Racing Tues night at 10:00 EST

the only problem with damage on is that if you nip the wall you are automatically slower, even with speed comp on, and i would like black flags but they are also too sensitive, i think we should keep yellows. i like the wear factor as an equalizer and speed comp would help, i forgot to turn that on last night. it means if you are in the back you get to go faster than everypne until you catch up. good feature.

 

I would like to make it tongiht since I didnt last night but I had a few races with cubbies and jeffrey last night I had fun even tho I got smoked

 

Whats the point of speed comp? Why should someone who's faster be penalized? That'd be kinda like giving whoever plays as the Cleveland Browns 2 touchdowns for every 1 they score.

I understand you want to be fair but I'd rather us all do 0 performance point cars, then to turn on speed comp.

EDIT: I think you'd have to reset your profile before every league race, as I think you get performance points for races online, correct? I know that'd be a pain but it'd be alot more fair then turning on the speed equalizer.

 

I'd like to race around Martinsville or Richmond, some place where it's challenging enough to drive around by yourself, much less with 10 other people.

Oh, and damage is a requirement, IMO. I was in a single player race at Darlington last night, qualified for the pole, and ran a little too recklessly and slammed the wall and my car became almost undriveable after that and I ended up finishing 29th... which is precisely the kind of risk/reward issue that is such a vital part of NASCAR, and another reason I dislike racing at Daytona/Talladega (they lack any sort of risk as far as driving style is concerned).

 

speed comp is to let players at the back catch up to the pack. i dont think it has an effect on the leaders and it goes way once you reach the rest of the field. i think we need to try these different ideas out and see what works with a big group. playing this game online ive found the smaller tracks get way more cautions.

i mean i thought this league was supposed to be about fun? simulating nascar here, (damage on, black flags on.) would lead to boring races with one or two guys at the top running away and anyone who makes a mistake lagging behind for the duration of the race. which is boring as hell i think most would agree. everyone will end p having equal cars and close to equal set-ups.it would suck if people bumping or hitting the wall on these small tracks puts you out of the race for good. which would be a long time if we're considering 50% races. IMO of course.

 

That's why just like in Nascar, you have to make smart decisions. I have no interest in running Nascar Hitz races. Why not go ahead and turn traction control, anti lock brakes, steering help and the rest of the driving aids all up to high. Then all you'd have to is stomp the right trigger and go. If that's the kinda league everyone wants, that's fine. I'll go elsewhere for my online racing league. I'm looking to simulate Nascar races.

As for the smaller track leading to more cautions, if you call out your pass and race realistically you don't have that many more cautions. It all comes down to how much you "simulate" Nascar races in your racing style.

 

I'm about ready to launch this game out the window and hope it gets eaten by a hungry alligator. It is just so god damned frustrating to spend half an hour setting up the car, practicing, qualifying, and getting things just right just to end up spinning out on the restart (rolling starts have got to be the dumbest idea in the history of the world) or applying a little too much steering input on a stick with a range of about half an inch and spinning out that way. I just can't play this game the way it is meant to be played (with assists off, being able to finesse the steering and throttle) with a gamepad.

 

It's not just a controller problem, I have the same problem when I race with the wheel. The problem is dumbass EA gives you back control of the car as soon as green comes out. IF they would have given you control on the backstretch, you'd have better feel for the car and it'd eliminate all that. I found turning the traction control on low helps a lot.

I had turned all the assists off and that was what made me turn them back on. Restarts without traction control are horrible. And I figured everybody else online probably plays with all assists on high anyway and that'd piss me off more, to get taken out by some moron who can just stomp the throttle coming out of the turn with no worries about it coming around.

 

Yeah, that's my biggest beef too. I hate how the FF kicks in right before the start. And in my career play I've spun the car on the restart and basically relegated me to a top 30 finish. That's after working my way up thru the field of dumbass AI cars.

 

Yeah, the AI is pretty . EA apparently programmed them to be aware of the cars around them and take the appropriate line going into the corner, but also made them blissfully unaware of the fact that not every car maintains status quo while in the corner. I've lost track of the amount of times that I've gotten a run on the outside of an AI car in the middle of the corner, only to have the AI car drift up on corner exit (taking the brilliant 'well he wasn't there at the beginning of the corner, so he won't be there at the end of the corner' approach) and put me into the wall. There's just something about the driving model that feels off, which compounds itself when I play something like Forza and can easily race side by side with someone with a gamepad yet there's no possibility of doing that in NASCAR....which becomes even more hilarious when it's the one thing that a NASCAR game SHOULD excel at.

 

Am I the only one who thinks the AI cars are actually pretty good? What level AI are you running Xpress? I really haven't had any problems with cars coming up on the exit. My only problem with the AI is when they do stupid moves and try to make it 3 wide on tracks that you can't do 3 wide on, someplace like Milwaukee or Martinsville.

As for the driving, I think alot has to do with how much weight is shifted into the left hand side especially for ovals. Forza is all road courses, so the weight has to be even. Maybe it's your setup or something. AS to be honest, I really don't have any problems ever keeping a straight line in the corner. Yeah it wiggles a bit but not much as long as I let the car settle before getting back on the gas.

I got a Atlanta setup that to me is pretty stable, that I'd be willing to give ya. I just don't know if your problem is the setup, your sensitivity settings or the gamepad.

 

I run with AI on Hard. I guess you could say my problem is that a big phrase in NASCAR is 'give and take'. I've found that the AI is 100% take and 0% give, and the one time I try and 'take' I end up in the wall.

You're probably right, it's likely something on my end. Maybe my sensitivity is too high or something, because if I don't absolutely nail how much steering input is needed to get into a corner, I'm all over the place trying to correct it. I never had this problem on the PC NASCAR sims, but I was also using a joystick for those so who knows.

 

In Bristol, When I get a run off the corner and go to the inside the AI car never knows i'm there and just runs me off the track. So I just have to pass on the outside almost all the time. Stupid AI

 

If I miss my entry I have to to pull harder/longer on the left stick but I'm never all over the place trying to correct it. Strange. I'd say mess with the sensitivity first, whats it at? Or as I said before I got a Atlanta setup you can try in my locker. I find it to be pretty smooth through the corner. Then if you still have the problem, we can eliminate it being something with the setup.

 

You know what sucks even more, when your ****ing profile gets corrupted. Went to go play tonight and while at the start screen it froze. Think it's because I got about 5 voice messages at once. Now everytime I try to load it, it freezes up. Even tried moving to a memory card and loading from there. Guess I learned my lesson, always save a backup.

 

thats the other problem, how do we use 0 performance poitns cars? you really expect everyone to totally delete thir profiles and start over every time we race? it wont even let me save a second profile. im not losing all my points and rep evytime we race. the equalizers have to be somewere else.

and due the speed comp only kicks in if you are waaaaay behind. it makes no difference once you are in a pack. so when people get way way way ahead cause of stupid **** you can still be somewhat in the race, it doesnt mean a golden ticket to win the race at all dude. and we can be that nerdy sim about it because the cars are hard to control for most people (not you obviously). why cant we jsut have a fun racing league that is somewhat similar to nascar but not in every minor detail?

at this rate it looks like we're never gonna get a real league, so it appears we're just playing for fun anyway. getting wrecked by someone then not being a factor in the race would be boring and stupid. its gonna happen. it always does, so why cant we make it somewhat fairer? can we at least try it before it is dismissed?

 

forget it, this game is retarted, i just had to reset my profile now too like everyone else... so so stupid that they cant make a stable game. why are we giving them money again?

 

I think you cursed me. :mrgreen: My profile got corrupted tonight, so looks like I"ll be starting over again.

As for enforcing 0 point cars, if you have a memory card you can copy a profile to it. So then you'd have two profiles, one for league and one for rest of the time.

I'm just wanting to try and make the league as fair as possible. I just hate letting the CPU do anything to help the other human players.

 

i hear you dude, but since this game is such a bastard we have to find a happy medium for a league.

im right with you too with the corruption i just turned it on to play aat 9 and my profile is f'ed.

 

I'm with you on this one cubbies. We should be looking for a happy medium. Fun should be the number one goal. Would a perfect sim game be nice? Yes, but I don't think we are going to get that out of this game because of some of the reasons given above. Too hard to hold your line going around the turns, let's not forget about the guy who happens to be laggy, etc. I would think it would be unrealistic to expect people to go and buy a memory card for league racing profile.

I do think we can come up with a happy medium, but it will take testing and playing with the settings. I had not played with some of the settings that we used the other night and when I did, I liked some of them. I didn't really prefer the damage off and no pit stops race that we did. I had fun, but it seemed to take too much out of Nascar doing it. At the minimum, I would "think" we would want to keep the strategy of pit stops for fuel and tires. What we do with damage and flags is a different story. No one wants to be under caution all the time or black flagged. I wouldn't think anyone would want to have their car destroyed on the first turn and have to wait for 15 minutes or longer for everyone else to finish the race. It would probably be easier to do if you could actually speculate when your eliminated from and blown engine or whatnot, but that is not provided in the game.

I guess from my point of view, I would like to see damage by "poor" settings and not so much because your neighbor can't drive and drives up your tailpipe and slams you into the wall. I don't think we have that option. I am not familiar enough with the settings to offer valuable suggestions, but I am trying non-the-less.

If we discuss this out, test different settings before automatically eliminating them, I think we can find that sweet spot for a league. I would like to see a league that when race night comes up, people are excited to race and are excited to do so for several months, not just the first month.

Anyway, another $0.02 for the thought bucket!