As a lot know the hoppers in FM6 have issues to say the least. There is more bumping than a demo derby and less racing than seen in formula one.
Leagues see positive results with its ranking syatems so I believe the solution to the problem is to add the ranking system to the general hoppers.
This way it would keep drives of the same ability together and hopefully make racing fun again. This works both ways for both the fastest racers and the slowest racers respectivly.
Please, please, please add this as the general hoppers in FM6 are quite terrible and quite frankly generally not fun to be a part of, forcing most that actually care about racing into ghost lobbies.
You already have the system in place so theres no reason it cant happen.
Another positive thing from Leagues that I’d like to see in Hoppers would be starting grids ordered by the previous race’s Fastest Lap. You won’t stop the carnage at the back but at the very least those that focus on clean driving get rewarded with a better grid position in the next race.
The challenge with adding Divisions to Hoppers comes when 2 Friends of different skill levels want to race in a Hopper together. How will the system work that out, does it place them both in the faster room, slower room or not at all? I like the idea in theory but from a practical standpoint something else may be required, such as players joining rooms based on average TrueSkill ratings.
While both of these ideas may work as a quick solution I still believe that education is the way forward, rather than anything hard-coded. The challenge with educating players however lies on how to get their attention. The players that “need help” in terms of racecraft may not be the type who’ll actively search it out, so putting it somewhere obvious may be the best option:
There does seem to be a side problem qith disconnects but I very much doubt its the developers disconnecting people.
Maybe the “simple” solution would be to make you go through a race school type thing if your crash /clean race or pass ratio gets too high. This educating them on how to brake, accelerate and all in between
T10 already said hoppers match based on a trueskill figure. If there isn’t enough players, the lobbies get filled with various skilled drivers. This has always been a problem because there’s not enough people playing.
It worked better in other Forza’s because the max lobby size was smaller. Larger max lobby size + small population = lobbies with insane skill gaps.
At any rate, the only remedy is to have a visible vote to kick. It worked in other forzas.
I don’t mind racing slower peogle if they are trying to race clean. Gives me an excuse to drive oddball cars to balance the lobby.
Good point. I have noticed (by backing out and re-joining multiple times) in recent weeks that there’s usually only 2-3 active rooms in the B/600 Hopper. Those rooms do have 20+ players usually but with only 50 or so concurrent players in that class of Hopper there’s not much filtering/matchmaking that can be done.
I agree with PJ, while implementing the league divisions into standard hoppers will filter out the “garbage” that tends to plague the hoppers, friends of different divisions wont be able to join eachother. Also, ordering the grid by fastest laps wont necessarily stop people from launching from the start into the front rows.
Maybe a system where upon colliding with another player at a certain speed difference or after a certain number of crashes, forces a player into ghost mode for the remainder of the race, possibly removing them from a lobby completely, as in the case of “betrayals” in certain FPS games.
Either way, something needs to be done because there is a vast number of players out there spoiling the experience for those who want to actually race.
While implomenting league based ranking into hopping may be an ideal fix, if there isn’t enough racers then it may struggle.
Education is defiantly what’s needed but I feel the majority of players that are the “problem” either already know or don’t want to learn.
So maybe a system that monitors the amount of times you bump and applys a ghost like state accordingly.
Plus I feel more sticky sections are needed on track for general hoppers. Outside of first corner at Watkins Glen, final S’s at sebring, outside of turn 2 at Spa and the chicanes at Yas Marina to name a few.
I worry, like the others, that although it’s a good idea on the surface, there may not be enough players across all skill levels to fill up the lobbies. On the lower skill levels that’d be fine (less cars on track = greater margin for error) but in the higher levels, the good racers want to race in a full lobby and are fully capable of doing so while keeping contact to a minimum. Plus, there are far more players in the lower levels than there are in the higher levels, so the exact opposite of what players want would likely happen = i.e. full lobbies in the lower skill levels, and far less populated lobbies in the higher skill levels.
you need to join a league site that deals with contact, i have been in many that claim they don’t let in wreckers yet every round of their series has more crashes than overtakes yet nothing is done.
It often turns out the wreckers are the faster guys and the site owners are scared about telling them off incase they don’t come back and take all their friends with them,lol
How can we divide people by skill. What does skill means ? Is it based on track time ?
For example, I’ve only raced a few times in lobbies. The experience was awful. I’m not a real fast driver but I never crashed or touched any other car in race but I was crashed by other people all the time. If you want to pas me, fine. I’m aware of other drivers and I let room enough on the track for a clean pass, I even go out of optimal trajectory for that, so stop to bump on me ! So as a result I almost finish last…Does that mean I’m not skilled ? I don’t think so. With the lobby based on this presumed skilled, should I be doomed to be in full crasher lobbies with no means to improve my racing skill…?
I really hope than one day I’ll enjoy the multiplayer races (for now I just race in private lobbies with friend or I spend my time in the painting room or in rivals).
Skill is based on lap times and ability to race clean but fast. To the game skill is the ability to beat people. Basically if you keep winning or placing up front your skill rating increases. It increases at a faster rate if you beat people with higher or similar ratings and barely moves if you beat lower rated players. Too bad we can’t see these ratings.
Also, don’t go out of your way to let faster people by. Odds are you’ve caught some players off guard and they hit you. If you hold your line and only give room when they are within 20 ft of you, you’ll do fine.
Seems like there’s pro’s and con’s to most of the proposed solutions. I like the OP’s suggestion, perhaps just joining some of the classes like Pinnacle and Expert together, Professional and Intermediate together etc. to have potential bigger lobbies. Not ideal perhaps, but a good starting point.
Also like PJ’s education approach and a sure way to go, but will have more influence on long term, by which time many might have given up hope.
PS. Formula One 44, seeing your conspiracy theories on so many threads are becoming lame and boring.
I’m well aware that it’s not a quick fix but on the other-hand once you know how to race cleanly in one game, you can apply that knowledge to any other racing game you play.
