My Open Letter For ACC

That’s about what’s planned for this year, 2023.

My first post on this thread touched exactly that, the importance that Assetto Corsa have for Kunos, 505 Games and Digital Bros and why it would be very difficult to justify stopping ACC support and development although AC2 is already in development.
Actually, knowing since last year’s summer that 2 new DLC, one with GT2 and another with 2023 GT3 season, are being produced as we speak and both are to be released in 2023, it’s obvious that ACC is yet being developed and had not been left to die.

But my last post is about what goes beyond 2023, with the expected release of AC2 during 2024.
So, for 2024 and beyond nothing is known about what the future reserves for ACC, nothing in terms of partnership between Kunos and SRO, GTW licences, etc.
Therefore who knows (well, there are people in Kunos that know, of course, but I’m speaking about the average joe, like me) if AC2 will embrace ACC as a part of features and content it will offer next year and beyond.

From a management point of view, building a new game engine in house to accommodate all the development needs and still being attached to a previous solution (read UE4) that isn’t entirely suited for the development process is, at the very least, counter-productive.

Thus why, I said I agreed with @Turk about AC2 could come to merge ACC and AC together in one but for the time being it’s only speculation from our side, because we don’t know (I surely don’t) and it will depend of other business factors besides the development and technical part of things.

 

No, it wasnt because I "reacted to an opposing view as if I was being attacked".

I posted Jardiers link and talked about how I agree with some of his points and how I would love to see some of the things added (like fixing driver swap bugs, ferraris suspension etc) and people were flaming me, one guy sent a "**** off" gif, and others just being disrespectful because I posted the link.

They just dont care about the game having potential and being better than it is now and if you ever suggest anything, they will attack you there.

 

There are so many other things not related to e-sports that could be fixed by just listening to the community. Let's say a newcomer starts playing. How the F would he know he has to set psi correct? It would be so easy to add some UI elements that describe what they are for. This game treats a newcomer like they have all the knowledge about the game they started 10 seconds ago.

Last time Aris was on YouTube, he said that most people play offline (they have the data so I believe him). When ACC was ~2 years old (pre 1.8 patch), AI at 100 was relatively competent. You as a player could be at most 1 second faster on most tracks. In the past, you could have fun racing the AI. You know the thing most people (according to Aris) are doing. Then, when a newcomer learns the tracks, can race the AI at 100, goes online, and Aliens are 4-5 sec faster than 100 AI in the same conditions. How the F some random guy who had a blast racing the AI, got bored and wanted to race with real people, what do you do? Thank god for LFM, because if you're "only" 2 seconds slower than the Aliens, you can't help yourself with ACC. You can do laps offline forever. But how would a newcomer know about LFM?

So if you play offline, like most people do, when you became at least good enough to beat 100 AI, ACC becomes just Hotlapping sim at this point in time. Aris said AI pace is the best they can do with the technology they have. And I highly disagree. When latest tracks were released, AI became so broken, it's so slow, like at COTA. So it's not the tech, because if they just made AI Racing line at COTA better, AI would be 1 sec faster in the first sector.

Also, why don't we have the same start procedure options offline and online. Because you can't train offline race starts, and transfer that knowledge online.

When the game was new, I used the AI to learn the tracks. 1 AI car, and follow. That way I saw where I could go faster, if my racing line was way off. Now you can't do that anymore.

And all the small bugs and weird behavior that persists for years now. So there are so many things outside of e-sports and online racing we all want to see it fixed, but by now, we are happy if there is more than one line of hotfix notes.

See, I have not mentioned e-sports once, and from a perspective of most users (who are playing offline, again, info by Aris), ACC is abandoned. If you are not doing online races, ACC has nothing to offer anymore.


I could go on and on but this is a good place to stop, so that it don't become a wall of text.

 

When I read "how the f are they supposed to know they have to set psi" I started laughing too much.
That's just true.
Let's not talk about the "favourable aero platform" that took me years to understand in part and even right now, only a few know well, also among esport teams.
It's very nice to experiment and find out the stuff for yourself. I enjoy it a lot actually. but certain things, like the pressures ,could be writter clearly.
Acc could have been done better? We are gonna get a new game before or after because of that. Remember many people still play ac. Many did not buy acc at the start. Surely, a lot of things will be different. I said since day 1, if we had online leaderboards like in trackmania, at least you could have had the hotlap challenge forever and for every track car combo. Or if sro just organized it's championship taking the the people with the highest cp ranking (btw the lfm league works like that for real?), the game would have felt a lot more integrated with the real championship.
Instead, they went for the opposite, with the rigs on site.
Unfortunately, many issues came in the way during ea and also later. You make a guess in this world, then you fix the issues you can.
Actually they have managed to give us driver swaps. I am confident the next title will be complete.
But you are absolutely right.

 

The scarce information/recommendations given to players in ACC was debated in these forums several times and no changes were made in that regard, so I don't expect any changes in ACC in that department.

Tyre pressures according to weather conditions and tyre type (wet and dry), brake ducts, fuel level, pit strategy, ping level indicator in MFD, rating system (SA, CC, CN), TC/ABS settings, are all things that were debated in the forums, but ACC never included helpful info about it, and I consider that gameplay aspect where ACC lacks the most.
Many aspects of ACC gameplay could have been included in the game itself (an overlay with info, for instance) or, at the very least, a button linking to where they were available.
For example, just imagine a new player wanting to know what tyre pressures are required, what the rule of thumb to follow is, or what effect brake ducts have in tyre temps, and having an overlay with the basic info/recommendation about it or a button to access a guide to know how to handle those areas of the game.

There is a the Blog section here in the forum https://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?forums/acc-blog.87/ with so much information, there is even a Server Admin Handbook https://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?attachments/serveradminhandbook-pdf.155933/ and Shared Memory Documentation (pdf) https://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/...csharedmemorydocumentationv1-8-12-pdf.154798/ but there isn't any gameplay documentation to help the players.
ACC could point directly to a gameplay documentation that would give the players information about many aspects of the game.

Considering ACC is an in-depth simulation, with many gameplay aspects to consider that can evolve and be updated over time, one solution could be to have an external app where a driver's guide wa available, with links inside ACC pointing directly to each section.
The app could have various sections (just as example):

• General information: career, special events, single player, multiplayer, etc
• Resumed information: video, audio, controls, hud, etc.
• How to: setups (including tyre pressures, fuel, tyre types, etc.), weather conditions (including ambient temp, track temp, etc.), controllers (gain, dynamic damping, steer lock, etc.), driver swaps, rating sytem and many others
  
• How to videos: Aris videos (so many things available)

But I very much doubt that any sort of comprehensive information will be added to ACC to guide the players, but who know what the future brings.

 

Developing setups is a hard thing to make accessible though. I've read guides to setups so many times but just describing what a particular setting does in isolation isn't enough to understand setups. I would like more information on setups so you have some idea what it does but overall I think teaching people setups is a difficult task for even AI.
It would certainly be a game changer for any sim if they could implement a productive way of making setups accessible to everyone.

 

Now that I think about it, at the very beginning, the psi in the pits were kinda changed so that you would automatically reach the optimal range. But then it was removed because of issues. So technically, it was even more beginners friendly than we think. But again issues made issues.

 

Ah, I was not referring to the "art" of making setups, nor what I'm referring it was debated is about the intricacies of setups.
I'm talking about general gameplay guide with some recommendations for particular situations (tyre pressures rule of thumb, for instance).
Because I lazy , I'll point directly to a post about it in a thread with more than 2 years old, which I think can shed some light of what I'm referring about.
Please consider that what I considered at the time is basically what I'm now considering could be in an app; something similiar to what some car brands do with the driver's guide, made available in a mobile app.

https://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/...t-all-on-the-driver.64918/page-2#post-1143670

 

I agree with you on that. I don't know who it was on this forum that made out a big chart with how all the settings work, it was extremely helpful. If I could I'd put it on my wall I would but at the moment I have it printed out on a long piece of paper that I have rolled into a scroll. It doesn't help with feeling old when everyone else is on a phone and I'm pulling out rolled up scrolls.

For the most part I never touch setups. I get the tyre pressures right, maybe lift or drop the rear a bit, and maybe change the preload but I just don't want to invest anymore time in it than that.

The problem with basic tips is they can almost be just as confusing to a newbie as no information. It's a dark art with no easy solutions.

 

Do the research on their own.

What works in real life, also works in ACC.

Telling beginners what the effect of softening the front Anti-roll bar has, then add in spring rate, etc., etc., etc., will have them going in circles, just as in what realife race car tuners can experience.

Everybody has their own preference on how they like a car's handling.

Spoon feeding "beginners", will solve nothing.

The only thing I play with is, anti-roll bars, and brake bias and some aero.



As always,...

 

Not everyone is interrested in setups.

I'm playing in solo since the release of acc and I don't change the setups. Even setting the fuel bothers me!

I would like the game to automatically select the aggressive setup and put as much fuel as the AI.

 

@pankykapus many information is available in the forum and Ari’s youtube channel as well, I said that much in my post and linked to the blog section.

What I’m just saying is a way to point the players to all that outside information from within the game, not having all that ingame, thus why I spoke of a button where to click and have access the place those answers can be found.
An app would be just a way to have all the info in a place where it would be far easier to navigate.

The point it would be to offer guidelines and answers that the players don’t have in game and, this way, linking to an external source where the info is available (button linked to document or an app) with the added benefit that the info can be updated without needing to make changes to the game itself just to include/update the information.

 

Not many people would agree to that, and some would. But that isnt real life, and training new race car drivers happens everyday.

 

I think that would be a very interesting feature, for some leagues and even LFM could do a fixed-setup series. Even if it's just the aggressive preset setup, leaving only as adjustable options what can be adjusted from in-car, and weather/temperature dependent settings (TC1, TC2, ABS, ECUMap, tyre compound, tyre set, tyre pressures, fuel, brake bias, brake pads, brake ducts).

Since each car has a configuration of what settings are adjustable from the setup menus, one way that I think it could be implemented without changing how the game works is by duplicating the cars and making a fixed-setup version for each, with only those settings above made as adjustable, and the rest fixed to the aggressive preset setup value. I think that shouldn't be too hard to implement, although it would probably require a way to have those filtered from the car selection UIs. An idea for @pankykapus and the KS team to consider.

 

Drivers don't do car setups.

Plus, do you expect Kunos to "train" members here ?

And, just what is "real life",... regarding the subject here,... car set up ?

 

I am not suggesting the originate on UE4, but surely they need to be coded into UE4, or, at least the look-up tables and calculations for the simulation. Yes, Kunos have the PI on the physics simulations, but ultimately it is up to the game engine to take that data and run the game. So UE4 delivers both the graphics and the physics as coded into look up tables etc by Kunos. Basically, the engine UE4 is responsible to deliver the entire package. No?
Are you suggesting that there are two seperate things running here. So UE4 is running the graphics only, and that there is another engine running to manage the physics independently?
@pankykapus @Aristotelis I am ready to be schooled here if I am wrong.

 

1st, I know NOTHING about this level of coding.

But, would this then be assuming then that UE4 has physics, graphics and AI coding built in, and Kunos input is minimal, but simply tailoring the UE4 code to their preference ?


As always,...

 

UE4 does have a physics engine. My belief is that Kunos enter their code base which is then delivered and run on unreal. However, a poster above has said that unreal is only running graphics, and that the physics is running on a different engine made by Kunos.
This makes no sense to me, and when I run the game, the only apps I can see using the cpu is unreal.

I'm open to correction. There is even some guy on reddit calling me out and being very rude in general, suggesting that I'm wrong here. I work in software, and in my world I can't see how any other engine can run in parallel to deliver physics, whilst unreal is only working on graphics. It makes no sense.
But I'm always open to correction.