Project CARS 2 Will Have Dedicated eSports Features "From Day One"

[Animera]

Hence the reason I say they're all just racing games.

It doesn't matter whether I play iRacing, Assetto Corsa, Gran Turismo, Forza, F1 games or Project Cars. In all of them I just have to get used to how the car behaves and then I'm away racing, adapting to that specific game.

None of them feels like I'm driving my real car and they never can. All of them feel realistic enough that my brain can adapt to think I'm racing a car. None of them have ever made me say things like, 'Oh, so that's what an Aston Martin GT3 feels like', because inherently I don't believe any of them is that accurate.

With that said, the game I play the most is the one that gives me the best immersion, the one where I forget that I'm sitting in a playseat with a toy steering wheel and pedals, and think that I am in a car in a race.

Out of all the games I mentioned, it is PCARS that does this for me over and over.

So yeah, over 1700 hours later, I'm really looking forward to PCARS 2.

However, I'm not looking forward to the eSports component as I've witnessed the lengths people will go to to exploit anything in the game just to win.

As long as the game has a good online component where I can race with my like minded league friends, I'll be happy.
If it has online endurance racing with driver swaps, I'll be ecstatic.

 

[TheCrazySwede]

All of them feel realistic enough that my brain can adapt to think I'm racing a car.

I can relate to everything you said - especially the part above - for that's as good as things get from the comfort of your own home. My real gripe with pCars is that - out of all the racing games I play - this is the only one where my brain cannot adapt to how the game depicts a car. The cars float like they're on ice all the time and steer as if the rear wheels are the ones turning.

All in all, glad to hear you like pCars! I was on-board the project from the very start of the WMD crowd funding page. Put a lot of hours into giving feedback to the devs. Personally, it's not my cup of tea.

 

[Wolfe]

I do have limited faith in any professional driver's opinion on racing sims. They may or may not have experience with other more realistic sims, or their focus might be drawn to the FFB or the "feel" of running fast laps instead of evaluating the actual physics or probing handling traits. Real world experience is valuable, but limited by one's method of analyzing a sim or ability to contrast it against others.

The physics in PCARS are not flawless or even close to it, but overall I find it more convincing than the recalcitrant corner-entry understeer and obnoxiously artificial drifting of Forza, which is a win for my move from an XB360 to a PS4. PCARS does feel like another archaic ISI-based sim compared to the likes of Live for Speed, but I was never as impressed by anything else with ISI bones, which defines anything everyone plays on PC that isn't Assetto Corsa, it seems.

 

[TheCrazySwede]

I do have limited faith in any professional driver's opinion on racing sims. They may or may not have experience with other more realistic sim...

The physics in PCARS are not flawless or even close to it, but overall I find it more convincing than the recalcitrant corner-entry understeer and obnoxiously artificial drifting of Forza...

Developers don't just employ any driver to test their games. Much like any job, past experiences dictate who gets a seat. I've advised on a few games in my time and I've always been asked about my experience with racing games in the past. So to clear your doubts - we are not focused on setting fast times or just the FFB. In fact, I really on a car's vibration through the chassis way more than any vibration felt through the wheel when I compete IRL- something sims cannot deliver (even with expensive seats) in this moment in time. Given that FFB is a factor that varies depending on how good your wheel setup is, it's almost impossible to guarantee a 'simulated' experience through FFB alone.
Trying to sum it up very briefly - my focus has always been on how I expect a car to behave from memory. When racing, especially when you're in the zone, I hardly use my eyes to know when to brake or when to accelerate or when to steer x much into a turn. Most of it is just muscle memory based on the feedback I'm getting through the car. Think of it like playing an instrument. A pianist doesn't necessarily concentrate on every key that every finger is hitting, all the time. It's just muscle memory, but a professional can tell if one key is off or if the piano is out of tune fairly easily. Same goes for racing, but if there's a certain behavior or certain reaction I'm expecting out of a car that the game doesn't replicate, I advise on it. That's as much as anyone of us can do, really, since most pro drivers aren't gifted in game coding and development.


In regards to Forza Motorsport - I still don't think people give this game enough credit. Whereas some games are watered down vodka - such as Assetto Corsa - FM games are like heavily watered down isopropyl. They do (annoingly) feature many hidden chains and restraints that in return limit the driving experience, but the attention to detail in how specific cars behave (an old '60s muscle car vs a modern GT racer) is unmatched by any game I've played. I remember trying Gran Turismo 6 with a wheel for the first time and being confused as all hell why my 400hp Ford Focus lacked any form of torque steer when the many stock Focus' I've driven have been drenched by it. Little nuances like that get captured in FM games - it's a shame it gets watered down so much to appeal to general gamers.

pCars - in my opinion - can be summed up into one word: unpredictable. When it comes to racing, that is one of the worst traits for a car to have, right up next to "on fire." I have no clue what the car is doing at any given time in that game. Feels like the tires aren't even making contact with the road (am I floating?) and that the rear wheels are steering the car. NFS Shift 2 drives exactly the same, albeit A LOT worse. I have friends who haven't competed in Motorsport and they don't seem to have any problem with pCars, so to each their own. I'm just not a huge fan of it.

 

[Wolfe]

...my focus has always been on how I expect a car to behave from memory.

...if there's a certain behavior or certain reaction I'm expecting out of a car that the game doesn't replicate, I advise on it. That's as much as anyone of us can do, really, since most pro drivers aren't gifted in game coding and development.

Behavior is the important thing to me; how a car reacts to x or y input. But that requires tossing the car around, intentionally upsetting its balance and exploring how the tires, suspension, and mass of the car react. That may be something you do, but other professionals apparently haven't when they endorse a game that has significant weaknesses in its physics, or we probably just don't hear about it. Including the pros behind PCARS.

In regards to Forza Motorsport - I still don't think people give this game enough credit. Whereas some games are watered down vodka - such as Assetto Corsa - FM games are like heavily watered down isopropyl. They do (annoingly) feature many hidden chains and restraints that in return limit the driving experience, but the attention to detail in how specific cars behave (an old '60s muscle car vs a modern GT racer) is unmatched by any game I've played...

Well, I'm no fanboy about it. Prior to FM5 and FH2, I waved the Forza flag (FH1 is still a top favorite driving game of mine) and expected great things from the franchise. What I never liked is how it forced me to drive "the Forza way", fighting my intuitions and skewing my intended line with how understeer and oversteer play out. I can't grasp the nuances between cars of a common drivetrain layout either. The games feel pretty numb to me.

PCARS is also peculiar, but closer to how I expect a sim to behave, allowing me to focus more on the rhythm of driving instead of fighting the car so much. I don't get the same sensations you do from it, with one exception: I do think that at its root, it is still an old-fashioned "pivot steer" physics engine like Shift 2 Unleashed seemed to be, which would account for your floaty rear wheel steering sensation. The violently erratic manner in which glitchy "landmine" crashes unfold also seems to support the idea that the game doesn't simulate the car as a proper body of mass like Live for Speed and Enthusia do:

 

[SlipZtrEm]

I'd rather do the GT-branded stuff anyway...

Fixed that for you.

WRC 5 & 6 both have official eSports events, so they're now technically tied to the FIA too.

Let's be honest: there's still no real info on what exactly FIA certification means in GT Sport. It so far amounts to little more than a rubber-stamp and a ticket to the awards show at the end of the year. We don't know what sort of content there will actually be, either. I'm glad to see other devs approaching eSports from a different perspective — few things beat cold hard cash in terms of draw.

 

[hotak]

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Sim game's physics are much more complex than that since many years, IDK about forza and GT, but all PC sims have a suspension and tyre model for each wheel and wheel positions are realistically calculated by steering imput and suspension geometry, with the turn only happening when the forces coming from the tyre model make that happen

 

[Wolfe]

Sim game's physics are much more complex than that since many years, IDK about forza and GT, but all PC sims have a suspension and tyre model for each wheel and wheel positions are realistically calculated by steering imput and suspension geometry, with the turn only happening when the forces coming from the tyre model make that happen

You can add extra layers of complexity to the model on the right, including suspension modelling and tracking individual wheels. Plenty of games do that. In this case I'm not looking at the wheels and suspension, but how the forces calculated from that input are applied to the body of the car.

In addition to the erratic glitchy crashes, there's another bit of damning evidence in the way cars stick to each other when they collide and are no longer able to steer as expected. It seems that ending up bumper-to-bumper or fender-to-fender means there's no room for the car to pivot.

Even if my hunch is wrong, PCARS doesn't simulate inertia or angular momentum like it should.

 

[05XR8]

@IanBell any word if the Supercars commission have approached your group?http://www.speedcafe.com/2017/08/23/bathurst-honour-great-race-legends/

Meanwhile, Supercars also highlighted the launch of a new eSports program which will feature at the event.

Bathurst eSports event

 

[mphoto]

That's very cool stuff. And i wish everything works perfectly and you guys make a LOT of money to make even better stuff.

But i'll be honest, and i hope i don't trigger anyone... All i want to do after a hard days work (and when the wife and kid allow me to) is to shut down the lights of my man cave, sit on my setup, put on the headphones and dive in a proper career mode with cars, tracks, and different categories. Ridiculously long endurance races in the rain, at max difficulty and no assists, that is all i need for the thrill. On line time trials are a blast too.

I'm really, really happy that i'll still be able to do that and not stress myself out in multiplayer and esports only racing games. So thanks for not ditching us, SMS.

Well Said !!!