World Rally Championship 10 / WRC 10

[7h30n]

Today is the official opening of WRC Acropolis Rally Greece, be sure to check the rallying out if you can!

 

[Curratum]

I do agree that DR2.0 has been made artificially harder and gamified, definitely not to the level of something like Assetto Corsa, but very obviously "tryard gamur" artificial. All you need to do is watch a bit of WRC onboard footage. The drivers throw the cars around wildly, but it's all under complete control, there is no showboating and showing off. The real WRC cars look INSANELY grippy on gravel, on both TV cams and onboards, and Dirt Rally makes you struggle way too much, because "lul muh rally 'sim'".

WRC official games used to be pretty bad for ages, but starting with WRC 8, Kylotonn really figured it out to the point where it looks and feels just believable enough to be good fun. Plus tarmac physics in DR2.0 are still crap, WRC 8 and up is so much better.

 

[7h30n]

Well, driving on gravel is hard and that's where DR 2.0 shines indeed. But I think what we are missing is other feedback you get in a real car. For example, DR 2.0 does feel harder for me to control than a real car just due to the fact I cannot feel the car is starting to slide in my buttocks. Anyone who's done some drifting or even racing on the track will know you can sense the car is on the edge of losing traction in your bottom. I don't know how DR 2.0 or WRC works with a full cockpit setup some people have.

 

[7h30n]

Darn it! Seems I won't be trying out WRC 10 and how cars behave on tarmac The game only supports Windows 10... Tell me if someone got it running on Windows 7, thanks!

 

[Curratum]

Darn it! Seems I won't be trying out WRC 10 and how cars behave on tarmac The game only supports Windows 10... Tell me if someone got it running on Windows 7, thanks!

God, not you too

 

[KazikluBey]

The real WRC cars look INSANELY grippy on gravel, on both TV cams and onboards, and Dirt Rally makes you struggle way too much, because "lul muh rally 'sim'".

And the most modern cars in DR are INSANELY grippy on gravel. In order to differentiate the various car classes, older cars get progressively worse grip in what feels like an unrealistic way, but it almost sounds like you're comparing DR group B cars with WRC 10 WRC car grip levels. Also, in a modern WRC car the driver still has to create grip by controlling the weight distribution, using the right amount of wheelspin to sweep off loose gravel, etc; they "throw" the cars around partly to create the grip. Whether that qualifies as "struggle" I don't know, but I'm pretty sure your gravel grip would be worse if you handled them more gently.

So yeah, I do agree that some car classes in DR feel way off in terms of grip, but I also tend to find those the most fun as they require more care with your inputs (first time I tried Lancia Stratos was fun - I didn't get more than 100 meters before spinning on a straight after a slight bump in the road in Finland).



And OT: I've done 3 rallies in WRC 10 career mode with an R5/Rally2/WRC2 class car so far. It feels better with a wheel than previous iterations, like I'm getting the information I expect/have gotten used to in DR/RBR+NGP6/Assetto Corsa. WRC 8 felt a little lacking in that regard, but was great with a controller (f.ex. you can feel the car slipping under braking and acceleration in the Xbox controller trigger button rumble, DR1 doesn't have that, nor do my pedals...). So far so good. The R5 car is easy on the verge of a little boring to drive, but as I recall the real fun starts once you get to the WRC cars.

I really like that you get to manage the tyres over the entire rally now rather than just getting fresh ones every service. You start with a set amount of tyres for the entire rally, then you bring 5 or 6 of them with you for each loop, can swap them around before every stage, you can mix&match hard/soft/rain/snow depending on the surface/weather, and reuse tyres.

 

[Curratum]

Got WRC 10 on the latest sale, and so far it runs flawlessly.
One can only wonder why there are so many bad reviews on Steam, when DR2 had similar or larger amount of more bugs on release, and also had shitload of dlcs and always-online requirement for career.

Performance is pretty bad for me. WRC 8 runs maxed out and locked at 60 fps. WRC 10 looks the same but I have to turn down multiple settings to get a fps that oscillates between 50 and 60.

 

[Curratum]

So, I committed fully to grand autism and spent an hour and a half maxing out every FFB option on its own to see what exactly each of them does, singled out as just one effect / vibration at a time. Was forced to do this because the ffb was generally shit, muddy and weak and using other people's "great configs" was useless.

In the end, on my freshly-bought Driving Force Pro ancient wheel, I came up with the following conclusions:

FFB:
Self aligning torque - pretty much how much feedback and stiffness you get for steering INTO corners. Left that at 80.
Tyre load + Self centre - largely affects how difficult it is to countersteer after cornering + how much a tire is loaded / flexing under cornering. Mixed tire load of 70 with self-centre of 40, to get some resistance on countersteer but not to the point where you're fighting the wheel.
Recentre force - doesn't affect actual FFB.

Vibration:
Tyre slip - very nasty judders on a notchy Logi gear wheel, turned it off completely, because it often interferes with accurate steering
Suspension - muddy yet strong vibrations simulating suspension travel. Didn't like it much, turned it off.
Ground surface - relatively inoffensive judders from the uneven surface on gravel. Decided to only leave this vibration effect on (at 100) as it felt "immersive" and was the least nasty.
Engine - just no.
Collision - to taste, I turned it off.

Bear in mind that all of those settings "feel good" on my old Driving Force Pro and you will probably need to do your own cycle of autistic, time-consuming testing to find what feels good on your own, but hey, it's at least some info on what does what. Sure as all fuck more informative than the explanations in the game.

 

[Great Deceiver]

After getting a wheel setup (Logitech G29) I've been on a binge trying every racing sim I can get my hands on.

I've installed the RSF distro of Richard Burns Rally (a whopping 150gb) and can confirm that this ancient game with NGP and all the tender loving work of the autistic modding guys over 15 years is really one of the most impressive simulations I've played. The force feedback is quite realistic too, even on a tinny wheel like the G29 (most people are completely oblivious to the subtleties of physics because they crank FF to the max and in these cog-FF wheels all detail gets drowned out by clacking and banging).

I'm not sure if I'll keep playing, but it's certainly an amazingly impressive effort and it feels much better than recent games where the presentation showers you (the player) with AWSUM praise and they're structured like a fucking YouTube influencer festival, plus the narrators never shut up. There's something to be said about the stoic keyboard-driven menus, and simply racing on a fucking track.

I'll give WRC10 a try next. Lately my favourite pastimes have been the Truck Simulators (just started an Euro campaign) and BeamNG.drive (which is a very fun sandbox but clunky at the moment).

I'm already thinking about upgrading the wheel to a T300 but those cost around 650USD where I live (3.5 times the minimum wage and about twice what I paid for my G29 + gearbox). The most pressing issue with my setup right now is stability, I have a metal wheel stand but its centre of gravity is fucked up, it will tilt to the right but not the left. Plus it slides on my tile floor, which is very annoying. I'm trying to avoid the infinite rabbit hole of spending so I'd rather fix my current shit before splurging on new stuff.

 

[Curratum]

Sell the G29, you should still have warranty and everything, it's brand new. Drop some 30 bucks from the retail price and let it go.

Logitech wheels have the uncanny tendency to sell barely below their store prices even after years of use.