One of the biggest problems of online racing is having bad players in the lobby ruining the race for everybody else. A proper online driver rating system could help deal with that.
Things the online rating system should take into account:
-total races/races completed: important to distinguish decent players from quitters who give up in the middle of the race, or bad players who divebomb into the first corner trying to take out as many cars as possible then disconnect.
-total races/clean races: clean race means no contact at all with other cars or obstacles or going off track.
-total laps/clean laps: similar to clean race, no contact, no off-track.
-total overtakes/clean overtakes: there's a big difference between overtaking a car and pushing it out of the way.
-total race time/number of collisions: that would take into account collisions with other cars only, not track obstacles (doesn't matter whose fault you think it is, or how hard the collision was, any contact with another car would count as collision). In this way the game could calculate the average number of collisions per minute for each player, while the other categories listed above would be calculated as percentage.
Most important of all: all categories above would be set to "any" or "no restriction" by default when creating a lobby, however lobby host would have the option to set restrictions for each category individually. For each category host could choose between 0-100.
For instance, I could create a lobby, set minimum race completion to 90%, minimum clean race percentage to 50%, minimum clean lap percentage to 60%, minimum clean overtake percentage to 75%, maximum average collisions per minute to 3.
This system could also be used in quick race matchmaking, players could use the categories above as filters to match them with similar players.
A proper online driver rating system along with credit bonuses could be a great way to encourage players to improve their skills and race clean.
The system suggested above isn't perfect but would be a step in the right direction for improving online races, especially for those like me who go online at random times and don't have time & availability to join leagues.
Things the online rating system should take into account:
-total races/races completed: important to distinguish decent players from quitters who give up in the middle of the race, or bad players who divebomb into the first corner trying to take out as many cars as possible then disconnect.
-total races/clean races: clean race means no contact at all with other cars or obstacles or going off track.
-total laps/clean laps: similar to clean race, no contact, no off-track.
-total overtakes/clean overtakes: there's a big difference between overtaking a car and pushing it out of the way.
-total race time/number of collisions: that would take into account collisions with other cars only, not track obstacles (doesn't matter whose fault you think it is, or how hard the collision was, any contact with another car would count as collision). In this way the game could calculate the average number of collisions per minute for each player, while the other categories listed above would be calculated as percentage.
Most important of all: all categories above would be set to "any" or "no restriction" by default when creating a lobby, however lobby host would have the option to set restrictions for each category individually. For each category host could choose between 0-100.
For instance, I could create a lobby, set minimum race completion to 90%, minimum clean race percentage to 50%, minimum clean lap percentage to 60%, minimum clean overtake percentage to 75%, maximum average collisions per minute to 3.
This system could also be used in quick race matchmaking, players could use the categories above as filters to match them with similar players.
A proper online driver rating system along with credit bonuses could be a great way to encourage players to improve their skills and race clean.
The system suggested above isn't perfect but would be a step in the right direction for improving online races, especially for those like me who go online at random times and don't have time & availability to join leagues.
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