I play an hour here, an hour there. Went with 3-6.
I really love online play, but little things can tarnish it. For instance:
1) Penalties - occasionally these are, well, wrong. I deliberately cut a corner (out of frustration, I should add), just a warning. I get shunted off the track, lose my front wing, then get a 10 second penalty for cutting a corner. Or today, for instance, I came flying round a bend and crashed full on into a car reversing sideways along the track, and I got the penalty for "causing a collision". Makes no sense.
2) Other drivers. In a 12 man race it's always best to be near the back. Because there is always one nutter who just decides not to break for the first corner, and more often than not, I'm the one who gets sent flying off the track. I go from 1st, 2nd, 3rd (where I normally seem to start in these races) to dead last with no front wing and hobbling around the track.
I rarely win races (normally spin or something, only happens when I'm 1st though. Must be some sort of mental thing), but one race where I was actually destroying the race, the guy in last decided to wait until I lapped him then just destroyed my car whilst sending me spinning into the gravel. This after bumping into me and cutting me off several times. I ended up 9th out of 10 from a 20 second lead in 1st. Beyond a joke.
I really hate being near the front and turning the first corner. If I don't get smashed into when braking, as I start to turn the corner I'm just waiting for someone to send my spinning, and, more often than not, I get that shunt.
3) Ghosts. Can be really annoying when someone is trying to overtake you, so you try to defend and they just ghost through you. Literally.
4) Lag. One guy I was chasing a whole race, because everytime I overtook him, be it on a straight or at a corner, he would just lag back in front of me. Not sure if this was genuine lag or some sort of mod, but it was annoying.
Oh, and one time in a 3-man race, I was a lap ahead of this guy and behind him the whole race, yet he won!? I was 3rd after a first corner shunt. Caught up with one guy, took him to go 2nd. Then, on the same lap, I caught up with the leader AND the guy I had just overtaken. How did he get there? I was still 2nd though, and after I overtook the leader I was 1st with this guy in front of me 3rd. So somehow he had ended up at the last part of the track, yet a lap behind me on my first lap. Whatever. Anyway, I was behind him the whole rest of the race, still 1st according to the OSD. But when I crossed the finish line, he ended up 1st. Bizarre.
Oh and last night when racing with my mate online, in a 12 man race, the OSD was all messed up. It told me I was 4th, and it also said he was 4th. Three cars in front of me piled up (including my mate), I overtook them all and ended up... 4th (turns out this time I actually was 4th). Yet my mate's OSD told him he was 4th. When I ended the race I was actually 4th, whilst he was 8th, but it continued to say he was 4th until the guys ahead of him finished, when, one by one, his thing told him he was 5th, then 6th, then 7th, etc.
But when I stop taking it seriously and just go for a laugh, it can be fun. Sometimes I just want to do well, others I'm happy to be shunted off as long as when I return to the track I'm right in the action. Nothing more fun than following two cars duelling then taking both of them in the same time.
