What can be done to improve driving standards on Race Department?

I have to say that I am seriously disappointed with all of the RF2 club events I have participated in since I purchased the game. Of course there are a lot of excuses people could use. The game is new. The cars are difficult to drive. The competition is unfamiliar. Of course these are all mitigating factors and may have some validity, however, every event I have been part of there were several restarts just because of turn one incidents. I vote instead of doing restarts over and over we just watch the videos issue infractions for people who can't make it through lap one.

It seems that without the old incident system that we had that suspended people's licenses for arcade style driving, that Race Department racing clubs, especially the new RF2 has become just one big passworded public server. I sincerely hope that some type of post to help bring people back in line, or better yet bring back incidents and suspensions. It has gotten to the point where I only want to join league events and even there the standards have been below where they were when I first joined Race Department with the ranking system and the infraction system.

I certainly think while the ranking system made people try harder, however, I feel it was mitigated by the infraction system. I thought the infraction system was very effective as of posted people's names, the incident they were involved in, and the severity of the penalty. After people got one or two they toned it down for fear of public ridicule and removal of the racing license. also I think there was a positive side to the ranking system. It did post your DNF percentage and how you finished. I think this made people practice more for club events instead of just jumping in the car without any practice for some "fun". I see no problem with jumping in the car to have some fun with no practice as long as you can stay on the track for the whole race and not take out a bunch of the grid in turn one or on the first lap.

I hope that Bram and R&D staff and administration seriously consider doing what it takes to implement another effective penalty system. We all do silly things because this is Sim racing and not real life, however we are trying to "simulate" real-life racing. In real life there usually aren't first-turn pileups five races out of five, and if there were there would be serious penalties being handed out.

I'm sure there are several solutions. I welcome draconian type penalties for people who don't respect Race Department is a site for people who are wanting to compete against other drivers and a fair, respectful, and realistic racing environment.

Specifically for the new RF2 racing club... If you can't do the race distance without your car leaving the track surface if you were driving on your own, in two out of three racing simulations, you need more practice and are not ready to race with other people. Lining up on a grid to make it three corners and end up in a hay field may be fun for you, but not for your competitors, and it's certainly not "racing".

I hope that many will get my point. Just because it's a club event I don't think it's fair or the intention of Race Department for people to line up on the grid to "race" who couldn't do two laps without flying off the track by themselves. Real racers keep their car on the track at least 90% of the time. (more like 99% in reality)

I sincerely hope that my comment stimulates not only serious discussion and thought, but also some action, especially from the Race Department staff. The current example being set and exhibited in the RF2 club events isn't in line with what I think the majority of people signed up for license at Race Department for, which is good clean fair racing!

Disclaimer:This post is not a rant! It is a serious attempt to get people to consider what it means to hold a racing license, virtual or otherwise! Any serious racer looking at replays of most of the club events that take place on RD would laugh at usif we were to call this a sport or tell them we had to apply for a license to do this.
This is not the way it should be...Race Department is supposed to blur the line between virtual and real motorsport!
 
I hope that Bram and R&D staff and administration seriously consider doing what it takes to implement another effective penalty system.
Actually we have a penalty system already. Let me quote from the signup post:

If you feel you were wronged in any way during an event and wish to report the incident, simply send the event organiser a private message. Please include a description of the incident along with a video. If you are unable to create a video, please include details such as who was involved and where the incident happened with a timestamp. Do not post reports/accusations in the thread itself - negativity and anger gets us nowhere.

To whom did you sent your video report?
 
Bram,

I have no desire to have a discussion with you about this. If you don't agree that standards need to come up I will just keep my mouth shut.

I am aware of the incident system. If it was working at all as it's supposed to then I wouldn't be writing my post.

Also if I have to write incident reports in 8/10 club events that in itself shows that we need to have some improvement in driving standards.

Are you saying the solution is to put in report after report after report? This process takes quite a long time at the moment especially since you need to upload a video. I'm not saying this isn't an effective system but I am implying that it's not working because the way the races are going and people are driving.

Do you agree that standards need to improve or are you happy with the way people drive On Race Department?
 
I am aware of the incident system. If I it was working at all as it's supposed to then I wouldn't be writing my post.

If we to write incident reports in 8/10 club events does that in itself shows that we need to have some improvement in driving standards?

Are you saying the solution is to put in report after report after report? This process takes quite a long time at the moment, especially since you need to upload a video. I'm not saying this isn't an effective system but I am implying that it's not working because the way the races are going and people are driving.

Do you agree that standards need to improve or are you happy with the way people drive On Race Department?
 
I think you are exaggerating a little bit. But improvement starts with all drivers first. We watch and judge all incidents if they get properly reported and as Ivo posted out rotten apples will get removed.

However we cannot review all races in detail as that is also time consuming. If people really are wronged they dont mind shooting a five minute video. If that is really too much time I don't think its that serious.

Of course driving standards can always be better but its a common effort, not a staff effort only. Thats what I wanted to say :)
 
I'm only driving in the RDLMS series atm so my opinion may be a bit biased, but I have more than 11 years of simracing experience almost dating back to when GPL was released. I've raced in countless leagues and this is just another one. Its not the leagues that are the problem, its the drivers. No league can improve on driving standards if people arent prepared to do it.

Also, choosing a quality series has a huge impact on driving standards. A sprint race series usually has a high DNF rate due to the nature of sprint racing. You have a limited amount of time to get by an opponent and limited time to claw back the time you lost from either a spin or being held up by a slower car. Take a look at the various real like touring series, they're a wreckfest most of the time. The BTCC for example is carnage at nearly every track they visit. Its spectacular and entertaining for spectators but frustrating for the teams and drivers.

If you enter an endurance series its a whole other story. There's amble time to settle in, do battle and recover whats lost. We recently finished an 8 hour enduro over at the RDLMS series in this very league where we raced on the least suitable multi-car-class track in the entire universe; Road Atlanta. Only 6 penalties have been applied (so far) in a race that stretched ~500 laps with 43 cars entered. Thats a receipy for mayhem, but it didnt happen.
 
I'm only driving in the RDLMS series atm so my opinion may be a bit biased, but I have more than 11 years of simracing experience almost dating back to when GPL was released. I've raced in countless leagues and this is just another one. Its not the leagues that are the problem, its the drivers. No league can improve on driving standards if people arent prepared to do it.

Also, choosing a quality series has a huge impact on driving standards. A sprint race series usually has a high DNF rate due to the nature of sprint racing. You have a limited amount of time to get by an opponent and limited time to claw back the time you lost from either a spin or being held up by a slower car. Take a look at the various real like touring series, they're a wreckfest most of the time. The BTCC for example is carnage at nearly every track they visit. Its spectacular and entertaining for spectators but frustrating for the teams and drivers.

If you enter an endurance series its a whole other story. There's amble time to settle in, do battle and recover whats lost. We recently finished an 8 hour enduro over at the RDLMS series in this very league where we raced on the least suitable multi-car-class track in the entire universe; Road Atlanta. Only 6 penalties have been applied (so far) in a race that stretched ~500 laps with 43 cars entered. Thats a receipy for mayhem, but it didnt happen.

Amen to your post brother, you mind if I quote this in my league forum? I might drop the endurance part....cause we run sprints ;)
 
Its not the leagues that are the problem, its the drivers. No league can improve on driving standards if people arent prepared to do it.

Also, choosing a quality series has a huge impact on driving standards.

These are the two key parts to clean on-line racing.
When a community builds up a good group of clean respectful drivers, then it tends to continue that way. It seems that some games attract better groups and vice versa.

I haven't found that endurance series will be better than sprint series though, again it is more dependent on the drivers involved. I've participated in Sprint series events that are very clean (eg. RD's GTL Club) and I've also participated in endurance / longer distance events (eg. in Race On) where the usual lap 1 madness still ccurred. :rolleyes:
 
But that's GT legends for you though Warren. GT Legends has always been like that due to the Calibre of the drivers(As you won't get young hot heads driving around in old cars)

That's why leagues are more appealing to people, due to if their are idiot drivers out there, they will just get banned / heavily penalised.

I agree with Jan about the Endurance event (RDLMS)
 
Members get also penalized in club events: http://racedepartment.com/forum/posts/1029895/

There is one difference. In leagues the majority of the drivers are willing to make a proper incident report. In club events they are not and invest their time in complaining only which will not help as long as we have the rule: no report = no penalty.

The procedure is really clear and we always review reported incidents with all the staff members.and when rules are violated people get booted. The thing we did wrong is not always make that very clear to the rest. But if you check the link above you can see the outcome of the latest license suspensions.

Enforcing good rules really has to come from both sides: drivers and organization.
 
Yeah. Also every game has its moments with some incidents.
Not so long ago Race 07 had some problems with some new rotten apples, because the game got so cheap. They got their license revoked because of that and the club was oke again. Now their are some incidents with rFactor 2. Can happen, is a new game probably some new guys. Just takes a couple of weeks to get clear of the rotten apples and its oke again.
 
I do hope many people read this thread as it's very good that it's brought forward as an issue. I am sure not everybody knows what we expect from drivers and also what drivers can expect from the race organization.

One of the things RD really needs to improve is having a good static page that explains this all for new comers as it can be very overwhelming I think when you are new and your only experience so far was online racing in a public lobby where everything is allowed :)
 

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