(May 2023) I’m celebrating the servers being back on.
I set myself a target to be top 10000 in ten days.
Now to see if i can get top 1000 BUT i suspect DLC tracks might be required for that (Road America & 4 Twin Ring Motegi). Top 2000 definitely achievable.
The scoreboards adds so much to the game. I may not be able to race my friends online but I can race them against the clock.
Added bonus I’m enjoying the menu music of Forza Motorsport 2.
You’re welcome to add me as a friend as I have tried to set a time in most races (tip - you can send friend requests to players that you are nearby - they don’t have to accept for you to see them on your friends list but once done it is polite to remove the request.)
My gamertag is CensedGenie641
A little quick rough explanation of how the Hot Lap Times scoreboard works (i think).
Accessed via Multiplayer (use the left shift to move between Arcade Career Multiplayer Options then press the green A). Then access Scoreboards. Shift between Time Trails, TrueSkill Rank and HOT LAPS TIMES.
Once you have completed one lap online (either a race in Career, Exhibition, Time Trail or Free Run) you’ll have started. You’ll be ranked around 4422000 or so with 259hr33min30sec.
BTW - if you happen do a only 1 lap and with penalties and take a while for a combined time of say 35min35sec you’ll have rank of 4800040 and a time of 260h35:35 (thats at least 4.8 million profiles have done at least 1 lap online) sooo clean laps matter though it might not look it.
So you start with 260hours - 52 tracks with 10 classes - 30minutes per track. Clean laps reduce to the clean lap time. Dirty laps ADD (i did not know this yesterday). 5 DLC tracks with 10 classes is 25hours so i’m not worried about them. And most profiles that do have them haven’t lapped most of them anyway.
A table of estimated rank for a combined Hot Lap times
4.4 mil 259hr32min
700000 220hr
350000 200hr
140000 180hr
20000 150hr
10000 136hr
6000 125hr
2400 92hr03min53sec
1365 42hr59min59sec
1000 (i’d like know)
Top Ten under 11hr
If you want to Fact check - profile RoastSnail488 is ranked 4800039 with total combined time 260h35:23 as at 16May2023. I have no association with this profile and seems to be offline since 2019.
profile AftBeatle52919 is a friend but offline - ranked 1365 with time 42hr59m59s (and has also posted about leaderboards in FM3 and FM4)
Update with Time Trials 14hr40min has a rank of 1,061,110
BTW i’ve got to rank 2401. Chasing the Beatle.
So a week later and finally caught the Beatle so that they are now ranked 1366 overall on Hot Lap Times. I’ve had to set times on every track for nine classes - one left of which I’m six hours behind. Is that six hours going to be enough to get close to top 1000? Time will tell fate permitting.
** Now if that’s not enough, I guess I’m just going to use Road America and Motegi. Yes, since I issued the challenge above, I’ve be able to source the DLC (sometimes wishes do come true and I am a genie). I’ll take note of how far up leaderboard I can get without them and then go from there.
Reminder - you can add me as a friend to race against lap times and most race times.
CENSEDGENIE641
My thx to Fubar and Sooiken. Fubar because we had some very similar times. Sooiken because top 300 overall but still has some times where they are ranked in high 1000’s (but mostly top 1000 ;-).
Update: So the rank I have got to without using any DLC tracks is
1276 with a combined time of 35hr57min38sec - nearly 7hr ahead of Beatle and 90 spots of rank. About 2min behind rank 1275. I’ll spent the rest of this month to see if I can get 2min39sec.
Next month, fate permitting, I’ll look to set 55 more times - 50 laps plus 5 time trails. I’ll post my progress time trials then.
So in summary. I could not get into the top 1000 without DLC tracks (in FM3 I could and FM4 I couldn’t) and the timeframe estimates for a starting player would be as follows.
1 - 2 months career mode get to Level 50 (get overall time to about 180hrs)
10 day challege get to rank 10000
2nd 10 day challenge get to rank 1400
rest of month see how high you can go (with or without DLC).
Have fun. 25 May 2023. 73 views of post (10 probably me).
Genie
29 May 2023 - 92 v - update of my May challenge.
So - got there. And did it with basically NOT* using leaderboard cars which is in part of my success. Used cars that I wanted to use and not because it’s the fastest. *One exception; I liked the Lotus’s but even then I would try to mix it up (say use Exige instead of 135R). Spent quite a of time trawling though the scoreboards to find cars with tunes that i could download (but be prepared for a few “download failed”). Then a bit of time testing to see if would for me and my style; but overall way less time than testing from scratch.
Tip (and thanks to “daveyskills”) you can download a tune from davey that certainly worked for them and use that as a base. Ask around as most are willing to share.
Other general tips.
You don’t have to upgrade and tune every car you have to the optimum. Save that time for the ones you like. You’ll do more races and set lap times that way.
Have patience. Some of the early races you can race 10 times, one for each class. That way you can really learn each of tracks and set ten lap times.
Race lower spec cars in higher spec races. You might not win every race but you will set a time on tracks that otherwise cars of that class generally don’t set times in career mode.
To set a time on every track for every class you will need to access the arcade mode. Exhibition has 15 tracks in each class. Plus side is you’ll a set a time in 150 races and unlock extra cars. Minus is no credits
to purchase and upgrade cars (in classes D thou to U - Race cars R4 to R1 are already fully upgraded, you’ll just need to tune them which can make a difference).
And finally but this is what most players don’t do is use the free play. If you have played career mode and done some of the exhibition races there are still some tracks where no time has been set. Pick a car you like either an unlocked stock car from class OR a car from your garage. Then proceed to each of the 52 tracks to see if a time has been set. Default is “nearby” (if you are online - if local only then you have lost connection) but friends or local can be handy too (press the blue X button to see the different lists). If no laptime recorded then go in and do 2 to 6 laps. Focus on setting at least one clean lap with no penalties, first one then push for faster after. Once done 3 to 6 laps finish and go to the next track. That is, go to the next track without a laptime set. And once you have done Black Mamba reverse, go to the next class.
1 June 2023 - 112 v- some pics. 2023-05-31T14:30:00Z
This how far I got without DLC tracks, DLC cars and tried most of the time to not use leaderboard cars.
Overall with some friends and favourites
D class
C class
B class
A class
S class
U class
R4
R3
R2
R1
I’ll start another thread with progress using the DLC tracks.
