Is iRacing worth it?

[William Moody]

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?

 

[Steve O'Malley]

In answer to the original question, if you want regular racing that has some form of regulation, then yes it is worth it.
I tried a few RD events with the same guys on RFactor and it was good. Tried Race07 and found people would regularly cut corners and be quite happy to barge you out of the way rather than race fairly. To protest you would have to make a film and send it in but then it would seem like whinging and it would cause extra work for admins who at the end of the day would probably rather spend their time racing.

One of the best things about iracing is that if you cut a corner a little bit too much you will get a penalty and if you drive into someone too often you will lose SR and eventually lose your license, so clean racing is encouraged.

Try it for a month and see if you like it.

 

[Blkout]

There is simply NOTHING to compare to iRacing when it comes to organized online racing. I can certainly understand why some people dislike the business model in iRacing but what you get in online racing is second to none and there's not even anything close. It's pretty astonishing really.

 

[Bakkster]

That doesn't sound good. They don't know the problem yet. At least they're working on it though.

Intermittent issues are always the hardest to track down. Intermittent issues in distributed systems are even harder.

I have no issue with it from the software side, stuff happens. I understand the concerns from the sanctioning body side, especially with the disruption to the iNS which is the road to Pro for oval racers. Overall the uptime is quite high, but like anyone they naturally get judged on the worst events.

 

[Blkout]

I have no issue with the iRacing network. In the last 14-15 weeks I've been playing, this is the first time I've seen it down while trying to play. That's a lot of uptime compared to downtime.

 

[Bakkster]

I have no issue with the iRacing network. In the last 14-15 weeks I've been playing, this is the first time I've seen it down while trying to play. That's a lot of uptime compared to downtime.

Generally, the issue with iRacing downtime is its timing. For instance, the start of the iNS race where some drivers were able to join and others not. When the site goes down it tends to be at its busiest (natch), right after patches that everyone's excited to try, and unlike most other MMOs the scheduled nature means that 15 minutes of downtime can prevent people from racing for two hours.

But yes, the downtime isn't incredibly common. The last two times I tried to launch SRW it was down, finally uninstalled it. Going by iRacing's history we'll likely see stability restored next week at the latest and get another near 3 months of pretty much rock solid racing.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

yep, overall the stabilty of the service is amazing, considering how far they are now spread (numbers of series, numbers of players, location of servers). if the racing in the iRacing servers is altready pretty good as Steve (hi steve!) pointed out, then racing in a well organized league beats everything. We had a grid of 53 KIAs yesterday night in the BSRTC (british Sim Racing Touring Championship), not a wobble from the server for us players (though spectator mode went in heat02) and awesome gameplay as 53 players head towards the Esses at Silverstone Historic. watch here: http://bsrtv.net/bsrtc-s5r1-3-silverstone-historic/

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Is it worth it?
Can you afford it? Then yes.
If not, then no.
Sim and service is effin awesome, I just came off a 25min random official race on Laguna Seca in the Cadillac, I'm sweaty and my heart is throbbing like hell. So much fun, so intense!
But the prices almost induce the same feeling themselves xD

 

[Blkout]

yep, overall the stabilty of the service is amazing, considering how far they are now spread (numbers of series, numbers of players, location of servers). if the racing in the iRacing servers is altready pretty good as Steve (hi steve!) pointed out, then racing in a well organized league beats everything. We had a grid of 53 KIAs yesterday night in the BSRTC (british Sim Racing Touring Championship), not a wobble from the server for us players (though spectator mode went in heat02) and awesome gameplay as 53 players head towards the Esses at Silverstone Historic. watch here: http://bsrtv.net/bsrtc-s5r1-3-silverstone-historic/

Yea, that is awesome.

 

[Dux]

Who said its hard to win? In my 3rd Mazda Cup race won my first race on iRacing by -30 to 2nd

 

[Blkout]

Who said its hard to win? In my 2nd Mazda Cup race won my first race on iRacing by -30 to 2nd

Congrats, thats awesome!

 

[Dux]

Congrats, thats awesome!

Thank you!

Here are my details from the three races i did in the Mazda Cup. Now i need to know, since i have red marked 53 points and later i won 75 points, what that means?

I have searched a little and found in Asia club, what i have found, however i am puzzled. The leader on the table has same score like me even he is worse, had 15 incidents although led 1 lap more than me. Has 1 spot better avg. starting position and same finish position and he has more points than me. Why is that?

 

[Blkout]

Probably due to strength of field. He likely placed better than you did against a stronger field.

 

[Dux]

Probably due to strength of field. He likely placed better than you did against a stronger field.

There must be something else. When i won that was the race in which the strength of the field was strongest from all previous races in which i have been, ironically. And even more, it would be stupid way of how points are scored.

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

I would give up on understanding iRacings iRating system right away, it's too convoluted
It tries to score you based upon your rating vs the rating of the people you pass, the strength of field, number of incidents (and type i guess) and probably the color of your eyes....

 

[Bakkster]

Here are my details from the three races i did in the Mazda Cup. Now i need to know, since i have red marked 53 points and later i won 75 points, what that means?

Points in red were dropped from your total because they were lower than your highest score for the week. Your best 25% of finishes are averaged together, so you can have three awful races without affecting the score of your best race.

I have searched a little and found in Asia club, what i have found, however i am puzzled. The leader on the table has same score like me even he is worse, had 15 incidents although led 1 lap more than me. Has 1 spot better avg. starting position and same finish position and he has more points than me. Why is that?

Don't look at the statistics. Number of incidents, starting position, and laps led are irrelevant for points.

The only thing that matters is where you finish the race, and what the Strength of Field is.

There must be something else. When i won that was the race in which the strength of the field was strongest from all previous races in which i have been, ironically. And even more, it would be stupid way of how points are scored.

The race you won had a SoF of 1232. That's still slightly below average strength (which is 1350, same as starting iRating). That was high for you, but the Asia division leader has an iRating of 2300 (1000 higher than yours) and the race he finished second in had an SoF of 2551. When you double the Strength of Field, you double the number of points for winning the race, which explains how he earned 139 for second and you earned 75 for a win.
http://members.iracing.com/membersite/member/EventResult.do?&subsessionid=10776057&custid=107331

If you question the points difference, notice that his fastest lap was 2s faster than yours, and his average lap was 2.5s faster than yours. If you had run the same speed in the same race he was in, you would have finished 9th place instead of winning, and earned around 40 points. SoF actually does a pretty good job of balancing out the points on average. Keep pushing, and as your iRating improves to match your pace you'll find you score pretty accurately against people of the same speed.

I would give up on understanding iRacings iRating system right away, it's too convoluted
It tries to score you based upon your rating vs the rating of the people you pass, the strength of field, number of incidents (and type i guess) and probably the color of your eyes....

It's only complex if you think too hard about it

Literally the only things that matter are finishing position and your iRating compared to the Strength of Field. Once you stop trying to account for incidents or passes, you realize it's incredibly simple to understand the fundamentals (which is the important bit).

 

[Blkout]

There must be something else. When i won that was the race in which the strength of the field was strongest from all previous races in which i have been, ironically. And even more, it would be stupid way of how points are scored.

The iRating system works well, Bakkster explained why you aren't ranked as high. It doesn't take anything away from your win. Any win is a great accomplishment but the leader has a more important win than you because of his strength of field. Its likely the people that he competed against to get his win would have beaten you. As your iRating increases though, you will get more chances to race higher skilled opponents.

 

[Dux]

@Bakkster thank you on your thorough reply, cleared it all now.

But 2.5 seconds faster my ass i was racing with fixed setup just like everyone else in the race i was in and they were class above me, i cannot race against higher class anyway how, i don't chose that. But thank you now i will go on for a victory in his class!!!! There you are able to make setup i believe, it will be different

 

[Kjell Eilertsen]

Points in red were dropped from your total because they were lower than your highest score for the week. Your best 25% of finishes are averaged together, so you can have three awful races without affecting the score of your best race.

Don't look at the statistics. Number of incidents, starting position, and laps led are irrelevant for points.

The only thing that matters is where you finish the race, and what the Strength of Field is.

The race you won had a SoF of 1232. That's still slightly below average strength (which is 1350, same as starting iRating). That was high for you, but the Asia division leader has an iRating of 2300 (1000 higher than yours) and the race he finished second in had an SoF of 2551. When you double the Strength of Field, you double the number of points for winning the race, which explains how he earned 139 for second and you earned 75 for a win.
http://members.iracing.com/membersite/member/EventResult.do?&subsessionid=10776057&custid=107331

If you question the points difference, notice that his fastest lap was 2s faster than yours, and his average lap was 2.5s faster than yours. If you had run the same speed in the same race he was in, you would have finished 9th place instead of winning, and earned around 40 points. SoF actually does a pretty good job of balancing out the points on average. Keep pushing, and as your iRating improves to match your pace you'll find you score pretty accurately against people of the same speed.

It's only complex if you think too hard about it

Literally the only things that matter are finishing position and your iRating compared to the Strength of Field. Once you stop trying to account for incidents or passes, you realize it's incredibly simple to understand the fundamentals (which is the important bit).

HEY! Stop making sense!!!!
Thanks for explaining though, appretiated!
I've been falling back into iRacing lately, which is both great and bad, cos I was hoping to dedicate my time to AC "only". ><

 

[Blkout]

The online racing in iRacing is massively addicting if you've got the time to commit to it.

 

[Bakkster]

But 2.5 seconds faster my ass i was racing with fixed setup just like everyone else in the race i was in and they were class above me, i cannot race against higher class anyway how, i don't chose that. But thank you now i will go on for a victory in his class!!!! There you are able to make setup i believe, it will be different

Nope, he ran the exact same car as you did. If he was running the car in the GTC series where there are open setups, you wouldn't see him in the same set of results.

Trust me, there's a TON of time to be found by the best drivers. I'm rated somewhere in the 90th percentile of drivers, and I'm still consistently 1s off the top driver's times. I'm reminded of this Senna quote:
"On a given day, a given circumstance, you think you have a limit. And you then go for this limit and you touch this limit, and you think, 'Okay, this is the limit.' As soon as you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high."

Keep it up, you'll find the speed. You've just begun, and I often find I need several weeks at least to feel I'm reaching my limit, but even then I see slow, steady improvement for another season or two. Enjoy the journey to the top. You got a win! They end up pretty few and far between once you start mixing it up in the top SOFs...