"For the Good of the Sport," and the changes I'd make to how GT approaches ranked multiplayer.

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First-off, I think PD using AI for the BoP is quite resourceful, though I wonder if perhaps some further tweaks could be made manually, after the AI sets the BoP values?

But beyond BoP and balancing of classes, I wanted to discuss a few topics regarding GT Sport's take on ranked multiplayer, and potentially some lobby stuff, as well.

Let's begin with the Daily Races. A had a few ideas as listed below:

-There could be a Daily (read: weekly) race for each class, including the N-classes. However, they would follow a "baseline" of rules, which would be realistic traction off-road, realistic drafting, fuel and tires at 1x consumption, settings disabled, light damage enabled, BoP enabled, and for N-series, only permitting cars that come as-is within that class. So for example, an N300 event would not permit cars that can become eligible for another N-series class via changes to its power. On top of this, the baseline could occasionally be changed, with occasional races that allow tuning, disabling BoP, or increasing the rate of tire/fuel consumption. Plus, some races may be time-based rather than have their duration based on laps.

-On top of this, there could be particular motifs for certain races, such as an N100 race that is restricted to kei cars, or a Gr.1 race limited to Group C cars.

-For qualifying, you can only use the car you used to set your best time in the race, along with its setting (including tires). You also can only use one qualifying time per race, and you are given the race's duration for the duration of the qualifying session. In addition, you could view the entire list of best times for both your region, nation, state, county, and even the world, with an option to show your ranking within each of them. You also can sort the best times list by cars, where you are shown the top times per car, and the order would in theory show which cars have been the fastest. Ideally, I like the idea of GT Sport having a similar app to the Pokemon Global Link, where in-depth usage stats for various ranked modes are displayed. Hopefully the official companion app will do something neat like this.

-As for DR, it could be calculated by how much your total race time deviates from the player with the fastest race time in that region, as a matter of percentage. (AFAIK, if you have the fastest race time, doesn't that mean you win?) You can also be rewarded credits depending on not only your ending position, but also your DR ranking, which would use this method, rather than the class picked for the race. (E.g. Gr.1 races offering more than N100 races.)

-Instead of being rewarded for only having an entirely clean race, perhaps you could be rewarded for how many of the race's sectors were clean. Furthermore, if there's a successor to the consecutive clean races achievement, it could be awarded for total clean races, instead. That said, you could get increasing amounts of credit rewards for consecutive clean races, rather than a consistent 50% increase. This, alongside my idea of having light damage be a "baseline," should further incentivize clean racing.

-Finally, lobbies ought to have tons of customization for rulesets, and ideally could have presets based on all championship races for a given stage/season, going up to the next upcoming race, and not any further. If there's a race/car that's coming in a patch, then the preset will not become available among the lobby presets until said patch is released.
 
-There could be a Daily (read: weekly) race for each class, including the N-classes. However, they would follow a "baseline" of rules, which would be realistic traction off-road, realistic drafting, fuel and tires at 1x consumption, settings disabled, light damage enabled, BoP enabled, and for N-series, only permitting cars that come as-is within that class. So for example, an N300 event would not permit cars that can become eligible for another N-series class via changes to its power. On top of this, the baseline could occasionally be changed, with occasional races that allow tuning, disabling BoP, or increasing the rate of tire/fuel consumption. Plus, some races may be time-based rather than have their duration based on laps.

Having races for every class, including multiple N-class races, is way too many and you split the playerbase up too much, meaning it is even less likely to be matched with people of a similar ability, or even matched with people at all at off-peak time in certain regions.

-On top of this, there could be particular motifs for certain races, such as an N100 race that is restricted to kei cars, or a Gr.1 race limited to Group C cars.

They've started to do this I think. There was a Gr.4 race recently only allowing FF Vehicles.

-For qualifying, you can only use the car you used to set your best time in the race, along with its setting (including tires).

Yes.

-As for DR, it could be calculated by how much your total race time deviates from the player with the fastest race time in that region, as a matter of percentage. (AFAIK, if you have the fastest race time, doesn't that mean you win?) You can also be rewarded credits depending on not only your ending position, but also your DR ranking, which would use this method, rather than the class picked for the race. (E.g. Gr.1 races offering more than N100 races.)

No. Big no. Race time does not equal driver ability. If 2 drivers are incredibly quick but are battling with eachother, they are costing themselves time, and with your idea, costing eachother driver rating even though they could be fighting for the win of the top split.


-Finally, lobbies ought to have tons of customization for rulesets, and ideally could have presets based on all championship races for a given stage/season, going up to the next upcoming race, and not any further. If there's a race/car that's coming in a patch, then the preset will not become available among the lobby presets until said patch is released.

There should be more options available in lobbies. It is borderline farcical that qualifying sessions cannot be properly simulated online, or that you can't set it to One-Make, and so so many more basic settings. Although I really don't understand why you are discussing updates and how it changes presets, like...all of that is unnecessary

Not many of these ideas are revolutionary by the way. Many are basic things suggested by many that should have been available back in 2017 or added by now.
 
Having races for every class, including multiple N-class races, is way too many and you split the playerbase up too much, meaning it is even less likely to be matched with people of a similar ability, or even matched with people at all at off-peak time in certain regions.

Yeah, come to think of it, it may be better to just have around three at the moment, maybe five at most. Still, I think there could be more variance in them. For example, one could consistently be for featuring relatively new content.

No. Big no. Race time does not equal driver ability. If 2 drivers are incredibly quick but are battling with eachother, they are costing themselves time, and with your idea, costing eachother driver rating even though they could be fighting for the win of the top split.

I don't mean race time within that particular race, but in the context of all players within that region.
 
I don't mean race time within that particular race, but in the context of all players within that region.

That's just as bad. In a less competitive split, a driver in the lead will not be battling with anyone possibly, and get a race time better than more competitive splits because drivers may battle more in the higher splits. Plus, with a rolling start, drivers can lose a lot of time just by their qualifying position, and a driver could qualify at the back of a higher split with a better time than a driver in a slower split who starts pole (which is as it should be, but is why you shouldn't compare splits on race times within a region).

The basis of the current DR system is perfect. The problem is the bottleneck at 65K+ and how that affects FIA Race Points System. But the DR system itself doesn't need a ridiculous overhaul
 
Could you tell me more about that?

With 75K being a maximum for Driver Rating, and the FIA Points on offer being based on DR, it means the best drivers, no matter how good they are, can only get to 75K DR which isn't that much higher than 65K DR.

There is a huge driver ability difference between the likes of 60-65K and 75K, however the 2nd or 3rd split, with drivers of 60K+ DR, offer really good FIA Points still, meaning a win in 2nd split is equivalent to 3rd or so in top split, even though top split is way way way harder and more competitive.

Drivers who are winning 2nd and 3rd splits are getting way more points than they would in the top split, and they are getting more points than drivers in the top split because finishing in the midfield or lower in the top split is practically worthless, even though the performance a driver does is very likely better than the performance of a 2nd or 3rd split driver.
 
With 75K being a maximum for Driver Rating, and the FIA Points on offer being based on DR, it means the best drivers, no matter how good they are, can only get to 75K DR which isn't that much higher than 65K DR.

There is a huge driver ability difference between the likes of 60-65K and 75K, however the 2nd or 3rd split, with drivers of 60K+ DR, offer really good FIA Points still, meaning a win in 2nd split is equivalent to 3rd or so in top split, even though top split is way way way harder and more competitive.

Drivers who are winning 2nd and 3rd splits are getting way more points than they would in the top split, and they are getting more points than drivers in the top split because finishing in the midfield or lower in the top split is practically worthless, even though the performance a driver does is very likely better than the performance of a 2nd or 3rd split driver.

I think I get the idea, but what exactly were "splits" again? And what defines a top, 2nd, or 3rd split? Also, would raising the maximum DR to 100k necessarily solve the problem?
 

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