Public replays - feedback!

[dreadnaut]

Lifting this thread up, I'd like to hear some feedback about the public replays in the 2015 season

Professionals up there on the scoreboard: did your strategy change a lot? did you wait two weeks before looking at the track, or raced for the LTB points?

Newbies and fellow slower pipsquaks   was it helpful to see replays earlier during the pipsqueak or did you just ignore them? was it helpful to start and discover tricks, or stuff was impossible anyway?

And what about 2016? Do you want them gone, or do you have any tweaks to the formula to suggest?

[Akoss Poo a.k.a. Zorromeister]

It makes the situation interesting when you are about to earn some Leading Time Bonus. Upload it or not? A really good pipsqueak must deal with the situation well. Sometimes it is worthy to hide the replay (like Duplode on last track), sometimes it is worthy to go for the +2 LTB and see what happens (like /me on ZCT 166 Indy track by Cas)...

[zaqrack]

I think this was one of the most interesting and successful rule changes from the past several years. It really adds some strategy aspect to the game, the battle for LTB happens more often, and as an ultimate result now there is serious activity on the track at least twice per month - as opposed to one in the latest years.

I almost never check the published replays as I really just race for fun - checking my teammates' replays is usually enough help, so cannot comment on this aspect but am curious to hear opinion from others.

[Duplode]

What Akoss and Zak said, basically: the extra strategic element is quite interesting, and racing activity being more evenly distributed along the month is a major gain. I am also curious about what the less experienced pipsqueaks have to say on how helpful public replays actually are.

[Shoegazing Leo]

This factor and the car bonuses are good to make a more intelligent race, with more strategics.

[Cas]

I definitely agree that it's a lot better than just making replays always public or always not-public. But there exist other possibilities that would be worth testing, such as, for example, instead of a public time and a non-public time, make all replays non-public for a number of days, say, 10 days. So, if you post a replay at the beginning of the race, nobody will be able to see it until 10 days later. If you want to make sure nobody will see your replay until the race is over, just post it when the race is less than 10 days to end.
This is just one thing that could be done. There are so many other possibilities. I don't say change it, but it'd be good to sit to consider all the possible combinations before starting the next year. Maybe there's a new amazing idea, just to keep on adding new spices

[alanrotoi]

I think it's useful to reach a higher competitivity but in my current personal situation I must use the "waiting 2 weeks" strategy.