When you don’t complete a Qualifying Lap in MP, the game sticks you in back of the pack on the Starting Grid. I’m trying to figure out how the game figures out grid placement for the players that don’t do Qualifying Laps, because it always sticks me in Dead Last. Always. It’s been like this since I started playing on release day on Game Pass.
There’s almost always at least 2 of us, and I’ve seen up to 7 of us who don’t complete Qualifying Laps, yet the game has always put me in dead last place, 100% of the time. I have determined it has nothing to do with the following:
-Practice Lap times (i’m usually somewhere in the middle)
-Skill Rating (it was around 1400 for me at first, but now it hovers consistently around 4000)
-Safety Rating (i’m always at S or A)
-Car Level (i’ve raced cars from 1 to 50)
-Driver Level (currently 370)
-P1 Level of the car (I’ve raced base model, to fully leveled up cars)
-When you join an Event (I’ve joined as soon as an event went live and everything in between up to joining at the last second)
I’ve even tried the following to see what would happen:
-Join Qualifying but never cross the finish line.
-Join an Event and sit in the Pit without ever driving until the race starts
I don’t know what else it could be. I’m almost thinking Turn 10 randomly targeted random players to always be in dead last place on the grid when they don’t do a Qualifying Lap, but that seems an unlikely scenario to me.
Great question. I’m not sure what goes into the sorting process when you don’t post a qualifying time. I noticed the same thing for me when I ran MP races.
I used that to my advantage, though, as it helped me more easily get the achievement for having an S safety rating for 10 consecutive races. Trying to get that achievement racing legitimately is a bit more difficult.
Hmm. Interesting question. I’m never dead last if I don’t qualify. I’m usually one of the first few when I don’t qualify. In a race today with 24 racers, the last eight didn’t qualify, and I was the top first non-qualifier.
My safety is S, and my skill is 4,700. I’m usually at the front of the non-qualifiers. My practice times though are usually in the top 5. Many times top 2 or 3.
Maybe it’s because you never complete qualifying? You could try qualifying a few times and then see if something has changed the next times you run without qualifying.
I could imagine that the algorithm indeed puts players further back the less they run qualifying laps - at least that would explain what you’re experiencing. And it makes sense, if someone doesn’t participate in qualifying it signals they don’t care about their starting position.
What you’re describing is a non-issue in my eyes, and I’m assuming you just asked out of curiosity. If you qualified for pole and the game started you last consistently that would be different ; )
If you managed to try to invite Mr. Esaki in facebook, you could try to ask him. But i think, he couldn’t answer you why it’s that, cause he just don’t know…
I am also the one who starts dead last when not qualifying for a multiplayer race. Might have to get together and see who starts last or if they can even put 2 cars on the same spot…lol. (I did put a ticket in but the person responding was just sending it as a bug report, but I don`t think it is a bug. Just a program that places cars in thier postion.)
That is super weird because I had the impression the game uses practice lap times as a pseudo qualifying lap. I get placed roughly at the spot which fits my practice lap. If I had the 5th fastest practice lap I might get placed as 5th actually sometimes or as 8th or 10th etc. etc.
I was always under the understanding it was “first join, first slotted” if no qualy laps were put in. I could be wrong though. I did however notice that everyone that was in the session before me would be slotted ahead of me(with no qualy times) and everyone that joined later in the practice were slotted behind me. Just a theory, unfortunately, I don’t have a definitive answer.
Yes, this is what I think as well. However, I prefer to qualify and start as close as possible to the top of the grid. I believe this helps me to reduce crashes and with other cars and avoid penalties in the first corners of the race, since people starting from the top seem generally more responsible.
I know there are sometimes very skilled driver who prefer to start from the back and recover positions during the race. They are for sure better than me while driving in chaotic situations.
I have the exact opposite problem. Other than a handful of instances where I was the second non-qualifying car I am always the first car that doesn’t qualify. This happens when joining already populated lobbies and even when I have chosen not to turn a single lap in practice.
It actually made the “pass 10 drivers in multiplayer” achievement take significantly longer than it should have.
Although I do prefer starting further back, I would never say I’m skilled enogh to reach the podium. Something about the challenge of fighting through traffic is appealing to me and also gives me a boost in tuning my vehicles by seeing exactly where it’s weaknesses are(usually stability issues because I play with a wheel).
I personally prefer losing in a good strong battle mid pack then winning what could have been a potential lonely and boring race.
There are definitly plenty more skilled then me, but I join public lobbies with the attitude of trying to improve what I’m working with, rather then flat out winning.
Too bad there’s no “challenge the grid” in MP when you don’t qualify right?
It’ll happen to me in some instances too, you’ll generally have better luck ending up at the back when you join 30 seconds before the session closes to start. At that point, you typically have two minutes to pick a car and run one lap depending on the track and class of the vehicle.
Then I guess T10 has decided that you’re too worthy and too good of a driver and human being to be starting at the back. Sucks to be the best, must be lonely at the top.
It is a possibility, though, given the state the game was released in, I slightly doubt that kind of thing crossed their minds, would be a good suggestion to add to the game though!
I wonder if it could be related to driver xp, i used to intentionally start at the back in an attemp to aviod the early carnage, however now im lvl 3242 its impossible to do so as if i dont qulify im always placed at the head of the non qualifers the only times i see a non qualifier placed ahead of me is when they have a higher driver xp, . Of coarse this could verywell be pure speculation on my part, but as your driver level of 340 is relatively low going by the numbersi see in the lobbies i seem to get put into, i routinely see drivers prestige 1 or higher…probably not the case at all and is purely based on my observations.
Hey, thanks so much for the info! That totally clears things up for me.
I was going after the “Gain at least 12 positions in any Multiplayer race” achievement by trying to start as far back as possible. Even when I skipped qualifying and practice laps, I always found myself right behind everyone who did set a qualifying time, which made it super tough to snag those 12 spots. I was getting pretty frustrated!
But then, surprise! The achievement popped for me in a multi-class race where I managed to overtake like 20 players (sometimes more than once). Even though I only moved up about 5 places from start to finish, maybe it’s a bug, but honestly, I’m not too worried about it. Otherwise, I’d be at a huge disadvantage.
Thanks again for the insight—it really helped!
Yes, that makes much sense to me. That’s the charm of online races: everyone is free to approach in a different way and find the desired excitement.
Btw, usually I’m not fast enough to win the races and even to finish on the podium. I don’t care what will be the final result. I just look for clean battles with similarly skilled drivers. When I start on the back of the grid, I see sometimes mistakes, contacts and aggressive driving., a little bit too much for my taste. Maybe that would be funny, but I don’t feel comfortable in this kind of situation. And then I prefer to start with less cars in front of me.
