Getting a bit tired of AC. Invest in another sim?

[Rivvern]

I'm getting a bit tired of Assetto Corsa. Don't get me wrong. AC is for me the best when it comes to handling, ffb and value for my money. No microtransactions. But i really miss a "complete" game. I really hate when the screen just fades out after finishing a race etc. Immersion killer.

So im thinking about investing in Raceroom which looks really good and is a more complete game. The issue i have with it is that it lacks players. lobby is almost empty and it got these filthy microtransactions. I do already own some cars and tracks but no packs. Comments on this please.

Next up is iRacing. Very expensive but is for me the most complete game. But im not really interested in paying the amount necessary to be able to play. Also RD dont seem to run iRacing very much.

I do own rFactor and rFactor 2 which i like alot. I havent renewed my rF2 license though because of the lack of races at Racedepartment.
Game Stock Car Extreme looks pretty good but it feels kinda old and Project Cars lack the fidelity i want in a racing sim.

I do think that there are too many sims on the market right now and the community is getting more and more split up. I think we need to focus on 2 sims and get slots filled up instead of having 5 people in every race.

Ok so i think the question is this:
Am i stuck with Assetto Corsa which seem to be the most popular, most bang for buck and authentic simulator but is lacking alot "features"?
Which sim would be the safest to invest in when it comes to populated races and leagues @ RaceDepartment ?

 

[Jake Fangio]

I know what your saying about raceroom and cost.But say you buy the adac or wttc and a track pack say the euro one,you don't really need to buy anything else.And gsce may be old,but it's an absolute cracker.

 

[ouvert]

you will probably get this answer a lot but go for Stock Car Extreme .... new free content and features on the way ... pushing that engine to the limit ..

with R3E .. good thing is you can try it for free .. coincidentaly next weekend all content will be free to play .. I`m still waiting for them to fix FFB ..

 

[Dave R]

Keep in mind with R3E if you only want to race online, you really only need one car from each series to be able to do that. You'll need to buy the tracks, but short of DTM14, you can just buy one car for the series you're most interested in running and use that online which should save you some money. You can also purchase DTM 13,ADAC14, or DTM14 for the next day or so and get them half off in the Steam Store (which will give you the tracks as part of the pack and they can be run with any single cars you purchase). If you don't care about the 14 physics and would like to run the DTM Cars on any track you want, then I'd go with the cheaper 13 DTM cars. Keep in mind as well that there are two track packs available too. The American and European Track pack that will get you the majority of tracks.

R3E and GSCE are my go-to games with rF2 running a close third. GSCE may look dated but it's become the "swiss army knife" of sim racing to me. There's not many series or tracks that aren't in GSCE at this point.

Sorry for the length of this post, but I had the same type of questions about R3E when I first started out and some gentlemen in the R3E forum answered almost the exact same question for me.

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

Project Cars lack the fidelity i want in a racing sim.

You reckon R3E is more of a sim than PCars? I didn't find that.

... And GSCE is amazingly good

 

[Slalom823]

If I could only have one sim it would be gsce. It has great physics, leagues and racing on rd is good, and it has very good ai as well. It doesn't have much for open lobbies though.

 

[Rivvern]

Thanks all for your comments! Really good to hear others point of view.
So i ended up buying Stock Car Extreme on Steam. It is really good and I love the V8 cars. I start to realise that touring cars is my cup of tea. I would say that SCE is a really well polished version of rFactor1. Also running a game 2 @ 280fps is pretty nice.

R3E will be here waiting with new discounts. And if i want to join a race i just need to buy one car and track. But I do think i will buy some packs next time there is a sale.

 

[Dave R]

You'll be pleased Daniel. You can find just about anything you want for SCE.

 

[Slalom823]

I would try the karts, formula Vee, and marcas touring cars in addition to the v8's. The formula Vee is a great training car and is always good to go back to every once in a while. (There is a RD club race with them in 2.5 hours if you were interested)

 

[Kevin Knorpp]

I race rFactor 2 for the following reasons:

• Historic vehicles - Sparks, Howstons, Celica and T280
• Physics/feel - Never before have I felt no two laps are the same with endless opportunities for improvement and this is NOT even counting dynamics
• AI - Aside from MP and league racing being meaningless in the grand scheme (global ranking, for instance), online combos are boring to drive because people prioritize racing and IRL over driving. I simply will not drive anything but the best and most challenging driving combos

If you like popular combos...
...AND live in the correct time zone
...AND can commit ahead of time to scheduled events...
...OR can afford iRacing and are OK with the physics...
...then online might work for you.

Otherwise, buy rFactor 2 and race offline OR wait 10 years for things to get sorted (and then buy rFactor 2 because they won't be )

 

[Rivvern]

I actually own rF2 but currently without subscription. I stopped playing it because it was practically impossible to join a server. Automatic download that never work and to be able to play with friends you have to compile a weird package. Good ideas that went bad. Rfactor 1 is so much more user friendly.

 

[hexagramme]

I actually own rF2 but currently without subscription. I stopped playing it because it was practically impossible to join a server. Automatic download that never work and to be able to play with friends you have to compile a weird package. Good ideas that went bad. Rfactor 1 is so much more user friendly.

I've had problems joining a server, maybe 12 times, 15 tops, in the two years I've spent with rF2. I find that the online system is much much better than most other sims. rF1 was a damn nightmare compared to the ease of the package system of rF2.

 

[Spinelli]

RFactor 2 is easy nowadays to join server especially with auto-download working most of the times.

You want to see what's FRUSTRATING AS HELL to try and play online? --> http://www.racedepartment.com/threads/server-issue-or-game-issue.107426/#post-2034724 Post #s 1, 4, and 6. HOLY!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Rivvern]

Thanks @Spinelli. I didnt have much luck at first with rF2 so its great to hear someone tell me the opposite. I might resubscribe if i see a interesting race or league.

 

[xnorb]

If clean online racing is your thing, then there's no alternative to iRacing.

Sadly no other dev studio has the balls to punish bad driving and therefore there's no public racing scene. Those who are looking for clean racing are hiding in private leagues and races, leaving the public servers to the crashers.

You can of course join RD races, but those have strict schedules and if those don't fit...

 

[Spinelli]

I've had, by far and a way by a million miles, the best pickup-and-play online racing experience with RF2 over any sim (well besides iRacing which consistently has good racing).

AC is full of completely crazy "gamers" who don't know anything at all about racecraft even if some of them can do some pretty good laptimes on their own. It's just a random, inconsistent mess a lot of the times. It's not too frustrating though because I never get deep enough into the driving to really care.

I've spent the last month or so almost only playing Stock Car Extreme. There are some servers that attract quite a bit of competitive and seemingly serious drivers (almost all Brazilian drivers except me and maybe another driver or two); I've never been purposely hit out of a race so many times in my life. It's like quite a few of them think they're Senna and have a god-given right to not be passed by anyone or something. It's extremely frustrating because it can get quite competitive and close - until someone purposely destroys your car and your race that is. Way too many good drivers who are bi-polar and turn into complete psychos. Not to mention, many of them ("them" being SCE players) have absolutely no racecraft when it comes to the first corner. We had to restart a race 3 or 4 times because ppl kept steamrolling into the first corner like desperate maniacs. Of course, on the 3rd or 4th one no more restates were allowed and quite a few ppl were out or damaged. I just feel the potential is there but too many ppl seem like self-absorbed maniacs.

One time I rubbed another car a bit and made him spin, so out of respect I slowed down, lost like 5 places while waiting for him to catch up. What does he do? Smashes the **** out of me at like triple my speed. Then even has the nerve to start talking about how I'm a dirty driver. Wow!

RFactor 2, on the other hand, often seems to have hard but good close racing with hardly any psychos. I've never had such a consistent mix of competitive and close racing without any dirty psychos like I've had with RF2. Even the "heated" moments are just about always kept mature and respectful.

 

[xnorb]

As to be expected.
rF2 isn't attracting lots of casual drivers in contrary to AC for example.
It's the "Don't touch this, it's impossible to drive" sim

But ya, it all boils down to: Every sim needs a safety rating so we can host servers for "arcade racers" and "sim racers".

 

[P*Funk]

For GSCE mods definitely try out CART Extreme. So polished you might mistake it for stock content.

As for BRs... well I think that infamous Senna quote haunts them more than anybody. I watch some of those really organized league races that there's a channel for on youtube that has Portuguese commentators and even there you see some pretty ridiculous driving. Blatant blocking, like final run to the line with the guy in the lead weaving left and right to block. These are the aliens it seems and I saw one ram another at the end of the race when he was beat to the finish line. Eh....

 

[Dan Allen]

Game Stock Car Extreme. Keep an eye on pCARS when SMS finally finish it

 

[Ryan Soucy]

And if you like off-road, Dirt Rally is VERY good so far. The FFB was raw out of the game, but a combo of slight tweaking and the new patches have made it great. I used to race online but lack the time to commit nowadays, so offline experience is important. PCars and Dirt Rally are my go tos. The career and weekend setup in pCars is great, so immersive. The seasons are long enough that you recognize the rival drivers and target them in races. I like the branching career paths. Dirt Rally is also great for a career mode, the crew setup is a really innovative addition. I wish all games follow this example.

I also bought SCE on Steam Sale and it does not disappoint, I love running it on full settings and getting full FPS, it looks very good (not compared to pCars though!) and drives very well. The only thing THAT lacks is a career mechanism. It has ALL the makings of a pCars like career. You can start in karts, and then you could move to the Marcas or FVee cars. Then either to the sports cars or the open-wheel or the touring cars. I seriously hope Reiza has something like that in the works! That would make it a 9.8 out of 10!! (currently 8.7 for me )