Wr with gamepad? how fast should gamepad vs wheel be in ac?

For a couple of days now there's a thing that got me worried and thinking. AC is supposed to be this great racing simulator, right? At least it's on the track of becoming one... And what does it actually simulates? Cars. Ok, not planes, not submarines, but cars. Cars that in reality have wheels to drive them. They don't have gamepads or joysticks or mouse and keyboard for that matter.

So considering that, should gamepad users be as fast, even faster than wheel users? Looking at RSR Live Timing leaderboards I can see a few gamepad users that are faster than most of the wheel users.

There was this one guy who actually got a WR with a gamepad on Nords with the Exos > https://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?threads/´these-look-like-fun.22834/

After I seen that I asked @William Levesque to beat his record, because it was just ludicrous to me to see gamepad being faster than wheel in AC > http://www.radiators-champ.com/RSRLiveTiming/index.php?page=rank&track=1006&car=74
He's still only less than 2 seconds slower on 2nd place on such a long a difficult track like Nordschleife.

I mean come on people, we're talking about Assetto Corsa here, not some sim-cade or arcade racing game. Even GT5/6 which are made especially for gamepad since they are on the homeland of gamepads on console, even in those games wheel users are faster than gamepad users.

Considering the "simulation" pedigree AC is trying so hard to achieve, the question is, how fast should gamepad be compared to wheels? How fast is too fast for a gamepad in AC?

There are penalties even for wheel users that don't use the pro settings (all aids off) and for those who don't have the full gear required to use that. For example I'm a wheel user, but because I don't have an H-shifter I'm already penalized in performance compared to those who have it and use it, but pad doesn't get any kind of penalty at all vs wheels? Not only that, but it's faster and easier to use than most of the wheel users can do with their wheels.
That's not right at all and completely unrealistic, I really doubt someone can drive a real car with a pad as well or better than with a wheel. I would love to see that experiment, but I pretty sure I'm right about this one.

If you come with a gamepad to a car racing game that is advocating for simulation, then it should be agreed on from the start that you won't be as fast as a wheel user considering the same level of skill involved. Exactly how there is a penalty for not having a H-shifter when driving a car in game that has a H-shifter in reality, the same way all gamepad users should have a penalty for not using a wheel, unrelated to the helping aids penalties, which are a different thing.
Yes, there should be a hidden penalty, or if you want openly admitted, for all other input methods that are not wheels, for the sake of realism alone. There is no need for a better reasons than that.

I could understand if this was the case in Gran Turismo or Forza, but in AC... this is just wrong.

Was this a marketing decision to attract more casual customers? It sure looks like it, but by doing this Kunos risks loosing the more hardcore ones or just regular wheel users that are expecting a simulation in AC not a sim-cade.

 

hidden assists for gamepad?

 

Awwww the neverending sim elitist ... "feces".

So, I have a wheel, therefore I should be faster than anybody using gamepad or mouse, right?
Because all aliens can afford a wheel setup. And ofc there is no way in hell that guy could be one of the best here and sitting on #2 because of that said penalty. (have no idea who he is, generally speaking)

@PAKFA how about before talking about others in such a demeaning manner, you try what YOU can do with a gamepad? Surely you can afford one.
But guess it doesnt matter, does it? Since you "think" you are penalized for not using a shifter (in quotes and bold because it's not true) then you should at least be faster than those gamepad wielding n00bs right?
Because .... wheel ....

And for a more meaningful answer, it doesnt matter if you use wheel, gamepad, mouse or touchscreen or whatever. The game can only see input. If your inputs are correct the laptimes will come.
Some can give better inputs on a gamepad than others with a wheel. (hint hint)

 

Actually for a more meaningful answer all you need to understand is that this is not about me, or 1 individual or 2 or 10. It's about the principle that in a simulator the correct input for achieving the best performance should be the native one which exists in reality not a fictional one.

I a car simulator a wheel should be faster than any other type of input. No matter the alien skill level of the pad user involved.

 

He is using assists though, there's no P next to the time.

As someone who used to race RC models I can confirm that short throw sticks are a viable way of accurately controlling any vehicle. I don't find this that surprising.

I don't follow the scene now but there used to be people racing RC at a national and international level that were very quick. I'd say they were the equal in terms of driving consistency and precision to real world top race car drivers. As I've said before Lewis Hamilton started out racing RC and was very good at it.

 

Yup I agree, but its you who opened this thread and you I can argue with.
It's obvious I dont agree with you, so only way to go forward is to counter your arguments, not try to find hypothetical new ones.

Anyway, you missed my point completely.
Maybe that guy IS an alien and would actually be like 10 seconds faster than William if he had a wheel. (again I dont know either of them, using William as an example because you mentioned him)

Your point that EVERY wheel user should be faster than EVERY pad user is ... in lack of a better description, elitist cr@p!

Finally, from a game developer perspective, you can either have all input methods competitive or not add them at all.
Who would play a game that heavily penalises him for an input method that is supposed to be fully supported?
That is just bad business.

 

Long ago I posted this thread - https://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?threads/wheel-much-better-than-pad-in-ac.15626/ .
No need to go there. It's just I think it's the opposite. For me, personally, with my G27 I can easily beat my PAD times.
Making analogy with GT5/6 (yes, I know they are not A.C., but let me finish), I played GT5/6 a lot with a pad. And when I got my wheel it took some time to beat my PAD times. I have a fellow racer which is even faster than me. And we compared a lot. The main thing for using a pad is to be as precise with the analog as you can. I'm a button masher I admit and I suffered a lot from that in GT5/6. My friend was much more precise and I had to compensate just because of that. And the other thing is that GT5/6 physics were OK, but they are lacking compared to A.C. And because of that with the wheel in A.C. I'm just smashing my pad times. There is so much going on I can react to and be more adequate!
Yes, GT5/6 are not good examples because they have hidden pad assists. A.C. imo give you more raw input even with pad and that means you have to be even more precise with the analogs. But when you make a lot of laps and you become familiar with the behavior of the pad/car/track combo you can be quite fast. It's just that with the wheel you can make a some mistakes here and there and still be competitive. With pad it's 1 over/understeer and it's gone.
It's all about precision and muscle memory.

 

That's somewhat narrow-minded...no one has raced a car IRL with a controller because it'd be near impossible to execute, and deadly if it went wrong. But in a perfect world (e.g. a simulator), these factors don't exist, and it allows the true capability of whatever input device to be utilized. If you could theoretically make the exact same inputs on a wheel, and on a controller, the laptime would be the same. And what you're seeing is someone making better inputs on a game controller than most wheel users can with their hardware.

 

In LFS (definitely no hidden aids in this sim) there was nothing unusual to see wr's with mouse, keyboard or gamepad
One example, Blackwood track + most difficult rwd car in the game (witch demands very precise throttle control)

I also started simracing in LFS and for 3 years used regular ~20$ mouse, for steering, throttle and braking, it was a pain in the *** to get use to it at first, but after a while I was one of the fastest drivers in my country.
Mouse compared to steering wheel + pedals has many downsides, but there is also some benefits, like for example insanely fast countersteering, and you don't need any ffb to tell if the car is on the limit, you can easily rely on tires sounds and visuals.

 

I am pretty sure a good mouse is a better input tool to control steering than a gamepad and faster than a regular wheel for drifting. Whats wrong with mouse steering is that it doesn't have centering (you need a lot of practice until you can put the "wheel" in the center consistently after performing turns).
Mouse with FFB (self centering)? Now that would be a wheel and a gamepad killer for precise and at the same time very fast inputs.

 

It's not narrow minded at all it's based on logic. There is a logic why real cars don drive with gamepads because gamepads are worse than wheels and pedals and shifters. They don't offer the same degree of controls and precision as wheels do, so that's why no one made them for real cars.

In order for gamepads to work in AC they require special assists and settings only for them, assists that make a bad design choice work even if it's not realistic, just because this is a game so more people can play it, even those without a wheel. That does not mean it should be as fast or faster as the thing that it is actually trying to simulate: real cars that don't drive in reality with gamepads, but wheels.

The amount of assists for these other inputs is probably huge to make them be useful for something they were not meant to be in the 1st place, as a car. That being said those assists should not make them faster than wheels, but slower. It should be a penalty not an advantage.

It really does not matter how other games do it, because if other jump off a cliff that doesn't not mean you (we) should too. In the same way if AC strives for realism, that should be with and for wheels, not gamepads or other types of input.

So much for simulation...

 

I don't think you need to use word logic.
How well somebody would be be able to hold a gamepad or a mouse in a real car at high speeds, bumps and high G loads and provide accurate inputs? That's your answer to why real cars have a wheel.

 

That's also true. So for the sake of simulation wheels and pads should not be as equally fast in AC. If it can't be done properly in real life, I accept it can be done in a sim for the sake of gaming, but not as good as a wheel. There's no need for any other reason, like I said.

 

If there wasn't any assists there still would be some people who could post amazing lap times with pad or mouse, practice and determination makes miracles.
Your gear 'in simracing in general' means nothing, otherwise only the most expensive wheel and pedal owners could post the fastest laps.
I bet I can beat most guys with fancy load cell pedals and 1k+ steering wheels, with my stock g27, and I bet there is some guys that are faster the me with some **** wheel or pad/mouse or whatever

 

Stupid thread is stupid.

 

It doesn't make sense to artificially slow down gamepad or mouse users.
There is a little flaw in your logic.
You are assuming that wheels are realistic. While in fact most consumer wheels are too slow (which is not realistic and makes catching slides harder or impossible in some circumstances). In some cases a mouse or gamepad would be even more realistic as to what you should be able to do with the real wheel when compared to crappy FFB wheel.
Also some user with a really good FFB wheel might use 400 steering lock on a 1014 car, should we slow him down?
You see it's impossible to "follow" who has unrealistic advantage and vice versa regardless of the input tool he uses.

 

What he's missing is that a wheel is just another joystick, no different from a gamepad really, it takes inputs and turns them into simulated inputs for a simulated car. That's all.
A joystick that has fancy drives and can wiggle (and my god how people get so obsessed over that wiggle), but a joystick nonetheless, and many pro's turn off that wiggle to be faster.

"ZOMG his joystick doesn't wiggle as much as mine so he must be cheating!"

 

50 invalid laps, he has put a fair ammount of effort in. Just saying.

 

There aren't hidden assists for gamepad. But keyboard/mouse has some assists on throttle/braking. The assists is not that it will drive the car for you, the "assist" is that in some situations where you are sliding, it won't let the gas/brake fill up to the top. Sorta like some specialized Traction Control for digital input. Wheel and Gamepad users only have analog gas and brake control, and is never limited nor controlled by the game.

AC simulates full steering range rotation for gamepad too. You can adjust the steering speed, speed sensitivity, steering filter. So all these let you find a controllable movement of the car steering. But if you don't have knowledge of racing a car on a track, you won't be at the top. Same goes for wheel users, you also won't be at the top if your knowledge, skills, experience is not good enough. Maybe you can do a very good hot lap and post a great time, but then racing is another craft. Pro racers from real life spent a lot of time learning all this, so just because you use a steering wheel in a sim game, doesn't mean you're gonna be a top driver. Neither with gamepad, you need time, technique, and individual skills.

 

I suppose mouse/pad users use some help. Even in A.C.