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Automatic Race Lobbies

Napisany przez Nabatse, 11-02-2021, 12:43
Automatic Race Lobbies

Offline Nabatse

#1
Hi everyone!

Recently i've been thinking about this thing and i've decided to post it here. So, automatic race lobbies, let me explain (expect a lot of BabyRage moments).
Firstly, let me ask some questions: What do poeple hate in general? Waiting. Let's combine it with some other stuff people don't like and we have a recipe for disaster.
What thing you hate the most about racing here? For me, it would be defenitely the creating and "managing" the race lobbies. Just think about it, for a race, you need 4 players (in an optimal case), out of these 4 the Host gets the worst role in the lobby, having to stare at the screen (almost) all the time waiting for the perfect opportunity to start the race, while the other 3 can sit on their asses, browsing the web in the background and waiting for the windows notification they recieve when the race starts. I know the game will send a notification for the host if the lobby is full, but when i tried this (at least for me) 7 times out of 10 there was always 2 players with me, because the 3rd one already left the time i got back to game (and it was only 2-3 sec), so i don't think this method is that useful. Maybe i'm wrong, probably.
The other thing the Host has to deal with is choosing the race mode and map. One question was always (i mean literally always) asked when i played with my friends or some random dudes on the language chat gathered for a race: "Will you create the race?". This can lead to the fact that noone likes to create the race, even if they don't have to wait much for the others.
Don't get me wrong, i don't think these problems i listed above are big deals at all, creating/managing lobbies and/or select a map for the race are very little things, but after some time they can lead you to a point where you rather wait for other people to create races than you create your own. There has to be a reason why there aren't much lobbies nowadays.

So what would be the solution? Automatic race lobbies.
How it works? These lobbies are managed by "bots" or a script which starts a lobby at 0/4, and if people wants to join they join. The lobbies would start the 5 sec countdown automatically for the race if the lobby is full (as the way regular lobbies works, if a player leaves the countdown stops), or alternatively the players in the lobby could vote if they want to start, the vote passes if all the players in the lobby are agreed to start.
There would be 3 race lobbies managed by this system in the custom race browser, for the 3 "main" race types: sprint, circuit and drift, 1 of each category at a time. The maps (and their directions if possible) for these would be random, and the lap number would be always 5 laps for circuits and drifts (i think it's the most healthy lap number, not too little, not too much). 
All these lobbies are unlimited (don't have score limit), and would be there all the time, if one race starts, there would be another lobby for the same category (if a sprint has started, the next lobby for a sprint race is automatically created, same for cirsuits and drifts). Only this 3 race category because these are the most played ones, i don't think it's necesarry to expand this to all category, otherwise there'd be some dead offroad or streetx lobbies since they aren't played that much.
What would be the benefit of this system?
Firstly, it mostly fixes the "problems" i listed in the first section, but the main thing of this system that we would have race lobbies ALL the times. If you've finished a race you can hop right into the next one without having to create another one or waiting for someone to create the lobby, and most importantly, we would have the knowledge of there are race lobbies at any time we want to race. I think everybody so far have had the feeling of "hmm i want to race now, but there are no lobbies yet/there are 2 lobbies but one of them reqs password and the other one is a category i don't want to join and i'm lazy to create one", so the only option for you is to wait until the right race lobby pops up for you, and noone likes to watch the custom race all the time until that happens.

I don't think this system would be impossible to implement if url lobbies can track the number of players and start the race based on it, and quick race can start random races, and it is possible to have 0/4 lobbies since some mods can create them, we already have everything this requires i think.
And yes, i'm aware of quick race offers similar aspects that i'm suggesting, but quick race isn't capable of solving the issues i'm talking about. Not to mention the cars are random (yes you can select only 1 car of your choice for it, and wait for eternity to find a match with other players' cars), the categories are random, and you don't know which category and map the game will give you, you can't prepare for it at all if you think about it. These automatic lobbies would work the same as regular lobbies, you can join with any car you want, you know the map and the race category you join in, the only difference is noone has to control when the race starts (except for the script). We could include some aspects that the url lobbies have like if you leave-join 3+ times in a short term you have to wait/you can't join at all after that to avoid trollers, or the voting system for the race out of 3 random maps etc. 
I think this is necesarry in a time where the main theme and mean of gameplay of the server is racing, but nobody races because of lazyness and lack of lobbys. 


Thank you for reading through all this mess, pls tell me what you think about it!
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Offline twiseles

#2
so you want to implement quick races
[Image: 1586317728_god-why1.PNG]
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Offline MisterJohnson

#3
LOL, that's exactly what I though, but I also get the point of Nabatse, perhaps the implementation of a mark/unmark button called "Automatically start when lobby is full" should solve it.
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