Should SMS enable BoP on all Groups?

[simsimsheree]

I'm guessing the huge dominance of GT3 and GTE online is a response to how poorly balanced most of PC2's Groups are for racing. Yes, they are historically accurate (in the most part), but the bottom line in a RACING game is, can you race? When a large number of SMS's Groups contain a rabbit or two, and several tortoises, that sort of ruins them as candidates for racing unless you are content to have a one or two car field.

So, would it be a good idea for SMS to adopt what happens IRL (and other games like GTS) and have an optional (please note this... I am not suggesting that the original specs be nerfed in stock form) BoP setting, to allow closer racing between ALL the cars in a group?

I honestly think online would open up a lot more than it is now if more than just a few groups that actually are already BoP'd IRL could be raced without them being one-makes.

 

[Chikane_GTR]

Please keep your BOP off my P1 GTR

 

[The_American]

For the next game (whenever) they absolutely must do online admin controlled BoP. Even their internal physics guys would love to offload this problem to the community

 

[StephBambinho]

Every single type of optional customization is for me a good thing for the game (was thinking about the grid and championship customization above all but this BoP thing is definitely a must-have)

 

[twitcher]

Absolutely yes, and every category should be updated after every patch.

Needs to be applied offline as well. Majority of the catagories, if you race offline, the finishing order is more predictable then the average F1 race.

It’s even worse when you add in the fact that, offline, the game cannot generate a “random grid”. Pick any category with multiple cars, and load up a race. 9/10 times, the same cars will appear on the grid in a very similar order.

2 examples. After the Le Mans dlc, i did a 2.4hrs of Le Mans with the Vintage Prototype A, VPB, and VGTA. It took me nearly 2 hours of loading the race and then exiting to get the grid I wanted (at least 3 “streamlines” from either Porsche or Ferrari, at least 2 of the other brand’s streamliner, and then close to an even split between the normal 917 and normal Ferrari). Every single time I loaded a “random grid”, the game placed 917s always at the front, followed by the 917 streamline, followed by the Ferrari, followed by the Ferrari streamliner. Like I said, I spent nearly 2 hours loading races, and 99% of the time, the grid was basically the same, plus/minus a car here or there.

Yesterday I wasted almost 3 hours trying to set up a Watkins Glen 6 hour (3hr, time x2). LMP2, GTE, GT3, with me in an M6 GTE. Again, I spent over three hours loading and exiting trying to get anywhere close to an IMSA GTE grid, eventually I just gave up. I was trying to get 2 Ferrari, 2 Porsche, 2 Corvette, 2 Fords, 2 BMW, 2 Aston but that was impossible (and forget proper liveries!!). The closest I got was 1 Ferrari, 1 Porsche, 1 Ford, 4 BMW, 4 Astons. And the game loaded basically the same grid order every time. BMW followed by Aston, the Corvette Ford. The rare times the game loaded a Porsche or Ferrari, they were somewhere in the middle.

I really want to plug away at 3 hours of the Glen this weekend while the real thing is on, but after last night, am feeling not so motivated anymore

 

[mattikake]

It would be a good option to have to stop the runaway leaders and close-up the racing for the reasons of close racing.

A manual preset ballast option would be nice. Atm I'm running a league that uses fuel loads as a form of success ballast but for it to work the races either need to be short and/or the standard of driving to be pretty close. It has it's good days and bad days due to circuit, car and driving standard. Problem is some cars work well on high fuel like the bmw GT3- must have a rear fuel tank as opposed to the 911 GT3's front tank (guess) for e.g.

 

[simsimsheree]

I'd say a combination of ballast and engine nerfing would work best. Of course, just like even GT3, there will be people criticizing the minutiae of the BoP level, but to be honest, I don't care if one car can outperform another by a second or so a lap. Usually a good driver in a lesser car can overcome that. But many of SMS's Groups have 4 or more sec/lap differences between cars. Shave that down to 1sec, I'm fine with them.

PC2's Road Car groups are pretty much a waste of time if you are looking for a close race, and this is such a shame, as the handling on many of them is fun, and it offers a link to GT and Forza for those migrating on consoles (where road car racing used to be the majority or rooms).

 

[Jezza819]

Absolutely yes, and every category should be updated after every patch.

Needs to be applied offline as well. Majority of the catagories, if you race offline, the finishing order is more predictable then the average F1 race.

It’s even worse when you add in the fact that, offline, the game cannot generate a “random grid”. Pick any category with multiple cars, and load up a race. 9/10 times, the same cars will appear on the grid in a very similar order.

2 examples. After the Le Mans dlc, i did a 2.4hrs of Le Mans with the Vintage Prototype A, VPB, and VGTA. It took me nearly 2 hours of loading the race and then exiting to get the grid I wanted (at least 3 “streamlines” from either Porsche or Ferrari, at least 2 of the other brand’s streamliner, and then close to an even split between the normal 917 and normal Ferrari). Every single time I loaded a “random grid”, the game placed 917s always at the front, followed by the 917 streamline, followed by the Ferrari, followed by the Ferrari streamliner. Like I said, I spent nearly 2 hours loading races, and 99% of the time, the grid was basically the same, plus/minus a car here or there.

Yesterday I wasted almost 3 hours trying to set up a Watkins Glen 6 hour (3hr, time x2). LMP2, GTE, GT3, with me in an M6 GTE. Again, I spent over three hours loading and exiting trying to get anywhere close to an IMSA GTE grid, eventually I just gave up. I was trying to get 2 Ferrari, 2 Porsche, 2 Corvette, 2 Fords, 2 BMW, 2 Aston but that was impossible (and forget proper liveries!!). The closest I got was 1 Ferrari, 1 Porsche, 1 Ford, 4 BMW, 4 Astons. And the game loaded basically the same grid order every time. BMW followed by Aston, the Corvette Ford. The rare times the game loaded a Porsche or Ferrari, they were somewhere in the middle.

I really want to plug away at 3 hours of the Glen this weekend while the real thing is on, but after last night, am feeling not so motivated anymore

You are 100% correct. Over on the official game forums under wishlist for future patches thread or whatever it's called, I said I would like "random starting grid" to actually mean random instead of what we have now which is you can almost always predict what the starting order is going to be. I've got several screenshots showing the starting grids in different classes and it's going to be the same cars 99% of the time. GT3 has 2 of the SLS Mercedes, GTE has the BMW M6, Jaguar Roadster in a Vintage class, etc. etc.

One GTE race the first 8 positions were BMW's. What's random about that? I did a Vintage Prototype race last night and I think the first 7 or 8 starting spots were Porsche 917K's.

I don't do practice or qualifying sessions I just do 10 lap quick races but the starting grids look like qualifying did happen just not with me in it. All of the fastest cars in the class start up front. If SMS is going to leave these unbalanced classes alone then at least make these faster cars have to come through the field. Like you say, that should make the overall racing closer.

 

[TheOverdriver]

When I do lmp900 GT1 and GTO races the first 2 classes are filled with mostly Ferraris and barely have any icons in one race there was only 1 McLaren F1 and 1 Audi in those classes. Also I feel like that they need to split the GT3 classes like they did at the Nürburgring because the sls and z4 can’t keep up with the other cars

 

[Jezza819]

Here's some screen shots I've got that shows some of the unbalance in some classes. I always run AI strength at 65 and aggression at 80.

I think everyone knows about Vintage GTA and the Jaguar Roadster problem. Unless I'm in that Jaguar nothing else is competitive. Here is the start of a race I ran in the Ferrari and the race result. There is a fairly good gap between myself and 10th place so it's not like I was being pressured. And it's not just this track. I've got the same basic results anywhere I've ran this class.



Then I turned around and ran the Jaguar at the same track and this was the result. Notice there is still a discrepancy between the Jaguars and everything else.



Here is the BMW GTE issue. I don't think I've ever seen any less than 6 BMW's in the first 10 grid spots. There might have been the occasional other brand but it's only a single car when it happens.



Now it can also swing the other way too. I'm finding that I'm going to have to significantly raise AI difficulty in Vintage Prototype because I'm blowing away everything else in either the Ferrari 512M or the Porsche 917K. I ran a 10 lap race at Silverstone GP in the Porsche and won by right at a minute. Here's a Ferrari result.