Are you saying stick with a car and work on skills instead of frequently switching cars in an attempt to go faster?
To derail this thread a little further:
From my experience
(29 years old, tried to get good at kitesurfing (17-today), guitar (12-today) and online gaming (15-27) and now online racing (26-today))
Getting better at something is a mix of a steady increment and steps+plateaus.
Steps feel awesome, plateaus are frustrating.
The steady increment comes from simply doing and enjoying it.
The most efficient way is to make the steady increment as steep as possible without losing the fun. Watching your replays, writing down notes, being concentrated while driving etc. But if you try too hard, you won't enjoy the pure drive anymore.
Plateaus are tricky.. The longer you stay on one, the more confident you become with exactly that situation, which can be a good thing but isn't really getting you faster.
So the moment the plateau is frustrating you, you need to know how to overcome them.
For me, there are mainly these 2 ways of forcing a step up:
- investing "no fun" time into the current situation and getting better at what you're currently doing:
That would be asking a faster driver for replay/telemetry/ghostcar file etc and then trying to replicate it corner by corner and getting faster.
That's definitely not for everyone... I like to do that every now and then and I think it can be a very rewarding way when you see the delta dropping!
But it's mainly brain work...
- changing perspective to simply get fresh inputs that complete your overall skillset a bit more:
Changing the gt3 car is one thing. Changing the car class is better. Changing the sim is probably the most efficient!
I've done some races in raceroom and automobilista but to get me faster in AC, rfactor 2 gt3's were the best.
They drive very similar but yet completely different! You feel a lot of different things that you'd never feel in AC.
However when you go back to AC, you suddenly feel the same things, which instantly make you just better overall.
ACC can help too but it's quite complicated and rather dull, instead of "overly telling" like rf2.
To give it some analogies:
- AC feels like a car feels but sometimes you lose control without really knowing why.
- Rf2 feels like driving a sponge with lots of feedback. You feel the brake in the steering, you can drift on the throttle but overall it's kinda mushy and everything feels exaggerated.
- ACC feels like a rigid brick. For me the cars feel like a stiff as heck gt3 car should feel.
But it's lacking the clear feedback.
The traction control and the aero changing during load changes are unique in acc imo.
It's a good experience to change perspective though!
Sorry for the long waffle, maybe it helps a few to find a way to push to the next skill step.
Btw, I'm happily plateau'ing since more than a year. Depending on the practice and how much I've already driven at a certain track and with the car, I can fight for the podium or just cruise safely with no pressure at the back - to midfield and enjoy some battles
In real life you wouldn't just jump into a GT3 as a starter car. These are very fast difficult machines and drivers take years to work up to a car of this complexity.
It's true that you wouldn't just jump into a gt3 car but it's not true that they are difficult
Gt3 cars are difficult to drive at top level pace but to just "do some casual laps", they are probably the easiest cars out there with the similarities to road cars, abs & tc and massive amounts of grip without too much ground effect that would feel weird and uncomfortable at first.
Sadly AC doesn't really delivers this.. Taking the lambo for example:
You can drive slowly and on cold tyres, you can spin when taking the second lesmo a bit wrong even at half the normal speed and just wouldn't know why you lost control...
This goes together with my stories about ACC and rf2 above.
In these 2 sims, driving slowly is the easiest thing in the world. I've never spun in either sim without pushing massively beyond the limit!
Going back to AC, I've spun while trailbraking into T1..
But I just love AC for not being overly complex, pleasant visuals, awesome community and having the best races with you all!