Help - Does AMS2 drivers really want to race online?

Discussion in 'Automobilista 2 - General Discussion' started by roszman, Feb 26, 2023.

  1. Gabriel "Pai" Legnini

    Gabriel "Pai" Legnini Well-Known Member AMS2 Club Member

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    IMHO, cars should be separated bearing in mind a combination of both speed and difficulty to drive. Cars that are very fast, no matter if easy to handle, must be on the higher tiers, because things happen quickly and you need to have the racecraft for it.

    Having said that, I think that the tiers selection posted by Coldsalmon above could use another tier, like Rookie/Bronze/Silver/Gold/Platinum, or maybe Rookie/Grassroots/Semi-Pro/Pro/World Class, depending on the vibe you want to expose :)

    Taking the first set of classes, here is how I would rank them (not every class included, pretty sure I'm missing several, but just as an idea)

    Rookie

    Ginetta G40 Cup
    Street Cars
    79 Stock Car
    Copa Uno
    Copa Fusca
    Formula Vee
    Rental Kart

    Bronze

    GT5
    P4
    Formula Trainers
    Caterham Academy
    86 Stock Car
    Copa Classic B
    Aussie Racing Camaro
    Kart GX390
    Vintage Touring Cars Class 2

    Silver

    Porsche Cup
    Sprint
    P3
    GT4
    99 Stock Car
    Caterham Supersport
    Formula 3
    Copa Classic FL
    Copa Montana
    Kart 125cc Shifter
    Vintage Touring Cars Class 1
    Supercars

    Gold

    Stock Car Brazil 19-22
    Old Stock Car
    Copa Truck
    P2
    GT3
    Caterham 620R
    M1 Procar
    Old Stockcar
    Group A
    GT Classics
    GT Open
    Kart 125cc no shifter
    Hypercars

    Platinum

    SuperV8
    P1
    DPi
    GTE
    GT1
    CART
    F1 of all eras
    Superkart
     
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  2. roszman

    roszman Well-Known Member

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    You got me thinking :)

    Why LFM is more popular than official "competition" servers in ACC?
    I think it's because of web based interface - you can check races and stats on the go, you can compare against other drivers, and community - you can talk with other dirvers on forums/discords

    So maybe "out of the game" systems are better than "in game" ones?
     
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  3. Coldsalmon

    Coldsalmon Member AMS2 Club Member

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    I design board games as a hobby so I'm always thinking about how to break things :)
    The big mistake I made with my first design was that it only worked if players played it "the right way." As soon as they started making legal moves that were outside of what I intended them to do, the whole thing imploded into a huge mess. After that, I tried to design games that would be fun and work on a basic level even if the players missed almost all of the most basic heuristics. At some point you need to assume players will act in good faith, but I try to force them into having fun if I can lol. Anonymous internet services probably don't have the luxury of assuming any good faith at all, I think.

    Maybe consider some shorter races for the rookie series, or while testing and refining the platform. If something goes wrong, it's a drag to be stuck there for 20 minutes. As always, just describing a pain point - my suggestions might not be the best way to address it.
     
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  4. XettMan

    XettMan Active Member

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    Weighting points to ai strength should not allow to "break" the game. If you finish last by purpose to drive against a slow ai in the next race, winning against the slow ai should give you much less points than winning against a fast ai.
    So I do not see here a problem.
     
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  5. XettMan

    XettMan Active Member

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    I think 20 minutes races in rookie are optimal. Shorter distances is not really a "race".
    In higher classes they can be longer and maybe the developer is thinking about s.th. like endurance races in some way somehow.
     
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  6. roszman

    roszman Well-Known Member

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    @Gabriel "Pai" Legnini I like your license names :) I will borrow some of them.

    Guys, let us know if aynyone of you have a cool ideas for license names :p

    @Coldsalmon I love board games :D
    Please try to break RCO ;) Idk about race length yet, remember that you have 25% buffer for such situations ;)
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2023
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  7. roszman

    roszman Well-Known Member

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    Last edited: Mar 14, 2023
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  8. BastienSkete

    BastienSkete New Member

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    Hi Roszman !
    Juste created an account to Say you thanks you, you created something great ! Mixing ranked multiplayer and the very good IA of ams2 IS going to be very funny :) even if it's not for that you've created the system
    I really like the 3 clean lap rule and I'm impatient to try your adaptive IA!
    For me pleasure in video game is quite simple :
    - having objectives,
    - let me a bit free to complete them,
    - reward me
    I think you will have to play with reward circuit if you want people keep playing ..
    It was my 2 cents opinion :)
    Thank you for the hard work,
    I will keep an eye on your project !
     
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  9. Fernando

    Fernando Active Member

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    I was thinking the same. At the time of day the F3 race is scheduled to run at my timezone, I only would be able to take part on weekends, and things can become wild with family on weekends :)

    Last saturday I was planning to do the practice and the race, but I couldn't. Same on sunday, so now I have to wait to the next weekend to try again.

    May be rotating in not exactly 24 hs would be better, so there is a chance I can pick that F3 race in a week lapse?
     
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  10. XettMan

    XettMan Active Member

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    I think every hour would be the best. Like the P4.
    So RCO can be used as async mp tool and if somebody wants to race against humans, he can check if somebody already registered for a race that fits to his personal availability.
    But only once a day makes it impossible for many people.

    F3 for example is in my time zone 8 p.m. you would think that's perfect, but it is not.
    At this time I bring the kid to bed, and then I cannot race anymore, because the body shakers of my rig would make too much noise.

    So I can only use RCO in a small timeslot after work, but that is not possible every day, only then and there.
    And the american-austral-asian people of course have the disadvantage of sleeping or working when we europeans start racing.
     
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  11. roszman

    roszman Well-Known Member

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    Your welcome ;)

    In RCO i want put emphasis on winning races, winning weekly events and winning seasons. Drivers who won the most will be displayed on Hall of Fame, etc. For the rest of people who are not winning a lot ( people like me : P ) I want to provide the tools to help them become better racers trough stats analsis, telemetry analisis, artficial coach ;) and stuff like that. But it's a song of the future.

    I dont want to gamify experience too much, I would prefer to keep RCO experience as grounded in real racing as possible, but also fun for casuals if that make sense ;)
     
  12. XettMan

    XettMan Active Member

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    Due to lack of "game" in AMS2, for me RCO is my personal gamification tool.:p:D

    In the long term I hope RCO will be "iRacing light".:) That of course would be great.
     
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  13. Magnus

    Magnus Active Member

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    With regard to cars and classes, I’d imagine there’d potentially be a required or requested rebalance somewhere along the way. As more users join you’ll probably have queries and requests as to why a particular car isn’t available in a particular class so it may be the best idea is to go with whatever the current majority prefer and just see where we end up as, hopefully, numbers increase.

    Starting with what most find easy to drive for the Rookie series makes sense and would certainly be a good starting point.
     
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  14. Magnus

    Magnus Active Member

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    That sounds extremely impressive and I don’t envy you the work it would no doubt take. It also sounds incredibly cool!

    I’m glad to read you mention what you would like RCO to be. Keeping a firm hold of your original vision whilst taking onboard advice, ideas and the hopes of all of us will be ….. fun!! As the saying goes, “It’ll be like herding cats.” :D
     
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  15. Coldsalmon

    Coldsalmon Member AMS2 Club Member

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    I think this you are right. I added another column to the sheet showing the Time Trial record around Interlagos, and sorted the whole sheet by speed. This should give a basic idea of how fast each class is. I grouped some of the subclasses together if they had almost the same time (like Formula Classics). I also noted if some of the classes had way different internal times.

    Edit: Also keep in mind that this sheet is just my off-the-cuff opinion. I'm not good at making interactive spreadsheets, and I don't want to give the impression that I have any kind of authority here. Anyone else's ranking is just as valid as (probably more valid than) mine.

    Ah, I also figured out how to add comments better. Right-click on the cell and select "Comment." That's much better than putting it in a cell. Add a comment to the race series you think a car should be in - like if you think the Stock 2020-22 should be in Silver, add a right-click comment to the cell in the Silver column. That's kind of an informal way to vote.

    I think @roszman should definitely feel free to monkey around with the series at this stage, even if it messes up standings etc. But there should be some sort of disclaimer about the service being in an open beta and subject to change. This could just be in the title of the page (racecraft.online Open Beta), in the FAQ, or both. Otherwise new members could get really confused and annoyed.

    It's nice that the current series are based solely on my feedback, but I would also like to discover what everyone else loves as well! ;)
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2023
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  16. Gabriel "Pai" Legnini

    Gabriel "Pai" Legnini Well-Known Member AMS2 Club Member

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    I'm also not any kind of authority on this at all! Heck, I've still to do a race at RCO, yet. Just thinking this a bit as it seems like a great idea and want to see it grow, and outputting some ideas that may be useful. Maybe :)
     
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  17. roszman

    roszman Well-Known Member

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    For me as a driver, the F-Vee is more difficult to drive than GT3, and GT3 is much easier than F1.

    Previously, to create series for RCO, I used Cars of AMS2 spreadsheet (it's somwhere on the pinned threads), sorted by power to weight ratio - light and powerfull cars are more difficult to drive (at least for me, I have heavy foot ;P ).

    Maybe we can sort our list by power to weight ratio and speed, and then just roughly split it for the licenses? Then we can create survey for each license, with possibility to vote on one/two cars, maybe in those categories: prototypes, open wheelers and touring cars.

    WDYT guys? Keep in mind that I am no expert in that matter ;)
     
  18. roszman

    roszman Well-Known Member

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    Yeah, tinkering with the series shouldnt be the problem.
    Good idea about putting info RCO being in Beta.
     
  19. Magnus

    Magnus Active Member

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    Cars Of AMS2 is a good resource, I often have a look through it.

    Maybe your suggestion is the place to start. Split them by power to weight ratio and see how it feels. With the spreadsheet and the comments we can 'jiggle' things around if anyone thinks something stands out for the wrong reasons.

    This is the kind of thing we could wrap ourselves up in for weeks or months theory-crafting license/series when it may be worth just getting something done and seeing how it feels to everyone?

    If people would prefer to tinker with theory for a bit longer, no worries.

    Anyway, I've got some time off today after a rubbish day yesterday so I'm going to see how many incidents I can get myself into with RCO:whistle::D
     
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  20. BastienSkete

    BastienSkete New Member

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    Roszman,
    Thank you for your honesty !
    I understand the kind of "purity" you wish for your system !
    From my online ranked experience, winning a race is very rare and was never the first objective.
    For me, having good clean battle with people of my level (ish) was the fun, interesting and addictive part !
    More over having those green number after a race was cherry on top of the cake ! As I said, feeling rewarded for using the service as it is designed for :)
    So I will really enjoy a metrics (or a reward) that encourage you to race a lot, clean and fair.
    Not only one that reflect my level.
    Once again it's just my thinking, and I don't even know if it's comprehensible
    2nd idea, in GT sport, you don't have to qualify every time for the same race, servers keeps your quali time and put you on the grid accordingly and it was a great time saver for me, and people like me who doesn't have time :)
    Thanks again for all the hard work, I wish you the best for your service and for ams2 !
    Cheers,
    Bastien
     
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