from my expierience driving on the bronze and what ive heard about the silvers it appears that the system favours those who punt their way to the podium
my (very few) races on the bronze have often ended with the first few positions on the results table taken by genuinely good and fair drivers, who are quick enough to survive t1 and get away, behind them you have a huge group of total carnage and behind that in the last few spots are those who are clean but not quick enough to pull away, which sadly would be much better suited to graduate to silver than the rest
the real problem with this is that it promotes t1 carnage even at the top since the best tactic if you start in 2nd or 3rd row seems to be to blast into t1 as quickly as you can hoping that you are fast enough so that no one will punt you from behind
taking it easy into t1 often means ending up somewhere midfield in mobile chicane hell
I still think the racing is much cleaner on the newbie servers (I was in there for a bit late last night). Probably because most people can't drive the TBOs.
Or maybe it's the turbo lag that's the problem - people unwilling to lift because it penalises them too much?
My money's still on "most of them can't drive the TBOs" to be honest.
Actually there is something else that has been bugging me of late, and which struck me more yesterday when I did a league race and passed half the field whilst they where stationary or on their way to being stationary via a pirouette.
The attribution of blame in LFS is too high. Whilst not always possible, and yes I accept some incidents are unavoidable and some drivers so bad they're impossible to predict/avoid - the fact remains though that a lot of accidents are avoidable, even though there may be someone at fault. A good driver should be able to survive an accident that isn't their fault more often than not by not putting their car in a position where it might get spun/damaged by a bad driver in the first place.
Most drivers in LFS are willing victims of poor driving, because they had the option to avoid an incident and ignored it because either they did not predict it when they should have, or they figured 'its the other guys fault he isnt allowed to do that he wont do that oh bugger its too late'.
A really good driver will survive a close encounter and make the idiot who 'almost' caused the accident spin anyway .
I disagree. OK, it may be true for incidents in duels, mid-race. When I'm fighting someone for position and we're heading for the next turn, then I can prepare myself: guess how good the other is, choose my line, and know when to expect a push.
But my major headache is the T1 carnage. Try avoiding that, if you are in the midst of the pack racing towards T1. You can predict the actions of one or two opponents, but not of a dozen. (Especially when some of them are noobs or hotheads.)
OK, let's meet up on the Silver server one busy night and I bet I can get you wrecked off the road in most races without touching you or any other car, and without brake-checking or anything else quite so sordid. All it takes is a slow exit or two and the pack behind will do the wrecking for me.
Putting this in context, what you are saying is that there is no way for a more experienced driver to avoid an accident caused by somebody else, and that survival at turn 1 is very lucky.
I'm either very lucky, or you have yet to acquire the experience necessary to know how to avoid trouble. I actually doubt either case is true, and so i'm left with a third possibility - you have a very low opinion of the population on the silver server.
I'm going to make a presumption of my own in response to that. I think you've had a few unlucky experiences. The population of the server is as dynamic as any other server in LFS - it's populated by the community of LFS. There's nothing special in the server that makes people drive badly - it's you lot that race it, if you cant get on with each other dont blame it on the server, just learn to drive - so I go back to my original point...
Not especially T1, but what I'm actually saying is that getting through the first lap unscathed on a busy server where most people aren't very good at driving the cars is more luck than judgement. More so when you start in the middle of the grid.
Or you're a well-known admin and people will leap off the road rather than hit you.
It's probably a minority to be fair, but it only takes one or two careless drivers to create a pile-up. It's usually not late-braking heroes who cause the problems either, it's usually people towards the back of the pack who are so keen to get on the power that they hit the guys infront who are waiting for the guys infront of them to get moving.
That's where we disagree. I think the points system encourages bullish and careless driving, but having seen the contrast between the silver and the bronze servers I've also come to realise that a lot of it must be down to ability, too. With a field full of XFGs with the occasional XRG there aren't nearly as many accidents.
Any busy server will include a handful of people who don't know what they're doing, but because yours are supposed to filter those people out it's more frustrating.
The biggest problem at T1 is people thinking the entire race depends on it. Happened to me plenty on the New/Bronze server (I was slowly working on points), but they don't seem to pay any attention to what the cars around them are doing.
The one in front of them brakes, they don't, they punt the front car into the corner, which in turn causes carnage for the rest of the pack. Even the people who went wide (usually me trying to avoid death) can't avoid a car flying toward their side doors. The only way to avoid it seems to be either get lucky and be first through the corner and off before the rest get there, or hang at the back and wait for the carnage to clear enough to squeeze through.
It is something special on the server that causes it - people have something to lose when they're racing for points. When the difference between 0 points and about 11 is a couple of seconds, you find people behaving like absolute muppets, risking moves they can't pull off. I love the STD/TBO cars, but I had to stop going on the STCC servers (before the name change) because every race the same thing would happen and it was becoming more annoying and frustrating than enjoyable. And that pretty much stopped me playing LFS too, because I don't like GTR/AS3 or FOX/AS2.
Remove points restrictions from the Gold/Platinum servers for a few hours, allow the same people in who drive on the lower ones and then you'll see the kind of behaviour that goes on there.
Edit: Dear god I agreed with Kev. The world must be ending
if i can chip in i don't think its the server but the racers on it that cause the problems, but as you said already they have earn't their place by getting points.
The trouble is if i can say this is that the Silver server contains a big difference in ability and what can happen is the newer people want to hit the ground running, some also maybe have not had experiences of TBO's before qualifying for this server and therefore jusy 'try' cars out on the track, normally with badsetup or worst case, quick but unstable setups.
You speak of being able to avoid accidents, well yesterday i had a few idiots in FXO's who think they can at the end of the back straight on westhill not brake until 50 yards and make the corner, whilst i in the XRT brake at 150-100 ish
What this causes is that i'm on the racing line but slower than them, they lunge up the inside hit you off and just with a bind go 'sry' and carry on driving.
Now how can i avoid that accident Becky? am i menat to presume on EVERY corner that the guy behind will not brake and reduce the 50-100 yard gap i have on him to nothing in the braking zone?
Yes duels are different, duels are fun, but the fact remains that people can be so hell bent on the extra 'points' that they do try stupid things or try and do things that the car can not possibly do and get away with a bind 'sorry' etc etc
Sry - also agree +10 with what Kev said as well - he just put it MUCH better.
Dru - I don't think it works as it is either. I think if they really wanted to segregate players by ability there are more reliable ways of doing it, but that's not actually the goal of this exercise. The point is to keep people coming back with the promise of little carrots, the same way MMO games work.
I don't like carrots, maybe that why i don't drive there often
i remember on the Redline server or something if you cause a collision your name comes up on the screen - scould something like this be used in these series and that if you get so many collision warnings you get points reducted or notes on your license?
I don't think automation like that is ever going to work, to be honest. And I personally can't stand servers that insist on shouting random bollocks at you all the time "DONKEYBALLS GOT A NEW SERVER PB!" - give him a ****ing biscuit and leave me alone.
Yet you say it's cleaner on the new & bronze servers where people are competing for points - but on silver & gold the drivers already have all the points they need (tier 3 never really took off). This leaves me confused either to the statement, or the intelligence of the userbase...
Rather than collisions (which is an estimate btw) we record any incident you have which throws a yellow flag. Some of these wont be your fault, so there is no automated action taken by it - we also record the number of laps completed. We've found drivers fall into 3 categories:
Under 20% yellows/laps: Probably clean;
Between 20-100%: Probably over agressive;
Over 100%: Fricken aweful driver.
This information is seen when an admin actions a report against a driver.
It's true that MMO mechanics where influential on the system, but the stated purpose and intent was to create a server where the better racers could avoid the 'inexperienced' element. If they are failing to do this - and by all accounts a few contrary opinions from forum goers doesn't dent what the system has achieved - then they would soon loose popularity.
To go along with what Dru said, I did make a suggestion a while back that said license advance shouldn't be based on a points system, but where your lap times fall in relation to the WRs or server bests.
Roughly speaking, it went like this:
Each track gets assigned a top time. Racers who finish within set amounts of this time are allocated license points, depending on how close. So for example, 100-101% gets you Titanium on that track, 102-103% gets you Platinum, etc.
Once you've been round each track on the server, you get your results rounded down and you get assigned a license. This would be an average based on overal performance. The better you do over all the tracks, the better license you get. Obviously as you better your times you can ascend the ladder as you did before, but because it's time based rather than position, it encourages clean driving.
There are obviously a lot of details that would need to be worked on, but I think in theory it would be possible (although probably a lot more difficult to program).
I've taken great pains at every step to ensure that all information outputted by the system is discreet. The race restart message which reinforces the server rules - for instance - is shown as the count down to the race begins - it's effect is subliminal rather than intrusive. The licence report is sent only to you not to everyone, and does so as you finish the race and LFS is filling your screen with results.
The only exception of 'spam' is the traffic approaching message which was an experiment to reduce incidents of rejoining into traffic. From what i've seen this has created a positive awareness of what was once a far bigger issue. I know it's not perfect and has on ocassion broken - but it is no more intrusive than a 'blue' or 'yellow' flag message, and only occurs when you are stationary and should be pausing for breath long enough to take in everything - therefore contributing to achieving it's aim.
The one thing that could be considered spam I guess is the $commands, which with patch X Scawen has given us the ability to supress so you wont see them. I also plan to use the new button interface to it's fullest to further reduce even the need for $commands.
Best hotlapping time is never the separating factor in a race. I have never been a good hotlapper, but I'm consistant and that's what's given me the points so far.
I agree with both becky and kev on the T1 carnage. Experienced driver has a higher possibility of surviving it although sometimes there is nothing you can do or not do to avoid getting damaged.
In the midst of all this, I'd just like to say that after a few days or dodgy racing on CTRA servers, last night it all went good again and I had a great time battling with XFGs and XRGs around South City Classic. Competitive, sporting, spotlessly clean driving for many races from everyone at the front of the pack, and everyone was "in the spirit" of it and seemingly having fun. No aggro and no meanness in evidence. So I don't think the points system is to blame for problems.
It only goes to show that CTRA servers are just like any other - one day you'll have some shitty racing going on, the next day it can be so clean and fun that it's like going on the Super Fun Happy Slide covered in Mr. Muscle detergent.
Err, not that I like being covered in any liquids of Mr. Muscle. That's not why I go to the gym.
you will always have this debate whether anything changes is down to the people who run it, all people ask is there thoughts are listened too
also its quite dangerous to assume that everyone who goes on the servers goes on the forums then goes on this subsection, reads the post then agrees and says nothing or disagrees and says nothing...
however, we are simply putting forward on arguement. One thing that is maybe mentioned or not mentioned is.....
The problems generally come aboutr from drivers who are not experienced or aware or can be bothered to know and respect the differences of the cars in this class.
Someone touched on it earlier on the bronze server.
Most people in the same cars will be braking and accelerating and have the same sort of grip as the people around them, therefore this means differneces in performance are almost zero. Therefore cars take the same lines in and out of corners. When you pit cars of differnent qualitys together you will always get the 'differnet effect'
I remember it well on the Bronze server. i was afairly clean XFG driver and not invloved in many accidents as i was racing other XFG's, however when i got bronze and could race the XRG i was involved in a lot more accidents. People did not realise that the XRG needed to brake earler and could get he power down earlier out of the corner, this meant that people would dive up the inside at my turn in point becuase i had been on the brakes for 100 yards and they thought that they could dive up the inside at 50, even thou on the straights they were 50 yrads plus back on me...
infact this is really only my tue gripe with the silver server is people in differnet class cars not respecting how the other cars drive and just try and barge their way past, they think they can do this as with tin-tops you don't crash out as much
.
That's not why I go to the gym.