[Skybird]

I had posted kind of a brief review (or: description of where AC stands after official full release now) in the official Kunos forums three days ago. Since I am not certain that you can register there (necessary to even just read there) if not proving you're customer via your Steam account, I do not just link but copy it in full here:

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Thoughts and suggestions on AC 1.0 full release

There it is, we now have it, just in time for Christmas. By now we have compared the promises from the advert with the content that we have been given, and we find: all cars, all tracks, and all features that they had advertised, have been delivered. They kept their word - and then added some more stuff that also already got delivered. And said there will come more. The future looks promising.

What to think of the quality that we have been given? All in all, I see space for substantial improvements, but I am also already very positive about the sim. While thinking about this text and what I would like to point at, I recalled my memories of Nascar 2003 and GTR2 and GSE, and I must say that except the fun that pack racing in that old Papyrus title could mean, there is nothing else I look back too, certainly not the graphics, and even less so the physics and how it felt to drive these toy boxes. You simply cannot compare. I also remembered how it felt when I test-played rFactor 2 and iRacing on other people’s systems long time ago. To fresh up that memory and see any updates, I downloaded the demo for rF2 yesterday and tested it, a Corvette R6C at Silverstone, that is lucky, because that way the tracks by ISS and Kunos could be compared directly.

Lets talk graphics first. AC looks stunning, imo, it is limited in that it does not display weather conditions and night and multi-light-sources, we all know that by now from those many discussions, but the racing conditions that it displays, it displays superior and better than any other of the two direct rivals. That is true for cars and environment, track and sky as well. The offering of post-process filters is a nice touch to alter quickly the way in which the colour and contrast schemes gets presented to the eye. Mostly I use them for screenshots, and play with almost just two filters I prefer, one ingame and one mod filter. AC looks splendid in the range of racing conditions that it offers. Or in other words: the sim’s graphics system does not do all (no night, no weather), but what it does, it does extremely well. Comparing the system to rF2 as it is displaying things in the actual version released some days ago, almost forbids itself, I honestly think that visually rF2 has nothing to win there. When setting up Silverstone in conditions matching those in AC, rF2 gets left in the dust, I really would put it that clearly, because it is a graphics style in rF2 that is many years behind, the environment as it is displayed visually in AC looks so much more realistic and natural in colours and light, than the comic-like track environment in rF2.

Sounds: they have seen more development than initially seem to have planned for this year. All in all I like them. Some cars sound better in cockpit than others, some cars sound better and some sound slightly inferior to their pendants from other sims, the sounds in replay and using trackside cameras I am extremely fond of, it sounds just great for most car classes. So, there is room for improvement in AC, but in general, sound-wise the sim already is quite good, really.

Physics, and forcefeedback. In AC, I just love them both. I cannot go back to the way those rolling toy boxes in GTR2 and GSE feel, and I recall that I found the physics in iR over one and a half, almost two years ago, better than these – but taking them and comparing them by mind to AC, sees me declaring AC the winner over iR. Even clearer the actual comparison with the demo of rF2 , latest build, is. Although I set up Logitech Profiler carefully and tested several settings in it, the fore feedback in rF felt extremely light and wishy-washy, the car like being made of paper. Especially the dynamic shift of car attitude from stabilized to unstabilized, or reverse, is plagued by what I know from the much older sim-games: there is a somewhat clear treshold level that switches the feeling of the car so suddenly that it feels as if all of a sudden you drive another car. It is almost an on-off-switch. In GTR2 and GSE, once you had stepped that far when pushing beyond the limits, the car would then refuse to be caught again and be brought under control again, but would inevitably slide into a 180° or 360° spin. In rF2, you can re-catch the car if your speed was slow enough, but the phase of traversing (I lack the English words to exactly describe what I mean, I’m sorry) still imo is extremely sudden, like a line that suddenly bends. This is one of the many aspects where AC shines, the “line” does not bend suddenly, but forms a gentle curve. The change in car attitude is not so sudden and abrupt, but more progressive – and it is so in both directions, you can catch the car again. It is more predictable, feels more right and correct, like I would expect it from reality. The car in general has a more vivid, dynamical feel in all three dimensions, it feels alive in AC. I did not get that feeling in iR back then, and not now in rF2 demo or rF2 back then.

I honestly think the physics and the feeling of driving in AC blows its mentioned two competitors off the track.

And the forcefeedback, it has seen quite some adjustment over this year, hasn’t it. Right now, it feels – close to brilliant, I would say. The virtual car all of a sudden has real mass, has matter and weight. It does not feel like a cow running on ice, or as light as a blown-up balloon. The FFB I just have had in rF2 was a great disappointment, and I recall that I was unimpressed by it when I tested an earlier build of rF2 on somebody else’s system – and that was a guy who spend much more on his driving equipment than I do, and has really cared to set up the fine-tuning that might not be available in the demo I now tried again. Excellent job done by Kunos, truly excellent!

What I would like to see being improved, is the track condition thing. We now have that slider to set some basic conditions that to some degree also effect the general change in the track with some laps driven. However, it would be nicier if one could implement a system of a dynamically affected rubber-path, so that the driving of the cars indeed change the track’s grip just on the lines they drive, and depending on how often that line is being met by tires. If I recall it correctly, rF2 does something like that, and it is a very neat feature, I would say.

Now something where light and shadow meet: the AI. It has seen huge changes over this year, and in general it has been improved, by a method of sometimes “two steps forward, one step back”. Where is it right now? Not flesh, not meat. Very early on, the Ai loved to ignore you and just slam into you, no matter what you do. For the most, this is gone, even with cars that before I would have seen as being more prone than others to mishandling by the AI. If you do silly things in front of an AI car, and leave it no room and time to react, it still will hit you – but what do you expect? The AI does a much more competent job in avoiding collisions than I see in public server racing, the AI is superior in this regard, and very easily so. However, this defensiveness has come at a cost. The aggressiveness that also must be there, has suffered too much. The AI breaks way to early before turns, it even slows down at times where you would not need to slow down, or would not expect the AI to slow down. Also, there seem to be some bugs in it, that seem to be more likely to show up the more you have activated the damage slider. If cars behind a damaged car reach it, they sometimes seem to almost link up to it like wagons on a train, with the slow, damaged car serving as a locomotive. You also see the AI not really fighting against the AI. The car behind another AI car may sheer out to overtake, and then not overtaking. On some instances I see myself rolling slow on the sideline, even coming to a standstill, and the AI car behind me on the very other side of the track slowing down needlessly (with a completely unobstructed track!) too, almost stopping. The more its hood is beyond mine, it starts to accelerate again. And then the two cars that always lead the field and race off and away. What kind of stuff are these two guys on? Sometimes I really wondered whether the way in which events handled by the AI unfolded maybe were sort of scripted?! I am not good enough a driver to need an absolute state-of the art AI to race against, but what there is now has light, but also shadow, and the mix is too wild as if I feel comfortable with it. I consider the AI to be needing priority given to it by Kunos, it is a construction site. Things become interesting when doing trackdays, I use to have 20 different street car versions from slow to very fast, and then can see interesting duels and 1-1 or even triple duels on track, where you really see some fighting, but only when the cars show really huge differences, else a slower car again will just intimidate a faster car and forcing it into compliance and standing up at the end of the line, so to speak.

I would like to see the option to save car fields I have selected for a race, and being able to just load these again when preparing the track and race conditions.

I would also see the text bar at the top, no matter what it shows, not blocking the texts that get triggered when you adjust for example ABS or TC.

The damage model is – ehem, pardon? I currently have it switched off, to avoid the messy AI issue described above, and because the damage visually shown, the physical consequences of the car, and the severity of the incident too often do not seem to be consistent. It is a very half-baked feature so far, and more arcade than anything. In the state it is in, it is almost clueless.

Hm, I think that summarizes all that I have on mind. Oh, wait, multiplayer.

Against my usual habits, I do since one month occasionally MP-driving, preferably trackday setups. There is no use in comparing AC’s MP to that of iR, we know what iR is and what it excels in, and why that is so, and we know that AC does not aim to mimic that aspect of iR, and never meant to do so. No use in complaining then. The MP I see, is public server MP, and that decides the kind of behavior of people and the kind of racing you get there. Both is not AC’s fault. I found AC to be stable,. I never had a session broken off due to technical problems, and whether the events when somebody was warping like hell, took place due to bad code in AC or a bad connection by the player, I cannot judge. All in all, MP is pretty much what I expected to see.

For the future, despite the announced new content and the construction sites I already mentioned, I would see a replacement of the penalty system which people have hated since day 1 on, a basic flag system, pit stops both in MP and of course SP, and by that allowing longer races even with active fuel consumption. I do not demand night and weather, due to understanding that this would mean quite a lot of engine replacement and is more than just adding a minor tweak here or there, but I would ask to consider whether the existing engine would allow an easier tweak so that foggy conditions could be activated, via a slider, and maybe linked to the track condition slider as well (fog means moisture in the air, affecting track surface’s grip as well).

Thinking again, and yes, I think now I indeed have hit all the nails I wanted to hammer in.

In general, my verdict for AC 1.0 is very positive. Not completely perfect, but very positive, to me it already is the preferred driving sim of choice. Well done, Kunos team, and thank you! Hope you stay engaged not only in content creation, but tuning of features, especially the AI. The AI is my major issue.