I’ll admit, I’ve also fallen into that trap before of trying to set the fastest times I could with some of the more “meta” cars, but a lot of times it’s just been to see what were the best times I could set with whatever car was available. But I would typically send out pre-apologies to the group when I was doing that for any spam notifications I was generating😂
I ran times on Cathedral as well in the Sierra & it was fun for what it was at the time. I’ve been enjoying the RA lower class competitions & feel like I’ve been putting up some decent times against all the Sierras littering the LBs.
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I have to laugh that you say that bc there have been some people I’ve known in the past who were completely obsessed with nothing but just beating Geist’s times 
(You’re apparently infamous GW 
)
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waznewz posting some excellent commentary about rivals on my preview thread, for those who need to lose some brain cells
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And this right after my comment above people obsessing over you; timing is everything I guess
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I wish they had an option to turn your ghost on/off during a run as well, to kill 2 birds with 1 stone maybe replace the horn with ghost on/off with a click of RS in Rivals only.
Once you start getting close to a car’s limit your own ghost can become incredibly irritating to follow especially for me playing in bumper cam, just turns what I can see into a blurry mess and obscures the braking lines, being able to do just a simple click of RS to turn it off coming up to corners then another click to see how good/bad I’m doing on straights would be such a nice and convenient addition.
I think it was Jezza who once suggested split times at each checkpoint too, that would be a good alternative, they’ve shown it was possible with the RA Rally events, though since we never actually see anything of the AI driving in physical/ghost form it’s not really 100% clear how it works.
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this! and I believe other games (track mania?) allow you to set the ghost slightly ahead so you can actually follow it
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sepis newest video shows a good example of how laps and ghost playback differ slightly, although imo still does not explain his fishy FM lap times, seems more like a technicality that he’s leaning on
there’s people lurking this forum constantly, names we never see in posts appear often when we get into specific rivals, etc
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Funny, I’ve noticed some of the same thing, but thought maybe it was just my imagination. I was actually waiting to see what my comment yesterday about being in the top 3 non-Sierra cars on El Bosque would do & it definitely got some reactions as anticipated
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the forums also come up very high in Google searches, that attracts a lot of eyes that aren’t even signed in
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Your welcome? 
.
.
.
That is how I started.
FH4 was my first real contact with Forza. And since I’m older it was much more natural to use forum, than any other social media. One day I’ve stumbled on rivals thread. At first I was “participating in delay”, like waiting week or two, so I won’t get noticed. Later was joining current events, until Jezza mentioned me and invited to speak up 
Overall rivals helped me a lot with drivng and tuning. Maybe I won’t get WRs and don’t win every time, but I’ve improved a lot.
I need to go out now, but I have two more things to add…
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I agree with most folks that Rivals is the best way to learn tracks and to see how the top drivers drive them. Can also be immensely frustrating.
I have been doing Rivals since FH4 and had some WR’s there. Rivals is really fun, for me, when you are among the best times. What amazes me is that since I’ve joined the weekly Rivals group I’ve discovered I have a lot left to learn about tuning and driving. Have already improved many of my tunes substantially. Having top drivers run your tunes and give you feedback is invaluable. Also a little painful to see how bad some of my best tunes were!
My final thought is for those with health challenges. I am substantially slower than I was 2 years ago because last year I found out I had a silent heart attack that killed part of my heart. 2 weeks later, by pure coincidence, I caught something that turned into pneumonia that almost killed me. Was in the hospital for 8 days and it has taken over a year to recover.
My heart will never recover and I am on a host of meds that screw up my vision, reflexes and muscle control. I almost never drive in real life anymore and am basically disabled.
What all this means is that rivals in Forza is much harder for me now. When I see others blow my times off the LB’s it is sometimes a painful reminder of all I have lost. When I am feeling good, it is a reminder that I can improve and I just need to keep trying. I know everyone has challenges and I just want others to know that there are people like me here playing that understand.
Finally, thank you all for the friendship, support and good times we have had in one of my favorite games.
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For me, rivals fulfill different functions.
Sometimes (every week when I’m done with the weekly playlist) I miss being able to invite random people to compete on a course of my choice without having to be in a convoy with others (I’m quite an anti-social player). With rivals, I get the opportunity to play against others on my terms.
And I also think it’s fun to choose a track, start with the worst possible car and for each failure move up a step and test again and again until I get to a level where I can beat my previous record.
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you’re such a good person and player, I’m glad you’re here. you’re also experiencing what happened to me when I came across some of these guys… very humbling.
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part2
As for Trial/championship vs rivals times discussion.
I think Rayne summed it up pretty nicely here → Series 32 Festival Playlist Preview - #264 by Rayne_SE
IMO it is better to check car performance in rivals. It is possible that quickest rivals tune won’t be the best for Trial though e.g. extreme grip build, but you are stuck in traffic and there is no way to use its full potential. So keeping that in mind you can still find best setup.
Next thing I wanted to mention is changes to rivals. Or maybe what I’m missing in it.
Split times are #1 on list, followed closely by being able to delete your ghost, being able to use car/tune from player on LB (although don’t know how to treat cars from $ car passes), being able to post multiple times, etc.
I was also thinking about “custom rivals” where you can add different restrictions. I even had thread in suggestion hub, but I guess I’m in big minority 
→ Custom rivals events
And now I feel bad about how I opened our conversation yesterday 
Sorry to hear that, stay healthy 
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Literally don’t remember anything except you helping me improve my tune, so please do not feel bad. I also beat your time in my Scout so not done fighting yet.
I want to say that @ziperrPL and @Rayne_SE have been super helpful and kind, and are the kinds of drivers I always aspire to be. Driving with you guys has been like meeting my heroes. I know I will lose most of the time, but don’t really care. Just an honor to drive with you. I wish @geistwriter could join us but know he has limited driving time.
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Thank you for the very kind words. I look forward to your wrists getting fixed so we can battle it out in FH6 together.
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Really sorry to hear about your health struggles & wish you the best for continued improvement. As I said in another thread, we are glad you are here.
I’m obviously not one of the top drivers among this group, but I have been giving your tunes a try when you share them in our discussions & found them to be very good overall, so your efforts are recognized & appreciated. Keep it up & hang in there 
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Rivals/Time Attack or whatever you might call it has always been my bread & butter mode in racing games.
I love building and fine-tuning cars. This mode is the best validation source for a car’s & my tuning performance available.
This dates back to Gran Turismo 2 when I started to note down my lap times as a kid. Heavily biased because I wanted to see my favourite cars also being the best - but small Rayne didn’t understand yet that’s not how it is
I never bothered with official leaderboards up until Horizon 4 though. I got into it during FM7 when cars were locked behind beating the rival in the Community Rivals events.
I played since GT 1 and as it comes with a lot of training I beat my friends most of the time. But I had huge respect of online MP and Rivals because I thought I will still be terrible in comparison to what is possible.
I was surprised I could actually do it.
Since then it has become a stable and with Jezza’s H4 event it kicked off. But at times it was already too much.
I don’t care about WRs or meta cars/builds.
Thats why here and in Motorsport I just use cars that I like or I’m curious about for the leaderboards. And sometimes they end up pretty good.
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I try not to complain, it could be worse. I’m good for about 20 minutes at a time these days. I’ve improved immensely since meeting these guys - it’s worthwhile to me, getting beaten by such smart players - but I do lack the ability to commit to long rivals sessions. it’s why I haven’t been back to titan in quite some time. I’ve become more of a tinkerer, but I like to participate still, even if it means just picking a weird option and pursuing it all the way.
my kind words are earned, you’ve been a consistently great player in lower class cc rivals for years in my opinion, I pointed you out to gillesmuller a while back, your reputation precedes you
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