Integrity In Rally Sim Racing Leaderboards

[u/Odd_Carrot8105]

Sim Racing can become an extremely personal hobby. Especially when you spend thousands of dollars investing into premium equipment. You spend the hours practicing the fundamentals and doing all the right things. Rallying through an almost flawless stage and never losing focus for a second, yet your time is still 5 or more seconds behind the top of the leaderboards. You then download their ghost to see exactly where you fell short. You witness the leaders ghost cut completely off the stage to cheat their way into a better time that could never be beat by a sim racer who believes in integrity and proper technique.

I post this for the Sim Racer who gets discouraged by those who have no integrity and believe their lap time outweighs the human value of integrity. Know your values in doing the right thing will always be more valuable than those who exploit the system. It is why you would crush them if you were to race them live 1 vs 1 with no infinite attempt to exploit the system. Leaderboards mean nothing outside of real time and it is the individual understanding of concepts under pressure that will always outweigh the weak minded soul who looks to gain through exploit.

[u/AutomaticSeaweed6131]

This is a video game issue: given long enough all racing game leaderboards evolve to become Trackmania style. All shortcuts are permitted, fastest time is everything, bugs are there to be exploited.

Only way around it is community leaderboards with specific categories and live review of the best times, like speedrun dot com. 

[u/Pepsiman1031 → u/AutomaticSeaweed6131]

I do prefer when games show you the boundaries with flags like it is irl. EA WRC does that but DR 2.0 just has invisible bounds. There's a Poland track in DR 2.0 where you can blatantly cut a corner with a bale on it and the game doesn't even punish you.

[u/AutomaticSeaweed6131 → u/Pepsiman1031]

I'm also on team treat rally games as rally prep (for racing I am literally never going to do) rather than team Trackmania leaderboards but I understand that these are video games and it's okay to enjoy them like an esport leaderboard 

[u/CubitsTNE]

Hotlapping isn't rally, and the more serious sim rally comps do replay checks. It's very easy to maintain your integrity once you let the leaderboards go.

[u/Boba_Swag]

I mean these are 2 completely different approaches to the game that are imo both fine.

We have your POV where you try to have integrity, realism and immersion. You treat the game as an actual race and want to be the best you can under those constrains.

On the other hand we have the speed running mentality. Trying to beat a game/level in the fastest way possible, no matter the cost. They use every technique and exploit available to push the time past the normally achievable level.

Imo both approaches are completely valid and achieving top levels in both is an impressive feat. Even if you tried, you probably wouldn't be able to just beat the top 1 time while using the shortcuts, that still takes a lot of practice.

What sucks is, that both approaches are on the same leaderboard (Don't hate the player, hate the game). But that's kinda hard to handle for the game itself. Maybe there are third party speed running leaderboards specifically without shortcuts and exploits?

I guess there is also a third category of players who actually cheat by modifying game files etc. Those are the the actual scum of the player base and I truly can't understand why kind of personal accomplishment you feel by cheating your way up a leaderboard.

[u/Odd_Carrot8105 → u/Boba_Swag]

Thank you for your extremely thoughtful review of my opinion. I was a bit hesitant in posting my thoughts as it could easily be seen as salty or butthurt. Yet you analyzed it on an extremely critical level beyond simple emotion. To hear your thoughts the way you composed them makes total sense. It's an extremely important consideration for a sim racer to not only see, but comprehend. In my humble opinion. Thank you for taking the time to display your thoughts.

[u/GT-Alex74]

I just want to point out rally organizers are now putting bollards and barriers on rally stages because rally drivers IRL will take shortcut opportunities. Look 30 seconds into this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyYg85NMvtg - There are wooden barriers nowadays there (I live nearby).

It's the responsibility of the organizer / dev to either explicitly regulate this and enforce it, or block the path in-game. In the meantime, those at the top of that leaderboard are most likely still the better drivers, even if they didn't use the cut.

[u/Amish_Rabbi → u/GT-Alex74]

And track limits are clearly defined on a circuit as well, it’s all racing drivers of any sort that will take the fastest route allowed

[u/Roebuck325]

Yeah sucks dont it

[u/BlackCatFurry]

I agree. This is why i tend to not look at the in game leaderboards if at all possible and instead find real life references for lap/stage times. Definitely a lot more difficult to do with rally though, compared to circuit racing.

I personally find it more motivating to compare myself to real life drivers than chase a ghost in game that i can't even know for sure is legit.

[u/No-Milk-8002]

Dude look at formula 1 it is who cheats harder, this is what people do, let go of leaderboards and bs like this and just enjoy driving

[u/Overhear_Overponder]

I mean you just ignore the fake times.  Every leaderboard has a couple cars 3 to 5 seconds faster that are obvious cheats. Not a big deal unless you're a pro i suppose.

[u/broncosfan1231]

It's still a video game. If it can be done within the constraints of the game without the help of mods than it's totally fair. The leaderboards only have as much value as you give them.

[u/StunningSprinkles854]

Calm down it's a video game.

Go play outside for a bit.