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

[Danny_GT2]

An incident, supposedly worthy of 10 seconds, plus 1 second added on every time I kept continuing with the race. The Danish dude made a move that I didn't see coming and I turned into him for a split second (oops) then both he and I get slapped with 10 second penalties for a harmless piece of contact that happens every weekend in motor racing worldwide. Turned out to ruin both our races and he rage quit soon after while I came home in a mighty 12th place having started fifth.... I've been hit with harsh 4/5 second penalties before but even those were way worse than this supposed 10 second penalty incident!

 

[Outspacer]

The original concept as I understood it was the SR was the ranking that determined what type of racers you matched the closest and the higher rankings would be the clean no contact rankings.

The problem is that it is to easy to advance to the higher rankings so people do not cherish the ranking and drive with a premium being placed on being able to remain at those levels.

If a person is demoted from a higher SR ranking to a lower SR ranking for the way they drive it should be at least 2 weeks and x number of miles raced (which would make whether you raced in short versus long races not matter as it will be total miles that must be obtained) while at the same time having a maximum number of contact or running off the track incidents to be determined to be able to advance back up to the next highest level.

As far as DR is concerned Dr ranking should be the same as the emerald or platinum or whatever driving rank you earn in the game and once you reach a higher DR level then that level should never decrease unless you do not log into the game for a period of 90 days or longer and the ranking would never go lower than 1 level to the highest level ever obtained.

Dr is supposed to represent drivers skills and because you do not lose those skills because you start to drive using dirty tactics then a driver should not be rewarded by facing less experienced competition by intentionally being able to tank their ratings.

This would at least be a start to stabilizing what is going on in Sport mode.

Been a lot of good discussion, just read the entire thread, yep, #449 posts

@VFOURMAX1 really started hitting the nail on the head back on post #343... at least from my perspective. Several of his posts should simply be collated and sent straight to PD as a guide in refining the system.

Dr. ... I think this is either broken, gamed, or useless... made worse by PD implementing a tanking system that was already being gamed.
I believe that qualifying should play a larger role in the match making... but, then again... "gamers".

Sr. ... This is too easy to manipulate, and... "gamers".
I agree with what others have said that it should use "history" in some form to make it more "accurate".

Penalties... @Alpha Cipher noted it wayyy back there somewhere, but, Patch 1.13 was doing an impeccable job at creating clean racing. Sure, the rubbing is racing crowd got their panties in a knot, and... here we are.
Many have said penalties need dolled out the same regardless of Dr. ... I 100% agree, and, you need to note I was one of the first that campaigned higher ranked players should be held to a higher standard... well, hindsight is 20/20, even i can admit to that, so, PD are your reading this?
10 seconds for touching your opponent from behind... it's a known... don't do it... yes, it's stupid, on the other hand it's dead consistent. Learn.

The penalty problems are certainly rooted in the game itself, but... gamers.

I recall Kaz being quoted that "player age" will be used in the matchmaking at some point in time.
I have high hopes that this will help separate the "must win" folks from the "just want a clean race" folks... but... gamers... they'll simply create a new account and lie about their age to get into fields they can create mayhem and carnage in, on their way to the front.

Part of the trouble is, the game appears to be catered to the top 25 (or whatever) and the rest of us are seemingly thrown into the melting pot.

Someone earlier asked something along the lines of...
Is this a game, or a Sim?...
Well, if you look at FIA involvement, "players" being plucked out of the virtual world to be given factory rides, and now even F1 commentators mentioning the game-world as a legitimate avenue to the real world...
You've really got to ask yourself.
And no, I'm not going to get a factory ride... lack of dedication, lack of skill, too old...
But that does not mean I'm wrong to want for clean racing supported throughout the ranks...

The trouble is that both of you have some ideas that are terrible OK, let's just say unneccessary and over-complicated

As I keep saying, a properly working SR system would help massively. I don't think you guys realise quite how much it would improve things (even though you agree it should be better). SR scoring can be very strict - as in even little bumps have some effect on it.

The 10 sec penalties for gently bumping someone's rear are one thing, but let's agree that the accompanying large -SR hit is a problem. Not that I'm moaning, just that it's one thing that spoils the SR system's accuracy. Time penalties are one thing, SR is another, and they are too tightly linked currently.

DR tanks from dropping SR are another bad point, as you say. I think there should be space for people with, say, DR A+ and SR E, etc. Give them their corner and then they are not in ours. They wouldn't have DR A+ shown, but they could have that level of points. If matchmaking treats them as DR D then they aren't going to gain many DR points anyway (as in, I don't think they could use it to game their way up to DR A+, SR S). DR punishments don't punish the person who gets tanked, but everyone he/she plays against afterwards.

Honestly - for an SR S race - I think that if those things were fixed it wouldn't matter so much how good or bad the penalty system is, because incidents would be a rare occurance for those players.

 

[VBR]

An incident, supposedly worthy of 10 seconds, plus 1 second added on every time I kept continuing with the race. The Danish dude made a move that I didn't see coming and I turned into him for a split second (oops) then both he and I get slapped with 10 second penalties for a harmless piece of contact that happens every weekend in motor racing worldwide.

The video was in chase cam, I assume you raced with that view as well? If so, the contact probably wouldn't have happened if Kaz had allowed us to have a rear view mirror when using chase cam. But, according to him that view is "too easy". So, after making that absolutist & quite false assumption, he then proceeds to nerf the view by disallowing the rear view mirror, which then makes it harder to race cleanly because we can't see what's behind us all the time! Dumber & dumber...

 

[Danny_GT2]

The video was in chase cam, I assume you raced with that view as well? If so, the contact probably wouldn't have happened if Kaz had allowed us to have a rear view mirror when using chase cam. But, according to him that view is "too easy". So, after making that absolutist & quite false assumption, he then proceeds to nerf the view by disallowing the rear view mirror, which then makes it harder to race cleanly because we can't see what's behind us all the time! Dumber & dumber...

I race with the roof cam which is similar to the chase cam I included as the roof cam also doesn't include a rear-view mirror, hence why I have to race with the radar on my MFD to see where the other guys around me are.

 

[GT6mebe]

Didn't PD already mention how minor lag results in the system reading some hits as if they were something far bigger and so penalising more? I seem to remember something like that.

 

[Spurgy 777]

The video was in chase cam, I assume you raced with that view as well? If so, the contact probably wouldn't have happened if Kaz had allowed us to have a rear view mirror when using chase cam. But, according to him that view is "too easy". So, after making that absolutist & quite false assumption, he then proceeds to nerf the view by disallowing the rear view mirror, which then makes it harder to race cleanly because we can't see what's behind us all the time! Dumber & dumber...

You can literally see the back of your car and behind it. If you need a rear view mirror in chase cam to be able to see and react to that divebombing driver then your reaction time or general awareness is terrible.

 

[ASH32]

Didn't PD already mention how minor lag results in the system reading some hits as if they were something far bigger and so penalising more? I seem to remember something like that.

Yes and they said they improved it and it's actually worse if anything, hopefully this is sorted one day, I'm tired of ten second penalties for tiny bits of contact.

 

[VBR]

You can literally see the back of your car and behind it.

Being able to see the back of your car doesn't help with avoiding accidents like the one in the video, & you can't see anyone behind you in chase cam like you can with a rear view mirror, which they generally put in cars (including race cars) for safety reasons.

If you need a rear view mirror in chase cam to be able to see and react to that divebombing driver then your reaction time or general awareness is terrible.

I disagree entirely, & making excuses for Kaz nerfing something is imo "terrible". I personally don't use chase cam as I find it too unrealistic, but I think people who do prefer to use that view should also have access to a rear view mirror which would help them to avoid contact with other cars.

 

[GTPorsche]

Rear view mirrors do no good when most of the time the contact happens when the car is beside them. If someone using chase cam can't see the car beside them, then their awareness sucks and nothing in-game is going to help them with that. I'd also not call it nerfing the view when the rear view mirror has never been there in any GT game... or any other game that I can think of.

 

[cleanLX]

The trouble is that both of you have some ideas that are terrible OK, let's just say unneccessary and over-complicated

Not trying to involve an internet banter contest... been there, loosing battle... so for discussion...
What exactly was unnecessary and over complicated?
Genuinely interested to hear your opinions/points.

a properly working SR system would help massively. I don't think you guys realise quite how much it would improve things (even though you agree it should be better). SR scoring can be very strict - as in even little bumps have some effect on it.
The 10 sec penalties for gently bumping someone's rear are one thing, but let's agree that the accompanying large -SR hit is a problem. Not that I'm moaning, just that it's one thing that spoils the SR system's accuracy. Time penalties are one thing, SR is another, and they are too tightly linked currently.

You remember the week of P1.13 right... that is what i drew attention to... and @Alpha Cipher originally noted.
Edit: maybe this quote and note is unnecessary... I think we may be saying the same thing...
Apologies if that comes across as a "cement head" bit.

DR tanks from dropping SR are another bad point, as you say. I think there should be space for people with, say, DR A+ and SR E, etc. Give them their corner and then they are not in ours. They wouldn't have DR A+ shown, but they could have that level of points. If matchmaking treats them as DR D then they aren't going to gain many DR points anyway (as in, I don't think they could use it to game their way up to DR A+, SR S). DR punishments don't punish the person who gets tanked, but everyone he/she plays against afterwards.

I don't care what Dr. they are, if they are Sr.E (example), then bye bye...
What I'm saying is, I agree... 100%.
My "Dr. is broken " comment... analogy... view... goes like this...
It has a correlation to how many races you have ran... vs outright pace... for the casual player.
Example;
Player A has ran cleanly for 30 races, and is genuinely a "competitive" driver... ranked mid Dr.B Sr.S
Player B has ran ~2000+ races and goes for wins... Dr.A Sr.varies
B clearly will have more Dr. points... but in reality, is he faster than A?
Likely not.
The more you race the more likely you are to build Dr. points... and depending on the time of day etc., the more apt those points are to be artificial, or legitimate.
I think upper A+ is legit... lower A.. and on down could well be a crap shoot...
It's more an experience indicator than it is a pace indicator.
Which supports my theory that PD is catering to the top tier... yes, Dr. works at the top... otherwise it's a time invested gauge.
Which is why I think qualifying needs more emphasis.

Again... for discussion... not meaning to be an authority... simply sharing my opinions/observations

 

[Sven Jurgens]

The trouble is that both of you have some ideas that are terrible OK, let's just say unneccessary and over-complicated

As I keep saying, a properly working SR system would help massively. I don't think you guys realise quite how much it would improve things (even though you agree it should be better). SR scoring can be very strict - as in even little bumps have some effect on it.

The 10 sec penalties for gently bumping someone's rear are one thing, but let's agree that the accompanying large -SR hit is a problem. Not that I'm moaning, just that it's one thing that spoils the SR system's accuracy. Time penalties are one thing, SR is another, and they are too tightly linked currently.

DR tanks from dropping SR are another bad point, as you say. I think there should be space for people with, say, DR A+ and SR E, etc. Give them their corner and then they are not in ours. They wouldn't have DR A+ shown, but they could have that level of points. If matchmaking treats them as DR D then they aren't going to gain many DR points anyway (as in, I don't think they could use it to game their way up to DR A+, SR S). DR punishments don't punish the person who gets tanked, but everyone he/she plays against afterwards.

Honestly - for an SR S race - I think that if those things were fixed it wouldn't matter so much how good or bad the penalty system is, because incidents would be a rare occurance for those players.

How would you propose to make a properly working SR system? PD has proven for 8 months that they can't figure out how to assign blame correctly. That only leaves looking at patterns and frequency of contacts.


The first problem is the huge difference in possible SR gain per race. A daily A can be as low as 4 points for a contact free clean race bonus, while the daily C can be as high at 26 points per race. And that's at SR.S.

The second problem is the boost in manner points per race at lower SR. At SR.E the biggest recorded SR haul for a race is 80 if I remember correctly.
(It's in here yet the site is down atm https://www.jasonguernsey.net/gts/tracks/by-category) From SR.E to SR.S in one race!

The third problem is lower SR deductions at lower DR and SR (which resets DR so it's probably the same effect, based on DR) This is what brakes the SR system most, severity of deductions should be based on SR, not DR.


The current SR system is geared to propel people up towards SR.S, then boot them down once they reach DR.A. It's never going to settle if the point gains and losses are 25% or greater of the entire point scale.


First, standardize point gains per race. 4 per daily A, 5 per daily B, 8 per daily C, not based on laps, no boosts for low SR. Divide the max total point gain by the total number of sectors in that race and round up at the end to get to your total point gain for driving clean sectors.

Second, standardize point reductions, not based on penalty time, base it on the number of and severity of contacts, same for all DR, yet less for lower SR. At lower SR you can have more contacts per race, so people who like rubbing will settle at a certain SR for whatever their driving style is.

Third look at trends. If the other two changes still aren't enough to stop the yoyo effect, add a modifier for each red race. Each red race reduces your possible point gain by 5%, up to a max -50%). Each blue race lowers the modifier by 5%. If you get more red than blue races you will find it twice as hard to climb back up. If you have more blue than red races it will never effect you.
You could do the reverse as well, for each contact free race you add 5% up to a max +50%. I you are a generally contact free racer you will find it easier to get back up after one bad race. You could visualize it with a little green up or red down arrow right after the letter that grows and shrink based on your behavior over time.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Which is why I think qualifying needs more emphasis.

I agree with this on several levels.

A person should not be allowed on the grid without setting a Q lap for the entered race.
Only once required for the daily races.

To eliminate continuing to game the Q time by sandbagging in the daily races any lap turned within a Daily race that is faster than your Q time would then become your new Q time for any further races entered that day.

Not qualifying to start at the rear among slower racers to gain more points by gaining more positions would then become another eliminated exploit to the ranking system.

Racers tanking their rankings to get easier opponents would then find they are matched with the same SR ranks but with the closest paced drivers to themselves again making manipulation of the system somewhat more difficult than it is currently.

Matchmaking needs to make Q time higher priority than DR for setting the grid for races.

As far as setting the grid is concerned DR is actually the least important factor that should be considered.
SR and Pace are the priority for setting a grid.
SR is important as it should be ranking players by contact and control incidents with higher ranked players making fewer mistakes so should group compatible players together. (In theory anyway)
Lap time or Race pace is actually the most important factor in setting a grid that results in a close tight starting field.
What DR ranking a person is as far as racing if the lap times are comparable is really insignificant to a degree and the least important factor if the SR is correctly doing its ranking job.

 

[cleanLX]

I agree with this on several levels.

A person should not be allowed on the grid without setting a Q lap for the entered race.
Only once required for the daily races.

To eliminate continuing to game the Q time by sandbagging in the daily races any lap turned within a Daily race that is faster than your Q time would then become your new Q time for any further races entered that day.

Not qualifying to start at the rear among slower racers to gain more points by gaining more positions would then become another eliminated exploit to the ranking system.

Racers tanking their rankings to get easier opponents would then find they are matched with the same SR ranks but with the closest paced drivers to themselves again making manipulation of the system somewhat more difficult than it is currently.

Matchmaking needs to make Q time higher priority than DR for setting the grid for races.

As far as setting the grid is concerned DR is actually the least important factor that should be considered.
SR and Pace are the priority for setting a grid.
SR is important as it should be ranking players by contact and control incidents with higher ranked players making fewer mistakes so should group compatible players together. (In theory anyway)
Lap time or Race pace is actually the most important factor in setting a grid that results in a close tight starting field.
What DR ranking a person is as far as racing if the lap times are comparable is really insignificant to a degree and the least important factor if the SR is correctly doing its ranking job.

Quote, because a "like" simply isn't enough.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I agree with this on several levels.

A person should not be allowed on the grid without setting a Q lap for the entered race.
Only once required for the daily races.

To eliminate continuing to game the Q time by sandbagging in the daily races any lap turned within a Daily race that is faster than your Q time would then become your new Q time for any further races entered that day.

Not qualifying to start at the rear among slower racers to gain more points by gaining more positions would then become another eliminated exploit to the ranking system.

Racers tanking their rankings to get easier opponents would then find they are matched with the same SR ranks but with the closest paced drivers to themselves again making manipulation of the system somewhat more difficult than it is currently.

Matchmaking needs to make Q time higher priority than DR for setting the grid for races.

As far as setting the grid is concerned DR is actually the least important factor that should be considered.
SR and Pace are the priority for setting a grid.
SR is important as it should be ranking players by contact and control incidents with higher ranked players making fewer mistakes so should group compatible players together. (In theory anyway)
Lap time or Race pace is actually the most important factor in setting a grid that results in a close tight starting field.
What DR ranking a person is as far as racing if the lap times are comparable is really insignificant to a degree and the least important factor if the SR is correctly doing its ranking job.

To that I say boooh!

I haven't qualified for weeks, having tons of fun, racing all clean and get matched with exactly the same groups of people as before. The only difference, much smaller drops in SR as I'm usually not a victim anymore of the T1 carnage. Sure my DR is lower than before yet at high B, low A, I'm in exactly the same groups as at mid A before.

Qualifying time only loosely correlates to race pace. The golden lap to determine start position (and switching cars after qualifying) is as much of a fallacy as setting a slow or no qualifying time. Basing DR solely on finishing position (and grid composition) is not great either.

I'm all for matching people on race pace yet general DR or qualifying time is not the way to do it. Do it based on actual race pace per track. The more someone races on a track the more accurate it gets. DR should reflect you general race pace. A running average of your lap times compared to everyone else's lap times.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Qualifying time only loosely correlates to race pace. The golden lap to determine start position (and switching cars after qualifying) is as much of a fallacy as setting a slow or no qualifying time.

You did see the part where if you set a faster lap time during the race than your current Q time then that became you new Q time for future races right?

If I really had my preferences you would also have to race the car you qualified.

 

[Outspacer]

Not trying to involve an internet banter contest... been there, loosing battle... so for discussion...
What exactly was unnecessary and over complicated?
Genuinely interested to hear your opinions/points.

Well I could say ideas such as not dropping DR once you've reached it... that requires a completely different scoring system to the ELO-based one, so let's hear how that would work in its entirety. Blocks on SR rising for 2 weeks doesn't account for the different amount of races people do in that time.

But my point was really that any of that stuff is useless if built on top of a poor SR system.

You remember the week of P1.13 right... that is what i drew attention to... and @Alpha Cipher originally noted.
Edit: maybe this quote and note is unnecessary... I think we may be saying the same thing...
Apologies if that comes across as a "cement head" bit.

I didn't want to get into arguing about penalties, so I wasn't really focusing on the rights and wrongs of them. Rather the way PD have made SR hits match penalties, when they should be serving two different purposes. Penalties are (supposedly) a way to fix a wrong immediately (as in, in the current race). SR should be a longer-term, statistical, rating but currently only really reflects your last few races.

On the 1.13 effect, I disagree that it would have remained even if PD hadn't changed anything. Obviously this is just my hunch, but I suspect we would've seen the current situation develop regardless - that being that most people feel no shame seeing the red dot next to their name at the end of a race, because the majority have them in most races.

I don't care what Dr. they are, if they are Sr.E (example), then bye bye...
What I'm saying is, I agree... 100%.
My "Dr. is broken " comment... analogy... view... goes like this...
It has a correlation to how many races you have ran... vs outright pace... for the casual player.
Example;
Player A has ran cleanly for 30 races, and is genuinely a "competitive" driver... ranked mid Dr.B Sr.S
Player B has ran ~2000+ races and goes for wins... Dr.A Sr.varies
B clearly will have more Dr. points... but in reality, is he faster than A?
Likely not.
The more you race the more likely you are to build Dr. points... and depending on the time of day etc., the more apt those points are to be artificial, or legitimate.
I think upper A+ is legit... lower A.. and on down could well be a crap shoot...
It's more an experience indicator than it is a pace indicator.
Which supports my theory that PD is catering to the top tier... yes, Dr. works at the top... otherwise it's a time invested gauge.
Which is why I think qualifying needs more emphasis.

Again... for discussion... not meaning to be an authority... simply sharing my opinions/observations

Sure, I'd agree that 30 races isn't enough for an ELO system to settle on the 'right' DR (always going to be approximate, whatever system). But I think that effect diminishes a lot with more races - assuming matchmaking has enough of a pool of players to work effectively - and DR settles at a fairly appropriate level. They could make DR change more quickly, but then it wouldn't be as stable for those who've found their level.

Matchmaking is clearly important for giving people races that will help them settle at their DR level. But with the SR problems, it has a hard time doing that.

PD seem to feel that DR has failed at the top... too many DR S at 75k, so they changed it to A+ and hand out DR S for FIA stuff. (Another over-complicated solution, but that's another discussion).

How would you propose to make a properly working SR system? PD has proven for 8 months that they can't figure out how to assign blame correctly. That only leaves looking at patterns and frequency of contacts.


The first problem is the huge difference in possible SR gain per race. A daily A can be as low as 4 points for a contact free clean race bonus, while the daily C can be as high at 26 points per race. And that's at SR.S.

The second problem is the boost in manner points per race at lower SR. At SR.E the biggest recorded SR haul for a race is 80 if I remember correctly.
(It's in here yet the site is down atm https://www.jasonguernsey.net/gts/tracks/by-category) From SR.E to SR.S in one race!

The third problem is lower SR deductions at lower DR and SR (which resets DR so it's probably the same effect, based on DR) This is what brakes the SR system most, severity of deductions should be based on SR, not DR.


The current SR system is geared to propel people up towards SR.S, then boot them down once they reach DR.A. It's never going to settle if the point gains and losses are 25% or greater of the entire point scale.


First, standardize point gains per race. 4 per daily A, 5 per daily B, 8 per daily C, not based on laps, no boosts for low SR. Divide the max total point gain by the total number of sectors in that race and round up at the end to get to your total point gain for driving clean sectors.

Second, standardize point reductions, not based on penalty time, base it on the number of and severity of contacts, same for all DR, yet less for lower SR. At lower SR you can have more contacts per race, so people who like rubbing will settle at a certain SR for whatever their driving style is.

Third look at trends. If the other two changes still aren't enough to stop the yoyo effect, add a modifier for each red race. Each red race reduces your possible point gain by 5%, up to a max -50%). Each blue race lowers the modifier by 5%. If you get more red than blue races you will find it twice as hard to climb back up. If you have more blue than red races it will never effect you.
You could do the reverse as well, for each contact free race you add 5% up to a max +50%. I you are a generally contact free racer you will find it easier to get back up after one bad race. You could visualize it with a little green up or red down arrow right after the letter that grows and shrink based on your behavior over time.

I did post my proposal here... and you liked it 👍 We're thinking along similar lines, but I think scaling the +SR based on current SR is better than scaling the -SR because the last thing you'd want to do is give people a constant budget - at the top level there should be zero budget.

I agree that the concept of blame is not required in the SR system, which is why I don't like -SR being given according to penalties. On scaling -SR with severity I think that can only be quite limited, if at all, because there will be an innocent party. The important thing is to have every contact affect SR. On a crude scale, let's say it ranges from about -0.5 for the most minor contact up to 2 for a hefty slam. Getting an occasional -2 hit when you don't deserve it isn't going to ruin your rating. To my mind, someone with a habit of making multiple small taps deserves a lower SR rating more than someone who occasionally messes up their braking point.

The yoyo effect has to stop, but I don't think there should a limit on how much -SR someone can build up during a race, if they are really driving that badly. If anything, they should just be black flagged at some level of -SR so they can go to the naughty step and think about what they've done... and not wreck the race any further.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Well I could say ideas such as not dropping DR once you've reached it..

Actually the more I see the system in operation the more I question from just a matchmaking or daily races racing perspective why the game even needs a DR ranking system at all.

SR should be the system that is grouping the racers together by the actual skill level of racing, staying on the track under control and contact incidents with other racers and fixed objects.
This is where the ranking system has the biggest influence concerning a racers skill on the track in close proximity to other racers.

What is the DR system ACTUALLY doing to make the racing better or to create closer racing on the track?

A racer can race on only 2 tracks and build up a DR level to say an A level and on any other circuit their skill set may only match a upper level C racer that has some experience racing that track.

So the DR is not accurately matching a persons skills with anything in that situation when they choose an unfamiliar circuit.

Where as a lap time on a circuit actually does at least use a performance measurement of the circuit being raced to a degree to match racers together on the track.

Actually I personally think that a Q time should be the average of 3 back to back laps to garner a more realistic true measurement of a racers possible sustainable race pace on a circuit.

But some people do not want one Q lap much less have to run 3.

Just because a racer may be at a pace that matches him with certain drivers at Suzuka does not mean on Monza that racer possesses the pace on that circuit to race with the same group of drivers.

Not to mention a racer may have a handle on a gr4 car but put him in a gr3 or gr1 and all bets are off. How does DR match or compensate for that?

Qualifying would show the deficit most likely though.

The game can use a points system for competitions to sort levels but it just seems almost worthless and a very inefficient system that can easily be manipulated to match racers together in the daily races.

If you are racing racers that from top qualifying position to last that are within say 3 seconds of a lap time spread why would the drivers need a letter assigned for good racing.

The only points that would need to be tabulated would be SR as there would be no purpose for the DR ranking.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

You did see the part where if you set a faster lap time during the race than your current Q time then that became you new Q time for future races right?

If I really had my preferences you would also have to race the car you qualified.

I have more trouble with people setting a faster Q time than their race pace. Starting behind one of those with someone who is as fast as his Q time behind me leads to accidents as the driver behind me isn't willing to slow down and expects me to drive the car in front of me off the road.

I did post my proposal here... and you liked it 👍 We're thinking along similar lines, but I think scaling the +SR based on current SR is better than scaling the -SR because the last thing you'd want to do is give people a constant budget - at the top level there should be zero budget.

I agree that the concept of blame is not required in the SR system, which is why I don't like -SR being given according to penalties. On scaling -SR with severity I think that can only be quite limited, if at all, because there will be an innocent party. The important thing is to have every contact affect SR. On a crude scale, let's say it ranges from about -0.5 for the most minor contact up to 2 for a hefty slam. Getting an occasional -2 hit when you don't deserve it isn't going to ruin your rating. To my mind, someone with a habit of making multiple small taps deserves a lower SR rating more than someone who occasionally messes up their braking point.

The yoyo effect has to stop, but I don't think there should a limit on how much -SR someone can build up during a race, if they are really driving that badly. If anything, they should just be black flagged at some level of -SR so they can go to the naughty step and think about what they've done... and not wreck the race any further.

True, constant budget is not something you want at the highest level. (definitely not the 20+ point budget you currently have in the daily C) yet the boost for +SR at lower levels is too big atm. Of course that could already be solved by limiting the budget for the daily C to 8 points. (which would put the max possible gain at SR.E at about 20 if nothing else changes)

There's 2 ways to look at it, either you rise more slowly at higher SR, or you sink more slowly at lower SR to get different driving styles to stabilize at a certain SR level. Instead of gaining double SR at SR.C, you could also receive half the -SR at SR.C vs SR.S. I think slowing down sinking, instead of speeding up recovery will work better to stop the yoyo effect.

There should indeed not be a cap on -SR, just lesser deductions at lower SR. At SR.B harmless contact would be forgiven up to a point, while minor bumps only receive half the -SR of that same bump at SR.S. In SR.E only hefty slams would get -SR.

Perhaps a combination of both would work. From SR 80 up the 'budget' decreases to only 1 point at SR.98 as you proposed.
While from SR.B and lower the -SR decreases and some contacts become 'free' to suit different styles of racing.

SR.S, contact free, no forgiveness at the high end
SR.A, meant for contact free yet you have a small accident forgiveness pool
SR.B side to side contact and slight bumper touches are half -SR
SR.C side to side contact and slight bumper touches are quarter -SR
SR.D minor bumps are free, major bumps (other car off road) are half -SR
SR.E major bumps are quarter -SR

Lower SR deductions already seem to happen in the game except it's based on DR level instead of SR level. An A/S driver that likes to race aggressive currently gets slammed down in SR first, which resets DR, which means -SR is now much less while +SR is boosted and that aggressive A/S driver will be back as D/S in just a couple races without having to worry about penalties or big SR drops, protected by low DR. You not only get rewarded with poles and easy wins, you also get a penalty and -SR shield for dirty driving. How on earth is that a way to 'punish' aggressive driving.

 

[Crazy Taylor]

 

[VBR]

Rear view mirrors do no good when...contact happens when the car is beside them.

Obviously. However, people still have the ability to look left & right (that hasn't been taken away from certain views, has it?), & can generally hear the sound of a car when it's alongside them. Your argument is also a Strawman Fallacy, as the point in question is a video where the guy was behind him, not besides him, & he got dive bombed. Having a rear view mirror in that circumstance would've been very helpful in seeing him coming & avoiding contact.

I'd also not call it nerfing...when the rear view mirror has never been there in any GT game...

Just because it's never been there doesn't automatically mean it wasn't nerfed in the first place, & to think so is probably a false assumption. In a recent interview with GT Planet Kaz was asked the following question, note his reply;


"GTP: Why is there no rear-view mirror available in the “roof view”?

KY: There is no real technical reason why it is not there, but the roof view is easier to drive with. It might be unfair if [a rear-view mirror] was there. If you make the view too easy for people to use, everyone might just be using that view." Source.


Yes, he was talking about roof view, not chase cam. But, if he's nerfed that view because in his opinion it's "too easy", that's probably the reason why it's also not available in other views like chase cam. I just think that everyone should have access to the rear view mirror regardless of their preferred view, & that it would facilitate cleaner racing.

 

[Spurgy 777]

Being able to see the back of your car doesn't help with avoiding accidents, so mentioning that is nothing more than a red herring fallacy. And No, you can't see anyone behind you like you can with a rear view mirror, which they generally put in cars (including race cars) for safety reasons.

Yes, yes it does, I use chase cam specifically because it's the best view for seeing where other drivers are and avoiding them. It's a minor draw back not being able to look forward and back at the same time, but with the position of the camera being able to see drivers just behind you and beside you and being able to look behind at the press of a button it can easily be overcome by half decent awareness and race craft.

I disagree entirely, & making excuses for Kaz nerfing something is imo "terrible". I personally don't use chase cam as I find it too unrealistic, but I think people who do prefer to use that view should also have access to a rear view mirror which would help them to avoid contact with other cars.

The fact that you don't even use chase cam means I can't take your argument remotely seriously. How do you know what chase cam does or doesn't need if you don't even use it, what are you even basing your opinion on?

 

[Outspacer]

Actually the more I see the system in operation the more I question from just a matchmaking or daily races racing perspective why the game even needs a DR ranking system at all.

SR should be the system that is grouping the racers together by the actual skill level of racing, staying on the track under control and contact incidents with other racers and fixed objects.
This is where the ranking system has the biggest influence concerning a racers skill on the track in close proximity to other racers.

What is the DR system ACTUALLY doing to make the racing better or to create closer racing on the track?

A racer can race on only 2 tracks and build up a DR level to say an A level and on any other circuit their skill set may only match a upper level C racer that has some experience racing that track.

So the DR is not accurately matching a persons skills with anything in that situation when they choose an unfamiliar circuit.

Where as a lap time on a circuit actually does at least use a performance measurement of the circuit being raced to a degree to match racers together on the track.

Actually I personally think that a Q time should be the average of 3 back to back laps to garner a more realistic true measurement of a racers possible sustainable race pace on a circuit.

But some people do not want one Q lap much less have to run 3.

Just because a racer may be at a pace that matches him with certain drivers at Suzuka does not mean on Monza that racer possesses the pace on that circuit to race with the same group of drivers.

Not to mention a racer may have a handle on a gr4 car but put him in a gr3 or gr1 and all bets are off. How does DR match or compensate for that?

Qualifying would show the deficit most likely though.

The game can use a points system for competitions to sort levels but it just seems almost worthless and a very inefficient system that can easily be manipulated to match racers together in the daily races.

If you are racing racers that from top qualifying position to last that are within say 3 seconds of a lap time spread why would the drivers need a letter assigned for good racing.

The only points that would need to be tabulated would be SR as there would be no purpose for the DR ranking.

For SR 99 at least, what you're saying about DR being almost irrelevant seems to be true far too often. I have heard a few times that dropping a little SR, say to between 80 and 90, will result in a closer matching of DR though. So I think that is something where more stable SR ratings could help as well. I disagree that using Q time would help directly with that, because you'd first have to accept that matchmaking should not use SR as the primary factor, which is a debate that could just as easily apply to DR.

Q time only works at all if people put in a representative Q time. A time achieved in a race isn't representative, and even less so for someone who is trying to game the system to get easy wins - almost by definition, if they can get an easy win, they don't need to show their true pace.

DR being 'gamed' by someone who e.g. just focuses on a couple of tracks is not one the biggest problems that the system has.

Despite all the flaws and the gaming, I think it's still generally true that most people have a DR level roughly appropriate for them, so I don't see any reason to call for DR to be abandoned. Even if it only gets within 10k of someone's true level it's far better than nothing.

True, constant budget is not something you want at the highest level. (definitely not the 20+ point budget you currently have in the daily C) yet the boost for +SR at lower levels is too big atm. Of course that could already be solved by limiting the budget for the daily C to 8 points. (which would put the max possible gain at SR.E at about 20 if nothing else changes)

There's 2 ways to look at it, either you rise more slowly at higher SR, or you sink more slowly at lower SR to get different driving styles to stabilize at a certain SR level. Instead of gaining double SR at SR.C, you could also receive half the -SR at SR.C vs SR.S. I think slowing down sinking, instead of speeding up recovery will work better to stop the yoyo effect.

There should indeed not be a cap on -SR, just lesser deductions at lower SR. At SR.B harmless contact would be forgiven up to a point, while minor bumps only receive half the -SR of that same bump at SR.S. In SR.E only hefty slams would get -SR.

Perhaps a combination of both would work. From SR 80 up the 'budget' decreases to only 1 point at SR.98 as you proposed.
While from SR.B and lower the -SR decreases and some contacts become 'free' to suit different styles of racing.

SR.S, contact free, no forgiveness at the high end
SR.A, meant for contact free yet you have a small accident forgiveness pool
SR.B side to side contact and slight bumper touches are half -SR
SR.C side to side contact and slight bumper touches are quarter -SR
SR.D minor bumps are free, major bumps (other car off road) are half -SR
SR.E major bumps are quarter -SR

One key thing is that there shouldn't be any thresholds separating different scoring methods. So, nobody can get free anything at any time. Now whether the +SR is done by a straight line (e.g. available +SR is quarter towards SR 102) or some curve is simply fine-tuning, but either gives a scale where there are no sharp differences in the system's behaviour.

Having different amounts of +SR available is enough to give lower SRs plenty of scope for contact, but indeed it could mean that players bounce around too much at the lower levels. So maybe it should be a curve for +SR and a similar but inverted curve applied to the -SR. However, I'm not sure it's neccessary so if I were PD I'd try the system without it first.

Lower SR deductions already seem to happen in the game except it's based on DR level instead of SR level. An A/S driver that likes to race aggressive currently gets slammed down in SR first, which resets DR, which means -SR is now much less while +SR is boosted and that aggressive A/S driver will be back as D/S in just a couple races without having to worry about penalties or big SR drops, protected by low DR. You not only get rewarded with poles and easy wins, you also get a penalty and -SR shield for dirty driving. How on earth is that a way to 'punish' aggressive driving.

Clearly it does vary -SR, but as you say, for all the wrong reasons. Basing SR scoring penalties and basing penalties on DR, and worse, on DR letter rather than points, is trying to enforce a pattern that should have arisen naturally if both systems were working reasonably - that being that high DR and high SR would tend to go hand in hand.

 

[VBR]

Yes, yes it does, I use chase cam specifically because it's the best view for seeing where other drivers are and avoiding them. It's a minor draw back not being able to look forward and back at the same time...

No, no it doesn't. You can't see the car that's about to dive bomb the guy (who posted the video at the top of this page) until it's too late. You can only see cars behind you if they are extremely close, which wouldn't be the case if Kaz allowed a rear view mirror in that mode (which was my original point). I'm glad that you like that view & feel that it's useful, but even you admitted that it is a minor drawback not having a rear view mirror.

The fact that you don't even use chase cam means I can't take your argument remotely seriously. How do you know what chase cam does or doesn't need if you don't even use it, what are you even basing your opinion on?

The fact that I don't use chase cam for serious online racing doesn't mean that I've never used it before; overreact MUCH!

 

[CRN_G-TR]

Yes, yes it does, I use chase cam specifically because it's the best view for seeing where other drivers are and avoiding them. It's a minor draw back not being able to look forward and back at the same time, but with the position of the camera being able to see drivers just behind you and beside you and being able to look behind at the press of a button it can easily be overcome by half decent awareness and race craft.


The fact that you don't even use chase cam means I can't take your argument remotely seriously. How do you know what chase cam does or doesn't need if you don't even use it, what are you even basing your opinion on?

Chase came totally not realistic at all use your radar mate

As a B/S driver you are not subjected to the same penalties as higher ranked drivers. That is the problem. As an A/S I have to pick and choose what races I enter as I don't want to have to go through another DR reset. As much as I'd like to enter more races, I know beforehand that on certain tracks it is not going to end well because of petty penalties. Nothing pisses me off more than collecting penalties from people running into me. I'm a clean driver but with the penalty system the way it is now there are tracks I just avoid.

If you need more explanation, just read through some of Sven Jurgens posts. He has over 3k races so I think he is quite familiar with the penalty system. When a driver tells you he looks forward to being demoted in rank to have less stressful and more enjoyable races that should tell you something.

My insurance company told once the more you on the road the more likely it is you could get in a accident 3k races that's allot . And are you Racing for the rating or are you Racing to enjoy the game see to many people obsessed with ratings.

 

[Spurgy 777]

No, no it doesn't.

You don't use it so probably not a good idea trying to tell me what does or doesn't help avoid accidents. I've had hundreds of hours of racing in loads of different situations in chase cam and the fact that you can see the rear of your car does help avoid accidents, including avoiding divebombers as I'll get into.

You can't see the car that's about to dive bomb the guy (who posted the video at the top of this page) until it's too late. You can only see cars behind you if they are extremely close, which wouldn't be the case if Kaz allowed a rear view mirror in that mode (which was my original point). I'm glad that you like that view & feel that it's useful, but even you admitted that it is a minor drawback not having a rear view mirror.

The divebomber comes into view of the chase cam a little over a second before the contact (probably close to 1.5 seconds when you remove the replay overlay), this is more than enough time to see them and react, if you can't avoid that contact in chase cam then it's not the views problem but either your awareness or your reaction time as I mentioned before.

The fact that I don't use chase cam for serious online racing doesn't mean that I've never used it before; overreact MUCH!

I don't care if you've used it before, unless you use it the majority of the time I don't care about your opinion on it, it's as simple as that, maybe that's a bit blunt but unless you've invested time into driving with a view I don't see how you can form an opinion on what it does or doesn't need.

Chase came totally not realistic at all use your radar mate

Why would I use my radar when I don't need it to know where other drivers are and avoid them?

 

[VBR]

@Spurgy 777 - Yawn...welcome to my ignore list...

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Q time only works at all if people put in a representative Q time. A time achieved in a race isn't representative, and even less so for someone who is trying to game the system to get easy wins - almost by definition, if they can get an easy win, they don't need to show their true pace.

I agree with that totally, another reason that I put a faster lap time recorded during the race race than Q time would up to that new faster time.
Actually if you wanted to even be more reflective of a racers true pace then your game remembers what your best lap times were on which circuit and in which car during time trial practice.

Have a minimum posted Q time required to be within a certain percentage of the highest lap time posted by utilizing those previous racing and practice results. Then within a fairly short time frame the ability to sandbag a Q time would be totally eliminated.

My suggestions are just that, suggestions to build off of to remedy some of the problems facing racers looking for clean, close racing on the track with similar skilled players to themselves.

As the racer find his skills improving and his lap times decreasing the system would as a result start matching such player with the players that were now closer to his personal best times and increased skills therefore still putting him in a competitive environment while still offering a challenge to keep improving.

During that though the racers he has surpassed in skills will still be getting good lobbies that they have a legitimate chance to win and the improved racer would also in theory still be racing with faster racers of a level that he would also be in a competitive field.

Granted a racer could occasionally hit a doughnut hole in competition levels where he is a little to fast for one group and just a bit slow in another but for many racers in today's system they rarely are placed in a group that they are competitive in from the top to the bottom, they are used as grid fillers in the current system for faster at this time higher ranking level by letter racers.

For SR 99 at least, what you're saying about DR being almost irrelevant seems to be true far too often. I have heard a few times that dropping a little SR, say to between 80 and 90, will result in a closer matching

And yes a sub DR A level racer that races with a SR 99 as the worst of the abused from the current system.

A racer should not need to be involved in incidents on the race track that lower his SR ranking to be placed in a competitive lobby or race.

He should be rewarded for maintaining the higher rating not punished.

Of course the penalty systems shortcoming and failures also have a hand in the cluster of a system we are currently a part of.

A racer that maintains a minimum of incidents on track to possess a 99 SR ranking should not be punished by constantly being used to fill the race lobbies for faster racers where such racer having an excellent result strives for a top 10 finish from his starting position of 15th. so the faster currently 3 seconds a lap faster A/A+ racer pads his win stats by beating a field where the majority of the racers are lower level and slower.

Despite all the flaws and the gaming, I think it's still generally true that most people have a DR level roughly appropriate for them, so I don't see any reason to call for DR to be abandoned.

If you prefer to keep a letter system to rank players and set grids then stabilize the system where a racer remains in his supposed correct ranking and only races against other racers within the daily races of his same DR level rank.

Then maybe with the varied skill levels with sport mode a letter based DR ranking system will rank only similar skilled racers together and the
mismatching of skill sets or race pace would be eliminated which mixing such DR ranking levels that takes place today fails to do.

The whole object is to make whatever system is in place in the game to properly place racers together by both lap times (speed) and Safety Ranking (clean driving tendencies) within the races in Sport Mode which currently the games attempts are in many ways for many racers a complete failure.

Also a lot of reference goes back to a system modeled after iracing but if I am correct iracing is a much more strictly structured system that utilizes
driver divisions, a ranking system that limits the classes and cars a driver is eligible to use and runs a structured race schedule that has human monitoring of its racing schedules and is not running constant 24 hour per day pick up races with racers of very varying skill levels being on the same track at the same time in way to many cases.

So just because it is the best system for their racing structure does not mean the same for GTS even though they are both dealing with online sim style racing.

The system as it is plainly is not working at a level that it should be and in my opinion could be improved from its current status greatly.

 

[Cpt. Disaster]

Apologies if this has been mentioned previously. We have FIA sanctioned races with this flawed penalty system, how can they support this?

 

[Outspacer]

I agree with that totally, another reason that I put a faster lap time recorded during the race race than Q time would up to that new faster time.
Actually if you wanted to even be more reflective of a racers true pace then your game remembers what your best lap times were on which circuit and in which car during time trial practice.

Have a minimum posted Q time required to be within a certain percentage of the highest lap time posted by utilizing those previous racing and practice results. Then within a fairly short time frame the ability to sandbag a Q time would be totally eliminated.

My suggestions are just that, suggestions to build off of to remedy some of the problems facing racers looking for clean, close racing on the track with similar skilled players to themselves.

As the racer find his skills improving and his lap times decreasing the system would as a result start matching such player with the players that were now closer to his personal best times and increased skills therefore still putting him in a competitive environment while still offering a challenge to keep improving.

During that though the racers he has surpassed in skills will still be getting good lobbies that they have a legitimate chance to win and the improved racer would also in theory still be racing with faster racers of a level that he would also be in a competitive field.

Granted a racer could occasionally hit a doughnut hole in competition levels where he is a little to fast for one group and just a bit slow in another but for many racers in today's system they rarely are placed in a group that they are competitive in from the top to the bottom, they are used as grid fillers in the current system for faster at this time higher ranking level by letter racers.

I see what you're saying, it's just that I think DR could do as good or better a job of what you're trying to achieve - as long as the SR system is dramatically improved.

Fundamentally the way matchmaking works could be changed to not rely so much on SR, but then there might be many complaints when SR Ds get mixed in with SR Ss, etc.

And yes a sub DR A level racer that races with a SR 99 as the worst of the abused from the current system.

A racer should not need to be involved in incidents on the race track that lower his SR ranking to be placed in a competitive lobby or race.

He should be rewarded for maintaining the higher rating not punished.

Of course the penalty systems shortcoming and failures also have a hand in the cluster of a system we are currently a part of.

A racer that maintains a minimum of incidents on track to possess a 99 SR ranking should not be punished by constantly being used to fill the race lobbies for faster racers where such racer having an excellent result strives for a top 10 finish from his starting position of 15th. so the faster currently 3 seconds a lap faster A/A+ racer pads his win stats by beating a field where the majority of the racers are lower level and slower.

To be clear, with my idea SR 99 would become very rare indeed, it being so strict that almost nobody could maintain it. That's a main feature of my suggestion really. It would be a badge of honour, if you like, to even maintain 90+ consistently. With the original SR system, players were distributed amongst the ranks fairly well apart from a big spike at SR 99 which left a hole beneath it. The current system still appears to have this flaw, along with SR changing far too rapidly. So, one thing I'd hope my idea would do is remove that hole, so that 'completely clean' and 'virtually completely clean' have SR levels that are appropriately much closer together, that then gives matchmaking something much better to work with.

Also, with better SR ratings, matchmaking could choose to allow a wider range of SRs into a race, without affecting the quality of the race too much. Say it's late at night and not many players around. It could choose to group a race with SR A and SR S to get a closer matching of DRs, compared to limiting itself to high SR S and a wide range of DRs. This would probably provide better races in those cases.

If you prefer to keep a letter system to rank players and set grids then stabilize the system where a racer remains in his supposed correct ranking and only races against other racers within the daily races of his same DR level rank.

Then maybe with the varied skill levels with sport mode a letter based DR ranking system will rank only similar skilled racers together and the
mismatching of skill sets or race pace would be eliminated which mixing such DR ranking levels that takes place today fails to do.

The whole object is to make whatever system is in place in the game to properly place racers together by both lap times (speed) and Safety Ranking (clean driving tendencies) within the races in Sport Mode which currently the games attempts are in many ways for many racers a complete failure.

Also a lot of reference goes back to a system modeled after iracing but if I am correct iracing is a much more strictly structured system that utilizes
driver divisions, a ranking system that limits the classes and cars a driver is eligible to use and runs a structured race schedule that has human monitoring of its racing schedules and is not running constant 24 hour per day pick up races with racers of very varying skill levels being on the same track at the same time in way to many cases.

So just because it is the best system for their racing structure does not mean the same for GTS even though they are both dealing with online sim style racing.

The system as it is plainly is not working at a level that it should be and in my opinion could be improved from its current status greatly.

Well, how much do you want similar DR / Q time / pace, at the expense of seeing a wide range of SR? It's a balancing act that matchmaking currently fails at, for sure, but I think the emphasis should remain on SR.

I have read up on iRacing's systems but haven't experienced them. People complain about it as well I think if PD limited DR letter to going no higher than SR letter (in all cases), it would be enough of an approximation of a 'division' (probably useful for for matchmaking purposes). The simplified structure of PD's rating systems seem appropriate for GTS, IMO. iRacing's SR gains are scaled by division and a curve, somewhat similar to what I've suggested except that my method is much simpler.

What I'm trying to convince you and others of isn't that other ideas don't have merit, just that an awful lot of what you guys want could be achieved with a better SR system!

 

[vvise]

most people in this thread would have kept full throttle on the racing line then complained about the penalty system when one of those cars came back across the track and hit them off.