Rating system shows as planned

A new Assetto Corsa Competizione blog entry which details what has happened with Ratings in the second release. This is a long entry explaining how the players helped to improve and integrate the original planned approach of rating system imagined by Kunos.

Today, we will release version 0.2 of Assetto Corsa Competizione. Additionally to exciting gameplay features like pitstops, the (sprint) race weekend and new content such as the first-gen Bentley Continental GT3 and Misano circuit, you will find the following two Ratings on the roadmap: Safety and Performance (Racecraft).

First, there is a small change of plans. In the first (link) blog post about Release 1 ratings, we were talking about 6 progression ratings that unlock one another. That was the defensive approach, but given how successful especially the very important Car Control rating has turned out to be, we could decide to implement the Safety Rating as progression rating as originally planned. It will take its place between the Pace Rating and the Racecraft rating, so this will be the overview: RECAP 0.1 RATINGS

As we already know, the Ratings will start with the basics, and unlock gradually based on the driver’s performance. In a short recap about the first 4 ratings we already implemented in the first release, we are very pleased with both how they work and how the community perceives them.

In the best example (link) we had a quite experienced driver doing laps of 1:58 on the Nürburgring. He felt he was doing fine, but for a reason he couldn’t exceed a Car Control Rating of 54% – so he came to our forums and asked for advice. A few days later he improved to unbelievably low 1:53 laptimes, scoring a top 10 rank in the Hotlap Leaderboard! And he was not alone, many other drivers have also reported improvements.

For this reason, we re-thought how to present the rating data in the UI, so drivers can understand and learn as much as possible for future releases. As a short-term solution, we invented a HUD option that allows the user to set the selected Rating in the Rating Widget during Practice sessions. This way drivers can just work with the feedback and improve their driving as they like.

SAFETY RATING (SA)

Disclaimer: This is the description of the full vision, I will close with the state and plan of implementation steps

We are excited to present you the first implementation of a Safety Rating in Assetto Corsa Competizione. Sadly, the simracing Multiplayer experience is very vulnerable to both malicious trolls or inexperienced drivers who cause accidents that can ruin the race for most of the drivers in turn 1. Traditionally, the Safety Rating in simracing is used to detect clean drivers in Multiplayer and create special servers where they can race without disturbance.

The disadvantage is obvious: While there is an elite of very clean drivers who may have a good time, most users are locked out from high-quality racing and need to improve their rating against other drivers that are not as clean. Overall this leads to a frustrating and discouraging experience, effectively increasing the difficulty to get into simracing in the first place.

You probably noticed that one of our missions is to enable newcomers and part-time simracers to get into Assetto Corsa Competizione – and simracing in general. For this reason, the Safety Rating is set up differently: first, it applies to both Singleplayer and Multiplayer race action. The AI is reliably clean and will always obey the racing rules we set up. This is a fair way to watch drivers in traffic, without the variables of other humans. Actually, you will have to prove yourself against the AI before you can enter rated Multiplayer servers. Consider it as the entry trial for the cleanest Multiplayer experience ACC will offer.

Given the opportunity to learn and recover in protected Singleplayer game modes, we also void the necessity to run rated servers for less clean drivers, and expect them to magically improve there, adding lots of randomness in the picture.

Secondly, the Safety Rating is implemented in a way to consider clean and good racing versus the number of incidents caused. I used to call this “accidents per opportunity to do so”, which translates in “Trust” and “Online Behavioural Warning Points” (short OBWP, derived from the BWP used in the Blancpain GT series). You earn Trust while being in dangerous situations, close to other cars. The hotter the race action is, the more Trust drivers gain. It obviously peaks out if you drive bumper-tobumper or even side-by-side; but take care: you also need to have your car under control and must avoid accidents. You will gain gradually less Trust for less dangerous situations, and none when you are driving outside a certain range of other cars. This means you also rely on the basics: knowing the track is vital, you need consistency to stick with other cars, you need to have your car under control, and of course a certain race pace is required. Yes, this is exactly the order of the previous Ratings: TR, CN, CC, PC. You see how everything comes together here.

Contacts and accidents will score OBWPs, based on the severity of the outcome of a contact. Therefore you won’t see Online Behavioural Warning Points for a short bump which doesn’t even impair the other car, while the amount of OBWPs gradually increases for pushing the other car out of control, out of the track, into a different car and so on. Full points are assigned when the other car is going far off the track, spins out or crashes into another car.

The third aspect of the Safety Rating is that it is prepared to analyse accident situations. To be very clear up front: the core reason is not to distribute OBWPs according to guilt. The primary reason is to understand when the driver made a mistake and being able to give him appropriate feedback: what went wrong, what rule was violated, how to avoid such accidents. This is going to make for a better simracing experience for everyone, not just try to protect the good and experienced guys from getting too many points.

We do understand that it is frustrating to be “rewarded” with points for accidents where you are not considered guilty, but it is getting really complicated here. I will keep this short: the system is designed in a way that you will obviously have OBWPs even as a clean gentleman racer, I mean it is racing after all. If you are good, you will also have earned so much Trust that a few OBWPs won’t hurt your Safety Rating, and it is entirely possible to have a 100% SA rating with significant OBWPs, if you also have earned significant Trust.

Keep in mind that the rated servers may look differently to what you know from previous Safety Rating implementations: we will have the Singleplayer entry barrier and a very interactive feedback of rules and observations. This should lead to a considerably high quality in Multiplayer in the first place

And lastly, there is an advanced discipline of accident avoidance even if you didn’t do anything wrong – a system that wouldn’t appreciate awareness, cleverness and evasive skills couldn’t be considered good, right? I couldn’t describe this better than quoting from one of the many discussions I had with real Blancpain drivers about the topic:

David Perel: “I always feel guilty in case of an incident, no matter how it developed”
Me: “Because there is a better version of you that could have avoided it?”
David Perel: “Exactly.”

This was the overall vision of what we want to achieve. Please understand that this will be a process during the whole development of Assetto Corsa Competizione, based on feedback, numbers, statistics and development time. Now you will see the basic functionality of Trust and OBWPs, combined to a rating. The outcome of an accident is considered, while the accident analysis and its feedback will be delivered and updated with each further update.

RACECRAFT (PERFORMANCE) RATING

Disclaimer: This is the description of the full vision, I will close with the state and plan of implementation steps

Once you hit 50% Safety Rating, the Racecraft Rating will unlock. It is meant to measure the relative performance between drivers, again expressed in a 0-100% scale of RC Rating.
The top-level description is quite simple: come in first, and you will have a good RC rating. But of course, reality is deeper, and only one can finish a race in the first position. 😀

One of the worst disadvantages of running traditional performance ratings is that they develop a considerably high frustration potential: it is fun while you are increasing your rating with every race you participate in; but once you’ve reached the Rating that expresses your actual strength, you can only increase it further by improving your factual driving performance (which is very difficult). On the other hand, you can lose a lot by doing mistakes, or even worse: get taken out by another driver. This leads to the phenomenon that good performance ratings tend to decrease drivers’ contribution – they just don’t race as much as they would like to!

Assetto Corsa Competizione’s Racecraft rating addresses this issue by not taking too much care of the race result, but focus on the fight for positions, and permanently calculate the Rating, instead of just using the standing at the end of the race (where a single mistake can have this huge impact). Technically speaking, the system has two paths to manipulate the Racecraft Ratings of drivers:

First, the system builds a relationship to cars that are close and considers them being in a fight. You enter the fight when your car is near to another one (think of 0.3 – 0.4s) and ends the situation when the leading car could create a considerable gap (~1-1.5s) – or an accident occurs. While in a fight, both drivers are constantly averaging their ratings (in very tiny steps). So, if you can follow a driver with a much better rating, your Rating will improve. If you are followed by a driver that is rated worse, you are expected to be quicker – and you should be able to draw away soon. The longer this takes, the more RC Rating will be transferred to him, lowering the net result when you finally build your gap and end the fight situation. Obviously, you score points by doing so, but the net result decreases the longer the operation takes.
Overtaking as such does not affect the rating in a special way, because any outcome is already covered by the math described above – if you are behind a driver that is rated worse, you are expected to pass him and draw away. So, the longer this takes, the less RC rating you will earn, up to a point where you can even lose a bit despite eventually passing him.

Please note that those adjustments are tiny, and will only give real results after many, many races and fights completed. The closer two drivers are in their Rating, the less movement will happen – up to a point where only major events are able to create tiny adjustments at all.

In a second path, the RC rating will consider the race standing. It should make a difference if you are running in the first or last place, so in the long run even an alien that is basically never involved in a fight but wins any race will see his RC Rating become very high – but the process will be a lot slower than if he were to be involved in serious combats.

In a recap, the RC rating is meant to support the fun part of racing, and slowly but steadily build a ranking of actual racing performance (while considering driving standards).
We tried to address the worst side effects, while providing a tool that should be fun to engage and give a sensible measurement of performance. Obviously, this will be one(!) of the more important metrics when we try to find a good Multiplayer server for you!

Speaking of Multiplayer – the way of how the Rating’s math works makes it also very suitable to be used in the Singleplayer as well! Yes, AI drivers have a RC rating as well, based on their strength, aggressiveness, consistency and other values – even considering the local difficulty you have chosen. Just like the Safety Rating, Racecraft is not a Multiplayer thing only. Go out, compete with the AI and improve your Racecraft.

Again, for this release, the core Rating is implemented, but we will use the Early Access to understand if our assumptions and numbers are correct. For future releases, we will improve the rating, so it can be considered a perfectly fair tool to serve the intended purpose, so please let us know about your thoughts and observations.

At the moment, the Rating Widget will give you a hint about being in a fight situation to the front or to the car behind (but you can be in more than 2 fights at a time). The message will also indicate what is expected; for example, if you follow a driver with a similar or lower RC Rating, it will indicate to pass the car. If the driver is considered better than you, the message will be to stick with him – there are still good points to earn for you.

NOTICE ABOUT THE AI DRIVERS

With this release, each AI driver has a unique character, derived from his real-life performance during the season. Expect Gold and Platinum drivers to be considerably faster and more resolute than Bronze drivers, but also be aware of special characters within the brackets of the FIA category. Watch drivers, observe their behaviour, build trust, learn who you need to take care of in certain situations. It will take some time, but in the end, it will pay out.

Have fun with this update, and keep the feedback coming!
Thanks so much for your support