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!

 

[Radu Oros]

AMS is a much more complete and majorly serious race simulator, not a content collector hotlap game. Therefore it's worth playing for many years to come, even if it didn't have any DLC.

I don't doubt people wouldn't play AMS for years to come, there are people playing many if not all the older sims even today.
But when the game stops producing updates and content then it starts dropping more than any drops while active, the game has a smaller reach.

AMS is a much more complete and majorly serious race simulator, not a content collector hotlap game.

It doesn't matter if you think that of AMS and other of AC. Because in both games you can race or drive alone. Please don't be ignorant and say people are just collecting cars in AC, like your friend 'burn'. Because Assetto Corsa has more playing activity during its low time than rf2 or ams in their prime time. And I don't know why you're using AMS as a weapon to attack AC... I guess typical x-motor-bots tactic.

 

[Bwana]

so it should ,console kids are loving it

 

[P*Funk]

But when the game stops producing updates and content then it starts dropping more than any drops while active, the game has a smaller reach.

But only one of them has maintained updates in tandem with minimal licensing of content.

 

[Majuh]

Here's a practical example.

The Sims 2 was released in September 2004.
Its first and only patch was in December 2005, and fixed the following:

I don't know about you but "sims sometimes steal babies" and "accidentally delete game data" sound like actual problems.

That's a straw man argument.

1. You're talking about a single game
2. This game is much more complex than a racing game
3. The game actually has a metascore of 90 and there don't seem to be any reviews mentioning bugs in the release version

Just look at all the Early Access games nowadays, there basically isn't any quality assurance testing involved.

 

[fortyfivekev]

...Just look at all the Early Access games nowadays, there basically isn't any quality assurance testing involved.

I actually really enjoy getting beta / early access to a sim and seeing how things develop and giving some small feedback even though the developer can choose to ignore it. Sure you are doing some free QA but you end up feeling more involved in the process. Certainly that is the case for me with AMS.

Niche sim titles are made by small teams without big backing so they need to collect some money as they go along to have some wages. If you want to wait years for a developer to 100% finish and release a product only big companies can afford that and they aren't interested in niche titles so all we would have to play is the Forzas of this world.

 

[RC45]

AMS is a much more complete and majorly serious race simulator, not a content collector hotlap / drift game. Therefore it's worth driving / racing (playing is a term reserved for games) for many years to come, even if it didn't have any DLC.

The thing is, in real life unless you have the budget, time and actual race car - track days are just that "hot lapping". And I hot lap my real car a lot less these days.

So for those of us that are really not interested in racing in leagues and series, but rather just enjoy hot lapping interesting cars in interesting places with VR support, AC on the PC is a great title and I for one hope that it continues to operate and be supported by the modding community long after Kunos have taken their money and retired (if that is a concern).

AMS is actually, just an other in a long stream of racing games - seen one, seen em all

 

[Deleted member 130869]

So a season pass that actually isn't a season pass like the traditional understanding of season pass dlc. It's bound to lead to mistaken purchases and dissatisfaction.

 

[ALB123]

Again, I never said I know that, but it's only logical to assume that an organisation is doing well for themselves when their sales figures are as good as they are. Of course I could well be wrong and for all I know Kunos could be really struggling with finances, but I personally don't believe that. Not that it's a bad thing that they're doing, at the very least reasonably well, because IMO they completely deserve the success they've had.

Actually, it's not logical at all. There are so many intricate factors involved in running a business, both small and large, but assuming an organization is doing well because of sales figures is a big misconception in many, many cases. I'm sure we would all agree that Amazon.com has taken the world by storm - bankrupted so many companies by stealing all of their customers, etc. I didn't want to spend more than 5 minutes on this, but here is an article (link) from 2013 that shows Amazon.com was actually showing incredible losses more often than gains, in terms of profit. Revenue does not equal profit. I could have found a much better example to explain this, but I think we've beaten this topic to death and there was no point in me wasting time looking for a better article documenting a company similar to Kunos in size & revenue.

I praised Kunos very highly when they (finally) got the physics right (although early claims that physics were OK most likely prevented people from trying it later so would have been better if were honest about working on physics and if fan boys were honest too ; same problem with pCars probably although pCars has way bigger early issues than that alone).

Anyway, what I'm beginning to feel is that Kunos is no longer developing AC features. So essentially, is going down road to NKP-dom, i.e.

NKP = Good physics. Lack of features.
AC = Good physics. Lack of features. DLC.

Which is why they need to do something. Racing features. Game features. ANYTHING because inertia means death. Really may be time for AC2 although they may lose us altogether if they just delay work on AC2 to squeeze DLC $ from AC.

The thing is, Assetto Corsa has introduced new features. A brand new, written from the ground up Tire Model 10 - which admittedly should be on a lot more cars by now. Brake temperatures. Same argument there - I believe it's up to Aristotelis to get those set on each car. We've received new apps like that awesome Delta green/red bar, the insanely complex, detailed, realistic system in the Ferrari SF15-T that I still haven't figured out. A substantial improvement to the AI system. I'm sure there are a couple more little things, or things I've forgotten about.

At least by releasing some DLC we have some new content to enjoy which always makes the game feel completely fresh again. I'd rather Kunos create more paid DLC of cars/tracks than get rid of half of their Art Dept employees. Plus, no one is forced to buy DLC. I just counted 12 DLC packs from PCars.

You're suggesting it might be time for Assetto Corsa 2. Do you think all of those features you're upset are missing in Assetto Corsa 1 are going to magically appear in 2? It sure looks like we'll be getting an entirely new graphics engine for AC2 so people can get that night time and rain racing they so desperately need. That's not a small undertaking.

Also, you had to expect a bit of a slow down due to the console launch. That was an enormous undertaking for Kunos. There are going to be people who stamp their feet and say "I didn't buy this game so Kunos can waste time porting it to consoles!" Well, too bad. That's what's happening. You certainly have the right to be mad/upset/whatever, but it's not going to change things. Most importantly, if the console version is able to bring in a decent amount of revenue then Kunos could afford to get started on AC2 while still keeping AC1 going with updates & additional features.

The last thing I'd accuse Kunos of is money grubbing.

AMS is a much more complete and majorly serious race simulator, not a content collector hotlap / drift game. Therefore it's worth driving / racing (playing is a term reserved for games) for many years to come, even if it didn't have any DLC.

Aren't you the person who was outed -- you don't even actually play any of the sim racing games you spend your whole life talking about? My God...That is hilarious!

 

[apex11]

There isn't even a way to calibrate your wheel. A 'sim' driving game...oh ok.
Utter garbage.

 

[Paul McCluskey]

nvm

 

[Blimey]

your comment is utter garbage, of course you can calibrate your wheel and what version are you on about

why are you attacking him for having an opinion?