S21: Mid-Season Update - Return of the Double Dash!
Added 2024-05-23 07:33:33 +0000 UTCHello Everyone,
We want to address a change in how daily races are run here at PitSkill starting on Week 7, and this is targeted mainly at rookie level drivers, however due to the change will affect drivers of all skill levels.
This stems off of the back of a conversation we had here:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2152747693
(The reason that the races were "taken" away was due to Terry not having time to create the new double dash series so there was a few hours where races weren't scheduled for 'everyone')
The Targeted Audience of ROOKIES Hourlies
The targeted Audience of the Rookies hourlies, were rookies looking to climb the ladder, and use them as a sort of "licence test" before being able to race in the weeklies/leagues etc; this would be their "introduction" to PitSkill as it were.
The Survey
We did a Season 22 survey recently; mainly to look at what we should change for SEASON 22 and to see how the community is responding to what's happening on track, and we noticed a very large trend in that:
47% want more advanced weather.
37.5% said they would race more frequently if it had better matchmaking.
37.1% said they would race more with improved race scheduling
In the additional comments, there's a trend of "Rookies Races should be for rookies" and "It would be nice to have fast drivers slowed down" or "More Rookies races for 'rookies'" as well as a call for fixed setups.
It was also asked for more non-dlc tracks.
Sadly, we're unable to provide fixed setup races (ACC Limitation), however we have been digging through our stats to try and find some answer to why on average, when we're an open community, a lot more rookies don't race with us, when we allow literally everyone to race, so we dug into the stats more and found out:
On average ~1% of all rookies who race the ROOKIES HOURLY series NOW have a C+ Licence.
On average 0.01% of all people who race in the Rookies HOURLY series are above 2k PitSkill
The 99% percentile of PitSkill rating in the series where they're above 1.5k PitSkill which based on the skill-rating chart, is over the majority of drivers, was ~1.9k
So we took this away, and went "why aren't rookies racing more, is it the format? is it how often the races are? is the amount of drivers in them? is it the level of drivers in them?", and looked at what we CAN control within the platform, firstly:
The format; we looked at the format and on average drivers across races, 15min races worked fine; they also schedule well.
Is it how often races are? In terms of drivers racing; unique counts of drivers have increased in the last 12 months month on month; the issue is "keeping" the drivers.
Is it the amount of drivers? Very maybe yes, however this is what we're trying to solve, so we can't 'fix' this with a simple change.
Is it the level of drivers? By all intents and purposes; it seems so, a lot of rookie drivers do less than 10 races, and if rookies are complaining that in rookies races there are super quick people, then there's quite obviously a problem.
So why the change mid-season?
It's evident that we are a community that's open to EVERYONE and higher skilled drivers can race every race; there are other communities that allow fast people to race with lower skilled drivers, but on average, lower skilled drivers want to race amongst their peers and this is what the hourly series was aimed at; and introduction to PitSkill.
But what about the daytime racers?
This is the issue we had many debates about; what do we do for the afternoon racers; those who are above 2k who race consistently; there was 2 options really:
A) Provide a series they can race in (increasing the pool of races you can race; risky.)
B) Split the rookies series by Licence Class then PitRep.
We did originally discuss doing B, however rookie drivers might see 2k+ drivers signed up and go "well I'm not racing that, the guy that does 2s faster laptimes than me is racing" and not even look at how it splits, so we went with A; now this does add ANOTHER hourly race on the platform, however, the races aren't locked to ONLY fast drivers, so if the numbers are in the NEW series; then the slower drivers can choose to race that if they wish.
The next step
The next step was deciding WHAT series should go in that other slot; and we know that the Double Dash series was much beloved; we also looked at the stats of what races got the most signups, it was the 30min/2x15min races back when we ran them in 2023, however; they only ran once a day, which doesn't solve the "daytime racers" issue.
So the scheduling was the issue, how do we solve the scheduling?
It's a case of; if we don't provide races open to everyone, we don't cover all available timezones reducing the total reach of the platform; but the bills being AS expensive, if not technically more as there's not enough reach to new patreons or providing enough races to current ones.
So the answer was obvious even though it pollutes the race pool; they have to be consistent throughout the day; with the ability to do as we used to in Season 19, where you could do a Double Dash, then the daily, then a double dash, or whatever.
So, we've scheduled double dashes every 1.5hrs; which ties up nicely with the Daily of the day the GT Series; which will be C Class and have signups open ~1hr before the race.
Why can't we signup well in advance to all daily races?
This one is easy to answer; we checked the percentage of drivers who signed up when for what race, and it was pretty clear:
Hourlies
82% of drivers signed up within an hour of them starting.
Dailies
59% of drivers signed up within an hour of them starting, with only 21% signing up more than 3hrs before.
Now, if we leave races open to sign up to all day, and they look empty... all day, then it's perceived that no-one wants to drive them, however if we have races running that get signups ~1hr before and you know you want to drive that hour as it's a daily series, then you look on the website when signups open and... signup.
We also have the option to mark yourself interested and get a notification if others sign up/if enough mark themselves interested to make it ranked.
Basically; what we're saying is:
If you want a series to succeed; sign up to it, get the ball rolling and we'll keep it going, once drivers see that a series gets signups, they'll signup, and snowballs happen.
But what if the races are all empty?
We are trying this approach for the next 6 weeks until Season 22; if we see that the numbers aren't taking the expected approach of increasing; quite simply, races will be getting trimmed and "faster" drivers will only the peak time to race; the calendar we envisage if we "cut down" all the races would include the following, a Double Dash at ~5pm UTC, then a Daily, then a Double Dash, this would duplicate for US drivers too; in terms of rookies hourlies, we want to see more people racing them who can.
Closing Statement
Quite simply; we want drives to be able to race, all day, with drivers of their own skill level and now low skill drivers who might have been turned away due to rookies not being rookies now have the ability to race both with drivers of their own skill level or until they're >2k PitSkill, or choose to enter the OPEN Double Dash series; although this pollutes the daily race pool, we will clearly be able to see which ones drivers want to drive.
We will take a review of all the statistics and analytics of what people are racing; where they're racing and what skill levels are racing what to help us decide what to do for next season.
Basically; if you want something to remain, race it, invite friends to race it, and generally; increase driver attendance so we know we're not doing something wrong.
TLDR - Changes
To be brief the following changes have occured:-
Rookies Hourlies are now AMATEURS (<2000 PitSkill) only.
https://pitskill.io/series/s21-amateurs-hourly-seriesThe return of the Double Dash has now happened running every 1.5hr open to ALL skill levels. https://pitskill.io/series/s21-double-dash-series
The Daily has one time slot at peak time for EU and US; open to C Class and above as it's multiclass.
https://pitskill.io/series/s21-tracktitan--gt-sprint-seriesThe original idea of the N24 Daily Series was to only run until the 24hr Race Starts, however we will extend it into Week 8 and see how the numbers fair; if they continue to stay strong, it will stay, otherwise it will go.
https://pitskill.io/series/s21-daily-nordschleife-series
