3 min lockout on joining a multiplayer server.

The inability for others to join a lobby when there's less than 3 mins remaining continues to be a problem. I really hope you guys are planning on fixing this. SMS only implemented this limit as a fix to some networking issues from people joining late in a qualifying session. I guess it's cheaper and easier than finding the problematic code and fixing it. Even if people have to start at the back of the grid and are not allowed to go "on track" during qualifying, it would help tremendously in filling up lobbies. As anyone knows many people end up joining in the last few minutes of qualifying, to see 8 people join and quit during this period is frustrating because we all know the snowball effect when lobbies start to get big, which makes for great racing!

It would also be great to be able to modify our races in between sessions and have lobby chat but I'm assuming that's on the way regardless.

Really enjoying this sim!

 

People joining at the very last minute are often unprepared and not ready to race, often causing havoc in the race itself. Because they aren't invested in the session with time in qualifying and practice, they often rage quit early on too.

A better suggestion would be to include some more information in the lobby search menu. How much time is left to join? How much time remains in practice and qualifying? If they are already racing, how many laps remaining?

 

sorry, but leaving them at the back is the far better option. the majority of people know what they want and are likely just late to the party. in any other multiplayer sim, you can almost always see that at least 30% of the people join at the last second. i actually prefer this in ACC to avoid turn 1 drama, then i work my way through the field. it's just maddening to see people join and quit repeatedly in an attempt to get in the lobby because they don't understand why they can't join with 2 mins left in the session. this isn't a problem in any other sim.. as i stated pcars2 didn't have this limitation until they had some issues with stuttering while people joined a session in progress, so as a workaround they just eliminated joining for the last 3 mins. a pretty lazy workaround.

 

I like it, it sure prevent players filling the box, It also prevent me from being hit by a unprepared driver in the first corner,
Players who enter the race on the latest moment, are also the players who loose the race by quitting early. I don't need boxhoppers.
Perhaps it is possible to prevent players starting the race if they didn't qualify.

 

If you can’t get there with at least three mins to go then find another race to join. Is three minutes quali and prep too much to ask?

 

Better skip the qualifying then, and random assign the start-positions. the late-joiners are often the problem, starting behind and not breaking for the first corner, if they show up on the end of the qualification you know the trouble it brings and want to start behind,
If you don't qualify you shouldn't be able to start the race, at least you should start from the pit.

But i like the qualifications, they are an investment for the race coming. perhaps if everyone has to qualify, people stay a bit longer in a race and try to make the best of it, and not leave the race after loosing their car in the first or second corner and hop over to the next race to ruin it.

 

I agree with Bloozmahn. I say let them join. The multiplayer population isn't exactly huge right now. I do understand not wanting some random person ruining the race for others though. Perhaps when the Safety Rating is implemented the host can set a minimum safety rating required to join to help mitigate this? I for one understand that there are certain track and car combos that I could jump in last moment and be just fine as I've done that track/car many times. I would venture to say that most drivers with a decent safety rating would also understand this.

At the end of the day, I just want the game and the multiplayer in this game to thrive. As it's quickly becoming on of my favorites

 

But if they join late and then trash the race MP will decline?

 

Perhaps or perhaps not if the safety rating is set to a certain standard. Or maybe we could implement the start from pits if someone enters the grid with out having a qualifying lap as stated above?

 

The way to build MP is to promote high quality races, not by letting people get in to lobbies with no opportunity to practice in my opinion. PC2 had enough problems with muppets in T1 even with the requirement for quali, and while AMS2 is probably going to be a more practiced/respectable average driver, you generally want people to not have to make the sort of call of 'Oh I'll start from the back to avoid the carnage' - it's better to just not have the carnage.

Making people quali is only a small part of that (Good god I hope they get the numbers on safety ratings/rankings right and it's not 'everyone starts at average' disaster that the PC2 system was), but it helps.

 

Fair point, I hope more people pick this game up once it hits version 1.0. Multiplayer is usually where I get the most enjoyment in sim racing.

 

What if it were up to the host to let people join last minute or not? That could be an acceptable solution to keep "both sides of the fence" happy.

 

reminder: no other sim has this "rule".. it was only added as a crappy solution to a network code bug. this was not implemented to keep lobbies "clean" or any other reason than that.

not everyone who joins a server late is a crasher, maybe they just logged on or their previous lobby disbanded, or they just saw your lobby and want to join but can't because of this crap "rule". pcars2 also removed the ability of a lobby host to kick unruly players because a few people were abusing the feature. this allows terrible rammers to run amok in a server because it's like herding cats to get everyone to vote that person out.

 

Just to point out, the MP population isn't big right now for a couple of reasons. One is that the sim population as a whole isn't that big right now, because it's still EA. The other is that there is no dedicated server tool yet, which is what a lot of the communities which host races need for their owned/rented servers.

This makes the most sense. It's funny that it's taken this long for someone to suggest it being an option, rather than forced one way or the other.

Wrong. R3E has this "rule" which can be enabled/disabled by the host. It also prevents anyone joining during pre-race warm up sessions.

 

Either way if you are looking to join a race you need to know if the game is joinable or not, maybe a time indicator or the game just not in the joinable game list.

 

This would help, I'm sure you've seen people join after the 3 min cutoff then repeatedly connect and disconnect because they don't understand why they aren't allowed to join a server with minutes left in qualifying. This isn't a problem in AC, ACC or anywhere else. If you look at ACC, a grid can double in size the last few minutes of qualifying. I often join late intentionally to avoid the t1 dive bomb fest.

 

I personally think that GranTurismo Sport has (by far) the best online racing system of all driving games (sim or arcade). I don't want GranTurismo feel, but I would love to have their online system in AMS2.

 

I wish I had your problems. I can't even stay connected to a session. Perhaps 3 out of 20+ tries. I rarely try anymore. My ping is low and upload download very good. I hear others suffer this too.

 

A way to join a race after qualifying would be to allow them to enter a race, but let the car start with a penalty (distance or later in time). So it will take some effort to get to cars that did qualify and there won’t be carnage at the first corner. This way people have a choice. Start at the back well after the pack or qualify and start the normal way.

 

Maybe there should be more ways to join...
Using a safety rating you can make a difference between series. One type of series would be a quick access-type (without qualifying necessary?) with short races. At the other end are long races with more skills involved so you cannot join after practice has ended. In between there is a variety of series with each a determined skill and safety rating. So the type of series depends on what the possibilities are to join a race at the latest moment.

I think it also helps to show the time the race will start. There is no use to wait a long time if you just want a quick race. And If you want to race a longer distance or higher level of competition, you know how late you should enter the race (and there will be more people with the same mindset). Saying this, it might be very interesting to have a race where you can expect people to drive less carefully, just have a lot of fun. This way they are not joining other classes and mess up these races.