Incentive for all players to increase their ratings

It seems that the biggest challenge for any online rating system is to encourage it's utilisation. People want to join the fullest servers which are often unranked naturally as these are available to the maximum number of potential players and thus will usually fill up first.
This could lead to a number of players with no regard to the ratings, with the consequence being that they will generally always have access to the busiest servers. In turn the general etiquette of these open servers will diminish.
Is there a way to encourage safe driving for everyone, even those resigned to using open servers?

Some of my ideas;
Limit grid numbers in unrated servers - players would need to achieve some rating to access larger grids.

Implement maximum ratings to unrated servers - safer drivers would be forced to use the rated servers and so these would become the most populated.

Dynamic ratings - allow servers a non static rating which can vary after a certain population is reached. Admins could use custom parameters to help attract players, then reward higher ratings with exclusive access once the grid is big enough.

Give priority access when an unrated server is full - allow the lowest ranked or rated drivers to be booted out of any full unrated server when any higher rated player tries to join. This could be made possible up to a specific time, 3 minutes remaining in quali for example. It would encourage all drivers to pay at least some heed to their ratings so as not to risk being expelled from full servers. Also new or dirty drivers would be best served to hone their skills elsewhere, either in single player or less populated servers. The longer such a server remained populated the cleaner it would become, rather than just attracting a rotation of unsafe drivers without regard for consequence. Anyone could still avoid being at risk by achieving a rating and not using open servers, or simply avoiding near full servers until they have a decent rating.

Any thoughts?

 

Errrr, no. You don't punish people because they don't wanna join the server you want.

Here's how you solve it. Ready?

Real Matchmaking. You select an event, the system automatically put players together with similar ratings.

Done.

 

Good ideas, I like 1st and 2nd, grid number limit and max SA. For beginners there would be more space with less drivers to learn, and more experienced drivers would be naturally steered towards higher SA requirement servers.

 

Hi,
it seems to me very interesting the point 1, one could do for example:
SA <= 50 max 10 pilots
SA>50 max 14 pilots
SA>60 max 18 pilots
SA>70 max 22 pilots
SA>80 max 26 pilots
SA>90 max 30 pilots
In this way beginners would start racing races where with few pilots the risk of accidents would be even smaller while the SA increases and the safer it is to run with prepared pilots especially with large grids.
If I wasn't clear it's google translator's fault.

 

Good stuff Max.
I keep thinking that racing on an unrated server should not affect your rating. But if every server was open and didn't track driver performance there would be no need for the system.

It seems to me that if you make every server have at least some rating qualifications you would spread out the talent enough to give everyone a server to race on most of the time.

 

This...

Or just make any server run by default lets say 50 SA requirements... so who ever wants to play online they will have to do couple of AI races to play multiplayer.

But it amazes me how people alwyas ***** about they want fair racing even on public servers you can read in chat people arguing all the time but they still would not go to SA rated server..

 

Some good ideas mate however the issue for someone like me is my location. At best there is only ever 2 servers that I can join that have a decent amount of numbers and even then my ping is not so great so to limit this even more could be an issue for me. That is why I am very interested in the Ai development. To be honest in this EA phase I would have preferred to see a lot more servers that just had one lengthy practice session. Particularly at Monza. This tames the ego of many and you can still find a nice little battle from time to time if need be once you link up with drivers on your skill level. Even though I am guilty of this myself and when I do I am extremely cautious not to get in the way, I would certainly lock out drivers from joining a race once that has already started or joining qualifying in the last 30 seconds etc... For me this causes so many issues.

 

Ah yes true, agree. I was only looking at the the point of view "how can we populate the servers with SA requirement".

Maybe we just need official server (or servers depending how the player count increases) with daily/weekly rotational track (zolder server has been great, but..). Some variation after the release please

 

Dont we already have one? The system suggests you servers depending on your preferences and level. Just pick one of the first suggested! I think it works quite well already

Edit: and the best part: you have a choice, not forced to some automatically, can see where your friends are etc. Really like it

 

I would add having special event servers or/and longer race sessions servers (1h and plus) with high SA (+80) required.

I don't agree with the priority access suggestion. First, what would be the rating used, SA, RC, CN, TO ? But still, no matter what rating used, just imagine a server, using SA as measure, for instance, where the lowest ranked driver is SA 90 and still is booted.

 

Couldn't agree more.

Project cars 2 has basically the same system as ACC and it didn't work. There were no populated servers with high safety rating, you had no choice but to play on the low ranked ones.

I really hope given all the advertising about matchmaking that version 1 or beyond includes real matchmaking and timed races (like GT sport, iRacing SRS). If it doesnt then I feel like "matchmaking" has been misadvertised. It's not matchmaking if the computer isn't doing the matching. Otherwise it's just a filtered server list like we have now.

 

I find servers have a "tipping point" with the amount of users within.

Once you have 5-6 people on a server, then it's pretty guaranteed to fill as it attracts others, also having a regular time to race (like my evening streaming times) tends to create a pool of players... so, having regular events in 1.0 would definitely fill even the highest SA rated servers.

 

Indeed, that might help for now .

Also the regular events, I have seen that mentioned by a lot of people and I haven't seen a response about why that cannot be implemented. Is this to do with the fact that you need special server infrastructure?

 

I don't know if drive with people with the same rating is correct. Is good if you found better driver or worst. In F1 there are Hamilton and Kubica. In moto Gp Marquez and Iannone. Is good only for SA. IMHO

 

Surely if SRS can do it as a mod with only a small amount of advertising revenue then it shouldn't be beyond the scope of possibility for kunos??

 

Agreed, a regular server settings refresh and a special event during busiest times (7-9pm) will bring more players than simply restricting servers. During my years with AC1 I've also noticed that the longer the race the better quality drivers it attracts. So it will be a fitting idea if open servers are 8-15minute races and 20m+ are SA restricted. Higher rated drivers will naturally want to move to higher rated servers because of race length and so on... Sounds better than simply booting innocent people.

 

I'm intrigued by all the interesting comments and ideas here. Also the open comments of @Minolin which really show how much thought has gone into the system, as-it-is.

But I have to wonder if all the theory and 'rules' will have any real-world result, unless the number of on-line participants is quite large. Applying all these rules requires a reasonable large pool of players on-line at any time to be able to select from. Of course I hope for that, and I do understand it's still in EA, but I think it's yet to be seen. Just as example, I see approx 4000 entries in the special events. Yet, when I go to multi-player at what I assume are peak times (Europe, weekend, evenings), just rough counts, it looks like about max 80? people in multiplayer. That's about 2% (just using the special events entries as a guideline).

In order for all the fine-tuning to really work, the online players would really have to sky-rocket? To GT Sport levels? Which I certainly hope for, but I'm not really sure if that's realistic on PC, considering simracing isn't usually one of the most popular gaming genres.

I do understand the idea of 'if you build it, they will come...' But without console and cross-platform ability, I kinda wonder....

All said, personally, I think the existing system is absolute genius. Some fine tuning in progress for sure. But as it is, and even in EA still, the multiplayer quality is just miles ahead of any other option I've tried (granted, never tried iRacing).

Also, in my opinion, the track competence rating (the 3 stars) is probably one of the most important elements to the multiplayer quality. And, I would even suggest that the achievement of 3 stars is too easy. Or, perhaps it should be extended to more stars (i don't know.... 10?), which might require some sort of achievement when racing in AI races. Maybe some sort of Special Event race, where you have to finish it with certain conditions in order to gain further stars. Just ideas (all in an AI race, perhaps as a special event)
- no setups allowed, just controlled conditions. Likely some sort of difficulty level though, which might then relate to more stars achieved if you achieve it.
- making it through T1 Monza when mid-pack, without contact, on cold tires.... This one is so obvious to me, even on 50+SA servers.... Number one issue is the 2nd half of the grid blazing into T1 not realizing their tires are cold!
- passing X number of cars during the race
- the race might be pre-conditioned to have some better AI driver behind you, working their way through the pack. So you need to understand that at some point you need to reasonably give way (and the idea would be that this is pre-programmed somehow that the AI will only pass in a corner, not on a straight...). When it happens, would need to be random though, so you could not just 'restart' and anticipate when it was going to happen.
- maybe higher stars might require no TC/ABS. Just to recognize some achievement re car control in those situations.
- adding eventually weather conditions with all the above might be another achievement level.
- etc. I'm sure there are lots of ideas. The point is that the players comprehension of the track, together with various conditions, is a very very important part of what we might expect from a driver in multiplayer (of course, not a guarantee, but certainly an idea)

Just throwing it out there on top of all the other interesting ideas here.