Stock Car Racing

[Corialli]

I absolutely love this game, I have over 131 hours played and plan on playing another 131. I live in the US, and as much as I love this game, the most popular motorsport in the US isn't represented.

Before I get jumped on for thinking the US has to be represented in everything, or lobbying for a series of left turn races, I just want to point out how competitive a stock car series would be in this game.

The parts could all be limited to spec parts to balance racing and the only difference on raceday would be the money spent to build the car in the offseason, how the car is set-up on raceday, and ultimately the strategy of when to pit, conserve, or push.

I think it would be fun to play, and was wondering if there is enough people out there who would support this to help it become a reality?

[Twelvefield]

I agree with you, I grew up with Indycar when it was still relevant and the Indy 500 was spectacular. Then I learned to love NASCAR. I understand NASCAR setups more than I do F1, although you don't need much knowledge to play MM.

There aren't many great NASCAR games, despite the market. The best driving simulators won't do ovals, and the NASCAR-branded games aren't great.

[Inardesco]

Give the devs some time. Most likely there'll be plenty of extra DLC's in the future.

It's quite understandable that the US racing series aren't prominently featured due to the nature of international racing series. I wouldn't be suprised though if there will be mods one day that will fill up the niche market of stock car/indycar racing.

Truth be told, the Phoenix oval is one of the most boring tracks there is in the current game, maybe aside from Abu Dhabi. Both pretty much forego any sense of strategy, Phoenix due to the shortness and Abu Dhabi because it's such a long one.

Maybe in the future, who knows what they've got in store. Personally I'd love to see some more closed wheel racing like Touring Cars or more Endurance racing like LMP1/2 alongside the current GT series.

And having a ton more tracks would be great aswell.

[Brian]

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Truth be told, the Phoenix oval is one of the most boring tracks there is in the current game

My thoughts on this whole 'give us ovals' thing. What is so exciting about watching a car turn left over and over again, around a really gentle banked turn?

[Team Triss]

Originally posted by Brian:

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Truth be told, the Phoenix oval is one of the most boring tracks there is in the current game

My thoughts on this whole 'give us ovals' thing. What is so exciting about watching a car turn left over and over again, around a really gentle banked turn?

Because 'Murika, dammit.

Really though, I'd like something NASCAR-esque simply because I can relate more to it, although I am having a lot of fun with the open wheelers here in MM.

[Sayla Massochist]

Originally posted by Brian:

Originally posted by Inardesco:

Truth be told, the Phoenix oval is one of the most boring tracks there is in the current game

My thoughts on this whole 'give us ovals' thing. What is so exciting about watching a car turn left over and over again, around a really gentle banked turn?

Most likely a couple of new systems would need to be in place. Something to simulate drafting would be needed.

But regardless of whether or not you think it is boring there are people who do find oval racing more interesting then road coarses. The constant action of 2-3 wide racing and such. I am sure that the devs could add in several oval track variations and make an option when you start a new game to disable them all together if you don't want them at all.

So please don't go "I think oval racing is boring so keep it out". Instead ask "Add it for those who want it and give me the choice to turn off those coarses."

[Brian]

Originally posted by Sayla Massochist:

Originally posted by Brian:

My thoughts on this whole 'give us ovals' thing. What is so exciting about watching a car turn left over and over again, around a really gentle banked turn?

Most likely a couple of new systems would need to be in place. Something to simulate drafting would be needed.

But regardless of whether or not you think it is boring there are people who do find oval racing more interesting then road coarses. The constant action of 2-3 wide racing and such. I am sure that the devs could add in several oval track variations and make an option when you start a new game to disable them all together if you don't want them at all.

So please don't go "I think oval racing is boring so keep it out". Instead ask "Add it for those who want it and give me the choice to turn off those coarses."

My angle on this is dev time. Do we want them spending their time making 10 tracks that are largely indentical with slightly different scenery, or do we want their time spent on 10 varied tracks?

Oval racing boils down to what I described and "I think oval racing is boring so keep it out, *please*". Further, it seems to be an American thing. The devs are UK based, and I expect the playerbase is largely EU based, so the series that would prove popular would be things like BTCC, WEC, DTM, GT3, GT2 and so on. In the end, I would like the devs to maximise their time on things the majority of the players would enjoy and whatever is in their overall 'vision' for the game, seeing as they are a small team anyway. If oval racing is in their vision, then fine, I can't argue, but if it isn't, then I'll wholeheartedly argue against it.

On slipstreaming - it's not something unique to oval racing. Every discipline will see it, hell, it technically happens when I'm driving down the motorway behind someone.

[Sayla Massochist]

Originally posted by Brian:

Originally posted by Sayla Massochist:

Most likely a couple of new systems would need to be in place. Something to simulate drafting would be needed.

But regardless of whether or not you think it is boring there are people who do find oval racing more interesting then road coarses. The constant action of 2-3 wide racing and such. I am sure that the devs could add in several oval track variations and make an option when you start a new game to disable them all together if you don't want them at all.

So please don't go "I think oval racing is boring so keep it out". Instead ask "Add it for those who want it and give me the choice to turn off those coarses."

My angle on this is dev time. Do we want them spending their time making 10 tracks that are largely indentical with slightly different scenery, or do we want their time spent on 10 varied tracks?

Oval racing boils down to what I described and "I think oval racing is boring so keep it out, *please*". Further, it seems to be an American thing. The devs are UK based, and I expect the playerbase is largely EU based, so the series that would prove popular would be things like BTCC, WEC, DTM, GT3, GT2 and so on. In the end, I would like the devs to maximise their time on things the majority of the players would enjoy and whatever is in their overall 'vision' for the game, seeing as they are a small team anyway. If oval racing is in their vision, then fine, I can't argue, but if it isn't, then I'll wholeheartedly argue against it.

While I can agree that oval tracks can look very similar I can tell you that no two tracks run the exact same. A race at Daytona (Which has a road coarse variation in its infield), is completely different from a race at Indianpolis. So a good variety of them to have the most...variation in look and have a driving style that is different to each would be Daytona, Indianapolis, Pocono, Pheonix, and Bristol. All of these are considered oval tracks but they are each very distint in style. Much like Pheonix in the game, many oval tracks have road variations in the infield. If you are worried about unique track variation then Ithink a good middle ground is selecting oval tracks with road variations within them to add. That way you not only get your oval variation but also 2-3 new road ones per track.

On the subject of EU and alll...well adding some stock car and ovals would increase that audience. The more audience the game can reach the more money to the devs, The more money they get the more they can not only work on this game but even prepair another one.

[Twelvefield]

The strategy for driving ovals is different from other tracks. Tire stagger becomes a thing and you do rely on draft a lot more, so passing is very technical. Two and three abreast racing is very exciting! However, as I mentioned before, there isn't much in the way of racing games that do this well. Certainly in this state, MM doesn't handle two and three abreast racing very well. There aren't many races where the winner is not a foregone conclusion, at least in the lowest league I am playing right now. The best car and driver just waltzes away from the pack, draft or no draft. And the pack ceases to be a pack fairly quickly, as it's not uncommon for the race leaders to be lapping the backmarkers early. NASCAR and oval driving intensifies the pack.

The biggest draw to my mind about ovals is that you can see the entire track. Unless you are a Branson, us plebs can't afford seats that allow us to see more than dying trees and a section of track where the car is visible for .75 seconds at a time.

[Corialli]

To point out the issue of "Do we want them focusing all their time on oval tracks": Several oval tracks have variations that are not simply oval. Pheonix in this game is one, as is Daytona like another user recommended. There are GP leagues that race American tracks with the road varient, and F1 racing races Indianapolis, which is also a NASCAR track. Also, NASCAR does race two road tracks, Sonoma and Watkins Glenn. There would really only be a couple tracks like Bristol and Talladega that would be more for the stock cars.

As for the appeal of the NASCAR type series... the tracks test the driver and car a lot more than can be perceived by simply viewing it as a bunch of left turns. First, the banking eats tires alive. Second, Stock-cars don't have the driver aides and computer monitored systems that F1 has. Finally, tracks like Bristol would rely heavily on a driver's focus and fitness to not wreck in the constant heavy congestion.

[Fritz]

The real question is regardless of these challenges and differences that exist irl between this and that oval, how would that look like in this game engine. Would/can these challenges be represented/modeled in the gameplay fairly? Would racing on oval A give a different racing experience than on oval B, or would it play like racing in Phoenix (A) 16 times a season?

Personally I'm not particularly educated when it comes to racing but when I look at an oval I see an oval. Maybe this one looks more like a triangle, while this other one is more rectangular shaped, and yet another is more circular. I'm sure these differences play a huge role in irl strategies, but based on MM's current game engine would these differences get modeled and balanced properly or would they become yet another simplified abstraction that renders each oval feeling the same.

TL;DR, would this nascar dlc just end up being a number of Phoenix track reskins with modified values for tyre wear and tyre heat to simulate differences between high angled bank corners vs low angled ones, or a tri-oval vs a rectang-oval (idk??) vs a circular oval?

Edit-quad oval is the word I was looking for.

[Carbune]

Originally posted by Ardubich:

I absolutely love this game, I have over 131 hours played and plan on playing another 131. I live in the US, and as much as I love this game, the most popular motorsport in the US isn't represented.

Before I get jumped on for thinking the US has to be represented in everything, or lobbying for a series of left turn races, I just want to point out how competitive a stock car series would be in this game.

The parts could all be limited to spec parts to balance racing and the only difference on raceday would be the money spent to build the car in the offseason, how the car is set-up on raceday, and ultimately the strategy of when to pit, conserve, or push.

I think it would be fun to play, and was wondering if there is enough people out there who would support this to help it become a reality?

The main issue with that is that there don't seem to currently be any plans to add new tracks (an issue when there's only one oval variant in the entire game). That also sounds too simple even by the game's current simple standards.

[Inardesco]

People shouldn't look at how "boring" or "exciting" a current track is in regards to whether or not a discipline like NASCAR should be implemented. Since it boils do to mere opinion.

Currently, aspects like slipstreaming and drag are non-existent within the game, which, as I've read above, is something that is quite important in the NASCAR racing (and all others aside from maybe Moto GP) in order to provide the spectacle.

Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing several classes that have all spec parts and boil down to wheel-to-wheel racing where it isn't lap 5 but lap 100 (out of 100) where the winner is coming on top. Where strategy and driver skill matter the most and where all cars, from 1st to last are so close together you can't pinch a needle in between them. I can certainly see the appeal in this, even if it will boil down to luck at starts and throughout the race.

But it doesn't necesarily have to be closed wheel racing only, if there'd be a junior ERS with spec parts only on tracks with smaller layouts than the current ERS, in a new form of scouting, like currently Red Bull with Toro Rosso but also their GP2, uhm..F2 team, then it would bring a whole new dimension to the game.

What I don't think will happen, is that the spec part closed wheel racing-NASCAR'esque will be an international series but more akin to the ERS.

I don't know the limitations of the game, it could very well be that this can all be implemented, that we'd see the implementation of drag and aero and their results into the game. Which I would find quite nice. Red Bull for instance in known for it's high aero development whereas Williams had the lowest drag in 2016 (hence it got to 370km/h on Baku and Mexico) and if that could be reflected in the game, then it'd only improve upon the game.

More racing leagues, more tracks, more, more, more :)

[Corialli]

I do agree that there needs to be an aerodynamics system outside of cornering downforce in order for stock car racing to be true to the sport.

As the previous user said better than I did, the appeal is in strategy and driver skill over car strength.

As for the track variation, there are several differences between tracks aside from a copy and paste oval. For example, Daytona is all about the speed and really no need for ever braking. This means that every single second counts, and it is made up in the pit stops throughout the race. A track like Darlington (aka the monster mile) has a wide (high-speed) turn and a short (low-speed turn) which makes planning for it a nightmare.

Martinsville and Bristol are both exactly the same as far as perfect ovals, except Bristol has extreme banking allowing for more speed and Martinsville is flat requiring better breaking and more wear on the car.

So yeah, if you look at it as 16 ovals with no variation... then I can see why it would be boring. However, each track is different despite all of them being left turns. Also, you have to be more strategic as every single decision from car set-up to pit strategy can be the difference between a win and a mid-field finish. Your driver has to be capable or one wrong move can lead to an early exit.

To me, the F1 series in this is kind of boring because all I have to do is outspend my opponents on my car and they don't stand a chance. Which means all I have to do is hire drivers with max marketability so I can get the top sponsors.

[pavig]

I think the extremes of the racing world probably form a triangle with F1 at one point, NASCAR at another, and rally on the third. The engine as it stands is optimised for mainstream track racing, and I think has a long way to go before it could meaningfully represent ovals or dirt. I'd really like to see all racing styles represented eventually, but I think we probably need some transitional styles before the mechanics are in place to represent these very different formats well. The GT DLC is certainly a good start though.

[Corialli]

I agree that rally racing would be fun, but I also agree that this engine couldn't handle the drift physics of dirt or even drift racing. Guess going that far depends on how far they want to take this game and how successful the DLCs are on route to it.

I don't think the ovals would be a big step though considering Pheonix is already in the game (Except they don't use the banking). I certainly wouldn't expect them to be able to have NASCAR style crashes with this engine though, or even a full 43 car field... but the stock car style would still be interesting.