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

[ASH32]

Was something changed again on the penalty system? I notice that I was divebombed extremely often last week. Penalties only existed when I left the street. Even hard contacts were not punished as long as I stayed on the street somehow. Have you had similar experiences or am I mistaken?

No you are correct, you can hit someone as hard as you like as long as you do it in a way that means they don't leave what the game defines as track and avoid a penalty. If they go off it's a penalty no matter how lightly you touched them or if they or another car actually caused it.

But the worst thing with this system is they can tap the back of you and then intentionally drive off the track or rub a wall and you will get a penalty for it.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Was something changed again on the penalty system? I notice that I was divebombed extremely often last week. Penalties only existed when I left the street. Even hard contacts were not punished as long as I stayed on the street somehow. Have you had similar experiences or am I mistaken?

Read through here for the current quirks of the penalty system
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/the-penalty-analysis-thread.387155/

It's been changed quite a while ago that penalties only trigger when someone goes off / hits the wall. Players have been 'adjusting' to this for some time. There are also cases where even a clear punt off the road doesn't get punished (due to lag, or maybe DR difference or going off track before hitting). And some cases where multiple people get punished for the same accident (with one or more going off). But the main theme is, if the 'victim' keeps a wheel inside the often questionable track limits, spun around, stopped, reset, doesn't matter, no penalty.

 

[Dorofint]

Thank you for the confirmation. The whole thing is completely absurd. Now the only thing that counts is who is leaving the track. There were also cases last week where the divebomber himself left the track. If we were both away from the street, there was no penalty and if I stayed on the street I was punished. The whole causer principle is thereby completely nullified. So it does not matter what someone does as long as the other somehow remains on the road. And if the victim comes into the grass then you just make a small dodger off the road and have nothing to fear. Now I understand why so many players drive so extremely aggressively. I am sorry but with these rules GT Sport makes no sense to me anymore.

 

[ROCKET JOE]

... I am sorry but with these rules GT Sport makes no sense to me anymore.

LOL ... I am sorry, guys - just can't restrain - did it ever make sense at any point in time ?

 

[Benay79]

I didn't even realise the whole leaving the track gives a penalty was a thing until recently. The system sucks at the moment. I went from an S to a C in one race on Interlagos on Monday after getting an 11 second penalty (eleven!!!) after 3 cars in front fighting on lap one sent each other spinning on a corner. They all hit me on their way off the track, i remained in the centre of the track so it was all my fault apparently. So thats the available points in my FIA race for today ruined. 🤬

 

[Dorofint]

I didn't even realise the whole leaving the track gives a penalty was a thing until recently. The system sucks at the moment. I went from an S to a C in one race on Interlagos on Monday after getting an 11 second penalty (eleven!!!) after 3 cars in front fighting on lap one sent each other spinning on a corner. They all hit me on their way off the track, i remained in the centre of the track so it was all my fault apparently. So thats the available points in my FIA race for today ruined. 🤬

The same thing happened to me. Although not in a single race but I fell because of over-motivated idiots from BS to CC. In my case it was mostly divebomby with 2 wheels in the grass. But also other drivers who first rammed me and then turned into the grass. Almost every time there were time penalties and SR downs. There is no way to protect against it. Maybe if you drive very slowly at the end of the field. But even then often an over motivated driver who has fallen back by its own driving error and now wants to catch up again rammed you. The system is completely gaga.

 

[I-Runner]

This penalty system is becoming worse day by day (update by update) in an absurd way... 👎

 

[cleanLX]

I'm at the point that I barely even enter dailys anymore because I am so tired of the broken penalty system. ~ so I can join the iRacing community. We have complained about the broken penalty system long enough, apparently the only way to get some satisfaction from PD/Sony is to walk away, it's unfortunate because I like the game, just not the esport implementation.

Me too... probably been close to a year, maybe more since I entered a daily race.
IRacing... that's where I'm headed as well... yes it's expensive, yes it's very structured... thank god.

I feel like GT would benefit from an equal-fault approach like iRacing, where everyone involved loses SR... It promotes just racing clean instead of taking chances with the blame system.

Yes, in P1.13 they did exactly this, the racing was immediately cleaned up, and was getting really good, but the "community" went crazy crying they could no longer be competitive, and rubbing is racing... and... it got jerked out of the game... and it's been a poop show ever since.

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

Yes, in P1.13 they did exactly this, the racing was immediately cleaned up, and was getting really good, but the "community" went crazy crying they could no longer be competitive, and rubbing is racing... and... it got jerked out of the game... and it's been a poop show ever since.

Those were the glory days when people would treat your car like it was surrounded by a halo of cooties. That was probably the best state of penalty system but as you said, the "rubbing is racing" players flipped out instead.

 

[Outspacer]

Me too... probably been close to a year, maybe more since I entered a daily race.
IRacing... that's where I'm headed as well... yes it's expensive, yes it's very structured... thank god.


Yes, in P1.13 they did exactly this, the racing was immediately cleaned up, and was getting really good, but the "community" went crazy crying they could no longer be competitive, and rubbing is racing... and... it got jerked out of the game... and it's been a poop show ever since.

Now hang on, wasn't that the point where everyone involved got a time penalty as well as SR down? That wasn't good at all, and it wasn't just 'rubbing is racing' types that shared my opinion on it. Anyway, I think we'd have to go back quite a bit before that to find a point where it was just giving equal SR down without time penalties.

I too haven't played for more than a year. I gave up in the main because PD firstly showed no sign of coming up with a decent SR system where S actually meant 'clean', and secondly because it was obvious that their ability to correctly assign blame was never going to match their ambition (yet they were clearly intent on continuing to assign blame). Those two things still appear to be very much true (and now there's apparently some mickey-mousery with penalty zones - that sounds awful as well).

 

[Petroperu]

Haven't touched the game since last week's daily races in which it made me rage quit when I was being bumped from behind by everyone or aggressively being taken over my position and still getting DR loss at Suzuka.

 

[cleanLX]

Now hang on, wasn't that the point where everyone involved got a time penalty as well as SR down? That wasn't good at all, and it wasn't just 'rubbing is racing' types that shared my opinion on it. Anyway, I think we'd have to go back quite a bit before that to find a point where it was just giving equal SR down without time penalties.

And penalties were hard to scrub, and track cuts/abuse were heavily penalized.
I agree it was not perfect, but it sure cleaned up the racing... I recall it being the cleanest racing the game has seen.
Many really liked it, unfortunately more kicked and screamed... and it's a matter of opinion for certain, but in mine, nothing since has been better at making for clean races... and the racing/videos would echo that... again, from my perspective.

 

[Outspacer]

And penalties were hard to scrub, and track cuts/abuse were heavily penalized.
I agree it was not perfect, but it sure cleaned up the racing... I recall it being the cleanest racing the game has seen.
Many really liked it, unfortunately more kicked and screamed... and it's a matter of opinion for certain, but in mine, nothing since has been better at making for clean races... and the racing/videos would echo that... again, from my perspective.

Indeed... so it really wasn't "exactly that": "everyone involved loses SR", it was much more.

We each stated our thoughts at length last year so I won't go there again. However, something we may not have addressed directly is that GTS is supposed to be a game for the masses. Had those super-punishing rules been kept it would've had even less players now than it has. And I don't think it would have just been the dirty ones leaving - as we've seen, once the player count falls you get horribly mismatched races on DR, so clean racers would've left because of that. I don't blame PD at all for choosing a more inclusive path.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Indeed... so it really wasn't "exactly that": "everyone involved loses SR", it was much more.

We each stated our thoughts at length last year so I won't go there again. However, something we may not have addressed directly is that GTS is supposed to be a game for the masses. Had those super-punishing rules been kept it would've had even less players now than it has. And I don't think it would have just been the dirty ones leaving - as we've seen, once the player count falls you get horribly mismatched races on DR, so clean racers would've left because of that. I don't blame PD at all for choosing a more inclusive path.

It was a bit too sensitive. We were pouring over videos on here to spot the instant where the car ahead suddenly gained an extra few kph or the car behind lost a few kph to figure out if there was actual contact to explain a 10 sec penalty for the car behind, plus 1 sec for the car ahead.

However it was not reversed for the masses. The FIA races looked like penalty trains with people serving penalties in corners creating more chaos. It looked bad, not like racing anymore with cars stopping to serve penalties all over the place.

Races were cleaner after people adjusted and it was much needed. I remember my DR going up 30% or more (I was still qualifying back then) as a result of not getting punted off all the time anymore. As for players leaving, they leave for unfair penalties and they leave for too much bumping in races. It all comes down to penalties not working right. Make it more strict, too many people get wrongly punished. Make it too lenient, clean drivers disappear into qualifying or lobbies to avoid DR loss or frustrating bump races.

Lag is a big problem as well and while player count suffered, when the servers were split, racing was better for a while. The problem was, in off peak hours the player count was so low, lower SR was added to fill the rooms. It was only better during peak hours when you could finally get a full (mostly) lag free SR.S room. The server split was reversed, yet player count is still slipping and now we have laggy races with lower SR added during off peak hours, a penalty system that hardly does anything anymore, driving more people away.


Imo PD has always gone about it the wrong way. Instead of only using the stick method, add substantial rewards for clean passes, contact free races, clean laps. The clean race bonus as it is now is not much of an incentive and way too unreliable based on the track. Plus SR is way too volatile. People that generally stay at SR.99 should not be matched with those that enjoy weekly DR resets. There's plenty else that can be tweaked to clean up races next to the penalty system.

 

[Outspacer]

It was a bit too sensitive. We were pouring over videos on here to spot the instant where the car ahead suddenly gained an extra few kph or the car behind lost a few kph to figure out if there was actual contact to explain a 10 sec penalty for the car behind, plus 1 sec for the car ahead.

However it was not reversed for the masses. The FIA races looked like penalty trains with people serving penalties in corners creating more chaos. It looked bad, not like racing anymore with cars stopping to serve penalties all over the place.

Races were cleaner after people adjusted and it was much needed. I remember my DR going up 30% or more (I was still qualifying back then) as a result of not getting punted off all the time anymore. As for players leaving, they leave for unfair penalties and they leave for too much bumping in races. It all comes down to penalties not working right. Make it more strict, too many people get wrongly punished. Make it too lenient, clean drivers disappear into qualifying or lobbies to avoid DR loss or frustrating bump races.

Lag is a big problem as well and while player count suffered, when the servers were split, racing was better for a while. The problem was, in off peak hours the player count was so low, lower SR was added to fill the rooms. It was only better during peak hours when you could finally get a full (mostly) lag free SR.S room. The server split was reversed, yet player count is still slipping and now we have laggy races with lower SR added during off peak hours, a penalty system that hardly does anything anymore, driving more people away.


Imo PD has always gone about it the wrong way. Instead of only using the stick method, add substantial rewards for clean passes, contact free races, clean laps. The clean race bonus as it is now is not much of an incentive and way too unreliable based on the track. Plus SR is way too volatile. People that generally stay at SR.99 should not be matched with those that enjoy weekly DR resets. There's plenty else that can be tweaked to clean up races next to the penalty system.

I think the masses' opinion would've been factored in to some extent as well, but you're right - having races finish with almost everyone red-dotted is not a good look, be it fia or daily. But still, had those rules continued then many (more) would've left.

Ha, you add the comment about SR at the end but you know that was my biggest bugbear IMO the biggest error PD have made is to focus on time penalties (and penalty zones etc) rather than improve SR calcs. They still have an utterly simplistic way of determining fault, so with that, I can't see how time penalties can ever be right (no matter whether they're set too sensitive or not) except in extreme cases. While some tweaks they did to SR were in the right direction, they then blew it by factoring in DR so lower DR get away with more.

 

[fastone371]

I will start out by saying that I watch a lot of qualifying and race replays, often switching between different cars and driving views. I believe the biggest problem with the penalty system is that PD tries to make racing with a DS4 competitive with the wheel users. There are some extremely good DS4 drivers out there, I can only wish I were as fast as them, but I think most are DR A and A+, in the DR B and lower races you see too many DS4 users drive too fast into a corner a drift thru the turn, if I drove that way with my wheel I would spin in every corner. That makes it very hard to pass or even drive alongside them because they are not taking a predictable racing line. It makes it difficult for even clean drivers to not make contact, hell, sometimes you cant even drive down a straight without getting hit accidentally. I dont think wheel users can brake as late as DS4 users due to the alleged "brake smoothing" PD implements which causes contact in braking zones too. When 2 drivers can run virtually the same lap times with one driver running a very smooth proper racing line and the other following nothing that even resembles a racing line that also keeps the cars in close proximity to one another which adds to the chaos.

 

[vvise]

@Sven Jurgens I learned something about the penalty system yesterday. The outcome after a contact plays into it. I got a penalty that was REALLY delayed yesterday and i was quite surprised by it. When watching the stream back i realized i get awarded the penalty on the following straight EXACTLY when I pass the driver I made contact with.



I'm assuming if I hadn't inched ahead for that split second I would not have received a pen.

 

[ASH32]

@vvise You only got the penalty when they went on or very near the grass at the end I think, hence the delay. Had you moved over and let them back on track sooner a penalty may not have been triggered, we'll never know for sure though. Outcome does not play a part, I've hit a car wide and only just off track and slowed to let them back in front and still got a penalty on top afterwards.

 

[vvise]

@vvise You only got the penalty when they went on or very near the grass at the end I think, hence the delay.

we were both back on track for a long time before that penalty came up. i don't think it's a coincidence i got it the exact same frame as the timer on the left showed me passing him.

also the current track limits allow you to go wide onto that grass without receiving a penalty.

third, i got pushed off track into him (you can see it in the radar) which would usually absolve you of penalties for contact afterwards.

 

[ASH32]

we were both back on track for a long time before that penalty came up. i don't think it's a coincidence i got it the exact same frame as the timer on the left showed me passing him.

Unless the FIA races use a different system to Sport mode then it was just on a go slow, it does that from time to time probably because both ends have to confirm the penalty, it does it even with corner cut penalties, they can come up way later than in your video. Your penalty comes up just (and I mean just) before you pass them too.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

we were both back on track for a long time before that penalty came up. i don't think it's a coincidence i got it the exact same frame as the timer on the left showed me passing him.

also the current track limits allow you to go wide onto that grass without receiving a penalty.

third, i got pushed off track into him (you can see it in the radar) which would usually absolve you of penalties for contact afterwards.

But you passed him before already and the penalty shows up (41.118) before you gain the position for a second time (41.951). For all we know the penalty could have been triggered by the car behind you (that pushed you into this car) and went off at the time the penalty popped up, You need a rear view mirror!

The delay is quite long though, but perhaps you are 'responsible' for longer at higher DR or FIA races.

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

It turns out the penalty system has a sense of humour and it is absolutely brilliant, anybody who has raced in Europe will understand:

 

[Sven Jurgens]

It turns out the penalty system has a sense of humour and it is absolutely brilliant, anybody who has raced in Europe will understand:

Wide track, penalties don't trigger, retaliation goes up, race craft gets worse. The 'anomaly' here is, why didn't you get SR Down when he first bumped you wide. Perhaps you were right at the line where the acceleration zone starts, which is where the car behind more often gets SR down for bumping.

Second is as usual, inside car is always right, unless the outside car goes off. It's quite a failure on this track.

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

Wide track, penalties don't trigger, retaliation goes up, race craft gets worse. The 'anomaly' here is, why didn't you get SR Down when he first bumped you wide. Perhaps you were right at the line where the acceleration zone starts, which is where the car behind more often gets SR down for bumping.

Second is as usual, inside car is always right, unless the outside car goes off. It's quite a failure on this track.

I should probably point out for the sake of context that this incident didn't start at turn 1, this goes back to quite a few incidents at the chicane at Fuji. I always thought that if a car went off the other would be penalised but this time even though it was facing backwards with all 4 wheels off there was nothing for either of us.

 

[ASH32]

I should probably point out for the sake of context that this incident didn't start at turn 1, this goes back to quite a few incidents at the chicane at Fuji. I always thought that if a car went off the other would be penalised but this time even though it was facing backwards with all 4 wheels off there was nothing for either of us.

Depends on DR and SR too, especially if they are different. DR B drivers can usual punt A/A+ off without penalty more often than not. Lag can also cause zero penalties, both if the laggy car hits you and if you manage to hit the lagger.

This case however I think is because you go on the grass before the contact. I've seen a few videos now like that with a car bump passing by going on the grass and every time there has been no penalty, I think this could be a possible exploit but we need more videos of it really.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I should probably point out for the sake of context that this incident didn't start at turn 1, this goes back to quite a few incidents at the chicane at Fuji. I always thought that if a car went off the other would be penalised but this time even though it was facing backwards with all 4 wheels off there was nothing for either of us.

Odd, he was all the way off, I missed that the first time. I guess 'sometimes' it just doesn't work at all.

Depends on DR and SR too, especially if they are different. DR B drivers can usual punt A/A+ off without penalty more often than not. Lag can also cause zero penalties, both if the laggy car hits you and if you manage to hit the lagger.

This case however I think is because you go on the grass before the contact. I've seen a few videos now like that with a car bump passing by going on the grass and every time there has been no penalty, I think this could be a possible exploit but we need more videos of it really.

Yeah, that could be it, he had all wheels inside the white line for a split second before the hit. Gotmaxpower is also DR.A and the car he battled A+, that could also have been part of the decision making.

 

[JosX]

I feel your pain. Just went from B/S to C/B in like 4 races from being rammed into oblivion. I thought s class was meant to be clean?

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I'll post this here as well for fun. Why did I get singled out for a 5 sec penalty?

You do everything possible to avoid all the chaos, lose time and position and get 5 seconds to lose another couple positions later.
The car that hit me spun out because he got hit himself. But why not penalize the car that made the first contact in this case?

 

[gtpierre]

I'll post this here as well for fun. Why did I get singled out for a 5 sec penalty?

You do everything possible to avoid all the chaos, lose time and position and get 5 seconds to lose another couple positions later.
The car that hit me spun out because he got hit himself. But why not penalize the car that made the first contact in this case?

Maybe here you just got a penalty for hitting the wall

 

[RacingGrandpa]

I'm sorry, haven't read all 43 pages, most of it is probably irrelevant after updates now.
I have given up on understanding how it works, but it really annoyed me that the yellow strip telling me that I will be slowed down at the next penalty zone is right in the middle of my view when I am in the last corners before the zone, making it very hard to see and keep the line right.