Generic Why hot lap leaderboards should be the first new addition to AC (A treatise)

(Excuse the philosophy joke)

I've had the game since 4pm here in California (the wonders of easily being able to get games out of region) and the biggest omission for me so far is the lack of leaderboards. The main categorization of AC since its early PC days was that it was a "hot lap simulator". The career mode was lacking, the number of cars/tracks wasn't quite there (mainly at the beginning), and the AI was rubbish.

For the console release, no private servers? Big issue for those wanting to play with friends or join leagues. The career leaves much to be desired especially going up against what console users typically expect in racing games where the mindset isn't the PC one of having everything unlocked and available from the get go, but rather needing to go through the lower tiers and unlock faster cars to give the feeling of progression. This is how console gaming has always been.

AC didn't want to go that route and that's fine. I've played PC sims since the Grand Prix Legends/GP 500 days and the realism and difficulty of just banging out times and getting better at control was what games like that were all about. The modding scene was equally huge for both those games (many people think modding, especially set up modding, was what saved GP Legends), but you don't get that with consoles.

So if you're going to have a game that is all about physics and the individuality of the cars themselves, whose identity has always been the hot lap, not having a place where console users can pit themselves against one another in a controlled, competitive environment (much more controlled than public lobbies) I think is the main boat that the game is currently missing. You've got a title where the focus obviously is not on the career mode, so how do you engage your customers and give them a reason to keep coming back? The way that AC has always been set up, it has to be with competitive hot lap rankings to start.

I know a lot of you are in need of private lobbies, but it seems like leaderboards could be a quicker fix that keeps interest in the game alive for those who have always wanted a physics focused game like AC on consoles.

 

Nicely put and hopefully we will get some answers in the next few days

 

I definitely agree, on PC we have RSR Live timing but they are not official leaderboards and they get reset every few months making them useless. AC needs some kind of official progress / performance profile online.

 

Hopefully a leaderboard where its possible to even compare times with console versions. Would be awesome and give us the feeling that we play the same game even though its on different platforms. It would give more of a community feel.

 

So would the official do as long the physics Change.

 

If udp support was added to consoles www.simracingmanager.com provides an app that provides leaderboards sorted by platform/drivers/track etc and works great for Pcars

 

@Bo-Göran Larsson Yes, but they can keep the lap times on the server and put a display filter on the leaderboard by version. Also any progress I do (WRs, number of laps, KMs driven, etc) should be kept in an online profile that never gets deleted. This way each time I play it increases my profile, it's not just vanished.

 

For me this is very important as all I tend to do on racing games is hot lap. Was a little surprised that leaderboards are not there.

Fingers crossed for an update.

 

I agree we need this as a priority. Relying on RSR is a bit unprofessional..
This IS a hotlap simulator at the core, which im perfectly fine with..