A couple solutions to dirty drivers

[MoxGoat]

1. Increase rewards for clean racing over position (Maybe a currency for exotic unlocks similar to mileage points or unlock more features within the game with clean racing)

2. Ability to blacklist drivers so matchmaking won't put you with them

3. Enable heavy damage in all sport mode races. Would discourage ramming bumping as nobody wins. Could still be the whole I'm taking you down with me thing.

4. Report feature/commendation feature. Race clean and drivers may give you commendations show how reputable you are. Drive dirty and with enough reports within a certain time frame maybe they could be suspended from participating in seasonal events/daily races for that week/weeks. Also force them to watch the clean driving video again lol

Any other solutions or ideas?

Edit: Jules mentioned some different types of dirty racers below. I believe these solutions fall into the category of competitive dirty racers. Ideally for the other categories of dirty racers the current system will filter them out over time. I truly believe most people at A and S ranks drive cleanly (I'm currently A) however there is the odd A rank (maybe S rank too but I haven't experienced this) that decides that his brakes were not working on the final corners of a race. And yea he might get a little SR downgrade but generally no penalty is given and they ride the lightning to the finish.

Imo there are some different kind of "dirty" (not actually all of them are dirty by definition) races/drivers:
-Griefers/Trolls:these people enjoy ruining others people games/races.They dont care about playing a game that is all about "demolution derby".So NSF is not the best "playground" for them.
-Competitive "dirty" drivers:these people are so serious about winning -even one place in a race- that they'll do anything to get that win/one place.Many of them are "serious" about sim racing but their mentality is just that:win at all costs.And if the said "sim" makes it easier for them to race dirty and get wins,they happily do it
-"Casuals" (or you can use another word for them):usually are people that are not "hardcore" sim racers.They dont care about realism but they only want to have fun racing.Most of the time,they have little/zero experience to "sims" titles and have the "plug/play and have fun" mentality.Usually they make a lot of dirty moves due to getting over excited or because of their inexperience. They do not have -necessarily- a goal to race in a "dirty" manner,many times are super carefull and show a lot of respect but they do make a lot of mistakes that some "hardcore" people describe as "dirty intended moves".
Either way the problem remains the same:the rating system should be able to make groups according to their skill (pace)/race etiquette.If it does not,then you'll always have races tha will mix people from different skills/etiquette.

 

[Dan]

I can see 3 and 4 being abused very easily. Trolls will be trolls; they don't care about losing races as long as they can ruin the event for others. Also, anyone can report another driver even if they're completely innocent.

 

[ceres2000]

Number 1 and 3 are definitely something that PD should look at. Especially 3.

I mean if you're so desperate to get to the top of the pack getting damage and being forced to concede would be disastrous. On the other hand like you said I'll take you down with me would be a real concern.

Aside from that a stop and go penalty rather than the work it off sec penalty would be so much better.

Even better would be a DQ.

 

[Johnnypenso]

1. Increase rewards for clean racing over position (Maybe a currency for exotic unlocks similar to mileage points or unlock more features within the game with clean racing)

2. Ability to blacklist drivers so matchmaking won't put you with them

3. Enable heavy damage in all sport mode races. Would discourage ramming bumping as nobody wins. Could still be the whole I'm taking you down with me thing.

4. Report feature/commendation feature. Race clean and drivers may give you commendations show how reputable you are. Drive dirty and with enough reports within a certain time frame maybe they could be suspended from participating in seasonal events/daily races for that week/weeks. Also force them to watch the clean driving video again lol

Any other solutions or ideas?

Definitely disagree with #4. Watching the video again is too harsh of a punishment

 

[qwbufp]

Stop and go would be much better only if the right person gets the penalty. You would need stewards to double check the system.

 

[ZnoopTree]

This might be a problem now, but give it a month or two and all those kids will get bored and move on to the next game. The serious racers will remain.

 

[tavia4x4]

4. Report feature/commendation feature. Race clean and drivers may give you commendations show how reputable you are. Drive dirty and with enough reports within a certain time frame maybe they could be suspended from participating in seasonal events/daily races for that week/weeks.

I think this is the seed of a good idea. As Dan mentioned, the innocent will get reported by those annoyed to be beaten.

However, if you could tag a driver as "don't put me in a race with this person", and they did not know about it, that would work in the short term. If someone is "tagged" by e.g. 15 players then they get a penalty / made to watch the video again etc. Of course, it would have to be a number of tags that was beyond one determined troll to reach, maybe they have to be from different IP's / not anyone on each other's friends list / timezone etc.

 

[GTP_randy]

This might be a problem now, but give it a month or two and all those kids will get bored and move on to the next game. The serious racers will remain.

This is the only realistic solution.

 

[evilcd]

This might be a problem now, but give it a month or two and all those kids will get bored and move on to the next game. The serious racers will remain.

They’ll be playing the new Need For Speed by the end of the week

 

[JulesDennis]

This might be a problem now, but give it a month or two and all those kids will get bored and move on to the next game. The serious racers will remain.

Many people think that this will happen.
But really:if I am a "troll" or "griefer" why should I stop using a game that has the biggest players base (in racing games)?There is no logic behind this.
More players=more people to mess up with.
Plus many "dirty" drivers are not "kids that will get bored and move on".
I met some really "mature" people that are fast and into "sim" racing games and were the worst people to race against (because or their dirty moves and tactics).
So the best way to deal with "dirty" racers is a proper penalty/SR system in order to isolate those players.There is no other solution (imo).

 

[zzz_pt]

Could you blacklist all the faster drivers so you win all the races?

The only 2 points I find somewhat reasonable are #1 and 3#. The others not so much. Could easily be exploited / abused.

 

[@nndr3w]

This might be a problem now, but give it a month or two and all those kids will get bored and move on to the next game. The serious racers will remain.

Need for speed payback is released in a few days. Lets hope they move there

 

[JulesDennis]

Need for speed payback is released in a few days. Lets hope they move there

Why they should move there?
I've seen so many people saying the same thing in these boards as an answer to "dirty" drivers.
This is not a solution its only a "hope" that somehow people that race in GTS will be all fair and clean drivers,while the system that is supposed to seperate clean/dirty drivers will remain the same.
I've seen so many "clean" drivers get mad with one person (doing something "dirty" even if that was an honest mistake and not intentional) and acting really dirty against them,so I know its not black/white -clean/dirty- all the time.
So please explain to me how all these people that at some time are going "dirty" are for some reason stop playing GTS online.

 

[@nndr3w]

Why they should move there?
I've seen so many people saying the same thing in these boards as an answer to "dirty" drivers.
This is not a solution its only a "hope" that somehow people that race in GTS will be all fair and clean drivers,while the system that is supposed to seperate clean/dirty drivers will remain the same.
I've seen so many "clean" drivers get mad with one person (doing something "dirty" even if that was an honest mistake and not intentional) and acting really dirty against them,so I know its not black/white -clean/dirty- all the time.
So please explain to me how all these people that at some time are going "dirty" are for some reason stop playing GTS online.

The last Need for speed game I played encouraged you to hit other cars (some sort of police chasing). I was basing my comment on that

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

They should at least turn on heavy damage during SR A Class and up. I get that they set the default SR at B to give everyone a fair shake so I don't expect them to run heavy damage there, but above that we all have decent control of the cars where if we hit a wall we know we blew it.

 

[JulesDennis]

The last Need for speed game I played encouraged you to hit other cars (some sort of police chasing). I was basing my comment on that

Imo there are some different kind of "dirty" (not actually all of them are dirty by definition) races/drivers:
-Griefers/Trolls:these people enjoy ruining others people games/races.They dont care about playing a game that is all about "demolution derby".So NSF is not the best "playground" for them.
-Competitive "dirty" drivers:these people are so serious about winning -even one place in a race- that they'll do anything to get that win/one place.Many of them are "serious" about sim racing but their mentality is just that:win at all costs.And if the said "sim" makes it easier for them to race dirty and get wins,they happily do it
-"Casuals" (or you can use another word for them):usually are people that are not "hardcore" sim racers.They dont care about realism but they only want to have fun racing.Most of the time,they have little/zero experience to "sims" titles and have the "plug/play and have fun" mentality.Usually they make a lot of dirty moves due to getting over excited or because of their inexperience. They do not have -necessarily- a goal to race in a "dirty" manner,many times are super carefull and show a lot of respect but they do make a lot of mistakes that some "hardcore" people describe as "dirty intended moves".
Either way the problem remains the same:the rating system should be able to make groups according to their skill (pace)/race etiquette.If it does not,then you'll always have races tha will mix people from different skills/etiquette.

 

[@nndr3w]

Why they should move there?
I've seen so many people saying the same thing in these boards as an answer to "dirty" drivers.
This is not a solution its only a "hope" that somehow people that race in GTS will be all fair and clean drivers,while the system that is supposed to seperate clean/dirty drivers will remain the same.
I've seen so many "clean" drivers get mad with one person (doing something "dirty" even if that was an honest mistake and not intentional) and acting really dirty against them,so I know its not black/white -clean/dirty- all the time.
So please explain to me how all these people that at some time are going "dirty" are for some reason stop playing GTS online.

Imo there are some different kind of "dirty" (not actually all of them are dirty by definition) races/drivers:
-Griefers/Trolls:these people enjoy ruining others people games/races.They dont care about playing a game that is all about "demolution derby".So NSF is not the best "playground" for them.
-Competitive "dirty" drivers:these people are so serious about winning -even one place in a race- that they'll do anything to get that win/one place.Many of them are "serious" about sim racing but their mentality is just that:win at all costs.And if the said "sim" makes it easier for them to race dirty and get wins,they happily do it
-"Casuals" (or you can use another word for them):usually are people that are not "hardcore" sim racers.They dont care about realism but they only want to have fun racing.Most of the time,they have little/zero experience to "sims" titles and have the "plug/play and have fun" mentality.Usually they make a lot of dirty moves due to getting over excited or because of their inexperience. They do not have -necessarily- a goal to race in a "dirty" manner,many times are super carefull and show a lot of respect but they do make a lot of mistakes that some "hardcore" people describe as "dirty intended moves".
Either way the problem remains the same:the rating system should be able to make groups according to their skill (pace)/race etiquette.If it does not,then you'll always have races tha will mix people from different skills/etiquette.

Agree, my comment was selfish as I don't play them

 

[Sean Renon]

1. Increase rewards for clean racing over position (Maybe a currency for exotic unlocks similar to mileage points or unlock more features within the game with clean racing)

2. Ability to blacklist drivers so matchmaking won't put you with them

3. Enable heavy damage in all sport mode races. Would discourage ramming bumping as nobody wins. Could still be the whole I'm taking you down with me thing.

4. Report feature/commendation feature. Race clean and drivers may give you commendations show how reputable you are. Drive dirty and with enough reports within a certain time frame maybe they could be suspended from participating in seasonal events/daily races for that week/weeks. Also force them to watch the clean driving video again lol

Any other solutions or ideas?

There is a small achievement for consecutive clean races - I've been trying to get past lvl 1 achievement of this for awhile, but it's so hard to get a clean race while also still racing fast, so I would agree that the clean racing bonus could become so much more valuable if you entice drivers better to do it.

Not sure blacklisting will work.

Enabling heavy damage is interesting, but I feel like the backlash from drivers who are at no fault would be very vocal.

I think the report/commend feature is something that could be very good. Dota 2 has a report function, and to limit the abuse - they only give you 3 reports. After awhile these reports replenish, but Dota's dev team (a very small team) reviews the reports to see if there was any abuse and they can levy after the fact penalties.
I think some type of report function could work, because the algorithm wouldn't flag you for review by a staff member until you've reached a certain number of reports - and with limited reports people will tend to only use them on particularly bad drivers, not just everyone who beats them.

Alternatively, you could make a commend feature, where if you drive well and somebody notices they can commend you after the race (only people who just raced with you in a daily or FIA race), this number will be view able before a race starts so people can see how many commends you've received.

 

[Mr616]

I think this is the seed of a good idea. As Dan mentioned, the innocent will get reported by those annoyed to be beaten.

However, if you could tag a driver as "don't put me in a race with this person", and they did not know about it, that would work in the short term. If someone is "tagged" by e.g. 15 players then they get a penalty / made to watch the video again etc. Of course, it would have to be a number of tags that was beyond one determined troll to reach, maybe they have to be from different IP's / not anyone on each other's friends list / timezone etc.

This is open to abuse imo. "He beat me and I don't want to race him again". This in tern will shrink the matchmaking pool. My experience with human nature would imply a lot of players blacklisting fast drivers so they don't get matched with them.

The same goes for damage. You wait 20-30 for a sport race to start, to then be taken out first corner and totalled. I'd rather have no damage, a bit of ghosting so once you are in a race, you can still finish without having to leave the lobby and re matchmake.

I do think the system currently in place needs to be left alone in the short term. Some of the idiots will leave in due course, and apart from one night of a bad lobby or two, my experiences have been really good and can only get better as the system sorts the wheat from the chaff. I'm not saying improvements cannot be made, but no kneejerk reactions that in turn worsen the experience.

I'm pleasantly shocked by the amount of fair clean driving by most I have encountered... and this is public lobbies racing with strangers.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

My solution at the current time is that all I can do is go race the best and cleanest race of my ability, avoid those that choose to ram or push you out of the way where possible and if my race craft is the majority of a clean nature then hopefully my SR will not take such a hit to go to a lower level.

So far that tactic has worked and with just over 100 sport races registered my SR rating has never fallen from the S range.

I will say that sometimes now that I will "hold my line" to someone that is trying to force their way past me as constantly always being the passive pushover gets old. I can say that that their have been cases where because someone hits me from the inside and I fight to keep my racing line that even though I received a penalty (which I would have unjustly received anyway just because the other driver hit my car).

I have in many cases been able to maintain my position on the track which did honestly feel better than receiving an unjust penalty and also losing the racing position to someone gaming the system and forcing their way through.

Another thing I try to refrain from doing is entering an online event on a track and or with a car that I am unfamiliar enough with to be able to maintain at least a reasonable race line and pace. I feel that the online race is not the place to be learning the ins and outs of a track or a cars handling abilities as mistake or screw ups affect other peoples races.

Learn the car and track off line and THEN enter the online events.

 

[Baron Blitz Red]

Ability to blacklist drivers so matchmaking won't put you with them

You already can... simply add them to the PSN "block player" list. Once you sign out and sign back in, you should never see them again.

Cheers

 

[VFOURMAX1]

The same goes for damage. You wait 20-30 for a sport race to start, to then be taken out first corner and totalled. I'd rather have no damage, a bit of ghosting so once you are in a race, you can still finish without having to leave the lobby and re matchmake.

Most problems occur when a clean racer is punted off the track from a hit to the rear entering a braking zone and corner.

When the game first came out I played with the "damage" feature off line trying to learn what it did both from a visual standpoint and performance standpoint.

Visually it mainly just scratches the paint but performance wise the main damage inflicted was from a front end hit on most vehicles. Depending on the severity of the hit the damage could be not noticeable at all, could be a loss of handling performance or a hard enough hit could "create" engine damage that could restrict power and RPM to different degrees restriction.

All damage requires a trip to pit lane to repair or restore the damaged vehicle to pre- crash performance. I think the only car that I am aware of that the rear end hit affected performance as much or more than a front end hit was a rear engine Porsche as the engine damage comes from the rear end hit.

Sure there will be cases where the damage may take an innocent racer out but this is a game where the percentage levels say that the aggressors receiving the front end damage will be the ones affected the most in the majority of the contact incidents and the reduced handling/performance of the vehicle post contact will have a much larger affect on that aggressors race than the position he may gain by dirty driving.

If the drivers that use the dirty driving tactics to advance their race/finish position now with high damage activated actually lose positions over the course of the race because of the contact they intentionally initiate then all racers whether driving dirty intentionally or just driving in a careless or in an over over their head style or pace my be more cautious and drive in a manner that results in cleaner racing for all.

 

[Corsa]

Could you blacklist all the faster drivers so you win all the races?

The only 2 points I find somewhat reasonable are #1 and 3#. The others not so much. Could easily be exploited / abused.

This is why blacklisting would never work.
Heavy damage like Project cars employs with engine failure has to be in if you're aiming to be a serious online racing game.

 

[DGXR]

This is the only realistic solution.

True, but this solution works only if players have the patience to wait it out. Nobody seems to have any patience anymore.

By the way, your avatar needs a user name like GTP_Ricky hehehe

 

[Never2fast1]

Damage absolutely needs to be on. How can you be a racing sim without damage? It is a huge part of racing. Accidents happen and the people involved are not always at fault. The current system of but dishing out time penalties, sometimes to the guy not at fault, is not working. At least damage would make them second guess using your car as their brakes.

 

[DGXR]

Damage absolutely needs to be on. How can you be a racing sim without damage? It is a huge part of racing. Accidents happen and the people involved are not always at fault. The current system of but dishing out time penalties, sometimes to the guy not at fault, is not working. At least damage would make them second guess using your car as their brakes.

Have you seen the huge pileups at the large NASCAR ovals? Talladega has "the big one" and it's called this for good reason. Typically one person makes a mistake and takes out 20 or more cars -- retired from the race, just like that. This is common and this is one big reason why I no longer follow NASCAR. So in a racing game, I'm not sure heavy damage is always a good thing. The issue is that the game provides a reward *and* a penalty for dirty driving. If there were no reward, it would not continue.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Have you seen the huge pileups at the large NASCAR ovals? Talladega has "the big one" and it's called this for good reason. Typically one person makes a mistake and takes out 20 or more cars -- retired from the race, just like that. This is common and this is one big reason why I no longer follow NASCAR. So in a racing game, I'm not sure heavy damage is always a good thing. The issue is that the game provides a reward *and* a penalty for dirty driving. If there were no reward, it would not continue.

And from what I have seen the reward within the game is advancing position at the expense of contact or wrecking the the car in front of them and as they continue on at worse with a penalty that they can drive off in the corners during the remaining laps the innocent car sent spinning into the wall loses multiple positions as other cars pass, an amount of time that in most cases he cannot catch up to race for the original position he was wrecked at no fault of his own out of and he probably got a 10 second penalty for hitting the wall as he went off track.

Now turning on damage may not help the guys situation that got hit in this scenario very much but if the dirty racer doing the ramming was attempting to take over say 5th position and got significant damage to his car as a result of the contact and it slowed his lap times by 3 seconds a lap and the only way to repair it was a trip to the pits and because of his reduced lap times he fell to 18th place over the course of the rest of the race now that would be a penalty for the dirty driving.

Also let that scenario become somewhat common and all of a sudden the dirty driving tactics will not look like such an attractive option and will occur at a much reduced frequency. Also the guys that dive bomb the first corner at a races start will probably reduce that tactic as well.

When you have waited 30 minutes for a daily race start time then intentionally causing damage to your vehicle early in a race will be a situation I am sure most will try to avoid.

Final result = less dirty racing more great clean racing.

 

[Cfft555]

As much as i believe damage is something that should be turned on in racing sims, i don't believe that it is viable.

At the top level these players are playing to be in a true simulation, tuning, damage, clean racing, full qualifying. This might be 10% of the player base.
80% of the player base are not interested in all of this, but want to race and try to race cleanly half of these might be experienced and skilled enough to do it consistently, they still make mistakes now and then and aren't fully aware of when a passing move is open or not really on.
The final 10% just don't care and play it like a non damage arcade sim.

Thes inexperienced players and 10% that dont care are the ones that cause the issue. When they hit someone who cares they then start complaining that the system is broken. Adding damage to this mix won't help you as they will still hit you and you will be hurt more than currently resulting in more butt hurt complaints.

The system that needs to be put in place is not damage but rather a way to weed out the 10%. The inexperienced ones there is nothing that can be done about.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

As much as i believe damage is something that should be turned on in racing sims, i don't believe that it is viable.

At the top level these players are playing to be in a true simulation, tuning, damage, clean racing, full qualifying. This might be 10% of the player base.
80% of the player base are not interested in all of this, but want to race and try to race cleanly half of these might be experienced and skilled enough to do it consistently, they still make mistakes now and then and aren't fully aware of when a passing move is open or not really on.
The final 10% just don't care and play it like a non damage arcade sim.

Thes inexperienced players and 10% that dont care are the ones that cause the issue. When they hit someone who cares they then start complaining that the system is broken. Adding damage to this mix won't help you as they will still hit you and you will be hurt more than currently resulting in more butt hurt complaints.

The system that needs to be put in place is not damage but rather a way to weed out the 10%. The inexperienced ones there is nothing that can be done about.

That is the purpose of the ranking systems, The SR rankings should if administered correctly split the racers up into different groups roughly by the number of racing incidents they have per racing mile or number of sectors completed or whatever the actual formula that is used to determine a racers SR ranking.

Those that slip through the ranking system somehow will still be caught up by the damage physics for making the racing a contact sport if the damage is turned on. Repeated infractions should send them back down to a lower SR rating. So the game has taken into account the different skill levels and even racing mindsets and there is a SR rating for all types and racing styles.

The crashers will race with other crashers and not be in the higher SR rankings screwing up the clean racers game if the system is administered and works as designed.

 

[Cfft555]

That is the purpose of the ranking systems, The SR rankings should if administered correctly split the racers up into different groups roughly by the number of racing incidents they have per racing mile or number of sectors completed or whatever the actual formula that is used to determine a racers SR ranking.

Those that slip through the ranking system somehow will still be caught up by the damage physics for making the racing a contact sport if the damage is turned on. Repeated infractions should send them back down to a lower SR rating. So the game has taken into account the different skill levels and even racing mindsets and there is a SR rating for all types and racing styles.

The crashers will race with other crashers and not be in the higher SR rankings screwing up the clean racers game if the system is administered and works as designed.

So really the only issue is that everyone starts at SR rank B forcing people who are not SR S or SR A to be playing against crashers. Another reason that Damage is not the answer as the crashers are put into the higher SR ranks early.

The whole system is built around SR if you drop down and race cleanly you will rise in rank, but you might actually be a dirtier racer at full race pace than someone at rank C who is not wanting or willing to drop back and waste races just building the rank up. Personally SR should not be based on clean sections, but rather close clean racing, clean passes, correct braking points and driving lines, its much harder to race at full pace in traffic and be clean than run at 85% pace with little to no traffic.