Why rFactor needs a well designed driver class/rating system

No please not!!

I don't want "Classes/Ranks" assigned to Peoples. That's unfair.

All you get is attention only to the rating. As said this kills many Games.

It is enough that every Gamer gets a Serial. Then Serveradmins can simply ban the Wreckers and they have to buy rFactor 2 again if they want to come back.

 

But allot of public servers dont have admins. the only servers with regular admins are League servers and Leagues take care of bizz on their own merits.

What if the game keeps track of what you do, miles,incidents,cutting, whatever.
And the game enables you to set your own level of experience. say you try to set your MP game to 'pro' and you have too much incidents or not enough mileage, the game would tell you 'sorry you are not ready for this yet' and you push the slider back abit to a level where the games accepts it.

Have a bunch of 'levels' and make it abit lenient so people dont get kicked out wherever they go and server admins can setup their servers to whatever level they are supporting.
This could be a pickup server forcing a surtain level 'just because', but it could also be a public league server wanting to attract new drivers but not interested in those whome just started or cannot get passed the 'noob' level eventhough they have owned rfactor2 for the past 25 years (yes, Leagues have issues as well, just atracting new drivers is not allways an ideal solution)
It doesn't have to be extremely strickt, differences between levels can be much more open then say iracing.

Think of it as creating awareness on driving standards. If you see loads of full servers set on 'medium' and you are stuck with the wreckers on 'noob' you want to start improving and you might actualy be forced to re-think how you drive and hey, some might even start thinking about how their driving effects others.

I would say, once a level is reached it stays there. no downgrading because that would be too much depending on other drivers i guess (due to possible incidents)

Anyways, creating awareness on driving standards is important, especialy on public servers. if rFactor2 can stimulate surtain behaviour without beeing too uptight about it i think it would realy help the game and the community.

 

But I don't need a game who tells me which Server I can join and I don't want to drive 1000000000 KMs in rF2 before I can Play on "Pro" Servers.

And slow beginners are not allowed to drive with great (fast) peoples? They get really fast frustrated if they only are allowed to drive on Novice-Level Servers.

I can tell you this would kill so much fun if everyone looks only for the ranking/stats...

 

I really feel like some other have already said, that it would only kill the fun in racing! And I somewhat get the feeling that people with high ranking will be calling others with lower ranking 'noobs' and the 'noobs' will be calling those with higher ranking 'elitists'. Which only generates segregation in the sim-community. Besides most league-sites already have a working rankingsystem of their own.

(oh and I also play CS:S and to be honest, YES the new rankingsystem has put much more emphasis on chasing stars rather than to enjoy the game together)

 

let me first explain that there are a few possible implementations:

1 The most modest one would only indicate the average level on that server without individual stats being visible to anyone.

2 Then you could have a system, where individual stats still are not visible (at least to others) but servers admins CAN set thresholds for the different type of ratings

3 Same as 2 but with the addition of ratings being visible to others and perhaps adopting a rank list as well.

Now for me the most important goal is to get drivers of equal level more converged on a more limited amount of servers. For that purpose the first or second implementation would suffice and if people want to take it further is not really that important to me. I would like it myself, but if the majority and/or ISI dislikes it I wouldn't mind not seeing that happen.

This already the case, since there are already passwords on servers and people can get kicked from servers. Also there would be a lot of servers (probably the majority) that have no or very low thresholds (here we already talking about at least implementation 2) simply because of high demand.

In fact I would even argue that on average servers would become more open, since with driving safety being tracked and controlled there would be a lot less reason to password servers against wreckers. It therefore would also become easier for leagues to attract new drivers, because without password it is less cumbersome to join the server.

For the record, I agree with you on that, miles driven is not the best criteria. Would be ridiculous if M. Schumacher wanted to have a go and couldn't cause he still had 10.000 miles to drive. I think pace, contacts, cuts, spins and finishes would go along way to having a good idea of a persons driving.

2 Points: Firstly the majority of servers would be open or very low threshold (all servers would be open with implantation 1), secondly this already the case, because most fast drivers are hidden behind passworded servers or have moved to iRacing.

There is a site called rFrank where people can upload laptimes. I can tell you it hasn't changed my way of driving one bit. Why, because I already like to drive as fast as I possibly can, ranking or no ranking. Going fast is (one of) the key part(s) of motor-sport. But as said if visible individual rankings would take too much fun away for too many people I would happily see it implemented without visible individual stats.


PS. I wanted to say thank you everyone for participating in the discussion and keeping it very civil.

 

I hear ya Sommer and understand your concerns.

For one thing -from my post- it would be a private thing. only you can see what level you are at, there would be no stats, leaderboards or whatever. just your game.

I agree that not letting drivers drive wherever they want in public can be a bad idea but on the other hand letting everyone do whatever they want without repercussions is also a bad idea, we have seen this in rfactor1.

I'm guessing that at least 25 to 40% of early rfactor drivers in public where forced to join a league because of the bad driving and constant frustration of people taking the p*ss with everyone on public servers. (not to mention, clean drivers whome have no clue what driving is about or how a race works or what a blue flag means, how a pitstop works, etc)
A game can be easily ruined, drivers can easily throw the towel in the ring because they have no time to invest in league racing but they still want to race in a semi-serious manner and it just is not possible.

Forcing drivers to go through a system of say 5 different levels of experience should cater for allot of different configurations. if you are slightly serious you would be able to join 'better' servers.
I for one would not expect allot of 'Pro' servers anyways, they would have less regulars then a 'medium' server' because that is where the masses are i supose.

You talk about not having fun, i asure you, once you start driving with people whome are abit more serious and mature about what they do, the fun increases immensly. Normaly this kind of fun can only be found in leagues.

I for one would be challenged to try and get to Pro, sort of like a prize, an 'unlock'
Once Pro i would be able to have some serious fun and at the same time drivers arround me will feel allot more comfourtable and safe knowing that i at least know what is expected from me and that i am capable of driving safe.

Now, if that means races will be cleaner by default, i doubt that. in my league we have been simracing since 1993 and have worked very hard on driving standards and still the most proffesional aliens make stupid mistakes from time to time.
But at least there is a level of shared experience amongst drivers which has huge potential on public servers.

There is a reason why so many servers are locked in rF1.

 

This system could improve driving experience on public servers. I have driven carsims in a leagues since GTL, and I can tell you that the gap between public and private is huge. Most people who drive carsims, don't necessarily understand this, and might think that crashes, spins and such, are just a normal part of simracing that every driver has to experience in almost all races. Just the existence if a standard by which clean drivers would be measured, could improve the driving to some extent.

Many drivers might simply chose server at which there is a good car and lots of people. Maybe they don't mind about crashes and spins, but I do. I want to drive against people who win me by being faster than I, not by bumping into my rear and passing me as I find my self spinning to sand. In leagues where I drive, the most mayhems are caused by driving mistakes of drivers and intense competition. Usually mistake of one drivers isn't even enough, but two drivers are needed before true mayhem can begin. I think that in public servers mayhems are mostly caused by ignorant drivers who just don't have necessary skills and experience to drive safely. Not to mention those who crash intentionally.

Simplest solution I can imagine to this is as follows.

I think this is too simple, and I would like to have some other ways to measure drivers too. But even this would be better than nothing.

 

this Idea could be probably,.. let me say critical by the meaning of law.

I've been racing on public a long time on other platforms then rf, there I found a nice Nordschleife public Server with the majority of serious guys. In fact in rf it is very hard to find server with good drivers.
In normal cases our brain is able to remember, how about the idea to make a visible list of available players in the lobby, and to which server they are connected. SimBin did it in GTR2 and I 've missed this feature in rf.

 

Sure? This happens to every Blizzard Game, Steam Game and so on..

I would say the Admins have the right so say who is allowed to play on their Server

 

Sure, admins have the right to say who is allowed to enter their server, are you sure that the user has to buy the game one more time, after beeing kicked by an admin?

I'm sure, that they are not allowed to deceide, if someone has to buy a game one more time.

Imagine a situation, that you enter a server, with an admin who is hostile to you, and he deceides to kick you. I don't think that you were amused to buy a game one more time.

best regards
Norbert

 

Oh I mean that he has to buy rFactor 2 again to join the same Server

If one Admin hates you and can ban your complete Game that's to much of course. (Ok if he Cheats then I would say Complete Ban = Yes - but only with Video Evidence or Anti Cheat Tool - and the complete Ban should be exclusive executed from ISI)

 

Oh dear.

 

Whut?

 

The amount of misunderstanding is almost incomprehensible.

 

dreaming?

 

No it is working with other Games this way - why shouldn't it work with rFactor 2?

 

@ OP: although it looks good on paper, USER RATING KILLS GAMES ! Always did and always will. Take a peek at Bad Company 2 for instance.

@ ISI: No rating system, please!

 

Just read through this thread, add me as another no vote...

Have a profile where you can mark yourself as an aggressive or timid racer by all means, but nothing that would allow active discrimination.

A personal blacklist could be implemented to warn you if you were on a server with a marked griefer. Further developed; collisions could be disabled for those individual people. - A bit like a mute function that turns them into a ghost, which is disabled for races obviously but available for qualifying.

Alternatively, new players would be able to use this ghost functionality to join race sessions in progress, leaving the pits in an "advanced spectator" mode whereby you may drive around as normal but completely invisible to other racers, no loading ugly temp cars either.

 

Would be good to know WHY some people are so much against it (which of the 3 implementations?) apart from the usual "ratings killed this or that first person shooter" which has already been discussed. Bit of argumentation would be welcome.

 

This is starting to sound like a religion. People politely present their case, supporting it with reasonable arguments, and as soon as the opposition hears the word 'ranking' they start to shout "No no no, we don't want this! This is not good!" I think these people don't come to this stance after careful thinking of issue, but it is rather based on feelings and past experiences with systems that are not comparable.

It has been explained in this thread, that this wouldn't be real ranking system, but mainly just something to help drivers find others that are approximately equally skilled. It has been explained that this system could be adjusted and implemented in a way it wouldn't affect to drivers behavior. A solution by which drivers wouldn't even know what level they or other drivers are has been suggested, and still the answer is "No this will ruin all fun!"

Ones religion is not based on facts. It is based on feelings, and therefore cannot be refuted with facts.

Maybe CS and iRacing do have poor ranking systems. Maybe it does ruin the experience to some people. But if something has been done wrongly in past, it doesn't mean it will always be done in similar poor manner. System proposed in this thread would bring a function, which does not exist in rf1. It is not vitally important, but it would improve online gaming experience to some extent.