Let's see, we have given much feedback since the first alpha release about the imbalance subject, so hopefully the devs give a rougher tweaking in the next batch of patches.
It's fairly obvious that people who do enjoy driving FZR and FXO are not happy when their cheesy advantage is at stake, but you gotta do sacrifices for the greater good = better in-class car balance.
In TBO, the FXO is a lot faster for sure - and easier to drive (I let a friend whose never raced LFS before loose in the FXO on AS NAT, within 1 race he was competitive enough to claim 7th out of 20-odd racers, tried the same with XTT, he didn't finish the race because it takes more pratice to go fast consitantly). But at the min, when you do good with the RB4 or XTT, you have something to be proud of
It would be nice if the FXO had a little less grip up front..I have trouble beliving that IRL you can accelerate as hard out of a corner as the FXO can. Of course the only real cars I've pushed up to and beyond their limits haven't been quite as powerful or race-tuned so I don't know if its realistic.
Not having to wait ridiculous amounts of time for either GTR turbo car to build boost would make a sizeable difference to their competitiveness.... This is the truth.
Also, I recently watched a couple of Tooheys 1000 (Bathurst) vids posted elsewhere and unless the turbo-o-meters on those cars didn't go anywhere near the bottom left at all, they took bloody ages to go completely off the boost (which would also mean it's faster to get back to full boost too).
Could you post those vids? Boost is usually dumped VERY fast at zero throttle, but most boost gauges have the vacuum side included as well (LFS Doesnt, and should.... Hint hint.) which affects what you're seeing. THere needs to be no boost when it's not needed or bad things happen, so IMO LFS does that part right. It's just this whole "positive feedback" effect that's backwards in LFS.. Bah, don't get me going.
I've got over 5000 laps in the XRR. There's a few more of us that race the XRR. Chrinkler, CWMAX and a few others I've forgotten. We don't have problems winning our fair share of races. That being said, I'll admit that the XRR isn't quite as capable as the FZR, but it's so close as to not be a major problem. The TBO class on the other hand....
The silliest thing is, personally, I wouldn't have a problem with FZR and FXO being the fastest cars in their classes if they were hardest to control too. But at the moment FXO is an unspinnable car with cruise control set on 'victory'. GTR class... FXR is the easiest but slowest, XRR hardest and has pretty horrible turbo spool handicap, thus leaving FZR untouchable.
While interesting, that doesn't really prove much. There is an *eleven lap* difference between the 1st and 7th place car, all of which are FZRs. So, you can't say that the FZR is far and away better unless the FZRs all finished together, then the XRRs all finished several laps down. While I do agree that the FZR is the "best" GTR car overall, the results of one race at one track are not statistically significant to prove a point.
I'd be interested in knowing how many stops each car made, how many sets of tires each required, how much fuel each used, etc.
I still maintain that the best 'solution' to this supposed problem is to make the cars more different, not more similar.
Well, the main problem I think is that an above average driver can drive with FZR very close to the XRR WR times during a race. So, a driver on a XRR would need to use qualify setups in order to be competitive, and we all know that it's impossible to race with qualify setups.
So, not only XRR drivers will drive a slower car, but a much slower. You need to be on par with WR times in order to be competitive with an just above average driver on FZR.
While I agree that there should be differences between cars, I think that no car should be faster in all tracks as it happens today. It would be more interesting if XRR was faster on, let's say, tracks with long straights, giving it some more horsepower in order to be faster on long straights. Right now, it's not only just as fast as FZR as it lags behind a lot on corner exits, and it's not that faster on corners (if it's faster at all).
Went online last nite for some GTR action and my Gawd --- didn't remember the situation was this bad. Below is the typical screenplay:
1) Start... FZRs take a big lead every time despite XRR starting from pole. Kind of demoralizing, because XRR driver always ends up in the middle of the pack where there is much higher risk to get wrecked out in T1.
2) T1... Pretty even, thanks to everybody having cold tyres.
3) First slow corner... FZR just smokes XRR when exiting corner. Nada chance to even catch their slipstream.
4) Rest of the track... Just keep looking those mirrors and block, cover and block some more in order to keep your position.
And that's about it, basically. Repeat for number of laps.
If you had taken a closer look, you'd have seen the number of pitstops. The relevant numbers are that of the 2nd and 6th placed FZR: as little as the best XRR did. I know of the 2nd place FZR that while they did take fresh tires every time (R2s, mind you), they also ran a full tank each time. The XRR might be capable of running longer on one tank, but R2s afaik don't last the full tank on the XRR and R3s might last, but are another second slower than the R2s. So even if you ran the full tank, you'd be beaten on that distance by a one-stopping FZR.
Another stat: In MoE we had a whopping 3 or 4 FZRs, 3 FXRs iirc and the rest was XRRs. Now after the patch we got a signup of 26 cars so far, 2 FXRs (no real change), 4 XRRs (one is in doubt due to a driver injury) and the rest is FZRs. The XRR in doubt and one of the FXRs was only entered because I specifically asked that team to enter an XRR for comparison reasons because I knew they had some of the fastest XRR drivers out there. They were so kind to also enter an FXR.
I bet the 4 XRRs will have a hard time qualifying on the first grid for the 4h and that is not the way it should be. Period.
Story of my lfs life, and yet I cant stop driving the lumbering beast.
Each car should be faster than the others at some of the tracks, I like the idea of the xrr being the speed king with the fzr good at mid-high speed twisty bits.
The fxr is left with short tight tracks where acceleration matters.
After a year of driving my heart out just to be past by a stream of fzrs Im thinking of giving in. And going over to the fzr. :weeping:
im a big fan of the XRT, and it f**** pisses me off to have a ridiculously fast FXO racing with me , plus almost all races are full of that FXO's ! it sucks
the FZR is incredibly easy to drive compared to the xrr. i can get 1:42's easily with the FZR but it takes alot of work from me to get into the 1:42's with the XRR.
I can't stand the FXO... I like the FXR though. and yeah i've been passed by
FZR users like I was sitting still. I actually just recently started using the FZR.
It kinda ticks me off that with just starting to use it, I'm faster with it than the other two cars.
With TBO class... I wish they'd include the LX-4 and I dunno... maybe just bump the give the RB-4 some more horse power I realize the added weight from the drivetrain should keep it a little slower than the other two, but THAT slow???
But yeah, those two classes are a bit mismatched and could stand some adjusting.
