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In the following the passage will be rather long for detail explanation..
But surely for those interested in online battle will not regret reading the whole complete text..

These are really the final conclusions I can draw up for the current online battle systems..
Of course these are now necessary 100% true facts because of lacking proofs and videos..
But I think the truths are more the less the same as the one explained below.
Indeed, much of them has been supported by evidences from Hongkongers, Japanese, Taiwanese, etc.

1. How the battle system select opponents.
Read the picture below:


Notice the English title "MASTER+" in the blue colored selection.
Currently, online battle systems differentiate opponent's skill level
by assigning 3 respective titles. These are "ROOKIE", "MASTER", "MASTER+".

"ROOKIE" is regarded as the "lowest level of skill", normally appeared in the first 10 battles for any new cards.
Any players will leave this title and change his title to "MASTER"
after playing battles for a while with reasonable number win rounds.

"MASTER" is the title which most players have, this can be regarded as "Average level of skill"
There are different scenarios which players can have this title:
(1) For low arcade level (Normally below LV30) with high win rounds ratio.
(2) For middle-to-high arcade level (Normally for LV30~98) with reasonable win rounds ratio
(For max. cases, win ratio is slightly more than 50%)
(3) For high arcade level (Arcade LV99) with low win rounds ratio.

"MASTER+" is the title which only players with "high level of skill" can deserve.
But bear in mind, it has absolutely no relationship with the arcade level.
Here are scenarios for having this title.
(1) For low arcade level (Normally between 20~50) with almost 100% win ratio.
(2) For medium-to-high arcade level (Normally betwen 50~98) with high win ratio.
(3) For high aracde level (Arcade LV 99) with average win rounds ratio (should be slightly more than 50%).

Although it is not possible to know what your "title" is, which this is only acknowledged by the opponents your are facing,
you can predict what your "title" is depending on which titles usually do your opponents have.
For mine, 95% of time are facing "MASTER+" opponents, which means I should have "MASTER+" title in relation to that.

Thus, the battle system has actually helped you to differentiate what your "skills level" are for both yourselves and your opponents.
Facing which kinds of opponents is completely non-related to Arcade LV, Pride pts, etc.

2. How the battle system determines which side choosing the map?

As previously said, determining which titles you are having heavily depends on win-loss ratio.
The scenario of which side choosing the map works in the same mechanism.

Simple rule. For the one having a poor win-loss record,
i.e. Fewer wins, More losses, has the right to choose the map.

As the system randomly picks both opponents in a battle,
there are no fixed scenario or sequences of whether which side repeatingly choosing the map.
Thus, please pray before the system picks the opponent.

There are still some tricks for increasing the chances to face opponents with high win ratio.
But I am not going to reveal the tricks. Don't ask me questions about that.

3. Are online battles really real-time battles online?

Let's say some history here first.

From the previous D6 EXP version 1.0, it has been confirmed that
there was a bug existing in the online battle system.

The brief description of the bug is that for all maps except Tsubaki Line,
you will always lead your opponent from the very beginning, passing the first checkpoint with 200m ahead,
and continue to lead your opponent with greater and greater distance.

The bug has been long discovered by Japanese actually,
which is explained the phenomenon of most Japanese choosing Tsubaka IB as their main course.
Tsubaka IB was the most buddy map where a win is 100% guaranteed without hitting the roadsides.

Under the bug, both opponents win at the same time.
Both sides share the same scenario of leading the opponent XXX m ahead.
This is a ridiculous scenario which was firstly revealed and confirmed in one of my videos battling with Cypher.
In addition, this bug raises another question,
"Are we battling with the "Ghost Car" like Wangan instead of real-time battles?"

After a short period elapsed, the D6 EXP 1.1 version is on stage.
The issue seems to be resolved by the apparently more realistic battles with greater extent of boost.

-----

However, after a period of play, MENG@ from HK and I discovered that,
we are still battling with "Ghost Car", instead of real-time opponents, in online battles.

The following is the information that fundamentally supports the "Ghost Car" statement.

MENG@ was playing Akagi UH in a online battle.
Both him and his opponent were good at TA and chased along the road.
Suddenly, at one of last corners, the opponent stopped his car, without touching any roadside or walls.
The distance meter just has the number increased rapidly.
MENG@ of course eventually wins the battle when the times has nearly gone.

At the straight road right before the finish line, MENG@ stopped his car completely (i.e. 0 KMH),
but the meter remains exactly a constant value during the period he stopped the car.
This is what he has said to me. It is not necessary for him to lie on me.

All of us should know that, even one has completely given up the battle and leaving the car alone,
the car itself will not stop at completely 0 kmh, and will continue to walk slowly with few kmhs.
0kmh exisits only when the player brakes the car completely.

All these information come up to only one conclusion:
The opponent has already finish and win the battle.
Only in this scenario, the opponent's car will completely stop.

This is even more ridiculous than that of EXP 1.0.
However, if we summarize and rethink all the stuff from the very beginning, all these are making sense.

-----

In EXP 1.1, something from every battle is fixed: the startup.
This is independent for which regions you are, even for Japanese, they are having same startup scenarios as overseas players.

For most of the roads, you will have a late start-up, opponent will firstly lead you for a while.
But after he has lead you 10m~20m apart (or 3 secs after), you will have the chance to overtake.
The chance of overtake is 90% given than you havn't done something wrong with your driving.
Sometimes the opponent's car may block you completely, you can just choose the line on another side to overtake.

For some exception roads, like Nagao DH, you overtake your opponents firstly,
but opponent will have their car pushed with a ridiculous boost after 4 seconds.
There are goona some different situations on some specific roads, but only very few roads like Akagi DH.

The most important conclusion is, everybody's car will be pushed by the boost at the moment exactly.
(Or opponent's car will be pushed by the boost on the exception roads)
The scenario of this overtake, not matter for Japanese players or overseas players,
reveals that online battles exhibit some sorts of "Ghost Car" issue.

There are many other specific paths of different roads exhibit "Ghost Car" issue.
But it is too complicated to list out all the scenarios. Leave me alone.

4. The devastated dependent to win in online battle: TA Performance

In D5 EXP 2.0 (or Japan version 1.1),
battles are glorious no matter for online or in-store.
Becuase in D5, battles are really battles.
Battles are really dependent on how both opponents interact with each other,
disregarding the TA Performance .
(of course not 100%, you still have to know what the road looks like)
If you really know how to play, even a untuned normal car can win a FT car.

In D5, I have been emphaizing on influencing the psychological condition of opponents to get a win.
Sometimes the way I drive can make the opponents extremely annoying but thats how the way I win.

A critical factor for battles in D5 EXP 2.0 is to do as much "damage"
as possible to the opponent. However, sadly in D6,
it is not possible for you to do "damage" to the opponent's car.
That means, no matter what you are doing, you cannot really affect how your opponent drives.

In an indirect approach, you may still influence your opponent psychologically
by blocking his sight all over the time and encourages him to make any errors along the road.
Or you may chase your opponent vigorously, touching his car in a continous period of time,
to make your opponent frustrated and initate him to make errors.
However, above meausres require you to perform at least not bad in TA.
Otherwise, you can neither chase your opponent or even stand before your opponent for any blockage.

These come to a question, if you are not performing well in your TAs,
that means in most of time you are falling behind,
or you may get passed relatively easily by your opponent driving at a much higher speed.
So, given that you cannot do damage to your opponent, how can you really win the battle?

Making use of the boost?

Boost is indeed, an illusion. Let me explain below.

5. The illusion of boost in online battles

Boost will help to push your car when you are falling behind.
But it is helpless when there is a gap in TA performance between you and opponent.
(I take it as an approximately 4 seconds gap).
Boost will only effective when you have close TA performance with your opponent.

Taking real examples and experiences from the online battles.
Normally, when your car is not ahead passing the 3rd checkpoint.
(For Akina Lake and Usui, the 2nd checkpoint)
The chance for you to win is relatively low.
Because as previously stated,in most maps you can have the chance to overtake
your opponent at the very beginning. When you are falling behind
at the 3rd checkpoint, that means you should have either done
something wrong or under-perform in TA to let your opponent passing you.
(For Nagao DH, that's another story, but its too time-consuming for explaination)

Rethink twice, boost is initially effective when you are just passed by your opponent.
Because boost is actually not a good thing which will devastatingly affects your driving style.
If you cannot manage boost properly, you will have to either hit the roadside or to reduce your speed.
In that way, boost is actually useless, and even does more damage to you than your opponent.

The utlimate way to make use of boost is indeed chasing the opponent immediately.
Becausing when you touch your opponents car,
there will be no reduction of speed even you hit the roadside seriously.
This creates a chance for you to pass your opponent.
I can say that this requires plenty of guts,
but this is/are the moments depending either you win or loss.

However, even you can make use of the boost utlimately,
you still have to perform well in TA.
Otherwise, your opponent will still able to pass you in the second or third instants.
In fact, performing well in TA certainly reduce a lot of risk in using the boost.

Just remember one thing: "Boost is helping you to avoid boost."
I think no any others will say something as strange as mine.

Conclusion: Forever Sad

I have been listening to the BGM Forever Sad when I choose to play Tsubaki DH.
Currently, I am really forever sad, because the more truths I acknowledge,
the less interested I want to play D6 actually.

Indeed, I don't really mind issues about latency or even "Ghost Car" like Wangan,
given that SEGA would provide a battle environment or mechanism as much like as D5 EXP 2.0.
In that way, as I have previously said, battles are really battles.

Now, we are all playing apparently the most expensive game in the whole arcade store,
with such a poor quality of service and game context however.
While I can enjoy a nice lunch with the same fees as 4 rounds D6 play,
I think I am not going to continue playing D6 online battles (as much as before),
until either the fees lowered or a new EXP vesrion publishes.

Above information is brought to you by HKG - TONG (hkpoorguy).
Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/HKPoorGuy.
You are welcome to share this piece of article but please state the name of author. Thanks.

This post has been edited by hkpoorguy on May 8 2011, 01:21 PM

Thanks for the updates!

So basically irregardless of that fact that you run TA's or not you will face tougher opponents as you win more and more races huh?

I noticed for my friend that he only started battling when he was at level 99 and he met low level opponents because he had no online battle wins initially. However, once he chalked up a considerable amount of wins, his opponents got a lot tougher and it was no longer as easy to win which goes to show that TA probably doesn't count at all.

I don't see why previously with only 400 pride points and 230+ wins I'm hitting Rainbow aura opponents a large part of the time though...Its too unfair and I'm almost always losing to them.

However, when I lost like 6 rounds today, I noticed that I start to face slightly lower leveled opponents. So you're right about the rookie/master/master + thing.

Also, why would one want to increase the chances of facing opponents with high win ratio? Wouldn't that mean we will lose more easily even if we get to pick our own maps?

This post has been edited by yakiniku on May 8 2011, 11:34 AM

It is always better for you to pick up your own maps than your opponent does..
For example, when you don't know how to play Nagao, and your opponent can see you cannot play Nagao from the win table,
then he choose Nagao. How will you feel..?
Its always better for ourselves to choose map, at least all things are in a controllable extent.

This post has been edited by hkpoorguy on May 8 2011, 01:27 PM

Thanks a bunch for the info, TONG!

I finally understand what's with this 'illusion of boost' in Ver1.1. It is extremely frustrating when the boost kicks in at a place where it is totally unreliable and when you finally need it, it's not there to help you!

Even after knowing all this, i will at least try to hit a 100 pride points at the very least, till maybe SEGA patches up D6 again.

good job TONG, appreciate you share this with us.
it is no longer as fun as D5 anymore, not able to create senario like in the comic.

however, this is the part where i feel strange about:

when MENG@ battle for this scene, he was at behind or leading ahead?
if he is at behind, it does not makes sense. why? the machine mercy to MENG@ and decided to let him win for this round?
could this be when that happen, the opponent's internet was disconnected?
i recall we had a few discussions about this, even myself had met this situation once where it was at tsubaki uh.
myself and opponent was running thru some continuous corners with speed about 100kmh++, suddently his car stand still infront of me and when my car bang over, its like the opponent car is a divider at the middle of the road, hard solid.
when i almost reach the finish line, i purposely waited for the countdown clock to see whether he will chase up or not. after 10sec++, there is an indicator in the middle of the screen in blue font showed that 'the opponent car now is replaced by computer to continue the race'. pardon my japanese, but that was what i understood when it appeared on the screen.
anyone experience that before?

This post has been edited by lembu82 on May 8 2011, 06:55 PM

On hindsight, it looks like Sega wants to implement a system where no one is able to rely on just boost to win battles but the ghost car issue is quite the turn-off.

This post has been edited by LancE.Ryousuke on May 8 2011, 05:53 PM

Great article and thanks for sharing. This explains alot on why we meet such difficult opponents..due to the win ratio. So looks like eventually if we maintain a ~50% ratio at Lv99 we will eventually be Masters+ either way. (would somewhat explain why I never meet anyone with Masters at all with my FD).

In a way, those who played 1.0 alot are screwed when they play in 1.1? As most people do carry a lot of high win ratios in 1.0.

@yakiniku : I think you are still carrying an "average" win ratio, and if per the article you are at Masters+. Since pride pts are apparently not a factor, you could just be purely unlucky that you get Rainbow auras often (which all of them are going to be Masters+)?.

But when my FD was about your area (400 pride, 200 wins), yes I do also encounter Rainbows already, though not on the "almost every game" extent as you

I really do not like the boost in this game where it screws up your handling to the point the car is not drivable.....

@hkpoorguy : The JP official website here suggests there are actually four titles:

ROOKIE / CHALLENGE / MASTERS / MASTERS+

I have never seen anyone get Challenge opponents over here though, so I'm not sure what fits that criteria. Furthermore, I believe that transferred cards from V5 will start at Masters rank as I from personal experience since I start playing online battle have never encountered anyone below "Masters". Also track selection seems to be limited for Rookie (to 3 maps).

What Meng@ experience actually happened to me before.

Usui Clockwise, from start (after initial opponent boost of course) to middle of lap 2 i was in front, then suddenly the opponent zoom pass me at C121 due to a small mistake I made (but I was still behind him by 10-15m after that), then just before the final left where we need to drift (before finish line), suddenly my opponent stopped completely. And I ran away after that to win. I note that there is no brake light on when he suddenly stopped. So before the finish line I stopped, and true enough, the advantage distance is not moving. I didn't get any indicator like yours.

This post has been edited by Phoenix_Cypher_K1 on May 8 2011, 07:12 PM

Cypher explains the situation where MENG@ was facing.
The main idea is, the opponent's car suddenly stop completely without any movements. At the same time when you stop your car completely to 0 kmh, the distance meter will remain a constant value (where normally the distance should be decreasing even opponent's car is walking slowly), this can only come to a conclusion which the opponent's car passes the finish line.

I think IDAS6AA version 1.1 has made online battles an entirely different thing.

The boost system is no longer as linear and buttery smooth like ID5 because you only get bouts of boost along areas that you do not need.

I have noted in battles sometimes that after I overtake my opponent before a section that ALWAYS had boost, I avoided being boosted and my opponent instead got the boost and I can see them crashing into the walls and slowly down a lot.

This is rather ridiculous because the driver lagging behind already has disadvantage (such as the opponent in front of him blocking his view, blocking his racing line) and he still has to deal with ridiculous boost at important sections and this altogether makes it a no no for him.

Have you guys noted the boost structure in online TAG battles? It seems to be much more manageable and better than 1v1 online battles and I hope SEGA can adjust it.

As for LOUIS's great increase in pride points, we can conclude that either he is really great with 1.1 (which I doubt so because even our pro's like WINNER find it ridiculous that you get boosted in sections that YOU DO NOT and NEVER WANT TO have boost) or that he's probably on a 1.0 machine.

I hope that by the time sega release the new FT86 car, they will do a patch up for the battle structure.

I haven't played online tag much lately but from observation of other players, yes it is much easier to manage. Heck I'd like to have THAT kind of boost in single battle.

As for Louis, yes, I also do believe he is on 1.0 machine....I haven't seen anyone else's pride points go up at such a fast rate after 1.1's release except him. Heck, the number one pride ranker's pride points has been the same for a long time. During the 1.0 days the number just keeps going up.

Are there still any 1.0's left in HK and SG as I understand that previously some machines simply refuse to update? Perhaps you can still get easy (though bugged) wins there.

what i do not understand is the explaination for this senario. as per my explaination above, i had this scene before. no brake light, that is why i bang directly to the opponent's car.
so now this a bug or what? why the machine feel mercy and allow the player at the back to win?

what are the differences between this senario compare with online battle that suddently disconnected at one side?

I think the scenario diff was..yours was a real disconnect as you even got the indicator that tells you the race will be replace by CPU car.

Mine was I waited till time nearly went to 0 (had plenty of time since this game Time Extensions are very very generous), and he still didn't move from the same advantage. And I have no indicator that tells me that there has been a disconnect.

And since my case was so near the finish line, there's a good chance he already finish the race on his side.

I had this situation before as well. Was on Irohazaka DH and the opponent stopped as if he just ran through a brick wall.

There wasn't even deceleration of brake lights. The car just stopped as if it were glued and bolted on the ground just before the finish line and I took the win.

This has happened to me before as well on Akagi UH. Version 1.0 had stupid online battles that felt more like a TA run than a battle to me and Version 1.1 now makes it ridiculously challenging for the wrong reasons.

I wonder when is Sega getting this right....

As for the release of the FT-86 concept, I would really love to see them include cars like the Nissan GTR R35 as well as the Lexus LF-A (that would probably be too sick a car....)

Regarding the titles, I have a new card currently now @ Lv55 (transfer from V5), I suspect the rank is Master+ because I am meeting Master+ opponents almost all the freaking time. I did start off meeting low leveled "Master" opponents when I sat down to play, but by the third game and beyond (I was only at the time what, level 15?) I started meeting Master+ opponents already (and yes at my level, meeting rainbow opponents is super awkward). But my win rate is about ~50% (win 1 lose 1 most of the time)...somehow it doesn't fit with the bolded below

If anything, I don't see why I should be in Master+ class so soon. And I'd thought a string of defeats wud push me back down to Master, but I still keep getting Master+ opponents

This post has been edited by Phoenix_Cypher_K1 on May 14 2011, 09:26 AM

Sometimes it also depends whether there is enough MASTER players in the pool..if there are insufficient and you win-loss profile is not too bad..you can still keep on facing MASTER+ players..Server has to reserve the MASTER players to those will weaker skill levels.

That would be weird to have insufficient number of Master players in the pool given that I'd expect that group to be bigger than Masters+.

Today all my online battles with the same card (now at Lv68) were against Masters+ players (all of them with pride >100, sometimes even comes with rainbow) =.= and with a very lousy win rate (I say, less than 40%), and I still didn't drop down to Masters (I guess?).

This post has been edited by Phoenix_Cypher_K1 on May 15 2011, 07:31 AM

Then, your statement can be true..Indeed, the figures I given are only by observation...That's just a rough phenomenon but may not be exactly the truth case.

I'm trying to see if losing continuously helps any to drop back to Masters...so far, effort is quite fruitless.

There is no need to try that..
because if u drop ur status to MASTER..
obviously you win-loss profile will still be better than most of the MASTER..
In that way, most of the time will be you opponent choosing the map.
Its not funny if your opponent always choose Happographa..

Hm...I'm ok with Happo..that's my HC now and it's the only one that I can win at most of the time in 1.1. Now Nagao or Iro, that one is annoying (and I get it all the time now...)

I'll just stick to Masters+ then....

This post has been edited by Phoenix_Cypher_K1 on May 15 2011, 11:13 PM

For Japanese, excluding the top players in the ranking, usually those performing well in Happographa will have an excellent record for that particular course, but for other courses they usually suck. This provides them a high chance to choose the course and defeat others easily by choosing Happographa.

In terms of battle strategies, Happographa is a rather safe course to win if u perform reasonably well. This is because the tight corners at CP1 and CP4 make it very difficult to travel in high speed and to overtake opponent even with boost.

Battling in Happographa requires extra guts especially when the opponent performs well. I have tried once accelerating my car to 5 gear at CP1 on OB Dry, and makes the opponent crash completely for the win.

I suck real bad in Happo and I'm only managing a 2'41 for OB dry. It's almost always DEATH when I get carried there. Anyway, how do you even accelerate beyond 4th gear for CP1 in OB dry let alone gear 5?

I think I nee to work on Happo more before the event. As for battles now, I'm only able to win on AKAGI UH, Irohazaka UH, AKAGI DH and Irohazaka DH. I don't think I stand any chance of winning on the other maps. Then again, I don't believe that all the Japanese players are really that good!

I've actually noted down the TA timings for quite a number of Japanese opponents that I lost to In a partly at course and a great number of them were actually quite a bit slower than me in that particular course but when it comes to online battles, the computer simply doesn't want to let me overtake! It is ridiculous! First they win the startup and next they block ALL the corners and to make matters worse, give me ridiculous boost at tight corners and cut it off the moment I wall rape because of my car losing control or when I hit the rear end of my opponents car.

This makes online battle really frustrating and stupid. The other day when I was playing, I met a dude who told me that he's been battling online for the entire day and lost ALL of his battles as he could not find a way to overtake without screwing up.

Sega really needs to adjust the battle boost structure to make it more playable!

This post has been edited by yakiniku on May 16 2011, 04:21 AM

Use your opponent's car as a shield when you attempt to force a pass....even if you have minor taps on the wall as long as you don't get hit the wall too hard your accel can keep going. I hit 160 once this way (this is OB CP1) and you can force a pass at crazy high speeds. Yes this speed is definitely impossible to do in TA, but hey, since this boost is so useless otherwise, might as well use it to benefit you.

It is a high risk high return thing, because should you fail at doing it, you get left behind (and have to contend with the craptastic boost handling the game gives you for the rest of the game...until at least you catch up).

Most of my wins now are from Happo OB/IB and Usui CW...with the occassional Tsukuba and Akagi....i have almost no wins in Nagao and Iro.....do very poorly there. In fact in 1.1 i have not won in Iro at all

This post has been edited by Phoenix_Cypher_K1 on May 16 2011, 05:11 AM

Cypher understands what I mean..It is relatively easy to take the opponent's car as shield because the road is narrow.

For yakiniku's case, you have to train to use the opponent's car as shield, sometimes accelerating to a speed beyond TAs to overtake the opponent.
Sometimes you may need brake to avoid serious hit but at much more occasions you should have to force yourself to overtake.

I understand the concept of the shield thing as that's what I use in Akagi. Whenever I do an overtake, I make sure that my car TOUCHES the opponents car because i realize only then, will you have your boost even if you touch the walls....

If you attempt a pass without your car touching your opponent's car and u scrape the wall even for just a wee bit, you will slow down...Its weird isn't it?

I guess for Happo you just have to do the squeezing force pass method more often. However, for Happo OB, if I were to lead till CP3, I'll most definitely screw up on CP4 as I have no idea how to go about turning those corners yet...Need to practice more....Same thing goes for IB...I always screw up on CP1...