Why don't we have reasonable Practice sessions?

R

roberto.schneiders

New member
I find it hard to believe people think the current practice sessions are reasonable. I can't make sense of it. I have more than 10 years of experience on iRacing and recently switched to LMU. These days, I have very little time for the simulator, so when I do have a bit of extra time, I need to practice for half an hour before a race just to get things going, but for some reason, I can't do that.

I open the game, and I find a session that interests me, a GT3 race in a track that I like, I think, ok, let's practice a bit and go for a race. The practice sessions available end in 3 minutes, so there is no point in even going into that session. Why would a practice session be linked with the Race session? Even if you manage to get the practice sessions at the beginning of the session event, it's just 15 minutes!!

Then you decide to just wait for that session to start, to get a practice session on the next one, just to discover that there are no practice servers on the new session event. Sometimes it takes 4 minutes to get the practice sessions going.

I know I can pay a subscription to have access to practice servers in advance, but that's just nonsense, isn't it? I could also set up a local game and race against bots, but that defeats the purpose. You join a practice session to check where you are against other people, maybe have a sense of how it is to race very close to other cars in certain parts of the track...

I really don't get how a game this good fails so badly in such a basic feature.
 
While I wish they had the practice servers up all the time, heres a thought....

Its a WEC simulator....WEC practice rounds are normally 60-90 minutes each. Of those, two of the 3 are 90 minutes long with the 3rd being 60.

So, at least one 60 minute shouldn't be a big ask.
 
Does no one else just find online practice sessions infuriating though? Joining players (which happens constantly) causes visual and FFB stutters, an issue that’s been there since release. Despite the studio’s efforts, it seems to have gotten worse recently.
 
aaron0288 said:
Does no one else just find online practice sessions infuriating though? Joining players (which happens constantly) causes visual and FFB stutters, an issue that’s been there since release. Despite the studio’s efforts, it seems to have gotten worse recently.
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I agree, that's really annoying, especially the car without livery thing; I can't say much about the stutters, I'm not sure that's happening to me, I'll keep an eye on it; however, this may be a more complicated thing to solve because iRacing had similar issues for a long time, not sure if it's fixed these days.
 
I confess (as someone who practices online quite a bit) that I haven't really noticed any change. Yes, I get the brief stutter when someone joins, but no worse than before. I've conditioned myself to barely notice it.
 
As said before it goes way back to the original RD code, it used to happen there that you got a jolt when a car joined the server, it is either impossible or hard to get rid of or nobody can be arsed.

Same as the ghost cars, although they are often in other games at times too.

Practice is not really a big thing, I think there ought to be bigger official practice servers, but there are plenty in hosted, sadly unless you pay you can not select the track and cars you want, which for me is ridiculous, but hey.
 
robevery1971 said:
As said before it goes way back to the original RD code, it used to happen there that you got a jolt when a car joined the server, it is either impossible or hard to get rid of or nobody can be arsed.

Same as the ghost cars, although they are often in other games at times too.

Practice is not really a big thing, I think there ought to be bigger official practice servers, but there are plenty in hosted, sadly unless you pay you can not select the track and cars you want, which for me is ridiculous, but hey.
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yeah. I get the entire subscription thing, I'm not against it, but it should focus on competitive/pro level sim racers. Practice servers should be considered a basic core game functionality. The subscription is just not viable for casual players. Maybe once or twice a month, I want to launch the game and do some laps and not stare at the menu waiting for a session I like to open up.
 
the thing is this game appeals to aliens and that kind of person, it is perfect for them, so they are going to get all the extra stuff. You see them in all sims really, I prefer to avoid them because being around them is depressing, but this game is aimed squarely at that sort of person I am afraid, so it is always going to happen

these are kind of peopel who will do hundreds of laps on their own in a race weekend practice session, like it is real life, sadly you cannot avoid this. They do not need a real practice session as you or I might, they make it work any way they can which is why they always suggest race weekend practice on here. AS they will find a way

THat is what this game is aimed at in reality. You can still do OK, but in terms of practice, they will say, you can find a way of doing it, so we do not need to implement anything
 
I completely agree. I have a similar scenario. I need accessible practice servers, but in reality, this is only available in weekly races. By the way, a subscription doesn't give you anything except the ability to register for championships and practice on their servers if you need this track. Strange, right?
 
I agree the practice sessions are a joke. Even with a paid subscription. I get like 18 minutes max or something? And generally when I get into a session I just get yanked out abruptly in the middle of a turn after one or two laps. It’s a complete joke. I’ve only been racing 1.5 years total, all of it on iRacing. I gave LMU a try but the practice sessions are just stupid. I’m back to iRacing now and kind of gave up caring. Not good for LMU because at this stage I likely won’t be renewing my subscription or buying any DLCs, and practice servers are one of the main reasons. I have zero desire to practice solo or with AI.
 
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orellius said:
I agree the practice sessions are a joke. Even with a paid subscription. I get like 18 minutes max or something? And generally when I get into a session I just get yanked out abruptly in the middle of a turn after one or two laps. It’s a complete joke. I’ve only been racing 1.5 years total, all of it on iRacing. I gave LMU a try but the practice sessions are just stupid. I’m back to iRacing now and kind of gave up caring. Not good for LMU because at this stage I likely won’t be renewing my subscription or buying any DLCs, and practice servers are one of the main reasons. I have zero desire to practice solo or with AI.
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100%. I'm part of a sim racing team (although, these days most members don't race competitively anymore for lack of time) and was advocating for them to try LMU, but how do I tell them there is no good way of getting a few friends and jumping into a practice session for a reasonable amount of time? The most you can do is practice the outlap in the 3-minute window you will get when you join the practice session. I really can't believe the developers think this is reasonable.
 
I feel like the complaints fall on deaf ears. I’ve already searched in these forums several times and read many, many comments of people complaining about the practice servers. I realize the little bit of revenue they get from my single subscription is next to nothing, but I am confident I am not the only one not renewing, and honestly not even racing at all on their servers anymore just because id rather spend my time in iRacing, where i can practice whenever i want, for however long I want.

Im very happily dumping many hundreds of dollars into iRacing’s subscription, and cars and tracks purchases, not even thinking twice about it. Meanwhile I wish I didn’t do an annual subscription to LMU and could refund it. So far the only thing it’s done for me is allowed for liveries…yay
 
To be honest, maybe they already think that the job of building a strong community is done. People have been complaining for this for quite sometime and they don't give a f... I mean, is it that hard to realize that the practice times are too stupid to be true? They are a joke in Daily races and they are a complete joke in Weekly events as well. I mean, there is a race starting in 35 minutes and I can't join a practice session. Keep working like this guys. It's an awesome way to test the community's patience and to implode!
 
Either play the sim, or don't.

I really don't understand the threats to leave, implications of doom to S397, etc.

Most of us agree that we'd like practice servers avaliable. How hard or easy that is for them to implement is unknown since we don't know the financial limitations, team size limitations, etc.

They know people want them. I'm pretty sure they'd do it if they could. I doubt anyone at MSG or S397 sits around thinking about how to frustrate or piss off their customers.
 
I think that's the point. I would like to know why the practice sessions are so bad and if they plan to fix it.

It can't be financial, can it? Even if you pay for the subscription, you don't have good practice sessions. You can join earlier, but they are still short sessions. Also, running a few more servers is not that expensive.
 
It can. Even well established large game companies have budgets.

MSG has had a history of financial distress. S397 is a subsidiary of MSG, so any financial constraints would affect them as well.

I was able to join a Sebring practice yesterday 56 minutes before the race. Not sure if that's a new normal, or just a glitch, but....
 
JGW5 said:
It can. Even well established large game companies have budgets.

MSG has had a history of financial distress. S397 is a subsidiary of MSG, so any financial constraints would affect them as well.

I was able to join a Sebring practice yesterday 56 minutes before the race. Not sure if that's a new normal, or just a glitch, but....
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nice! Was that a daily or weekly session?
 
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