Averaging WRs to find fastest countries
3 years ago
United Kingdom

For my own amusement I put together a sheet that contains all the WRs (not rain) across all the tracks, to see which countries are on average the fastest. Take a look here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dC0FwaaGRfirqz52ubPe7kDfN2vFMgcQc7a_XFH1S5U/edit?usp=sharing

The take away is though, that some countries are way faster than others. Here's the final averages:

Countries Averages Norway 02:10.091 Finland 02:18.096 Sardinia 02:38.962 Japan 03:05.355 Germany 03:16.485

So Norway and Finland are super fast, and Japan and Germany are super slow.

Franky_M, cadenthecorvid and 4 others like this
United Kingdom

That'd be very useful for any Career Mode world record attempts, especially at a point where resetting wouldn't cost much, i.e. the first rally of the run.

Good work

Canada

Since we've had the Kenya update let me add some info here that I use.

Firstly regarding Murtags post, its super useful. I just want to add that Norway has a lot of 2 min tracks which give it its low average but Finland has 2 tracks that are around 1:30 so with good rng Finland is the fastest region. Norway has 1 track you want to avoid and Finland has 2.

Now some stand out tracks

Sardinia - San Gavino Monreal - 1:40 (gr.2) Germany - Hockweiler - 2:10 (gr.2) Kenya - Lake Nakuru - 1:40 (gr.2)

If you are in a rally with only 3 stages and you get one of these twice it could be way faster then reseting for a better region.

Kenya, without the the special case above, averages at 3:15 (my gr.3 times averaged)

Iowa, USA

Hi! I've updated this sheet with fancy formatting and re-adjusted times. Additionally, I added Indonesia.

The Key Findings:

  • Norway, Finland, and Indonesia are the best
  • Kenya is the worst, Germany close second
  • Sardinia is okay, not the end of the world
  • Hockweiler in Germany is good
  • Lake Nakuru in Kenya is really fast

I have a lot of conditional formatting and color coding for anyone interested. I spent... more time than I would like to admit creating this updated sheet.

I opted against using the absolute WR on any stage because during a career run, (unless you're crazy), I doubt you are driving on the absolute limit. There are many runs where the WR is several seconds ahead of even 10th place. As such, I opted to choose times in the 6th-10th place range to provide a more reasonable comparison. I essentially looked for substantial jumps in time difference and placed them near there. I also used some of Turbo's runs when I saw them pop up in the top 10.

Link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QdVO2E-JtciWCU_xkIAPJ7L9z7dbcnSnYbb0Vjb3Ei8/edit?usp=sharing

Edited by the author 1 year ago
Franky_M, MxCraven, and turboxjp like this
France

Thank you all, this thread has been very helpful for my first few Career mode attempts.

My own conclusions, based on a few group 2 & 3 attempts:

  • Japan is almost never worth playing if it can be avoided.
  • Kenya is usually a bad idea, unless it's a short rally and you get only lake nakuru / ndere island. The 4 other stages are run killers in the lower classes.
  • Germany is pretty much on par with Kenya. Don't let the short stage lure you, getting any of the long ones will offset any gains tenfold.
  • Sardinia is... not that good either. It's only got two desirable stages, vs. three you want to avoid.
  • Finland is great except for two stages you want to avoid (one bad, one really bad).
  • Norway is amazing. Even its worst stage is in the sub-3 min range.
  • Indonesia has the best potential (shortest stage in the game + 2 short stages), but also a couple stages you're never happy to see (mount kawi especially).

The key take-away, for me: you need to be able to recognize stage pictures in the loading screen at first glance. It's gonna be a key factor in deciding whether to play a rally or not, more so than the country in some cases. 4-stage Indonesia rally, mount kawi twice? Discard. 3-stage Germany with 2x hockweiler & 1x gonnesweiler. Worth playing. My only absolute no-brainers are Norway (always play) and Japan (always skip).

For speedrunning purposes, I wish we still had the old loading screen with the full stage list in plain text. The pictures do look nice but it's easy to mistake one for another (plus you don't see all 5 & the weather info is missing).

mostcallmeliz, KeelBilledToucan and 2 others like this
United Kingdom

My advice for the last bit about not being able to see the pictures is make your hud smaller, I'm only on a 1080p monitor and I can see 5 stages on load-up. But yes, wish we had at least the option to have the list.

Iowa, USA

Yeah I was getting better about identifying which stage is which. And, yeah, Japan, Germany and Kenya are (mostly) instant run killers, Sardinia is somewhere in between but usually best to reset if you just started a run, Finland and Indonesia is usually an instant play unless you have mount kawi, and Norway can basically always be done.

domer and Franky_M like this
Iowa, USA

I updated the spreadsheet again, and it shows that Australia is similar to Sardinia as far as stage times go (currently)

The sheet again: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QdVO2E-JtciWCU_xkIAPJ7L9z7dbcnSnYbb0Vjb3Ei8/edit?usp=sharing

turboxjp and MxCraven like this