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Sujet: Redesign of the practice laps |
24 réponses
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#1 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 00:08:26
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Hello everyone,
I want to propose a system that in my opinion can make the game a lot more approachable for new players, reduce the reliance on external resources while still benefiting experienced players that have put a lot of work to get the information they have.
My proposal is to have a set of practice programs that you can choose to run where the game gives you back actionable information that you can base your strategy on.
For example:
Car setup routine - cost 5 practice laps - gives you setup for the car
Fuel consumption test - cost 3 practice laps - gives you liter/lap consumption
Tyre degradation test - cost 3 practice laps - gives you tire degradation per lap (of selected compound)
Balance fine tune - cost 2 practice laps - Gives you wing splits
Qualification sim - cost 1 practice lap - Gives you expected time (maybe option to choose risk level here too)
Obviously you are still limited to 8 laps so you can't do everything. A system like that could promote teamwork and activity in smaller teams without a lot of data, while more experienced teams won't need to run those programs which will save them money.
I believe that something like that can increase new player retention and allow players to focus on making strategic decisions about the race, their driver development, car parts and facilities and not on arithmetic. If done right it will still be rewarding to go the extra mile and figure out how some things work so that you don't have to spend your limited practice lap on that program or to not run the practice programs at all to save money so the FOBY element is still there.
I would love to hear what you have to say about the idea. Just note proposed practice programs and costs are just as an example.
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#2 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 00:18:07
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I think it would be cool to have it like you have in testing, with all the different focuses that you can choose. You could do choose between something like:
- Setup: gives setup feedback as you have now
- Fuel Consumption: gives a fuel consumption range that becomes smaller with more practice laps
- Tyre Degradation: gives a tyre degradation range that becomes smaller with more practice laps (for the same compound)
- Fine tune: gives a feedback on wing split
- Qualification sim: allows you to set a risk and provides Driver Mistake value
It would not be something totally different from anything else (because you have the same principle as in Testing) but it could help especially the new players in not being so lost while still forcing them to balance their practice sessions towards their needs.
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#3 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 01:18:53
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I would also do like Ricardo suggests. And maybe increase maximum practice laps to 10, but then only 8 can be applied to setup / tyre compound check like we do nowadays.
If you do in less than 8 laps then you have more laps to fine tune fuel or tyre degradation or quali sim like you suggested
It would feel closer to what F1 teams do in FP1/FP2 in fact: limited amount of time to allocate to different tests, stint tests, setup tests, one-lap pace tests, then spread it like you want...
And without implementing anything complex :)
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#4 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 01:28:12
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Anyway, a commendable suggestion.
I wish I had this idea or something like that.
Congratulations Ilia Lilov.
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#5 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 04:02:20 (dernière édition (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 04:04:16 par Denny Holt)
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This is a great idea! I read the post by the new Rookie today that prompted this and fully agreed with his dilemma.
Fine tune the details, but keep it very simple.
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#6 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 13:05:33 (dernière édition (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 13:08:49 par Ilia Lilov)
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I should definitely credit @Karl Handley for asking the question as well as some debate in discord with multiple members of the community :).
You can also build on this idea a lot too, maybe you can have junior TD's in Rookie and Ama that can run those programs with varying degrees of accuracy, those might be unavailable in pro+ as by the time you get there you should have enough historic data to not need that and thus leaving the more competitive part of GPRO unaffected.
Ric has an interesting take on the idea as well but whatever the implementation making practice laps a thing that can give new players more information about the current track and asking them to make a decision about what they want to test and what they can deduce from their experience sounds a lot better and more fun for players.
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#7 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 14:53:45
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Because you are a Pro manager, your idea WILL be welcomed by the community. Congratulations!
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#8 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 15:25:55
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Quote ( Tom Parker @ December 19th 2021,14:53:45 ) Because you are a Pro manager, your idea WILL be welcomed by the community. Congratulations!
Regardless of whether you are a Rookie manager or a Pro Manager, all views should be respected, even if it is a bad idea.
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#9 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 15:35:57
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Appreciate the idea. I do think it should not promote teamwork, since teams already have an advantage. But it could indeed help smaller teams and loners crack some basics a bit quicker.
Questions:
- If it it to help Rookies, why not give Rookies more laps than higher classes?
- I would like to hear how this is related to testing and the options there.
- And any thoughts on how this idea could be abused? What are the risk?
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#10 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 15:37:51
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Quote ( Ilia Lilov @ December 19th 2021,00:08:26 ) Car setup routine - cost 5 practice laps - gives you setup for the car
Maybe rather than just giving the setup, it could tell you the lowest point of where he is happy. That still leaves some degree of fine tuning required by the manager to find the sweet spot :)
Rather than costing 5 practice laps it could be 3 rather than 5, leaving enough laps to run other configurations or fine tuning.
I do like the idea of making qualifying a little more user friendly.
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#11 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 15:43:25 (dernière édition (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 15:46:33 par Stuart Foster)
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Quote ( Hans Barf @ December 19th 2021,15:35:57 ) And any thoughts on how this idea could be abused? What are the risk?
Well, it removes some of the benefit of supporter status with some of the practice lap uses suggested by Ilia. But saying that, I think supporter status isn't as such used by most player for this as a main purpose (storage of race analysis), more-over a convenience feature and also I think a large portion of supporters are genuinely keen to support the games continued existence. So, I don't see much room for abuse, only concern would be if it caused a drop in supporter status.
Maybe manager's should either be given extra practice laps if they have fewer than say 100 races experience or give them the option to keep paying for more of them. I like Ilia's idea though because those configurations would give newbies fuel and tyre datas for races they hadn't visited, which is crucial in the first 100 races of any manager's career. So, for that alone, I think it would be worth bringing in as a game feature.
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#12 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 16:02:18
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You could give more laps lower groups, but taking something away from them when promoting from Rookie to Ama might cause more people to be incentivised to become super rookies and never promote. Though it might work quite well too, giving rookies more info at the start and slowly forcing them to deduce more and more. Can definitely smooth out the learning curve of the game a bit.
Testing options are great and you can use that to figure some things out, but my biggest issue is that it is not always relevant for the current track and conditions. If the testing was done on the current track rather than a dedicated testing track then this suggestion is pointless and people who need to get more info for the next race can spend the extra money and part wear to get it. Though I believe a change like that can have much greater ramifications for everyone and I wouldn't want to poke that bear :)
Regarding possibility of abuse, other than the obvious things that are currently prohibited like DA's getting more data quickly I am not sure what else people can do. Especially if it is implemented in a way that can still give some variance to the information you are getting back. It can allow some big teams to reverse engineer some things quicker but I am not sure if that is a bad thing or in the spirit of the game to be honest, especially if we are talking about race basics. I am sure there will be something I am missing in this section.
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#13 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 16:03:04
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It would certainly make the game more accessible, but doesn't it basically just provide a shortcut for new players or new circuits and doesn't encourage data collection or actually understanding the basics?
Wouldn't it be better to allow Rookie groups more practice laps and maybe automatically assign a mentor from a pool (It would obviously mean enlarging the existing mentor program) once they'd done one race, to avoid wasting time and mentors on those who never actually play?
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#14 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 16:05:04 (dernière édition (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 16:08:50 par Ricardo Antunes)
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Quote ( Hans Barf @ December 19th 2021,15:35:57 ) - I would like to hear how this is related to testing and the options there.
I believe this question is aimed towards me?
I compared it to testing in the sense that in testing you can choose different Research Priorities and the way I laid it out it would work about the same way as in practice, like this:
https://gyazo.com/0405d0592a93142d3e8f3c9aa0792652.png
Different priorities give you different results, as in Testing.
Quote ( Hans Barf @ December 19th 2021,15:35:57 ) - If it it to help Rookies, why not give Rookies more laps than higher classes?
We could allow rookies to run special laps under certain conditions, such as only allowing them to use the Setup program in those laps. Setting those to be their first laps will let them mess around for a bit and then give them the usual 8 laps on top of those extra laps, so that they can now approach practice in a calculated manner.
Quote ( Hans Barf @ December 19th 2021,15:35:57 ) - And any thoughts on how this idea could be abused? What are the risk?
As Paul pointed out this could discourage data collection, however if we make the data vague enough it will still allow those who actually collect the data to have an edge over the others. Or perhaps values such as Fuel Consumption or Tyre Degradation would not account for the different factors that affect it except for the track attributes, which would encourage managers to do their research to adjust the numbers towards their package.
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#15 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 17:46:20 (dernière édition (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 18:11:39 par Mikko Heikkinen)
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Quote ( Ilia Lilov @ December 19th 2021,00:08:26 ) Car setup routine - cost 5 practice laps - gives you setup for the car
Quote ( Ilia Lilov @ December 19th 2021,00:08:26 ) Balance fine tune - cost 2 practice laps - Gives you wing splits
So basically make the practice futile since it just gives the setup ?? No skill required
So... If implemented, everyone would have 100% correct settings always. That would not be improvement
Making things A LOT easier (or in other words "dumbing down") isn't the way to improve, me thinks
Quote ( Ilia Lilov @ December 19th 2021,13:05:33 ) I should definitely credit @Karl Handley for asking the question
You mean the guy with ~70 races done and still claiming that all fuel and tyre is guessing.
Hence the desperate need to "making things easier for beginners", when in fact that's not at all what it was about.
Is GPRO a management game or a casual clicker.
Sure, some people might want this: https://youtu.be/4Wm00pAscLA
But it's not necessarily a good thing
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#16 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 18:38:29
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@Mikko Heikkinen (P5) I think you are missing a bit of the idea, I am not proposing everyone having a perfect setup for the race, you know a lot better than me that there is more to the setup than the ideal Q1 lap. Also this game is a lot more than car setup, fuel and tires. Dare I say the actual management part of this manager game has very little to do with running the practice laps as they are now. The proposal is to give some managers more basic information for a cost and in a limited manner so we can still make them look deeper and get more involved in the game.
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#17 Posté (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 21:14:13 (dernière édition (le) 19 Décembre 2021, 21:15:07 par Mikael Brostrom)
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Quote ( Ilia Lilov @ December 19th 2021,00:08:26 ) Car setup routine - cost 5 practice laps - gives you setup for the car
Fuel consumption test - cost 3 practice laps - gives you liter/lap consumption
Tyre degradation test - cost 3 practice laps - gives you tire degradation per lap (of selected compound)
Balance fine tune - cost 2 practice laps - Gives you wing splits
Qualification sim - cost 1 practice lap - Gives you expected time (maybe option to choose risk level here too)
I have serious doubt about several of these actually improving the game for new players. As far as I can recall, working on the setup is one of few things you can do prior to your first couple of races (except for a lot of reading). Replacing that with a single click takes away a nice and not too complicated introduction to the game.
And quali sim could easily be misleading instead of helpful to a rookie.
I agree something could though be done to help out a bit with fuel and tyre wear for new players. It's rather frustrating to join a new game and have 0 clue what to base your strat on. Nothing exact of course but a bit more than what is given on the wiki page. This could be done in many different ways and maybe limited to number of races or rookie level only.
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#18 Posté (le) 20 Décembre 2021, 00:44:32 (dernière édition (le) 20 Décembre 2021, 00:44:59 par Paul Bright)
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Quote ( Mikael Brostrom @ December 19th 2021,21:14:13 ) I agree something could though be done to help out a bit with fuel and tyre wear for new players.
Perhaps something as simple as showing fuel consumption/tyre wear in practice for Rookie players?
Not enough to give absolute figures, given the other variables, but enough to give a start, especially with the other info on the forum and mentor scheme.
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#19 Posté (le) 20 Décembre 2021, 08:13:41 (dernière édition (le) 20 Décembre 2021, 08:19:24 par Onur Guardian)
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Quote ( Mikko Heikkinen @ December 19th 2021,17:46:20 ) Making things A LOT easier (or in other words "dumbing down") isn't the way to improve, me thinks
i love whenever he says that, the suggestion implemented :P C'mon Mikko we all want to make the game a bit easy to understand for newcomers to kick our asses.
E: just to avoid to be ''click'' game, maybe we can open TDs for Ama and Rookie class + give them a skill as ''Setup Wizard'' which is higher makes better setups. Extra spendings would be nice to see in lower groups instead of giving all to Tax :P
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#20 Posté (le) 21 Décembre 2021, 13:02:35
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I definitely like the idea of improving the practice session game design for new players (and those too lazy to analyze their data).
While I'm against just handing out the perfect setup with a click or two, and I like Ricardo's spin on this idea better, I think the sweet spot lies somewhere in-between.
A way to improve the setup finding procedure without going to one click would be this:
Instead of giving the vague feedback we have now, a driver always gives feedback with specific change suggestions. Those suggestions get more accurate the closer you are to the ideal setup, and certain driver stats also improve the quality of those suggestions.
So, for example, instead of the current
"Wings: I am missing a bit of grip in the curves"
we'd get something like
"Wings: I think we should increase the downforce by 10 to 20 points."
or, if your driver has better setup-related skills
"Wings: I think we should increase the downforce by 12 to 16 points."
The next lap with the changed setup might then result in
"Wings: Lowering the downforce by 2 to 5 points would be better."
At that point you decide it's good enough and fill the rest of your laps with other stuff.
This way, you can decide between several trade-offs, such as accuracy vs invested laps and driver setup skills vs driver racing skills.
It also encourages you to do at least rudimentary data collection and analysis. The closer you get in your first lap "guess", the less laps you need to invest.
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#21 Posté (le) 21 Décembre 2021, 14:40:19
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Quote ( Mikko Heikkinen @ December 19th 2021,17:46:20 ) Quote ( Ilia Lilov @ December 19th 2021,00:08:26 )
Car setup routine - cost 5 practice laps - gives you setup for the car
Quote ( Ilia Lilov @ December 19th 2021,00:08:26 )
Balance fine tune - cost 2 practice laps - Gives you wing splits
So basically make the practice futile since it just gives the setup ?? No skill required
So... If implemented, everyone would have 100% correct settings always. That would not be improvement
Making things A LOT easier (or in other words "dumbing down") isn't the way to improve, me think
Which is why I prefer Ricardo's implementation above... making it "look like" what it is in private testing, with different areas of practice... and especially since all tracks can't be test tracks because of part wear...
Then there's no "free given data". Just more options for people to figure out other factors than setup during FP.
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#22 Posté (le) 21 Décembre 2021, 15:22:55 (dernière édition (le) 21 Décembre 2021, 15:29:26 par Chris Shaw)
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Quote ( Hans Barf @ December 19th 2021,15:35:57 ) Questions:
- If it it to help Rookies, why not give Rookies more laps than higher classes?
Hans has a point here. It would be better if we get 3 sandbox totally free tests during our first season in GPRO, in those tests we can do/undo:
* Part upgrades
* Driver training
* Change the temperature to be whatever we want
Supplement this with a guide on how to get usable data so that new managers aren't needing to resort to reduced order modelling from day 1.
Quote ( Mikko Heikkinen @ December 19th 2021,17:46:20 ) Is GPRO a management game or a casual clicker.
Although I rarely agree with Mikko's views on the game complexity, I agree this isn't a casual game. However it is a management game and therefore should not be dominated by ones ability to reverse engineer formulae. I firmly believe in this statement:
"A good manager makes the correct decision without having access to all of the required information"
This game is all about making sure you know exactly on which lap you will pit, how long your pit stop will likely be, how many test points you get in testing vs how much it wears the car parts - and so on. I feel "gut instinct" and "lateral thinking" aren't rewarded in GPRO whereas they are in other games.
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#23 Posté (le) 14 Mars 2022, 01:18:53
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Here's my two-pen'th in respect of fuel and tyres.
In the real world, practice laps don't happen in isolation: there's an out-lap, a timed lap, and an in-lap, and the cars have to carry just enough fuel to complete all three laps. We can regard these as a set of three laps that constitute a single practice lap. More fuel is burned on the timed lap than on the in- and out- laps, and more tyre wear takes place on it, but the only figures available are the amount of fuel left and the amount of tyre wear after the set of three laps. It's the same for Q1 and Q2.
How this might be applied in GPRO ...
* For practice laps, as well as entering the car setup, we could enter an amount of fuel to be carried for the set of three laps - GPRO could give us a clue there (an over-generous amount) but we can change it. Maybe this could be in tenths of a litre? If the amount of fuel we enter is too little, the practice lap is lost without a time being recorded;
* The time registered is based on the settings and the weight of fuel left on board after the out-lap. I suggest that the driver error element should not apply here, as the driver is only practising, not pushing the car to the limit;
* GPRO reports the amount of fuel left and the total tyre wear after the set of three laps;
* The more practice lap sets we do, the closer we can get to the ideal amount of fuel to start with, but it is up to us to deduce how much applies to the timed lap;
* When it comes to Q1 and Q2, we can already stipulate how hard the driver must push, so driver errors can be applied here;
* For Q1, I suggest that the fuel to be carried will be that used for the last successfully completed set of practice laps. If no practice laps have been attempted or completed, GPRO will set an amount that is more than enough to do the job, meaning that the time may be slower than if we have put in the optimal amount of fuel;
* Q2 would work exactly as it does at present.
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#24 Posté (le) 14 Mars 2022, 01:47:17
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Quote ( Chris Shaw @ December 21st 2021,15:22:55 ) Hans has a point here. It would be better if we get 3 sandbox totally free tests during our first season in GPRO, in those tests we can do/undo:
* Part upgrades
* Driver training
* Change the temperature to be whatever we want
Supplement this with a guide on how to get usable data so that new managers aren't needing to resort to reduced order modelling from day 1.
I like this idea, but it would encourage even more DAs and people helping rookies to harvest their data. What if there was a way to do this, but with tracks that weren't in the game (maybe retired from the game). Almost like a mini 10 race F2 tutorial where the game would provide rough feedback or suggestions. There's enough complexity to the game that helping new managers figure out how to come up with a reasonable fuel/tyre/car setup and hire a semi-competent driver won't ruin things.
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Quote ( Hans Barf @ December 19th 2021,15:35:57 ) - If it it to help Rookies, why not give Rookies more laps than higher classes?
Good point but how about this, maybe limit this facility to a manager's first 17 races like some other things (if I remember correctly)? After that they should have enough experience and data to make an educated assumption as to what's needed for each circuit whether they've raced there before or not. I have no problem at all with genuine rookies getting some help when they're starting out but part of this game's appeal and longevity is figuring out some of it's mysteries as you progress.
Also doesn't the mentor program help with this sort of information anyway? I don't know personally as I've never used it but if it does then in my opinion it should be the preferred route to gain this knowledge as it encourages interaction in the community between new players and old hands. That's got to be good for loyalty, comradery, and retention. If people build friendships and feel included and part of the game they're more likely to stay I think.
Just for clarity here, I'm talking about Ilia's full package of options, not just the issue of laps that Hans mentioned.
Edit:
Quote ( Christopher Delehanty @ March 14th 2022,01:47:17 ) I like this idea, but it would encourage even more DAs
I think Christopher has nailed it here, adding more in-game help for Rookies would inevitably increase the temptation to run multiple accounts, I can't see a way around that.
Edit 2:
Quote ( Mikko Heikkinen @ December 19th 2021,17:46:20 ) Is GPRO a management game or a casual clicker.
I've just seen this and totally agree, that's why most of us are still here.
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