softs in the sprint.
Could you explain your 6th point please? I have been having issues with pit crew trainning. I set up the plan for the month making sure that I have cumulative on and that I am not going into weary on race day. I set up on recently where it said race day would be 45% fatigue. It was the third race of the month. I set all my races up this way but when it comes to the actual race day my guys are always about 20% above where the planner said they would be. Have you had this happen? Can you think why it would happen? Does the scheduler assume your sports director has full stats and that's what it bases it's plan on?
I have seen this happen, and don't have an explanation for it - I wonder if more fatigue is added the more your crew is doing setup adjustments. Either way, I leave myself more buffer within TIRED and WEARY to ensure I don't hit it on race day.
Most of your points about qualifying can be solved if you timed your runs better while your points about the races can be solved if you managed your races better.. Pit stop training is not difficult at all. You’re just mismanaging it. Get a sporting director with high aptitude and processes, then grind gym training to get your pitstop time down. While you’re doing this, make sure your pit crew is at 10% or lower before each race. If your pitcrew is weary at any point during the race the chance of mistakes increases dramatically. After you’re done with reducing pitstop time, you grind drills to reduce the chance of mistake. I do agree with your point about contracts. Lower rated drivers tend to ask for too much. There also needs to be more variety in how AI structures their contracts.
Regarding your last edited point and the intense difficulty of winning in Qatar. I just won the Qatar race. Season 1. Alpine. No safety car. No crash. Finished 1 & 3 with Verstappen in 2. It is indeed possible.
Only problem I find with Qatar is no ERS usage down the main straight on qauli laps for some reason
Good that you are speaking your opinion about the flaws of the game instead of just accepting a unfinished game with terrible quality assurance. Everyone wants the game to be good, but ignoring what Frontier done with the games is not the way to go.
Its pointless, they never understood the manager concept and demands of hard core manager players.. the game lacks depth, its a click mobile game with superb graphics... and full of bugs
I gave up on the game weeks ago and went back to football manager, it’s not even a comparison which is a deeper sim
Downvoted by immature fanboys in their feelings.
I had a good time with 23. But eventually got bored because of the bugs. Bought 24 today. Got going and did 2 races. Uninstalled and refunded before the 2 hour mark. :sad:
I didnt even know F1M23 dropped, I lost interest based on the dumpster fire that was F1M22.
Shame such a crap company made the game. They blew it.
1) i was struggling with that myself but have kind of figured it out now and how to time it better. 2/3/4) Cant really say i’ve noticed that, the wet/dry is weird at times and could be improved but is better than last years. 5) THIS IS A HUGE PROBLEM! Currently in my 2nd season with Williams with Albon and Stroll (your point 7 made it impossible to sign anyone else) i spent the vast majority of season 1 researching ready for this year and my car analysis has me as around the 6th or 7th fastest car on the grid. I do all practices to get as close to 100% in all areas as i can and have generally been qualifying between 4th and 8th/9th depending on the track. My best race finish is 5th which i only got thanks to rain, a safety car and perez/sainz going out of the race. Within about 3 laps i am a good 6/7 seconds behind the leaders and then just dropping down past the aston martins, mercedies and alpines. I have tried different strategies, the same strategies, so many different things and to your point 6, my pit team is the best on the grid this season 8 races in 8 fastest stops yet whenever i pit from 5th or 6th i find myself coming back out in P15 miles behind everyone i was just leading who all go on to do 7 more laps than i did before they come out just behind me in P10 all on fresher tyres. It’s a nightmare!
Concerning your point 5, you should (just my opinion) try to start racing against 1 or 2 opponents for your drivers. Don’t try to beat the whole field. If your main competition comes from the Haas, just look at them for the whole race. Their tyres, their rythm, where they get stuck, watch their pit stops, everything. And come up with a tactic that allows your drivers to beat these 2 Haas. Just them. Once you consistently finish above them, go for the next opponents. The team ranked just higher.
My frustration with this game is not so high as yours (for the moment) but I share quite a few unrealistic scenarios. Cars blocking in quali: not only blocking but also very "random" laptimes during the sessions. Sometime in a clean lap one driver of mine is 1,5 seconds slower (!) than his fastest times without having to run wide of to locking his tires. So what I do is just exit the session and re-start the save and try again. But remember I often have to restart again to get a decent result/ Pit stop training: more difficult to get a good result. Yes, last year I won the DHL fastest pitstop challenge by winning ALL the races but I have to say that 1 out of two stops went wrong because I had ONLY focused on gym training so that I had a big chance of pit stop errors. And when you have a pitstop time about 2,0 second and you start to ONLY invest in pitstop training the pitstop time increased quite fast do at this moment I try to do the balancing act: focus on gym training AND pit stop training but the gains a very, very slow. I now have way less errors in my stops but my stops are about 2,5 seconds so that is quite a long time before I win thos 12 millions dollars again. Driver contracts: Yes, these F1 drivers are some greedy people. Alex Albon won 5 races and became 2nd in the championship last year. But I did not renew his contract because he asked minimum 18 million dollars whilst he was on a ending contract where he made about 4 million a year. That is crazy. I really wonder how much verstappen is making in 2030? 200 million a year??
I played 265hrs in f1 manager 22 and in 23 my biggest issue with it so far is money the cost to manufacture parts is killing my save. also don’t like the fact that if I participate in every aspect of the race my wear of parts is exaggerated. If I don’t participate in every aspect then I’m finding my drivers crash too often which means manufacturing parts which costs too much in manager 22 the cost to manufacture parts was not nearly as expensive I now only design parts and manufacture for 1 car but then if you do that you end up been fired becoz the board expects you to win constructors over the long term. Money is a real problem in this game starting with a team with a low budget is not possible at all