RD Rally Championship Season 9 - Feedback & Season 10 Rules Discussion

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Hey-Ho Everyone!


The ninth season of RDRC was filled with joy, frustration, retirements, awesome stages, and unique rallies. And we've had a lot of praise (like, a lot !<O.O>!), but there's guaranteed things we can do better, and things we haven't thought of.


So, for the feedback questions, which may make it in to the last Magazine as well as being a help for us for the future:

• Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
• What is your best memory from the season? (On stage, forum, wherever)
• If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
• Any other comment?

Outside these four questions. In the spirit of the old days of RDRC, it's time to bring out a "Rules Discussion" as well. A potential new season is not likely to happen in 2021, and game is thus, obviously undecided
Any and all rules can be discussed here, but make sure your posts and comments are constructive.

 

[Mario Peixoto]

Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
I saw a post by Daniel Monteiro (I think I got the name right) in the Facebook group "DiRT Rally 2.0 Portugal". I had not raced at RaceDepartment for many years now, so I thought this would be a good return. I love DiRT and the prospect of a rally every 15 days with Group A cars seemed good.

What is your best memory from the season? (On stage, forum, wherever)
All the times that I managed to save the car from a disaster. You know that feeling, when you contract your body and grind your teeth because you know you were really close to a massive crash. To be honest, I was not struck by any "awe" moment, at least that I recall. I do know I was left shocked by my terminal damage in Argentina (last stage). It was really a punch in the guts.

If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
I would change the scoring system so everyone who finishes all stages gets at least 1 point. I believe that this is the right thing to do in any championship. Slower drivers that show up at every rally (such as myself) and that at least manage to finish, should get this small reward for their effort and commitment to the championship. At the end, we are talking about 7 points maximum that one could potentially earn. Otherwise, you may find yourself finishing all rallies, giving it your best and ending with a blunt 0 points.

Any other comment?
I would like to warmly congratulate Ole, as well as everyone else in the team, for the herculean effort in running this championship! Four classes, tons of drivers, very interesting and challenging rallies, an amazing magazine that could very well be a real, printed magazine. I would get one! I am not kidding, the work in that is massive and underappreciated.

I hope that RD keeps doing some more championships like these, with different car classes. Lots to explore in DiRT Rally 2.0, even the H1 cars are great to go around believe me. I look forward to more!

Thank you once more for this amazing championship! And a thank you to my virtual Subaru Impreza 1995, which went through rain and sun, night and day, snow and ice, but never, ever let me down.

 

[LuMue]

Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
I saw the announcement here on the forum as I check regularly for DR2.0 Mods

What is your best memory from the season? (On stage, forum, wherever)
Making it to the podium twice in RDRC-2

If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
The points system. In my eyes the steps are far too high. My cousin finished 6 of 7 rallies in the Top 10 in class and is still behind people that finished 3 rallies... Motivation gets lost by that... STeps of max. 10 points between the first three would be much more fair in my eyes.

Any other comment?
Well done RDRC crew, come back soon with the 10th RDRC.

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
Obviously on this site.

What is your best memory from the season? (On stage, forum, wherever)
Reaching the finish on the very last rally and some of the "go with the flow" situations in-between. Also: reading everyone's comments and watching the screens on the forum.

If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
If possible, I would try to sort the stages more by daytime so that one actually has the impression of a day passing morning - midday - afternoon - night as one plays the stages one after another.

Any other comment?
You guys are terrific, time permitting count me in for #10

 

[Mathieu Labbé]

Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
Front page article on RD if I remember correctly.

What is your best memory from the season? (On stage, forum, wherever)
Obviously my second place finish in J-RDRC in Rally Spain. I Struggled all season long to get somewhere pace-wise so this was a nice surprise to be on pace for once!

If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
Some sort of sub-category for beginners would have been cool. I chose J-RDRC after reading the opening magazine issue. It seemed like the obvious choice for a new comer, and was the correct choice in the end as the R2 were without doubts the easiest cars to tame and get acclimated to the rally intricacies. But seeing some guys in J-RDRC set world record pace or thereabouts was disheartening sometimes. But I fully understand such a concept would be very complicated to introduce.

Any other comment?
I'm still impressed by how professional the organization have been, and so was my girlfriend when I showed her the magazines and talked about the championship in general. I can't even understand the amount of effort that was put in by everyone involved, so thank you guys so much! Special mention goes to @Ole Marius Myrvold for being awesome. Bring on s10

 

[Gerben Kelly]

• Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?

I think on this forum, or on the RD facebook.

• What is your best memory from the season? (On stage, forum, wherever)

Spain, top 20 for me in this very strong field of drivers.

• If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?

More rallies , sometimes a bit longer service time between stages to fix the car would be nice. But on the other side, you know it before you start haha

• Any other comment?

I would like to set forced cockpit camera on, and don't allow driver assists. We like simulation, so let's make it not so easy then . Maybe/probably there is a very good reason why another camera view than cockpit and driver assists are allowed.

 

[BrothersChris]

Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
Word of mouth within the Twitch DR 2.0 community

What is your best memory from the season? (On stage, forum, wherever
I always seem to finish rally's strong and the RDRC2 was no exception, I had one of my best drives ever in Scotland and New Zealand and winning those 2 felt amazing

If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
Drop one result from the season at the end of the season.

Any other comment?
Using real names should be avoided, I personally do not mind, but I am in a community of over 1600 sim drivers and only 3 maybe 4 came to this esports event, due to the real name issue. Also the fantastic magazine reports are very confusing with real names.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Any other comment?
I would like to set forced cockpit camera on, and don't allow driver assists. We like simulation, so let's make it not so easy then . Maybe/probably there is a very good reason why another camera view than cockpit and driver assists are allowed.

Mostly due to accessibility. I know that there are quite a lot of drivers that use the bonnet-view, also console-player with a controller etc. I do wish we could lock it to cockpit/bonnet though.
When it comes to driver assists, it's just as much down to things being counted as assists. that's not necessarily much of an assist. I cannot remember what it was, but we did check pre-season, and we struggled to figure out how certain "assists" where counted as assists.

Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
Word of mouth within the Twitch DR 2.0 community

Oooh. Cool!

Any other comment?
Using real names should be avoided, I personally do not mind, but I am in a community of over 1600 sim drivers and only 3 maybe 4 came to this esports event, due to the real name issue. Also the fantastic magazine reports are very confusing with real names.

As long as it is an RaceDepartment championship, it will be real names. Granted, we run this as a non-premium thing (only official RD-events that does this), but the rules on RD for racing is that "We always use our real name in racing games,".

 

[Aidan Keranen]

Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
On RaceDepartment somewhere, might have been the news section on the sidebar.

What is your best memory from the season?
Probably the practicing that myself and @Azabadaza were running all through Monte Carlo and Sweden, really pushing each other to improve. SS11 and SS12 at Spain a very close second though, that car was hooked up and flying.

If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
Probably I'd like to see the itinerary be published a little bit earlier, as when it was on time, that would be early Sunday morning in Australia, and when it was posted late we didn't get to see it until the rally was live and couldn't really do any recce work. Aaron wouldn't have the time before flying out to work again, which sort of impacted our season.

Any other comment?
I guess the class progression feels a bit off at the moment. RDRC is R5 cars, which can be outdriven by RDRC-2 cars which feels off. RDRC-3 just in general tended to be behind J-RDRC, again it sort of stunts the progression. I'm unsure which class to attempt next time.

Otherwise it was an absolute blast as ever, really glad to have given it a good go and thrilled that I got the Top 10 in the class championship that I was aiming for before the season began. Looking forward to a Season 10 whenever that comes around

 

[Magnar Haarstadsveen]

Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
From Ole Marius Myrvold

What is your best memory from the season?
Rally spain was very fun to drive

If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
I would love to drive the F2 kit cars, they are awsome to throw around.
And of course more tarmac rallys.....ehh when i think about it, only tarmac rallys

Any other comment?
As always impressive work and completion of the season.
Thanks to all who helped make this possible!!!!

 

[Spinninggenius]

Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
From the @dirtgame Twitter account. I'm new to the site and have never really entered an organised sim racing competition before

What is your best memory from the season?
Setting my times early for rallies meant I often spent the second half of the week looking at the times on RaceNet. Watching only 2 people overhaul my times from Spain was great, allowing me my first class podium. Also surviving the second leg of the Scottish rally to keep in with a chance of claiming 3rd in the class championship, the adrenaline from driving that sort of distance at 90% was greater than any of the flat out events. And the magazines have been terrific!

If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
I would also have liked the F2 kit cars, maybe these would have been a better bet for RDRC-2? I'm knit picking, but the points system does feel a bit mis-weighted, something like they have in indycar, where everyone below a certain position gets points (even just 1) for finishing, particularly with a large field. The power stage also has too much weight, it feels wrong that it's mathematically possible to win all 7 rallies yet not win the championship if someone else gets 7 2nds and wins all the power stages?

Any other comment?
It's been really impressively run and if I have enough free time (covid helped with that one) I'll be back for season 10. The length of the season was just right, as were the lengths of the individual rallies (NZ did feel a bit long). I also disagree with forcing certain views or disabling certain assists, but as a chase cam user, who uses it to have an idea of where the back of the car is, I would say that Being on a cross platform game was also a great feature.

 

[Ole Marius Myrvold]

Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
From the @dirtgame Twitter account. I'm new to the site and have never really entered an organised sim racing competition before

I knew that Codemasters(or, the community manager) picked it up after @pigloaf posted it over at their forums, but still... awesome!

If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
I would also have liked the F2 kit cars, maybe these would have been a better bet for RDRC-2? I'm knit picking, but the points system does feel a bit mis-weighted, something like they have in indycar, where everyone below a certain position gets points (even just 1) for finishing, particularly with a large field. The power stage also has too much weight, it feels wrong that it's mathematically possible to win all 7 rallies yet not win the championship if someone else gets 7 2nds and wins all the power stages?

F2's were not even considered this time, as we decided to go for non-DLC cars. Purely because you cannot have a custom livery on DLC-cars, and while we try to have RDRC open for as many as possible, we also know that there are quite a few people who do have sponsors etc. and custom liveries are thus quite important.

The point system is something we have to look at for a potential S10, it seems like this is one of the main points that people brings up

Though, as it is a rules discussion thread, it's open for everyone to throw out a potential point system if anyone has an idea

 

[gediminasz]

Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
I stumbled upon the magazine in either Reddit or Codemasters forums.

What is your best memory from the season? (On stage, forum, wherever)
Scoring my first points in Scotland.

If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
Same concern as Mathieu Labbé above regarding skill level in J-RDRC. I don't know what is the general skill level of RDRC compared to general DR2 playerbase, but it would be interesting to have some sort of placements/time-trials system to sort drivers into classes.

Any other comment?
Thank you for organizing this championship! Can't wait for the next season.

 

[WhiteFox41]

Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
Front page of RD.

What is your best memory from the season? (On stage, forum, wherever)
Coming in 10 seconds behind a really fast driver (highlights my lack of pace really ).

If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
Addition of the N4 class would be nice.

Any other comment?
Thanks to everyone who made this event possible, and see you all next season!

 

[SirMull]

Thank you for the Season 9.... it was my first time to participate in your rally seasons.... was very fun and will looking forward to next seasons.
Answers for your questions:
Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
We have simracers communiti in Discord for Estonian racers... it was posted in there.

What is your best memory from the season? (On stage, forum, wherever)
I really enjoy your magazines. From my driving... definitely will remember Poland rally where i was on my way to winning it (25 seconds lead) and then small mistake destroyed my car.

If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
I really don't understand why it's allowed one car changing during season. This i would change to not allowed to change car at all. Would be better if everyone choose car before beginning of the season and then drive with it all season long.
I need to point out second thing as well... team points should be also based on classes... not like it is now... everything together.

Any other comment?
I loved your team reply to the comments in forum and gave feedback. Keep up your good work

 

[David Mann]

Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
RD front page.

What is your best memory from the season? (On stage, forum, wherever)
I don't have just one best memory. Being part of a team was awesome (@Joakim Skalstad , @PiorARG , @Coen_1989 )! I got a lot better at racing in DR2.0 with help from my teammates. Also, it was fun to take photos and see them in the beautiful magazines.

If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
All of the locations in the game are fun, so I was sad to not be able to drive them all. For the locations that got left out, it would have been nice to have a rally with 3-4 stages from each of these locations, just to get a taste of each of them. I don't know if that's feasible though.
Also, I agree with others about somehow separating the slower and faster drivers into different classes.

Any other comment?
Thank you for the awesome season! Your dedication and hard work really paid off.

 

[GerarGD]

• Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
  If I recall correctly, I think I saw it at Reddit's simracing subredd and then I posted it to Estonian Simracing Discord, wich ended up bringing some fellow Estonians onboard... even though we all know that Gert is in his own alien league .
  
  
• What is your best memory from the season? (On stage, forum, wherever)
  I think they were the "happy facepalms" after my signature RandomlyStupidMistakes™ that cause me an average of one to two minutes per event... because even though they took me out of the points too many times, they in the end are learning points. I guess pro drivers just know the stages by heart and don't make such mistakes, but for me is "learning by doing", so to speak...
  
  
• If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
  I would have preferred that the RDRC (Rally2 / R5) had its own scoring tables, since I would have liked to compare myself direclty with the other R5 drivers, not with everyone (in any case, hats off to the Group As and R2 that usually end up in the global top 20). I mean every class has its own tables and then a global one, rather than having "no R5 class because is global". Not sure if I'm explaining my self properly .
  
  
• Any other comment?
  I would have liked to see some more tarmac around. DR2 has only Monte, Spain and Germany for tarmac and I would have included them all for the variety, like Monte opening, germany mid-season, Spain finale.

Thanks and congrats to organisers and participants for an amazing season! I just got myself some VR headset, so I'm looking forward to see you all around (hehe) in S10!

 

[David Mann]

I knew that Codemasters(or, the community manager) picked it up after @pigloaf posted it over at their forums, but still... awesome!



F2's were not even considered this time, as we decided to go for non-DLC cars. Purely because you cannot have a custom livery on DLC-cars, and while we try to have RDRC open for as many as possible, we also know that there are quite a few people who do have sponsors etc. and custom liveries are thus quite important.

The point system is something we have to look at for a potential S10, it seems like this is one of the main points that people brings up

Though, as it is a rules discussion thread, it's open for everyone to throw out a potential point system if anyone has an idea

Which classes can have mod skins, and which cannot?

 

[Roy Magnes]

Which classes can have mod skins, and which cannot?

Every car that has been in a DLC is encrypted and not able to use a custom skin on - at least not online.

 

[jazz62]

Where did you hear about/find RDRC for this season?
I was on the RD forums and the RDRC popped up on the side. I clicked on it, read what it was about, and signed up on the spot.

What is your best memory from the season? (On stage, forum, wherever)
It is hard to pick just one moment, but I think it would have to be in Spain. I needed to make up some time on the last stage and decided to send it through the flowing left/right corners that are really enticing to cut. I don't remember blinking or even breathing during that section but I somehow managed to finish. This whole championship has helped me learn so much more about rally driving, but that moment in particular was the first time I understood the true meaning of Colin McRae's philosophy.

If you could change one thing about RDRC S9, what would that be?
The points system was a little confusing and perhaps not quite as rewarding as it could be. The built-in Dirt points may not be the best but they seem more straightforward to me. I am not sure what I would recommend the change be, but I am not sure much else needs changing.

Any other comment?
I just want to give a big congratulations and say thanks to all the people that put this championship together. It was a massive undertaking but was executed really well. I especially liked the magazines. This would have been a fantastic event without them, but having them made this look so much more professional and more entertaining to follow.

Also, I am amazed at all the creativity that went into the custom liveries. There are some really talented designers here. Codemasters could stand to learn a thing or two. It almost feels like there could be a whole separate competition for best custom livery.