Automobilista 2 April 2021 Development Update

No - not for me

 

They probably already have info about you through other means, even if you don't have an account on their platforms.

Anyway, MRS by Q4 is exciting and worrying at the same time. The development of the multiplayer side of the sim looks (from the user POV) on a much slower pace than the rest of the game, even though netcode has been improved over the last couple of months. If MRS is implemented and the MP is still buggy, the whining will be unbearable.

There is nothing more annoying than online manchilds crying over lost rating due to bugs, and the sim racing community, from what I've noticed, is composed of 'old' people (35+ years old). The amount of childish behaviour displayed by grown men is unbelievable, especially when it comes to ratings and rankings...

 

The main problem with the PCARS Rating system was and is, it is way to easy to trick by sharing high rank user files, that's the one way... I was able to produce multiple S1800 Driver profiles in Steam that way... and it boosts drivers with friends. It takes you just 4 hours to raise your Rating to S2000 in PCARS with the help of such a secondary profile as a rating points donor. We used single lap races on the shortest possible tracks to do it quick, winning 12 races a day, switching profile and losing 12 races against each other. Players running their own private club will always be ahead in that rating system, while others, trying to get a better rating in full 6 lap MP races will suffer a lot.

 

This sounds quite bad imo, probably worth a look from devs.

 

First step would be to deactivate family sharing in Steam to prevent said multiple profiles and Steam IDs on the same PC.

 

You can't have a credible ranking system where anyone can set up a ranked server and then use their friends/smurf accounts to boost their ranking to arbitrary heights. There need to be special competition servers administered by Reiza, and a way to build ranking by doing lower-level events to gain access to higher-level events (a ladder system).

 

For me Custom lobbies or private/created lobbies absolutely kill decent close racing in multiplayer.
Good for leagues or having a laugh.
Bring back the good old public lobbies with set parameters, that rotate through certain tracks in a set class of car.

GT3 lobby/or any set class.
Flying Qualy
10 quick or 20 lap race with mandatory pit stop.
Then onto the next track to suit the car class.
And so on.

Sick of joining a user created lobby, where everything is tailored to suit the user.

45 min qualy
2 lap race
Then they leave
Someone else takes over and changes all the settings/car
Everyone then leaves lol.

Please create something that has a preset with some kind of licence system.

 

What annoys me in MP is the fact, that you can not be sure which aids the other drivers have activated. Having drivers with different aids lead to completely different styles in driving, for example when it comes to braking before corners and often leads to misunderstandings and casualties on track.

Host can not ban steering aid/breaking aid at all, they are always available.
TC/ABS/Auto Gears can be banned and are then not available via binded keys, but players can just switch to options/gameplay before leaving pits and activate all kinds of aids there.

 

Hey mate, AMS2 is as good or as bad depending on how you look at it, as any other sim. Pros and cons. But for me personally, I'm having the most fun in AMS2 and I've spent 1200hrs spread equally over ACC, rF2 and AMS2. Once your budget allows, you won't regret this purchase. Just my 2c

 

The way I would do Ranked servers in AMS 2 would be similar to GT SPORT, or raceroom with daily races on a rotation.

RANKED Daily race setup.

Race A- GT3, GTE or GT1. 30-45 minute races, 1-2 required pit stops

Race B- GT4, GT5, Procar, 90's touring car. 15 minute race. No pit stop required

Race C- Formula Car, DPI, GT1, or Group C. 30-60 Minutes, 1 Pit stop required. Certain safety rating required.

Race D- Multi class (DPI and GTE) (Group C and Procar) 90 Minute races, certain safety rating required.

Race E- New content or Reiza Selected.

Race F- Lucky dip. 15 Minute race. Entirely random car track combo, changes every race.

Special Events (weekly or monthly one off events)


Edit, I can further simplify this

Race A- popular class, mid length race, Pit stop
Race B- Slower yet popular class, short races, no pit stop
Race C- High Downforce niche class, Mid to long race, certain Safety rating required, pit stop required.
Race D- Multi Class, extremely long race, certain Safety rating required, pit stop required naturally.
Race E- Historic content, new content, short races.
Race F- Lucky dip, 15 minutes races every half hour, no one knows the car and track combo until the game loads for practice.

 

You are right.
But even with Reiza adm servers there will still be a lot of problems.
Just check out all the problems Racerooms users are quarralling about.

ByTheWay: Taken from one of the interview answers above it sounds like the devs knows that setting up official Reiza servers with rules and ratings are completely unimportant until there are actually AMS2 users online.

 

When RaceRoom set up the ranked lobbies at first, they made the mistake of setting them up to be fire-on-demand with random (read: bad) cars on a a rotation of tracks, which resulted in zero people playing them. Then they fixed the system to be a small number of rotating lobbies on weekly rotation that fire every 30 minutes, with some daily/weekly longer races thrown in, and now the system is thriving. So to some extent it's a question of "if you build it (properly), they will come".

 

OK if you say so.
I was using Raceroom when they started their ranked servers and begged in their forum to get some qualified competition in their F90V8/10/12 class.
But it was a complete joke.

The few drivers which did show up crashed either on the starting line when they floored the throttle and pirouetted into the fence or tire walls - because they had never practiced a standing start.
Or if they didnt crash at the start they crashed in the first corner - and watching the replay you could easily see that the reason was that they didnt know if the first corner was left or right going.

ByTheWay: When I in their forum asked for more competent drivers - hehe then I was ofcourse considered as an elitist prick - Yes ofcourse.

 

Those cars are pretty much everything that is wrong with the Pacejka tyre model + R3E's FFB, so I'm not really surprised... the FClassic G3 in AMS2 are so much better.

 

Bullocks.
If I had mentioned other cars than the F80V* you would probably also have said that exactly these were the worst - and therefore cannot be used as an example ...
To the contrary of people like you who often outpour a lot of absolute statements like: Those cars are the absolute worst - then you almost never find that kind of wommit in my more mundane assessments.
My assessments are allways just my own experiences - and as such only my personal assessments.
Never absolute and often laughable statements covering all human kind experiences.

ByTheWay: You include also some absolute statement of what you call R3E's FFB. But because of my humble wheel that FFB hasnt got into my assessment of Racerooms F80V*

 

Your "B"y"T"h"e"W"a"y keyboard buttons must be nearing the end of their life span. Please be kind to them.

 

Fair point. I personally couldn't care less as long as the bare minimum safety rating system ends up working if one exists. So you can get on lobbies/regular races that filter out the worst offenders. I suppose it wouldn't work in that workaround scenario. But on the other hand if you can race clean in private, surely you can also do it in public? Unless it's a question of not respecting other drivers in public lobbies.

In any case I can see much more incentive to cheat your way to a high ranking than to a good safety rating only to destroy it. If someone wants reputation: race clean. Get your name known as a good competitor at the level you're at. Forget about the exact ranking number.

By the way: that's all assuming there's a decent amount of online players later this year and an actual need to maintain clean servers. Safety rating doesn't need to exists just for the sake of having one.

 

One thing that I personally dislike about ranking are, well, the rankings

Instead of focusing on driving I can't get the ranking values out of equation and just get on with it. It's always about the ranking, not about the driving. It was one of important things that killed ACC for me (second being VR performance). I see why it's there and so on, but it tends to flactuate too instantly when every mistake makes a huge dent in rankings. Especially painful when mistake is caused by somebody else.

Some shadow system would be perfect for me as I wouldn't see immediate effects, but thinking about it - I'd probably keep overthinking it completely. So secret shadow system is something I'd want

I'm not against rankings, they are much needed nowadays, just venting my frustrations about personal issues of maintaining scores

 

Quite honest posting - appreciated
But you are absolutely not alone - because in my about 5 years (now aborted) iRacing membership I fighted slightly with this same attitude.
But I sidestepped it partly by always (try to) say to myself that this is not the end of the world - when I again and again was taken out by someone who considered himself Senna - eventhough he was more like virtual racings Eddy The Eagle.

But getting into some good discussions about this issue in the iRacing forum I found out that a lot of other members felt the same frustration when their safety rating was impacted without their own fault.
The most common conclusion was that this issue was the reason a lot of members didnt feel much joy participating in MP races.

ByTheWay: The main reason the introduction of AI in the 100% MP iRacing service has been such a major success is probably more or less because of this.