Reverse Layouts – A Sheer Resource

[Mascot]

I think Legion has a few reverse layouts for AC on his blog in case anyone wants to try them.

 

[Raikku]

Would be brilliant idea in irl racing too. Alternately clockwise and anti on different years. All tracks would be suddenly "new" and exciting.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Zero interest in driving a real track in reverse, maybe if I was playing my game with a game pad watching a flat screen and getting ( understandably) bored, but I drive my SIM in VR with decent wheel and pedals on a tactile rig, enjoying the immersion of driving in a properly simulated car on properly simulated Lazer scanned tracks.
I rarely drive fantasy tracks because I rather spend the limited time I can dedicate to SIM driving to real tracks.
The only interest I have in this thread is that it, once again, demonstrate how vastly different we are enjoying what can appear as the same hobby but is definitely not. The only common denominator is that we all launch a driving car related software in an electronic device, what happens to us after is so wildly different that reading any ones comment without an understanding of what they are really after and what they are using to get their fun is at best flawed, at worst totally useless.
Some say we are all doing the same hobby, nothing could be further from the truth, this thread is the sad proof of it.

 

[Marc Collins]

I wish every track (OK, maybe 95% not 100%) had reverse layouts included. They are just an option and do not have to be used in a serious sim or championship manner if only authentic tracks are allowed. But why not have them as a fun extra challenge? In many cases, the challenges are dramatically different than the original layout, so aside from the scenery, it is like having a completely different track.

Since good quality tracks take a massive amount of work to produce, and a reverse layout probably takes only 5% to 10% of the original effort, anyone who values more tracks should be in favour. And like almost everything else in a sim, no one is forcing anyone to use them. There are aspects of every sim I own that I ignore--but I don't go around telling others or the devs not to include these features or content just because I prefer not to use it.

 

[Beezer215]

Gran Turismo Sport has the reverse configuration of Spa in it. Eau Rouge is even more daunting in reverse IMO

GTS absolutely does not have the reverse of Spa. Only reverse of tracks it has are it's own fictional tracks.

If you're on AC and want some reverse layouts of tracks, check out "Assetto Corsa Legions Blog" in your google search. Bathurst is great. He also has it mirrored. Can't believe the few waffles in here that would frown on a layout they aren't used to. If it was that way from the beginning, this wouldn't even be an issue to complain about. I will never understand snubbing additional content for no reason other than "it's not how it's supposed to be".

 

[wicken]

Did nobody play the GRID games? I sure as hell don't want that experience.

 

[MarkR]

Zero interest in driving a real track in reverse, maybe if I was playing my game with a game pad watching a flat screen and getting ( understandably) bored, but I drive my SIM in VR with decent wheel and pedals on a tactile rig, enjoying the immersion of driving in a properly simulated car on properly simulated Lazer scanned tracks.
I rarely drive fantasy tracks because I rather spend the limited time I can dedicate to SIM driving to real tracks.
The only interest I have in this thread is that it, once again, demonstrate how vastly different we are enjoying what can appear as the same hobby but is definitely not. The only common denominator is that we all launch a driving car related software in an electronic device, what happens to us after is so wildly different that reading any ones comment without an understanding of what they are really after and what they are using to get their fun is at best flawed, at worst totally useless.
Some say we are all doing the same hobby, nothing could be further from the truth, this thread is the sad proof of it.

You sound a bit grumpy today my good VR buddy.

I agree with you about limited-time and choosing wisely how we use that with so much choice today.

Unless I've misunderstood you, you sound a bit harsh on those of us who also like the reverse and fantasy tracks. I hear a lot of the same 'real track time and sim driving are not the same hobby' comments from other track users, usually as a kind of put down.

Like you, I enjoy many as close to real as possible virtual laps and flights a year in VR. But for every lap in ACC and flight in DCS world I enjoy some close racing in flat screen Forza, flying in VTOL VR with its amazing virtual cockpit controls and blasting through space in Elite (which is totally what space flight will be like when it arrives... ). Equally, I've driven lots of created tracks in the real world - where an airfield has been turned into a track for a track day, they are no less real than the known circuits.

For me, the Red Bull Ring is as much a fantasy track as something designed by a dev. I have never been there and it remains a bucket list item to drive a few laps one day. Personally I can see the space for both the close to real and reverse/created.

I enjoy your enthusiasm for VR so this is as always meant as cordial debate about or shared racing game interest.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Unless I've misunderstood you, you sound a bit harsh on those of us who also like the reverse and fantasy tracks

you have misunderstood me, every one is welcome to enjoy his software any way they want. Their is no better way, definitely even less of a “superior” way. All that matter is having fun.
My post is about how in appearance we are all enjoying the same “hobby”. When actually all we share for sure is some interest in motor sports but are getting our fun from very different aspects of SIM/racing games.
The challenge is not that we are different, that is more of a blessing, the challenge is that we all react from a very different perspective without knowing where we are all coming from.
All I hope for is that everyone enjoys their particular use of our SIM/racing games software as much as I do.
Yes, from this VR fan perspective, reverse layout brings me back to memory of my entrance to racing game, when I was pushing pixels with a game pad using GT3 in front of the car camera on my crt tv from the coach across the room.
Some other RD visitors, are in the same situation I am, most other not at all.
vive la différence!

 

[MarkR]

you have misunderstood me, every one is welcome to enjoy his software any way they want.
vive la différence!

Fab, I thought I might have! We agree then, enjoy the games and track time that floats your boat.

 

[Case_]

I've often been wondering about various tracks in reverse, sadly it is rarely available, which is a shame. I feel like that's actually one of the main points of simracing - offer options that are not available in real life.

imagine how pathetic Dirt Rally 2.0 base content would be, if all stages could be only driven one way. They could also do mirrored stages while they're at it.

AMS has some reversed layout, Ibarra was it. I actually prefer that track reversed, looks better reversed (scenery elements come to FOV more) and somehow flows better too imo

Thing is, the reversed stages in DR are still realistic - the stages are run both ways quite often IRL. If they added mirrored versions, they would no longer be authentic. Not saying I would have an issue with that, see above, but I think that's the reason they are not doing it.
And, as already pointed out, Ibarra has a reverse layout simply because it is sometimes ran in reverse IRL as well. And I also like the reverse version better, tbh, to the point the normal version feels weird to me.

 

[norbs]

Should be mandatory in all games.

 

[FormulaET]

What if I told you that there was a way to look at tracks as if it was the very first time again?

We are used to consider reverse layouts as something usually driven for fun, or in arcade games as an alternative to enrich the track offer. However, I have started to wonder, after driving some of them, if reverse layouts could not be considered as something more than just a pastime. In fact, while running at first on some of the many Silverstone layouts in reverse, I started noticing how much fun they can be, and the challenge that they offer. Yes because going the opposite direction is not something we are used in doing, it is challenging to our very own way of thinking.

Without going too much into the deep philosophical plane of explanation, it is true that we are used to see things only from a specific perspective. More often than not, one that has been taught to us or professed to us as right. We then learn to separate the good from the bad, based on that very perspective, and we try to get external approval by seeking for others opinions and confronting them with ours. If they are similar, we feel safe; if they are not, either we change what we think or we try to stand our ground and collect accolades by showing how right our opinion actually is, exactly because so different from the one everyone else has.

We are not used to pursue an unlike look of things, just for the sake of it. How much we are missing by not doing so, my friends! We are most scared that by looking at things from a different perspective, ground might shake under our feet. Yet isn’t our life a journey through perilous seas? We thrive through waves, we rot on still ground.

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Reverse layouts can be a most useful partner in our quest to learn to have a different mentality. The reason is very simple. By going the opposite direction, we understand a whole lot of things. First, that everything has (at least) two faces to it, two ways to look at it, valid all the same, just different, maybe opposite. We cannot and should not limit ourselves by accepting one and refusing the other. That is because, secondly, it is by fully experiencing the one different from what we accept as right for us that we may realize if that is actually true, or if we have always lived the wrong way (bad joke, I know!). Thirdly, it is only by freeing our mind from the boundaries of looking at things in binaries, to start seeing things from different perspectives just to have a fresh look at them, for the enjoyment of discovering new vistas, that we taste what life truly is about.

If you don’t believe me, if you think that I am just making a fuzz out of all of this, start trying driving reverse layouts, and see for yourself. However, do not do it as an exotic diversion, or as a lazy experiment. In these cases, just do not bother. Try it with honest intention and earnestly. Otherwise, you won’t understand.

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It has been by racing the reverse layouts of some of the tracks I love that I have fully realized the reasons why I love them, their strengths and weaknesses, the points where I could exploit better a particularity of the circuit. At times, this happened at the cost of despising the reverse layout, true, but that is good. As we said, how could you truly be so sure about something you believe in, if you haven’t really experienced the opposite of it, or even refused to just look at it? How, if you never questioned it?

Other times, I’ve had just so much fun, that I wondered why I did not do it before. The challenge was so thrilling, so exciting, so fit for a specific type of vehicles that it felt wrong not to use it for them. It was better than the original.

Sometimes instead, tracks, or parts of them, are not meant to be driven in reverse, and that is what makes it more challenging. To still try to be fast, by approaching the circuit in a way you were not supposed to. It could also happen, on the contrary, that the reverse layouts felt just as right as the normal one. Equally challenging, equally fun, equally logical. It felt like discovering a new venue altogether. In these instances, a sim can double its offer by just offering an alternative to the usual, at (almost) zero cost.

In the end, this wants to be merely a suggestion, a friendly reminder that there could be so much more out of the ordinary, out of the already known, if only one learns to have different eyes. Do not get tired of looking!

You'll find reverse layouts of my tracks. I agree totally, gives the track a whole new 'flavor' to add to it's normal direction.

 

[Pawel Ziolkowski]

Speaking of rallying, im gonna leave this here: (gets to the point at 2:00)

 

[Case_]

(Holy crap, the part between Hohe Acht and Ex-mühle is absolutely bonkers in reverse. I really have to try Nordschleife in reverse now.)

 

[ShredatorFIN]

Thing is, the reversed stages in DR are still realistic - the stages are run both ways quite often IRL. If they added mirrored versions, they would no longer be authentic.

And, as already pointed out, Ibarra has a reverse layout simply because it is sometimes ran in reverse IRL as well.

Hmm, I didn't remember that. Interesting. Been watching 1000 Lakes Rally in Finland many times on the site (because we used to live near, and hear the cars anyway so could as well show up) but that was many many years ago, as a child. To be honest I don't follow rally as a sport much.

Interesting to know about Ibarra, makes sense because AMS doesn't have many (if any other?) of these reverse layouts

 

[cnuk]

johnblack developed a program for good old Grand Prix Legends.
With one click, the program would create a reverse track with working AI.
The name created was the reverse spelling.
For example, "Monza" became "Aznom"!

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

RACE 07 had a few reversed layouts which we used quite a lot in our online races back in the days. Good fun!

 

[Dave Thayer]

Besides the Reverse theme here as something for a new look. Most games now have Night Time Driving, Weather changes, Seasonal changes, etc. Try doing a night time race with Rain turned on in a game. That also gives a new look and feel to racing each of the tracks.

 

[Roy Magnes]

RACE 07 had a few reversed layouts which we used quite a lot in our online races back in the days. Good fun!

I have tested Macau in reverse in Race 07 not that long ago... What chaos

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

I have tested Macau in reverse in Race 07 not that long ago... What chaos

I remember the Valencia 07 Reversed was good fun. And isn't Macau always chaos, whatever the direction