What About Game Play?

[Indio_I]

"Race Etiquette
In online, as well as real races, etiquette on the track is as important as performance. Learn the rules of etiquette and sportsmanship that’s required in all player-vs-player races. Even if you’re not a top driver with lots of confidence in your skills, you will still have plenty of fun because each player will be matched fairly with people of their own level for fair and equal online racing."

This is pretty interesting and something that hasn't been mentioned yet, and that is a "skill level."

Well either that or they'll do what has been mentioned in an above post and group together all players that want to crash into you, leaving the rest of us to race in peace. However that's matching your lunacy not ability so I believe there will be some kind of ranking system that hasn't been mentioned yet, or at least I haven't heard anything about it.

 

[7HO]

Probably because it has been discussed in other threads.

It is impossible to determine the exact implementation of the matchmaking system but the site says you will be matched to players of your own skill and level of fairness. For that to be successful I can only imagine they will need 2 ratings and these will be used together somehow to match players. I've described it earlier but the only way I can see it working is for them to you the Sportmanship Rating first to group similar drivers and then use a rating that has a skill component most likely based on finishing position taking into account driver rankings to place the driver with those of similar skill within the previous defined sportmanship group. This would be similar to the way iRacing do it but the system on iRacing is too simple to be able to effectively do what GT Sport is claiming to do.

Also the wording on the site does seem to give me the impression that some type of hybrid single rating will be given and if that is the case the system has no chance of working because you could end up with these 3 drivers all on the same rating

• Finishes well but unsportsmanlike
• Sportsmanlike but slow
• Occasionally unsportsmanlike and middle paced

In which case you would have completely opposite drivers and such a system would actually encourage cheating to win at all but the highest level and wouldn't really be a fun game for the masses.

The simplest system is an iRacing system. Classify drivers into safety groups and then have a separate skill rating.

But to actually achieve what GT Sport are claiming I think what they will need to do is still classify drivers into safety groups but then instead of a simple skill rating based on finishing position use a hybrid rating system based on both sportsmanship and skill. This type of system would first groups similar drivers together but then form a competition where the best driver was the best combination of clean and fast. What you would find is this system wouldn't change who the best is but it would change the order significantly for everyone below. In the sim racing world the fastest guys at the moment are also some of the cleanest drivers. Being able to go quick is pretty much a result of having the skills to put the car exactly where it needs to be at all times.

 

[Indio_I]

I think you're absolutely right with your post.

"Introducing a sportsmanship point system evaluating online race behaviour, a player’s skill and behaviour will be judged in daily races, and players with the same level will be matched in a fair manner."

I don't mean to sound obsessed about this but this "point system", I feel, will make or break the game. I really hope they get right.

 

[7HO]

I don't mean to sound obsessed about this but this "point system", I feel, will make or break the game. I really hope they get right.

I've said that a number of times myself. However I don't think it is the only thing that can break the game.

As an online racing service and nothing else the game is entirely dependant on an effective matchmaking system.

As a world championship the integrity as a sport is entirely dependant on an effective points and ranking system.

As a full VR title the implementation will determine if this game is the poster child for VR or if VR was simply added to the game.

As this is the game that will bring Direct Drive steering to console the physics and ffb will not only make or break the perception of direct drive steering but direct drive steering will highlight how right or wrong it is. So physics and FFB are more important than ever.

Superior netcode will be critical for the online racing to function. Drivers around the world with high pings must be able to race close and hard without fear of collisions caused by miscalculations of the system.

Server quality goes hand in hand with netcode in providing a stable online racing service that is suitable for a World Championship.

So while most of these things have the potential to break the system on their own for the system to work effectively will require a superior points system with superior matchmaking with superior netcode and high quality servers and if all of those things work well that will make the system something special but one weak link and it all fails.

If they get that right and get physics and FFB right and get VR right even without the fancy features some other sims have Playstation can potentially have the best thing that has happened to sim racing to date.

Hopefully they can pull it off, it's a massive task.