Why rFactor needs a well designed driver class/rating system

Don't get me wrong, my preferred form of racing is in leagues as well. This isn't about leagues vs. public, the goal is to make servers (both public and leagues) with the wanted type of driving, much easier to find.


Robert Gödicke said:
A simple value which should determine safety and/or speed won't tell you if someone is really a great driver or a wrecker. You don't know where he's coming from.
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If someone has a very low contact and spin rating, how can he be a wrecker? Of course it doesn't tell the whole story, but it most cases it will tell you enough.

I know that a lot of people do not have the time to drive in leagues or that it's simply not giving them what they expect, but yeah, once you've found the right one (which can be time consuming, yes) you will have fun AND great competition for ages. A rating system won't change that for me, and I'm sure it won't for a lot of others as well.
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What this system makes easier is finding a league that suits you. In my case in practise there is no single "right one", because leagues change, the mods driven change, policies change, people leave etc etc. This approach would make it easier to find another league to race at as well as finding interesting servers for the occasional casual public racing.

My 2 cents.
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Thanks, appreciated.
 
I do understand what you did there. :)
Like I said, finding a league which suits your demands IS time consuming. I know what you mean, but I don't think that this is what those server ratings could actually be used for. As stated before most leagues leave their servers available solely for training purposes between their actual races every 2 weeks or so. In the very beginning of this time period people tend to crash in the training session a lot more often since they want to get closer and closer to the track's limits. This would decrease the average safety rating of the server.

One more point to keep in mind is something I don't like that much either, but since a lot of leagues feature hotlap lists via server plugins many of the very fast (and safe) drivers are training offline to not give away their actual performance so others could see that in the lists. I'm not a fan of this behaviour, but it happens more and more often. So the ones who could actually raise the average rating are not doing so, even though they will be very competitive on the day the race takes place. A safety/performance/skill rating system would only work if all drivers of a league are using the training server. But many teams even have their own dedicated training server which won't show up in the lobby at all, driving for hundreds of laps all on their own, not providing statistics for the actual league server everyone has access to via the lobby (given they know the password, if there is any).

Plus what I always thought is even more important and even more difficult to find is the set of rules, which you will have to find on the league's website anyway. It is simply a complicated task to find the right one.

Don't get me wrong here, I like the initial idea of such a system pretty much, that's why I followed this thread in the first place. ;)
IF the system would work like intended, it would probably be a pretty good addition. But to provide proper values for people who are still looking for a proper server/league, people would have to change their style of training/using rFactor, which I believe is not impossible or very hard to achieve.
 
Try being realistic taxi, use a league for the mod you like with people who are tailered to the driving style, or get used to a random public server where all diffrent levels of drivers use, you are smoking crack if you think you will find a server where only elitist drivers exist.

If you can't be arsed looking for a league which taylors your needs then why should isi make up some stupid system that relates driving standards to unfounded stats.

Your after some setup on which already exists, but you can't be arsed finding it for yourself.

We don't want pay per play, if thats what you want then drive iracing.
 
I've been thinking maybe there is a way to make public server racing better, but if no one wants it , i's not going to happen. What if developers are doing ranking system? Some hacker makes own program or use ram-cheat to alter his ranking and make himself a top class driver and go to server to wreck everybody. That's whats going to happen. It's waste of time.
League racing is way to go if you want good racing. You can go to practice server to drive with others , oh, there's no one driving, well you can practise by yourself all week and then race is sunday at 10:00 P.M. You have to be at home that time. It's the only chance there is and do the race even if you don't feel like racing because you've done so many practise laps on the track that you have had enough for that track. Then you get punted in T1, oh' well, next sunday is another chance.
Or you can join iRacing and race or just practice with others anytime you feel like it, but be warned!! it's expensive. If you get 30% discount it's 66$/ year, it's 5,5$ per month. You can buy sixpack of beer for that money every month and how much fun is that and the next day. Or try 3 months for 12$, but again, it's a lot of beer. They have ranking
 
Hi Robert Gödicke :-)
In your first post you say that a system as we are discussing would hardly work because the majority of the servers are closed anyways but may i remind you that that is mainly because of wreckers etc giving eveyone grief.
So it might be the other way arround, rF gets released, we see loads of open servers and in the course of 1 or 2 years (i dont remember exactly) it became apparent it was not working very well, especially for leagues and otherwise. So more and more servers became passworded.
so its not the closed servers that are causing an issue, it where drivers whome where closing the servers. possibly due to the lack of a system catering for this problem in the first place.

In your second post you talk about leagues and their drivers staying under the radar (not using a public/closed server), but isn't that their problem in the first place?
Idealy a rating system would be configurable and optional. Leagues would probably not use the ISI-rating system to allow their members to participate in their own events. so a league could open up non-ratings for members in official events or just tell their members to at least work towards the rating the league requires. that would not be a problem for most league members. after all such a system would focus on new drivers and stubborn drivers not giving it any effort, its them that need to be motivated to clean up their act through the system.

I agree that a rating system (i would prefere a filter system) would be hard to implement, nothing is perfect and it needs to be somewhat fair and focus on motivating people to clean up their act. but if such a system would have existed at the release of rF we might not have had so much issues for all these years.

Dont forget that accessible servers bring a sim-community alive. they are the backbone of an active sim-community and can actualy help push the sim more and more.
As for leagues, servers are the number1 tool for recruitment. giving leagues the option to setup a server so that they can get potentialy safe visitors (as aposed to no visitors at all) can be a huge deal for most leagues as allot of leagues suffer with attendance all the time.
As hard as it is to find the right league (as you discribed) it is probably equally difficult to find the right drivers for a league.
So it kinda could work both ways, stimulate the community from both ends. if that is working then i would not be suprised seeing pickup-racers wanting to get into those servers as i would emagin the proporly-regulated servers would get bigger grids simply because the races are much better.
So a rating system would give you a choise, get stuck with open non-rating servers and deal with the scum of the earth (ok that abit too much lol) or get some effort in and work towards a rated-server.

Furthermore this would be a great deal for those serious drivers out there whom cannot join leagues for whatever reason, there are allot of them out there. they could become regulars on trusted rated-servers. pretty sweet deal imo.
Also regular on a league-server is allmost allways a future member. profit for both.

And for the rating/filter system itself, i know it will be pretty tough to get that right, its complicated, dont want to push drivers away or forcing them to do all kinds of stuff to get a surtain rating.
Surtainly dont want public stats, lists and tables on isi-website which will for sure turn the focus of the sim arround. Looking at iracing there remains much to be desired for drivers and especialy leagues are suffering with iracing so the balance of open-sim and rated-servers is a thin line. probably hard to get right.

But it should not stop us from wanting more or having better options, i for one strongly believe that the most important issue for a healthy sim-community is catering for as much open servers as possible. It is most desirable for all, including ISI (i presume)
We do not get this done by a free-for-all nature in rF2, this will just result in people closing their servers as we have seen in Rf. In fact: we would not see a year or two of open servers in rF2 as we saw in rF1, people are experienced now, servers will close right away most likely.
Leagues, serious drivers, sunday drivers, pickup racers and even wreckers, would benefit from a system where we keep the servers open for the most part.

So as much as we might hate the idea of imposing ratings or whatever you want to call it, it would benefit the community even more. i for one would not want to see us going down the same route as we did before. its not healthy and its counter-productive.
 
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J.V said:
I've been thinking maybe there is a way to make public server racing better, but if no one wants it , i's not going to happen. What if developers are doing ranking system? Some hacker makes own program or use ram-cheat to alter his ranking and make himself a top class driver and go to server to wreck everybody. That's whats going to happen. It's waste of time.
League racing is way to go if you want good racing. You can go to practice server to drive with others , oh, there's no one driving, well you can practise by yourself all week and then race is sunday at 10:00 P.M. You have to be at home that time. It's the only chance there is and do the race even if you don't feel like racing because you've done so many practise laps on the track that you have had enough for that track. Then you get punted in T1, oh' well, next sunday is another chance.
Or you can join iRacing and race or just practice with others anytime you feel like it, but be warned!! it's expensive. If you get 30% discount it's 66$/ year, it's 5,5$ per month. You can buy sixpack of beer for that money every month and how much fun is that and the next day. Or try 3 months for 12$, but again, it's a lot of beer. They have ranking
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Cheaters, yes. they will allways be there, not much we can do about that (as clients)
But that does not mean we should roll over and die. give up on it all.
I bet that the majority of the drivers giving grief on servers are not cheaters but simply new drivers, inexperienced, and of course wreckers. those are the ones that should be motivated to clean up their act and/or put more effort in. If so, a bucket load of drivers would be able to penetrate the more serious servers.

Oh and as far as i understand from the ram-cheat thread, cheating is probably more a league-issue then a public issue so it would not matter much anyways. But the gain (more and more drivers wanting to acces rated-servers) would be much bigger then the loss (having to deal with a bunch of tards cheating)
 
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J.V said:
I've been thinking maybe there is a way to make public server racing better, but if no one wants it , i's not going to happen. What if developers are doing ranking system? Some hacker makes own program or use ram-cheat to alter his ranking and make himself a top class driver and go to server to wreck everybody. That's whats going to happen. It's waste of time.
League racing is way to go if you want good racing. You can go to practice server to drive with others , oh, there's no one driving, well you can practise by yourself all week and then race is sunday at 10:00 P.M. You have to be at home that time. It's the only chance there is and do the race even if you don't feel like racing because you've done so many practise laps on the track that you have had enough for that track. Then you get punted in T1, oh' well, next sunday is another chance.
Or you can join iRacing and race or just practice with others anytime you feel like it, but be warned!! it's expensive. If you get 30% discount it's 66$/ year, it's 5,5$ per month. You can buy sixpack of beer for that money every month and how much fun is that and the next day. Or try 3 months for 12$, but again, it's a lot of beer. They have ranking
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Why does everybody compare the cost of iracing to drinking beer and smoking cigs? LMFAO!!!!! Apples and oranges. I can count on one hand the number of beers I've had this year and I don't smoke. iR is expensive. End of freaking story. Now if you want to compare the cost of iR to rF2 now that comparrison makes more sense. Being a current member of iR and a past member also I can see what you pay for and this is the whole organisation of it. The sim itself is pretty damn average. "Hardcore" it isn't...lol. Anyways that's my rant for today.
 
You make some good points Denstjiro, and I think some people are unfairly seeing a rating/ranking proposal as a forced iRacing-style system, when it doesn't have to be.

However, a lot of the negatives in rF (wrecking, cheating) could be minimised by 'simply' making each driver identifiable. I put 'simply' in quotes because it may not be that easy to do securely, but if you could see someone being an absolute idiot, ban them, and know that they'll never be able to get back into your server (without buying another license, which... hopefully.. wouldn't happen too many times with the same driver... but good for ISI if it does lol) you could open it up for public practice, or races, with more confidence. Then it's easier to recruit new drivers, and easier for potential new drivers to 'try out' different leagues.

On top of that, if rF2 provides an easier way to communicate information on the server list, and implements systems to make matching mods/tracks easier without mismatches, things can only get better.

But I don't think an optional rating system of some sort to facilitate same-level opponents in public rooms is such a bad idea, just needs to be done the right way (whatever that is).
 
Lazza said:
You make some good points Denstjiro, and I think some people are unfairly seeing a rating/ranking proposal as a forced iRacing-style system, when it doesn't have to be.

However, a lot of the negatives in rF (wrecking, cheating) could be minimised by 'simply' making each driver identifiable. I put 'simply' in quotes because it may not be that easy to do securely, but if you could see someone being an absolute idiot, ban them, and know that they'll never be able to get back into your server (without buying another license, which... hopefully.. wouldn't happen too many times with the same driver... but good for ISI if it does lol) you could open it up for public practice, or races, with more confidence. Then it's easier to recruit new drivers, and easier for potential new drivers to 'try out' different leagues.

On top of that, if rF2 provides an easier way to communicate information on the server list, and implements systems to make matching mods/tracks easier without mismatches, things can only get better.

But I don't think an optional rating system of some sort to facilitate same-level opponents in public rooms is such a bad idea, just needs to be done the right way (whatever that is).
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How would that work exactly? by vote? or by admin?
If by vote (everyone votes for a ban) then its pretty unsurtain why someone got a ban. we might just not like him. or we want a private game and we dont have admin rights so we ban everyone entering. or we 'think' someone cheats because he is so damn fast. you know how that works right, most people with good skills in any game get accused of cheating. the majority of them is not.
If by admin, then you need admins on a server. and that will be an instant problem, there are no servers with 24/7 admins. and if there are, whom is to say an admin got his judgement right? maybe its a 12 year old admin with anger-issues. God knows i've seen loads of them in fps game lol.

And what if you get banned for just being too fast? people asume you are cheating whilst you are not, can you appeal? to whom? the server admins? isi?
Also i am not so sure ISI would be comfourtable having customers beeing banned from the game based on community-judgement.

Imo there needs to be proof that someone is a wrecker or cheater and that would mean a somewhat bulletproof anti-system and that is a big problem on its own (see ram-cheat thread), only with sufficient proof we could comfourtably ban people i think. if we do it on driver-judgement we are in for a whole lot of trouble.

We can allready ban people from our servers of course, and that has the same problem, no admins at hand etc. so it becomes the current free for all.

I agree on the server-list comment. a decent server list with accurate info, custom fields etc. and a decent matchmaking file system would indeed be hugely benefitial by default. making it easyer for people to find specific servers, contacting admins/leagues, etc would take away a big part of our current situation.
 
I think the iRacing ranking system works reasonably well, however, the whole concept of iRacing is built around people racing in structured online races and the ranking system is a core component.

As a means of bringing decent quality racing to what are effectively public servers it works pretty well. Inevitably it can't match what a good league can do nor can it provide a true jump in and race environment. That simply isn't the aim. It intends to funnel drivers into races where they will be reasonably well matched in terms of safety and performance. The more drivers the better it works and it provides an easily accessible route for new members and structured approach for progression.

I don't believe rFactor2 should aim to replicate that. To work it really needs to be pretty restrictive with content choice. iRacing have been pushed into offering probably more content than makes sense for their matchmaking systems - but we all expect variety in sims these days.

For me the rFactor concept is all about variety and lack of structure by allowing community developed mods. Sure it fragments public server racing but the benefits in terms of offline and leagues is worth it and the public servers can provide variable fun for the most popular content.

Some means of deterring outright wreckers would be welcome though.
 
I think this problem could easily be solved by implementing Licenses. And then when you set up and event you define what license the driver is required to have to be able to join that particular event, and of course, every license has a distinct level of dificulty to be obtained, the higher it gets the more competent the driver must be to acquire it.
 
What an interesting read .... My opinion on this has been listed here [yes it was somewhat off topic from that thread's the OP admittedly]. Taxi, I hope you don't see me linking this as a hijack.

I do smile [not always to be taken as a positive reaction by the way] at some of the polarization there is over this topic in general.

The topic for me covers the whole gambit ..... from Racer to racer comparability, and fairness / cleanliness all the way to cheaters, idiots.

A parameter I use is "discipline" but this does not cover [pace] so I may need to revisit that.

You can read my post if you wish as linked above.

The summary is that leagues are where the future is best managed but leagues can do with some help from the game dev to build in tools they can use to do the actual management ... and I place a certain onus on the game dev to develop the tools in the game. The onus is on the league admin to implement them. This is not a game devs job at all.

There is no avoiding the word and reference to 'rating' but some education and clarification is needed to ensure 'rating' [whatever the term used OR whatever the implementation of it] is not confused as a scoring system which I agree, turns into a rat race.

I've referred to Reputation on the individual level in my post and in essence this can be confused with Rating or ranking .... but this is flat wrong. My post hopefully communicates what Reputation is and that everyone starts off with the absolute maximum. So not room for a rat race.

For example, if I were to meet any of you, I would take care to conduct myself in a way as to protect my reputation with you [hopefully leaving you with a positive impression] for our next meeting.

I see it the same in online in a racing game.

The arguments that ratings kills games is true where ratings are used as a score to show who is BEST.

I'm talking about a solution here where the Reputation score shows who is not the WORST. It predicates it on the real world case where people DO care about their reputations.

I feel there is a misunderstanding of Taxi's OP and a too stubborn clinging to the existing concept of simple ratings .....

The public server will hardly ever get any better ... it's pot luck of the racers on track with you are disciplined or not [and far to often they are not!]

The OP has merit and this thread has been and hopefully will continue to be useful. It's not all doom and gloom, but there is room for improvement and some of that will challenge existing thinking.

The discussion is quite a complicated one and depolarizing it a little will require some game dev involvement [to set the course to steer so to speak].

Anyone think 'Governing Body' for rules administration here !!! LOL OK, jokes apart ,,,,,

We all have a role to play.

As players, we sadly not all will mature up and play fair so a rule set is needed! Like it or not!

League admins are the unsung hero of the online racing scene and will remain that. Their job may remain busy but after a short while it may well become more manageable.

The Game Dev, in developing the rule / tool set for league admins, will set the direction and does not need to do any judging or take any responsibility for who plays where how!

The idiots will always come and go.

I've seen this in RL organisations I am involved with.

Run the survey before the regulatory action to take a temp reading and the majority will not agree with a new rule set. This is mostly based on fear and misunderstanding.

Run the survey after the regulatory action [EDIT: assuming a well thought out one here and not a botch job!!!] and two things come out. Firstly, you'll lose a few [and they really are just a few]. The majority of the remainder are happier and more likely to engage more positively. Secondly, once, the message get's out, your organisation attracts more of the type of players/members to make the club better. Organisation become easier even with additional members.
 
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View attachment 247I have a silly question does some one from isi that maked rfactor read post in this forum get some ideas what we have prb with because soon is every server password we can soon not ha public servers up anymore with this hacker and cheating drivers i see on more and more public servers also much in the lobbylist the lobbylist is ok do adverts for site and servers but last week some drivers adverts for a rfactor cheat they have done an now i not talk about cheat when you drive now they say that they can hack superadmin password from servers so it is time that is1 take a look at this problem if they can solved it or inplant it on rfactor 2 so it not is possible other wise rfactor 2 is only pw servers in the future ;(

one bug i see when it is 2-5 drivers with same username in server they can not be found when a admin try kick or ban that driver/s because server say player can not be found.
what to do then is ban from dedicated server only way to get it to work.
I hope admins can do it in rfactor 2.

what drivers do adverts /talk about in lobby chat i not care about.
But when people crash public servers start to destroy race for all ramming cheatin start ban player then i get angry.

I set all TT Servers so no spectator allowed in race and can not chat ! or do adverts

multiplayer.ini
 
The 'hack' sounds more likely a scam to install keyloggers etc on the machine of those installing the hack ;)

Non-unique usernames/IDs, and other 'easy' tricks (I won't detail them here) are a good example of how reliable player identification would help; obviously that would be inherent in any ranking/rating/reputation system anyway.

My only worry with a Reputation system, and this depends on how it works, but since anyone can run a server and anyone can join a public one, a system where people can lower another player's reputation is fairly open to abuse. Like joining a server, beating most of the regulars there fairly, and then finding your reputation drops as they all put a mark against your name because you bruised their egos. Still, the more you try to manage things the harder it is to keep it from having loopholes, so nothing will be perfect. (my 'base' proposal, where players can be identified [per license] would help league admins, but doesn't do anything for judging unknown drivers, servers, or power-tripping admins who decide to permanently ban you for any number of reasons)
 
Lazza said:
....

My only worry with a Reputation system, and this depends on how it works, but since anyone can run a server and anyone can join a public one, a system where people can lower another player's reputation is fairly open to abuse. Like joining a server, beating most of the regulars there fairly, and then finding your reputation drops as they all put a mark against your name because you bruised their egos. ....
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Good observations Lazza.

The ´Reputation´ concept here needs much thought and planning no doubt
Your ´depends on how it works´ bit is critical and none of this is easy or straightforward. All the more reason to do it in my book :)

In my linked post, (the other thread) I admittedly glanced over what I called the ´Steward´function which is kinda part of what I would look to the Game dev to develop. Again, a complicated bit but hey, so is game physics to get correct!! This steward function is hard coded algorithms playing the role of race steward. It exists already of course .... I am advocating a major bump up in it´s capabilities and tying it´s decisions in the player Reputation.

Direct influence from other drivers on track on any one driver´s reputation would be very little in fact. Your Reputation is based on your game play as evaluated by the tools (read Steward function) the Game Dev has built into the game. It is therefore the same for everyone.

Your existing reputation coupled with your performance in the laps of your current game is what is being evaluated. It´s you and the game on track basically.

I again accept this is complicated stuff. There will be a thousand and one cases to consider from everyday occurrences to once in a blue moon incidents.
Moreover, some will simply not like it. The ability to turn off this functionality therefore would also be important.

I dunno, maybe this is all pie in the sky. Without a lead taken by the game dev or a skilled mod team who have av position of both independence and endorsement, this is all just hopeful talking.

A fundamental question up front is ..... Does something need to be done at all?
My answer is clear with a YES. If critical mass think otherwise, then that´s it over.
 
Why not implement a safety rating system where your rating will decrease everytime some dude hits you from behind. It`s a perfect system to make friends and happiness.
 
I like the part about the completed race %, but that doesn't really let you see the whole story. What if you didn't finish the race because someone crashed into you? Because you blew up your engine? All those factors can create flaws with the ranking system.

What could work is if you could flag people as "rammers" or "good racers" etc.
That way people might have a more open interpretation to how the other players drive, but then you would also have griefers.

There really isn't one good way to do this.
 
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