Hex you are more on your FFB than on what is really going on with the car!
Try to drive without FFB at all!
You will see that (many, most?) cars don´t react in alogical manner and that grip and controller-input is dumbed down
and that it has in no way the fidelity that rF2 has.
Otherwise I must say that there must be something wrong with your senses.....
I mean: look alone at the Clios.......................................they are lightyears, galaxys and worlds apart.
i gotta say, this spurred me to do a head to head -- theyre really not, imo.
i did 2 5 lap races against 13 AI, 60% pCARS (yeah..im slow), 90% rf2 (i usually do 95 but the opposite of what i expected happened), 15 min warmup in both. started w/ pCARS; warmup wasnt promising, i got out of the garage late & never saw any other cars, my pace was 2-3 seconds off the AI. im not good w/ silverstone or FWD, so i knew this wouldnt be great, but i did think the clio was simple enough & 60% was low enough id be on pace w/ them. the race was actually great -- stayed w/ the pack the 1st lap so i improved my lines, was almost always racing someone, even almost somehow came from way back to take 4th in the last stretch (thinking it was the "that one corner" syndrome empty box was talking about, tho tbh i hadnt noticed it to that point). 5th place, nice race, on to rf2. had my fun, now the real deal.
the car was about the same, more understeer tho (i used default setups both, tho i ended up messing w/ the rf2 one), although the car is so slow (at least w/ me driving it) that the points where this is a problem can pretty much be compensated for by spinning the wheel like im driving a bus. i finish warmup w/ a time almost identical to my race pace in pCARS (..im not gonna say). it turns out im 2-3 seconds ahead of the AI out of warmup now; i had thought that there would be a curve going from pC to rf2 but instead (duh) after just driving the same track & car, my experience had carried directly over.
i realized id messed up the AI so i messed around w/ the setup, tried to dial out the understeer a bit, i removed the front ARB bc it seemed like itd do that, added camber, & that was it bc i frankly dont know what else to do. was placed 3rd on the grid & got off to (i guess) a really good start, was in first place very quickly, & it was clear i wasnt going to lose it. from there i realized i had basically 2 options, a)toying with the AI to see if i could get some fun from my mess-up or b)seeing how well i could manage my tires for the 5 laps. after a minute or so of a) i chose option c, ending the race.
as for the physics in each, i stay away from that for many reasons, & just evaluate grip bc its not really subjective & a caveman could do it. pCARS surprised me by being slipperier as i didnt have any heavy rubber presets for silverstone. just what is listed as medium, tho it didnt even look like that to me. i know pC has pretty low grip relative to other sims, but figured rf2 on a track that wasnt rubbered down would be the slicker of the two.
the big difference -- i think, cant confirm -- will come as no surprise, tire wear. in warmups in rf2 i had pretty well chewed thru my fronts. i didnt have the telemtry app on for pCARS, but i was comfortable the entire race, despite abusing the tires a bit more. supposedly theres some issue w/ tire wear in all non formula A cars in pC right now, but i dont know the details except that theyre reported to wear far less than they should.
i was pretty surprised, & this is actually the second time this has happened w/ me. after really enjoying the caterham in pCARS, i immediately thought of the panoz, & thought -- as fun as this is, im gonna boot up rf2, get in that thing after a year or whatever its been, & this is just gonna seem crap in comparison. it didnt! its just a really fun car. in a really fun sim.
TLDR: id absolutely recommend pC for lower level simracers. and imo people who have more idea with whats going on, or should be going on, are still prob gonna find it worth checking out for what ppl in this thread say they like it for, a change of pace, not by definition 'arcade' but something similar but alot less punishing.
