Just curious to what you gents (and ladies) think about drivers leaving races because things just aren't going their way. Countless times I start race with full grid and lucky if 3 finish, was just wondering how you felt about maybe if you start a 15 minute race the lobby is disabled for this length of time so dropping out would mean waiting for end of race before you could start another, may entice drivers to focus on one race at a time and maybe not be so gungho. Now I have been guilty of this myself but only through engine failure (doh!) or being twatted by another car (double doh!!), wouldn't affect people who genuinely had to leave (house on fire, imminent thermo nuclear threat) but may galvanise all into concentrating on the one race at a time.
it is a bit rubbish, when I'm happily defending 6th in a field of 20 but then two laps later I'm in last position despite having not been overtaken. However, it is what it is, not much that you can do without penalising people and there's hardly enough traffic online to justify it IMO.
This is probably one of the benefits of iRating over in iRacing-land, the fact of points being on the line makes people choose to keep racing to limit damage or to improve their score or whatever, basically it incentivises finishing such that most drivers finish, where on unofficial races on the same service (week 13 when they're updating stuff) most of the field doesn't finish. I would imagine the R3E guys will implement something of that sort at some stage in the future, but ultimately it is the solution, providing the carrot and stick to encourage people to work hard to place as highly as they can. [potentially when setting up a server it might be advisable to make a race official/unofficial for demo-derbies etc]
Won't even cast a vote, that's how torn I am on this issue. I also think it's a shame that people leave early after one minor flaw but then again I can understand them, to a point. If I'm being rammed and pushed off track (not referring to you Robert, it actually killed my engine on Red Bull Ring ) costing me maybe 15 or 20 seconds I honestly can't be bothered to follow the field in last place, seconds away from the next driver, for another 20 minutes or so, especially when I know that over the lenght of the race those driving in the back will exit sooner or later. Maybe that's a lack of racing spirit on my side and I get that if there was system like this, that encouraged people to stay on the server, it would increase the chances of seeing some racing even after dropping several seconds cause others might spin as well and I might end up racing them. But being denied access, even temporally, seems a bit harsh as a penalty, especially when bearing in mind the reports of people being disconnected from servers randomly. To those it would be doubly unfair I think.
This is THE main reason why I don't bother with online racing any more. My gaming time is precious and I would rather race a full grid of AI than waste it on a multiplayer race where only a handful of people stay long enough to cross the finish line. It's a waste of my time. What the answer is, I don't know.
See my post for the answer. Drop-out rates around 10% in any given race most of the time. Something similar in R3E would have the same effect. Especially if we added some weekly series with championship points etc into the mix.
I hate this as well, and I almost never quit a race even if I get rammed out. You never now how the race will turn out down the line! And you will probably lose the opportunity to many nice battles that could have happened towards the end of the race, if you had just stuck around.. But I voted no. Mainly because I don't think forcing people to stay is a good idea. Maybe a scoring system where you get minus points fore some actions could work. But that can also put people off.. When they don't think they did anything wrong to deserve a minus point. Getting one because of anyone else's mistake / road rage (á la iRacing). Or just being disconnected.. The list can be long for negative aspects from a minus point system, and in general not the best way to keep people motivated. I think giving a carrot would be far better in this regard! Have been up before, but I think it could be a good thing. And that is a MP bonus vrp system. If you participate in any multiplayer race and finish, you'll be rewarded with 1 vrp. Finish top 10-4, 2 vrp. Finish 3 rd, 3 vrp. 2 nd, 4 vrp. 1 st, 5 vrp. And before bashing this idea, count on how many MP races you would have to do just to be able to buy one car for those vrps! If you are fast and win every race, you will have to race 50 MP races before you can buy a 250 vrp car. An average race is about 20 minutes (not counting practise and qualify), that's almost 17 hours of pure gameplay! And imagine how many more players that will try out MP, and probably win over some F2P junkies from the competitions. Maybe also get the F2P players to stop whining about that it's not a real F2P, cause we are probably stuck with this model.. . This will also be something that we all will gain on. Not only the same aliens that wins vrps as in the competitions. Hopefully more people on the servers. That also race till finish! Win win! S3S will also appear as generous, more likeable. But it looks more generous than it is if you do the math, it's a cunning plan to get people to spend more time in the game!
I think Mr. Göpfert hit the nail on the head! I agree with the above that its a shame to see half the field or more leaving some minutes into a race. I agree that it ruins the experience for those who remain on the server and that for a better, more immersive experience it should be avoided. Something like a points system to further motivate people to behave "appropiately" in races might be an excellent idea. However, I voted No: We can have an opinion on said leavers behaviour, we can dislike them, even despise them and their lack of racing spirit. No matter our opinion on this IT DOES NOT give us the right or authority to, by force, affect someones gameplay. If all I ever did was join a server, once race starts I do a 360 doughnut and then leave, every race, every time. Even if this was the case, as long its not specified to be against the rules*, I cannot be punished for it, irrelevant of your opinion. If I break no rules, what objective right do you have to judge me and how I want to play? You have none. Just basic democratic values isnt it? perhaps im missing something. *Clearly breaking the specified rules and impacting other players experiences directly (ramming, crashing) is a whole other question so please dont misunderstand me. So in conclusion: Punishment isnt the way to go, instead positive motivation (points system) is a better route I believe.
There are strong arguments against and I feel ambivalent , but the effect might outweigh the cons . I vote Yes .
The Answer is : Get into a club or league, the attitude changes. Open Lobbies will always have this behavior, for legit and/or understandable reasons too, but you can't make people stay.
I know that Matt, but it's finding one that fits in with my work & family life. Start times just don't work for me so it's a case of pick-up multiplayer in the late evenings or single player. I've gone for the latter.
Same here. If I'm lucky I would be able to catch 1 or maybe 2 races a month tops, if I would be in a league.. . (Love the ESR races, but few times I can join)
That's ok for people that can commit but some don't get that opportunity, work, partners, health etc Would be nice if perhaps there were dedicated practice, get real and abide by the rules servers, surely easy enough to make white lines the track limit (mistakenly thinking it already was). I'm happy with just about any solution, even a map showing the rest of us where you can cheat, anything, certainly not a level playing field if two sets of rules are being played!
S3S already made a statement that their policy is not to force anybody to anything she/he doesn't want. They want full freedom for everybody to join or leave at any time and for any reason we others have no idea of. So I guess they are not willing to even think about this. And although I also hate it when I'm left as the last driver in a race, I have the exact same opinion. I don't want to be forced to do anything I might not want.
I didn't case a vote mostly because I think a different solution is more reasonable. There are a huge host of reasons why people leave a race including emergencies, accidents, they can't continue and can't watch, and so on. Punishing all of them equally no matter the reason ends up being pretty unfair. Realistically some form of point system with a punishment for leaving early without having a destroyed car would be the best option. Putting a system like that in will take quite a bit of time as it requires integration in most places across the game, but in the mean time punishing all people who leave equally is not fair enough to be warranted, no matter how annoying it is to start races with 20 people and end them with 6.
clear no, never force people to anything. It can suck, but hey what's the point of people not having fun in a race... As suggested by @heppsan a system that encourages positive behavior (if that is possible) would be good, get points by the mp races you completed (even minus points imo are not a good thing). Now the question is what to earn with those points... you don't want points to select or categorize people (say need X points to race), you want it open... I can only think of gifting things, maybe additional markers on your livery... or low VRPs as Heppsan suggested... Would also add points for fastest lap of the race. That way you can still push yourself at least even if at the back. Another alternative is that the game balances the grid by AI, someone drops, AI takes over balanced around the laptimes the actual human drove, although also not sure how well that would be received... Anyway punishing or judging people by this is not gonna work.
"Another alternative is that the game balances the grid by AI, someone drops, AI takes over balanced around the laptimes the actual human drove" This would be very cool, brilliant!
AI dropping in would be very cool indeed, but to get something to work flawlessly I have no idea if this is even possible. I normally don't quit racing as well, come what may, but sometimes I get furios about stupid actions of other drivers , or if a real chaos is going on (due to stupid drivers as well ) or was stupid myself joing a race almost unprepared, out of a bad mood, or for some lust of sensation - just had it two times in a fun league race btw. where some backmarkers even didn't the minimum of practising (pit stops/ foresight /looking into their mirrors regarding faster drivers a.s.o.) and simply pushed me out of my focus/cost me precious seconds - and so I rage quit. But being really honest to myself mostly one out of five races was worth the effort, so actually it's on me to join those races only, where I know the guys (and girls) around me or simply joining one of those open club races various teams here announce regularly (like the Fra GTR3 guys or virtualracing, ESR or GearEx after summer break a.s.o) - cause as said - joining a standard open race you rarely will have a satisfying result in terms of a cool mutual racing experience...thing is you can't force ppl to do what you want, you can only do it in a best manner yourself to encourage others to follow that path...and sooner or later you find nice mates to drive with in a clean, fair way...not always but that was worth the effort then (at least )