Competitive Racing License

[danardif1]

Was in a race today with damage on, leading after the first lap a car is ghosted ahead of me that is either the player not responding or just messing around, suddenly as I am just metres from the ghosted car it becomes 'solid' again and destroys my front end... lost 20 points because of leaving the room (it was a 10 lap race I'm not waiting in the garage all that time), ridiculous that the ghosting system so spectacularly failed there though.

 

[rono_thomas]

OK maybe I misunderstood the first part... are we on the same page that when for ease of typing we say "quitting counts equal to last" we really mean quitting puts them in a DNF position, in order?

A full damage lobby naturally gives an extra incentive for someone to stay, even if they are last, because it's more likely that someone ahead will have a problem. So no, lacking a penalty for quitting doesn't make them pointless at all.

But the rest, honestly, I can still only answer that by going back over what I've already said. Basically I think the core scoring system is good enough to stand on its own, without an extra penalty. We've moved on to talking about why people want to quit, what happens if you force them to stay, etc. All far more interesting than simply trying to win an unwinnable argument (and I mean that for both sides of the debate).

Certainly a winnable argument, you just gotta agree with me

Jokes aside Ill give what you said some thought and come back later 👍

 

[IBZ6L20VT]

Well, it looks that SMS is quite confident that someone will have +4000 skill point by the 20th of October...

Wishful thinking if you ask me, as we all started with 1500 points 2 weeks ago. No way of getting such a high score at this stage. Maybe +2000...

By the way, as a (very) funny side note, it looks like they don't care too much about cleanliness as the minimum safety rank is set to U. And we are wasting our time trying to be clean to climb the ladder... lol.

 

[rono_thomas]

@Outspacer

Ok so we’ve hashed each side of the issue lets see if we can move it somewhere to a resolution.

Your happy with no penalty a, Im happy with a full on penalty. So wheres the happy medium?

We are not going to find one if the penalty falls within the skill level, likewise it doesn’t sit inside the safety rating. The experience part could be used but for me that becomes a penalty you could ignore.

So I guess we are looking for something else. Thinking about your reasons for quitting would you accept that a serial quitter like every race, doesnt seem very likely this would happen, is the kind of quitter to be targeted, so a range of something like 3 out 5 races or even 2 out of 5 races would be the criteria to fit a penalty?

I personally prefer linking it to a race distance, which could be converted to a time, a bit like real world, cars don’t get classified if the dont complete a certain x amount.

Anything that falls beneath gets a penalty, over and above can quit and be classified last.

I think it’s important to make racers think.

 

[zr1chris]

View attachment 677843

Well, it looks that SMS is quite confident that someone will have +4000 skill point by the 20th of October...

Wishful thinking if you ask me, as we all started with 1500 points 2 weeks ago. No way of getting such a high score at this stage. Maybe +2000...

By the way, as a (very) funny side note, it looks like they don't care too much about cleanliness as the minimum safety rank is set to U. And we are wasting our time trying to be clean to climb the ladder... lol.

I haven't even seen anyone near 2000 yet. Highest I've seen has been around a low 16xx.

I don't think they care about clean because it's only a time trial. The time will still be invalid if you don't stay on track.

 

[twitcher]

I've seen people with A2000+ ratings, but only in lobbies where I get invites from people on my friend's list - some of which are very good, others have people on their friend's list who are alien fast.

That said, I've known most of these people going back to PC1, and very few if any participate it open lobbies. Mostly they stick to private lobbies, and rarely have more than 10 people on the grid.

I haven't actually tried it yet, but I'm quite certain it wouldn't be complicated for 3 people to farm skill rating together. It'd have to be a 2 steps forward, 1 step back type of process to get everyone levelled up (or people could make throw away accounts to boost their main account), and it would take some time, but I think it's very doable - if it's not being done already.

The fact that SMS is even throwing the number 4000 around indicates to me that they are completely out of touch with what's going on in open lobbies.

Guess PARS 2 will end up like most other competitive online games - the most "skillful" are those who have the most time to dedicate to farming and boosting.

 

[zr1chris]

I haven't actually tried it yet, but I'm quite certain it wouldn't be complicated for 3 people to farm skill rating together. It'd have to be a 2 steps forward, 1 step back type of process to get everyone levelled up (or people could make throw away accounts to boost their main account), and it would take some time, but I think it's very doable - if it's not being done already.

I don't see it being any more beneficial than just trying to level up the traditional way. If anything I would think it would just even out as far as the skill points goes. Your clean rating would be the only benefit if you all agree to just take it slow and clean.

 

[IBZ6L20VT]

I've seen people with A2000+ ratings, but only in lobbies where I get invites from people on my friend's list - some of which are very good, others have people on their friend's list who are alien fast.

That said, I've known most of these people going back to PC1, and very few if any participate it open lobbies. Mostly they stick to private lobbies, and rarely have more than 10 people on the grid.

I haven't actually tried it yet, but I'm quite certain it wouldn't be complicated for 3 people to farm skill rating together. It'd have to be a 2 steps forward, 1 step back type of process to get everyone levelled up (or people could make throw away accounts to boost their main account), and it would take some time, but I think it's very doable - if it's not being done already.

The fact that SMS is even throwing the number 4000 around indicates to me that they are completely out of touch with what's going on in open lobbies.

Guess PARS 2 will end up like most other competitive online games - the most "skillful" are those who have the most time to dedicate to farming and boosting.

If you always race in private lobbies against the same people the tally doesn't go up.

If you're too good you'll end up winning to people with very low skill score. If the field is even matched, the skill score will not move very far from 1500, as everyone started there.

You need to drive with different people to earn quite a high score. Also, at the moment, with most people around the 1500 mark, if you have +2000 and for whatever reason you lose a race, you'll end up losing a good amount of points.

 

[fasj6418]

View attachment 677843

Well, it looks that SMS is quite confident that someone will have +4000 skill point by the 20th of October...

Wishful thinking if you ask me, as we all started with 1500 points 2 weeks ago. No way of getting such a high score at this stage. Maybe +2000...

By the way, as a (very) funny side note, it looks like they don't care too much about cleanliness as the minimum safety rank is set to U. And we are wasting our time trying to be clean to climb the ladder... lol.

This caught my attention as well, i thought they were going to give points for the winners of the community events, kind of like Raceroom does it, 100 points for the first, 1 point for the 100th.

For people racing in open lobbies it´s a daunting task to be at 4000 by the time of that challenge. Some of the TX3 and SDL guys are at 1600-1700, it would take and absurd amount of races to level up to 4000.

One thing i noticed in some top guys is the insane amount of races they´ve done in a short period of time. I have 60 some completed races in 16 hours of online play, but some guys with 15 hours or so have already completed 120-150 races.

There´s a limit of how little a win can give you, so i´m guessing doing 2-3 lap races is a lot better for ratings than the regular 5-10 lap races, specially if those have 15-20 minute qualify. Let´s remember that you can only lose safety points in the qualify, so it´s a 15-20 minute period that´s not going to help your "speed" rating. I´m guessing people with so many completed races aren´t doing much qualify, so they don´t waste as much time as the regular racers.

I´m not actively chasing exploits because i like the open lobbies and trying different stuff, this is just a bunch of observations from the past two weeks.

 

[zr1chris]

I recommend staying away from the online lobbies right now. Just a ramfest out there tonight. Luckily I managed to salvage my B status and only drop 10 points.

1st race I got pushed into the grass causing me to spin and get collected by the 6-7 cars behind me that thought they would just keep it floored past but instead right into me. Motor blown a lap later and I finished last.

2nd race Get spun out going into the 1st corner but manage to salvage it. Then get another bump a half lap later that forces another recovery, back on track building my speed back up as I stay to the right and I get nailed from behind by someone at full speed. Somehow I still managed a 8th place finish out of 14.

Rant over.

 

[Outspacer]

@Outspacer

Ok so we’ve hashed each side of the issue lets see if we can move it somewhere to a resolution.

Your happy with no penalty a, Im happy with a full on penalty. So wheres the happy medium?

We are not going to find one if the penalty falls within the skill level, likewise it doesn’t sit inside the safety rating. The experience part could be used but for me that becomes a penalty you could ignore.

So I guess we are looking for something else. Thinking about your reasons for quitting would you accept that a serial quitter like every race, doesnt seem very likely this would happen, is the kind of quitter to be targeted, so a range of something like 3 out 5 races or even 2 out of 5 races would be the criteria to fit a penalty?

Hmm, you could be onto something there. At least, I'd agree that some penalty is more appropriate for someone who quits too often. So you'd have a score that's tracked, and if it goes above some level you'd get a penalty. Simplest would be +some points for a quit, -1 point for a completion. But what penalty to give? A time-out maybe? I'd never suggest that for a penalty that didn't take a few offences to incur, but it seems appropriate - quitting is to avoid wasting time.

I personally prefer linking it to a race distance, which could be converted to a time, a bit like real world, cars don’t get classified if the dont complete a certain x amount.

Anything that falls beneath gets a penalty, over and above can quit and be classified last.

Not sure, perhaps over-complicating it, although I see where you're coming from. One example case I have in mind is a relatively unskilled driver finding themselves in a lobby totally outclassed. OK, they should realise before the race starts, but maybe they just feel they didn't do their best in quali. Really it's to everyone's benefit for that driver to leave ASAP and find a more suitable lobby for them. And I dunno, I think it's more annoying for someone to quit out later in the race than on the first lap.

I think it’s important to make racers think.

For sure. And I think the game could help with that. Firstly, before quitting it should warn that quitting goes on record (either gets a penalty, or counting towards a possible future penalty if they do it too much, whatever). Secondly, the engineer could give encouragement and advice - not just a "you could still catch them" (unless it's feasible), but maybe "You're last, but this is still valuable because xxxx, keep pushing". Stuff that guides people towards what the right thing to do is, because at least some of these quitters simply don't realise what the proper etiquette is. (And the ones that don't care, you'd probably want to ban from your lobby anyway!).

 

[TT92]

I have some definitive data on the system now and I got 3 of my last 5 trophies, so only 2 to go.

Last night a friend and I started our own "boosting lobby" and we did 54 races to see how the system worked.

Room was set, limit 2 people, online, broadcast OFF, penalties On, AI Off.

Tracks and cars, we started at A and did 1 lap races at each with a new car all through the list and I was allowed to win every race.

So the results are:

The License grades (Bronze/Amateur, Silver/Pro-Am) did pop at 50 and 100 completed online races. So this is confirmed.

With 2 of us in the lobby, even though I was winning, we both lost 10 points every race :-(

I started with B1399 and dropped to B 1359. Not happy about that!

So I changed the rules to 16 grid spots limit 2 humans and filled the grid spots wiht Ai set level #1skill and aggression.
Great, a win was now getting me 5 points and my pal was losing 5 points every race.

From 1349 to 1463 is was getting 5 points for win, then it dropped to 4 points and finally from 1468 on it dropped to 3 points.

Now along the way there were unexplained aberrations that we could not reproduce.

At Road American ( a long track) the first race there driving the Sauber C9 I won by 7secs and got 13 points. So we re-tried the race here to see if winning by more would give me more points. So I then won by 22secs and got my usual 4 points. So we re-did the race and simulated a tight race, the race lead changed several times and I then won by 0.119 seconds about 2 seconds in front of the pack of Ai and I got 4 points again! This has made no sense to us what so ever.

At 1487 my foot slipped off my clutch and I got DSQed (yep hilarious I know) I lost 18 points and went back to 1469! :-( BTW I DSQed again at Brands Hatch National because I rolled on the line let the clutch out a little to get back in position and jumped the start again! Yes, another 18 points :-( Toyota GT86 GT4

We then tried the Toyota TS 040 here with a rolling start (can't have grid start apparently) so before the start the Ai is in control of my car and gets too close to pit lane (still on track!) and I cop a driving infringement and a 5 second penalty!

Another aberration we found. Knockhill Tri Oval (the really short one) I have even saved a screen shot of the results here because we could not believe this. So 16 on grid, rolling start so, I was nearly lapping the field before it even started, I crossed the line in front, technically won it BUT the game gave the win and places to last 5 cars with no race times and I came in 6th!

We even repeated some events to see what we could change the outcome. e.g Indianapolis Oval Toyota TS040 a win was 4 points. We then hopped in the Formula Rookie cars and the same result. We ran the TS040 at Brands Hatch Inter and the same results.

So what are the results from our findings.

I started at B1399 and ended up at C1498 (more on this in a while) with a Silver Pro-Am license. My friend started at F1512 and ended up at C1198 with an Amateur license.

The point score has no relevance on length of track, winning margin, type of car or closeness of racing. Even at Spa historic it was only 4 points for a win. The closer I got to 1500 the more the points awarded dropped down.

EDIT: after re-reading this online the answer is the numbers (Duh!) I was lower than him and so scored higher but when I was higher I scored less, as it is supposed to work.

Now to the Safety rank. My B ranking stayed in place for 53 of the 54 races. I was hit regularly by my friend (he did not know most of the tracks) and the hopeless AI when they would get the jump at the starts. But my friend went from F to C with numerous warnings and infringements on the way. So what happened to my B rank you ask? Last race at Road America, rolling start, my friend is in front so I dive bomb hinto turn 2 and push him off the track deliberately, he gets the warning, I then cut every corner and ignore most of the track limits and get the win for 4 points BUT my B disappears :-( I did this to prove a point obviously.

So 5 hours work, 54 races and 3 trophies later here it all is. Also, I have no idea how I will be able to stomach another 248 races to get the veteran license and the trophy! >:-(

 

[Animera]

I like this.

 

[TT92]

View attachment 677843

Well, it looks that SMS is quite confident that someone will have +4000 skill point by the 20th of October...

Wishful thinking if you ask me, as we all started with 1500 points 2 weeks ago. No way of getting such a high score at this stage. Maybe +2000...

By the way, as a (very) funny side note, it looks like they don't care too much about cleanliness as the minimum safety rank is set to U. And we are wasting our time trying to be clean to climb the ladder... lol.

I share your sentiments exactly here but want to go a little deeper.

Lets unpack this U4000<blue> a little closer and fully explain for those that really don't know.

U is Undefined safety rating, you (U ) cannot get any lower than this
Blue is for a Rookie license which is less than 50 online races.
4000 is how many times/people you have won/beaten

So from this what SMS is saying is "We do not care how you drive, or whether you are a clean racer or how often you drive we only want you to enter if you are prepared to win at any cost and be as dirty as you like.

So my question for SMS is "How does this promote a better/cleaner class of racer?"

Also from my post above where I was working out how the system actually works it will be very, very hard to get very far up indeed. We will run into the problem of diminishing returns. The higher rank you become the less points you will earn for beating lower players. As we could see from my testing above it only took a gap of 100 points to halve my winning credits so what happens when there is a gap of 1,000, 2,000 or yikes 3,000?

I have already drawn my conclusions (and have been criticised for them) it's up to everyone else to draw you own ;-)

 

[TX Executioner]

That’s interesting. I’ve yet to lose points for a win, but have had several wins with no change. Almost everyone is around 1450 - 1550 it seems and it’s keeping me at my current score of C1639. I came in second to a 1500 driver and kept my score, then won a race against 1400’s and 1500’s and kept my score again. I tend to run longer races with manual pit stops and weather so maybe that has something to do with it? I’m guessing 8 - 12 drivers per race.

 

[jake2013guy]

Definitely is odd. I can't see how anyone's getting anywhere near 4k without boosting. It's impossible to still be a U with that much skill I'd say.

 

[TT92]

Definitely is odd. I can't see how anyone's getting anywhere near 4k without boosting. It's impossible to still be a U with that much skill I'd say.

I disagree. You can easily still be a U with a high score because plain and simple you are a dirty driver.

 

[rono_thomas]

Ok so heres the fun part, you raced the same guy over and over, and your score didn’t increase by much. Maybe that right there is a preventative boosting measure.

I’d say you’d need to do the same test with as many friends as possible.

:-( I did this to prove a point obviously.

What point has been proven that its more difficult to keep higher safety grades?

 

[TT92]

Ok so heres the fun part, you raced the same guy over and over, and your score didn’t increase by much. Maybe that right there is a preventative boosting measure.

I am not going to deal in "maybes" only the facts and figures as I have presented them. Regarding the score not changing by much we were very close on points as already detailed, there were only two of us and they were 1 lap races. If I was interested and if my mate wanted to do it again perhaps we would try longer races. Perhaps rono_thomas we could get a lobby together and you let me beat you for 50 races and we will see how it ends up? What do you say? ;-)

I’d say you’d need to do the same test with as many friends as possible.

I don't have many friends that have the game and only one that didn't care about his score as he says he will *NEVER* race online in this game.

What point has been proven that it's more difficult to keep higher safety grades?

Since you missed the point I will repeat it. The point is, by driving dirty I still got **exactly** the same amount of points for the win and my mate finished way down and got more points deducted and a driving infringement. Also from a previous post you will note I don't care about my safety record anymore since I have the Trophy for it.

 

[rono_thomas]

What do you say? ;-)

I say yea... but you could try and beat me. What do you say?

Likewise I respect your hard work but you not proven anything that we didn’t know already, with respect to license scoring including finishing bugs and AI rolling start issues.

Again I respect your hardwork, but your not providing me with hard facts, screenshots and videos and saved replays would go along and they are not difficult to provide.

I am not going to deal in "maybes" only the facts and figures as I have presented them

At the moment all your presenting is an opinion.

 

[Outspacer]

Have to say I'm a bit concerned about the scoring system itself now, assuming there aren't bugs affecting it.

With 2 of us in the lobby, even though I was winning, we both lost 10 points every race :-(

I can't believe they meant for this to happen. If they did, what on earth were they thinking?!

So I changed the rules to 16 grid spots limit 2 humans and filled the grid spots wiht Ai set level #1skill and aggression.
Great, a win was now getting me 5 points and my pal was losing 5 points every race.

This is more how I had expected the case without AI to score. Obviously it would be bad if you could farm skill off AI though, so for scoring I'd hope for them to be ignored, and this scoring seems correct/fair.

Also the points taken from your friend reducing as the gap gets bigger makes sense too.

I started at B1399 and ended up at C1498 (more on this in a while) with a Silver Pro-Am license. My friend started at F1512 and ended up at C1198 with an Amateur license.

So after both losing 40 points each, that's 1359 and 1472 changing to 1498 and 1198, so +139 and -274. If you hadn't had a couple of DSQs you might have been +185.

Overall you gained a lot less than your friend lost, which doesn't add up from what you were saying about individual races. Did I miss something? If not, then I wonder if that would be another flaw in the system, or if there's something I don't understand about it.

 

[rono_thomas]

or if there's something I don't understand about it.

I think grouping the sessions is where the inconsistency may lie. Needs to be examined race by race to fully understand whats going on, to either prove a flaw or disprove.

Like I’ve said before the maximum amount I’ve lost from a disco is 30points, and TT92 is experiencing way more??

 

[Outspacer]

I think grouping the sessions is where the inconsistency may lie. Needs to be examined race by race to fully understand whats going on, to either prove a flaw or disprove.

Like I’ve said before the maximum amount I’ve lost from a disco is 30points, and TT92 is experiencing way more??

DSQ = disqualification, for jumping the lights But yeah, if his friend got some penalties that he forgot to report that could bring the scores closer together. I tried to account for those that were reported. Otherwise, it seemed odd that a large number of races where the scoring was balanced, e.g. +5 for him, -5 for friend, ended up so unbalanced.

(edit: and since DSQs seem to get a heavy penalty, I'm probably against that for the same reasons as the penalty for disconnect... but let's come back to that later, after watching the 'normal' scoring a bit more).

 

[rono_thomas]

@TT92 do you fancy running some laps sometime to analyse a race?

 

[rono_thomas]

Hmm, you could be onto something there. At least, I'd agree that some penalty is more appropriate for someone who quits too often. So you'd have a score that's tracked, and if it goes above some level you'd get a penalty. Simplest would be +some points for a quit, -1 point for a completion. But what penalty to give? A time-out maybe? I'd never suggest that for a penalty that didn't take a few offences to incur, but it seems appropriate - quitting is to avoid wasting time.



Not sure, perhaps over-complicating it, although I see where you're coming from. One example case I have in mind is a relatively unskilled driver finding themselves in a lobby totally outclassed. OK, they should realise before the race starts, but maybe they just feel they didn't do their best in quali. Really it's to everyone's benefit for that driver to leave ASAP and find a more suitable lobby for them. And I dunno, I think it's more annoying for someone to quit out later in the race than on the first lap.



For sure. And I think the game could help with that. Firstly, before quitting it should warn that quitting goes on record (either gets a penalty, or counting towards a possible future penalty if they do it too much, whatever). Secondly, the engineer could give encouragement and advice - not just a "you could still catch them" (unless it's feasible), but maybe "You're last, but this is still valuable because xxxx, keep pushing". Stuff that guides people towards what the right thing to do is, because at least some of these quitters simply don't realise what the proper etiquette is. (And the ones that don't care, you'd probably want to ban from your lobby anyway!).

A thought to spin this on its head, how about a reward for completing full race distances?

 

[TT92]

@TT92 do you fancy running some laps sometime to analyse a race?

I am happy to do that for you. I am UTC +8 Western Australia I am on most nights 19:00-23:00. If that is inconvenient let me know what suits you. I happy to mess around online as I need some way to whittle away at another 242 online events ;-) My PSN is TT_ _777 (no space between the 2 underscores)

As a tip you should register another account and use that if you want to test DSQs so it doesn't hurt your score too much.

Also as of Monday the 9th the GT Sport pre-launch Beta goes live so I will be on that as much as I can for 4 days ;-) Then the 18th the real game launches.

 

[twitcher]

Ok I've just about had it with this stupid system.


I just did a 5 lap TC race at Algarve, there was 5 of us in the room. The first 4 laps were great, typical TC racing. The guy in last fell a bit behind, the guy in first ran away a bit, but myself and the other 2 were wheel to wheel for 4 laps.

Then, on the last lap, P1 slows down so the rest of us catch up. I'm confused, and as I catch him, he turns into me, causing me to crash severely. From there, the guy who was P1, along with the other 2 I was racing, proceed to literally drive me into a wall and pin me there until the guy in last place catches up and passes all of us.

By this point I'm confused and mad, so I just kind of give up, coast across the finish, in last place.

I went from C1396 to D1359.

I'm not even mad at the fact I got ganked up on or whatever. I'm pissed at the fact that this type of incedents, or getting booted from a lobby, costs you 30-50 "skill" points, yet winning a race against a full grid only yields maybe 10ish points.

Lobby selection is already not great it is. There's now a half dozen lobbies I can't enter because of my "skill" rating. On top on that, I'm now basically scared to go into any rated lobby, because I know the potential of what I could lose far outweighs the what I could potentially earn (if I have a near perfect race)

Add on top that SMS is going to use this "skill" rating to vouche people into certain events and whatnot, it's ludacris. This number is zero indication of any sort of skill indicator or a driver.

 

[rono_thomas]

I am happy to do that for you. I am UTC +8 Western Australia I am on most nights 19:00-23:00. If that is inconvenient let me know what suits you. I happy to mess around online as I need some way to whittle away at another 242 online events ;-) My PSN is TT_ _777 (no space between the 2 underscores)

As a tip you should register another account and use that if you want to test DSQs so it doesn't hurt your score too much.

Also as of Monday the 9th the GT Sport pre-launch Beta goes live so I will be on that as much as I can for 4 days ;-) Then the 18th the real game launches.

Will PM you 👍

 

[twitcher]

So after events earlier, I managed to work my way back up to C1377, after 6-7 races, can't remember exactly.

I just got disconnected from a lobby because my game crashed, and now I'm down to C1343.

This is an impossible mountain to climb. It seriously feels like a joke. The more time I spend online, the lower my score gets simply because I'm online.

Majority of the time when I finish a race, I gain about 5 points on average. When I lose points, I'm losing anywhere from 20-50 at a time.

I really want to give up on this license crap, but it's now to the point where I restricted from entering lobbies I would like to join.

 

[TRGTspecialist]

Reached A rank on Thursday, after 40 (completed) races:

Finally started to focus on better performance since then (qualifying skills are rusty to say the least ). All grand so far - slowly but surely moving up.

@Double Ayyys it sounds like you were the closest one here to reaching S rank, but that it was taking much longer than previous ranks - have you reached it yet?