Some comments regarding RBR pacenotes

[Warren Dawes]

Since we have had a few negative comments about the "accuracy" of the Pacenotes in our Rally Club events lately, I thought I would post my comments (some I have made before ) in defence of RSRBR.
It is well known that there are a few dodgy pacenotes, especially with the reverse default stages. However, we should bear in mind:

1. The default pacenotes were made for the default stages, not the reverse ones. However, if we only use the default stages and not the reverse ones, things would get very boring and we'd lose interest and variation. So the odd dodgy pacenote (eg. at Falstone II) is a price we pay to have so much more variation available to us. Mostly they are ok anyway I think, just put it down to some realism where co-drivers make occasional mistakes.

2. The above errors, mainly at Falstone II, is most noticeable with the 3D pacenotes. A couple of them are pointing the wrong direction, but the verbal pacenotes are correct. However, most of us don't use 3D Pacenotes anyway, it's not very realistic.

3. The distance callouts are sometimes not ideal to suit our driving style. You can adjust this though, in the Options menus.

4. We should all remember that the default pacenotes are made to suit the default RBR cars with default good weather, on normal surfaces. Of course they will not be ideal when the weather changes, or the track surface has been changed. Again, I see this as realistic, in any real rally, drivers must adapt their braking points and speeds to suit the prevailing conditions.
We also have to adapt to the car we are driving. Obviously a WRC car will need different pacenote calls to a FWD low powered car.

I think it may be possible to modify the pacenotes and to make custom ones, but that is a very difficult and time consuming task. Changing voices is not too demanding, but not sure how to adjust the actual call speed for a turn.

My approach is to just accept some inaccuracies in the pacenotes, and use them as a guide. We have all been damaged by the odd dodgy pacenote call ( I even manage to get lost due to lack of a co-driver call ), but that is part of the variability and risk of Rally driving.
It's a small price to pay for the huge amount of extra variables and content available through using RSRBR.

If someone does manage to come up with a set of custom pacenotes, that would be great, but it won't detract from my enjoyment of using RSRBR.

 

[porridge]

An intriguing topic, and even though I don't drive online rallys, I think I have some points I'd like to put across - being a pacenote freak myself.

1. I see your point. The custom pacenotes are obviously created with RBRdll utility, but the problem is that one cannot go and edit those reversed stages. I asked Rallyesim for a txt map file for maps folder but either they didn't understand what I was looking for or they didn't just care. Either way, now I'd say those stages should be mostly driveable once you halve the callout distance (of course, it's really depending on one's default settings).

4. I'm not sure if the default pacenotes are made to suit any of those scenarios. As Richard Burns used "term pacenotes" (not numeric, I mean), I would assess that pacenotes are to describe the corners, and not how you should drive through them. And this is the only sensible way to drive, if you ask me. Naturally, it's a matter of opinion in the end, but I know for a fact that most finnish drivers are only describing the tightness of corners instead of the way or speed to drive through them.

I've understood that Kris Meeke uses numeric pacenotes that indicate the right gear for turns, and well, if anyone saw last year's IRC coverage from Sardinia, they must remember how he had to constantly change the pacenotes (even during the second passage), because the surface was more slippery than expected. So he had "too fast pacenotes". I'd say it's not really practical to "think in gears" for those very reasons you mentioned (weather, grip and so on) but then again, I don't understand why numeric pacenotes in general are so widely in use in the english-speaking rally world.

I mean, when one uses the method of describing the turns, theoretically one can always use the same pacenotes, no matter what car one is driving.

But anyway - to steer this back to topic - I don't know if there has been some sort of continuous complaining to Rallyesim for the custom pacenotes, but to me it'd seem a bit weird if that indeed was the case. Sure there can be some mistakes, because it's very hard to create pacenotes that would suit everyone. Even the original can't satisfy at times. Take Greenhills, for instance. Just a mess. Mostly the pacenotes there are clearly too fast, and the obvious inconsistency doesn't help either.

 

[Ben Buitendijk]

Huh, on Greenhills I think the pacenotes are too slow, I am doing easy turns in 5th gear and fast ones in 4th, mediums are 3th and even sometimes 4th! even some '1st' gear turns I can take in 2nd or 3th!

I find it interesting that you say that using numeric notes for gears dont work, because when the codriver calls a pacenote, it's not like I know which speed to slow down to, but I know in which gear to take the corner. So even though they are 'term' I use them as gear notes

The only really really 'bad' pacenote I have found is Falstone II, the voice is also reversed in some locations and because the stage is reversed, the notes are too fast/slow in some places and the callout distance is weird ofcourse

 

[porridge]

Huh, on Greenhills I think the pacenotes are too slow, I am doing easy turns in 5th gear and fast ones in 4th, mediums are 3th and even sometimes 4th! even some '1st' gear turns I can take in 2nd or 3th!

Well, this is just so typical. I think they're too fast, because I'm expecting the game to give me an idea about the overall profile of the turn, which they don't. Occasionally they're right, but most of the stage they're too fast. So for example, when it's a clear 90 degree corner, the game tells you it's "K", and what I can remember, this is the case with the other Australia stages as well.

But what comes to the numeric pacenotes, well, I don't have anything against them as a concept, I just don't understand why anyone would use them.

It helps a lot when you tweak the callout distance for Falstone II, because I think the callout distance is fairly consistently about 20-30 meters earlier "than expected". But it's evident that it was a mistake to do things in a different way than the original way had been. People get used to one way, and then someone thinks it should be done in another way. The original RBR way may not be realistic in these things, but still I would advise BTB stagemakers to actually think twice about this matter.

 

[Warren Dawes]

Just to clear up one point about numeric pacenotes. I am sure they are not really meant to indicate which gear to use, it is simply another way to describe the tightness of the turn.

I actually use the numeric pacenotes because I can relate to them better, and for sure I don't use them as a gear indicator. That is because it is totally dependent on what car you are driving, and what gear setting you chose for the stage (and of course the weather and surface variation used).

Ben, have you tried adjusting the call out distances in the Options menu, I sometimes adjust it for different countries? eg. in USA, I sometimes make the call out distance longer due to so many high speed sections.

All this stuff is very personal (like wheel settings), we just need to find what suits us best individually, and enjoy what we have.

 

[Aaron DeMarre]

I use numeric notes, and Warren is right, it does not have anything to do with what gear to take the turn, it is just a description of the tightness of the corner compared to the other corners on the stage.

It is worth mentioning that the notes are relative to the stage. An easy right on once stage might be a much tighter corner than an easy right on another. The notes are relative to the rest of the corners on the stage, so if all the turns on the stage are very tight, the notes change to reflect that.

Now the accuracy of the notes is another issue, and I think this reflects the accuracy you would have with a human co-driver fairly well. I used to modify them, but it gets old quick.

 

[Ben Buitendijk]

Yeah I think it's more me, I identify a note with a gear Thats why I thought it was an interesting discussion.

 

[Warren Dawes]

All I need now is a pacenote mod that informs me of spectators / photographers, looool. :tongue:

 

[porridge]

Yes, this idea of gear pacenotes is in absolute minority. The thing about Meeke is not a wikipedia fact, it's something I heard from "a relatively trustworthy source" and jury is still out on that whether it's true or not. It would truly explain many of the crashes he had last year, one of which was his own mistake with the pacenotes.

Anyway, what we should learn from all of this, even though I tried to complicate things needlessly with that Meeke example, is that there are the two usual ways of looking at the world. One is looking into the tightness of corners and the second is looking into the right way to "attack the corner" (speed basically). End of discussion from me.

Or maybe not. @Aaron, what do you mean by that "reflects the accuracy you would have with human co-driver fairly well"? If you don't mind me asking.

 

[Aaron DeMarre]

@Aaron, what do you mean by that "reflects the accuracy you would have with human co-driver fairly well"? If you don't mind me asking.

It's my way of saying that I am OK with crappy notes since it adds realism. The notes a real driver and co-driver make in recce are not free of mistakes.

Here in the US most rallies don't even have recce, you can either purchase the Jemba notes (computer generated) from the organizers, or buy notes from a team that have run the stages before. I imagine the RBR notes are more accurate than this system.

 

[porridge]

Ok. Fair point. Although at times it feels that default RBR pacenotes are way more lacking or incorrect than in real life onboard videos.

And what comes to the pacenote system in the game in general, now that's one of the weaknesses the game has. But that's another story indeed.

 

[Ben Buitendijk]

All I need now is a pacenote mod that informs me of spectators / photographers, looool. :tongue:

And a pacenote mod whichs helps you find the right way on junctions, right?

 

[Warren Dawes]

And a pacenote mod whichs helps you find the right way on junctions, right?

That's right, or is that left, maybe not, er.... er, oh what the hell, lets try them all. :tongue::wink: :facepalm:

 

[Senad Subasic]

And a pacenote mod whichs helps you find the right way on junctions, right?

Twas hilarious to watch, Ondrej style.

Anyway, thought about the pacenotes thing often. I hope some future rally game will iincorporate a system for reviewing and editing of the pacenotes. How hard can it be
Would be awesome if it had at least two buttons to assign, which would mark the corner as tighter or more open than the current pacenote say.

 

[Ryan Callan]

You've got to get a future rally game with decent physics yet

 

[Senad Subasic]

You've got to get a future rally game with decent physics yet

iOpener was being tested in rallying, so I hope that means that there will be a realistic rally game, with real stages. There's no point to it otherwise.

 

[Łukasz Demolin]

I agree with next to all Warren's comments. Also I normally prefer the numeric system, I'm just more used to it, but since driving more RBR I'm fine with the descriptive one. And it's a very common misconception about the "gear notes". The note almost always describes the tightness in the bend (maybe in the very early days it happen to be different), that's why some systems includ 10-point scale, other have reversed scale, meaning 1 is the fastest (I saw a few Czech drivers using that - "leva jedna" == full throttle ).

However in the end I always end up remember the correct gear for a note . It's inevitable for me, because despite talking about the "correct speed" how are you gonna check that? Look at the speedo? Depent on the gut? Undoable, as the feeling of speed changes with the stages tempo. So for me the only way to remember speed it to use the "modified gear system", meaning "low rpm third", "hight rpm third" etc .

Also despite remembering most general speeds I always take into account the look of the corner and whole stage. On snow I seem to use lower speeds, same goes with certain sections of Ozzie stages (surrounded by those treacherous banks). This allows me to crash out less .

Anyway, thought about the pacenotes thing often. I hope some future rally game will iincorporate a system for reviewing and editing of the pacenotes. How hard can it be
Would be awesome if it had at least two buttons to assign, which would mark the corner as tighter or more open than the current pacenote say.

<cough> The Polish guys are preparing a tremendous pacenotes mod. There is a small catch - it reads the parameters from the RBR loaded in memory, so that means it will be tricky to use it in RSBR, as it loads the reversed and new tracks by overwriting the default ones, and the Czech solution is giving them new, unique TrackIDs. The pacenote tool reads the TrackID and uses the correct set of notes basing on that. This would mean that to use the mod in RSRBR we would need to save a separate set of notes for all the new/custom reversed tracks and load them up before every start of each of those stages. Doable, yet not the most comfortable way.

Right now the mod is in the late testing stages, and looking very promising.

 

[Aaron DeMarre]

iOpener was being tested in rallying, so I hope that means that there will be a realistic rally game, with real stages. There's no point to it otherwise.

I heard this will be developed for WRC - The Game.

 

[Senad Subasic]

I heard this will be developed for WRC - The Game.

Will be developed? Glad to hear they weren't discouraged with the current game status. Maybe the next one will actually be good. Or at least suck less.

 

[Aaron DeMarre]

Will be developed? Glad to hear they weren't discouraged with the current game status. Maybe the next one will actually be good. Or at least suck less.

Well, I heard this before it was released. So they may have scrapped it, I am not sure how it would be implemented in a game where the stages don't match real life.