Flag rules and pits? Career?

[Imari]

I hear it's arcadey if you pause to go to the bathroom, instead of wetting yourself. Real race drivers piss in the car.

Just to note, I think flags and pitstops would be good, and are important for gameplay. But I think some people get a bit up themselves worshipping at the altar of realism.

 

[tribolik]

I hear it's arcadey if you pause to go to the bathroom, instead of wetting yourself. Real race drivers piss in the car.

Just to note, I think flags and pitstops would be good, and are important for gameplay. But I think some people get a bit up themselves worshipping at the altar of realism.

Thats not a very good example.... you can choose not to go to the bathroom and it would definitly be better if you could choose not to have pit stops or race flags... but to me its not really a deal breaker.

 

[Destinkeys]

The first rule of racing is, you have to have someone to race. Or, it is just hotlapping. If your AI is weak, there goes that aspect of the offline game.

After you HAVE no 'racing', there really isn't any POINT in flags. But if the AI is competitive, flags help emphasize that proper racing rules are in effect. As it has been pointed out to me (I never noticed, because I never broke those rules!) in offline mode in Shift, you got a black flag for repeated track cutting, or driving round the wrong way (and you got booted for doing that for more than a few seconds, anyway).

That's a good start. Kudos, SMS. Now, we just need a few more. Yellow or orange and yellow vertical stripes to warn of track obstacles around a corner (if you ARE going to leave them on, at least WARN us!), white flag (if you don't auto-boot lurkers, at least WARN us!), Black/White diagonal to warn bashers of 'unsportsmanlike conduct' before the boot, and checkered for the finish.

I don't see how any of that is very hard... but bottom line is, those penalties have to be enabled FIRST before a flag is worth a damn. Booting lurkers, flagrant cutters and bashers being the primary one. An engine cut does SOME of it, but a flag and a boot for repeated violations seems in the spirit of the sport, eh?

Oh, what I'd give to be a fly on the wall while three or four GT1 REAL drivers did a race on S2U... "You totally bashed me off, there! WHAT!! You got NO penalty at all?" "Where did that concrete berm come from? Where was the yellow flag?!" "You can cut that chicane completely, gain places, and you don't get a black flag?!"

"THIS AIN'T GT1 RACING..."

 

[Lawndart]

Yellows also bring the pack back together along with drivthrough penalties etc. This could help mask and make up for the type of ai we get these days.

Not to mention it's a core focus in all racing series to keep the racing close and they are changing rules every season to ensure it.

And finally a question, how many of you really have the patience to follow a car in game in the interests of conserving tire where or being super clean? Penalties and fragile cars would teach and it could be unlike any game we have played on a console to date.

 

[Destinkeys]

You need double yellows for a full course caution. Single is for local caution (in FIA, anyway) and ought to not bunch the pack up so much.

I still believe, this being a GAME, that track debris should simply evaporate after the pack goes by. That would make only the single yellow necessary, IMO.

 

[haehre]

That's a good start. Kudos, SMS. Now, we just need a few more. Yellow or orange and yellow vertical stripes to warn of track obstacles around a corner (if you ARE going to leave them on, at least WARN us!), white flag (if you don't auto-boot lurkers, at least WARN us!), Black/White diagonal to warn bashers of 'unsportsmanlike conduct' before the boot, and checkered for the finish.

I don't see how any of that is very hard... but bottom line is, those penalties have to be enabled FIRST before a flag is worth a damn. Booting lurkers, flagrant cutters and bashers being the primary one. An engine cut does SOME of it, but a flag and a boot for repeated violations seems in the spirit of the sport, eh?

The best way to deal with kamikaze drivers and griefers is not to have to deal with them at all, but to filter them out beforehand based on their previous driving behaviour.

"The multiplayer aspect is of particular interest because Slightly Mad has used its past experience in PC simracing to boost the features so that you can now tailor events to personal preferences in order to maintain level playing fields. Related to this, although the game no longer rewards you for shunting AI opponents out of way it does keep a record of your on-track behaviour for match-making. The plan is to ensure that the right set of racers meet online, hopefully removing those aggravating instances when you get an idiot deliberately causing crashes or racing round the wrong way."

A system such as this will naturally be adaptive and will need time to categorize and sort driver types so that they can be matched with their peers, so it won't be instantaneously effective, but seems like the best way to go about it--because in contrast to real racing leagues, the only sanction you get online is basically getting kicked so that you will need to spend 10 whole seconds connecting to another room.

The reason I don't push other cars off track is not because I'm worried about receiving a flag or getting kicked, but because I like to race cleanly with others like me. I also don't snatch old womens purses even though I easily could, because I consider it wrong by my own moral standards, not because the idea of jail deters me from doing so.

 

[Destinkeys]

I will be VERY interested in how SMS decide to implement this system...

Anything that separates me from the idiots (or me from guys that are MUCH better than me, and I am the idiot to them!) without having to maintain a Friends list (which is far more work than it is worth, IMO) is a good thing. How well it works remains to be seen, but I will be investigating it FIRST when I get the game.

It MIGHT be the answer to our prayers...

 

[Imari]

I will be VERY interested in how SMS decide to implement this system...

Anything that separates me from the idiots (or me from guys that are MUCH better than me, and I am the idiot to them!) without having to maintain a Friends list (which is far more work than it is worth, IMO) is a good thing. How well it works remains to be seen, but I will be investigating it FIRST when I get the game.

It MIGHT be the answer to our prayers...

It'd be very interesting if there was a hidden "safety rating" type system. If it was completely invisible, no one would know it was there to try and game it. But as you played more, you'd find the system matching you up with people who drive like you more and more.

It'd be a fairly simple thing to do.

 

[HKS racer]

The best way to deal with kamikaze drivers and griefers is not to have to deal with them at all, but to filter them out beforehand based on their previous driving behaviour.

"The multiplayer aspect is of particular interest because Slightly Mad has used its past experience in PC simracing to boost the features so that you can now tailor events to personal preferences in order to maintain level playing fields. Related to this, although the game no longer rewards you for shunting AI opponents out of way it does keep a record of your on-track behaviour for match-making. The plan is to ensure that the right set of racers meet online, hopefully removing those aggravating instances when you get an idiot deliberately causing crashes or racing round the wrong way."

A system such as this will naturally be adaptive and will need time to categorize and sort driver types so that they can be matched with their peers, so it won't be instantaneously effective, but seems like the best way to go about it--because in contrast to real racing leagues, the only sanction you get online is basically getting kicked so that you will need to spend 10 whole seconds connecting to another room.

The reason I don't push other cars off track is not because I'm worried about receiving a flag or getting kicked, but because I like to race cleanly with others like me. I also don't snatch old womens purses even though I easily could, because I consider it wrong by my own moral standards, not because the idea of jail deters me from doing so.

Great post but I want to know something more about this match-making, as you say the game record the way you race, online? Or offline too? If the game categoryze players also for offline gameplay this will mean we'll need to pay more attention in the early stages of the game and avoid AI cars at all costs if we don't want to race in garbage lobbies. If this thing is going to work properly it could be a solution to online racing and something able to enhance offline gameplay 👍 . Anyway still considering flag rules much more easier for developers.. do you remember Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix ? 10 years ago there were flag rules in racing videogames. It's all about developers, they love make things complicated

 

[haehre]

Great post but I want to know something more about this match-making, as you say the game record the way you race, online? Or offline too? If the game categoryze players also for offline gameplay this will mean we'll need to pay more attention in the early stages of the game and avoid AI cars at all costs if we don't want to race in garbage lobbies. If this thing is going to work properly it could be a solution to online racing and something able to enhance offline gameplay 👍 . Anyway still considering flag rules much more easier for developers.. do you remember Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix ? 10 years ago there were flag rules in racing videogames. It's all about developers, they love make things complicated

I have only read the paragraph i quoted above, but hopefully it could be based on both offline and online play.

There are so many other variables than just proneness to trade paint with AI cars offline that can be put into such a system, like how prone a player is to getting kicked from online play, what are his best/avg. lap times, what is the adaptive AI difficulty level set to for the player etc.

One problem I see though is players who like to restart their races offline (I am quite guilty of this kind of "perfectionism" myself) and only continue their careers when they win, which would mean the adaptive AI would be set higher than the players skill after a while, and maybe based on that would end up in a lobby online that is not suited to them, so I will at least pay attention to what I do offline from the start, ie. no "cheating" by restarting (or not more than absolutely needed, anyway).