Analysis and demonstration of the penalty system's flaw

[breeminator]

Is the theory here, that by promoting dirty racing that we force PD to actually fix this issue?

I think that is the intent, but I fear the outcome will not be good. I've seen it said that around 10% of people will always try to cheat, 10% will never cheat, and the rest will sometimes cheat depending on the circumstances. So I expect any increased awareness of effective cheating techniques to result in large numbers of people using them. It's not a simple matter for PD to improve the system to address these problems.

 

[Groundfish]

I think that is the intent, but I fear the outcome will not be good. I've seen it said that around 10% of people will always try to cheat, 10% will never cheat, and the rest will sometimes cheat depending on the circumstances. So I expect any increased awareness of effective cheating techniques to result in large numbers of people using them. It's not a simple matter for PD to improve the system to address these problems.

Am I a cheat if I sometimes take revenge?
I’m a never cheat but do take revenge guy myself.

I started the pen analysis thread I haven’t kept up on.
I have to say I repeatedly asked for suggestions on something to improve the pen system but received nothing feasible.
Imo shared fault for incidents as it was at one stage was by far the best.

But, everyone on the net made videos and complained so much that they changed it around.
Pen zones are a solid addition imo.

As it is now more and more drivers learn the behavior of the system and it’s cutthroat as you move up in experience.

My biggest complaint is like at Panorama, alien makes mistake I pass.
Next lap I get slowed by cheating average guy. Alien passes me clean but slows me some allowing cheat to catch cheat gives me pen. Serving pen allows worse drivers to catch...
Shared fault pretty much eliminates this mess imo

 

[GT_Alex74]

Do you believe that a dirty driver will have more contact in the long run than a clean one ?

There's two kind of dirty drivers : those who just don't have good racing standards overall and play it rough all the time, and those who are fully competent drivers but will use dirty tactics at key moments. So for most I'll say yes, although the second category will pretty much go away with anything that is automated and not extremely harsh (I'd rework the SR system to make it harder to keep top split SR). That's why a penalty system needs to work in conjunction with reports, and / or official events need manual review of incidents for high splits.

 

[Groundfish]

There's two kind of dirty drivers : those who just don't have good racing standards overall and play it rough all the time, and those who are fully competent drivers but will use dirty tactics at key moments. So for most I'll say yes, although the second category will pretty much go away with anything that is automated and not extremely harsh (I'd rework the SR system to make it harder to keep top split SR). That's why a penalty system needs to work in conjunction with reports, and / or official events need manual review of incidents for high splits.

I think expecting human review for video games is a pipe dream

 

[ROCKET JOE]

Is the theory here, that by promoting dirty racing that we force PD to actually fix this issue?

I don't think so. You wanna know what I dream of when I'm drunk, instead ?
I imagine the top 1000 drivers all showing some solidarity with the lower ranks and starting to boycott the Championship Finals ...

@GT_Alex74, @Sven Jurgens
I'm aware ... different types of players, different types of incidents to deal with 👍 - I just kept it short.
The idea is that if you can make SR mean something ( Sven already gave some hints ), this could be ground to build upon. Make SR work and less gameable ... design the rest around it ! You probably wouldn't need track penalties at all ( and no sophisticated pen system that doesn't work anyway since it will never apportion blame correctly ).
The "penalty system" would be something different then : low SR = low rewards, high SR = high rewards, to keep it short again !

Well, please don't be peeved guys ... If I had a wish I'd wish you all stop thinking about how to tweak the penalty system ( no way to get anywhere imo ) but start developing a completely different setup of DR / SR / matchmaking !

 

[Dmac72]

It’s an interesting analysis but I suspect that it will mainly serve those who wish to abuse the flaws in the system.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I don't think so. You wanna know what I dream of when I'm drunk, instead ?
I imagine the top 1000 drivers all showing some solidarity with the lower ranks and starting to boycott the Championship Finals ...

@GT_Alex74, @Sven Jurgens
I'm aware ... different types of players, different types of incidents to deal with 👍 - I just kept it short.
The idea is that if you can make SR mean something ( Sven already gave some hints ), this could be ground to build upon. Make SR work and less gameable ... design the rest around it ! You probably wouldn't need track penalties at all ( and no sophisticated pen system that doesn't work anyway since it will never apportion blame correctly ).
The "penalty system" would be something different then : low SR = low rewards, high SR = high rewards, to keep it short again !

Well, please don't be peeved guys ... If I had a wish I'd wish you all stop thinking about how to tweak the penalty system ( no way to get anywhere imo ) but start developing a completely different setup of DR / SR / matchmaking !

I've given that a lot of thought over time.

The flaws of the SR system are simple to sum up:
A 1 to 99 scale where you can lose or gain 30 SR in a single race can never lead to a stable measurement.
Gaining SR by not actually racing is too easy, either by getting pole in a much slower room or by driving behind everyone.
The difference in SR budget per track car combo (roughly 0.4 SR gain per sector) makes the system even more unstable.
Serving penalties in race creates more accidents.

Solution:
Base SR on nr of incidents per time driven in sport mode, including offs, wall touches and spins.
Get rid of penalties or add them to your time after the finish.

That can still be manipulated by driving behind everyone to get more 'clean' time, but that will kill your DR. Easy poles will happen less often as it will dampen the yoyo effect SR currently goes through and fast reckless drivers will get to race their own kind instead of getting mixed with slower drivers trying to race clean.

For that to work DR needs to be overhauled as well.
One overall DR rank is pretty pointless when experience is vastly different per track.
Resets should not happen as that only messes up matchmaking.
Qualifying has far too much influence on DR with all these short races.
Matchmaking also has too much influence on DR gains and losses.

Instead of the point exchange system:
DR needs to be measured per track, you can be A+ on one track, yet start back at D on a track you have never driven before.
DR needs to reflect actual race pace compared to everyone else, a bit like the K' Speed score on Kudos Prime.

To accomplish this, take the average of your lap times in race minus the outliers (not the slowest usually lap 1, nor your fastest lap) compare that to everyone else in the world (or region) that completed that particular race and do a point exchange between all players, normalized for how many players entered that race in that time slot. That should lead to a much more stable DR ranking. Qualifying high up will still help ensuring better average lap times, yet matchmaking will have less influence on DR. Instead of serving penalties in race, penalties can be deducted from your race time when calculating your average pace.

Matchmaking can also be improved.
Currently it starts by taking all players in 90-99 SR range, sorts them on DR and creates the rooms accordingly. The left over part at the bottom (D/S) gets filled up by the highest DR ranks in the next SR range, 80-89. That's how you get these terribly unmatched A+/S on top, rest D/S rooms. Any players that needed to be added from a lower SR rank to fill up the slowest room in an SR bracket, need to be sorted with all the players in that bracket so the A+/S in 80-89 range enters the room with A+/S in the 90-99 SR range instead of racing D/S 90-99 SR players.

Lastly, instead of punishments, rewards for clean driving.
Higher SR rank should mean higher payouts.
Percentage multiplier for every clean lap.
Percentage multiplier for consecutive clean races.

 

[Dmac72]

I've given that a lot of thought over time.

The flaws of the SR system are simple to sum up:
A 1 to 99 scale where you can lose or gain 30 SR in a single race can never lead to a stable measurement.
Gaining SR by not actually racing is too easy, either by getting pole in a much slower room or by driving behind everyone.
The difference in SR budget per track car combo (roughly 0.4 SR gain per sector) makes the system even more unstable.
Serving penalties in race creates more accidents.

Solution:
Base SR on nr of incidents per time driven in sport mode, including offs, wall touches and spins.
Get rid of penalties or add them to your time after the finish.

That can still be manipulated by driving behind everyone to get more 'clean' time, but that will kill your DR. Easy poles will happen less often as it will dampen the yoyo effect SR currently goes through and fast reckless drivers will get to race their own kind instead of getting mixed with slower drivers trying to race clean.

For that to work DR needs to be overhauled as well.
One overall DR rank is pretty pointless when experience is vastly different per track.
Resets should not happen as that only messes up matchmaking.
Qualifying has far too much influence on DR with all these short races.
Matchmaking also has too much influence on DR gains and losses.

Instead of the point exchange system:
DR needs to be measured per track, you can be A+ on one track, yet start back at D on a track you have never driven before.
DR needs to reflect actual race pace compared to everyone else, a bit like the K' Speed score on Kudos Prime.

To accomplish this, take the average of your lap times in race minus the outliers (not the slowest usually lap 1, nor your fastest lap) compare that to everyone else in the world (or region) that completed that particular race and do a point exchange between all players, normalized for how many players entered that race in that time slot. That should lead to a much more stable DR ranking. Qualifying high up will still help ensuring better average lap times, yet matchmaking will have less influence on DR. Instead of serving penalties in race, penalties can be deducted from your race time when calculating your average pace.

Matchmaking can also be improved.
Currently it starts by taking all players in 90-99 SR range, sorts them on DR and creates the rooms accordingly. The left over part at the bottom (D/S) gets filled up by the highest DR ranks in the next SR range, 80-89. That's how you get these terribly unmatched A+/S on top, rest D/S rooms. Any players that needed to be added from a lower SR rank to fill up the slowest room in an SR bracket, need to be sorted with all the players in that bracket so the A+/S in 80-89 range enters the room with A+/S in the 90-99 SR range instead of racing D/S 90-99 SR players.

Lastly, instead of punishments, rewards for clean driving.
Higher SR rank should mean higher payouts.
Percentage multiplier for every clean lap.
Percentage multiplier for consecutive clean races.

I think we are of broadly similar mind with penalties and rankings but unfortunately it won’t make a difference unless the way sr down or penalties are awarded or blame apportioned for incidents changes.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I think we are of broadly similar mind with penalties and rankings but unfortunately it won’t make a difference unless the way sr down or penalties are awarded or blame apportioned for incidents changes.

I think a statistical approach will make a difference, but that in essence gets rid of blame assignment.

Still penalties are needed in severe cases like the T1 dive bomb. Let everything that's not a clear punt be handled with a statistical approach to SR.

 

[Dmac72]

I think a statistical approach will make a difference, but that in essence gets rid of blame assignment.

Still penalties are needed in severe cases like the T1 dive bomb. Let everything that's not a clear punt be handled with a statistical approach to SR.

I have give my views in anther thread and would probably be harsher in most cases.

 

[dabz343]

I'm really enjoying the deconstruction of F1 races by Jolyon. Here's one from the Canadian Grand Prix explaining the penalty to Seb which costed Ferrari the win.

Although this type stewardship/analysis in not realizable in a PS4 game, it does shed light on how stewards review incidents and maintain fair play at the highest level of racing. At the lease, one can learn from these analysis to understand how certain rules are applied through real world examples and encourage PD to develop a system that is consistent with reality.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

I've given that a lot of thought over time.

The flaws of the SR system are simple to sum up:
A 1 to 99 scale where you can lose or gain 30 SR in a single race can never lead to a stable measurement.
Gaining SR by not actually racing is too easy, either by getting pole in a much slower room or by driving behind everyone.
The difference in SR budget per track car combo (roughly 0.4 SR gain per sector) makes the system even more unstable.
Serving penalties in race creates more accidents.

Solution:
Base SR on nr of incidents per time driven in sport mode, including offs, wall touches and spins.
Get rid of penalties or add them to your time after the finish.

That can still be manipulated by driving behind everyone to get more 'clean' time, but that will kill your DR. Easy poles will happen less often as it will dampen the yoyo effect SR currently goes through and fast reckless drivers will get to race their own kind instead of getting mixed with slower drivers trying to race clean.

For that to work DR needs to be overhauled as well.
One overall DR rank is pretty pointless when experience is vastly different per track.
Resets should not happen as that only messes up matchmaking.
Qualifying has far too much influence on DR with all these short races.
Matchmaking also has too much influence on DR gains and losses.

Instead of the point exchange system:
DR needs to be measured per track, you can be A+ on one track, yet start back at D on a track you have never driven before.
DR needs to reflect actual race pace compared to everyone else, a bit like the K' Speed score on Kudos Prime.

To accomplish this, take the average of your lap times in race minus the outliers (not the slowest usually lap 1, nor your fastest lap) compare that to everyone else in the world (or region) that completed that particular race and do a point exchange between all players, normalized for how many players entered that race in that time slot. That should lead to a much more stable DR ranking. Qualifying high up will still help ensuring better average lap times, yet matchmaking will have less influence on DR. Instead of serving penalties in race, penalties can be deducted from your race time when calculating your average pace.

Matchmaking can also be improved.
Currently it starts by taking all players in 90-99 SR range, sorts them on DR and creates the rooms accordingly. The left over part at the bottom (D/S) gets filled up by the highest DR ranks in the next SR range, 80-89. That's how you get these terribly unmatched A+/S on top, rest D/S rooms. Any players that needed to be added from a lower SR rank to fill up the slowest room in an SR bracket, need to be sorted with all the players in that bracket so the A+/S in 80-89 range enters the room with A+/S in the 90-99 SR range instead of racing D/S 90-99 SR players.

Lastly, instead of punishments, rewards for clean driving.
Higher SR rank should mean higher payouts.
Percentage multiplier for every clean lap.
Percentage multiplier for consecutive clean races.

Great post! I have always been one that DR should have a bigger role in the matchmaking process.

Also I agree that DR resets do nothing but give the reset player easy wins against opponents not at his same skill level and actually punish the lesser skilled racers.

One thing I think that SR and DR level within that drivers DR ranking should be affected by "number of incidents" as compared to the amount of track time or races the individual is in so a driver is "punished" for not being in control. iracing uses a system like this and they are considered the holy grail by most for online racing.

DR ranking should not be reduced to a lower ranking, The highest DR ranking once earned should be that racers floor from then on.

Also if a person is "demoted" in SR ranking for excessive incidents or loss of SR points then it should be 30 days with a minimum of 4 races run during that time before that racer should be eligible to be promoted back up to the higher SR class level again.

It also should be against the GTS game rules for a racer operating multiple accounts as again this makes any punishment almost a non issue as they could race reckless on what may be considered a burner account they do not care about.

Again no punishment system without teeth is ever going to accomplish anything.

Until the punishment for careless overly aggressive driving and being penalized actually affects a drivers racing or even FIA splits they are eligible for then it really means nothing.

I am not holding my breath though for any major changes from PD.

 

[WaikeCU]

I cant open the video??

Is it blocked for your area?

 

[BallPtPenTheif]

I've given that a lot of thought over time.

The flaws of the SR system are simple to sum up:
A 1 to 99 scale where you can lose or gain 30 SR in a single race can never lead to a stable measurement.
Gaining SR by not actually racing is too easy, either by getting pole in a much slower room or by driving behind everyone.
The difference in SR budget per track car combo (roughly 0.4 SR gain per sector) makes the system even more unstable.
Serving penalties in race creates more accidents.

Solution:
Base SR on nr of incidents per time driven in sport mode, including offs, wall touches and spins.
Get rid of penalties or add them to your time after the finish.

That can still be manipulated by driving behind everyone to get more 'clean' time, but that will kill your DR. Easy poles will happen less often as it will dampen the yoyo effect SR currently goes through and fast reckless drivers will get to race their own kind instead of getting mixed with slower drivers trying to race clean.

For that to work DR needs to be overhauled as well.
One overall DR rank is pretty pointless when experience is vastly different per track.
Resets should not happen as that only messes up matchmaking.
Qualifying has far too much influence on DR with all these short races.
Matchmaking also has too much influence on DR gains and losses.

Instead of the point exchange system:
DR needs to be measured per track, you can be A+ on one track, yet start back at D on a track you have never driven before.
DR needs to reflect actual race pace compared to everyone else, a bit like the K' Speed score on Kudos Prime.

To accomplish this, take the average of your lap times in race minus the outliers (not the slowest usually lap 1, nor your fastest lap) compare that to everyone else in the world (or region) that completed that particular race and do a point exchange between all players, normalized for how many players entered that race in that time slot. That should lead to a much more stable DR ranking. Qualifying high up will still help ensuring better average lap times, yet matchmaking will have less influence on DR. Instead of serving penalties in race, penalties can be deducted from your race time when calculating your average pace.

Matchmaking can also be improved.
Currently it starts by taking all players in 90-99 SR range, sorts them on DR and creates the rooms accordingly. The left over part at the bottom (D/S) gets filled up by the highest DR ranks in the next SR range, 80-89. That's how you get these terribly unmatched A+/S on top, rest D/S rooms. Any players that needed to be added from a lower SR rank to fill up the slowest room in an SR bracket, need to be sorted with all the players in that bracket so the A+/S in 80-89 range enters the room with A+/S in the 90-99 SR range instead of racing D/S 90-99 SR players.

Lastly, instead of punishments, rewards for clean driving.
Higher SR rank should mean higher payouts.
Percentage multiplier for every clean lap.
Percentage multiplier for consecutive clean races.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. The goal of match making should be to match comparable racers, both in speed and skill. Clearly their DR & SR paradigm isn't capable of doing that.

Conversely though, the SR score should be regarded more like a play style hopper rather than a goal that one should try to achieve. If people want to drive like bumper cars in GT Sport, the lower SR grade should allow them to do that with other like minded drivers even if that type of driving has no place in eSports or SR S.

 

[Groundfish]

You know I’ve noticed that at A S the pens are very harsh when there’s contact with b s.
So, I lost my temper one race and dropped from 99 to sr b with two pens.
One 2 second and one 5.5 second. With some sr down also on the race b this week.
At the time I didn’t think it would drop me that far.
That’s only the second time I’ve lost my temper in 300 races.
If the game based it on my sr history I could have gone right back in next race and wreaked havoc on the guys I was angry with.
With the way it is now I was unable to do that.
So, I think maybe a better solution would be to add an s plus category which is somehow time weighted so you get to 99 and do well over time and you get the privilege of running s plus. Sr loss beyond a certain point in the s plus would mean you have to reset and perform in s rooms over time to requalify. Not just get to 99 but STAY at 99 over a period of time. Like over several separate events or something.
Make it so that the grid will not have adders (non s plus participants)
They need a way to reward those who show ability to be safe imo.
But no system can prevent racers losing their temper.
Dr to me is far less important.
It took me 2 race c and I am back to 87 sr but have always been 99 so I may need to do one more c race.

 

[O604]

Just thinking. Since they say it's a "no contact sport" in the etiquette video, why can't they simply keep track of each driver and the number of times that driver makes contact with other drivers?

Statistically in 100 races you should be able to calculate the risk factor of a driver by the number of times they have made contact. Fault aside, consequence aside, accidental or otherwise.

I stop trusting the penalty system a while back and have been more selective in choosing races and driving more careful for a few months. I estimate about 80 out of my last 100 races were contact free. I've probably made contact with a car a little over 20 times in the last 100 races, mostly door-to-door or bumped from the back. Fault aside, around 10 of those times the contact was of consequence.

Using this calculation this would put me around 80-90. Maintaining this rate would be challenging. To raise this, I'd have to be even more contact free.

Instead of SR. It may be better to have a frequency of contact stat which would be an indicator of how aggressive a driver is.

 

[Dmac72]

I’m still sticking with the zero contact approach. If a player cannot gain any reward in the way of credits or other prizes/awards from contact then the risk/reward calculation for every move changes. Pretty soon the races are cleaner.

 

[AUTISTICBOYX]

@GT_Alex74 I wonder how Momoz is not permanently banned from online yet.

 

[Groundfish]

The problem with the zero contact approach is that then no one races. It’s a qualifying contest, not to mention irl racing has a lot of incidents.
Really, it seems for people who find sport mode too intense that running a lobby is the best option.
I personally really like sport mode. Quick unscheduled pickup racing, there’s always people to race.
I just think that the highest sr should be not so easy to game. I really think they need to factor in performance over time.
The other thing is you know going in a sprint is a sprint like race b this week....
It sure doesn’t make it easier to stomach com8ng out on the short end of the stick though.
I really think also that a time limit for qualifying for dailies should be implemented.
Maybe each player gets two ten minute sessions per week, plus you have to race the car you qualified in...

 

[GT_Alex74]

@AUTISTICBOYX I heard he actually got banned one or two days ago. I have no way to verify that statement though. But he's been seen using other accounts since then, one of which created very recently sporting a tag from a team he's not a part of...

 

[O604]

To clarify my post earlier. I don't necessarily think drivers need to aim to be 100% contact free. Stuff happens. Just think if you count the number of contacts over 100 races, that gives a somewhat accurate read on a driver's aggressiveness.

For example, call it a Contact Ratio. Lets say all the cars around you have a low contact ratio but one car behind you has an unusually high contact ratio. You would know who to watch for. It would be a indicator of aggressiveness. Not necessarily speed or ability.

 

[Dmac72]

The problem with the zero contact approach is that then no one races. It’s a qualifying contest, not to mention irl racing has a lot of incidents.
Really, it seems for people who find sport mode too intense that running a lobby is the best option.
I personally really like sport mode. Quick unscheduled pickup racing, there’s always people to race.
I just think that the highest sr should be not so easy to game. I really think they need to factor in performance over time.
The other thing is you know going in a sprint is a sprint like race b this week....
It sure doesn’t make it easier to stomach com8ng out on the short end of the stick though.
I really think also that a time limit for qualifying for dailies should be implemented.
Maybe each player gets two ten minute sessions per week, plus you have to race the car you qualified in...

Non contact doesn’t mean no racing, it means race cleanly without hitting others. Just watching Le Mans today would show that is entirely possible and the consequences of contact are severe.
I’m all for intense racing, but someone punting you off in the esses at Suzuka is not intense, it’s not even racing.
The If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen approach is fine. I don’t race in sport mode because of that but given it is close to impossible to correctly apportion blame in every instance then from my point of view I would rather see a system where it was not actually possible to win by running someone off the track at the Ford chicane.
I’ll take a clean 7th over a dirty win any day.
For a point of reference as to what happens when you try to push your way through in GT racing, google Marcel Fassler and see how he got on at the Porsche curves. Minimal contact but out of the race.

Racing in your qualifying car should have been a no brainer from day 1.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Non contact doesn’t mean no racing, it means race cleanly without hitting others. Just watching Le Mans today would show that is entirely possible and the consequences of contact are severe.
I’m all for intense racing, but someone punting you off in the esses at Suzuka is not intense, it’s not even racing.
The If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen approach is fine. I don’t race in sport mode because of that but given it is close to impossible to correctly apportion blame in every instance then from my point of view I would rather see a system where it was not actually possible to win by running someone off the track at the Ford chicane.

There have been quite a few people pass through just this forum that have quit racing Sport Mode because of the amount of punting, dirty driving and an indiscriminate penalty system that gets penalties wrong just as much or more than it gets the infractions right.

In my opinion as long as the Sport mode remains a free for all favoring drivers knocking you out of the way, punting you off the track and actually penalizing as often as not the victim of these dirty and overly aggressive racers the sport mode numbers will continue to decline.

It, the problems can be fixed or greatly improved fairly easily, the systems mostly are already in place not just correctly implemented currently.

 

[Groundfish]

Non contact doesn’t mean no racing, it means race cleanly without hitting others. Just watching Le Mans today would show that is entirely possible and the consequences of contact are severe.
I’m all for intense racing, but someone punting you off in the esses at Suzuka is not intense, it’s not even racing.
The If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen approach is fine. I don’t race in sport mode because of that but given it is close to impossible to correctly apportion blame in every instance then from my point of view I would rather see a system where it was not actually possible to win by running someone off the track at the Ford chicane.
I’ll take a clean 7th over a dirty win any day.
For a point of reference as to what happens when you try to push your way through in GT racing, google Marcel Fassler and see how he got on at the Porsche curves. Minimal contact but out of the race.

Racing in your qualifying car should have been a no brainer from day 1.

Yes, my stats reflect the fact that we agree. You are correct. I could post tons of video of great racing I have had in sport mode and continue to have.
The times you run into problems though can be very upsetting. There’s tons of fun racing to be had, and it gets more cutthroat the higher you go.
I find it kinda addictive.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

and it gets more cutthroat the higher you go.

And as long as the DR rankings are computed strictly on finishing position alone rather than having incidents such as contact with other cars, running off the track or any type of failure to maintain control of your vehicle also have a large effect on those same DR rankings you can pretty much be assured the cutthroat type behavior will continue.

Make those contact and out of control incidents have a large effect on finishing points collected then you will see those overly aggressive behaviors change.

 

[KepleroGT]

And here is me exploiting the system to hunt down a dirty driver

Man that was so funny to look at, he got what he deserved!

 

[Lazybike]

I lost 40 SR in 3 FIA races last night...I suspect Momoz isn't the only one exploiting the penalty system

 

[Dmac72]

Yes, my stats reflect the fact that we agree. You are correct. I could post tons of video of great racing I have had in sport mode and continue to have.
The times you run into problems though can be very upsetting. There’s tons of fun racing to be had, and it gets more cutthroat the higher you go.
I find it kinda addictive.

I think we disagree in a fairly fundamental way in that you don’t obejct to contact but I do. As you say, in real life facing there are incidents. In stock car, DTM, touring cars I would agree.
Not so much in GT or open wheel racing. The risk is too high.
I absolutely think if you cannot get past cleanly then you don’t pass. Likewise if you cannot defend cleanly then don’t defend.
GT used to promote itself as the real racing sim, but it is meant to be GT racing not bumper cars.
In fact I would suggest the exact opposite of your suggestion and say that private lobby races should be where the no holds barred racing should be and sport mode should be, well, I guess sporting would be the word.
Yes, race B is a sprint. The rules are still the same though. There is a difference between pace and racecraft. The current system favours pace over craft by allowing you to barge past others.
As I have said before, this is why I have passed on sport mode for now.
The DR and SR rankings are of no interest to me beyond matchmaking drivers of similar levels. Any point accumulation method will always put those who play more frequently higher up the rankings and I will be more likely to race once or twice a week than for the several hours each day that some do. So sr or dr up or down makes no difference to my experience.
Ultimately I would like clean, close, competitive racing. Be it a 1 hour or 3 lap event.

 

[Groundfish]

I think we disagree in a fairly fundamental way in that you don’t obejct to contact but I do. As you say, in real life facing there are incidents. In stock car, DTM, touring cars I would agree.
Not so much in GT or open wheel racing. The risk is too high.
I absolutely think if you cannot get past cleanly then you don’t pass. Likewise if you cannot defend cleanly then don’t defend.
GT used to promote itself as the real racing sim, but it is meant to be GT racing not bumper cars.
In fact I would suggest the exact opposite of your suggestion and say that private lobby races should be where the no holds barred racing should be and sport mode should be, well, I guess sporting would be the word.
Yes, race B is a sprint. The rules are still the same though. There is a difference between pace and racecraft. The current system favours pace over craft by allowing you to barge past others.
As I have said before, this is why I have passed on sport mode for now.
The DR and SR rankings are of no interest to me beyond matchmaking drivers of similar levels. Any point accumulation method will always put those who play more frequently higher up the rankings and I will be more likely to race once or twice a week than for the several hours each day that some do. So sr or dr up or down makes no difference to my experience.
Ultimately I would like clean, close, competitive racing. Be it a 1 hour or 3 lap event.

I absolutely agree regarding overtaking and contact.
I think maybe they have stiffened up sr loss and gain with last update I am not sure. The on,y real difference between us is I play in sport mode and you don’t.
In a game, players don’t like to lose. My dr could be much higher, but like yourself I don’t believe in passing by contact. I don’t believe in contact.
But, in game people sometimes will try to take advantage of the lack of fear of death and dive bomb at times.
For example just last night I was on b race and a fella was having a bit of a hard time in the esses. I slowed so that I wouldn’t hit him and I was punted and passed by like six cars.
Then in a c race (only raced there twice prior so had racing line on) a player was behind getting close at times, but it was clear lacked pace for a clean pass and divebombed in and shoved me off twice in the same corner on different laps.
I’ve said it before, but in my experience gamers in general lack ethics and sportsmanship across all platforms and games. It’s the way people are. Cheating seems common.
That doesn’t mean it’s not a ton of fun though. I enjoy the challenge myself.
There’s times when a person just loses their temper when getting bent over, and for myself at those times I will use contact yes to
Exact revenge.

 

[05XR8]

This all basically comes down to, know who you're racing. When I see that grid and there ar e a couple familiar players, I know which ones I can 100% guarantee I'll have a clean race with. The downside being, it's a complete lottery who I'll be racing with each hour.