An Attempt to Model a New FIA Points System

[Jeeves_ACBC]

There has been much conversation on, mainly the "FIA Race Discussion" thread, about the FIA points system. The main issue pointed out is that there is incentive for top split drivers to drop into lower DR splits in order to score good points more reliably. Furthermore, a mid-A lobby winner will get the same points as 10th place in the top split. So the top drivers in each region can fight contested races mid-pack, and still get non-satisfactory points for their skill and overall race pace. These are only 2 of many issues others have raised, but these are the 2 I intended to tackle.

I will show 2 different models for a potential change to the points system. It is by no means perfect, but I think it more fairly assigns points to each lobby based than the current system. These models are somewhat flexible equations and can be tuned based upon any suggestions you may have. Please see the graphs and charts below for a visual representation. I write an extensive explanation of each model and their equations are further below if you care to read it all.

(sorry for the blurry images, for some reason when copying from Excel, they lose their sharpness)

For comparison's sake, I used several different tiers of lobby to make sure that each lobby will be treated fairly by the models. I assumed 73k for top split, 65k for 2nd split, then 50k, 40k, 30k, and 20k for representative A+/A, A, A/B, and B lobbies. On each of the graphs I show where the winner of each lobby would position in the top split as well as successive higher tier lobby. A general goal of mine was to put the winner of 2nd split at around 5th top tier points. Additionally, I tried to make the winner of a lobby get the same points for about 10th in a 10k higher lobby; but this was not strictly held. I made no attempt to fix the actual driver rating system since that would be much harder to model and test its affects without a lot of player data.

First, the current points system is a quite simple calculation. The maximum points for 1st place = avg DR/24, rounded to the nearest point. Last place gets 0 points and it is linear gaps between each successive place. For example, a top split room with 73k avg DR will have 3042 pts available, and 160 points between each car.

My first model is one that has been suggested several times; have base points for all races. No longer will the last finisher get 0 points. This model will assign base points to all lobbies by simply dividing the maximum points by a factor. I present here a 50% base points system. I also played with 33% base points but decided gaps between lobbies weren't quite big enough. For example, the 73k avg DR lobby will still have 3042 pts for 1st place as in the current system, but now last place is guaranteed 1521 pts. Now the gaps between each successive position will be smaller as a result, with only 80 pt gaps.

For the second model, I wanted to create non-linear gaps between each position as well as a non-linear progression for maximum points in higher lobbies. So now, rather than the gap between 1st to 2nd and 10th to 11th being the same, you get a larger reward for gaining higher positions. For example, in the 73k DR lobby, the gap from 1st to 2nd is 109 pts, whereas 10th to 11th is 78 points. Additionally, the maximum points get smaller more quickly as DR is reduced. This helps keep each tier of lobby slotted in terms of points. So now is will be more difficult for B-rated drivers to have similar points to A-rated drivers, and similarly for A drivers with A+ drivers. Some may see this as an advantage, so your overall season score better reflects your skill level. However, this will also adversely affect manufacturers with no top-tier representation. This is still somewhat a work-in-progress, but I am mostly satisfied with the model shown. Additionally, I feel like lower lobbies are overly closely bunched in terms of points since the maximum is now quite small.

An explanation of the actual equation is as follows:
Positions 1-20 are assigned a "position factor" (PF). The equation is a power function; PF=(1.037)^(1-Pos). So 1st place gets a 1.00, 2nd place 0.96, 5th place 0.86, and so on to 20th place at 0.50. This factor is the same for all lobby tiers. The 1.037 was chosen because this results in 20th place receiving 50% of total points.

To calculate the actual points for each position, I used a logarithm and power function to get the desired points "curve".
Total Points = PF*(DR/29)*log(30*DR/75000)^0.5. DR = avg driver rating for the lobby.

I multiply by the position factor (PF) and a scaling factor (29) in order to get the max top tier points near 3042 for 73k lobby. Inside the logarithm, I normalized the DR by dividing by max DR of 75k, then multiplied by a "log factor" (30) to tune the curves. The rate of change is for each tier is affected by the "rate factor" (0.5). Each of these factors were tuned until I got as good of a model as I could. I still feel like this equation is overly complicated and could use some re-tooling to get a similar result. But so far this is the best I found.

For fun, I also made a model based on "real" FIA points of 25, 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 1. I scaled this up for 20 positions and 3042 max points. I don't think anyone would be happy and would make everyone's complaints with the current system worse...lol.

Let me know what you think and how this can be improved. This was mainly a fun exercise for me while procrastinating at work and while sitting in my hotel on my current business trip.

 

[breeminator]

I haven't spent much time thinking about what you've already done, but one important element that isn't in your current analysis is scores only being used from 1 in 4 races, if someone takes part in every race. One way to incorporate that would be with a Monte Carlo simulation where you have a probability distribution for each driver's finishing position. The reason why this is an important element is it makes it more beneficial to race in a higher split, because you only need to get lucky in 1 in 4 races to do better than you would in a lower split where you might consistently finish high up, but with a capped score.

So a driver might get e.g. 2200 points almost all the time in a lower split, but in a higher split, if they race 4 times, they might get 0, 1000, 1800 and 2600 points, say. Only the 2600 points race would count, so they're better off in the higher split. So you can't equalise the scoring across splits without taking that into account.

 

[Jeeves_ACBC]

@breeminator I did think about the 1 in 4 races counting, but I didn't use it as major factor; perhaps I should have given it more attention. I didn't mention it above, but I targeted 5th place as the crossover point because in general if you are going to be competitive in your tier level, only top 5 finishes (or even podiums) will be the races that count for you. It is true though, that being in the top splits is the only way to give you the opportunity to get major points.

However, it is an interesting idea to use some sort of statistical analysis tools (e.g. Monte Carlo, DOE, ANOVA) to better simulate different models. I would love to get the list of players from top 5 splits with DR before and after for a whole season and try to simulate results with different models. See what types of factors are most important.

 

[Majorwolf72]

Well, great work, but now we can be sure that this is never going to happen. Japanese will not adapt anything they haven’t come up with themselves.

 

[vvise]

i think something like this is a pretty great idea. base starting points for higher lobbies makes sense.

 

[SpecMiata-JSW]

Wow, well done sir! Kudos!

 

[breeminator]

Looking at the points some people scored for yesterday's Nations Cup races, I was struck by how the points were inversely related to the driver standard. I got 1400 for winning a 34k lobby. Someone else got 1100 from a 48k lobby. Someone else 600 from a 56k lobby. This seems rather unfair when I know that if we were all in the same lobby, the 56k driver would beat the 48k driver who would beat the 34k driver.

IF what we want is to more accurately capture how good everyone is, there is a pretty simple solution - award points derived from post-race driver rating. So if I go into my 34k lobby and win, my post-race DR is 35.5k, so I get 355 points. If I'd come last, my post-race DR would be 32.5k, 325 points. You'd need a way to deal with 75k people, I'd suggest 10 bonus points for each person you beat who has a post-race DR of 75k.

This would still provide an incentive to place as high as possible in your race, but additionally, you'd want to maximise your DR going into the race, as it wouldn't suffer from the problem the current system has where you're always better off racing a little below your true DR, as it's much better to finish close to 1st than to finish 10th at a little higher DR.

However, I have a feeling that while this system would give a more accurate reflection of driver standard, PD actually don't want to do that, and I think they might be right to not want to do that. I think they want the whole thing to have a significant element of chaos and lottery. It's only because a race can be such a complete disaster that it becomes so exhilarating when a race goes really well. Maybe something along the lines of the suggestions in the OP would strike a nice balance between predictability and lottery.

 

[Jeeves_ACBC]

I got 1400 for winning a 34k lobby. Someone else got 1100 from a 48k lobby. Someone else 600 from a 56k lobby.

So the winning points is determined by the average DR of all players in a lobby. So the points could be skewed if there are few entries (or low SR too I think). Thus if the top player and bottom player have vastly different DR, then the points can seem weird.

award points derived from post-race driver rating.

I agree that there needs to be an incentive to always improve DR. The situation is clear when people want to stay in 2nd split in order to stay competitive whereas top split wouldn't net valuable points, such as myself and @vvise last night. Thus why I tried to separate the points spread between splits further in my model by making it non-linear.

However I don't think your solution would work the way you want. The way DR is calculated is generally a zero sum game. All DR gained and lost by players in a lobby is equal (in general, there are exceptions). Finishing 10th in a competitive lobby won't net you very different points than the winner. Thus actually removing the incentive to finish high. What you are proposing would require a rework of the DR model (which can be argued is needed as well)

Read below for details on how DR is currently calculated.
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/thre...-increase-your-dr.385706/page-2#post-12655541

 

[breeminator]

I don't think this solution would work the way you want. The way DR is calculated is generally a zero sum game. All DR gained and lost by players in a lobby is equal (in general, there are exceptions). Finishing 10th in a competitive lobby won't net you very different points than the winner. Thus actually removing the incentive to finish high. What you are proposing would require a rework of the DR model (which can be argued is needed as well)

Read below for details on how DR is currently calculated.
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/thre...-increase-your-dr.385706/page-2#post-12655541

I understand how it works, and I gave an example in my post - there seems to be an upper limit of about 1500 DR you can gain or lose from a race, barring crossing a boundary between ratings, so it would be 325 points for last and 355 points for first, if you go in at 34k, for example. But I think this would much more fairly reflect driver standard as the last place driver in a higher ranked lobby is still typically better than the first place driver in a lower ranked lobby, if everyone is racing at their true DR.

 

[Jeeves_ACBC]

I got 1400 for winning a 34k lobby. Someone else got 1100 from a 48k lobby. Someone else 600 from a 56k lobby

I misread this at first. I understand what you mean now. Sorry. Currently, the points incentivize high finishing positions in high lobbies. But doesn't reward you for finishing outside of the top 5 or 10.

I understand how it works, and I gave an example in my post - there seems to be an upper limit of about 1500 DR you can gain or lose from a race, barring crossing a boundary between ratings, so it would be 325 points for last and 355 points for first, if you go in at 34k, for example. But I think this would much more fairly reflect driver standard as the last place driver in a higher ranked lobby is still typically better than the first place driver in a lower ranked lobby, if everyone is racing at their true DR.

I can see how each person can have their own feeling on what a fair allocation of points are. You are putting much more emphasis on DR than the current system as well as my proposal. Something similar to what you suggest could possibly work if DR was reworked to better reflect your overall skill.

I would tend to argue, that a 34k and 30k driver are very similar skill level, and the race pace would also be similar. A driver in a 34k lobby, but crashes twice and finishes last would get more points than a winner in a 30k lobby who had a flawless race (if I understand your suggestion properly). To me, it seems the winning points are not allocated correctly in this case.

 

[breeminator]

I would tend to argue, that a 34k and 30k driver are very similar skill level, and the race pace would also be similar. A driver in a 34k lobby, but crashes twice and finishes last would get more points than a winner in a 30k lobby who had a flawless race (if I understand your suggestion properly). To me, it seems the winning points are not allocated correctly in this case.

My experience of working my way up from 0 to 34k over the last few months is that the difference is significant every step of the way. In the last race, pole compared to top split worked out at about 0.07 seconds per 1000 DR, so at the same rate, 34k would be 0.28 seconds per lap quicker than 30k. If I had qualified 0.28 slower, I'd have started 8th rather than 2nd. That roughly matches my subjective experience of how much harder it has become to qualify up front each time I add 1000-1500 DR. I think a lot of the times when this appears to not be the case are due to people racing at a lower DR than their true DR. When I was in the 20-30k range, whenever I looked up the people who were competing for the top places, they were almost always people who had been at a higher DR, but had dropped down to a lower DR. The current system strongly incentivises this, and after the last but one race I did, I actually saw someone I had raced against appearing to deliberately drop their DR by starting at the back of a Daily Race C grid, then making no attempt at all to drive fast, they just trundled around well off the back. They weren't doing it to recover SR.

Secondly, if someone at 30k feels aggrieved that their flawless victory scored fewer points than a 34k driver who had a disaster and finished last, they would be totally free to attempt to increase their DR to 34k before the race. The situation couldn't persist anyway. After the win, the 30k driver would be up to 31.5k, and after the last place, the 34k driver would be down to 32.5k. So it couldn't keep happening without the ex-30k driver becoming higher rated than the ex-34k driver, and starting to score more points. It would change things from everyone trying to push their DR down to everyone trying to get their DR as high as possible, which I feel is more how it should be. At the moment it's like a race to the bottom where you get a cascading effect of people lowering their DR, and forcing their new "easy to beat" competitors to in turn lower their DR, and so on down the DR scale.

 

[MrCooper]

I generally like @breeminator's idea, but a problem with it right now is that DR can be gamed with daily races, allowing players to raise their DR higher than they could with FIA races only. As an extreme example, grinding ~3000 DR in daily races would pretty much guarantee getting more points from the next FIA race, regardless of the result.

If FIA races used their own separate DR, I think it might work well. Of course, there are downsides to that as well, e.g. it would take longer for newcomers to FIA races to reach their true level of competitiveness.

 

[breeminator]

I generally like @breeminator's idea, but a problem with it right now is that DR can be gamed with daily races, allowing players to raise their DR higher than they could with FIA races only. As an extreme example, grinding ~3000 DR in daily races would pretty much guarantee getting more points from the next FIA race, regardless of the result.

I've actually found it easier to gain DR from FIA races than daily races. For example, the recent Gr.3 Suzuka Nations Cup, my free practice time was around 200th in EMEA when I looked, and when I clicked on people around me on the leaderboard, they had good ratings, generally 30k+, some even over 50k. When I do the same thing for the daily race leaderboard from when we had Gr.3 Suzuka recently, some people around the same time have very low ratings, sub 10k, the time was outside the top 1000, and I just tried a sample of 5 drivers around that time and 80% of them had ratings in the 20-25k range. So it generally seems much more competitive in daily races, for whatever reason.

Another thing I meant to mention with my suggested scheme - while it might seem like 325 points vs 355 points isn't much of a difference, those few points would be vital for doing well over the season relative to your rating.

But as I said, where it would lose out is the whole table would become relatively predictable. I'm currently ahead of a much higher rated player in my county table, and that has only been made possible by the fact that he quite often scores 0 points in a high split. Depending on your point of view, the fact that this can happen could be seen as making it interesting, or unfair.

 

[MrCooper]

I've actually found it easier to gain DR from FIA races than daily races. For example, the recent Gr.3 Suzuka Nations Cup, my free practice time was around 200th in EMEA when I looked, and when I clicked on people around me on the leaderboard, they had good ratings, generally 30k+, some even over 50k. When I do the same thing for the daily race leaderboard from when we had Gr.3 Suzuka recently, some people around the same time have very low ratings, sub 10k, the time was outside the top 1000, and I just tried a sample of 5 drivers around that time and 80% of them had ratings in the 20-25k range. So it generally seems much more competitive in daily races, for whatever reason.

There's incentive to post a good practice time for a daily race, as it determines the starting position. Some players don't bother posting (good) practice times for FIA races, as one pretty much has to prepare in practice lobbies anyway.

Anyway, the main difference is in the matchmaking and number of attempts available. With FIA races, IME the lobbies are always pretty closely matched, and as DR rises, it becomes correspondingly harder to get a good result. With daily races, there are always some time slots where it's possible to grind, so somebody with enough time / determination could get relatively large amounts of FIA points even while always finishing towards the end of the field in FIA races.

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

They should use the normal FIA points system. 25pts for the win down to 1 for 10th place, points only given in the top split races and no drop scores.

As far as I can see points are only there to qualify people for the tournaments so backmarkers like me who have no chance of making it don't need to score any. It also solves the problem of a winner in a E-rated lobby scoring more points than last in the top group.

 

[MIE1992]

Well, great work, but now we can be sure that this is never going to happen. Japanese will not adapt anything they haven’t come up with themselves.

I’m not so sure if painting with such a broad brush is the best idea we have, here. I’m sure that like any other sufficiently large group of people, it’s better to make these behavorial assessments on a smaller scale, if not by a person-by-person basis. I’m just not sure if I 100% buy into the “Japan is xenophobic & insular” meme. Maybe partially, but only to a relatively limited extent.

I mean, I don’t think Japan is any more insular than Englishmen are somehow more-cultured, than Germans lack a sense of humor, or that Brazillians eat sopa de macaco. They all may have bases in reality, but be extra careful not to let memes exaggerate & over-represent it.

EDIT: I think we should examine what PD’s goal is, what their vision is (for both GTS and its successor in the next mainline games) and how potential changes to the system(s) in place would help to realize that vision. Not only more intangible, emotional things, but also certain metrics. For example, the number of consistently active Sport Mode participants, but even then, the timespan could vary. Average active players in Sport Mode per day? Week? Month? We can have a lot of good ideas, but I think the best ideas will dovetail with the goals that PD has, and I’m not sure if we really have access to that information.

However, if I do end up attending this weekend’s FIAGTC event in NYC, I’m hoping I may be able to network with somebody either at PD, or represents them, establish a contact, go from there. Naturally, I’d be happy to sign any NDAs, (I’m not interested in being a spy from the inside) but I’m simply curious why some things can or cannot be done, added, etc. as well as know the goals of not just each title or main mode, but even more minute stuff like various UI/UX/QoL elements.

 

[Jeeves_ACBC]

I agree. I'd like to keep any discussion about the points system. Not how our own interpretations of Japanese culture may affect the direction of GTS.

PD's choices were likely driven by a balance of needs. Ranking top players for live events in addition to attracting a wide audience so the masses can have fun competition.

The model I created was just a fun way for me to procrastinate in Excel. My opinion is that this is a small improvement to the current points system.

 

[breeminator]

There's incentive to post a good practice time for a daily race, as it determines the starting position. Some players don't bother posting (good) practice times for FIA races, as one pretty much has to prepare in practice lobbies anyway.

Anyway, the main difference is in the matchmaking and number of attempts available. With FIA races, IME the lobbies are always pretty closely matched, and as DR rises, it becomes correspondingly harder to get a good result. With daily races, there are always some time slots where it's possible to grind, so somebody with enough time / determination could get relatively large amounts of FIA points even while always finishing towards the end of the field in FIA races.

I just tried a daily race C with a 20k rated account. The standard was considerably higher than a 35k FIA lobby. I can only speculate as to why it happens, but it wasn't just a case of QTs, people's race pace was much better. The standard of driving was also absolutely filthy compared to FIA races. So wherever these magic time slots are, I haven't found them yet. This is only vaguely related to the thread, just the question of whether DR can be gamed via daily races to exploit it being an input to FIA points.

 

[MIE1992]

I just tried a daily race C with a 20k rated account. The standard was considerably higher than a 35k FIA lobby. I can only speculate as to why it happens, but it wasn't just a case of QTs, people's race pace was much better. The standard of driving was also absolutely filthy compared to FIA races. So wherever these magic time slots are, I haven't found them yet. This is only vaguely related to the thread, just the question of whether DR can be gamed via daily races to exploit it being an input to FIA points.

Maybe a fundamental part of the issue is the number of timeslots, so the potential population is spread out over entering so many different time slots. Maybe it’d be better if there were about ten daily races per day, in a time period that would make it ideal for most players in that region to race. So for my region, the median time would probably be like, 5pm?