MSA TORA TCC Season 8 - General Discussion

I got trapped in the middle not once, but twice in one race between a pack of roving teammates. Backed out of the first just in the nick of time. The second was never on IMO and will get an SI request logged.

got to say that c lobby for me had fairly decent racing. unfortunately the track lets the racing down more than peoples actual racing i feel. it`s not a track that lends itself to overtaking and with only really two natural places to pass/make a move the impatient amongst us have to force a move.
track selection is paramount to good racing!
i`d like to thank atp wheelwash who i rather stole a win from by beating him off the line for my first tcc lobby victory, thank you for racing with consideration and good braking points.
can`t belive messed up race two by stalling on pole at the start   although i had a couple of good battles with jersey blackhawk with once the dust had settled and again raced clean and with consideration.
race three was a nightmare, got stuck behind couple of rolling road blocks and lost out big time.
thanks again to bg hainsey for doing a decent job hosting.

BalmierPie671 wrote:
But I must also complain about some of the driving standards. In the last heat I started from pole and expectedly I wasn’t able to keep the first position during the race. I have no problem with that. But to be hit from behind in the chicane on the last lap, just so that I would lose traction, to get past is quite poor as well. I lost two placings there.

I did apologise for this, it wasn't intentional, I swear. I got on the gas a little bit too early. But I'll take responsibility for it, It happens to me far too often so I know how it feels. I am really sorry

Ooooo i had a poor round!!! Good race 3 tho!!! Roll on Tsukuba (sort of.......)

Most of the incidents in lobby G were caused by people not realising that people were on the inside or outside etc. On 2 seperate occasions I was fully along side someone and they turned in on me as if I wasn't there. Also had an incident with CD 195 which I wasn't very happy with where he ran wide and dangerously rejoined the track leaving me with nowhere to go. I think the reason he rejoined like he did was because he had went onto the pause menu to quit the race because he was finding the racing "boring". I'm saying this because he left as soon as the incident happened. Apart from that though the racing was clean.

Acidicbeast wrote:

BalmierPie671 wrote:
But I must also complain about some of the driving standards. In the last heat I started from pole and expectedly I wasn’t able to keep the first position during the race. I have no problem with that. But to be hit from behind in the chicane on the last lap, just so that I would lose traction, to get past is quite poor as well. I lost two placings there.

I did apologise for this, it wasn't intentional, I swear. I got on the gas a little bit too early. But I'll take responsibility for it, It happens to me far too often so I know how it feels. I am really sorry

No problem. As I wrote; I think I was the worst culprit in our lobby anyway. And I guess I could have made that mistake as well.

In lobby A I thought the racing was top class. From what I saw everybody raced clean and fair in all 3 races, leaving enough room if a pass was being made and breaking correctly as to not create accident. Really enjoyed it, thanks guys:D 

AEFR xScarhandx wrote:In lobby A I thought the racing was top class. From what I saw everybody raced clean and fair in all 3 races, leaving enough room if a pass was being made and breaking correctly as to not create accident. Really enjoyed it, thanks guys:D 

This was the 2nd round we've found ourselves battling and both times have been extremely enjoyable - hopefully we'll get chance to battle again   I saw most of the field in my journey through the 3 races and saw no incidents that were out of order.

I think it has been raised previously but I didn't see a response from one of the red names - is there any reason why we are persisting with the large lobbies? This has been discussed in previous series and the common thought was that 12 was the ideal lobby size with 14 as a max - this is the 2nd round now we've had 15 cars in lobbies and the common issue has been increased lag.................

I appreciate finding lobby hosts is always an issue in online gaming but the problems we're facing is definitely detracting from the enjoyment of a lot of racers.

P.S. - If this has been answered elsewhere please feel free to ridicule me

CQR Jono wrote:

AEFR xScarhandx wrote:In lobby A I thought the racing was top class. From what I saw everybody raced clean and fair in all 3 races, leaving enough room if a pass was being made and breaking correctly as to not create accident. Really enjoyed it, thanks guys:D 

This was the 2nd round we've found ourselves battling and both times have been extremely enjoyable - hopefully we'll get chance to battle again   I saw most of the field in my journey through the 3 races and saw no incidents that were out of order.

I think it has been raised previously but I didn't see a response from one of the red names - is there any reason why we are persisting with the large lobbies? This has been discussed in previous series and the common thought was that 12 was the ideal lobby size with 14 as a max - this is the 2nd round now we've had 15 cars in lobbies and the common issue has been increased lag.................

I appreciate finding lobby hosts is always an issue in online gaming but the problems we're facing is definitely detracting from the enjoyment of a lot of racers.

P.S. - If this has been answered elsewhere please feel free to ridicule me

No idea, ref rooms for 14+, Chris does try and make sure lobbies have max 14 he has always done this so perhaps not enough hosts past meetings?

Max should be 14 which a un written rule

14 does seem to be ok, the less rooms there is the less confusion there is for the main lobby host Ie say he only as to worry about 4 lobbys instead of 5.

VAMR Wilson wrote:14 does seem to be ok, the less rooms there is the less confusion there is for the main lobby host Ie say he only as to worry about 4 lobbys instead of 5.

I would rather have him worry about a 5th lobby delay the lot by 10mins just so everyone gets a good lag free race than run 15 again with the amount of lag caused in last two rounds.  

I know its difficult to find a host sometimes but maybe look into qually positions and see who is a regular for each lobby and try get a few more people in the know from lower lobbies to give a hand. There's alot of people on here who I know will be more than happy to help to get a clean race rather than lag about.

Thanks for the reply Duncan - much appreciated!!

I fully appreciate the work that Chris and his able assistants are doing - I've been there, done that and wear the T-shirt as well as the scars

This is definitely not a criticism, more of an observation leading to a friendly suggestion  

There seems to be a common thought that 14 player lobbies are possible but our own testing showed that 12 was far more ideal.........although 13 was reasonably stable at a push. On that premise I've looked at the numbers from Tuesday:-

We had 101 runners and lobbies as follows:-

A Lobby - 15
B Lobby - 15
C Lobby - 15
D Lobby - 14
E Lobby - 14
F Lobby - 14
G Lobby - 14

If we were to use 13 as an absolute maximum in exceptional circumstances we could have had the following splits:-

A Lobby - 13
B Lobby - 13
C Lobby - 13
D Lobby - 13
E Lobby - 13
F Lobby - 12
G Lobby - 12
H Lobby - 12

This would have required only 1 extra lobby host - I would hope, with the number of people complaining/blaming lag that we could find one extra person prepared to host a lobby. I understand host selection depends on the grid sorting but I'd be disappointed if we didn't have 8 people out of 101 prepared to raise their hand.

I've been lucky so far and have not fallen fowl of an lag issues but I feel for Stand if he has to stich together a show worthy of Motors TV if lobbies are constantly suffering with lag crashes and lag outs

@Chris - You know me well enough to appreciate that this post is made with the best of intentions, my interests only lie with the standard of racing we all experience. Unfortunately, so far, there has been just as much talk about lag as there has been for the excellent racing.

I really love racing around Tsukuba but I'm not looking forward to the idea of 15 lagging cars fighting over such a small track...........I have my bodyshop on standby already

Anyway, onwards and upwards - lets see whether we can cement TCC Season 8's place as the best yet

Numbers do usually drift off a bit as the season progresses which will help with lobby sizes (although TCC numbers held up very well considering it was GTA V launch day!).

Another thing to bear in mind is, with more than 12 players there are 'other effects' too - no visible damage on cars, no crowds in the grandstands (these are turned off by the game with 13 or more players), and the dreaded rear view mirror bug.

To be honest it's more the numbers. Using Chad's example, 4 lobbies of 15 split across 5 lobbies would mean lobbies of 12. I know that's "fine" but to me it's a bit disappointing having fewer cars in the race. It also has an effect on championship points, with for example, someone in A lobby being guaranteed at least 12th place, instead of maybe finishing 15th...

Do we really have to start limiting the lobbies to 12? Is that because of an unfixed bug in the game (if it says it can do 16 players and can't, to me that's a bug)? Or is it because of individuals' differences in connection quality? Personally I don't have any issues due to numbers, only individuals with dodgy connectivity.

Yeah that's a good point too Chris, plus it gives more people a chance to get in A lobby...

12 Would still be cracking racing and worth it for a lagless ish race

If I could get the settings off somebody one evening then I would be happy to host. Usually though we have a more experienced host in the C lobby range anyways but you never know

I have no evidence to back this up, but for me something feels different about Forza 4 with more than 12 players - I don't know what the games doing internally, but if feels like there is less precision between the cars, a lower sampling rate for the movement of the cars, something's off, it's more than just network connection speeds. Funny I had this exact conversation with someone the other week who uses a wheel, and when there's > 12 players his laptimes are slower, it changes the feel of the car. I personally think its a CPU limit - the Xbox 360 doesn't have enough power to cope with > 12 players, so it starts turning things off (crowds, damage) and lowers the car positioning precision, hence why single player is limited to 12 players. Like I say, I don't have any hard evidence of that, just my own experience of large lobbies. It's interested to watch the replays of CatNat too - they look smoother than the cars did in the game, replays only run at 30fps compared to in-game which is 60fps, so it does make me think there are some technical issues going on with > 12 players.

But whatever size of lobby is used, its for the driver to adapt - Catalunya National was a bit laggy and for me, that meant I drove more cautiously, leaving more room etc, so in some ways adapting to the 'lobby conditions' is part of the skill of online racing... until you get smashed off by a lag spike! lol

Tried searching for a tin-foil modem to try and add some humor i.e (so my router setup isn't ideal for hosting) but best I could find

The lag was a huge shame Tuesday, and I agree with the CQR guys forza does certainly seem different, a hell of a lot more lag spikes and random freezing, thank heavens we're nearing XboxOne and FM5, with "more servers than the entirety of the internet in the late 90's" hoping can make some improvements and life easier for us.

However considering the lag, I thought EVERY driver within lobby A did a fantastic job in keeping it clean and tight, fighting for the smallest space is a challenge alone, but an unexpecting twitching car in-front and behind makes it near impossible, and I certainly wouldn't have managed it, so well done to everyone

CQR Aero wrote:To be honest it's more the numbers.  Using Chad's example, 4 lobbies of 15 split across 5 lobbies would mean lobbies of 12.  I know that's "fine" but to me it's a bit disappointing having fewer cars in the race.  It also has an effect on championship points, with for example, someone in A lobby being guaranteed at least 12th place, instead of maybe finishing 15th...

There are pro's and con's to both options - larger lobbies are what we've always wanted but it's always proved difficult when it comes to lag free racing. The larger lobbies tend to make competition organising easier but can lead to difficulties when getting people in to those lobbies. Smaller lobbies have shown to provide more stable racing for all involved but it would lower the number of people able to get in the higher lobbies - don't forget I'm proposing numbers that would have seen me miss out on A Lobby in the first round  

One thing to keep in mind is that, not so long ago, we were limited to 8 cars per lobby with only 6 or 7 cars on track at once due to lobby splits - therefore, we could look at 12/13 cars per lobby as a big improvement  

With regards to Championship points I suppose it would all depend on where peoples priorities lie - personally I'd prefer to lose a few points and have 3 good races rather than be involved in lag crashes through no fault of my own. People will continue to suffer with poor connections for the foreseeable future but we've always seen that pushing past lobbies of 12 increases the chance of those issues arising and the impact they have.

CQR Aero wrote:Do we really have to start limiting the lobbies to 12?  Is that because of an unfixed bug in the game (if it says it can do 16 players and can't, to me that's a bug)?  Or is it because of individuals' differences in connection quality?  Personally I don't have any issues due to numbers, only individuals with dodgy connectivity.

Of course we don't have to limit lobbies to 12 - that's a decision to be made by those of you with fancy coloured names  

I think it's indisputable that Forza 4 cannot provide lag free racing when dealing with large lobbies (13+), peer-to-peer connectivity and racers with poor connections - thank the lord Forza 5 isn't following the same path  .............previous issues lead to the unwritten TORA rule of max lobbies being set at 14, as confirmed by Duncan.

All my post aimed to do was start an open conversation on the issues people have experienced in the first 2 rounds. As Mark has commented on, it is a drivers responsibility to tailor their driving to the conditions on track at any one time - if the decision is taken to stick with the lobbies as they are then so be it, I'm confident I can deal with the outcome. I would just hate to see the Championship decided by lag rather than driver skill.

I guess what I'm asking is "is it the game, or the players?" because if limiting it to 12 doesn't solve the problem, then there's no point limiting someone's chances of running in a higher lobby.

The problem is adding a couple of extra players exponentially increases the amount of data being transferred - going from 12 to 15 players isn't a 25% increase in data transfer as you would expect, it's a ~60% increase in data transfer, which is why lag increases disproportionately to the amount of extra cars.

2 players = 2 interconnections
3 players = 6 interconnections
4 players = 12 interconnections
5 players = 20 interconnections
6 players = 30 interconnections
7 players = 42 interconnections
8 players = 56 interconnections
9 players = 72 interconnections
10 players = 90 interconnections
11 players = 110 interconnections
12 players = 132 interconnections
13 players = 156 interconnections
14 players = 182 interconnections
15 players = 210 interconnections
16 players = 240 interconnections

(The data calculation is (n^2)-n for the maths geeks out there!)

Well, I had some cracking battles in lobby C. No more than 40-50 ft between the cars in front / behind, and running 3 abreast through turns 1, 2 & 3, with no impact at one point. Some silly mistakes and a bit of lag, but racing wise, high pressured, and close racing.

Damn good night Even though my lines were dismal. throughout the final chicane, all night. Tried so hard not to cut it, I cocked it up and lost a second or so every lap lol.

I'm not as knowledgeable as MAGiC regarding this but my understanding is that it's a combination of the two - I'm sure Mark will take great pleasure in filling us in with the details

I can't remember which series it was but I definitely remember being here and having the same discussion before - hence the decision taken by TORA staff to implement the unwritten 14 player lobby rule.

When people's voices start breaking up in lobby/game chat, that's when the data loads are exceeding peoples connections - we saw that on Tuesday, people speaking but not all the voice chat coming through, just too much data for some peoples connections to handle. The slowest connection in the lobby is always the weakest link remember - you can have a 100Mb down/20Mb up connection (which would easily support 32 cars on track if the game allowed), but you'll still get lag off a car that's struggling with a 0.5Mb upload, it's their data not being sent to you that's the issue, not your receiving it. There is no solution for it, it's a limitation of P2P that hopefully dedicated servers will address - all we can do is run the smallest lobby sizes we can get away with while still maintaining a good sized grid and not having too many lobbies. There is no right answer to that - 12 to 14 has worked reasonably well in the past, 15 and 16 is just asking for trouble IMHO!

I'd still be a little pained to implement a cap of 12, particularly if people were to start quoting it back at me as a hard cap. I find that we need to be flexible on race night depending on the number racing.

For example, if only 28 people turn up, do we run 12/12/4? 10/9/9? or 14/14? Some discretion has to be allowed. (I'd choose 14/14 in this case).