Problem Race Disconnection

Discussion in 'Community Support' started by Pro_10, Aug 11, 2021.

  1. Pro_10

    Pro_10 New Member

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    Hello

    Several weeks ago that sometimes the server throws me in the middle of the race.

    The procedure is always the same, I am only switched to the capo's camera and then thrown out of the room, with the corresponding loss of points.

    I have a powerful and optimized PC, 1GB symmetrical Internet with less than 10 ms of Ping.

    Does anybody know what is it due to?

    because I am not at all funny to lose everything built in a week or two in one of those server crashes.

    Today was the last one that happened to me, I had the typical image of a broken yellow car with an Error21 message.

    I've lost more than 200 points ...
    and it's not fair.
     

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  2. E.Raceroom

    E.Raceroom New Member

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    I have the same issue with the Error -21. When I want to ESC to the menu or exit the session, I get the Error 21 and need to quit the game. Go Back doesn't work. It now happens a lot and I don't have a bad Internet connection either. Also cleaning up the cache files does not work either. I still get a lot of Error 21's... :(
     
  3. Danny Michael

    Danny Michael Member

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    Only solution at the moment is to not do ranked racing. Hopefully a fix is coming. Until then maybe join a Competition.
     
  4. Pro_10

    Pro_10 New Member

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    I can wait for this problem to be fixed, but I want my points.

    One of the most important motivations of Ranked races is to advance in the table.

    If I have lost more than 250 points, without being my fault, I would like them to give them back to me, which has cost me a lot of work to get it.

    I think it would be fair.
    It is not the same to have 1950 as about 2300, the motivation is not the same, and the work to get there is not the same.

    and since I see it very unfair, and I am not to blame, I will fight for what is mine.
     
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  5. S. FREDRIKSSON

    S. FREDRIKSSON Active Member

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    Technical issues is a part of racing and they are not fair.
     
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  6. Pro_10

    Pro_10 New Member

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    So I don't know what the Ranked system is for.

    They would have to cancel the loss of points due to abandonment of the race, which in my case is server crashes, as long as they cannot solve the problem.
     
  7. Maskerader

    Maskerader Well-Known Member

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    Well, yeah, but in this case it's not clear who's responsible for that. When my (hypothetical) real car fails in a race I know the race directors have nothing to do with it. But with a videogame it's not clear and there is indeed a chance that it was on the game side and not mine.

    I mean, "suck it up" is realistically the only option for players at this moment, but that sure doesn't mean everything's fine and people shouldn't complain.
     
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  8. Pro_10

    Pro_10 New Member

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    what you say is understandable.
    But those points have taken me a lot of work and time, and having to be at the top of the table I am far behind.
    with what reality is not reflected.

    It is not a bad faith complaint, it is only information to see if the lost can be fixed.

    Regarding RaceRoom I have no complaints, it is the simulator that I like the most at the moment, especially after the FFB update, which is skiing.
     
  9. The Jay

    The Jay Member

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    I'm experiencing something similar myself. Racing in ranked servers it's happened twice now - suddenly without any keyboard input the camera switches from cockpit to bonnet view shortly before disconnecting and returning to the lobby. I don't get the Error-21 message though.

    Like you I have high-end equipment and a stable internet connection, and sympathise with your frustration after also losing a huge chunk of reputation and points as a result of these disconnects.

    I've got a support ticket logged but no response yet. If I find anything out I'll let you know.
     
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  10. Pro_10

    Pro_10 New Member

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    I'm glad that someone understands me, I don't get an error message either, I just kicked out of the room as you count.

    It is frustrating to lose what you have cost so much to achieve.

    I don't run races anymore, just hotlap competitions.

    And the worst thing is the lack of seriousness and the lack of professionalism of the administrators or creators of RaceRoom, who do not attend to these problems, nor do they solve them.
     
  11. The Jay

    The Jay Member

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    You're welcome! The frustration is real when you've spent so long practising and trying to race clean to gain rating and reputation points. I've gone from 90+ rep to less than 70 because of these disconnects which means I'm no longer able to race in official AM or PRO events.

    As a developer myself I can sympathise with Sector3, especially as they're quite a small team. Issues like this are very difficult to diagnose as there's no crash log/dump for them to go on, only our reports. Ideally we would be able to provide steps to reproduction but so far I've not spotted any pattern besides being close to another car and the camera switching to bonnet view just before the disconnect.

    My suggestion for Sector3 is that the penalty for disconnecting from a ranked server should only apply if the user quits, not if the internet drops or there was a software fault/error. I don't mind too much if I'm dropped off a ranked race by a glitch but being penalised for it is unfair.

    No answer yet on my support ticket, but I have just removed the game entirely and re-installed and since then I've run two ranked races without a problem. If you do this remember to also remove the game settings/configuration files, especially the controller profiles which I understand have caused issues on previous game updates, here: %UserProfile%\Documents\My Games\SimBin\RaceRoom Racing Experience

    You may wish to backup this folder first as it also contains replays/screenshots etc.
     
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  12. S. FREDRIKSSON

    S. FREDRIKSSON Active Member

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    And that is the problem. There is no way of knowing *why* the connection was lost. The system you suggest can, and will, be abused.
     
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  13. Maskerader

    Maskerader Well-Known Member

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    My suggestion is remove incidents points for disconnect.

    I think currently they do more harm than good. The only situation when they are needed to penalize bad behaviour is when someone rage quits shorty after the start of the race while also acquiring no more than one or two incident points. In every other situation they are either 1) irrelevant because the driver gets penalized anyway (thanks to how the rep system works) or 2) harmful because they penalize a driver who did nothing wrong (got a disconnect).

    If someone wants to rage quit when nothing serious happened - well, let them do it because it looks like lesser evil than punishing innocent drivers.
     
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    Last edited: Oct 2, 2021
  14. Arthur Spooner

    Arthur Spooner Well-Known Member

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    I'm not sure if this was still your suggestion if you knew how many races I "won" in various racesims in the past just by being either the last one or one of the few left on the server.

    The first ones that leave are usually the fast guys that for some reason screwed up at the start and don't see a chance of winning or at least finishing in a decent position anymore. And the ones that heavily crashed - but these most probably leave no matter what, so they don't make a difference in this matter.

    Then everybody leaves who is either lapping alone on the track or dead last.

    As soon as the last positioned driver leaves, another driver becomes the last one and leaves. And so on.

    This scenario is neither far fetched nor an outlier. It was and is usually the norm when there are no repercussions for leaving early. Most people just can't be arsed to finish a race if they have to lap alone or finish last. Ranking is also no problem. If you're (near) last already and no chance of catching, you finish at about the same position - if you leave or not.

    There just HAS to be something that keeps people from quitting. Otherwise the ranked servers system will dry out soon. Of course I'm not saying every race will end empty, but a lot more will and a lot more races than now will end near-empty.

    I'd rather discuss if the penalty for leaving could be reduced. And maybe leaving within the first 1-2 seconds of the race session should go unpenalized in my opinion as the probability of a disconnect due to the session change is very high at this stage. And yes, I see how even this could be abused to quit after an unsuccessful qualifying, but it happens so often...
     
  15. Pro_10

    Pro_10 New Member

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    I reinstalled RR3 several times and nothing, I also know a lot of advice that I read in different forums ... and nothing.


    It is clear that many heads think more than one.
    I'm seeing some different and very logical solutions and opinions.

    It is a pity that the solution to the root of the problem is not clear.

    But I do believe that the disconnection penalty can be minimized, narrowing the fence of previous movements or some other criterion.

    And and it would seem moral to me if something is touched to set the counters to zero for everyone.
    At the same time, it would be a good incentive to start competing from 0 again.
     
  16. Maskerader

    Maskerader Well-Known Member

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    First, I think these are different situations: doing a random race on a random server vs. taking part in ranked racing as a concept, with your results being tracked, your rating going up/down, etc.

    Second, my suggestion doesn't come from "how we should better penalize bad behaviour" but from "what exactly are we getting right now".

    Right now a "penalty" for disconnect are these 3 incident points and nothing else. How they affect your rating - and therefore what penalty you actually get for a disconnect - depends on other two factors: your rep before the race and the number of corners you drove in the race. And this is where things generally stop losing sense, from my point of view.

    - Leaving at first laps, no other IPs or just one or two: these few plus the disconnect IPs are weighed against very low number of corners - your rep gets a heavy hit. How often does it happen to ragequitters vs. those who genuinely had a disconnect?
    - Leaving at first laps, while also having got IPs from other incidents: all these plus 3 IP are weighed against very low number of corners - you rep gets a heavy hit anyway, even if these 3 IP didn't exist.
    - Leaving late in the race, very low number of IPs: these few plus 3 IP are weighed against a good number of corners - your rep doesn't get a heavy hit, if any (you might even gain rep - personal experience!). How often do clean drivers deliberately leave the race at this stage? I think this is quite a rare case.
    - Leaving late in the race, while also having got a number of IPs from various incidents: 3 points for disconnect would barely affect your rep loss because they are outweighed by other incidents.

    And that's the problem, from my point of view. It's already either too low/insignificant or too big and unfair anyway. The situation where it's "just right" is very precise and rare. If you reduce it, it might still be just as rare. I'm questioning the very principle of how the penalty works, not the size of it.

    ----------
    Now, it is indeed possible that a significant number of people stay in the race not because they understand how the system works, but simply because of the fear of getting penalized. I.e. the very fact there's a penalty for quitting keeps them in the race regardless of how exactly this penalty works and how big it is in various situations, and if the disconnect penalty gets removed they start leaving races more often.

    But that means that we have a system that works only because of irrational (i.e. no thought process involved) fear it induces, otherwise it doesn't look like a very good system at all, and I don't like that...

    At the very least, the system should stop penalizing people that got disconnected before the race even started, is it something the devs even consider? I haven't heard anything on that matter and this is what makes me a bit disappointed and sceptical about all that disconnections problem, as I don't see a reason to just sit and quietly hope for it to get better some day. Not that I can do anything with it, of course, but at least I can share my thoughts...
     
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    Last edited: Oct 2, 2021
  17. Lemmy

    Lemmy Member

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    Ok, so to summarise as far as I understand it, and please correct me if I'm wrong:
    Problem 1: We don't want [ranked] races filled with people who don't respect the other drivers and makes the races unpleasant for the more serious ones. That's why we have ranked servers, and that's why there is encouragements by point system and penalties for bad driving and quitting early.
    Problem 2: The prog (sim) cannot distinguish if a player either rage quits or gets disconnected due to server or Internet connection problems as we understand it.
    Problem 3: The penalty for either is the same for both as of now.
    Problem 4: A lot of people who invest their time and efforts trying to get appropriate rating & rep numbers, for the reason of unwilling disconnect, doesn't feel that it’s fair to be penalised for this.

    This rises:
    Question 1: Is it possible to technically distinguish an intentional quit from a server or other disconnection issues?
    Question 2: Would it be accurate to say that it's more of a technical problem to solve rather than a moral in terms of figures of penalties to rage quitters in regards to the unwilful quitters?
    (Question 3): Why is it that the penalty for a disconnect follows the mathematics of your previous stats (if I got this right) just as for calculating's rating and reps? Shouldn’t this particular problem be a fixed number rather than a dynamic in the light of the problem we face?

    My thoughts:
    I understand that it technically speaking must be the easier way to choose to penalise any disconnect rather than deal with trying to distinguishing intentional from unwilling. From my point of view, any input (i.e. pushing escape button) would be as easy to track as a button call from any other input, hence should be distinguishable by the game. But that’s just reasoning, not a fact that I actually know for certain. And even if it was possible to get this kind of tracking, anyone who would really like to get around this could easily do so by cutting their connections by other means. I believe I understand the problem here…

    However, the fact that the cost/effort of using other means than using escape/quit function to terminate the connection to quit is probably a bit more problematic or severe in terms of time spending for the quitter, and then possibly the need to have to restart some instances again for Internet connection instead of terminating game by Escape, it is in my opinion somewhat more likely that you would rather stay in game and suffer a bit more in race rather than restart hardware functions to stay in - if that is what you would like to do after the rage and if you’re not off to bed already. Pure speculation of course, but could be a factor to evaluate.

    I think it’s fair and that we ought to get penalised for rage quitting for the reasons mentioned in previous posts to maintain some standards of cautious/clean and fun racing. Problem is, obviously, (as Vettel can’t help himself to say in each and every sentence) that the system doesn’t quite cope with the morals of serious racing efforts due to technical aspects of online gaming and the fragile nature of our dear Internet services. That’s a bummer for sure! Question remains however, considering the law of sporadic Internet behaviour, is there anything the Devs can do to make the serious racer who got an unwilful disconnect a helping hand here? If so, I believe a lot more people would take the chance of getting into the ranked races, and I think that would be a good thing as that would inspire more people dare to join and the snowball would be in perfect roll as more people gives more people as we know. Ranked servers should and ought to be a place, as far as it’s possible, a safe haven for the serious but happy racer, not for the U-boat torpedo weirdos and sore losers we know all too well.

    Maybe I'm not fully up to speed in this matter, but these are my thoughts for whatever it’s worth.

    Cheers!
     
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    Last edited: Oct 28, 2021
  18. Maskerader

    Maskerader Well-Known Member

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    I like how you summarized it, I agree with it.

    I also like your thoughts on how a ragequitter might behave. Sure, if there was a distinction between quitting the game and a disconnect, you could game the system by pulling the plug and preteding you got a DC. But. You aren't gaining anything anyway. If you quit, even if you avoid the DC penalty, you aren't saving your rep nor your rating, they both are taking a hit. I see no profit for ragequitters, all they would get is a bit of reduction in their rep hit.

    Is it worth having it in the game, considering the other circumstances? I'm not sure...
     
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  19. The Jay

    The Jay Member

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    Some fantastic discussion here, thanks all for sharing.

    For me this point is partcularly interesting...
    I like to consider myself an informed and intelligent racer but I had no idea that the penalty varied according to laps completed and incident points upon disconnection. I can definitely say I suffered that irrational fear!


    Lemmy, your question is absolutely spot on...
    This hits the nail on the head for me. By all means punish racers for rage quitting, but being penalised when the game suffers an exception or the user suffers an internet dropout seems unfair to me - especially when leaderboards of rating/reputation are displayed in the game. Being penalised in this way is putting me off playing the game and recommending it to others, which is a real shame as otherwise I think the ranked servers work very well and produce some of the best online racing I've been involved in.
     
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  20. Maskerader

    Maskerader Well-Known Member

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    So did I. Only like a month ago I learned how it actually works in one of the threads here, otherwise I still wouldn't know...
     
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