Racing games online and that first turn...

You all know what this is going to be about, but how frustrating is it to play a racing game online and just the massive pile-up that happens in EVERY single racing game on the first turn. The only even marginal solution I've come up with is so just let eveyone go in the beginning and hope to avoid the mess of 5 of 6 cars that is there in a pile on the first turn of every race.

Do you think there is a way for developers to discourage this? If the game forced damage on collisions I don't think it helps because it would hurt the guy with no brakes and the guy driving clean. I guess the only real answer is to play with people you know that don't drive like assholes, which I guess is the answer to any gaming online. So now that I've answered my own question I am just venting and rambling, but man fuck that first turn in racing games online!

1st corner crashes are just a part of motor racing and happen to even the best of drivers.

for games i guess they could make every car a ghost for the for few corners.

I feel like a lot of people online play like they are still up against the A.I. No you didn't blow right by me I'm still right next to you in the corner please don't hit me ah crap.

I fucking love the carnage of a first corner fight, survival of the fittest, sounds like you need to man up and barge your way through.

Always take the corners easy, if people are crashing it's because they aren't slowing down - basically terrible drivers. GTA IV is fantastic for this.

It mostly just comes down to aggression and impatience of people trying to win in the first corner. Kind of hard to avoid the temptation of trying to pass many guys at the start.

As long as that temptation is there, the problem will always exist.

With Motorstrom Pacific Rift* the matchmaking pairs you with players that are around your level. If you place poorly then you lose rankings. After a while you rank up enough that you are playing with the people that know every corner and know how every other driver is going to take that corner. The guy who starts in first is going to hit the corner so efficiently that no one gets the chance to wreck him. They also wouldn't do so unless they are confident that it wouldn't wreck themselves in the process. Basically you either start at the top and it's yours to lose or you move to the sides to stay out of the pile and wait for first place to slip up so you can pass. There is very little purposeful wrecking and a lot of avoiding wrecking.

Basically, penalizing your persistent rankings for poor placement discourages dangerous driving. I think they also penalized you for crashes. A clean race with a poor placing was less penalizing that a messy race with poor placing, but it was also dependent on the rankings of the people who beat you. It also seemed like they'd give you a bonus for winning with the less popular vehicles. That's why the Gold Legends were pretty much the only people who knew how to use an ATV.

*Or at least it was like this. The servers went offline last October.

It sucks at times but its inevitable unless you either put ghost cars on or play with people who dont intentionally try to run you off the road. Most of it comes down to people not breaking in time though.

I was going to say it but you answered your own question. Just play with people who take it seriously.

Forza Horizon has "CAR GRIEFING ON" in alot of online gametypes

NO COLLISIONS WITH ANYONE JUST RACING

I have fully embraced it. Drive like a maniac for the first turn or two, than race proper for the rest. If you can't beat the mob, join them. All honesty it has gotten to be pretty fun. It's the people who drive like assholes for the whole race that are dicks. Just be a dick in the first corner meta game.

Make the AI in single player not just bash into everyone or play with people who care about driving like gentlemen/women.

Forza Horizon is a bitch for this. I tend to let people go ahead as well. But I can't say I'm complteley innocent, sometimes I pick one person and crash into them at full speed in every corner because you know, I'm an asshole

Just 2 words. Mario Kart.

I love the beginning of races! Pile ups and crashes are awesome!

So...

I only like to do online racing games if collision is turned off. Yes, it takes away from some of the strategy inherent to actual racing, which is unfortunate. However, crashing in a video game will never carry the same penalty as crashing an actual million dollar vehicle in a real world race, so people drive stupid.

Well then that all depends. Most arcade racers people like to fucking bash each other and even get awarded for it. However, way back when gt5 was a thang and gb community had weekly racing events, that wasn't really an issue. Well it wasn't an issue after all while since the game makes you a ghost if you try to ram someone and gives you a 5 second penalty (yes there are times when the game counted small little paint trades that didn't knock anyone off course as a penalty, and there were crashes that seemed to warrant a penalty but never got it.).

Either way, because the races were more than just a lap or two, I felt comfortable giving people some room in the beginning since consistency and fast lap times will win out overall. The people that rush the first corner probably will mess up by themselves anyway later in the race (just because everytime you take the corner at super max speed that the car can handle you do run the risk of messing up and wrecking out. )

Maybe it was because it was the GB community, or maybe it was because we posted pictures and vids of our races every week that none of us wanted to look like a jerk in public, but I'll give you two examples from the past.

The vid below is one that just shows really great racing. The people in the front go back and forth and you can see they were really respectful of each other (cause it only takes one crash to put you from the front to the back and we used to tally up points based on what position you finished in each race for that week). You will probably never ever see this in a pub game since these two were letting the faster car on the straight just go by without trying to be a jerk and block each other off. That's respect right there.

The vid below is one that proves if everybody in the back is going to constantly fight, the guy in the lead will just take the win. The lesson there is to not fight for position unless its for first.

My channel has a bunch of other races, and in making the vids I developed strategies of when to take the risk and when to hold back and let others pass by. Of course, this is the Gb community so people are generally not jerks and even when we do crash into each other, we all usually say our sorrys. This of course was also a sim racing game where there is no comeback factor at play other than your skill. Since its more fun to run a close race than everybody getting wrecks and spreading everybody out racing themselves, that may have played a role.

Maybe they can do something like having no collisions for the fist turn? It is incredibly frustrating though.

Frustrates the hell out of me, this is why i like to start at the back of the pack to try and avoid the pile up. Its hard though to come up with something to discourage it, perhaps penalising points for collisions, more-so when they occur in braking areas and closer to the apex. Or they could just make everyone a ghost for the first 30 seconds, which still won't stop the odd idiot who tries to pass when they're 10 car lengths behind you and uses you as a brake.

I like what Dirt 3 did with this, which had a 4-5 rank system based on how clean you raced, if you were on the bottom rank you would just drive as a ghost for a few races. That game probably dealt with it the best even though pile ups still happened.