We all agree that being disconnected from a ranked server is an annoying experience, especially if it occurs due to a technical problem in our Internet access or equipment or even due to problems on the server side. But this is not the worst problem with disconnections in RaceRoom. The worst is the treatment that RaceRoom does in terms of loss especially of reputation points, based on the assumption that disconnections may be voluntary. There is a solution that should be implemented by RaceRoom. Once a driver has registered for a race and the race has started, if a disconnect occurs it should be possible to return to the race when the technical problem is resolved and it is possible to reconnect. Technically this should be simple since the server has the data of the participants at the beginning of the race and it would not be so unfair in the repercussions of a disconnection.
Completely agree. But, although easy to say, I think it will require changes to the UI and backend. For example, a withdraw option and not possible to join others while the first one is running. Like pre-registering to the race. Not like now, which is similar to plug&play. Probably easier to implement than driver swap. Maybe with the new UI spreading to all windows, this could be more possible. And, IMO, it will open the door for enduro races to more drivers who might be afraid of a technical failure.
Just an idea..... Assuming the game recognises the difference between somebody quitting mid-race and a disconnection, maybe we could start with three 'lives' and each time a disconnection happens we lose one 'life' but aren't hit with the big reputation penalty. Once you hit the fourth - then the reputation hits begin. If after, say, three months there have been no more disconnections our lives are reset to three. Habitual plug-pullers will be hurt the most, but having three 'lives' before sanctions kick in should cover the majority of accidental disconnections, and give those with genuine technical problems breathing space to fix them.
At the moment rejoins are not possible for the same reason qualies are closed. People joining the server may cause stutters for the people on track. That means that someone rejoining may cause half the grid to crash. Any way and that's just my opinion, if I would get disconnected I'd rather join another race than join the same and be 5 laps behind. Additionally, I bet people having connection issues would rejoin and be kicked again. BTW, disconnections alone are not penalized harshly, you only get 3 incident points, that less than car-car contact. If you disconnect cole to the end of the race you will barely loose or even gain rep. If you get a disconnection before the raqce starts you get "max" rep drop, because you have 3 inciedents vs 0 corners driven. The same rep drop would be given to soemone who stays at the S/F staright to crash into people and get a DQ with ) corners driven. To make diconnections less painful they would have to modify the algorithm to make an exception for disconnections. I'm assuming the algorithm is compcated enough to make it hard and possible to introduce system breaking bugs. My suggestion is, if you have disconnection issues try to fix them. I haven't had a single disconnection since last update, so it's not entirely game's fault.
Joining for the first time and rejoining is not the same. Just because one causes issues doesn't mean the other one will too. How do you know that?
A conclusion based on analyzing my races. Anyway, in the first 20 races (I think it's 20) your gains and drops are doubled. I mentioned J-F that it makes disconnection penalties too harsh for newbies. He said that it's being looked into. So maybe something will change in the way disconecctions are deal with.
Depends on what type of issue it was. If I was someone who cares about my rep, I'd join the race again to minimize the rep loss. Rep loss is exactly the reason why people complain about disconnects, it always goes like: "yeah, I understand the rating loss, but the rep loss is too high".
I am someone who cares about my rep, I always keep it at the level that lets me drive in every server. Yet I wouldn't rejoin. I'd much rather regain it in other races. The problem with rating loss vs. rep loss is that rating loss has almost no consequence. You are able to participate in any race as long as you have high rep. Untill that changes I guess devs won't be willing to lower or remove the rep loss. Later when rating will be used for splits etc. I hope rep penalies will be chnaged or removed. But then people will probably complain about rating penalties. The rejoins aren't simple to code even if they wouldn't cause stutters. There is a ping limit that assures quality racing. No people jumping all over the track. "Netcode" has to predict where the car will be when it receives info from the client. the smaller the gaps/ping the more precise it can be. Disconnection is basically an infinite ping and I bet it is handled by the same mechanism. If it is like that than people with high ping/connection issues, would be allowed back in. Which makes high ping protection useless. Everything is simple untill you have to write and debug the code yourself. The rep loss is only hurtfull if you get disconnected. Why don't people focus on fixing disconnections. I know from a beta tester that devs are working on the issues game side. As I said I haven't had issues with disconnections, but if I had I'd be looking for potential causes on my side.
Why do you think they don't? Or do you believe every connection issue can be solved by the end user? ---- Yet again, a bunch of assumptions that you made just to oppose a reasonable suggestion. Why? Being able to rejoin a multiplayer session is not an alien or impossible concept in videogames, it exists since 90s probably. Let me remind you: you are not a Raceroom developer. Neither am I. We, as players, give feedback on how we find our gaming experience and offer suggestions on what would make our experience better. Then, it's the devs turn to decide if it's worth implementing. For a player, guessing how hard it is to implement makes no sense unless you know something for sure, e.g. a dev or a beta tester specifically talked about that. "Writing code is not simple" is such a broad argument that it's useless.
Let me remind you forums are created for discussion. You don't know me, you don't know if what I write is a guess and how educated this guess might be. I do write code every day and I'm able to identify potential issues. Even if I'm not right about my assuptions about how things are implemented in R3E, actually I don't even need to be right about it. I know enough about software development, to know how complicated seemingly simple things may be. Please stop trolling every thread I join. I don't mind expalining things, but with you every info thrown your way just bounces and you keep finding some riddiculous way to twist everything I write. I'm a bit tired.
I'm not trolling anyone, I'm interested in valuable discussions. The ones where a reasonable suggestion is not met with all sorts of made up excuses why it can't and shouldn't be done; the ones that aren't derailed with a bunch of baseless or irrelevant assumptions passed as "info". And what exactly do you know about their system and their code? What makes your guesses educated other than some experience with a different software? Otherwise it's just paranoia, oh it must be hard, oh it might break, better not touch it.
Sometimes I gave up playing because of so many reputation points already lost. I noticed that with the use of VPN this does not happen, but at the same time the VPN increases my PING too much (which is already high due to geographic issue) and besides having a cost. And I don't want to have to pay VPN to be able to play online. In the past two weeks there have been two crashes that have resulted in the loss of more than 14 reputation points, often forcing me back into the rookie class, which I don't like. I know it's not a problem directly from RR and MAYBE it's a problem with Amazon's servers with my internet provider, since I don't have this problem of crashing in other racing games This method of assessment is very damaging to people who have had these falls.
Then start bringing value to the discussion because so far you haven't posted anything that brings anything to the topic. What makes you think this idea is reasonable? What knowledge of r3e codebase do you have to be so certain I'm not right and my assumptions are base less? @marciovs28 that's strange may I know where are you connecting from and what sort of connection do you have?
I find the opening post to be sufficient, it explains the issue and proposes a solution that: 1) would reduce rep loss for those affected; 2) is theoretically possible because it can be found in other games. I don't have any information (like, actual solid facts that can be proven with links or at least reference someone from the team) that would suggest it's not possible in this game or will inevitably cause other issues. Whether it's actually possible or is worthy of spending resources on - that's for the devs to decide. I left my upvote. "Reasonable idea", from the player side, doesn't mean "we demand devs to implement this", it means "looks like it can improve the gaming experience". Nah, that's not how it works. You make claims ("it's hard", "it's risky"), it's you job to prove them. The fact alone that you have experience with some other software is not enough (because software can be very different) and you didn't even specify what software it was or what your job was to make your opinion sound more fitting for this case.
If you find opening post sufficient than why do you post? In the civilized world it's the accusing party's responsibility to provide proof. If you claim that I'm wrong prove it. Just because something is possible or has been made available in another game doesn't mean that it can be easily done in RaceRoom. Not every idea is reasonable, not everything that other games do is reasonable. If you want to push things forward think about a way to allow disconnected player reconnect while keeping people with bad connections and high ping that are danger on track form rejoining. I assume you're going to say it's the devs responsibility, but they are busy fixing disconnections problem.
Because I find your counter-arguments questionable and want to point it out. Allow only a fixed number of rejoins per race, for example. Even if it's once per race, it should soften the rep loss for rare occasional disconnects, but someone with a really unstable connection won't be a problem for other players. Are you referencing to "innocent until proven guilty"? We are not in court and I'm not accusing you of crime. In science, for example, the burden of proof is on the one who makes a claim. Do you want to throw claims around while not being bothered to back them up with anything? Or do you think "dude trust me" is a good enough proof?