GTL events - too complicated?

[Stuart Thomson]

All, over the past few days, a couple of different people have, not complained, but mentioned that the GTL events might be a bit complicated, possibly "busy" might be a better word.

So, give me some feedback on the following:

1. Sprint nights (by which I mean the multiple very short races in Minis/Abarths/Elites) - too many events per night? races too long? too short?
2. Non Sprint Club nights - one track, 2 races? one track, multi classes, multi races? One vehicle, multiple tracks? if so, how many? prac / quali / race length?
3. Classes - TC65? GTC65? GTC76? Single make? All ins? A combination? What provides the best racing?
4. Tracks - stay more default? Blend default with 3rd party? Keep trying out different venues? Too many downloads?
5. CotM - Bias towards enduro? Bias towards tracks with 2 layouts for sprint / feature? A mixture of the 2?
6. Special events - Long enduros? Nords events? Le Mans events? Team events?

I've been trying to keep it interesting for everyone, but the recent feedback is giving me pause for thought that I might be making it too varied. I'll be doing a multiclass event on the non-league Thursdays (like Zolder tomorrow 28/05).

Let me know what you think.

 

[Matt Crouch]

My only real thoughts (other than that it's all a big void between my ears) are on number 1. Everything else probably won't be that useful because I'm basically going to say that everything is good.

1. I think the mini event with 5 races turned out to be a little too many. I think it can work well (e.g. the more spontaneous one the week before) but I prefer a little more time with a track. I guess the difference between that event and the minis was that it used all the default tracks so it was easier to jump into. I'm not sure we were all ready for the perils of Virginia.
   .
2. Pretty much everything is good. I don't think variation can hurt in this respect. Monaco, Skandi and that one where we did Jops and Osterreichring all stand out as good events and that covers almost everything.
   I've always liked short quali sessions personally and I think in the GTL club qualifying positions don't tend to be very important. For a 3 race event I think the skandi session lengths worked well, but it's worth doing 2 race events with a little more practice and race length for unknown tracks
   .
3. all of the above. It feels like we have more exposure to the 65 cars than the 76 but that may be that I've missed more of the 76 events. I like individual car events and mixed car ones. The downside to mixed is of course that picking a different car to everyone else can leave you rather lonely. The ones in which we pick one of two or three cars and then a compulsory switcharoo have been good as that generally stops this from happening.
   If it's multiple cars on the same track I think it's good to assign these before the race just to keep it balanced, but I also think it's good to not force people to choose cars before hand where multiple tracks are concerned, as it could put people off from signing up if they have no idea about the tracks and no time to try them out..
   .
4. Variation again really. There aren't that many default tracks, and unofficial tracks like Mr Watkins, Limerock mountain and many more are just as good. Tying in with number 1 though I think if there's an event with 5 tracks or very little practice, there should be default ones in there at least mixed in.
   As a side note :music: I was pondering the other day if sachsenring '67 is around for GTL (which we did in evo in the Cats)... might be a bit punishing though....
   .
5. Both again. Can't hurt to try out the CoTM in different ways
   .
6. Yep. Something special needs a good position in the schedule though to maximise attendance. The last Abarth event would probably have been more successful on a different weeknight. Don't quote me on this but I think many of the less regular attendees don't normally race on Saturdays (or are in a league race and wouldn't want to run two events in one night). I know my weekends are quite unpredictable right now.
   
   Team race is an interesting idea, needs signups to be commited of course and it's important that no-one takes results of an event like that as anything more than fun*

Too much info? Probably :laugh2: More than was intended anyway. Generally it's all spiffing and I think everyone appreciates the effort you put in to it

*organized fun only... all unauthorised fun users will be destroyed :terminator:

 

[Warren Dawes]

I am happy with the mix / balance of events, but then I love to have lots of variety and don't get too worried about results. I just enjoy driving these cars.
With so many different cars and tracks available, it's pretty hard to give everyone a chance to try everything, but you have been serving up a menu which gives us a chance to sample most of it.
Of course, with so many events on each week, it can become a case of "can't get to all of them" but at least by having them available, it increases chances for most of us to get to some of them.

It can become a tad demanding if we keep using new addon tracks every event, so I like to see a balance of addon and default tracks (pretty much what you have been serving up).

So, I'm easy really, whatever everyone likes is fine with me. I have no major complaints with the current menu.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Righto gents, thanks for coming back.
I'd like to address Croucher's and Warren's points in order, just to make sure I've understood the gist of the thing so any action I take is along the right sort of lines. Let me know if you think I'm on the right lines with the below.

1. Sprint nights should be max 4 to min 3 events (from Practice (P) start to Race (R) chequered flag = approx 30-40 mins of which the actual race should be about 50%). At least 1 default track should always appear in a Sprint Night for familiarity's sake if there are any "New to Club" (NTC) tracks included.

2. Non-sprint nights - Bias the P & Q total length to a longer P and a shorter Q session. 3 event nights should be on familiar tracks with single cars, or 1 track and 3 cars. 2 track event nights can be single or multi car. If the track is NTC, limit it to single track multi car events, and extend the Practice length for familiarity.

3. [direct answer mode]There are 2 x 65 classes and only 1 x 76 class, plus the lower powered cars are easier to drive competently keeping the racing closer. The sprint Pack is all 65's, but they are the best cars for those short tracks. We have done 76er events including a month's worth of COTM.[/direct answer mode] Stay with the Mixture of classes / multicar / single car as is - tailor the events to the cars as discussed in (1) & (2).

4. [direct answer mode]Yes, Sachsenring 65 does exist for GTL - I was thinking of doing a 3 car event there in the not too distant - probably nicer handling cars to limit the abject carnage that would ensue if I said, say, "Falcon / Cobra / 911"[/direct answer mode] Generally blend in default tracks with both the familiar 3rd party tracks and NTC tracks as discussed in (1) & (2).

5. COTM - blend the events, but keep the emphasis on at least one longer duration race.

6. Special events - Generally welcome, but need longer notification and schedule planning. Avoid clashes with any RD League events. [direct answer mode]"Teams" would be on an ad-hoc, event-by-event basis, probably created at random, in advance of the event to allow collaboration / strategy.[/direct answer mode].

Sound about right / fair / reasonable ?

 

[Knut Omdal Tveito]

Sounds good.

3. With regards to mixed-cars I remember a great race with alfa vs. mustang where I switched positions all the time! Loved it. The combo was perfect for that track. Also last tuesday was great. Would like to see more of that.

4. I really apreciate the new tracks I've been introduced to. So I would like as many new tracks as possible. But maybe introduce them in longer races so that we get to learn them in longer sessions. Then re-run "short versions" of these tracks in sprint races

5. Enduro A sprint before is good. But the last race needs to remain a long race.

6. Sounds awesome. The idea of longer races brings out much more effort and enthusiasm from my part. Could you explain a little how a team event would work?

 

[Ben Tusting]

Yeah it sounds good Stuart

 

[Stuart Thomson]

I moved the Team event discussion to it's own thread:

http://forum.racedepartment.com/gt-legends/18875-gtl-team-events-discussion.html

Please just use this thread for responses to my initial questions. Cheers

 

[Kris Leeten]

Re on post #4:
1. Why not with a minimum of 2?
2. Excellent
3. I deeply appreciate the effort you take to find al these great combo's. I hope the xls can help a bit.
4. Same idea as Knut (+1 for new tracks (eg Birmingham last Tuesday), but I would think of short sessions first, and then a longer run
5. Not that much experience with CoTM, occupied with the league atm and it's difficult for me to attend on Saturdays
6.:drool:

 

[Warren Dawes]

Sound about right / fair / reasonable ?

That is a good summary for me. :good:

Whilst many people would like to have close competitive racing as often as possible, I like to see some events where we struggle to drive these beasts and we have fun teasing each other about the spins / roll overs / and offs. It helps keep the friendly fun culture alive in this GTL group, where we don't take ourselves too seriously. So, I say, keep a mixture of close racing competitive stuff, and some "hang onto your hats and hope to stay alive" type events thrown into the mix.
I just don't want to see GTL turned into the rather serious/ competitive / aggressive / must win culture that sometimes rears it's head in GTRE. :wink2:

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Re on post #4:
1. Why not with a minimum of 2?

Simply because then the races end up being too long to be called sprints.

Let's say a race night lasts 2 hours.

With 2 races, we're talking 1 hour per race, from Practice start to Race chequered flag.

Inside that hour, people want to race most, so it's fair that 50% of that hour should be devoted to the race. So it would work out to be 20 min prac, 10 min quali, 30 min race.

That's too long for a sprint, and on the short courses we sprint on, we're talking between 25 & 30 laps. That can get boring pretty rapidly, and also if someone crashes out, there's a fair bit of time for them to wait until the next race starts.

Scale that down to a 40 minute event, and it starts to look better. We come out at 15 prac, 5 qual, 20 min race - 18-20 laps, and that's more like a sprint race.

The non-sprint club nights where we have 2 tracks will be more like the timings of the 20/10/30 style of race, but laptimes on those longer tracks will be > 90sec meaning a max of 20 laps.

 

[Amir Margalit]

hi stuart here is my view:
the sprint races are in my opinion the best races. i think that 4 or 5 diffrent tracks in one night is a bit too much. i don't have a lot of free time to learn all the tracks. therefor i suggest that the sprint races would be made of 3 diffrent short track . as for the laps maybe you should add about 5 laps per each event.
as for the hour long races i don't enjoy them very much. we are not a lot of players and an hour long race is usually boring and with big gaps.
also i would love to have more 70's cars event.
maybe because there are 3 events per week we dont get a lot of players, you might consider doing 2 races a week in tuesday and saturday.
as for your idea about teammates i would love to race with a teamate.
anyway once again thx for your time and effort. you make a superb job.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Thanks for coming back.

To take your points in order:-

We will only do 4 track nights using tracks that we are all familiar with, including at least 1 default, so the learning aspect is greatly reduced. 3 tracks per night will become the default whenever there is a new track involved.

The lapcounts will indeed be increased as the number of tracks used decreases.

I base my events on approx a 2 hour window, of which I aim for an hour's worth of racing, and a combined hour's worth of Practice & Quali. The lapcounts will reflect that 50% ratio. Less tracks = more laps etc.

Enduros are not for everyone, but some people do enjoy them, so they will continue to be part of the CotM schedule, albeit along with some sprint / feature and 2 equal length race events. Again, this is so as not to deny those people their enjoyment.

The 70's cars have a big problem in that they are not particularly well balanced as a field, and they don't have loads of liveries for a single make event to be much more than a sea of identical cars, but I will be doing some 70's only events, maybe of the "3 70's cars, 3 races, 1 track, different car per race" type.

We will be staying @ 3 events per week, however. We get some people who can only do Tuesdays, some only Thursdays, some only Saturdays. It would be unfair to deny any of those people their GTL time, and that would actually reduce the number of GTL drivers.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Can one of the three nights be a stocknight? With just default cars and tracks?

I am fairly new still to GTL, and I enjoy exploring the game still. Personally i have my hand full on all the new cars and tracks in GTL, so I am not to interested in all add-on content yet.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

Bram, I moved your post here as it seemed more relevant to this discussion.

We currently only use default cars, just the occasional skinpack.

I will be interweaving the default tracks a lot more with add-ons, and won't be doing any more "All Add-On" nights.

Anytime there's a New Track introduced, I will be lowering the number of events that night, and making the other tracks that night default.

This will mean that we will, by definition have some all default nights - tonight for example - and the non default nights will have a lot more default content in them to cut down on the new things to be learnt.

 

[Stuart Thomson]

These new event profiles will not kick in immediately, but please note that I will be changing some of the slightly further out events already up to begin to comply.

 

[Hans Sneep]

I am happy with this Stuart, for me I need some time to practice on my own to now the track and car combination,with 3 event evenings and a lot of new tracks I have hardly the time to do some practice.

If I start in a race I like to now ware I am going and not use the practice time to learn a track.

Not that it make a big difference,bud for me it will give me more confidence to start a race.

Stuart,you may be proud on what you have done in the last month's lots of new tracks, beautiful skins a lot of new people in GTL, created Top race events
and we all have a great time here on RaceDepartment .

And I am proud to be a part of this all !

Thanks , Hans