User blog:Guy Bukzi Montag/Living with Bugs: Delayed Multiplayer Starts after the 2018 Summer Update


 * This is an updated version of the previous blog post "How to Live with the 2018 Spring Update Bugs: Multiplayer Racing" from June 5, 2018, which takes into account the changes made by the 2018 Summer Update.

The 2018 Summer Update still hasn't fixed the multiplayer delayed start bug completely, but delay times have decreased significantly and have even vanished for many tracks. Hence, the descriptions on this page can now focus on more general aspects, but delayed starts are still taken into consideration where they become relevant.

As in the previous version of this post, the described hints and workarounds are meant especially for less advanced racers, but more experienced players may also find something useful. Most important changes concern the table of delay times as well as recommendations for tracks, multiplayer cars and risking race points.

Please note that all of the data and statements are based on my personal experience and my Android device.

Choose your tracks wisely
Gladly the 2018 Summer Update changed the situation from only a few playable tracks without delays to only a few tracks with severe delays. The two most important rule are:

I've listed the delay times I experienced on different tracks in the table below (click on [Expand] to display). As delay times differ greatly, even from race to race on the same track, I tried to collect up to five values whenever I came across a track, and calculated the average. Tracks with only one value are less reliable than those with five; I'll gradually add more tracks and figures.
 * You should prefer the following locations: Alps, Azure Coast, Dubai, French Guiana, Iceland, London, San Diego Harbor, Sector 8 and Venice. These tracks did not show any delayed start at all so far, although the countdown may not be complete sometimes.
 * You should avoid Patagonia, The Great Wall and Tokyo as they may still have a delay 10 or more seconds.

Colour codes have changed:


 * green: 0 seconds. Almost normal conditions. Countdown may not be complete, so pay attention during the loading process.
 * yellow: 1 to 4 seconds. Go ahead. Use a good car, concentrate, you will get them.
 * light red: 5 to 9 seconds. Still ok if you have at least two laps and a car that is correctly multiplayer tuned. Better make no mistakes.
 * deep red: 10 seconds and above. Avoid these tracks. It will be hard to reach the top three; you are likely to lose points.

About your car
If you want to advance a little further than Amateur League you should be optimally prepared: It is, of course, possible to use a car that has a higher ranking than the Audi R8 SE's max pro rank of 1,695. But then you'll enter the arena of the Aston Martin Vulcans and Apollo Intensa Emoziones with very experienced players and very short races. While there is a good chance of starting a few seconds late and catching up in a three minutes race with two laps, there is absolutely none in a fifty seconds race with drivers that fight about every tenth of a second.
 * If you own an Audi R8 e-tron Special Edition: Please proceed, nothing to see here.
 * If you don't own one: Use a car that has a rank below or around 1,000. This means that you won't get as many rating points for a race as with higher ranks, but the higher your car's rank, the higher the probability to get matched against the above-mentioned Audi R8 SE which you are guaranteed to lose against. Audi R8 SEs with a low rank are not very common because the car's R&amp;D required higher tunings to get it—or very good (but rare) skills to finish the R&D with an extremely low tuning.
 * Choose a car that has a high difference between stock and max pro rank. Tune it for multiplayer and nothing else (this usually means a tuning of 0505 5050 and variants of this, or 0505 0505 for nitro based cars that gain more speed from nitro pro upgrades than top speed upgrades). For further details, see the "Tuning Cars for Multiplayer" section of the Multiplayer League page. For example, decent multiplayer cars around a rank of 1,000 are the Porsche 959, the Range Rover Evoque Coupe HSE Dynamic and, despite being an elite car, the BMW M2. Even if you use another car that is not explicitly defined as a multiplayer car you will gain an advantage over unexperienced users with "mistuned" cars if you have a proper multiplayer tuning that provides a higher speed at a lower rank.
 * Screenshot_20180529-095116.png may have noticed the "Featured Vehicles" button at the bottom left of your multiplayer screen. Contrary to what one might expect, featured cars are NOT necessarily recommended multiplayer cars. The only reason for cars to be featured is when they are on sale. If you use one of the featured cars you'll get an additional race point bonus for your races. So if you already own a featured car AND it is a good multiplayer car AND you have already tuned it for multiplayer races ONLY then go ahead and use it.

Before and after the race
There are two things you can achieve in multiplayer races: a higher rating that results in a higher league with better rewards at the end of the season, and also more race points that will give you many useful rewards already "on the fly" during the season. So, apart from the races themselves, there are several measures you can take in order to improve your chances:


 * Screenshot_20180529-092255.pngBonus race points: Did you notice the "global bonus" sometimes added to your race points? As far as I can say, this bonus changes every two days. The order is: 25, 25, 50, 50, 25, 25, 0, 0 %. In order to obtain the maximum race points you should prefer playing multiplayer races on days with a 50 % bonus and do nothing but collect tickets on the other days (except the required multiplayer race for the daily tasks). You can find out the current bonus percentage by playing the daily tasks multiplayer race and look at the points breakdown at the end of the race. There's a big difference between 45 or only 30 race points for finishing first.
 * Risking race points: If you win a race (in the sense of finished at least fourth, third or whatever your current league requires), risking race points is a nice chance to get even more points if you also win the following race.
 * You should be aware though that you can still get "stuck" in the waiting room with a track that has a delayed start. So if you want to be sure, always save your points.
 * If you want to give it a try you should have already played a few races in order to get a feeling of your opponents and how you perform against them.
 * It helps if you set yourself certain thresholds to start, for example: risk until 100 % bonus is reached, risk until 200 points, then 500 and so on.
 * Also keep an eye on your tickets. Before running out of tickets you should save your race points. Perhaps next time you just want to do a quick race with five barrel rolls because the daily task requires it and don't pay attention to the fact that you still have 1,500 risked race points. Or you just have a bad day and don't perform as usual.
 * Keep in mind that losing your internet connection will cause you to lose the race and your entire risked race points. That's what happened to me once during this season when I was at about 950 risked points. As an exception I chose to keep the points by paying tokens as it cost less tokens than I had already earned.
 * Collecting tickets: On days with 0 % or 25 % global bonus, collect as many tickets as you can:
 * Watch the daily ads. There are 10 per day, and they can sometimes bring you 4 or more tickets.
 * Play the daily tasks; they often reward you with a ticket.
 * Play Events that offer tickets as rewards. Sometimes you even get a ticket just for participating.
 * Log in daily. Usually there are several days per month that grant tickets as a daily login bonus. You can see these days in advance by going to the main screen and choosing My Profile | VIP | Calendar.
 * If you have less than 4 tickets they will also regenerate automatically after a certain time (one ticket every two hours), but never more than 4.
 * Before you watch the daily ads or claim event rewards that grant a ticket, always have a look how many tickets you have. If you have less than 4: Wait until they have regenerated. Otherwise tickets from events or daily ads might be in vain. For example, if you have 1 ticket, get 1 ticket from an event and 2 from daily ads you'll have 4 in the end (as automatic regeneration never exceeds 4 tickets). But if you wait six hours until your tickets have regenerated you'll have 7 tickets: 4 regenerated and 3 from the event and daily ads.

The race: getting started
Now that you've collected some tickets, multiplayer tuned your car and waited for a day with a 50 % global bonus, it's time to race! Just make sure that you pay attention to these last tips: 1: Vehicles owned. The most useful information. The more cars an opponent has the more likely it is that he has a car that can compete with you or beat you. See more detailed information in the following point "Vehicles owned". 2: Level. This is the multiplayer experience level which increases with the XP points you earn when you beat opponents. 99 is the highest level you can reach. An opponent with a high XP level is not necessarily a dangerous opponent, as you can have 40 cars, do a lot of low rank D class races and reach level 99 just by the multitude of your multiplayer races. 3: Achievements unlocked. While the multiplayer XP level is an indicator of how active the player is in multiplayer races, this figure shows how active the player is in general. A very low number might indicate an unexperienced opponent easy to beat.
 * Boosters: Go double boosted (nitro starter and tuning kit) whenever possible, especially if you have risked race points. The higher the league, to more probable it is that the first places are all occupied by racers with at least double boosted cars.
 * Free boosters vs. ad boosters: Always use those boosters first that you can get by watching ads (five per day). Ad boosters give you +1 race, regardless when you start it, whereas free boosters give you +10/15 minutes. As you may want to leave the waiting room in order to avoid bad tracks and wait for better ones, much of a time oriented booster would be wasted while waiting and doing nothing. With a race oriented booster you can wait for a good track without getting nervous.
 * Race mode: When you join the waiting room, choose quickly: Classic or Infected, not Elimination. Your chances are better in long races as you can "heal" a possible delayed start or mistakes you made during the race. Elimination is the opposite of a long race.
 * Track: Choose quickly. Avoid Patagonia, The Great Wall and Tokyo as they still have significant delays and, of course, avoid tracks you aren't good at. When there's no acceptable track available, leave the room and come back again.
 * Laps: Always choose 3 laps. As stated above, long races are less risky than short ones. Even when you have used up your race oriented ad boosters, stay with 3 laps. If a few other racers vote for a 1 lap race, your 3 laps choice will most likely raise the average to a 2 laps race. Besides, longer races grant more credits.
 * Leaving the room: As more racers enter the room, keep an eye on the chosen track and the red back button at the upper left of the screen. If the track changes to an unacceptable one and you see that a majority has voted for it, leave the room while the back button is still active. Worst case scenario: Location has changed to a horrible track, laps have changed to 1, back button is disabled and the timer is counting down ("Race starts in [...] seconds"). Even in this case you can still go back with the hardware back button of your Android device, but you will lose the ticket.
 * Screenshot_20180605-131343.pngKnow your enemy: Have a look at your opponents by tapping on their names. You can't see the cars they'll drive, but you can still deduct a lot from the given information. Here's what it would look like if I was in the room and you tapped on my name:
 * Vehicles owned: There are certain thresholds during the game which indicate the experience and skills of a player judged by the number of vehicles she/he owns. Assuming that you have a Porsche 959 or a Range Rover with a rank of about 1,000, here are some hints:
 * Less than 40 cars: No danger. Most likely drives a Chevrolet Camaro GS, a BMW M1 or a less powerful car. Sometimes a Renault DeZir can be a challenge if it leads by more than 15 seconds, but you can usually beat it.
 * 40–80 cars: Might have a Porsche 959 (14 common blueprints) or a Range Rover (token car). Expect some competition.
 * 80–120 cars: Almost surely uses a Porsche 959, a Range Rover or a BMW M2. Driver has very likely already participated in some Championships, has developed skills and knows shortcuts. Expect fierce competition.
 * 120–160 cars: Driver most probably was already there when the Audi R8 SE R&D took place and will drive it in this race. You will lose. If there is only one of these players, you can still do the race and get some points.
 * 160–200 cars or above: A veteran who has seen it all. Most probably drives an Audi R8 SE at this rank and is in Pro or Champion League. But: Go ahead! Usually the player's rating is so high that you'll get points anyway, no matter if you lose against her/him.

Conclusion
The situation is much better now. Although there are still some tracks with delays it's mostly possible to perform almost normal multiplayer races. Risking race points has become an option again, but you should be careful.

This time I was able to reach Pro Leage and finished with a rating of 1,685. For those among you who own a multiplayer tuned Vanda Electrics Dendrobium: Try it! I switched from my trusty Range Rover after doing a series of non-ticketed races with the Dendrobium and I'm very satisfied with its performance.

And as mentioned above, there are two types of rewards for multiplayer races. Besides the league rewards I could reach 7,831 race points which resulted in a considerable amount of rewards: So go ahead, play multiplayer races, improve your skills, collect some rewards and have fun!
 * 28 Pro Kit Cards
 * 1 Free Class D Upgrade
 * 1 Nitro Starter
 * 5 Tuning Kits
 * 1 Extra Tank
 * 14 Season Tickets
 * 4 Decals
 * 14 Season Tickets
 * 4 Decals