A little while ago, I decided to give multiplayer another go. I've been a member of the ESR group for a while and signed up for one of their champs. Knowing I would be one of the slowest on the track. So I had no expectations of winning or even placing. My hope was to have a few other racers in my lap time zone to compete against. Now as leagues go ESR is top notch. Great bunch of guys. I particularly liked the post race discussions. But the thing for me is wanting to be competitive, I started stressing about my performance in the race. Oh there were a few weird interactions on track. Things like people mysteriously quiting shortly after I, one of the slowest on the track passed them. Kind of pissed me off a bit. But those kind of things are to be expected. I was getting frustrated at my own personal performance. It had nothing to do with anybody else. I was practicing whenever I could and not able to get passed a certain level. It continued long after the championship was over. Until one day my wife sat me down and told me, "I don't think these racing games are making you happy anymore. You may not realize it, but whenever you play these you are irritable and grouchy afterwords. You need to stop playing these things." Stop playing!?! Might as well stop breathing It really had become unpleasant. To the point where I had already become "bored" with the game. When in reality it had become a form of work. I have to get better or I'm not a good enough person. She was right, I had to stop. So I stepped away. For a week or so. I came to understand that I was comparing myself to all of you. And using settings above my own ability to improve. And not enjoying it. Then I remembered a piece of advice that was given to me when I first started pc based racing games. Neither single player or multiplayer is for everybody. You have to try both and figure out which one works best for you and go with that. And forget everybody else's opinions. So for me multiplayer simply doesn't work. It's too personal. I get to stressed, and it's not fun. So I set the AI back to my personal requirements. And have been have a blast ever since. I have become addicted to this game again. My favorite cars are the GTO's, all the DTM, and recently the F2's. And the new AI, are fucking tits!!! I love it when I qualify in p3 or p4 and it takes the entire 20 minute race to make p1 on the second to last lap. If at all. Many times I finish at the back of pack. Almost always from my own mistakes. And if one of them bumps me, so what, it's only a game. Keep going and fight your way through the pack if you can. Anyway, thanks to sector 3 for all your hard work. Absolutely love this latest update. And silverstone is fab. Sorry you won't see me on the track. I'm a single player guy.
I totally understand you. While I love multiplayer, I am angry with myself that I cannot compete on the level that I would like to. In most multiplayer races I am lost somewhere between the leaders, who are out of reach, and the runner ups, for whom I am out of reach - resulting in quite lonely races. Singleplayer with the new ai however always brings me tight and thrilling races. Depending on the class I set ai to 110 or 120% and even a 10th place here can feel damn rewarding. Plus - I can have such a race against 35 opponents whenever I want to - my little digital friends are always ready (except for virtual Jorge Maria Lopez - he is an a**hole pushing me off the track every time *lol*)
I just wanted to add, this isn't about the multiplayer environment. It's about my responce to it. There have been some complaints about the AI. Maybe those people should go to multiplayer. And if you haven't tried multiplayer, I think you should. It is a very different experience.
Hey Greg I will say i did have that same feeling too when i started way back. I hated when people left after i finally passed them, passing a few people and still finish last sucks ass, Its the bane of multiplayer, seem to be the short attention span that most people seem to have. I don't race to win, yes its fun to do well but its not why i race. If i only raced to win i wouldn't have much fun as i rarely do win. I race online only for the friends i made and to have a few battles on the track. I say take a break beat those AI and come back and join us on the drop-in whenever you feel like it
I had the same experience. Back than with GTR2. I allways played racinggames, but first that fancy arcade stuff like NFS. 2006 i got GTR2 raced it with Keyboard and it was fun but not my thing. 2013 i stayed Home because of an illnes and didnt know what to do. So I got a DFGT for my PS3, and after i had fun with my rallygames there is decided to fire up GTR2 again - now it was a blast. I became addicted. I joined a community, got all the hundreds of mods. And started to join MP-races. Than the sruggle begin. I was min. 5sec of the pace on each track. And there werde hundreds of tracks. It was frustrating. So I decided to Start only on special events, like a 12h race on magny-cours. I was studying Setup 101s like i never learnd something for school. And trained that one track over weeks. In these races i was only 1-2 sec of the pace, and had many fights midfield. And in the end i was allways on Podium in my class (bc i raced the whole 12h) - that was rewarding. And i was addicted again. Now I don't have good skills to be the best. But i have a good theoretical knowlegde for setups. So I get a car a round a track without trouble, bc i make them easy to drive on that track. And the longer the races are the better my Position is in the end. Because im not fast but constant. But from time to time i would recommend to look into MP if you are a SP-guy. You will notice that you are faster. And than comes the joy of MP-racing
I played hundreds and hundreds of hours of Dota, CounterStrike and other multiplayer competitive-style games.. (and Raceroom multiplayer ofcourse). I realized it didn't make me feel happy playing it, and what's the point of playing a game if it's not fun anymore? So now it's all 108% AI for me! Fun, challenging and rewarding races with them!
Surely this is where a ranking system comes into its own, you're placed in groups of drivers of similar ability, giving you the opportunity to improve at your pace but races are still competitive. That's not to say that all people have the mental capabilities to take failure, dissect, then improve. If it was easy then we would all be professional racing drivers. If the ranking system works then people should only be racing against others of a similar level, so not sure how this differs from setting an AI to a set level, other than having a bit of human encouragement & banter. Too many people on this planet isolating themselves in their own little self controlled world's, M/P rules!
Made a similar experience with Iracing. There was a moment where the official races were just stress and I just thought about Irating, safety rating, having no incidents etc. So I stopped playing it for quite some time and just had casual offline- and online races in R3E, AC, Automobilista. And boy was that a relief! Just pure racing without thinking about your own position and the results, that showed me why I loved racing sims from the beginning! In the meantime I started Iracing again but with the difference that I now don’t give a f*** about my results. Starting 18th and finishing 13th? No problem as long the racing is great! And same goes for all the other sims. Just enjoy the pure racing, don’t think too much about yourself achieving xy position or comparing you with others. You’ll become better automatically.
Thank the Stars it's not just me! Hopefully when the ranking system launches, we can get together and arrange a WOF (Weakness of Field) race or two for us single-player type guys. Perhaps we could alter our signatures to indicate what times we play most........I'm gonna go and do mine now! PS Racing the AI at about 90-94 most of the time (although it's adaptive) in order to get top 5 finishes.
Good Idea, I've been thinking of starting a league called the "Old And The Slow" OATS for short I range between 90 and 103ish depending on the car/track combo. Group 5, 90 (at best) Formula 2 103
This is getting to be a proper pervy old forum, the only oats i can think of involve this Formel E - Any chance to have this in R3E ? Maybe its just me thats the old perve