Is iRacing worth it?

I have rfactor 2 and AC i am thinking of getting iracing just for the open wheelers is it worth it just for that?
If so how much would it be for 1 year membership and the open wheelers?
 
Class D level and Class D series are two different things. One is a Safety Rating the other one is a restriction for Series attendance. No reason to compare the two. There are lot of Class A guys in Skip Barber, because it's popular. They might not even meet the Class D part of that Series.

Anyways, iRating and Safety Rating both matters. I saw people with 3k iRating as Class D and I also saw 1300 iR Class As. I'm not sure which one to trust though, but I probably won't meet the second one in race, unless I lap him.
 
A guy I introduced to iRacing got out of 'Rookie' in a couple of days by using his head.You include 'D' Licence as disappointing. I couldn't disagree more. Although I have raced nearly every car on the service I have gone back to the 'D' Skip Barber purely for the quality of wheel-to-wheel racing. My videos in the video section will back me up.
I did this years ago, but graduated both road and oval rookie within 5 races plus a TT or two, with a win in each discipline. Like you said, it's all about using your head, which is a good thing. If people aren't willing to take responsibility for their car, I prefer they be stuck in rookie forever. That's its purpose, IMO.

The only improvement I'd add to class D is to make it possible to be demoted back to rookie (or at least be ineligible to race the class-D series) if SR falls too far. Only a handful of people need this, which shows how little the system needs. depending on split the SRF and Mustang are also both fantastic series to race. Up until the Rufs were released I spent almost all my racing time since those first few seasons in class D, it's just that enjoyable. Global Challenge is about the only outlier for me, due to newly-minted D-class Caddy drivers not being able to keep clear of the Kias (the car I prefer).
 
Rookie and Class D has a disappointing level of skill from drivers, understandably. But that improves as you stick with it and by the time you get to Class C and above -- particularly B and above - it is a fantastic experience.

I have to disagree with this. The Skip Barber series may be a "D" series, but some of the best drivers in iRacing can be found there. The series is so big and competitive that you have to develop some decent skill in order to stick around in this car.

The GT3 challenge, however, is a B-level series and is an absolute wreck-fest at all levels. The big grids, variance in skill level, and sheer speed of the car lead to a dozen retirements per race. That's not an exaggeration. Anyone who's raced in GT3 has seen his F3 screen fill up with blue names when crossing the start/finish line, a list of all the people who wrecked (or got wrecked) in one lap of racing and are now getting repairs.

We need to get away from this idea that your license is somehow indicative of your skill level. You can fast-track to an A-license by doing nothing but time trials. You can literally do it in a week if you're dedicated enough, which means you can earn iRacing's top amateur license without ever driving against another human being on track.

A much better indicator of your skill is your iRating. If promotions were based on iRating instead of safety rating, the only people who earned A-licenses would be the guys who belonged at that level. That would never, ever happen (too many people would leave the service when they realized they'd never be able to compete in the higher classes), which is why bad driving will continue to exist at all levels of iRacing.
 
A much better indicator of your skill is your iRating. If promotions were based on iRating instead of safety rating, the only people who earned A-licenses would be the guys who belonged at that level. That would never, ever happen (too many people would leave the service when they realized they'd never be able to compete in the higher classes), which is why bad driving will continue to exist at all levels of iRacing.
In general, but even the top splits of the GT3 series have a reputation for being a wreckfest.

My one and only GT3 start was the top of 3 splits and had an SOF of 3000. That didn't stop me from getting tagged (and damaged) by a driver who was several car lengths behind me entering the braking zone for the Road Atlanta chicane...

It's more about the culture of the series. Slower cars and less popular cars tend to have fewer yahoos, faster cars in more popular series get more of them.
 
I have to disagree with this. The Skip Barber series may be a "D" series, but some of the best drivers in iRacing can be found there. The series is so big and competitive that you have to develop some decent skill in order to stick around in this car.

The GT3 challenge, however, is a B-level series and is an absolute wreck-fest at all levels. The big grids, variance in skill level, and sheer speed of the car lead to a dozen retirements per race. That's not an exaggeration. Anyone who's raced in GT3 has seen his F3 screen fill up with blue names when crossing the start/finish line, a list of all the people who wrecked (or got wrecked) in one lap of racing and are now getting repairs.

We need to get away from this idea that your license is somehow indicative of your skill level. You can fast-track to an A-license by doing nothing but time trials. You can literally do it in a week if you're dedicated enough, which means you can earn iRacing's top amateur license without ever driving against another human being on track.

A much better indicator of your skill is your iRating. If promotions were based on iRating instead of safety rating, the only people who earned A-licenses would be the guys who belonged at that level. That would never, ever happen (too many people would leave the service when they realized they'd never be able to compete in the higher classes), which is why bad driving will continue to exist at all levels of iRacing.

Yes, this can happen. However, over a series of races it evens out and pretty quickly the "duffers" get demoted. On balance, the median of skill level gravitates to the lower tiers.
 
A guy I introduced to iRacing got out of 'Rookie' in a couple of days by using his head.
With the 3.0 fast track it's insanely easy to get out of rookie. I think it took me 5 races in which I totalled 3 Mazdas... (but it gives you a new one so that's ok)

Of course, I did actually finish the races. If you quit when you hit a wall, and go -19L, you're not gonna do your SR any favors.

What frustrates me is that the leagues where a subscription is enough are all Rookie, there's no 'join a license-class only race' at those levels, they just sort you out by iRating. If I work towards a C license, I'm still going to be in the D/Rookie leagues, driving against D/Rookie licenses, most weeks because that's the content I own, and that's who's got the same iRating as I do.
 
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Swervedriver described it pretty well. The Class license has nothing (generally) nothing to do with how well you can drive. The iRating number however does. My iRating has dropped at times and it's quite noticeable how the frequency of wrecks and just bad drivers increase during a race. It seems a race with a lot of iRating drivers around1200ish, the wreck frequency goes up. As you go above 1500 or perhaps 1600+ the driving skill is noticeably better.

One of the most common things I notice with bad drivers are following someone too close into a turn. They just DONT understand that they can actually coast behind the driver ahead of them anticipating their braking and follow them through it as you feather your brakes. This is how you learn the behavior and skill of the driver in front of you. Once you follow them around a lap you two you'll understand his driving characteristics. You'll learn where he's fast and slow and take advantage of it with a clean pass.

Another common thing you see is they try to pass you too soon and wreck you or both of you. Most A-D class races are about 30-90 minutes. If you're truly faster then him, you'll have plenty of time to pass. Unless it's obviously easy to do, I just hang back and follow the 1st 3-4 laps until it cools down and just work on the cars in front of me one at a time. I just try to reel them in real slow (If I can catch them) and pass when they make a mistake. If you're close to their ability (can maintain around a second behind them) but can't seem to pass them, just wait. Stay on his ass and intimidate him. They almost always screw up. It's really common to start around the middle of the pack, let everyone wreck ahead of you and end up in the top 5 or better. That's without qualifying.

If in practice your always within ~2 seconds or less of the fastest car, your doing well. You'll probably be in the top 10 in a race. If your within about 3 - 4 seconds your average or below and should be mid pack, maybe slightly better. If you typically behind 5 seconds or more of the leader your slow. Keep practicing or try a different setup.

The problem with that theory however is as your irating goes up you race better drivers. The top 20 cars could be separated by 1.5 seconds...

The irating and Safety Rating system is setup pretty well and constantly tries to keep you in the center of the pack. If you place in the top 50% of the pack, your irating increases and you race against better guys. If you place in the lower 50% of the race your irating goes down and you race against guys that are worse. This ultimately allows you to Win some and Lose some.
 
What frustrates me is that the leagues where a subscription is enough are all Rookie...

If a league admin wants to limit his league by licence level he can. He states the licence level in the promotion, checks each applicant to the league, and then in the league session he can stipulate what licence limit applies.

The tools are there -if there isn't a league that satisfies you, start your own. :)
 
If a league admin wants to limit his league by licence level he can. He states the licence level in the promotion, checks each applicant to the league, and then in the league session he can stipulate what licence limit applies.

The tools are there -if there isn't a league that satisfies you, start your own. :)
He's talking about the official series, something like the Mazda Cup or Street Stocks using the same base content but for C class and above drivers.

Stereo: They tried that once, and it didn't work out too well, at least on the road side. Some C+ drivers wanted to use non-base content, and others wanted to continue to use the base content. You can see the Oval side is still segregated that way, but mostly because the C and above drivers tended to be abusive to the rookies.

If you're not too picky over which car you drive on any given week, you can probably get access to a non-rookie race every week with one 6-pack of content. The Ruf gets you access to three series, plus you can race GTC, SRF, and Global Challenge with free cars as well. If your five tracks are popular then at least one of those 6 series will be racing there any given week.
 
does anyone has ever meet this one

"The following error occured while trying to join the session:
Failed credential check"

??? I cannot join server, don't know why though it says i have no idea what to do in order to stop it

[EDIT] Solved, log out - log in again, worked
 
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does anyone has ever meet this one

"The following error occured while trying to join the session:
Failed credential check"

??? I cannot join server, don't know why though it says i have no idea what to do in order to stop it

[EDIT] Solved, log out - log in again, worked
Strange as I was getting the same problem today and also logged out and in again to solve the problem. ;)
 
With the 3.0 fast track it's insanely easy to get out of rookie. I think it took me 5 races in which I totalled 3 Mazdas... (but it gives you a new one so that's ok)

Of course, I did actually finish the races. If you quit when you hit a wall, and go -19L, you're not gonna do your SR any favors.

What frustrates me is that the leagues where a subscription is enough are all Rookie, there's no 'join a license-class only race' at those levels, they just sort you out by iRating. If I work towards a C license, I'm still going to be in the D/Rookie leagues, driving against D/Rookie licenses, most weeks because that's the content I own, and that's who's got the same iRating as I do.

I am not familiar with the iRating and how it works
 
I am not familiar with the iRating and how it works

When you actually start a season this week, the way it works is that you can run the same race as many times as you want during the week, when the week is over, iRacing will take your best finish of the week so if you earn 50 points in one race but never earn that many points again throughout the week, iRacing just takes your highest points earnings during that week. This is pretty cool because it gives you a whole week to try to do the best you can before moving to the next week's race. The amount of points you earn in each race and your iRating is based on how well you place against the strength of field. So if you place higher in a race where the strength of your opponents was much lower you might not earn as many points as you would if you placed slightly lower in a field of much strong opponents. IRacing tries to pair you up with a field that is close to your iRating so that you're closely matched but that's also dependent on how many people are trying to enter the same race as you are. The more people playing, the better chance you'll get a more closely matched race.
 
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i tried racing for SR last night after i got some advice on racing the star mazda & man did i get boned terribly. i was told it's week 13 issues but, yeah. DNF because 4 guys intentionally ran through me. will have to see if it changes now.
 
i tried racing for SR last night after i got some advice on racing the star mazda & man did i get boned terribly. i was told it's week 13 issues but, yeah. DNF because 4 guys intentionally ran through me. will have to see if it changes now.

My advice when trying to increase SR, don't race aggressively like you want to win, slow down some and let everyone else drive like idiots and just avoid their wrecks. Finish the race safely and without any incidents and you'll gain a nice SR boost.
 
literally within 20 seconds. one guy plowed thru me, clearly intentional, then a gang of three boxed me in until i was DQd. second straight time the latter has happened to me, although that race i was goofing off & karmically or w/e deserved it.
 
Honestly, I haven't seen any of that during the regular 12 weeks. I haven't raced any this week officially though, just been playing in hosted events as a ghost. If you see that a lot, I would just wait for the new season to start this week and then race or do time trials to build up SR if need to.
 

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