PENALTY SYSTEM IS STILL A PIECE OF ****!!!

[PrinceMG]

I'm a long time iRacer, GTS' penalty system is not like iRacing (other than corner/track cutting), iRacing gives incident points which doesn't affect your current race until you hit the cap (which is 17x in regular races). In GTS every time you have an incident, it forces you to slow down to get rid of the penalty otherwise it affects your race position if you don't slow down can affect your position as well anyways.

Pre patch 1.10 the system was decent, but now the victim is often the most penalized. It's not even hilarious anymore.

I'm not talking about penalizing on track. I'm talking about the driver rating. Of course it's not 1:1, but it's quite similar with a speed ranking and a clean ranking. Something you should know if you have raced Iracing.

 

[FPV MIC]

OK this will be lengthy and I have chosen few relevent points. So here we go with direct quotes fronm the article and my countering arguments.

"What if...
After years of coding things that directly have logical and physical implications, my brain instantly goes in the "what if"-mode whenever I hear a suggestion. The problem is that the suggestion is born in ONE specific accident, and the user usually tries to abstract this to a type of situation - but is plainly wrong or at least incomplete: "He hit me in the back during braking towards T1 and this was wrong, so MR always should accuse the one who hits another guy in the back."
• "What if" the guy in front of you surprisingly slams the brakes on a straight?"

It is his fault and should incur a penalty. GTS knows where the baking zones are as I have already stated.

"What if" the guy you are about to pass suddenly blocks you?"

Yes, this is a hard one that would need some work over time to get it right. IMHO it would come down to overlap. Insfficient rear car at fault, sufficient car in front fault and lastly, too close to call, racing incident and the wreckage should be the penalty for both.

""What if" the Wrecker is sitting in a blind corner and you hit him in the rear?"

The game already Ghosts these cars so a moot point. Next?

"What if" the guy behind you spins his car in a chicane, ending up hitting you with his rear?

The game is smart enough to know which way the car is pointing. Any penalty should be that cars fault BUT I would suggest treat it the same as any accident and instantly ghost that car and his penalty will be the ensuing wreck.

"What is a brake zone?" I have already covered this. GTS has put 2 cone markers where the brake zones are in driving aids so the game already knows where these zones are. I would suggest they be extend 5-10% to allow for different driving styles.

"You'd need knowledge about both track and car" see above Re: track and since in GTS online we only race the same class or identical cars it is not a valid point to raise.

"A Yellowbird could easily have 3 or 4x the brake distance compared to a GT3.... etc etc" Already answered above so it is a moot point.

Now someone raised tyre wear and fuel load changing braking distances. Also a moot point, if the game sets max braking point for that class of car. Regardless, the following car *SHOULD NOT* run into the car in front as in real racing. Simple as that. People just learn to drive and if you can't work out all this stuff then don't do events where it is in effect.

Well Alpha Cipher how am I doing so far? Perhaps if you have some more specific question you would like to ask I will be happy to go through them with you.

I'll try and explain one of the points you're still missing relating to the part I've highlighted in your quote, and please don't take this the wrong way again.

The braking marker you're suggesting to use (+10 to 15%) is only relevant for the car you are driving... and if you're in first place. It isn't relevant to the people racing at the back of the field, especially on the opening lap of a race. In every set of circumstances above you've only used two cars, but once you get a pack situation that all goes out the window.

In an ten car pack, for example, if the first placed car brakes just whithin the designated braking zone by only a small margin, let's say it's due to being an heavy car with excessive tyre wear, then the other nine cars will likely be braking outside of the imposed braking zone because they cannot brake as deep or they'll risk rear ending P1 later in the braking zone. The ninth and tenth placed cars will certainly be braking a long way short of the zone.

In this case even P2 has possibly braked outside the imposed braking zone, which means he's then open to being shunted by every car behind him because the system would wrongly assess him as a brake checker *to everyone behind him* because he braked outside the zone. Then if you extend the braking zone to include P2's legitimate braking marker, P3 get's a penalty for brake checking... and so on. For sure one or two cars may slip up the inside of P1 due to his predicament, but that again just moves the problem from P2 to further down the order.

Or, if you extend the braking zone to the point it takes in every conceivable scenario for all 20 cars in the field, the zone would then become so long and so far back from the corner that the front runners could deliberately brake at the very start of the zone, so early that anyone behind them couldn't possibly predict their actions. Again this would lead to complications but with different results. The car directly behind would rear end the car in front because he was clueless why the car in front jumped on the brakes where he did, and then he'd get a penalty just because the guy in front was deliberately being a dick by stopping short.... and every car behind them, if now outside the zone, could be considered as brake checkers *to everyone behind them*.

This is why I tried to explain (maybe poorly) that braking zones can't be just a line across the track, they have to be able to take all circumstances into account, and not just for the front runners but for everyone, or penalties will still be handed out unfairly. Then we'll be back to square one again with everyone complaining about the penalty system, but for different reasons.

IMO the first step in the right direction is what many others have said in this thread... equal penalties for everyone regardless of DR rank!!!!

* edited because sometimes I don't get things as clear as I would like the first time*

 

[Devil240Z]

I feel like its gotten worse since launch. Now everyone has an S rank even if they drive like a maniac.

 

[GTPVenomZombie]

Saw this on the GT Sport group on Facebook. Found it pretty funny.

 

[Devil240Z]

I think if you hang onto your penalty you should take a SR hit for every sector until you serve it. I keep seeing people serving out their penalty right at the end of a race or they try to chip away at it in the corners. Talk about looking bad.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I'll try and explain one of the points you're still missing relating to the part I've highlighted in your quote, and please don't take this the wrong way again.

The braking marker you're suggesting to use (+10 to 15%) is only relevant for the car you are driving... and if you're in first place. It isn't relevant to the people racing at the back of the field, especially on the opening lap of a race. In every set of circumstances above you've only used two cars, but once you get a pack situation that all goes out the window.

In an ten car pack, for example, if the first placed car brakes just whithin the designated braking zone by only a small margin, let's say it's due to being an heavy car with excessive tyre wear, then the other nine cars will likely be braking outside of the imposed braking zone because they cannot brake as deep or they'll risk rear ending P1 later in the braking zone. The ninth and tenth placed cars will certainly be braking a long way short of the zone.

In this case even P2 has possibly braked outside the imposed braking zone, which means he's then open to being shunted by every car behind him because the system would wrongly assess him as a brake checker *to everyone behind him* because he braked outside the zone. Then if you extend the braking zone to include P2's legitimate braking marker, P3 get's a penalty for brake checking... and so on. For sure one or two cars may slip up the inside of P1 due to his predicament, but that again just moves the problem from P2 to further down the order.

Or, if you extend the braking zone to the point it takes in every conceivable scenario for all 20 cars in the field, the zone would then become so long and so far back from the corner that the front runners could deliberately brake at the very start of the zone, so early that anyone behind them couldn't possibly predict their actions. Again this would lead to complications but with different results. The car directly behind would rear end the car in front because he was clueless why the car in front jumped on the brakes where he did, and then he'd get a penalty just because the guy in front was deliberately being a dick by stopping short.... and every car behind them, if now outside the zone, could be considered as brake checkers *to everyone behind them*.

This is why I tried to explain (maybe poorly) that braking zones can't be just a line across the track, they have to be able to take all circumstances into account, and not just for the front runners but for everyone, or penalties will still be handed out unfairly. Then we'll be back to square one again with everyone complaining about the penalty system, but for different reasons.

IMO the first step in the right direction is what many others have said in this thread... equal penalties for everyone regardless of DR rank!!!!

* edited because sometimes I don't get things as clear as I would like the first time*

You're going at it the wrong way around. The car in front should only get a penalty if it has clear road ahead and brakes out of the braking zone. In all other cases the car behind needs to pay more attention. Then the only thing you need to determine is how much room ahead can be deemed 'clear road ahead'. The game can easily calculate that by simulating the car braking at the right time and check if it would have collided with traffic ahead, add a little margin for human uncertainty and if all checks out while in actuality the car started braking too soon causing an incident, then the car gets penalized for unsafe driving. No need for that 1 sec you too penalty when you're right behind the next car.

I think if you hang onto your penalty you should take a SR hit for every sector until you serve it. I keep seeing people serving out their penalty right at the end of a race or they try to chip away at it in the corners. Talk about looking bad.

Chipping away in corners needs to stop, however serving in lap 1 shouldn't happen either nor in the last lap. It often creates more incidents. Penalty time should not count down when there is a car behind you or when you're on the racing line, on the pit entry or exit lane. Serve it in the pit instead of messing up incoming and outgoing traffic.

Add the threat of losing more SR and you get a mess of people stopping right in front of other cars to get rid of it asap. That already happens too often. It was a dumb idea to ghost cars serving penalties as people use it as an excuse to serve it right in front of people and try to trick them into hitting them by applying the gas again at the last moment.

 

[Alpha Cipher]

You're going at it the wrong way around. The car in front should only get a penalty if it has clear road ahead and brakes out of the braking zone. In all other cases the car behind needs to pay more attention. Then the only thing you need to determine is how much room ahead can be deemed 'clear road ahead'. The game can easily calculate that by simulating the car braking at the right time and check if it would have collided with traffic ahead, add a little margin for human uncertainty and if all checks out while in actuality the car started braking too soon causing an incident, then the car gets penalized for unsafe driving. No need for that 1 sec you too penalty when you're right behind the next car.




Chipping away in corners needs to stop, however serving in lap 1 shouldn't happen either nor in the last lap. It often creates more incidents. Penalty time should not count down when there is a car behind you or when you're on the racing line, on the pit entry or exit lane. Serve it in the pit instead of messing up incoming and outgoing traffic.

Add the threat of losing more SR and you get a mess of people stopping right in front of other cars to get rid of it asap. That already happens too often. It was a dumb idea to ghost cars serving penalties as people use it as an excuse to serve it right in front of people and try to trick them into hitting them by applying the gas again at the last moment.

If you simulate 16 cars going into L1 T1 though, the lag will be unbearable...

 

[TT92]

The problem is if the person ahead doesn't allow you to have any overlap in the first place. If the person would keep blocking you and you hits their rear bumper, how could you develop an overlap in the first place?

This even happens now in F1 for real and they seem to cope with it ;-)

QUOTE="Alpha Cipher, post: 12364272, member: 269017"]How do you know that the game is smart enough that it knows where the cars are pointing?[/QUOTE] Look at the track map, the cars are depicted as arrows and the "pointy bit" shows direction of travel. That's how I know.

For what it's worth, there's countless posts about people getting hit by people who spin out and still get a penalty.

And this is one of the ares I want to see adressed. The easiest way is for the out of control car to be ghosted by the game (as I already said)

How about in specific situations when the offending car makes a pass up on the inside, but is carrying so much speed that they need to brake extra harder (past the 10% limit you imposed) to keep themselves on the inside line? The defending car would then probably hit the rear bumper of the offender, but the offender would be penalized for doing a textbook defensive maneuver? And 5-10% isn't enough at all to cover all kinds of different driving styles. Between the lower splits that rely on cones and the higher splits that don't, differences in braking zones can be as much as half a meter board, if not whole. There's also people who can't take some turns without braking, while others can do it flat out. What would happen in those situations?

Overlap. And quite frankly Cipher you are good enough to reasalise we don't want the game to completely absolve the players of all racing skills. At the end of the day it is a racing game that does require some skill. Once we have the penalty system in better shape we can then work on SR ranking and player matching.

Wouldn't that complicate braking zones even further

Se above

Your version of the penalty system would work mostly on a straight line, but it pretty much falls apart when you take corners into account. Straight-line braking, trail-braking, overshooting and correcting yourself, those are all possibilities that your penalty system can't hope to cover, TT92.

It does actually work in corners BUT why not let it sort out the straight line stuff first?

OK let me put it a slightly different way. What I have said would work and would have to be a hell of a lot better, most of the time, than the absolute garbage system we have now that is almost universally criticised.

I actually think all PD has to do is just reverse the penalty system as it is now. That would redress most of the incidents I am involved in straight up ;-) (NOTE the smiley, I said this with some humour but it is how I do feel a lot of the time. It know it wouldn't be this simple)

 

[Devil240Z]

Chipping away in corners needs to stop, however serving in lap 1 shouldn't happen either nor in the last lap. It often creates more incidents. Penalty time should not count down when there is a car behind you or when you're on the racing line, on the pit entry or exit lane. Serve it in the pit instead of messing up incoming and outgoing traffic.

Add the threat of losing more SR and you get a mess of people stopping right in front of other cars to get rid of it asap. That already happens too often. It was a dumb idea to ghost cars serving penalties as people use it as an excuse to serve it right in front of people and try to trick them into hitting them by applying the gas again at the last moment.

Yeah that makes sense. I kinda think they should at least experiment with a drive through penalty, maybe in the longer sport dailies.

 

[CBH]

It would be a good thing If PD puts in place for the out of control car to be ghosted in Sport Mode, and that will please everyone .

 

[TT92]

I'll try and explain one of the points you're still missing relating to the part I've highlighted in your quote, and please don't take this the wrong way again.

Oh I won't. This topic is proving to be a very enjoyable discussion :-)

The braking marker you're suggesting to use (+10 to 15%) is only relevant for the car you are driving... and if you're in first place. It isn't relevant to the people racing at the back of the field, especially on the opening lap of a race. In every set of circumstances above you've only used two cars, but once you get a pack situation that all goes out the window.

No it doesn't. Online Sport mode we only race standard cars of one class with BoP ON or identical cars. So this is a moot point of yours. Obviously for mix class racing it will change BUT for now we are in what is essentially identical cars. Also, just to correct you I have discussed multiple cars, not just two. I have suggested for T1 pack incidents that after the first contact all other penalties are void and perhaps ghosting could be used so as to not impinge upon inocent people's race.

In an ten car pack, for example, if the first placed car brakes just whithin the designated braking zone by only a small margin, let's say it's due to being an heavy car with excessive tyre wear, then the other nine cars will likely be braking outside of the imposed braking zone because they cannot brake as deep or they'll risk rear ending P1 later in the braking zone. The ninth and tenth placed cars will certainly be braking a long way short of the zone

See above about identical car/class. And as I have said to Alpha Cipher we don't want the game to substitute a system for a lack of skill. After all, it is a racing game that does require some skill ;-)

In this case even P2 has possibly braked outside the imposed braking zone, which means he's then open to being shunted by every car behind him because the system would wrongly assess him as a brake checker *to everyone behind him* because he braked outside the zone. Then if you extend the braking zone to include P2's legitimate braking marker, P3 get's a penalty for brake checking... and so on. For sure one or two cars may slip up the inside of P1 due to his predicament, but that again just moves the problem from P2 to further down the order.

See above about skill ;-) Also I have proposed in a pack situation is that after the first initial contact all other penalties are then void. Ghosting would also help here to sort out any ensuing chaos.

Or, if you extend the braking zone to the point it takes in every conceivable scenario for all 20 cars in the field, the zone would then become so long and so far back from the corner that the front runners could deliberately brake at the very start of the zone, so early that anyone behind them couldn't possibly predict their actions. Again this would lead to complications but with different results. The car directly behind would rear end the car in front because he was clueless why the car in front jumped on the brakes where he did, and then he'd get a penalty just because the guy in front was deliberately being a dick by stopping short.... and every car behind them, if now outside the zone, could be considered as brake checkers *to everyone behind them*.

Yes, T1 incidents are hard to solve and even F1 has these same problems. Fine tuning will obviously be needed BUT we have to start somewhere. What is currently availble quite clearly does not work.

This is why I tried to explain (maybe poorly) that braking zones can't be just a line across the track,.

Yes they can. Maybe a big red flashing line at that. It would quite clearly say, you hit the car in front in side this area you will be penalised *unless* you have already established an overlap situation prior to this point. We can then fine tune overlap rules as we go along.

they have to be able to take all circumstances into account,

No, just most of them. No system is perfect and there will be times when the system gets it wrong and lag will see to this BUT we need to get it better than it is now.

and not just for the front runners but for everyone, or penalties will still be handed out unfairly. Then we'll be back to square one again with everyone complaining about the penalty system, but for different reasons..

you can't have sliding scales. Rules need to be hard and fixed. Again, see the bit I wrote about racing skills ;-)

IMO the first step in the right direction is what many others have said in this thread... equal penalties for everyone regardless of DR rank!!!!

There is no argument from me there.

* edited because sometimes I don't get things as clear as I would like the first time*

You have done very well :-)

 

[FPV MIC]

You're going at it the wrong way around. The car in front should only get a penalty if it has clear road ahead and brakes out of the braking zone. In all other cases the car behind needs to pay more attention. Then the only thing you need to determine is how much room ahead can be deemed 'clear road ahead'. The game can easily calculate that by simulating the car braking at the right time and check if it would have collided with traffic ahead, add a little margin for human uncertainty and if all checks out while in actuality the car started braking too soon causing an incident, then the car gets penalized for unsafe driving. No need for that 1 sec you too penalty when you're right behind the next car.

This has all come about because of someone wanting a static braking zone, so I've applied everything to that one example. What I've been trying to show is that this doesn't work, and the further you go down the rabbit hole the harder it gets.

Example: If the second car brakes as to not hit the first car, and does this successfully, it will likely be outside of the first cars braking zone. So then the second cars braking zone is in a different place to the first cars, and this progresses through the whole field. This gives you multiple braking zones all at the same time for the same corner. Then you have a multitude of other variables to consider like, cars side by side, lag, tyre wear, fuel load, slipstream effect, what car is where in the pack x20 different cars in every different combination (as all have different braking lengths) and all of a sudden you have many thousands of computations that need to be taken into account, all at the same instant, and all in differing realities for each player.

This is why I've said previously that the braking zone has to be a moving zone (dynamic) and that it can't be static.

Edit: @TT92 we all want the same thing, I just don't think it's anywhere near as easy as we'd hope.

 

[Oswald07]

I'll try and explain one of the points you're still missing relating to the part I've highlighted in your quote, and please don't take this the wrong way again.

The braking marker you're suggesting to use (+10 to 15%) is only relevant for the car you are driving... and if you're in first place. It isn't relevant to the people racing at the back of the field, especially on the opening lap of a race. In every set of circumstances above you've only used two cars, but once you get a pack situation that all goes out the window.

In an ten car pack, for example, if the first placed car brakes just whithin the designated braking zone by only a small margin, let's say it's due to being an heavy car with excessive tyre wear, then the other nine cars will likely be braking outside of the imposed braking zone because they cannot brake as deep or they'll risk rear ending P1 later in the braking zone. The ninth and tenth placed cars will certainly be braking a long way short of the zone.

In this case even P2 has possibly braked outside the imposed braking zone, which means he's then open to being shunted by every car behind him because the system would wrongly assess him as a brake checker *to everyone behind him* because he braked outside the zone. Then if you extend the braking zone to include P2's legitimate braking marker, P3 get's a penalty for brake checking... and so on. For sure one or two cars may slip up the inside of P1 due to his predicament, but that again just moves the problem from P2 to further down the order.

Or, if you extend the braking zone to the point it takes in every conceivable scenario for all 20 cars in the field, the zone would then become so long and so far back from the corner that the front runners could deliberately brake at the very start of the zone, so early that anyone behind them couldn't possibly predict their actions. Again this would lead to complications but with different results. The car directly behind would rear end the car in front because he was clueless why the car in front jumped on the brakes where he did, and then he'd get a penalty just because the guy in front was deliberately being a dick by stopping short.... and every car behind them, if now outside the zone, could be considered as brake checkers *to everyone behind them*.

This is why I tried to explain (maybe poorly) that braking zones can't be just a line across the track, they have to be able to take all circumstances into account, and not just for the front runners but for everyone, or penalties will still be handed out unfairly. Then we'll be back to square one again with everyone complaining about the penalty system, but for different reasons.

IMO the first step in the right direction is what many others have said in this thread... equal penalties for everyone regardless of DR rank!!!!

* edited because sometimes I don't get things as clear as I would like the first time*

If your drafting someone into the braking zone you have less downforce and your brakes will be less effective so a following car should always try to brake early or risk a rear ender and a deserved penalty. It can sometime allow you to get on the gas earlier and gain an advantage.

 

[FPV MIC]

If your drafting someone into the braking zone you have less downforce and your brakes will be less effective so a following car should always try to brake early or risk a rear ender and a deserved penalty. It can sometime allow you to get on the gas earlier and gain an advantage.

I know, that's why I've said that slipstream effect has to be taken into account when discussing the length of braking zones.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

If you simulate 16 cars going into L1 T1 though, the lag will be unbearable...

You have 16 consoles to do it though. Each console can simulate its own car to check what you could have done and whether you deserve a penalty or not. It seems it's calculated on the clients anyway and each client can check for themselves if you're messing with the car behind or legitimately braking for a corner or obstacle (accident or other car). No need to simulate 16 cars. It's not time critical either, penalties always show up late.

Perhaps it already works like that and still needs some fine tuning. Of course the client that detects its driver is messing with the car behind should notify the client of the car behind that it was its fault so the car behind doesn't get a penalty. That step is definitely missing as there doesn't seem to be any communication about who gets what between clients.

 

[bmxmitch]

Woaahh, 37% think the penalty system is amazing? What. The. Hell.?
Must be either Dr C drivers or divebombing crashkids...

 

[daan]

Woaahh, 37% think the penalty system is amazing? What. The. Hell.?
Must be either Dr C drivers or divebombing crashkids...

No, they don't think it's amazing, but they don't think it's "horse poop" either.

EDIT: Misleading poll removed.

 

[JalkePeters]

Its impossible to race now...... a small hit nothing serious is a panalty and rating down. Vlose racing is near impossible........

 

[bmxmitch]

No, they don't think it's amazing, but they don't think it's "horse poop" either.

EDIT: Misleading poll removed.

Thanks

Its impossible to race now...... a small hit nothing serious is a panalty and rating down. Vlose racing is near impossible........

Its really tough times at the moment. I had 4 clean races in a row, gained around 10 SR points, then one bad race where a guy couldnt accept that I was faster, rammed me a few times and my SR went down 16 points again...

PD really needs to get their **** together and work on a solution.

 

[CBH]

PD really needs to get their sh** together and work on a solution.

And PD needs to fix it ASAP. I get sick of reading about how bad Sport Mode really is. I wonder how long are we going to talk about this until something gets done ?.

 

[warp9engage]

During this year's Le Mans, team radio for car 68 Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA:

Engineer: Ok Sebastien, just to let you know we have new stewards at the race, this year, and, apparently, they are very strict, so watch your driving.
Seb: Ok, thanks.

(later, while chasing Porsche)

Engineer: Ok, you have a 1.2 second penalty for abusing track limits at Corvette corner.
Seb: What? I was barely off the line!
Engineer: Don't worry, the Porsche got one too.

Engineer: Your penalty is now up to 3.5 seconds for cutting on the Ford chicanes.
Seb: You've got to be kidding me!
Engineer: I'm just relaying the messages from Race Control.

Engineer: Make that 9.5 seconds of penalties for cutting the Dunlop chicane.
Seb: I didn't cut the... Wait... it keeps adding up?
Engineer: Yep. More and more. We told you, be careful.

Engineer: Alright Sebastien, that's 17 seconds of penalties you have now, for extending at Tertre Rouge. We're going to need you to slow right down and serve the penalty, please.
Seb: *sigh* I'm in the middle of something, can I serve it later?
Engineer: Yes, but you'll have more penalty to serve if you do.
Seb: How much?
Engineer: 1 extra second, every 2 seconds, from now until you serve it.
Seb: That's insane!
Engineer: We agree, but we can't argue with Race Control because none of them speak English and their translator couldn't come. Also, your penalty is now 21 seconds, and by the way, if it gets to one minute, you have to serve it immediately or be disqualified.
Seb: Seriously... Right after the Porsche slows and I pass him!
Engineer: That's not a mechanical fault, he's just serving his 45 seconds worth of penalties...

(Meanwhile at Toyota)

Engineer: Fernando, you've been issued a 5 second penalty for overtaking that traffic outside of track limits. Repeat, 5 second penalty.
Fernando: 5 seconds is a joke! What a joke!

 

[fastone371]

During this year's Le Mans, team radio for car 68 Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA:

Engineer: Ok Sebastien, just to let you know we have new stewards at the race, this year, and, apparently, they are very strict, so watch your driving.
Seb: Ok, thanks.

(later, while chasing Porsche)

Engineer: Ok, you have a 1.2 second penalty for abusing track limits at Corvette corner.
Seb: What? I was barely off the line!
Engineer: Don't worry, the Porsche got one too.

Engineer: Your penalty is now up to 3.5 seconds for cutting on the Ford chicanes.
Seb: You've got to be kidding me!
Engineer: I'm just relaying the messages from Race Control.

Engineer: Make that 9.5 seconds of penalties for cutting the Dunlop chicane.
Seb: I didn't cut the... Wait... it keeps adding up?
Engineer: Yep. More and more. We told you, be careful.

Engineer: Alright Sebastien, that's 17 seconds of penalties you have now, for extending at Tertre Rouge. We're going to need you to slow right down and serve the penalty, please.
Seb: *sigh* I'm in the middle of something, can I serve it later?
Engineer: Yes, but you'll have more penalty to serve if you do.
Seb: How much?
Engineer: 1 extra second, every 2 seconds, from now until you serve it.
Seb: That's insane!
Engineer: We agree, but we can't argue with Race Control because none of them speak English and their translator couldn't come. Also, your penalty is now 21 seconds, and by the way, if it gets to one minute, you have to serve it immediately or be disqualified.
Seb: Seriously... Right after the Porsche slows and I pass him!
Engineer: That's not a mechanical fault, he's just serving his 45 seconds worth of penalties...

(Meanwhile at Toyota)

Engineer: Fernando, you've been issued a 5 second penalty for overtaking that traffic outside of track limits. Repeat, 5 second penalty.
Fernando: 5 seconds is a joke! What a joke!

FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!

Let's not forget that Seb also gets 4 more seconds because the car behind Seb tapped his rear bumper at the approach to Ford on the very next lap!!!

 

[TT92]

This has all come about because of someone wanting a static braking zone, so I've applied everything to that one example. What I've been trying to show is that this doesn't work, and the further you go down the rabbit hole the harder it gets.

Example: If the second car brakes as to not hit the first car, and does this successfully, it will likely be outside of the first cars braking zone. So then the second cars braking zone is in a different place to the first cars, and this progresses through the whole field. This gives you multiple braking zones all at the same time for the same corner. Then you have a multitude of other variables to consider like, cars side by side, lag, tyre wear, fuel load, slipstream effect, what car is where in the pack x20 different cars in every different combination (as all have different braking lengths) and all of a sudden you have many thousands of computations that need to be taken into account, all at the same instant, and all in differing realities for each player.

This is why I've said previously that the braking zone has to be a moving zone (dynamic) and that it can't be static.

Edit: @TT92 we all want the same thing, I just don't think it's anywhere near as easy as we'd hope.

And this is why I suggested using a static (fixed) braking point for every corner, it removes the load from the PS4 CPU. And to anticipate a congested pack maybe extending the static braking zone 10% or so (maybe it needs to be 50%??) Also why I suggested it was a "game of skill" and people do ultimately need to learn how to drive and anticipate to avoid accidents, just like in real life. So unless you are saying people that drive real cars are incapable of working out "dynamic" braking zones in traffic then my reasoning holds up which is basically **DO NOT** run into the back of the car in front of you approaching a corner.

I am continually trying to apply the "KISS" principal here and everyone just seems to want to complicate it to show why it can't be done.

Even with your negative reasons above what I have suggested will get around them. e.g. you mention lag. dedicated servers and stricter ping matching would fix this (to a great extent anyway).

Regardless, surely what I am advocating would have to be than the garbage we have now? I am sick and tired of being smashed off the track by some back marker at T1!!!!!! Or being dive bombed into a corner and "smashed of the track" AND being given a penalty for it. Anything would have to better than this current system, surely?????

I don't know if anyone has noticed but I have not posted videos or gone into tirades about specific instances where these things have occurred to me because the existing videos are pretty well universal as to the problems.

Then, once we sort out penalties to at least a satisfactory level perhaps we can refine the ranking system. Basically, half the people in A/A+ S races should not be there.

 

[Alpha Cipher]

Then, once we sort out penalties to at least a satisfactory level perhaps we can refine the ranking system. Basically, half the people in A/A+ S races should not be there

First off, DR is a bit irrelevant in terms of penalties. I can understand SR, but why would you bring up DR?

In the first place, do you even have the right to talk about the ranking system? You gamed it yourself by tanking your rankings to get the wins. What makes you so rightful then to complain about the ranking system?

 

[soundtiger95]

Just did a race for the first time in a couple of months. What the hell happened to the penalty system? It wasn’t great to begin with but it seems to have become ridiculous, especially in regards to track boundaries. I didn’t once put all four tires over the line or out of bounds and was still given penalties. Is this really what sport mode has come to?

Edit: just did another race. Wow. Parden my language, but what a real ****show this game has become. It’s comical and insulting that they market this game as a racing simulator and I feel bad for the FIA actually having their organization associated with it. I definitely won’t be coming back to sport mode at all. It’s just not worth it.

 

[CBH]

I have not done a Sport Mode race since early February, it was bad back then and I kept out of trouble at the back end of the field when I raced. I would love to do Sport Mode races, but how can you have a good race and you have others player trying to wreck your race. I have never had a bad experience but close ones that made me not to worry about playing Sport Mode anymore. I just want to race with others players and not worry about stupid players that want to destoy my race and that is why I have stopped playing this game.

 

[yas]

Wonder if it's a driver specific anger management issues to locales. Had three 10 lap daily races yesterday on the Dragon Trail, did not get a single penalty for track limits and while there were some *kisses*, only slight SR downs. And I was aggressive - first started 20th finishing 12th, then two 5th starts finishing 3rd so I was not holding back. Also had a Nurb GP endurance where I had one penalty for abusing the chicane which was fair.
It appears some tracks are more strict than others in regards to track limits, but calling it all **** does seem to go too far in the scale to me.

 

[fastone371]

Wonder if it's a driver specific anger management issues to locales. Had three 10 lap daily races yesterday on the Dragon Trail, did not get a single penalty for track limits and while there were some *kisses*, only slight SR downs. And I was aggressive - first started 20th finishing 12th, then two 5th starts finishing 3rd so I was not holding back. Also had a Nurb GP endurance where I had one penalty for abusing the chicane which was fair.
It appears some tracks are more strict than others in regards to track limits, but calling it all **** does seem to go too far in the scale to me.

I think the penalty system is still garbage, it just depends what kind of drivers you are matched with. I had 3 great races at LeMans on Sunday because nobody tried to hit me, all clean passing, and no getting hit in braking zones which was extremely rare. The penalty system seemed to work perfect but at the same time it wasn't tested. I see how people can have different views of the penalty system, I almost have hope for my fellow man now.

 

[ASH32]

As an A/A+ rated driver the worse thing you can do is accidently touch someone's rear and not affect them one bit because you'll get a penalty between 4 and 10 seconds with 10 being more likely it seems and still be behind the other driver. If you were just a dirty driver who tried to pass at every corner you'd wouldn't get a penalty any worse than this for a bit of hard contact, maybe even non as the other guy may take evasive action and chances are you'd at least be in front of the other driver then in each case regardless but you'd then likely be involved in multiple incidents a race (so multiple penalties) which is no good either.

So you then try to be extra careful knowing this and the game decides you hit the guy in front anyway because lag I assume and you get ten seconds or you come across an aggressive driver and they wreck both of your races getting you both major penalties with their stupidity. It's certainly a major problem but it's not an easily solvable problem either.

 

[Outspacer]

And this is why I suggested using a static (fixed) braking point for every corner, it removes the load from the PS4 CPU. And to anticipate a congested pack maybe extending the static braking zone 10% or so (maybe it needs to be 50%??) Also why I suggested it was a "game of skill" and people do ultimately need to learn how to drive and anticipate to avoid accidents, just like in real life. So unless you are saying people that drive real cars are incapable of working out "dynamic" braking zones in traffic then my reasoning holds up which is basically **DO NOT** run into the back of the car in front of you approaching a corner.

I am continually trying to apply the "KISS" principal here and everyone just seems to want to complicate it to show why it can't be done.

Even with your negative reasons above what I have suggested will get around them. e.g. you mention lag. dedicated servers and stricter ping matching would fix this (to a great extent anyway).

Regardless, surely what I am advocating would have to be than the garbage we have now? I am sick and tired of being smashed off the track by some back marker at T1!!!!!! Or being dive bombed into a corner and "smashed of the track" AND being given a penalty for it. Anything would have to better than this current system, surely?????

I don't know if anyone has noticed but I have not posted videos or gone into tirades about specific instances where these things have occurred to me because the existing videos are pretty well universal as to the problems.

I agree, we've gone a bit off track with this strand of discussion, because in essence we're saying a similar thing - certain cases could be simple enough to adjudicate.

Starting from the absolute simplest to program: there is certainly a way to say whether a car's speed is such that even with full braking and steering lock applied perfectly it would end up fully off track. If a car in that state even touches another car, it's at fault. That case is so simple because it doesn't need any definition of corner or braking zone, or any calculation of any other car, yet it would deal with a lot if not all of the brutal incidents you highlight.

Then, once we sort out penalties to at least a satisfactory level perhaps we can refine the ranking system. Basically, half the people in A/A+ S races should not be there.

Refining SR is key to collecting a decent set of racers to race together, so I'd say that was the most important. But since penalties feed into SR, they need sorting out as well and should probably not feed as much into SR, regardless of other changes.

First off, DR is a bit irrelevant in terms of penalties. I can understand SR, but why would you bring up DR?

Because people racing dirty and getting away with it have higher DR than they should have, I guess. But it's a minor problem that would correct itself if penalties and SR were fixed.