2021 FIA Series Race Discussion
- Thread starter GTPNewsWire
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- Paint booth
- FMecha_EXE
Not sure where to post, but this is something that I feel it needs to be addressed: apparently there's a race-fixing scheme where some top players would "trade victories to be placed at the top of the overall" region rankings. (Sources: 1 (language warning), 2)
From what I heard, this scheme also involves out-of-region players being placed on the same lobby as the top player, where the out-of-region players (using the appropriate region account) would act as blockers.
From what I heard, this scheme also involves out-of-region players being placed on the same lobby as the top player, where the out-of-region players (using the appropriate region account) would act as blockers.
- 295
- Netherlands
I don't get it. From the GT website:"The top-ranked competitors in Season 2 from both the Nations Cup and Manufacturer Series will advance to the World Finals event". In manu Kylian has won with the Ferrari, but the Ferrari ended 14th. So Kylian gets nothing for his troubles, right? Just a "thank you for playing, see ya". Or does he move to a different manu?
Moving on.
This is only possible (if it's done) because the ranking system is flawed. Only the (one) top player decides how well the brand does in manu. Look at it from someone like Kylian's perspective. The guy drove 160 points for Ferrari. Highest possible. Yet gets squat for it. Now imagine he has the brain cells and evil intention to hook up under a false name and start disrupting his competition. Killing all Asian and Americas BMW's 'n Peugeot's to make certain they end lower 'n him. Hmmm.... not saying it can't be done, but it would be extremly difficult to pull off. In these types of situations the simplest explanation is often the most likely one: the guy that's been doing the smering is probably just being a poor sport. And there really is nothing going on.
Moving on.
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- 2,277
- UK
- TPC_Watto
You've understood it correctly. The top 12 Manufacturers compete at the World Finals and that doesn't include Ferrari so Kylian misses out. Strictly speaking he will get 200,000 credits and 5,000 mileage points though.......
- 84,454
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
That's correct, as it has been for the last four World Finals.
Manufacturers qualify for the finals by the combined scores of the regions - previously five regions, currently three - with the best driver from each of the three top-scoring regions representing them. Scoring for Manufacturers is sorted by rank of the best individual driver for each brand at each round, on a sliding scale from 40 for the first-placed brand down to 1 for the 25th. The best four rounds are added up to create the total score for each manufacturer.
If one player wins an entire region with the brand, they can miss out on qualification through the other brand representatives in the other regions not performing to the same level. This has always been the case, and it's why top players are careful to choose brands that have good support in other regions and not too many rivals within the same region.
In this case it looks like Ferrari was first in Europe, 17th in Asia/Oceania, and 22nd in Americas, so it won't make the top 12 (short of a freak set of circumstances). BMW takes the final qualifying spot with 8th in Europe, 11th in Americas, and 15th in Asia/Oceania - which is simply more consistent.
- 688
- Australia
As per that Twitter post, this is not new, and it can usually be done with subtlety.
It's going to keep happening until PD draw a line in the sand regarding what is acceptable conduct regarding interfering with race results, but good luck policing that...
Could you explain the problem? I'm not sure I'm getting it.
What I know is that there are aliens from Americas that keep stealing points in splits 2-3-4, just to get a little extra training before their races.
I guess there's similar behaviour from EMEA players on asian-oceanian servers.
It just sucks.
Not to mention all the guys tanking their DR to be placed in lower splits. I guess PD's scoring system is at fault here but still... Usually, the podium finishers in my splits (270-290 points) have a huge lead on the rest of the field. Always the same guys...
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- 1,683
- Australia
I don’t know any detail here, but the conspiratorial side of me recognizes that it would be possible to make a deal with an alien from another region whereby we enter each other’s top split with the sole aim of slowing down as many competitors as possible. Such an arrangement would go a long way to ensuring we both finish near or at the top of our regions.
Alright thanks, I guess GT - as any other competitive online "game" - is bound to suffer from this kind of behaviour.
On another note, I checked the finals rankings in the Manu series and noticed that out of the 12 brands that qualified for the next Showdown, 6 are driven by French guys in EMEA 🇫🇷
On another note, I checked the finals rankings in the Manu series and noticed that out of the 12 brands that qualified for the next Showdown, 6 are driven by French guys in EMEA 🇫🇷
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- 4,500
- Australia
Does anyone know when the next season starts?
I imagine any fixing is fairly straightforward in principle, all you'd have to do is deliberately try not to win.
Alright thanks, I guess GT - as any other competitive online "game" - is bound to suffer from this kind of behaviour.
On another note, I checked the finals rankings in the Manu series and noticed that out of the 12 brands that qualified for the next Showdown, 6 are driven by French guys in EMEA 🇫🇷
I imagine any fixing is fairly straightforward in principle, all you'd have to do is deliberately try not to win.
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- 46
- Australia
The Next Online Championship Starts on 20 October! - gran-turismo.com
We are pleased to announce that the ‘FIA Gran Tu...
- 295
- Netherlands
Why all this complexity? Wouldn't it be much easier to contact two fast guys from other regions and discuss which manu the three should pick?
All this talk of slowing other top drivers down can only be done from the front... might as well use that talent to just... I don't know... win races.
It all only really matters in top split races and that group is soooo small. Even I notice a new player when he/she pops up, now imagine driving with this inner circle for the last few years...
- 84,454
- Rule 12
- GTP_Famine
Not necessarily. Ruining their qualification laps would do it just fine (and in fact being a dick in qualifying to everyone except the driver you want to favour). Absent that, a lap one, turn one divebomb would do the trick nicely, followed by race-long harassment.
Without any disrespect intended to any one region's competitors, I understand that it's generally held that Europe, Asia, and South America are the strongest regions, followed by North America, then Oceania - not necessarily in terms of outright lap times but in terms of depth of competition. In essence a top-16 European grid would be covered by the same lap time separation as the top 14 Asian or South American drivers, the top 10 North American drivers, or the top eight Oceania drivers; or to look at it another way, a time good enough to put you into the top 16 in Oceania might just get you into the top 100 in Europe.
However, Manufacturers runs only three regions, so Oceania is folded in with Asia (Asia-Pacific, or APAC), and the Americas are all folded into one (North, South, and Central America, or NSCAM).
So, let's imagine that a top European driver (EMEA), a top Asian driver (APAC), and a top South American driver (NSCAM) all drive for the same manufacturer, but they're concerned that a rival brand might outqualify their European driver. The APAC/NSCAM driver might create a secondary EMEA account, get it up into A+, get into a top split race and screw that brand's driver's qualifying to allow their own brand's EMEA representative to gain more points. Now they're on the same bit of road for the race, so just outright filth ensues.
Conceptually it would be easier to do if the driver they want to screw over is a North America or Oceania driver, because it's easier (again, by the principle in my second paragraph) for an EMEA driver to get into the mix in APAC or NSCAM, and their real pace would get them higher on the grid. That makes it easier to block the target driver.
I haven't actually heard of anything about this before now, and I know PD is pretty hot on banning duplicate accounts running in FIA - though I've only heard of it applied within the same region, rather than across different regions.
- 4,500
- Australia
Thats the thing - if manipulation was happening, its to ultimately benefit the players who arent quite good enough to win the biggest point races on merit.
- 1,683
- Australia
You also need to remember that only your best few races count. In the most recent season the best driver in a region had 6 rounds that wouldn’t count no matter how well they drove. That gives you 6 chances to help an ally with zero impact on your own standing in that region. If you don’t care about the region then you have 10 chances.
If you are a top ranked driver from a different region you don’t want to win races because you definitely do not want to qualify for world finals in two different regions.
Anyway, as I said earlier, this is all conjecture on my part as I haven’t actually seen what’s happening.
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- 547
- East Yorkshire
- Zorzil
People are interfering with other region's races to influence the World Tour? 😒
My random thoughts - PD could re-shuffle the World Tour qualifying format and allow all 25 manufacturers to take place in every event. The top 9 from the global standings at the end of a season immediately go through to the final. The remaining 16 take part in a online repechage event in advance of the World Tour to claim the remaining 7 slots.
Something like that wouldn't stop the interference but it could help reduce the impact because the top drivers from each region would at least be guaranteed to have PD approach them for the repechage. It may even encourage better distribution amongst the manufacturers as well if there are more spots available.
It'd be even better if they also drop the automatic qualifying for Toyota and Mazda since they'll definitely appear in every event if they broadcast the repechage. Or is that just going too far?
Edit - It just dawned on me, they have 12 manufacturers in the final rather than 16.
In which case, either shuffle the numbers around (e.g. top 9 go through, remaining 16 compete for the remaining 3 slots) or up the number of manufacturers in the final! 
My random thoughts - PD could re-shuffle the World Tour qualifying format and allow all 25 manufacturers to take place in every event. The top 9 from the global standings at the end of a season immediately go through to the final. The remaining 16 take part in a online repechage event in advance of the World Tour to claim the remaining 7 slots.
Something like that wouldn't stop the interference but it could help reduce the impact because the top drivers from each region would at least be guaranteed to have PD approach them for the repechage. It may even encourage better distribution amongst the manufacturers as well if there are more spots available.
It'd be even better if they also drop the automatic qualifying for Toyota and Mazda since they'll definitely appear in every event if they broadcast the repechage. Or is that just going too far?
Edit - It just dawned on me, they have 12 manufacturers in the final rather than 16.
In which case, either shuffle the numbers around (e.g. top 9 go through, remaining 16 compete for the remaining 3 slots) or up the number of manufacturers in the final!
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- 1,950
- Bristol, UK
- OJBrit
I like this idea.Edit - It just dawned on me, they have 12 manufacturers in the final rather than 16.
There are only 12 as they fill the rest with the broadcast slot and a few stewards.
- 295
- Netherlands
- 129
- Toronto, ON
- mdents27
The only thing that will suck is if a manufacturer has way more users on the team (ie Toyota vs Citroen) and simply out number them. Maybe it should be an average across all the drivers that way it doesn't matter how many people use a brand.
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- 295
- Netherlands
- 688
- Australia
I will clarify this as it seems to have been conflated with another separate issue.
If someone (usually very fast, with nothing else to gain from the season themselves) decides to go out of their way to help someone else qualify for a live event, then that's pretty much where the problem starts. You can use whatever term to describe it, but the optics are not great. It probably would not be allowed in any eSport that paid prize money.
Here is the sticking point... How do you identify it? How do you define what's acceptable? And how would you police it?
A lot of top split drivers are already in their own eSports teams already, so already help each other in every round where they can - from organising their qualifying so one/both of them gets a great slipstream for a good grid position, to not battling during the race to maximise their points. With GT's game mechanics this is so common (and usually necessary, or just an intelligent decision) in top split that it is an accepted and integral part of racing in the FIA online championships.
Where it really starts to get murky is when, usually at the end of the season, Driver A for a certain Manufacturer knows they need X points to beat Driver B in order to qualify for a live event position for that manufacturer. A friendly Driver C (maybe driver D and E as well) has zero intention to win the race for themselves, so might conveniently enter (boosting lobby points) and 'throw' a race they were all but certain to win - allowing Driver A to secure the points they need. Again, sometimes this is blatant but can be done with subtlety, or maybe it all just plausibly happens out of sheer luck or coincidence. So how would that be policed?
Similar kinds of questionable tactics happen in real life racing as well so maybe it's all just part of the game. But if I was Driver B in that situation, and lost out on a live event position in that manner, I'd be pretty unhappy and asking myself why I bothered sweating it for several months when there is no prizemoney at stake anyway. But again, this is not new, has happened in every region, and I am not aware of this ever being punished in previous years/seasons. So it's going to keep happening until they clarify what is and isn't acceptable, or start handing out bans, or both.
In principle it's not that complicated.
If someone (usually very fast, with nothing else to gain from the season themselves) decides to go out of their way to help someone else qualify for a live event, then that's pretty much where the problem starts. You can use whatever term to describe it, but the optics are not great. It probably would not be allowed in any eSport that paid prize money.
Here is the sticking point... How do you identify it? How do you define what's acceptable? And how would you police it?
A lot of top split drivers are already in their own eSports teams already, so already help each other in every round where they can - from organising their qualifying so one/both of them gets a great slipstream for a good grid position, to not battling during the race to maximise their points. With GT's game mechanics this is so common (and usually necessary, or just an intelligent decision) in top split that it is an accepted and integral part of racing in the FIA online championships.
Where it really starts to get murky is when, usually at the end of the season, Driver A for a certain Manufacturer knows they need X points to beat Driver B in order to qualify for a live event position for that manufacturer. A friendly Driver C (maybe driver D and E as well) has zero intention to win the race for themselves, so might conveniently enter (boosting lobby points) and 'throw' a race they were all but certain to win - allowing Driver A to secure the points they need. Again, sometimes this is blatant but can be done with subtlety, or maybe it all just plausibly happens out of sheer luck or coincidence. So how would that be policed?
Similar kinds of questionable tactics happen in real life racing as well so maybe it's all just part of the game. But if I was Driver B in that situation, and lost out on a live event position in that manner, I'd be pretty unhappy and asking myself why I bothered sweating it for several months when there is no prizemoney at stake anyway. But again, this is not new, has happened in every region, and I am not aware of this ever being punished in previous years/seasons. So it's going to keep happening until they clarify what is and isn't acceptable, or start handing out bans, or both.
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- 1,950
- Bristol, UK
- OJBrit
Indeed. With a bit of number crunching I have a leaderboard of
1. Mazda 156pts
2. Subaru 149pts
3. Dodge 149pts
4. Jaguar 148pts
5. Hyundai 145pts
6. Chevrolet 129pts
7. Lexus 112pts
8. Citroen 111pts
9. Alfa Romeo 98pts
10. Aston Martin 96pts
11. Honda 82pts
12. Mitsubishi 80pts (Higher individual score)
13. Porsche 80pts
14. Toyota 74pts
15. VW 64pts
16. Peugeot 55pts
17. Nissan 51pts
18. Mercedes 49pts
19. Ford 48pts
20. Renault 47pts
21. Ferrari 37pts
22. Lamborghini 35pts
23. McLaren 30pts (Higher individual score)
24. BMW 30pts
25. Audi 12pts
So staples like Toyota, Porsche and Merc miss out.
Definitely a few surprises there.
LeGeNd-1
Premium
- 7,253
- Australia
- GTP_LeGeNd-1
Singapore 2008 F1 GP says hi.
Seriously, if someone has clear evidence of this, best thing to do would be to contact FIA directly: https://www.fia.com/contact-0
PD/Kaz clearly can't be bothered to fix this (among many other issues like the penalty system and poor server quality), but the FIA surely would not want their name associated with a championship that has dubious integrity. See if Kaz can still ignore the problem when the FIA threatens to pull their sponsorship.
- 1,174
- Phoenix, AZ
- MonyB
That's always the thing with PD - enforcement. There is so little of it that they tacitly endorse just about everything that people come up with the game the system. In the two years I've been playing Sports mode, multiple accounts in FIA have been cleaned up once?
Toyota doesn't miss out. They're given a pass to the finals via their sponsorship. (Along with Mazda.)
- 2,388
- United Kingdom
- Hasnain282
Exhibition Season Schedules are out
Nations
https://www.gran-turismo.com/gb/gtsport/news/00_8675203.html
Manufacturers
https://www.gran-turismo.com/gb/gtsport/news/00_8001305.html
Nations
https://www.gran-turismo.com/gb/gtsport/news/00_8675203.html
Manufacturers
https://www.gran-turismo.com/gb/gtsport/news/00_8001305.html
