How about an SR safety net?

[Bengalryan9]

We're all going to find ourselves in a dirty race from time to time. All it takes is a small handful of bad drivers, connections, etc to not only ruin your race, but completely tank your SR (which, if it get hurts too badly, can drag your hard earned DR down). Now for many, this is just a minor convenience because they'll just go out and re-farm their SR back up to A or S, but a) not everyone has the time to do that, and b) I don't really think we should have to do that to begin with.

I feel like their should be some type of "safety net" system implemented so that one bad race will not hurt your SR. I feel like you should have to do consistently poorly over multiple races before it starts to decrease (and honestly, I'd have no problem if it worked the same way in order to get it to increase as well). Drivers should have to demonstrate over larger sample sizes that they need to be moved up or down... it shouldn't just be a knee jerk reaction. If you do badly over say 3 races in a row, THEN it can go down. Curious what others think.

Now I suspect the biggest concern with a system like this is that someone could theoretically look at this as having a "free pass" to drive the occasional race as dirty as they possibly can, just causing havoc wherever. However, I think it should be relatively simple to make it so that if someone reaches a certain amount of penalties during the race, they get DQ'd (and maybe even retroactively take away any penalties that person caused other drivers... but I guess that's a separate discussion).

 

[SkylineR88]

This is already in place, if you check out the Kudos website you can see the point system allocated. You should be able to find the instructions on this forum.

 

[Bengalryan9]

An idea of my night:

1) Started at SR A, which I had finally worked my way up to this week without ever once going out of my way to farm SR.
2) Entered the FIA Gr. 4 race at the short Brand's Hatch track. Race turned into a bit of a mess, took a lot of bumps, caused a few myself, SR dropped to B at the end, that's the way the cookie crumbles.
3) Entered the FIA Gr. 3 race at Mt. Panorama, which I was excited about because I always seem to miss this one. Qualified 4th, was pumped to race. One of the top 3 qualifiers instantly stopped right at the start of the race (controller died, maybe?), causing me to spin out right at the start and fall straight to the back of the pack, more or less ruining any shot I had (guy who caused my accident left the race afterwards, of course). Figured I'd at least have fun trying to fight my way up the grid as far as possible, but now I'm trying to pass DR E/D drivers we were grouped with and I'm getting beat to hell. Ended up as probably my worst race ever, SR drops another grade to C.

Just really frustrating that one bad night costs me 2 SR ranks, especially since now I know I've got to deal with worse racing over the next few days at SR rank C.

 

[Pedinhuh]

Theoretically speaking, this system is present in the game already as your DR and SR are numerical points that aren't visible to you.

It's entirely possible to have a bad race and preserve your SR rating(starting a race at Blue S and ending it at Red S), the only problem is that the threshold of it tends to be small as your rating rises, starting with SR S at 80-99 SR points(99 is the maximum, it won't go over that), with lower levels having higher thresholds.

So, at SR S, you could go from 99 to 81 by having a bad race where you made very few mistakes, like going off the track once, few bumps at the other players that weren't deliberate, not having many penalties, etc...

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I wish PD would fix the lag advantage. Most of the SR downs I received to day in the daily B race involved laggy players in front or behind me. When one pulls up beside you to drive along on the inside you are basically screwed. Their car will push to the outside repeatedly, you will get the bump and penalty, yet on their side they won't even notice a thing. Except you suddenly running off track. The faster the cars the worse it gets. I had the pleasure to have a 2 bar connection in front and 1 bar connection trying to overtake from behind, guess who lost that battle... I ended up with a red ranking while the two laggy cars ended up with blue as usual while bashing me in the corners.

Not sure what the solution is, yet the game should not count it as a collision if the data from the other car is old and the game was only extrapolating the last known input. Tired of hitting or getting hit by things that aren't actually there.

 

[Alpha Cipher]

From how I see it OP is trying to say that the SR points themselves won't go down until there are consecutive bad races, however...

An idea of my night:

1) Started at SR A, which I had finally worked my way up to this week without ever once going out of my way to farm SR.
2) Entered the FIA Gr. 4 race at the short Brand's Hatch track. Race turned into a bit of a mess, took a lot of bumps, caused a few myself, SR dropped to B at the end, that's the way the cookie crumbles.
3) Entered the FIA Gr. 3 race at Mt. Panorama, which I was excited about because I always seem to miss this one. Qualified 4th, was pumped to race. One of the top 3 qualifiers instantly stopped right at the start of the race (controller died, maybe?), causing me to spin out right at the start and fall straight to the back of the pack, more or less ruining any shot I had (guy who caused my accident left the race afterwards, of course). Figured I'd at least have fun trying to fight my way up the grid as far as possible, but now I'm trying to pass DR E/D drivers we were grouped with and I'm getting beat to hell. Ended up as probably my worst race ever, SR drops another grade to C.

Just really frustrating that one bad night costs me 2 SR ranks, especially since now I know I've got to deal with worse racing over the next few days at SR rank C.

Even though you did nothing intentionally wrong with that situation, if your system was to be in place, you're still the one who's going to get bitten. You got consecutive races with decreasing SR, which the game will consider as bad driving, even if it's not entirely true.

I think the current SR ranking system is good enough, it's just how they're given that's the problem

 

[VanessaMagick]

Seems like a good way for people to "get away" with racing really dirty every now and then.

 

[Bengalryan9]

I get that it works on a hidden point system, and that's great if you've got a huge point buffer and plenty of points to give, but if you've just hit a new rank and you're not farming SR points it can be really easy to "slip back" with just a little contact during a race. I think there should maybe be a little more wiggle room... maybe something like this. Let's say that SR A is 80-90 SR points (I think that's right?). What if, as soon as you hit 80 points and make rank A, it started you right in the center of the range instead of barely hanging on. This would at least give you more a chance to prove whether or not you belong.

Besides all that, wouldn't it just make things a little more stress free as well as possibly keeping people from avoiding races on certain tracks? I know that if I'm in a race where I see orange arrows start to pile up, it's pretty discouraging, and I also know that many drivers avoid certain tracks (Tokyo) because they know it'll wreck their SRs. If we had a little more room to breathe SR wise I think people would be more likely not to stress about these things.

From how I see it OP is trying to say that the SR points themselves won't go down until there are consecutive bad races, however...

Even though you did nothing intentionally wrong with that situation, if your system was to be in place, you're still the one who's going to get bitten. You got consecutive races with decreasing SR, which the game will consider as bad driving, even if it's not entirely true.

I think the current SR ranking system is good enough, it's just how they're given that's the problem

True, but I wouldn't have as much of a problem losing one rank in a night as opposed to two.

Seems like a good way for people to "get away" with racing really dirty every now and then.

Also true, but as I said in my initial post, I think they could set up some type of rule to discourage this. For example, if you get DQ'd, you lose an SR rank (or 2?). If you build up too many penalties in one race, you get DQ'd after an in-race warning. I think there are several ways that type of behavior could be discouraged.

 

[VanessaMagick]

Also true, but as I said in my initial post, I think they could set up some type of rule to discourage this. For example, if you get DQ'd, you lose an SR rank (or 2?). If you build up too many penalties in one race, you get DQ'd after an in-race warning. I think there are several ways that type of behavior could be discouraged.

I mean, sure, but that won't stop it. It might make people stop racing dirty at a certain point in said race, but it won't discourage the practice.

 

[Alpha Cipher]

I get that it works on a hidden point system, and that's great if you've got a huge point buffer and plenty of points to give, but if you've just hit a new rank and you're not farming SR points it can be really easy to "slip back" with just a little contact during a race. I think there should maybe be a little more wiggle room... maybe something like this. Let's say that SR A is 80-90 SR points (I think that's right?). What if, as soon as you hit 80 points and make rank A, it started you right in the center of the range instead of barely hanging on. This would at least give you more a chance to prove whether or not you belong

As for that system, depending on how many SR points you get in that race, you can actually get bumped from a lower rank to the middle of a higher rank. I had 3 races where my SR rank went so high that I was only A rank for literally one race before jumping again to S rank. So in a way, that system is also already implemented

True, but I wouldn't have as much of a problem losing one rank in a night as opposed to two.

In that case it might work[/QUOTE]

 

[lav01]

I was thinking along the same lines lately also. My SR has never come off S, but my DR is stuck at D. Here is what I was thinking. Does anyone remember world of outlaws sprint cars from the ps2? If you banged up your car, you had to pay to fix it. If you totaled it, you needed to sell it for junk and buy another one. I think that would be a good way to make people be more careful by hitting them in the proverbial pocketbook. Just a thought?

 

[VFOURMAX1]

This was just a random graph I pulled to post that shows the different point spreads for the SR rankings. If you notice SR S ranges from 80- 99 points. SR A is a smaller range while SR B seems to have the widest range and SR C has a range which closely matches the range of SR S.

 

[VanessaMagick]

I was thinking along the same lines lately also. My SR has never come off S, but my DR is stuck at D. Here is what I was thinking. Does anyone remember world of outlaws sprint cars from the ps2? If you banged up your car, you had to pay to fix it. If you totaled it, you needed to sell it for junk and buy another one. I think that would be a good way to make people be more careful by hitting them in the proverbial pocketbook. Just a thought?

Considering just about anyone can race loaned cars, they wouldn't care.

And this game throws free cars at you all the time.

 

[lav01]

True. It would not be just that easy, but what they have now does not really work that good. If you borrow a car, use it like a rental car. If you put up a fee and return it damaged, you lose some of that fee. I do not know, just thinking out loud was all. Still love the game.

 

[phil_75]

We're all going to find ourselves in a dirty race from time to time. All it takes is a small handful of bad drivers, connections, etc to not only ruin your race, but completely tank your SR (which, if it get hurts too badly, can drag your hard earned DR down). Now for many, this is just a minor convenience because they'll just go out and re-farm their SR back up to A or S, but a) not everyone has the time to do that, and b) I don't really think we should have to do that to begin with.

I feel like their should be some type of "safety net" system implemented so that one bad race will not hurt your SR. I feel like you should have to do consistently poorly over multiple races before it starts to decrease (and honestly, I'd have no problem if it worked the same way in order to get it to increase as well). Drivers should have to demonstrate over larger sample sizes that they need to be moved up or down... it shouldn't just be a knee jerk reaction. If you do badly over say 3 races in a row, THEN it can go down. Curious what others think.

Now I suspect the biggest concern with a system like this is that someone could theoretically look at this as having a "free pass" to drive the occasional race as dirty as they possibly can, just causing havoc wherever. However, I think it should be relatively simple to make it so that if someone reaches a certain amount of penalties during the race, they get DQ'd (and maybe even retroactively take away any penalties that person caused other drivers... but I guess that's a separate discussion).

Would make things worse.
People would exploit it knowing that they can ram someone a couple of times without consequences.

 

[Pedinhuh]

True. It would not be just that easy, but what they have now does not really work that good. If you borrow a car, use it like a rental car. If you put up a fee and return it damaged, you lose some of that fee. I do not know, just thinking out loud was all. Still love the game.

Depending on which SR level you are and which SR level you're racing against, others wouldn't resist and try their best to crash into you.

Unless PD would somehow find a way to charge the repair bill to the rammers only, and going by how this game can't make up its mind of who's at fault in a brake check scenario, this would make matters worse.

Well, at least it would put money to use(I got 3.3 millions I have no idea where to spend on).

 

[TenderLoins]

SR safety net? Really?

It’s already way too easy to get to SR/S and stay there. If anything it needs to be more difficult.

I think I’m going to start a guest account and see how long it takes to get to SR/S. I don’t remember hiw long it took me originally, but since getting to S I have only dropped to A once because of a rage quit during a particularly bad FIA race. Was back to S after next...

 

[MikeTheHockeyFan]

An SR safety net already exists, it’s called being in high SR-S. you have enough SR to spare at S to be able to have a bumpy race and remain in S.

We're all going to find ourselves in a dirty race from time to time. All it takes is a small handful of bad drivers, connections, etc to not only ruin your race, but completely tank your SR (which, if it get hurts too badly, can drag your hard earned DR down). Now for many, this is just a minor convenience because they'll just go out and re-farm their SR back up to A or S, but a) not everyone has the time to do that, and b) I don't really think we should have to do that to begin with.

I feel like their should be some type of "safety net" system implemented so that one bad race will not hurt your SR. I feel like you should have to do consistently poorly over multiple races before it starts to decrease (and honestly, I'd have no problem if it worked the same way in order to get it to increase as well). Drivers should have to demonstrate over larger sample sizes that they need to be moved up or down... it shouldn't just be a knee jerk reaction. If you do badly over say 3 races in a row, THEN it can go down. Curious what others think.

Now I suspect the biggest concern with a system like this is that someone could theoretically look at this as having a "free pass" to drive the occasional race as dirty as they possibly can, just causing havoc wherever. However, I think it should be relatively simple to make it so that if someone reaches a certain amount of penalties during the race, they get DQ'd (and maybe even retroactively take away any penalties that person caused other drivers... but I guess that's a separate discussion).

 

[ThaFlash_LA]

Gamer’s gonna game. I don’t think it was intended to be a consumable resource like Starcraft.

 

[XtremePhoto]

Choose wisely. Some tracks are worse than others. A 4 lap race is going to have a lot of desperate drivers. If you are not putting down great qualifying laps, don’t enter. SR S is pretty easy to maintain if it’s a priority. If it drops, enjoy the victories in the lower classes while you can.

 

[Renrag39]

Make it harsher imo. S=99/99 only A=96-98 B=87-95 C=60-86 D=30-59 E=0-29

SR rating is a point of pride for many. If it's easier to lose, almost everyone will think twice about that risky move. One bad game could see you down to SR-C though and not of your own doing but that's the price you pay.
The safety net already in place is too lenient. Not enough risk for possible reward. So make it properly exclusive but ultimately attainable with considerate driving. Bigger carrot, bigger stick.

 

[Bengalryan9]

SR safety net? Really?

It’s already way too easy to get to SR/S and stay there. If anything it needs to be more difficult.

I think I’m going to start a guest account and see how long it takes to get to SR/S. I don’t remember hiw long it took me originally, but since getting to S I have only dropped to A once because of a rage quit during a particularly bad FIA race. Was back to S after next...

I'll freely admit that I'm *NOT* an SR S level driver. Being a casual player who likes playing racing games but never watches actual racing IRL, I'm learning as I play, and I think I've grown a lot since getting the game in October. I think it's kind of stupid that after spending the last couple of months at high B/low A I can fall all the way into C because of one bad race, but I guess people disagree.

But then again let's be honest here... most SR S drivers aren't actually SR S drivers, they just farmed the points they need to appear that way. When they get on the track and actually attempt to race, they're often no cleaner than anybody else; they'll just go right back and farm their SR points right after losing rank anyways. People post here about doing it all the time. SR is rarely an actual indicator of how safe or clean people actually race (not all of the time, but a lot of the time). So maybe let's not get *too* defensive about having a high SR rating on here, ok?

Besides all that, as outlined, I'd like to see this idea implemented in BOTH directions. Just like I think you should have to show unsafe driving over multiple races before dropping a rank, I think you should have to run cleanly over longer periods of time in order to rank up. For those of you who want higher ranks to be MORE exclusive and harder to obtain, I think this would help with that.

Choose wisely. Some tracks are worse than others. A 4 lap race is going to have a lot of desperate drivers. If you are not putting down great qualifying laps, don’t enter. SR S is pretty easy to maintain if it’s a priority. If it drops, enjoy the victories in the lower classes while you can.

Doesn't this seem like kind of a bad thing, though? When people are actively avoiding certain tracks and races for fear of it tanking their SR, doesn't that kind of hurt the game? Wouldn't it be nice if you didn't have to skip out on certain events because your SR was more "locked in"?

...and yeah, sure, if my SR fell a couple of ranks I could probably rack up a few more victories. But for me personally, I don't really care about collecting wins as much as I like having good, even races. That's the main reason I dislike that my SR getting beat up by one bad night of racing bugs me.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

But then again let's be honest here... most SR S drivers aren't actually SR S drivers, they just farmed the points they need to appear that way.

If people would quit being so concerned about both the DR and SR rankings and just go race at the best pace they can and still remain consistent and under control, not running off the track or into other cars then the ranking system will work as intended and place you among skill level drivers similar to yourself which is what the system is designed to do.

What good does it do you to ride around at the back to raise your SR if when you start racing in close proximity to other racers after getting to that coveted S ranking you cannot race cleanly at full race pace with not always having an optimal hot lapping racing line available as when racing in a pack of cars?

If your race craft is where it needs to be and able to remain in the S ranks then you will naturally get there just racing the best you can. If you do not get there or cannot stay there then you may very well need to improve your skills a bit before you truly should be in that ranking.

It is pretty easy to spot drivers that are in the SR S ranks and it is obvious that they are trying to run at a pace that is above their current skills as they are constantly running off track or overshooting braking points and slower corners multiple times within a race.

That should not be occurring in DR B AND SR A and higher races but it is common place.

Everyone will enjoy the game more if they race where their actual skill set puts them and understands that all people will not be destined to be in the higher ranks in both SR and DR.

 

[novcze]

It is pretty easy to spot drivers that are in the SR S ranks and it is obvious that they are trying to run at a pace that is above their current skills as they are constantly running off track or overshooting braking points and slower corners multiple times within a race.

not just SR rank but also DR rank, I had a S/S guy in today's dailies who qualified first and he was making too much mistakes, slowing everyone down and causing chaos. In one race I made clean pass and he crashed me afterwards. IMO SR rating is useless in current state, too much dirty S drivers.

 

[Scaff]

We're all going to find ourselves in a dirty race from time to time. All it takes is a small handful of bad drivers, connections, etc to not only ruin your race, but completely tank your SR (which, if it get hurts too badly, can drag your hard earned DR down). Now for many, this is just a minor convenience because they'll just go out and re-farm their SR back up to A or S, but a) not everyone has the time to do that, and b) I don't really think we should have to do that to begin with.

I feel like their should be some type of "safety net" system implemented so that one bad race will not hurt your SR. I feel like you should have to do consistently poorly over multiple races before it starts to decrease (and honestly, I'd have no problem if it worked the same way in order to get it to increase as well). Drivers should have to demonstrate over larger sample sizes that they need to be moved up or down... it shouldn't just be a knee jerk reaction. If you do badly over say 3 races in a row, THEN it can go down. Curious what others think.

Now I suspect the biggest concern with a system like this is that someone could theoretically look at this as having a "free pass" to drive the occasional race as dirty as they possibly can, just causing havoc wherever. However, I think it should be relatively simple to make it so that if someone reaches a certain amount of penalties during the race, they get DQ'd (and maybe even retroactively take away any penalties that person caused other drivers... but I guess that's a separate discussion).

That would end up being even worse and even easier to game.

Race like an idiot for two races, barge everyone off track, then race clean for the third race and all is good again.

The current system could be made a lot better and quite easily.

• Make SR harder to gain and easier to lose, that way it becomes a commodity that people value.
• Don't show duration of slow down penalties, that way people can easily game them
• If you don't take you slow down within a lap you get a drive through
• If you cut corners more than x number of times (x being circuit dependent) you get a drive through
• Don't take you drive through before the last lap and you get disqualified.

Is the above (and you would need to do all of it) perfect? Nope not at all, but it what two other titles are currently doing and in rooms with it active it makes a massive difference, and one of the two title is the benchmark for online race penalties.

The penalty system itself still needs a very big overhaul as well, as the overtake a crashed can under yellow and get a penalty, no penalises for wall riding and the ability to pit someone and them get a penalty and you avoid one as still very, very much in place.

 

[Famine]

But then again let's be honest here... most SR S drivers aren't actually SR S drivers, they just farmed the points they need to appear that way.

There's no need to farm it. SR is ludicrously easy to gain and nightmarishly difficult to lose.

I've been experimenting with DR and SR recently, deliberately lowering and raising them through specific actions. In one five-lap race at Brands Hatch Indy, I had three sectors (of 15 in total - 20%) with an orange SR down arrow, but still gained 1 SR point. I only found two ways to actually lower it over a race distance: quit or be disqualified; or literally ram or be rammed by another player for over half the race distance. In a three-lap race at Dragon Trail I gained 13 SR points, and had to spend a couple of races lowering it again in order to derank before I hit the next DR rank boundary (I was looking at how SR rank affected DR, and needed a specific SR).

People are SRS because it's incredibly easy.

 

[TenderLoins]

Started a guest account yesterday. I signed a contract with Mercedes so I would have a GR3 and GR4 car to drive.

It took 7 races to go from DR/E SR/B to DR/C SR/S. Six of the 3 lap races at Suzuka in GR3 and the FIA race at Nurburgring GP.

I don’t know how you can make it much easier.

I think the biggest problem is that people aren’t spending enough time learning a track before jumping into Sport Races. If you don’t know the track really well you’re just asking for trouble. How can you concentrate on other racers when it’s all you can do to keep on track.

 

[graveltrap]

I think the biggest problem is that people aren’t spending enough time learning a track before jumping into Sport Races. If you don’t know the track really well you’re just asking for trouble. How can you concentrate on other racers when it’s all you can do to keep on track.

The game doesn’t offer people enough time to properly learn a track, most people get a couple of hours to play each day and when the tracks rotate so quickly it’s always going to be a crash fest!

Arcade game race distances lead to and all or nothing approach to racing which isn’t helping things either

I agree with those saying that it is far to easy to get to Highest safety rating, it should take way more time and effort, to reach and mai twin that standard, then into might actually mean something...

 

[VFOURMAX1]

The game doesn’t offer people enough time to properly learn a track, most people get a couple of hours to play each day

The game offers all the opportunity that ANY player wants to learn a track and or cars limits with time trial, custom race and single race modes.

Not to mention the circuit experiences where as you learn the track you can also easily receive a gift car for gold times on the circuit and gold times are so ridiculously easy to obtain that you can make mistakes and still gold the challenges.

A player can also enter the qualifying time trials for any on line race being offered and spend as much time there as needed to properly learn a track.

In the time trial leader boards you can even download and watch the replays of the top 10 guys and as long as they are using the same car as you their lines, gear choices and throttle and brake telemetry which can help us normal drivers pick up pointers to help improve our own laps.

The game offers the player plenty of tools to improve their skills but it is up to the gamer to utilize those tools to improve within the game. So blaming the game for not properly learning the track before you choose to race online on it is the failure of that racer not the game.

 

[TenderLoins]

The game offers all the opportunity that ANY player wants to learn a track and or cars limits with time trial, custom race and single race modes.

Not to mention the circuit experiences where as you learn the track you can also easily receive a gift car for gold times on the circuit and gold times are so ridiculously easy to obtain that you can make mistakes and still gold the challenges.

A player can also enter the qualifying time trials for any on line race being offered and spend as much time there as needed to properly learn a track.

In the time trial leader boards you can even download and watch the replays of the top 10 guys and as long as they are using the same car as you their lines, gear choices and throttle and brake telemetry which can help us normal drivers pick up pointers to help improve our own laps.

The game offers the player plenty of tools to improve their skills but it is up to the gamer to utilize those tools to improve within the game. So blaming the game for not properly learning the track before you choose to race online on it is the failure of that racer not the game.

Couldn’t have said it better.