League division promotion is a drag on skillset

Forza Motorsport Legacy Motorsport
1

So I think I just figured out how being promoted from one league division to another is affected in this game:

You get promoted to another division when your “Truskill” based on your driving skill and race placements closer to 1st place accrues enough to surpass the threshold qualifier for the next division. What is very uncanny and unfair is that there is logic built into the promotion routine that looks at your Truskill for the first active week after being promoted to the new division that will let you remain in that division if your Truskill remains above the qualifying threshold after the end of your first active week, but will demote you back to the prior division if it drops below the qualifying threshold after your first active week. Now the question is, is that logic fair? Let’s say I’m in division Professional, and in my first active week in Elite, due to the sheer speed of polished racers in that division I am unable to maintain a Truskill above the threshold qualifier for the current division, should I be constantly be demoted to Professional based on the results of the first active week? Isn’t the idea behind being promoted to the next division is to be able to acclimate and cultivate a skillset that will allow you compete effectively with those in that division over time? Come on now, speed is not cultivated overnight but takes TIME, not one week. I’m writing this because this week makes it the 4th time that I’m being promoted to Elite only to be demoted to Professional because of my low placement scores in the first active week – the 4th TIME!!! Let’s face it folks, most of the drivers in Elite are mad fast; after all they’re on their way to the ultimate division, Pinnacle. I think T10 need to change this game logic to accommodate a growth focus of racers recently promoted to new divisions, locking them into that new division immediately instead of the annoying kickback to the prior division if you don’t make the grade after the first week of racing in the new division.

2

I think you should be asking yourself why after 4 times of being promoted, you cant make it past the first week. Trueskill seems to be based more towards your lap times then anything else. Im pretty sure rivals effects it as well, maybe when you get promoted again do some rivals events and set some quicker times.

Other questions to ask are you less consistent when you’re promoted, are you using the right types of cars to give you the best chance to win, are you always getting dirty laps, there has to be something thats making you get demoted.

The next time you get promoted make sure you choose your league race wisely, if youre a good hot lapper only do ghost racing, if your a good racer choose a regular one. If you dont like any of the options dont race any and just do rivals, youll add some points to your trueskill and the next time a league event comes up you like, youll have a little more leeway to get into the groove and not get booted so quick.

3

Everyone is just that much faster in the Elite in the first week and I can’t keep up on day one or two. I’ve managed to get a few 3rd places and one 2nd place finish, but for the most part penultimate seems to be my favorite finishing spot. The point is that you should be allowed time to work up to that speed - speed doesn’t come overnight, but over time. Anyways, I have the Porsche event open in Professional and I’m beating everyone there hands down. So it seems that I’m too fast for Professional but not quick enough to survive week one in Elite ! I guess I’m a twofer !!!

4

Its certainly possible that you are in between right now. The only suggestion i could give is maybe next time you’re promoted try to see when you’re most successful. Like do you win more in the beginning of the week or more towards the end. Also are you more successful in big lobbies or smaller. Certain times of the day often differ in skill levels.

Theres a lot of little things that you can do to help your situation besides just getting faster which really is the best solution. If a track comes up that you’re not good at just spectate its not worth losing trueskill points over. Another thing is if you’re in a race and tgings dont start out well, drop back give yourself some room to set hopefully a fast but most importantly clean lap. A slow clean lap beats a fast dirty one for your starting position in the next race. Youll figure it out.

5

League TrueSkill has nothing to do with lap times, clean laps, Rivals or anything else - it’s purely based on who you beat and are beaten by.

Having a score on the boundary and bouncing up and down between divisions must be frustrating, and I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t be set up so that you can’t get demoted within two or three weeks of a promotion other than just that no one thought about it.

I can’t see T10 bothering to tweak that system though given all the other things that they haven’t fixed, so I reckon you’re just going to have to get slightly faster so that you don’t finish last.

4 Likes
6

Exactly! Mind you I encounter a few racers in some races who are incredibly slow and sometime I can eke out a 3rd or 4th, but maintaining that Truskill is based on winning most of the time or at least placing in the top 3 against a grid of say, 10 or more. Very soon I’ll be singing that classic song " Caught between two divisions, feeling like a fool, coveting both of you is breaking all the rules…"…LOL!

7

Yea i just looked it up im wrong, its a simple win/loss based system with multipliers for beating better people basically. This is honestly disappointing to find out its that basic and very uninventive. With all the info they gather from us for drivatars you’d think it’d be a no brainer to apply some of that info towards rating someones actual skill.

I guess this is why im still in pinnacle. I rarely ever play leagues, i might play a couple of hours a month. I am always at the bottom of the league leaderboards but i guess i beat enough people to stay in it. Im kinda upset it doesnt take into account lap times or if you’re clean or dirty. Here i am racing clean trying to get clean fast laps and all i have to do is just cut and smash my way to the front and i am rewarded with staying in the top leagues they offer. Just some more proof i guess that proper racing etiquette and skill mean nothing in this game.

2 Likes
8

Actually, I like the race tempo better in Elite over Professional, but man…those guys and gals in Elite can sure drive and I understand now and agree with the purpose of the league divisions, as they really are meant to improve your skills when pitted against better drivers than yourself.

9

Do you ever run laps by yourself in rivals or test drive? This is how you get faster.

1 Like
10

As said before, the only real way to not get demoted in the future is to get faster. Odds are though because of how the divisions work the top guys in the division are likely only about 2-5 seconds a lap faster than you (I can only estimate ofc since I’ve never seen you race). The next time you get into Elite, after every race look at the top lap times to figure out what times you should be going for. Keep a mental note of them and at a later time when you practice see how close you can get to them. I think you might be surprised at how close you can get to them, because sometimes the extra track knowledge can be all you need to close that gap.

What’ll be on your side as well is how the TruSkill ratings work, as every good result you get will give you a massive boost in points compared to a top driver in the league, so just finishing in the middle of the pack often enough should be enough to keep you in Elite.

11

In this week’s upcoming spec GT league I have been demoted to professional, which is understandable cos I didn’t race a lot this week and when I did I was either really bad technically or just off the pace , but in this week’s upcoming ghost league I am still in Elite ???

This I don’t understand I should be either one or the other surely.

I do look forward to going back to pro league though just to see if I have learnt anything, in theory I should be more than competative…hopefully :+1:.

12

It’s easy to slightly skew your truskill rating in either direction once you understand the fundementals of its calculation - so long as you don’t mind intentionally throwing or quitting races that is.

To sway your truskill in a positive direction (ie you want to try stay in a higher division) you should quit races before they end if you’re likely to finish towards the bottom of the leaderboard - quitting is an inconclusive result which voids the updating of your truskill score and thus minimizes the chances of a negative change being applied.

To sway your truskill in a negative direction (ie you want to try stay in a lower division) you should never quit races and purposely finish last or towards the bottom of the leaderboard every so often, particularly in large lobbies - by not quitting its a conclusive result which will update your truskill score accordingly and thus increases the chances of a negative change being applied.

You can sort of track your current truskill or division placement by looking at a league you haven’t yet started, it gets updated in near realtime after every race just make sure you back out to the main menu then go back into the league screen to be sure its the current info.

Fundementally the truskill methodology is rather sound but it does heavily rely upon the final scoring/result being a fair and an accurate representation on how well each player did against every other player - their skill compared to others so to speak. Sadly T10 have sort of screwed the pooch here as the amount of wrecking, quitters, corner cutting and other unsportsmanlike conduct that occurs in a typical Forza race it reeks havoc on the final scoring/result with it being anything but a fair or accurate representation of how well each player did nor their skill compared to others. Throw simulation damage into the mix where sometimes you might not even make it to turn 1 before your car has been totally trashed from being ploughed into or people ploughing into a non-mover and things gets even more hairy.

Heck it wouldn’t even surprise me if peoples truskill score was being incorrectly updated given how many times the simple league point calculations have been borked by an update and that the “previous results” screen has been utterly screwed for months now, whats not to say that it gets used for truskill updating - so screw the system i say, its already pretty broke you may as well skew it to your liking if you can end up where you want to be :slight_smile:

13

The leagues use your hopper TrueSkill rating until you have one for leagues, per the FAQ post #42.

From my reading of the TrueSkill FAQ, quitting will update your TrueSkill, as otherwise you could quit to maintain your rating (as you describe). Unfortunately Microsoft Research’s website appears to be reorganized and the documentation no longer available, so I can’t point to that.

14

I’ve been racing the leagues off and on since Launch. I started out where most people start, Grassroots. I did well enough to get promoted to Professional fairly quickly. It took a while to work up to Elite, but once I got there, I had good races, and bad ones. And because of that, stayed in Elite for 5-6 months.

Within the past month, I got promoted to Pinnacle. I thought it was cool, and I wanted the badge. But I noticed something very quickly… There aren’t a lot of people racing in Pinnacle in the Leagues I like to run, in the time frame I have to run them. I like running the NASCAR Leagues, but haven’t been able to run more than a handful of races before there isn’t a lobby anymore. No one races the NASCAR Leagues in Pinnacle after a couple of days. After a certain time of the night, Ghost Leagues and Spec Leagues are dead. I don’t give two hoots about the Porsche Leagues.

With all of that, I have won a few races in Pinnacle, so that hurts me in trying to get demoted back to Elite. So, I’ve been purposely not running the fastest cars, nor the fastest tunes either, just so I can run as good as I can, but not get too far up in the standings each race. 3 weeks of doing that, still in Pinnacle. A side note to this: I am usually in the Top 1% of the lap time leaderboards on most tracks, and usually within 2 seconds for the fastest driver in each particular race.

So, I started experimenting with other profiles, new profiles. First one, started in Grassroots, and during the course of that first night, I got promoted to Pinnacle after about 10 races, as I dominated the races. Running mainly Ghost Leagues, Problem? Perhaps.

2nd new profile: Took it a little easier, ran collision on leagues. Took 5 days to get promoted to Pinnacle, and that’s with intentionally sandbagging most races.

3rd new and to date, final new profile: Took it easier than the 2nd profile, and was able to cap out in Elite for two weeks. The Elite division is where I learned most of the tracks and the physics of this game, and is a fun division. Anyway, with this 3rd profile, I mixed it up across all Leagues that had active lobbies. And I varied my results quite a bit. The tracks I like, I do well on, and usually win those races in Elite. But I sand bagged those races for the most part. And tracks I don’t like, I don’t do as well in them. But, I have the feeling that it’s going to promote this profile to Pinnacle here anytime.

I have 3 other profiles, that I may not try to use in Leagues on this game. Seeing that I have 3, possibly 4, profiles in Pinnacle now, I’ve lost what made this game fun for me. I have career modes (all 3) completed with my main profile, so Leagues are about the only thing that keeps me going with the first profile. And I don’t feel like completing the game with any other profiles. Just working on mopping up the rest of the affinity levels, and that’s where the Leagues come in. Free Play gets boring after 50 laps at one track. Leagues mixes up the action, and always has competitive races. And that’s fun, when I can find a lobby to run in. That’s why I like Elite. There is always at least one lobby going at any given time, any league.

So I don’t really have a concrete way to manipulate the True Skill Rating to demote me. As all my experiments so far haven’t gained the results I’m looking for. Maybe I’ll get it figured out at some point.

15

Sounds like we’ve treaded a lot of common ground.

Reason i know how to manipulate the system quite well primarily comes from the inability to find a lobby at all once promoted and seeking a solution - it would have to be one of the most frustrating things about FM6, wanting to just simply play online and not being able to because it fails to find a lobby or places you in one with a single person who leaves in the hunt for a bigger lobby.

Since the games league matchmaking is absolute junk and T10 don’t seem to care i turned to taking matters into my own hands through trial and error - i’d rather be placed into a decent sized lobby of less skilled racers and drive poor performing cars to even the playing field out than the constant struggle to find a lobby or racing the same 2-3 people who only use the same LB car for every damn race. It’s kind of ironic really since the point of matchmaking is to peer you with people in such a way that it’s competitive and you want to keep playing, when in reality its failing so hard you have to circumvent it and change your behaviour just in order to play with others at all let alone similarly skilled people.

In any case the biggest tip to staying in a division i can give is to be pro-active and not leave it too late - it’s much more difficult to demote yourself than it is to remain where you are.

To elaborate, i’ll often check my current division for the porsche league (one i never do, does anyone ever?) a day or two before the week ends. If i discover i’ve been bumped up to the higher division, hence would commence the next week in the higher division for all leagues, i’ll use the remaining day or two in the lower division ones to sway things back in the direction i want before it’s too late and gets infinitely harder to do. Purposely losing to people with a much lower trueskill score than yourself will reap a much quicker rate of change to your own (as its unexpected you’d lose) compared to purposely losing to people with a similar or higher trueskill score than yourself (as its expected you’d lose). I can usually do it with a handful of races in the right conditions and get in the habit of doing it intermittently inadvance which prolongs it quite well.

It’s all just mathematics and probabilities really based solely on finishing position and the trueskill score of those above/below you, the bigger the gap and number of people, the bigger the adjustment will be - laptimes, leaderboards and even actual skill have zero to do with how it’s calculated or adjusted. Pay attention to laptimes of others though as its a good metric to roughly guesstimate what others trueskill score might be and when conditions are likely to be favourable for swaying easily :slight_smile:

16

I wish I could get demoted to Professional. The most fun I had was in the Lambo League they had going on for those 6 weeks. I was in Professional and was competitive, win a few, usually in the top 10 at least.

I have now been in Elite for a couple months, and some of the races I am lucky if I even am able to cross the finish line in time. It is kind of discouraging, I am level 240’ish and pretty sure I peaked skill-wise. I don’t have tons of time to practice to get much better. Even with skipping some weeks, finishing at the back of the pack, I have never been demoted.

I mean yeah I would like to get better to run competitive lap times but at this point I’d be content just racing with similar skilled players in Professional.

17

People in Elite are way too fast, but I guess I’ll have to catch up somehow. Like I’ve said speed comes with time and is really a matter of how much you participate in the league division races overall.

18

In my opinion, “tons of time” isn’t all that necessary to practice (although of course more time will make you faster faster). Instead, it’s repetition that’ll help. Spending 5-10 mins regularly (e.g. every day or every two days) on a specific skill can do wonders. Some of the shorter track layouts are useful, I’ve found Sebring Club good for braking practice because it has two long braking zones and short laps. Running Brands Hatch in the Rolls Royce taught me to be patient and let the car settle before turn-in into corners (use the Indy layout, turns 1, 2, and 3 are all useful). I used a C-class league week to learn how to drive with the clutch. I’m currently using Raceboy77’s Alfa 4C tune to learn how to blip the throttle on downshifts to keep the car stable (it’ll oversteer if you don’t). In other words: find something you want to get better at and focus on it for a week, spending 5-10 mins on every day or so.

19

No matter what they say, I think your leaderboard times mean something. I know people in Pinnacle who intentionally throw races to get demoted and it won’t no matter how badly they do. They have some very good lap times and I think it is preventing them from being demoted. Just a theory based on peoples experiences. I guess it is time for another mass promotion. They did it before and it would put more people into Pinnacle. I can’t tell you how much people hate being in Pinnacle due to the lack of full lobbies. Even if you are in Pinnacle and you manage to get back to Elite it is just gonna promote you again. Also since I have been in Elite I have never been demoted. If you are not competing well in a class don’t do it, that’s how I have managed to not get demoted. If you are not coming in the top half of the pack consistently you may get demoted. I stick to the leagues with classes I like and know I can be competitive in.

20

I don’t know what the qualifers are but I’m in pinnacle and I’ve only raced maybe 7 or 8 league races ever, so it has to have basis in something else