A Letter to Polyphony.

[nascarfan1400]

Disclaimer: This is a rant, but not a senseless one. It is a formal one centered around the issues regarding connection issues and an explanation of how it easily takes a fun race and turns it to mud. This is NOT an "OMGPDSUCS" type of rant. Thankyou.


Dear Polyphony,

Update 1.16 has brought to us many wanted features and fun gamemodes. I applaud you for that innovation on a single player side of things. Something, however, has happened to the online infrastructure that has quickly taken the quality of online play from "Bearable" to "Awful". Ever since 1.16 several players including myself have noticed that racing is now more of a struggle than a way to have fun. Upon entering a lobby, regardless of your geographic location and Internet speed, you have a 75% of not being able to see other drivers on track, or others may not see you. What does this mean? It means that you may see Drivers A, B, C, and E on the racetrack. But not driver D. In some cases, driver D can't see you, and in others, they can. What usually takes place is the drivers in question leaving the lobby to clear their caches. Upon returning a number of things may happen:

• You are all of a sudden incompatible with the host
• You are stuck on a loading screen and disconnect
• You cannot be seen by anyone but you can see them (This includes not being seen by the host of the room)
• You still can't see the person you left for.
• And in a very very rare circumstance, you will be able to see all Drivers and go racing

Obviously this is an important issue. Several people have experienced issues, even GTPES director @AJ is experiencing this. There is no hiding it, it's not any longer a minor nuisance. It is now an extreme issue and easily ruins the game play. PLEASE FIX THIS POLYPHONY! This cannot continue any longer. Hotfix it, release a 3 gigabyte update, do something to fix this! We as a community are begging you. We just want to race and now we can't even do that. I have supported you for a very long time. I will Continue to do so, but this issue needs to be solved immediately. I look forward to seeing the PD team fix this issue. Thankyou for your time.

Sincerely,
Nascarfan1400​

 

[dddsprayshop]

Good luck, i think you would have a bigger chance if you send this to Polyphony.
And no, i'm not joking, i really do wish you good luck.👍

 

[nascarfan1400]

Good luck, i think you would have a bigger chance if you send this to Polyphony.
And no, i'm not joking, i really do wish you good luck.👍

Thankyou. I don't care how they see it as long as they do. I have spent 3 hours last night getting a race started and I've been cut from one today

 

[Aphelion]

Funny, i got the same bugs from day one

 

[Akmuq]

This is, quite simply, not a new problem.

 

[Nielsen]

This is, quite simply, not a new problem.

All the more reason to get it sorted out then. 👍

 

[Ameer67]

This is, quite simply, not a new problem.

Yes, this problem has been there since the beginning. But since the recent update, the number of issues has increased greatly.

 

[Akmuq]

But since the recent update, the number of issues has increased greatly.

That has been said after the vast majority of updates.

 

[Ameer67]

That has been said after the vast majority of updates.

That's not good then...

 

[Akmuq]

That's not good then...

Well.. it's probably the increased activity online that causes it.

 

[nascarfan1400]

Regardless they need to fix it.

 

[photonrider]

Online is a disaster.

Could it be worse? Not a lot.
Obviously a lot of the disaster comes from the fact that the Online experience heavily depends on the gamers.
Messy gamers, messy Online experience. But, we can't blame Sony/PD for that - they really have no control how participants participate.
Astute gamers can get around that - GTPlanet, for instance, is host to a number of Clubs, Leagues, and other micro-communities (like the COTW gang for one) that are made up of gamers that have great compatibility with each other and when provided efficient online tools can make the most out of this game and the huge variety of driving/racing events that can be engineered.

And then we hit the brick wall of inefficient technology management.

The present Online experience offered by Sony is shabby. Unpredictable. Frustrating. Depressing . . . I could go on - and I wouldn't really have to dive into a thesaurus.
It is a - to use a single word - failure.

I used to be Online quite a lot before - hosted many, many rooms, and made many friends, too, and (when the system worked) had a whale of a time. Not any more. I hardly bother. I'm tired of the glitches - and I've experienced many just with the one series I even bother to visit.

One day, I will hear more positive comments around here - that Sony Online is working fine, that it is stable, that glitches are few and not the norm. I'm sure I'm not the only GT Player that has been so disgusted with the let down that we hardly even look at the lobbies anymore.

Not to sound too presumptuous, but I think this is a bigger loss to Sony, than the gamers themselves.
We move on, we adapt.
Sony will continue to wilt this way - so I would conclude by saying that Sony had better grow up and keep up with the times. Or eventually get buried.

 

[Gerarghini]

Online is the only thing keeping GT6 alive at this point if you're not a Time Attack/Photomode person. So these issues have to be resolved 👍

 

[handcuff]

It is surprising that any ps3 platform game is still being actively supported to be honest.

 

[Imari]

But, we can't blame Sony/PD for that - they really have no control how participants participate.

You'd be surprised.

Other games like MMOs and MOBAs spend a huge amount of time trying to control how people can interact and how they are placed together in order to ensure a more pleasant experience for the majority of players. They don't succeed much, but games with this sort of effort put in are generally less unpleasant than those without.

Gamers can find their own ways around these problems too, and always will. But the developers can help by providing an improved basic experience, encouraging players to play with others of a similar playstyle, and providing means to punish trolls.

It is surprising that any ps3 platform game is still being actively supported to be honest.

It's surprising that 15 months after release a game would still need supporting to meet the features it was advertised with.

 

[photonrider]

You'd be surprised.

I am - but by you missing the context of where we couldn't blame Sony for what. And for what we could where.

Online is a disaster.

Could it be worse? Not a lot.
Obviously a lot of the disaster comes from the fact that the Online experience heavily depends on the gamers.
Messy gamers, messy Online experience. But, we can't blame Sony/PD for that - they really have no control how participants participate.
Astute gamers can get around that - GTPlanet, for instance, is host to a number of Clubs, Leagues, and other micro-communities (like the COTW gang for one) that are made up of gamers that have great compatibility with each other and when provided efficient online tools can make the most out of this game and the huge variety of driving/racing events that can be engineered.

And then we hit the brick wall of inefficient technology management.

The last line there clarifies where I'm going with you has control of what.

When you quote the post partially like this:

Well . . . that's a fresh set of neurons. Not my own.

 

[Imari]

I am - but by you missing the context of where we couldn't blame Sony for what. And for what we could where.

The last line there clarifies where I'm going with you has control of what.

Except that was exactly what I was talking about. I may have cut the quote a little shorter than it needed to be, but that's all.

Let's try again, shall we? With the quote as you wanted it.

...the Online experience heavily depends on the gamers.
Messy gamers, messy Online experience. But, we can't blame Sony/PD for that - they really have no control how participants participate.

Sony isn't to blame for the fact that some people are :censored:holes, but you're making the argument that Sony/PD have no control over the online experience that results from that. I don't think that's true, as evidenced by other games taking steps to counteract toxic behaviour and seeing positive results.

Polyphony certainly does have a level of control over how people participate in their game. They have control over what behaviours the game allows and what penalties are enforced, or even what actions can be taken at all. They can't control all behaviours because whatever control they exert needs to be automated and there's only so much that computers can do, but they can certainly do more than they're doing now if they wish.

There are any number of positive reinforcement schemes used in games to promote certain types of play, and any number of reasonably simple methods of identifying serial griefers.

If you think that the online experience in GT6 is the way it is because it's not possible to enforce any more control on a system populated by internet yahoos, I disagree completely. That is demonstrably false.

It's not about technology, it's about design. Solutions exist for this stuff, at least partial ones. It's a known and ongoing problem in modern gaming that many people have made attempts to address, with varying levels of success. PD and Sony have made the bare minimum attempt, because as far as online goes they're still struggling to tie their own shoelaces, let alone run a marathon. But that doesn't mean that it can't be done, simply that they haven't done it.

 

[gambleboyen]

Online has never worked very well in my eyes.

 

[Jaywalker]

Shall we even talk about the Renault Quick Match race?

Enter
Wait 5 minutes (Unless, of course, you get: Matching unsuccessful. 120 seconds until re-matching begins.)
One or two other screens

...then...

*You have been disconnected from the server*

 

[Harsk100]

Not seeing all drivers is the biggest problem since the beginning. That's completely annoying and ridiculous.

 

[eran0004]

I'm not personally suffering from this issue, but I've seen others suffering from it. Has anyone done some tests, like reducing race quality or only joining lobbies with a good connection? Did it make any difference? Does the number of players in the lobby have any effect on it?

 

[Johnnypenso]

Both positive and negative reinforcement are valuable tools IMO for online racing, along with perhaps an "incident rating" or some such measure. Race clean, win more money, have lots of contact, make less or no money. Race clean over and over and make even more money. Race dirty enough and sit out a race, or even be disqualified within the same race. Allow hosts to set tolerance levels and you can decide whether you want to enter a room where anything goes for example, or one where 3 incidents in one race causes you to lose all your winnings or whatever the case may be

 

[nascarfan1400]

Both positive and negative reinforcement are valuable tools IMO for online racing, along with perhaps an "incident rating" or some such measure. Race clean, win more money, have lots of contact, make less or no money. Race clean over and over and make even more money. Race dirty enough and sit out a race, or even be disqualified within the same race. Allow hosts to set tolerance levels and you can decide whether you want to enter a room where anything goes for example, or one where 3 incidents in one race causes you to lose all your winnings or whatever the case may be

Would blow up in any touring or NASCAR car drivers face immediately. Same thing for lag spikes

 

[Johnnypenso]

Would blow up in any touring or NASCAR car drivers face immediately. Same thing for lag spikes

Allow hosts to set tolerance levels

The game should be designed to detect lag and eliminate the driver from the race. I race in other games and I've never seen anything like what happens in GT5 and GT6, not even close.

 

[Mikey24]

I'm not personally suffering from this issue, but I've seen others suffering from it. Has anyone done some tests, like reducing race quality or only joining lobbies with a good connection? Did it make any difference? Does the number of players in the lobby have any effect on it?

Yeah, @NW48's series, the ATCC took to it's first race on Saturday. He had the race quality on Very High and we had 4 or 5 people constantly disconnecting - like, every 15-20 seconds, almost when they've fully joined the room. Also, we had 16 people in the lobby, but I couldn't tell much difference between 8 or 16 after I was the second one to disconnect during the race.

I have been testing with the different features and I've found that the lower the race quality the more chance you will stay in the lobby but your lap times are actually considerably slower, believe it or not, and of course the quality is lower. Disabling voice chat also seems to help as it takes up more bandwidth than having it off, it puts more strain on the connection - hence why sometimes you can only partially hear people over their microphones.

The servers in GT6 are only built to support 16 players, and when 16 players are in the room, there is hardly any more space for extras - such as race quality and voice chat - unless there are decent connections in the room. What I think is Polyphony should develop the servers to hold more than 16 players but then limit the amount of traffic that can access it. This would free up some space for those extras and possibly allow for more connection space i.e. a better chance of staying in the room and not being 'squeezed' out, literally.

 

[NW48]

Yeah, @NW48's series, the ATCC took to it's first race on Saturday. He had the race quality on Very High and we had 4 or 5 people constantly disconnecting - like, every 15-20 seconds, almost when they've fully joined the room. Also, we had 16 people in the lobby, but I couldn't tell much difference between 8 or 16 after I was the second one to disconnect during the race.

I have been testing with the different features and I've found that the lower the race quality the more chance you will stay in the lobby but your lap times are actually considerably slower, believe it or not, and of course the quality is lower. Disabling voice chat also seems to help as it takes up more bandwidth than having it off, it puts more strain on the connection - hence why sometimes you can only partially hear people over their microphones.

The servers in GT6 are only built to support 16 players, and when 16 players are in the room, there is hardly any more space for extras - such as race quality and voice chat - unless there are decent connections in the room. What I think is Polyphony should develop the servers to hold more than 16 players but then limit the amount of traffic that can access it. This would free up some space for those extras and possibly allow for more connection space i.e. a better chance of staying in the room and not being 'squeezed' out, literally.

It was really foolishness on my behalf that I had it set to High or Very High. We didn't have too much problems once it was put down to Standard, but it didn't stop the DC's from occurring.

 

[Mikey24]

It was really foolishness on my behalf that I had it set to High or Very High. We didn't have too much problems once it was put down to Standard, but it didn't stop the DC's from occurring.

Its not something everyone thinks about so don't worry mate.

Yeah it didn't stop the DC'ing but it made them occur much less.

 

[eran0004]

Yeah, @NW48's series, the ATCC took to it's first race on Saturday. He had the race quality on Very High and we had 4 or 5 people constantly disconnecting - like, every 15-20 seconds, almost when they've fully joined the room. Also, we had 16 people in the lobby, but I couldn't tell much difference between 8 or 16 after I was the second one to disconnect during the race.

I have been testing with the different features and I've found that the lower the race quality the more chance you will stay in the lobby but your lap times are actually considerably slower, believe it or not, and of course the quality is lower. Disabling voice chat also seems to help as it takes up more bandwidth than having it off, it puts more strain on the connection - hence why sometimes you can only partially hear people over their microphones.

The servers in GT6 are only built to support 16 players, and when 16 players are in the room, there is hardly any more space for extras - such as race quality and voice chat - unless there are decent connections in the room. What I think is Polyphony should develop the servers to hold more than 16 players but then limit the amount of traffic that can access it. This would free up some space for those extras and possibly allow for more connection space i.e. a better chance of staying in the room and not being 'squeezed' out, literally.

Ok, so possible fixes that players themselves can do would be:

• Limit the number of players
• Disable microphones
• Reduce race quality

Do you think the track makes any difference?

 

[JockeP22]

I'm not personally suffering from this issue

Me either, in fact I rarely have any issues online. Be it hosting myself or joining a room everything works for me as it should. [knock on wood]
You and I reside in the same area so that could be a factor in us not having any problems?

 

[Com Fox]

I think it might.

I think the "pretty" ones and city courses are the ones to blame, mainly Madrid.