I've noticed that LFS servers are dominated by races in the bigger faster cars. As much as I love the FO8, FZ50 et al, I'd love to see more servers hosting races for our smaller and more forgotten friends: The MRT5, XFR and even (gulp) the GTI.
Races in lower powered cars are often closer and more accessible to more racers than an F08 race at AS Historic, for example. Hopefully leading to larger fields and tighter racing.
One thing that might cause this great game's demise is accessibility (or lack thereof), and the current lean towards the extreme cars on the servers aint helping this a bit.
There always seem to be servers offering UF1 races, I have done these a few times and they offer very close, very fun racing.
On the other hand, I do agree with you on the variety thing, there are a number of tracks that I have never seen a server for........, but there are at least 4 servers offering GTR cars on Aston.
i often look for servers with either XFG or XRGs but there arent many - if any any times. i run a small 10 slot server for them myself sometimes but my connection ain't the best for this.
I also think that there should be more servers with some normal cars, like GTI, those Blackwood runs are so great with good comepetition!, i bet it's great on other tracks, and we can have 20 players, not 11 like in demo.. Also, MRT is so great, LX's i tried some offline and it's great, i bet it's even better online.. I dont' know why people like so much GTR cars, i find them very frustrating, and not intererestring to drive.. FOX on the other hand is great! and i am glad that it is popular online..
Going by the little flag next to your nick you're an aussie, I believe one of the optus servers is now permanently setup for the road going cars, LX4 down iirc.
The thing about people driving the faster cars is that many of us have driven the low powered cars to death through S1, slicks and downforce are the new things to play with and there are also many people who just don't like low powered cars.
I wouldn't mind seeing the dedi server setup to only allow either slick or road tyred cars, might reduce the number of servers with all cars and provide a bit more variety.
Spot on there digger, and yeah I've been on the Optus servers on occaision. When they're up and populated that is.
That's a very good point about servers allowing all cars. It only takes one bloke to jump into an FO8 and everyone will follow. Then you might as well have a server that is FO8 only. Kinda pointless when you think about it.
This is brought up all the time, more servers with just the road cars, more variety in tracks, etc. If you made more servers with the road cars, then I think it would just make the GTR and other slick car servers fuller. These cars are the ones that are popular, therefore everyone will run them. Just because some people want more servers running the road cars, doesn't mean others will join. The faster cars are popular, therefore that's what they will run. I see plenty of servers running just the road cars myself, they are just empty. If anyone agrees with your opinion on the road cars, then if you join an empty server, then others should follow along shortly. If not, then you are of minority opinion. It's like saying here in the US that too many are driving Japanese cars so we should make more of the dealers switch to selling American cars. You can't get rid of all the Japanese manufacturer dealerships, so the ones that are left will just sell more cars each than they would if there were many dealerships.
My opinion, the new tracks were made for the race cars and most as myself are enjoying the new tracks with the new cars.
Well, I think this is a little narrow minded. You obviously love your race cars and couldn't care less about the road cars in S2. Good for you.
However, some people (other than yourself) actually enjoy racing the road cars too. You said yourself "This is brought up all the time". My point was that there are limited opportunities at the moment.
I just had a look then, and (discarding servers allowing all cars) 12/14 available servers were allowing GT and open wheelers. Some where allowing road cars too, but my experience shows that nearly everyone opts for the fastest allowed cars. Who wants to race against an FO8 in a GTI?
These servers were on average around 1/3 full, so I wouldn't be too worried about a few more road car servers causing overload on other servers.
Of the 2 servers only allowing road cars, both were about 1/3 full and both playing the BL GP Track. One was GTI only, the other allowing XRTurbo, RBF and FXO. Not a lot of choice there eh?
I realise that the race cars are more popular, I love 'em too. However I think there are plenty of available servers to provide a good variety racing on a good variety of tracks, and if decent road car races were available, people would join them.
I'm a bit torn, I love playing with the road cars but most important to me is practising for my league races, which are (currently) with the FOX and GTRs. So that's where I mainly put my hours in.
I've often joined empty servers and raced by myself for an hour or two, to have at most three or four people join - barely enough for a race. I also sometimes host a server myself if I can't find a good combo elsewhere, but I have similar success in terms of people joining in.
I also get tired of seeing nothing but F08s and GTR cars in the races. I run the Seattle server and generally have those cars disabled on the server. Last night we have between 3-8 people on the server all night running MRTs, FZ 50s, GTs, etc. We ran the cadet track at Aston, but spent most of our time on less used tracks like Westhill (and Westhill in the FZ 50 is a blast!).
I've also found that turning off the GTR cars is a great way to keep out less experienced drivers. For some reason it seems like newbies always want to jump right into the FZR and run full throttle. If the GTR cars aren't available, those type of people tend not to join the server.
I've noticed an interesting thing. Usually at night time (about 3:00-7:00 CET) there are very few full servers. Usually just two. The other one is a drift server and the other one (what a surprise) KV Oval & FO8. I think Japanese players are on the drift server and American oval fans on the other server?
Leagues have a big influence on what cars a server runs... well so I think. Most people tend to race on a server that allows them to practice for an upcoming league race.
I bet if next the AAL was a road car league there would be hardly any faster car servers and most people would be practicing the road cars
I don't use the road cars any more at all. They have lost their appeal for me. You just can't push them the same way you can the FOX, the GTR cars and the FO8. I was looking forward to some semi-slicks or slicks for the road cars but alas it did not happen.
Our team had a race in the UF1s around cadet the other night and we were all bored well before lap 5. I guess the race cars spoil you a bit, but I just can't get enough of them.
I like seeing servers with only one car selectable. That way you are sure of a close fight on more or less equal terms. Although there are times when mixed classes can work together it isn't always good on a public server. A XFG vs a LX4 is never going to be a fair fight, for example, so you can't stop someone from ruining your XFG race with your friends, all they need to do is join with the LX4. While most servers try to cater to a broad spectrum of racers, I believe more success will be had if you specialise in one car or class only per server. If your server is always up at the same regular time and always set to the same regular class then people who like racing that class should begin to notice and show up regularly.
I agree that it isn't a good idea to allow all cars on a track. I always stay away from these servers. It would make no sense if I want to practise with a GTR or even worse with a GTI and some minutes later other drivers join in driving with Formula 1 cars.
But a little bit variaty should be there in my opinon. Yesterday I hosted the "Sunday's Fun Server" with short 5 round races, allowing UF1, XFG, XRG, XRT and LX4, which should appeal to newbes knowing the demo cars and drivers who loves to drive or try out the Mini and Roadcars.
A very good driver who loves drifting around can be competive with the XRG to an unexperienced XRT driver. I had also an intersting race in my XRT against someone who liked to learn the LX4 Roadcar. The UF1 and XFG are perfect to learn a new track due to their good handling and braking abilities.
We were up to 5-6 drivers yesterday and I enjoyed it very much. Alas I have no oppotunity to run a 24/7 server. I'm sure such servers could be a success if some people even with different driving skills come together for having fun and forget for half an hour of winning and being the fastest is everything.
it's really a shame that some cars and tracks are very rare...
i think one problem is that we have too many ranges of cars, i mean except fo8 and fox wich is reasonable, if it could be chaged or added some cars to have similar performance to lx's and mrt. also if uf1 could have similar performance to gti would be much better.
to me it's very important if could be reduced "classes" of cars making cars into each class almost equal in performance even with much different behaviour and in each class it should be present a fwd, a rwd and an awd. this is the key to more interesting races because it reduces the spread of racers, adds a lot of variety by having much different cars racing together and so avoids that some wonderful cars are forgotten.
about track variety i don't know what could be done but it's a shame that we have so many configurations (let's dont forget reversed configs) and everyone always plays the same...i've seen fern bay black only once since s2 came out!!!
A lot have to do with racers attitude. Today I made a server running on Green among others. 3 players left the server immediatly after they weren't on first position after the first 3 corners. Well they were involved in a crash, but something like that I've only seen on Midnight Club 2 servers. (I have never seen more childish behaviour in an online game like there.)
After 3 corners the race has just begun and there are many chances to come back If you try your best and don't give up. In particular on a track full of Newbes, even if it's a short run race. But with quitting the game, if you feel uncomfortable, you will never learn an unknown track.
yes it's true! many times when i see it's impossible to get an almost clean start (especially with fox) i leave all pass at start or i start from pits, i wait 20 seconds for the crash at first corner to be completed ( ) and i start my race, usually i finish in the first 3 positions...and i'm only an average racer...
what also many experienced racers lack is patience and learn how to prepare a pass and how to be passed...i only play lfs on weekends and everytime is a carnage, but once each 2 months i find a race where for few laps i can fight against a cool-clean racer and we pas each other like IRL without touch as if we were in REAL CARS...well after that the two of us are so happy that we forget all the carnage of all days...that "perfect race" each 2 months is why i keep playing LFS...the real spirit of races...to fight against all the odds and win, or simply find a good fight even for 8th position...that's what online races should always be, but it's so rare...
i do host in S1 mode from time to time, allowing all cars up to the LX4 with FE1/FE2, BL1/BL2, SO1/SO2 allowed - those were the tracks, i had the most fun in quick races
so if some of you want to race some road cars that won'T be ruined by the FO8 people joining, do check the S1 mode from time to time as well
yes - and i did it before - but except for the UF1, all cars are S1 content
and if we use the fact. that you don'T have to buy S2 if you own S1 and still get the new features to promote LfS, then we should at least keep the S1 part of the game playable - which isn'T the case at the moment. the last 3 or 4 times i took a look at the S1 mode, there weren't any public servers available, just some eastern european private servers (russia and hungary)
that's why i think we shouldn't forget the S1 drivers - or we should get rid of the possibility to buy S1 licenses
