F1 2012 A few questions for regulars here

[James Bannister]

Hi Guys,

First want to say thanks to everyone that's helped me numerous times on this site in regards to set ups or other general F1 game questions I've had through the years. This one is slightly different to the normal questions.

Firstly I've found online racing in the game itself, to be a general nightmare, people crashing into you on purpose etc. Which I've found is common in a lot of racing games. I understand on here you do have racing leagues and clubs where you look to have good clean racing, something I'm very interesting in doing. I've seen you have to acquire a licence from the team here by going through some tests and to help see where you'd place.

As I'm fairly new to the idea, I struggled at finding my way around for it all (so if I have posted this in the wrong area feel free to push me in the right direction).

I won't lie, I don't feel I'm the best racer in the world at this game, I make the odd mistake. I originally started my career on professional in Force India, despite seeming to struggle in the first 2 races, after some updates to the car, I began to win the races with ease, it lost it's edge for me and I felt maybe I had it on the wrong difficulty, put it to legendary in FI and found I was dreadful, as I couldn't find a brilliant balance I opted to start again in Caterham on legendary, I seem to be doing okay now, after 2 races I've not beaten my qualifying expectancy (only beating my team mate and teams behind) but come race day I can gain positions on the opening couple of laps or push myself past others mistakes and although without getting a point I'm doing better than I thought.

Based on this, I might understandably have a fear of joining a league one day and just being absolutely annihilated by some of the drivers on here as they are extremely good, so ideally I need to find a group that I fit with, I'm not expecting to win races straight away as I barely know set ups and have to use ones I find on the forums, but I would like to at least be competitive and not just be racing my own lap times, while others have awesome battles throughout the field.

Could any of you help in pointing me in a way I could find those clean racers to play against who may be around the standard of my skill and how I'd go about applying for this and getting involved in the near future hopefully?

I play on Xbox 360 on a pad (wish I could afford a wheel but that may be a while)

Thanks again guys!

 

[James Bannister]

Just as another addition to this. I don't feel confident in my ability racing others just yet to feel I should apply for a licence. So if their are others willing to race so I can see how I do against others who may be near my level please give me a message and when we're both online hopefully we can race.

 

[LFCsmithy]

Hi there.....Just saw your post about joining a league. Im like you and got fed up with rammers online.....so i done what others suggested and joined a league. Its the best thing ive done. We have a few spaces left in our Assists allowed league B if you are interested?? No licence stuff needed. Just visit our site, sign up and grab a seat. We had our 1st race last sunday evening and i loved it. Im by far not the best driver, but i like to race fairly.....all the guys ive raced so far in our league are the same. Of course accidents will happen, but we do our best to avoid such things. The league races are held on sundays 8pm uk time....50% distance.
please feel free to join up as we need a few more fair drivers to fill the league up. There is a pro league which is full....then assists A which is also full.....and we have assists B which has a few spaces left.
I think your driving standards will be fine mate. For instance in my first league race i quallified 9th and finished 9th and a lap down. But i always carry on to the end as others will have penalties or disconnections etc.....I grabbed 2 championship points
So take a look and see what you think at www.slipstreamers.net sign up and tell them i introduced you. You will have some fun with some nice guys. Hope to see you there.

 

[James Bannister]

Thank you LFCsmithy, will definitely give it a shot then and will sign up when either work is quiet or when I get home, would look forward to racing some similar minded people. As I know I can race on Legendary but I feel racing others will make me consistent enough to do just that.

Hopefully race you one day soon!

 

[Karl Fuss]

Conflictinbanno

First - it seems obvious that you have the right attitude to race here. What drew me here over a year ago was the same issue, bashing public lobbies and a lack of "fun" racing in them.

Personally I looked around a lot before joining a league and it was obvious from the pages here that clean racing and helping new drivers was very important to the guys here at RaceDepartment. I have no idea what the drivers are like at "slipstreamers" but it seems they don't have any qualms about poaching drivers from other pages. I can't look at their pages or how many leagues or games they use because i don't want to "sign up" to see them (not a good sign in my book)

Now - The Original xbox league will be starting a new season of 2012 very soon here on RaceDepartment. We are just finishing up a season on the 2011 game and are waiting for the Patch before getting going with 2012. We run a no assist league and an assist league where we allow auto gears and TCS. We all follow the rules stated and have an experienced panel of Stewards to help sort through any issues that might come up during the races.
The skill levels vary in our grid but one thing you will always find will be respectful drivers.

Applying for a licence is easy, no driving test is involved. It's simply to verify you have read the basic rules and agree to them. You can find that info here: http://www.racedepartment.com/forum/forums/applications.4/

We also run Club races and Fun races through the week of varying assist levels where you can have a chance to race with both veteran drivers and new rookie drivers. They can be a lot of fun.

Hope to see you is the signup threads soon.
Karl - Original Xbox League Steward

PS - add me on xbox as a friend if you want to discuss the league further. I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

 

[James Bannister]

Karl Fuss

Thank you for such an informed response. It did seem odd they were trying to take me away from this site, but I would always like to race with people here, as a lot of the people I have spoken to on this site are very friendly and have helped me become in my eyes a better racer in the game, through tips from setups. I don't have a worry about gears or assists like TCS or ABS as I don't actually use them, but I do have the cornering line on to help me out.

I will give the application a look over and feel one out and hopefully get to race with a few others here. Fingers crossed I can be competitive and have some good fun racing, with hopefully no incidents. unless it does happen to be a general mistake, unlike someone aiming for you on the first corner to ruin it all like I have found online!

I will probably add you as well as your help sounds invaluable to this and also I might get to see how my times compare to yours on the time trials if you have done any!

Thanks again!