Suggested

DRS Options and Clean Air

I just wanted to put some thoughts out there about how cars interact with DRS and what I would like to see done. Right now I think there is an issue where getting your car into clean air is not just weak, it’s actively bad. DRS is so strong that running in a pack, or at the very least having 2 cars leapfrog each other, is almost always faster than getting a car alone into empty space. I believe this punishes teams that try unique strategies, because even if you’d have been faster than a single opponent, you likely won’t be faster than a group of opponents that are all on a shared strategy. There are two changes that I think could help this issue. First, time loss for both drivers when 2 drivers get close and fight wheel-to-wheel. It is both realistic, and would cause teams to not just run their 2 drivers together to slingshot off one another. Second, give leagues the option to turn off DRS. DRS was invented in real life to give cars an ability to pass one another when they otherwise couldn’t. That is not an issue iGP has (although I would like to see it be slightly harder to pass so that drivers can actually defend their position, making track position worth something), and F1 doesn’t even have DRS anymore anyways. Removing it (or having the option to turn it off) will increase the level of strategy in the game, as players would need to better consider their qualifying, track position, pitting into traffic, etc. Right now the racing kind of reminds me of cycling, where everyone stays in a group and works together until near the end, and I’d rather it feel more like an F1 race, with different strategies and cars fighting for each position rather than working together to increase overall speed by being in traffic (which is another problematic example, getting a speed boost by running into lapped cars at the right time).

I completely agree; I always use the analogy of a cycle race where nobody wants to be at the front.
There are often races where you reach the final lap with 7 or 8 cars side by side, and at that point, with everyone on the same level of remaining battery, it’s just a matter of luck as to how the W2W system decides to trap you in the traffic.

I think when you talk about removing DRS, it's because you haven't been playing for very long. If you're racing in a competitive league with good players, removing DRS is a terrible idea because the race would end up the same as qualifying for those players with the same strategy.

Let me explain: if, for example, the top 5 in qualifying use the same strategy , I can assure you 100% that at the end of the race, those 5 players will finish in the same order as in qualifying, because nobody is going to let anyone pass them if there's no DRS.

If you're slightly faster than me and we have the same KERS, and you need to use KERS to overtake me (which is usually the case, using KERS to overtake), I'll use KERS to overtake you again, so we'll be in the same position as at the start and both with the same KERS. Nobody is going to let anyone pass them if there's no DRS; you only have to look at the rain races, which, by the way, are incredibly boring because there's no DRS.

I can understand that in W2W it's difficult to develop a solo strategy, just as it is in classic mode if the strategy isn't good, but the solution definitely can't be to remove DRS. That would be catastrophic for the races and make them incredibly boring, like rain races, which nobody enjoys.

Often, wanting to try a different strategy, depending on the track, the weather, your car, etc., can be a good idea, but that doesn't guarantee a good strategy. You can do SMM in Italy, without refueling, as many times as you want and with as much clean air as you want, and MH or HM will still win in Italy, even if you remove DRS.

I actually agree with most of this. Right now clean air feels less rewarding than staying in a DRS train, which makes strategy variety weaker than it should be. Having some time loss when cars fight closely would make battles feel more realistic, and an optional “DRS off” setting for leagues could make track position and pit strategy matter a lot more.

I could not disagree with this more. You have stated the opinion that “the race will just end the same as qualifying”. If you truly believe that, then you should be able to go back to every race you ever participated in where it rained, and everyone should finish exactly where they qualified. Also, I don’t understand the example of “if everyone has the exact same strategy”…? My initial post pointed out that right now it is to your benefit to utilize the same strategy as everyone else, which is both boring and unrealistic. So if DRS were removed, and if you hypothetically copied every driver ahead’s strategy, you would have nobody to blame but yourself for not being able to advance positions. The entire point is that you should be trying something different to give yourself an advantage. Have you ever watched F1? They don’t all just run the same strategy. And even if they do, like a M->H, they don’t all pit on the same lap, which again, the current situation in iGP is that it does benefit you to pit at exactly the same time as everyone else, or at least close to it. My suggestion would add more strategy and decision making, such as “do I pit earlier for track position?” even if you don’t try an entirely different strategy. Additionally, your example of Italy strategy does not make sense, my suggestion is not “make the game so that bad strategies win”, it is to make it so that getting clean air actually makes you faster, giving you the ability to try something different, rather than sitting in a DRS train the entire race waiting for the final laps. And you compare my idea to racing in wet weather, despite the only similarity being the lack of DRS. In the wet, everyone uses the same compound, and everyone will have similar wear and pace. In the dry, even without DRS, there are 4 compounds to choose from, all very different than one another. A lack of options and control makes wet weather boring, not a lack of DRS. You claim that my post is because I “haven’t been playing long” (level 30 and recently came back to the game btw), but your response sounds to me like someone averse to change, who wants to run the same strategy every race, and who wants to sit in a DRS train the entire race rather than doing any actual race management (it’s literally in the name… iGP *Manager*)

" who wants to run the same strategy every race, and who wants to sit in a DRS train the entire race rather than doing any actual race management (it’s literally in the name… iGP *Manager*)🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 🤣🤣


See? That's why I say you must be people who haven't been playing for very long 🤣🤣 Our league has had tire rules and regulations for many years that you can't even imagine, and that's what we're known for—praised by some and criticized by others, but known nonetheless. You've accused the wrong person and the wrong league of always wanting to use the same strategies and always wanting to go by train 🤣🤣

PS: This season is actually the first time in many years that we haven't had tire rules, but that's because 80% of the league are managers who haven't played for six months or more. Everything will go back to normal in the future.


PSPS: BTW I respect your opinion, but I'm pretty sure that removing DRS would be catastrophic.

All it would take is to slightly reduce the power of the DRS and significantly increase the penalty for driving in the slipstream. At the moment, it’s far too unbalanced: being in the lead doesn’t allow you to pull away from the chasers, and it’s crucial to stay in the DRS train because it can gain you 1.2 seconds per lap… so trying alternative strategies is madness.

Just so we are clear, your argument against me saying that races right now reward you for running the same strategy and forming DRS trains, is that your league has implemented and enforced special tire rules? In other words, in order to make the races more interesting, your league has had to go beyond what the game currently offers, and make up your own rules to improve racing…? And you believe that, with 4 different tire compounds available, and dirty air currently having almost no effect whatsoever, that the only way to overtake someone is DRS, and that you would not be able to create a pace advantage in any other way…? Not to mention the additional impact of choosing what tire to qualify on since track position would matter far more than it currently does… If you are pro-DRS then fine, each to their own I guess, but I’m not really sure that you’ve provided a legitimate reason why removing DRS would be “catastrophic”, so I don’t really understand why you are so adamant that it is a horrible idea.

I already told you why,  in a competitive league with good players you aren't going to overtake anybody, beacuse if you use boost to overtake,  they will use boost to overtake you again , so you will never change position in a race, like in Rain-races(In competitive leagues there are very few changes in positions.).  


It's obvious that W2W needs some changes, I won't deny that. You could also try racing with refueling; those races have always been much more fun and offer more varied strategies than racing without refueling.


My thinking it's a terrible idea doesn't mean anything; it's just an opinion based on my many years of experience in IGP and having raced in Interleagues or tournaments organized with low-level accounts and low-level DRS and KERS, where qualifying practically determined the final race result. But as I said, it's just an opinion.

If they offer the option to activate or deactivate DRS in Gold leagues, try it in your league (I don't know if it's competitive and very active or not) and then give me your honest opinion on what you think.

All the best 

Your explanation of “nobody could overtake” is based on the idea that every player will run the same strategy and pit on the same laps. I genuinely do not understand how you have reached the conclusion that in dry conditions, overtaking would be impossible without DRS or boost. Even in the current game, when a driver is stuck in a DRS train, they can still overtake slower drivers around the rest of the track, because dirty air is effectively nonexistent at this time. And I don’t mean to be frustrated but you came into the forum in order to tell me that I’m wrong, and then when pressed on the “why” all I get is “nobody could pass because look at wet weather races”, which fails to acknowledge the fact that wet conditions only use a single compound while dry use up to 4, as well as the fact that your “doomsday” hypothetical would already be reality for every single car in a DRS train except the 2-3 leaders, and that (as I pointed out from the very beginning) leaving the DRS train is typically to a player’s detriment due to the benefits of DRS and the little-to-no drawbacks of racing in traffic. Again, just to recap, if the cars in your league are all so closely matched that they are incapable of overtaking one another without DRS, and if there is only a single strategy that works (an issue that is amplified by the need to stay in the DRS train or lose up to a second per lap on the straight), then your league wouldn’t actually have any racing aside from the top few drivers cycling positions every lap when the leader doesn’t get DRS. Because if every driver was unable to do anything without DRS, and every driver’s DRS gets neutralized by the driver ahead getting DRS (with the sole exception of the leader), then nobody would ever be able to overtake anyone as per your hypothesis.

Managers using the same strategy would end up in the same position as in the Qulay. I've explained everything a couple of times already, and if you don't want to understand, there's nothing I can do my friend. As I said, if they offer the option to disable DRS, when you try it, come back here and give me your honest opinion.

I didn't want to get involved like this, but I've noticed that there's a strong attitude among some people who think they know everything and that everyone else doesn't understand iGP, and that's why they believe DRS is necessary.

First of all, in our league—which, between its previous and current formats, has already run for 26 seasons, with over two years of iGP experience not counting the breaks we’ve taken—we have more than enough experience with the subject.

I notice you say DRS is necessary because otherwise everyone would end up where they started, and that if everyone copies the strategy... and you reduce it to the fact that everything is based on high-level leagues—which is very subjective—and several people have given you a contrary response by presenting their points, yet you dismiss it by saying it’s because of the level of their leagues or how long they’ve been playing.

With our experience, we can confirm that DRS is the cause of all that since W2W was added, precisely because everyone copies each other’s strategy since it’s more effective to gain 0.6 to 1.2 seconds with DRS than to try a different strategy, since the tire advantage is lost if the opponent can keep up with DRS. We’ve done that, and I’m a proponent of trying different strategies and showing skill, but nobody does it because they know it’s safer to have DRS and draft off another car than to try a strategy with a more aggressive tire or an extra pit stop—because if they’re in clear air, the advantage is null against DRS.

We've tried a little bit of everything—with and without pit stops, with or without the dual-compound rule, custom rules—we even race at 75% power, which adds that extra strategic element since the difference in tires is more noticeable than at 50%, but it always comes down to the same thing: no one wants to lead because the DRS is so powerful that you drop to the back of the pack, and no one wants to try different strategies because if they lose the group, their GP is over. The DRS with the current W2W system is very problematic because it’s overly powerful—not to mention on circuits like Monza, Abu Dhabi, and Austria, where losing DRS there means losing the race.

People are right to think that DRS doesn’t work anymore; you don’t need 10 years in iGP to know that. It’s a system that worked better when cars used to overtake each other, but now, everyone drives as slowly as possible to get DRS, since they know they’ll always have the advantage of making up more time than they would gain in clean air in PL5.

I believe that skill level has no bearing on this, and as a community, we should consider the perspectives of players at different skill levels, since we all play the same iGP Manager. If the majority agrees that DRS is having a negative impact, then there’s a flaw in the system—and that doesn’t mean their opinions should be dismissed because of their skill level or time spent playing.

I’m in favor of eliminating it, since that way we’d see more undercuts and overcuts using KERS, the fresher tire would stand out against the worn one, and it wouldn’t be like now where DRS saves them all in a pack.

Best regards.

It's not just my opinion; if you look at the poll Jack conducted, you'll see that those of you who want to remove DRS are few compared to those who want to keep it. The majority want to continue with DRS, so there isn't a flaw in the system, don't worry 😉

I couldn't agree more

A survey is absolutely no good if it doesn't have written feedback, and if we go to those, on the post that Jack did, there are 3 pages of comments, where at least 70% is DRS bashing and giving feedback about W2W malfunction and Kers reloadable. A poll is easily manipulated, a league leader tells their members to vote for what suits them, without giving feedback, they do it, and the poll inflates, he could easily tell the members of the league I run to vote shake up DRS, and they are quietly 22 votes more in favor of getting rid of DRS.

If we look at the feedback from the comments, all that has been said by those few who have commented that they want to keep drs is the same thing "If they take away the drs there will be no overtaking" as if in real F1 before DRS there would not have been any overtaking, instead if you see the feedback against the drs quietly make up 10 paragraphs of DRS problems with the wheel. Simply, the survey is not useful, why there is no real feedback, tips, recommendations, nothing.

I've already planned in fact a whole post for Jack about pure DRS feedback currently, the good and bad, why that is what the community should be doing, see absolutely everything, the good as well as the bad, so to make the game better for everyone, not look out for their own interests and say others just don't have as many years in the game and therefore they don't know. 😉