Penalty Zone Ghosting

[nuu1212]

... ghosts have two states: tangible and intangible.

If this was posted yesterday, I would have laughed so hard. April, fools!
Seriously now: How is anyone supposed to have this insider knowledge?
If a car is ghosted, ANY REASONABLE HUMAN would think it can be safely ignored. Which also is the case 90% of the time.

What is the racing line there anyway? It seems 50/50 with people either taking the left side or stay on the right side.

Figured exactly that after some time yesterday. This zone in Suzuka is pretty ambiguous, right where you switch sides if you take the bend like a corner...

 

[Famine]

Seriously now: How is anyone supposed to have this insider knowledge?

It's not insider knowledge, it's experience.

If a car is ghosted, ANY REASONABLE HUMAN would think it can be safely ignored.

Experience.

 

[nuu1212]

aha.
I've been ignoring ghosts my whole life now, but thanks to this I have now thought better of it!

 

[stpatty]

I had this happen in an FIA race at some point. Although the penalty line warning is above the car, imagine this:

- You are 0.200 seconds behind a car, coming on to the straight where the penalty line is.
- The car in front has 3 seconds of penalty time to serve
- The car in front will ghost as it serves the penalty

Why wouldn't you stay behind them for as long as possible to maximise the slipstream, if you know they're going to ghost when they're forced to slow down? If you come up to a car that's serving or has obviously served a penalty in the zone then don't risk it, but the system seems to be inconsistent enough for this to be a problem. It'll probably become much more prominent now given how Daily Races are played a lot more than FIA races.

 

[Majorwolf72]

I really like the penalty zones, no more ridiculous penalty serving intentionally or accidentally or on the finish line.
But the system just points out a major bug that has been unnoticed like forever:
The ghosting DOES NOT EVEN WORK PROPERLY!

Doing Race C (Formula X at Suzuka) the penalized drivers don't get off the racing line,
some even try to block intentionally, and they succeed with it!
I have bumped into ghosted cars in the zone more than 10 times today.
What is the whole point of ghosting then???

Note: The intent is not to ridicule or put down the developers,
it is a wake up call trying to get them to improve the simple but annoying things (again!!!)

Agree! They need to define the racing line in the penalty zones, and if you are on it or to close to it your penalty won’t diminish. That’s the only way to make people racing properly.

 

[Voodoovaj]

Agree! They need to define the racing line in the penalty zones, and if you are on it or to close to it your penalty won’t diminish. That’s the only way to make people racing properly.

No they don't and it's not the responsibility of the person serving the penalty to move. It's your responsibility to go around. I commend those that move over, but there is nothing that compels them to do so. It's not their place to give you a position.

Well I hit a ghost as well (race C). I didn't have much choice as we were side by side. I was overtaking on the straight where the penalty zone is, since that's the safest place to overtake (or was) However a car serving a penalty was slowed way down on my side (left), ghosted, crawling, doesn't matter, thunk. All my momentum gone, ghost car not affected, other car gone.

Not much choice? Really? If you see that the car is ghosted in front of you, you're the one who took the risk of trying to pull off a pass by running through a ghost. You could have slotted in behind the person you were passing and made a move later in the race.

So what do you do if some has an accident and is moving slowly? What if someone has gone off track? How is this any different?

There are three camera views that do not offer a view of what is happening behind you. I am counting cockpit view because the mirrors are often obscured. Roof cam has no rear view. Chase cam also has no rear view IIRC. So, when 3/4 of the views have limited knowledge of what's going on behind them, you are putting the responsibility and faith of YOUR CAR AND RACE in their hands?

What about someone like me? I often don't have a care in the world for who is behind me even if I see them. It's not my job to give them a position. It's their job to take it.

The only car on the track that you can control is your own, so control your car, and your race,and avoid the obstacles.



Reading this thread is sad. I'm honestly shocked at the level of self responsibility people are pawning off onto others.

Here. let me introduce you to the first rule of Italian driving...

 

[Sven Jurgens]

No they don't and it's not the responsibility of the person serving the penalty to move. It's your responsibility to go around. I commend those that move over, but there is nothing that compels them to do so. It's not their place to give you a position.



Not much choice? Really? If you see that the car is ghosted in front of you, you're the one who took the risk of trying to pull off a pass by running through a ghost. You could have slotted in behind the person you were passing and made a move later in the race.

So what do you do if some has an accident and is moving slowly? What if someone has gone off track? How is this any different?

There are three camera views that do not offer a view of what is happening behind you. I am counting cockpit view because the mirrors are often obscured. Roof cam has no rear view. Chase cam also has no rear view IIRC. So, when 3/4 of the views have limited knowledge of what's going on behind them, you are putting the responsibility and faith of YOUR CAR AND RACE in their hands?

What about someone like me? I often don't have a care in the world for who is behind me even if I see them. It's not my job to give them a position. It's their job to take it.

The only car on the track that you can control is your own, so control your car, and your race,and avoid the obstacles.



Reading this thread is sad. I'm honestly shocked at the level of self responsibility people are pawning off onto others.

Here. let me introduce you to the first rule of Italian driving...

I didn't really see him until much too late. I'm going 250 kph, he was going 20 or so. Even if I had stepped on the brakes there was no way I could have slowed down enough, perhaps jerk to the right after I got clear of the other car and risk spinning out. If there's an accident there's usually a yellow flag, perhaps PD should do the same when the penalty zone is in use.

 

[Voodoovaj]

I didn't really see him until much too late. I'm going 250 kph, he was going 20 or so. Even if I had stepped on the brakes there was no way I could have slowed down enough, perhaps jerk to the right after I got clear of the other car and risk spinning out. If there's an accident there's usually a yellow flag, perhaps PD should do the same when the penalty zone is in use.

Too late? I can usually see cars half way up that back straight. This sounds more like a straight up racing incident because I honestly can't imagine how you could not have seen a car along a section of straight track.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Too late? I can usually see cars half way up that back straight. This sounds more like a straight up racing incident because I honestly can't imagine how you could not have seen a car along a section of straight track.

He was ghosted I need a better tv...

 

[ShiftingGears]

The first is that ghosts have two states: tangible and intangible.

I prefer distinguishing them as bugged and not bugged.

 

[nuu1212]

I prefer distinguishing them as bugged and not bugged.

👍👍👍
I could have given this answer right away, but was afraid of being de'famine'd forever.

 

[Majorwolf72]

No they don't and it's not the responsibility of the person serving the penalty to move. It's your responsibility to go around. I commend those that move over, but there is nothing that compels them to do so. It's not their place to give you a position.[/MEDIA]

Dead wrong. When they introduced the feature they expressly stated that the ghosted player has to move off the racing line. Can’t find that official statement now, but I remember it well. PD went on to say that any crash resulting from a player serving a penalty and NOT having moved off the racing line will be counted and penalized as this players fault.

Now, we all know that the penalty system doesn’t work well enough to precisely model that, which is a shame. But also in ANY private league I know the stewards award the harshest of penalties if you stay on the racing line serving a penalty (so far that means breaking down the time yourself...), re-entering the race in an unsafe manner etc. etc.

In Racing, it is ALWAYS the responsibility of the slower racer to not impede the faster in a manner that may lead to contact beyond a reasonable amount. Why would we have blue flags if anyone could just happily block the whole field?

No no, you have to read up on racing courtesy and maybe watch those two films on sportsmanship again, seems it‘s too long ago...

 

[Tassie_tiger]

Dead wrong. When they introduced the feature they expressly stated that the ghosted player has to move off the racing line. Can’t find that official statement now, but I remember it well. PD went on to say that any crash resulting from a player serving a penalty and NOT having moved off the racing line will be counted and penalized as this players fault.

Now, we all know that the penalty system doesn’t work well enough to precisely model that, which is a shame. But also in ANY private league I know the stewards award the harshest of penalties if you stay on the racing line serving a penalty (so far that means breaking down the time yourself...), re-entering the race in an unsafe manner etc. etc.

In Racing, it is ALWAYS the responsibility of the slower racer to not impede the faster in a manner that may lead to contact beyond a reasonable amount. Why would we have blue flags if anyone could just happily block the whole field?

No no, you have to read up on racing courtesy and maybe watch those two films on sportsmanship again, seems it‘s too long ago...

"However, while you are ghosted and clearing a Time Penalty issued to your car, make sure to drive off of the standard racing line to get out of the way of other cars approaching from behind. Not doing so can result in your car losing the 'ghost' status and reappearing in front of a car approaching rapidly from behind, causing further collisions and incidents on the track, which will be your fault."
https://www.gran-turismo.com/au/gtsport/news/00_3494949.html


You could read that as if you have to move off the racing line.
Or you could read it more as a warning.
They are suggesting that you do move off the racing line, because if you lose the ghost status and someone hits you, it will be you that gets the penalty.


I don't know if the ghosting is bugged or not.
But I do know that driving through a ghosted car is fraught with danger, and always has been.

Why anyone (given a choice) following a car with a big red box above it into a slow-down zone highlighted with big yellow markers still decides to drive straight through it is beyond me.

 

[Majorwolf72]

"However, while you are ghosted and clearing a Time Penalty issued to your car, make sure to drive off of the standard racing line to get out of the way of other cars approaching from behind. Not doing so can result in your car losing the 'ghost' status and reappearing in front of a car approaching rapidly from behind, causing further collisions and incidents on the track, which will be your fault."
https://www.gran-turismo.com/au/gtsport/news/00_3494949.html


You could read that as if you have to move off the racing line.
Or you could read it more as a warning.
They are suggesting that you do move off the racing line, because if you lose the ghost status and someone hits you, it will be you that gets the penalty.


I don't know if the ghosting is bugged or not.
But I do know that driving through a ghosted car is fraught with danger, and always has been.

Why anyone (given a choice) following a car with a big red box above it into a slow-down zone highlighted with big yellow markers still decides to drive straight through it is beyond me.

To me, „make sure“ is the polite British way of saying you HAVE TO. Very much in line with the famous „make sure you don’t look bad“ videos.

 

[Famine]

I prefer distinguishing them as bugged and not bugged.

You can, if you wish, however there's no hint that this is a bug.

You cannot hit cars that are ghosted and actively serving a penalty (or pointing the wrong way, and so on), but you can hit cars that are ghosted and under full power, such as those that have finished serving a penalty. Things you can't hit are intangible, things you can hit are tangible.

And the second point remains - you should avoid driving through a ghosted car anyway.

 

[Tassie_tiger]

To me, „make sure“ is the polite British way of saying you HAVE TO. Very much in line with the famous „make sure you don’t look bad“ videos.

Fair enough.

I read it more as a warning, and here's my reason why.
If you are going to be penalised for contact when you unghost and are travelling slow, it seems unlikely that you would not be penalised just because you aren't on the racing line.
And as is evident in this thread, people are inclined to drive through ghosts crossing fingers.
So it is a warning because the odds of contact, and therefore an additional penalty, are higher if you remain on the racing line.

Saying that, this is interesting:
"Not doing so can result in your car losing the 'ghost' status"...
I don't know if the same 'result' can occur if off the racing line.

 

[ShiftingGears]

You can, if you wish, however there's no hint that this is a bug.

Only 25 years of established practice in motor racing games (including 20 years of ghost cars being in GT) that you cannot hit ghost cars.

That, and it wasn't a "feature" before this update.

It's a bug.

 

[Cerebral303]

People keep sayng to avoid ghosted cars, and I always do through habit because I know they may unghost at any moment, it's unpredictable BUT...

I did the SF19 race at Suzuka on Monday, THREE cars had a coming together in a pack earlier and on the back straight all ghosted in front of me in the penalty zone spread across the track.

I could have slammed on the brakes and defacto suffered the same penalty even though I didn't have one, but drove through full power and heard a bang and got slowed down as I passed through one of the ghosted cars.

I have always been more in favour of pit stop serving or adding on time at the end but if PD are going to have ghosted cars, they ought not become briefly corporeal.

 

[Famine]

Only 25 years of established practice in motor racing games (including 20 years of ghost cars being in GT) that you cannot hit ghost cars.

Ah yes, Polyphony Digital is of course well-known for its outward-looking philosophy...

That, and it wasn't a "feature" before this update.

It's been the case as long as I can remember. I've seen it as recently as the Gr.4 Tokyo Expressway Daily, and had it in a 2018 FIA Exhibition race. Players used to use it to troll cars behind them - ghosting briefly off throttle - to prevent last-straight passes, until the SR system became more punative to the lead car in rear-enders...

 

[ShiftingGears]

Ah yes, Polyphony Digital is of course well-known for its outward-looking philosophy...

You give PD way too much credit. They have bugs in their games, like any other developer.

So to essentially come from a default position that any feature that doesn't function as you expect is not a bug, but merely an outward looking design feature implemented exactly as PD intended like they're playing 57D kancho is quite fanciful.

 

[Voodoovaj]

Dead wrong. When they introduced the feature they expressly stated that the ghosted player has to move off the racing line. Can’t find that official statement now, but I remember it well. PD went on to say that any crash resulting from a player serving a penalty and NOT having moved off the racing line will be counted and penalized as this players fault.

Now, we all know that the penalty system doesn’t work well enough to precisely model that, which is a shame. But also in ANY private league I know the stewards award the harshest of penalties if you stay on the racing line serving a penalty (so far that means breaking down the time yourself...), re-entering the race in an unsafe manner etc. etc.

In Racing, it is ALWAYS the responsibility of the slower racer to not impede the faster in a manner that may lead to contact beyond a reasonable amount. Why would we have blue flags if anyone could just happily block the whole field?

Please find an instance where a blue flag was ever shown to a racer who had better track position to a following competitor. Blue flags are only shown to racers that are slower on the score sheet.

The game knows full well where the racing line is. You can go ahead and turn the racing line on and off. If the game's intent was to force a racer off line in order to remove the penalty, they can turn on the the driving line once that player gets into the penalty zone and deny them the penalty reduction if the car were within a given distance to that line. That shouldn't be that hard to implement given that almost all the necessary base features are already present.

However, what the game does instead, is GHOST the car.

At this past weekend's MotoGP race in Argentina, Jorge Lorenzo accidentally hit his pit lane speed limiter forcing the bike to slow dramatically. The other riders had to go around him. There was no penalty for him being on the racing line when it happened. Racers in all classes have missed shifts, or have had momentary failures, or have had some manner of issue that has slowed them down. Find me ONE instance where a racer, who has had a momentary loss of speed (i.e. something that would cause a retirement) was EVER forced to move off the racing line or penalized for not moving off the racing line at that moment.

I'm 50 years old. I've been watching racing since I was a child. I've even dabbled a little at the local levels. I've seen pretty much everything that can race. I have never, not one time, ever, in my entire life, seen any competitor with superior track position ever be penalized for having an issue that has forced another competitor to take evasive action.

No no, you have to read up on racing courtesy and maybe watch those two films on sportsmanship again, seems it‘s too long ago...

"Read" up on courtesy?

Here's a lesson for you from the harsh world of reality. Courtesy does not exist when people are racing. You either make a move that will get you the position or you back out because the consequences can ruin your race. That's all there is.

You go ahead an be courteous. I'm busy racing.



Here's some "courtesy" in action



Do you know why Coulthard was not punished in any way for this? It's because, when you are told to let someone by, you are expressly told to NOT move off your line so that you do not cause an incident with a passing car. The only time you move off the racing line is when you are expressly told to get off line or when you can clearly see that no one is behind you.

Moving off line to let someone pass causes accidents. If you attend a racing school or track day class, they'll teach you this.

 

[Famine]

You give PD way too much credit.

I think you may have misunderstood...

Yamauchi has, on many occasions, stated that he does not look at what other titles are doing. To suggest that "25 years of established practice in motor racing games" has any bearing on what PD does with GT is contrary to that.

Ghost cars in previous GT games are also entirely passive. GT Sport features ghosting of active cars. The two are not related.

And again, the ghosting has been like this for months - at least eight, if not the very beginning (although I wouldn't say that for sure) - rather than arriving in this update.

 

[_ApexPredator]

You give PD way too much credit. They have bugs in their games, like any other developer.

He's not giving them any credit, and yes you're right they have bugs in their games - this isn't one of them.

"However, while you are ghosted and clearing a Time Penalty issued to your car, make sure to drive off of the standard racing line to get out of the way of other cars approaching from behind. Not doing so can result in your car losing the 'ghost' status and reappearing in front of a car approaching rapidly from behind, causing further collisions and incidents on the track, which will be your fault."
https://www.gran-turismo.com/au/gtsport/news/00_3494949.html

^ you must not have read that post the first time around, if you had it would be fairly clear that the ghosting behaviour of cars serving penalties in GT Sport is functioning as intended.

There's clearly a conversation to be had about the efficacy of the functionality, but it's incorrect to label it bugged when there's clearly a design brief that's being met.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

He's not giving them any credit, and yes you're right they have bugs in their games - this isn't one of them.



^ you must not have read that post the first time around, if you had it would be fairly clear that the ghosting behaviour of cars serving penalties in GT Sport is functioning as intended.

There's clearly a conversation to be had about the efficacy of the functionality, but it's incorrect to label it bugged when there's clearly a design brief that's being met.

It's not functioning as intended as the collision with a ghost car only happens on your client. The ghost is not effected. The result is your car slows down, still moves though the ghost at much reduced pace while the ghosted penalty serving car continues to be ghosted.

If that's intended behavior then what is it supposed to represent...

It's been in the game since the start where you sometimes collide with ghosts, only on your client. Even cars spun, facing the wrong way, thunk. Ghost not effected, you are. Yep always try to avoid ghosts as it's bugged.

 

[ASH32]

It's not functioning as intended as the collision with a ghost car only happens on your client. The ghost is not effected. The result is your car slows down, still moves though the ghost at much reduced pace while the ghosted penalty serving car continues to be ghosted.

If that's intended behavior then what is it supposed to represent...

It's been in the game since the start where you sometimes collide with ghosts, only on your client. Even cars spun, facing the wrong way, thunk. Ghost not effected, you are. Yep always try to avoid ghosts as it's bugged.

Yes this, happened to me earlier too. I drafted past another car and was almost in front enough to pull back in but wasn't quite because he must have hit the boost to defend and then I noticed a very slow ghosted car (must have been recovering after a big penalty because he was way down the road from the start of the penalty zone) so had no choice but to try to go through it, of course I got halfway through it and thud and I was slowed way down, there was no effect to him as you say. This sort of thing happens on pit exits quite often too.

It's probably going to just be one of those unfortunate things that will happen from time to time, whatever they do.

 

[_ApexPredator]

It's not functioning as intended as the collision with a ghost car only happens on your client. The ghost is not effected.

Is there a video of this? That's not what I've experienced nor what's represented in the video posted to this thread.

For instance I accidentally ruined someones FIA race at Catalunya the other week - I was caught between getting off the racing line for the exit of the previous corner (left of track) & moving over to the new racing line (right of track) - I initially wanted to hold left, but the car behind was quickly approaching, so I started to slowly move right but just as he swung right in avoidance... the result was a collision between me un-ghosting awkwardly in the middle of the track and him at full speed with really nowhere to go in avoidance.

I can assure you the collision happened on my end as well as his (I increased mph, he span out =\).
That collision was my fault; I hadn't realised quickly enough what was about to happen, and subsequently didn't allow adequate time to position my car out of harm's way.

Yep always try to avoid ghosts as it's bugged.

This is really the takeaway point of the thread.

I did like Outlaw's idea of having the penalty zone cordoned off so it's not the entire width of the track but a designated "lane" (similar to Formula E's Attack Mode) - that way you know well in advance which side of the track any slow car is going to be on, and you don't have the awkward second-guess collision like the one I caused at Catalunya.

 

[Tassie_tiger]

*Edit*
I think I know what has happened.
Post deleted.

 

[Voodoovaj]

The REASON for ghosting is what people are misunderstanding.

What is generally understood is that the car serving a penalty becomes a ghost so YOU don't collide with IT. This is incorrect.

The car serving the penalty is a ghost so the driver that has clearly run afoul of the game cannot continue to run afoul of the game by making itself a nuisances and zigzagging or intentionally crashing into other cars.

You are still responsible for doing your best to avoid the car since doing the mental arrhythmic to figure out when it will cease to be a ghost is more time consuming that just going around it.

Bug or no bug, you should not be assuming that you can drive through a ghost unscathed.

 

[Majorwolf72]

Please find an instance where a blue flag was ever shown to a racer who had better track position to a following competitor. Blue flags are only shown to racers that are slower on the score sheet.

The game knows full well where the racing line is. You can go ahead and turn the racing line on and off. If the game's intent was to force a racer off line in order to remove the penalty, they can turn on the the driving line once that player gets into the penalty zone and deny them the penalty reduction if the car were within a given distance to that line. That shouldn't be that hard to implement given that almost all the necessary base features are already present.

However, what the game does instead, is GHOST the car.

At this past weekend's MotoGP race in Argentina, Jorge Lorenzo accidentally hit his pit lane speed limiter forcing the bike to slow dramatically. The other riders had to go around him. There was no penalty for him being on the racing line when it happened. Racers in all classes have missed shifts, or have had momentary failures, or have had some manner of issue that has slowed them down. Find me ONE instance where a racer, who has had a momentary loss of speed (i.e. something that would cause a retirement) was EVER forced to move off the racing line or penalized for not moving off the racing line at that moment.

I'm 50 years old. I've been watching racing since I was a child. I've even dabbled a little at the local levels. I've seen pretty much everything that can race. I have never, not one time, ever, in my entire life, seen any competitor with superior track position ever be penalized for having an issue that has forced another competitor to take evasive action.



"Read" up on courtesy?

Here's a lesson for you from the harsh world of reality. Courtesy does not exist when people are racing. You either make a move that will get you the position or you back out because the consequences can ruin your race. That's all there is.

You go ahead an be courteous. I'm busy racing.



Here's some "courtesy" in action



Do you know why Coulthard was not punished in any way for this? It's because, when you are told to let someone by, you are expressly told to NOT move off your line so that you do not cause an incident with a passing car. The only time you move off the racing line is when you are expressly told to get off line or when you can clearly see that no one is behind you.

Moving off line to let someone pass causes accidents. If you attend a racing school or track day class, they'll teach you this.

@Voodoovaj: Dude, I will just ignore you from now on. Like a bunch of other people, I hear...

Peace out.

 

[TurboTacho]

I think the only reason for ghosting is that the developers probably need some exorcism in their mind. Especially when the foul players are zigzagging in attempt to block you off the pass.