Community Question | What Stops You From Racing Online?

[Nitro McClean]

At one side, we are very serious about simracing and use it for practicing for real life karting. On the other side it is just fun to be able to race in any car we want, on any track we want at any time we like. Online racing does not fit into this scheme. Then we have to race at a time, in a car on a track other people have chosen, and simracing would become the main goal. For now, real life karting is the main goal, and simracing is just a part of the way to get there, and to have some fun.

 

[Gerzson]

Having to invest many hours of practice into a league race, and no matter what, I keep doing laptimes only good for 25th out of a field of 30 or so. I consider most of my driving time a chore rather than fun, just for the thrill of a league race once every few weeks.
In the end I just end up driving alone in euro truck or snowrunner (because I can be slow and still have fun).

 

[bigaustin]

I used to race in a couple of leagues years ago in the days of Rfactor, called` GRC or `gentlemans racing club`

I got frustrated with cheaters who joined the league and started to win everything, they used memory exploits to give them grip , power or lack of tire wear ,etc

I raised it many times with league admins, but nothing happened.
so in the end I walked. must have done five seasons there.

now work would get in the way of any training time to create setups and learn the circuit to be used.

 

[Dr. Death]

Bad internet and a lot of rammers.

 

[StillRiver]

I am more of a racing fun rather than imagine myself being a great driver. I have tried a lot of racing simulators, but since I use keyboard I feel like I have no chance against wheel sim racers.

Project Cars 2, Forza Motorsport 7 and GRiD Autosport were the only games where I have enjoyed myself to race against other similarly skilled players.

I like to race with AI in Assetto Corsa and hotlapping in Assetto Corsa Competizione.

 

[ShredatorFIN]

Did some online racing in AC. Quite lot actually, but mostly on private server with friends. And I do some in Wreckfest, because it's relaxed

But otherwise...

Becomes too stressful, fear of causing incidents. I don't want to be "that guy". When it's combined with long race, quali, it amps up the stress... starts to feel like a job

Just less headaches offline. More flexible. Whatever track / car I want. I usually do 3-5 lap races. Occasionally if I'm feeling more patient, even 10 laps but not more.

Had really fun times in our AC private servers though, we did short races with just 2-4 people on ton of mod tracks. Was easy to restart if something stupid happened, wasn't that serious

 

[Lennart Groessl]

Because there aren't alot of people around that race vintage stuff.
Yes there are some leagues and scheduled races but you can't just go race classic stuff whenever you want to, always gotta wait for the next event and hope more than a handful of drivers signed up.

 

[Kimmo Kokkonen]

Variable weather race club events, Unlocked settings for race club events...thanks but not for me, thanks!

I would just like to drive fast against to others and have fun. It is not fun if I have to spend hours for train just setup and different weather conditions. Boring if the race is not important like league races that you have always important to prepare well.

So add locked setups and air temperature and I'm in almost every weekend!

I now that I do not have to spend hours for train but when other guys do so there's no real competition then, you cannot race against guys who train all days long and it's not fun to just participate. I can drive alone offline it's the same thing then.

League races are for serious racers who have lot of time for data etc. Me myself I never even checked car's data during train, not interested at all about that, I just like to drive fast, that's all. Fill the tank, choose tires and go race.

I still remember this super cool battle between Mike Bell and me 11 years ago, it was super fun, same car, same speed, same setup, that's racing! Golden era...GTR Evolution...Simbin. Amen.

 

[Shannon Flynn]

Um, nothing?
I don't always get to race exactly what I want, but I always find something to keep me interested for an afternoon.
League races every couple of weeks, random online rooms, or even hosting my own races with content *I* like in rF2, R3E or AMS1 and seeing who shows up. Usually with good success.

 

[mrbungle83]

CP??

They are the official servers they run at 3,5,7 and 9 uk time. They keep track of your rank.

 

[robocop]

For me is a problem of time.
Only fe hours per week, in the night the most, so it is unpracticable to train for an event or a league race constantly. Quick sessions for short races in single player modes are my simracing moments.
By the way, I own a T300, but with the lack of time and little children around it is closed in its box for months (or years sigh!). So i Play with a Xbox 360 wired gamepad that it is not the best. Anyway, GTR2, Race 07, AC, AMS are my favorite sims.

 

[Durge Driven]

Leagues could have done HEAPS to HELP like devoting some spare time to helping rookies in open rooms
Almost always any that do join a open room spit the dummy when their car gets scratched


Proof for me is in rFactor2 rooms F3-Fanatics and F3-Rookies were we went out of our way to help rookies all sorts of ways
I kept log of over 300 drivers in my room and 95% got faster and were over the moon and had more confidence

Now if others did that every day in all sorts of cars it could benefit the whole industry

 

[kk08]

Real life

 

[Gargos]

For me, it was always a case of not wanting to go in and make a spectacular wreck of myself against others. Now that I'm getting out there more and more, I'm realizing it's not me that making those spectacular highlight reels and it's not so bad.

 

[markg88]

I guess for me it's not being fast enough yet on sims. but I have enjoyed the 3 or 4 races that I have done, even though way off the pace.

 

[BorisK]

A few years ago, I rode on public servers and even participated in the Dirt Rally fan championship. Now I just do not have enough time to practice and not be an obstacle to other car racers online. I don’t really care about the victory, I like the process of the race with “live people”, but I don’t want to destroy the race them.

 

[GTme]

In almost 2 years, since the start of Early Access, I have been playing ACC and never once have I played online.

As a skillful racer, my reasons for not racing online are the following:

1) Not convenient

Online cannot compare to offline racing when it comes to convenience. When living a busy schedule, if I only have 20 minutes of free time, it's not practical to go online and start to search in hope for 30 other racers who happen to be available to start a race immediately and finish at the exact time that I need to finish. Furthermore, if I need to leave the house mid race during offline, I can pause, save or quit anytime without worrying about gaining the reputation of an online quitter. I can eat dinner whilst playing offline, pause the game multiple times. Send an email mid race or make a phone call. Go to the toilet, come back and resume. You don't have anywhere near that level of convenience and flexibility when playing online.

2) Horrible experience

Never again will I play online in a racing game. From previous limited experience and judging what I see on Youtube videos, online competitive racing is usually a substandard experience. Everything seems to go downhill. Graphics. Framerates. Cars teleporting or micro-stuttering around the track. Excessive amounts of divebombing. Human opponents dangerously swerving their cars left and right and back again, trying to prevent passing, which wouldn't be allowed on a real race track. I must mention divebombing again as its frequency in online sim racing is on a high level not seen in real life racing or in ACC offline against AI. When ACC first released, its AI was almost as horrible as online racing with its divebombing, but now much more enjoyable.

 

[Case_]

I wish all the people afraid of not being good enough or fast enough or of ruining someone else's race managed to overcome their fears and went on racing anyway. You have the best possible attitude for online racing if you're mainly worried about ruining someone else's race as far as I'm concerned. I'd always much rather race someone worried about ruining someone else's race than someone who just punts you as he's "going for the gap that might actually only exist in his overconfident mind".

And worries about not being good enough are also largely unfounded. For one, there's no other way to learn than going for it, and second, the more casually oriented communities usually have all kinds of drivers, and you can usually find someone close to your own pace and skill to race against. And outside of actual leagues, pace is pretty much irrelevant - the only thing that matters is whether you had fun or not. And that's not based on pace, that's just based on having someone to race and/or to challenge yourself (and learn). If you're not having fun, then it doesn't matter if you break world records or get overtaken by pace cars.

And as for intentional wreckers - I'm kinda surprised they seem to be such a big problem for many, I don't encounter them as much I think. But if you do encounter them a lot - find a better community! And, related, in regards of T1 mayhem and such - it really helps a lot to make your peace with the fact that it will almost certainly happen, it doesn't get to you nearly as much if you do approach it like that. Hopefully it will be unintentional, but it will likely happen. In most races I do there's some kind of incident in T1 or generally on the first lap. Being careful and anticipating incidents helps (even if you might lose a few places going slower, you might even gain a few back as you avoid a large mess in T1).

 

[James Cook]

Short answer: Kids.

Long answer: My gaming time is usually after 9PM (UK). By then most events are well under way or finishing up. I'm usually too tired to concentrate and would rather chill with offline racing. My work shift pattern also means I would struggle to commit to leagues or organised events.

Used to love online racing and was part of a community that would meet for organised events. But real life gets in the way, now.

 

[teknologika]

The reason I don't race online is because I don't want to ruin other people's races if I mess up.

This was a massive hesitant factor for me taking the "plunge" to online racing. Once I started there were two other major factors:

1. Performance anxiety ... the idea of having to complete a race 99% clean with no errors is daunting to say the least, especially when you are used to using "replay" features in more arcade games.

2. Punterino ... my first online races were in F1 2019 open lobbies, and there is so much unclean racing it is crazy. iRacing is much much better for this because of the safety rating system.

I race hydrofoil sailing boats in real life where there is real physical risk, speed and pain involved, yet I get a much more nervous and a higher heart rate sitting on the grid in iRacing in a Mazda. Go figure.