Old Time Wipeout'er, New Time Onliner

[Xzal]

Been playing Wipeout for years offline, recently grabbed the HD freebie from the Welcome Back pack and went online.

For the most part its almost exactly the same as it used to be and online isn't much different from off, but I have been having trouble with a few things:

1. Lobby Abuse. Lately I've found people setting up lobbies as one race type and once everyone is in, switching gametype with very short start timers. Very irritating as I despise Extermination mode.

2. Is there any tips on how to deal with "Bully" racers? By bully racers I mean ones who have no intention of racing or fighting to win, just to knock some players down..

Quite recently Because of my almost pacifistic race style (I rarely use weapons like some of the more aggressive racers) I quite often find myself being targeted by weapons. Weapons is fair enough but my big gripe is the bullies that 'Grind'.

They'll sidle up next to you on a corner and use you as bouncing pads or grind you into a wall until you either wipeout or are weakenough to be wipedout by someone else further on.

Like I said I don't mind the racers who do this then go on to win, but lately it seems to be players who despise my style of racing which consistently get me podium and do everything they can to remove that chance even at the cost of them coming last.

[Sausehuhn]

People changing game modes and press start directly afterwars are annoying indeed. Especially when there’s really no time to leave the race at all. It’s also a bit sad that the host can directly start the race without having to wait – let’s say five seconds – so people can decide whether to stay the race or leave.
Also that WOHD does not highlight changed game aspects with symbols being red or something.
But: After doing one race you can notice very fast if the host is a fair player or someone you better don’t play with.

Same goes for ramming; if the room is too full and you see yourself beeing spammed by weapons and ships crashing into you, you better leave. It’s even worse with Eliminator: Races with more than five or six people are barely fun anymore, especially on the shorter tracks. Sadly you cannot determine the number of players for a race, nor which weapons being available (an 8-player match often results in pure quake desasters).

So: What to do?
Best way is to play with friends only or setting up races only a real fan base would enter. Turning off the pilot assists on Phantom often results in games with fair players for example. Same goes for weapon tips off.

[Xzal]

Aye I've taken to doing that but thanks to the either inexperience of some or just the sheer desire to have Ram-Games, I find it takes a very long time to attract people to Phantom No Weapon races.
Friends only would be a nice option, but I don't have many friends in rl that have the patience for wipeout and theres only so much self gimping you can do without coming across as "bighead" :/ Part of the reason I joined these forums, that. I heard theres a ladder here
As for pilot-assist.. how can people use it? xD it cuts out a lot of decent trackwork, not counting the spazzing it causes on narrow track sections xD
Just keep going I guess ;P

[greenymac]

Hey xzal, nice to meet you! If you need more people on your friends list who arent into ramming ad really just wana be good pilots, you can give me an add on PSN. Im usually racing with other players who are focused on speed and improving. We do have weapons races of course but the item usage is usually by necessity and not just to litter the track with foreign objects. Usually we do a few weapons on races and then some off to mix it up. Also if you have acces to a pc or laptop while on your PS3 you can join us in the IRC chatroom and chat with other racers or just come to hang out and talk with other pilots in general, some new like you some intermediate racers and some really awesome racers. Heres the thread on how to get there.
http://www.wipeoutzone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8180

Fly High and hope to see you online!

[blackwiggle]

With the influx of new players getting the game for free, notice I said players, not racers or pilots, you are going to get people that treat Wipeout as a shooter.
Can't do anything about that and I doubt they will stick around long enough to learn how to race, so it's only going to be a blip in Wipeout history.

Same with those who don't have the gumption to realize that they are annoying the hell out of people when they change race settings, there's a element of false advertising going on with some of these new people just so they can get their room filled quickly.

With ramming, well you've got a couple of things that can make this worse.

One is other people using pilot assist and not knowing the tracks, so pilot assist is bouncing them off the side walls and into you.
You can always spot a somebody using PA by them zig zagging across the tracks

Second is online lag, your crashing into craft that from your perspective are not there, but the collision detection lag makes it seem like they are.

Thirdly, and this is my own personal opinion, is that the choice of view you choose to race with [Near, Far, Internal] can make ramming easier for some than it is for others, easier for those who use external views. [ There's been many a heated debate here about if ramming is a legitimate race tactic]

[Augmentator]

Outta curiosity, what's considered "disrespectful" online racing? I would figure turning around just to screw with the leader, or a team of players targeting one player is on that list.

[helgso]

Also if you have acces to a pc or laptop while on your PS3 you can join us in the IRC chatroom and chat with other racers or just come to hang out and talk with other pilots in general, some new like you some intermediate racers and some really awesome racers. Heres the thread on how to get there.
http://www.wipeoutzone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8180

Fly High and hope to see you online!

There's something up with that topic's link. I can't access it. Why?

[Qgstkpnjtp]

You should be able to access it now. The Pilot's Lounge requires 5 posts to view, and the thread Greeny linked to was moved there.