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

[Dimitri]

OP is still correct.

This penalty system is a joke, and the SR system that makes it so easy to get SR back doesn’t help. PD could learn a thing or two from the SA rating in Assetto Corse: SA is impacted in races versus AI and takes a long time to get back up. You’ll need to race close to others and clean to see slight improvements instead of spending one race at the back collecting green arrows.

With the penalty system as it is, you could just as well play Wreckfest. I don’t have any hope PD will somehow will be able to repair this crap.

 

[ToddSalad]

This penalty is not even funny

 

[Voodoovaj]

Hahaha

I'll just leave this here! Not mine but this is all recent.

This video is 18 months old.

I watch it and I wonder what PD is thinking. Actually, I wonder why the penalty system takes time to show a result, because it surely isn't checking any conditions.

It's not checking the location on the track. It's not checking the location of the contact on the car. It's not comparing speeds. It's doing nothing.


Now, 18 months later, instead of having been continuously refined and improved so that it is better at assigning blame and appropriate punishment, it's the worst it has ever been,


I have a simple idea to improve it. Roll the dice and assign random penalties, to a random selection of half the field, at the start of the race. That will work just as well

this is what i love the most : especially the 1st incident , since you are the 1st to go off track after the punt from behind , i just cant begin to fathom how the game can possibly not penalise the guy who hit you FIRST FROM BEHIND and instead penalize the victim , i just cant

That's just it. The system CAN. The mere fact that someone is braking, and then is all of a sudden punted off track without applying that force through the controller is obvious. If it weren't a known thing, then the accident would not happen.

They can check the collision location on the car
They can check the force of the collision
They can check the location on the track
They can check the orientation of the car

etc, etc, etc,

The system cannot form opinions or judgments, but it doesn't need to. As I've stated, it needs car states to create context, and then some simple rules to create penalties. Those penalties change based on the context.

For instance. If cars are in an acceleration zone, they should be in a "normal" state. If someone in a normal state applies brakes, and then gets hit from behind, that's a brake check. The person who applied the brakes gets a penalty.

That allows cars to then go into a "braking" state when the enter a braking zone and penalize rear end contact normally.

This also means that if two cars are in a normal state, you can have very low penalty values for front to rear contact, which would allow bump drafting.

Cars that have gone off track, even with just two wheels, go into an "off track" state so, if they side contact someone or get hit in the rear quarter panel, they still get the penalty (essentially penalizing an unsafe re-entry of the track)

I can think of a few more, but you get the idea.

The cars need 6 points of impact (front, rear, front left, front right, rear left, rear right) and a penalty table that gives a basic value of penalty for contact between those six points.

You then duplicate the table for the different states.

You can add a "blame factor" by checking against certain track criteria (these are the rules I mentioned). For instance, on contact between two car, check the orientation of the cars relative to the orientation of the racing line. The person who is most divergent, ergo most off-line gets a multiplication of the penalty result.

Impact force multiplies the penalty value.

You compare the values, subtract the lower value from the higher value, and assign the higher value to the person who earned it.


This is an idea off the top of my head, while I am in my robe, drinking coffee, but I bet it will work better than what ever they are doing now. It's not AI and it should not need a lot of overhead to compute.


Heck, right now, in game, they can accurately determine who started a multi car collision, so they have already solved the most difficult part of any penalty system.


The folks at PD aren't playing their own game. If they were, they'd be just as up in arms as we are. Kaz isn't a coder, so he probably has to rely on someone else who is saying that a good system is impossible, but it's not impossible.

 

[Voodoovaj]

BTW, if you think that what I've written is crazy, consider this; when you approach a corner, the suggested gear indicator flashes. Obviously, the game knows that you are approaching a corner, so that information can be used.

Also, the game is checking for several moments after contact to see if a car is off track. It's the same thing. How can it check the past to see if a car has gone off track you say? Dirty tires. Dirty tires means that you were off track so you are now a hazard, and you as the driver KNOW that you are a hazard.

That table I mentioned also brings with it inherent scenarios. For instance, if my front end hits your front end, obviously ONE Of us is going the wrong way on track. The same applies if the left side of my car hits the left side of another car. One car MUST be facing the wrong way. The person going the wrong way (and we shouldn't care what the reason is) is going to have to take the fault. That's just like real life. Your insurance company mandates that you are in control of your car. If you spin around and hit someone, you are at fault.

The front of one car hitting the side of another is ALWAYS going to be a case of someone pointing the wrong way at the time of impact. Check the alignment of the cars relative to the racing line.

This is game design 101 - Make a system and let people play with the system.

 

[Dorofint]

This video is 18 months old.

I watch it and I wonder what PD is thinking. Actually, I wonder why the penalty system takes time to show a result, because it surely isn't checking any conditions.

It's not checking the location on the track. It's not checking the location of the contact on the car. It's not comparing speeds. It's doing nothing.


Now, 18 months later, instead of having been continuously refined and improved so that it is better at assigning blame and appropriate punishment, it's the worst it has ever been,


I have a simple idea to improve it. Roll the dice and assign random penalties, to a random selection of half the field, at the start of the race. That will work just as well



That's just it. The system CAN. The mere fact that someone is braking, and then is all of a sudden punted off track without applying that force through the controller is obvious. If it weren't a known thing, then the accident would not happen.

They can check the collision location on the car
They can check the force of the collision
They can check the location on the track
They can check the orientation of the car

etc, etc, etc,

The system cannot form opinions or judgments, but it doesn't need to. As I've stated, it needs car states to create context, and then some simple rules to create penalties. Those penalties change based on the context.

For instance. If cars are in an acceleration zone, they should be in a "normal" state. If someone in a normal state applies brakes, and then gets hit from behind, that's a brake check. The person who applied the brakes gets a penalty.

That allows cars to then go into a "braking" state when the enter a braking zone and penalize rear end contact normally.

This also means that if two cars are in a normal state, you can have very low penalty values for front to rear contact, which would allow bump drafting.

Cars that have gone off track, even with just two wheels, go into an "off track" state so, if they side contact someone or get hit in the rear quarter panel, they still get the penalty (essentially penalizing an unsafe re-entry of the track)

I can think of a few more, but you get the idea.

The cars need 6 points of impact (front, rear, front left, front right, rear left, rear right) and a penalty table that gives a basic value of penalty for contact between those six points.

You then duplicate the table for the different states.

You can add a "blame factor" by checking against certain track criteria (these are the rules I mentioned). For instance, on contact between two car, check the orientation of the cars relative to the orientation of the racing line. The person who is most divergent, ergo most off-line gets a multiplication of the penalty result.

Impact force multiplies the penalty value.

You compare the values, subtract the lower value from the higher value, and assign the higher value to the person who earned it.


This is an idea off the top of my head, while I am in my robe, drinking coffee, but I bet it will work better than what ever they are doing now. It's not AI and it should not need a lot of overhead to compute.


Heck, right now, in game, they can accurately determine who started a multi car collision, so they have already solved the most difficult part of any penalty system.


The folks at PD aren't playing their own game. If they were, they'd be just as up in arms as we are. Kaz isn't a coder, so he probably has to rely on someone else who is saying that a good system is impossible, but it's not impossible.

Yes it is incredible. The developers have completely gone the wrong way. Why is that? I can think of three options.
1. They cannot or do not want to do better.
2. The developers have to meet specifications from others (Sony?, FIA?, ...).
3. They get completely wrong information about what is happening in the game.
Otherwise it is hard to explain why they completely did everything wrong that can be done wrong. At the beginning the system was faulty but had potential if it had been developed further. Now we have something that even a random number generator would surpass.

 

[Voodoovaj]

Yes it is incredible. The developers have completely gone the wrong way. Why is that? I can think of three options.
1. They cannot or do not want to do better.

This is their idea of better, so I'll say "do not want to do better"

2. The developers have to meet specifications from others (Sony?, FIA?, ...).
3. They get completely wrong information about what is happening in the game.
Otherwise it is hard to explain why they completely did everything wrong that can be done wrong. At the beginning the system was faulty but had potential if it had been developed further. Now we have something that even a random number generator would surpass.

I strongly doubt the FIA would have asked for this. They likely asked for their rules to be implemented and PD has dropped the ball.

Food for thought, Japanese game developers are not known for having the biggest multiplayer games. BF (Sweden) FIFA (Canada) Madden (California) CoD (California), etc. You'll go way down the list of AAA multiplayer games before you get to a Japanese developed game. My point is that there is a lack of experience when it comes to cultivating and managing communities, or creating features derived from community feedback.

PD is well known for being insular towards it's own community.

At best, they try to placate the players that represent the worst of us. For instance, Race C of late. Instead of making the fuel consumption rate very high to FORCE a fuel stop and really put a strain on fuel management, they turn the fuel burn down and put the strain on tire management. What good does that do? The cars become MORE difficult to drive over time, leading to more accidents and highlight huge inequalities in certain cars. The RCZ and Renault for instance are almost unusable after lap 10 at Laguna.

This is the answer to the "I WANT TO RACE!!!" crew who hated non-stoppers for fuel.

It's like if we cried "we need a screw driver!" They'd give us a different hammer.

 

[jAMPiRATE]

2s penalty for hitting a ghost...

wtf PD

 

[Voodoovaj]

Consider this; PD could easily automate the event selection for Sport Mode.

You set the limitations for each event, such as no GR1 cars in Race A, and then you let the system choose the races. But, NOPE, instead PD would rather have some dude recycle the same events over and over again. It's a sad state of affairs.

Look at Campaign Mode. Instead of having standing starts and varying the difficulty of the AI drivers randomly, they have this ridiculous set up where you drive from the back and try to pass the first car before the end of the race. That's not even an attempt at game design. It's laughable.


So, if PD says it's too hard, it's simply difficult for me to believe them.

 

[BaareCZ]

2s penalty for hitting a ghost...

wtf PD

Yep, apparently it's a thing now. Going through a ghosted car is a penalty. Happened to me too. Kind of makes the ghosting pointless, doesn't it?

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I gave Bathurst a try today, it's a Megane fest again. And of course it doesn't take long to get a BS penalty.

There are so many ways to detect what's really going on here

1. White car loses traction
2. White car is facing away from corner exit
3. White car is least aligned with the direction of travel
4. White car bumps my car half off the road
5. White car leaves the road on the opposite side of my car

Conclusion: I forced the white car off the road

 

[Bloodytears]

In daily race with GTi, I saw a guy gained 2 positions on Mercedes Arena corners, he just full speed straight slammed two guys in front trying to turn normally, and they both got 1.5 penalty, and he just continued to finish clean. Pretty cool system.

 

[Dorofint]

In daily race with GTi, I saw a guy gained 2 positions on Mercedes Arena corners, he just full speed straight slammed two guys in front trying to turn normally, and they both got 1.5 penalty, and he just continued to finish clean. Pretty cool system.

I have seen such actions in abundance this week. Some drivers didn't even brake when they rammed me off the track with full force. And as an additional bonus, I get a time penalty. The previous system was primitive and could easily be misused. But it still had some logic in it. Now i don't see any logic anymore.

 

[VulcanSpirit]

Just saw on @Lion-Face's stream that he got a 4-second penalty for simply rubbing alongside and passing a Porsche at Sardegna A - both cars survived that move unharmed, it should be added. A few seconds later, they both get dive-bombed at the hairpin... and the car responsible runs away scot-free!

 

[Dorofint]

Just saw on @Lion-Face's stream that he got a 4-second penalty for simply rubbing alongside and passing a Porsche at Sardegna A - both cars survived that move unharmed, it should be added. A few seconds later, they both get dive-bombed at the hairpin... and the car responsible runs away scot-free!

I analyzed my incidents and some videos from other drivers this morning. I think PD tried to improve the penalty system but totally screwed up the algorithm. In recent weeks and months there have been more and more ramming attempts from the side. Be it because someone steered into the bend although another driver was already there or during the aggressive blocking and zigzag driving. I suspect PD wanted to do something about it. However, the algorithm failed totally. He recognizes light harmless touches as an aggressive block and imposes punishments. With hard ramming and divebombing, however, larger forces act and this algorithm is not activated. If my theory is correct, this would explain the strange behavior of the penalty systems.

 

[Lion-Face]

The clip of me reviewing my replay of my penalty on stream that @VulcanSpirit referred to. Just weird. Don't want to see any more of that...

 

[breeminator]

I analyzed my incidents and some videos from other drivers this morning. I think PD tried to improve the penalty system but totally screwed up the algorithm.

As I said shortly after the update came out and it became clear this was the case, they should have immediately reverted the penalty system back to how it was before the update. They can spend as long as they want figuring out what has gone so badly wrong, but there's no reason to leave it in operation while that happens.

 

[Dorofint]

The clip of me reviewing my replay of my penalty on stream that @VulcanSpirit referred to. Just weird. Don't want to see any more of that...

This scene shows exactly what I meant by my previous post. The system interpreted the light touch of the two cars as an aggressive block and imposed a 4-second penalty. The divebomb that followed shortly after was not interpreted as an aggressive block because the forces were much greater and the divebomber also managed to overtake.

 

[Famine]

The clip of me reviewing my replay of my penalty on stream that @VulcanSpirit referred to. Just weird. Don't want to see any more of that...

You'd need to see their replay - I'd pretty much guarantee that it doesn't show on your screen, but on theirs they scraped the barrier.

 

[fastone371]

I gave Bathurst a try today, it's a Megane fest again. And of course it doesn't take long to get a BS penalty.

There are so many ways to detect what's really going on here

1. White car loses traction
2. White car is facing away from corner exit
3. White car is least aligned with the direction of travel
4. White car bumps my car half off the road
5. White car leaves the road on the opposite side of my car

Conclusion: I forced the white car off the road

You forgot #6

#6: PD still clueless on how to model a penalty system

 

[RacingGrandpa]

Yep, apparently it's a thing now. Going through a ghosted car is a penalty. Happened to me too. Kind of makes the ghosting pointless, doesn't it?

I thought the same thing happened to me yesterday, I was totally convinced, so I saved the replay to make a clip. Then on the replay it's obvious that I do just nick him before he turns ghost. He ran off in Corkscrew and came out in front of me, facing backwards.

 

[jAMPiRATE]

The big hits being ignored and the little touches getting big penalties theory really does seem to make sense.

It seems if I'm racing kind, leave room, and we glance touch it's 50/50 a penalty. But I get spanked from behind and nothing.

 

[Turbotwin01]

Don't even know why i bother racing online anymore. Ive been run wide so many times but a guy skins the grass and i cant cant avoid him i get a penalty for so much as skinning him. Not to mention if you don't no life qualifying in the daily's all week you cant be competitive.

 

[Voodoovaj]

The clip of me reviewing my replay of my penalty on stream that @VulcanSpirit referred to. Just weird. Don't want to see any more of that...

It shouldn't matter if they hit the wall or not, that Porsche was in the wrong. If the game took a radius and normalized the angle of the racing line spline, it would show that you were more in line with the track than he was, ergo, hit hit you. His outcome after that is not your problem.

I bet there is 1 single guy responsible for this entire system and he likely has no guidance as to what he should or should not be doing. They problem just think we are just a bunch of whiners with no legit beef.

 

[RacingGrandpa]

If the game took a radius and normalized the angle of the racing line spline, it would show that you were more in line with the track than he was, ergo, hit hit you.

This could easily be misused. I drive a little loose, steering partly with the throttle, so anybody behind me could just run into me and I would be penalised.

 

[BaareCZ]

Yep, apparently it's a thing now. Going through a ghosted car is a penalty. Happened to me too. Kind of makes the ghosting pointless, doesn't it?

I thought the same thing happened to me yesterday, I was totally convinced, so I saved the replay to make a clip. Then on the replay it's obvious that I do just nick him before he turns ghost. He ran off in Corkscrew and came out in front of me, facing backwards.

Not my case. He had been ghosted for at least 1 second, probably even more, and basically standing still when I went through him. He lost control and hit the wall in the Esses just before the Dipper at Bathurst. I went through him and then suddenly a 1s penalty pops up with "Coliding with Another Car" as the reason. And I was not the reason he lost control. I was nowhere near him.

 

[fastone371]

This could easily be misused. I drive a little loose, steering partly with the throttle, so anybody behind me could just run into me and I would be penalised.

I believe that's how it should be, it is very hard to race when 1 guy is driving a standard road race line and the other guy is drifting. I race mostly lobbies because of the frustrating penalty system often with many familiar people, I try to drive clean so I am always welcome but when side by side with someone drifting it's almost impossible to avoid contact.

 

[Lion-Face]

You'd need to see their replay - I'd pretty much guarantee that it doesn't show on your screen, but on theirs they scraped the barrier.

That is a thought I didn't have last night, so I don't disagree. Although in that case, he touches the barrier first, then hits me, and I get a penalty. There doesn't appear to be any logic to my penalty after the cars touch no?

 

[RacingGrandpa]

I do not drift. I just adjust the line with the throttle. Never sideways. But I can understand your point. I never do this when side by side, but I might be a little, emphasis on little, loose when no one is beside me. It's always up to the one passing to make sure it's a clear pass.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I forced another car off track again, 5 sec penalty.

Technically he never went off track, the one red bar driver bumping me got disconnected after he bumped me into the gravel. My fault of course. I got bumped into the gravel somewhere else as well. The penalty system got that one 'right' gave the rammer 1 sec for sending me into the litter box. The penalty zone is a joke as well at Laguna Seca. That 5 sec penalty didn't matter much, it simply slowed my car down to get good acceleration out of the corner. And of course, all blue S at the end of the race, 17 laps in the FIA race, bump away!

I believe that's how it should be, it is very hard to race when 1 guy is driving a standard road race line and the other guy is drifting. I race mostly lobbies because of the frustrating penalty system often with many familiar people, I try to drive clean so I am always welcome but when side by side with someone drifting it's almost impossible to avoid contact.

Those drifters are going to be a nuisance again at N24 the week after next. N300, sports tires, lot of cars taking the corners sideways slowing everyone down.

 

[Dorofint]

I bet there is 1 single guy responsible for this entire system and he likely has no guidance as to what he should or should not be doing. They problem just think we are just a bunch of whiners with no legit beef.

PD is a Japanese developer. We do not know what influence the Japanese racing community has on PD. Perhaps the driving there is very different and the system adapted to these players. Maybe we are just the mellow foreigners who complain about nothing.