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

[WheelmanSteve]

I've run a bunch of events at Lago- I like the combo. But enough is enough. If, like me, you're not the fastest, but race clean, you're pretty much screwed. Crash-to-pass is the rule of the road, now. If I wanted to play Mario Kart or Rocket League, I would. I'll be waiting to see if there is a correction. Maybe not- if wreckin' as racin' bumps up the player count, we might be stuck with it. Well, other people will, anyway.
OK, what's worse for my DR- starting third, and getting pounded into the gravel, restarting last, and racing back to 14th or 13th, or starting third, getting pounded into the gravel, and quitting?

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I don't mean before the most recent update (which came with Laguna Seca), that one was quite bad with handing out penalties for no reason. Before that update however, it was fine, and how it's mostly been since I started playing over a year ago. And if you're talking about that as well, then our experiences are just different, because once I started driving with self-preservation, it was very easy to maintain a high SR, and I had consistently cleaner races when other players had high SR's as well.

And yeah, I don't mean the nuances of the physics, I just mean the input control is roughly analogous to actual driving. In terms of what you're manipulating to control the car. Whereas if you're playing a game like Madden, the controls don't translate at all to what an actual football player does. So it's easier to limit what the player is capable of because they aren't directly manipulating the body of an athlete. But in racing games, the playing is directly manipulating the car with a similar level of control as in real life.

The system where you could tap someone from behind and give them SR Down, or tap them then the wall to give them a 3 sec penalty? That's what we had before the touch and lose position give a penalty. It hasn't been fine since St Croix was added to the game.

How do you drive with self preservation to prevent draft bumpers from touching your rear bumper? Avoiding accidents and dive bombs sure, pay attention. But driving in traffic and getting tapped from behind, no way to prevent that. Race A and B were always a struggle, just a single tap from behind from someone who then can't make the corner was a red S for the race.

Anyway it's not the lack of contact penalties that's the problem, everyone being in SR.S now including those that normally never get there is the real problem. The SR system needs to be looked at. Tweaking the penalties has proven to be a dead end.

 

[astrarobotica]

The system where you could tap someone from behind and give them SR Down, or tap them then the wall to give them a 3 sec penalty? That's what we had before the touch and lose position give a penalty. It hasn't been fine since St Croix was added to the game.

How do you drive with self preservation to prevent draft bumpers from touching your rear bumper? Avoiding accidents and dive bombs sure, pay attention. But driving in traffic and getting tapped from behind, no way to prevent that. Race A and B were always a struggle, just a single tap from behind from someone who then can't make the corner was a red S for the race.

Anyway it's not the lack of contact penalties that's the problem, everyone being in SR.S now including those that normally never get there is the real problem. The SR system needs to be looked at. Tweaking the penalties has proven to be a dead end.

"Fine" was admittedly a poor word choice. Flawed, but effective. It can never be perfect. But yeah, once I stopped making stupid moves and learned when not to defend, I found it much easier to maintain a high SR. And that led to getting consistently matched with cleaner drivers. I'm just saying I prefer that to whatever's going on now. The benefits of the system always outweighed the flaws for me personally.

 

[Dorofint]

"Fine" was admittedly a poor word choice. Flawed, but effective. It can never be perfect. But yeah, once I stopped making stupid moves and learned when not to defend, I found it much easier to maintain a high SR. And that led to getting consistently matched with cleaner drivers. I'm just saying I prefer that to whatever's going on now. The benefits of the system always outweighed the flaws for me personally.

I also learned to keep my SR up in the old system. But for that I also had to drive extremely defensively. I let some players pass by, although I should have fought in the situations. That was mainly in situations where I already recognized in the rearview mirror that the driver was over-motivated or dirty. I can tell when a driver is driving at 120% risk and is constantly in danger of producing accidents. Yes you can let others pass, but it is not the meaning of racing. It would be important to me to have a good penalty system where I can feel something like justice. Mistakes happen and dirty things too. That is OK for me if something like that has corresponding consequences. But that was often not the case in GTS.

 

[Krypton78]

Some of the subjects mentioned here can be summarized as that for outsiders ist not possible to understand how decissions are made at PD and how they work inside. Many things are simply not understandable and are very weird. They turn from update to update basic elements completely to the otherside and back again and so on. Pretty obvious they don't know what they're doing to say it fast. From my experience in my work life, this is a clear indication for a big structure fail in a company.

I found an interesting article in a german computergames side, where the Reporter also visited Polyphoni Digital.

The important part about GT Sport is google- translated here:

"At GT Sport, on the other hand, when I visited Polyphony Digital, I was able to experience how Yamauchi's instructions were given and followed unconditionally to the bitter end, even though many employees must have suspected that he was developing past the target group. The developers I spoke to literally stunned their boss. My (not so critical) demand was almost accepted as an outrage there. Even in the case of Shenmue 3, it looks like Yu Suzuki is only surrounded internally by yes-sayers who don't tell him that his vision is completely out of date if he is really so naive or out of touch not to notice it himself ."

https://www.pcgames.de/Panorama-The...stVariant=cx_4&cx_artPos=2&cx_type=contextual


Modern and succsessfull leaders are listening to feedbacks from thier employees/ departments. The times where a captain gave his orders are over there. The autocratic structures may be fast in decissions and even successfull in solving short term Problems/ Tasks, but in the end they fail.

 

[Kiki_Haoru]

Pretty much amazed by the clean races I've had yesterday (race C around the nurb, race A and the Manu race)... No crazy dive bomber, a few penalties given away.
At the moment I'm okay with what we have been given. Maybe the weekly race at DragonTrail will make me change my mind...

 

[ROCKET JOE]

IRacing shows that a better system has been possible for years. But in a way, the developers of IRacing have it easier. Their customers are almost all racing enthusiasts who have something like racecraft. GTS, on the other hand, is played by many different players. Among them are children, chaots and arcade players. It is difficult to satisfy all of these players. A good penalty system is technically possible but would drive some of these players out of the game.

Sorry mate for this late reply.
I don't know nothing about iRacing except what I've read here on the forums. I've read that PD basically tried to copy that exact penalty system.
I've read in your post that it's a better system working for many years now. So my first questions are : Is that true ? Why is it working better ? Did PD forget to code some essential parts / intentionally leave out some essential parts to reduce CPU load / other reasons in that line / something else ?
Some other questions are : Did you ever encounter iRacing people massively trying to game their system ? Is that possible at all ? And what would happen then ? Did you ever encounter so many race incidents in iRacing like in the daily races, except in the rookie class maybe ?
How would "children, chaots and arcade players" do in a iRacing career ?
A lot of questions - maybe you ( or anyone else ) care to share your knowledge.
My intuition tells me that we can't exactly compare GT Sport with iRacing in that matter - and that it's possibly been a big mistake trying to copy their penalty system expecting it to deliver similar results.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

"Fine" was admittedly a poor word choice. Flawed, but effective. It can never be perfect. But yeah, once I stopped making stupid moves and learned when not to defend, I found it much easier to maintain a high SR. And that led to getting consistently matched with cleaner drivers. I'm just saying I prefer that to whatever's going on now. The benefits of the system always outweighed the flaws for me personally.

@Dorofint already said it but I'll add my two cents. Defending (not blocking) is part of racing. Maintaining high SR often meant simply giving positions away to those threatening to give you a penalty or driving yourself off after getting hit to avoid the SR Down. I'm biased of course, driving from the back through traffic is a lot easier now I don't have to worry about the non qualifiers starting behind me battering my rear bumper while I'm careful not to hit the slower drivers starting in front of me. I stopped qualifying because not willing to go recklessly into T1 usually had the car behind me bumping into me.

Maintaining high SR has never been much of a problem, only on Monday's on certain tracks (Blue moon bay and Nordschleife starting mid pack due to hardly anyone qualifying on Monday) and then getting stuck in SR.B since a couple mostly innocent bumps from behind would take all possible SR gain away or slow it down to 1 or 2 points per race. It was a curse to want to maintain a bit of a safe distance, go slow in, fast out and slow down for accidents. 90% chance an SR Down was incoming from the car behind. Since the patch I haven't had to worry about the little bumps from behind and can give the car ahead more room to maintain speed until it's safe to pass. It has also led to far more fun clean side by side battles where previously SR Downs would be handed out like candy for any accidental lag brush. Less accidents as well since people don't jump too far to the sides anymore to avoid harmless contact, then touch a wheel on the grass and spin into you.

However last night, the last couple races still turned into chaos. Less people on and even though all were in SR.S matchmaking turned back to DR.A+ to DR.C in the same room. The vast difference in speed with still more non qualifiers behind me meant back to messy races.

 

[Dorofint]

Sorry mate for this late reply.
I don't know nothing about iRacing except what I've read here on the forums. I've read that PD basically tried to copy that exact penalty system.
I've read in your post that it's a better system working for many years now. So my first questions are : Is that true ? Why is it working better ? Did PD forget to code some essential parts / intentionally leave out some essential parts to reduce CPU load / other reasons in that line / something else ?
Some other questions are : Did you ever encounter iRacing people massively trying to game their system ? Is that possible at all ? And what would happen then ? Did you ever encounter so many race incidents in iRacing like in the daily races, except in the rookie class maybe ?
How would "children, chaots and arcade players" do in a iRacing career ?
A lot of questions - maybe you ( or anyone else ) care to share your knowledge.
My intuition tells me that we can't exactly compare GT Sport with iRacing in that matter - and that it's possibly been a big mistake trying to copy their penalty system expecting it to deliver similar results.

You have a lot of questions. I want to summarize it this way: Since IRacing is aimed at racing enthusiasts, the system is much stricter. A central part of this is the realistic damage model. This model alone ensures that mistakes are automaticly punished. There are also strikes. For a longer race you usually get 17 strikes. Every offense costs strikes. Easy to leave the route e.g. 1 strike. If someone causes a collision, it costs many strikes. If you have no strikes you will be disqualified. Too many disqualifications mean a ban for a certain time. The system almost always correctly recognizes the fault in an accident. For the perpetrator, this means the loss of many strikes, but the victim can also lose strikes, but that is significantly less. This is to prevent ruthless or too hard driving even if you are not the main culprit in a crash. Together with the damage, this ensures that mistakes and dirty actions are severely punished. Gaming the system is hardly possible because it is possible to report to the developers at any time and then they react accordingly. Since a monthly fee has to be paid for Iracing, this sevice is possible. However, there are some IRacing users who are demanding even harsher penalties.
There is also a lot more that would go beyond the scope here. So e.g. that beginners are only allowed to drive simple routes with slow cars. Only when you have proven that you are a good and careful driver you can take part in more demanding races. Notorious crash drivers don't get that far.
Much of what IRacing does would probably not work in GTS. GTS has a different target group. With realistic damage and severe penalties, many children, casual gamers or arcade gamers would leave GTS and neither PD nor Sony wants that. Therefore PD has left out some aspects of the IRacing system. They tried to copy others, but they did not succeed. Just partially copying something without understanding the overall concept has never been a good idea.

 

[barak181]

"At GT Sport, on the other hand, when I visited Polyphony Digital, I was able to experience how Yamauchi's instructions were given and followed unconditionally to the bitter end, even though many employees must have suspected that he was developing past the target group. The developers I spoke to literally stunned their boss. My (not so critical) demand was almost accepted as an outrage there. Even in the case of Shenmue 3, it looks like Yu Suzuki is only surrounded internally by yes-sayers who don't tell him that his vision is completely out of date if he is really so naive or out of touch not to notice it himself ."

Sounds a lot like what happened at Lucasfilm and how we ended up with the god awful prequel trilogy.

 

[breeminator]

Gaming the system is hardly possible because it is possible to report to the developers at any time and then they react accordingly. Since a monthly fee has to be paid for Iracing, this sevice is possible.

IMO this is the key difference, not anything in the software. It would be trivial to game the system in iRacing, e.g. with a side collision with another car to cause them to hit the pit wall head on, completely destroying their car, but causing little damage to yours. The only thing stopping some people from doing this is the fact they know the incident will be manually reviewed, their account will be banned, and they'll lose the £1k+ they've spent on cars and tracks. The main difference is humans reviewing incidents, not anything in the software.

 

[barak181]

The main difference is humans reviewing incidents, not anything in the software.

That luxury comes with the subscription model, I think. Unless Sony Playstation wants to use the money from the monthly PSN subscription to foot the bill, there's no way PD can afford a team dedicated to monitoring gameplay.

 

[ROCKET JOE]

@breeminator @Dorofint
Regarding @breeminator 's example, please don't resent my ( a bit off topic ) asking again :
Would iRacing then clearly spot driver A forcing driver B into a fatal accident and DQ him accordingly ? If yes, why is iRacing ( in contrary to GTS ) able to assign fault ? Does it monitor way more driving parameters ?

 

[superwally]

Sorry mate for this late reply.
I don't know nothing about iRacing except what I've read here on the forums. *snip* My intuition tells me that we can't exactly compare GT Sport with iRacing in that matter - and that it's possibly been a big mistake trying to copy their penalty system expecting it to deliver similar results.

Agreed. Copying the penalty system from an established game theoretically is a good plan, but there is a stark difference between the seriousness of the player base between the leading PC-only sim and a console based game. It's pretty easy to grab a controller, log on, and play bumper cars on a game you downloaded for $30 on a PS4. I can't see that mentality being pervasive in iRacing, given the cost of entry and the continuing fees to participate.

This really compounds PD's problem exponentially, and I don't think anyone appreciates that fact. In iRacing, my assumption is (please correct me if I'm wrong) the drivers are actually trying to follow the spirit of the rules. The point is racing. GT Sport has a percentage trying to follow the spirit of the rules and 'racing'-competing with the percentage for whom gaming the rules and ramming people is entertainment, and 'racing' is secondary.

It's not easy to separate this player base.

I stopped Sport Mode races when they first started screwing with the penalty system, figuring they'd go back to the original system because nothing that came after has been any better. I didn't have a big problem with the original methodology, it was 'good enough'. A LOT of you screamed bloody murder, looking for perfection. I didn't anticipate it going well, and here we are.

It has been my longstanding opinion that when PD/Kaz are forced to respond to vocal player pressure and change the game, it goes south (and stays there), especially if they feel there is nothing wrong as-is. The first and still best example of this is damage implementation. Everybody wanted it (theoretically), they compromised one of the earlier games to implement it (GT5? 6? don't remember) and in the end nobody cared. Since then, it's been cat and mouse with PD and the player base. I don't blame them at all.

Many of you have opinions. A handful of you actually have the experience and knowledge to provide valuable feedback. Most of you THINK you provide valuable feedback, but it's mostly just a self-serving position and a desire to shape the game and feel validated. Some of the most vocal complainers are so fixated on other drivers that the self-invalidate their own opinion by posting videos that prove nothing.

Some of those same people were the ones who complained the loudest early on that the system wasn't perfect enough. They are still here. Don't blame PD because it used to be better, blame yourselves for never knowing when to shut up and say 'close enough'.

 

[Voodoovaj]

But that's just not possible with racing sims, because the control inputs (in terms of what you're doing mechanically to the car) are nearly 1:1 with their real life counterpart. Whereas in Madden, if you were to grab someone's face mask, that would have to be intentionally programmed to allow you to do that.

It's not only immensely possible, there are many ways to go about it.

The only thing that I can see being a bit more challenging to guard against is blocking. Blocking is something that is hard to determine in the real world, but other than that, I don't see why there is a problem.


As an example, let's say a driver turns into another driver and gives him a bump on a straight section of track. That driver MUST be pointing his car in a direction that is not aligned to the track. This is always the case with contact. It is simply not possible for two cars to contact each other if they are both pointing and moving in the same direction. This bit of logic can be used to determine blame.

 

[breeminator]

@breeminator @Dorofint
Regarding @breeminator 's example, please don't resent my ( a bit off topic ) asking again :
Would iRacing then clearly spot driver A forcing driver B into a fatal accident and DQ him accordingly ? If yes, why is iRacing ( in contrary to GTS ) able to assign fault ? Does it monitor way more driving parameters ?

No, the game doesn't assign blame, the only adverse outcome for driver A doing that is that driver B will report them, a human will look at the incident, and they will get banned, and effectively fined a lot of real world money.

 

[Dorofint]

It's not only immensely possible, there are many ways to go about it.

The only thing that I can see being a bit more challenging to guard against is blocking. Blocking is something that is hard to determine in the real world, but other than that, I don't see why there is a problem.


As an example, let's say a driver turns into another driver and gives him a bump on a straight section of track. That driver MUST be pointing his car in a direction that is not aligned to the track. This is always the case with contact. It is simply not possible for two cars to contact each other if they are both pointing and moving in the same direction. This bit of logic can be used to determine blame.

It doesn't work that way with 100% blame for a driver. I think IRacing uses a variety of parameters to calculate the possible share of blame for an accident for both drivers. Therefore, not only the alleged perpetrator, but also the alleged victim gets strikes deducted. The amount of the deductions is then different. You will be disqualified if there are no more strikes left. But you can report dirty actions and that often leads to a ban. Iracing is very strict there. For example, the racing driver Scott Speed was banned because he wanted to ram another driver on purpose. Scott Speed is not just any driver, he was involved in the development of IRacing. There was no bonus for this, anyone who does not abide by the rules will be punished. Look at:
https://www.thedrive.com/news/18175...d-under-fire-over-intentional-iracing-crashes

 

[Krypton78]

@superwally
Even though I don't fully agree, you have a point. And I think, if they didn't sort it out after 2 years with perhaps data of hundreds of thousands races, they'll never sort it out. Perhaps a high inteligent self-learning AI is necessary, who knows. So I hope they leave it as it is right now, better no penalties (except of track limits) than wrong penalties which are leading to more frustration and desperate- moves. Obviously, we're better off with dealing the things on our own on the track.

 

[astrarobotica]

It's not only immensely possible, there are many ways to go about it.

The only thing that I can see being a bit more challenging to guard against is blocking. Blocking is something that is hard to determine in the real world, but other than that, I don't see why there is a problem.


As an example, let's say a driver turns into another driver and gives him a bump on a straight section of track. That driver MUST be pointing his car in a direction that is not aligned to the track. This is always the case with contact. It is simply not possible for two cars to contact each other if they are both pointing and moving in the same direction. This bit of logic can be used to determine blame.

I wasn't talking about assigning blame though. We compared it to other sports games, but it's easier for other sports to be programmed to only even allow fair play. So you can't intentionally ruin your opponent's game. That isn't possible with racing sims. You can punish it after the fact, but you can't prevent it. It's easier for other sports games because they can prevent it.

Yes you can let others pass, but it is not the meaning of racing.

@Dorofint already said it but I'll add my two cents. Defending (not blocking) is part of racing. Maintaining high SR often meant simply giving positions away to those threatening to give you a penalty or driving yourself off after getting hit to avoid the SR Down.

I never gave up a position to specifically avoid an SR Down, but rather to avoid losing time fighting with someone who is objectively faster than me, or to avoid having my race ruined by someone who couldn't be bothered to make a clean pass. And as a result, it was easier to maintain a high SR.

 

[vvise]

Overall the top few splits in FIA last night felt much better under the new system. There was maybe 1 driver per lobby that got the short end of a bad dive that went unpunished, but that's much better than the 5-6 drivers that got non-sense 6s penalties under the previous system.

I did see some videos of lower splits that went full ping-pong revenge bumper cars though

 

[elston87]

First race into this week's Race B at Seaside had some obnoxious player take me out at the chicane on Lap 3. Come up on the final lap to pass them, ghosted, falling into last place; they ended up quitting the race. The kicker? Not only did they not receive a penalty for their actions, but I got a Clean Race Bonus despite getting wiped out by that player. Very weird indeed; it got the fault right that I was taken out by another player, but that player did not receive a penalty for it, yet my wipeout should have null-and-voided my Clean Race Bonus. Guess not.

 

[208SpeedGeek]

Well... I think I've given up completely on Sport Mode races. I told myself that last week but I saw the new races pop up this morning when I logged on and just couldn't resist a go with GR4 at DTS.

Wish I wouldn't have done it.

I literally hopped out of bed at 5:24am, on track by 5:27am, race started at 5:30am. I was barely awake doing my 1 qually lap. Didn't do so well. I don't even remember what it was. I was in the GR4 Mazda. I qually 12th.

IN THE WARM UP.... I get purposely punted off track at the first chicane. WTF?

Race starts. I'm just going with the flow. A mess breaks out at the first chicane. I gain 3 spots. Another mess takes place in front of me through the esses. I gain another 2 spots. A GTR comes up on my inside and overtakes me through the tight right hander. I'm 8th now. Cool!

Lap 2. I get all the way back to the tight right hander and, my bad, wasn't checking my rear view and all of a sudden, WHAM!!!!! Punted HARD into the wall by some little stupid 🤬 from Canada. Dude proceeds to ruin my race and and the guy that was running in front me. I got back to him and in his slipstream and he just hit the brakes. A break check on the fastest part of the track? Really? He pushed a guy off through the esses on lap 4 and got a 5 second penalty. I finished the race where I started... 12th. DR down another 600 or 700 points... Whatever. I DGAF anymore.

Let's have a little more of a serious talk about our beloved game of GTS and what really lies beneath the strict penalty system we all had complaints about. The culture that lies beneath a strict penalty system (often wrong but kept a lot of the dirty drivers at bay) is really horrible, childish and takes away from guys like me who want to race very clean and realistic races. I'm too old and too poor to even think about racing real cars. I can't do it. This is how I live out my passion of competing in races. I also have a very busy life. Sometimes I don't get to race as much as I'd like through the week. Sometimes I get to have one or two races early in the morning before I go to work and that's all I get for the whole day. I value my time spent on GTS and I don't want it ruined by little 🤬 idiots that just want to slam and ram.

The culture of scum has now risen to the top because the penalty system has been basically turned off. The scum is now the majority of what I'm encountering in B/S rooms. A few guys in there trying to race clean and fair but now it's overshadowed by the dirty guys. I can't race confidently when I'm expecting to get punted at every turn and get my door smashed in if I'm next to another car. I drive scared. I can't race like that. I'm now surprised if I DON'T get punted and DON'T get my door smashed.

I had a lot of fun this weekend in livery editor and with scapes. I raced a few custom races that I made as challenging as possible and it was a good time. Racing in custom mode is ok. The AI isn't much of a challenge but just staying sharp with my racecraft is important and I can get what I need in that aspect from custom races.

Overall though... GTS is just a toy now. That aspect of racing under a set of rules by a sanctioning body that kept everyone in line is now gone.

It really might be time for iRacing. Sick of trying to race with people that just want to ram. Sick of the prejudice that runs through my brain when I see a certain flag over a driver's name and just knowing that their gonna slam and ram. They wanna do that 🤬, they should go play GTA or some other BS that lets them crash into things so they can get their laughs. I don't find that 🤬 funny or fun!

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I never gave up a position to specifically avoid an SR Down, but rather to avoid losing time fighting with someone who is objectively faster than me, or to avoid having my race ruined by someone who couldn't be bothered to make a clean pass. And as a result, it was easier to maintain a high SR.

I did, lots and lots to get to that clean streak of 97 at Catalunya. I gave up so many positions to avoid SD Down my DR slowly dropped all the way to one. It was the only way to maintain a clean streak with the previous system. Any touch from behind would end it.

I put myself in a difficult spot of course by not qualifying. I know most of the cars starting behind me are not faster than me, yet they are faster than the slowest qualifiers I am starting behind. It was a good tactic to let these pass and they would take out the slower cars in front of me and then I would easily pass the wreckage. Now I can hold these impatient non qualifiers behind me without fearing SR Downs and make a clean pass on the slower qualifiers in front of me without them getting in a wreck.

Yesterday afternoon that wasn't even needed with matchmaking having a far bigger SR.S pool to put people of similar pace together. Never before have I had so many races from the back where it was almost flat out competitive right from the start. Less race pace difference, less accidents, no vastly different braking points and cornering speed. And no pile ups at the penalty zone helped a lot as well.

When we go back to penalties I would like to see some changes to matchmaking. Matching on SR is only useful to some point. Going in 10 point increments has been far too specific and caused more accidents by putting DR.A+ against DR.D. Crash happens at the front or front drivers get pulled back at the penalty zone and fast drivers barges through to get back to the front, that's the majority of secondary accidents.

Instead make it 3 categories, SR.S and SR.A together, match on DR. SR.B and SR.C together and SR.D and SR.E together. SR.A was usually cleaner than max SR anyway so why not match 65 to 99 SR together. 20 to 64 SR for bumper cars, 1 to 19 SR for destruction derby players. 3 groups, matched on DR, that should create far better races than the old system. No more DR resets either, no easier races by tanking DR. Plus add a simple requirement to advance to the next group, contact penalty free race to advance from SR.D to SR.C, otherwise capped at 19 SR, clean race bonus to advance from SR.B to SR.A, otherwise capped at 64 SR. Very simple changes, which will improve matchmaking immensely.

First race into this week's Race B at Seaside had some obnoxious player take me out at the chicane on Lap 3. Come up on the final lap to pass them, ghosted, falling into last place; they ended up quitting the race. The kicker? Not only did they not receive a penalty for their actions, but I got a Clean Race Bonus despite getting wiped out by that player. Very weird indeed; it got the fault right that I was taken out by another player, but that player did not receive a penalty for it, yet my wipeout should have null-and-voided my Clean Race Bonus. Guess not.

I guess you weren't racing last week. The patch last week has virtually turned all contact penalties off. It's still possible to get one but it's a 1 in 100 chance now (and still doesn't make much sense when it triggers) Everyone that plays soon ends up in SR.S so now you are also matched with people that used to have an average SR of D. Clean race bonus forgiveness still seems to work when you get rammed off the track. You will lose it though when you avoid someone and drive off yourself, plus you can still get ignoring track limit penalties. Now it's more beneficial than ever to hit someone instead of avoid them :/

 

[NoStopN]

Looks like I'll be using the alt account to test the waters today. Thankfully, last week at Maggiore helped to pull my main account to B/A, so I'm good with that if the players want to have a game of bumper cars.

 

[breeminator]

Everyone that plays soon ends up in SR.S so now you are also matched with people that used to have an average SR of D.

I just looked at the profile of someone who was constantly hitting people to pass them in a daily race today. In the past, <10% of their days played ended with them at SR 99, and they look to have had at least 12 DR resets. But now they're up in the 90-99 races, and they probably love it, being able to use their dirty tactics among clean drivers.

 

[Outspacer]

Instead make it 3 categories, SR.S and SR.A together, match on DR. SR.B and SR.C together and SR.D and SR.E together. SR.A was usually cleaner than max SR anyway so why not match 65 to 99 SR together. 20 to 64 SR for bumper cars, 1 to 19 SR for destruction derby players. 3 groups, matched on DR, that should create far better races than the old system. No more DR resets either, no easier races by tanking DR. Plus add a simple requirement to advance to the next group, contact penalty free race to advance from SR.D to SR.C, otherwise capped at 19 SR, clean race bonus to advance from SR.B to SR.A, otherwise capped at 64 SR. Very simple changes, which will improve matchmaking immensely.

Yeah, I think 3 groups would be plenty, if only SR had a system that worked!

I did a bit of thinking about averaging SR over a number of races, but a straight average suffers from the problem that a player can build up an allowance of dirty to use up, while still remaining in the 'clean' group. It needs to have some aspect of a ratchet to it - one clean race would bump it up a little bit, but one dirty race should knock it down quite a bit. In the middle, an 'average' race for a player at any SR would be a race that scored close to that SR, resulting in almost no change.

For example, a simple implementation of this idea might use a filter to blend in an SR calculated for the race like this:
if (SRnew > SRold) SR = SRold * 0.9 + SRnew * 0.1
else SR = SRold * 0.6 + SRnew * 0.4

The calculation for a race's SR would have to be something that gave similar SR across races A, B and C for any given player, which would be quite tricky. The per-sector +SR would need to be replaced (or only contribute a small % amount to the overall score, e.g. for going off track) with something more proximity based - as in, it could become mostly a measure of contacts per time when in close-ish proximity to other car(s).

 

[breeminator]

The per-sector +SR would need to be replaced (or only contribute a small % amount to the overall score, e.g. for going off track) with something more proximity based - as in, it could become mostly a measure of contacts per time when in close-ish proximity to other car(s).

ACC works like that, and people complain it's a joke, you have to spend a huge amount of time driving alongside another car without contact to farm SR. And it actually causes collisions because it means nobody wants to drive away from other cars in a race, because you're not achieving anything if you aren't really close to another car.

 

[elston87]

I guess you weren't racing last week. The patch last week has virtually turned all contact penalties off. It's still possible to get one but it's a 1 in 100 chance now (and still doesn't make much sense when it triggers) Everyone that plays soon ends up in SR.S so now you are also matched with people that used to have an average SR of D. Clean race bonus forgiveness still seems to work when you get rammed off the track. You will lose it though when you avoid someone and drive off yourself, plus you can still get ignoring track limit penalties. Now it's more beneficial than ever to hit someone instead of avoid them :/

I was racing last week, actually (saw you a few times in Race C). Slight jostles and minor contact were the actions I was expecting myself and other players to receive penalties before, but that's not the case anymore with the update. However, what I didn't expect was players to not receive penalties for outright charging into others from behind and causing them to totally wipe out.

The very next race I did with this week's Race B, I watched a player take out another player at the very same chicane I was taken out at, lunging at him as they were side-by-side and ramming him off. If this is how Race B is going to be all week, then how unfortunate. I can only imagine other courses, like punting off other players wide at the esses in Suzuka (I have not tried Race C this week), or the walled city of Tokyo Expressway. It's going to be a battlefield out there with all of these "false ratings".

 

[Outspacer]

ACC works like that, and people complain it's a joke, you have to spend a huge amount of time driving alongside another car without contact to farm SR. And it actually causes collisions because it means nobody wants to drive away from other cars in a race, because you're not achieving anything if you aren't really close to another car.

Fair point, I knew roughly of the idea from when ACC came out but I haven't experienced the game online at all. What I was thinking of with "close-ish" was not necessarily particular close - in fact, I think driving too close (for more than a brief time) could be a reason for -SR. But without doing something like that, it seems hard to a) balance out races of different lengths and b) prevent easy farming of SR by driving slowly at the back.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

ACC works like that, and people complain it's a joke, you have to spend a huge amount of time driving alongside another car without contact to farm SR. And it actually causes collisions because it means nobody wants to drive away from other cars in a race, because you're not achieving anything if you aren't really close to another car.

True.

I would suggest:
- give SR Down (-3 SR) for going off track, touching a wall, spinning out.
- give minor SR up (+0.5 SR) per clean sector as is now
- give SR Up (+3 SR) per clean lap

- give SR Down (-3 SR) for contact with another car
- give minor SR up (+1 SR) for losing a position contact free (max 3 per race not to encourage pulling over and letting everyone pass to farm SR)
- give SR Up (+3 SR) for contact free overtake of similar DR rank or higher (max 3 per race not to make starting last the best way to farm SR or playing leap frog)

This will mitigate the negative effect of avoiding a car and losing SR, while rewarding clean driving.
The SR Down for going off track is absorbed by the SR up for the contact free pass. Yet with a limit of 3, don't make it a habit.
If you spin out or run off track while avoiding a car and get passed by half the field, -3 SR for spinning out, 3 x +1 SR for getting passed without contact.
So you have some leeway to avoid cars instead of making it equal or better to simply hit them.

Keep the ignoring track limits penalties though, pass on the grass should still be discouraged even if it's to avoid another car in trouble. Yet if it is to avoid that car (and you thus pass it) you won't lose SR. And if you slow down while avoiding, the shortcut penalty won't trigger either.

This still won't stop the yoyo effect, drop SR, easier race, pole to flag victory, back to SR.S. Yet combined with better matchmaking (max 3 SR groups) and no more DR resets those easier races to farm SR back should be a thing of the past.

That leaves the issue of simply driving behind to farm SR in exchange for DR. Higher DR should come with more rewards instead of more punishment. Higher payouts, and smaller contact trigger before penalties and SR Down contact shows. It's upside down now where low DR can hit high DR and high DR gets the most blame. Minor contact should be discouraged at low DR, yet at the blistering pace A+ drives at, minor contact is usually fine and both drivers have enough control to anticipate and stay on the road. The problem of high DR bowling low DR out of the way won't be effected since the force with that speed difference will still be high enough to trigger penalties. Make it rewarding to maintain high DR instead of a curse in daily SR.S races.

Perhaps with all that we don't need time penalties for contact and the SR system will be able to sort the drivers more effectively. Of course time penalties for straight up punts (the easy to detect cases) should still be there as well as -10 SR for such infractions. Contact with very large force, use @Voodoovaj's suggestion to look who is more aligned with the racing line and/or more within the speed range for that section of track at the moment of collision. Dive bombs and revenge punts should be easy to detect.

If the above works, it can be further refined by looking at leaving space requirements to stop people gently pushing each other off the road or against a wall. Not that hard to detect either, 2 cars side by side with less than a foot of space in between, one car goes off or against a wall, other car was not leaving enough room. SR Down can trigger while not even touching a car, crowding off track penalty. But that's for later.