To assist or not to assist?

[Cprice440 6]

I'm trying to learn to drive with no assists, except the racing line. I like the feel of the car with not assists, but I'm more consistent with the assists on. If I'm not careful I wind up in the wall. At least with assists I get to finish the race. I'm not that fast. Australia time trial in the Haas is 1:27 something and I don't really see any difference in the speed other than the consistency. Acctually I checked again after posting this and I was about 1 to 2 secomds faster at Britain with abs and medium tc.

The question is do I drive in my races with assists or take a chance with no assists and risk the DNF's?
How did you learn to drive without assists?

PS4 format. On the controller. The last 2 assists that I'm turning off are ABS and Traction control medium. ABS makes the braking feel "spongy" for lack of a better word and I often miss judge the stopping distance and wind up in the back of the car in front of me. Traction control on medium, doesn't bother me.

Edited December 29, 2019 by Cprice440
Correction

[AdamFreeman 224]

Assists off is definetly the way to go. While I agree its easier to be consistent with assists.

You cant be on the edgecall the time with assists off I find my race pace is slower than qualy but a fair amount and I have to drop the AI by 5 points. 

Doing one fast lap is not a real representation of speed is what I learned 🙂

[sloppysmusic 1,650]

If you're racing online might as well use assists as most others do for consistency. If you're doing time trial turning assists off is a cool way to see how much faster you're getting. If you're doing career and intend to put plenty of time into the game for several months you will feel more achievement by turning assists off and noticing the gradual increasing of your abilities. 

If you plan to blast thru a season with short races might as well use assists for the fun factor. If you want to get more involved and do half or full length races you may find assists get pretty boring after a while as you never crash or make a mistake. Remember in real life most drivers don't have perfect races every time, it's part of the drama of the sport. With longer races I promise you will have much more fun if you relax, turn the ai down pretty low (so if you spin off you can still get back at least once during a race) and race with no assists. After the first season you will then turn racing line off for a further challenge (after a full length race you wont need it anymore! 

Theres no shame in playing the game how you want to, after all you paid for it! Maybe when you have a day off or a boring weekend ahead try a full length grand prix with all assists off. You can lap to your hearts content in practice learning the car and track and no amount of wrecks will stop you. Turn medium damage on to get more of a thrill or off at street circuits for less frustration! Don't do qualify until you feel confident in the car and your skills then go for qualifying using the full length real life sessions. It's very exciting just getting into q2 then maybe q1. Treat each car you pass or beat for a lap time as a victory in itself. 

Live the dream but have fun too! 

Edited December 29, 2019 by sloppysmusic

[Cprice440 6]

2 hours ago, sloppysmusic said:

If you're racing online might as well use assists as most others do for consistency. If you're doing time trial turning assists off is a cool way to see how much faster you're getting. If you're doing career and intend to put plenty of time into the game for several months you will feel more achievement by turning assists off and noticing the gradual increasing of your abilities. 

If you plan to blast thru a season with short races might as well use assists for the fun factor. If you want to get more involved and do half or full length races you may find assists get pretty boring after a while as you never crash or make a mistake. Remember in real life most drivers don't have perfect races every time, it's part of the drama of the sport. With longer races I promise you will have much more fun if you relax, turn the ai down pretty low (so if you spin off you can still get back at least once during a race) and race with no assists. After the first season you will then turn racing line off for a further challenge (after a full length race you wont need it anymore! 

Theres no shame in playing the game how you want to, after all you paid for it! Maybe when you have a day off or a boring weekend ahead try a full length grand prix with all assists off. You can lap to your hearts content in practice learning the car and track and no amount of wrecks will stop you. Turn medium damage on to get more of a thrill or off at street circuits for less frustration! Don't do qualify until you feel confident in the car and your skills then go for qualifying using the full length real life sessions. It's very exciting just getting into q2 then maybe q1. Treat each car you pass or beat for a lap time as a victory in itself. 

Live the dream but have fun too! 

Thanks guys! Great advice, thank you. @sloppysmusicA lot of ways to have fun with the game that I had not thought of.

[1512marcel 457]

Spot on. The more you drive, the more you learn. And what’s consistency; being three seconds slower every lap is also consistency. Over time you will improve and that won’t take that long. Also, try to watch some movies from the hardcore YouTubers, you can learn a lot from them.

[Cprice440 6]

1 hour ago, 1512marcel said:

Spot on. The more you drive, the more you learn. And what’s consistency; being three seconds slower every lap is also consistency. Over time you will improve and that won’t take that long. Also, try to watch some movies from the hardcore YouTubers, you can learn a lot from them.

Thanks for the reply. I am watching some and even slowing them down. It has helped with gear changes. I'm learning that a lot of things I did not know mattered do matter. I really don't know enough about how to race to know what to watch for. If that makes sense. I thought it was just about going fast and trying to minimize your time on the brakes or going slow, but I'm learning that it is a lot more than that.

[1512marcel 457]

Look how they attack corners. You will see that they go as far as possible to the left or right before steering in. That will help a lot with the “slow in-fast out”. You will also see that they take corners in a higher gear than you are used to. Look at the braking point and try to memorize that point. These are the first things you have to learn to get faster.

[Cprice440 6]

Learning this is very frustrating. I can tell I have gotten a lot better at driving without assists. Full lockups are less frequent and more often than not I avoid locking up at all. My spinouts are less frequent and I can easily string consistent laps together. BUT, at the same time I don't see where the speed can be gained. Can't brake any later or I will lockup. Can't go any heavier on the throttle or I would spin out. Yes attacking the corner differently could gain me some time, but 7 or 8 seconds seems like I would need a cheat code or something that I don't have. I know setups make a difference but, once it is close I don't see where there would be that much time gained there either.

[sloppysmusic 1,650]

13 minutes ago, Cprice440 said:

Learning this is very frustrating. I can tell I have gotten a lot better at driving without assists. Full lockups are less frequent and more often than not I avoid locking up at all. My spinouts are less frequent and I can easily string consistent laps together. BUT, at the same time I don't see where the speed can be gained. Can't brake any later or I will lockup. Can't go any heavier on the throttle or I would spin out. Yes attacking the corner differently could gain me some time, but 7 or 8 seconds seems like I would need a cheat code or something that I don't have. I know setups make a difference but, once it is close I don't see where there would be that much time gained there either.

Don't sweat it once you reach your plateau. Theres a good reason we call the best drivers who manage to get better times than us 'aliens' (without cheats or assists!). 

The more realistic you play the closer you get to emulating the real world sport which is dominated by the most skilled drivers in the world. Imagine being a Williams driver watching the whole pack disappear into the distance. Yet even their drivers are in a different league from the majority of us. Aim for a realistic goal in the race like real world drivers do. In a donkey car aim to finish anywhere but last. In McLaren aim for regular top ten finishes. In a Red Bull aim for a podium every time etc etc. 

'Winning' is how YOU define it. Happy lapping! 

[AdamFreeman 224]

Dont take notice of the best times most likely tcam esporters. Hell I can go a second a lap faster on tcam consistently.

 

 

[sloppysmusic 1,650]

On 12/30/2019 at 9:08 AM, AdamFreeman said:

Dont take notice of the best times most likely tcam esporters. Hell I can go a second a lap faster on tcam consistently.

 

 

Sad but true 😢

[Mike Dee 1,248]

On 12/30/2019 at 9:08 AM, AdamFreeman said:

Dont take notice of the best times most likely tcam esporters. Hell I can go a second a lap faster on tcam consistently.

 

 

It has really upset me as someone new to F1. I go to watch a clip at night on youtube or twitch and all I see everywhere is T-cam and corner racing lines 🙁 Like I get it, if you want to be the "best" most people need all of those turned on, but where is the fun? Where is the satisfaction? I can't even find the full satisfaction in racing with less than 100% duration, I couldn't even dream of using t-cam (on my gt1 evo rig) and a racing line or assists...

It'd be like saying you bowled a 250 with bumpers...

Edited December 31, 2019 by Mike Dee

[AdamFreeman 224]

I am the same with 100% races also. Half races feel like a cop out and great results sagurated. Plus strategy plays out better.

I dont know how people can even do tcam with a wheel! On the pad I get it I have been there between 2011 and 2015 but on a wheel it feels odd.

[Mike Dee 1,248]

2 hours ago, AdamFreeman said:

Plus strategy plays out better.

Yes, thank you. The whole reason I recently have gotten into circuit racing is because of this. I'm a huge rally nut, and one thing I love about our clubs/leagues is we do punishingly long gaps between service stops - you really have to think about taking care of your car.

Which is what I love about F1 - these are 90 minute battles where maintaining your pace while managing your wear/use is just as important as passing the driver in front of you.

Do you know how amazing it felt finishing 8th after fighting with Kimi, Norris, Danny Ric, and Stroll for the previous 30 laps? The stress of sitting on Mediums with 10 laps on them already while they pulled out of the pits with a 2-stop Softs is indescribable. Trying to expand the lead I just stole by planning the 1-stop from the start, jumping from 12th to 6th during the pit, but **** Leclerc and Perez are just leaving the pits now. Testing how far I can push it without wasting the tires put me at a new level of concentration I rarely achieve. Realizing I messed up and stressed the tires too much, too early, with 14 laps to go - Leclerc already blew by me and Perez is pushing me and causing mistakes. ****, do I just let him through?!?! Ok whatever, I've still got 8th at least!!! Do I try to ride the limit or ease up 0.5s a lap hoping it helps my average time for those 14 laps?!? There is only a 5 second gap to Kimi in 9th and Danny is right on his ass... OH GOD WHAT DO I DO!?!??!

Every little decision I made counted. And it felt absolutely amazing crossing that finish line. 0.1 left on the fuel gauge, 0% in the ERS system, and 60% wear on those tires. I barely even scored points for Alfa Romeo. But I can count on a single hand how many times I have ever felt that satisfied after not winning something.

[AdamFreeman 224]

I do know that feeling very well I have ran 100% races pretty much since 2010 I used to get around 3 seasons finished between releases until the 2017 game then family and work life took a bigger chunk of my spare time. I tried half races on 2017 to try and get multiple seasons done but this lasted 3 races it was sub par at best.

Only just managed to finish my 2018 first career season with Williams I only scored 4 points all season our car was simply not good enough but it was the most immersive season yet as it was a transition from pad to wheel in Hungary then manual gears came fully by USA all no assists. This brought added satisfaction and realism.

My tactic was to instead of drasically improving aero was to increase our engine advantage early season and try and score points at the power cicuits. Seasons best 9th came at Austria then a point at russia and brazil. Small aero upgrades arrived in the last half of season but we were still worst car by seasons end just. Strolls sole point came at monza so we only scored 5 points as a team.

We were 9th for a short time but upgrades from sauber (alfa) in the second half of the season and LeClercs speed bumped them into the top ten a fair amount and we were over 20 points away from 9th in the end.

Weirdly my rep with Williams is pretty low I played mostly without flashbacks but rep was severly pubished by some AI ramming causing DNFs. Despite out qualifying stroll and out racing him my rep with williams was 7th worst and since the new contract system came in where you can pretty much go anywhere I have a rule where I will only negotiate the top 3 rep teams so I have Torro Rosso sauber and mclaren to chat with 🙂

[kevinb120 1]

I have a lot of experience with a wheel up to F1 2014 (then, kids...) until I took a hiatus until last month when a Fanatec setup with Buttkicker returned to the man cave 🙂

I can't figure out shift points for anything with the new sounds in the car(not to mention how much you can go past peak power, especially on Ferrari powered cars), so I use the audible beeps for shifting(didn't even know there WAS an 8th gear for the first few hours I was setting up FFB/hotlapping).  I moved out my cockpit view to 55 so i could check the mirrors, the older game had a big old DRS light regardless of car IIRC.  But it does give you situational awareness you cant get from a game so I leave the DRS tone ON. The two first lights on the Haas wheel are just too hard to spot without having a slight delay the AI doesn't have.

I'm at 85% AI and raising steadily, 100% races, and use 50% TC if it's raining.  I also have auto ERS management on.  Have the halo bar disabled, but the Haas at least still has an antenna in the middle.  Pretty sure they all do.  As modeled in the game in cockpit view, it is way too wide as the human eye would not see so much of it IRL, even if it is represented accurately.

I am on Xbox with a CSW 2.5 and the standard P1 wheel, so my button options are sparse and poorly placed for F1.  The new Mclaren wheel was delayed so I may need to get an F1 rim, which seems excessive for XB gaming.  I really wish they made the mid-priced esports F1 rim for PS in some version for xbox(although the Mclaren rim is pretty much that).   With as little control options/button assignments as I have, ERS is a real headache and just not worth it vs someone with a working dial.  Really hoping next-gen adds a lot to XB in this department, so I'm not spending any big bucks on a wheel until we know what we have next year.

Usually I'll leave the racing line on in the turns in P1/P2 until I start to 'feel' the apexes and turn it off.  It's a bit of a distraction when actually racing/qualifying as the car should be setup by then and mentally 'bound' to the track where it starts to slow you down.

 

 

Edited January 7 by kevinb120