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

[fisheye]

Now I've been doing this a couple of weeks I know that I'm now an expert so here's how it should be done.
The penalty system is too lax, it need to be so bad that any bump or off gives you such a bad penalty that you'll never do anything wrong again. See the main problem is peoples attitudes, just go watch any YT guy who claims to be super fair and thinks that bad drivers should be banned and you can nearly guarantee that they will do something questionable, but say they think it was OK "put a comment if you think I was wrong".
It's supposed to be a non contact sport, so if there is contact someone is to blame and honestly there is no way any algorithm can get blame right every time so the only way to make the drivers drive better is to harshly penalise everyone involved every time. Obviously you'd relax it a bit as you get to the worse drivers and everyone needs to have somewhere to start.
Also it needs to be harder to gain SR, I can tank mine because of bad drivers and then I stupidly go for revenge (which there is never any excuse for) yet drive a couple of race C's and get it back to A easily and even S if you get lucky. There is no incentive in this game to protect your SR rating to the detriment of your DR. Yes OK too bad and you could be reset, but that only applies to A's and above so what do most people who play this game care about that one?

The other solution is to just bin it and have a free for all, but would we really notice the difference?

I agree with everything you said. I'm guilty of participating in a few wreckfests myself... started by absolute cheaters that have the ability to drive clean but they don't because someone passed them. I gave up on DR and only go out once in a while for a fun race. I back out of any race that starts to go bad. There should be a 4th Daily Race that has no effect on your DR/SR but shows all the penalties of a normal race.

I will say I support a harsh system. I support shared fault too. So, when I was complaining about the system above I was playing below my true DR, starting races without qualifying. Then of course I kept falling into the wretched hive of villainy that is all SR below A lol.
However for maybe 7-10 days now I played more seriously. I put in qualifying times, and returned my driving to “normal” ie no arcade moves-staying clean.
Guess what the experience has been great.
An occasional encounter or incident, but at 99 sr it’s been quite clean.
I’ve enjoyed it a lot, actually. I think the current system discourages people who are fast from starting without qualifying and trying to weave their way through a field of players who are far far slower, and that’s good imo.
I’m not saying wow check out this perfect system. Shared fault is the way to go.
I’d say also for E D C B and lower A dr it shouldn’t be a problem. You only need B sr at B dr C for C.
Even low A you only need A.
I’m for an extremely strict shared fault system, but this existing one isn’t as bad as the complaints make it out to be if you can race the 99 rooms.
On NA people overdrive and below 35-40k really the majority don’t have much racecraft (NOT ALL THE MAJORITY)
so there’s bound to be more troubles.
Also it’s a thing, there’s a point where you get fast enough and the racing line starts getting way more important but below a certain point on DR cars can be all over no ones near the racing line or the limit so no system can work within that chaos.
After spending some time honestly racing, staying 99, for me, it’s been pretty clean, despite what you read here. I’ve driven clean, gained a ton of dr and stayed 99 the whole time. It’s not impossible.

I agree,
YT guy.

 

[Kermit_2142]

Yes but they are DR B and you are DR A and there was contact as you overtook them so you were naughty and should know better.

I just love this because you drove slightly off the track (limits are a bit odd here I think) it gave you a "forcing another car off the track" penalty instead of a "contact with another car" penalty that it would normally give, such attention to detail. That fact that you can get a penalty for forcing yourself off the track just sums up this system entirely. 🤬

Never mind the overtaking under yellow flags though (No offence @GOTMAXPOWER).

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

Never mind the overtaking under yellow flags though (No offence @GOTMAXPOWER).

There were no marshals on the track, they had the wrong flags out

 

[ASH32]

Never mind the overtaking under yellow flags though (No offence @GOTMAXPOWER).

Yes you only seem to get a penalty for "overtaking under the yellow flags" when the game carries out a "reset to track" on one or more of the cars that caused the flag, usually right next to you or on top of you.

The rest of the time, like in this clip, it gets ignored for some reason.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Now I've been doing this a couple of weeks I know that I'm now an expert so here's how it should be done.
The penalty system is too lax, it need to be so bad that any bump or off gives you such a bad penalty that you'll never do anything wrong again. See the main problem is peoples attitudes, just go watch any YT guy who claims to be super fair and thinks that bad drivers should be banned and you can nearly guarantee that they will do something questionable, but say they think it was OK "put a comment if you think I was wrong".
It's supposed to be a non contact sport, so if there is contact someone is to blame and honestly there is no way any algorithm can get blame right every time so the only way to make the drivers drive better is to harshly penalise everyone involved every time. Obviously you'd relax it a bit as you get to the worse drivers and everyone needs to have somewhere to start.
Also it needs to be harder to gain SR, I can tank mine because of bad drivers and then I stupidly go for revenge (which there is never any excuse for) yet drive a couple of race C's and get it back to A easily and even S if you get lucky. There is no incentive in this game to protect your SR rating to the detriment of your DR. Yes OK too bad and you could be reset, but that only applies to A's and above so what do most people who play this game care about that one?

The other solution is to just bin it and have a free for all, but would we really notice the difference?

Oh we noticed the difference. I still have a clip from when it was a free for all.

It was a fun week though.

The solution is to throw away the current system, penalize any contact with shared fault penalties and base SR on (nr of contacts / last 10 hours driving time)

 

[Kermit_2142]

I think a lot of people will regret shared fault if they implement it. Careful what you wish for.

 

[Norrin Radd]

I think a lot of people will regret shared fault if they implement it. Careful what you wish for.

Don't think they will as very quickly you'll get a situation where people willing to bump won't get to play with those who play nice. It's not like we would want 1 accident to destroy your rating. Everyone makes mistakes, but the system as is doesn't discourage the odd bump here or there, because you'll get away with it often enough and even if caught there is no real downside. You can have several bumps in a race and still improve your SR and that's just wrong.

 

[Kermit_2142]

Don't think they will as very quickly you'll get a situation where people willing to bump won't get to play with those who play nice. It's not like we would want 1 accident to destroy your rating. Everyone makes mistakes, but the system as is doesn't discourage the odd bump here or there, because you'll get away with it often enough and even if caught there is no real downside. You can have several bumps in a race and still improve your SR and that's just wrong.

If your having a race long battle with a “bumpy” driver you will get dragged down with them. Shared fault doesn’t make sense unless the contact is 50/50.

 

[Groundfish]

@Kermit_2142
You don’t think over time though the bumpy drivers would get sorted?
Like a contacts per race/lap long term average...Jmo but that’d match clean to clean.

 

[Kermit_2142]

@Kermit_2142
You don’t think over time though the bumpy drivers would get sorted?
Like a contacts per race/lap long term average...Jmo but that’d match clean to clean.

Very doubtful, unless they change the speed at which you can gain SR people will be all over as they have been.
Penalties and SR seem to be working ok for me lately, not counting a random 4s but 22 races out of 24 have seen no silly penalties. SR B is pretty dirty but A and S have been as clean as you can really expect in low DR B. I can’t really fault it, you will never get pens accurate 100% that’s why I’d rather run without it but keep a strict SR system.

 

[Norrin Radd]

If your having a race long battle with a “bumpy” driver you will get dragged down with them. Shared fault doesn’t make sense unless the contact is 50/50.

So you wouldn't just back off so the idiot didn't ruin your stats? Or are you thinking of being the idiot?
See if you bump with him you'll both drop, but he'll drop anyway if that's his behaviour why drop with him?

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

@Kermit_2142
You don’t think over time though the bumpy drivers would get sorted?
Like a contacts per race/lap long term average...Jmo but that’d match clean to clean.

I think contacts per lap is too simple. You might have 5 small non-consequential touches a race because you're starting in the middle of the grid, that doesn't make you dirtier than somebody who hits anybody around them but starts 99% of races on pole.

So you wouldn't just back off so the idiot didn't ruin your stats? Or are you thinking of being the idiot?
See if you bump with him you'll both drop, but he'll drop anyway if that's his behaviour why drop with him?

If somebody doesn't like you and knows they can give you a DR reset by driving at your car slowing down will do nothing, you have to race for every position.

 

[Kermit_2142]

So you wouldn't just back off so the idiot didn't ruin your stats? Or are you thinking of being the idiot?
See if you bump with him you'll both drop, but he'll drop anyway if that's his behaviour why drop with him?

But that’s how the system is now, it’s just it’s easy to get back up to 99sr. Unless they slow the rate at which you increase Sr it makes no difference how harsh it is except it further jumbles everyone up.
Image recently raced from E to S (99) SR and can confirm 100% it becomes cleaner as you increase your SR. In that respect the SR system is working correctly.
Maybe they should increase the SR limit to 200 like they did with DR to enable even more clean driving than there is currently.

 

[Groundfish]

unless they change the speed at which you can gain SR people will be all over as they have been

I’d want the SR to take longer to gain as well as lose.
It doesn’t make sense to me you could do 100 clean races then one bad now your rating goes to say B sr.
In the event you get that bad race with lots of contacts and penalties, maybe against a nemesis player or whatever...My solution in that case is not immediately deranking the offenders and matching them down.
My solution would be 1 forfeit their qual-disable further qualifying and enforce a start grid penalty on them next race.
So let’s say you get nasty 1 race, now you might be demoted from 99 to B if things get heated.
I’m saying next race you’d be matched same lobby but starting say 15 seconds back-from last since your qual was forfeited.
I dunno it’s just a theory I’m floating out there.

I think contacts per lap is too simple. You might have 5 small non-consequential touches a race because you're starting in the middle of the grid, that doesn't make you dirtier than somebody who hits anybody around them but starts 99% of races on pole

Right, I think you’d need a major minor, or anyways contact severity needs to have an impact.
My theory is not to have sr swing so rapidly, the issue I see is that let’s say like for yourself you are racing a top split FIA and someone just loses his marbles and goes massively dirty...
In my theory with that one bad race you did not suddenly become a bad driver.
Really neither did the guy or gal who lost their temper, the problem is you don’t wanna match them right back top of grid next slot, and what happens now they just get free win in a lower lobby recovers sr and are free to come back and fight you again.
That’s the crux of it imo, I’m just floating ideas of how to deal with this.
I think SR being a LONG TERM measure makes more sense, just not sure how it could all work....

All this said, I do agree with you @Kermit_2142 my races have been very clean lately.
It seems right now the system is adaptive in some way where it can trigger on you if you start going bad with sr downs then it will blame you more, conversely stay clean for 4-5 races and it seems to ease up.
Jmo it behaves as though it’s adaptive right now...

 

[NSP525]

Having just earned my first DR reset to 15k I figured this is this the place to come haha. I was knocking on the door of 60k DR when I just had one of those races last night at Laguna. Got killed at T1 L1 and then a bumpy and rubbing race from there on out, just hard aggressive racing. Not every overtake was on but when in Rome.... Needless to say my SR did not survive haha. Was surprised one race could reset you but this one was bad for door banging.

Read some earlier posts mentioning the likelihood of the higher rated player getting the penalty in a incident and this is literally what I felt last night in this race. Every time I bump draft someone on acceleration or slightly from behind on brakes, penalty. Reverse the situation and the game thinks I'm brake checking people while getting hit/tapped into corners and still gives me a penalty.

I don't care too much really but it's not really fun repairing my DR in uncompetitive lobbies for the next bit either. I just want hard, fair and clean racing, far too often in this game people go for moves that just aren't there, or they still miss the apex when I give it to them and make contact. Despite the best efforts of the rating and penalty system there will always be a large difference in the way people view and execute their version of clean and fair racing.

 

[Groundfish]

I don't care too much really but it's not really fun repairing my DR in uncompetitive lobbies for the next bit either. I just want hard, fair and clean racing, far too often in this game people go for moves that just aren't there, or they still miss the apex when I give it to them and make contact.

See I think you would follow me when I say I’ve developed my style of racing for GTS around the idea that you have to protect people from themselves in this game.
I don’t care either, but if I race aggressive every race I will be in B sr perpetually fighting people all the time.
Running side by side or making moves to the outside I will only do once in a blue moon.
I think it’s online racing in general across the genre that most drivers don’t have a clear conception of corner rights, they always blame the other guy, you have sim streamers bless them but many are just as confused as the average guy.
The result for me is philosophical. Plan and practice every time to race in this environment.
Take for example the VGT VW GTI, I love driving it and it’s very fast in gr3, but I can’t use it online, people hit it treat it like crap.
I am like you with my second acct, got to 55k reset myself-I did it on purpose. Raced with the B B for a while, tired of it, much better to get around 40k 99.
People will always go for gaps, get excited too much in the moment and be unable to hold their line, less so above 40k by far but still.
My thing is I won’t keep racing hard in top lobbies once I take the hit on SR.
I really think the system locks onto you and starts blaming you for everything until you stay clean long enough.
Imo if you take sr hits you must just back off, but it’s Laguna Seca in your case so you can be pretty well screwed there.
Hard to back off when guys in top lobbies are so aggressive.
For me I think this games awesome, I just dislike unlimited qualifying time, because it takes up my time to get positioned on the grid right...I dislike a lot of the fast guys style but I’m getting pretty good with mine to neutralize them. You gotta drive one step ahead and practice the tighter lines imo. It’s not the way I’d race hard for real but it’s an adaptation for online.
You gotta protect these people from themselves imo.
I’m really thinking now I’m going to play but drive the car I like regardless and I’m not looking to game every arcade way possible to extract every tenth. Once you do that it’s lonely anyways.
I play it as a simulation going forward.
Regardless of result it’s more fun.
One second to top ten even 1-2 is fine pace for me driving realistically...
Cheers

 

[NSP525]

I love running close with people that can do it but the race craft and respect has to be there, I know when I see certain guys in a lobby ahead of me at the front that it's going to be a good close race usually. At the same time there are as many quick guys that will go into races and pretend they're the only car on the track.

 

[Groundfish]

I love running close with people that can do it but the race craft and respect has to be there, I know when I see certain guys in a lobby ahead of me at the front that it's going to be a good close race usually. At the same time there are as many quick guys that will go into races and pretend they're the only car on the track.

Right which is why I always practice and race the way I do. If they are behind control what they can do. Control where they overtake if that’s inevitable.
It’s for my own sr that I race like this.
I can tell you this very few on NA are prepared to deal with it.
I’m rollin big iron full default tcs, and my line is very hard to pass. I never block but I will defend my inside all day.
I never disrupt a cars run on me but they’ll have to take it long way round.
If they get position in a corner they’ll have space.
If they arcade they get arcade. But...
I do it once. So to me let’s say you got a guy driving like a jerk. I first decide, am I going to do something. If yes, I’m going to take one action which ruins their race best I can. Either nuke or be Switzerland lol. Yes or No...
Overall tho, for me I get to a point DR where I end up facing the people who know every arcade trick to get time ever way to give penalties etc etc etc.
To me I won’t go there. I will do what’s most realistic and immersive to me. I don’t want arcade get points at all costs etc. There’s just no point to getting faster past a certain point because it’s less fun.
I wanna keep things fun. That’s why I rolled in Mustang and M4 last week.
Sure I could use TT but it’s no fun. If points were my goal tho I would have used it and I be 55-60k rn.
That’s not what’s fun for me tho...

 

[NSP525]

I'm sure it's been brought up before but damage may not be a bad idea for sport mode, there needs to be better deterent from contact besides penalties. I'm sure GTS is one of the more limited simcades out there anyways for the physics that would've been needed to make this happen anyways. Saw you mentioned grid penalties also, could be an interesting idea.

 

[Kermit_2142]

I'm sure it's been brought up before but damage may not be a bad idea for sport mode, there needs to be better deterent from contact besides penalties. I'm sure GTS is one of the more limited simcades out there anyways for the physics that would've been needed to make this happen anyways. Saw you mentioned grid penalties also, could be an interesting idea.

Damage was in originally and everyone hated it.

 

[NSP525]

Damage was in originally and everyone hated it.

Maybe they should have stuck with it or have a ranked mode with and without it maybe.

 

[BaareCZ]

 

[Norrin Radd]

I'm sure it's been brought up before but damage may not be a bad idea for sport mode, there needs to be better deterent from contact besides penalties. I'm sure GTS is one of the more limited simcades out there anyways for the physics that would've been needed to make this happen anyways. Saw you mentioned grid penalties also, could be an interesting idea.

Damage was in originally and everyone hated it.

Damage sounds like a great idea to me, before my time but it seemed similar, but simpler than the system used in TOCA. Now that was a game that got penalties right, even though there was no online.....well basically no online anything. Damage was done to engine, drivechain and steering, think aerodynamics as well, so you had the choice of pitting and fixing some or all of the damage or running slower. Now something along these lines would really encourage fair play

 

[Timm Sheehan]

Damage sounds like a great idea to me, before my time but it seemed similar, but simpler than the system used in TOCA. Now that was a game that got penalties right, even though there was no online.....well basically no online anything. Damage was done to engine, drivechain and steering, think aerodynamics as well, so you had the choice of pitting and fixing some or all of the damage or running slower. Now something along these lines would really encourage fair play

I used to believe damage was the answer like your suggesting but ran a couple races with friends with maximum damage enabled . . . loved it until I rear ended someone accidentally and realized that it ruined their lap, I escaped with minimum damage (and could keep running - they could not). Maximum damage enabled means reduced car operation (depending on the damage sustained) and pit stops to repair the damage - great idea and might solve the wreckfest problem BUT did you see the part of ruining their lap?

Example: So we are racing and I learn to slide you off the track (using the side of me car so I don't get much damage). You are pushed off into a wall or another car and get aero/engine damage, off to the pits you are going to waste 20-30 seconds (pit time) for repairs BUT that is not including the reduced time it takes to get back to the pits (remember the engine damage cuts your speed down). Basically your race is ruined and mine is going along good enough to finish (or at the very least run until my next scheduled pit stop).

Change your mind yet? GTS is a game and bad racers learn how to "game" the system. It won't take them long to figure out how to inflict maximum damage while receiving little to none.

Try this, run a custom race with maximum damage turned on - then punt another racer off the track and brake check another. Doing this really showed me that maximum damage works BUT can be manipulated or "gamed" very easily.

Enjoy your racing (even with the crazy drivers out there)!

 

[Norrin Radd]

I used to believe damage was the answer like your suggesting but ran a couple races with friends with maximum damage enabled . . . loved it until I rear ended someone accidentally and realized that it ruined their lap, I escaped with minimum damage (and could keep running - they could not). Maximum damage enabled means reduced car operation (depending on the damage sustained) and pit stops to repair the damage - great idea and might solve the wreckfest problem BUT did you see the part of ruining their lap?

Example: So we are racing and I learn to slide you off the track (using the side of me car so I don't get much damage). You are pushed off into a wall or another car and get aero/engine damage, off to the pits you are going to waste 20-30 seconds (pit time) for repairs BUT that is not including the reduced time it takes to get back to the pits (remember the engine damage cuts your speed down). Basically your race is ruined and mine is going along good enough to finish (or at the very least run until my next scheduled pit stop).

Change your mind yet? GTS is a game and bad racers learn how to "game" the system. It won't take them long to figure out how to inflict maximum damage while receiving little to none.

Try this, run a custom race with maximum damage turned on - then punt another racer off the track and brake check another. Doing this really showed me that maximum damage works BUT can be manipulated or "gamed" very easily.

Enjoy your racing (even with the crazy drivers out there)!

I get what your saying and have to agree to an extent. The thing is it doesn't have to be that way in TOCA (OK it was years ago and my memory ain't perfect so I might make some mistakes) it was all percentages, your steering was damaged say 5% but a light bump it could be higher or lower, but in general 1 crash (unless major) wouldn't necessarily slow you down, but constant bumping would. Also you wouldn't need to do this across the board. Only in FIA and/or only for S rated drivers, and/or the system could be cranked so a 5% bump for an S would just be 1% for a D.
Obviously this would have to be done in conjunction with a better SR system, I just have a race where I was rammed off the track twice by the same guy and he didn't get a penalty, yet some idiot overshoots the corner barely touches my paint and I get 4 secs. Now if everyone always lost SR in any contact and it was harder to get your rating back people would end up being split better. It would be harder for an S rated driver to actually be a total asshole because 1 race acting like that would keep him out for ages. A system could also be put in that ignored all points lost due to a really bad player, say someone drops over 10 points he would pick up the points he caused to other drivers.

OK I see problems with this, but the system as is doesn't do anything really. You can drive terribly, spoil several peoples race and be knocked out of S for 2 or 3 games, equally you can be minding your own business and lose loads of points for doing nothing wrong.

Unfortunately all speculation is just that, the only way to know if something would work is to try it and any changes are really hard to implement because THEY don't want to upset US too much that we stop playing. So seeing what's wrong is easy, but fixing it is really very hard and I'm glad it's not my job.

 

[Kermit_2142]

Like I said @Norrin Radd, damage used to be on in sport mode, the majority hated it and then PD to removed it.

Light damage is still on in FIA.

 

[Tea_Leaves]

Looking back, I'm glad PD removed damage. It simulated realism but no fun having your race ended by someone who missed their turn 1 braking point. Minor damage was also enough to affect handling and cut engine power. People quit or ended up being far apart from each other based on how severe their car's damage was.

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

Can somebody explain this one? Surely they're both penalties or both fine

 

[Norrin Radd]

Can somebody explain this one? Surely they're both penalties or both fine

It's usually a case of who you are not what you do. In 2 races today I got 5 penalties for other peoples mistakes, it makes you want to drive badly as you'll do better and probably get less penalties.

 

[Kermit_2142]

Can somebody explain this one? Surely they're both penalties or both fine

I’m starting to believe it’s to do with rank as others have said before. It’s the only thing that would make sense.

edit: His contact on you, he was ahead. Your contact on him, he is also ahead. Could be that?