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What's actually being done about the idiots online?

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I barely post here and maybe this has already been discussed before, but since nothing meaningful is done about it year after year, I felt like I needed to ask the question.

As we all know (and that has to include you guys Codies), public lobbies are a complete joke when it comes to having serious racing. That's not hyperbole - it really is a waste of time. In your average full lobby of 20 cars, you can guarantee that the vast majority lack the willingness or the ability to race cleanly. They would be banned within 2 seconds in a real life series for being moronic and/or homicidal.

Now some people will say, "oh it's just a game, what do you expect?". Of course,  I expect idiots. What I don't expect is that year after year we fork out our hard earned money and these guys continue to get free reign to ruin the experience for those who actually want to have an F1 race, and not a demo derby.

The penalty system could be better, sure, but a computerised penalty system is never going to be able to consistently make the right call and judge who's driving fairly and who's not. I struggle to understand how Codemasters can witness and experience the near comical mayhem of public lobbies and think, "yeap, this is good. This is an excellent reflection of real life racing." The kids and the idiots can freely wreak havoc, ruin superior drivers' races and face zero consequence whatsoever.

But enough about what's wrong. Now for suggestions about how to fix it. The online experience is never going to be perfect - I agree. But it can surely be a heck of a lot better than the mess that we are left to enjoy year after year after year. I'd love to hear other people's ideas but here are some things I've thought of off the top of my head:

  • Some kind of driver/safety rating (do they have this in GT Sport?)
- record the number of impacts a player experiences/inflicts, maybe with a focus on frontal impacts. Fewer impacts = higher rating. Sure you'll lose points for getting hit but the idiots make more contact on average and this will show.
- award higher points totals/rating based on lap times on each circuit, whereby quicker drivers tend to have a higher rating.
- record a player's time spent on or near the recommended racing line across game modes. The more time you adhere to the racing line, the more points you get towards your driver rating.
- include an option for lobby hosts to stop drivers joining who have a driver rating below a certain number.

  • Give lobby hosts the option to ghost the early stages of a race
- maybe have the option  to ghost turn one, one sector, two sectors, one lap, or whatever. That way idiots lose their best opportunity to ruin the lobby and the field can spread out, somewhat reducing the amount of ramming that goes on. Give the better drivers the chance to escape the noobs.

These ideas are only rough and I've come up with them quickly, so they'll need some refining. But I really do think it's well overdue for something to be done, and I'm interested to hear your thoughts and suggestions. Cheers.



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Simple answer, no matter how hard we try, even if codemasters implement a licensing system, you can't fix stupid. Its the same everywhere, these idiots don't go away and take cars out

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It's not the same everywhere. Other games do have rank systems implemented where you can block people below a certain rank from joining a lobby. Hell, codies had their own traffic light system in Grid, so there are ways and means.

It's just cheaper and easier to do precisely nothing. 

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FRACTURED said:
It's not the same everywhere. Other games do have rank systems implemented where you can block people below a certain rank from joining a lobby. Hell, codies had their own traffic light system in Grid, so there are ways and means.

It's just cheaper and easier to do precisely nothing. 

That is where you are wrong. Iracing, can have people on Class A or B, yet run people out of road, all they have to do is run clean races and dirty with licensing and they are good. Run a few clean, run one dirty, and then do the same. I have seen it on iracing before

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mceci1 said:
FRACTURED said:
It's not the same everywhere. Other games do have rank systems implemented where you can block people below a certain rank from joining a lobby. Hell, codies had their own traffic light system in Grid, so there are ways and means.

It's just cheaper and easier to do precisely nothing. 

That is where you are wrong. Iracing, can have people on Class A or B, yet run people out of road, all they have to do is run clean races and dirty with licensing and they are good. Run a few clean, run one dirty, and then do the same. I have seen it on iracing before

Why am I wrong?
I've disagreed with your point that it's the same everywhere. 
 
I've stated other games have implemented various ways of ranking drivers. I believe this to be factually correct.
I've stated it's possible to limit who can enter a lobby based on rank. I believe this to be factually correct. 

The system you describe for iRacing, isn't that still improving overall racing versus having absolutely nothing? 
If that A or B driver needs to race clean 2 races out of every 3, surely that's better than being able to drive like an idiot in EVERY race??? 

So it's not the same everywhere in my opinion. And I know you weren't disagreeing with my point that doing nothing is cheapest and easiest  ;)

EDIT: Also, running people wide is part of racing (in the right circumstances), Lewis used to love a bit or running Niko wide, and vice versa  :p

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Unless you want ghosting all the time which would make online more like time trial, there is no answer...

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Your suggestions have been made in other threads already but they disappeared behind the useless self-advertisement and spam threads.
It is nothing new and it will most likely never change because Codemasters has many other things to attend to before adding more features into the game to make multiplayer more clean and enjoyable for everyone.
99% of these "things" start with "Car" and end with reer".

"IntoTheBarrier" has almost a whole YouTube channel showcasing the carnage that these "noobs" create from F1 2011 to F1 2017.
I believe he was invited to test the ALPHA version back in march so Codemasters either knows about him and the mess in his videos or he was simply there because he is good friends with aarava and xmattyg.
https://www.youtube.com/user/IntoTheBarrier

I've just been playing around 12 open lobbies and the people i drove against were horrible.
Due to one-shot-qualifying i started at the front 2 rows on average and was taken out by people who don't know where to brake or simply run into you on purpose in at least 6 races.
It is a mess.

Sometimes i received penalties for crashes where there was absolutely nothing i could've done to avoid it like someone ramming me from the inside in a corner, even though i left more than enough space.

Unfortunately, you simply cannot fight them. It either gets your or it does not.
I would love Codemasters to find a solution for these special individuals but they should really focus on releasing and keeping a stable version of the next games on both offline and online side even after patches.

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I agree with the reference to GTSport, I have gained the "A" safety rating and find the racing (in that category) to be mostly clean. On the other side of the coin though, an "E" rating, the lobbies are full of idiots looking to cause chaos. This type of rating system, while not perfect, goes a long way in helping those looking for a fair race and is way better than anything CM has come up with... GTSport also has a ghosting feature, which under certain circumstances, if you are going into a corner too hot into another car, then the faster car ghosts. This has saved me a lot of aggravation and positions... 

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