I'm not sure what's worse; your reading comprehension, or the fact that you thought a tuning trick that no longer applies to the game physics would prove your point.
Who? Me?
So is staying in a comfort zone and not spreading wings to experience something different, especially if it's more difficult than what that person is currently doing.
Why find out your tune sucks compared to the competition when you can just live happily ever after thinking you're awesome.
You don't need to use/try other's setups to know this, quite often, from racing and looking at how other's cars are behaving, their tyre wear and laptimes throughout the race can tell you a hell of alot.
I never said this theory was the best, or "awesome" - all I've ever done is said that it works, which it did, for a long time until 2.08 & 2.09 came along.
Reason for being so volitile is because I know what I was doing was proven time and time again to work in a more difficult environment (compared to the the enviroment the people giving me grief were used to), by many people who weren't my friends or members. So their views were impartial
Yet I had to put up with so many mariokart racers on here who didn't have a clue about tuning and setups because they wouldn't leave their offline comfort zone where almost "anything" 'worked' and try to understand the far more difficult 'world' of balancing setups online, for all cars in all situations, without the use of glitches like max/min ride heights and 'cheat' tuning with ballast being used as a quick fix to get balance.
Funny, I thought this was a racing game.
Yep, and pre 2.08/2,09 some people did actual racing that meant factors like tyre wear were just as important, if not more so, than laptimes.
Many websites would organise their racing so that you would need to take this into account with either your driving or setup for each race.
By "maxing" out a setup or setting up for laptime alone, you'd have no tyres left for the last part of the race, meaning you needed to pit. Those who paced themselves or built a better all round balanced setup, would simply keep on going and have no need for a pit stop, easily beating the "faster" guys who did have to pit.
Even if the faster guys didn't have to pit, their laptimes would be significantly reduced near the end of the race and this would expose and exaggerate problems with their setups - meaning greater chance of very costly mistakes.
Whereas those setups tuned for race distance and balance, meant the drop in laptime and car balance/grip was far less, so at the end of the race these guys could still be putting in fast laps, safely and consistently.
Pre 2.08 - building setups for ALL cars in the game, that are balanced and consistent throughout the tyre life of the car, online, was a hell of alot more difficult than just putting in a setup for a hot lap(s) offline.
Low tyres, especiallly if a setup was out of balance, could cause cars to become almost undriveable online.
Which is why laptimes were irrelevant, getting your car sorted for race distance (not 3 lap / 5 minute races) was far more important.
Did they copy each other? No, they were presented with the same car/track/tire combination and arrived at similar interpretations because that intepretation works for that car and they are both good tuners so it makes perfect sense that they would. A couple of small changes here and there and the majority of their suspension setup would be nearly identical.
Yes..
But when someone is trying something they ADMIT they CAN'T do, then come up with something very similiar to what someone who CAN do - that's a whole different situation.
Look at the attempts of tuning online by those who couldn't tune online, setups were so diverse, completely all over the place.
So to come up with something very similiar as someone who could tune online - that isn't a coincidence.
Reason why I don't bother with these competitions in this sub forum - because they have always been flawed - biggest example being "steering sensitivity" not being taken into account for so long.
One of the most obvious factors why a setup will work for one guy but not for another.
Add to this "driving style", 'planted' guys hate 'loose' setups and vica versa and just for good measure - look at the huge differences between groups of similiar cars (in terms of 'feel', balance/grip and speed), then anyone who knows about ethics in testing would shake their head in disbelief these factors had not been recognised from day 1 in these "tests".
Lastly, the attitude - when I first wrote about my theory I did so on different websites, only here on GTP did I get attitude and grief. Some guys were cool about it, others weren't.
I offered to show the theory to anyone, I offered everyone the opportunity to experience this - only NOMIS and RJ from here accepted the invite and spent time in my lobby talking about the theory.
Others just kept giving out the giref.
Why would anyone want to setup shop in an enviroment like that? So I went elsewhere where people were alot more accomodating and where the theory was far more relevant - online in organised racing, until the last 2 updates.
Proof - speak to the people who left GTP and went to other websites who used this for the past year.
Maybe you should be asking how come so many people doing organised online racing avoided this Sub forum, and still choose to do so.
There are hundreds, of not thousands of GT sites out there, some real gems with VERY good racers and tuners on them - yet, they all refuse to come to this sub-forum, allfor the same reason too.
Judging by my experience of this sub forum, it's easy to see why.
And if any of you lot could be bothered to take off your blinkers and spread your wings, you'll see for yourself.
But that's never gonna happen is it?
Far too easy to stick together and gang up on anyone coming here that tries
to show the Brave New World that lives outside this sub forum.
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Mostly with the part about copying and finding your own interpretations. The number of tuning variables that work is pretty limited, especially when you consider the variables that have major effects on the car. Combine that with tuners that have similar equipment and there will always be a tendency in a large enough group that tuning variables will tend to congregate in a very limited range and thus it can often appear that someone is "copying" someone else when in fact they just independently arrived at the same result. 
