Khrono Fujiwara
Active member
So I thought of doing this topic after hearing about the horrible time someone had in a Thunder Alley (TA) lobby from someone on discord. They were rammed and punted about from behind and there was a language barrier so he had no way of knowing if it was on purpose. This was the persons first time trying the game mode and this experience left such a bad taste in their mouth that they have sworn off the mode completely in the future even though I strongly suggested it could be fun with the right group of people as has been my experience. However the damage was already done and they would just rather avoid the mode entirely. Which is a shame and unfortunate. So how this applies to the subject of this topic, I believe some discussion needs to be done to sort of setup an "understood" set of gentleman's rules to make the game mode easier for new players to enjoy. Said "understood" rules should be discussed in the room before the race begins so everyone understands. This will prevent anyone else from being pushed away from the mode like the person I talked to on discord.
Ok I will start things off from what I remember.
1. There used to be a way to manually change the quick chat phrases. I remember we would change one just for TA that said "Pitting." This would allow someone to let everyone else in the race know they were pitting so they knew to look out for their slowing down car that would be to the inside leading to the pit lane. I don't know if it is still possible to change the quick chat settings. If not I'd like to see that brought back.
2. Passing, Now I've heard 2 different examples of this. One that I remember we did in Heat Online and one that I've heard from others was done in Level-R. The method I heard about in Level-R was the car in front giving the draft was to move to the side and let the car behind through and then catch the draft so that both cars were faster. Now my own experience we had a different rule. the passing car who had the draft did the passing, not only that but we had an understood rule such as "always pass on the right." I personally think this is better than the idea they did in Level-R. Reason being the car in front can not as easily see the car behind as the car behind can see the car in front. It is much easier for the car in front to just hold their line and the car behind slingshot around them. Now the only part of my memory that is fuzzy on with this is, it could have been "always pass to the left" as this would mean if the car behind caught up in a turn they could still get the pass done, as right side only makes it really hard to get the pass completed as you have to go the long way around. Either way the end result of this was 1 lane was for drafting the other for passing. Because we kept this understood rule in all of our races, we had some clean races and some really fast lap times.
I'd like to know others thoughts on these and if anyone else has others to add to this. I want this thread to be an open discussion, maybe even in the future we can get it pinned with a finalized rule set edited into this original post. I really don't want more people to be pushed away from this mode due to bad experiences and I hope this discussion leads to preventing that.
Ok I will start things off from what I remember.
1. There used to be a way to manually change the quick chat phrases. I remember we would change one just for TA that said "Pitting." This would allow someone to let everyone else in the race know they were pitting so they knew to look out for their slowing down car that would be to the inside leading to the pit lane. I don't know if it is still possible to change the quick chat settings. If not I'd like to see that brought back.
2. Passing, Now I've heard 2 different examples of this. One that I remember we did in Heat Online and one that I've heard from others was done in Level-R. The method I heard about in Level-R was the car in front giving the draft was to move to the side and let the car behind through and then catch the draft so that both cars were faster. Now my own experience we had a different rule. the passing car who had the draft did the passing, not only that but we had an understood rule such as "always pass on the right." I personally think this is better than the idea they did in Level-R. Reason being the car in front can not as easily see the car behind as the car behind can see the car in front. It is much easier for the car in front to just hold their line and the car behind slingshot around them. Now the only part of my memory that is fuzzy on with this is, it could have been "always pass to the left" as this would mean if the car behind caught up in a turn they could still get the pass done, as right side only makes it really hard to get the pass completed as you have to go the long way around. Either way the end result of this was 1 lane was for drafting the other for passing. Because we kept this understood rule in all of our races, we had some clean races and some really fast lap times.
I'd like to know others thoughts on these and if anyone else has others to add to this. I want this thread to be an open discussion, maybe even in the future we can get it pinned with a finalized rule set edited into this original post. I really don't want more people to be pushed away from this mode due to bad experiences and I hope this discussion leads to preventing that.
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