Help - Does AMS2 drivers really want to race online?

Hi,

Backgroud:
I've built sim agnostic online competition system for AC, ACC nad AMS2, but the main sim there is AMS2: racecraft.online - Sim Racing Ranked Matchmaking System for Automobilista 2

Yesterday I read this post by @omni
How quickly and easily Reiza could dramatically improve the multiplayer in the game?
(Also during last few years I've seen multiple posts/comments about the need for competitinon system which is not iRacing.)

Last year, to find some drivers, I've talked with multiple league owners (idk, maybe 20-30 people) and I offered them free race hosting, league management etc on my platform (RCO) - not much people were interested, but few of them allow me to post RCO invitations from time to time - again I didn't get much interest.

Lately I've heard that AMS2 was the second most wanted sim on LFM, but becouse of some multiplayer issues they added rF2 instead.

Questions:
I'm baffled - there is a free online competition system for AMS2 and it looks that people would like to use such system, but they are not using it.

How to explain this?

1. No one knows about RCO.
2. Nobody uderstand what I am saying - English is not my native language
3. RCO doesn't work/look as people would like it to.
4. People are asking for AMS2 competition system, but in reality they don't want it.
5. People want to have full lobbies.

I would really like to understand what is the issue here and I would like to solve it.

I bet it's point 5, but can anyone help me to put little more light on the subject?

 

I just tried to register but linking my Steam account seems to fail silently - it opens the Steam linking window, but after I click the Sign In button the window just closes and I'm still not allowed to create a racecraft account. I tried Firefox and Chrome with extensions disabled.

I've never done a multiplayer race in my life, but I would love to race online using your software, and I'm excited to use it if I can sign up.

 

Hey, thx for reply

Make sure you are using www.racecraft.online address, since raw racecraft.online domain name will not work - I will fix it in the future (EDIT - just fixed it).

If you're using correct address and you're still experiencig this issue then there is a Support section on my discord Join the racecraft.online Discord Server! - let's pick it up there. Ok?

 

First of all, the thread title seems a little confusing, as it doesn't mention the topic in discussion.
I'd change it to "Do you want ranked multiplayer? Here it is" or similar. (Competition system is specific to ACC I believe).

Second, these things work with word of mouth. You need to try to build a community first. Those people will attract more people and things will snowball from there. It takes time.

Personally I'm not a big fan of ranked multiplayer as is often sucks the fun out of things, doesn't really affect people's behaviour as usual safety rankings are broken - both people get penalized, the victim and the perpetrator - and racing people you don't know is generally a bad idea, imo.

By the way, how do you handle data? Can I delete my account if I want? A lot of website are annoyingly not offering this possibility nowadays.

 

For now user data can be deleted manually by me, but I will implement "delete account" feature in the future - good stuff.

I am no community builder, but yeah you're right, I prefer to find someone to do this or to implement league management features so people will come with their communities, that's the plan at least

Concerning being fan or not a fan of ranked multiplayer - well everyone is different

I will try to improve the title

Thx for input

 

I don't know how to change thread title

 

Okay, I have joined. But, there is not really any information about what is happening. 2 preliminary questions I have:

1. What does this tool do? Does it track contact/safety in real time during races automatically, or do I have to input data myself? What are the differences between this and, for example, LFM?
2. I only see an F3 series - is that all that exists, or is it restricted by my license level?

 

@Coldsalmon
So for now RCO is feature light and in fact there is not much info on the site, but thanks to comments like yours I will know what to priritize.

1. It does track Pace, Safety and Consistency automatically, LFM doesn't have AMS2 , and RCO don't have limited racing slot - new splits are created on demand, also I plan to add league management tools open for other people. Also it have much better integration with AMS2, it's communicating with you trough in game chat while you're on track during practice session and stuff like that.

2. At the beginning I've created around 20 reace series within multiple race licenses from Rookie up to the top, there were races every 20 minutes, or something like that, but no one was racing, except me and 2 other guys. Right now there is only one F3 race on daily basis, so maybe someday there will be more than 1 driver in single session

it looked something like that:

But yeah, maybe iRacing, LFM and World Sim Series is everything what community needs? I am trying to find answer to that question trough this thread.

EDIT:
Currently all info regarding how it works is kept within discord server Join the racecraft.online Discord Server!

 

You have to advertise it, if nobody knows it is normal that it's empty. I don't know, write a post on reddit automobilista and simracing, write a post in the steam forum of the game.
Look at MetzVR youtube channel, he is organizing almost every night "ranked" races on ams2 and they are always full even with 2 lobbies and the reason why i discovered him was because he used (and still use) the name of his channel for the lobby.

 

Thanks, this sounds like a great service. I just completed the 3-lap challenge, but unfortunately I was about 1 minute too late to register for today's race. Some thoughts:

1. I think leagues are probably uninterested because they have already solved the problem of online racing. It seems to me that this tool is most valuable for people who want to automate the process of joining decent races, rather than making commitments to a league.

2. You definitely need constant races throughout the day, every 20 minutes - that's the only way this works for a target audience of non-league racers looking for open races with safety enforced. If I were able to commit to a race schedule far in advance, then I would just join a league. Restricting it to just 1-3 series at first is a good idea, until the player numbers increase. Perhaps you can pad out the grid with AI until there are enough players. I would absolutely love to race against AI on a service that automatically keeps track of all of this data.

3. All of the relevant information needs to be on the website, not in a Discord server. I have discord, but I hate when I have to join a Discord server just to get some random information. I have to get the link, copy it into Discord, join the server, read the rules, and jump through random hoops to get out of the noob channel so that I can get the one piece of information I want. Then I have to either delete the sever or set my notification preferences to avoid random pings. It's not reasonable to ask people to do that, especially since many people don't even use Discord at all. Of course, maybe your Discord server is really well-maintained and user-friendly, but I have dealt with so much Discord nonsense on other servers that I just roll my eyes whenever anyone demands that I join a Discord server to use a service or get some information.

So, I think there are some UX issues to work out, but I'm definitely very excited about this. Personally, mMy top choices for racing series are Copa Classics B, Caterham Supersport, and P4.

 

great stuff keep it coming

@Sputafuoco yeah I am trying to that - for example right now , but I am just random guy from internet who like to pretend that he's driving fast, I don't like iRacing pricing model and I am too slow for LFM, by coincidence I know how to write good software, but unfortunatelly I don't have much time/money to do proper advertisement.
I can't post at reddit, since I don't have karma or something. I think I wrote on Steam forum some time ago.
I've talk with MetzVR yesterday and he said that RCO looks interesting, but idk what will come out of that.
And as I wrote above I've talked with a lot of people 6 monts ago, leage owners, etc, but there was no tracion - question is why?

@Coldsalmon
1. From what I have seen leagues don't have good tools to run their leagues, they are using a lot of manual stuff, keeping results in excel, or doing screenshot of game results after the race, stuff like that. I think that I can provide something better and more automated. We'll see.

2. with races every 20 minutes it will be almost impossible to race against human with such small user base - even iRacing can't do that. I like the chill of racing against AI, but I really would like to race on AMS2 with other simillary skilled drivers.
I will create race series with 20 min schedule - or something like that, let me know which series would you like? all 3 from your list? and yes grids are filled with AI and RCO have adaptive AI so it will learn your skill level after few races.

3. Yeah I don't like discord too. But didn't have a steam to setup my own forum and add FAQ on RCO website, discord is so easy to do. And no, mine discord is not well maintained With time I will put more info on main website.

Thanks for your feedback.

 

You take feedback very well, I think you will find success. I think a good rule for used feedback is to listen to people's problems, but don't necessarily implement their suggestions for how to solve them. I don't really know what I'm talking about when I suggest 20 minute races - I have no idea what the right interval is, or how many series you should run.

The problem I want to solve is this: finding a race with safe human opponents at any time, without making social commitments in advance. I would also like to race in my personal favorite classes, but I recognize that they are not very popular so they might not be a good place for you to start.

 

First of all, I would like to say that I did not even know that this existed. Maybe it's just your way of doing promotion, but the post seems to assume that we should know about RCO. Sorry if I'm living under a rock.

I run an AMS2 league, and we do it with a dedicated server, which so far has been working well (knocking wood). We use the justrace website, simply because it integrates well with a dedi that you have beforehand (which was our case) and lets you keep track of standings and you can schedule sessions automatically.

The other websites that I know of (SRS, SimracingGP, Raceapp) either impose you their servers, or you need to plug in your results manually.

It's also a bit offputting when you reach a website that you want to know about, but you are only greeted with a login page with no other info available. Why I would sign for yet another website if I don't know what I'm in for? This needs to be addressed if you want more people to know about the service you are providing.

What I want to say is: even if I do have a solution running, I'm always open for other options which may improve the user's experience (something that is sorely needed for this game), but it's hard to even know about what RCO proposes. Even if you stated it on this thread.

 

@Coldsalmon

I'ts not difficult to take constructive criticism

You're right, it's my weak spot.

This is the problem I want to address with RCO.

@Gabriel "Pai" Legnini

I have no idea how to do promotion

You're not living under the rock, it's more me living under my small RCO rock, suffering from tunnel vision
I did some promotion year ago, here is original thread racecraft.online - competition system for AMS2 - open alpha tests . I shouldn't assume that everyone on the earth read it sorry, by bad.
And how could I forgot about JustRace and RaceResults? My comment about league tools was just gibberish.

In fact we have many tools in ranked multiplayer landscape: SGP, LFM, RaceU, SplitRace, SRS.

Yes, it's not first time I am hearing that. In fact I am currently working on that issue.

So to recap what i've heard:

1. Confusing thread title - I need to learn how to make good thread titles
2. No one knows about RCO - promote it better
3. Confusing first impression of RCO - there should be info on site, FAQ or something like that.
4. User data protection is first class issue - there is a need for "Delete my account" feature.
5. Login page is like a wall - open RCO to public.

Great feedback, thx. Please let if flow, dont' hold yourself, let me know what can be improved or should be changed. It would be great if I could be guided by community to build something fun for me and for us - I know that such statement can sound wierd and unnatural, very marketingish, but by building stuff only by myself I will get tunnel vision, I need users feedback to avoid it, also I don't want to build only for myself - I want to race against randoms!!

 

@Gabriel "Pai" Legnini

Do you think it's possible for you to organize small race on RCO? It don't have league management features yet, but I can create race for you. The fact is that I didn't test RCO much, at least not with multiple drivers in one race, so such race would help me find out if RCO is working
Also it would be cool to hear feedback from you after the race.

 

Sure. We are doing a Classic DTM championship which races on Saturdays every other week. So we could do one at an off week that would also serve as practice for the official one. Will get back to you via PMs on this subject, but maybe we can do one next Saturday. Classic DTMs at Nordschleife is just right around the corner, and would be a good one for gathering people.

 

Also consider the pinned comment on this video from the creator of LFM. You have to be prepared for success, and all of the problems it will cause. It's about the report-and-review function in LFM and how much hate the free service gets because of poor drivers:

 

For now I'm not worried about success, I can't get two drivers in to one session, so there is very small chance for race incident between humans
Thx for encouragement

That's awesome thx.

BTW
I've opened RCO website to public and added FAQ section, check it out
racecraft.online - Sim Racing Ranked Matchmaking System for Automobilista 2

 

This is great! I would suggest a section on what a user has to do to use RCO.

1. Link Steam account
2. Create username and password
3. Register for a 3-lap challenge
4. Just join the indicated server, and RCO will automatically track your racing.

 

Hi again,
This thread get 500 views and during this time RCO gained only 2 new users.
I believe that those three points are the cause:

1. RCO doesn't work/look as people would like it to.
2. People are asking for AMS2 competition system, but in reality they don't want it.
3. People want to have full lobbies.

I will try to adjust UI/UX a little and I will add few more race series and then I will create new thread with better title

Thank you very much for participation