Hi, here is my personal view (after near 1K rankeds done - no doubt I have tested it a lot) to what rankeds should look like, improving some things actual format does not give and avoiding some of the things now we are getting. Lack of competititvity would be reduced... Too dirty racing caused by lower, mid and high reputations racing together limited. Starter Pack is not a problem just focusing on adding new members but not keeping "old ones" is. Problem will always be "the lack" of players if we game cannot keep the ones have played (over 30K). It is not perfect but sure (from my pov) it is better to what we have. It just takes what we already have in content (starter pack, pro pack, premium pack) and using proper names game already uses or has been using for showing rep and rating requirements. rookies, bronze, silver, gold, elite... Nothing really new but just a way to use it differently. Rookies cannot be a race or a champ with 2K drivers just because is fixed, or fixed just something tabu adding niche and tricky cars if "volume" is the objective. Fixed series are fun even on low or high ratings On this, not more than the actual servers in use should be needed. The only need to develope (sure nothing complicated) is about adding a TOP rat or rep filter for the dedicated server app letting the game "force" some drivers to fill other higher servers. System is just adaptable to add more servers with new requirements but it takes drivers to get always "something" more to improve. Take a look to see limits are not same to "limits to force you move" to another split so it will keep the idea to be accessible to the majority of the drivers. Open to your comments
I like the odd/even hours system, it would give more variety into the races. Overall i think this would be an improvement from what we have currently. In your idea would the 3 premium races be the same car/track setup ? (250 ranked races in 3 months here btw)
That's the point, not an extreme change but an upgrade easily understable and made... Sure will make more attractive racing not just for "newbies" Premium Races are something totally free to be what game (raceroom) thinks it has to be... No need to be the same or even can be starter/pro cars on premium tracks... we can run F3, FRUS, or Mustang at Daytona at 20.00 and Group 5 or GTR2 at Mount Panorama at 22.00. It is just a way to give more sense to premium content and a way to make "everyone" be at same time on servers. OR can be just replicas of the main event coming (I would love on Saturdays) but... that's another topic. The idea is to give per race 2/3 servers per each of this races. Maybe initially can be just 1 or 2 and then upper limit on gold goes out.
I like usage of rating in the system but I think limiting lobbies via "max rating" not gonna work at all seeing how lobbies are usually populated right now - it gonna cut too many lobbies on already limited field for players like me I saw some slower drivers frustrated on dc that faster guys joining rookies and they can't fight for the win but it's weird to me because they still gaining more points if lobby avg rating is higher and they still fighting with people on their level on the track which is the most important thing to have fun I personally would go for 2 fixed starter pack rookie series 24/7 with 15 min races then I like that "championship schedule" I mean 3 classes on one track but I would make all 3 of them "pro" means 80 min rep, 24/7 and maybe like 20/25 mins? and for future championships (if they gonna happen) also not label them as rookie, am and pro because it looks ridiculous when rookie serie is owned by pro drivers and then 3/4 feature races with 15/30/45/60 min duration and 75 rep, 3 times per day every 2h like it is right now seems fine but u know I would made them 24/7 - niche car/tracks for 15/30 slot and for 45/60 some more popular ones because at the moment nobody driving these niche 45 min combos at all + these bigger events that happens from time to time with 20 min prep sprints next to them no at all, because at the end most of people gonna drive combos that they prefer anyway I for example instead of racing something else would wait for the combo I want to drive and that I learnt instead of jumping from one to another
Hi Mike, That would be almost exactly what we have been having and what we have.. And it is clear does not work. Numbers are just numbers and as you say... The higher SOF you have... the higher rating you can earn, but it is all about the racing experience... And it is logical to have that increasing numbers. Years ago 6K drivers on iracing was something crazy... Now there are 10K drivers... That said AM or PRO is nothing if just 80 reputation when people 1.4 are over required rep. The lack of competitivity it gives and the easy no-sense driving of some just using the rep as a filter is clear. The idea about top filters is just to avoid having 2.0k and 1.4k driving on same race... That is one of the biggest problems we have and one of the causes of the huge lack of people driving in rankeds nowadays. Anyway the usage of "starter pack" or "fixed" as rookies, as you say has no sense.
if we can't get proper matchmaking ala iRacing then current system is the best what we can get I was really disappointed when "big step forward, next gear" or whatever was it called ends to be some google form community league type championship not but it is what it is without this type of matchmaking system that iRacing offers I think this game not gonna get many more players at this point so we rather have to get over it so at the end I think there is just too many races and some combos like 45 min gto on scandinavia have 0 chances to go, maybe on 15 min slot but not on 45 and that's the main thing we should think about
If that's the best we can have... game is over with number of players and avg near to 2018... 2 years before rankeds. If that is the best... We have gone from average 565 player January... to 340 on last 30 days... Rankeds, even less people. 61% drivers over 1.8K are inactive... if we go to 1.6K or over... more. Game has to at least try something different...
at the moment all simracing games have dips because it seems that people enjoying summer in some games it looks harsher because avg player base was smaller than on another I didn't driven in last month at all so I'm also in this group it probably gonna recover to 1k peaks in next colder months (so the standard numbers) simracing market is pretty small and there is many titles out and few to come soon so it's hard to expect bigger gains without proper matchmaking system in my eyes no matter what you gonna do especially on the game that is out for so long
76,8% of drivers over 1.55k are totally inactive... And it is not a problem about summer. Has been increasing every month... and always around that. Just on top drivers (+1.8k) and considering many have joined the champs and still count as active even on 1... 61% are inactive. Believe me... it is not the summer, maybe goes up to 50% as it was during the champs... But if you wanna... we can do a bet. Also... Mike. You've done 7 races in last 5 months...
There are reasons why RaceRoom is leaking players that have been discussed here before, many of which have nothing to do with tweaking the ranked schedule or banning high-rated players from rookie lobbies, but which have been mostly dismissed by the diehards here and on the Discord.
I don't know what the answers are regarding the future of raceroom and how to attract players (or not lose them). I agree that a maximum rating for rookies should be implemented though. Having it open helps no-one.
First thing to say... Ferrari Fixed combo (on +75 rep) gets part of this non rookies fixed combos I would love to have as something regular. Series with single model cars and fixed work awesome like this one... or 911GTR3, Mustang (kind of NASCAR,... )... Hope it can stay like more than 15 days changing just circuit and gets more people. It is at least for me... A nice step forward
I mean at least going by my most recent experiences the rookie servers are almost the only option to get a decently sized grid. Over the past 2 weeks ive done 5 non rookie races and only one of them had more than 7 drivers starting the race. Now that mightve been an outlier because of donington featuring so heavily but still, im not sure further distributing the handful of drivers is really helpful (plus the old points of hardly any fixed setup races outside of rookie servers plus the 24/7 availability of rookie races versus at best once an hour for almost all other races making the rookie servers more attractive even for higher ranked players) but then again i guess we wont know how things actually turn out if there arent different things being tried out so yeah, maybe give it a go some time but if it doesnt really have the desired effects please reopen them for everyone
Are the non rookie servers not quiet because of th fact everyone is driving rookies though? If there's no method to push drivers upwards they will only drive where it is busy. It wouldn't take a huge amount of active drivers to fill both a rookie server and a higher tier server. As I see it we are currently putting off the true rookies as they are forced to drive with high ranked players, this placing them automatically further down the grid where mayhem is more likely, plus they have little chance of a "good" finish. Then you have the faster drivers who want to drive other cars with other faster drivers who can't because the servers aren't populated. Now, it's not a guaranteed answer, but doing nothing when clearly things aren't great at the moment is just a race to the bottom imo. Change things, see what happens, change again if needed.
I'll add that I think a return to the daily special races would be good. They were a mini event in themselves and usually attracted a decent grid and seemed a popular talking point among the discord regulars.
Not entirely sure thats the only thing thats happening but i agree the approach you mentioned there would most likely bring an answer to that question and if things go well a solution would be found as well just by seeing what works
I´d like to share my point of view as someone who is new to raceroom - i came back after 3 years about 2 months ago during the summer sale - AND is only racing on ranked servers. i completely disagree with uriloki. of course this is my subjective view. There are two things i would change: 1. make it simple. there are two many races for such a small player base and for new people checking it out it looks confusing. the two-week schedule change rhythm is good but i can´t tell you from the top of my head which cars are racing on which track under which conditions. most of the servers are empty anyways and i always end up on the rookie servers although i tried....lord knows. my suggestion: 3 rookie sprint races and 1 feature race - thats it. feature race should be a real thing, not some 20 minute sprint. including pit stop (probably 45-60 min length) change that every two weeks but KEEP the cars on the three rookie sprint races for the duration of 2 months (see championship later on) forget about gold-silver-bronze. for getting into the feature race you need 80+ rep. fire up the servers every two hours so you can have a nice rhythm going if people like to do one after another. so at least everybody who is bored of rookie servers has a place to go where hopefully enough people will actually race. 2. create more incentives to actually progress. ranked championship is a must! the system in season 1 made a lot of sense to me. they have to bring it back asap and as i understand they will. my suggestion: you gotta link the radically stripped down schedule (3 sprints 1 feature) to the championship so that every race has a meaning. that means that there will be 3 "Rookie" Championship races every two weeks all season long and 1 "Feature" Championship race where you might change the car every two weeks. tracks will change on all races of course every two weeks. i would keep the registration system they already have in place and i would change one tiny little thing. give people a bit more time to actually confirm registration (two instead of one day). so if there are enough people you can organize them in appropriate splits. I would create a "Championship week". So every series got their own night. for example: Wednesday: NSU Thursday: BMW M235i Friday: Tatuus F4 Saturday: Feature Championship (60 min race with pitstop and so on) 3. after all is done you NEED to give people some kind of benefit. and i meand everybody that participated. of course only a few guys will get prizes (in game currency) but there has to be some implementation in game. a statistics page for the championship, perks, whatever. as it is the whole thing just dissapears after its done. i already forgot which position i finally had in season 1. thats a shame ;-) CONCLUSION: strip it down, create more direct incentives to have people behave and getting better. and give them something to be proud of. just my 5 cents
Real Rookie here. Thought I'd give my point of view as a new simracer. This really just applies to the Rookie experience, not the AM or PRO guys. As we all know Rookie Servers can be scary. I fully expect to get wrecked or spun in every race. For new racers there are a couple of options: 1) Download free game, buy what you need to enter a Rookie Race and jump in. Run full throttle into turn 1, total car, enter another. 2) Download game, watch videos on race etiquette and driving, go to practice server with the same car and track you want to race and practice until you feel somewhat confident that you can race without too much undue damage to your fellow racers. I took the 2nd route and I still make plenty of stupid mistakes that cost me and my fellow racers, but I tried to educate myself on the basics before I entered populated servers and try to race with respect. Before RaceRoom I had no knowledge at all on racing. From the outside looking in, people see a free game on Steam, download it, and go to the "Rookie" section. Makes perfect sense. There is no tutorial or lesson in race etiquette and if you do not go actively seeking this information, you just may not know any better. I entered a race a couple of days ago and saw a guy with a VERY low reputation and said to myself "That guy is going to take out half the field". Race starts, he starts from the back of the field and plows into turn 1 at speed only hitting two cars, but that resulted in a multi car pileup just seconds into the race. His reputation is currently 14. I feel like if I am not fast enough to qualify in the first couple of rows my chances of surviving turn 1 are 50/50. Lately I have been joining late during qualifying and starting as far back as I can without a qualifying time. I can gain multiple places after watching the carnage in turn 1 from behind, then try to make my way up the pack from there. Sometimes I even get a little rating out of it when higher rated drivers are punted or have so much damage they end up in the back or not finishing. Even starting from the back I sometimes get wrecked by racers that spun ahead of me and just rejoin with no concern for what's on the track behind them. I really like the game and have a great time driving. I have decided that getting hit is just going to happen and I try to enjoy it regardless. My mindset is that I try to keep clean and keep my Reputation as high as possible. I have given up worrying about Rating points. I don't know exactly how Reputation is calculated, but it seems a little silly that racers with 15-25 incident points in a race get a positive reputation for that race. Is it because it's less incidents than they usually get? I don't understand how having almost enough incident points to get DQ still results in positive reputation. I was hit by a guy that got 27 incident points the other day and he ended up with a positive reputation score for that race. I would like to move up to AM servers, but I feel like I am not fast enough and would be a hindrance. I am 2+ seconds off the pace of the better drivers. I always join a practice server and try to learn the car and track before racing and will try to get more competent before. I guess this turned into more of a rant than anything. As I said, I make more than my share of stupid mistakes, but try to be respectful. Maybe some kind of mandatory tutorial on racing etiquette for new drivers and those with exceptionally low reputation would help. Changing the way reputation is calculated so that someone that wrecks their way up the field does not get a positive rating and reputation score. The current system seems to reward unclean racing. Hope to see you on the track...from behind
I don't have exact formulas, but the rep system looks at three things: - how many corners you passed in that race; - how many incident points you got in that race; - what was your reputation before the race. The lower your rep the easier for it to go up, and vice versa. Yep, I don't understand that too. The system is so generous that even at 80 reputation you'd need to get about 20+ incident points for your rep to go down.
I'd like to see the maximum Inc points before DQ reduced. There would definitely be some pushback at first since people would complain they got DQ from other people's mistakes. But it works both ways, people would eventually be more careful. There's no excuse for the amount of T1 collisions, it's just that you can get away with it now. 20 max would really make those mid pack drivers think about what they are doing.