Poll - New Penalty System Assessment

[dabz343]

As the new penalty system is being experienced, I wanted to create a thread that focuses on capturing the thoughts of those that are invested enough to engage in forums such as this. The intention is to give PD a solid feedback from those that have been loyal to GTS since launch, as wells as feedback from new players who play an important role in the growth of GTS.

I've netted on posing a simple question to communicate a simple evaluation, but feel free to expand below as it is evident that the penalty system is a complex and critical element for all racing titles. Evidence from pics/vids are always more illustrative, thus encouraged.

 

[Outspacer]

Well sorry, but that's a completely pointless question, on its own. I'm sure you know full well that the poll result will be 'No' because obviously PD didn't change it for that reason.

More sensible questions might be:
Does the new penalty system dish out fewer incorrect penalties?
Is it fairer that penalties are now the same between DR A and above and DR B and below?
Will this system improve participation in daily races?
When people are racing cleanly, does this new system get in the way of good racing less or more?

And the big one:
Should PD have worked out an even half-decent SR system to keep the dirty from the clean by now?

 

[dabz343]

Well sorry, but that's a completely pointless question, on its own. I'm sure you know full well that the poll result will be 'No' because obviously PD didn't change it for that reason.

More sensible questions might be:
Does the new penalty system dish out fewer incorrect penalties?
Is it fairer that penalties are now the same between DR A and above and DR B and below?
Will this system improve participation in daily races?
When people are racing cleanly, does this new system get in the way of good racing less or more?

And the big one:
Should PD have worked out an even half-decent SR system to keep the dirty from the clean by now?

If you believe this is a pointless question, then move on. You are dismissed from this poll.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

My first impressions were:
- Mostly blue S ratings in a pretty dirty daily B race last night with only 5 red dots at the end.
- I got bumped into the wall repeatedly while overtaking in the daily C, no consequences except the dirty blocker got his way
- By the third race on Tokyo after the penalty system changes, bumping in lap 1 had already increased a lot, yet that could also be the last race of the day effect which seems to make people do stupid things. It's at 2:30 AM EST, perhaps they're just to tired to race clean
- I still got an unfair 3 sec penalty from someone driving into my rear right panel from behind at the apex so that seems unchanged.
- After the dirty blocker bumped me into the wall for 2 laps I put my car behind him and did not brake for T1 as a test (as he seemed to be fine with dirty driving...). Oddly enough I did not get any SR Down for bumping him into the wall at high speed yet I did get a 14.85 sec time penalty. (He stayed ahead, I basically forced him to wall ride while ending my race)

I'll have to race a lot more to get a better impression of the changes, however removing penalties while not fixing the judgement system or unbalanced SR budgets per race can't produce cleaner racing by default.

 

[Outspacer]

If you believe this is a pointless question, then move on. You are dismissed from this poll.

This place doesn't work like that - you don't get to tell me to move on.

You posted a poll and I posted my opinion of it - a perfectly reasonable one considering that nobody in their right mind would think that reducing penalties would be done with the goal of cleaner racing. Fairer racing, perhaps.

Personally I think PD are trolling us with such poor systems that they want even the naysayers to start begging for the return of strict, random, penalties

More to the point, I don't get why you posted this poll. You've been just as critical as the rest of us when it comes to PD's penalty judgement failures, haven't you?

 

[KingFrog]

Every one whining about light taps being too strict is a bad driver . That's not an opinion either , try lightly bumping or going over curbs in real life and see how fast you get kicked out of the sport .
Sure some of the best drivers on earth tap others but they don't do it casually and understand there are consequences . Complaining just proves you do it a lot frequently .

Sadly getting rear ended can also be caused by breaking too early / late . So a 50/50 penalty is justified .

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I just happened to watch the etiquette videos again as my 8 year olld wanted to race online. (certainly not on my account and don't worry he doesn't have ps+ so he got no further than the videos anyway)

PD clearly states it's a no contact sport, any contact is bad, so why now allow minor contact....
PD also states that if you brake too late you need to go off track to avoid other cars, yet gives you penalties for using the run off areas...
PD gives plenty examples of who is at fault where, yet in reality the fault detection doesn't correspond with their examples.
Lastly PD says it's your own responsibility to avoid erratic drivers, hence the shared blame system.

So did PD cave in and are they abandoning their vision of contact free racing?

Anyway the videos are still useless, telling people not to do anything that makes them look bad, that worked out well!

 

[Donnced]

No....taking away penalties for hitting people, push them out of track.. Don't improve "fair play" and "clean racing"
It didn't work in the first months, so now it would work either

Still don't understand why they don't implement a drive trough penalty if you hit someone about 2-3 times.

A black flag algorithm would be welcomed if a player hits non stop with no sense and cuts to much times track limits.

SR level is only up to 99 points... Increasing this number up to 500 for example can maybe make a better difference between clean drivers.
It's also to easy for the moment to achieve SR "S"

Other improvement would be implent heavy damage in all sport races , dailys and FIA.. So if you take damage. You have to pit to fix it..
That would add more "fearness" to the players and make them more cautious.

 

[Outspacer]

Sadly getting rear ended can also be caused by breaking too early / late . So a 50/50 penalty is justified .

Anything 50/50 should be left to the SR system.

PD clearly states it's a no contact sport, any contact is bad, so why now allow minor contact....

Do they... isn't it still giving -SR for these? It should be. Maybe they linked -SR to penalties so much that now they're winding their neck in about penalties, they haven't retuned SR to be independant.

SR level is only up to 99 points... Increasing this number up to 500 for example can maybe make a better difference between clean drivers.
It's also to easy for the moment to achieve SR "S"

Whatever the solution, SR S not equating to 'clean' is the major failing currently, not penalties.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Anything 50/50 should be left to the SR system.

Do they... isn't it still giving -SR for these? It should be. Maybe they linked -SR to penalties so much that now they're winding their neck in about penalties, they haven't retuned SR to be independant.

Whatever the solution, SR S not equating to 'clean' is the major failing currently, not penalties.

It didn't seem to in that one daily B I did. I don't know why they disabled the SR Down prompts for penalty free contacts in the first place, why have hidden deductions, that teaches nothing. I have been surprised before with a red rating and clean race bonus scratching my head what I got deductions for.

About to start a Brand's race, will look for any differences!

 

[Danny_GT2]

Whatever the solution, SR S not equating to 'clean' is the major failing currently, not penalties.

I'd definitely agree with this. Yesterday in an SR 'S' lobby I got involved in a couple of light tussles during the daily B race where I was given no room and I got a rake of penalties. I was demoted to SR 'A' then 'B' after another stupid penalty during the daily A race. Tried daily B again and I found the races to be a lot cleaner in an SR 'B' lobby and again in an SR 'A' with some very good, competitive racing.

At this point, and I can't believe I'm saying this but, it's almost worth punting a few drivers and getting demoted to an A or B sportsmanship rating as from what I can see, the races down there seem far more clean and fair than in the theoretically cleaner 'S' lobbies.

 

[Outspacer]

I don't know why they disabled the SR Down prompts for penalty free contacts in the first place, why have hidden deductions, that teaches nothing. I have been surprised before with a red rating and clean race bonus scratching my head what I got deductions for.

Hah, well PD always said "we don't want people to be focusing too much on their ratings", first as an excuse for changing to letters rather than numbers for SR. Truth is, they just don't like us analyzing their poor system.

Clean race appears to be going only by the results of the judgement algorithm, rather than anything else. So although you got a red SR, maybe it judged the other player at fault each time - with no consequence to either of you, with penalties toned down. No wonder it doesn't make any sense!

I'd definitely agree with this. Yesterday in an SR 'S' lobby I got involved in a couple of light tussles during the daily B race where I was given no room and I got a rake of penalties. I was demoted to SR 'A' then 'B' after another stupid penalty during the daily A race. Tried daily B again and I found the races to be a lot cleaner in an SR 'B' lobby and again in an SR 'A' with some very good, competitive racing.

At this point, and I can't believe I'm saying this but, it's almost worth punting a few drivers and getting demoted to an A or B sportsmanship rating as from what I can see, the races down there seem far more clean and fair than in the theoretically cleaner 'S' lobbies.

From collating what various people say about it, the best we can say is its quite random right now what rating people get!

Even if we had a well-working system, I'm not sure how it could tell apart various people who might end up at, say, SR B or C. I mean, that should be about the average level. But one player could be just a bit clumsy, no bad intent, while another could be plain dirty but know not to over-do it. Very tricky. However, SR S should be easier to get right because it's more of an absolute level - clean is clean, and that's that.

 

[Baroket]

PD’s definition of ‘light contact’ varies greatly from what I would deem light. I’ve been on the receiving end of a few moderate punts which have caused me to go wide and leave the track.

But, I think it’s an improvement overall, just needs a little bit of a tweak- not much.

 

[Veinz]

No, I guess.

This new penalty system was not meant for cleaner racing, the changes are still good though.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I guess more people will stick around in SR.S now. There's definitely more blue ratings after the race for observing worse driving behavior since the change. (Sample size 5 races now)

I just did the daily C, mixed A/B room, max SR, lot of 'light' contacts on the track, people bumping other cars off the track when they tried to overtake. Someone also attempted it on me yet I was too fast, however then I got bumped off in the corner instead. No penalty issued (at least the game didn't tell me) Also no penalty for getting turned into in the corner and hit at the apex so that's better. And no penalty to the car behind me that bumped into me for 3 corners in a row before wiping himself out.

I was driving the Viper, so was stuck in the back the whole race as except for one, all the Meg Trophys were gone off ahead. Made a 12th place finish. The whole room had blue ratings, less than half had a red dot. That room did not deserve that kind of praise...

Next up, draft bump test on Bluemoon.

I didn't have many opportunities to actually draft bump on the straights yet the few I got in apparently didn't hurt. There was lots of side to side contact in the race again. I got up to 10th in the end so was mostly driving in the back field. 6 people had a red rating at the end including the winner, one dropped to A, 2 neutral ratings, and 8 blue. Only 4 red dots. For a sprint race on Bluemoon with lots of contact, a very lenient result.

Trying one more.

Second race, 8 red ratings, 9 red dots. I got a 5 sec penalty for bumping the wall by myself so that still works. It only cost me one position finished 8th. I draft bumped and pushed cars on the straight a few times to close the gap, then got bumped into the wall once (other car didn't get a penalty), ended up losing 2 SR for the race.

So, still no real clue, I guess I need to qualify to find a better draft buddy than the unruly back field! 10 laps is too short as well.

 

[dabz343]

My first impressions were:
- Mostly blue S ratings in a pretty dirty daily B race last night with only 5 red dots at the end.
- I got bumped into the wall repeatedly while overtaking in the daily C, no consequences except the dirty blocker got his way
- By the third race on Tokyo after the penalty system changes, bumping in lap 1 had already increased a lot, yet that could also be the last race of the day effect which seems to make people do stupid things. It's at 2:30 AM EST, perhaps they're just to tired to race clean
- I still got an unfair 3 sec penalty from someone driving into my rear right panel from behind at the apex so that seems unchanged.
- After the dirty blocker bumped me into the wall for 2 laps I put my car behind him and did not brake for T1 as a test (as he seemed to be fine with dirty driving...). Oddly enough I did not get any SR Down for bumping him into the wall at high speed yet I did get a 14.85 sec time penalty. (He stayed ahead, I basically forced him to wall ride while ending my race)

I'll have to race a lot more to get a better impression of the changes, however removing penalties while not fixing the judgement system or unbalanced SR budgets per race can't produce cleaner racing by default.

Thanks for your input, good to have your initial thoughts on this.

 

[KingFrog]

I just happened to watch the etiquette videos again as my 8 year olld wanted to race online. (certainly not on my account and don't worry he doesn't have ps+ so he got no further than the videos anyway)

PD clearly states it's a no contact sport, any contact is bad, so why now allow minor contact....
PD also states that if you brake too late you need to go off track to avoid other cars, yet gives you penalties for using the run off areas...
PD gives plenty examples of who is at fault where, yet in reality the fault detection doesn't correspond with their examples.
Lastly PD says it's your own responsibility to avoid erratic drivers, hence the shared blame system.

So did PD cave in and are they abandoning their vision of contact free racing?

Anyway the videos are still useless, telling people not to do anything that makes them look bad, that worked out well!

PD doesn't give you penalties for going into the run offs , they give you a penalty for using them as shortcuts / turn extenders . If you spin out in a run off or slowly re enter , then you don't get penalized .

 

[Outspacer]

PD doesn't give you penalties for going into the run offs , they give you a penalty for using them as shortcuts / turn extenders . If you spin out in a run off or slowly re enter , then you don't get penalized .

It has given me a penalty even after I've been virtually stationary off-track in the past. My hunch is that it simply decides based on how fast you're going when you re-enter the track. Unfortunately, the safest way to re-enter - with some speed, but gradually moving onto the track rather than coming on at right angles - seems to be the most likely way to get a penalty.

 

[uMayBeSeated]

I'd definitely agree with this. Yesterday in an SR 'S' lobby I got involved in a couple of light tussles during the daily B race where I was given no room and I got a rake of penalties. I was demoted to SR 'A' then 'B' after another stupid penalty during the daily A race. Tried daily B again and I found the races to be a lot cleaner in an SR 'B' lobby and again in an SR 'A' with some very good, competitive racing.

At this point, and I can't believe I'm saying this but, it's almost worth punting a few drivers and getting demoted to an A or B sportsmanship rating as from what I can see, the races down there seem far more clean and fair than in the theoretically cleaner 'S' lobbies.

You must be one of those guys that thinks racing with B-SR is cleaner because they can’t catch you. Racing at S-SR provides closer competitions, which results in more cases of minor (mostly accidental) contact. At B-SR there is always a skill gap. The world leader in wins on this game is a guy that punts people and fights the whole room to lower his SR and race by himself in lower SR lobbies. He is a very average A driver, usually 1-2 seconds off the top 10 and he is the most winning driver on the game in any region lol... purposely tanking the SR is very bad for GT Sport as a whole.

 

[Haitauer]

It think the reason people feel sr S isnt clean, and the reason people stay on sr S are similar. Like todays Brands race i did, it was very hard racing with little penalties, as people left room and mostly didnt force a pass if there was no room/speed to follow it through. That was until last lap. Then people started to bump each other more and clearly often brake a bit too late to keep/gain positions. As GTS sport mode calculates SR on each sector of each lap, the SRs are blue even though the last lap might be something very different.

My last lap you want to know? Was the first car in a bumber to bumber piggy train on back straight, and as the train unfolded there was some late braking at the back, ping pong domino effect through the train - me and #2 on the wall and #3 with massive penalty.. But very entertaining race. Door to door racing with no penalties until lap 11..

Just the last lap took a toll on DR..

 

[Satomiblood]

Did anyone get a download notification for this penalty system update when turning on their PS4? I didn’t get anything today. I even did a manual check for an update and it’s still at Version 1.21, which is as of June 20.

 

[Oswald07]

First of all thank you to PD for listening and reacting. Thanks for the monthly updates and constantly giving us more free content. PD already has my money but they keep on giving. I have a hard time seeing whats in it for them. So a great big thank you.

A few weeks ago I worked hard and finally made DR A. I do my best to drive clean, and I never go for revenge. I also know I needed to stay in the top 5 of each race to continue to progress. With that previous penalty system I struggled to get my DR above A and was often B. Then I hit DR A and on Interlagos one day my SR went all the way down and that was the end of my A rating. Today I did several daily races at Brands Hatch and SR went from B to an S. And my DR went up a thousand too.

Instead of people trying to knock you out and then deal with one big penalty they were actually trying to race knowing that a little nudge here and there won't end their race. I think this system is far more realistic and getting an undeserved penalty now and then won't be such a big deal. The last thing I want to do is play a frustrating game in my spare time.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

PD doesn't give you penalties for going into the run offs , they give you a penalty for using them as shortcuts / turn extenders . If you spin out in a run off or slowly re enter , then you don't get penalized .

The game doesn't distinguish between avoiding another car and using them on your own. You get a penalty regardless, even if you lose time by avoiding a car messing up. Happened to me plenty times on Monza and Sarthe. Same for walls:

I had to stop turning and go into the wall to avoid the car hitting the accident, instant 5 sec penalty. Under the new system I would have only gotten 2 or likely none if I had simply held my line and bumped the red car.

This is what PD considers light contact apparently

No penalty issued, it's fine.

You see a car coming for you, either on purpose or not using radar, it is now better to steer into them instead of avoid and risk an off track or wall penalty.


I finally pulled off a clean draft bump test. Had a stable participant who I could bump 2 or 3 times per lap, no other contacts. No penalties, lead car never hit a wall either, Clean race bonus and Red S. So no to pushing. Lead car had a blue S so as before does not get penalized. The SR loss wasn't as bad as before yet that's probably since it's DR.B rules now and it was only 4 or 5 laps I got to draft bump.

Did anyone get a download notification for this penalty system update when turning on their PS4? I didn’t get anything today. I even did a manual check for an update and it’s still at Version 1.21, which is as of June 20.

I assume PD simply updated the parameters for the penalties. No software update, so fault detection remains unchanged. It's just some tweaks to the amounts and thresholds for penalties.

 

[vvise]

I got a red S in both my FIA races today, but only received a 3s penalty in each. Plus one 1s corner cut.
I think they reduced the penalty times, but left the SR system untouched.

I had some contacts that under the old system would have resolved in penalties but no longer did. However, both of the 3s penalties I received were very poor. I don't think either deserved it.

Is the new system producing cleaner racing? No.
Is the new system producing better racing? Unsure for now. Maybe.

 

[ARTAsean]

This is what PD considers light contact apparently

No penalty issued, it's fine.

Wow, that's unbelievable.

For me personally, the 10 second penalties at DR:A had me ready to quit sport mode altogether. I'm glad they did away with those, and I suspect they'll continue to work on the penalty system to please as many people as possible, which is no light task.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Wow, that's unbelievable.

For me personally, the 10 second penalties at DR:A had me ready to quit sport mode altogether. I'm glad they did away with those, and I suspect they'll continue to work on the penalty system to please as many people as possible, which is no light task.

Ha I just got a 10 sec penalty on Brand's hatch again. Car in front of me ran into the car in front of him and I could not brake fast enough with the exaggerated collision physics. They're still here... and in DR.B!

Yet I also had a close clean battle with another car for a couple laps with a bit of light rubbing a couple times while swapping places and no penalties. It needs more fine tuning as I also got bumped off the road later without the aggressor receiving a penalty, but at least the phantom contact penalties seem to be gone. No more peering over videos to find the spot where you lost 5kph from 'contact' to explain the penalty.

 

[Lord Protector]

I do not think they changed it for cleaner racing. Getting a 10 second penalty for an absolutely joke-contact is not a result of dirty racing. I would say this change results in more dirty racing but the change was needed.

 

[SjefGielen]

Definitely a NO.

I think it is fair that the higher (SR) classed racers receive the same penalties as the lower classed once, but the racing is not going to be cleaner because of yesterday's adjustment to the penalty system.

My first experience was the Nations Cup FIA race, qualified P14, got through the first chicane without any trouble, gaining a few positions because of the cars pilling up in front of me, had a not so good exit because of that carnage but managed to draft my way back ending up side by side with the car at p9 with a gap between us and the cars behind us of about 2 seconds. Because p1 to p10 were still very close together we had to coast and break a little earlier for t4 and 5 and right at the time we had to steer into the turn some lunatic hit us from behind after not breaking at all for the turn, at least it felt like that because we literally flew over the sandbox onto the next (short) straight in front of p1 ( :-) ) but still doing 360s. I ended up p18 after the car stopped spinning. The most frustrating part of this is that there were no red flashing penalty indicators at all in front of us.

Second experience was the Manufacturer's race, qualified P12 this time, had a good start and first corner exit so ended up p7, after about 4 laps p8 guy decided he would try to pass me on the inside of T1, not breaking enough he hit the left side of my car, okay, the impact was not very high, but still high enough to send me into a trip and a visit to the wall. Result: he got away clean and I ended up with a 2.8 second penalty.
After lap 12 I had to pit for fuel and new shoes, served the penalty while coasting into the pitlane. Ended up exiting pitlane right in front of the guy who provided me with that penalty who immediately decided to do a remake of his previous overtaking attempt. However this time I backed off to leave enough space for him to go wide and visit the wall, which he did, lot of sparks, he bounced back onto the straight (more then I did when I visited the wall). I was very surprised not to see the red indicator above his car. Then the race really started, My corner exit out of T3 was better then his on each every lap, but every time I came up next to him he tried to bump me into the pitlane or into the wall.
I realized that I wasn't going to make it with one pitstop so I decided to set fuel management to 3 for a few laps and was still able to stay within half a second from the bumper car driver. Then on lap 23 the magic happened, I still had enough fuel to make it to the finish line (back on fuel map1 again) and the guy making my racing live a living hell for the entire race had to pit, end result: I finished p6, he was on p16, now that's karma.

So from experience: NO the racing is not cleaner, there's still id10ts on the track making live miserable!


But we still have FUN :-)

 

[KingFrog]

The game doesn't distinguish between avoiding another car and using them on your own. You get a penalty regardless, even if you lose time by avoiding a car messing up. Happened to me plenty times on Monza and Sarthe. Same for walls:

I had to stop turning and go into the wall to avoid the car hitting the accident, instant 5 sec penalty. Under the new system I would have only gotten 2 or likely none if I had simply held my line and bumped the red car.

This is what PD considers light contact apparently

No penalty issued, it's fine.

You see a car coming for you, either on purpose or not using radar, it is now better to steer into them instead of avoid and risk an off track or wall penalty.


I finally pulled off a clean draft bump test. Had a stable participant who I could bump 2 or 3 times per lap, no other contacts. No penalties, lead car never hit a wall either, Clean race bonus and Red S. So no to pushing. Lead car had a blue S so as before does not get penalized. The SR loss wasn't as bad as before yet that's probably since it's DR.B rules now and it was only 4 or 5 laps I got to draft bump.





I assume PD simply updated the parameters for the penalties. No software update, so fault detection remains unchanged. It's just some tweaks to the amounts and thresholds for penalties.

A 5-second penalty is fair, in real life, you would be out of the race. If they get rid of wall penalties even for avoiding, they need to make you scrub speed off significantly like in wipe out.

Also, the top one is your fault you were coming into a tight spot, Had he not crashed and slowed down, he would have had his booty bumped. Swallow your pride and stay behind the Toyota until its safe. You were destined to lose time in two scenarios, do the math. A lot of accidents can be avoided if people weren't so gun ho and just accepted the fact that X turn or maneuver is incredibly risky. but no, people have to go for that gap even though it might cause an accident, and if it does, BAD PENALTY SYSTEM.

In the second clip, The BMW deserved a penalty.

 

[Greycap]

At this point, and I can't believe I'm saying this but, it's almost worth punting a few drivers and getting demoted to an A or B sportsmanship rating as from what I can see, the races down there seem far more clean and fair than in the theoretically cleaner 'S' lobbies.

I have no problems believing that. Even going to the lower levels of S already brings an improvement, it's the 99 points races that give the most trouble. Why, I don't know, but it certainly seems to be the case.