This is starting to drive me INSANE

first, apologies to fair drivers in the servers when I've got really annoyed and 'vented' my anger... (don't worry Sam, I do it between races and try not to swear)

I cannot believe how bad it has been in the last couple of days

Seems like all the Demo folks have got S2 licences and warped onto the CTRA servers. Today so far, in populated races, I've had maybe 2 out of 20 or so where I've NOT been shunted or cut up unfairly with no apology and no 'wait for repass'. In some corners especially hairpins, it seems like it's normal practice to dive up the inside with no 50% overlap at turn in point. I mean if you approach a hairpin with someone behind and take the racing line, 9 times out of 10, they will attempt to dive up the inside - so you have to go wide or you will be pushed off track...

I feel that the reporting system just is not working !
bad attitude and ignorance of the rules seem to be endemic, these days.

(fewer of the more experienced racers seem to be playing much on these servers these days ? maybe I've just been unlucky recently)

Just had a race on FEClub... the guy behind in FXO has just won his gold licence ...
so anyway, in the race I get slowed by a back marker and he gets by... ok so I follow for many laps being carefull, making no contact, no 'silly' moves... after many laps, he makes an error and runs very wide in a turn, I take my oportunity and pass him inside... he turns in slightly - we swap paint... no biggie... so at last after patience dilligence and many laps of hard racing I'm in the lead... penultimate lap (13 of 14), he shunts me out of the way mid turn and fires on through like it was a great move, and goes on to win the race.... no apology...
After the race, he explains it was OK.. he only tapped me gently, the reason I slid wide was because I was braking so hard !? like it was my fault because I was using my full traction budget and expecting a fair race ?

I have NOT reported this incident! I have had so many similar incidents racing today - often more than one per race - that if I was to report them all, I would spend more time viewing replays and writing up reports than racing.

One problem I feel is that that any punishments handed out after reports are not public !
If the less experienced racers were to see that people are losing licences and points for unfair driving, they would be much more likely to learn and obey the rules...
This is how it happens in the real world - when folks break the rules it's public.. which works ! it makes a much better deterent.

I reported a guy yesterday for multiple illegal pass attempts - he was diving up the inside at hairpins with no fair overlap over and over... he explained that it was fair to do so... I reported with conclusive (IMO) replay evidence and a detailed report... so today the same guy is pulling the same moves - what was the point in me wasting my time viewing replays, writing reports etc... I got no response - afaikt nothing was done, the same guy is still a danger on track.

Do we just not worry about unfair driving - as long as folks are not actively 'wrecking' then anything goes ? that's what it seems like when you're on track !

Unfortunately, the more that this happens, the more new racers will adopt this approach to racing - they will believe that the only way to compete on CTRA servers barge your way through the field...

aaaarrrrggggg....... ggggrrrrrrrrrrrr..... bah!

col

Hmm.. col, I got no reports from you yesterday

I'll get Mike to look at the reporting function. One guy had been having problems submitting reports, we looked into it, tweaked it a bit and now his reports land every time. In the meantime, please send me emails (my LFS username at UKCT.net) rather than using the report form.

I know the form isn't completely broken because we received a report this evening.. but something's obviously not right. We're on it. Sorry, col

i havent raced on ctra servers in a while due to just being tight on time... but from what i can remember, sometimes the tone of racing would change to more btcc like. most of the time the racing was clean iirc. People just need to politely suggest cleaner driving to the person who wrecked them and/or reporting those who drive dirty consistantly. Sometiems i'd get wrecked repeatedly and I'd just decide to take a break from LFS before I start wrecking back .

Ohh dear Col... sounds pretty poor. I noticed you were getting a load of grief yesterday.
It's definitely a bit dodgy in the pack recently...obviously a load of new drivers have recently got onto the Silver and Gold servers and haven't brought good habits with them.

With regards to late lunges up the inside i think some people need reminding of the rules.

You must have a 'significant' overlap when entering the braking zone to have the right to the corner.
This isn't real life, it doesn't mean you can lunge up the inside at the very last second.

I had some guy threatening to report me for driving unfairly which surprised me because the only time i had felt or seen anything bad happening was when he tapped me into the wall. But when i looked at the replay i found that he was making such late lunges up the inside that i was cutting him up in a couple of corners. His manoeuvre's were so late i didn't even see them happening. As i started my braking he was fully in my rear view mirror, by which time i've looked forward at the corner and not seen him dive so late up the inside. How he hasn't taken both of us out I'll never know.

He had done this several times without me noticing. Now some might say that's a lack of observation and awareness on my part, but quite frankly he was just braking far too late in a desperate attempt to overtake. There was no overlap at all as i started braking ( and i didn't feel i was braking early at all) on any of the occasions.

People have to realise we aren't all playing with 3 monitors or a widescreen display and 120 degrees FOV. We are limited in vision and rely on situational awareness and sound quite a lot. There are many racers out there that i can race two wide around corners with and make good clean overtaking moves with lap after lap. Unfortunately there are a lot you just cant trust to do that with.

People need to calm down a little and just enjoy the racing without going all out with silly moves just to gain a couple of points imo.

yeah, some people just don't understand that if you are faster than someone and have better racecraft, you should be able to pass them eventually.

Quote from Gabkicks :

yeah, some people just don't understand that if you are faster than someone and have better racecraft, you should be able to pass them eventually.

Yep, that should be the case !

However 'Sometimes' if you don't get past REAL QUICK the guy behind you will paste you all over the barriers as he makes his 'move'. (As I discovered while being dropped to the back of a pretty slow pack over and over again because I was trying to race fair!)

At least thats what people seem to be learning... 'the pack' is evolving into a nasty beast indeed

We're going to launch an offensive on offensive driving in Silver+ servers. By the sound of things, this is going to result in a number of recently Silver licenced drivers going back down to New & Bronze, and this in turn is going to result in a lot of very peeved people.

Back me up!

Quote from col :

Yep, that should be the case !

However 'Sometimes' if you don't get past REAL QUICK the guy behind you will paste you all over the barriers as he makes his 'move'. (As I discovered while being dropped to the back of a pretty slow pack over and over again because I was trying to race fair!)

At least thats what people seem to be learning... 'the pack' is evolving into a nasty beast indeed

its alot of pressure. sometimes i want to hold back but then i'm thinking "If i slow down and wait for a safer place to pass, the car behind will probably wreck me, so i try to pass even though i know it is risky " This doesnt happen to me often since i'm usually more towards the front of the pack with the sane drivers...

yeah i get this alot to, ive raced with both moose and col quite a few times my race name is h3rb i always apologise for bad moves i make etc and let people re pass me if i gain advantage by spinning some1 etc (no intentional)
there are so many bad racers in the last week or so.
i was racing on soc5r today and going down the final straight some guy behind me in an fxo nudges my back end and spins me out making me go from 2nd to 9th!!! he then tells me it was my fault i should have avoided him to let him pass, i mean wtf i was going in a straight line... i put a post on here the other day about the standard of racing but hey atleast its not every race

Quote from SamH :

We're going to launch an offensive on offensive driving in Silver+ servers. By the sound of things, this is going to result in a number of recently Silver licenced drivers going back down to New & Bronze, and this in turn is going to result in a lot of very peeved people.

Back me up!

Will do

Quote from SamH :

Back me up!

We're right behind you ( so you get punched first )

Quote from SamH :

We're going to launch an offensive on offensive driving in Silver+ servers. By the sound of things, this is going to result in a number of recently Silver licenced drivers going back down to New & Bronze, and this in turn is going to result in a lot of very peeved people.

Back me up!

call me a retard.... but i dont understand lol offensive on offensive? but if it makes the drivin better i back u up

Quote from SLIDE WAYZ :

call me a retard

Retard







Happy to oblige

Moose, ya bastard

I've restored the welcome messages. It clearly says that clean driving rules are strictly enforced.

We're not changing the standards or any of the rules. We're simply going to hold people responsible for their actions, as we did in the beginning. We don't want a lot of ear-ache, so I'm going to dump all the grief on do0f (who doesn't care about being whinged at).

Quote from SLIDE WAYZ :

call me a retard.... but i dont understand lol offensive on offensive? but if it makes the drivin better i back u up

It's clear that the standards have been falling in the servers. This is definitely our fault, and it's our problem to fix. We haven't had the amount of in-server time recently, and while we have acted in accordance with the rules on every report we've received, it's obvious that something in the system is broken and reports have been lost. We have to get on top of the problem to resolve it, and there will be a lot more eyes and ears in servers collecting MPRs and sending them to the admin team.

Quote from SamH :

this is going to result in a number of recently Silver licenced drivers going back down to New & Bronze, and this in turn is going to result in a lot of very peeved people.

yes ... people like me who get fed up with the standard of racing there after a few races and disconnect again and therefore are still stuck with copper

Quote from Shotglass :

yes ... people like me who get fed up with the standard of racing there after a few races and disconnect again and therefore are still stuck with copper

LOL! Well what we're about to do in Silver and Gold servers is actually going to result in the potential for low standards in New & Bronze. We'll attack Silver & Gold first, to solve the immediate problem there, and then we'll move on to New and Bronze servers to hand out penalties and try and shape the new drivers into clean drivers. This has been a very effective practice in the past. We'll get it all sorted

I went in the "bronze" one the other day and the racing was way better than in the "silver" one. I think, basically, in the "bronze" one you've got some quite well-balanced cars and so the drivers all give eachother respect, but in the "silver" ones you've got a metric shitload of FXO drivers who think they deserve to be infront even if they can't get there without driving like dickheads. (and, to be fair, a bunch of people who can't drive the XRT or RB4)

I don't think I'll go back to the "silver" one. The newbie server has much nicer people on it.

yeah, alot of the FXO drivers are very willing to hit other cars to pass. I've never confronted any of them though. I think I've only reported 2 people since stcc-ctra has been around.

I think one vital pin is missing when a car is blamed for causing bad driving, sometimes it's a combo that gets blamed, other times its the server.

There's no magic to make people driver better or worse, there's just the LFS community. The Silver & Gold servers are meant to be for a select part of the community, a place to race without the entry level issues.

Some silver & gold drivers still cannot race, but on the whole I think tier 2 performs about as well as it ever should have. What I think is missing is tier 3 - where every race should be on or at league standard (which admittedly in some leagues is not actually that high - but we where aiming in the middle), where every incident is rare enough that they can be talked about before reporting.

Tier 3 failed because not enough people qualified for it and because it was on a locked combo.

I think with patch X it's time to address this. It's time to offer something new for platinum racers.

I call for a CTRA team huddle.... We need a new server

Quote from Becky Rose :

I think one vital pin is missing when a car is blamed for causing bad driving, sometimes it's a combo that gets blamed, other times its the server.

There's no magic to make people driver better or worse, there's just the LFS community. The Silver & Gold servers are meant to be for a select part of the community, a place to race without the entry level issues.

Some silver & gold drivers still cannot race, but on the whole I think tier 2 performs about as well as it ever should have. What I think is missing is tier 3 - where every race should be on or at league standard (which admittedly in some leagues is not actually that high - but we where aiming in the middle), where every incident is rare enough that they can be talked about before reporting.

Tier 3 failed because not enough people qualified for it and because it was on a locked combo.

I think with patch X it's time to address this. It's time to offer something new for platinum racers.

I call for a CTRA team huddle.... We need a new server

*cough*Logitech Rally!*cough* My, my, i've got a bad throat today.

Sam i'm backing you up on this. I havn't been racing much because of the state of some people. Hopefully this will get me going again

Quote from The Moose :

You must have a 'significant' overlap when entering the braking zone to have the right to the corner.

Uhm, I don't know if you posted this as a change suggestion, but the CTRA rules state otherwise:

Quote from license.ukct.net :

Overtaking

1. When overtaking, the car on the inside must achieve ‘significant overlap’ with the car on the outside in order to have the right to the corner. Significant overlap is defined as the front of the inside car being level with or beyond the rear edge of the front door of the outside car. This measurement is taken at the normal turn in point.

To be honest, I don't think your rules would be applicable at all. I mean, just think about it, that can't really work. If I'm behind someone and he decides his braking zone begins 2 metres earlier than mine (for example if he has weaker brakes to lower the chance of lockup), and I thus only gain significant overlap due to outbraking him, then I'm not allowed to take the inside line of the corner? Turn in point is a fair call, but braking zone would just result in a barrage of stupid reports of not so fast drivers for "unfair overtaking".

Quote :

You must have a 'significant' overlap when entering the braking zone to have the right to the corner.

I think that rule might be be a result of this good 'ol guide:

http://www.asrg.org/gpl/gplac/rec_dvr_beh/rec_driver_beh.htm

Yes, but even that states

Quote from GPL Recommended Driver Behaviour :

In brief, the concept is, you must establish substantial overlap with the car ahead before a corner's turn-in point to have the right for room to be left for you by the ahead driver. Substantial overlap means at least that the front of your car is up to say the driver's position in the ahead car - and that's at the very least. You probably should have more in many circumstances. The ahead driver has ever right to be fully committed to the racing line of his choice without any interference if there was no overlap before he turned in.

If sufficient overlap is established before the turn-in point, then the behind driver has the right to room. The ahead driver can still battle for the place of course but must do so from a wider-out position, leaving room for the behind driver.

Ah, then I clearly had the two rules mixed up as well