Multi-Class Endurance Championship Season Four

I'm retiring from the event.

I'm really sorry I have to drop out, I'm not a big fan of all the drop outs and I really tried to finish this event as planned. But the reasons behind this decision are getting too much of an overweight now.

Firstly, the performance of GTA in general. I think it was Smuggler's Run that brought some heavy performance issues, at least for me (and many other PC players from what I've heard). I basically can't get 60 fps once there are 20+ players in a lobby. It stays in a 40 to 50 fps range and sometimes I even get some tiny freezes. I get used to the lower fps after a couple of minutes, but still, I do have a little disadvantage as we've seen that unstable framerates affect speed in this game.

Secondly, brakeboosting. I remember the time when I started racing in GTA and came across the NoDo-crew, I didn't even know about curbboosting. I learned how to do it, as well as the Mid-Drive-Speed-Boost as the Short-Shifting. I gotta agree that those techniques actually kept the game alive for us, together with the Editor. But since Short-Shifting I felt that we're slowly drifting away from actual racing and I was starting to loose interest in the game. Brakeboosting now brought it to another level. On some car and track combinations it is powerful as nothing else. Cornering abilities and racing lines do not play an important rule compared to brakeboosting (on some tracks, but tbh, on most of the tracks). It's definitely a skill to master, but it's too far away from actual racing. It's just too much. The last race at Mirror's Edge is a good example. I drove into first position with a clean, fast pace and a bit of luck. I stayed there for about 80% of the race, until Doom started to catch up on me. I really wanted to win that race and my pace was not that bad. Problem was, my brakeboost success-rate started to vary and I lost that race. Doom told me afterwards that his brakeboosting success-rate was about 60-70% where I would believe mine was 30-40%. I can't get over the fact that I lost this race because of missed brakeboosts. At one point I was more than 12 seconds in front of doom and I'm quite sure I would have managed that gap till the end without brakeboosting. Doom absolutely deserved that win, no question, and I see that brakeboosting is one of my big weaknesses. But practicing on brakeboosting rather than racing lines is not what I want. That brings my to my next point.

Practice and time management. If you want to be at the top you need to practice, no matter what kind of sport or what kind of video game. Same counts for GTA racing and practicing for that does not make fun anymore. I've always loved and still love the racing action, but practicing to find brakeboosts and the best curbboosting line is just disappointing. The other point is the time needed to participate in this event. Saturday evenings can be kind of a problematic time and I could probably still manage to find time for it, but only at costs for other things. Sometimes I need to rearrange other things or even cancel them, but I can't do it for the things mentioned above anymore. The season went horrible for me (two missed races, one DC, two races to "forget"), but I always tried to get back into it and do my best. But I feel like I'm at the pinnacle of frustration right now and sometimes you have to be honest to yourself and stop when it's time to stop.

TL;DR: I'm not having fun anymore, pls bear with me.

I'm writing this wall of text because I feel like some people deserve to know the story behind my decision, especially Broughy1322 and FriendlyBaron . You put in tons of effort to make this happen and I appreciate all the hard work you've done. It is and always was a great event and I'm proud to have participated in the MCEC. GG to ovivoJR at this point. Outstanding drive this season by you and absolutely deserved win of the championship! And wall of text because this is more or less my "Goodbye GTA5"-post. After the remaining TEPCOTT race there won't be anymore participation's in events from me. I'm super glad I met this crew through GTA and I've had a great time. I'm looking forward to race with you guys in other games

Thank you all.

No worries buddy, take care .

PSA for Xbox One members for round 8

Due to the remake not being ready on time we are using the original RON Raceway this round!

Tagging all Xbox One drivers:


Driver changes

Bit Pricey is reserving for SMOOOTH JAY D in team Xero Gas

If there are any last minute reserves, please contact me on Slack.

Pre-lobby

I will host a pre-lobby at around 6 UTC, about one hour before the race. This will be a closed friend session, so make sure you have me added as a friend on Xbox Live. Meet up will be at the top floor of the right side parking lot at airport. For details regarding the pre-race lobby, see the Slack channel.

Race

The race will start at around 7 UTC. I expect everyone to have familiarized themselves with the rules and regulation posted by Broughy in this thread. That includes your starting position (round 8):

Pole position is on the left this time.

Make sure you have the correct mods applied to you car! That includes the horn and neons!

We do not have a dedicated pit watcher for this round, therefor Broughy will keep his camera pointed at the pits. It is recommended that you record your own pits. You do not have to wait in the pits, just drive through.

End of race procedure remains unchanged: once you see "driver finished in 1st position" in the bottom left of your screen, that means that you are on your last lap! Once you cross the finish line after that, your race is over. GT1's can continue driving to finish the race. GT2 drivers park up to the left side after the finish and GT3 drivers park up on the right side of the straight after the first corner. When everyone has lined up we will continue in a convoy with GT2 drivers leading the way until the end-of-race timer finishes the race.

If there are any issues in the race, record it (tap guide and then x) and send them to me after the race for review.

See you all tomorrow .