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

[Krypton78]

While it's easy to blame the developers and call them incompetent

Yes, sir, they are incompetent, and not to less.
If its right, that the system simply punishes the one who is in front after a contact when he was not in front at the moment of the contact, without considering of ANY other factor, like
- was somebody forced out of track
- force of contact at all
- speed of both cars during and after contact related to the ideal speed there
- angle of both cars related to the ideal line during and after contact
- so much more other factors which can be used, since the programm simulates everything itself, its not a camera watching on a real life scene or whatever

then its just completely a major huge large pile of what cows and bulls are leaving on the grass.
And not worth bothering, not even with subaccounts or whatever.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I haven't been able to discern any logic in how the game decides the duration of penalty to impose, I've seen anything from 2 to 10 seconds for contact before passing, including 10 seconds for extremely light contact where a human would have assessed the penalty recipient as having done nothing wrong, and 2 seconds for a pretty blatant punt pass that most people would agree wasn't acceptable (but the punted car didn't leave the track, they were just punted well wide of the apex).

Project Cars 2 does the thing you describe where it tells you to give the place back, but the problem is in some situations it's not possible to do so, e.g. if you contact a car that is in the process of binning it. Ideally the game would have some concept of "loss of control" that it detects prior to contact, and it absolves the other car of blame. However, if the punishment for not giving the place back was just the time penalty the game currently gives you, we'd be better off than with how things currently are. Obviously it's more coding work to provide those on-screen messages, set a timer going, detect the place being given back and cancel the timer, or impose a penalty when the timer expires, compared to just giving a penalty as it currently does.

I think the time depends on DR. My DR dropped back to B/S (23K range) and in these lobbies I mostly see 1 or 2 sec penalties handed out regardless of the incident. That 6 sec penalty in the FIA race was for two A+ drivers, 50k and 54K making contact.

Severity of contact or result doesn't seem to matter at all anymore. Position loss (however short or against a different car) within a couple seconds after contact seems to trigger a penalty based on DR of the cars involved.

This makes slight contact in chicanes or hairpins very risky as well as early vs late apex difference since positions can briefly change on the score board without actually any pass taking place. Also when a 3rd party overtakes or a dive bomb comes through (harmlessly disappearing off track) after 2 cars made slight contact, the system can register it as a position loss.

So this might fix the barge pass, although since the time is so short, bumping a defender wide in the braking zone, then overtaking through the inside still works. I've seen it happen plenty at Tokyo at the docks section and hairpin. As long as the bumped car stays on track it's still fair game to 'make room' to pass. However harmless slight contact in a corner right before positions change now results in a penalty.

I wonder how PD comes up with these changes. Do they actually look at examples and think it through then test it? Or is it one person thinking up something on a piece of paper one late afternoon and hack it in for the next patch. There is no AI involved, that article about the AI from 2018 was about the game comparing your time gained against AI cars for shortcut penalties. Which explained why you would sometimes end up with 7 sec for a slight shortcut since those were the corners where the AI had no clue and brakes way too much for no reason.

 

[larrybr07n]

is to have penalty strips off the racing line and you have to press a button to serve the penalty or get 5 sec added if you don't

What I don't understand is why when you get to the penalty line they don't put you on auto drive for a moment and force you off racing line together with ghosting?

At Suzuka the penalty line is in a position where you are coming at 120+ mph, you have a ghosted car in the middle of the road up ahead and you can't see 🤬 to actually know if they are going back solid or not. It's a live or die situation really

 

[breeminator]

An example of contact before passing not giving a penalty:



So there's either some sort of internal yellow card type system, or maybe the system is only active in certain regions of the track.

 

[Lost Sheltie]

My contribution to the weird penalty system is below. I think I got a 6 second penalty for brushing the wall, and then he got a 10 second penalty later on for what I can only think was the couple of nudges he gave me. All seemed a bit extreme to me tbh

 

[Trone_Colby]

My contribution to the weird penalty system is below. I think I got a 6 second penalty for brushing the wall, and then he got a 10 second penalty later on for what I can only think was the couple of nudges he gave me. All seemed a bit extreme to me tbh

The first clip, I don’t think it was the wall. It seems like you hit the wall then hit the car right after. The game got confused. Did the other driver hit the barrier after you tapped it?

Second clip it may been those nudges.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

An example of contact before passing not giving a penalty:



So there's either some sort of internal yellow card type system, or maybe the system is only active in certain regions of the track.

The examples where penalties occurred happened more in the corner. I guess braking zones don't count which also explains the bump someone wide at the braking point, then pass, going unnoticed.

@Lost Sheltie At 0:03, contact occurs but no position change, no penalty
At 0:08, contact again, no position change, no penalty
At 0:17, contact in a corner, position changes at 0:19, 56K DR -> 6 sec penalty
At 0:34, contact occurs in braking zone, 0:35 again, 0:38 again, 0:41 again, some in the corner. 2 sec after the last contact penalty pops up. The positions have changed since the first contact, 55K DR with multiple contacts -> 10 sec penalty

 

[Voodoovaj]

The examples where penalties occurred happened more in the corner. I guess braking zones don't count which also explains the bump someone wide at the braking point, then pass, going unnoticed.

@Lost Sheltie At 0:03, contact occurs but no position change, no penalty
At 0:08, contact again, no position change, no penalty
At 0:17, contact in a corner, position changes at 0:19, 56K DR -> 6 sec penalty
At 0:34, contact occurs in braking zone, 0:35 again, 0:38 again, 0:41 again, some in the corner. 2 sec after the last contact penalty pops up. The positions have changed since the first contact, 55K DR with multiple contacts -> 10 sec penalty

Wow...seriously, wow.

Who in their right mind thought this was a good way to deal with this issue? IRL if a top driver makes a mistake, the officials turn a blind eye, while at the same time severely penalizing someone lower in the ranks. PD have decided to do the complete opposite, thereby making a useless POS of a system.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

C'mon...HOW? How does this system even have an ounce of anything resembling AI? How?



So, I get hit, go off track, but it's my fault that I cut the track?

This can't be a bug. There is no way this went into the test department and they didn't flag it. This came back "as designed"


Seriously, dailies are getting to the point where there's zero enjoyment. Blatant, race ruining, contact goes undetected while slight breezes get penalized to the wrong person on a consistent basis. I have been paying attention and I have seen FAR FAR FAR more penalties for nothing that those for something deserving.

By the way, please tell me what racing series considers the curb to be "off track". Every time I have seen anyone go off track in a race, they get a warning, not a penalty. They only time I have seen black and white penalties is in qualifying.

If anything resembling this system makes it's way to GT7, I am moving to Forza.

Fits the theory again. At 0:12 you get bumped wide in the braking zone. You don't lose a position until 0:16, outside the time window, so no penalty is issued. Since there was no penalty, the going out of bounds 'forgiveness' isn't triggered and thus you get a 1 sec leaving the track penalty.

 

[sturk0167]

Sven, if this happens again, and I drive off the track, right away, do I avoid the penalty?
Or, is someone gonna be getting the penalty no matter what, and it's the car which goes off track first that avoids it?

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Sven, if this happens again, and I drive off the track, right away, do I avoid the penalty?
Or, is someone gonna be getting the penalty no matter what, and it's the car which goes off track first that avoids it?

Sometimes neither get a penalty when both cars go off track, so you can avoid it like that. However getting bumped into walls doesn't seem to trigger penalties anymore so you really have to drive off and depending on how much later you go off, you might still get the penalty.

 

[RacingGrandpa]

I got bumped off and got a .5 penalty for track limits. I guess I held on to the car too long...

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I did about 6 races at Tokyo today, saw @Dairyworker win one, congrats! It might have been clean at the front, none of my races were clean from the back. Some food for penalty analysis.

First the classic, just turn in on a car if you don't want them to pass.

Plenty room to go side by side there. Bumping a car into a wall doesn't count anymore, yet he was slightly ahead at contact, then fell back after bouncing off me, thus penalty from me.

Next, the car ahead doesn't make it clear if he wants to defend the inside or outside, swerves over to the outside, slight contact occurs.

Harmless in itself, however I let a dive bomber through, thus briefly lose a position and the car ahead gets a penalty.

He decides to take revenge after he messes up the final turn and I pass him

Ramming someone into a wall doesn't count anymore, nothing added to his penalty time. I do lose a position but apparently outside the time window.

Not satisfied or just being an idiot, he punts another car into me at the docks tapping a third car in the process

I lose 3 positions, regain one from the unlucky missile, all 3 of them end up with penalties while there was only one real culprit. The 2 sec penalties don't do anything at the penalty zone and the dirty driver would have successfully gained 3 spots if it weren't for the fact that the unlucky 3rd didn't get to serve the penalty until the next lap. Since the dirty driver already had a penalty it got added to the 1 sec he was already going to serve negating the effectiveness of the second penalty. He still made up two spots while the unlucky missile got off worst.


Now how to fix this mess. Instead of some arbitrary time between contact and checking for a car going off track or losing a position, the game needs to look at the position on the track.

If contact occurs in a braking zone:
- If the resulting speed after collision of the car ahead is such that they can still easily make the corner -> harmless contact
- If not and the car ahead goes wide in the corner or loses a position -> penalty for car behind

If contact occurs in a corner
- If both cars have a reasonable chance to make the corner normally with their vectors before and after collision -> harmless contact.
- If one car is going too fast, is far off any reasonable line, or is sliding sideways -> penalty for the out of control car.
- If one car is squeezing the other outside track limits, against a wall, or turns in too much with a car alongside -> penalty for not leaving room
- If one car was behind at turn in and gets out ahead after contact while the car losing position was in full control before contact -> penalty for barge pass

If contact occurs on a straight
- If the car ahead is within normal speed, driving straight and not braking, car behind is at fault
- If one car swerves right before contact or brakes with nothing ahead to avoid, car ahead is at fault

All else warning for both.

Would this be so hard to implement? The game knows what speed what car drives on each track or can easily calculate that for the upcoming races. The AI is not perfect but can navigate the tracks pretty well, use that to determine each participants chances to make a corner. The rest is simply comparing orientation of cars at collision and looking at the position on the track with regards to the track limits. Perhaps chicanes need some extra evaluation.

Only looking at whether a car leaves the track or loses a position within x seconds is too simple and again too easy to game. And when there is any doubt, both cars get a warning.

 

[Trone_Colby]

From watching Kie’s stream there’s also a way to glitch the system.

I know you get a penalty for knocking someone in the pits, but instead, the attacker hits you then go in the pits giving the defender a penalty. Be careful near pit entries like Suzuka and Tokyo.

 

[Voodoovaj]

Now how to fix this mess. Instead of some arbitrary time between contact and checking for a car going off track or losing a position, the game needs to look at the position on the track.

If contact occurs in a braking zone:
- If the resulting speed after collision of the car ahead is such that they can still easily make the corner -> harmless contact
- If not and the car ahead goes wide in the corner or loses a position -> penalty for car behind

If contact occurs in a corner
- If both cars have a reasonable chance to make the corner normally with their vectors before and after collision -> harmless contact.
- If one car is going too fast, is far off any reasonable line, or is sliding sideways -> penalty for the out of control car.
- If one car is squeezing the other outside track limits, against a wall, or turns in too much with a car alongside -> penalty for not leaving room
- If one car was behind at turn in and gets out ahead after contact while the car losing position was in full control before contact -> penalty for barge pass

If contact occurs on a straight
- If the car ahead is within normal speed, driving straight and not braking, car behind is at fault
- If one car swerves right before contact or brakes with nothing ahead to avoid, car ahead is at fault

All else warning for both.

Would this be so hard to implement? The game knows what speed what car drives on each track or can easily calculate that for the upcoming races. The AI is not perfect but can navigate the tracks pretty well, use that to determine each participants chances to make a corner. The rest is simply comparing orientation of cars at collision and looking at the position on the track with regards to the track limits. Perhaps chicanes need some extra evaluation.

Only looking at whether a car leaves the track or loses a position within x seconds is too simple and again too easy to game. And when there is any doubt, both cars get a warning.

At the point of contact, it's easy enough to take a "snap shot" for lack of a better term. Imagine what it looks like when two cars are on your radar. The orientation of the cars can be compared to the angle of the racing line at the point of contact. I have never seen a problematic collision (one that SHOULD be penalized in other words) that did not involve at least 1 car being at an odd angle relative to the racing line. You can also compare the vector of the car relative to it's orientation and the racing line (to see how much it's sliding). I believe that would result in a universally agreeable way of apportioning blame.

I love the idea of a warning. I bet TONS of people would drive better if they got a warning for the first transgression IF it were minor. So if you SLIGHTLY cut the track, you get a warning that you will get a penalty if it happens again.

 

[RacingGrandpa]

In real racing breaking track limits will only result in a penalty if the culprit gains an advantage from it. No one gets a penalty for running wide, and certainly not for driving off to avoid an accident. Neither should we. I ran off at Interlagos, Decida do Lagos, to avoid hitting a guy braking hard with another car across the track in front of him. Gave me 2 seconds. Would have been faster to just ram and go on.

 

[Lost Sheltie]

From watching Kie’s stream there’s also a way to glitch the system.

I know you get a penalty for knocking someone in the pits, but instead, the attacker hits you then go in the pits giving the defender a penalty. Be careful near pit entries like Suzuka and Tokyo.

Yeah Super Gts Video shows the pit bug quite well. I will be amazed if Polyphony don't fix this after the kicking he gives the penalty system in his video.

 

[sundaydriving]

As completely frustrating as it is I don't think its an easy problem to solve.

As soon as programmatic rules are set people will game them as we've seen it already with various iterations of the penalty system.

They just have to keep refining the system, more quickly than they do now.

 

[Hygrade B]

Yeah Super Gts Video shows the pit bug quite well. I will be amazed if Polyphony don't fix this after the kicking he gives the penalty system in his video.

Lol I just saw the same thing in I think key video.

 

[larrybr07n]

Would this be so hard to implement?

I don't think it would be difficult and all good points you make. Unfortunately, there is added complexity coming from the fact that you want to scale this up to N races, N cars/episodes, N geographic locations and you want to compute and show the results in a timely manner. These are those sort of things where implementation might be not that difficult but scaling the solution on the other hand, big pain in the neck.

Edit: also, this is the first iteration of something like this, I think and I strongly hope, next GT will be much better having the lesson learned

 

[oneloops]

My contribution to the weird penalty system is below. I think I got a 6 second penalty for brushing the wall, and then he got a 10 second penalty later on for what I can only think was the couple of nudges he gave me. All seemed a bit extreme to me tbh

Complaining about consequences of brushing the wall ? In real life that costs more... so drive cleaner or asume your faults.

You don't take care about your car when you ride next to other cars, it's logical that you will have a lot of penaltys for one reason or another.

Drive as you own the car, as if every touch can force you to not finishing the race : As in real racing.

 

[RacingGrandpa]

Complaining about consequences of brushing the wall ? In real life that costs more... so drive cleaner or asume your faults.

You don't take care about your car when you ride next to other cars, it's logical that you will have a lot of penaltys for one reason or another.

Drive as you own the car, as if every touch can force you to not finishing the race : As in real racing.

Again? I thought we where done with this for now. Do you really mean to apply that there is nothing wrong with this penalty system except for us being reckless????

 

[Trone_Colby]

Yeah Super Gts Video shows the pit bug quite well. I will be amazed if Polyphony don't fix this after the kicking he gives the penalty system in his video.

Wow even more crap from this system.

 

[Voodoovaj]

In real racing breaking track limits will only result in a penalty if the culprit gains an advantage from it. No one gets a penalty for running wide, and certainly not for driving off to avoid an accident. Neither should we. I ran off at Interlagos, Decida do Lagos, to avoid hitting a guy braking hard with another car across the track in front of him. Gave me 2 seconds. Would have been faster to just ram and go on.

Exactly, THAT is the kind of thing they should be employing an AI for. Something that needs to look at many factors to make a decision.

Two (or more) cars making contact isn't one of those things.

Heck, the can even store contact and flag it. Then, if the same car contacts you again, especially in a VERY violent way, you can attribute that to retaliation and penalize it more.


Let's face it. We've all seen what retaliation looks like. There's no reason to avoid HUGE penalties for violent contact.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I don't think it would be difficult and all good points you make. Unfortunately, there is added complexity coming from the fact that you want to scale this up to N races, N cars/episodes, N geographic locations and you want to compute and show the results in a timely manner. These are those sort of things where implementation might be not that difficult but scaling the solution on the other hand, big pain in the neck.

Edit: also, this is the first iteration of something like this, I think and I strongly hope, next GT will be much better having the lesson learned

Yet somehow the AI can drive on all tracks with all cars, avoiding the player, the other AI cars and be pretty competitive if you set it to pro and don't overpower your own car.

There are only 3 daily race combos per week, half of them recycled even. It's not that hard to run some simulations beforehand to figure out where braking zones start and end for each race, appropriate speeds, possible lines through corners etc.

The game already has the racing line for every track, flashes the gear indicator when the braking zone comes up, ghosts dive bombs and side swipes in SR.E, it has a lot more information it can use to determine fault. There's enough information available to get it 90% correct. The last 10% will be a lot harder as with everything in programming, yet currently it's not even correct half the time. Instead of guessing when there's doubt, shared blame for serious contact, warning for minor contact.

Perhaps the person that made the ghosting work so well in SR.E should sit down with the person that hacked the penalty system together for an afternoon.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Exactly, THAT is the kind of thing they should be employing an AI for. Something that needs to look at many factors to make a decision.

Two (or more) cars making contact isn't one of those things.

Heck, the can even store contact and flag it. Then, if the same car contacts you again, especially in a VERY violent way, you can attribute that to retaliation and penalize it more.


Let's face it. We've all seen what retaliation looks like. There's no reason to avoid HUGE penalties for violent contact.

They had that in place in one iteration, except after the first hit the game would make you immune from getting hit by that car again. People quickly figured that out and started driving through each other for the rest of the race It was a fun puzzle of who can hit you and who can drive through you. Blue moon was hilarious in the last couple laps with all cars drafting inside each other.

Of course they threw it out again instead of refining it.

Btw those going wide penalties, Nordschleife is up again next week. It's still a puzzle to me, 2 B/S drivers in front of me, both taking the except same line and speed going wide at Brunnchen following each other a car length apart, one gets 0.5 sec, the other nothing. Perhaps there is some kind of yellow flag system in place where the more you leave the track the higher the chance you end up with a 0.5 sec penalty for the next infraction.

 

[Underthewhip]

Thought I drive a race c tonight. After all I finished 2nd in my last race 2 days ago and today I improved my qt 1,5 sec to 1:33.0 which still had a few missed breaking points so I felt confident. Only reached 9th on the start grid so I realized everyone else too had improved.

Should be a fun race still. Decided to be very cautious on first lap because of mid pack start. Penalty system killed me for trying to avoid contact. I was so chocked about the first 4sec penalty so I lost focus for a sec there but nothing major happened except I got another 3 sec from nowhere. Lost 10 SR in that race which was clean other than that!

View from my car driving pov:


From behind:

 

[larrybr07n]

Complaining about consequences of brushing the wall ? In real life that costs more... so drive cleaner or asume your faults.

You don't take care about your car when you ride next to other cars, it's logical that you will have a lot of penaltys for one reason or another.

Drive as you own the car, as if every touch can force you to not finishing the race : As in real racing.

I have a feeling you are not watching the videos others are sharing, are you?

 

[larrybr07n]

Perhaps the person that made the ghosting work so well in SR.E should sit down with the person that hacked the penalty system together for an afternoon.

Man, I really hope so because after the last update, it's just a mess now. How they are going to do a live event with this penalty system I don't know, it won't be nice.

 

[RacingGrandpa]

Man, I really hope so because after the last update, it's just a mess now. How they are going to do a live event with this penalty system I don't know, it won't be nice.

Live events has human stewards/Marshall's.