How to loBOTomize

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dbuck01
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How to loBOTomize

Many of us that have been at this for a while will remember that dumbing the bots used to be as simple as quitting a race, hitting retry, and repeating the process as you watch the times/distances drop. Then, a while back that quit working. I've seen various posts address this but still didn't have any knowledge of what actually worked and I still had a lot of confusion about which series, what techniques, etc. I don't have all the answers here but I will share what I observed today. 

I have, for no reason other than to "play it safe", been finishing races with a minimal winning margin for quite a while (sandbagging). And lately, out of sheer boredom, taken to slowing down the field in various ways. Usually by PIT-ing the leading bots as they near, blocking the entire field on tight corners, and just running them off the track whenever it is convenient to do so. This has resulted in the bots being quite slow overall. However, I recently ran maybe 20-30 races, online, against very fast friends and random TSM players, and had to run closer to my true pace to win. The next day every race I entered was filled with speed demons and very difficult times/distances. The bots were fast and aggressive and I was having difficulty winning at all. 

I decided to figure out what was going on and ran over 100 events, systematically trying different tactics and taking note. Here are a few things I observed that worked for slowing the bots as well as some general advice:

-only race offline when possible to avoid random fast players being chosen

-I unfriended everyone I had in Game Center (you can avoid this by signing out and playing as Guest but it was too inconsistent and too much hassle for me). Almost all of them had garages full of max upgrade cars and I don't. 

-as previously stated, only win by the bare minimum and use above techniques to slow the average speed of the field. 

-what doesn't work AT ALL: entering a race/quit/retry. No changes to dozens of subsequent retries. 
-entering a race/quit/continue/retry. The bots will constantly change around and the times will fluctuate a bit up and down but they will not get slower (even after dozens of attempts and trying every combination of quitting at first red light, second red, after green, way after green, etc.). I've got the screenshots to prove it...

-what DOES work: (offline, with only standard bots loaded such as Darknezz/Jack Knife/Modesto)
find an autocross and run the race making sure you are slower than the 7th place bot. Hit continue and let the game cycle (don't hit Retry). Repeat. Keep repeating. Take note of the times as they gradually drop. At some point you should see the slowest bots (Moyses Gabby/Rosamund/TurnipAge/etc.) I had similar results both by losing by a few seconds as well as letting it sit there for a minute or longer. It doesn't seem to matter much. 
-This also worked by doing the same process on Speed Snaps, coasting over the finish well under the target time. Again, don't retry. Hit continue and let it cycle and then repeat. 

I imagine this would work on Cups and Eliminations but once I got the result I was looking for I didn't continue testing. 

IMPORTANT-the dumbing effect may not "transfer" from one series to another. I haven't tested this thoroughly but it seems that you may have to dumb in each series or tier individually. 

I dont claim that this will be the case for everyone, on every device, in every situation but it worked for me. Btw, I'm on an iPad 2, latest iOS and rr3 4.5.1

To give some context, here is a synopsis of what I did to lead me to the content in this post:

-ran lots of races, both online and offline, using above mentioned dumbing tactics against very slow bots (mostly R34/M3 GTS Exclusive series, FXX K series, and Jag Lightweight series)
-ran online at full pace against fast competition 
-returned to previous series the next day to find slow bots replaced by speed demons
-tested various combinations of quit/retry, losing cups and speed snaps/records in Exclusive series
-went to Ameteur Pro Stock 1.2 Autocross with Silvia and began losing/watching times drop
-returned to Exclusive series and tried again; bots were slower but not fully stupid
-used sandbagging techniques on subsequent races in this series and they slowed right down back to full stupid again (mainly M3 Exclusive 5.1 Autocross) I tracked 15 consecutive races here and the winning time dropped consistently from 22.1 seconds to 27.5 seconds. 
-entered Hellcat event and bots were still slow and could be slowed even further by losing autocross and speed snaps

The race I used to test the quit/retry procedure was the Exclusive series Skyline, 5.1 Autocross. 
I did it 65 times (!!) and darknezz/StayFrosty/MiceorMan shuffled around the top 3 always between 22.175 and 23.009. 

Good luck and please let me know if this does or doesn't work for you. 

 
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