ExistentialSolid's "Please Destroy Me" Detour

[ExistentialSolid]

Assetto Corsa and the Lap that Broke Me - Update #3 
When I rebooted this thread, I mentioned that Assetto Corsa might finally "be the game that breaks me." Two updates have come and gone with hardly a shred of evidence to support that claim. What was supposed to be a soul-rending experience is being meticulously dissected before your eyes. Instead of watching my resolve waver and my nerves fray, you've been lectured about "penalty systems" and "pit stop exploits." In the process of contextualization, I've inadvertently sterilized the experience; in the seams where emotion should interject to tell the reader a story, there is a cold, almost mechanical, recitation of procedures and protocol. 
 

"Where's the struggle?" you ask. Am I really being destroyed or is this thread just an excuse for me to belabor the mundane and ooze flowery drivel?
 

Well, it's finally time for my struggle to take center stage. 
Today, I'm here to tell you a story.
 

3 Weeks Ago... 
I had just finished filming the last of the Alien races in Assetto Corsa and was gearing up to start the Hotlaps*. I was nervous, excited, and maybe a little scared. My plan had been to reboot this thread as soon I reached the hotlap section of the game, so I was already worrying about what I was going to say, what I wanted to cover, and whether this whole thing was worth doing at all. 
 

With my anxiety creeping in, I started procrastinating. I began poking around the Assetto Corsa forums, a place where some of the most maniacal sim racers this side of the Milky Way go to strut their stuff. Wandering somewhat aimlessly, I eventually stumbled onto a thread discussing some of the "easiest" special events the game had to offer. One user piqued my interest when they mentioned that the Ford Escort hotlap on Brands Hatch was one of these "easy" events (the event they were referring to was called "Down the Hatch" and appeared to be one of the only hotlaps mentioned in the thread).

My curiosity started to get the better of me and I thought, "Maybe I should give it a try. After all, I shouldn't reboot my thread if I can't even beat one of the easiest hotlaps in the game... right?" After barely a moment's hesitation, I decided then and there that I absolutely had to finish one hotlap before I publicly commit to finishing them all. I wouldn't have been nearly as anxious about the whole ordeal if not for one unfortunate detail...
 

I never learned how to drive manual.
 

This fact probably isn't as startling or dramatic as I've made it sound, especially without any context, but the reason it's important is because your success in Assetto Corsa's hotlaps hinges on being able to push every vehicle you're given to its limits. Reaching those limits is only possible by learning to drive manual. Manual downshifting in particular can potentially save several tenths of a second every turn over an automatic gearshift and, without that extra time, earning gold medals just isn't going to be feasible for a racing sim novice like myself.
 

So, with my mind made up, I got to work. I timidly turned off "Automatic gearshift" and "Automatic blip" (whatever the hell that is) and held my breath as I started "Down the Hatch." This was it. It was a trial by fire, sink or swim, do or die, and every other cliché metaphor you can think of, kind of moment that will be sure to haunt me for as long as I play racing games.
 

Needless to say, I was a wreck. As I raced along the track, I was a stuttering mess of poorly timed gear shifts and terribly wide turns. Bits of dirt and gravel would collect along the tires just to remind me of my inadequacy whenever I would go out for little off-roading excursions. Knowing when to shift up felt intuitive enough, but knowing when to downshift was complicated. Should I downshift before or after braking? How do I know if I've downshifted too much or too little? Trying to intuit the answers to these questions was overwhelming and the roar of the engine when I would forget to shift up was maddening.
 

I played nonstop for about 4 hours (I've recorded my first hour below). By the end, I felt utterly defeated. I had barely been able to earn the bronze medal with a time of 1:48:8 and needed to shave off another 2.8 seconds to earn the gold. Those few seconds seemed like an eternity the longer I raced; progress felt imperceptibly slow, and I showed no signs of improvement.
 

As my lap counter continued to climb, pessimistic and delusional thoughts started to win the war waging in my mind. In that moment, I felt like I could have spent another 200 hours and have been no closer to the gold medal. How were the other 34 hotlaps going to go if I couldn't even get close to a gold medal in one of the easiest ones? With my mental state in shambles, I took a turn too aggressively and veered off track. I immediately turned the game off, closed (and nearly deleted) the draft of my thread revival post, and went to bed dejected and furious with myself. 
 

In a mere 4 hours, I had been broken.

 

[To be continued on October 5th... Thanks for reading!]
*For anyone unfamiliar with the term, "Hotlaps" are events where you try to achieve blisteringly quick lap times by racing around a track over and over to your heart's content.
 

 

[det_gittes]

Excellent job on building up the suspense so far! Somehow I still remember the term 'epistolary novel' from my literature classes in college and this reads like the first installment of a modern one  (the one we read was from 18th c. and came in the form of a succession of letters).

 

And a great cliffhanger.. ?

[Arcesius]

Damn, learning how to drive stick on your own with a racing sim... When others take hours and hours of driving lessons with a professional... The struggle is understandable! ? 

 

To be honest though, the Hotlaps, once you've gotten used to the mechanics / controls, sound like a lot of fun... trying to shave off those last couple of milliseconds to nab that gold... Exciting! Looking forward to the next update!   

[Destructor-8]

55 minutes ago, ExistentialSolid said:

As my lap counter continued to climb, pessimistic and delusional thoughts started to win the war waging in my mind. In that moment, I felt like I could have spent another 200 hours and have been no closer to the gold medal. How were the other 34 hotlaps going to go if I couldn't even get close to a gold medal in one of the easiest ones? With my mental state in shambles, I took a turn too aggressively and veered off track. I immediately turned the game off, closed (and nearly deleted) the draft of my thread revival post, and went to bed dejected and furious with myself. 
 

In a mere 4 hours, I had been broken.

 

I haven't tried the easier hotlaps as I've only done one of the hardest ones but what I will say is that it will be completely normal to spend 15hrs getting to barely within a second of some of the times then you can spend another 15hrs to finally get it. It took about a week to do one of the hotlaps lol. It's looking good though so keep going. 

[Eqill5]

Alright, thanks to you Assetto Corsa has been added to my backlog! If I didn’t have a few games I’m wanting to clean up first I think I would’ve booted this up pretty soon and joined your struggle! 
 

27 minutes ago, Arcesius said:

To be honest though, the Hotlaps, once you've gotten used to the mechanics / controls, sound like a lot of fun... trying to shave off those last couple of milliseconds to nab that gold... Exciting! Looking forward to the next update!   

It really is, in racing. To be completely at one with the car and when every piece of the lap flows together - braking points, apex’s, lifting off and applying the throttle through a string of corners - it’s a very satisfying feeling! 

[ExistentialSolid]

On 10/1/2021 at 5:28 AM, det_gittes said:

Excellent job on building up the suspense so far! Somehow I still remember the term 'epistolary novel' from my literature classes in college and this reads like the first installment of a modern one  (the one we read was from 18th c. and came in the form of a succession of letters).

 

And a great cliffhanger.. 

Thank you! Comparing anything I've written to actual published literature is way too generous, but your comment made my day either way. ? Since the first few hurdles in a game are often the most difficult (and most important) to overcome, I wanted to sort of embellish that first struggle in the form of a story with updates 3 and 4. I'll experiment with this approach a little more in the future if some of you enjoy these sorts of updates!

This sort of narrative-driven/epistolary format makes it easier to focus in on a few key events in a game, though it can also feel a little self-indulgent to dramatize events that would otherwise be pretty humdrum and boring. ? 
  

On 10/1/2021 at 5:59 AM, Arcesius said:

Damn, learning how to drive stick on your own with a racing sim... When others take hours and hours of driving lessons with a professional... The struggle is understandable!  

 

To be honest though, the Hotlaps, once you've gotten used to the mechanics / controls, sound like a lot of fun... trying to shave off those last couple of milliseconds to nab that gold... Exciting! Looking forward to the next update!   

I have to admit, transitioning from automatic to stick... it felt like I was learning to drive all over again. ? It actually ended up getting even more complicated later on when switching traction control on and off between turns started to become a regular part of the mix. Sometimes I feel like I'm piloting a plane rather than a car with how many systems need to be managed, but I'm getting ahead of myself. ? 

The hotlaps really are a treat; the gold medal times push you so much further than most racing games dare to and I've been loving every minute. 
 

On 10/1/2021 at 6:09 AM, Destructor-8 said:

I haven't tried the easier hotlaps as I've only done one of the hardest ones but what I will say is that it will be completely normal to spend 15hrs getting to barely within a second of some of the times then you can spend another 15hrs to finally get it. It took about a week to do one of the hotlaps lol. It's looking good though so keep going. 

I know exactly what you mean; those last few tenths of a second can often double your playtime before you even realize what's happened. ? Even if they can be incredibly time-consuming, these hotlaps have been some of the most satisfying events I've ever experienced in a racing game, so I'll keep pushing until I either destroy every last hotlap or get destroyed in the process! 
 

On 10/1/2021 at 6:32 AM, Eqill5 said:

Alright, thanks to you Assetto Corsa has been added to my backlog! If I didn’t have a few games I’m wanting to clean up first I think I would’ve booted this up pretty soon and joined your struggle! 
 

It really is, in racing. To be completely at one with the car and when every piece of the lap flows together - braking points, apex’s, lifting off and applying the throttle through a string of corners - it’s a very satisfying feeling! 

I'm glad to hear it! ? The hotlaps have been worth the price of admission alone and I think you'll have a lot of fun with it once you get around to playing considering your past experience with sim racing! 

Before Assetto Corsa, only a handful of arcade racers like Crash Team Racing and Trackmania Turbo have been able to give me anything close to the satisfying feeling you've mentioned. AC feels different from these two in that you often need to tame both your car and the track at the same time (typically, you tame your car early on in CTR and TMT, so I tend to just apply the same strategies to a new track). With the added control that manual provides, it's been an empowering experience all-around and I've become absolutely addicted.   

[Destructor-8]

1 hour ago, ExistentialSolid said:

I know exactly what you mean; those last few tenths of a second can often double your playtime before you even realize what's happened.  Even if they can be incredibly time-consuming, these hotlaps have been some of the most satisfying events I've ever experienced in a racing game, so I'll keep pushing until I either destroy every last hotlap or get destroyed in the process!

 

Yeah exactly, that experience is what makes it better & I'm looking forward to seeing which ones you post about since it will be a great read to see how you go on each one. I'm also really liking your updates in general as you go into so much stuff that I wouldn't think of & you do it so well. If you decide to go for another racer eventually then I recommend to go for Dirt Rally 2.0 since that is the only one that is as hard & it's such a fun game. I have mentioned it before but I have found Dirt Rally 2.0 to be not only the best racing game I've ever played but the most amazing experience I've had in a game.

Edited October 4, 2021 by Destructor-8

[ExistentialSolid]

Assetto Corsa and the Green Flash - Update #4
When I drearily rolled out of bed the morning after my failure at Brands Hatch, the pessimism from the night before had crusted over and was starting to chip away like an aged coat of paint. I took a deep breath, then another. Then, like an aggravated junkie caught in the grips of withdrawal, I started studying reference videos of "Down the Hatch," eager to get back on the road. It didn't matter how many times I would careen off the sides of the track or how impressive my tire's dirt collection would become, I was going to earn my gold medal one way or another.
 

Determined or not, the more I studied, the more a painfully obvious truth barreled into the foreground: most of my time loss could be attributed to my inexperience with manual. In a track as windy as Brands Hatch, I was losing too much time trying to figure out which gear I needed to be in at each turn and often turned too wide or too slowly as a result. Memorizing every gear shift seemed like a promising substitute for the experience I lacked, but, given how widely a driver's speed might range around every corner, I wasn't sure how easy memorizing them all would be or if that would necessarily work at all.
 

I crumpled in my chair as fresh layers of pessimism started to bubble to the surface.
 

As much as it hurt to admit, Brands Hatch was not an ideal track to ease into manual. Setting aside "Down the Hatch" seemed like the most sensible option for now, so I left it all behind and set to work looking for an alternative. I wanted to find a hotlap that wasn't necessarily "easier," but that had fewer turns and, thereby, fewer opportunities to downshift. "Easy," to me, would not mean "easy" to anyone else well-versed in manual driving; it would only refer to events that place less of an emphasis on gear shifting. I could handle learning driving lines and braking points. What I struggled with was making sure my car was in the right gear at the right time.
 

It was then that I came across a video for a hotlap event called "Green Flash." Taking place at a track called Monza, I knew from my experience in the career mode that the roads were much less windy which, I hoped, would help alleviate some of the overwhelming complication that downshifting was adding to the mix.
 

A Fresh Start...
With renewed vigor, I selected "Green Flash" and closed my eyes in a vain effort to compose myself.
The loading screen music started to fade into nothingness as my breathing started to slow.
 

When I opened my eyes, I was greeted with a bright green Lamborghini Huracan GT3. The car's rear wing had the word "PERTAMINA" in boisterous white lettering and I couldn't help but be reminded of a cheese grater when I saw the protruding vents on the car's roof. The weather was clear and sunny, though I suppose it was always sunny in Assetto Corsa. I quickly changed my driving settings to match those of the player in the reference video, stared once more at the lime green steed that would be accompanying me this afternoon, and set off in an attempt to earn the illusive gold medal.
 

As soon as my tires started to blaze across the asphalt, I noticed how much more smoothly the GT3 felt to control than the Ford Escort. Where the Escort felt like steering a barge at sea, the GT3 felt smooth and agile, almost as though I were delicately guiding a paintbrush along the contours of the track. The ease of control boosted my confidence and I felt at ease knowing that switching events was the right call after all.
     

My first few laps were not like the laps I had raced in Brands Hatch.
While I was having difficulty figuring out which gear I needed to be in initially, a routine started to gradually take shape. I would drop to 1st gear just before turns 1 and 2. Turns 3 and 4 seemed best at either 2nd or 3rd gear. The chicane at turn 5 and the final turn were still being worked out. I went off-roading here and there, but it started becoming a consequence of experimentation rather than driver error (at least, that's what I liked to tell myself). My driving became more focused, more deliberate. I started to settle into a groove; a cleaner turn here, the right gear there, and my laps times started to fall faster and faster. 
 

Two critical changes were made that I feel are worth noting:
 

1. I started paying attention to the Lap Delta at all times. The lap delta is essentially a timer in the top-left of the screen that actively compares your best lap time to your current lap. If you see something like "-0.157," then you're currently ahead of your best time by 0.157 seconds. Watching the lap delta when you make turns is especially important because you'll gradually get a sense of what is saving or costing you time. Always make a mental note of your lap delta before and after turns.
 

2. I started memorizing gear shift changes in the reference videos that I watched. The key, for me anyway, is to note only the gear shifts that take place before turns. For example, if I watched a driver shift up to 6th gear and, before a turn, drop down to 1st gear, then I would make a simple mental note like: "6th gear entry, drop to 1st." Get in the habit of comparing your reference video of choice to your own route as you play. Even the smallest of changes can potentially shave seconds off the clock, so always be paying attention.
 

A Junkie and His Fix...
With these playstyle changes etched into my playbook and a laser-focus etched onto my face, I started blazing confidently around Monza like a man possessed. My times continued to fall until only half a second separated me from my golden prize.  
 

My heart started to race knowing that my best possible time had already fallen below the gold medal threshold. I just needed to string together enough clean turns to make it a reality. Any moment could be the moment. Any lap could be the lap. My lime green companion's war cry was aggressive and booming, as though it were every bit as determined as I was to see this through to the end. After a 3-4 hour battle with the track, the time had come. 
 

I needed to beat my best lap by 0.245 seconds to beat the gold medal time of 1:51.000.
 
The first, and most important turn of the lap, went wonderfully. Going from 6th gear to 1st while skimming over the mound at the turn's apex is always a little jarring, but the turn was navigated smoothly overall and I was right on pace with my best lap. Turn 2 was a little slow (and, in retrospect, not sharp enough) putting me about 0.2 seconds off pace. Turns 3 and 4, however, were navigated beautifully in 3rd gear and in swift succession too. I was back on pace with my best lap and steadily gained even more time along the straight that followed. As I reached the chicane at turn 5, I was 0.15 seconds ahead of my best pace. My chest was pounding as I cut cleanly over the little mounds at the apex of each turn. 

I was 0.2 seconds ahead of pace as I entered the final turn. "This could be it." I thought. Depending on how cleanly I make this turn, the hotlap could be over right here, right now. I was flying in at 260+ km/h when I started braking for the turn. I went from 6th to 3rd before the turn as I had rehearsed many, many times up to this point. When I slowed into the turn, everything felt perfect. Flames flew out of the exhaust as though my lime green friend had known exactly what it had done. The turn was absolutely gorgeous. As I approached the finish line, I was 0.3 seconds ahead of pace and counting; my heartrate was frantically accelerating when... it happened.
 

I crossed the finish line with a time of 1:50.907.
 

A wave of euphoria washed over me. With my heart still racing, I let go of the throttle and coasted along the straight with glee and utter disbelief. I lightly held the brake as the straight's end neared and came to a slow and graceful stop. In the wake of my first successful hotlap, the failures of yesterday had been forgotten. The pessimism that had built up like a sludge had all but vanished. The struggle that had defined my experience had been burned away with sheer persistence.

In the rubble of it all stood a dream ablaze with a fiery ambition. I savored my golden prize.
 

Green Flash - Gold Medal + Setup

What's Next? 
Thank you for checking out these goofy narrative-focused updates! ? Updates 3 and 4 were both written to embellish what I felt were my most important moments of struggle in Assetto Corsa. Nearly four weeks have passed since I got the gold medal in my first hotlap and I've been hopelessly addicted ever since. In the next update, we're going to catch up to the present and I'll reveal just how many hotlaps I've finished in the days since my first victory! I hope to see you all soon! 

[The next update will be posted on October 10th!]

Edited October 7, 2021 by ExistentialSolid

[FrediPy_]

Beautiful stuff.

 

I think it's a really good idea that you started using manual transmission because, well yes, you struggle a lot in the beginning, but once you get used to it you get a better control of the car: You can short-shift at the exit of a corner to get better traction, sliding less and going earlier on the throttle, you can control your gears while braking to get a better rotation into a corner… and in general driving with MT is more enjoyable and satisfying in my opinion. And quicker, of course.

 

Speaking of braking, I'm aware that you do it already but I'd suggest to practice trail braking a bit more, which is the fancy name for gradually lifting your brake as you turn into a corner. At Monza and with that car it might be not as important, since the car seems to have a nice handling and there are very few corners, but in other tracks such as Brands Hatch it can really make all the difference. For example, in the Lesmo 2 corner (1:02 in your Monza hotlap clip) you can brake slightly later, gradually lift your brake, which helps rotate the car, and you can hit the apex with higher speed or better orientation, thus gaining 1 or 2 tenths by doing so, which over a lap could be a lot.  So yeah, essentially being more gradual in your brake lifting. Your brake bias has to be to the front for this to work, which you have, and you'll notice it better for lightweight cars.

 

I also think sometimes you can get a little earlier on the throttle (not full throttle, but) without spinning the car, but that's just an impression, it's not me who is driving the car  and if you get used to handling the car using little-to-no traction control you will also gain a lot of time. TCS is very convenient because it's hard to bin the car while it's on, but the price to pay is that it slows you down quite a bit. 

 

Apart from that, I think that your driving is really solid and that you will manage to do this. Looking forward to the next update. Best of luck!

[da-Noob123]

ExistentialSolid you can write quite the yarn. While nowhere near as challenging I'm sure, your descriptions of shaving off seconds and even milliseconds reminds me of going for the racing medals in the various Batmobiles in Arkham Knight. Your right about the different feel of one car versus another. For some of the races I couldn't complete it in Batmobile A but I could in B and C. Lap after lap after lap attempt after attempt but the euphoric feeling when you finally beat that time felt great.

 

Keep up the good work. 

[ExistentialSolid]

On 10/6/2021 at 9:35 AM, FrediPy_ said:

Beautiful stuff.

 

I think it's a really good idea that you started using manual transmission because, well yes, you struggle a lot in the beginning, but once you get used to it you get a better control of the car: You can short-shift at the exit of a corner to get better traction, sliding less and going earlier on the throttle, you can control your gears while braking to get a better rotation into a corner… and in general driving with MT is more enjoyable and satisfying in my opinion. And quicker, of course.

 

Speaking of braking, I'm aware that you do it already but I'd suggest to practice trail braking a bit more, which is the fancy name for gradually lifting your brake as you turn into a corner. At Monza and with that car it might be not as important, since the car seems to have a nice handling and there are very few corners, but in other tracks such as Brands Hatch it can really make all the difference. For example, in the Lesmo 2 corner (1:02 in your Monza hotlap clip) you can brake slightly later, gradually lift your brake, which helps rotate the car, and you can hit the apex with higher speed or better orientation, thus gaining 1 or 2 tenths by doing so, which over a lap could be a lot.  So yeah, essentially being more gradual in your brake lifting. Your brake bias has to be to the front for this to work, which you have, and you'll notice it better for lightweight cars.

 

I also think sometimes you can get a little earlier on the throttle (not full throttle, but) without spinning the car, but that's just an impression, it's not me who is driving the car  and if you get used to handling the car using little-to-no traction control you will also gain a lot of time. TCS is very convenient because it's hard to bin the car while it's on, but the price to pay is that it slows you down quite a bit. 

 

Apart from that, I think that your driving is really solid and that you will manage to do this. Looking forward to the next update. Best of luck!

Something I'll always value from my time with Assetto Corsa is how it managed to be the racing game to finally push me out of my comfort zone. I'm obviously not a die-hard enthusiast, but I've been playing racing games all my life and the one thing I've never had the patience to do was learn how to drive with a manual transmission. I see the choice between Automatic and Manual and mindlessly select Automatic as though I were at a restaurant picking out my favorite food for the 700th time. But, as you've mentioned, there's a world of difference between the two especially in regards to how it feels to control the car; it's exciting to feel that difference and to see that I still have a lot to learn and a long way to go before I ever approach mastery.

Short-shifting is something I've experimented with without knowing it had a designated term, but I've had mixed results in practice and eventually came to the conclusion (which I'm now certain is false based on your expertise) that the benefits of short-shifting are negated by the reduced rate of acceleration I'm able to get out of the corner when I'm stuck in a higher gear. I'm glad to hear that I'm wrong in this assumption, and I'll definitely need to look into how to short-shift optimally as I'm sure this might help me in future racing games.

Speaking of driving techniques, I'd love to see an in-game driving school (sort of similar to the University of Trials in Trials Rising) that teaches me some of the basic/advanced techniques involved with manual driving. I vaguely remember seeing something similar in either Gran Turismo 3 or 4 (?) during the license exams, but that was a long time ago and I was too impatient to ever bother with it. ? I was much younger, so I saw words like "weight transfer" and "apex" and noped out of there. 

Trail braking is something I remember seeing all over the Assetto Corsa forums when I was still sizing up the hotlaps, but I embarrassingly forgot all about it once I had the confidence to dive in and start grinding out gold medal times. You're absolutely right that I could, and should, be trail braking more. It just rarely enters my mind when I'm driving. The hotlaps, up to this point, have all been won by paying attention to my lap delta and seeing what saves/loses time around each corner. Any trail braking that I actually perform tends to be a coincidence as my muscle memory develops when turns go well and is rarely something I'm cognizant of. 

TCS is something that I'll actually be covering in my next update! While I don't have the confidence in most races to leave it off entirely, turning Traction Control off during the straights to gain a higher rate of acceleration and back on whenever I'm braking or turning to take advantage of the stability it provides has saved me ridiculous amounts of time in most hotlaps (it feels broken honestly and I know I've compromised my learning experience to an extent by abusing the feature).

Thank you so much for the advice! ? I was actually hoping that at least 1 player would evaluate my driving patterns and give me pointers on what is going well and what needs improvement when I started Assetto Corsa, so I'm thrilled to read comments like these. Unfortunately, I've finished so many hotlaps in the last four weeks that you all are essentially going to be seeing a "before and after" shot of my driving when update #5 releases, but anything I learn from you all in these next few updates can be applied to future racing games so it would still hold a lot of value!
 

On 10/6/2021 at 5:12 PM, da-Noob123 said:

ExistentialSolid you can write quite the yarn. While nowhere near as challenging I'm sure, your descriptions of shaving off seconds and even milliseconds reminds me of going for the racing medals in the various Batmobiles in Arkham Knight. Your right about the different feel of one car versus another. For some of the races I couldn't complete it in Batmobile A but I could in B and C. Lap after lap after lap attempt after attempt but the euphoric feeling when you finally beat that time felt great.

 

Keep up the good work. 

It's funny that you mention Arkham Knight, because I've just recently (back in July) played through some of the DLC packs and really enjoyed the Batmobile races too! I only played until I reached the 21-33 AR challenge star requirements for the trophies, but trying to collect them all would be a fun challenge I'm sure. Some Batmobiles definitely felt clunkier or harder to control than others (the 1960s Batmobile comes to mind ?), but adapting to their differences made each win uniquely satisfying. Considering I started playing Assetto Corsa only a month later in August, there's a good chance that Arkham Knight set the stage for AC as I had been craving a challenging racing game in the weeks leading to me starting it up.  

Thanks, I'll try my best! 

Edited October 9, 2021 by ExistentialSolid

[Joe Dubz]

Sounds like you are making great progress Ex, keep up the great work! Love the updates as usual ☺️

 

Funny enough, IRL I drive a manual, always have for my last 20 years of driving! I feel similarly to what you're saying about the way it handles 1000x better...

 

However, when it comes to racing games, I never was able to get it down for the life of me! It sounds like mastery of that is pretty much mandatory for something as strict as Assetto Corsa seems to be. Then again this is prob why I never platted any of the real deal racing sims ?

 

 

Edited October 9, 2021 by Joe Dubz

[AJ_Radio]

I will never touch Assetto Corsa. Gran Turismo is where my limits are, if I ever get around to playing a game from that franchise.

[ExistentialSolid]

Assetto Corsa and the Devouring - Update #5
Hey everyone!  In my last two updates, I showed you all my first few moments with a manual transmission and told the story of how I earned my first Hotlap gold medal. Four long weeks have passed since that day and it's finally time we shifted our attention to the present. Today, we're going to be taking it easy and running through some of my hotlap highlights over the past four weeks. I hope you're ready because I've kinda been killing it!

Clear Ahead!
Let's start off with some nonsense that is sure to make some of you sick to your stomach! I'm happy to announce that I've discovered a skip in the track "Spa" that saves roughly 2-3 seconds and works for the following four hotlaps: Clear Ahead!, Let it Scream!, Fxx K at Spa, and P1 at Spa. For anyone that cheesed the Alien Races with the Pit Stop Exploit like I have, this skip has been staring you in the face since you started. As soon as you touch the starting line, just use the Pit Stop Exploit and you'll skip the entirety of turn 1. This trick does not invalidate the lap and dramatically reduces the difficulty of two of the hardest hotlaps in the game. Check it out!
 

Your Time Will Come
Okay, now that I've got your stomachs churning, let's ease up on the exploits and show off some good 'ol fashioned driving! There are no tricks or shortcuts to muddy the waters in this one. All I've got is a strong setup and the will to succeed. While the gold medal time is pretty lenient here and I absolutely butcher the last two turns out of nervousness, I think this is one of the strongest laps I've ever driven and I'd love for you all to see it!
 

A Whole New Toy
I hope you didn't think I'd actually manage to clear another lap with skill alone, because I've got another trick to introduce you all to today: Traction Control Switching. Let me first briefly explain what "traction control" is. When traction control is enabled, you typically have better control over your car. Your stability goes up, but your rate of acceleration goes down. Likewise, if you disable traction control, you have a much higher rate of acceleration, but suffer from decreased stability. Now here's the thing, you can turn traction control on or off whenever you want to with the tap of L1. So, why not take advantage of that? By switching traction control off during the straights to quickly accelerate to high speeds and switching it back on whenever you are about to brake or turn, you can effectively have the best of both worlds.

In this hotlap, which is actually the most recent I've finished and is often considered one of the hardest in the game, I've mastered the art of traction control switching to crush the gold medal time. You can plainly see that my lines are mediocre at best, but, with this trick, it doesn't really matter. 
 

Down the Hatch (Revenge Edition)
With all of these hard laps falling like dominoes, I wasn't going to just leave this little morale destroying asshole standing now was I? Shortly after learning how to abuse traction control, and with over 20 gold medals under my belt, I absolutely wiped the floor with this hotlap. I destroyed my best time I had set weeks prior on my second lap and beat the gold medal time on my 9th lap. If you couldn't tell already, I started to get insufferably cocky around this point. ? 
 

GRA Challenge

We're going to be taking a look at one last lap today. This is the lap I've spent the most time on, clocking in at around 8 hours, and is what I tentatively consider to be the most challenging hotlap in the game. I take full advantage of traction control switching (although I hadn't mastered it at this stage) and use a shortcut near the end to barely beat the gold medal time. There's a special place in racing hell reserved for me, I'm sure.  
 

Hotlap Gold Medal Timeline
Just for fun, and to fill in the gaps the highlights have left behind, I've put together a quick timeline of when I've earned each of the gold hotlap medals up to this point:
Sept. 12th (2:13 AM) - Green Flash
Sept. 12th (12:28 PM) - Chapman Revolution
Sept. 12th (12:34 PM) - Mister Downforce
Sept. 12th (5:46 PM) - Meet the AC Team
Sept. 12th (7:35 PM) - The New Black
Sept. 14th (N/A) - "Please Destroy Me" Thread Revival 
Sept. 16th (4:07 PM) - Fxx K at Spa
Sept. 16th (4:28 PM) - Fxx K at Barcelona
Sept. 16th (7:19 PM) - P1 at Spa
Sept. 17th (7:53 PM) - Italy, 1987
Sept. 19th (11:32 PM) - Classic Run
Sept. 20th (12:37 AM) - Quick One
Sept. 21st (12:58 AM) - Shining Red
Sept. 21st (1:36 AM) - Chasing Victory
Sept. 21st (1:17 PM) - A Fighting Bull
Sept. 22nd (3:11 AM) - Memories
Sept. 25th (1:53 AM) - Alesi Says, Step on It
Sept. 25th (5:25 PM) - Thunder
Sept. 25th (9:59 PM) - Heat and Run
Sept. 26th (5:53 PM) - This Should be Fun!
Sept. 26th (10:56 PM) - Teenage Dream
Sept. 27th (12:10 PM) - Look at Me!
Sept. 27th (10:37 PM) - GRA Challenge
Sept. 29th (1:02 AM) - Let it Scream!
Sept. 29th (6:53 PM) - Down the Hatch
Sept. 30th (1:45 AM) - Demon on Wheels
Oct. 1st (11:52 PM) - Free the Beast!
Oct. 2nd (2:03 PM) - Your Time Will Come
Oct. 4th (9:26 AM) - Flight Simulator
Oct. 4th (9:09 PM) - Clear Ahead!
Oct. 6th (11:15 AM) - British Racing Green
Oct. 6th (11:12 PM) - German Fury
Oct. 7th (6:24 PM) - A Whole New Toy

32/35 hotlaps have been finished! 
If you wanted to hear what I think of the game's difficulty up to this point, I believe that, although these hotlaps were among the most difficult racing related challenges I've ever completed in a game, the gold medal times are generally lenient enough that inexperienced sim drivers like myself still stand a good chance at victory with enough practice and the right setups. I mean, let's face it, if a deranged nutcase that's never even driven manual in his life can get these hotlaps finished, then what's stopping you?

What's Next?
There's now three hotlaps standing between me and the platinum trophy: A Hell 4 You, Alfa 4C vs Green Hell, and Forbidden Record. All three of these hotlaps take place on the longest (and, arguably, most grueling) track in the game, Nordschleife. I've saved these laps as a final gauntlet of sorts to really test my mettle and to see if this game can give me one last punch in the gut before I parade my goofy digital certificate of completion around to complete strangers on the internet. 

Now, before I go, remember that I've only highlighted 5 of the 32 hotlaps I've finished in this update. If you have questions or want info on any of the others, please feel free to ask! In the meantime, I'm going to be uploading 2-3 videos of the hotlaps listed above each day until I've exhausted my supply. 

Thank you for reading! ?
[The next mini-update will be posted as soon as I finish one of these three final hotlaps!]

Edited October 11, 2021 by ExistentialSolid

[Destructor-8]

26 minutes ago, ExistentialSolid said:

Clear Ahead!
Let's start off with some nonsense that is sure to make some of you sick to your stomach! I'm happy to announce that I've discovered a skip in the track "Spa" that saves roughly 2-3 seconds and works for the following four hotlaps: Clear Ahead!, Let it Scream!, Fxx X at Spa, and P1 at Spa. For anyone that cheesed the Alien Races with the Pit Stop Exploit like I have, this skip has been staring you in the face since you started. As soon as you touch the starting line, just use the Pit Stop Exploit and you'll skip the entirety of turn 1. This trick does not invalidate the lap and dramatically reduces the difficulty of two of the hardest hotlaps in the game. Check it out!

What's Next?
There's now three hotlaps standing between me and the platinum trophy: A Hell 4 You, Alfa 4C vs Green Hell, and Forbidden Record. All three of these hotlaps take place on the longest (and, arguably, most grueling) track in the game, Nordschleife. I've saved these laps as a final gauntlet of sorts to really test my mettle and to see if this game can give me one last punch in the gut before I parade my goofy digital certificate of completion around to complete strangers on the internet. 

 

Nice going! That's a lot of progress & it looks like even though you've got some of the hardest still to go, you have done most so far. I see Clear Ahead, Free The Beast, A Whole New Toy & GRA Challenge finished & quite a few people did the same as some of those are very hard to do. I usually play without traction & will go back eventually to try another one but Clear Ahead was the one that took a week since the time on that one is ridiculous. That's the one where it took a few days to get that last bit lol. I went for that one as it was the one that seemed the hardest & I wonder what you think I would be like on the others since you've done almost all. I was thinking of doing A Whole New Toy & Free The Beast next since those seemed harder but maybe you might think differently as people have found different ones harder than the other. I know a lot mention GRA Challenge as well although I think that one won't take as long since I wasn't far off when I tried it. It would be useful to know how you think I would find the rest since I play without traction & expect to take quite awhile to get through each one.

 

It's really amazing how the game makes you better over time as when you first play it, you usually think that it's not possible to do. I can see that you have improved so much during this game & I want to let you know that this will help you in any other game since this one requires so much to get through. The stuff you have improved on will stay with you on other games & I'm sure you'll know what I mean when that happens. I will find a lot of this helpful when I get back to the game so you are definitely going to help many with what you have done. I'm looking forward to the last part of this game that you will do & I hope you get through the last few as I know many that have found those ridiculously hard to do. The progress you have made has been amazing!

[Don_carlito94]

@ExistentialSolid Amazing progress so far mate, you’ve come a long way. You have written the best explanations and showcased some great videos for tackling some of these events for trophy hunters, there is really not a lot of info, apart from maybe some other videos on YouTube. Only Nordschleife left, so good luck! 
 

12 hours ago, Destructor-8 said:

 

I usually play without traction & will go back eventually to try another one but Clear Ahead was the one that took a week since the time on that one is ridiculous. That's the one where it took a few days to get that last bit lol. I went for that one as it was the one that seemed the hardest & I wonder what you think I would be like on the others since you've done almost all. I was thinking of doing A Whole New Toy & Free The Beast next since those seemed harder but maybe you might think differently as people have found different ones harder than the other.

I know that you asked Existential about that question but I would just like to chime in on this subject as well. Obviously having TCS completely off gives you more power than having it on, and some hotlaps are easier when you turn off TCS. There are also hotlaps that are harder to gold without TCS let’s say some of those you’ve mentioned like “Free the Beast”, “Whole New Toy” and “Clear Ahead”(hence why you’ve spend so long on this one) in my personal opinion. You gain more power but at the same time you increase the risk of losing control and it requires very precise throttle+brake management and knowing how to straighten the car to be able to go fast. You will be able to gold the rest of the events with enough practice, and “Clear Ahead” has shown us that you have the patience and skills to get through this. 
 

If you choose to do all the hotlaps without TCS off, it will be a hard task depending on which hotlap but in the long run, you will see your driving skills improve a lot more without TCS. As for the difficulty of the hotlaps, which ones you’ll struggle with the most depends on which order you do the events, which setups and settings you use, how much assist you use and if you exploit certain events. 

[FrediPy_]

On 9/10/2021 at 8:07 AM, ExistentialSolid said:

Thank you so much for the advice!  I was actually hoping that at least 1 player would evaluate my driving patterns and give me pointers on what is going well and what needs improvement when I started Assetto Corsa, so I'm thrilled to read comments like these. Unfortunately, I've finished so many hotlaps in the last four weeks that you all are essentially going to be seeing a "before and after" shot of my driving when update #5 releases, but anything I learn from you all in these next few updates can be applied to future racing games so it would still hold a lot of value!

I see you've come a long way! You might've written that somewhere but I didn't quite catch that I was looking at a one-month-old hotlap ? In any case, you've done your homework yourself actually, because judging by the most recent hotlaps your trail braking and your "earlier on the throttle" has got better, so great effort there. The TCS switching technique made me giggle, have to say, but you really mastered it and seems to give you better acceleration out of corners.

 

The Nordschleife hotlaps look really challenging, track is so long and so unforgiving… but really fun to drive around and very satisfying when things go well, because you really feel a mega driver! I even have some memories from 10-15 years ago about completing certain challenges in Gran Turismo 4 and 5, I absolutely loved this track. But also got so mad at everything when a corner near the end of the lap went wrong and I had to do those 20 km all over again. I'm sure you'll manage to do these eventually!

 

I am thinking of getting Assetto Corsa myself after reading all of this, I occasionally play some GT Sport online on my way to the plat, but the game doesn't really offer any serious single-player challenge like the classics of the series and I miss that. Hope those come back for GT7.

[Eqill5]

Great work man, I’m super proud to see how far you’ve come in this! Do you have any prior experience of the Nurburgring? It’s a hell of track to learn but one of the most beautiful out there.

 

On 09/10/2021 at 7:07 AM, ExistentialSolid said:

Speaking of driving techniques, I'd love to see an in-game driving school (sort of similar to the University of Trials in Trials Rising) that teaches me some of the basic/advanced techniques involved with manual driving. I vaguely remember seeing something similar in either Gran Turismo 3 or 4 (?) during the license exams, but that was a long time ago and I was too impatient to ever bother with it.  I was much younger, so I saw words like "weight transfer" and "apex" and noped out of there.

I actually can’t recommend the GT license exams enough for anyone that’s new to racing games. The words “Slow in, fast out” have been etched in my brain since I was 7 I think ?

 

If you don’t mind feedback? One thing I noticed when watching your videos is sometimes you turn in to a corner quite early, and ride the curb round before exiting. What this does is make the angle in which you’re trying to turn the car sharper, scrubbing off speed through the tyres if your entry speed is too quick for example. If you try to take a wider entry onto the apex you’ll be able to carry more speed through the corner, allowing yourself to have more speed upon exit and a higher top speed on the straight thereafter. Obviously this won’t be the case for absolutely every corner as sometimes the optimal line won’t be wide in every time. I hope this might be useful to you!

 

Good luck with your remaining hotlaps and enjoy the Nordschleife! You’ve got this!

[ExistentialSolid]

On 10/9/2021 at 2:50 PM, Joe Dubz said:

Sounds like you are making great progress Ex, keep up the great work! Love the updates as usual

 

Funny enough, IRL I drive a manual, always have for my last 20 years of driving! I feel similarly to what you're saying about the way it handles 1000x better...

 

However, when it comes to racing games, I never was able to get it down for the life of me! It sounds like mastery of that is pretty much mandatory for something as strict as Assetto Corsa seems to be. Then again this is prob why I never platted any of the real deal racing sims

Thanks, I really appreciate the support! ?

It's never too late to give the genre another spin! You've got 20 years of real-life experience to draw from in understanding how to drive a manual more effectively compared to an amateur like me, so if you ever find a racing sim that's calling your name, I hope you're not afraid to jump in and start learning. For me, learning how to drive manual has been one of the most satisfying journeys in gaming I've had in a long time and I bet you'd enjoy the journey too!  
 

On 10/9/2021 at 5:57 PM, AJ_Radio said:

I will never touch Assetto Corsa. Gran Turismo is where my limits are, if I ever get around to playing a game from that franchise.

I mean, I have very little sim racing experience, even less IRL driving experience, and I'm probably the least knowledgeable driver in this entire thread, ? but I didn't let that stop me from trying Assetto Corsa anyway. Limits are often just imaginary barriers we place in front of ourselves to justify our complacency and have little to no bearing on our actual potential. I genuinely believe that just about anyone reading this thread could earn the Assetto Corsa platinum if they were determined enough.  
 

On 10/10/2021 at 1:01 AM, Destructor-8 said:

Nice going! That's a lot of progress & it looks like even though you've got some of the hardest still to go, you have done most so far. I see Clear Ahead, Free The Beast, A Whole New Toy & GRA Challenge finished & quite a few people did the same as some of those are very hard to do. I usually play without traction & will go back eventually to try another one but Clear Ahead was the one that took a week since the time on that one is ridiculous. That's the one where it took a few days to get that last bit lol. I went for that one as it was the one that seemed the hardest & I wonder what you think I would be like on the others since you've done almost all. I was thinking of doing A Whole New Toy & Free The Beast next since those seemed harder but maybe you might think differently as people have found different ones harder than the other. I know a lot mention GRA Challenge as well although I think that one won't take as long since I wasn't far off when I tried it. It would be useful to know how you think I would find the rest since I play without traction & expect to take quite awhile to get through each one.

 

It's really amazing how the game makes you better over time as when you first play it, you usually think that it's not possible to do. I can see that you have improved so much during this game & I want to let you know that this will help you in any other game since this one requires so much to get through. The stuff you have improved on will stay with you on other games & I'm sure you'll know what I mean when that happens. I will find a lot of this helpful when I get back to the game so you are definitely going to help many with what you have done. I'm looking forward to the last part of this game that you will do & I hope you get through the last few as I know many that have found those ridiculously hard to do. The progress you have made has been amazing!

I honestly don't think you have much to worry about. You've already finished one of the hardest hotlaps in the game and, based on the long list of racers you've finished, you clearly have the dedication needed to get this done! The amount of research you're willing to do to find the right setup for each hotlap is going to be the most important factor in trying to assess how long AC will take you to complete. In some cases, you could spend a dozen hours trying to clear a hotlap with a poor setup whereas you might breeze through it in 20 minutes with a great setup.
 
Like @Don_carlito94 mentioned, playing through every event without traction control is probably going to make your job a lot more difficult than it needs to be. I know you've dedicated far more time to sim racing than I have, so maybe it's just a preference that's grown on you, but some cars are going to be nightmares to drive without it. If I could recommend anything, it would be to reconsider that preference before diving into the rest of the hotlaps to save yourself some headache, but I'm sure you'll manage no matter what you choose to do. 

Thanks, that really means a lot! I'm excited to see what sorts of improvements I see in my driving going from Assetto Corsa to whichever racing sim I tackle next (whenever that may be). There's still so much to learn and I'm looking forward to finding my next fix.

 

On 10/10/2021 at 1:49 PM, Don_carlito94 said:

@ExistentialSolid Amazing progress so far mate, you’ve come a long way. You have written the best explanations and showcased some great videos for tackling some of these events for trophy hunters, there is really not a lot of info, apart from maybe some other videos on YouTube. Only Nordschleife left, so good luck! 

Thank you! All of your tips, advice, and setup links are the reason I've made it this far at all, so I really can't credit you enough for any success I've had in Assetto Corsa. I'll do my best to finish strong! ?
 

On 10/11/2021 at 5:39 AM, FrediPy_ said:

I see you've come a long way! You might've written that somewhere but I didn't quite catch that I was looking at a one-month-old hotlap  In any case, you've done your homework yourself actually, because judging by the most recent hotlaps your trail braking and your "earlier on the throttle" has got better, so great effort there. The TCS switching technique made me giggle, have to say, but you really mastered it and seems to give you better acceleration out of corners.

 

The Nordschleife hotlaps look really challenging, track is so long and so unforgiving… but really fun to drive around and very satisfying when things go well, because you really feel a mega driver! I even have some memories from 10-15 years ago about completing certain challenges in Gran Turismo 4 and 5, I absolutely loved this track. But also got so mad at everything when a corner near the end of the lap went wrong and I had to do those 20 km all over again. I'm sure you'll manage to do these eventually!

 

I am thinking of getting Assetto Corsa myself after reading all of this, I occasionally play some GT Sport online on my way to the plat, but the game doesn't really offer any serious single-player challenge like the classics of the series and I miss that. Hope those come back for GT7.

I wish I could say I've done my homework, but, outside of the reference videos I used to get these laps done, my teacher was the lap delta timer. ? It was like a constant source of feedback that would tell me, "nope, that turn was terrible, you've lost 0.2 seconds" or "excellent turn, you've gained 0.3 seconds." Learning what was saving time and what was losing time was something I gradually internalized through this vicious feedback system until my driving was sufficient enough to earn gold medals. 

The TCS switching technique was something I learned from VirtualNight's videos (imo, their playlist is the single best resource for hotlap references), and my silly explanation for why it seemed to work was kinda just guesswork.  When it comes to racing, I feel a little like a toddler trying to lecture to a classroom full of professors. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that almost everyone that has commented in recent weeks has a more developed understanding of racing than I do, so I just have to do my best to stay in my lane as the amateur that I am and try not to say anything too silly. ?

Some of the turns on Norschleife can be brutal and most of my laps have been invalidated because I go off track, but it really is an exciting course to drive around! I'm looking forward to getting destroyed one last time before the credits roll.

I'm excited to hear that I've made several of you more interested in trying Assetto Corsa after my experience with it. ? The hotlaps have been such a joy to play through and I'm sure most players looking for a challenging racing experience would enjoy pushing themselves to get these done. Speaking of GT, Assetto Corsa has made me more interested in the genre as a whole, so I might have to pick up GT7 in the near future to get my next dose!
  

On 10/11/2021 at 4:51 PM, Eqill5 said:

Great work man, I’m super proud to see how far you’ve come in this! Do you have any prior experience of the Nurburgring? It’s a hell of track to learn but one of the most beautiful out there.

I actually can’t recommend the GT license exams enough for anyone that’s new to racing games. The words “Slow in, fast out” have been etched in my brain since I was 7 I think 

 

If you don’t mind feedback? One thing I noticed when watching your videos is sometimes you turn in to a corner quite early, and ride the curb round before exiting. What this does is make the angle in which you’re trying to turn the car sharper, scrubbing off speed through the tyres if your entry speed is too quick for example. If you try to take a wider entry onto the apex you’ll be able to carry more speed through the corner, allowing yourself to have more speed upon exit and a higher top speed on the straight thereafter. Obviously this won’t be the case for absolutely every corner as sometimes the optimal line won’t be wide in every time. I hope this might be useful to you!

 

Good luck with your remaining hotlaps and enjoy the Nordschleife! You’ve got this!

Thank you, I really appreciate it! ? I'm not really sure if I've ever driven on the Nurburgring before. There's a good chance I've driven on sections of the track in older racing games over the years, but it would have been too far back to remember. It is a gorgeous track though and it contrasts really well against all of the flat, organized terrain that you typically see in the other courses.

If GT7 has great license exams when it releases, I'll definitely have to check it out. I wasn't very patient with racing games when I was younger, so I've been hesitant to play anything other than arcade racers in recent years, but Assetto Corsa has done a great job demonstrating that sim racers can be enjoyable, and highly rewarding, experiences. I'll be keeping an eye out for more in the future.    

I don't mind at all! In fact, I appreciate all the feedback I can get. ? I'm pretty sure I know exactly what you're talking about and I've struggled trying to find a solution to curb rounding. For turns that are especially sharp or drawn out, I have trouble figuring out how wide the entry (and exit) needs to be to maximize my speed through the corner. Often times, when I try to guess, my lap delta starts to plummet and I get discouraged from trying anything other than riding the curb since it doesn't seem to lose too much time. It's also a bit trickier for me to gauge entry speed when taking a turn wide, but I'd imagine more practice should iron issues like that out over time. Being aware of the problem is the first step!

Thanks, I'll try my best! ?

Edited October 13, 2021 by ExistentialSolid

[AJ_Radio]

2 hours ago, ExistentialSolid said:

I mean, I have very little sim racing experience, even less IRL driving experience, and I'm probably the least knowledgeable driver in this entire thread,  but I didn't let that stop me from trying Assetto Corsa anyway. Limits are often just imaginary barriers we place in front of ourselves to justify our complacency and have little to no bearing on our actual potential. I genuinely believe that just about anyone reading this thread could earn the Assetto Corsa platinum if they were determined enough. 

 

Not everybody has the same skills and determination. I already did some hard stuff this year. I don't overdo on the hard challenges, I'm not the same person as you. Gran Turismo, particularly the 5th entry, can be pretty challenging, but you cannot get the platinum in that anymore.

[ExistentialSolid]

Assetto Corsa and the Final Stretch - Update #6 
This is it. Three hotlaps are all that stand between me and the platinum trophy. In this quick update, I'm going to walk you all through my experience with the first of these hotlaps while discussing some of the difficulties associated with Nordschleife, the "Green Hell" that these three laps take place on.

Learning Nordschleife...
Up to this point, the average length of a hotlap in Assetto Corsa hovered around the minute and 40 second mark with the longest lasting no more than 3 minutes. Nordschleife, however, throws convention out of the window with laps that take over 8 minutes to complete. To call the 20+ kilometer track "massive" would be an understatement. Now wait a sec. What does the length of the track have to do with anything? Surely an 8 minute track isn't that fundamentally different from a 2 minute track.  

The problem in learning a lengthy track like Nordschleife is that your memory is going to have a much more difficult time keeping up. Once every 8 minutes, you'll drive off the road in exactly the same place because you've forgotten the mistakes of your last lap. Once every 8 minutes, you'll make an improvement only for the muscle memory to crumble by the next pass. Delayed repetition makes each and every turn in Nordschleife incredibly unforgiving. Flurries of mental notes have to build for hours before they ever cascade into an avalanche of tangible improvements. It can quickly feel discouraging. 

It will be especially tempting to restart as soon as you make a mistake, but doing so will only hurt you in the long run. Before you know it, you'll have mastered the first few minutes of the track only to botch the last few minutes because you haven't practiced the latter half enough. Taking your mistakes in stride and finishing each lap is the most important part of the battle. I spent my first two days learning Nordschleife (1-2 hours each day) angrily mashing restart before I learned this lesson.

Will video references help? For some, absolutely. Analyzing either your own replays or the replays of others is a fantastic way to ingrain sections of the track into your memory faster than the 8 minute-per-pass limit the track imposes on you. For me, the passive, studious approach just didn't gel with my playstyle. I wanted to get out there and drive even if my progress suffered for it. 

So I turned off the reference video, settled into my chair like a slug burrowed under a few particularly cozy pebbles, and started driving. I drove and I drove and I drove. Before I knew it, I had spent 10 hours in a single day (with breaks, don't worry! ?) looping the track like someone that had completely lost touch with reality. 

This lap is the result...

Alfa 4C Versus Green Hell

After watching the lap back, I'm so proud of how far I've come.
Is the lap perfect? No, it's nowhere close to perfection. But you know what? A month ago, I didn't even know how to drive a car with a manual transmission. I would watch reference runs over and over trying desperately to understand what I could be doing better. Now, I feel confident enough in my driving to tackle any hotlap without a video to guide my every move and can tame a manual like someone with actual driving experience. I've learned so much and I'm excited to finally finish this!

[The next update will feature my final two hotlaps and conclude my time with Assetto Corsa! Thank you for reading! ?] 

Edited October 16, 2021 by ExistentialSolid

[Destructor-8]

On 10/10/2021 at 6:49 PM, Don_carlito94 said:

I know that you asked Existential about that question but I would just like to chime in on this subject as well. Obviously having TCS completely off gives you more power than having it on, and some hotlaps are easier when you turn off TCS. There are also hotlaps that are harder to gold without TCS let’s say some of those you’ve mentioned like “Free the Beast”, “Whole New Toy” and “Clear Ahead”(hence why you’ve spend so long on this one) in my personal opinion. You gain more power but at the same time you increase the risk of losing control and it requires very precise throttle+brake management and knowing how to straighten the car to be able to go fast. You will be able to gold the rest of the events with enough practice, and “Clear Ahead” has shown us that you have the patience and skills to get through this. 
 

If you choose to do all the hotlaps without TCS off, it will be a hard task depending on which hotlap but in the long run, you will see your driving skills improve a lot more without TCS. As for the difficulty of the hotlaps, which ones you’ll struggle with the most depends on which order you do the events, which setups and settings you use, how much assist you use and if you exploit certain events. 

 

Yeah I decided before I started that I was going to do it without traction as I've gotten used to it that way & it has helped in many other games as well as this one. I think every game is a step down in terms of what you have to learn since this is the most difficult one to get used to even if the times aren't as tight as other racing games. I'm still going to have a go at it without traction & eventually do the game twice so will do one hotlap on one version then go on to the other version & do the hotlap there whilst I still remember it. It's nice you said all that as well so I appreciate it.

 

On 12/10/2021 at 9:55 PM, ExistentialSolid said:

I honestly don't think you have much to worry about. You've already finished one of the hardest hotlaps in the game and, based on the long list of racers you've finished, you clearly have the dedication needed to get this done! The amount of research you're willing to do to find the right setup for each hotlap is going to be the most important factor in trying to assess how long AC will take you to complete. In some cases, you could spend a dozen hours trying to clear a hotlap with a poor setup whereas you might breeze through it in 20 minutes with a great setup.
 
Like @Don_carlito94 mentioned, playing through every event without traction control is probably going to make your job a lot more difficult than it needs to be. I know you've dedicated far more time to sim racing than I have, so maybe it's just a preference that's grown on you, but some cars are going to be nightmares to drive without it. If I could recommend anything, it would be to reconsider that preference before diving into the rest of the hotlaps to save yourself some headache, but I'm sure you'll manage no matter what you choose to do. 

Thanks, that really means a lot! I'm excited to see what sorts of improvements I see in my driving going from Assetto Corsa to whichever racing sim I tackle next (whenever that may be). There's still so much to learn and I'm looking forward to finding my next fix.

 

I truly appreciate this as well since I haven't been into sims for too long so I'm still trying to get better & better too. I'm going to be on this game for awhile anyway especially as I'm going to do it twice but at least it can only get easier lol. I think you've already said this but sims are generally more fun than I first thought & you really do see yourself get better over time. This game definitely helped the most as since you know that once you do a really hard game, you get used to doing others & as I mentioned before you'll find almost every other racing game a step down when it comes to what you have to learn in order to get through it. There are others out there as well as this so I'm sure you'll enjoy going for more if you want. I'll actually be going back to one that I've mentioned quite a lot in my thread so I'm sure you'll like to see that one. I actually think once you see it in my thread that you'll want to go for it when you see what it requires you to do lol.

 

49 minutes ago, ExistentialSolid said:

After watching the lap back, I'm so proud of how far I've come.
Is the lap perfect? No, it's nowhere even close to perfection. But you know what? A month ago, I didn't even know how to drive a car with a manual transmission. I would watch reference runs over and over trying desperately to understand what I could be doing better. Now, I feel confident enough in my driving to tackle any hotlap without a video to guide my every move and can tame a manual like I'd been driving one my whole life! I've learned so much and I'm excited to finally finish this!

[The next update will feature my final two hotlaps and conclude my time with Assetto Corsa! Thank you for reading! ] 

 

This is awesome as I've heard a lot about this one since many have found these to take the longest to do. I remember trying one of these when I first had a go & I wasn't even close lol. It's true what you say as if you look at when you first started this, you were playing something that you really had to get into the game in order to get anything out of it. I've said it before but getting good at this game will help in any future one that you try. It's just a matter of time until you get this one done that will go along with all the other ridiculously impressive games that you have finished. This is a one of the best out there & it's almost done so nice going on that.

Edited October 14, 2021 by Destructor-8

[ExistentialSolid]

Assetto Corsa and the End of a Journey - Update #7
After two months and over 200 hours of play, I've finally finished Assetto Corsa!



My final two hotlaps, "A Hell 4 You" and "Forbidden Record," are both going to be linked below if you'd like to check them out! Both laps added a twist to the hotlap formula, but thankfully eased up a little on the gold medal requirements. "A Hell 4 You" dares the player to navigate Nordschleife in a thick fog while "Forbidden Record" straps the player to a rocket and expects them to make due. After playing this game for ages, It feels strange knowing that it's all over... 

A Hell 4 You: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBvFPkGvvaE

Forbidden Record: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOUX0bip6ZM

Even though this is the end, there's still so much I haven't covered and so much I still have left to do. I'm trying to finish up two playlists right now: A "Hotlap Gold Medal" playlist and the "Alien Race Gold Medal" playlist that I started back in update #2. Once those are finished, I'd like to post an Alien Race mini-guide to the forums with a trimmed down version of what I've covered in this thread (you'd be surprised how many players finished the hotlaps, but haven't completed the alien races). 

Before we close things out, I'd like to give a special thanks to @Don_carlito94 for being like a mentor to me throughout my Assetto Corsa experience. Without his guidance, encouragement, and enthusiasm, I might have never finished this game! ? Thanks as well to the players that I've used as reference material including: VirtualNight, Floriiss, and Blu3Angels. And, of course, thank you to all of you reading along for supporting me throughout this journey!

What's Next?
I'm going to be taking a little time off to relax and work on my playlists before we start cleaning up some unfinished business. I'm dead set on having the next poll, which will introduce my plans for a thread revamp, on December 19th, so I've got to make sure everything's set to go before that date! Cleaning up Super Meat Boy Forever and The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth will be priority #1 until that day comes.

In the next update, which will likely be posted in 1-2 weeks, we'll be returning to Super Meat Boy Forever with the first of my two remaining deathless runs (I'll start grinding very soon)! Please expect brevity because my goal with these next few updates is not to glamorize the game or indulge myself with flowery wordplay, but to scarf SMBF down like one of those rushed breakfasts you eat when you're running late for work. ? 

Thank you all for following along with my progress over these past few weeks! I've had a lot of fun, learned more than I could've possibly imagined, and am looking forward to the road ahead! I'm going to leave you all with one final gif of me driving off into the sunset at 300 km/h... (oh and, uh, this one time I fell into a black hole)



See you soon! ?

Edited October 20, 2021 by ExistentialSolid

[Destructor-8]

3 minutes ago, ExistentialSolid said:

Before we close things out, I'd like to give a special thanks to @Don_carlito94 for being like a mentor to me throughout my time with Assetto Corsa. Without his guidance, encouragement, and enthusiasm, I might have never finished this game!  Thanks as well to the players that I've used as reference material including: VirtualNight, Floriiss, and Blu3Angels. And, of course, thank you to all of you reading along for supporting me throughout this journey!

What's Next?
I'm going to be taking a little time off to relax and work on my playlists before we start cleaning up some unfinished business. I'm dead set on having the next poll, which will introduce my plans for a thread revamp, on December 19th, so I've got to make sure everything's set to go before that date! Cleaning up Super Meat Boy Forever and The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth will be priority #1 until that day comes.

 

Congrats on getting through & finishing this game! It's been absolutely amazing watching you get through this & your videos will be of use to many in the future I'm sure. This is an extremely impressive game to do & one that requires an absolutely huge amount of effort to complete. I'm sure @Don_carlito94 has been very helpful throughout this game especially as there's not much out there to go on. I will definitely be using your videos when I get back to this game & hopefully I can get there too one day as well. It's also been very encouraging with what you & @Don_carlito94 have said recently too. I look forward to what is next for you & will definitely be keeping up with it!

[Don_carlito94]

22 hours ago, ExistentialSolid said:

Assetto Corsa and the End of a Journey - Update #7
After two months and over 200 hours of play, I've finally finished Assetto Corsa!



My final two hotlaps, "A Hell 4 You" and "Forbidden Record," are both going to be linked below if you'd like to check them out! Both laps added a twist to the hotlap formula, but thankfully eased up a little on the gold medal requirements. "A Hell 4 You" dares the player to navigate Nordschleife in a thick fog while "Forbidden Record" straps the player to a rocket and expects them to make due. After playing this game for ages, It feels strange knowing that it's all over... 

Congrats on this accomplishment! I’m glad I could help a little bit ? It’s been fun following your progress and I look forward to read more about the other games like SMBF.

 

Since you know how to drive manual gear in a racing game now, perhaps you might consider choosing that option when you approach your next sim/simcade such as Dirt Rally 2.0 or the upcoming GT7? You can see that you have far more control over the car with manual over automatic from all those hours in Assetto Corsa - and admit it, it is a little more fun with manual in a racing sim ?

 

On 14.10.2021 at 10:48 PM, Destructor-8 said:

 

Yeah I decided before I started that I was going to do it without traction as I've gotten used to it that way & it has helped in many other games as well as this one. I think every game is a step down in terms of what you have to learn since this is the most difficult one to get used to even if the times aren't as tight as other racing games. I'm still going to have a go at it without traction & eventually do the game twice so will do one hotlap on one version then go on to the other version & do the hotlap there whilst I still remember it. It's nice you said all that as well so I appreciate it.

 

Respect for going this route. Some of the hotlaps are significantly harder without TCS. For example -> “Demon on Wheels” I personally consider as one of the harder hotlaps in the base game without TCS. Imola is a complex circuit, but with a high TCS setting you can turn this very hard hotlap into a medium difficulty hotlap because with TCS on high, you can drive over the high curbs without consequences 9/10 times as opposed to having TCS off where it requires much more precise angle of entry and throttle control - this example is just to give you a picture of the contrast. 
 

I personally never tried any of the skips and tricks for some of the hotlaps but from my observation you save quite some time with some of them, so if you don’t use any of those, you will also need to push it a notch. Examples - GRA Challenge, with skip= save around half a sec. Nordschleife hotlaps, with wall bounce and Karussell trick = save around 2 secs or maybe a little more if executed right. It will still be a tough experience regardless of these tricks. I look forward to see you write about this game once you get back to it ?