READ HERE About 1.0 multiplayer structure

I just want to race in cool GT3 cars against others or AI. Thats the only thing I thought when ACC was announced for EA. Still very happy that I did. had some nice races online, had some great fun with a mate of mine in endurance races against ai. can't wait till the 29th of may. Can't we all just get along and settle our differences on the track and let the HP do the talking.

 

I don't get you. At all.

You first made the big mistake of claiming to speak for "most of us".
Then you criticize the claimed absence of an online career. When the rating numbers are exactly that - an "on- and offline career" that tracks your skills, wins, losses, crashes and clean overtakes.
You ask "But for what." I say: for taking pride in the good ratings you have and the possibility to enter highly restricted races for an even better experience. What else do you want for it - money or an announcement in your local newspaper?

You say causing carnage in an MP race in T1 will have no consequence. But it does, so clearly: you damage your ratings! The ratings ARE your long term goal, making you feel proud and allowing you to access highly restricted races.

 

If they just stated what is coming it would all be easier

No clue how you can have such a SA rating, i race exclusively Online and it's night impossible to raise SA in most servers, i did post a video about that before. Or maybe it's all a matter of luck and ending in the right rooms, or farming enough SA points offline to get around clean guys.

 

"No competitive Matchmaking" is some terminology you came up with all by yourself and you can't possibly prove that your opinion is generally right. The matchmaking is there - you only have to chose the topmost servers of the list.

"Everyone is waiting for that" is again totally personal and an invalid point.

 

Actually acing against the AI is so much better that I expected, I hated racing against the aaaaaaaaaai AC. The AI in ACC is very good

 

some battles are very intense against AI. At times I follow them for a few laps just to see how they defend, it's epic to watch how they block the inside line

 

Try harder - it might be you. I currently have 78 SA. I had 85 but after some performance benchmark runs with AI (I tend to drive sloppy, here) and some unlucky MP races it has dropped to 78.
I'm currently improving very slowly on the SA because it requires you to drive in very close proximity to other cars.

Think ahead: the system improves and you have MP races against people who have very similar pace to yours - you'll end up in very close and long-lasting battles that will give you a huge TRUST boost and increase your SA.

 

It was most likely an honest oversight, compounded by that fact that there is no universal definition of the term 'matchmaking'.
I took some flak earlier (and pissed off the friendly YouTuber that posts here) for having a different impression of what matchmaking meant - not because I'm ignorant, but primarily because I don't play the AAA titles that popularized the concept (my library consists of racing, flight and space sims for PC only).

So yes - an honest oversight that is being construed as deceit and lies to suit a certain agenda.
I only today noticed the text on the multiplayer screen below - which is pretty much a clear indication of what the developers originally intended with the term 'matchmaking'.

 

Yes @jaxx_za ; I saw that last night myself.

 

SA is not RC.
I could have 90+ SA and be 10s slower than the aliens. So how will I be matched with people of my pace when there is no server split? Fast and slow drivers will still be on the same server at the same time. And if there will be an RC restriction, then still fast and slow racers will be on the same server at the same time. That's no matchmaking for me.

 

^^^
This.

Perhaps it's just luck, perhaps is luck and something else.
I can race with other drivers with a gap between 0,2 to 0,3 seconds, when braking to a corner the gap can be 0.1 or less while we try to create the opportunity for an overtake. I even have a case with other driver where we made almost a complete lap side by side, with the car behind us within less than a second. Do this often and without a single touch and I guarantee you'll see your SA raising when racing online. It helps also to avoid the other cars, either when overlapping, overtaking, or simply taking action to avoid those that can have an accident or an out of track incursion.

 

why is that not match making? if al the numbers add up for everyone.
if the field is as good as the numbers tell us, slow guys are aware of the faster guys (especially in endurance racing) and the faster guys should be able to cope with the slower ones. That is the cool part of the BlancPain series.

 

SA will improve if you're racing close to other cars, not racing 10 seconds apart, or 5 or 3 or 2. Close racing is being close, within 0.5 seconds or less, for as long as possible, preferable for the entire race length and without crashing or tapping the other driver.

 

What I don't get is why servers and traffic is a problem with all those empty servers sitting there? (OT can you make font for 0/24 bigger, my eyes are not what they used to be? ;-) )

Obviously money and computer power is there, so make some use of it.

Why not having 2 parallel lines with normal pick up and the second one with "partnered servers".
So players have an option to look through suggested server list or press the magic button, to get to promised land.
Partnered servers agree to let be controlled for certain amount of hours per day by "Matchmaking system" when Kunos servers are filled and need for additional races arises.
In return they can have an honor to host some official championship races where server name is part of winning championship name.

And please give people some official races and standings, seems some people need to measure with others to see who's the best.

 

In terms of the developers' intent, if you look through the blog posts regarding multiplayer (0.3, 0.6 and 0.7), they explain how they enjoyed the success of the multiplayer system used in AC1, and decided that expansions made upon that system (in this case, the ratings and server filtering) would help constitute the "advanced" portion of multiplayer.


In terms of expanding the multiplayer and introducing an official competitive element, would it be possible to use community servers to help host official races, while also giving them a way to advertise their community?

For example, give server configurations two more options:
- isServerOfficial: with values 0 or 1, to represent a server admins interest in hosting official races
- serverAnnouncement: with a string value that gets posted into the game chat at a preset interval (this interval should not be adjustable by admins to prevent spamming), which could be used to advertise the admins community/discord/league/channel/etc.

Using these, would it be possible to create "Official Race" Events that players can register for, then once the event is supposed to start players return to the event page, click "Join" and get placed in one of the registered servers alongside similarly skilled drivers?
From there it's a matter of communicating (or giving) to registered server admins the exact configuration expected to be run for these events (track, weather, session lengths, etc.).

Ideally this would eventually be structured into a proper championship, though if multiple splits are required I wouldn't know the best method of balancing points scoring at that point.

If this system were to be implemented, it's important to allow players to show off their success in these areas beyond just the rating system; since the ratings have virtually no appearance to other players except for the Pro/Pro-Am/Am tags, something more needs to be done there to offer players another way to make themselves more distinct. Simply giving a player ratings with no direct way to compare them to other drivers outside of the current tags isn't ideal IMO.

 

Maybe you get this.
Just an example of something more motivating.

iRacing:
You want to take part on a 12 weeks season in a GT3? Prove that you are able to race a little bit fair by getting licenses.
Start with the MX5, make your way up, then you can join the championship. After 12 weeks you get the result and you know your ranking between the other players. During the season you are automatically matched with drivers of your pace.

ACC:
Start game very first time, chose any unrated server. Drive a race and that's it.
Compete this race with guys 4s faster and 4s slower than you. Lap drivers that join midrace, if you are lucky they let you pass, if not, they hit you. Expect half of the starting drivers leave the race before the end.
But it doesn't matter, there are no points to earn at the end of the race. Nothing.
But you can collect SA, if you are lucky and don't get hit at T1.
With high SA you can choose a server to drive a race that also gets no points at the end, just nothing. Race is finished and that's it.

 

Yes, that is my meaning. On a server are driver with different paces. Many drivers drive a lonely race. 5s in front and behind no other driver, because of a high variaty of pace. Most of my 20 to 45 minute races I have one or two fights for some laps, then somebody makes a mistake or gets hit by a lapped muppet and that's it. No other cars in reach.

 

Irating is a hell of a drug.

And btw, you don't have to prove anything in iracing in order to drive whatever car you want; if you have the time you can go from rookie to A class simply by time trialing. (which is simply making clean laps on your own, pace is irrelevant)

That describes most of my races on iracing. The year I ran the 2.4 hours of Daytona I was in split 8 of 22 or so; within ten minutes I couldn't see the guy in front of me or the guy behind me. I did end up winning, so that was cool, but other than getting out of the way of the Daytona Prototypes (I was in the Mustang) I spent the majority of the race lapping by myself.

----
Real racing generally gets pretty spread out also, pretty much just part of the deal. And Minolin did show that the server browser list can be configured to show servers at the top of the list in which the average lap time is closest to your own.

 

Ah, that's a reason why matchmaking with friends can be very interesting. Friends are usual people you know how they drive, what pace they have, often close to yours, so you want to race with them. I already know some (good guys) here from the forums with whom I know for certain how the race will be and it will be good.

But I must be truly lucky.
Currently I'm racing less online, mainly due to have reverted to my old FOV and I'm crossing my fingers waiting v1.0 comes with support for TrackIR, but a couple of days ago I went online, entered an unrestricted server (Major Tom or Mr.Git, sorry don't remember which, but one of the two), and raced for 30 minutes continuously chasing the first place in close racing, just here and there with a small gap increase when overlapping other cars, which where all very correct with me.
Sometimes I do have a gap for the other cars but more often than not I find drivers with whom I can have close racing and I'm not even trying to find them.

 

For me personally, that is one reason to ONLY consider ACC as serious online racing sim. I held off on iRacing until now and i will further, as i'm not prepared to pay for all the crappy stuff iRacing has (watching many different Youtubers driving iRacing, i think i'm fairly confident in knowing what kind of flaws iRacing has and i personally am not on board for that).
As i'm "just" average middle field speed wise but rather consistent and "clean", races can either get very lonely, tedious or just impossible by being crashed out. A combination of Safety Rating and avg lap times and some kind of indicator would be pretty much perfect IMHO. Because it gives you many opportunities and scales with you. If you get faster and your SR is good, you can "jump" up the que...

But, i think it should be possible to connect those, meaning you can improve on your SR offline.