Sorry if this is the wrong place for this thread.

I think many people here know the STCC servers and race on them. Moreover, I think I'm not the only one that noticed this problem: FXO being much faster than the other two cars in its class. As a result, many people keep on driving FXO even after they achieve a gold license. In my opinion that ruins the races for people wanting to drive the other two. I know the issue of the unveneness in classes has been brought up billions of times, but because of the STCC I think it is more "up to date" than ever.

Now if I'm the only one who thinks that the FXO, XGT and RB4 put on one STCC server is a problem, then fine. I'll shut it.

If I'm not, then I think it's clear it would be nice of the people responsible for STCC to consider our comments

Having separate servers for Silver licenced racers, and Gold licenced? Forcing passengers into the FXO's? I don't know.

Just to be clear: I absolutely love the whole STCC "system", for me it brought Life back to LiveFS Just at this stage I'm getting rather ticked off by the unfair races. (or at least what I consider unfair)

Welcome to the year 2003. FXO dominated the TBO class back then and not much has changed. FXO pussy wagon should have a class of its own.

When you reach gold they should force you into the UF1 so as to give the newcomers more chance to get their licence.

I was thinking the other day how well the FXO would compare with the FZ50. I know the FZ would have a blazing advantage on straights, but the FXO would be on it's ass through corners. On the shorter tracks favoured by the STCC it could be interesting to watch

Dajmin:

Between the FXO and FZ50 there's a bigger difference in times then between the RB4,XGT and FXO. (I looked at the WR's on the shortest tracks). So my guess is that the 2 wouldn't compare at all.

Another guess is, that if there in fact was an STCC server with the FXO and FZ50, all of the people who now apparently drive the FXO "for fun" as they say would suddenly switch to the FZ50

I guess it all depends on the track and driver. There's a 3 sec difference between the 2 WRs in BL1, but there's less than a second difference at SO Classic and FE Club / Green.

I think we should rather stick to the topic - TBO class

It is a tad annoying to be up at the sharp end in the XRT only to have a swarm of FXOs come flying past, but then again, you can get so much safisfaction when you know there are people behind you who are a good 2 seconds faster and they still can't get past.

It depends on the track though, Kyoto National for example it is really hard to keep the FXOs behind as they can carry more speed onto the banked section, but on FE Gold as long as you drive neatly in an XRT any FXOs will have a tough task overtaking.

What about limiting the points you score in the FXO after you have reached Gold, the same way that points scored on the Bronze servers get limited after you reach your Silver License ?

Not giving a chance to use any kind of help when driving the RB4 and XRT also moves people to drive the FXO's more often, from the 3 the RB4 is the slowest, it takes a very very good driver to keep the RB4 running in the front.

The XRT can keep up with the FXO's in the twisty tracks and short tracks, one advantage of the XRT is that most drivers in the FXO's fear sendind the XRT out of the track , it only takes a little nudge, so extra carefull is needed when overtaking this cars, when it's FXO against FXO things usually gets more agressive, well at least that's what i think.

It is very satisfying to keep the FXO's behind you when your in an RB4 too. But that only happens on the short tracks and even then the FXO is faster. You can still have great fun with the XRT and RB4. Besides IMO it doesnt matter where you place, long as your improving on what you already have eventually you will take that RB4 or XRT and kick those other drivers butt because your so darn good at driving it =P

If you watch the STCC you can see that the RB's and XRT's can be competitive to a degree. It's just those big tracks that cause a problem =)

They do need to be fixed and I am sure they are being worked on. Wait and see what happens. Once we are able to give weight penalties to people this should make it much more interesting =)

Quote from szyszek :

Having separate servers for Silver licenced racers, and Gold licenced? Forcing passengers into the FXO's? I don't know.

Both are good suggestions imo but I'd like separate servers more. Full field of XRT's would be just fantastic Defending some 6th place is fun only for a while and a win/podium in an FXO isn't that great either to me personally

EDIT: Points are irrelevant to me at this point, I'd just like a level playing field and good racing

Quote from Bean0 :

What about limiting the points you score in the FXO after you have reached Gold, the same way that points scored on the Bronze servers get limited after you reach your Silver License ?

This could work as well

An extra gold/platinum server would be a great idea, but i suppose it depends on STCC resources. It'd give gold/platinum racers a chance to fight with fuller grids of (mostly ) decent drivers.

I'm not really worried about the difference between FXOs and the rest, as long as it's taken into account with points etc properly i'm cool with it.

If there was a gold+grade server it would mean a lot more people racing the XRT+RB4, since the FXO doesn't score as many points as you're not gonna loose out from that standpoint and they are a lot of fun too.

Silver should be in the XRT, gold in the RB4 and platinum in the FXO. This way the FXO would hardly get any use and it's logical to go from the XRG to the XRT. That way races would be far more balanced and because I doubt people that get Platinum will want to blitz the whole field in their FXO, what fun woould that be? I hate the FXO, and just as I was beginning to get good at the XRG and whooping ass agaisnt XFGs, I was thrust into the crap-understeering-whale-boat-car so I hardly race at all anymore

The thing with separating the TBOs to separate classes (apart from resources) might be that there would not be enough people for each server.

I think that we should can use throtlle blip on RB4 and XRT, and more people will drive them. Or forbit throtlle blip for FXO. So all 3 cars should be same.

2nd thing, maybe point should be more for xrt, rb4. not just 7 times, maybe 10 times!

btw. i hate fxo

Some interesting thoughts in THIS THREAD, which IS ABOUT these PUBLIC SERVERS, AND the BALANCING of THE TBO CLASS. (Hopefully this coded message will arrive and sink in, for once)

We've decided that this evening, we're going to turn things on their head a bit. The RB4 and XRT are going to be the only cars available to silver licenced drivers. The full TBO class will be available to gold licenced drivers. Hopefully this will encourage more driving of the lesser two cars. They are great cars to drive, but everyone tends to drive the FXO because they prefer to win.

People probably forget that you don't actually NEED to win, to earn more points.. if you're in the RB4/XRT, you can do quite badly and improve your licence points more than by winning in an FXO.

Weight penalties would be a great way to solve the TBO balance issue. It's generally known that the FXO is more capable of winning in most circumstances. It's even remarkably competitive on RallyX. Weight penalties nicely parallel real-world racing, too.

Good too see that this thread got some attention, and most of all - something is actually being done!

SamH: I guess the most probable outcome is that practically everyone will drive FXO on the gold servers, but the "gold racers" who hate FXO (such as me) can still race on the Silver server. Now, will we still get points for that?

Cheers, and thanks for the replies and good ideas everyone

Yes virtually every type of roadcourse racing has them. You win you get 50 pounds added 2nd you get 30 and 3rd you get 15 or something like that. Everytime you place out of the top 3 you get weight subtracted until you reach the minimum weight again.

Adds another bit of stratagy too. For instance you rack up a couple top 3's and your carrying extra weight. You know the next race after the one your at now is going to be big long straits you intentionally place just out of the top 3 so you can get the weight taken off to place better in the next race against presumably your direct rivals to the points who placed in the top 3 in the previous race. This is banking on ofcourse if they actually place out of the top 5 for the next race, but if your running 3rd or something it's another option to hopefully score more points.

Quote from szyszek :

Good too see that this thread got some attention, and most of all - something is actually being done!

SamH: I guess the most probable outcome is that practically everyone will drive FXO on the gold servers, but the "gold racers" who hate FXO (such as me) can still race on the Silver server. Now, will we still get points for that?

Cheers, and thanks for the replies and good ideas everyone

I don't think it's going to be a new server so much as someone with a silver license cannot race the FXO on the Silver/Gold server.

Quote from SamH :

People probably forget that you don't actually NEED to win, to earn more points.. if you're in the RB4/XRT, you can do quite badly and improve your licence points more than by winning in an FXO.

The thing at the moment though is that there are so many FXOs that even getting a top 10 finish in XRT/RB4 on some tracks is nigh on impossible when the servers are busy.

The new system should address this though, looking forward to trying it out later.

@szyszek, the points situation won't change.. you'll continue to earn points as you do now - more for the RB4 and even more for the XRT. This is specific to the Silver & Gold server.. no changes are being made to the Platinum server.

@Viper93.. kewl! Multi-race strategies.. that's very appealing! (and a sizeable portion of the purpose behind these public servers!) I hope this is Scawen's plan, then. Although ANYTHING to balance the class out would be welcome, I have to say!

Quote from Bean0 :

The new system should address this though, looking forward to trying it out later.

Hopefully, yeah! And yes! Me too!

I run this often when theres a good group of friends on a server - winner gets an extra passenger for the next race, in that way helping another slower car to win. But if you lose they stay in. When you win with all 4 passengers in then you are the champion. Really helps you get a feel for racing lines, driving much more smoothly with a heavier car.
Anyone that is not seen as playing by the passenger handicap rules gets polietely asked to sit out. It makes for some close, fun racing.

I had a few races like this a couple of months ago, and it's a really good intermediary step towards balancing.. and BOY did it level out the field!! Great fun!

For the public servers, I think it's technically impossible to capture the number of passengers in a car via InSim at the moment (which we'd need to be able to do, in order to enforce anything), so it's not an option for us. As a way to race on a fully admin-attended server, though.. great racing is to be had this way!

Quote from SamH :

@Viper93.. kewl! Multi-race strategies.. that's very appealing! (and a sizeable portion of the purpose behind these public servers!) I hope this is Scawen's plan, then. Although ANYTHING to balance the class out would be welcome, I have to say!

We used passenger penalties in CRC Mini League, didn't work too well with UF1's and a minimum penalty of 80kg (a passenger), but it gave a nice preview what to expect when we really ARE able to put weight in the cars

An other thing about the public servers. Lot of drivers use driving aids, to keep winning, or just be in the top 3. The red message, isn't enough forceful I think. After the driver reached platinum, or gold (so he/she can use all of the cars) dont cares about points.

The solution would be to decrease points if they use unaccepted helps. After they loose some points, get back in the license ladder, cant use for example FXO This would be much more deterrent

I like to see the weight penalty system in the public servers (For example: in every 2.000 points, you should get 1 passenger in. And if you dont do that, you can get a point penalty ), and in the official STCC races too.