PCars2 vs AMS2

[DaWorstPlaya]

FWIW, I'm not an iRacing fan because of the same "harder=more realistic" mentality they seemed to push with their physics, but I reinstalled it a couple weeks ago, figured out a few system setup tweaks, and found the Miata much more "believable" than the last time I drove the sim about 8 months ago.

The few times I lost it (this most recent time), I kind of felt like I deserved it and, more importantly, the "rewards" and "punishments" seem to be somewhat proportional to my inputs. The last time I drove it, it seemed very binary. Very pass/fail.
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Yea I don't subscribe to the harder is more real mantra either. Basically real is more real and real life cars allow a bit of slip angle. If IRL car drove like iRacing I would be in serious trouble. iRacing seems to be getting easier and easier to drive as they keep updating their tire model. You can drive with a bit of slip angle. However at the limit, when the tires start to slide it still feels off to me, especially with corner entry understeer. I guess it's why people have "practice" iRacing to wrap their head around the tire model and physics because it doesn't come natural. Also why I find it super hard to just jump in and be fast. To be fair it is getting better but it's still not PCars2/ACC good.

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AMS2, if you are an open wheel fan, has a lot of options. In a way, their open wheel tires are better than PC2. They are more stable. I haven't played AMS2 in a while, but the last time I played the open wheel tires were not very dynamic. I could do some really bad driving and it didn't effect the tires negatively (nor positively).

I know it was mentioned in the OP, but AMS2 is not a spiritual successor to PC2. Not in the least. It's a AMS1 successor and that's it. Reiza is not trying to be SMS, Reiza is only striving to be Reiza. At least at this point, I'm still not a AMS2 fan, but I do hope it continues to improve. At some point, I may become a convert.

Yea I don't see AMS2 as spiritual successor to PCar2 either but a simulator that just has some decent cars and a some cars with broken physics that just happens to use the Madness engine. It that regard it kinda has the iRacing problem. For me, it's kinda annoying when you are trying to run a league and the physics on the cars are constantly changing because they are trying to tweak this or that and the cars weren't that good to begin with. But Reiza just keeps releasing more cars (some good some bad) instead of fixing the ones they have. It has made me appreciate the work that SMS and Kunos put into the cars they release in their games. Those studios release cars that feel good from day one.

[DaWorstPlaya]

So Reiza just recently redid the physics on AMS2 and what a difference that has made. The sim's physics/tire models is finally starting to feel real on the cars they updated. V1.3.8.1 update has been a game changer for AMS2 and it's starting to feel like PCars2 in a lot of ways but with better FBB. Underpowered FWD cars finally feel like underpowered FWD car IRL. It seems like Reiza didn't fully understand the physics model on the Madness Engine as they were building the game and they finally are wrapping their heads around that. There may still be hope for that title.

[Mahjik]

V1.3.8.1 update has been a game changer for AMS2 and it's starting to feel like PCars2 in a lot of ways

Be careful, those could be fighting words to the fan base...

[DaWorstPlaya]

Be careful, those could be fighting words to the fan base...

Haha good point.