Have you been on the servers yet Leadtail, or are you making this up still?

and also, if you arent within 106%, then chances are that if you get points and move up to the next tier then youll just be basically last every race. I see no fault atm with the points system, it rewards fast and good drivers who have good pace and can still finish a race, and those are the ones who should be promoted up a license. anybody who cant reach the standard would just get annihilated.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

I actually don't think that WR times are used for the comparison (bah, confirmed above - must type faster) - I think it's the lap record set on the server. I was on KY2 with a couple of guys yesterday and saw an RB4 driver get awarded 15 or 20 points for finishing last but setting a server record of 2:07.

Presumably nobody had run the RB4 on that circuit since the system was launched on Friday - 2:07 is a good four or five seconds off a front-running pace.

This should not be the case as i think about it. OK you should be rewarded for fast laps but only secondary to position. Fastest laptimes are always afaik in racing secondary to finishing in high position. I think its fair to deviate some from IRL as to incorporate time in equation in dividing the points.

Everybody keeps talking about ppl being 10-15 seconds off. If i am into the track with the car i am usually about 2-3 seconds slower. Dont think that me getting points will stop motivating me to go even quicker.

I would like to know how many of the racers complaining have taken the time to practice and develop a personal setup that will enable them to run the pace required to gain points, nothing should be given out free, a little effort is required from the individual whether that includes offline practice and tweeking sets to suit so be it, treat it as a challenge and approach it from a profesional angle and once you get the spoils it will be all the more sweeter

Hmmm, can someone explain this to me....

How is this possible:

8 races total - 5. Eden Young England || 0wins | 1podium | 0fastest laps | 319points

22 races total - 6. David Seward California, USA || 16wins | 1podium | 13fastestlaps | 287points

And somehow he has more points than me or other drivers who have raced easily twice the amount???? Something seems a bit odd about that... Only wondering how does one get that high in points with only 8 races under his belt, and only 1 podium as his best finish.... righttttttt

He's a beta tester (if memory serves), a few days before we went live, we had the Database hooked up, so it was recording our results, but only points, so everything else isn't retained.

That's just my guess.

Quote from Becky Rose :

This is actually a very good suggestion. It's actually one we cant just drop and implement as it needs a whole new set of background data and stats tracking etc, but I like this general idea. There's some complications to figure out - pitstops in longer races etc. whether we'll even have those or not I dont know. It's certainly something for me to get my grey matter pondering on.

Hi - here's a quick thought to tickle the grey matter. Presumably at present you keep track of the driver's fastest lap for your algorithm. What about a rolling "average" lap time? That would smooth out the single hot lap. Discount the first lap and any lap with a pit-stop in it.

A better indicator of overall pace? And you wouldn't need to compile or compare race times (which as you say would be complex given race distance and pitstops).

Regards Jack L.

@Tweeker - Races entered, finished, wins, podiums etc only go up when there are 4 or more cars on the grid. The driver in question was actually an alpha tester, and has done a lot of solo running trying to find bugs on the system, and therefore accrued some points before the system went live without incrementing his base stats. We ran the live database for the last couple of days of testing (and found a few problems).

I didn't realize how dependent on laptimes the points system was. Does this take in to account the weather? We raced on BL with crazy wind in race 1 the other day, with a top speed on the straight just above 90mph and I couldn't get within 3 seconds of my PB.

Quote from Jack Lafferty :

Hi - here's a quick thought to tickle the grey matter. Presumably at present you keep track of the driver's fastest lap for your algorithm. What about a rolling "average" lap time? That would smooth out the single hot lap. Discount the first lap and any lap with a pit-stop in it.

A better indicator of overall pace? And you wouldn't need to compile or compare race times (which as you say would be complex given race distance and pitstops).

Regards Jack L.

This is what I was going to suggest, if it is possible to stat average laptime.

Quote :

I didn't realize how dependent on laptimes the points system was. Does this take in to account the weather? We raced on BL with crazy wind in race 1 the other day, with a top speed on the straight just above 90mph and I couldn't get within 3 seconds of my PB.

And this is a very good point. If you are at 105.9% of the record in lap mode and the wind is random (as I assume it is), then the records will definitely be tallied during no/low wind times and you won't recieve points if you are normally within the 106%, but there is a lot of wind....

Race position should be first, IMO. Points calculated from a % of racers starting a race. Then perhaps "bonus" points added to those with a fast lap or fast average lap. The way I see it is, I can run 2 seconds off the record at FE Club in the XFG, come in 2nd of 30 racers, yet recieve no points because I'm a whole 2 seconds off (guessing at numbers, WR is 49 something I think). The closer you get to record time, the harder it is to improve as is the shorter the track, the less time you have to improve in and the smaller the gap is for the "allowable" time.

Quote from Jack Lafferty :

Hi - here's a quick thought to tickle the grey matter. Presumably at present you keep track of the driver's fastest lap for your algorithm. What about a rolling "average" lap time? That would smooth out the single hot lap. Discount the first lap and any lap with a pit-stop in it.

A better indicator of overall pace? And you wouldn't need to compile or compare race times (which as you say would be complex given race distance and pitstops).

Regards Jack L.

That's actually closer to what I meant than what I wrote
Gives people an incentive to keep it on the track, since every poor lap is going to drag your average time down.

That could actually end up working against you twofold, especially on BL with the long straight. I'm going to go ahead and guess the record laptimes are going to be set on a day with a strong tailwind.

I think I thought the same thing as Mike -- you get points for the race results, period, and additional points for your best (or average?) laptime. So here's my suggestion (though now that the system is live it might be a bit late..)

Points are based on finishing position, number of cars and number of laps. Multiplier for being 105%ish within the fastest lap of that race. Additional points for being within 106% of record time, with maybe a max of 10 points.

It also seemed like longer races gave you too many points (or in my case, short races were too few ) I probably got at least 80% of my points on endurance days. Maybe take the square root of number of laps instead of scaling linearly.

Quote from Becky Rose :

EDIT: Just to make one point of confusion clear, we use the CTRA lap record, NOT the hotlap WR from LFS World. Although whether thats a good thing or not I dont know ... I barely ever see a league race where the WR isnt beaten myself. It just isnt beaten by me .

Hmmm... Personally I think a percentage of the race time would be the best, but if it has to be a laptime I think you should use the fastest lap of the race, and not the record. That's already a lot fairer I think. Imagine if you're racing with a strong headwind, you can never get close to the record... Anyway, just my 2 eurocents.

And I think Jack or Mike's ideas could work well.

Quote from Gil07 :

Hmmm... Personally I think a percentage of the race time would be the best, but if it has to be a laptime I think you should use the fastest lap of the race, and not the record.

Perhaps, but the points would still have to be scaled using the lap record as a yardstick. Otherwise you could just bob into the server when there's nobody fast in there and rake in points much faster than you could racing against decent opposition, even if the fastest lap of the race is ten seconds off the pace.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Perhaps, but the points would still have to be scaled using the lap record as a yardstick. Otherwise you could just bob into the server when there's nobody fast in there and rake in points much faster than you could racing against decent opposition, even if the fastest lap of the race is ten seconds off the pace.

set a minimum nuber of people before that aspect kicks in. Most stats programs do that for FPS games. Works pretty well too...

Quote from Christofire :

The best advice I can give to anyone is to forget about the points. If you drive smoothly and your times will come down. Improve your racecraft and the wins will come. Do these things first and then the points will come, and when they do you'll have the tools to take on the people in the higher tiers.

This is the problem we at the lower end are not just racing each other anymore we are racing silver and gold racers. It is hard enough alredy to place well without being outclassed buy a way more experienced racer.
Toddshooter

I've read most of this topic, but I didn't notice anyone mention this: in the old system different cars had different multiplier, like XRG > XFG, XRT > RB4 > FXO. I know that the TBO class is now balanced, but it's still harder to drive an XRT than an RB4 or FXO, so it should be awarded with more points. Is it still like this on this system, because I've not found any info on the site about this, sorry if I overlooked it.

Quote from dungbeetle :

Now, I know it's a question of where do you draw the line. Points for top 5, top 10, top 15 - where do you stop, but maybe it's worth considering awarding points a little further down the list, on occasions when there are such a large number of starters.

HERE HERE!!!!!
I actually placed third in a race and received no points because my lap times weren't close to the fastest lap. The thing is I was racing against a Gold licenced racer who placed first. Well not against because first and second were so far ahead I never saw them. Not a hope in hell of catching them.

Toddshooter

Isn't that natural progression? The better, higher skilled racers win? Isn't that what happens IRL?

It makes far more sense using a more skill-based system than assigning points to almost anyone who finishes, because then a useless driver getting 1pt per race can join a server alongside a skilled driver getting 15pts per race, meaning eventually everyone ends up in the same place again and skill level becomes irrelevant.

I'd rather have skill-based, so that when I find my peak I'll be alongside people who are around a similar skill. That'll keep me trying to win, but without the feeling of uselessness caused by a couple of aliens on the server.

Personally I'd also prefer to see it so that people couldn't return to a lower rank server once they've advanced, because that negates my last paragraph, but without multiple servers for each rank and car type it's not possible. It's not really fair to prevent the high ranked players driving their preferred car when they've already worked through the ranks.

Quote from Dajmin :

Isn't that natural progression? The better, higher skilled racers win? Isn't that what happens IRL?

Not for licenses.

Quote from Iron :

it's still harder to drive an XRT than an RB4 or FXO, so it should be awarded with more points.

You get extra Man Points for driving the XRT. They don't appear in the system but they are real. At the moment they can only be traded for platonic hugs from Tristan. Well, he says they're platonic, but they last just a little bit too long for my liking.

Quote from Toddshooter :

HERE HERE!!!!!
I actually placed third in a race and received no points because my lap times weren't close to the fastest lap.

I do sympathise to an extent and I am aware of how long it takes the average racer to get up to speed in LFS (months or years), but why do you think you should get points for being slow?

In all honestly, if you say you're not quick enough to race against silver/gold drivers then why would you want to be given enough points to move up to the silver/gold server? It's not going to be any easier to get points there. I just don't see your logic here.

Quote from STROBE :

However...

imho it's fundamentally wrong that it's all based on your fastest laptime. It's the same wierd logic that the CD servers use, whereby your eligibility for the restricted servers is judged on single lap times, regardless of your cleanliness, racecraft, and overall race time.

It's the old tortoise and the hare scenario, which does crop up quite often on public servers. Which is the better racer that you'd prefer to compete against on a restricted server? The tortoise who is consistently a bit off the pace but drives steadily and cleanly, or the hare who tears around in hotlapping mode, twatting into people and sometimes falls off the track but who puts in a couple of blinding laps?

Obviously there are some who drive very fast and very consistently, but out of everyone else at the moment it seems only the hare gets rewarded. What do individual lap times have to do with anything other than the concurrent qualifying? Surely what matters is your overall race time? To me it seems as though involving the fastest lap time in the points calculation risks putting the emphasis on the hotlapping performance, which I thought was what the CTRA system was against. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong when I get on for a drive this week and try out the tier 1 servers for a bit.

This says it all!! I really liked th CRTA servers because they were against the hotlapper mentality. I hope this hasn't changed. The other thing I have noticed is the make way for JOE BLOW messages as if the big blue flag message wasn't good enough.
Toddshooter

The give way messages are only given to mid race joiners as a reminder that they are in practice mode and should not interfere with the racing. From what i've seen it has improved the attitude of mid race joiners on the whole, and made them more aware that they need to give way and not get involved with people who are racing.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Don't, then. If you don't like racing, go do something else.

Maybe like jobs, kids, and life in general you meen?
Some of us like to race but don't have four hours a day to devote to it! We only wish we had that much time.
Toddshooter

Quote from Toddshooter :

Maybe like jobs, kids, and life in general you meen?
Some of us like to race but don't have four hours a day to devote to it! We only wish we had that much time.
Toddshooter

Your reply has lost the context of the quote you made from my post. I was responding to someone who had likened racing on the CTRA servers to "level grinding" in World of Warcraft - like it was a chore. Not someone who was complaining that they didn't have enough time for racing.