I now understand what you all meant...

[Latosius]

so after a short break from online mode I returned to it again last night.

I started as DR C and SR S. The first gr3 race ended with me being shunted, rammed, blocked and eventually wound up in 17th after starting last with no qualifying time set. I had a few negative SR penalties during the race but mostly good and yet the game decided to demote me to DR D.....?

How does it calculate this.....? Seems slightly unfair.

So I resumed in DR D where initially I used the Bugatti in the gr4 race and was surrounded by Meganes and sciroccos, and got blown away on each straight ... qualifying 4th finished 10th

So then I bought the scirocco, to see what was going on, qualified pole, came 2nd after being forced off the track at the tight hill section but blew the field away after that...

Has it really gone back to car over skill for each track?

 

[bmxmitch]

Yep, welcome to sport mode!
And there are still people defending it right now

 

[MatskiMonk]

Yep, welcome to sport mode!
And there are still people defending it right now

Maybe because other peoples experiences vary?

 

[FazerT]

I'd love to know the actual calculation it uses to determine when you get deducted DR as I was DR B last week and over a single day I was matched into lobbies with faster guys where I was mid grid and finished mid for a few races. Nothing special, and good to race against faster people but the game put me back to DR C and now after a few 5th or above finishes I'm almost back to B. Seems it's constantly trying to place you in a race you can finish 5th or above, and too many non-top-5 races and it puts you down a rating?

Maybe that means it's working?!

 

[Latosius]

I'd love to know the actual calculation it uses to determine when you get deducted DR as I was DR B last week and over a single day I was matched into lobbies with faster guys where I was mid grid and finished mid for a few races. Nothing special, and good to race against faster people but the game put me back to DR C and now after a few 5th or above finishes I'm almost back to B. Seems it's constantly trying to place you in a race you can finish 5th or above, and too many non-top-5 races and it puts you down a rating?

Maybe that means it's working?!

I’m unsure, i seemed to gain more from qualifying on pole than finishing 2nd in a race based on the xp bar....

Maybe it’s the not qualifying that did me??

 

[FazerT]

I’m unsure, i seemed to gain more from qualifying on pole than finishing 2nd in a race based on the xp bar....

Maybe it’s the not qualifying that did me??

You definitely get good DR points for pole

 

[JacksHerer]

If you can't beat them, join a different race. I love bathurst so seeing it in the daily sport was nice, but my RWD cars can't beat meganes due to their over powered speed on the straights.
There is no way I'm buying a FWD car out of principle, it I get gifted one as a daily workout then I might give it a go.
So instead I concentrated on nurburg GP daily, now most people are in the RSR 991, thats the first car I bought in the game and the only GR3 car I drive.
Horses for courses for some people, I just use what I enjoy driving and base my race against the other people in the same car or non scirroco/megane cars. The corvette looked like it was at least able to stay in the slip stream of the megane, so I may give that a go instead of my viper in GR4.

 

[puupke]

I think its working like this, only for DR. If you finish in the lower half of the field it will lower youre rating and above it will rise. Only finished once something like 13th. Of the 20. And it reduced by a bit.
Now i'm S rating, and even if i get beaten by A rankings, it still rises. and if youre SR rating declines, for sure youre DR will!

 

[Stotty]

How does it calculate this.....? Seems slightly unfair.

So I resumed in DR D where initially I used the Bugatti in the gr4 race and was surrounded by Meganes and sciroccos, and got blown away on each straight ... qualifying 4th finished 10th

So then I bought the scirocco, to see what was going on, qualified pole, came 2nd after being forced off the track at the tight hill section but blew the field away after that...

Has it really gone back to car over skill for each track?

Grp4 is a little unbalanced at the moment - the grip increase that came with the 1.06 update has disproportionately benefited the FWD cars (Megane/Scirocco)... it will get fixed in the next update.

Yep, welcome to sport mode!
And there are still people defending it right now

I ran 16 races back to back in the grp3 daily at Nurb yesterday... every race was a joy. As good as GT5P, and that was easily the best on line racing I'd had before GTS.

I've now run 60 odd races on-line, and I can still count the number of times I think I've been deliberately hit on the fingers of one hand.

I think its working like this, only for DR. If you finish in the lower half of the field it will lower youre rating and above it will rise. Only finished once something like 13th. Of the 20. And it reduced by a bit.
Now i'm S rating, and even if i get beaten by A rankings, it still rises. and if youre SR rating declines, for sure youre DR will!

I didn't win a race yesterday (some very fast drivers on track), but I only finished outside the top 6 once (all bar 1 in the top 4)... I went from half way to DRS to just a fraction off... a few more races would have got me there, but I was a bit frazzled after 8 hours of solid racing.

 

[bmxmitch]

I ran 16 races back to back in the grp3 daily at Nurb yesterday... every race was a joy. As good as GT5P, and that was easily the best on line racing I'd had before GTS.

I've now run 60 odd races on-line, and I can still count the number of times I think I've been deliberately hit on the fingers of one hand.

Lucky you I guess!?

I'll try to upload a video later, to show what it's like to drive with B+ rating drivers.
Or, maybe its the attitude of some "south" European drivers online? I mainly have problems with spanish and italian racers who loose their temper after they get passed. I had the same experience when I visited Venice 2 years back, they drive like madman there (no offence guys, I'm not really serious about that one..)

 

[Johnnypenso]

Grp4 is a little unbalanced at the moment - the grip increase that came with the 1.06 update has disproportionately benefited the FWD cars (Megane/Scirocco)... it will get fixed in the next update.

I ran 16 races back to back in the grp3 daily at Nurb yesterday... every race was a joy. As good as GT5P, and that was easily the best on line racing I'd had before GTS.

I've now run 60 odd races on-line, and I can still count the number of times I think I've been deliberately hit on the fingers of one hand.

I didn't win a race yesterday (some very fast drivers on track), but I only finished outside the top 6 once (all bar 1 in the top 4)... I went from half way to DRS to just a fraction off... a few more races would have got me there, but I was a bit frazzled after 8 hours of solid racing.

You are racing near the front with the many of the best skilled, GTAcademy level drivers in Europe, all of whom have pretty much total control of their car at all times. I'd say your experience is the exception rather than the rule.

 

[Famine]

I think its working like this, only for DR. If you finish in the lower half of the field it will lower youre rating and above it will rise.

It's partly this and partly your expected finishing position*. If the game thinks you're going to finish 4th but you finish 8th, you'll lose some of your rating.

I don't actually know how much of each of those factors affects your DR, but ultimately if you finish in the top half and above your expected finish you go up, but if you finish in the bottom half and below you go down.


*Which seems to be - but may not be - your car's door number; either way, it likely corresponds to your numerical DR ranking within the lobby

 

[Stotty]

Lucky you I guess!?

I'll try to upload a video later, to show what it's like to drive with B+ rating drivers.
Or, maybe its the attitude of some "south" European drivers online? I mainly have problems with spanish and italian racers who loose their temper after they get passed. I had the same experience when I visited Venice 2 years back, they drive like madman there (no offence guys, I'm not really serious about that one..)

I'm sure it's hell... at that rating the ability of people to control their cars is limited... so contact is inevitable to some extent.

My suggestion (as always) would be to expect the worst from people, and try not to put yourself in a place where you invite the contact.

You are racing near the front with the many of the best skilled, GTAcademy level drivers in Europe, all of whom have pretty much total control of their car at all times. I'd say your experience is the exception rather than the rule.

Mainly agreed - but when I look at some of the videos on here asking who was at fault for an incident, I still think people could do a lot more to help themselves and reduce their 'suffering'.

I'm sure >99% don't set out with the intent to cause carnage... but everyone like to think they are Senna, whether they have the skills or not (sure I saw a chart on this somewhere...), and insist on taking the 'racing is rubbing', or 'you're not a race driver if you don't go for a gap' approach.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Mainly agreed - but when I look at some of the videos on here asking who was at fault for an incident, I still think people could do a lot more to help themselves and reduce their 'suffering'.

I'm sure >99% don't set out with the intent to cause carnage... but everyone like to think they are Senna, whether they have the skills or not (sure I saw a chart on this somewhere...), and insist on taking the 'racing is rubbing', or 'you're not a race driver if you don't go for a gap' approach.

People can help themselves more there's no doubt, but the videos posted here are mainly the questionable ones that involve split second timing and the person involved has a genuine curiousity as to how they should have handled the situation. When you watch a few of those, GTS videos start to pop up on your YT main page and then you watch a few of those and realize there are also lots of people who don't care for racing rules and are complete knobs who ignore all courtesy and decency and treat it like a FPS where everyone else is an enemy to be killed. Those knobs tend to be concentrated in the lower ranks and yes, I do believe many of them set out to deliberately cause carnage.

 

[baldgye]

It's partly this and partly your expected finishing position*. If the game thinks you're going to finish 4th but you finish 8th, you'll lose some of your rating.

I don't actually know how much of each of those factors affects your DR, but ultimately if you finish in the top half and above your expected finish you go up, but if you finish in the bottom half and below you go down.


*Which seems to be - but may not be - your car's door number; either way, it likely corresponds to your numerical DR ranking within the lobby

That’s interesting... I kinda assumed if your SR increased and you finished higher than you started you’re DR would increase

 

[Famine]

That’s interesting... I kinda assumed if your SR increased and you finished higher than you started you’re DR would increase

SR seems to have no effect on anything but SR. I suspect that a low SR limits your ability to get a high DR (although you might be able to lower your SR after you acquire a high DR), but otherwise it doesn't seem to do anything.

Nor does increasing your position from the grid although I suspect that affects your rate of DR increase over time. It seems to be solely down to where you finish and where that compares to where the game thinks you should finish (which might be the car's door number... or not ).

 

[Stotty]

People can help themselves more there's no doubt, but the videos posted here are mainly the questionable ones that involve split second timing and the person involved has a genuine curiousity as to how they should have handled the situation. When you watch a few of those, GTS videos start to pop up on your YT main page and then you watch a few of those and realize there are also lots of people who don't care for racing rules and are complete knobs who ignore all courtesy and decency and treat it like a FPS where everyone else is an enemy to be killed. Those knobs tend to be concentrated in the lower ranks and yes, I do believe many of them set out to deliberately cause carnage.

Surely those drivers should not be able to attain/hold a SRS ranking though (or even SRA/B)... so as long as you take a long-term approach you should be able to get to an SR ranking where collisions are (mostly) due to ineptitude rather than intent?

I've had two objectives since I started racing in GTS - build my SR (protect it at all costs) & keep my DR rating moving upwards.

As I've said in one or two other threads of this nature, there are ways to do this that are more effective than others...

Avoid (at a minimum) all Oval races, anything at Tokyo, cars you know you're just not capable of controlling properly, and the FIA events (insufficient time for qualifying). Spend a proper amount of time in qualifying - until you think you've reached your limit, AND you can get close (within max 1s) to that time EVERY lap. Between races, go back to qualifying and try to improve your time. Use the 'warm up' pre race to get used to the slightly different grip levels in a race. Expect everyone to be an idiot unless you know them/have raced them before/trust them. Don't defend a position if you think you're going to get punted - stay out of the way as the idiot will probably crash at the next corner/get involved punting the driver in front of you... always keep your pride under control!

Yes, speed and car control are a clear advantage (an error of judgement by the people I'm racing is generally a slight nudge or a bit of door rubbing - it's never a full punt), but you can help yourself.

 

[baldgye]

SR seems to have no effect on anything but SR. I suspect that a low SR limits your ability to get a high DR (although you might be able to lower your SR after you acquire a high DR), but otherwise it doesn't seem to do anything.

Nor does increasing your position from the grid although I suspect that affects your rate of DR increase over time. It seems to be solely down to where you finish and where that compares to where the game thinks you should finish (which might be the car's door number... or not ).

I never even thought about the car number before though, that is interesting... I kinda assumed since the patch that the post race screen showing the positions gained was to indicate an increase in your DR. But now that I think of it I had one race where I started 15th and finished 8th and it had a special message on screen that I'd not seen before... I wonder if THAT was an indicator?

I don't really understand why it's so mysterious though, if Starcraft 2 can display your MMR I don't see why GT Sport can't show you how it works out your rating...

 

[ASH32]

You are racing near the front with the many of the best skilled, GTAcademy level drivers in Europe, all of whom have pretty much total control of their car at all times. I'd say your experience is the exception rather than the rule.

Yes and the experience in the lower end of the grid in those very same races he is referring too is far from a good one sometimes because there are some dirty and/or less experienced drivers back there and these ones usually have decent enough pace to at least give them a chance against the other lower top end/mid pack runners. The penalty system seems non existent these days too though (apart from under yellows, which is broken too), which is a concern, both yesterday and today I've see corner cutting, using other cars as a brake, forcing others off track and other general cheating behaviour seemingly go completely unpunished, some of that for certain as it was the last lap and they never slowed down or ended up with a penalty.

Still sometimes everyone/mostly everyone can be pretty fair and even if there is contact you know it was accidental and the racing can certainly be enjoyable too, though I suspect the lower down the ratings you go the less and less likely it is to find good, fair racing and for those in those levels that is a problem, unless you enjoy this free for all stuff of course.

 

[Stotty]

Yes and the experience in the lower end of the grid in those very same races he is referring too is far from a good one sometimes because there are some dirty and/or less experienced drivers back there and these ones usually have decent enough pace to at least give them a chance against the other lower top end/mid pack runners. The penalty system seems non existent these days too though (apart from under yellows, which is broken too), which is a concern, both yesterday and today I've see corner cutting, using other cars as a brake, forcing others off track and other general cheating behaviour seemingly go completely unpunished, some of that for certain as it was the last lap and they never slowed down or ended up with a penalty.

Still sometimes everyone/mostly everyone can be pretty fair and even if there is contact you know it was accidental and the racing can certainly be enjoyable too, though I suspect the lower down the ratings you go the less and less likely it is to find good, fair racing and for those in those levels that is a problem, unless you enjoy this free for all stuff of course.

In one of my races at Nurb yesterday, I cut the 1st corner slightly on lap 1, rear wheel got on the kerb and it turned me round (criminal mistake to make, but hey ho). By the time I rejoined I was in 14th position... in amongst the DRB's, with qualifying times c.2s slower than mine.

It was an interesting experience... whilst the lap times were slower (high 57's/58's vs low 56's/occasional 55 up front), the level of aggression was much higher. Lines and cornering speeds were far less consistent, and passes a DRA/S driver would have pulled out of were attempted with corresponding outcomes!

Confidence seemed inversely proportional to ability, even at this relatively high level

 

[baldgye]

In one of my races at Nurb yesterday, I cut the 1st corner slightly on lap 1, rear wheel got on the kerb and it turned me round (criminal mistake to make, but hey ho). By the time I rejoined I was in 14th position... in amongst the DRB's, with qualifying times c.2s slower than mine.

It was an interesting experience... whilst the lap times were slower (high 57's/58's vs low 56's/occasional 55 up front), the level of aggression was much higher. Lines and cornering speeds were far less consistent, and passes a DRA/S driver would have pulled out of were attempted with corresponding outcomes!

Confidence seemed inversely proportional to ability, even at this relatively high level

Patience is a lesson some take longer to learn than others

 

[MatskiMonk]

How is everyone judging whether or not people get penalties for their actions? I see this commented on a lot.

 

[LBDN123]

Maybe because other peoples experiences vary?

same. I've had multiple clean races, then been involved in a rather scruffy race and hasn't affected my rating at all.

 

[ASH32]

How is everyone judging whether or not people get penalties for their actions? I see this commented on a lot.

Easy when it's the last lap and they don't slow down or have one at the end, gets tougher otherwise. Still when you see someone banging into everything and they end up with a blue S and never appeared to slow down it's fair to assume they were not penalised in most of those instances.

 

[Ivo001]

Yesterday I was racing in the new weekly championship. Was off to a good start, after a few mins in qualifying I still had the fastest lap time, and then my internet connection dropped. I got it restored within a minute, but there was no option to rejoin :/
Bad luck, and I planned on trying again in the next round. However I got awarded 0 points and was locked out of the others rounds...

 

[MatskiMonk]

Easy when it's the last lap and they don't slow down or have one at the end, gets tougher otherwise. Still when you see someone banging into everything and they end up with a blue S and never appeared to slow down it's fair to assume they were not penalised in most of those instances.

I got a 5 second-er for accidental, but hard, contact (lost the back end in a corner, he was on the outside), which was fair enough, I served it straight away but I'm not sure how anybody else would have known... he got away from the accident quite quickly and I had to recover to the track from the barriers. As it happens I still finished ahead of the car I hit because I overtook him cleanly later in the race... but from his point of view I can see he might have thought that A, it was intentional, and B that I didn't get penalised for it.

On the flip-side, a guy in a Lambo finished about 6th, but had 51 seconds penalties applied afterwards, so that was obvious.

I can't help but wonder if a lot of peoples grief with 'bad' drivers is as a result of them only seeing things from their point of view.

 

[Stotty]

SR seems to have no effect on anything but SR. I suspect that a low SR limits your ability to get a high DR (although you might be able to lower your SR after you acquire a high DR), but otherwise it doesn't seem to do anything.

Nor does increasing your position from the grid although I suspect that affects your rate of DR increase over time. It seems to be solely down to where you finish and where that compares to where the game thinks you should finish (which might be the car's door number... or not ).

I'd be interested to understand how the DR system separates pre-race expectations within a specific DR level, or even between adjacent driver levels... number of races at level/level within level/qualifying time etc.

I raced all day yesterday, starting mid A and finishing almost SRS. Though I had multiple podiums, I didn't win a race, but I also only finished outside the top 6 once (8th). My qualifying time at 9am was putting me top 3 on the grid, but this slipped to 6/7th by the time the Aliens turned up early afternoon (I went back to qualifying and found another 0.4s in the afternoon to improve my grid position). In most races I improved my finishing position relative to my start position - between 1 and 3 places most races.

My DR rating increased consistently through the day (though hard to tell by how much each race as the scale is so small).

But I know there are plenty a lot faster than I am, and there are a lot of DRA drivers moving through the rankings that will be faster than me... it will be interesting to see what happens when I become DRS and get beaten by DRA's.

 

[ASH32]

With regards to driver rating I believe strength of the room is a big factor, like a multiplier. I'm not all that far off from being S rated and a lot of that progress is from finishing 5-10th a lot in rooms with top ten and other fast racers and the occasional podium/win when there is only an odd one in a race. To be honest if I get to S I probably shouldn't be there as it should be harder to achieve.

 

[AshenGraey]

That’s interesting... I kinda assumed if your SR increased and you finished higher than you started you’re DR would increase

I think that's partly true, afterall your DR will not increase if your SR is low, which is probably why everyone starts at DR-E and SR-B. However, what improves the DR seems to be how fast (based on your lap time, how you overtake and consistency IMO) your are overall compare to the people you raced against and not necessarily whether you finished in a better position or not (though I'm positive that over time, it is counted as well) Just an example, while racing at Nurb GP yesterday, I started P2 made a mistake spun out and dropped down to P12 on the first lap, by then end of said lap I got hit and lost 2 more positions. Worked my way up and finished P6. When I looked at the progress bar for the DR, it actually went up while I expected it was going to decrease since I finished so low compare to where I started. I'm currently at DR A and SR S. Nowhere near as fast as the aliens but with lack of time to practice (because...well...life) I've mainly been racing on tracks that I know fairly well and enjoy (Nurb GP is one of them)

 

[Stotty]

With regards to driver rating I believe strength of the room is a big factor, like a multiplier. I'm not all that far off from being S rated and a lot of that progress is from finishing 5-10th a lot in rooms with top ten and other fast racers and the occasional podium/win when there is only an odd one in a race. To be honest if I get to S I probably shouldn't be there as it should be harder to achieve.

GTS rating system is super simple... there are only 6 levels for all Global players... GTPlanet WRS has 15 levels (IIRC div1-5, 3 sub divisions in each) for a much smaller community.

I shouldn't be S either... should be for Aliens!