Afternoon gents,
As the patch landed on Friday I decided to spend some time with the game to see how things stand post-patch. I had not spent a great deal of time with it before that due to the ongoing problems and knowing that the patch was likely to change things quite a bit with setups, FFB, etc.
I'm on the original Xbox One and the Thrustmaster 458 Italia TX with standard pedals and no add-ons
Performance wise the game seemed decent and after a quick go in career in the karts which I just couldn't get on with at all, very loose and floaty with very little control I went on to Nurburgring GP in the Audi R8. I chose this combination because I had been practicing with it for an Assetto race last night so I was familiar with both car and track and could get a good comparison between the two games in terms of where they are right now.
I started off with 19 AI in clear conditions and with the default FFB settings I could feel pretty much nothing at all, very dead in all departments in terms of the FFB and the car felt totally disconnected from the track. I tried each of the flavours and tweaked the individual settings within each but found very little improvement at all. Road feel was totally absent, almost glass like and the kerbs brought hardly any reaction from the wheel at all.
As for the handing of the car I was getting absolutely no clue through the wheel as to what the car was doing, no feeling of loss of grip, locking up, nada. As a result I felt unable to really push the car and the lap times suffered majorly as a result and racing was almost impossible because I was so off the pace. Compared to my Assetto times I was about 7 seconds shy
Racing was almost impossible because I had no confidence in what the car was doing and it was almost like the car's reactions to my inputs where a fraction behind. That's the only way I can explain it.
Apart from the FFB or lack thereof the car also just seemed to lose all rear grip suddenly and without warning and would go into a spin like it was on ice. It kind of reminded me of what used to frustrate me in Forza with those uncontrollable spins in that game. I could never find any confidence or consistency as a result. Certainly not something I ever experienced in pCars1.
In addition to these things the wheel also felt really ratchety and rough throughout, not smooth at all and as others have mentioned there is the additional problem of the wild jerking from side to side with some settings. Down the start finish straight on my first runs it was hopeless and almost impossible to control the car.
Another little annoyance was when I left the game paused for a while there was a loss of ffb when returning to the game. Unplugging the wheel from the back of the console resolved this but it was reminiscent of the loss of FFB I used to get at times with pCars 1 when starting an online race which was my main bugbear with that game.
The following day I tried a race with a smaller grid (12 AI) and gave the same circuit and car another go. What a world of difference that was from what I had found the previous two sessions in terms of the handing of the car. My laps times improved by around 7 seconds a lap!! The FFB was still very muted but kerb effects were a little better and the car feel was improved although still lacking in any feel of the track surface. I was at least now able to race properly though and the wheel inputs were accurate and the odd sudden lack of grip was no longer apparent. The racing with the AI was really fun and they were quite competitive even at 70%. Having started at the back of a random grid and and getting past several into turn 1 it took me some time to make my way through the rest and it wasn't until lap 8 that I made a pass to take the the lead. Took the win but only by half a second from a group of cars behind.
I then tried 14, 15 and 16 AI and at 16 I got the same problems as I had originally so it seems on the Xbox at least that is the break point and the game goes to pot in terms of the car handling and the wheel input once you go to that number of AI.
I am happy enough that I can at least get some good racing in now but I was under the impression that they had made some improvements to the game optimization for the original XBO but that does not seem to be the case.
They really need to sort the FFB out though, although improved with less AI it is still far removed from what we have in Assetto for instance and the lack of surface detail and kerb effects needs improving.
If there's any TX owners that would like to share their wheel settings for me to try I would be very appreciative. I am not sure the new less complicated way they implement the FFB in pCars 2 has had the desired results as it seems there is a very fine line between getting the desired effects and losing them almost entirely.
Cheers and I am interested to see what everyone else think so of the game post patch 4 as you have all played the game much more extensively than I have since it's release.
