eSports World Series Championship - NOT a championship to find the fastest driver

[SRD_SimVansevenant 863]

Dear @PJTierney and the whole DiRT Team,

 

As a competitive driver at the top end of the player base, I would like to point out a major issue/concern with the organisation of the eSports World Series Championship. This issue has been stated several times by others in the past as well, on Facebook or other media.

The World Series website reads as follows:

Now clearly this is NOT the case in this championship. The format is organised in a way so that not the fastest drivers in the world qualify but the fastest drivers for each of the three platforms. And this is where the problem, quite clearly, lies. 

Underneath you see four pictures of the latest round in Spain (Descenso por Carretera - R5-class). The first image shows you the classification (so far) of all the players regardless of platform. The second to fourth picture shows you the classifications for each of the platforms seperately. What you would expect, is that the top three drivers in the first image qualify as they are obviously the fastest drivers from amongst the whole player base. That, however, is NOT the case. It is in fact the top driver from each of the platforms that will be qualified for the World Series Quarter Finals, regardless if they set a top three time from amongst all drivers or not.

If you look closely, the driver who will qualify on Xbox One is not even in the top 10 of fastest times from amongst the whole player base. I, myself, am two seconds faster than him. How is he allowed to qualify for the Quarter Final and others not, even though they are clearly a lot faster? And this platform separation goes on all the way through the Quarter and Semi Finals. Only in the Grand Final will the two fastest drivers from each platform come together to battle it out for the crown.

It's not just in the current event that this is an massive issue. It's in EVERY single event. (I'll make a follow up post with another example to prove it.)

I'm sorry to say this but none of the Xbox One players deserve to be qualified for the World Series Quarter Finals and neither are most of the PS4 drivers that qualified. Understand me correctly, I don't have anything against those players at all but this is just silly organisation. Look at the time differences! In some events the difference is over 10 or 15 seconds between the top PC time and the top Xbox time (e.g. Week 2 and 3 from Round 1)! How can they be counted amongst the best in the world?

Several extremely talented players, TwoTwoOne being one of them and myself (slightly less talented), truly deserve that Quarter Final spot. It's an absolute shame that it has to be like this.

And I'm completely sure that many others will see it the same way I do. This is absolutely 100% NOT a competition to find the best driver in the world. 

[SRD_SimVansevenant 863]

These are the results for the penultimate event of the World Series Qualifiers:

(image1 = all DR2.0 players | image2 = Steam | Image3 = PS4 | image4 = Xbox One)

[KryspaPL 22]

I can definitely agree with @SRD_SimVansevenant. But one thing you didn't mention and where the big problem is: What if someone is really fast on PC and not qualifies like you or TwoTwoOne or even me and on PS4 it was easily possible, but others just did it with some luck. Of course i have as well nothing against that. (To everyone >) But what if i say that some top PC Times are just way too fast and not fair because of many cuts (not mentioning the big obvious cuts which some players know) which players are doing, driving on grass, turning off the bushes, doing downgrade graphics, improving reaction, eliminate input lags, Improve game speed or smoothness and so on? This was so far my biggest disappointment in this esports challenge because when i did the best ever cleanest runs with weeks of practice and total confidence, i was never qualified, and always strange things happened with those cuts on some stages, with some other things, including the degradation which i'm not sure if wasn't better in most occasions for other players than me somehow. I can't also exclude that some did it in extremely bad way and no one knows about it or can't verify. But what i want to say, those things just added more concerns about this championship. With all the respect for my lovely DiRT Team, organizers and everyone. I just think and wanted to add that this problems and what @SRD_SimVansevenant mentioned is hurting the game and the players a lot and no one never discuss with experienced ones about it. We should do meetings, all those stuff, speak about what the disadvantages are how could we do the championship friendly, and i don't say just for us, or who know the game in 100% i say it for everyone. Doesn't matter for who if someone is slower or not, everyone should know there are fair thing in this championship and so far it's just very hard to notice that for someone or to enjoy it.

Here are examples why i would lose the quarter final spot on PC in not a fair way... Rules said we can use cuts if the game allow for that, and we agreed that we do "big cuts" but what's about changing the game, the conditions and not making it equal, what about those little cuts and changes which do huge difference? This is what makes multi-platform qualifiers even worse because it's not equal, and when i see those Xbox and PS4 times they are mostly legit and very well driven. Also mentioning no possibility to hack the game, use cheats and so on on console platforms. The leaderboards and winners choosing should work in different way, that's what we mean.

Better Racing line cut:

 

Cutting through a grass field with a bit of gaining speed and almost no cornering, (you simply don't drive the corner almost): ⬇️

 

[Maxiemwagenaar 14]

2 hours ago, KryspaPL said:

...

Better Racing line cut:

...

Since that was my clip let me just say I play every game with lower graphics, I just like it since the visual clutter and effects don't mix well with my brain. I did not turn it all down to gain an advantage and graphics settings don't just magically make bushes solid, get over that. And times being 'too fast'? Okay. Anyway, I don't like cuts either but this one is hardly noteworthy, you could've at least gone for the cut towards the end where you throw your car into a bowl at full speed saving nearly a second. The other 'cuts' in that qualifier hardly did anything to be honest and my best no cut run (barely did them, like a handful max) was a mid 8:20, faster than my qualifier time. Getting off topic here though and I don't really need to defend myself, CM allowed cuts and thus people will need to use them. Apart from the last Polish stage the cuts were very mild though, be honest here, we're not talking about 5-10 seconds each stage. Not even close.

I agree with the sentiment in this topic though, the final will not be very entertaining. If I (and many other PC players) had purchased an Xbox and qualified through that we would be getting a free ticket to the final which is stupid to say the least. I mean I took it ultra safe in Spain to win the overall (well hopefully?) and I still ended up faster than the best Xbox player.. There are at least a handful PS4 players though that could keep up with the top PC players, ish, so that won't be too bad. It's just that there will be two people in the final going into it knowing they will not even be close to getting 4th place while actual top players that could challenge for all podium spots are standing on the sidelines. The most exciting thing to watch will be the PC semis (aka the real finals), after that it's only a matter of checking who the winner will be.

[Tranzitive 309]

 

[bojansaksida 0]

Be carefull.....they might beat you all by 10s in the end game 

 

 

[SRD_SimVansevenant 863]

12 hours ago, bojansaksida said:

Be carefull.....they might beat you all by 10s in the end game

Who? The Xbox players? I highly doubt that... 

Once again, the fastest drivers amongst all players, regardless of platform, should be qualified... 

[KryspaPL 22]

18 hours ago, Maxiemwagenaar said:

you could've at least gone for the cut towards the end where you throw your car into a bowl at full speed saving nearly a second.

Man, i did this cut! You think you gain nothing going on grass and saving like 0.300 with better racing line and earlier entry and exit of the corner? First of all on that flat grass you don't go slower like it's supposed to be but also when i go on the road it's slower because i get all those ruts and degradation so i'm slower and i don't finish the corner earlier because of that cut and because going on normal surface and i have to turn more than during a cut. Also when we speak about who deserved it or not (just in case i don't say you didn't deserved, you find your own way and you got faster times so ok, let's not speak about it) On PS4 i did 8'23 on practice and 8'25 on main attempt so i was still like 2 seconds ahead of the 2nd player, so everyone could see i was the closest to pc, but anyway... with more FPS, less input lags and those little cuts and no bushes on pc, it's not possible to go like that on a console with limitation and a little bit different FFB. "At least not that easy" I'm just explaining and saying that many can't qualify because of 2 things which make difference and this are the cuts and then the leaderboards and that's why i said it's unfair. Every cut do something, if it would not do anything, you would never drive them. And like i said first of all every pro players should meet (maybe also with devs) or the ones who knows the game or cuts, and then speak about all those things. If we say we go cuts, everyone should know them and do it, and if we say we don't go, then it's even more realistic and close for everyone and then we go clean. I know it's better to say we go cuts and don't care about the others, because it's easier to qualify but this was the fair thing to do. It's better to use cuts, because we are sure a slower player will not beat the top ones, but like i said it have it's bad sites as well. Because it looks like dirty tactics and then you have concerns about the leaderboard and fair way of qualify. I thought now, why we don't have leaderboards close to eSports WRC? At the same time for consoles it would be unfair because pc would be mostly faster in any case. But at the other hand faster players would be qualified.

No offense too, congratulations for qualifying. 🙂

[KryspaPL 22]

5 hours ago, SRD_SimVansevenant said:

Who? The Xbox players? I highly doubt that... 

Once again, the fastest drivers amongst all players, regardless of platform, should be qualified... 

Well the only one fast on Xbox could be Robin Sieren from my team and he did qualify way easier than i was trying on pc during Rally GT Spain, also i got 2 seconds better time from him i guess so there was not that big difference. But i wanted to say he was the one from xbox who was really fast and on PC he will be too i'm sure. He also qualified in DiRT4.

[somethingthing 282]

@KryspaPL

are you saying that grass thats rendered slow you down more than if its not turned on? If i turn the weather to low instead of high, will the rain have less of an impact on how the car handles? If I turn on MSAA, will the car behave differently on the road than if its turned off completely because the track will have more jaggies without AA?

[richie 522]

Honestly, I don't understand the reasoning. Everyone has the chance to qualify on multiple occasions on his respective platform. The fact that #10 on PC is faster than #1 on Xbox really is completely irrelevant. Most likely the consoleros will get beaten, the fastest guy (cross platform) will win. This guy would probably beat the other PC guys too, so again the fastest guy wins the competition. 

[KryspaPL 22]

1 hour ago, somethingthing said:

@KryspaPL

are you saying that grass thats rendered slow you down more than if its not turned on? If i turn the weather to low instead of high, will the rain have less of an impact on how the car handles? If I turn on MSAA, will the car behave differently on the road than if its turned off completely because the track will have more jaggies without AA?

Not exactly that was i meaning. I said more like turning off details make the game faster, you have better framerate but also less input lags or better reaction times because of faster screen response. Actually i know what you mean and i'm also curious if making like grass to the low detail will make you go more smooth on it. I don't think that it is like that but for sure when you turn bushes off then it's not nice because you see all the free space where you can drive without problem and cut which is unfair and less realistic. For slowing down i mean, grass in real life do difference for sure, the same in some other games if you remember for example older games, Colin McRae Rally, Mobil 1 Rally Championship or whatever, grass could slow you down. Maybe it's not a big impact, i don't know how much in real life too, but for sure you should not be able to cut through it in the game and also be the same fast or even faster than on the road to gain a unfair advantage. 🙂

[KryspaPL 22]

52 minutes ago, richie said:

Honestly, I don't understand the reasoning. Everyone has the chance to qualify on multiple occasions on his respective platform. The fact that #10 on PC is faster than #1 on Xbox really is completely irrelevant. Most likely the consoleros will get beaten, the fastest guy (cross platform) will win. This guy would probably beat the other PC guys too, so again the fastest guy wins the competition. 

I actually understand your point but also the point of @SRD_SimVansevenant Because we speak about competition where faster drivers on PC platforms which drive in a fair way without any cuts even, can't qualify and someone slower from PS4 can. But at the same time. We have qualification leaderboard like this to give chance for drivers from all the platforms, if it would be different then only pc would qualify and console players would struggle to keep up. And not many want to pay money for pc and the game and so on so it makes it complicated but also worse for the sells for CM and DR 2.0. So i can understand both comments, but i think for the future there should be more posts like this or meetings with top guys and maybe with the dirt team to speak about the problems or how everyone could enjoy the competition better. Now it's too late, but well we have the experience how everything looked and we can use it for the next time. 🙂

[Mike Dee 1,248]

Been saying it since Day 1, the real competition we all should be watching is the Quarter Finals for each platform. That is where you'll see the best competition fight it out with each other.

 

I fully understand why they did in the segmented way they did, it brings more people into the competition that way by giving each platform it's own place to fight it out. You'll get subgroups who all know the other xbox players, or know their fellow PS4 players, etc. It's a good marketing strategy to build up a support system through your playerbase. Where they messed up though was doing a Grand Finals with a 2x2x2 setup. If you're going to do isolated groups up until then, do fully isolated groups for the Grand Finals as well, then maybe add an extra "Bonus Stage" round after the finals where you take the top 2 from each platform and put them through a unique 6 stage event - maybe weird car class/rotate class, weird stage selection, etc. The cross platform battle at the end should be done outside of the tournament since crossplatform had NOTHING to do with the entire rest of the event.

[KryspaPL 22]

3 minutes ago, Mike Dee said:

Been saying it since Day 1, the real competition we all should be watching is the Quarter Finals for each platform. That is where you'll see the best competition fight it out with each other.

 

I fully understand why they did in the segmented way they did, it brings more people into the competition that way by giving each platform it's own place to fight it out. You'll get subgroups who all know the other xbox players, or know their fellow PS4 players, etc. It's a good marketing strategy to build up a support system through your playerbase. Where they messed up though was doing a Grand Finals with a 2x2x2 setup. If you're going to do isolated groups up until then, do fully isolated groups for the Grand Finals as well, then maybe add an extra "Bonus Stage" round after the finals where you take the top 2 from each platform and put them through a unique 6 stage event - maybe weird car class/rotate class, weird stage selection, etc. The cross platform battle at the end should be done outside of the tournament since crossplatform had NOTHING to do with the entire rest of the event.

Agree with that, finals for every platform would make sense or make better groups, if you followed eSports WRC during 1st season, there it was quite interesting format.

[bn880 531]

I agree this is a bit messed up,  but more messed up was that degradation level was not announced to the competitors (and other conditions), there was no practice mode once you entered the qualifier for warmup, no setups, of course the cuts, but also a few people had issues where their times didn't upload and they were cut or that they couldn't even connect.   Not to mention that one car class should be used for an esports event in rallying so that you don't have to learn every single class to compete.   Maybe 2.

On top of this the detailed end times of each qualifier were not announced along with the dates.

[SRD_SimVansevenant 863]

What I would've loved to see is a qualification system where each of the platforms had their own complete championship. Instead of each winner per event for each platform and the overall winner after three events (1 round) for each platform, I would have loved to see the top three of each event + top three of the overall standings after one round be qualified. Those will battle it out in the quarter and semi finals for each platform. Instead of doing the grand final between the two best drivers per platform, you organise a true final for each of the platforms. Then you get a PC, PS4 and Xbox World Champion. And maybe then you can do the ultimate battle between the champions of each platform: a Race of Champions... This should fit nicely in the way they organise it right now, even with the live events and all. Doesn't it make more sense this way? 

[bn880 531]

There is no reason to break things up per platform other than a technical limitation. (possibly legal/financial as well)  The point is that it doesn't make sense from customers' / competitors' perspective.

 

Edit: But yes, if you HAVE to break it up, have separate eSports programmes for each then. Separate champions.   (this would make more sense anyway)

[Kjell007 112]

On 11/26/2019 at 12:19 AM, Tranzitive said:

 

Interesting explanation of the «curve ball effect» in Dirt Rally series from 08:39 - 09:13. And: The faster you go, the more grip and control you get over the car. In other words: DR2.0 encourages arcade driving style. 😖

[KryspaPL 22]

21 hours ago, Kjell007 said:

Interesting explanation of the «curve ball effect» in Dirt Rally series from 08:39 - 09:13. And: The faster you go, the more grip and control you get over the car. In other words: DR2.0 encourages arcade driving style. 😖

Actually that's wrong, it was in DiRT Rally (2015) and also the strange situation with steering through jump or the grip levels. Actually the control wasn't that high too, sometimes it was too hard too late and not that realistic too. Now you have more confidence which is positive but for sure it not looks so bad like in DR 1 because they fixed a lot, it's a different thing. You don't remember about one important thing. In Rally you have downforce as well, in F1 it works if you go fast, the same situation is for rally, you need to have grip on higher speeds, but at the same time you will not make the corners driving 180km/h into a 110km/h corner. It doesn't work like that and especially in 2.0 There are some things we have to understand a bit different. :)

[SRD_SimVansevenant 863]

Someone claimed that Xbox and PS4 players are at a serious disadvantage when it comes to optimisation etc.

This is what he claims which was quite aggressive towards me, if I might add...

I therefor decided to see if his claim had any truth to it. I borrowed an Xbox One from a friend and recreated the same conditions (default setup, one spare) and ran the same stage (Descenso por Carretera) with the same car (VW Polo R5). My objective was to come close to my official run (02:07.210) or my PB during practice (02:06.289).

This is the result after trying for half an hour...

P.S.: Don't laugh as I'm fresh out of bed and look funny sometimes.

I suppose that this claim has no merit which further strenghtens my point...

[somethingthing 282]

1 hour ago, SRD_SimVansevenant said:

Someone claimed that Xbox and PS4 players are at a serious disadvantage when it comes to optimisation etc.

This is what he claims which was quite aggressive towards me, if I might add...

I therefor decided to see if his claim had any truth to it. I borrowed an Xbox One from a friend and recreated the same conditions (default setup, one spare) and ran the same stage (Descenso por Carretera) with the same car (VW Polo R5). My objective was to come close to my official run (02:07.210) or my PB during practice (02:06.289).

This is the result after trying for half an hour...

P.S.: Don't laugh as I'm fresh out of bed and look funny sometimes.

 

I suppose that this claim has no merit which further strenghtens my point...

The picture in the video freezes @ 1.18 😕

[SRD_SimVansevenant 863]

1 hour ago, somethingthing said:

The picture in the video freezes @ 1.18 😕

Bloody hell, how's that happening... On the moment of revealing it! 

Should be fixed in the original post in a few seconds...

[Pfei 106]

I think the only advantage PC users have over console users is FOV adjustment. It's very wide on console, so depending on your TV size/resolution and how far away you are it could be way far from "correct" FOV, and it can't be adjusted. I used to play on PS4 Pro. Just re-bought on Steam. My Playseat Challenge forces me to be 1,5m from my 55" 4k Bravia. And it was tough. The roads are as wide as dental floss in cockpit. On Steam however by adjusting FOV I got a much better feeling. And with VR, well that goes without saying. 

[Mike Dee 1,248]

3 hours ago, SRD_SimVansevenant said:

Bloody hell, how's that happening... On the moment of revealing it! 

Should be fixed in the original post in a few seconds...

Works for me. And just one more nail in the coffin for the false idea that PC is "inherently faster" 👍

Basically if you want to get a 2:07 or lower there is only one thing you have to do - git gud