Kunos September Update - Assetto Corsa

[Paul Jeffrey]

Kunos Simulazioni and 505 Games have released an update regarding the ongoing development behind the scenes for the recent console edition of Assetto Corsa.

Much in line with how Reiza Studios communicate with their customer base, Kunos have taken the step to speak directly with the community and address some of the issues currently affecting PS4 and Xbox One players of Assetto Corsa. The studio have again acknowledged issues with framerates and tearing, assuring fans the development team are working to rectify this issue with a view to bringing out an update shortly. Quite why the issue was present in the first place is open to debate, but at least the problem is acknowledged and actively being looked at by the team. Other news from the update shares details about the Prestige Pack DLC, a story we wrote about earlier today, more info can be found here.

Outcry over a lack of multiplayer private server options has also been acknowledged, however no further news other than the studio are "evaluating the available options" has been forthcoming. This is no doubt frustrating for fans as private multiplayer lobbies are the lifeblood of any serious modern racing game.

You can read the full release from Kunos below:

"This time last week, Assetto Corsa began to appear on the shelves of game stores around the world. Firstly, we want to say a massive thank you to all of our fans for purchasing the game on console.

Now we’ve launched worldwide, the comments have started flooding in. There’s a great deal of love and support for Assetto Corsa out there, which is fantastic! There’s also some constructive criticism, which we appreciate and accept with open arms! At the end of the day, our community matters to us and we want you to be happy. We are always open to feedback and suggestions and whilst we cannot promise that we can do everything you ask us to, be rest assured that we are going to do everything we can to build on these foundations! Our development team might be very small, inlove:0 developers) but they are incredibly passionate about what they do and their aim has always been to produce the greatest racing sim on console and PC.

Kunos Simulazioni are 100% committed to ensuring that we build on the foundations we've laid with Assetto Corsa, for our console players! There’s a lot going on behind the scenes and we want to take this opportunity to give you an insight into what’s been going on since launch and our next steps...

WHAT’S NEW?
When we launched Assetto Corsa onto console, it became clear to us that there was some feedback that needed addressing. A number of players were experiencing multiplayer performance issues on the Xbox One connected to voice chat. 2 days ago, we released an update which tackles this issue, so players can now head back in game and enjoy Assetto Corsa.

PRESTIGE PACK AVAILABILITY
Assetto Corsa launched 2 editions… PRESTIGE and PERFORMANCE. The Prestige edition was not available digitally, only physically from selected retailers. Soon after launch, it came to our attention that our community were not too pleased and wanted to be able to own the cars for themselves. So we’ve reacted! We're pleased to announce that the Prestige Pack will be available to purchase from the PlayStation® 4 and Xbox One Store at a later date. The pack will contain the following cars...

• Audi A1 S1
• Audi R8 V10 Plus
• BMW M4 Coupe
• Corvette C7 Stingray
• Ferrari 488 GTB
• Ford Mustang 2015
• Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera
• Nissan GT-R Nismo 2015
• Toyota GT86

More info on the Prestige pack coming soon! PLEASE REMEMBER! The Season pass DOES NOT contain the above cars! The Season pass contains the Japanese Pack, Porsche Packs, The Red Pack and an exclusive livery. We apologise for any confusion that may have been caused here!

SCREEN TEARING AND FRAMERATE ISSUES
Our developers are fully aware that some of you are experiencing screen tearing on both platforms, with Assetto Corsa. They’re currently working on a fix and we will update our community as soon as we can with more information.

PRIVATE LOBBIES
We know and recognise that this is a massive talking point across all our community channels and be rest assured, we hear you! We respect your frustration and are fully aware of this request. The main priority with the console edition of Assetto Corsa was to launch a super stable game with fantastic driving. Whilst we have no news to share right now, what we can say is we are evaluating the available options. Please be patient with us and we’ll keep you guys updated.

AI DIFFICULTY
This is a tough one… We don’t want to make the game ‘easy’ by any means, but we do recognise that the AI may need tweaking, especially on Easy mode. Our team are aware of this request and are working on a solution. Again, more info on this soon!

CONTROLLER / WHEEL CONFIGS
We hear you and we are addressing this! We are also working to improve the controller functionality in Assetto Corsa.

SEASON PASS
For those who don’t know already, there is a Season pass available for Assetto Corsa. Right now, there aren’t any packs to download, but there will be in the near future! Should you decide to purchase a Season pass, you’ll be able to download the following packages at a later date...

• Japanese Pack
• The Red Pack
• Porsche Packs
• Exclusive Livery

SUPPORT
If you are experiencing issues with the console edition of Assetto Corsa, we want to help! Please follow the below steps in order to help us help you...

1 - Firstly, we encourage you to search the CONSOLE LOUNGE and the sub-forums for a solution to your issue.

2 - If you are unable to find the answer you are looking for, then please check out our FAQ's. This will be updated as and when required.

3 - Should you wish to speak to someone directly, please head over to the 505 GAMES SUPPORT portal and log a ticket. A member of our Customer Support team will be in touch to help you.

TEAM WORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK
Let’s wrap things up for now by saying a massive thank you again to our community for their support. We are excited to build on the foundations we’ve laid. Whilst it’s practically impossible to reply to each and every one of you individually, please know that we do hear you and we are listening.

All we ask is that you stick with us, be patient with us and show us the level of support you always have done."

Well its good to see the studio are listening to the often underwhelming response to AC on console, and even better that they intend to action some of the issues that have been reported. Although not a glorious debut on PS4 and Xbox One, things can only get better with further time and development. Time will tell to see if the team over at Kunos can put right the bits of the game that are currently so very wrong. I hope they can, for the sake of console players worldwide. Sim Racing is awesome, and if that message, via Assetto Corsa, can spread to a wider audience, then everyone wins.



For more news of Assetto Corsa, drop by our Assetto Corsa sub forum here at RaceDepartment. We do chat, mods and best of all online racing! It's fun, you'll love it I promise!

Did you like the Kunos announcement? Having trouble with AC on console yourself? What do you think of the game so far? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

[natedogg1867]

Kunos have been incredibly financially successful, they do not need to release a DLC pack every bloody month to try and make a quick buck

Just so you can reflect on your own hyperbole... Kunos has released 5 (five) dlc packs since the game went gold and released December 2014. Not actually every month is it?

It's not like this is any surprise that they will be releasing new content either... At the end of 2014, they had an end of year announcement. Everyone knows about this as it is when they announced Lambos coming to AC. Well, they also announced they were going to pump out 40-50 cars in 2015. That didnt happen of course. Same with their 2015 end of year announcement. This time they were more modest and said ~35 or so were coming in 2016.

So, not only did we know about this already, but people have complained plenty about not getting the 'promised' amount of content in past years. So, when Kunos actually releases content on a more reasonable basis... people complain then too!

Coming up, apparently we will be getting 3 Porsche packs the rest of this year. ~24 cars or so. Will they get them all out? I doubt it, but who knows. Guess they could always hold back the entire Porsche dlc to appease some people that think they are pumping out too much content, but Im not a fan of that idea

I think Chris is trying to say that he would like to see some features brought into the game as he has mentioned this for awhile and it has merit.

I mean, every single user that plays AC wants more features added... there isnt some stringent opposition to more features by its playerbase...

Anyone can tune into Stefano's streams on Youtube and watch him actually code, and talk about the actual development of the game. You can see just how difficult some things are to code, and he describes how adding certain features actually take tons of time. More time than a simple month between patches would allow him for instance. And since people want patches much more quickly than in the past, its a bit of a catch 22 eh?

 

[Sele1981]

Now Kunos is realizing that console gamers are not the same as PC gamers. I was saying this since the announcement of the console version. You can´t come up with an undone beta game on consoles. Maybe there are 5% Sim racing fans on the consoles who are happy now. But the rest is used to get full games with a serious career mode, leaderboards, online leaderboards, private lobbies, unlocking stuff and all these things. Kunos wanted to make the quick money on the consoles. I hope this won´t hurt them.

 

[Chris]

Just so you can reflect on your own hyperbole... Kunos has released 5 (five) dlc packs since the game went gold and released December 2014. Not actually every month is it?

It's not like this is any surprise that they will be releasing new content either... At the end of 2014, they had an end of year announcement. Everyone knows about this as it is when they announced Lambos coming to AC. Well, they also announced they were going to pump out 40-50 cars in 2015. That didnt happen of course. Same with their 2015 end of year announcement. This time they were more modest and said ~35 or so were coming in 2016.

So, not only did we know about this already, but people have complained plenty about not getting the 'promised' amount of content in past years. So, when Kunos actually releases content on a more reasonable basis... people complain then too!

Coming up, apparently we will be getting 3 Porsche packs the rest of this year. ~24 cars or so. Will they get them all out? I doubt it, but who knows. Guess they could always hold back the entire Porsche dlc to appease some people that think they are pumping out too much content, but Im not a fan of that idea

It's not that the game doesn't necessarily need more cars, because in comparison to other games like GT and Forza, Assetto Corsa is very light on, but it's the way the cars are being released.

For example, take this quote from the review from LazyGamer.net on the console version of the game for example:

"Something that really didn’t rub me the right way either was being in a brand spanking new title, fresh out the box, and seeing a car I really wanted to drive like the new Ferrari 488 GTB, only to discover that it’s DLC and I need to pay to download it. You know what? That’s just not okay when a game is lighter on content than most other console racing titles and you’ve just gone and dropped a significant amount of money to play it, only to have it tell you to [insert coin].

"The tracks are also pretty limited compared to what you may be used to these days too, with only a handful of really different locations, despite some tracks having a fair amount of layouts to play with. Some of the bigs ones are in there though, namely Spa, the Nurburgring (the GP track and the “Green Hell”), Monza and a bunch of others from the F1 and GT calendars, but scrolling through them always left me feeling like there should be a couple more available."
​

And pretty much every single review I've read so far has gone much the same. Great driving experience, but a completely useless career mode, highly restrictive online gameplay, minimal content in comparison to it's competitors and the graphics are no better either.

I just love how I bring up one element of the way Kunos are going about releasing content and suddenly I'm labelled as "ignorant" and a "complainer". It's utterly absurd.

 

[Chris]

More time than a simple month between patches would allow him for instance. And since people want patches much more quickly than in the past, its a bit of a catch 22 eh?

It wasn't only the userbase that wanted patches more frequently (although I'm sure they did too), but rather it was Kunos themselves (Marco mostly, apparently) who decided to go with a goal of releasing game updates on a monthly basis. There's a livestream of Stefano's whereby he explains this.

Kunos running to deadlines is of their own making.

 

[natedogg1867]

For example, take this quote from the review from LazyGamer.net on the console version of the game for example:

"Something that really didn’t rub me the right way either was being in a brand spanking new title, fresh out the box, and seeing a car I really wanted to drive like the new Ferrari 488 GTB, only to discover that it’s DLC and I need to pay to download it. You know what? That’s just not okay when a game is lighter on content than most other console racing titles and you’ve just gone and dropped a significant amount of money to play it, only to have it tell you to [insert coin].

Dont disagree with this at all. Console sales practices that are wholly anti-consumer. I have no idea how stripping content for a game to sell you as extra dlc caught on or even became accepted by the gaming populace, but that is the industry standard sadly. And 505 Games is almost entirely to blame here.

However, I wonder if that same author criticized the plethora of other car games that ship with half as many cars as AC? There are plenty of them. The Crew, Need For Speed 2015, the upcoming Wreckfest, just to name a very small portion. While AC does lack tracks, it has a fair amount of cars. And when they all feel different and have unique characteristics, not having 30 miata or 20 skyline's is fine by me.

It's a bit tiring to always hear the same complaints in sim racing though. "We want more features!" "We want more cars!" "We want more tracks!" "We want rain!" But, does anyone notice a common theme here from every racing sim studio out there? Features are rolled out slowly. R3E, AC, AMS, rF2, you name it. None of those games are pushing out features left and right. Every game has it's issues. That's why seemingly none of us only own 1 sim. They all offer something unique and all have their own pros and cons.

It wasn't only the userbase that wanted patches more frequently (although I'm sure they did too), but rather it was Kunos themselves (Marco mostly, apparently) who decided to go with a goal of releasing game updates on a monthly basis. There's a livestream of Stefano's whereby he explains this.

So, clearly this means they listened to player feedback of wanting more patches more often... discussed it internally, and made the decision to update the game more frequently correct?

 

[xnorb]

DLCs have such a bad reputation by now that you really should pack more content into big expansion packs rather than having a Steam store page with 10+ DLCs available. (Just look at what Payday 2's page turned into...)

Also the content selection for AC's DLCs is a bit weird - mixing road cars with race cars... i don't need road cars, but if you'd sell me an GT3 pack or a DTM pack i'd grab that for sure.

I have no idea how stripping content for a game to sell you as extra dlc caught on or even became accepted by the gaming populace, but that is the industry standard sadly.

Kids in western countries have too much money to spend which they get from their parents to compensate lack of time with their kids. And kids don't have as high standards as we grown ups do.
And then of course there's the Average Joe console player who doesn't want to bother with anything and is happy if he can buy shortcut packs or DLCs which consist of nothing than repainted assets (not talking about AC here)

 

[Blimey]

Yet another ignorant comment about DLC. Tell us please, how would you finance further development of the software then? If they would release those features as DLC to finance it people like you would cry a river too. Go and play another sim that has been in development for a decade if you dislike it so much that simulation developers like Kunos have neither the market, the sales, nor multi-million dollar publisher backing to deliver you the 'perfect' feature-complete sim with top licenced content for $60 with a team of 100+ devs. This kind of work doesn't get magically done for free, you know that exactly. I much rather see them sell additional high quality content as DLC to attract a bigger audience and be able to develop the sim further for years to come than jump to the next titles in quick succession like Slightly Mad or adopting a subscription+individual purchases model like iRacing. And obviously for people like you the content they put out for free since release isn't enough. It's never enough, others always have to do the slave work for your enjoyment apparently. Great attitude, really.

And all this season pass text is saying, which is all we know so far and all you can base your assumptions on, is that the season pass contains a "exclusive livery". Big deal...

How about they release a game that has all the basic simracing features and a car list worthy of taking a look at if they keep comparing it to GT and Forza. Maybe then they get the attention they should get.

 

[Tr3voRR]

You do know that different people on the team are working on the console port and that this doesnt affect PC improvements right? "But but but... If those people didnt work on the console version, they could be working on the PC version!" Well... what if those people were hired specifically to work on the console version? AC 1.0 shipped with a staff of 15, that is now up to 30. I imagine a handful of that 30 was hired to specifically work on the console version. At least, I know someone will complain that those people could be doing other things...



You also realize that there was literally a patch yesterday that improved the shadows right?

Perfect shadows that have no faults have never been a thing in AC, however from where they were when 1.8 released last week, they are vastly better again.

Beside that though, if you want better shadows, that is going to take time away from features and improvements that other people want. Perhaps they have better things to code than perfecting shadows in a graphics engine that may just never allow for perfect shadows

But the shadows are extremely bad in AC... not only you have that follow effect where shadows are correctly casted two meters away from you but you have on the cars that shadowy ghoslty effect on the sides of it... it's just visually awfull. Also, there is still some aliasing on the cars and the clipping on the hoods is also bad to look at (main cars noticed for the clipping are the audi r8 and the huracan st and gt3).

 

[natedogg1867]

But the shadows are extremely bad in AC... not only you have that follow effect where shadows are correctly casted two meters away from you but you have on the cars that shadowy ghoslty effect on the sides of it... it's just visually awfull. Also, there is still some aliasing on the cars and the clipping on the hoods is also bad to look at (main cars noticed for the clipping are the audi r8 and the huracan st and gt3).

Well, unless you want Kunos to rewrite their entire graphics engine, this aint gonna change. It's an engine limitation and we all gotta deal with it

Of course, there is a 0% chance they rewrite their graphics engine at this point...

 

[natedogg1867]

Kids in western countries have too much money to spend which they get from their parents to compensate lack of time with their kids.

By that same logic then... Adults are statistically the people with the most disposable income. Is it not their fault then for either giving money to their kids to blow on dlc or spending tons on dlc themselves? This isnt exclusive to children. Unless you lump every single 'adult' in with them.

And I know far more 'adults' that spend lots and lots of money on Shark Cards in GTA 5 than I do children... For what it's worth.

 

[xnorb]

Seems you missed my "Average Joe" argument including grown ups

Anyway: It all boils down to: "Too much money, too low standards".

 

[Tr3voRR]

Well, unless you want Kunos to rewrite their entire graphics engine, this aint gonna change. It's an engine limitation and we all gotta deal with it

Of course, there is a 0% chance they rewrite their graphics engine at this point...

Yeah... but maybe they can I don't know, I have no knowledge on that. Here are some screens to showcase what I mean :
- The 1st one you can see on the side of the car that weard shadow, I dont know what it is.
- The 2nd one you can see that follow effect for the shadows, it's not rendered a head of time but only when you pass by it... wish looks not good to be honest.

 

[Alex72]

How about they release a game that has all the basic simracing features and a car list worthy of taking a look at if they keep comparing it to GT and Forza. Maybe then they get the attention they should get.

That didnt make any sense at all... The comparing it to GT and Forza part that is. Do 500 cars with unique real car data? Right. Release date 2025 and a gazillion dollar licence fees.
Kunos already said they cant compete with those games. But they can compete in driving authenticity. Sim racing features are being added. Slowly but still. The announced features from the start have been added to. I know people forget what was to be AC and then has been added to. People have selective memory, what can you do...

I think all of us if we could snap our fingers wanted AC2.0 to land with all the sim racing features + day/night cycles and dynamic weather. For now however it is what it is. Throwing stupid remarks and acting like a kid wont change that fact. Dont like it - play something else. Kunos is doing what they can (man power/engine capabilities/economy) and they are working towards the goal they have set plus taking suggestions along the way, and implementing some of them when they can. Thats what they have been doing all along. Im enjoying AC, AMS and Dirt Rally atm. I jump into the one i feel like for the moment and it suits me fine. I cant get better driving feeling than AC anywhere else except a real car. For AI racing AMS is funnier thanks to more racing features, and Dirt is there to just go nuts with. It keeps me entertained.

AC is like a wine that keeps getting better with time, and i hope it will end up a champagne in a couple of years (be it AC1, AC2 or new title with AC under the hood).

 

[Glen Hipperson]

Iracing have actual race features though, its not like they are flogging DLC after DLC for what is at the end of the day a glorified hotlap sim

Iracing finance their continued work with monthly subscriptions, whats the difference?

 

[Michael Hornbuckle]

Kunos have been incredibly financially successful, they do not need to release a DLC pack every bloody month to try and make a quick buck so they can supposedly "develop their software".

Link to the source showing their financial books, you know, to prove that your statement isn't just something you pulled out of your ass. Or I could just use your own logic and say that RD constantly begging for money (premium membership) is pure rubbish since surely the income from all the advertisements combined with an all volunteer staff has the site owners rolling in the dough.

The licencing costs far and away outweigh the cost of actually coding things, so the inference that they need to release constant DLC packs in order to actually develop the core functionality of the game is utter rubbish.

So it is rubbish that the employees of Kunos would want to get paid for their work......

Gladly. Automobilista provides a feature complete simracing experience despite the fact that they have an even smaller team and vastly smaller budget. They too are getting in on this DLC-train, but not to the extent that Kunos seem to be doing.

AMS = glorified rfactor mod with mostly unlicensed content that not that long ago was on Kickstarter begging for a handout
AC = Scratch built from the ground up with licensed content and laser scanned tracks.
Not sure I would call that an apples to apples comparison, but whatever.

 

[Glen Hipperson]

So it is rubbish that the employees of Kunos would want to get paid for their work...

Updates are always on time, any remedial fixes after updates are always quick, they continue to add interesting stuff and improve their game, I do not understand why people are so against paid DLC, who works for nothing today?

 

[Chris]

Link to the source showing their financial books, you know, to prove that your statement isn't just something you pulled out of your ass. Or I could just use your own logic and say that RD constantly begging for money (premium membership) is pure rubbish since surely the income from all the advertisements combined with an all volunteer staff has the site owners rolling in the dough.

I never claimed to know the ins and outs of their financial records. I simply assumed based on the sales numbers of the games. For a PC simracing niche, Assetto Corsa has performed astonishingly well.

For someone who supposedly hates RD so much, you sure spend a lot of time here.

So it is rubbish that the employees of Kunos would want to get paid for their work......

Again, that's not what I said at all. I said the concept of DLC profits being directly tied into core game development is rubbish. Clearly if you think that I am saying that Kunos shouldn't expect to make money then you haven't read my responses in this thread.

AMS = glorified rfactor mod with mostly unlicensed content that not that long ago was on Kickstarter begging for a handout

I can only LOL on this matter.
If you can honestly say that with a straight face then you've lost all credibility in this discussion. Reiza have purchased the source code and have thus changed the game entirely. Sure it's an isiMotor game, but it's night and day compared to rFactor. Also, I don't understand why you seem to think that calling something rFactor is some kind of slight against it when the rFactor software has been a staple of simracing for over a decade.

 

[Chris]

Anyway, that's just my opinion on the matter. I do really like Assetto corsa, (if I didn't like it I wouldn't have logged 1,500hrs in it, nor would I have run a racing club for over 2 years for the community with it) I just personally dont agree with having lots and lots of these DLC packs.

But I'll probably get labeled as an ignorant hater for simply disagreeing with one aspect of Assetto Corsa... Welcome to simracing.

 

[Sele1981]

But, does anyone notice a common theme here from every racing sim studio out there? Features are rolled out slowly. R3E, AC, AMS, rF2, you name it.

Yeah, 10 years ago we were used to get full finished games on a disc that included all features. Now we have to buy alpha versions and become beta testers.

 

[David Dominguez]

I never claimed to know the ins and outs of their financial records. I simply assumed based on the sales numbers of the games. For a PC simracing niche, Assetto Corsa has performed astonishingly well.

Number of sales mean nothing if you don't know the costs that they have.