ADAC GT Masters eSports Championship 2020 - Shootout Thread

Discussion in 'ADAC GT Masters Esports Championship' started by Thomas Bienert, Jan 16, 2020.

  1. Robert Wiesenmüller

    Robert Wiesenmüller Esports / Events

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    Tyre physics makes sense. But it has to be tested properly, so that it does not create more loopholes than it closes.

    Other system than Hotlap? No. We need a system where a large amount of drivers can participate, automated, fair and easily (no entry restrictions). And hotlap fulfills that perfectly. While we generate higher participant numbers than basically any other sims. So I am not open for that discussion.
    Just see it like this: Getting into top 20 will give you financial benefits, great experiences and exposure. Hotlap is the necessary evil to get into this wonderland.

    Disable hotlap restart feature? I am not sure if I understand that correctly.
    Do you mean that drivers have just a limited amount of timed laps? That could work to be honest, but it would require some changes to our system, to inform all players properly and to integrate a practice feature. At the moment I rather do not touch anything that isn't broken.
    Or do you mean that it is more complicated to restart your run? I think that would be totally counter-productive, since it would be even more time-consuming.
     
  2. M Stofmeel

    M Stofmeel Member Beta tester

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    Limited time or laps would be a good solution to more accurately replicate the shootout qualifying session. Right now, unlimited hotlapping and resetting the lap after doing a turn 1 that is a couple hundreths slow in order to find the magic unicorn lap just has very little to do with proving yourself to be a top 30 driver in my opinion. Having to drift the fixed setups around the track in order to qualify doesn't help either, but that's a whole other can of worms that'll probably require a tweak to the tire physics or traction control system.

    Adding a time pressure to setting your competition entry might be a good step to relieve some of the stress and frustrations that come with the current system. It will probably bring its own set of problems and issues along with it, but in the current meta of 'keep doing laps until you can't anymore' it might very well be just as necessary an evil as having the hotlapping system at all.
     
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    Last edited: Feb 15, 2020
  3. Robert Wiesenmüller

    Robert Wiesenmüller Esports / Events

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    I remember I drove a Racedepartment prequali once, where we had 1 hotlap. On Macau.
    It led to some top drivers starting in server 4, and I was in the topsplit despite being 2 seconds slower.
    It was also the most stressful prequali ever.

    Overall I was really happy with the outcome of the preseason on Shootout 1. We really had 30 capable drivers on the grid, that deserved to race and caused few incidents. So I am just a bit hestitant to support changes, since I don't want that we shoot ourselves in the foot and allow drivers with less preparation in.
     
  4. M Stofmeel

    M Stofmeel Member Beta tester

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    Single lap qualy is overshooting the mark where you start entering casino slot machine territory, that's not what me or @Risto are thinking of I'm pretty sure. Think more along the lines of being able to prepare as much as you want in the regular leaderboards or offline practice, but only having 1 or otherwise very limited chances at entering the competition session which consists of 30 minutes Rolling Start qualifying. 30 minutes is an arbitrary number and might need to be longer or shorter, but the goal would be to reward drivers that come prepared and are capable of setting their best time with this pressure but preventing a meta where you have to endlessly hotlap for the perfect lap that you'll never be able to do in a real qualy session.

    If I don't prepare well enough, make too many mistakes or am just not fast enough during this limited session and as a result don't qualify, I can live with that: others did a better job. Right now though, even though I'm not capable of setting a top 30 time in even 10 hours of hotlapping and thus probably don't deserve to qualify, there's always this feeling of 'I can qualify as long as I throw more time at the problem and grind it out' which is just not ideal.

    Lots of issues come with this of course, like what happens when you disconnect, crash or otherwise lose connection. What if you misclick your choice of car, are interrupted in real life etc. It's much too grand a suggestion to consider for this season. I'd however love to hear the opinion of other competitors and whether they're enjoying the current style of unlimited hotlapping or whether they'd prefer to qualify in a different, perhaps less time and mentally consuming manner.
     
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    Last edited: Feb 16, 2020
  5. Thomas Bienert

    Thomas Bienert Esports / Events Beta tester

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    What do we get out of your idea? Do you expect to drop lap times?

    From what I understood right now you would only change the format that will not change the way you feel about it. In your last post @M Stofmeel you say "If I don't prepare well enough" Probably you will do hours over hours driving alone while not even having a clue of where your pace is. This is, in my opinion, tenser, then knowing you need to find some tenths you never knew they exist. I am openly asking you would you think this is better? Can we bring a format that changes your way you feel? I doubt the way you feel right now is because of so many high-class drivers and having just 30 seats.

    In my opinion, this leaderboard is just insanely crazy. And we need to find a way to balance maximum performance and your personal feelings. Still, I think the performance needs to be the focus.
     
  6. M Stofmeel

    M Stofmeel Member Beta tester

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    I can imagine many people would put similar hours into their preparation, including myself, but the parameters and goals would be very different. I'll do my best to explain my thoughts.

    It's easy to misunderstand me in thinking I'm complaining that I didn't qualify this time around. That's not the case and I'm not looking for any way to manipulate the times so I could weasel myself in when I clearly didn't deserve to be. It's my opinion that the current system tests those on the edge and with potential to qualify more heavily on stamina to endure endless hotlapping rather than being a well rounded driver with pace deserving of a qualifying spot.

    I'd find it a lot more pleasant to prepare myself as best I can to be able to set as close to my maximum time possible within a time restricted window closely replicating an actual qualifying session. The preparation for this turns into being able to actually set a 99% laptime within this pressurized window instead of endlessly resetting your lap over and over again until you find a 0,1% quicker laptime.

    I agree with you that the current appeal for this competition seems to have grown immensely, which I applaud and am thrilled to see for my favourite sim. Yet with this comes the downside of having a sizeable roster of drivers that firmly and rightfuly believe they are deserving of a spot as long as they grind out enough laps. This grind and time investment feels like it has grown exponentially with the increased interest and average skill level of this year's competition.

    I hope my idea would result in the qualifying parameter being closer to what's required for performing well during the shootout, where our current leaderboard system feels very detached from things like consistency, risk management and being able to perform under pressure and instead tests the top half of qualifiers mostly on pace, but the bottom half too greatly on stamina and time investment.

    I think my idea would actually improve the performance of the tool that is supposed to find the fastest and best 30 drivers. You'd be preparing many necessary skills required to perform in the shootout and LAN competition qualifying and race session instead of solely finding a perfect laptime. If with my idea the time I managed to put in wasn't fast enough and I don't qualify as a result, it's much easier to live with the fact that I just didn't perform well enough and thus am not deserving of a spot instead of regretting not having gone above and beyond to do more and more laps in order to come a few hundreths closer to my personal perfect lap.
     
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    Last edited: Feb 17, 2020
  7. majuh

    majuh Well-Known Member

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    Hotlapping pace, qualifying pace and race pace correlate very well in my experience.
     
  8. Thomas Bienert

    Thomas Bienert Esports / Events Beta tester

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    First of all, I don't think that way. Right now it's difficult for me to grab your idea. Would you explain it to me in detail in detail? And try to focus only on a good shootout format. There are so many thoughts here that it feels confusing to me.

    From what I can see right now is that the time-value factor isn't given any more. And from what I understand we need to find the sweet spot between hard work and too much work. Mathematically I understand your point very well. When you come to the last 5% of the general lap time potential you need to put more energy into reaching the potential then you needed to grind yourself to the 95% perfect lap time. For the amount of energy, you need to bring in to grind down the last 1% the same applies again. Since you guys went crazy everyone is now putting their whole time into this competition. Even though they may fail because only 0,0015% (30/2030) of all participating drivers will be invited. Nevermind how big your personal improvement was. So there is actually no reward for it.

    I am now asking myself two things: Would a new format really help? Does this problem only occur because this is kinda the only series right now you can choose from us? And would the competition struggle end if there were so many competitions that we have a driver base of 120 drivers that in general qualify for separate events?
     
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    Last edited: Feb 18, 2020
  9. M Stofmeel

    M Stofmeel Member Beta tester

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    I'll try to explain the problem and my proposition as best I can. Mind that this is just an idea off the top of my head.

    Current problem: The current leaderboard system incentivizes p15-p50 into a time investment war in order to squeeze the absolute last drops of laptime. This has been exacerbated by the increased interest from in- and outside Raceroom, where more and more drivers with enough skill to compete for prizes are trying to one-up eachother with rather useless minimal laptime improvements. Having done an ever so marginally better laptime through sheer persistence in hotlapping doesn't make p30 better than p31.

    Proposed solution: What does make p30 better than p31 is being able to do your maximum lap time, or very close to, in a qualification session. A driver like Keithley shows he's one of the few people capable of setting an immense lap time very close to his personal best in such a session and is rightfully rewarded with front row starts. Not because he's often a top leaderboard contender, but because he can get actually do those laps more than once in a blue moon.

    I propose to make the current competition leaderboard a practice leaderboard where you can see how well you are doing compared to the other competitors. The timeframe of when the competition opens and closes can remain the same, where you have a bit more than a week to practice and must set your qualification laptime before the end.
    When you start to feel you're reaching your maximum potential and are consistently capable of setting laptimes of 99% your personal best, you're ready to enter the qualification session. No need to squeeze the last useless thousanths out of yourself through immensive time investment.

    You get 1 shot to enter a X (15/20/30?) minute long, Rolling Start qualification session where you have to prove you are capable of performing within a limited time window. It is my belief this is where a fair cut-off is made between the best 30 and those that were unfortunately not good enough. Time investment and preparation is rewarded, as it should, but the grind for ultimate laptime isn't.

    Problems this imposes: Connection issues, client crashes, real life emergencies, power outtages can make this format feel unfair if they occur during this qualification session. I don't have a good solution for this at the moment. You might need to have multiple attempts at it, maybe 3 attempts is still fair and mitigates technical issues?

    Perhaps there are better ways to impose a time restriction to the shootout qualification. @Robert Wiesenmüller indicated a time restriction might work well, do you have any ideas of your own Rob?

    I don't have an answer to this. Having more competitions at the same time might spread the field out more, or it might draw even more drivers capable of competing and make the problem bigger. I can't rightfully say one or the other is true. I do however believe my proposed format more closely replicates real motorsports rather than embracing the gamified leaderboards and hotlapping of simracing. The real ADAC drivers aren't concerned with bettering their personal bests with a few hundreths, but just want to be able to set their best time during the qualification session.
     
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  10. Robert Wiesenmüller

    Robert Wiesenmüller Esports / Events

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    The best way of implementing a time restriction would be to only count the ingame time.
    So the timer only runs after loading the track, and once you quit to menu, the timer pauses again.

    However, to be totally honest, after thinking about this, I do not support the idea.

    Don't get me wrong, I understand your point, and also your frustration. I am also a driver who is sometimes in this P15-P60 region and I know how it is not to qualify, or to spend 12 hours on one LB.
    And I agree that it would be probably beneficial for this group of players.
    Even though it would lead to some funny side effects, I'd expect that everyone will spend their competition time at the very last moment, to maximize practice time and to gain info on the other drivers.

    We do however have not only drivers in this area, but we have thousands of people who enter the competitions.
    In my opinion, a competition should be simple to enter. So many people can do it quickly, and there is a high player count. Look, VW competition had over eleven thousand players.
    We destroy most other simulations with the competition numbers, and that is part of the reason why we can offer what we offer. So I do not want to make it too complicated to enter, or have artificial hurdles or restrictions. Sometimes they are inevitable of course.

    The other thing is, that our current system works from the technical side and is very good for controlling large amounts of players. And even if there is a bug, you can just try later.
    Let's be real here, sometimes RaceRoom has some issues and our servers are down, it's just how it is. Races have fixed dates, but in such a mode you can spend your laps at any time. Someone will always get screwed over, when we are down for maintenance, when there is a time upload bug or whatever. Which will lead to administrative problems.

    Now, if everyone gains a lot from this change, it may be worth it, but I don't think anyone except these 45 people gains anything from it. I don't think there will be even different drivers qualified, maybe 5 or 6 each race but that's it. Skill is skill.
    For this group of skilled drivers, we already offer a lot. Live streams, events, prize money, and most of the time you have to spend nothing in return, except your time. So quite honestly, it would be irrational to change our qualifying system.

    I honestly believe, this is the prize you have to pay if you want to take part in these activities - you have to grind. There are other forms, like Ranked MP, which offer a more casual and fun approach without having to spend countless hours, and there are also live events with the focus on fun (like the 4h races). But for the big competitions, we have to juggle between keeping drivers happy, finding good drivers, attracting many players and running a stable system, and I think so far we run the best strategy on it.
     
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  11. Thomas Bienert

    Thomas Bienert Esports / Events Beta tester

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    Please remember that all confirmation emails after 19.02.2020 11:00 GMT / 12:00 CET will be ignored. The next wave of invitation will start immediately.
     
  12. M Stofmeel

    M Stofmeel Member Beta tester

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    That's fair enough. I'd counter your points of participation on a massive scale compared to other sims with a question of how valuable this really is. I can imagine these numbers to be important for partnership deals with racing organisations, but from the perspective of a participant the 90% of total drivers that fill up these leaderboards with a couple of laps and no intention nor skill to compete shouldn't weigh very heavily in the decision on what format to run. Losing the bottom half of the leaderboard is a non-issue as a competitor, but would it be a critical issue with Raceroom's partners?

    Regardless I understand all concerns you lay out in your post. I'm argueing a big change meant only for a small group of people with potential for catastrophic blowback if things go wrong. It doesn't make sense to change anything at the moment. I thought I'd voice my concerns that affects this niche group of players as many seem to stay quiet on the subject. Perhaps this mode of competition isn't quite for me, or I just need to get quicker to make it easier on myself ;)

    Thank you @Robert Wiesenmüller and @Thomas Bienert for listening and sparring with me on the problem and proposed solution.
     
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    Last edited: Feb 19, 2020
  13. Risto

    Risto Member

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    Yes this is what I meant, that the car at least always starts from pits - to disable the possibility of people doing 1 corner and pressing reset button on the wheel when they are down on the delta. Its just too unrealistic and biases an unrealistic driving approach by itself.
    It would be a small step for a man, but giant step for mankind.

    Enabling damage and tyre physics would be a bonus and work in tandem with the suggestion above, but sure I guess they need to be without faults and bugs to be used in mass scale.
     
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    Last edited: Feb 20, 2020
  14. Moritz Löhner

    Moritz Löhner Well-Known Member

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    God please no. I already had enough of going back to the pits over and over again for the WFG qualification. Do you want me to lose my mind even more?:p

    You will end up doing the same thing anyways. A failed T1 is a failed T1. If you reset to just do one corner or a full outlap from the pits before your flying lap doesn’t matter. You will do it anyways.

     
  15. Robert Wiesenmüller

    Robert Wiesenmüller Esports / Events

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    We have our first round with over 2600 drivers and you have first round of rFactor 2's BMW challenge with 178 entries. Which one would you sponsor?
    This is a hard fought market, why should we risk our advantage? I have seen iRacing's stuff, I even drove in A1 Esports LAN final last year on rFactor 2. These sims are good, also have cool events, can often produce better streams than I can, and sometimes even have bigger playerbase than us.
    I think it's totally the right strategy to go for easy access, many players, quite a bit of focus on the "casual players", for us. And the guys that benefit most from it, are you guys! Because we will once again run many races, produce decent exposure and pay out a ton of cashprizes in a hopefully sustainable system.
    That is also all I will say on that matter. Otherwise rFactor and iRacing have to hire me as consultant :D

    Don't you think you spend even more time with that system?
    You will still fuck up the first corner, it just takes you 2 minutes now instead of 20 seconds to arrive there again for the 2nd attempt.
    (Oh, Moritz already said it)
     
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    Last edited: Feb 20, 2020
  16. M Stofmeel

    M Stofmeel Member Beta tester

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    I understand, it makes a lot of sense to differentiate in this manner and it goes hand in hand with Raceroom's business model. The benefits are there to be reaped by the top but are sowed by the bottom, it's easy to lose sight of that with competition goggles on.

    I agree with Moritz and Rob's sentiments that this would probably be a worse way to go about it and would put the advantage squarely with the people that have the time to- and can endure the mental torture this would impose. Maybe the margin of what's deemed to be a sufficiently quick T1 becomes a bit wider, but I can only see the time investment and frustration get bigger from this change.
     
  17. Risto

    Risto Member

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    I believe that if it takes 120 seconds to start a new lap instead of 10, then a driver would judge the risks differently and approach the corners with a bigger chance of making it out the other end. Most simracers are limited by their attention span anyway, not the amount of hours they have free in a day, so in the end no one would lose out, but just go through a more simulative scenario in the process.

    But well since the shootouts and final races already follow a completely realistic scenario, then in the end there is not much to criticize :)
     
  18. Robert Wiesenmüller

    Robert Wiesenmüller Esports / Events

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    Shootout 2 of the ADAC GT Masters Esports Championship is live now!
    German:
    English:
     
  19. Robert Wiesenmüller

    Robert Wiesenmüller Esports / Events

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    [​IMG]
     
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  20. pjamasster

    pjamasster New Member

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    Good morning. A teammate pointed out that something weird is going on on the leaderboard for ADAC qualification. The guy who’s currently first set an amazing 59seconds (jack keithley is 25seconds behind), and setting up the ghost you can see he does the start straight at an unreal speed, and so does the first corner. I’m not saying he’s doing something illegal, but would be reassuring if someone could check it out.