Update 8/16/24
It was pointed out to me that people would be upsset if rating were reset and they saw thir 4999 rating disappear, especially casual players. So I would update this recommendation to expand ratings to 17K and let players keep their current rating. That would effectively make 5K rating 2K in current spread, but players are less likely to feel like they have lost progression. And if new players still can only come out of introduction with around 4K rating, that is fine.
Obviously I would not recommend doing this before the matchmaking system is fixed as explained below. Basically stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Look at how the matchmaking system through Low Fuel Motorsports massively increased ACC’s popularity in a even more niche market than Forza resides in. And LFM requires you to go touside the game on the web to participate as a 3rd party.
A working rating system has the potential to do the same for Forza over time when people realize it works. You give people also a neverending carrot that keeps them coming back, being in house means it works for casual players, and Forza’s potential playerbase should dwarf that of ACC.
Original Post
Multiple idea in 1 locked, fair enough. This is my suggestiong for overhauling matchmaking with a rating reset.
We nee a rating reset. Right now nearly everyone i know is rated 4999, and there are guys 1 second a lap faster than me to guys 2 seconds a lap slower than me at this rating. Even guys with even slower pace are all rated in the 4900s. It’s almost pointless for matching. The vast majority of players should fall into 2000-2500 range with fast guys hitting 3000+ and only the e-sports level guys hitting 4000+. Before this is done though, proper matchmaking is a requirement.
Matchmaking needs to happen at the end of practice/qualifying based on DR/SR with an exception for open lobbies only on SR. I explain the latter later. This does 2 things. One it guaruntees fuller lobbies as all players will be matched at once and split as evenly as possible for larger lobbies. Two it guaruntees proper splits by rating to insure closer competition. This imnportant for the all the following suggestions. Lobbies are almost entirely random now, so I don’t see the issue of practice/qualifying being in a radnom lobby.
After this you can do a rating reset. Put everyone down to 1000 or maybe 1500. The hardcore players will understand. Reduce the ability to gain rating down to no more than 75-100 based on strength of field. This limits massive swings or rating due to a good result or major mistake. It would be a bit of a grind, but it would always give you something to work towards. Almost no one cares about rating anymore, so the backlash should be minimal. Beginner MP races should only be about safety rating. Should be a big disclaimer about that. The highest it should start anyone out at rating wise is 1500, say a baseline fo 1250 with 1000 being the lowest you could get and 1500 the most.
I agree with this. When you come out of the “training” series and you are over 4000, like I was when I first started, that is a major problem. No one should be rated that high after three or four runs. It makes matchmaking a challenge.
I got this comment fromma friendly fellow I raced. Name blocked out.
He is rated 4999. He says 4 seconds lap slower than me, but i think that was because I was able to get a soft tire stint in, so it probably closer to and a little less than 3 seconds. Thing is, there are guys 1-1.5 seconds a lap faster than I am. So we are looking at a range of about 4-4.5 seconds on pace, at rated at 4999. How does matchmaking even match people if that many peope are rated 4999. I don’t mean to rag on this guy. i shouldn’t be rated 4999. The best player in the game should not be rated 4999. 4999 should be a mathematical theoretical result that is practically unobtainable.
I’ve talked to guys 6 seconds a lap slower than me and they are rated at 4900. Almost everyone seems to be. It means lobbies are pretty much effectively random even if you fixed the ranking to be at the end of practice so the entire pool could be split into proper splits, you’d still have this issue of too many people at 4999 for matchmaking to work properly. That is why a correction in how points are obtained and a rating reset is needed.
A higher MP rating should be a neverending carrot to chase for even the best of drivers. Not a max level you’ll reach in pretty short order after starting racing in MP.
In practice, it wont work. There aren’t enough players, it would be best to scrap the skill rating system entirely and just go based on safety.
Or scrap them both, this game is on it’s last legs here. (But who could’ve predicted an empty live service game with small fixes every month and no content would die?)
At most I think there are 10.000 players daily, and most of them play private/solo because multiplayer is so boring.
There are plenty of players to make it work, at least better than it is right now. This guaruntees the system tries to fill the whole lobby up based on total players participating in the event instead of having multiple lobbies of randomly rated players ranging from 5-15 people. I just lobby hopped GT4 towards the end of a race, and ended up in 4 different lobbies of 6, 5, 4, and 4 players. Not inlucing myself that is enough players for at least 15 in basically new lobbies right near the end of an event.
So not only do people get placed in the right competitive lobbies based on rating, the lobbies will be fuller. If only 40 people join an event, you get at least two lobbies of 20 people. If only 25 people join an event, you get lobbies of 13 each. A lobby would never be lower than 12 if at least 12 people joined the whole event. Given larger lobbies happen if you join earlier, I am guessing the more unpopular GT4 events have at least 50-100 people joining, more than enough to create multiple splits of larger lobbies. If they reduced the event overlap within hoppers (ie long/medium races can have up to four events running concurrently between practice and race), that would increase to pool more. Heck, in Endurance right now, 4 events are running concurrently splitting the playerbase and you likely would not have time to to get into the 5th event.
I just jonied 5 a GT4 event in the rain (unpopular) and ended up in 5 different lobbies each time, most new with 5-8 plauyers, one with about 12-15 players.
Just curious if matchmaking by qualifing time is an option? If 40 drivers join a gt spec race and everyone has to qualify, drivers put into two races based on times. Just work out the fine details.
Drivers get penalties that are unjust sometimes, but drivers that just keep getting those big penalties should get restricted to the bad players lobbies and have to drive E class for 24 hours…
The peoblem with using qualifying is that it is abuseable. Matchmaking based on a working rating system works better for getting the right drivers in the right split even if they do not qualify.
the game NEEDS to do the matchmaking AFTER the practice, you go to a race, u find a lobby of 5 players. You quit, go to another, u find another lobby of 7 different players. Why dont you put all toghether and fill the races?? All semi empty lobbys because of that
There is no matmaking here, its just so simple. Copy paste every race game system of matchmaking like iracing, gt7, lfm, THATS ALL
Thank you for saying all this. I’ve always wondered why sorting and splitting everyone that has entered an event at the end of practice was not done. It’s such a simple thing to do, that we shouldn’t have to vote on in the first place. This is a solved problem in just about every other sim with a rating system.
As for rating, even if they leave it as is, if everyone is sorted properly, then the players who are over-rated will be in the same lobbies as much faster players. They will lose rating, and eventually everyone will get to their true rating.
