GT Sport's Penalty System is "Not Adequate Yet", Says Kazunori Yamauchi

[kilesa4568]

I'm honestly not sure if they could or could not, but it almost certainly just would not work the same in GT as Iracing. This is because, as stated elsewhere in this thread, Iracing has a barrier of entry that means that pretty much everyone who plays it is a relatively hard core enthusiast. GT is played by millions, of all ages, shapes and sizes.

If they just copy-pasted Iracing's system, the game would be a wasteland over night. The races that actually happened would probably be awesome for the people involved, but unfortunately that is only one of the reason PD makes games. All of them need to be fulfilled. That includes making money.

I didn't mean as a copy/paste job as it's not a perfect system (far from it) but from what I've seen with the risk of damage and DQ's, it goes a long way to forcing certain people into self policing themselves better. Something GTS desperately needs.

To be honest, I hope they get tougher with the DQ's. Reach a certain level of contact in one race, you get DQ'd and sent to the naughty step for the next 3-5 race slots. DQ again that day gets you an even longer suspension. Make it painful and people will soon learn or at least try to race better.

If PD are serious about getting into esport, they need to stop chasing their tail trying to find an automated penalty system that simply doesn't exist. There will always be accidents and incidents that confuse it along with people who know how to game it.

It's the underlined bit that is making it work, not the existence of full damage. If you have full damage but still have "if the game lets you do it, it's legal", then people just hit other cars to cause them to have a head on collision with a barrier or tyre wall, ending the race of their victim while they carry on just fine.

Too cynical by far as the unscrupulous drivers are few and far between.

I've met a few of them but I'm not daft enough to gift them that opportunity. Not if my car and race is at risk.

 

[ROCKET JOE]

It's the underlined bit that is making it work, not the existence of full damage. If you have full damage but still have "if the game lets you do it, it's legal", then people just hit other cars to cause them to have a head on collision with a barrier or tyre wall, ending the race of their victim while they carry on just fine.

I'm a friendly guy ! My favorite move was squeezing my opponent onto the pit wall ... leaving him a choice at least
to just enter the pits right in time ! /s

 

[fastone371]

I'm a friendly guy ! My favorite move was squeezing my opponent onto the pit wall ... leaving him a choice at least
to just enter the pits right in time ! /s

If you are actually pushing him towards the wall maybe its you that eats the pit entry wall if he hits the brakes at the correct time.

 

[Dmac72]

I'm a friendly guy ! My favorite move was squeezing my opponent onto the pit wall ... leaving him a choice at least
to just enter the pits right in time ! /s

With friends like you who needs enemies.

 

[Auditore]

Things would be so much easier if trolls didnt exist...
This might be a hot take but i honestly think iracing is only as clean as it is because of how people perceive each franchise.People who go for iracing go for "the real deal" and to even know iracing you must be a simracing fan.This means most people that go to iracing already have the mindset of racing clean,it almost eliminates the trolls.GT suffers from its own fame and by being way more acessible(no monthly subscription).
I dont know if PD will ever solve most problems with the penalty systems but i still believe its worth trying,better have a bad AI steward than no steward at all.

 

[timtheman610]

That is because of the lack of proper damage though.

It's always going to be a hard balance to strike, real damage isn't going to stop me battering exotic fragile carbon fibre moderns with my Camaro's lol - I like the idea of 'engine stall' as it has the potential of enforcing respect for the car in front which I think is the biggest issue, real damage removes the chance of recovery and after all it is a game, my record of mechanical attriction on real cars is terrible, so I would rarely finish if you make things too real lol!

 

[Novalee]

Things would be so much easier if trolls didnt exist...
This might be a hot take but i honestly think iracing is only as clean as it is because of how people perceive each franchise.People who go for iracing go for "the real deal" and to even know iracing you must be a simracing fan.This means most people that go to iracing already have the mindset of racing clean,it almost eliminates the trolls.GT suffers from its own fame and by being way more acessible(no monthly subscription).
I dont know if PD will ever solve most problems with the penalty systems but i still believe its worth trying,better have a bad AI steward than no steward at all.

The other thing is iracing actualy reviews reported crashers and bans them if needed or deserved. I have yet to hear of anyone on gts being banned for on purpose wrecking someone else

 

[kilesa4568]

better have a bad AI steward than no steward at all.

Too many track disputes and a whole lot of bad blood arise from them and the poorly judged penalties are driving the fairest players away. Most of my friends list have quit sport and switched to lobby races because of them. Too broken.

It's in my own interest to keep the penalties as they are now as I don't get them (for contact) and benefit from them but I'd prefer it if they wasn't there. They keep reminding me I'm playing a game and it loses immersion.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Great article, I'm glad they are aware of it and working on it, albeit at a glacial pace. It certainly won't be easy with how unbalanced certain cars are, especially GR.1 where braking points and cornering speeds are completely different between hybrids and GR.C.

I hope PD will address the yoyo SR system as well. Better penalties is a must, but going 30 SR up or down in one race isn't helping either.

Anyway there are many things you can look at before even looking at the contact itself. For example: Could you reasonably make the corner or not depending on where you brake, shouldn't be hard to figure out, covers punts and dive bombs. Did you leave (depending on your steering input speed vector right before impact) at least one car width room for the other car before contact if the other car had overlap before turn in, covers dive bombs, barge passes and turning in on people at the apex. Same on straights leading up to a corner, are you squeezing another car off the road. Always leave room. Blocking is legal, but you still need to be ahead to defend. Except when you are re-entering the track, stay out of the way until you're up to speed or wait for a safe moment to merge back in.

 

[ROCKET JOE]

If you are actually pushing him towards the wall maybe its you that eats the pit entry wall if he hits the brakes at the correct time.

Nah, I'd do that slow and steady ... with half a car width of a safety gap ! Did I mention how much I love the new Tundra ... bam.

 

[fastone371]

The other thing is iracing actualy reviews reported crashers and bans them if needed or deserved. I have yet to hear of anyone on gts being banned for on purpose wrecking someone else

In GTS if drivers were reported for incidents and were subsequently banned after review PD would probably lose 40% of the participants.

 

[cleanLX]

I like that PD concedes there is room for improvement.
Yay!
I believe the only way to take "gamers" out of the equation is to to penalize cars/competitors equally.
Sure, it'll suck to be penalized for someone else's actions, but, at least they too are penalized.
I still think it's ridiculous to have cars serve time penalties on track... the age old "cautions beget cautions", or, in this case, "penalties beget penalties".
I like the IRacing approach...
If you go back and read @VFOURMAX1 post, then look up all the related info. on IRacing, penalties will actually slow/stall/impede/DQ your game participation and progress.
Wow... actual far reaching long lasting consequences... imagine.
Some will argue it's just a game and they have GTs for fun...
OK.
What about other folks fun?
Mind that PD are actually attempting to make a serious E-Sport community out of this, and, your "fun" really ought to take an, oh, I don't know, offline approach.

Of course, we had a equal blame system a long time ago (P1.13, yes I will continue to "go there") and we all know what happened with that.
So, in all honesty, we've seen PD caterers to the masses ($$$) regardless of what type of racing results ("real racing simulator")... so, I'm not about to hold my breath...
I will however remain hopeful.

so, bit, of a rant, apologies...
Hope PD allocate some resources to make things better for all... even if that means taking the "fun" out of it for the "gamers".

 

[breeminator]

I believe the only way to take "gamers" out of the equation is to to penalize cars/competitors equally.

Equal blame would just be like a game of chicken. Someone moves to shove you off the track, what do you do? Allow them to hit you, so you get a penalty? Move away from them so they've run you off the track and you lose time? You lose whatever you do. Some people won't care if they get a penalty themselves, they'll just use the equal blame to bully other people into yielding to them.

The reason you don't have that happen in iRacing is because humans will examine reported incidents and people will get banned if they abuse it in that way, but GTS is trying to achieve an automated version of that human assessment so it can scale to greater numbers.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Equal blame would just be like a game of chicken. Someone moves to shove you off the track, what do you do? Allow them to hit you, so you get a penalty? Move away from them so they've run you off the track and you lose time? You lose whatever you do. Some people won't care if they get a penalty themselves, they'll just use the equal blame to bully other people into yielding to them.

The reason you don't have that happen in iRacing is because humans will examine reported incidents and people will get banned if they abuse it in that way, but GTS is trying to achieve an automated version of that human assessment so it can scale to greater numbers.

The idea behind equal blame is that statistically, the abusers will have a higher incident rate than those trying to race clean. After a while those causing a lot of incident will no longer be match with those trying to race clean. For that SR needs to look at your history instead of a simple up down adjustment per race.

That notorious 1.13 penalty update had my avg DR go up 30% since the 'fun' crowd was too busy serving penalties all of a sudden. Dirty didn't win so easy for a while, but PD caved in instead of refining the system that actually cleaned up races for a while. The problem lies with how SR is determined. As long as you can still go down several levels in one race and gain one or more levels in one clean race, no solution to penalties will be effective. In the latest update PD increased the SR budget for race A, going in the wrong direction.

 

[fastone371]

Equal blame would just be like a game of chicken. Someone moves to shove you off the track, what do you do? Allow them to hit you, so you get a penalty? Move away from them so they've run you off the track and you lose time? You lose whatever you do. Some people won't care if they get a penalty themselves, they'll just use the equal blame to bully other people into yielding to them.

The reason you don't have that happen in iRacing is because humans will examine reported incidents and people will get banned if they abuse it in that way, but GTS is trying to achieve an automated version of that human assessment so it can scale to greater numbers.

At least with equal blame the perpetrator always gets penalized, the way the penalty system works now is that the victim often gets penalized. Equal blame is not the final answer but it's better than what we have now which is way worse than equal blame.

 

[watto79]

Some interesting comments here, particularly around the comparisons to iRacing.

As GT Sport is catering to the masses (more so than iRacing at least) AND is attempting to be taken seriously as an eSport maybe there should be 2 systems in place depending on DR.

Something like once you are DR A (or DR A+) an iRacing system is put in place that has lasting consequences for too many incidents and/or licences that can accumulate points, and the current system (with improvements made) for everyone else.

Just a thought, I'm sure there are arguments for not doing this too.

 

[Tired Tyres]

It's always going to be a hard balance to strike, real damage isn't going to stop me battering exotic fragile carbon fibre moderns with my Camaro's lol - I like the idea of 'engine stall' as it has the potential of enforcing respect for the car in front which I think is the biggest issue, real damage removes the chance of recovery and after all it is a game, my record of mechanical attriction on real cars is terrible, so I would rarely finish if you make things too real lol!

The whole point of race ending damage is to force the player to behave properly in a race where there are stat consequences at stake.

 

[Kano Manel]

“I certainly feel that it’s not adequate yet,” he answers, “and there’s lots of different facets to that to evolve.”

No ****! Seriously? I hadn't noticed that.

 

[WyldAnimal]

I've made very bad experiences with the damage systems. There were already some Nations Cup rounds where the damage was set on heavy and the people just got even more insane. Someone just completely took out 12 drivers at Autopolis once.

Trust me, if they'd keep it at heavy, then there would be a lot more problems.

Lot more Problems...???

Then I'd say they are not Qualified to be driving in the Nations Cup.
They are supposed to be at the top level of Virtual Racing, not amateur, 1st time drivers
Being Fast, should not be the only qualification..

 

[MasterGT]

Damage is very easy to game, you can impact another car in a way that will cause you minimal damage, but will cause the other car serious damage.

Except they still have problems trying to get penalties working right, too, but that hasn't stopped them from using them in the wild.

Use damage and make it better at the same time.

 

[Suzumiya]

An actual damage simulation would deter people from causing chaos and would make others think twice you know

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

An actual damage simulation would deter people from causing chaos and would make others think twice you know

I'm just not completely sold on damage being the key solution here. Cops damage cars all of the time without damaging their own vehicles, it's not hard to intentionally damage another person's car.

Don't get me wrong, I do want damage but it's just for aesthetic and maybe some modest affects on gameplay but these gamers will game the damage system just as badly as they're gaming the penalty system.

 

[Groundfish]

The idea behind equal blame is that statistically, the abusers will have a higher incident rate than those trying to race clean. After a while those causing a lot of incident will no longer be match with those trying to race clean. For that SR needs to look at your history instead of a simple up down adjustment per race.

That notorious 1.13 penalty update had my avg DR go up 30% since the 'fun' crowd was too busy serving penalties all of a sudden. Dirty didn't win so easy for a while, but PD caved in instead of refining the system that actually cleaned up races for a while. The problem lies with how SR is determined. As long as you can still go down several levels in one race and gain one or more levels in one clean race, no solution to penalties will be effective. In the latest update PD increased the SR budget for race A, going in the wrong direction.

Imo this is it. End of discussion. If the get it right, eventually over time clean players would simply no longer see dirty ones.
Shared fault.
It’s what they started with, but they didn’t hold to it because of complaints.
Time weighted sr plus shared fault is best.
All the game needs to determine is that an incident happened. Punish all.
Over time those with fewer incidents all race together and those that enjoy mariokart can play together too.

 

[fastone371]

Imo this is it. End of discussion. If the get it right, eventually over time clean players would simply no longer see dirty ones.
Shared fault.
It’s what they started with, but they didn’t hold to it because of complaints.
Time weighted sr plus shared fault is best.
All the game needs to determine is that an incident happened. Punish all.
Over time those with fewer incidents all race together and those that enjoy mariokart can play together too.

PD needs to get ghosting right for cars that crash and rejoin the track first, it's almost impossible to avoid someone who is in the grass then suddenly crosses the track at a 90° angle.

 

[Phaceless_Ph]

The other thing is iracing actualy reviews reported crashers and bans them if needed or deserved. I have yet to hear of anyone on gts being banned for on purpose wrecking someone else

This would be impossible with GT Sport because of the number of players online, iRacing's active user base is a lot lower than GT Sport's so Nim Cross & his team are able to sit through and review things without being overworked.

 

[FoRiZon]

This would be impossible with GT Sport because of the number of players online, iRacing's active user base is a lot lower than GT Sport's so Nim Cross & his team are able to sit through and review things without being overworked.

Business opportunities there.


Somebody could open a business where it can offer a service to do "Sport Mode" like league races with human stewards, complete with external ranks separate from the official DR SR Sport rank. For a fee yes, but worth to lot of people here.

 

[Novalee]

This would be impossible with GT Sport because of the number of players online, iRacing's active user base is a lot lower than GT Sport's so Nim Cross & his team are able to sit through and review things without being overworked.

Do you have the numbers from how many play on the daily races ?

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Do you have the numbers from how many play on the daily races ?

https://www.kudosprime.com/gts/stats.php?stat_preset=daily_sport_activity

About 30K a day on average. That's already 1900 races a day if all of those would only do one race.

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

Business opportunities there.


Somebody could open a business where it can offer a service to do "Sport Mode" like league races with human stewards, complete with external ranks separate from the official DR SR Sport rank. For a fee yes, but worth to lot of people here.

I'm surprised that someone isn't already doing it on their own, honestly. With apps like Venmo around it wouldn't be hard (but it would be time consuming) to setup up $5 tournaments with stewarded online sessions and a cash prize pool. Clearly someone with some level of respect would have to initiate it since people are just shipping entry fees to a stranger, but the tools appear to be in place for events like that to exist.

 

[Groundfish]

I racing is an irrelevant comparison.
Cost of building gaming pc plus cost of peripherals plus monthly subscription fee plus cost per car plus cost per track.
Invalid comparison completely.
For its cost per amount of time over a couple years I could play dr2 gt sport pc2 ac dr etc on a Fanatec podium with load cell on 50 inch 4K.
No brainer to me to console it.
Gt Sport is getting closer with the system, but building a quality product takes time.