Your ghost as a substitute when you need to leave the controller for a moment

[HikikomoriGamer]

Since in online gaming you can't pause how about when you press the pause button in the controller the game automatically makes your car be controlled by your latest best time ghost in online mode? You can always return and continue and it's like it's you playing

The ghost would need to be upload in the game server because I don't know! Maybe some filthy cheaters could get better ghosts, change theirs in the game folder pause and win? I don't know cheaters are strange!

[Jetgaze]

You mean autopilot, right? Coz "ghost" is pretty much impossible in multiplayer. Rockets will not let your ghost stay ghostly enough.

Anyway,I thing its not a good idea. Races are not that long...and if you are not sure that you can complete your race, dont start it.

[Queadah]

The idea has been dug at viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3604

Generally speaking, it's a feature that could cope with

• ragequiters as punishment (to stick with one event to some degree)
• but also people that left for whatever reasons and would appreciate the ability to rejoin an event in mid-race

[Chris_CE]

Could make AI take over a player car as soon as they pause the game, but some matches will not have AI enabled. Also, there's the time it takes to send information to the server and back to the rest of the clients that could create problems.

[HikikomoriGamer]

You mean autopilot, right? Coz "ghost" is pretty much impossible in multiplayer. Rockets will not let your ghost stay ghostly enough.

Anyway,I thing its not a good idea. Races are not that long...and if you are not sure that you can complete your race, dont start it.

Yeah a autopilot based on your best time on that track. And of course you have a point in that if you can't complete a race don't start it! BUT maybe you can but something important comes up and you're in a ranked match or something so you still have a chance to not lose points! Well it's not a suggestion for me since I suck at playing It's more for the PROS that like to be at the top hahahaha

Could make AI take over a player car as soon as they pause the game, but some matches will not have AI enabled. Also, there's the time it takes to send information to the server and back to the rest of the clients that could create problems.

Well if it's too much work it's best to focus on make the game better in other ways but I still think it is a good idea to not forget about this And maybe codemonkey can discover some miracle way to do it!

[potterman28wxcv]

You mean autopilot, right? Coz "ghost" is pretty much impossible in multiplayer. Rockets will not let your ghost stay ghostly enough.

Anyway,I thing its not a good idea. Races are not that long...and if you are not sure that you can complete your race, dont start it.

Yeah a autopilot based on your best time on that track.

So.. If you got lucky and had a very fast lap, you can just pause the game and let your car win?

Also, on the technical side it would be a bit hard to do in my opinion, since you would have to deduce a path from the one the player took, but it's not exactly the same one since you might be anywhere on the track when you pause.

And of course you have a point in that if you can't complete a race don't start it! BUT maybe you can but something important comes up and you're in a ranked match or something so you still have a chance to not lose points!

Especially if it's a ranked match, you don't want someone to be losing points because you turned off your controller and your bot won.

I mean, just imagine the following situation. You are 1st, everything is going alright, then suddenly the 3rd leaves the controller. He's replaced by a bot, and all of a sudden the bot starts to catch you and in the end finish first. How would you feel to have lost points, when you know that if the 3rd had not been replaced by a bot, maybe you would still have the advantage and won ?

[Falkerz]

I'm more interested in this from a technical / networking perspective. It sounds nice on paper, but realistically, is very challenging to implement.

The original proposition of the ghost time being sent to the server when the game is paused, this just isn't feasible in a race scenario. PayDay2 has a similar feature, when a new player joins, the game suspends on the server while it integrates them into the madness and downloads all the information it needs from them. Games never have more than 4 human players in PayDay2, and the action isn't nearly as fast as GRIP, so it's fine here. However, this would be highly disruptive in a race, so isn't something I would advocate.

The other main solution is of course to have a dedicated server, and have each racer, as part of the loading process, upload their best timed lap for that track to the server, which is then processed concurrently as a phantom vehicle, which instantly takes over at the right point in the race (according to the race clock). Issues with this are track position differences, velocity differences, item pickup differences, and differences in positioning and velocity of all other participants, not to mention a potential plethora of weapons being deployed and coming to get you. Oh, and needing dedicated servers as well. And that these servers would need to analyse each racer's replay to calculate optimal pathing for the lap, and be hot-linked into the control of that player's vehicle. And having the AI core loaded at all times.

Technologically speaking, this is a highly impractical endeavour without serious time being put into developing an efficient server core and running it on dedicated hardware, or ensuring that PtP game hosting runs on a host with a strong connection (say, 10 down and 5 up minimum) to reduce overall wait times when synchronising all this information, both before the race starts, and during the race.

Just to clarify, I really like the idea, but the scope of something like this is enormous, so it's very unlikely to happen at this time (IMHO)

[HikikomoriGamer]

Yeah you two just put into words what I was feeling and could not express myself better and I just said:

Well if it's too much work it's best to focus on make the game better in other ways but I still think it is a good idea to not forget about this And maybe codemonkey can discover some miracle way to do it!

Miracles can happen guys! I think...