How about a Host Rating system?

[HBR-Roadhog]

Now that I think about it pausing the game doesn't seem that bad in my eyes. There could be a brief countdown to pause and a countdown to restart racing to make the transition easier.

I think it would be a horrible thing and would be abused as well. Sure as a host you would have no problem with it but everyone else in the room might.

Think about it as the one doing the pausing you can pick where and when to pause ideally when you are on a straight piece of track so that when you resume there is no issue but what about all the other drivers some are likely going to be in a much worse spot to pause and of course there will always be some idiots out there that will pause just to gain an advantage and others who will pause when the phone rings or some other reason and may have the game paused for extended periods of time. Most people would grow to hate such a feature in a very short time.

In most cases I have saw it is ok to wait until the race is over to kick someone and in most of those cases that person may very well leave on his own either after the race or before it is over. In other cases the host needs to take action right away even if it means leaving the race to do so. Ideally the host should be able to kick from within the race. You could do this on a long straight or you could just pull over if need be.

Pausing the game within a live online race should not be an option on any game.

 

[Ills1999]

I think it would be a horrible thing and would be abused as well. Sure as a host you would have no problem with it but everyone else in the room might.

Think about it as the one doing the pausing you can pick where and when to pause ideally when you are on a straight piece of track so that when you resume there is no issue but what about all the other drivers some are likely going to be in a much worse spot to pause and of course there will always be some idiots out there that will pause just to gain an advantage and others who will pause when the phone rings or some other reason and may have the game paused for extended periods of time. Most people would grow to hate such a feature in a very short time.

In most cases I have saw it is ok to wait until the race is over to kick someone and in most of those cases that person may very well leave on his own either after the race or before it is over. In other cases the host needs to take action right away even if it means leaving the race to do so. Ideally the host should be able to kick from within the race. You could do this on a long straight or you could just pull over if need be.

Pausing the game within a live online race should not be an option on any game.

Hey, they host can throw a competition yellow and bring everyone into the pits, just like in NASCAR!

 

[Chrunch Houston]

...
This tool is already available to some extent. One can already see how full a room is and join the busy ones and avoid the empty ones and it doesn't seem to be doing much good. As mentioned above, sheer volume doesn't make a good host. I've joined plenty of rooms that were busy with terrible hosts because they had the right combination I was looking for. It's just not an accurate enough number.

Seeing how full a room is before you join is not a rating of that room's host, it is a snapshot. Who knows, a great host may have just left and turned the room over to a knuckle head. In that case the potential joinee would see that the room is full, but the host rating would reflect the current host's poor rating.

The rating would have be made over time.

Even the best host in the world starts out with an empty room.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Seeing how full a room is before you join is not a rating of that room's host, it is a snapshot. Who knows, a great host may have just left and turned the room over to a knuckle head. In that case the potential joinee would see that the room is full, but the host rating would reflect the current host's poor rating.

The rating would have be made over time.

Even the best host in the world starts out with an empty room.

Not sure I follow you. If a host rating system were instituted it lobbies would have to display the current, cumulative, long term rating of the current host. With a proper rating system good hosts will open rooms and have them fill up fairly quickly which is better for them and better for the host. It's a win/win!

 

[MX5Racer69]

I think it's a good idea. But my fear is that it would drive all the good hosts underground. It depends on how it's implemented, sure. Lets be honest. The public lounges contain all kinds. And the window-lickers that are just as likely to drive the wrong way on the track are equally likely to just show up and rate people down for the fun of it. Lets say you have a ten race limit to vote. They drive their ten laps then blacklist you. You have zero ability to defend against this other than spamming your friends to drive up your rating. My fear is that the really good hosts won't want this headache and keep their room private.

Which reminds me ... we need private rooms. I should be able to setup a public lounge, set it as private, post the room id on a forum and have folks join who know the room id. Room just never shows up in the public list. Yes, you can do this today via Personal lounges. But then we run into friend limits and all that mess. Private rooms is the way to go.

 

[Johnnypenso]

I think it's a good idea. But my fear is that it would drive all the good hosts underground. It depends on how it's implemented, sure. Lets be honest. The public lounges contain all kinds. And the window-lickers that are just as likely to drive the wrong way on the track are equally likely to just show up and rate people down for the fun of it. Lets say you have a ten race limit to vote. They drive their ten laps then blacklist you. You have zero ability to defend against this other than spamming your friends to drive up your rating. My fear is that the really good hosts won't want this headache and keep their room private.

Which reminds me ... we need private rooms. I should be able to setup a public lounge, set it as private, post the room id on a forum and have folks join who know the room id. Room just never shows up in the public list. Yes, you can do this today via Personal lounges. But then we run into friend limits and all that mess. Private rooms is the way to go.

I see your point, but most of the good hosts were driven underground in GT5 so anything better than that is an improvement. You could avoid most of the yo-yo's that vote bad just for fun by having a 3 race or time minimum before you can vote. Not many yo-yo's will be able to brush up their habits and fly straight for that long, just to give someone a no vote. Your friends wouldn't be able to spam your rating if you limited the frequency of voting. Say once a month.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

Personally I think if a voting system is in place it should not be such that the same person can vote for or against any given host more than 1 time. Once you have voted you are done as far as that host goes. Would also be nice to be able to hide all lobbies that are hosted by someone you have voted against.

A favorites option would be another cool option.

As for the 3 race minimum I don't know about that. I understand where it is coming from and it surely would help prevent negative ratings where they are not deserved but it would also prevent them were they are deserved. For example I am not about to run 3 races in a lousy lobby just so I can flag it as a lousy lobby. I would move on after the 1st race and find somewhere else to be. So it may not work so well after all.

 

[Chrunch Houston]

I see your point, but most of the good hosts were driven underground in GT5 so anything better than that is an improvement. You could avoid most of the yo-yo's that vote bad just for fun by having a 3 race or time minimum before you can vote. Not many yo-yo's will be able to brush up their habits and fly straight for that long, just to give someone a no vote. Your friends wouldn't be able to spam your rating if you limited the frequency of voting. Say once a month.

If I join a bad room I am not sticking around for three races.

Not sure I follow you. If a host rating system were instituted it lobbies would have to display the current, cumulative, long term rating of the current host. With a proper rating system good hosts will open rooms and have them fill up fairly quickly which is better for them and better for the host. It's a win/win!

What I envision would involve a mathematical algorithm that would be cumulative and take into account several factors.

The algorithm would ignore drivers that are kicked or drivers that stay for a very short time. I often have drivers that join but leave when they realize mics are disabled or after looking at the room settings.

It would look at the average amount of time the driver stays in the room. And take into account the number of drivers that are in the room.

It would also take into account the amount of time a host hosts. So if one person hosts for 2 hours and another for 4 hours, yet in that time they both have 22 drivers join that spend an average of 1 hour. The host that only hosted for 2 hours would have more “points”.

The points would be cumulative, but they would also expire, so you might have enough points for a 5 star rating and then you don’t host for a month or so you might end up with a 4 star rating the next time you host. This will prevent not so great hosts from ever getting the highest rating just because they host a lot.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

The points would be cumulative, but they would also expire, so you might have enough points for a 5 star rating and then you don’t host for a month or so you might end up with a 4 star rating the next time you host. This will prevent not so great hosts from ever getting the highest rating just because they host a lot.

This means someone who hosts a lot could get a high rating even if they run a lame lobby but manage to get a few racers to stay for a while. It also means a good host who doesn't host very often would not get a high rating and that one who takes a break for a while may lose the rating they had.

Does not sound like it would be a very accurate system

 

[Chrunch Houston]

This means someone who hosts a lot could get a high rating even if they run a lame lobby but manage to get a few racers to stay for a while. It also means a good host who doesn't host very often would not get a high rating and that one who takes a break for a while may lose the rating they had.

Does not sound like it would be a very accurate system

I am no mathematician and I agree you make a valid point. Perhaps a minimum point level per hosting session would fix your concern.

So the 12 year old that runs a cruise lobby all day long knocking people off the Nurburgring, will never have more than a couple of people at a time join before they leave – he will get no points. He will never advance.

The points should be hard to come by, I do think though that someone that hosts every night should have a higher rating than some one that hosts once a month.

 

[dr_slump]

I am no mathematician and I agree you make a valid point. Perhaps a minimum point level per hosting session would fix your concern.

So the 12 year old that runs a cruise lobby all day long knocking people off the Nurburgring, will never have more than a couple of people at a time join before they leave – he will get no points. He will never advance.

The points should be hard to come by, I do think though that someone that hosts every night should have a higher rating than some one that hosts once a month.

That's why normally averages are used for such things.

If you use average ratings you won't have such problems, if you set a minumum number of votes ratings.

 

[Chrunch Houston]

That's why normally averages are used for such things.

If you use average ratings you won't have such problems, if you set a minumum number of votes.

But I am not talking about votes. if you will look at my previous posts, the rating system I am advocating is all about the room participant's behaviour.
Not about their votes.

The people do not select something to vote about.

People vote (passively) with the amount of time they spend in the room.

 

[dr_slump]

But I am not talking about votes. if you will look at my previous posts, the rating system I am advocating is all about the room participant's behaviour.
Not about their votes.

The people do not select something to vote about.

People vote (passively) with the amount of time they spend in the room.

Votes, ratings, take whatever you want.

That's why normally averages are used for such things.

If you use average ratings you won't have such problems, if you set a minumum number of votes ratings.

Better now? It was only one word...

The key element of my post was the first sentence plus the first part of the second sentence anyway.

 

[blah blah blah]

@OP, why not just a way for the host to show he's away, like Windows Live messenger (Y'know, the thing that nobody has used in the last 3 years...)? For example, there is a little sign next to the room name (while browsing lobbies and while in the actual lobby) that says "Host Here" (or whatever) or "Host away".

 

[Johnnypenso]

I'm not feeling the passive system. It's basically just measuring sheer volume and has no qualitative aspect to it and therefore to me it would be nearly meaningless. I realize it's sheer fantasy because it'll never happen, but I'd really like to see the drivers have some say in this.

@OP, why not just a way for the host to show he's away, like Windows Live messenger (Y'know, the thing that nobody has used in the last 3 years...)? For example, there is a little sign next to the room name (while browsing lobbies and while in the actual lobby) that says "Host Here" (or whatever) or "Host away".

You mean to fix the "absent host" problem? This problem usually happens when the current host leave the room so an easy way to fix this would be for PD to set up a acknowledgment function. As soon as you take over as host a message should pop up saying something like, "Please hit "x" to acknowledge you have accepted hosting duties or "y" to go to the bottom of the cue and give the hosting duties to the next person in line" If you don't hit either button, you automatically get shuffled to the bottom of the list and the next guy in line assumes hosting duties and the message pops up to him.

 

[VBR]

If there's an absent host in the room I type a message & ask everyone else to kick him, that always works!

 

[eran0004]

What if the host could simply chose if he/she wanted the current session to be rated or not? That would cater for those who are more serious, as well as those who only casually host rooms, or who host rooms with an "odd" profile (like a dirty tank car crash fest only for fun) and doesn't want those sessions to impact on their rating for the serious lobbies?

As a user, you could then filter the lobbies on "rated", "not rated" or "all", giving you the tools to find the serious lobbies, or the casual lobbies depending on what you're interested in.

 

[Johnnypenso]

What if the host could simply chose if he/she wanted the current session to be rated or not? That would cater for those who are more serious, as well as those who only casually host rooms, or who host rooms with an "odd" profile (like a dirty tank car crash fest only for fun) and doesn't want those sessions to impact on their rating for the serious lobbies?

As a user, you could then filter the lobbies on "rated", "not rated" or "all", giving you the tools to find the serious lobbies, or the casual lobbies depending on what you're interested in.

Good point and it's important to not always have the rating function on. You can already designate lobbies as "race for real", "race for fun" etc. PD could set it up that only the "race for real" lobbies are rated.

 

[Ills1999]

I think the broader point, that a host rating system would benefit all users, is getting lost in minutiae.

 

[Johnnypenso]

I think the broader point, that a host rating system would benefit all users, is getting lost in minutiae.

True, but since we don't have a Host Rating System, the minutiae is all we have...lol...

 

[TheeFrogmanlego]

I'm fairly certain that the majority of GT5'ers that spent more than a few sessions in Open Lobbies over the past 3 years would agree that really good hosts were hard to find. I'd define really good hosts as those that stuck to the room limitations as defined in the description, started races at regular intervals, dealt promptly and swiftly with the bad apples, had good communication with the particpants etc.

There is some talk of a driver rating system so I thought, why not a host rating system for GT6? What better way to encourage better hosts than to have them ranked by participants in their rooms? It might work something like this:

1. After you enter a room and run a certain minimum of races, you are eligible to enter a value for rating the host on a scale from 1-10. The reason you have to run a minimum number of races is to prevent someone from entering a single race, driving like a d-bag, getting reprimanded by the host and giving him a poor rating before they get booted from the room. You could use 3 races for example. Hosts would then have it in the back of their mind, any problem racer that they have to talk to over and over for 3 races, could potentially affect their "host rating" so they would think twice about letting a "problem" driver continue in their room

2. Drivers would only be able to enter a rating on a host while still in the room and having completed 3 races to prevent spiteful voting after being kicked.

3. To eliminate the stacking of voting, each driver would only be eligible to enter a vote on a host perhaps once a month.

4. Host rating would be under several categories, to provide hosts with useful feedback on areas they need to improve. Categories could be things like this:

1. Starting races at regular intervals.
2. Sticking to the paramters of the room description (hosts should be able to change that description as they take over a vacated room and the descriptions need to be much larger)
3. Dealing with problem drivers.
4. Communication with the room.

As well, using GT6's new community functions, there should be a "Hosts Forum" where regular hosts and those wishing to host Open Lobbies can gather and provide feedback to each other. Perhaps PD could chime in with some kind of guidebook to hosting, or it could be created by the folks here at GTP. Another part of this forum could be viewing the ranking of anyone that has hosted a minimum number of races (10?20?)

Anyone browsing Open Lobbies looking for a place to go, should be able to see the hosts rating as part of their search process. Higher rated hosts will then attract more drivers and since they'll get high ratings by doing a good job hosting, it'll encourage other hosts to do a better job and will make them think twice about not paying attention to drivers causing mayhem and ruining the experience for everyone involved.

Do you think this could be a useful tool for GT6? Should I immediately forward this to Kaz?...lol..

Note: Just to be clear, this has never been mentioned by PD, Kaz or anyone else to my knowledge.

What you consider a good host is actually considered a bad host to 99% of online players, supply and demand bro.. no one demands good host hence the lack of good host , since most people just want to screw around

 

[Chrunch Houston]

What you consider a good host is actually considered a bad host to 99% of online players, supply and demand bro.. no one demands good host hence the lack of good host , since most people just want to screw around

I would change your 99% to about 70%, which is about the percentage of rooms online that truly are crap. By the way haven't I kicked you before?

 

[m8h3r]

This might be posted already and sorry if it is but i had to post this quick, just going for a shower and will forget about it otherwise.

What about favouriting hosts. Then when you go online you can just click a favourite tab, anyone of your favourites in there then you can chose to join their room.

 

[Chrunch Houston]

This might be posted already and sorry if it is but i had to post this quick, just going for a shower and will forget about it otherwise.

What about favouriting hosts. Then when you go online you can just click a favourite tab, anyone of your favourites in there then you can chose to join their room.

This guy said the same thing – and I agree.

...The difference between a tag and a friends request would be that the tag is just a marker, you don't actually add the host to your friends list and the host doesn't know that you tagged him/her. It's a way to "remember" good hosts without having them cluttering your friends list.