Announcing Competition System Season 1

to say that you go to Iracing because you have to pay in rfactor... it must be that Iracing gives everything away... in addition to making a fool of yourself, it's stupid, but when you have to pay an annual subscription, we no longer talk about the cars and tracks, which you also have to pay for... to all of this, it should be said that the game is for rent, that is, it is never yours,... and as if that were not enough, there is no offline... .. .. better not say nonsense, what a ridiculous thing you do!.
if you want to leave you are free, nobody forces you... your decision

 

@Paul Jeffrey I hope you can drop us little teaser's over that period on here as well as discord. 1 I would like to know is cut track and how that will be penalized.

 

Sorry but this is one of the stupidest posts in a long time. A perfect example of twisting something until it fits your own opinion. If it was meant funny then the joke was really very good.

 

I like the customization, the only thing that bothers me a bit is that the currently announced competitions don't really meet my taste (sure that's a personal problem) but then you have to wait relatively long until the content changes.

 

No, no joke. Taken directly from the Steamworks documentation of DLC:

• The content can be included with your game files that are distributed to all game owners. Your game can then use ISteamApps::BIsDlcInstalled to determine if the user owns the content. This method is useful when all players can view the content, but a player needs to own the content to use it (such as RTS units, multiplayer skins, etc.).

The Workshop is primarily to be used for user-generated content i.e. mods. It can also act as the "item store", for use by the Inventory system (which I mistakenly called Content system). This allows a charge to be made for it. You can use your own item store, or the built-in Steam one. This is why when you use the Workshop user interface, you can't see the content as available to subscribe to. But there is a button on the Inventory user interface, to drill down to the Workshop content. The problem with the files downloaded as this sort of content, there's no additional attribute on it. S397 would have had to written an additional logic to add a driveable/not driveable attribute and capability. However, there is already the IsDLCInstalled method which can be used, to filter what would be available in the UI to select the content as what you want to drive on; yes, there's still code to write, but they've done the work for you as the prior quoted text suggests.

Pretty sure this is the method used by ACC. I don't own the GT4 pack, but I can still create local sessions or connect to hosted sessions which use this: so I display it, but I can't drive it. All the ACC files already exist on your drive. The Ui lists all possible cars and tracks from all DLCs. Now, admittedly, they don't have user-generated content (mods), but they do use DLC to decide if its driveable or not. No doubt S397 decided they were going to have to support mods anyway, and better to get them from the Workshop instead of the old manual download package/manual install. But using this for their own content, as opposed to DLC, they've ended up with a pretty big limitation.

 

I don't want to start off overly critical, so let me go a little off-topic and say well done on the new UI. Honestly, this is what it should have been from the start. Some nice content announcements, not exactly my cup of tea, but I can understand the endurance content. Daytona and the IndyCar make sense.

Now the Competition System...
This old chestnut comes up again... I told you Lazza it would.
I am firmly of the belief that if you want to attract users, you remove all impediments to enter quickly. And setting up a month or so of tracks to be able to race now is an impediment. And depending on DLC could be an impediment that keeps people away from the system when you really need users the most.

Take Rookie Cup for example: If the system was setup for a different track every hour, I can understand having all the track content installed. But, if I choose to race on the 17th of March at Palm Beach, I definitely should not need to have all of the tracks that had been used between 7th of February and 17th of March let alone the track for next week.
Leagues learnt this long ago, what with updates etc. breaking vmods/rfmods.

In another example. I choose to buy the new IndyCar, but hold off on Daytona. If setup the way it is currently, I would not be able to try the Open Challenge. Out of a total of 41 days I could still participate for all but the 7 while at Daytona if set up properly.

I understand the limitations with vehicles(although as I have stated in previous discussions, something Raceroom managed with ISImotor), but I certainly don't understand why would you limit the reach of users for a season for the sake of 7 days. Especially when you really want users on the CS.
User numbers seem to be up, how is that equating to CS usage currently? Or are league/public servers still accounting for the majority of any user snapshot.

I and others have suggested many things to help with these things, not limited to:
Simplest would be a. per event servers on the CS and b. single items go on sale at the same time as packages
This gives more users access per event. And depending on timing with sales, you may attract returning users that have already spent some on DLC to outlay a little more. Discounts could be the same, as the packages already have a discount for being bundled.

On the more complex side although considering the CS seems to be the next focus and only official content be used on the CS; I would think using the Steam or S397 DLC store may be the better option. For a start, the official content would be a part of the main install, and my understanding from previous research can be installed when bought(not just from initial install and unlocked). This makes the install larger due to initial free content that would become part of the main install, but eliminates the double up of files that the current item store/workshop system entails.

Blaming ISI for the limitations leads nowhere either, and is basically a cop-out. ISI created essentially a physics sandbox and simulation platform(and not too bad of a game). It was never pretty but it got the job done. S397 have overcome some of those limitations(DX11, HTML-based UI that is finally clean and usable). They need to decide how to overcome these limitations if they want the user base to grow and use their system.

 

@TheGame316 Of course it comes up again, nothing has changed. Basically your whole post is true, and we all know that. As you say it's that old chestnut again, and actually that's not really the sticking point here.

On ISI, it's not a cop out. No one in this thread actually mentioned ISI by name until you, and as far as I can work out I was the one saying it's not S397's fault, after burgesjl said it was, that you can't run with content you don't own. My point, which I'll stand by, is that you could never run with content you didn't have in rF2. Blaming S397 for that doesn't make any sense. Could they possibly change that? Of course... it's software. Anything is possible. Does complaining about that in the context of this competition system right now actually achieve anything? Not really.

That's it.

 

I wasn't directing the whole post at you @Lazza; and the ISI refence is more the fact that once these things get past not being S397 fault it inherently leads to being the fault of ISI and limitations of the engine.
My point is that the way they have chosen to run their series has not really changed to the previous way, which did not help attract or keep users. And a simple fix right now, like per event/track access to CS could possibly achieve a lot in terms of user numbers using the CS over the month on the different series.

 

Studio and MSG clearly wants to push for CS now that the UI is updated - does that mean Studio and MSG shares every opinion (which is different from user to user) probably not.
As explained elsewhere, there is a CS series for:
People who only want free content
People who own some paid content
People who want the latest content
In fact over all the series - most content are free content:
Rookie Cup: 1 free car + 6 free tracks
Open wheel series: 1 free car + 5 free tracks and 1 paid track
Indycar Open Challenge: 1 car, 4 free tracks + 2 paid tracks
Race of the Season: 1 car + 1 track

Studio makes money of selling content not from running CS - surprise it costs money to actually run CS. We have carefully made the decision to offer most users a chance to actually race - and yes of course we are using our new content in the CS.

 

Hi all. This may be a silly question but I will ask it anyway.
In the upcoming Race of the Season can SLOW drivers (like me) take part in the hot lapping sessions? I am slow (VERY VERY slow) but I find it a changeling and fun trying to get with "x" number of seconds of the best drivers!
Best wishes
Bob

 

Hey Bob - you most certainly can! It's very much open to anyone and everyone

 

@rlaycock

 

Hi Paul
Thanks for the reply. I will set my self a target and see how I get on
Given that I am say 5 seconds slower than the fast drivers at Spa in a GTE/GT3 would 5 seconds be a staring target?
Best wishes
Bob

 

I only racing in offline, but if now events in CS are not strictly tied to a certain time, I will definitely try to take part in online races

 

@Jimmi Allison , i think that the problem is not only if the content is paid or not.
It's clear that there has to be paid content to mantain the CS (and the rest)
I think that the two entry series should not be treated as one series each. If you would make a series (mod) per race the system would be more flexible and quick to use(from the users point of view).
We could choose the race and enter, downloading only the car and track for that event.
That would make the system more atractive for the casual driver.
Otherwisse, i think that, treating the two more advanced championships as a series, fits better with the idea of a more serious championship.

 

I did not say that the system you describe is not properly described or that it is not applicable. But you come afterwards with Iracing as comparison and that you stay there. That's what I mean, Iracing costs many times more and the system is not fairer. You can think of the systems what you want and can use them, buy or subscribe as you want but just to take iracing as a "positive" comparison I think is daring.

 

We can't do a season where people subscribe too one car and one track and then not update it the week after - so when we update for that this will give the users not owning that content issues in game. So no that wont work either.
We decided this is the way we can easily move forward. We offer a series for everyone that is free, if you want to climb the latter you need more content. There will always be a free series, as you will see later - this is the first step - and more series will be added.

 

I think you miss one important aspect when setting up the whole structure and system like this. I know, that you guys want the players to stick to the series, and it's a good intention, but sim racing is for most of all a hobby. I for example don't know if I will have time to join a race in four weeks time that is running on a paid track. Not a big problem for me, but for people who are new to the sim and don't own all the content this will be more difficult. Your system only works good for people, who own all the content, wich defies the target of making money with the CS at the same time. I think noone is arguing that it costs money and effort and that there should be some return.

But here comes the twist: while setting up a series like this you force people to buy content, while they don't know if they will be able to use it. Another scenario is that player XYZ is able to join race 1 on the paid track of the Indy open wheel challenge, but he doesn't know if he will make it for race 2 of the two paid tracks. So instead of making his desicion easier you force him to buy two tracks. This wasn't a problem if we were talking about a product where tracks are very cheap. I got to tell you that's sadly not the case. I know, quality costs money and all the jazz, but with this system you are in danger of not selling anything at all instead of atleast one of the two tracks. And as Kunos is showing it perfectly, you will make more money by selling alot of cheap small content pieces instead of selling expensive big packs. People will allways prefer the first option. That's psychological law.

So here are my solutions: as the CS is relatively "new" you can still experiment a bit with it. You will most likely not be able to change the schedule for Season 1, wich is fair. But for Season 2 it might be worth to think about splitting the series into vmods for the free tracks and to treat the races on paid tracks as single events, but still part of the series and check how participation is going. The other option is propably easier and more attractive in the long run and it's something that works 100% in my daily job. And that's volume discount on track items. If you sell two tracks for the price of one, it'll clearly be a nobrainer and you will tie users on the product for future competitions.

Anyway, my two cents. I think we all want the CS to be a success but changing nothing about the status quo might make things alot more dfficult in terms of growing the system. And that's where the money is.

 

My pleasure!

Honestly I wouldn't worry about targets - if I was in your shoes, I'd do the best I can, see where that puts me, then next time see if I can close down that gap further.

If truth be told, I and many others find that joining races (any races) and competing against people, even if you are at the back, is often a much faster and more satisfying way of improving lap times and performance.

All that said, the most important point is just having fun - don't focus on performance, focus on enjoyment, and everything else will follow.

 

I agree about paid content. S397 has to make a living, and this is one of the ways to do it for sure. No problem whatsoever.

Can you explain what ladder we should climb? There is no ranking system, so how should i know how high i am?

Marko