How can we help

Discussion in 'Online Racing Discussion' started by patchedupdemon, Jul 20, 2017.

  1. patchedupdemon

    patchedupdemon Registered

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    We need some kind of incentives to actually join races rather than race ai.
    No financial incentives of course,but maybe some type of certificate rewards for winning championships/series,but then again iracing do that and I don't pay much attention to that aspect.

    What would make folks race online more???
     
  2. CamiloNino

    CamiloNino Registered

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    I think what would make more people race online is the same thing that would make rF2 more popular, and that is better graphics / UI, that and better marketing, exposure. Exactly what S397 is doing at the moment with DX11 and the McLaren competition.

    I think we will see a bump in the number of people online after the McLaren event and the beta ends.

    After that, a better MatchMaking system would help. Right now one of my biggest gripes with it is that I don't really know the car the server is running, just the track and whatever the person who created the server decided to name the "RaceEvent". It should be easy to check the actual mod they are running and if you have it, before joining. There is a very popular server right now that somehow mentions CLIO in the name, but when I try to join it turns out they are running another CLIO mod than the one I have, and not only I would have to download it, but the download process usually fails...

    After that, more official servers. S397 are already doing something about this, but I think more servers with mods / tracks based on popularity would help.

    Lastly, I would actually love a ranked system like they have in Rocket League.

    Although I don't know how you could implement that with different cars / tracks, S397 would have to deploy hundreds of servers to have room for people racing different cars / tracks and also different rankings.... It would probably require a complete redesign of a MatchMaker system, not an easy or cheap system to maintain.

    One way I could see it working is if you pre-select a list of cars and tracks you are willing to race, and then the matchmaker searches for people who match at least one car and track on your list, and are of similar ranking. When the matchmaker gets enough people it then creates the server for that specific car and track and lets you in. One can only dream I guess.
     
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  3. patchedupdemon

    patchedupdemon Registered

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    I get that numbers is what rf2 desperately needs,but I really can't see better graphics or content being an incentive to race online.
    I guess we can go round in circles about this until s397 implement their plans,but for me,the physics,ffb and tyre model are the reason I'm here and want to race,all the glamour stuff is just icing after that.
    It's a tricky game this,they need to be careful what ever they do that they don't spread the player base out to thin with some type of online series,just a few would concentrate the player base more I think.

    There also needs to be a certain standard met for people to be able to take part in races of series or championships,like a minimum lap time or something a definitely a penalty system,we can't have a free for all,but even iracings way of doing things doesn't guarantee that even 50% of your races will have good seriously minded drivers in them,as it's a shit more often than not.

    It's a hard thing to accomplish for sure,I'm just so anxious to see what s397 have up their sleeves,as I would give my last £ to help make this sim the King (online of course,it's already king in the sim department)
     
  4. Guimengo

    Guimengo Guest

    With a larger active userbase it is more likely someone will click the icon with the two helmets instead of one. There is a lot of that speech on game specifics but more often than not it's people repeating things they've seen in this or another forum. I know plenty of people who can only repeat words and not deliver on track or elsewhere. There's also correlation with inability to be quick in absolute terms and the reality of not being competitive outside of a small cluster of online friends is a harsh blow to the ego.

    A lot of dedicated racers have stayed with older games or adopted alternatives to get their fix. Some rarely even get to race because they look for certain cars that end up being more challenging to drive - or just require attention to learn and adjust before pushing -, and there are just no servers for those. Most of the time the content doesn't exist for this game.

    There is no magical single answer because it's all a chain of interdependent factors. It must be driven by the developers, hopefully well implemented, and even more hopefully, adopted by people.
     
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  5. CamiloNino

    CamiloNino Registered

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    The reason I mention numbers is because to me it is in the end a matter of probabilities.

    Here is an hypothetical scenario:
    Say rF2 has 100 active players, of those 50% like to race online. Of those 50% (25) only like to race online when there is more than 10 people in a server, otherwise they curse and leave. The other 25 get spread over 10 servers, none of those reaching 10, so there will only be 25 people online at any given time.

    Now imagine that better graphics and UI make the game more popular, you now have 400 active players. 50% (200) like to play online, 100 will start online races and will be spread over 10 servers, now the other 50% will actually join those servers, now that they have 10 people in them. Some servers will get full, so some people will start new ones increasing variety. You had a 4X increase in active players, but a 8x increase in online population.

    Of course i pulled those figures out of my ass, but you get the idea.
     
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  6. SPASKIS

    SPASKIS Registered

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    In fact the number of total players is an important variable. However, this also increases with the probability of having a good race everytime you try to get online and do not belong to a league.

    By default, the order at which servers are presented does not follow any rule that helps people joining together.

    Here the most logical option would be to hide all passworded servers and order them by number of players excluding AI.

    In general the filter and sorting tools that are missing today would help a lot for each driver to narrow a very long server list. This should have been addressed long ago. Now with the new UI coming I hope this gets finally sorted.
     
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  7. patchedupdemon

    patchedupdemon Registered

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    Good points
     
  8. Ari Antero

    Ari Antero Registered

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    Never heard about Dedicated Server Prototype? It is what you are asking for and we have it in rFactor 2 o_O
     
  9. Ari Antero

    Ari Antero Registered

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    Indeed, some admins have just lost it and don't understand purpose to host public .
    Vmod below is public and it is hosted by Racin Nexus. This must be the undisputed world champion of size to created vmods in
    rFactor 2.
    5,2 GB :eek:o_O, I am speechless.........................:confused:

    AM_FIAGT3_2012_799R > 90,588
    AM_FIAGT3_2012_854GT3> 115,818
    AM_FIAGT3_2012_CAMARO> 109,513
    AM_FIAGT3_2012_MP412CGT3> 88,763
    AM_FIAGT3_2012_SLSAMG> 135,213
    AM_FIAGT3_2012_Z4GT3> 116,46
    AM_FIAGT3_2012_Z06R> 103,126
    Portimao> 202,992
    atlanticroad_v0.75> 173,964
    BRNO> 95,955
    atlanticroad_v0.75> 376,643
    BrandsHatch_v1.22< 232,897
    Dijon_Prenois_FFSCA_v0.90> 53,266
    Donington_Park_v1.01> 180,49
    ECAR_LeMans_Bugatti> 357,697
    Essington_Park_1.04> 104,959
    GreatWall_v1.5> 274,714
    Jarama_1.08> 29,51
    LagunaSeca_ALMS_v01> 39,764
    Lausitzring> 424,647
    Mugello_GP_v072> 59,102
    Norisring> 189,29
    Oschersleben> 178,194
    Oulton_Park_Circuit_2015-v124> 549,935
    PhillipIsland_2013 196,475
    Valencia_Circuito_Ricardo_Tormo_v2.04> 246,133
    sm_Assen_TT_Circuit_v1.2> 190,485
    sm_Circuito_de_Jerez_v_1.21_dd> 294,558

    :oops: 5211,151 MBo_O

    :(
     
    Last edited: Jul 24, 2017
  10. SPASKIS

    SPASKIS Registered

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    I bet they left it unpassworded hoping that people would join.
     
  11. Ari Antero

    Ari Antero Registered

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