Paul Jeffrey
Premium
More ACC information? Yes please! Read on to learn all about the rating system coming to Assetto Corsa Competizione by Kunos Simulazioni.
Knowledge is power, that very much seems to be the motivation of the Kunos staff in the last few days as they continue to share insights into the upcoming new Assetto Corsa Competizione racing simulation soon to be released on Steam Early Access.
We have seen a number of very insightful blog postings from Kunos physics guru @Aristotelis as he explains how things such as tyres, aerodynamics and the general physics side of the car simulation will work, and now it is time for us to learn more about the highly requested ratings system in ACC, something that has been a hot topic amongst the Assetto Corsa community for several years.
First - thank you very much for joining our Early Access phase for ACC.
In terms of the gameplay elements around the Ratings, Event leaderboards and their game modes, I'd like to share our vision and the elements delivered in the first Early Access release, and open the discussion.
The vision:
On the long run, ACC will have quite a number of ratings and subratings. Some of them are focusing on your personal driving behavior, with the goal to be a good friend and help to improve. Some are purely competitive, and will connect you to other drivers. Then we have the multiplayer-related ratings, used to keep things clean and improve the multiplayer experience. Overall, we hope to improve the overall experience and fun, but also get rid of some typical simracing incentives. So this is going to be an invitation to develop from being a simracer to become more of a race driver.
6 of those ratings will be connected in a progression, where we try to detect the individual driver's capabilities and move the focus on the most important aspects. Those ratings are expressed in a 0-100% scale, and will unlock the next one once you achieved a value of 50%. While you are progressing through the ratings, you will either prove or practice driver-focused categories like Track Competence, Consistency, Car Control. After that, the rating will suggest to start becoming competitive and advance through the Pace, Racecraft and finally Competition rating.
Early Access Release 1
We will start with the first 4 ratings. At this point we will collect general feedback and feelings, analyse the data in terms of "how many drivers settle down where" and test the system. It will be also the first time where the backend servers have "real" load.
During the whole Early Access, the rating profiles may be reset for various technical reasons, so don't worry about your rating too much.
Let me go through the actual ratings and their expected effects:
TR - Track Competence
During this stage, every track has 3 "medals" to earn. We start out very easy: Do one clean lap without cut or spin.
For beginners, this of course requires to learn the track, which is the very basic requirement of anything that will follow. Go slow and easy, at this point nothing else is important. Blue feedback colors mean you are slow (which is much better than too fast), Green is perfect, yellow/orange/red indicates mistakes or overdriving you should avoid.
Also, your TR rating can't get worse at any time. Go out and drive, even testing something can't have any negative impact on TR.
The 2nd medal is similar: Do clean 2 laps in a row, that is without loss of control and with a (very low) minimal pace. Once you achieved this, the TR rating will be at 50% and unlock your next task: Consistency.
At this point, you always have the choice to focus on the next rating, or to improve the previous one(s).
There is one more track medal to earn: 4 clean laps in good conditions (adjusted lap requirement in wet/night conditions). Please note that your TR rating will not go to 100% during the Early Access.
CN - Consistency
The ability to consistently drive lap after lap is one of the key features in real racing, but for some reasons largely underrated in the simracing world.
Being consistent first means you are trained to find a pace you can do reliable lapping in - many laps without a spin or major problem. This will unlock many features (like being able to race others), and will help you to understand if different lines or setups have any actual impact.
But the most important: you just have more fun after all!
During the CN phase the Rating system will assist you with feedback for each corner, where green is very consistent to your latest laps, while yellow/orange/red indicates a very different way of driving. In case you noticed you got faster or slower in one corner, do NOT try to compensate in the next corner.
Cutting/losing the car will vastly reduce this lap's consistency, so make sure you find a good pace you are very comfortable with. The whole point is to be able to just drive without ruining the car, or messing up otherwise.
Similar to TR, the CN Rating can hardly drop once you have driven a bit. Usually the worst thing that can happen is that it just doesn't improve. Improvements/high ratings are possible when doing either very precise laps, or many consecutive laps - or both. So for example if you are doing well in lap 3 to 6, and then add one bad lap - this session's CN rating will be derived from 3-6, unless you add a streak that is even better. It is very important that the first 3 ratings are considered as friendly companions which are there to help you, and only you can see them. I'm looking forward to your feedback and impressions.
Once you have managed to achieve 50% CN rating, you will unlock the last driver-focused one: Car Control. Still keep an eye on your CN rating from now on, basically anybody should be able to at least have ~80% - you just need to consider this an important skill. Be assured, your practice investments will pay out big times.
CC – Car Control
You often hear that racing is about "the limit", and it's absolutely true. But we see a common misconception in simracing, while the real racing is the opposite: Most simracers are trying too hard. Riding on the limit really means on the very thin line of your tyre's grip, and going faster than that is actually slower and much, much more dangerous.
This rating will watch at various aspects and give you feedback where you lose time due to slow transitions etc, but much more important gives you feedback when you go too fast. First you should try to avoid any overdriving, that is find the correct steering angles and have the car under/at the limit any time (otherwise feedback is color yellow-red). Once you are able to avoid overdrive, you will notice everything is becoming easier while you won't be slower (or even pick up some pace). At this point you want to watch where you lose time because of being below the limit, usually this is about slow input transitions and careful corner entries.
Again, the CC Rating is meant to be your personal friend. The Rating is able to slowly decrease based on what and how you do it; but this is a very slow process and easy to catch up with some good practice sessions.
If you reached 50% CC - you are ready to get serious and enter the first competitive rating: Pace!
PC - Pace
Having proven you can handle your GT3 car, we are ready to enter the Competition - the title is not "Assetto Corsa Basics" after all.
Pace is the first rating that cares about laptimes and track performance. Those are measured in different Event Leaderboards, where you will challenge other drivers.
During the Early Access phase we will see a set of Special Events every new month. Those are connected to dedicated leaderboards, which directly influence your Pace rating: Your best Rank is your Pace rating. 50% means you are exactly in the midfield, 100% means you have a world record in one of the current event leaderboards.
Starting with Release 1, you can pick the "Hotlap" Event #1, which is basically what you expect: Dry, Daytime, perfect but fixed conditions, anything resets when you cross the start/finish line. Go for the best laptime possible.
The events #2 and #3 are (in my opinion) much more interesting: We introduce the "Hotstint" gameplay mode. The starting conditions are 100% comparable as well, but the goal is to drive as many laps as possible within a given time. Your leaderboard rank will be the result of the laps done (and time needed). While the Hotlap mode is a nice display of potential quickness, you will need to be a much more complete race driver to excel in the Hotstint category. Consistency, risk management and reliable pace are the key components.
This month's events will be a short stint in pretty good conditions (Event #2) and a medium (35 minutes) stint with a transition into the night (#3).
Recap
I would like to remind you again that the driver-oriented ratings' purpose is to help understanding how you drive, and give feedback on where you can improve - which has the ultimate goal to give you a better and more enjoyable time in simracing. This effect of course depends on your "entry" level, so skilled simracers (and actual race drivers) will have a very different experience compared to less experienced drivers. I'm looking forward to the feedback of everybody, so please don't hesitate to drop your feelings even if you feel you are on the entry level - maybe your feedback will be the most important in the end.
Assetto Corsa Competizione will be available to purchase on Steam Early Access from September 12th 2018.
Check out the Assetto Corsa Competizione here at RaceDepartment for the latest news and discussions regarding this exciting upcoming sim. We intend to host some quality League and Club Racing events as well as hosting some great community created mods (we hope!). Join in the discussion today.
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Like what you see here at RaceDepartment? Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow us on social media!
Happy to hear about the rating system coming to ACC? Do you think this an important aspect of a new racing sim? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!
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