Assetto Corsa | Can-Am @ Watkins Glen '66 | 200km Full Distance Race
27Minimal talking in this one, but that's not the point.
Eleven years on, my criticisms of AC remain as valid as ever and you'll get to see that over the course of 200km.
Assetto Corsa is a primarily a vehicle sandbox in which you don't really "play" or "race" in a traditional sense, you just compulsively download mods and then leisurely try them out for a few laps at a time. The racing part, especially offline, is not up to standard.
This is a vanilla Kunos car on a payware track, basically showcasing the best of what AC has to offer. Can-Am was a series in which there were no pit stops, fuel tanks were upwards of 300L in capacity, and vintage tires held up pretty well, so this is effectively an hour-long sprint race. Literally all I'm asking is for the AI to maintain pace with me and be kind of racey.
[x] The AI on max difficulty, can't keep up with the player. Any moderately-built setup and you just walk away.
[x] The AI cannot pass. You'll notice as I lap the AI on two occasions, they're in the exact same running order.
[x] At multiple corners, the AI line just isn't great, slowing up beyond what's necessary, taking odd lines, or receiving obvious grip hints. They practically stop in the final corner, then rocket away with obvious traction control. In gentle curves they just understeer off the racing line.
[x] The AI don't respect your personal space. I get run into by a backmarker on two occasions, who doesn't seem to care I was beside them for several seconds.
[x] The AI don't respect blue flags.
[x] This is a car with adjustable boost and you're intended to use it as push-to-pass. The AI remain locked at 50% boost the entire time so you basically get a free spot if you have variable turbo buttons mapped.
[x] AI tire wear does not match the player, nor do they pit for tires when needed. In the closing laps I catch a car driving around on exploded rear tires, oblivious to the issue at hand.
[x] There is basically no post-race flow, the screen fades out, you respawn in the pitbox, and you're presented with floating text in Dwight Schrute-style "it is your birthday."
I get some people enjoy vehicle sandboxes because they're still exploring sim racing as a hobby, but some of us... aren't exploring sim racing. We know all the tracks, our driving skills are pretty good, and we've built setups for our favorite cars. When it comes time to *actually* race, the race is basically over in five minutes because random issues that the devs decided "weren't a big deal", just stack on top of each other.