"Yo, ho, ho, and a bottle of rum!!".... and broken build.
There has been a divide for much of the game's development time anyway though, and one of the things that still worries me is that those "broken" builds were heartily defended by many of you guys in here at the time. Maybe it was one of two things in each respective case - 1) That the user was looking on the positive side because they so much wanted the project to succeed, or 2) That the user had the ability to get the best out of what was presented.
WRT defending broken builds, I don't know of any specific cases on this forum but I imagine if I said anything on the matter it would most likely only have to do with whatever was broken was likely to either be being worked on or be fixed shortly. That or if someone was complaining about an aspect of the game which at the time was broken in some way I could understand explaining that the negative feelings most likely came down to it not working correctly at that time.
I've never had the chance to try pCARS at all. Much like
@notanexpert, I need periodic doses of
@LogiForce talk to keep my concerns at bay, but the concerns are all the more concerning because they're the same things each time. The developers have obviously put a lot into this sim, but if pCARS is going to be less than the sum of it's parts for all other than those with the ability and will to unlock it's treasures, it will struggle.
I can understand having concerns. I, like I'm sure many others do, take negative reviews of games much more seriously than positive. And I understand your point here—especially in terms of FFB. Luckily the FFB, which has been the center of much arguing, has improved significantly and still has a staggering amount of user configurability (so much so that I don't know what to do with most of it, but thankfully the default is quite good).
I think that Shift 2 may nave actually had a lot of beef under the bonnet, but that it didn't translate to the real world experience. My concern with pCARS is that they're loading up on the "beef" but still not translating anywhere near well enough.
Most of the trouble with Shift 2 really came down to EA deciding how the game should be. I can say this with confidence because the devs have expressed how pCARS is the game they had always wanted to make: a visual feast and a top notch simulator. As far as the beef translating, for me personally it's translating quite well. I'll stick with the beef analogy for a minute to explain my feelings.
GT5 for me, in terms of physics, was a bland, near flavourless beef. The cars may have handled differently, but everything ultimately felt pretty much the same and had the same bland FFB.
Assetto Corsa is a well seasoned beef with potential, but feels a little stale. While you can feel the differences in the ways the cars handle much more clearly the FFB feels a little stale with only weight transfer coming through and a generic rumbling added on top.
pCARS is the well seasoned beef but fresh on your plate. The cars all have their own feel and the FFB is much more alive. You have weight transfer, road texture, rumble strips, brake lockup, understeer, and more coming through the wheel and none of it is canned effects (everything is dynamic and based of the steering rack and geometry).
It's not perfect though, there are still some cars, actually no, some of the tires that feel a little weird. The Pirelli based tires for instance seem to wander a little at times (really just under full throttle). However there are some cars/tires which are absolutely fantastic and the most enjoyable to drive out of any racing game I've ever played. For instance I just got done a 4 hour session of playing for the first time (with my wheel) in a couple months and most of it was spent in the Lotus 72D because of how outrageously fun it was. It was exactly like I expected it to be: a lively old F1 car that loves to do little slides around the track and has a nice play to the tires but still controllable, and would still kick your ass if you acted like a knob. Not to mention the sound,
oh god the sound.
If I remember correctly, you're a drummer by name and by nature. Energy in/energy out ratios for drummers vary massively, and that could be seen as a metaphor here.
Yeah I get what you mean. The default FFB is what I've always ran and right now it's pretty darn good (as I said above), you might have to tweak the overall strength on release, but I'm pretty sure each (supported) wheel will have it's own default as to avoid FFB clipping (as wheels such as the G25 are need a non-linear FFB curve to get the most out of it where as the Fanatac clubsport V2 would need a linear FFB curve). This isn't something that is confirmed as far as I know, but it would be the logical thing to do as there is not a one-size-fits-all for wheel FFB and you already choose your controller in the menu to set up the buttons so why wouldn't it also set the default FFB?
I think that what SMS have put into the sim is probably equal to or even greater than what Kunos have with AC in terms of physics.
Speaking purely about the tire model: AC uses a static model where as pCARS uses a (mostly) dynamic model. That already puts pCARS ahead in terms of what is possible to get from the tire model,
I think, and I personally feel it shows quite well already. For example: on something like the Z4 GT3, in AC the tires on it feel fairly stiff and grippy and that makes a decent amount of sense as it's a modern race car. In pCARS it's a similar story in that you can feel the grip nicely but even then the tire feels more "alive". The tire flex comes through better.
Where you can really start to notice the difference is in a car like the Lotus 49. In AC you have the same stiff feeling tire. Sure there is less grip and you can slide around some, but it feels very much dead. In pCARS you can feel the old tires squirming under you and you can really play with the car and dance it around the track.
I think my point is best illustrated through driving style. In pCARS my driving style for the L49 is very similar to that of real life. I'm fairly liberal with the throttle to counter the understeering nature of the car (no downforce on the damn thing) and get small slides going to power my way through the corners. It's a constant balance of throttle and steering to dance my way through the corners.
In AC I use more or less the same driving style as you would use in a modern race car with the rare tiny tailslide on corner exit. Trying to drive the way I do in pCARS ends in spinning because the tires on the L49 in AC behave like modern tires. Trying to drive the way I do in AC in pCARS leads to slow, understeery laps.
This is not a comparison of which is more accurate (though I'm fairly certain pCARS is) so much as showing the versatility of pCARS's tire model and the (apparent) limitations of AC's tire model.
Just a note: I try to be as neutral with my opinion as I can (and base it on facts as much as possible), I used to be a GT5/PS3 fanboy but I moved passed that and try my best to avoid anything like that now because all it does is limit what I can enjoy. This is something I see a disappointing amount of in the sim racing community (it's not so bad here outside of the GT section) and all it results in are petty arguments over what sims are actually "simcades" because they aren't exactly the same as someones preferred sim. WRT pCARS I think the amount of baseless negativety the game gets from the sim racing community (as EmptyBox said in his most recent pCARS vid about how if you were to say R3E is a sim nothing would happen, but if you say pCARS is a sim there are people who will lose their mind and want to hunt you down for the blasphemy) has resulted in many members of the WMD community, who have seen the amount of work that SMS has put into this game, being a bit sensitive to dissent when Shift is brought up. There are of course going to be some fanboys both for and against pCARS.
So that was way longer than I was expecting it to be.
