Unresolved

Qualifying

i looked at the results and the stronger car is faster on the long run the worse finished 36 sec behind the winner. 
because of Peters and my example it is possible that a worse car can have one good lap. On the race distance both have the equal amount of good and bad laps so the better will outperform the worse.

just look at Leclerc in Monaco, he started 16th because he had a bad lap. should have started at least 6th with a normal one. so it can happen and is realistic.

The problem was that there were a couple of other teams with definitely worse car points that also qualified higher. Anyway I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

@Ali if you don't try to understand peters and my example then yes:)

even that can happen and let me guess again they finished worse than qualified? 
every month someone is winning the lottery, even when it is totally unlikely.

@Matt there are many more points to consider, one is your league you can't compare your current situation to other leagues. 2nd the random bad luck can happen in a row for a while and you are trying to put in some logic to find a reason, since you found nothing you think the game has a flaw, while it is just random. I had that for a season, too, 3 or 4 months ago. I analized if i can improve something and tried to understand the Quali. I found not much i can do, i accepted it and next season it was already better:) additional observed that at some competitors, too, for a while and then changed again.

Just had a look at the actual Qualifying results that I assume Ali El-Morssy was referring to.

I see the other team is 'Red Bull Renault'

Qualy times:
https://igpmanager.com/app/d=result&id=23975682&tab=qualifying

Red Bull Renault: 1:24.836 (+0.109s)
Red Bull Renault: 1:24.859 (+0.132s)

EGPC F1 Team: 1:24.877 (+0.150s)
EGPC F1 Team: 1:25.083 (+0.356s)


EGPC F1 Team: 64 ACC, 48 BRA, 43 HAN, 43 DWN, 35 FE, 40 TE
Red Bull Renault: 57 ACC, 27 BRA, 43 HAN, 43 DWN, 35 FE, 40 TE

So the difference from the stats you gave is: -21 BRA, -7 ACC. This equates to around +0.238s, which is within the variance band of 0.300s. Your 2nd driver clearly made a mistake (lost +0.200s), and both Red Bull Renault drivers had super qualifying laps, which can happen.

This also does not take into account if Red Bull Renault used more than 1 CD over last season. And as Bastian mentions, there are other factors which you can make :-)

Thanks for the messages all I can do maybe is to change my driver and hope this season qualifying is better for me

at the Moment not, Maybe there will be a Quali update in the Future, because many poeple complain about that. the only thing i found, what helps a bit, is starting as often as possible on a softer compound and if not possible i try to overcut the weaker managers. does not always work yesterday i finished 8 and 16, but giving me a small advantage

QFing on this game is just silly. It has cost so many of us so many positions. To go from fastest in Practice to 23rd in QF and get out QFied by your other car that should be slower is crazy!! Even our championship winning team and his drivers are near the rear of the field after putting in great praccy times. Chook raffles are more predictable!  lol

thats wrong it is somehow predictable, if you understand the Process. Until Germany it is possible afterwards the cars and drivers are just exactly the same then obviously everything is mixed up, but predictable that it is that way. You can't predict exact positions but based on CDs of last season car stats and research you know what cars to expect in the Front, middle and end. sometimes there is a lucky/unlucky situation, but that is just an outlier. Obviously you can't take practice Time for prediction, because there are way too many ways to manage your practice lap time. I for example always do it after the race with less health, so i qualy better than i practice. some managers do it after training, some without repairing the car and some without deploying Design points. you would need the Information from all teams, how they do/did practice, to use practice laps as a predictor.

the System is realistic, because a driver will never have just perfect laps and creates some equality. without the Design point limits you would have a Mercedes Situation, that one team secures the Championship in Belgium. to win a championship you have to collect as many points as possible in the first half of the season where you can gain an advantage in car Development and to deal well with bad grid positions in the 2nd half.
I for example qualified yesterday, with my other account 25 and 26 and finished the race 2 and 8, just lost 4 points to my competitor, thats the races where you win the Championship not the ones you start from pole.

sorry mate disagree totally and it shows in our league all around so what ever system you are talking about its totally wrong!!!

it is your choice:) disagree ,don't try to understand it and keep on loosing!!!

read the whole Thread and then you will understand how the System works and you will see that it is really good.

i have mate and its still doesnt do anything!! its got nothing to do with losing its called the game has that many bugs in it that you can never work out QFing at all as its totally random.

no it is not, there is a random factor(how well the driver performs on the Quali lap) everything else is based on car stats and on driver stats, so not random I am with you that it is totally random from Hungary in good leagues, because everyone maxed the car and has top drivers, so no way for managers to differentiate, from that point your strategy choice and race Management is Key.

Qualifying never works out. Safer bet is on black!! Such a random part of the game for what is a good game apart from all the little bugs, like this Qualifying one.

it works perfect.
just Humans have a hard time to understand randomness, because of the small random factor(driver performance per lap), many of players are fooled by it and think there is something wrong, while it is not.
when you have a basic understanding of the Process and of statistics/probabilities you can see how good it works.

My rather long post will consist largely of my opinions and some ideas of suggestions for qualifying, but I don't think it can be denied that qualifying can be a somewhat controversial and frustrating part of the game as I'll try to expand on below:

I agree that qualifying gets a bit more random once design kind of evens out, and even early on in the season there may be teams with similar design that'd also encounter different qualifying fortunes. I do agree that statistics and probabilities call for some random variables, but in spite of that, I do understand the frustration that comes from players who feel like there is not much they can actively do to influence their qualifying result apart from these factors:
- Car design (this will be long as this is IMO definitely the most important factor when big 4 isn't maxed, but still not entirely predictable as you'll see):

• In close leagues with regular base design in Elite, for example, you will find most people to be equal on design especially once everyone maxes the big 4. It is when car design is equal that you can see the frustrations from managers with consistently low qualy results fester. There can be patterns forming, sometimes one manager regularly qualifies better than the other in spite of car design being the same, and in another season it may be different, but you feel there's nothing much you can do.

• There are indeed differences in how you can distribute the big 4 early on in the season and that may factor into qualifying performance then. Also, those who start with less base design may suffer a bit more early in the season with qualy but I've seen them also have shockingly good qualifying in certain races.

• With different big 4 car designs early in the season, the question is then whether there's an "optimal design path" to follow. I know in the old iGP which I started on but didn't manage to play much of, Joey Mclane used to famously switch suppliers every race, and I won't rule out some managers doing the same for the new iGP.

• But with how research on car design works on the current version of iGP, there are players who will also just allocate design points based on getting the most research from areas they choose, eschewing the "optimal design path" in favour of highest research gains. Those who are lower leveled would benefit more from research as they gain more research power % compared to higher leveled managers, while getting less from their car design HQ facility compared to higher leveled managers.

• And yes, sometimes it's those who follow the path of more research gains that qualify higher up, sometimes it could be those who follow what they believe is the optimal design path who qualify higher. But trust me, it can be hard to gauge.


• Is there a true optimal design path? Personally I haven't discovered it yet. Even if it has been discovered, I personally have not been able to observe a clear, consistent difference in qualifying form that would clearly differentiate it as being down solely to optimal design. I won't deny that it has an effect, but I wouldn't say you will predictably have better qualifying just by having optimal design. But that's just my observation, the observations of one person. Maybe someone has found that optimal design and has found that it is proven to turn your qualifying fortunes around, so you may have to find and ask them.

Now just quickly on some other notable factors:
- Having a perfect setup, probably.
- What tyre you select to start your race with. In regular conditions softer = faster.
- Ah and also your Talent 20 driver.
Which is frankly not that much.

I'm one of those players who are aware that there may exist some little, nebulous variables that cannot be observed by the naked eye or even the microscope, whether it be something funky with driver stats or "hidden variables" that I've seen some people over the years do argue actually exist on this game (If I'd found those hidden variables by now, I'd share them), and whatnot. But perhaps because I feel things like qualifying are too much outside the player's control, it won't be an exaggeration to say I ignore what goes into qualifying.

I've had periods on the game with my drivers starting towards the back for races in a row, and periods where I start in front for races in a row too. Sometimes my rookie vastly outqualifies my experienced driver, sometimes the opposite. Sometimes my driver with higher ride height on this one track qualifies better than the one with lower ride height, but in another season on the same track, it's the one with lower ride height that qualifies better. And then many more situations you can try to observe and have fun finding patterns on. Having done more than 800 races on this game over 3 or more years, no, I personally cannot find a clearly identifiable pattern for the differences in form, other than excusing it with "yeah, random variables".

I'm not saying it is necessarily a fault of the game, but when the only variables are: car design and drivers, 2 things that all the experienced players in Elite will arguably have not much variation of especially come the 2nd half of the season with design, setup - which again everyone will just have their perfect setup, and starting tyre (SS faster than S, faster than M, faster than H, ABC), it is not much and players can feel like they don't have much control.

There is none of for example:
- choice of setting risk levels for qualifying (higher risk, more time possible to be gained but bigger potential for mistakes). That way if you set high risk and FUBAR your qualifying you can blame yourself, I mean, blame your driver. I mean, we like blaming our drivers, right?
- Setups for qualifying
- OR the option to have one setup for the race weekend, but deciding on whether to focus more on qualifying or the race
- and other management options that frankly could be found on other management games, but of course iGP is still on top when it comes to live race management, and I say that sincerely even if it doesn't come across well across the screen.

So with all that, players will ask: whatdoido? igphatesme! ipaidsomuchmoneywrrryyy! My take on it is I personally ignore qualifying and then just plan on what to do if I start at the back, what to do if I start in front. That at least I have control over, and I've seen my fair share of managers who can win not just from starting at the back, but from starting last (it is quite a feeling winning from last, to say the least. Jason Chen is the expert at winning from the back of the field and from last, so please message him for tips on how to live manage from low qualifying positions. Don't message me :P). But it cannot be understated the level of frustration that players can feel over qualifying, some genuinely feeling that they're being robbed or that, yes, there is a "qualifying bug". It is not an uncommon occurrence to see managers consistently starting at the back throughout the 2nd half of the season of even throughout the whole season, and they'd want answers. Some degree of randomness can be excused, but when it gets to a point when people feel like they're being screwed over by consistently bad qualifying, even season by season, it can be frustrating and I've felt it too myself. I've asked whether we all qualify on different servers and they perform differently and all that stuff before. You look around on iGP and you'll find managers that feel this way, easily.

Whether iGP feels that there should be something done about qualifying, I believe it is up to them. It's just as a player who regularly sees complaints regarding qualifying - yes, moaning about qualifying is quite regular here, heh - and seeing so many threads about it, yeah perhaps I'll chip in my opinions too.

I am with you that it is frustrating, i have to deal with it too, like everyone. I had 3 horrible in a row. my point was just that it is no Bug and wanted to explain that dominating the first half of the season don't gives you the right to start in front, for the rest of the season. when you dominate, then because you do something better.
The System how it is creates somehow equal chances for everyone, when having equal cars and drivers, what is the Norm towards the end of a season.

In case of quali a car with a bad CD is 0.45 sec slower than a car with 3 top CDs but the variance of driver performance is 0.5, so in worst situation the bad car can quali in Front of the good, but in the long run(race) the good car will win. it is unlikely but possible, Maybe 1 time out of 20 Races. its similar in other areas, if i would play poker against the worldchampion, i would win 1 hand with absolute certainty but will lose the game with absolute certainty.

at the moment you can just manage it with research(1.half) and tire choice(2.half), but everyone has the same Situation, so one task of winning a championship is to deal with it Better than your competitors, i do the planning you mentioned, too.
the good thing about the situation is that all have it, i had seasons where i qualied better(lucky) and seasons like this one where my competitors are more lucky.
and i understand the frustration i "lost" a Championship as well but i "won" one, too.
that is less a problem of the game, but more one of human awareness. when winning because of luck the brain beliefs it is skill and when losing because of a lack of skill the brain beliefs it is bad luck. summerised the brain has a hard Time to differentiate between luck and skill.

i like your suggestions, you are one of the Persons in that thread, who understands the process, is not just complaining and came up with a solution:) I Support the idea, too, to have a way to manage Quali, would bring in a lot of opportunities and would make the races more interesting, either setup or fuel load could be opportunities.
again my point, based on the current situation, the System is doing what it should do and there is no Bug it is not broken. Obviously the System could be improved like every area can be improved.

I understand your way of thinking in terms of acknowledging variance, Bastian. I am also of the view that managing one's expectations, emotions, being aware, etc. are important in games like iGP, much more so for a management game, so those things I do agree with you. I also acknowledge there is a lot you can do with race management despite having a bad qualy and that it is a huge part of the fun of this game, but I'll focus on talking about only qualy for this thread.

The thing is this is a motorsport management game, not poker. But in iGP when we go to for example Monaco we figuratively go to the casino when it comes to qualy. You think you hold the nuts with your nice car design, but then the board comes and sometimes you hit it, sometimes you don't. Still, at least there you have some control over your car design. When people max their big 4, ah, different story.

My thought process is that, while I acknowledge variance, I am someone in favour of having some tools to at least have some control over that variance. Not absolute control, but at least you feel like your decision matters. Hallmark of most good games is players feeling like their decisions matter in the long run. I think most players are more accepting of good or bad qualies if they know that it is partly due to their decisions. So for the early half of the season, I believe we can recognize things like difference in car design and are more accepting of the result, even if some randomness and variance comes into play. In the second half, that is not the case, and that is where I believe a lot of frustration comes from. Managers feeling like they have no control over the results of qualifying.

The devs mentioned that a large variance can happen in qualy, especially when drivers make mistakes. If there were something us managers could do to reduce chances of mistakes and/or take a chance on setting a mighty fast lap like the risk management idea I mentioned in my previous post, that would be one step towards giving managers some more control over qualy.

As for how bad the fortunes of qualifying can especially be, the case I still have fresh in my mind is Jason Chen's whom I've raced with for almost 6 seasons in League of Legends. He did qualify in the top 9 only 2 times over the entire Season 6 iirc (he also mentioned this in another thread about qualifying), and his qualifying the previous season wasn't so great either, I remember the last half of Season 5 whatever tyre he was on he would qualify among the back, or more often, last among those on the same tyres as him. Unless he had the fake Honda as his engine supplier I don't know how to explain that. It is not like he is the only manager I've seen to have a bad run of qualifying like that as well, and these are the cases where I think some managers feel they have to bring up qualifying on the forums, maybe some bring up after 3 bad qualies in a row, but you can see why they want answers. But in cases like Jason's, this is not bad qualy for 2 or 3 or 4 races in a row, this is over entire seasons. Jason is a great manager and I being a major competitor of his also share the frustration whenever I keep seeing his car start so far back from mine for so many races.

managing expectations and emotions is crucial in all competitive areas.
it is right it is not Poker, but the same applies for motorsport, too, a worse car/ driver can beat a better on one lap, but not on the long run. look at leclercs quali in Monaco, he was 16th and the car potential was at least good for 6th, so the system is realistic.
I manage monaco quite well 70-80 % i have a good quali, because of research and even if not it is possible to improve, made it once from 8 and 15 to 3 and 5 in race (league rep 9200).
i am absolutely with you that an opportunity to manage it would be great (at least for me, Maybe less for my competitors) i just don't subscribe to the View that it is totally random or a bug, it looks totally random because everyone has the same pace from one point in the season.
when you are creative you already have opportunities to manage the situation, not directly the quali but the race and as you mentioned there are managers who do it well, like Jason or i do sometimes. in Belgium i started 25 26 and finished 2 and 8.
In my view every opportunity to manage, would increase the inequality, because the managers like me, who research better and have better race Management will exploit the qualy better than the worse Managers, if there is an opportunity to manage.
so the decision to give us an opportunity to manage, will be a decision between equality(in favor for worse Managers) how it is right mow, or give an opportunity to manage (in favor of good managers).
i had a similar situation like Jason, some of my competitors, too, and it looks like i have it this season again. as i mentioned in a post above, dealing with that is where a champion is made and makes the game so much fun because even with a 100 point lead there is some uncerainty.

The point that I was trying to make was that for the 1st race of the season, the cars with the best setup (top 4 stats) should be qualifying at the front and not the back which I have seen happening with all things being equal regarding the drivers. This is what I was referring too. I did not really touch on the subject about when all cars are of equal points, although I totally agree with everything that Nic has said.

I was trying to highlight a pattern that I have recently started to notice regarding excellent point cars qualifying badly at the start of the season when they have better points for the top 4 stats than other cars.