Couple of easy answers for you Turn 10;
“Sorry, we were unable to implement the penalty system at launch, but we will include this in a later update for the game. Please keep a lookout for future information.”
Or;
“Sorry the penalty system will not be featuring in Forza Motorsport 7. We will look into having this ready for future Forza titles.”
Communication.
I think this is significant enough to have its own (open) thread where people can discuss it and learn more.
It works differently to Forza Motorsport 6 (there’s no “come into my lobby and kick somebody” tasks) but over time I think enough Marshals will be added in order to cover the most popular Hoppers/Leagues during peak playing times.
This is great. Glad to see a program like this being implemented in online multiplayer.
As touched on above, it has to do with the target audience.
There is a general trend in gaming to dumb-down the games so that the lowest common denominator can play them successfully and get hooked on them, as those people are also less careful about spending their money. That makes them more likely to spend on future titles, pre-orders, nonsense/scam DLC (I’m not one of those conspiracy types saying all DLC is garbage/ withheld content trickery, but some titles do have it) and microtransactions. The dumber/more casual the fan base, the more likely that just adding some fancy driver suits and graphics improvements to the game will be enough “work” to justify the release of a new title, and so on. Those lowest common denominator types are exactly the type of people you see having turn 1 pileups and attempting to run people off the road to defend a single position despite the fact that 9 times out of 10 they end up taking themselves out and losing half a dozen positions in the process.
While there are deliberate rammers and corner-cutters, there is a portion of the fanbase that don’t see it as doing anything “wrong” as it is “just a game.” They think “lol I can just cut this, look at those suckers staying on the track, nerds” or they come from GTA thinking that you should spin out your opponents or ram them off the road or swerve around on straights to block or whatever because “do what you have to win bro, u mad.” They just feel that they are playing the game the way that a game is meant to be played.
Banning people who don’t think they are doing anything wrong is probably the best way to chase off customers and the cash they bring. Most people aren’t likely to try to learn from their mistakes, instead will just trade the game in at GameStop for $8 and not buy the next one.
For the deliberate wreckers and cutters, most likely they wouldn’t come back if they were banned either. If they are doing because they think it makes them a “troll lulz” then they aren’t likely to spend money on the next title just to get banned again. If they are doing it because they want the easy way to wins, then they are very unlikely to put the hard work in to learn to win on merit, and will most likely head to another racing game that allows/encourages that kind of racing.
TL;DR they know that banning people will chase away casuals and idiots, while most of the more serious racers will stay with the series because they are the only show in town on the Xbox, and just play single player more or go to their own organized events.
I’m not sure if it’s more or less insulting that they can’t even be bothered to lie to us or feed us canned “we are always looking into things” responses anymore.
While Im thankful for your work Snowowl, I’m afraid that neither the race Marshal’s or reporting are solution to these problems. As stated before, banned players can just create a new account and continue their behavior.
I have little hope that in 6 months replays will still be actively reviewed or that the race Marshall program will not be abandoned. Ive seen this movie before with Forza 6. And lets not forget turn 10 lied about adjudication.
Not if you ban them on IP Adres ;), then they have to find other place to play the game. But Marshals do not have the ability to ban, only to remove from lobby, then if they search again they or find new lobby or find no lobby (if there arn’t any others). Only T10 staff can ban. But think reports from Marshals have more wait and faster result in ban from T10 then regular people reports.
That’s only if they’ve got a static IP. I have a dynamic IP, which will change every time I turn my router off and on, so banning the IP in cases like that would be next to useless.
So what? They return with a new GT and get booted again if they’re acting a fool. And how many people are really going to go through the effort of regularly creating new GTs?
Race Marshalls should be common enough that players griefing don’t last. I can deal with the occasional ruined race. I can’t deal with back to back to back ruined races.
Youd be suprised at how many people have multiple accounts on xbox, how do you think xbox live users go up so much yet the console sales numbers dont seem to be making the same gains every year. I know many forza players that have multiple accounts for various reasons and theyre not crashers, the fact is its free and it takes less than 5 minutes to do.
There arent nearly enough marshals to make a dent in this problem. The bottom line is other games have a system in place which are all pretty similiar while turn 10 has decided to do something totally different that didnt work in the past so why continue doing it.
The answer to this problem is pretty simple at this point considering other developers came up with the right ideas already. Copy what they are doing plain and simple. Imo turn 10 should have done what gt sport did long before gt sport released which is pretty much copy iracing.
Now that they are the last major racing game to not use this type of system its gonna look even more obvious that it was copied but who cares it works while turn 10s plan doesnt. They have to stop trying to reinvent the wheel all the time, i cant even remember the last good idea they even came up with and if anything they keep removing them.
Users may go up but Microsoft does not make money from users, they make money from Xbox Live Gold, which people would not be wise to pay double or triple for.
Now, when it comes to contact I firmly believe that the best thing is to rely on the human element rather than an automated system. Competitive leagues across different racing games employ marshals who are present in the lobby strictly to enforce rules of conduct. This is something leagues have implemented on their own and now Turn 10 is making it official in their own sponsored leagues considering how disastrous the racing has been in collision-enabled lobbies.
As for corner-cutting, I believe in a stricter system but see, sometimes people push you out of the track precisely for you to get the penalty. If you visit Forza Horizon lobbies with the checkpoint markers around the tracks you’ll know that the checkpoints are how they deal with corner-cutting in that game, but cheaters abuse them nonetheless by ramming you just before a checkpoint, a behavior that the Drivatards emulate in offline mode.
GT Sport is not the racing heaven it’s advertised to be. YouTube has more than enough examples of how crappy the racing can be over there. The fact it has less of this stuff does not mean it’s absolutely wonderful. Even iRacing has wreckers, though iRacing is a subscription-based service built around the driver licenses, so it attracts less cheating players due to how expensive it can be.
User numbers keep microsoft stock figures stable, they make more money from investors than from xbox live. Other competitive leagues do have marshals but the circumstances are much different then what we have here. Competitive leagues are filled with competitive people that want to race, forzas lobbies are obviously not.
Forza 7 is also missing a spectating feature of any kind which also compounds the problem. A driver rating system based on skill level would help this game tremendously. The league rating system we have now only accounts for placement which doesnt mean much when people can smash or corner cut their way to the top.
I think speed should be the last attribute that should be looked at tbh. Im sure a slower clean forza player who really wants to have a proper race would rather lose to a fast clean person than to a slow dirty one. At least theyd have the opportunity to focus on learning how to get better rather than wasting time trying to avoid wreckers every race.
How can you tell if a race Marshall is in your lobby?
Do they have a symbol at the side of their name in the lobby list or do they just just speak in chat to say who they are?
If the latter then I wouldn’t hear them as I’m in party chat most of the time.
Not really a problem for me though as I try to race as clean as I can. But to a wrecker or someone who doesn’t know any better that are in party chat with no symbol they wouldn’t have a clue and just carry on.
EDIT.
Ignore this post I didn’t realise snowowl’s previous post was a link to another post that explained my question
I don’t know about a penalty system, but you know what would be cool, if the sideview mirrors flapped like the car was going to fly off the track. That’ll be cool!
I honestly think it’s too little too late. The issue with marshals is still going be the same as a good group of racers that can communicate and get people kicked.
The main one being that there is nothing stopping that driver rejoining the same lobby and wreaking havoc for the entire race length, kicking them after the damage is done with nothing stopping them from joining back in and doing it all over again, is insanity.
Then there is also the issue of if the marshal doest even see the dirty drivers at play, how is he/she supposed to make a decision?
The only way I can see a marshal system working is if the marshal of a race isn’t actually in the race but is actually being a marshal, spectating and being able to DQ/penalise drivers in a race MIDRACE if they are misbehaving to prevent them causing further damage.
When spectator mode is back I’m sure that will make the marshal’s job easier.
I’m actually interested in this marshal system. It’s not the solution but it’s a good place to start and also it’s a good idea to involve people who play the game.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but if a driver is kicked from a particular lobby, aren’t they blocked from joining that particular lobby until it closes?
I would be great if it worked that way but from my experience a few weeks back the lobby I was in with a small handful of clean guys we had one total dirt bag that we kicked at least three times and he just kept coming back, he was able to rejoin for the next race each time.
And, by following the instructions, this person should be reported using the proper method of the Race Marshals which shall (not maybe) result in a ban to further get the offender’s attention. A little vacation will get their attention.
Interesting.
I haven’t kicked many players so far, but the ones I have taken care of don’t show up again for the rest of the time I’m in that particular lobby.