Talk:2018 McLaren X2/@comment-27980511-20180710230348

Fellow racers!

Some of you have been asking how I found the 2018 McLaren X2's Championship Event. Granted, I have been relatively quiet about this one because of that delicate balance between Asphalt 8 and life.

For the most part, I found it enjoyable. Suitably hard in places, yes, unreasonably hard in others, but enjoyable. I only had to Auto-Pass one challenge and that was Tokyo's Sprint 4 ... ye gods, what came over the Event's planners to include such an incredibly tight Qualifier with a car that already has terribly short Nitro duration and a weird tendency to skid?

All that on top of a harrowing series of challenges in Venice and Rio? I'll admit, some of these Qualifiers have been as unforgiving as those Tests in your average R&D. Countless Tires and Tokens were essentially wasted on Qualifiers that should have been somewhat easy.

And with time being so precious, I had to pull out all the stops.

One thing I didn't do, which I'm quite pleased with, was open new tracks early. This is something I've done for previous R&Ds and one or two Championships, but NOT THIS TIME!

I aimed to win it at the recommended bare minimum Tuning of 7-0-10-0, even watched how the pros do it on their YouTube videos, but had to settle for a slightly higher config of 8-0-10-0.

This came as a result of factoring in the lag that I suffer on certain tracks and how my device isn't always very responsive at times. This could cost me crucial seconds when it counted.

Even with that 8-0-10-0 I was just scraping through Qualifiers with only fractions of a second to spare and ZERO room for mistakes. And what an absolute battle that Tokyo Grand Finale was.

Aaanyway ... onto the X2 itself. I like the design, very futuristic and sleek, but would it hurt to include more color options for it? And why is it the most affected McLaren when it comes to skidding? This is coming from a seasoned MP4-31 and MP4-8 driver and that is saying something.

I took it for a spin in Quick Solo Race mode without any boosters, in Nevada, and boi, the competition was fierce! I mean, here's a simple race on a simple track with no Credits or anything on the line, all AI opponents, and I can't even place the top 3 when it's done?

I even recorded some somewhat laggy runs using Mobizen (not the best, but it'll do for now) and every 3-5 seconds was just skid, wreck, skid, wreck, bounce, wreck, skid, random barrel roll, wreck.

Then I decided, well, now Bloom Season's started, let's test it out in MP. After hours of waiting for servers to get fixed, I loaded up my boosters and off I went.

First 3 races were not great, I placed 3rd at least, but the server didn't sync my results and I ended up losing 30 points in 2  races. I thought, well, damn, let's reload the game. Tried again, and the skidding cost me a couple of races. When I should have lost 2 points for the first quit, I lost another 10.

After having lost around 40 points in all, I was like, right then. Let's change cars to salvage some of that lost rating. Unleashed the Audi R8 SE and the game started to freeze up and crash during races. By now things were looking really bad, I'd lost about 60 rating points and was now getting lumped in with OP opponents and 0% Risk.

So after what was probably one of the worst MP sessions I've had in a long time, I cut my losses and  stopped playing MP for the day.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the X2 has saved the day here. I know this has been said before by other racers, but at this current setup, this car is USELESS.

It's nothing more than easy prey for Apollo IEs, Hussarya GTs, Vulcans AND higher-ranked X2s, regardless of its superb acceleration. It's like a S-Class MP4-8, essentially.

Figured it's time to re-group, change my strategy and select the best cars to collect save points for this Season's rewards. Until I can get enough Engines, this car won't see the light of day in competitive MP sessions for the time being.

Additionally, I had planned to use some of my remaining Engines to get my McLaren MP4-25 to 10-0-10-2 and calculated extensively how many Engines I would need based on the info at the time (27 Engines from the Event + 15 I had prior to it) which would leave me with at least 2 Engines to spare, but I was ripped off.

The Event didn't give me nearly enough Engines for the MP4-25 and those special-offer Boxes had NO Engines in them whatsoever. I only have 18 Engines left in all and am now forced to wait for the next 4 in order to get the MP4-25.

Patience really is a virtue in this game, ain't it?

How's the experience been for you guys? Hopefully a smoother ride than mine?

- ShinnyShin