Easing newbies into ACC

Hey folks,

A friend of mine saw me playing ACC, thought it's super cool and bought it. I gave him my old Thrustmaster T150 wheel, as the game obviously isn't meant to be played with gamepad.

Sadly, he's intimidated by playing vs other people. His pace is horribly off. He's trying to learn by practicing, but he makes way too many mistakes. The Blancpain tracks are quite challenging, and the GT3 cars are too powerful, with lots of grip and powerful brakes.. so he can't really spot his own mistakes. I told him to pick 1 car and 1 track and practice only that for the time being. He picked Spa (oof) and Porsche 911 (double oof). He laps like 2:35 -- it'll take months before racing vs other people makes any sense.

So now, any experience with such cases? Should I advice him to try another game (AC or Forza or PC2) first? Is learning in a less powerful car (e.g. MX5/Elise/AE86/GT86) on a simpler track (e.g. Silverstone National) better? He's fascinated with the ratings... but hey, you can't have everything. Or I can get him to practice Bentley on Monza instead? Or let him keep spinning that green Dinamic Porsche on Spa?

Any suggestions are appreciated!

Stay safe,
T.

 

I started a couple of weeks ago and started off on on the Nürburgring in the Nissan. I think that is a much easier, though I also liked Monza. Paying attention to what the ratings said helped a lot. My CN always needs work so I lock that so it is always displayed sometimes.
Next was to try and stop braking at the last millisecond, slow in - fast out as they say. My times are similar but I crash a lot less

 

The good news are that the engine power doesn't matter as he has ABS and TC, so at first he can abuse the pedals without much care. The Porsche as a learning car isn't a wise selection of car. The Ferrari or the Lexus would be a much better choice of car, Spa has nothing negative for learning. He just need to pace himself and put his attention in one thing at a time, first learn the lines, then learn how to pick brake references using objects to be consistent, and later learn how to put throttle in a gentle way without upsetting the car. He just needs time, he will not improve in a month up to the 2m17s at spa (if he does, then he will turn out to be an alien). A lot of the driving comes from muscle memory and experience, give him time to learn how much throttle is too much, how to catch an oversteer, or how to recognize if he is putting way too much steering angle into a corner. All of it comes from practice, there isn't any short cut for getting a feeling of the car basic behaviours.

If he is up to it, the learning process can be shorter by learning theory, there is a book titled: "Going Faster!", in my opinion it is the most comprehensive and easy to read book about race car driving techniques by far, it is the text book of the Skip Barber racing school. It covers from 0 up to very advanced driving techniques. Also there is a book called: "Speed Secrets" from Ross Bentley that it is also a very good and solid read.

 

Also an nice guide for racing abc:
https://driver61.com/uni/

Just to watch those vids make me faster (in theory) ^^

 

Vanila AC is much easier and gentle (and more real as to my taste) so he should start with it. And as you correctly mentioned - he can't even feel his mistakes with such capable car.
I still think UE4 did it all wrong with our beloved racing series. In ACC it's pretty hard to "feel the grip"...
Also one big aspect of difficulty in ACC and AC - collisions between cars. Just a small kiss in a bumper - makes your opponent meet the grass or a wall. In iRacing you can go bumper to bumper the whole race, and you can easily feel each cm of your car. Don't know how they achieved it, but it's a fact.

 

At the very least show him this video:



The book covers a lot more, but all the basics are in the video.

 

Hi,

My suggestion would be trying to gain confidence by:

- Keep practicing in ACC, no point starting in other sim.
- Enable assists: Ideal line, autom gearbox, autom pitstop and so on.
- Practice with the Car Control widget in the HUD, pay close attention to the CC note after every turn. (indicated by different shades of colors)
- Start with free practice sessions following the ideal line, braking when indicated
- Just use a track which appeals, doesn't matter.
- Car: personal preference, again, doesn't matter that much, just use default save setup
- Once the track has been "registered in the brain", be adventurous and start a hotstint of 10 minutes to practice your consistency.
- Once you're able to complete some hotstints with "clean laps only" without the use of the ideal line go on to:
- Quick race with AI, set to its lowest settings 80/80 (no shame there) and start racing.
- Practice some more
- Decrease assists to your appropriate level and increase AI level gradually

Before you know it, you'll have enough confidence to join MP sessions.

Once you get the hang of it, the remaining tracks and cars will be far easier to "master", enough to confidently join any MP session with the appropriate ratings quickly.

Alternatively, one could just start a career and complete at least one season.​

It certainly doesn't take "months" if there is some genuine interest and time available. Would be surprised if it takes longer than a month...


my 2c

 

Do not practice, play vs easy AI, follow them.

 

use automatic gearshift only hold you away from get a feeling for timing on track

 

The most hard in simulator is car control.Load original AC and make him practice drifting.
drifting is the why i got good in understanding car limits at all times even without tc and abs.

 

iracings global mx 5 cup series, is the place/game in my opinion, for a few bucks a month all the cars and tracks are included. He can practice all he wants, and race the fastest/slowest drivers any game has to offer when he feels he is ready.

 

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Get him to change to any FR car rather then the twitchy porka, Merc or Lexus or anything in that style

 

Let him teach himself. That's what we all did. I learned on GPL with a $50 spring centering TM. ACC is exponentially easier than that.
Yes- let him keep spinning that green Dinamic Porsche on Spa. When he's tired of spinning he'll either figure it out or give up.

 

What's your favorite ice cream? Tooty Frooty? Boysenberry?

If AC is vanilla, iracing must be Rocky road- Tires like marshmellows and nutty FFB.

I feel like I can "taste the grip" in ACC. But then I'm known for good taste.

 

I would also suggest using manual shifting from the beginning. I am also fairly new and it helped me a lot for memorizing tracks and corner speed and get into the flow. Also GT3 Paddle Shifting and Electronics makes it not hard at all.

 

The ultimate video sits on youtube for all new drivers.



Watch it once, absorb the info. Then watch it again!

 

Best way for me is to Chuck myself into a race and learn from the cars in front. The learning curve on sim racer is far greater than and arcade style game. You need to invest a lot of time into it IMO


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

I assume that was a troll post @SimGuy_1 I'm not even going to bite the bait of that one.

Anyway, @tdsamardzhiev my advice would be for your friend to load up ACC, pick the Ferrari 488 and Monza. It's one of the easiest cars on the easiest track. Whatever your friend does, make sure they don't keep switching cars and tracks. It'll be too much to take in all at once.

In terms of assists, I have no idea to be honest. When I bought my first ever wheel, I learnt how to race on F1 2016 and GT5 without any assists. It took me several weeks to stop crashing and spinning all the time, but after regular practice I got there in the end. However, I appreciate it might be easier for someone really struggling, to just put assists on and ease their way in that way.

Tell them to not even bother looking at lap times. Just drive as slow/carefully as possible (without being ridiculous) and once they can do a couple of laps without going off the track, then you can start looking at going slightly faster and aiming for better lap times.

There's no magic bullet. They need to just drive slowly. Also, tell them not to do massive, 2-3 hour long stints. Just do 30 minutes a day. If you do too much all at once, it's easy to get wound up, annoyed and you lose perspective of what you're doing wrong.

I wouldn't bother driving against AI just now, because your friend will probably get sucked into starting to push hard and race them. It'll probably just lead to crashes, spinning and rage quitting.

Literally just driving around as carefully as possible without going off track is the best way to start.

Before all of that though, that iRacing video posted above is a must-watch. All of their introductory videos are a good watch for beginners.

 

What?? my friend? i'm not OP.
Besides it was not a bait at all that drifting thing it helped me so....i don't know what you are talking about.