IFCA Team Meeting Notes and News

We will conduct a preliminary IFCA team leader meeting Saturday Nov 4th 4pm CST. 

We will discus new rules, new formatting, and new teams.  This will be an open dialogue in order to bounce some new ideas off of each other with the release of the new game. Nothing written in stone, just a guide to give us some direction.

By this time we will have some experience with "FM8" to justify getting the team leaders together and addressing all the issues with the new game.

It would not be improbable that in the future we might well have to open up a 2nd lobby for example. Everyone is going to make new friends and your friends list is going to expand is why.  So, we have to consider how the IFCA is going to evolve or adapt to such changes.  It would be cool to go from 6 teams to 12.

So if you are a IFCA Team Leader or plan on becoming one, mark this date on your calendar, we'd love to hear your input.

GTDon2 wrote:We will conduct a preliminary IFCA team leader meeting Saturday Nov 4th 4pm CST. 

We will discus new rules, new formatting, and new teams.  This will be an open dialogue in order to bounce some new ideas off of each other with the release of the new game. Nothing written in stone, just a guide to give us some direction.

By this time we will have some experience with "FM8" to justify getting the team leaders together and addressing all the issues with the new game.

It would not be improbable that in the future we might well have to open up a 2nd lobby for example. Everyone is going to make new friends and your friends list is going to expand is why.  So, we have to consider how the IFCA is going to evolve or adapt to such changes.  It would be cool to go from 6 teams to 12.

So if you are a IFCA Team Leader or plan on becoming one, mark this date on your calendar, we'd love to hear your input.

Given the potential popularity of FM8 we are expecting to go from 1 lobby to 2, or 48 drivers and 12 teams. This means that we will be seeking new Team Leaders from our existing teams as well as outside the IFCA.  We encourage all drivers who want to lead a new team to step forward at this time. Simply contact GTDon so he can help you acquire drivers.  Teams are limited to a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 4 drivers.

All Team Leaders are invited to the next Team Leader meeting on Saturday Nov 4th 4pm CST to help hammer out the new format for FM8.  It will be an important meeting for Team Leaders to attend in order to get their say in things and offer up suggestions.  

Everything will be on the table.  Every aspect of IFCA racing will be subject to change depending on what the Team Leaders decide.  Whether we stay with the IFCA ratings or switch to Forza ratings, or use some combination thereof. Whether we stick with a practice lap leaderboard and bonuses or not. Whether we keep the usual Saturday 6pm CST and qualy time or not. Everything will be looked at and discussed.  From car classes, to grid formula, to length of seasons, we want everyone's input.

We have an exceptional system as it is, but it doesn't mean we have no room for improvement.  The ratings, the bonuses, the grid formula, the car handicaps, have all blended together to give us the fairest possible racing for drivers who are not equally skilled.  The only question that remains is how can we improve upon what we have spent hours, days, weeks and months perfecting?

My thinking is that there are many small things we can change without throwing the baby out with the bathwater or reinventing the wheel.  We are not attempting to fix something that isn't broken, we probably only want to fine tune the system rather than do a complete overhaul.  Retain the fundamentals of fair and fun racing, and changing the rest is probably best.

I will put out a list of items that will be under scrutiny before the meeting so that everyone can think about them and talk it over with their teammates.  That way the Team Leaders will know more about what they want during the meeting.

For efficiency’s sake here is a list of the items that we will be going through during the Team Leader meeting.  All we want/need (so as to minimize the required time to do this) is an answer to each item. 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it.

Please go over this list with your teammates to get a feel for what you think the answers should be, so that you are prepared before the meeting on Nov 4^th 4pm CST.





Race time and day? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it.  same

Race length format? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it. slightly longer

Season length? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it. 10 races

Practice lap leaderboard? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it or delete it. 3. Slightly modify it. special modification

Grid modifier? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it or delete it. 3. Slightly modify it.  deleted

Bonuses: 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it. same
Top 2
Top 8
Top 12
Pole
Fastest lap
Track lap record
Clean driver
Recruiting

Car class use, 1,2,3, or 4? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it. 3+1

Series points?  1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it. same

Team points? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it. add 1/2pts

Penalty points? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it. same
 




Items that have already been solidified are:
IFCA Ratings
Wild Card playoff format

GTDon2 wrote:For efficiency’s sake here is a list of the items that we will be going through during the Team Leader meeting.  All we want/need (so as to minimize the required time to do this) is an answer to each item. 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it.

Please go over this list with your teammates to get a feel for what you think the answers should be, so that you are prepared before the meeting on Nov 4^th 4pm CST.





Race time and day? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it.

Race length format? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it.

Season length? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it.

Practice lap leaderboard? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it or delete it. 3. Slightly modify it.

Grid modifier? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it or delete it. 3. Slightly modify it.

Bonuses: 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it.
Top 2
Top 8
Top 12
Pole
Fastest lap
Track lap record
Clean driver
Recruiting

Car class use, 1,2,3, or 4? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it.

Series points?  1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it.

Team points? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it.

Penalty points? 1. Keep it as is. 2. Change it. 3. Slightly modify it.
 




Items that have already been solidified are:
IFCA Ratings
Wild Card playoff format

reminder

Attn Team Leaders:

Meeting will begin in 1 hour at 4pm CST.  I will have a open party for you to join.

Everyone can see above what the changes are for next season in red. One item that was overlooked and not discussed was the adjustment to how we do the practice lap leaderboard.  The problem is that the top 4 classes (Pro, Platinum, Gold, and Silver) must use the traction handicap.  But, the handicap is not available for Rivals, and is not detectable or can be seen in use.  It is unenforceable in other words. Bronze and Copper drivers don't have this problem because they don't use a traction handicap.

Our solution is to figure out what the average time gap is between each car and class, then add that average to your posted practice lap.  

For example, let's say hypothetically, the average difference between our handicap cars and non-handicap cars is 6.1sec per lap.  And let's say you ran a best lap of 2:35.550 Rivals time in the non-handicap version of a legal build at Road America.  We would then add 6.1sec to your best practice lap time and post it as 2:41.650.  This would then represent a fairly close approximation to what your time would have been were you able to use the traction handicap cars.

It's not ideal, but does do the intended job of allowing drivers to still practice in their car without suspecting cheating.  It would be good advice for everyone to do private lobbies or Free Play so that they can get used to their traction handicap if they have one. But again, because we can not verify for a fact that you applied the correct traction handicap we can not accept lap times alleged to have used the proper traction handicaps please understand.  We can setup a private lobby with either myself or Eries with the proper lobby settings and take your best time from that too.  This is what we will do with our Wed night practice races.

With that said, everyone should simply send me, or post on Rivals, their non-handicap times and I will add to it the average gap (yet to be determined).  Obviously an actual time will probably be slightly faster than a calculated average, so we will try to make ourselves available for private lobby races for everyone during the week.

I will be available to do driver rating tests during the week in the evenings for all the new drivers too.  If you don't test with me, I will automatically place you in the Gold group to start the season.

Team Meeting 1/6/24 noon CST

We will be discussing the Season 2 format changes.

I'm just going to put this out there for everyone to think about before you come to the meeting.  Given the difficult steps it takes to organize and set up races with FM and all its unfriendly flaws, and the fact that today's Forza sim-racer has the attention span of microbes. It seems like we need to try something different, something more streamline, where people can quickly and easily get into, and participate in, with as few roadblocks and complications as possible. A format that essentially meets today's crop of drivers halfway between old school strict rules compliance, and nearly zero responsibility and obligation new school think. 

In looking around at other leagues and formats, I've noticed that hot lap leagues have the largest member lists and participation of any leagues.  They dwarf their racing counterparts by a lot. But, they don't actually race. They are just massive hot lapping groups.  It makes sense that they would have so many drivers because it is so easy to get into. Register, pick your car, and now go hot lap it.  That's about it.  It's Very easy, very simple, with very little obligation, and ='s a lot of drivers.  But, for many, pure hot lap leagues can get boring quickly.  But, no one has thought about possibly combining hot lapping with racing in a viable way before, until now.

So what if we adopt a hot lap format with the added twist of inviting all the eventual best drivers to a single 24 man championship race at the end of a hot lapping season?  Make it a short 4 week season of hot lapping 3-4 cars, and then a invitational championship race on the 5th week. Top 24 in hot lap points are invited to the championship race.  

This hybrid format kills many birds with one stone.  It's innately popular because it is easy to partake in, has few rules, not many cars, and sets up for an amazing finale with enormous anticipation and pressure. It would be a tremendous final.

Such a format would be much easier to attract new drivers too.  Recruiting new drivers unbeknownst to many is arguably the most important activity in league racing because without drivers there is no racing.  A complex format makes recruiting and driver retention just as hard as a game that is full of bugs and is incomplete.  We can't do much about the game, but we can modify and simplify our format which would be half the struggle.

So think it over, and give me some feedback.

Don,
While I enjoy hot lapping(Rivals) for me it pales in comparison to actually racing against other folks on any given track during online multiplayer or a league such as yours.
It takes more skill in my opinion to navigate around other drivers than simply running hot laps with no consequence other than you might have messed up a lap time.
Racing against other real drivers on track adds all the feeling a human might feel before or during a race,such as being nervous feeling butterflies in your stomach for example.
You just don't get that when running hot laps.
Not only that hot lapping gets pretty boring after a while.
If I want to run hot laps I'll do so in Rivals,I join a league were hopefully I race against other competitive drivers who want to race hard and clean as much as possible.
This is just my thoughts on the topic,others may agree or disagree,that's all good.
Anthony (Bizmark27)

Anthony wrote:Don,
While I enjoy hot lapping(Rivals) for me it pales in comparison to actually racing against other folks on any given track during online multiplayer or a league such as yours.
It takes more skill in my opinion to navigate around other drivers than simply running hot laps with no consequence other than you might have messed up a lap time.
Racing against other real drivers on track adds all the feeling a human might feel before or during a race,such as being nervous feeling butterflies in your stomach for example.
You just don't get that when running hot laps.
Not only that hot lapping gets pretty boring after a while.
If I want to run hot laps I'll do so in Rivals,I join a league were hopefully I race against other competitive drivers who want to race hard and clean as much as possible.
This is just my thoughts on the topic,others may agree or disagree,that's all good.
Anthony (Bizmark27)

A man after my own heart.  I sympathize greatly with your view.  But, though we share this opinion, it doesn't address the before mentioned problems and realities of today's drivers.  You need to place into your calculation all the drawbacks too, like how recruiting is getting harder, and the percentage of drivers we retain is getting lower.  And how people don't like to read about the format and the rules etc.

Anyone here who is not part of the recruiting effort before each season (which is almost everyone here) will not be as aware of the numbers as I am, and not place into consideration the critical value of this aspect of forming a league or setting up a season.  The fact is whether anyone knows it or not we have seen the largest fallout of drivers in the history of the IFCA this season.  This is telling us something is wrong, and it's not just bad luck or anomalous.  

We just can't continue to recruit drivers if the percentage of driver fallout before the first race falls dramatically like it has, because, it is wasting time and resources for little to no gain. This is the writing on the wall.  It is a diminishing return on the invested effort that's trending in the wrong direction. Like trying to go up an escalator that is going down.  

So, the question becomes what to do about it?  Stay the course and ignore the trend, and continue to lose ground?  Or, come up with a new solution that can attract the advantages of both kinds of drivers at the same time.  I think it's time to stop ignoring the obvious, and pull our heads out of the sand, and face the problem head on.

One solution is to incorporate hot lapping with racing in some sort of combination that satisfies everyone and can then reverse the trend of losing drivers. If we can merge the benefits of hot lapping with racing, we might have something very unique and interesting.  

The attractive advantages of hot lap leagues over racing leagues is that there are virtually no rules, no set time to do it, no effort to join, and little to managing for the organizers.  This is why they have so many more drivers than racing leagues do.  But, IF we can combine these advantages to a racing format, our driver roster would grow exponentially. Any driver fallout would then be nearly inconsequential at that point.

Where there is a will, there is a way.  Another formula would be to have the 4 week hot lap season, but continue to run a race on Saturdays.  The Saturday race wouldn't be with the hot lap track of the week, but of the eventual finale track.  We could attach a small bonus for those who run the race on Saturdays, and in this way everyone would get a crack at the finale track even if they never make it into the top 24 for the actual finale.

It's this kind of solution based opinion I'm trying to solicit here.  There are a lot of smart people here who I know can come up with some creative solutions to solve this problem, so lets hear them.





I want to add that the hybrid format is not actually new.  It's been around for a long time.  The primary users of the hybrid format have been T10 and its affiliated 3rd party E-game consorts.  It is the prime format they have always used for every national and international event they have ever done.  

So why is it so foreign to racing leagues then? Mostly because it was thought that only really big contests used the hybrid format.  Contest that supplied the marketing/advertising/money to invest in it and insure its viability.  But the truth is, it is the format itself that is able to accomodate the most users, and that's why it is done this way. It doesn't even take additional funding for the format to work. 

Over on the Gran Turismo side, same thing. GT Academy starts off as a hot lap contest and morphs into racing.

My only real fear is how many more drivers we would get by going with some kind of hybrid format.  Say we only do about 10% of what a major sponsored T10 international event might get, that could be as many as 2000 drivers!  Even if it was only about 1%, even this is a big number of around 200 drivers.

As you can see, the hybrid formula is well proven and can generate numbers so large you might want to be careful for what you ask for.  I think we can come up with a hybrid format that can touch all the bases in the end.  Otherwise I'm not sure what if anything I can do to stem the tide of drop outs.  

I personally recruited over 70 drivers for this season, and by the end of the 2nd race we were down to about 28 drivers. That's a 40% drop out rate.  Higher than any previous season.  You can blame half of this on the malfunctioning game true, but what about the other half?  Again, not much we can do about the game other than hope they continue to fix it, but we can do something about the format.  We can affect the dropout rate of the other half of the drivers who didn't quit because of difficulties with Forza.  

Over the past few seasons I've been watching the increasing rate at which people quit, and I used to think is was just because FM7 was old.  But the trend has been steady and consistent even going into FM8 now. So I really believe a correction needs to take place.  I think if we don't change with the times, if we don't try to adapt to the new attitudes that exist, if we don't evolve to meet the new challenge, we are doomed to extinction.

Don,
Would you be able to run a poll on this site outlining different race type scenario's?
At least if you could you would get some measure from the folks that vote!
I ran a league many years ago, Forza 3 so I know how challenging doing so can be.
Anthony (Bizmark27)

Anthony wrote:Don,
Would you be able to run a poll on this site outlining different race type scenario's?
At least if you could you would get some measure from the folks that vote!
I ran a league many years ago, Forza 3 so I know how challenging doing so can be.
Anthony (Bizmark27)

Yeah, we can and probably will, but we aren't there yet.  We are just in the exploring stages kicking the can around first.  I'm more interested in what your solution is if you have one. And not just yours, but everyone's.

Don,I just had a look at MyForza forums,it dosen't paint a pretty picture about Forzamotorsports in general.
The player base on both PC and XBox has tanked and getting worse all the time.
You only have to look on the steam charts to see how badly this game is currently doing.
Reading other topics, people in general are hating the grind of leveling up cars.
People dissatisfied with the online multiplayer and all the rammers.
Career mode were falling asleep is a better option.
Broken private multiplayer lobbies.
Just yesterday I leveled up the SS Camaro for the Eaglerock oval event, took me 4 hours grind running laps around the Oval just so I could buy the parts.
Most folks today don't want anything to do that requires time and effort especially when it's not fun and who can blame them.
I understand why your having a hard time retaining players, the game itself can't keep players.
I don't have answers, I wish I did, Turn 10 dev's don't have answers either judging from the player count.

Anthony wrote:Don,I just had a look at MyForza forums,it dosen't paint a pretty picture about Forzamotorsports in general.
The player base on both PC and XBox has tanked and getting worse all the time.
You only have to look on the steam charts to see how badly this game is currently doing.
Reading other topics, people in general are hating the grind of leveling up cars.
People dissatisfied with the online multiplayer and all the rammers.
Career mode were falling asleep is a better option.
Broken private multiplayer lobbies.
Just yesterday I leveled up the SS Camaro for the Eaglerock oval event, took me 4 hours grind running laps around the Oval just so I could buy the parts.
Most folks today don't want anything to do that requires time and effort especially when it's not fun and who can blame them.
I understand why your having a hard time retaining players, the game itself can't keep players.
I don't have answers, I wish I did, Turn 10 dev's don't have answers either judging from the player count.

Yes, these are stats that I was aware of weeks ago.  And yes, the difficult nature of the new game is not a good fit with the current user attitudes.  Drivers have been on a slow drift towards less engagement, less commitment, less desire for details, and less reading.  They mostly just want to get in their car and go, period. And this is antithetical to the parameters of Forza Mot.

The question is, can we somehow take advantage of this bad situation or not?  I think we can as I have already mentioned.  And while many people have differing opinions about what I have laid out, none have refuted the details or proposed anything better so far.  This could mean that I'm making a strong argument for the hybrid type format.

Don you know my take.

If I wanted to hotlap I would never have met you.

The IFCA was created on an age old debate. Which is better around a track, hotlappers or racers?

The IFCA had a very strong stance here, Racers!!!

Now you want to hotlap.

I'll be looking at some other leagues cause looks like my time "racing" is approaching an end here.

ZAR Eries wrote:Don you know my take.

If I wanted to hotlap I would never have met you.

The IFCA was created on an age old debate. Which is better around a track, hotlappers or racers?

The IFCA had a very strong stance here, Racers!!!

Now you want to hotlap.

I'll be looking at some other leagues cause looks like my time "racing" is approaching and end here.

Umm, no, I'm talking about a hybrid format combining the two disciplines into 1. Not just a hot lap .

GTDon2 wrote:

ZAR Eries wrote:Don you know my take.

If I wanted to hotlap I would never have met you.

The IFCA was created on an age old debate. Which is better around a track, hotlappers or racers?

The IFCA had a very strong stance here, Racers!!!

Now you want to hotlap.

I'll be looking at some other leagues cause looks like my time "racing" is approaching and end here.

Umm, no, I'm talking about a hybrid format combining the two disciplines into 1. Not just a hot lap .

Hotlappping for 4 weeks and then have a single race, aint racing, it is nothing more than Glorified hotlapping.

I have a plan.

Lets hotlap Mon to Fridays and then the top 24 race Saturday!

oh wait we are already to some extent doing that right now. The LB is nothing more than a hotlap board.

I want to race once a week not once a month. Nice 12 races for a year.

ZAR Eries wrote:

GTDon2 wrote:

ZAR Eries wrote:Don you know my take.

If I wanted to hotlap I would never have met you.

The IFCA was created on an age old debate. Which is better around a track, hotlappers or racers?

The IFCA had a very strong stance here, Racers!!!

Now you want to hotlap.

I'll be looking at some other leagues cause looks like my time "racing" is approaching and end here.

Umm, no, I'm talking about a hybrid format combining the two disciplines into 1. Not just a hot lap .

Hotlappping for 4 weeks and then have a single race, aint racing, it is nothing more than Glorified hotlapping.

I have a plan.

Lets hotlap Mon to Fridays and then the top 24 race Saturday!

oh wait we are already to some extent doing that right now. The LB is nothing more than a hotlap board.

I want to race once a week not once a month. Nice 12 races for a year.

Well, you're not wrong, it isn't a big departure from what we are doing technically right now.  That's why it's not a big stretch to me, and the potential benefits can really offset the changes. My modification would also include a weekly race. (You may have missed this suggestion.) 

So yes, I agree with you, it's about the same really. The small difference is in shifting the points around, and emphasising the big picture goal of having a single championship race at the end of the short season.  Why short?  So we can get everyone outside of the top 24 back into the rotation of the following season right away.  This will help keep people's interest and build on the existing roster.

No one has been a stronger advocate than me for racers over hot lappers in the past.  You know this. I've had to put up or shut up against fast hot lappers in one on one races before, and beat them, to their astonishment!  All I'm saying is in the face of mounting evidence, and a lack of driver retention, the IFCA needs to come up with a better plan.  And this is the hallmark of the IFCA.  It always comes up with original ideas on formats that others follow, including T10.

To me, if we have a gentle shift towards easier participation and a new focus, by combining the two forms of competition, we should be able to have our cake and eat it too.  But continuing with the status quo of having to recruit twice as many people as you need, because you are going to lose half of them by the 2nd race, is unsustainable.  I can't do it.  You know how hard I work at recruiting, Eries.  It's no picnic to begin with let alone having half of your driver's drop out after 2 races. 

We, I think, have to face the facts that, "the times they are a changin" as the great Bob Dylan would say.  No one hardly knows anything about the raging debates that happened between racers and hot lappers back in FM1 and FM2.  Those days are long gone.  We can't live in the past.  We have to address the present.

Another suggestion might be that we have two seperate formats, one that is always strictly race oriented with specific format rules for the hardcore racers, and one that is more of a hybrid format, combing the ease of joining hot lapping with the excitement of racing, just as all the big tournaments do.

Look I know you write as a sideline.

Suggestion to week races, not missed but have no bearing on anyone outside the USA or similar time zone.

IFCA - International ...

So weekdays are not possible.

In my eyes if we go down a hybrid route where 80% of the weight lies in hotlapping, then I seriously need to go enter a Europian league or something.

Just to add, Im not against it, Im just saying it doesnt cater for me sitting way over the water and is not something I am keen on doing from my own Forza perspective.

If this is the route, all good. Maybe I will join here and there.

The debate between racer vs hot lappers. They both have there own perks hotlapping you learn tracks lines angles and to build and tune cars for specific tracks. Racing you learn craft how to pass when to be aggressive when to let the race come to you and not push over your limits and most of all how to position your car or adjust line when someone is in the racing line. Myself im a racer i dont care if its for 1st or 20th its the door to door corner to corner racing that does it for me pushing car to edge lap after lap without making a mistake or putting the pressure on someone else till they crack and slip. Ive never had the patience for hot lapping after 10 min i want to race lol..... I personally feel the players backing out is more to do with the doodoo show of a game we have been handed. Its hard to put time into something when not a for sure chance you will finish race or not see someone on track and them get the wrong image of how you race because you honestly had no clue they was even around you. The racing is good always has been and for the most part everyone seems to have the same mindset nobody want s to wreck anyone or ruin anyones race we just all want hard clean racing.

ZAR Eries wrote:Look I know you write as a sideline.

Suggestion to week races, not missed but have no bearing on anyone outside the USA or similar time zone.

IFCA - International ...

So weekdays are not possible.

In my eyes if we go down a hybrid route where 80% of the weight lies in hotlapping, then I seriously need to go enter a Europian league or something.

Okay, now we are getting somewhere! the sub-problem is, how to balance a hybrid format.  Bear in mind one of the big advantages of a hot lap program is that it is never dependent on time zones or daily schedules. Hot lap leagues thrive because of this as much as anything, because, people can come and go at will regardless of what day it is or what time it is.  All they need to know is when the cut off is.

If 80% is the limit at which we say it is too much in favor of hot lapping to justify the hybrid format, then perhaps all we need to do is balance this to 79% Or 75%, or something closer to 50% to satisfy our demands.  I think this can be reached via the proper points structure.  And I think this is how you would do it anyway.  

In order to tie the two forms of racing to each other it would be through the points tables.  We can have two races every week as we do now with our Wed night races and then the Saturday main event. Weighting the points tables toward racing rather than toward hot lapping so that we get closer to a 50/50 proposition is the solution.  I'm not saying we can get to 50/50, I'm saying this should be the intended goal so that if we fall short, we are still more balanced than we were at 80/20, agreed?

RIOT ChevyPower wrote:The debate between racer vs hot lappers. They both have there own perks hotlapping you learn tracks lines angles and to build and tune cars for specific tracks. Racing you learn craft how to pass when to be aggressive when to let the race come to you and not push over your limits and most of all how to position your car or adjust line when someone is in the racing line. Myself im a racer i dont care if its for 1st or 20th its the door to door corner to corner racing that does it for me pushing car to edge lap after lap without making a mistake or putting the pressure on someone else till they crack and slip. Ive never had the patience for hot lapping after 10 min i want to race lol..... I personally feel the players backing out is more to do with the doodoo show of a game we have been handed. Its hard to put time into something when not a for sure chance you will finish race or not see someone on track and them get the wrong image of how you race because you honestly had no clue they was even around you. The racing is good always has been and for the most part everyone seems to have the same mindset nobody want s to wreck anyone or ruin anyones race we just all want hard clean racing.

 I agree. But what is unseen is the steady decline even before the release of Forza Motorsports.  That is, if T10 did the right thing and simply revamped FM7, and correctly called it FM8, instead of making all kinds of false promises that the new game needed a new name because everything was totally reworked "from the ground up," even if this had happened, I don't think it changes recent attitudes among the user base.

I've been noticing a sea change for a couple years now where people are less and less interested in the details or effort to bother applying themselves toward reaching any kind of goals.  There is a decline in overall commitment to take on a challenge that requires any sort of effort on their part.  

For example, there was a time when the only questions I ever got were about definitions within the format.  Nowadays, I get mostly questions about what the format rules are, when the races are, what the cars are, and this even after I've sent drivers the direct link to the format page!  In other words, they, by and large, refuse to read the content and prefer that I read it for them or explain it to them. To which I often wonder, should I build, tune, and race your car for you too? And even though I meet them halfway by providing the tune, it's still somehow not enough for them. People with this low level of motivation and interest are ripe for falling out is the point.  If they have to figure things out, or read, or take on any commitment level whatsoever, they are out at the first sign of difficulty.  And if more than 50% are like this these days, then the old ways won't work with them.

A lot of folks today seem to want to get the most from something whilst putting in the least amount of effort to do so.
This is life in general, as you said plenty of folks don't want to or can't be bothered to read something in print, you have to tell them everything.
You have a good racing league format Don, there is very little wrong with it in my opinion.
I would focus on just keeping the hardcore of the group you have, if you have 24-30 of these drivers that is better than having 200 plus who want to put in as little effort as possible.
Quality over quantity will always shine through.

There seemed to be a decent turnout of racers last night for practice, these are the folks that will keep coming back as long as the racing is fair and worthwhile.
When I ran my league Forza 3 I had plus minus 24 racers who came back week after week, split into 3 divisions of 8.
The folks could use any car they wanted as long as the car did not exceed 330hp.
They could only use that car once then they had to choose and race a different car.
Full race simulation was on so, pitting, tire wear, damage to your car was on.
Forza motorsports as we know it today is a different animal than back then I know, but until Turn 10 put any effort into making this game better and doing something to try and retain the crumbling player base then your going to be left with putting square pegs into round holes.

Anthony wrote:A lot of folks today seem to want to get the most from something whilst putting in the least amount of effort to do so.
This is life in general, as you said plenty of folks don't want to or can't be bothered to read something in print, you have to tell them everything.
You have a good racing league format Don, there is very little wrong with it in my opinion.
I would focus on just keeping the hardcore of the group you have, if you have 24-30 of these drivers that is better than having 200 plus who want to put in as little effort as possible.
Quality over quantity will always shine through.

There seemed to be a decent turnout of racers last night for practice, these are the folks that will keep coming back as long as the racing is fair and worthwhile.
When I ran my league Forza 3 I had plus minus 24 racers who came back week after week, split into 3 divisions of 8.
The folks could use any car they wanted as long as the car did not exceed 330hp.
They could only use that car once then they had to choose and race a different car.
Full race simulation was on so, pitting, tire wear, damage to your car was on.
Forza motorsports as we know it today is a different animal than back then I know, but until Turn 10 put any effort into making this game better and doing something to try and retain the crumbling player base then your going to be left with putting square pegs into round holes.

A couple things here; one is that if you have a format the funnels the best drivers into a single event, those drivers are going to be at a high enough level to where the quality will be there.  So what happens is, you start out with quantity, and you filter toward higher quality.  The larger the pool the higher the quality it eventually becomes.

We've done similar things in the past too. Over the years we've done just about everything and many things no one has done.  Some worked and some didn't, but it wasn't because of the disposition of the drivers or the sim-racing community like it is starting to be now.

It used to be all about the format, now, it's starting to look like it's all about the racer.  And this is different than in the past.  It's a trend I can't ignore because it is impacting what we do in a different way than before.

There is a reason why hot lap leagues dwarf racing leagues to begin with, but when the competitors start to ignore what it takes to mount an effort to race, by default they are heading in the direction of hot lapping.  Because, simply put, it is less of a hassle to partake in.

We can stay the course and pretend nothing is changing and hope we can muster 12-24 guys, or we can adapt to the changing competitive demographics and try to capitalize on it.  I said this before the start of the season that because of the way FM is, it strongly lends itself to Spec type racing.  Spec racing and hot lapping are closely related, both churn out huge participation numbers, and I think this is the direction we must go if we want to maintain our roster or add to it.

As of now apart from you Don you only have myself, Eries and Chevypower who have contributed to this discussion.
The three of us have made it clear we want to be here in this league to race not hotlap.
It's only three of us but seeing as no one else right now has anything to add this is all you got.

Try Spec racing, everyone in the same spec car ,no tuning, nothing it can't be any easier than that.
If that dosen't work then I don't know what will.