So when I check leaderboard times, I am routinely what we might call average. I am usually in the top let’s say 20-50%. I am not a top of the charts guy by any means.
But when I run in leagues, I can’t even keep up. It’s not even close. Sometimes I don’t even finish the race within the timer, despite putting in what I THINK are decent lap times.
So are leagues just populated with that many drivers that are faster than me? What are the statistical probablities that I’m lucky to beat 2-3 cars every time out in a league race?
Can they make a Turtle Division for people like me who are 5 sec/lap off the pace? (Kidding, of course)
Just wondering if others are experiencing this disparity dispite putting up seemingly “decent” times otherwise.
I can generally post top 1% lap times and I’m lucky to finish top 5 in league races. I’m hoping once more people start playing they will try and sort the lobby’s better.
That could be true but its most likely because a lot of the fastest guys are still playing in grassroots or the other lower tiers because leagues have not been around that long yet and progression through the tiers is a little slow with the current point system. I’d bet in a months time he’d stand more of a chance when you consider most people will have had a chance to level up to their respective tier.
Edit- just saw the above post else I wouldn’t have bothered posting this and that was the point I was trying to make.
Keep in mind that everybody starts from the lowest rank possible regardless of skill level, and theres still lots of top 100 drivers smashing the leagues in the lower divisions because they have yet to make the grind. It’s gonna take at least a couple more weeks for the divisions to be set properly.
The good news is. Going from top 50-25% to 1% isnt too difficult with practice and learning what works. Once you make it to 1% it gets alot harder quick.
I also feel when i put my head down I can be reasonably quick… not the quickest but have the ability to at least keep up…anyway from these leagues i’d find myself 4-7th area with top 3 usually blazing off into the distance (regardless of car/setup etc).
anyway, i usually play with all assists off so for my amusement (after constantly fighting a unbeatable battle) I turned on TCS and hilariously won the next 3 races?! against the same people, same car clusters… I was suddenly right up there and my times were top page.
You all might be thinking, well this guy has no throttle control, but in fact I do, who knows?!
TCS in Hypercars definitely has its advantages because you can get on the gas earlier and out of the corners without struggling for grip in some of the cars. For me I don’t like running TCS, heck I am still running Manual w/ Clutch even though w/o Clutch is faster on a lot of the Hypercars. I am just too stubborn. So stubborn I don’t use the Vulcan in Hypercar. Still achieved Professional Band and enjoying the racing.
I feel you! Id put myself in the top 10-20% bracket but im experiencing the same as you; in leagues im average at best, which honestly got me to question my driving style or whether i am missing something.
Is tuning (at least setting gear ratios etc) enabled in leagues? Maybe it has something to do with assists - i got everything switched off and on less played tracks such as virginia i often need 2-3 laps to properly memorize it so there, driving line might help me a bit…
But yeah tl;dr: doing well on rivals and hotlapping but having lackluster results in leagues. that coupled with the CTDs and other weird bugs is really demotivating …
Are you top 25-50% on more populated leaderboards or ones with only a few thousand? It’s a big difference!
The best measure is if there is more than 50,000 people on the leaderboard.
If your top 25-50% on those, then you need a lot of practice and may benefit from properly tuned cars. If you want to do well anywhere in multiplayer, you must be top 5% consistently. Any slower and itll be a struggle. Top 1% is really the goal though. Once you’re there you can keep up against most but will likely get blown out by guys who frequent the top 100 or higher.
Also bear in mind that with lap time leaderboards, about 70% of the times aren’t actually meaningful - they’re people who just did it in the course of their career, dirty lap times, untuned cars, and so on. For a lot of leaderboards just running a clean lap gets you way up the list, which tells you a lot. The real competition is in the top 10, maybe 20%. I agree that the bar in leagues is pretty high as well though, I can 1% or better most any leaderboard when I try and I found the leagues challenging. A non-trivial factor is not being able to see the gorram track at the start of the race when there are cars everywhere, haha.
Glad to hear others are having the same experience. I’d say I’m probably 10 to 25% about half the time, single digits 25% and real y the other 25%. (I push hard, so I tend to lose it sometimes. LOL) But I too am finding the League racing much harder. Plus the scoring is demoralizing. (Please don’t flame me. Just my opinion, and I’m fine if you have a different opinion. ) I earn some points for a few races, then end up with one race where things went wrong (especially if starting near the front of the grid and starting off w so many negative points because of it) and I’m back down to zero. Reading through this post, I might try turning TCS on and see how I do, but if that doesn’t help, I’ll probably give up on Leagues, unless they change the scoring and get rid of (or at least reduce) the negative scores. For me, it just isn’t fun, and I’m a loooooong time Forza guy w lots of hours on every game.
I wouldnt get discouraged if I were you, as the leagues progress the grouping of players will balance out and you’ll be with racers in the same skill set as you. The points shouldnt mean that much to you if youre not a higher level player, just enjoy the experience and stick with it, things will come together.
Thanks for the reply TOKENUTx. Well, for me, the point of the league is to progress, and with the negative scoring (coupled with You have to use a leaderboard car to have a chance to compete and there’s no real penalties for cutting corners, etc.), I’ve spent hours racing in the league with zero to show for it. Personally, I think they need to work on the scoring and policing the cheaters. I don’t think it would be tough for Turn 10 to do… For instance:
More positive points further down the results board. - Lots of negative points for corner cutters. - Giving positive points for clean laps would help too (would work in ghost races, but in full contact, that could cause issues)
Just my thoughts. Again, for me, League racing just isn’t fun, and I really enjoyed it in previous FM’s.
Thanks for all the support and suggestions. I think that things will stabilize as some of the top people get into higher bands.
I think the whole point of the leagues is to help us all find better races, so I am looking forward to landing in races with some of you who are not top 1% racers. That seems feasible with this current setup.
To the folks suggesting lapping to get faster… I think there comes a time in every digital racer’s life when he realizes he’s just not going to get any faster. I mean… I can have a really nice smooth race, but that will still be several seconds off of the fastest guys in the world. It’s all good. I know my limitations. I’m just looking for people that will be on the same piece of the track at the same time as me.
Yup, I agree with everything you said here. The leagues have been really humbling for me, no doubt about it. I thought I was faster and with the hot hatches, REALLY realizing how dramatic of a difference not using manual w/ clutch is (getting blown away on the longer straights).
To back this up, had a race about an hour ago (I’m Lvl 2 in Enthusiast) and finally took 1st place, but the difference between myself and 4th place was 0.25 (that’s some damn close and competitive racing).
y the other 25%. (I push hard, so I tend to lose it sometimes. LOL) But I too am finding the League racing much harder. Plus the scoring is demoralizing. (Please don’t flame me. Just my opinion, and I’m fine if you have a different opinion. 
) I earn some points for a few races, then end up with one race where things went wrong (especially if starting near the front of the grid and starting off w so many negative points because of it) and I’m back down to zero. Reading through this post, I might try turning TCS on and see how I do, but if that doesn’t help, I’ll probably give up on Leagues, unless they change the scoring and get rid of (or at least reduce) the negative scores. For me, it just isn’t fun, and I’m a loooooong time Forza guy w lots of hours on every game.