Like it or Not, Associat0r’s Comments About Assetto Corsa Are Pretty Accurate

Every so often I come across a forum post that ends up being the basis for an entire article. Previously, one Reddit comment about GT2 cars being overpowered in Assetto Corsa ended up being the subject for an in-depth investigation of the claims, which we ended up proving to be astronomically false. However, anyone who sources shit to back up their claims instantly earns my respect, and today, reddit user Associat0r has done just that.

We’ve talked in the past how a few of us have basically dropped Assetto Corsa in favor of ISI-powered sims for our serious online league racing, but we’ve never fully broken down why. Thankfully, Associat0r has done that for us:

AC

His post, with a ridiculous amount of sources, can be read in full HERE.

While the general community consensus is that the guy is a dedicated rFactor fanboy, this doesn’t invalidate any of the legitimate issues he brings up. I personally think Assetto Corsa feels fantastic to drive, but there’s a reason why I refuse to participate in AC leagues, and relegate the game to hotlapping duties while R3E and Game Stock Car Extreme receive much more playtime – the rest of the title just isn’t anywhere near finished.

acs 2014-12-22 19-09-24-63Building a racing sim from the ground up when most developers simply stick with the ISI engine is obviously a huge achievement on its own, and the extra mile Kunos has gone to keep positive relations with the core fanbase sets an example the rest of the industry should strive to follow, but with so many racing sims available, a solid driving model is only part of the puzzle needed to take the top spot away from your competitors.

43 thoughts on “Like it or Not, Associat0r’s Comments About Assetto Corsa Are Pretty Accurate

  1. Reminder that he was accused of samefagging under the other alias of hexagramme0; both denied it.
    https://www.reddit.com/r/simracing/comments/3agbf2/meta_are_associat0r_and_hexagramme0_the_same/

    I posted it to SubredditDrama, but it was removed due to insufficient drama (really, their responses were negatively downvoted yet the replies are too few, so it isn’t that dramaworthy anyway).

    P.S. I’ll continue campaigning for this site to run J-List ads until you do so.

    LikeLike

    Reply
    1. He may be a total samefag as well as the biggest shill in r/SimRacing, but as someone who just wants a good racing sim, every point he makes is accurate. AC feels amazing to drive but it lacks so much compared to the competition it’s really not even debatable.

      And the response is no different than the iRacing kiddies shitting on me a few weeks ago because myself and others dared to criticize the Camaro Street Stock. They can’t respond to his well-sourced points, so they resort to ad hominem attacks.

      LikeLike

      Reply
    2. He’s not hexagramme0, but Associat0r IS an alt. Before /r/simracing, he used to obsessively shill for Elite Dangerous, with the EXACT same MO. He patrolled both reddit and 4chan for any mention of Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen, and then would bomb the thread into submission with “corrections” about how shitty Star Citizen was going to be in comparison to Elite Dangerous. He did a lot of damage to the perception of Elite on 4chan especially. The game is now forever associated with his aggressive and obsessive shilling.

      I thought it was pretty interesting that he’s repeated literally the exact same thing, but this time with AC and rFactor2, instead of Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous. He eventually stopped waging a holy war on Star Citizen. I suspect he was banned from a few forums.

      Fortunately though, unlike with Elite, he wasn’t actually that wrong about rFactor 2. After the incessant shilling I figured I would give it a try and found out that it’s pretty damn good.

      Recently he seems to have stopped his second holy war in /r/simracing. I suspect he’s now using a third alias now that he’s aware that he’s garnered the reputation again. If he is, he’s gotten better at avoiding his trademark writing style.

      LikeLiked by 2 people

      Reply
      1. I also expect him to call me out for the above post very soon. He’s incredibly good at stalking his own name. The mere mention of him summons his presence.

        LikeLike

      2. Yes, rfactor 2 is good.

        But AC has strengths in several areas that rfactor 2 (ISI) has weaknesses in terms of simulation. You can turn this around (with enough time) and create a chart with rfactor 2 flaws… A large one.

        For league racing, AC is indeed still WIP.


        •Lack of a package system with auto-syncing/downloading of mods during multiplayer, so it’s mismatch hell all over again and servers are discouraged from running mods as opposed to rF2.

        •Mods that break after almost every update, because of the lack of backwards compatibility

        •Lack of brake temperature.

        •Lack of oil/water/engine temperature.

        Assetto Corsa is also missing so many essential features that pre-rF1/rF1/rF2 had for many years, if not more than a decade.

        •AI during multiplayer

        •Adjustable brake pressure

        •Adjustable steering lock per car

        •Brake wear

        •Brake temperature

        •Oil temperature

        •Water temperature

        •Dynamic day/night cycles

        •Drivers swaps during multiplayer and singleplayer

        •Dynamic weather with rain

        •Proper race/flag rules

        •False starts

        •Rolling starts

        •Safety car

        •Proper damage

        •Pitstops in singleplayer

        •Chassis flex

        •Dynamic realroad rubber built-up based on driving lines

        •Resume from replay savegame system for long races.

        •Steering assist and adjustable speed sensitivity for keyboard users.

        •Steering assist for gamepad users

        Aside from chassis flex and dynamic reload, basically every other single feature above can be consider a basic part of LONG TERM DEVELOPMENT.

        Remind me again the range of time from pre-rf1 to now?

        Lol… Anyways, James already made this point. It’s just we could trim down that list considerably if the guy wasn’t being a ‘fanboy’.

        LikeLike

      3. @e123: the problem is it has been in development for a very long time. The features AC does have are very nice, it isn’t a buggy mess like pcars at least, but I do really wish they would focus more of their resources on expanding their feature set rather than creating more (admittedly very nice) content. It feels like we are never going to have AC ready for online league racing.

        LikeLiked by 1 person

      4. @Anon…something (this comment system is very strange haha)

        I don’t disagree at all.

        However, I shall now resort to the defense that pcars people have started attempting to use for pcars 2. Content artists must stay busy ;)

        Unlike pcars/2, kunos doesn’t seem to be pushing features out in reserve for another title. In this case, I think the ‘defense’ is a little more believable. Remember, among the small Kunos team, an even smaller portion are actually capable of implementing something like a false start. At least, I assume their team functions like that, that’s basically how it always works at a studio. SMS seems to only have a few guys that might actually be capable of fixing the deeper problems, for instance.

        I’m really hoping the console release will allow Kunos to hire some additional people to help with adding the code-level features.

        One good thing we can take from this is that most of us are asking for kunos to add features and especially focus on competitive racing features as priority, rather than having to spend all our time bug reporting.

        Things are nearing a point where I believe we will see more lower-level development. Adding assets becomes easier with practice and bugs are steadily decreasing.

        LikeLike

  2. Weird that I am somehow able to race on AC every goddamn day with no issues.

    LikeLike

    Reply
    1. He never said they were game breaking issues, he said they were issues that make the game incomplete, and make other games better for league racing.

      Try reading the article before you comment next time.

      LikeLike

      Reply
  3. Wtf realroad* not reload.

    Also, my 1 year initial online subscription ran out before I thought rfactor 2 was finally really coming up to par with the best of rfactor 1 as a whole… Not sure when this guy jumped on the bandwagon, but things weren’t fully fleshed out for a good while. It showed lots of promise in many areas, but clearly he’s ignoring the not so distant past. There wasn’t much in the way of decent *updated* mods, either.

    Also, I’m honestly not very excited by the majority of decent tracks available to rfactor 2. By decent, I mean accurate with actual surface details and not oddly angular ‘bumps’.

    Unless there’s some copyright-infringing track conversion going on that I don’t know about…

    Anyways, strengths and weaknesses…could go back and forth for days. Pointless. Both are worth owning.

    LikeLike

    Reply
  4. I think there is no doubt that AC is lacking somewhat in terms of features, I personally love the title, however that doesn’t make me blind to its flaws. Much of what was written in the OP I can more or less agree with and again whilst I really enjoy the title and laud the Kunos team for much of its work, one can’t argue with the fact that the development has been seemingly done at a snails pace. Maybe that’s simply a matter of lack of manpower?

    LikeLike

    Reply
  5. I don`t care if that imbecile is wrong or right, it`s just mindboggling how someone`s brain can be so deranged to keep copy/pasting the same chewed out walls of text ALL OVER THE INTERNET.

    I don`t think i`ve ever seen 2 persons online as sad as The Associat0r and his buddy Hexagramme.
    And that`s quite an achievement…

    LikeLiked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. Agree I don’t see the need to glorify a known forum troll and crusader who has mental issues posting under various accounts the same non sense about any game that isn’t rf2

      LikeLike

      Reply
  6. He may be spot on, but he is still irritating as all fuck. To read the same thing over and over in almost the exact same form just screams AGENDA! Either for Rf2 or against AC. My take is he hates how much he loves Rf2 better than AC because he actually loves AC better than Rf2. Like a dude hating his ex but can’t leave her the hell alone because he actually still fucking loves her.

    LikeLiked by 1 person

    Reply
  7. Careful now. Hornbuckle might come here and cause of having an agenda and link this to Stefano on twitter, saying “that’s the thanks you get for all yor hard work”.

    LikeLike

    Reply
  8. If we takes those lists literally then Project CARS is the best sim out there, since it has most of the features where both AC and RF2 lacks of?

    LikeLike

    Reply
  9. Eh, AC at the moment is pretty useless for anything other than hotlapping, but comparing its list of features to rFactor’s is disingenuous considering Kunos started the whole thing from scratch while rFactor was based on the F1 games that ISI had already worked on for years.

    LikeLike

    Reply
  10. To the OP: Maybe you would just not be competitive in an AC league and rather choose to stick with something you know. ;)

    LikeLike

    Reply
    1. at one point James was the second fastest mclaren pro rank driver behind andygo on rsr.

      LikeLike

      Reply
      1. mainly because of reasons stated. there’s a lack of features for league racing.
        he was practicing for a GT3 league a while ago, but when features failed to show he dropped it, in favour of rfactor and GSC leagues.

        LikeLike

  11. As others have pointed out Associat0r is a ridiculous person. He is on a mission to correct all the “misinformation” he sees about his favourite games, whether they be Elite: Dangerous or rFactor 2/Project CARS. Here’s a rebuttal point by point to his infamous post, which he as linked to in multiple subreddits. He’s not hexagramme0, they are pretty distinct fanboys, though hexagramme has a new reddit account as “RodneyDangereux”. He teams up with Ass across various subreddits and websites to vote up each others comments.

    totallity on reddit is very similar to Ass with his cries of “misinformation” and “sourced” bulletpoints against AC and for rF2, though he hasn’t really been doing that since Ass arrived on the scene. totallity has stated before that he plays at 30fps on an old laptop. Associat0r frequently talks about playing on a keyboard (please somebody, record one of his streams). If they’re the same person that would be fucking hilarious.

    Here’s a long point-by-point rebuttal to Associat0r’s infamous post:

    He loves the pCARS AI for some reason, when it’s worse than AC’s in my opinion. At least AC’s AI has speed, they might not overtake but it’s better than pCARS where they’re slow as shit and divebomb you constantly. Stefano has shown progress in his livestream about making them more aggressive, finally.

    The physics instabilities over kerbs is a completely valid complaint, and has been my biggest issue since release. Thankfully it’s being fixed in the next update, which is imminent.

    Underbody collisions isn’t a huge issue. Don’t drive off track?

    His critiques of the aerodynamics are ridiculous. “On YouTube they do it flat, in AC I can do it flatout”. Kunos already explained this as the drivers simply not taking the risks in high speed corners, while the cars are perfectly capable of doing it. They know this because drivers told them. The Sauber C11 could do Eua Rouge flat out, with 1000HP, in 1991, with more bumps, higher kerbs, and no runoff. Porsche 997 Cup cars could do it flat out. “In the onboard of an endurance series they lifted in quali” isn’t a valid source or “accurate”.

    How does having lateral/sideslip/alpha in the aero model affect the driving experience? I have no idea, you have no idea, and Associat0r has no idea. The worst from that thread was “The Audi R18 won’t be as stable because its fin won’t be simulated”. Maybe they’ll add it when they add that car, otherwise this affects nothing currently.

    SAT values will be fixed next update.

    Some people don’t like the FFB. Some do. Okay. Associat0r talks a lot about keyboard support and how he plays with a keyboard. I’ve only seen him post other people’s opinions about AC’s FFB.

    A small issue with tire pressures that was important enough to generate one reply.

    The track grip gain system is very simplistic, this has been obvious from the start. It’s a placeholder and can be turned off, keeping the track grip level static. Or you can tweak the values so track grip takes ages, which might be more realistic than rFactor 2’s Real Road was for about two years before they finally allowed you to run the track grip gain in a non-accelerated time. Hardly “a big step backwards from the 10 year old rFactor”, which had static track grip.

    A seemingly valid complaint with a seemingly simple solution. Once again it gets back to the “too much grip at high speed” thing, which I don’t agree with. If the solution was that simple I’m sure it would be fixed easily anyway.

    The cars don’t roll over properly? I don’t spend my time in AC or any other sim rolling over or blowing over cars.

    What on earth is this TzZyO guy trying to say? “AC runs way better than the unoptimised shitheaps that are pCARS and rFactor 2, therefore it’s less advanced”? Associat0r has been saying “fudged physics and setup parameters” for a while, so this post from June 20 must be a recent edit to try to justify it. The setup parameters in AC are clearly not fudged.

    Then there’s the post from the MAKCorp guy, Petros Mak. Well known for that one rFactor mod (when his super serious corporation was Mak Modding Group), announcing at least twenty mods that never saw fruition (plus a standalone game, a crowdfunding website, etc.), and faking his own near-death by pretending to post as his girlfriend or sister or something giving updates on his brain cancer and they were about to pull the plug and then he woke up and came back to modding…

    I have no idea what Petros’s role in his company is, beyond simply being the leader of a group of modders. Even if he was an expert in sim physics, this VirtualR comment is worthless. “Race teams use rFactor Pro, AC is marketed towards Semi-Arcade, I play rFactor 2 with a serious state of mind, I play AC on the couch with an X360 pad, its physics are like Forza 5 BUT THEY MIX THE SEMI-ARCADE VERY WELL I’M NOT SHITTING ON AC PLEASE DOWNLOAD MY MODS”. This seems like the kind of mindless fanboy comment you’d see on the ISI forums from a middle-aged guy who can’t drive. There is absolutely nothing of substance here, yet Associat0r links this comment frequently.

    The “fudging of tire physics” posts are from 2012 (18 months before AC’s release). AC has had at least two tire model replacements since then, the first of which was hinted at by Aris in the second link. Even then, calling it “fudging” is dubious.

    Damage does suck in AC. In other sims it sucks a little less. This is a racing simulator, damage is never a priority.

    Again, it’s hardly surprising that a racing simulator has simplistic damage modeling.

    The netcode needs improvement, but it’s still perfectly capable of managing a a race perfectly with low-ish pings. League features and the way skins and that are structured need improvement, absolutely.

    rF2 has a package system that can auto-download mods, that’s great. There’s also a ridiculous amount of league and server-specific mod editions that can get very messy. I prefer AC’s simple system, since you never have to worry about .rfms and tracks tied to specific cars and virtual mods and “All Tracks and Cars”.

    Kunos really do need to stop updating Fmod each update, I agree.

    Brake temperature is definitely coming, as Stefano has said on the livestreams. It’s low priority because it doesn’t affect much at all, and will take a long time to add the data for each car, despite the core simulation being extremely easy to implement.

    Oil/water/engine temperatures are vastly less important than even the unimportant brake temperatures.

    And finally we come to his “essential feature list”. Yes, it’s definitely a bummer that AC doesn’t have night or weather. They still might be coming at some point. Marco the product manager doesn’t like rain because nobody uses it, but Stefano the lead programmer and founder loves rain. I love rain and I want it. I don’t give a crap about night though, since it doesn’t change anything about the driving experience beyond “you see less and the lights are pretty”, and no sim (including rF2 and pCARS) makes it look pretty enough.

    And then there’s the rest of his features. Some would be nice but in practice are used way less than even night/rain, like AI in MP, resuming from replays, and driver swaps. Safety cars are useless and annoying. As e123 pointed out, you’d have to be insane to expect these features in a sim created from scratch so soon after release.

    rFactor 2 has completely fucked “adjustable steering lock per car” for me personally, while AC works perfectly in that regard.

    False starts, rolling starts, are needed badly. Chassis flex would be great for the older cars.

    “Proper damage” and “Steering assist and adjustable speed sensitivity for keyboard users”? Really? Wreckfest has great damage, and it plays well with a keyboard. Go play that.

    LikeLiked by 2 people

    Reply
    1. Man thanks for having more time then I do to be right about all that stuff….

      I don’t see why we have to glorify associator….

      Yeah small things like not being able to pick paints online kill me but when I watch stefano code diffs on a live stream I’m cool with it because nobody else gives that access.

      LikeLiked by 1 person

      Reply
      1. Yeah, that’s a good follow up for a point of comparison.

        Quick question to everyone who reads this: do any of you actually enjoy driving the rf2 NSX all that much? It feels very, very bland to me. I understand the real car is supposed to be predictable and a bit more practical for daily driving, but the rf2 NSX seems to have basically zero character and you can drive it basically however you want without being punished. Initiate oversteer before the apex, slide rear tires off the track and stay on the power and tell me if you think you should be able to catch that slide so easily. Frankly, that’s the first rf2 vehicle that has reminded me slightly of pcars with a significantly less grippy tyre model.

        The tyre sound for the NSX also really starts to annoy me after a while.

        Anyways, one slightly ‘sub-par’ vehicle isn’t much of a problem. Will probably be updated and maybe I just need to tweak setups a bit more.

        LikeLike

      2. One of my high school math teachers had one and used it as his summer car, so that description sounds about right.

        LikeLike

    2. Good to see some rebuttal to the points.

      I did have to laugh at brake temps being unimportant. That is such a critical part of racing, how much overtaking is done on the brakes?

      Yaw in regards to aero would be quite important too, any kind of turn is going to initiate a sideways component to the airflow over the wings. Not to mention any kind of slide creating a massive change in relative airflow, be it wing or underbody.

      Undertray collisions are quite important with underbody aero, depends on the car but if it uses an inflow of air for its body downforce, if you bottom out, you stall that airflow and lose downforce.

      Weirdly, my biggest irk with AC is that there is no garage start, no pitlane speed controls, no ability to jump start, and no ability to stall.

      LikeLike

      Reply
      1. Yeah, brake temps are pretty critical. In every rF online race with rolling starts, it’s like, a ritual of mine to preheat the brake temps to around 300C before the drop of the green so I don’t blow turn one.

        LikeLike

      2. There is no underbody collision problems, at least the one he mentions wasn’t a problem (he links a user from the forum reporting a possible problem), the user thought he hit the raised curb with the front splitter, but actually he hit it with the front right tire.

        This is the thread of underbody collision report from the forum: http://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?threads/impact-not-being-absorbed-when-hitting-curbs.24440/

        This is my response in that thread: “But the front bumper didn’t exactly touch the curb, it was the front right wheel, then it bumped a bit and scratched with the side skirt, and then with the back right wheel. I used F5 cam and moved it close to the ground from the front and then from the back, and used slow motion. From what I can tell, the front bumper didn’t touch the curb.”

        You can verify the same thing I explained by seeing the replay file the user Alexandre Martini attached.

        What this means is that Associat0r will link reports to possible problems from people on the ac forums, without actually saying if is true or not.

        If I now go to AC forums and start a thread about a possible problem with the game physics, associat0r will quote and link me as I’m saying the absolute truth, he won’t check whether that is an actual problem or not.

        LikeLiked by 1 person

      3. AC’s ground effect cars do lose aero when they bottom out, although having never driven one I can’t say if the effect is scaled right.

        Despite the popularity online I’m not sure that modern GT3 is actually the cars Kunos cares most about. More of the ‘interesting’ physics features show up in the other cars like the 98T, LaFerrari and upcoming GT-R.

        LikeLike

      4. the upcoming GTR, which i’d love to know how in depth they’re going to go with the computer systems.
        you can tell in the mclaren 12c that the rear is just wrong. mclaren use an open diff, and the stability control to brake either wheel and move torque around.
        i don’t think this is simulated by AC at all.
        i asked this on the forum and got ignored.
        cars like the 458 and m odern BMWs also use fancy E-diffs that move power around. i wonder how much of this is simulated.
        lastly i’d love to have different drive modes be simulated, rather than just default TC levels.
        the 458 has road, track and race, as well as CST off modes. why can’t we just switch between those?
        all questions i’ve never gotten an answer to.

        LikeLike

  12. Maybe because they only want to simulate the cars in their race mode, or close to it. Unless the car only has one standard mode.

    Do those cars that you mentioned that use some advanced systems, feel weird/wrong in the game? I know for us is hard or not possible to compare to the real car.

    I think it wouldn’t hurt if you’d ask on the ac forums, stuff about how deep the simulation went with those cars you mentioned. We are only giving assumptions here, better would be to ask the devs someday.

    LikeLike

    Reply
      1. Can you link me to it? Possible that the thread was too recent back then, and they didn’t want to give info about these cars, as per restrictions or something else. But link me to it please.

        Also, let me quote myself here:
        “Do those cars that you mentioned that use some advanced systems, feel weird/wrong in the game? I know for us is hard or not possible to compare to the real car.”

        LikeLike

Leave a Reply