Minorating useless?

[xnorb]

Hello everybody,
i was searching for "minorating" but the only threads i found are ancient, so i felt it's okay to open my own one.

I haven't really touched AC in quite some time and only read about minorating but as i'm a huge supporter of "limit access to servers so we get clean racing" i had very high hopes.
Now my dreams pretty much crashed down burning after just 3 races.

Rating C basically stands for "Carnage" and means absolutely nothing.
Rating B is achieved after 2 laps in Qualifying without wrecking, so, ya, that is also a completely pointless rating then.

I don't know what it takes to get an A rating as all C and B drivers tend to just slam into you and seem to have less awareness than the AI in Project Cars 1, but then again, would it matter? Are there even A rating servers that have the potential to offer clean racing?

The way i see it, minorating is absolutely pointless in it's current form.
People smashing into other cars in T1 and not being able to keep the car on the track for more than half a lap should never be allowed to advance to C.
B ranking should not be achievable by driving 2 laps without incident, that should require several pretty clean races in traffic.


Any tips on better MP races without having to stick to league and club races that never take place when i'm online?
Yes... i know... iRacing - except for the partly weird tyremodel i really loved my time in iRacing, but once you hit C class you are forced to drop at least 100$ on it without even knowing if you will be able to actually enjoy the content you're buying.
That's the reason why i want all other sims to implement a good rating system

 

[Deleted member 379375]

Interesting points, it is posible the prevailing mindset has developed because of the historic lack of a rigorous system

 

[F_B]

Maybe.
You have to keep in mind that many users are not able to drive 10 clean laps at a time. Even though they use sims like AC, Rfactor 2, Automobilista it doesn’t mean that they want to be judged by a rating system or that they’re able to drive clean and fair. That’s why you see max 10 laps races online most of the time. Hop in and race for 15min, over and out. Did I crash someone? Yeah, doesn’t matter, next race will be better.

 

[Rob Every]

One of the biggest issues with AC online is that people always stipulate 15 mins or so for qualifying

When in most cases it is pointless. First corner the bellends always take each other out, you either pole putt down the inside, roll round the outside or wait on the line for 5 seconds.

Qually is pointless really.

And the way the servers works does not help, endless minute long waiting times, you get on grid and have to wait another minute. It does need work, and I am sure server hosts could do more, but they just set them up and leave them most of the time!

I have great fondness remember GT Legends servers and Race 07 ones where you would have almost no qualifying and practice, and straight races, you could have 5 or 6 short races in an hour and half, was a great way of getting people into online racing super fast.

 

[Brandon Wright]

And the way the servers works does not help, endless minute long waiting times, you get on grid and have to wait another minute. It does need work, and I am sure server hosts could do more, but they just set them up and leave them most of the time!

The host has full control of those waiting times, if you find the waiting times too long it's the host's fault and not the game's fault. I personally like a couple minute wait time before the race start, one last chance to have a wee and top up my beer.

 

[Neilski]

And the way the servers works does not help, endless minute long waiting times, you get on grid and have to wait another minute. It does need work, and I am sure server hosts could do more, but they just set them up and leave them most of the time!

It's not out of the question to run your own race server - even on a home PC. There are also some pretty cheap providers out there who can run a basic server for a few quid a month, IIRC. Then you have full control over the settings.

 

[Rob Every]

I was fairly sure that any waiting times were due to the hosts, as I have been on the odd server that really offers quick fire racing, much more fun.

I guess some folk like to spend an hour in a server waiting for a 7 lap Spa race, but I would prefer 2 or 3 in that time.

It just seems that quick server element that featured in the old Race 07 and GT Legends and RF servers I used to play a lot on has disappeared a bit on AC. Not sure why that might be.

I think the lack of suitable content does not help, you ahd a lot of quick and easy touring car servers or one make series running quick races on older servers, in AC it is basically drifting, GT racing or road cars, not a lot else, and always on the same few tracks

Weird how it has developed!

 

[InsaneOzzie]

I think the lack of suitable content does not help, you ahd a lot of quick and easy touring car servers or one make series running quick races on older servers, in AC it is basically drifting, GT racing or road cars, not a lot else, and always on the same few tracks

If you want variation in your races that's not always GT3 or street cars check out the AC USA races here on RD, they have a long race up to 90 minutes every Friday with a compulsory pit stop, and great variation using different cars, they don't stick solely to Kunos tracks and utilize some of the high quality mod tracks, so there's a good mix of circuits so you don't get bored with the same tracks on rotation every 6 weeks.
This Friday 20:00EST US time there is a GT2/GTE race @ RedBull ring 30 minutes qualy & practice, 70min race, compulsory pit window from the 15 to 55 minute mark, so strategy is flexible.

We raced the Maserati MC GT4 @ Monza in a 30minute event Tuesday night, it was a blast. Were racing it for a few weeks, then we change to the Porsche Cayman for a few weeks, then we're combining them for another few weeks as Porsche vs Maserati.

The variety is there, and it's not always serious racing either, we mix it up a fair bit and have a heap of fun, so there's always some good battles up and down the field. Take a look, if its not your thing, all good mate

 

[Minolin]

If you have a problem or suggestion I would tell it the author himself: http://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?threads/minorating-com-drivers-thread.25732/page-214

Exactly this. OP, you won't find much about MR at RD as it is rarely discussed or even known around here. The thread in the official forum is quite active and you are hearty welcome to post comments, problems and questions there.

At the very moment I'm trying to get feedback about some changes, the resulting discussion is much about the points you guys raise here. We totally agree the biggest problem of MR is how people "use" the system, which means what servers they join (PC2 is exactly the same, even as integrated non-mod). Getting feedback from outside the "official forum MR bubble" would make me very happy.

Servers below AB restrictions are infact almost useless. ABCDN servers only exclude the real, deliberate wreckers that have become so rare that many users don't even know they existed - why should you expect excellent racing here?
AB and especially A servers are very clean on the other side, so we again are at the "how to use the system" point.

 

[Minolin]

and as you say the qualification for each level seems so low as to make it pointless anyway.

Forgot about this. While it is correct that some guys manage to get an B or even A grade in their first session, I'd be careful to discount this as a sign of a weak system. If there is one piece I'm proud of, it is how fast and precise MR (potentially*) can judge a good driver within very short time. I wasn't aware that this could look like a bad system, although I understand why.

It won't help a lot when I'm stating that the grades aren't that soft, so have a few numbers from the MR website:

Only 21% of the ~120k drivers known to MR have managed the B grade. That means currently there are 93953 drivers that did not get past C. I'm sure those 90k wouldn't agree that it's ridiculously easy and therefore worth nothing.

*potentially good judging:
I'm far from telling you that MR is capable of a good judgement, especially when people don't think before joining servers (like B drivers in MR-ABCDN). But when you get a B grade in your very first session, I can assure you have some serious skills and belong to the top 20%.
Other note: Not every server makes very clear that it's running MR, so you might not even know if this is your first lap or if you already have a record.

 

[Rob Every]

I have been playing the game for a while now and never even got close to B.

Agreed I am not the cleanest racer in the world, but even in times when I just join to hotlap it never seems to get there after weeks of racing or being there.

I think the system is fairly flawed to be honest. I have raced with all kinds of grades of people and had poor and good treatment from them all.

By far the best way of doing this is to have ghost mode in servers, it works so much better, and maybe leave the full model mode for higher ratings. Make track cutting, spins carry more weight in terms of penalty

 

[gecco]

The maker of MR had all the best intentions, no doubt, but the system is kind of pointless.
What it should do, is provide clean races, and put crashers and dumb kids off servers.
What it actually does, is only to employ a rating system, which by itself is really nice.
In conjunction with heliocorsa, It allows you to judge your contemporary sim racing fellow:
Yellow: better take care, may be inexperienced
Green: Solid racer
Bright green: Knows how to drive close!
So together with Helicorsa it brings to the game what Assetto Corsa should have been shipped with from the start.
However:

• MR is not implementd in the games server browser.
  Servers can put in the description whatever they want, so you cannot make out if the MR plugin is actually running on that server, or how it is setup.
• MR does not detect who is to blame for contact of any kind, so contact points are rather awarded to all participants, seemingly only going by the speed of impact.
  I was so far not able to find any description on how the point system works
  
• MR [A,B] rated servers are often only sparely populated, because it locks out a good 60% of the online user base.

Thats why I think , that while the idea itself was good, in its current form, it does much more harm to the online experience (keeping lots of players out of servers) then it does good (keeping few crashers out of servers) imho.

Ymmv.

 

[Brandon Wright]

• MR [A,B] rated servers are often only sparely populated, because it locks out a good 60% of the online user base.

Doesn't that just show that 60% of sim racers are rubbish and you don't want to be racing around them anyway? Which would imply MR is working as intended by keeping out the undesirables, it's not Minolin's fault that the majority of sim racers are useless.

 

[gecco]

Doesn't that just show that 60% of sim racers are rubbish and you don't want to be racing around them anyway? Which would imply MR is working as intended by keeping out the undesirables, it's not Minolin's fault that the majority of sim racers are useless.

In an ideal world, with an unlimited number of AC players, yes, certainly!
But my impression is that online activity is more and more shifting towards trackdays and drifting, and that I would like to see more people joining in servers with normal races.
There may be many that still have to develope racecraft, but are otherwise keen to join races anyway.
Also, making use of the MR rating system and helicorsa, I can easily make out players with little experience, and tackle those with the neccessary caution.
So I would rather opt for keeping the rating system for information of myselfself and others, as its doing a real good job at this, but do away with the A, AB, or ABC classification, which puts too much restriction on an already limited userbase.

 

[Minolin]

I'm afraid MR does not make any difference in splitting the community.You won't see much traffic on a restrictive server the whole day long. Sometimes they fill up to certain times when a lot regulars came home from work (like the streetfight servers), then they are dead again.

Yes you are on the right track, major problem to a dozend things is: simracing doesn't have the driver count we'd like to see.. We can't root for matchmaking or having a huge array of drivable and populated combos any time, and so on. Some say the lack of MP features is a cause, others say it's just as it is. Nothing a mod plugin can change, but it would be #1 on my wishlist

 

[Jempy]

Ideally the system and all systems of this kind are logical and impartial.

In the reality .... a safety rating is more than useless if not bad for a clean driver, mid- or backmarker having to support the foolish, unrespectful, not consistent or erratic driving of drivers at the rear of a grid.

As long as this system may not make the difference between the culprit and the victim .... it will never be correct, useful and impartial. .... this is the truth for any safety rating in any simracing platform.
Except if you are last on starting grid and starting 2 seconds after the other cars.

Clean and fairplay is not a question of speed or consistency ... it's just a question of respect ... and there are surely no system to measure this respect ... except in league racing.

Just a comment ... as I'm not concerned, it's been a very long time since I joined a public server. I had enough experiences to make me decide to avoid them for good.

NB maybe an idea ? .... for a safety racing never take into account the 1st lap of a race ...

 

[Brandon Wright]

Ideally the system and all systems of this kind are logical and impartial.

In the reality .... a safety rating is more than useless if not bad for a clean driver, mid- or backmarker having to support the foolish, unrespectful, not consistent or erratic driving of drivers at the rear of a grid.

As long as this system may not make the difference between the culprit and the victim .... it will never be correct, useful and impartial. .... this is the truth for any safety rating in any simracing platform.
Except if you are last on starting grid and starting 2 seconds after the other cars.

Clean and fairplay is not a question of speed or consistency ... it's just a question of respect ... and there are surely no system to measure this respect ... except in league racing.

Just a comment ... as I'm not concerned, it's been a very long time since I joined a public server. I had enough experiences to make me decide to avoid them for good.

NB maybe an idea ? .... for a safety racing never take into account the 1st lap of a race ...

It's just about the law of averages. A good, clean driver is going to find himself in fewer incidents than a not-so-good driver, therefore over time the good driver will have fewer incidents on his rating as things start to average out. Placing blame isn't needed, the averages will always work themselves out over time, and obviously the larger the sample size the more accurate the data so it will take some number of races for the rating to start to balance out.

 

[Rob Every]

The problem with racing in publics is you have to take account of every single type of driving.

You can either start up front and hope for the best, or start at the back and work your way past the carnage up front early on.

But then, if you are decent you are going to have to pass people, which is the fun part. Most will be fine, but the odd one will block, weave, and then engage in contact if you try and pass. I don't mind that, as long as they are prepared to get it back! Hard but fair is my approach.

I find starting at the back more fun but also more likely to end in quitting. I find starting up front more frustrating as you end up usually in races on your own, not passing people. As up front are guys quicker and behind guys slower, so you end up just racing on your own unless someone is flying through from a poor start, and invariably then I let them go after having some fun with them.

I find lappers hard work, they all want to race you. But in general I agree with the above, the server selection is poor and the best variety comes in drift and track day servers.

Race servers are boringly predictable in track and car choice

 

[gecco]

...I find starting at the back more fun but also more likely to end in quitting. I find starting up front more frustrating as you end up usually in races on your own, not passing people. As up front are guys quicker and behind guys slower, so you end up just racing on your own...

Same with me.
If I quali, I start somwhere up front with usually few guys pulling away from me, while the guys behind me are slower, so I drive a boring race. Of course, things happen, and a nice battle may still develope, but thats not the rule.
So I would rather not quali, and start from the back, but with the inevitable crashes happening, and you really can not dodge everyone at all times, you will accumulate MR points, and start hurting your own rating pretty quickly.

 

[guidofoc]

I think MR system, which is a "safety ranking" system, is very useful to keep wreckers out of public servers, and so it is a service which makes multiplayer in AC more enjoyable. A big thank you to Minolin for creating it.

It is less useful for "matchmaking", which is making people with similar speed race each other, which in turn means making racing more engaging. While it's true that AB servers are cleaner than the others, they also offer little chance of winning a race to someone who is less than alien in terms of speed.

This is what a performance rating is for. Imagine there is a server just for low rating drivers: if i am a beginner, at least I know I have a chance to win that race. That's a motivation to join. Combine this with the safety ranking, and you have some decent public servers for beginners where they can actually race each other and win a race.

If MR added an optional performance rating, a server admin could decide to use it and create a server just for beginners (low performance rating) and so on with intermediate levels and alien levels. Then for example Content Manager could show me only the servers for my "speed" level. I'd be more willing to choose one of those servers and also I'd have an incentive to progress and improve my ranking.​

The real issue here is fragmentation, because with so many servers if you add more restrictions you can be sure there will be even less people joining your server.

This is why I think Sim Racing System is already providing a good solution: it offers a limited number of servers (races) every day, you are sure they won't be empty, they are engaging to race in, and all for free like on public servers. It is a system which is halfway between casual racing and a league, with a performance rating that you can increase with good results and no crashes. Also, they use servers both in Europe and in US, offering a decent ping for people all over the world.

 

[Mr Deap]

I am American & bought Assetto Corsa to drive sport exotic cars or collector cars. Minorating work as intended.

About populating lobbies... Matching will always be an issue, because there's a learning curve with the driving model with a useless skillset to be at an acceptable speed. Except for that, the feel about right.