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

[Sven Jurgens]

I'll post my ideas here as well (following the discussion on reddit)


PD needs to stop focusing on getting the penalties right in a way that it always hands out a penalty when something bad happens. Instead only hand out penalties when it is certain who to blame (entering a corner way too fast for example, or braking on a straight with clear road ahead) and simply deduct SR from both drivers for everything else.

The focus should be on sorting the drivers better, improving the SR rating and meaning of it.
First get rid of any DR distinctions and DR resets, DR should be totally independent of SR. A+/E drivers why not, matching starts on SR anyway.
If mixing different SR classes in the race, notify the lower SR classes that they will be racing with the rules of the highest SR in the room.

The game should deduct SR for going wide, cutting the track, crossing the pit exit line, touching walls and spinning out. You get about 0.5 SR per clean sector, it should deduct at least 1 SR per unsafe driving incident. Plus if the game deems you so unsafe you need to be ghosted, deduct 3 SR instead of giving you a free pass.

It was too easy to farm SR back by simply driving behind everyone or get an easier race in lower SR and drive pole to flag by yourself up front. Perhaps simply limit what you can cash in by driving clean sectors instead of using that as a buffer to be dirty. In max SR you still get up to 20 SR for clean sectors in a daily C race which you can 'spend' on dirty manoevers.

Make it so you can earn a max of 4 SR for clean sectors plus a max of 3 SR for contact free position changes (+1 per position change) (Pulling over at the start and letting everyone pass will be the next way to farm SR otherwise) So a max of 7 SR can be gained per race, any race.
Deduct 1 SR per unsafe driving incident (out of track limits, touch wall, spin out, cross pit exit line) 3 SR for needing to be ghosted on your own account and 3 SR per contact with other cars when no penalty is assigned (regardless whose fault it is), and keep the 10 SR deduction for getting assigned a time penalty for contact but only hand out penalties that are certain. (Contact after entering a corner way too fast for example)

This way SR will be more reflective of safe contact free driving and make it harder to get back up. With the 2.5x multiplier to SR in SR.E you could launch yourself straight back to SR.B in a single race. Instead of increasing SR gains in lower SR, turn off certain infractions:
SR.E Only SR deductions for time penalties, -2 per penalty
SR.D -1 SR per car contact, -4 per penalty
SR.C -1 SR per car contact, -6 per penalty
SR.B -2 SR per car contact, adds -1 SR for hitting walls and cutting corners, -1 SR for needing to be ghosted in SR.B, -8 SR per penalty
SR.A adds -1 SR for all unsafe driving conditions, -2 SR for needing to be ghosted in SR.A, -10 SR per penalty
SR.S adds -3 SR per car contact, -3 SR for needing to be ghosted in SR.S

Scale the penalties instead of SR gains.
This should sort the drivers a lot better than using -10 SR per often wrongly assigned time penalty, while handing out 20 SR per race C.

 

[Voodoovaj]

I fundamentally disagree with this, it's not how people race in real life,

It absolutely IS the way people do it in real life. in F1, everyone is at a high level and there is a great deal of trust, so they follow more closely UNTIL the braking zone which, for them, is very deep.

In GT racing, the gentlemen racers brake earlier than the pros, so the pros know to move offline in the braking zones,. This is also the case with
mixed classes such as prototype vs sports cars. The guys in the prototypes MUST drive with the expectation of the other cars braking early because the difference is stark.

If you don't believe me, just sign up for a track day with your own vehicle, one that will not be covered by insurance if you smash it up, so the loss is all out of pocket. Pay special attention to how you behave as you approach the braking zones and how high your anxiety level gets if you are close to another car as you even sniff something remotely close to a braking zone.

It's legitimate to assume the car in front will drive as fast as they can around the track, indeed you have to make that assumption to drive at a high level, both in the game and in real life.

There, you stated it perfectly. THEY will drive as fast as THEY can. THEY will not drive as fast as YOU can. You are on the hook for expecting them to be slower. If you are racing someone you know and trust, then have at it, but until you build that trust, the way to do this properly is to expect them to do the unexpected.

If you really listen to driver interviews, they often mention how they "followed for a few laps" to "see where the brake point was".

"A HIGH LEVEL" as you state it is a relative thing. As an example, my Suzuka time puts me at 65th in the Americas and a whopping 1.7 seconds back from first. if I were to pit, or have an accident, or for whatever reason have to make my way up through the field, the people around me will likely not be "at a high level", which is also the case if I were in a room with the top 50 players in North America. I would not be racing at the same "high level" they are racing at.

Just like in the real world where you have pros, gentlemen racers, rich playboys, actors, retired ex-racers, or broken equipment in the car ahead of you.

 

[Outspacer]

I'll post my ideas here as well (following the discussion on reddit)


PD needs to stop focusing on getting the penalties right in a way that it always hands out a penalty when something bad happens. Instead only hand out penalties when it is certain who to blame (entering a corner way too fast for example, or braking on a straight with clear road ahead) and simply deduct SR from both drivers for everything else.

The focus should be on sorting the drivers better, improving the SR rating and meaning of it.
First get rid of any DR distinctions and DR resets, DR should be totally independent of SR. A+/E drivers why not, matching starts on SR anyway.
If mixing different SR classes in the race, notify the lower SR classes that they will be racing with the rules of the highest SR in the room.

The game should deduct SR for going wide, cutting the track, crossing the pit exit line, touching walls and spinning out. You get about 0.5 SR per clean sector, it should deduct at least 1 SR per unsafe driving incident. Plus if the game deems you so unsafe you need to be ghosted, deduct 3 SR instead of giving you a free pass.

It was too easy to farm SR back by simply driving behind everyone or get an easier race in lower SR and drive pole to flag by yourself up front. Perhaps simply limit what you can cash in by driving clean sectors instead of using that as a buffer to be dirty. In max SR you still get up to 20 SR for clean sectors in a daily C race which you can 'spend' on dirty manoevers.

Make it so you can earn a max of 4 SR for clean sectors plus a max of 3 SR for contact free position changes (+1 per position change) (Pulling over at the start and letting everyone pass will be the next way to farm SR otherwise) So a max of 7 SR can be gained per race, any race.
Deduct 1 SR per unsafe driving incident (out of track limits, touch wall, spin out, cross pit exit line) 3 SR for needing to be ghosted on your own account and 3 SR per contact with other cars when no penalty is assigned (regardless whose fault it is), and keep the 10 SR deduction for getting assigned a time penalty for contact but only hand out penalties that are certain. (Contact after entering a corner way too fast for example)

This way SR will be more reflective of safe contact free driving and make it harder to get back up. With the 2.5x multiplier to SR in SR.E you could launch yourself straight back to SR.B in a single race. Instead of increasing SR gains in lower SR, turn off certain infractions:
SR.E Only SR deductions for time penalties, -2 per penalty
SR.D -1 SR per car contact, -4 per penalty
SR.C -1 SR per car contact, -6 per penalty
SR.B -2 SR per car contact, adds -1 SR for hitting walls and cutting corners, -1 SR for needing to be ghosted in SR.B, -8 SR per penalty
SR.A adds -1 SR for all unsafe driving conditions, -2 SR for needing to be ghosted in SR.A, -10 SR per penalty
SR.S adds -3 SR per car contact, -3 SR for needing to be ghosted in SR.S

Scale the penalties instead of SR gains.
This should sort the drivers a lot better than using -10 SR per often wrongly assigned time penalty, while handing out 20 SR per race C.

Well, yes, but the thing is we've been saying pretty much that for over 18 months now, and that's not counting the more scattered posts before that in other threads - stuff about DR resets was all over the place. I remember saying as soon as DR resets going upwards got fixed that:

I wonder if they've also stopped it boosting DR upwards? In a way that would be bad, because having it operate in one direction only means it's just points disappearing from the system.

Before that, Milouse and I were working out exactly when the DR resets were happening, and since they went both up and down because of the bug it didn't affect the integrity of the system as a whole much, and we just treated it as a curiosity. Not long after that I argued somewhere that DR resets effectively just stole DR from all the other players that someone having had a reset would race against, while they get their easy wins.

Back then we held some hope that they might steal some of our better ideas, but instead they listened to the "Dirty **** should be PUNISHED!!!!" crowd. I don't have any hope now, so my interest is purely academic, wondering what could be good systems for a mass market racer.

I like the idea of 'bonus' SR points for clean position changes.

I'm still fonder of scaling SR gains by some mathematical function based on SR and having no difference in which incidents incur -SR (and how much -SR), so that there are no hard lines between SR ranking letters. To me it's a fundamental that -SR for minor incidents should be shared equally regardless of ranking, and potential SR gains even for clean races for anyone at >90 SR should be minimal. Having 4+3 SR (or any fixed amount) available for each race would still keep SR 99 overpopulated, IMO.

I think the only reason for having a hard line is if implementing something like divisions where there would never be any matching of people from different groups. Something like you were saying a few days ago, I think, with it taking a good SR record or a number of clean races to move up a group. That's a scheme that could work fine but I'm not entirely sure it's right for GTS. (edit: I worry that moving up a group becomes something to tick off, possibly artifically gamed, when really we just want to quietly measure a player's 'normal' behaviour. Also, being able to dynamically change SR matching 'buckets' could be helpful when player numbers drop).

As we've been saying for so long in a variety of ways, the key is to make simple systems that are reliable, transparent and, most importantly, hard to game.

 

[Keith2324]

The penalty system is what it is. This has probably been mentioned before, but it would be nice if PD would also implement the "voice-over" feature to let you know when someone is beside you. Some people either have no spatial awareness, are using the "improper camera" with no rear view or don't drive with the radar on. Adding the person in your ear to tell you when a person is alongside of you would go a long way in getting rid of some of the "accidental" love taps.

Keith.

 

[meekrab]

The penalty system is what it is. This has probably been mentioned before, but it would be nice if PD would also implement the "voice-over" feature to let you know when someone is beside you. Some people either have no spatial awareness, are using the "improper camera" with no rear view or don't drive with the radar on. Adding the person in your ear to tell you when a person is alongside of you would go a long way in getting rid of some of the "accidental" love taps.

Keith.

Fine idea as long as I can turn this off, I absolutely cannot stand "spotters" in racing games.

 

[breeminator]

There, you stated it perfectly. THEY will drive as fast as THEY can. THEY will not drive as fast as YOU can. You are on the hook for expecting them to be slower. If you are racing someone you know and trust, then have at it, but until you build that trust, the way to do this properly is to expect them to do the unexpected.

I'm not talking about people being slower, I'm talking about someone who is as fast as the person near them on the track deliberately braking a small amount earlier when in front, or later when behind. If you're racing in NA top split then you surely must have encountered people doing this, it's the standard way to drive dirty at higher levels. People don't do huge punts of people, they hit them a little to overtake, or deliberately brake a little early when they sense the car behind is in a position to overtake on the exit.

 

[RacingGrandpa]

deliberately brake a little early when they sense the car behind is in a position to overtake on the exit.

That is called defence, overslowing at the apex. People do that in real racing too.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Well, yes, but the thing is we've been saying pretty much that for over 18 months now, and that's not counting the more scattered posts before that in other threads - stuff about DR resets was all over the place. I remember saying as soon as DR resets going upwards got fixed that:

Before that, Milouse and I were working out exactly when the DR resets were happening, and since they went both up and down because of the bug it didn't affect the integrity of the system as a whole much, and we just treated it as a curiosity. Not long after that I argued somewhere that DR resets effectively just stole DR from all the other players that someone having had a reset would race against, while they get their easy wins.

Back then we held some hope that they might steal some of our better ideas, but instead they listened to the "Dirty **** should be PUNISHED!!!!" crowd. I don't have any hope now, so my interest is purely academic, wondering what could be good systems for a mass market racer.

I like the idea of 'bonus' SR points for clean position changes.

I'm still fonder of scaling SR gains by some mathematical function based on SR and having no difference in which incidents incur -SR (and how much -SR), so that there are no hard lines between SR ranking letters. To me it's a fundamental that -SR for minor incidents should be shared equally regardless of ranking, and potential SR gains even for clean races for anyone at >90 SR should be minimal. Having 4+3 SR (or any fixed amount) available for each race would still keep SR 99 overpopulated, IMO.

I think the only reason for having a hard line is if implementing something like divisions where there would never be any matching of people from different groups. Something like you were saying a few days ago, I think, with it taking a good SR record or a number of clean races to move up a group. That's a scheme that could work fine but I'm not entirely sure it's right for GTS. (edit: I worry that moving up a group becomes something to tick off, possibly artifically gamed, when really we just want to quietly measure a player's 'normal' behaviour. Also, being able to dynamically change SR matching 'buckets' could be helpful when player numbers drop).

As we've been saying for so long in a variety of ways, the key is to make simple systems that are reliable, transparent and, most importantly, hard to game.

DR is inflating over time regardless of DR resets. It's not a zero sum exchange at the bottom where the majority of players race. You can't go below 1 DR, yet you still give those new points to the drivers finishing ahead of you. At the 75K end points get lost, however there are many more players bringing points in at the bottom than taking them out at the top. DR resets probably slow the inflation down a bit but I doubt it matters much. Every race brings in new points, 192 races a day. There's bound to be someone at DR.1 in every time slot giving points to drivers finishing ahead of them.

Mathematical functions to scale SR is what we have now. It has proven not to work. As soon as you drop below 50 SR, the amount of SR you can earn per race slowly increases up to 2.5x the regular amount at SR.1. This only adds to the yoyo effect. SR deductions seem to be the same across the SR table, and due to the increased SR gains below SR.B, SR.B naturally becomes the biggest deposit of drivers while SR.A has very few. (SR.A is also only 15 point range compared to 25 for SR.B, no clue why)

The question is, what do we expect from SR. Imo it's there to sort different driving behaviors. Which means being more lenient to certain behaviors in lower SR classes, which can be accomplished by having lower deductions or no deductions for certain offenses. The game does have to make it transparent what is expected from you to compete in higher SR classes.

And sure, we don't really need 6 different classes, 3 is plenty if no matching occurs between classes. Maybe 4, and add damage to SR.S like I suggested earlier. You can't force people to race clean, so leave them the option to race against each other away from those wanting to race clean. Make it optional to advance, and lock people out from that class for a number of races if they fall back within a trial period time. Repeatedly getting kicked out can increase the number of races required before you can re-apply etc.

Anyway there are many ways to improve the SR system. If you want to go the mathematical route, measure nr of contacts and off road incidents over driving time, sort everyone worldwide on that measure and then sort them into matchmaking brackets.

 

[Outspacer]

DR is inflating over time regardless of DR resets. It's not a zero sum exchange at the bottom where the majority of players race. You can't go below 1 DR, yet you still give those new points to the drivers finishing ahead of you. At the 75K end points get lost, however there are many more players bringing points in at the bottom than taking them out at the top. DR resets probably slow the inflation down a bit but I doubt it matters much. Every race brings in new points, 192 races a day. There's bound to be someone at DR.1 in every time slot giving points to drivers finishing ahead of them.

I'm not sure we have enough stats to declare it either way, but it's likely. Without that source at DR 1 I'm pretty sure there would be deflation, even without resets, so mitigating that source would have to come with some alternative source. Anyway, the worst aspect of the resets are that they don't really punish the people who get them!

Mathematical functions to scale SR is what we have now. It has proven not to work. As soon as you drop below 50 SR, the amount of SR you can earn per race slowly increases up to 2.5x the regular amount at SR.1. This only adds to the yoyo effect. SR deductions seem to be the same across the SR table, and due to the increased SR gains below SR.B, SR.B naturally becomes the biggest deposit of drivers while SR.A has very few. (SR.A is also only 15 point range compared to 25 for SR.B, no clue why)

That's not because it's mathematical, it's because, amongst other reasons, the +SR is simply too damn high! So no, it hasn't been proven not to work, just PD's poor implementation of such an idea has. If I'm reading your description correctly it has no effect on anyone >50 SR, so the idea isn't being tested at all in the range we're most interested in! If max SR gain in a race would be, say, (102 - SR) / 4, then you'd start to see a soft limit at around 90-95 SR beyond which it's pretty hard to consistently gain. I just throw up that formula because it's easy to read and shows the idea - a more complex formula could well be better for lower SR but there's not much point getting to bogged down in detail - the key features are that SR cannot ever go above 99 with that function, and it doesn't rely on bands or thresholds at all; it's smooth.

The question is, what do we expect from SR. Imo it's there to sort different driving behaviors. Which means being more lenient to certain behaviors in lower SR classes, which can be accomplished by having lower deductions or no deductions for certain offenses. The game does have to make it transparent what is expected from you to compete in higher SR classes.

"Different driving behaviours" aren't quantized into bands though. I don't see the benefit from being more or less lenient for particular kinds of incident, and the disadvantage is that if you don't score incidents evenly then you can't as easily judge when someone is ready for a level-up to a band where those types of incident start scoring significant -SR.

And sure, we don't really need 6 different classes, 3 is plenty if no matching occurs between classes. Maybe 4, and add damage to SR.S like I suggested earlier. You can't force people to race clean, so leave them the option to race against each other away from those wanting to race clean. Make it optional to advance, and lock people out from that class for a number of races if they fall back within a trial period time. Repeatedly getting kicked out can increase the number of races required before you can re-apply etc.

My thoughts about classes partly stems from me acknowledging that GTS - for many players, if not most - is not 'serious', it's a game. So the challenge I see is to create a way to integrate a more serious approach for those that want it, without forcing it on people and expecting everyone to aspire to it, and without heavy-handed approaches such as high levels of damage. A lot of things are simply no-go if the game is to retain any sort of mass-market appeal, IMO. One big problem is the varying number of players (day vs night, weekday vs weekend) which affects matchmaking as you know, which is why I'm thinking a flexible approach to bands for matchmaking is the best. (Relying on a somewhat decent SR system to enable that, of course).

A tangent to this question is what weightings matchmaking should use for creating full rooms vs matching similar SR (or same class) vs matching similar DR. In previous discussions, there was quite a variety of opinions! Mine is that full rooms are not as important as SR, but anything much less than half full would be pretty poor - I'd rather race against 6 closely matched on DR than 20 with a wide spread of DR, personally.

Anyway there are many ways to improve the SR system. If you want to go the mathematical route, measure nr of contacts and off road incidents over driving time, sort everyone worldwide on that measure and then sort them into matchmaking brackets.

That, broadly speaking, is the effect I'd want from my idea... which comes without having to rewrite quite so much code as adding divisions and multiple sets of rules, or additional data stored per race. But whichever method, the results are more important than if it's my idea or not

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I'm not sure we have enough stats to declare it either way, but it's likely. Without that source at DR 1 I'm pretty sure there would be deflation, even without resets, so mitigating that source would have to come with some alternative source. Anyway, the worst aspect of the resets are that they don't really punish the people who get them!

Well said, DR resets only help drivers with bad behavior to hide among the sheep.

That's not because it's mathematical, it's because, amongst other reasons, the +SR is simply too damn high! So no, it hasn't been proven not to work, just PD's poor implementation of such an idea has. If I'm reading your description correctly it has no effect on anyone >50 SR, so the idea isn't being tested at all in the range we're most interested in! If max SR gain in a race would be, say, (102 - SR) / 4, then you'd start to see a soft limit at around 90-95 SR beyond which it's pretty hard to consistently gain. I just throw up that formula because it's easy to read and shows the idea - a more complex formula could well be better for lower SR but there's not much point getting to bogged down in detail - the key features are that SR cannot ever go above 99 with that function, and it doesn't rely on bands or thresholds at all; it's smooth.

Well, it's not working below 50 SR since it's almost impossible to stay in SR.E, The system pushes you up to SR.B where you're likely to get stuck if not doing race C.

That's one of the problems, race A and B can be as low as max 3 SR, race B sometimes (rarely) up to 9 SR, race C can be up to 25 SR. Sure the idea is longer races, more risks, hence the formula to give you between 0.4 and 0.5 SR per clean sector. In reality, longer races mean less risk! The most risky races (for SR) are sprint races with slower cars.

A smooth scale for SR gains, independent from the race, would be a big improvement.

"Different driving behaviours" aren't quantized into bands though. I don't see the benefit from being more or less lenient for particular kinds of incident, and the disadvantage is that if you don't score incidents evenly then you can't as easily judge when someone is ready for a level-up to a band where those types of incident start scoring significant -SR.

Yep, you are right. Many of the problems we have now is that people from lower SR/DR get into higher SR/DR races, then keep on driving to what was deemed normal in the lower classes. With the added aggravation that the higher DR players pay the price for it, while the lower DR still get judged on their rules.

Of course you still have that risk when a 50 SR player has 13 SR to spend (according to the example formula) while a 90 SR player only has 3 SR to spend before getting a red rating. Which brings us to the difficulties of matchmaking.

My thoughts about classes partly stems from me acknowledging that GTS - for many players, if not most - is not 'serious', it's a game. So the challenge I see is to create a way to integrate a more serious approach for those that want it, without forcing it on people and expecting everyone to aspire to it, and without heavy-handed approaches such as high levels of damage. A lot of things are simply no-go if the game is to retain any sort of mass-market appeal, IMO. One big problem is the varying number of players (day vs night, weekday vs weekend) which affects matchmaking as you know, which is why I'm thinking a flexible approach to bands for matchmaking is the best. (Relying on a somewhat decent SR system to enable that, of course).

A tangent to this question is what weightings matchmaking should use for creating full rooms vs matching similar SR (or same class) vs matching similar DR. In previous discussions, there was quite a variety of opinions! Mine is that full rooms are not as important as SR, but anything much less than half full would be pretty poor - I'd rather race against 6 closely matched on DR than 20 with a wide spread of DR, personally.

That's the million dollar question. No matter how you do it, lower SR gains at higher SR (thus higher SR gains at lower SR) or stricter penalties at higher SR (thus less penalties at lower SR) things clash when you put people of different SR up against each other, just as it now does with people of different DR.

Hence I keep going back and forth in my head between a smooth scale, or switch to divisions with clear rules, entry requirements (matching the rules of the next division) and perhaps a timed lockout when you drop out. And then not put different divisions in the same room.

Smaller rooms might be for the best. Not once have I thought, I'm glad I'm getting matched with SR.B drivers to fill the room.

 

[1208Stevegts]

Just played GT sport daily race 3 at Suzuka in GR.3 cars, raced as clean as possible with no contact with other drivers, leader made a mistake so I passed him, pulled away through the rest of the lap, then he punted me straight off at the hairpin bend, and what a surprise he got no penalty and got dumped down to 5, got back up through the field in the next couple of laps, up to second again and get punted off in exactly the same point again, and no penalty for him again either, it's a joke how can you be punted off and no penalties given out, I slightly cut a corner and gain next to no advantage and get a 1second penalty. The penalty system is a joke it's gone from getting penalties for the tiniest of contact to getting no penalties for punting people off the track. Surely by now they must be able to get the penalty system better than this.

 

[Outspacer]

Well, it's not working below 50 SR since it's almost impossible to stay in SR.E, The system pushes you up to SR.B where you're likely to get stuck if not doing race C.

That's one of the problems, race A and B can be as low as max 3 SR, race B sometimes (rarely) up to 9 SR, race C can be up to 25 SR. Sure the idea is longer races, more risks, hence the formula to give you between 0.4 and 0.5 SR per clean sector. In reality, longer races mean less risk! The most risky races (for SR) are sprint races with slower cars.

A smooth scale for SR gains, independent from the race, would be a big improvement.

Below 50 SR there were fewer sources of -SR as well though, right? (as in, even before this 'no penalties' version). If so that's still not telling us much.

I reckon having the same available SR for all races would be closer to 'right', and shouldn't be too hard to implement. It would require the per-sector +SR to be fractional, or to be tracked separately from other SR, during the race, but at the end could be totted up and rounded to an integer without too much loss of accuracy. It would be better still to just use floating point for SR everywhere except for display, but that means server changes etc etc.

Of course you still have that risk when a 50 SR player has 13 SR to spend (according to the example formula) while a 90 SR player only has 3 SR to spend before getting a red rating. Which brings us to the difficulties of matchmaking.

Right, and there has to be that difference one way or the other. The allowance is what you expect someone at that level to manage, typically. There would have to be a balance between it and the amounts doled out for contact / off-track / etc. Let's say the 50 SR hits the 90 SR three times with -2 SR each time, and no other incidents for either. 90 ends up at 87, 50 ends up at 57. The mathematical question is what SR do we expect for any player who has -6 SR worth of incidents in a race? If that's about 78, then both have moved a bit towards it proportional to their current SR, and that part of the system is doing its job perfectly! In the bigger picture, the 90 obviously managed to have mostly races with fewer incidents, and that pattern is likely to continue so it won't necessarily affect him much, longer term. The statistical side of it comes into play.

The 90 SR player actually has 4 to spend before getting red - we expect him to mostly / on average come out with no change in SR, if 90 is right for him. Although, with a decent working system and someone at about their right SR, showing red SR would be expected about half of the time, but it would only be a slight change.

As I said, the formula is just a placeholder for the idea, so one shouldn't read much into the numbers used here, only the pattern. The goal is to give everyone the right allowance so it works statistically. There's no getting round the fact that there will be an allowance in some way, but it can be tuned to match what we want from it, provided that -SR cases were in a stable state of development.

Penalties are a special case, and you're preaching to the choir here saying that only clear-cut cases should ever get penalties. SR should be able to work without any feed-in from penalties, but as long as they are clear-cut then a hefty -SR makes sense.

Smaller rooms might be for the best. Not once have I thought, I'm glad I'm getting matched with SR.B drivers to fill the room.

Indeed!

 

[stpatty]

Just had a Dragon Trail race where this guy was on poll by .800:

I started 2nd. I was on the left hand side going into the high speed right hander before the hairpin. I backed out since he had the place but he just came off the throttle completely and let me though, causing a massive pile-up behind. He ended up finishing 15th, spending most of his time trying to punt some poor Irish guy in a Jag off the track (and succeeding several times). This is obviously someone who has pace and ability, but no racecraft at all. Now the penalty system allows people like that to ruin races. I'm just glad I wasn't affected.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Below 50 SR there were fewer sources of -SR as well though, right? (as in, even before this 'no penalties' version). If so that's still not telling us much.

I reckon having the same available SR for all races would be closer to 'right', and shouldn't be too hard to implement. It would require the per-sector +SR to be fractional, or to be tracked separately from other SR, during the race, but at the end could be totted up and rounded to an integer without too much loss of accuracy. It would be better still to just use floating point for SR everywhere except for display, but that means server changes etc etc.

It's fractional right now. I've been tracking it a lot in recent years and it's always between 0.4 and 0.5 per sector when you divide max SR per race by total number sectors, which works out with how many laps you have to drive before getting a red rating on disconnect (-5 SR)

Right, and there has to be that difference one way or the other. The allowance is what you expect someone at that level to manage, typically. There would have to be a balance between it and the amounts doled out for contact / off-track / etc. Let's say the 50 SR hits the 90 SR three times with -2 SR each time, and no other incidents for either. 90 ends up at 87, 50 ends up at 57. The mathematical question is what SR do we expect for any player who has -6 SR worth of incidents in a race? If that's about 78, then both have moved a bit towards it proportional to their current SR, and that part of the system is doing its job perfectly! In the bigger picture, the 90 obviously managed to have mostly races with fewer incidents, and that pattern is likely to continue so it won't necessarily affect him much, longer term. The statistical side of it comes into play.

The 90 SR player actually has 4 to spend before getting red - we expect him to mostly / on average come out with no change in SR, if 90 is right for him. Although, with a decent working system and someone at about their right SR, showing red SR would be expected about half of the time, but it would only be a slight change.

As I said, the formula is just a placeholder for the idea, so one shouldn't read much into the numbers used here, only the pattern. The goal is to give everyone the right allowance so it works statistically. There's no getting round the fact that there will be an allowance in some way, but it can be tuned to match what we want from it, provided that -SR cases were in a stable state of development.

True and I like it. The biggest problem is the vast difference in SR by race and there simply being too much SR in a race C. It only doesn't feel right when a lower SR player gets a blue rating in the end while doing worse stuff than a higher SR player with a red rating. It's just a visual thing of course, perhaps a different way to visualize it, simply the SR letter with a little progress bar at the bottom like it is in the stats screen for DR.

 

[Hygrade B]

I know everyone won't like this but I say bring back the penalties as it was .
It was better to punish everyone than let the rammers get away with what is going on & at the same time letting them go up in DR ratings.
Just done Brands hatch I thought the way I was rammed & Push off track was bad. I watch 1 Driver ram every car Infront of it and it. The car ended up in the top three from 19th.
Eveey car Infront or next to it that got in the way ended up off track.
Bring back the bad Penalties until a real solutions is found.

 

[RacingGrandpa]

I know everyone won't like this but I say bring back the penalties as it was .
It was better to punish everyone than let the rammers get away with what is going on & at the same time letting them go up in DR ratings.
Just done Brands hatch I thought the way I was rammed & Push off track was bad. I watch 1 Driver ram every car Infront of it and it. The car ended up in the top three from 19th.
Eveey car Infront or next to it that got in the way ended up off track.
Bring back the bad Penalties until a real solutions is found.

The ones from the SPA update was better IMHO. The Laguna Seca version still let the bad apples hit every other driver and on top of that the clean drivers got the penalty.

 

[Outspacer]

It's fractional right now. I've been tracking it a lot in recent years and it's always between 0.4 and 0.5 per sector when you divide max SR per race by total number sectors, which works out with how many laps you have to drive before getting a red rating on disconnect (-5 SR)

Ah, well that's that tiny bit done then! Although, my other thought is why bother tracking by sector at all - with reduced gains per sector, taking one or two fractions away doesn't amount to much compared to the -SR for whatever stopped the sectors being clean. I'm thinking that going off track should be (at least) -1 SR, same with any contact (with wall or car).

True and I like it. The biggest problem is the vast difference in SR by race and there simply being too much SR in a race C. It only doesn't feel right when a lower SR player gets a blue rating in the end while doing worse stuff than a higher SR player with a red rating. It's just a visual thing of course, perhaps a different way to visualize it, simply the SR letter with a little progress bar at the bottom like it is in the stats screen for DR.

Yeah, I started to think about that when I wrote that red SR would be expected about 1/2 the time for anyone around their correct level, but that post was long enough already and I didn't have a good idea for it! I thought about having a small range where it shows neutral SR change, but I don't like that because it could hide an SR slide (as in, over a few races of small -SR each) that a player should be warned about somehow. A better option would be to use faded colours for small changes, and perhaps relate it to the player's SR allowance somehow. OTOH, maybe it's not a big problem - people were rightly up in arms for lower ranks not being punished at all for certain incidents, but this isn't in the same league at all. It would be easy enough to explain it as I did above (but without the numbers) so people understood why that 50 SR player gets blue while the 90 SR gets red. Hopefully matchmaking wouldn't have to match such differences in SR seeing as it prefers to have mismatched DR, but if it did the system still works fairly even if it's not immediately obvious.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Ah, well that's that tiny bit done then! Although, my other thought is why bother tracking by sector at all - with reduced gains per sector, taking one or two fractions away doesn't amount to much compared to the -SR for whatever stopped the sectors being clean. I'm thinking that going off track should be (at least) -1 SR, same with any contact (with wall or car).

Good idea, simply announce how many points you can make at the start of the race and deduct from that for going off track, hit walls, etc. -1 SR sounds right per track limits incident, maybe a bit more for contact with cars. (It used to be -3 per SR Down, -1 when the other car got SR Down, split the middle, -2 since figuring out who to blame is too difficult)

Yeah, I started to think about that when I wrote that red SR would be expected about 1/2 the time for anyone around their correct level, but that post was long enough already and I didn't have a good idea for it! I thought about having a small range where it shows neutral SR change, but I don't like that because it could hide an SR slide (as in, over a few races of small -SR each) that a player should be warned about somehow. A better option would be to use faded colours for small changes, and perhaps relate it to the player's SR allowance somehow. OTOH, maybe it's not a big problem - people were rightly up in arms for lower ranks not being punished at all for certain incidents, but this isn't in the same league at all. It would be easy enough to explain it as I did above (but without the numbers) so people understood why that 50 SR player gets blue while the 90 SR gets red. Hopefully matchmaking wouldn't have to match such differences in SR seeing as it prefers to have mismatched DR, but if it did the system still works fairly even if it's not immediately obvious.

Perhaps simply show the actual deduction numbers in subscript. If the number you can gain is presented at the start of the race it will be clear why a -10 for a SR 50 player results in a gain while it's a loss for SR 90, and everyone can now see who was the worst driver after the race. (Which seems to be the point of the red dots and blue, white, red ratings in the post race lobby)

It would also be nice if DR used the red, white, blue notations (white for less than 50 point change for example)

 

[barak181]

I know everyone won't like this but I say bring back the penalties as it was .
It was better to punish everyone than let the rammers get away with what is going on & at the same time letting them go up in DR ratings.
Just done Brands hatch I thought the way I was rammed & Push off track was bad. I watch 1 Driver ram every car Infront of it and it. The car ended up in the top three from 19th.
Eveey car Infront or next to it that got in the way ended up off track.
Bring back the bad Penalties until a real solutions is found.

Problem with that is the last penalty system didn't penalize punters, either. It was more common for the person who got punted to get a penalty for going off track.

 

[Outspacer]

Good idea, simply announce how many points you can make at the start of the race and deduct from that for going off track, hit walls, etc. -1 SR sounds right per track limits incident, maybe a bit more for contact with cars. (It used to be -3 per SR Down, -1 when the other car got SR Down, split the middle, -2 since figuring out who to blame is too difficult)

For contact, I reckon a sliding scale would work based on collision force: slighest touch -1, small bump -2, medium bump -3... above that it's more likely that fault can be determined, but when it can't be it's hardly fair to subtract much more from both and would hurt the statistical nature, so -3 still. Contact with walls could use similar force thresholds. Wall-riding could incur potentially multiple hits (-1 per some distance or time).

Perhaps simply show the actual deduction numbers in subscript. If the number you can gain is presented at the start of the race it will be clear why a -10 for a SR 50 player results in a gain while it's a loss for SR 90, and everyone can now see who was the worst driver after the race. (Which seems to be the point of the red dots and blue, white, red ratings in the post race lobby)

It would also be nice if DR used the red, white, blue notations (white for less than 50 point change for example)

Yeah, numbers would be good for informing people, even if it's still a bit confusing to see -10 with blue. Alternatively, just hide everybody else's colours, to reduce the blaming! There's pretty good arguments for both ways of doing it, personally I prefer seeing as much data as possible.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

For contact, I reckon a sliding scale would work based on collision force: slighest touch -1, small bump -2, medium bump -3... above that it's more likely that fault can be determined, but when it can't be it's hardly fair to subtract much more from both and would hurt the statistical nature, so -3 still. Contact with walls could use similar force thresholds. Wall-riding could incur potentially multiple hits (-1 per some distance or time).

With walls fine, but you have to be careful with looking at collision force between cars since lag effects that a lot. Although it would be simple to have the two clients compare force, average it and take that as the actual force. Then it's a question of are you responsible for lag touches. It happens often that one client registers contact yet the other does not. For example inside car slightly lags to the outside in a corner, the inside car never touched the outside car on their screen, but the outside car got hit by lag and registers a forceful bump. As it was before the outside car got SR Down, -3 SR for gaining a speed advantage (didn't make sense but that's how it was). Perhaps better to simply ignore it when contact only occurs on one client.

Yeah, numbers would be good for informing people, even if it's still a bit confusing to see -10 with blue. Alternatively, just hide everybody else's colours, to reduce the blaming! There's pretty good arguments for both ways of doing it, personally I prefer seeing as much data as possible.

The blaming is fine, it helps get people in line! I just had another idea, the orginal NFS had a highlight reel at the end of a race showing all your crashes. What about if GTS makes you sit through a replay of all your contacts before you can leave At least people would stop blaming the wrong person and the worse you drive, you might not even make it to the next race in time

 

[Outspacer]

With walls fine, but you have to be careful with looking at collision force between cars since lag effects that a lot. Although it would be simple to have the two clients compare force, average it and take that as the actual force. Then it's a question of are you responsible for lag touches. It happens often that one client registers contact yet the other does not. For example inside car slightly lags to the outside in a corner, the inside car never touched the outside car on their screen, but the outside car got hit by lag and registers a forceful bump. As it was before the outside car got SR Down, -3 SR for gaining a speed advantage (didn't make sense but that's how it was). Perhaps better to simply ignore it when contact only occurs on one client.

Oh, I know about lag, and am just assuming there would be some sort of handshake to agree that some collision happened for both. When they disagree (beyond some small amount) on the strength, it could default to -1 SR, or use the lower strength - disagreement shows lag, and the system should be forgiving of that where it can. Even normal ping will result in them very often having a slightly different strength, even though you wouldn't notice it at all when playing.

The blaming is fine, it helps get people in line! I just had another idea, the orginal NFS had a highlight reel at the end of a race showing all your crashes. What about if GTS makes you sit through a replay of all your contacts before you can leave At least people would stop blaming the wrong person and the worse you drive, you might not even make it to the next race in time

Haha, that's evil and good at the same time!

 

[breeminator]

If you are racing someone you know and trust, then have at it, but until you build that trust, the way to do this properly is to expect them to do the unexpected.

Here you're following someone pretty close into T1:

So are you saying you know and trust that person and that's why you're following at a distance where if they braked e.g. 5m early, you'd have a choice between hitting them or driving off the track? I still say it would not be seen as acceptable in real life for that driver in front to take you out by braking 5m early, the attitude wouldn't be that the driver behind has to follow far enough back to deal with someone doing that.

 

[breeminator]

That is called defence, overslowing at the apex. People do that in real racing too.

I'm not talking about that, I'm talking about deliberately braking early so that the driver behind has to drive off the track to the outside, as covered in the in-game video. If you look at the start of this F1 race, for example, people are following extremely closely, and there is nobody taking out the car behind by braking early. I do not believe it would be seen as the fault of the car behind if someone did brake early to take them out.

 

[FeD_989]

A+/S drivers just lunging stupid distances atm. But they say sorry so it’s okay...

Atm the system is just stupid. I had two races in a row where my qualifying time put me between two brits from the same team. First race I spent a whole race avoiding the divebombs from the guy behind, eventually frustration must have come in because last lap he lunged even more aggressive and costed me 3 positions.

Well next race I’m again sandwiched between them. But this time the guy behind just took me out lap 1/turn 4 on dragon trail. This is an A+/S driver and there were no consequences.

Sorry for the rant. But just bring back penalties.

 

[Jagman XK8]

I believe the issue we have, particularly within the lower ranks, is that kids are in the same arena as people that want to drive cleanly and improve their skills. Instead of accepting the position that someone out-drove them on a bend taken too wide, the moron like attitude is that they will pursue you relentlessly and drive you off the track at the next available opportunity. This happened to me three times yesterday in B races and I finished last, or in the bottom three on each occasion. In another couple I escaped, purely because in their intent to catch me, they tried too hard and overcooked corners, ending up in the gravel. I derived great satisfaction watching that happen in the mirror!

The situation has deteriorated markedly since the penalties were relaxed and the stats are showing clearly that SR99 is achieved easily and that 'clean' drivers are being matched against people who wouldn't have been in the same arena previously. There were still the bad eggs in there, but the chance of meeting them now has increased vastly.

I've been at this online fiasco for less than a month and have only managed to claw my way up to DR 6526 because every time I make any progress, the 'punters' manage to wee on my fire. It's rather like playing snakes and ladders and DR B seems almost unachievable for me at the moment.

The debate above is excellent, with many wonderful suggestions for improvement being made, but I doubt very much whether a system clever enough to distinguish between accident, or intent, can be developed. That said, in real life on the roads, the driver doing the hitting is invariably to blame because they've left insufficient margin to allow for errors made by the third party. The same rationale could be applied by introducing front impact sensors, which attract penalty, of even disqualification. It follows that off track penalties for the victim would have to be negated. Barging could be more complex to identify, but recording impact following a change in course on a straight must be achievable.

Demotion to nursery slopes, away from the main racing environment with standard cars, may dis-incentivise bad behaviour. All their fancy liveries just wouldn't look that credible on a 1200 Beetle and they would have to earn their way back into the adult game. I recall somebody suggested starting online drivers in such an environment and I think this idea has credibility.

 

[ROCKET JOE]

... The debate above is excellent, with many wonderful suggestions for improvement being made, but I doubt very much whether a system clever enough to distinguish between accident, or intent, can be developed. That said, in real life on the roads, the driver doing the hitting is invariably to blame because they've left insufficient margin to allow for errors made by the third party. The same rationale could be applied by introducing front impact sensors, which attract penalty, of even disqualification. It follows that off track penalties for the victim would have to be negated. Barging could be more complex to identify, but recording impact following a change in course on a straight must be achievable.

Demotion to nursery slopes, away from the main racing environment with standard cars, may dis-incentivise bad behaviour. All their fancy liveries just wouldn't look that credible on a 1200 Beetle and they would have to earn their way back into the adult game. I recall somebody suggested starting online drivers in such an environment and I think this idea has credibility.

The system @Sven Jurgens and @Outspacer are talking about ( and that is in my head too ) is different to what we have now and what we have expected the current one to do for such a long time now.
I think there's no need to tell intent from accident or inability as long as the system matches people that have similar "race outcome" so to speak. The exact reasons for someone to behave clean or dirty don't actually matter on track.
Being able to segregate players into SR classes according to the sheer count of race error ( any contact, leaving track, losing car control, Manga liveries etc. ) would be a mighty step up. If on top some rock-solid assign of blame is possible, I'd be really fine with that.
I second you regarding game incentives. This hasn't been talked about too much, but altering rewards according to SR classes ( in a way that lower SR drivers can't take part in FIA races for example or can't drive the faster cars online ) could be additional action to improve the overall racing experience.

Thanks @Sven Jurgens and @Outspacer for your insane effort.
I honestly hope more and more people become aware that sticking to the current design ( be it V.1.00, V.1.21, V.1.53 or whatever ) doesn't lead to anything good.
PD ? ...

 

[kjeldsen]

I think I discovered a new way to cheat the penalty system today. I got tapped out in Race B, the replay showed the other player letting go of the throttle, then applying the brakes and turning after tapping me violently into the wall.

No punishment except for the video I will put on YouTube with his PSN name in the title..

 

[Sven Jurgens]

@kjeldsen Where have you been There are no more penalties, or at least it's extremely rare now to get a contact penalty.

@ROCKET JOE Thanks, I'm assuming manga liveries get +SR and Gibli ones double

I tried to get a bit of discussion going about racing rules on reddit by posting a clip where I'm pretty sure I was not in the wrong (open for suggestions otherwise, with reasons)

Mainly I'm referring to this rule in racing, which is the one that seems to be least known nor adhered to online:
If the driver on the inside is ahead at corner exit, it is the duty of the driver on the outside to back out or take evasive action to avoid a collision.
In the old penalty system I would have gotten a penalty there, since contact, car hits wall. And I chose that because situations like that were responsible for so many BS penalties. The biggest problem is that people think that having a nose in means they have a right to racing line / space on the track.

I really wish that PD put some racecraft guides in the game!

Tomorrow is going to be fun, Spa in the rain, GR.3, whatever can go wrong

I had a great race this morning (and 2 crap fests) having a great battle with one other car all race long. We went into the bus stop side by side twice with no issues! Full race:


Side by side lap 1


Side by side lap 4

I tap the wall once (on purpose) to avoid him rather than bump him when we're not sure who is going to go where after the bus stop in lap 2 but otherwise a contact free race.

Anyway, overtaking through the bus stop can be done, being on the outside you got to yield.

 

[Sean YZF]

I managed to get a 4 sec penalty last night for colliding with another car, the hairpin turn before the COD at DTS, I took the corner and the car I thought was too far behind slipped it under me, very light contact, no one went off, I did think nice move, hard but fair enough, then the 4 sec penalty flashed up. In the nxt race I got a 2 sec penalty, prob derserved that one as I squeezed them off track, accidentally. Was gonna check if penalties had been turned back on, but went to bed instead