Confused racer - How can people say online play works?

  • Thread starter dritslem
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dritslem

dritslem

26
Norway
Norway
I love this game. It's just like driving on the real life track.

Except when I drove Nurburgring for real no twelve year old idiots came crashing into me. This game is unplayable online for me. I drive very well in the qualifying and most of the time I'm in top 3-5 for the final. But who cares, because within the first lap someone has already hit me in the rear in a tight corner in 200kph. EVERY TIME!

The lobby is completely empty. If I'm lucky I might find a room with 3-5 people in it. I never see them on the warm-up and most of the time the host ends the game before the race is done.. It's a shame, because the game is smooth as ****. They said this was going to focus on online gameplay, but I'll stick with offline.
Garbage.

Am I doing something wrong? Does anyone know how to find a game with serious players who want to race and do great laps?

EDIT: Is it just me, or is AI terrible race car drivers? My favourite gameplay so far is this:

Use a N600 Porsche. Set for a cool track, endurance 40 min or something like that. 20 opponents in N900 cars on the hardest difficulty. All realism **** + tire wear and fuel depletion.
I usually finish in the top 5.
 
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I can't be the judge of it yet, as I'm focusing on golding the campaign content before I go online racing. However this has been talked about alot here on the forum and consensus seems to be that it smooths out a few races in after getting the DR and SR up and therefore being paired with more serious players :)

Hope your experience smooths out for some awesome racing! :)
 
I'm at 100% driving school, 89% mission and some random completion on the circuit stuff. Right now I have SR class B. I guess I'll suffer through some more HORRIBLE gaming before it gets good.

Considering this is my first GT game, it's relatively easy. I think I tried GT 2 when I was a kid, but I don't remember.
 
Until now, it lacks more content in Sport Mode. Three races on the same tracks is not enough, and supposedly we have to wait one week for it to change.

And yes, in the lobby there are few people, and if you create a room with a serious race, children will join anyway, and make a 400 m. drag-race in the oppposite direction of the track (yes, this actually happened to me).
 
Tried to figure out this sport mode.. I ended up signing a contract with Porsche, got two free cars I already had and that was that. I dunno.. maybe give them a few days to sort things out. I can imagine the chaos going on in their offices right now.
 
Guffaluff
I can't be the judge of it yet, as I'm focusing on golding the campaign content before I go online racing. However this has been talked about alot here on the forum and consensus seems to be that it smooths out a few races in after getting the DR and SR up and therefore being paired with more serious players :)

Hope your experience smooths out for some awesome racing! :)
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Getting the SR rating up is nearly impossible I have found. The only way that I know of to raise it is online sport mode - and in those races are tons of people who are hell bent on being the fastest around the track.

I started out as C rating, decided to do a few sport races and quickly was T-boned down to a D rating. The next two races dropped me to an E.

Since then, I have purposely entered and immediately fallen to dead last in order to avoid these nuts. Unfortunately because they are constantly going off the road, they end up behind me again as I go around them spinning out of the dirt, make a beeline for me and into the wall again I go. I've finished with all green arrows up except for one down and still managed to drop a rating.

This needs fixed - like many other games that try a rating system, once you fall into the lower categories it's nearly impossible to get out. Quite frustrating, as the online gameplay is what this game is all about.
 
I have 0 penalties so far, and have gotten up to B. I think everyone starts out at D ( except if you got up to C in Beta ).
Doesn't matter though, because people are idiots.

EDIT: Right now the game is about offline mode. If I play any more online tonight I will seriously throw my ps4 out the window. DR on the other hand, I can't get up. When you spin out from kids behind the wheels playing crash derby, it's impossible to get DR up...
 
Lobbies don't use the SR and DR ratings, do they? So unlike the daily races and other official events, lobby races - at least until some players maybe learn a little from the daily events - seem likely to end up as chaotic as open lobbies in most other racing games.
I also noticed that most of them are indeed practically empty, but most players are probably still focused on exploring the other parts of the game.
 
EddSaladSammich
Let them go by and stay out of the pack then run clean sectors. Eventually you'll be running with like-minded racers. The racing etiquette tutorials basically say to do just that and it's the best suggestion I've seen and the best luck I've had.
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You've had better luck than me. I've tried this approach but they invariably spin out and I am forced to pass them. Guess I'll just have to try harder to slow and let them pass or pull over altogether.
 
EddSaladSammich
Let them go by and stay out of the pack then run clean sectors. Eventually you'll be running with like-minded racers. The racing etiquette tutorials basically say to do just that and it's the best suggestion I've seen and the best luck I've had.
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Just about every corner on every track has a safe spot from the dive-bombers and under-takers.

Wide line (usually), Slow-in fast out, works on most.
Take the 1st corner at brands hatch, either stay very wide, early, or very tight early,
They'll go flying past and end up in the sand.
IF you do get a tap, you're already slower than ideal with your foot on the brake, so you can usually keep it on the track, and just power on through the corner.
You should be fast enough to get a full second on them before the next corner, where they'll run wide again, and that's it. If you keep your head and patience, the race usually plays out in your favour.
Also don't try and race the corner-cutters in front of you, unless you really need to, the penalty system will sort them out.
they'll either have to slow down and you can pass, or they get the penalty at the end
 
There's no point in trying to improve your SR rating if you don know the track inside out. Once you do those shunters wont be able to catch you after they spin off leaving you putting in some good clean laps behind the faster racers. I got so frustrated I eventually got my SR rating up to S that way. I havent gone online at all yet though. The current daily race schedule is pathetic. 3 demolition derby races on the smallest 3 tracks? Brands Indy, Northern Ring thing and Suzuka east? You talking a conga line around the whole track of idiots. Not risking going back on until they can figure out a track over 2 miles in length and races longer than 10 minutes.
I did have some fun in a lobby last night though. Use the SR filter! Got 2 dudes to do a few tracks with. If one of us spun out the others slowed down to let them catch up. Moments like that make the game, sadly , not the people you actually gave your $60 to!
 
Robbks
Just about every corner on every track has a safe spot from the dive-bombers and under-takers.

Wide line (usually), Slow-in fast out, works on most.
Take the 1st corner at brands hatch, either stay very wide, early, or very tight early,
They'll go flying past and end up in the sand.
IF you do get a tap, you're already slower than ideal with your foot on the brake, so you can usually keep it on the track, and just power on through the corner.
You should be fast enough to get a full second on them before the next corner, where they'll run wide again, and that's it. If you keep your head and patience, the race usually plays out in your favour.
Also don't try and race the corner-cutters in front of you, unless you really need to, the penalty system will sort them out.
they'll either have to slow down and you can pass, or they get the penalty at the end
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Sage advice. Works for all games really. You should start a thread to gather strategies to avoid the rammers and punters.
 
I experimented with this last night before I gave up. First I tried to drive lines where the kids didn't think you should drive.. this worked a little bit better, and I ended up in the top 5. Sadly the SR system is terrible, and you get deducted SR points if someone bumps into your rear etc. Then I got demoted to SR Class D. All I had to do to come back to class B was to let everyone pass and take a slow picnic trip in last place a few times.
 
EddSaladSammich
Let them go by and stay out of the pack then run clean sectors. Eventually you'll be running with like-minded racers. The racing etiquette tutorials basically say to do just that and it's the best suggestion I've seen and the best luck I've had.
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Except that 'advice' has no basis in the real world of either actual racing or track days.

So in order to cater to the stupid rating system you adopt a totally unrealistic method in order to promote realistic racing. That is asinine.
 
One of the biggest problems I spotted (and posted about) while testing the Beta was that the rating system in GTS does not work and should be fixed/changed before the full game release.
It seems that they did not change it a lot.
So the only way to get better ratings/clean racing is
a.Being really slow/backmarker -doing hotlaps-
or
b.Being really fast/alien type leaving everyone way behind you
This imo was a major problem especially since the game is about pretty much about "online" racing.
 
I’ve had good and bad races in Public lobbies. I race mostly in the Gr.3. It can get frustrating sometimes. But if you get lucky and get clear of the clueless children on turn 1 it can be brilliant. Especially when you find someone just as fast as you.
 
JulesDennis
One of the biggest problems I spotted (and posted about) while testing the Beta was that the rating system in GTS does not work and should be fixed/changed before the full game release.
It seems that they did not change it a lot.
So the only way to get better ratings/clean racing is
a.Being really slow/backmarker -doing hotlaps-
or
b.Being really fast/alien type leaving everyone way behind you
This imo was a major problem especially since the game is about pretty much about "online" racing.
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And the proof that those involved in the design of this rating system (Kaz) are naive and totally out of touch with the real world and just how vindictive and mean spirited many players are in the anonymous world of online - that stupid childlike "etiquette video" training.

"don't drive so you look bad"??

Seriously, is this game aimed at 9 year old kids? If not, then why where the videos aimed at 9 year olds?

The rating system assumes that all participants want to try race clean. That assumption is naive and indicates the dev team are way out of touch.

You do not have to be a genius to know that the majority of people online ARE kids and that they WILL simply troll and cause havoc - that is what they do, and 2 childish videos will not change that.
 
Shameless repost from the PCARS2 forum, which has a similar (probably?) "all contact is penalised regardless of fault" system.

TRGTspecialist
There's three main points to why the game works this way:

1) It can't be easily exploited. There's no special conditions someone could discover where they could crash into people without being penalised. If you make contact, you get a warning/penalty, end of story.

2) Because the system works conservatively, and so can give out "harsh" penalties, in theory this encourages (or even forces) drivers to be more cautious than they normally might be. Which will be good for the online community as a whole.

3) The purpose of this system isn't to decide who are the clean/dirty drivers during a single race, but who are the clean/dirty drivers over a number of races. Which makes sense (unless you're of the "you're only as good as your last race" school of thought), and that's where the power of this system lies - over time, dirty drivers will tend to get involved in more crashes, while cleaner drivers will tend to get involved in less. By the law of large numbers, safety ratings essentially sort themselves out, and the fault/luck behind any one incident becomes irrelevant.
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The key phrase there and one I think needs emphasised is this sort of system working over a number of races - if you're not comfortable with that idea, and prefer to think it's supposed to be figuring out who the clean/dirty drivers are in a single incident, or even a single race, than obviously you'll be frustrated every time there's a crash that's not your fault. If you think the success criteria is "does it correctly judge assign blame in every crash", then obviously you'll think the system doesn't work. But it misses the point.

IMO judging the success of this system will take time, and will require looking at the player base as a whole (or at least as widely as is possible). Does the game, after a period of time, generally have drivers who attract trouble in lower classes, and those who don't in higher classes - and if so, how long is that period. I doubt anyone will have good answers to these a few days after launch.

And to be clear, whilst I think the fundamental idea is sound I'm not saying the same about PD's implementation of this idea, because there's still lots of things we don't know about it. Like how SR points gains/losses are weighted, how easy/hard it is to gain/lose SR points over certain periods of time, what effect starting everyone with a (very generous) B rating will have, and so on. But in any case it's the criticism of the fundamentals that I feel is misplaced.
 
If you’re looking for clean online racing your only hope is iRacing on PC. I’m enjoying GT Sport, but I know this is an arcade racing game aimed at teenagers. It’s not to be taken as serious sim.
 
RC45
And the proof that those involved in the design of this rating system (Kaz) are naive and totally out of touch with the real world and just how vindictive and mean spirited many players are in the anonymous world of online - that stupid childlike "etiquette video" training.

"don't drive so you look bad"??

Seriously, is this game aimed at 9 year old kids? If not, then why where the videos aimed at 9 year olds?

The rating system assumes that all participants want to try race clean. That assumption is naive and indicates the dev team are way out of touch.

You do not have to be a genius to know that the majority of people online ARE kids and that they WILL simply troll and cause havoc - that is what they do, and 2 childish videos will not change that.
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You make good points but I dont think thats the main problem.
IMO the thing is 80% of people buying GTS (or Forza series) are not "hardcore" sims type of players but more casual.
Its true that some of them are trolling or cause problems just to "have fun".
But most of them are just "casuals" that dont know even the basics of online racing.They try to learn,they buy a wheel,they enjoy the game but at the same time many of them can be "trouble makers".
So you have a mix of players (also because GT is a big series) that do not mix well together.
The rating system is not working well because it cannot place all these types of players into groups as it should.
Example:I am a slow but really clean player.But do I play against similar pool of players (in terms of speed/clean racing)?
Nope.Because the rating system is not working as it should.
 
JulesDennis
There are not too many kids in iracing because kids cannot spend the money to keep using iracing.
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Yes and plenty have access to ps4s and Xboxes hence the standard of driving.

On gt6 which I played a lot the majority of lobbies were complete garbage. Unless I found a lobby of friendly Japanese racers I knew or ran in Watermelons mixed shuffle races I would play offline because of this.

Nothing in my view has changed in the transition over to GTS.
 
Public lobby racing, whether on PC or consoles, will always be a mess. It’s one of the main reasons I just renewed my iRacing subscription for two more years. I enjoy playing all racing games across the different platforms, but when I want serious, clean, competitive racing I jump onto iRacing. In the meantime I’m having lots of fun with arcade style racing in GT Sport.
 
What did you guys really expect ? Just wait a couple of months, they casual will leave for the next big game and GT:s will be a little more tolerable online. I have stay offline on purpose. I am still trying to get all gold. That should keep me busy for a while.
 
Try the Sport Mode (official races, penalty system...). Lobbies are land of no one, same things happen in Assetto Corsa public lobbies or in GT5/6 public lobbies. It would be nice to patch people instead of the game :D
 
TRGTspecialist
Shameless repost from the PCARS2 forum, which has a similar (probably?) "all contact is penalised regardless of fault" system.



The key phrase there and one I think needs emphasised is this sort of system working over a number of races - if you're not comfortable with that idea, and prefer to think it's supposed to be figuring out who the clean/dirty drivers are in a single incident, or even a single race, than obviously you'll be frustrated every time there's a crash that's not your fault. If you think the success criteria is "does it correctly judge assign blame in every crash", then obviously you'll think the system doesn't work. But it misses the point.

IMO judging the success of this system will take time, and will require looking at the player base as a whole (or at least as widely as is possible). Does the game, after a period of time, generally have drivers who attract trouble in lower classes, and those who don't in higher classes - and if so, how long is that period. I doubt anyone will have good answers to these a few days after launch.

And to be clear, whilst I think the fundamental idea is sound I'm not saying the same about PD's implementation of this idea, because there's still lots of things we don't know about it. Like how SR points gains/losses are weighted, how easy/hard it is to gain/lose SR points over certain periods of time, what effect starting everyone with a (very generous) B rating will have, and so on. But in any case it's the criticism of the fundamentals that I feel is misplaced.
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And there in is the rub. Not everyone has "the time" to play the numbers game and hope to rise to the top.

This game will be off the prime list and in the bargain bin within 6 months, leaving a few hardcore folks grinding and slogging and playing the numbers and rising to the top - see iRacing etc. for example.

I, like others pop in and out of games as our hobbies, work, family and greater life in general allow.

I can pick up and revisit GT6, 5 & 4, Assetto Corsa, Forza 3,4,5, 6 and now 7, Horizon 1,2 or 3, rFactor etc etc. and jump back in at anytime with out having either lost the ground or if never having had it, can still ENJOY the game without severe penalty. I can't do that with RR3 and iRacing and the other online only games - so I don't play them :)

If Kaz wanted iRacing for PS4 to promote GT Acadamy then he should have said so and not out right lied to bolster sales to the "rest of us".

Kaz lied and said "online is only 15% of the game" - what a crock, and his rating system doesn't even make the online enjoyable unless you are a dedicated eSport, iRacing champion wannabe.
 
I just let the loons go ahead and watch them over run every corner :) - Bloody annoying though. Was racing today a Sazuka in sport mode and was doing plenty of clean sectors, watching my rating go up. Got hit a few times on the 1st and last corner in braking zones and saw it go down, so tried my best to keep well away.
 

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