Earlier today I saw a news article about Project CARS 2 potentially having a Driver Rating System in place (relevant quotes below):
Let’s look at this in relation to Forza, specifically Forza Motorsport 6. Forza Motorsport 6 attempted to group players of similar skill together in 2 ways:
Assigning every player a TrueSkill rating, which would determine which active instance of a Hopper you would join.
Example: You have a rating of 20 and select an A-Class Hopper. There are 2 lobbies currently running in A-Class, one with an average rating of 10 and another with an average of 25. In theory, the game would place you in the lobby with a 25 rating if there is room and you can connect, as that is the room with a rating closest to yours.
Leagues.
Leagues were a separate set of Hoppers, with car and class selection dictated by Turn 10 on a weekly basis. There were 5 different tiers, each with their own Trueskill rating. You could only enter in lobbies of a certain rating unltil you got “promoted” or “demoted” to a different bracket based on your race results in League races.
Whether either of these methods were successful is up for debate, but with similar upcoming titles now actively pursuing a Driver Rating System which will influence the way we race online, one must ask if Turn 10 should be focusing on such a thing* when it comes to Forza Motorsport 7.
This isn’t a thread where us players should come up with such a system. As much as we’d like to think so, we don’t know better than Turn 10 when it comes to developing game systems and we certainly don’t have as much data/knowledge on how Multiplayer racing has been as a whole. Rather, this thread is for us as fans and potential players to weigh up the positives and negatives of having a Driver Rating System, and to wonder if it’s something Turn 10 should be putting serious thought into implementing at all.
*This is assuming that Turn 10 aren’t already looking at such a system for their next title. Naturally, looking from the outside, we won’t know for quite a while yet, but if such a system is to be implemented at launch it is likely being worked on right now.
The driver rating system works well as applied to Leagues, even though I was skeptical at first. I really didn’t even know about various divisions until I heard some chatter about in the League lobbies, then I decide to look into it. It turns out that you don’t want to be racing in a league where you’re constantly winning races, that eventually gets boring. So the division system moves you into the next Division where you can compete with folks with your speed skill set. Again genius IMO. You get to the next division by winning races along with other factors as how well you drive and how clean your laps are and the amount of races you complete without DNFing. But if you are winning or coming constantly in the top 3 that behavior tips your Trueskill in the direction of the the next division. Again nothing wrong here, just that the game is doing its best to keep you best challenged, similar to the notifications given in Career mode if you keep winning out against the tiered drivatars. This feature should definitely be part of the League structure in FM7, as I’m sure it will.
(I keep calling Trueskill Truescore - it’s just stuck inside my head when I think about Trueskill - LOL!!!)
There should of course be some form of rating. This isn’t only so that seasoned players find themselves grouped together but also that people new to the game also have a chance to be competitive in a lobby better suited to their experience.
What would be great is if someone from T10 could come on here and give some insight into how Trueskill is currently calculated and implemented and how they plan to further develop it.
Personally I would like to see less emphasis placed on how many hours someone plays and rather more emphasis on how they play. That coupled with a players speed in terms of clean lap times should provide a decent thumbnail.
This has got me wondering. If Trueskill is working to some degree imagine how bad lobby’s would be without it.
From my understanding it’s appears to be the same system from FM2 but just hidden. Number of races and how you perform dictate rating. The rating fluctuates drastically with a small sample size of races and if you beat “higher ranked” players your trueskill increases rapidly. The more races the more the trueskill becomes stagnant and only losses against really low ranked player or wins against really high ranked players will change it. This might explain why some shoot up the league classes in a few races and others can’t seem move up.
This makes sense with a subscription-based service like iRacing, but won’t happen with a Turn 10 title as all Xbox players have the right to keep their real names private.
This I like, and when it came to learning new racing games it is an approach I have taken myself as a player. When I played DiRT Rally for example I didn;t start in a WRC car right away; I found a slow Mini to build confidence in before graduating to faster cars.
In a Forza sense an equivalent progression would be along the lines of:
Everyone has access to A-Class Hoppers and below.
Once they’ve hit a certain rating/skill threshold they gain access to S-Class.
Once they reach the next step on the ladder they gain access to R-Class etc.
Private Lobbies and Custom Public Lobbies would allow access to any Class, so that people aren’t locked out of playing with their favourite cars.
This is a good philosophy that is unfortunately absent from Forza titles. Other than lost time, there are no notable consequences for crashing or corner-cutting in a Forza title.
I can’t remember the last time somebody from Turn 10 published a blog post explaining their philosophy behind any of their features; it would be something nice to see in future.
Well certainly, but they can tie a rating to a username all the same. If you start all usernames at a “0” rating and make players develop the skill of minimizing contact to the greatest extent possible, as that rating gets better you should be paired with others who have done the same.
iRacing rookie classes have a lot of contact because people are learning how to drive in the game. But the point is there’s more to the competition than finishing first.
This also protects people with high ratings from drivers who are banned for legitimate reasons who start new usernames. New username? Work your way through the rookies.
I hadn’t thought about this part as I felt that it was one of the less feasible aspects of iRacing that could be realistically implemented in Forza. That said, the S+ hoppers are kind of a nightmare so there’s something to be said for this.
I don’t believe Turn 10 should go “full iRacing” here. Forza still needs to be accessible and fun… and really, if I want to play iRacing I’ll just go do that. But for a lot of us who really love the rare moment that you find some random players who love clean competition, Forza needs some serious work to make that happen. Whatever they do for FM7, I hope they do it with that in mind.
I don’t think they should go “full iRacing” either; one of the main reasons the Forza series is as popular as it is now is because of how inclusive it is. Whether you’re a leaderboard hunter or a child mashing buttons, there is something in a Forza title to keep you entertained.
The difficulty and frustration however comes from when multiple sectors of the player base with significantly different skill levels and playing philosophies meet up. Rookies and kids don’t know any better, and veterans have a very specific idea of how everybody “should” race. Neither side is willing or able to budge, so when you put both in a lobby together there are bound to be some frustrated individuals on either end, be it the rookies multiple laps behind or the veterans having to put up with “wreckers”.
If done correctly, the combination of a Driver Rating system, Custom Public Lobbies and an “online progression ladder” could ensure that everybody has an enjoyable place to play in, and the chances of large crossovers diminish. Forza Motorsport 6’s Leagues feature was a good first attempt, but a lot of work needs to be done before Forza can drop its hostile reputation in regards to Online racing.
For good reasons these stringent rules are not in place in Forza, cause it’s still a game played across various age groups, some of whom don’t even have a drivers licenses. iRacing is a paid service and I could see the justification for being this strict there, but in Forza if these racer norming rules applied they would rattle a lot of people’s cages, especially mines.
I just want to be matched with other like-minded players. This is a way to do that, and if it bothers you that there’s an expectation that you don’t treat your fellow players as objects to be used to more quickly decelerate your vehicle in a race I have to say that I don’t much mind if your feelings are hurt.
The system doesn’t even really have to be all that stringent or strict. Say you have 36 people running A class hoppers. Put the 12 drivers with the highest rating in one lobby, lowest in another, and the middle in the last. The server can then assign new drivers to these lobbies as they join. It could be a lightweight system that creates more opportunities to enjoy racing with players closest to your own abilities.
Are these other games simply catching up to T10 and remarketing it as something new and fancy?
To me it seems that competitive gaming is the path everyone is racing to be top dog. T10 may be forced to respond to competitors in order to attract players and show what T10 has in store for competitive play.
IMO this article gives me joy. T10 has already ventured successfully into competitive gaming and competitor games are trying to do the same. All that means is likely more ways to compete whether for bragging rights or prizes. This suits my play style well and has been something for a few years now (until FRC) that I thought was missing.
Maybe my dream of froza ranking players in their country will come true.
I feel the exact same way Swerve! There definitely needs to be more FRC championships in the future, or just more events where top players meet each other at the same and that needs to be aware to the general Forza population. I feel that being able to watch a lot of good guys race on a track at the same time without taking each other out every single corner might inspire some people to actually learn how to race better instead of just smashing each other off because there are “no rules.”
The trueskill system is pretty basic, id hope they would be trying to improve it. I think GT Sports system sounds the best, you have a performance(lap times/place) rating, a sportsmanship(cleanliness) rating and an opponents rating.
I think trueskill should encompass not only league lobbies but the regular hoppers as well. Not everyone likes leagues, some people just want to race what they want to race and should have a place to do that, thats just as fair and clean as in the leagues.
I’ve only glanced over this thread, but I feel a system that works a bit like the license tests in GT could work well for playing online in Forza. Have tests for each car class (only for online) and to use that class of car online, you must get the “license” to drive said class.
Even though it showed up a little late the club feature through xbox live is something that could be used to find like minded racers. I highly doubt searchable custom public lobbies will ever come back so this feature even though id personally like to see something intergrated in the game is something that could be used.
This is certainly a hard nut to crack, this is not only a forza problem every racing game has and does suffer these issues. I really dont know what they could even do tbh, but it is something that i think they should take serious steps to help people find like minded racers.
I know turn 10 likes to do their own thing, but there are many things in place in other games that i think they should take a look at. I think a license system of some sort is a good place to start. I also think an in game penalty system should be developed, the whole message Snowowl thing is just unfair to Snowowl and just doesnt make a dent in how people play.
I think the whole 2-3 laps per race needs to be adjusted permanently, or if they are that short make little championships consisting of like 5 races similiar to Horizons roadtrips (without the skill points lol). I think it will take the pressure off of some people knowing they dont always have to finish first.
I like that there are 24 player lobbies, but they just dont help this situation out. As theyve uncreased lobby size things have gotten worse. I think there should be 12 player lobbies for casuals and 24 player lobbies for harcore players.
Theres many different things they could try. I will say i think its a missed opportunity to not use forza 6 as a test bed for their ideas though. Two years is not a long time to develop a game nevermind going all or nothing with new features. Right now the player base is obviously small, i think its a great time to beta test new stuff.
Preliminary Note: Custom Public Lobbies instead of a Hopper system would solve 90% of the problem. Let the community self-segregate.
If for some inexplicable reason Turn 10 just stays with the Hopper system, then there needs to be a Driver Safety rating ala iRacing implemented. The rating should be impacted both by excessive contact and leaving track limits. The rating splits drivers into two groups: bad sports and everyone else. Bad sports are automatically placed into only bad sport hoppers until they get their rating back up. Everyone else is placed in hoppers together, but drivers should still be preferentially placed into hoppers with an average rating closer to their own. Calibrate the rating such that it’s fairly difficult to become a bad sport, so that people who get rammed or shoved off every now and then stand no chance of becoming bad sports.
Finally, the League system needs to be totally revamped. It should be based on average finish with bonuses for laps led, races won, clean laps, etc. Then set a minimum number of races that you have to complete in order to get ranked. This way there are proper leaderboards that people will actually pay attention to and that will incentivize people to race in leagues. It’s absurd that the leaderboards now are just based on how often you play.
All those bonuses can be manipulated if you focus on racing in small lobbies. When pinnacle was at its prime it was practically impossible to run a clean lap due to drafting penalties for example. None of your bonuses provide an incentive to play since many will be decentivized after figuring out how to manipulate the system.
Points based on finish and who you beat works to an extent which is why that was chosen.
Maybe everyone starts with a 0 true skill for the event and finishing with highest true skill will be winner. If there is a tie, most points accumulated via racing could be tie breaker, third tie breaker could be wins, and forth average finish.
There would have to be a minimum number of races though to avoid instances where someone playing 7 times wins the event…or maybe like an inactivity feature that slowly decreases true skill in relation to the 50 or so drivers near you. This would then encourage folks to play more if they wanted to keep the trueskill value.
Now if the overall leaderboard showed everybody’s stats like in previous forza games…that would be glorious.
For what its worth i was formerly a hardcore forza fan. As i got more serious into racing, and sims the less interested i became in forza because it leaves much to be desired. But to be 100% honest ive invested far more money into iracing than any/all forzas combined. The reason I have done this is because iracings ranking and their race lobby system. I am very happy that people are restricted. Iracing has 1/10th the cars forza does but i get less bored with the less content. What the ranking system does is it encourages practice. Unlike forza practice can be done in a public lobby with others, and tuning can be done in the lobby with others. Also unlike forza the races are at most once an hour for each “series”
This doesnt work with forzas current layout and would require a complete overhaul. The pi system does not actually work. The racing in iracing is organized like many of the private leagues are on forza in the regard that theres certain cars allowed and a specific track for the week, and there are also private leagues if you’d prefer. The way forza is setup they dont encourage practice as you are constantly going to different tracks very quickly, it wants your to constantly be in different cars. This is what causes the poor driving. Unless you are one of the people that stays in say a class and only drives the alfa for example than you are just not going to be proficient enough to race and have no incidents (contact with others, off track, contact with walls, loss of control, in terms of the iracing incidents) or if you can manage to do that you are likely not going to be on pace as you are likely going slow and not at 10/10 in fear of the accident which brings the skill rating down and groups you with slower people. Because of the pi system this wouldn’t work anyways as everyone is going to be in the same car if you had a ranking system like this.
Because (some) users are broken. Not the game itself. But there is no mechanism in FM6 to prevent inappropriate behaviour of users.
Just did my first multiplayer races last night as I bought Xbox live gold for my sons to play Overwatch. (Don’t worry, you’re not likely to see them on Forza as it’s not their kind of game. Luckily!)
I tried a few options. Ghost league, multi class race and category races. It was quite interesting actually.
Unfortunately, there was a few idiots in my races. And I couldn’t do anything about it. It happened in E class. The worse was a guy driving a purple LR Defender ramming intentionally anyone close to him. Driver level around 100, but obviously more experienced than that. (Banned user coming back under a new name?) I tried to pass him, very far from him, but he changed direction and rammed me a few times. Why? Not a clue. Tell me if I am wrong, but there as some car games made for that. His gamer ID is a 7 letter string starting by “s” made of two French words. It would be written “dontknow” in English. I’d love to write his gamer ID somewhere…
Until now, I could only complain about idiotic drivatars, but I just experienced myself what other players have been complaining about for a long time. It’s frustrating. Thousands of solutions to this “human” problem have been proposed on this forum. I just hope Turn 10 will do something about that in FM7.
