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

[Anthony Exton]

Actually no doubt the penalty system has some glaring issues that need to be rectified.

But many are blaming the penalty system when actually it is the ranking and matching systems that are not working as intended and continue to put dirty and/or less skilled racers in the same races with better and /or cleaner drivers together causing many of the issues being complained about.

No penalty system is going to change a persons habits that just enjoys a bulldozer racing style and asking or expecting the penalty system to do that job and get such a person to race clean is just not a reasonable request.

But the ranking system IF implemented correctly can and should be doing the job of separating the drivers by both skill and pace as well as SR which includes fewer racing incidents resulting in cleaner races.

There is blame but distribute the blame where it belongs, all the problems are not as a result of a broken penalty system only by a long shot.
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I can see what your saying but as it is now the penalty system is doing the ranking and placing drivers in the wrong areas . If the game was more of a simulator then it could determine which drivers should be placed together

 

[Outspacer]

I can see what your saying but as it is now the penalty system is doing the ranking and placing drivers in the wrong areas .

A fair point, one that I've been making for some time now: the three systems should work independently, and the rankings would be better for it. I don't think what @VFOURMAX1 said there goes against that, he's just not going into what needs to be done to improve the SR and DR rankings in that post (it's been discussed before). Certainly the current situation - penalty leading to SR loss leading to possible DR reset - is making SR and DR ratings far less valid, but SR in particular has quite serious flaws of its own even without that interference.

That isn't to say that SR loss shouldn't happen when a penalty is given, but that it should be done purely with the goal of setting appropriate SR rankings for the players involved (for long term use and future matchmaking), not as punishment. Penalties (i.e. time penalties) have a different goal - as an immediate redress for a wrong, within the race.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

A fair point, one that I've been making for some time now: the three systems should work independently, and the rankings would be better for it. I don't think what @VFOURMAX1 said there goes against that, he's just not going into what needs to be done to improve the SR and DR rankings in that post (it's been discussed before). Certainly the current situation - penalty leading to SR loss leading to possible DR reset - is making SR and DR ratings far less valid, but SR in particular has quite serious flaws of its own even without that interference.

That isn't to say that SR loss shouldn't happen when a penalty is given, but that it should be done purely with the goal of setting appropriate SR rankings for the players involved (for long term use and future matchmaking), not as punishment. Penalties (i.e. time penalties) have a different goal - as an immediate redress for a wrong, within the race.

All three systems need to do the job they SHOULD BE task to doing, DR should measure a persons pace and driving skill, SR should should measure and examine a persons ability of racing contact clean and control while running at such a race pace and the penalty system should be used as a deterrent or punishment for violating the racing rules and boundaries.

And yes I do think a penalty is warranted for exceeding the boundaries whether an advantage is gained or not. The penalty is a punishment for violating the rules whether your cutting the track or hitting the wall paid off for you time wise or not, and yes sometimes running wider than the tracks limits on the outside will still allow a racer to hold more momentum or speed into the net track section which could end up as an advantage 5 seconds later down the track.

If the SR and DR systems initially did their jobs in unison correctly in the matchmaking process then many of the issues that the penalty system is currently trying to manage would not even exist. But again the SR, DR and matchmaking is another entirely different 60 page thread on its own.

Until you start separating the racers that want clean no contact racing and those that think a bulldozer or rubbin is racing mentality into different race lobbies the clean racers will always be the ones hoping for "that" lobby. The bulldozer racers do not care, who they are trying to punt off the track is of no concern.

I do think adjustments to SR points should be a part of any on track incidents but only at such rates that show a trend or pattern to either be driving above ones head or starting to get too aggressive for the current SR ranking.

But that SR ranking should not be like a yoyo up and down constantly with the ranking fluctuating every few races.

Also DR ranking in my opinion should be fixed that once you reach a X level you remain at that X DR level. Punishing the lower actually slower guys with a fast racers reset and being put into their race lobbies for driving dirty or unsafe is plain BS.

There should be race lobbies with only DR A or B racers or whatever the rank in the same lobby with other like minded racers of the same SR C and D racers, they deserve each other!

It can be made to work but in honesty the system was at its best right at launch, every time its tweaked it still is not as good as it was then. Maybe the racers learned to game the system which made it look better at first than any other time, I really do not know.

But even from day one the SR and DR have never been implemented and used in setting the matchmaking correctly.

 

[Outspacer]

All three systems need to do the job they SHOULD BE task to doing, DR should measure a persons pace and driving skill, SR should should measure and examine a persons ability of racing contact clean and control while running at such a race pace and the penalty system should be used as a deterrent or punishment for violating the racing rules and boundaries.

And yes I do think a penalty is warranted for exceeding the boundaries whether an advantage is gained or not. The penalty is a punishment for violating the rules whether your cutting the track or hitting the wall paid off for you time wise or not, and yes sometimes running wider than the tracks limits on the outside will still allow a racer to hold more momentum or speed into the net track section which could end up as an advantage 5 seconds later down the track.

If the SR and DR systems initially did their jobs in unison correctly in the matchmaking process then many of the issues that the penalty system is currently trying to manage would not even exist. But again the SR, DR and matchmaking is another entirely different 60 page thread on its own.

Until you start separating the racers that want clean no contact racing and those that think a bulldozer or rubbin is racing mentality into different race lobbies the clean racers will always be the ones hoping for "that" lobby. The bulldozer racers do not care, who they are trying to punt off the track is of no concern.

I do think adjustments to SR points should be a part of any on track incidents but only at such rates that show a trend or pattern to either be driving above ones head or starting to get too aggressive for the current SR ranking.

But that SR ranking should not be like a yoyo up and down constantly with the ranking fluctuating every few races.

Also DR ranking in my opinion should be fixed that once you reach a X level you remain at that X DR level. Punishing the lower actually slower guys with a fast racers reset and being put into their race lobbies for driving dirty or unsafe is plain BS.

There should be race lobbies with only DR A or B racers or whatever the rank in the same lobby with other like minded racers of the same SR C and D racers, they deserve each other!

It can be made to work but in honesty the system was at its best right at launch, every time its tweaked it still is not as good as it was then. Maybe the racers learned to game the system which made it look better at first than any other time, I really do not know.

But even from day one the SR and DR have never been implemented and used in setting the matchmaking correctly.

I think we agree now even more than we did a year or so ago!

You've got me wondering how a DR ratchet might work, and it's tricky. The current method (but without the resets) is quite simple math and is (technically) balanced, a big plus point. I wouldn't want that to change that without some solid theory behind its replacement. What might work though is to derive a secondary DR score from the current one which would be used in matchmaking. Perhaps a filtered version would be enough? That would slow down the effect of any change in DR, up or down. It needn't have a huge effect on 'normal' DR movement, but it would severely reduce the effectiveness of sandbagging to lower DR level just by making it take longer.

That said, if DR resets didn't happen then it might not be needed anyway.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I think we agree now even more than we did a year or so ago!

You've got me wondering how a DR ratchet might work, and it's tricky. The current method (but without the resets) is quite simple math and is (technically) balanced, a big plus point. I wouldn't want that to change that without some solid theory behind its replacement. What might work though is to derive a secondary DR score from the current one which would be used in matchmaking. Perhaps a filtered version would be enough? That would slow down the effect of any change in DR, up or down. It needn't have a huge effect on 'normal' DR movement, but it would severely reduce the effectiveness of sandbagging to lower DR level just by making it take longer.

That said, if DR resets didn't happen then it might not be needed anyway.

To convert my idea into math:

Calculate avg lap time per player in a race minus the slowest and the fastest lap. (Except when there are only 2 laps)
After a race is done, order everyone who has done that race in that time slot on avg lap time.

You receive points from everyone below (slower than) you that has higher DR (and they lose those points to you)
You lose points to everyone above (faster than) you with lower DR (they get those points from you)

The amount of points exchanged depends on how many total players entered that time slot. Currently the maximum point gain/loss is 19*160, 3040 points for a 20 player race. Let's take 5000 as the max for a new system, 5000 points if you are the fastest yet somehow have the lowest DR of all. If only 100 people played in that time slot, players exchange 50 points. If a 1000 entered, they only exchange 5 points between each. Forget about DR difference, that was never very helpful and only made it very dangerous to get matched with much lower DR.

This way you can only gain points if your average pace is faster than someone with higher DR, and only lose points if those that beat your average pace have lower DR. It's a ranking system, not a grind where you can keep taking points from lower DR players like you do now.

It's still a zero sum game. Not participating keeps your 'score' the same. The more 'out of place' you are the more points you will exchange in total, yet when you are in the right spot you will exchange very little points.

To prevent sandbagging and the worst effects of getting disconnected, the game can use your best avg lap time recorded for that track plus 10% as a floor. So if your average pace once was 2:00, 2:12 will be the worst you will be charged with.

Subject to lots of balancing of course.

 

[Dmac72]

To convert my idea into math:

Calculate avg lap time per player in a race minus the slowest and the fastest lap. (Except when there are only 2 laps)
After a race is done, order everyone who has done that race in that time slot on avg lap time.

You receive points from everyone below (slower than) you that has higher DR (and they lose those points to you)
You lose points to everyone above (faster than) you with lower DR (they get those points from you)

The amount of points exchanged depends on how many total players entered that time slot. Currently the maximum point gain/loss is 19*160, 3040 points for a 20 player race. Let's take 5000 as the max for a new system, 5000 points if you are the fastest yet somehow have the lowest DR of all. If only 100 people played in that time slot, players exchange 50 points. If a 1000 entered, they only exchange 5 points between each. Forget about DR difference, that was never very helpful and only made it very dangerous to get matched with much lower DR.

This way you can only gain points if your average pace is faster than someone with higher DR, and only lose points if those that beat your average pace have lower DR. It's a ranking system, not a grind where you can keep taking points from lower DR players like you do now.

It's still a zero sum game. Not participating keeps your 'score' the same. The more 'out of place' you are the more points you will exchange in total, yet when you are in the right spot you will exchange very little points.

To prevent sandbagging and the worst effects of getting disconnected, the game can use your best avg lap time recorded for that track plus 10% as a floor. So if your average pace once was 2:00, 2:12 will be the worst you will be charged with.

Subject to lots of balancing of course.

How would that work, for example, when fuel saving in a 2 lap race on N24? Or when pitting in that event? Both of those scenarios would pull your pace down relative to your best or average for the track.
My own approach would be a points system from perhaps 5000 points for a win down to 0 for last place, with DR being your score over your last 20 races.

I would add that a clean race should also be a requirement of gaining DR points.
A simple change from a clean race bonus to instead having a dirty race deduction would adjust some mindsets.

 

[Outspacer]

To convert my idea into math:

Calculate avg lap time per player in a race minus the slowest and the fastest lap. (Except when there are only 2 laps)
After a race is done, order everyone who has done that race in that time slot on avg lap time.

You receive points from everyone below (slower than) you that has higher DR (and they lose those points to you)
You lose points to everyone above (faster than) you with lower DR (they get those points from you)

The amount of points exchanged depends on how many total players entered that time slot. Currently the maximum point gain/loss is 19*160, 3040 points for a 20 player race. Let's take 5000 as the max for a new system, 5000 points if you are the fastest yet somehow have the lowest DR of all. If only 100 people played in that time slot, players exchange 50 points. If a 1000 entered, they only exchange 5 points between each. Forget about DR difference, that was never very helpful and only made it very dangerous to get matched with much lower DR.

This way you can only gain points if your average pace is faster than someone with higher DR, and only lose points if those that beat your average pace have lower DR. It's a ranking system, not a grind where you can keep taking points from lower DR players like you do now.

It's still a zero sum game. Not participating keeps your 'score' the same. The more 'out of place' you are the more points you will exchange in total, yet when you are in the right spot you will exchange very little points.

To prevent sandbagging and the worst effects of getting disconnected, the game can use your best avg lap time recorded for that track plus 10% as a floor. So if your average pace once was 2:00, 2:12 will be the worst you will be charged with.

Subject to lots of balancing of course.

The thing is that although current DR calcs might have their flaws, I think they are actually fairly minor. The two biggest issues are the DR resets and the mis-matching caused by low player count. Resets could (and should) be removed entirely, and the matching could be improved - by allowing a wider spread of SR in a race and/or allowing races which aren't full. Also I suspect that PD's algorithm deliberately creates catch-the-rabbit races with low player count (perhaps to avoid unfilled races).

I think I get the idea behind using average lap times (excluding outliers), but doesn't then ranking them and doing a calc based on that rank spoil it?

The main criticism I have is of ignoring DR difference. Sure, that makes it risky in mis-matched races, but it is also what allows people's DR to get close to its appropriate value for them fairly quickly (and even then, that can be dozens of races). The damage to a high DR would be much less of a problem if the matching was better - both from losing less and from earning it back more quickly. You also mention the grinding of points from lower DR players, well, that's not profitable given the risk (reasonable, IMO). Your idea would leave the highest DR players with nothing at all to gain in most races, so, even though the risk of loss might be reduced, the risk/reward ratio is infinite - they would stop participating.

Regarding tuning and balancing, it has to be as said above - getting people to the right DR level is as important as staying at the right DR level. So I'm thinking that aiming for zero change when a race comes out as expected might not actually be as good as it sounds! A bit of errant change in DR could be a good thing to shuffle things up a bit.

Final counter is that we have evidence that DR works at least to a degree (in the absence of resets) - when I was examining races to work out the DR calc, they typically had both start and finish orders in roughly DR rank order.

 

[Dmac72]

The thing is that although current DR calcs might have their flaws, I think they are actually fairly minor. The two biggest issues are the DR resets and the mis-matching caused by low player count. Resets could (and should) be removed entirely, and the matching could be improved - by allowing a wider spread of SR in a race and/or allowing races which aren't full. Also I suspect that PD's algorithm deliberately creates catch-the-rabbit races with low player count (perhaps to avoid unfilled races).

I think I get the idea behind using average lap times (excluding outliers), but doesn't then ranking them and doing a calc based on that rank spoil it?

The main criticism I have is of ignoring DR difference. Sure, that makes it risky in mis-matched races, but it is also what allows people's DR to get close to it's appropriate value for them fairly quickly (and even then, that can be dozens of races). The damage to a high DR would be much less of a problem if the matching was better - both from losing less and from earning it back more quickly. You also mention the grinding of points from lower DR players, well, that's not profitable given the risk (reasonable, IMO). Your idea would leave high DR players with nothing at all to gain, so, even though the risk of loss might be reduced, the risk/reward ratio is infinite - they would stop participating.

Regarding tuning and balancing, it has to be as said above - getting people to the right DR level is as important as staying at the right DR level. So I'm thinking that aiming for zero change when a race comes out as expected might not actually be as good as it sounds! A bit of errant change in DR could be a good thing to shuffle things up a bit.

Final counter is that we have evidence that DR works at least to a degree (in the absence of resets) - when I was examining races to work out the DR calc, they typically had both start and finish orders in roughly DR rank order.

Scoring against average lap time changes the nature of some racing situations.
Imagine that due to carnage behind you you have a 20 second lead with 1 lap to go. The sensible approach is to ease off and reduce risk.
Was it Alain Prost who said his aim was to win each race at the slowest possible speed?

 

[Sven Jurgens]

How would that work, for example, when fuel saving in a 2 lap race on N24? Or when pitting in that event? Both of those scenarios would pull your pace down relative to your best or average for the track.
My own approach would be a points system from perhaps 5000 points for a win down to 0 for last place, with DR being your score over your last 20 races.

I would add that a clean race should also be a requirement of gaining DR points.
A simple change from a clean race bonus to instead having a dirty race deduction would adjust some mindsets.

Sorry, I meant best average for that combo, particular race that week. The problem is indeed what to do with the first race. You would need some algorithm to calculate what the game expects from you on any new combo. This is just to prevent sandbagging though and too major losses from disconnects.

Any penalties received during a race already bring your average lap time down, those left over at the finish can be deducted from your last lap time. A clean race should not be a requirement for DR, DR should reflect race pace regardless of how you drive. SR should be separate.

The thing is that although current DR calcs might have their flaws, I think they are actually fairly minor. The two biggest issues are the DR resets and the mis-matching caused by low player count. Resets could (and should) be removed entirely, and the matching could be improved - by allowing a wider spread of SR in a race and/or allowing races which aren't full. Also I suspect that PD's algorithm deliberately creates catch-the-rabbit races with low player count (perhaps to avoid unfilled races).

There's also the possibility to grind DR in the current system. I've done it a couple times on the Norschleife and Monza, do a ton of races with a good qualifying times and go all the way up to A+ without ever beating any A+ drivers. (At least not those that don't get punted off). It's not really a ranking system if you can keep retrying the same match to bank points.

DR resets are very wrong indeed. However PD doesn't create catch the rabbit races deliberately, it's a simple flaw in matchmaking. The SR range is indeed a bit too small for matching. It starts by gathering all players in the 90-99 range, orders them on DR and starts putting them in rooms, highest DR first. That leaves a half filled room at the bottom end of DR with D/S players. Next the system gathers players in the 80-89 range and first fills up the left over 90-99 room with the highest DR players in the 80-89 range. That's how you can get A+/S in front of a D/S room. Either the game should mix the left over 90-99 D/S players with all the 80-89 players or reshuffle the higher SR rooms so that 80-89 A+/S is added with the 90-99 A+/S players instead of with the left over 90-99 D/S players.

I think I get the idea behind using average lap times (excluding outliers), but doesn't then ranking them and doing a calc based on that rank spoil it?

The main criticism I have is of ignoring DR difference. Sure, that makes it risky in mis-matched races, but it is also what allows people's DR to get close to its appropriate value for them fairly quickly (and even then, that can be dozens of races). The damage to a high DR would be much less of a problem if the matching was better - both from losing less and from earning it back more quickly. You also mention the grinding of points from lower DR players, well, that's not profitable given the risk (reasonable, IMO). Your idea would leave the highest DR players with nothing at all to gain in most races, so, even though the risk of loss might be reduced, the risk/reward ratio is infinite - they would stop participating.

Regarding tuning and balancing, it has to be as said above - getting people to the right DR level is as important as staying at the right DR level. So I'm thinking that aiming for zero change when a race comes out as expected might not actually be as good as it sounds! A bit of errant change in DR could be a good thing to shuffle things up a bit.

Final counter is that we have evidence that DR works at least to a degree (in the absence of resets) - when I was examining races to work out the DR calc, they typically had both start and finish orders in roughly DR rank order.

Again DR is not a score. It's a ranking system. It makes sense not to get higher ranked if you can't beat higher ranked players. It would be better if DR was totally hidden, no way to 'work' for it. Matching will be better if DR reflects race pace, yet to do that it has to be much more stable than it is now. You should still move up fairly quickly, since you're pace will at first be much faster than a lot of people with higher DR. DR difference is still taken into account since when 1000 players enter a time slot and you're faster than 800 of them, say you start at DR.1, you stand to gain 4000 points for that race no matter where you finish.

Scoring against average lap time changes the nature of some racing situations.
Imagine that due to carnage behind you you have a 20 second lead with 1 lap to go. The sensible approach is to ease off and reduce risk.
Was it Alain Prost who said his aim was to win each race at the slowest possible speed?

Good point. It's a problem with matchmaking, you are not racing the right people when you get a 20 sec lead. Anyway since the outliers are ignored, slowing down for the last lap won't have any effect. Once DR better reflects pace those 20 sec leads should not happen anymore. SR needs to improve as well to keep the carnage drivers racing their own.

 

[Dorofint]

Yesterday I played the good old NFS Shift. The game awards points for aggression and precision. I think that's a very interesting approach that should be considered for GTS as well. DR and SR should continue to exist in an improved form. SR is about the same as the precision points. In addition, however, something like aggression points should be introduced. This should include things like the number of touches with other cars, even if they do not cause penalties or SR downs. Other things like zigzagging on the straight or directional changes in the braking phase could also be taken into account. It is in GTS quite possible to have many touches and yet to have a high SR. With the aggression points, the game could then distinguish the cautious drivers from the rubbing is racing faction. If they take that into account in matchmaking, it could significantly improve the quality of the races.

 

[Outspacer]

A clean race should not be a requirement for DR, DR should reflect race pace regardless of how you drive. SR should be separate.

Agreed.

There's also the possibility to grind DR in the current system. I've done it a couple times on the Norschleife and Monza, do a ton of races with a good qualifying times and go all the way up to A+ without ever beating any A+ drivers. (At least not those that don't get punted off). It's not really a ranking system if you can keep retrying the same match to bank points.

To be fair, you've just spiked into low A+ 3 times as SvennoJ with little more than the boost it gives when ranking up, and although it was a meteoric rise each time it took a few days - which for you is 100 races or so! (OK, OK, quite a few anyway, you average 14 a day). What if your true and fair DR level is well into A+? Then the system would be working correctly, would it not?

It's a valid point about people making the most of favourite combos, but I don't think it can be used to artificially boost someone's DR massively above where they would be if forced to run every track. It possibly doesn't help at all if their favourites happen to be the same as a lot of other player's favourites as well.

DR resets are very wrong indeed. However PD doesn't create catch the rabbit races deliberately, it's a simple flaw in matchmaking. The SR range is indeed a bit too small for matching. It starts by gathering all players in the 90-99 range, orders them on DR and starts putting them in rooms, highest DR first. That leaves a half filled room at the bottom end of DR with D/S players. Next the system gathers players in the 80-89 range and first fills up the left over 90-99 room with the highest DR players in the 80-89 range. That's how you can get A+/S in front of a D/S room. Either the game should mix the left over 90-99 D/S players with all the 80-89 players or reshuffle the higher SR rooms so that 80-89 A+/S is added with the 90-99 A+/S players instead of with the left over 90-99 D/S players.

Except I'm pretty sure it doesn't always apply that logic... maybe you could do a test sometime with one or two other drivers at similar rankings, at some time when you're pretty high DR (say, high DR A with SR S). If you're right, all of you with that ranking should appear in the same room before any lower DRs are chosen, every time. The only time it wouldn't happen is if there are multiple rooms at that SR/DR level.

Again DR is not a score. It's a ranking system. It makes sense not to get higher ranked if you can't beat higher ranked players. It would be better if DR was totally hidden, no way to 'work' for it. Matching will be better if DR reflects race pace, yet to do that it has to be much more stable than it is now. You should still move up fairly quickly, since you're pace will at first be much faster than a lot of people with higher DR. DR difference is still taken into account since when 1000 players enter a time slot and you're faster than 800 of them, say you start at DR.1, you stand to gain 4000 points for that race no matter where you finish.

Err, hello, I know it's supposed to be a ranking! It does make sense to slightly increase your ranking if you can consistently beat players who are somewhat close to you in ranking. To a reasonable degree, I think this is already balanced - even with a very mixed field the more frequent slight gains offset an occasional upset with a large-ish loss. My last races were mostly gaining 20 or so points with a) the risk of losing thousands and b) a more common loss of 140 or so points just by coming 3rd instead of 2nd (in a mixed field). Continuing to race like that wouldn't be worth the effort just for grinding DR; it wouldn't work.

I think I understand your idea a bit better now... so the ranking would be across all entrants for a race slot? OK. But DR difference isn't used if only looking at the player's DR, it takes two to difference (whether that's individuals or an average).

edit: I quite like the idea, but not sure how the math can work out. What you get for each race slot is that the player would be at some position overall - let's say faster than 80% of all entrants. However, the math would have to work regardless of the makeup of those entrants. Sometimes you might have no A+ DR drivers at all to reference against, and even when you do they are hugely outnumbered by the rest. If we abandon DR differences completely, then we have a completely different system, but OK. We could probably assume a bell curve DR distribution without it being too far out, even for small numbers of players. In fact, we'd choose the curve that we wanted players to distribute over. So the result of the calc for each race slot could be essentially an absolute DR level, and the DR change applied could move the player towards it by some filtered amount.

In the end of course I'm not saying it's perfect as it stands. Just that it's generally good enough, for now... of course if SR and matchmaking (and participation) were all massively improved then it would become worth looking at. It doesn't really matter how DR is worked out while matching produces races with DR A+ down to DR D.

 

[Dmac72]

A clean race should not be a requirement for DR, DR should reflect race pace regardless of how you drive. SR should be separate.

Absolutely disagree with this point. Qualifying is where outright pace is reflected.
It should never be possible to improve your DR if you have not had a clean race.
It just leaves scope for “gaming” any system.
How can someone be rated as a “better” driver because they push others off track, or cut corners etc?
I appreciate that many have a real focus on their DR above almost all else, that in itself massively cleans things up if you need a clean race to increase your rating.
It eliminates the potential reward for the guy who is right behind you at the last corner being able to push you into the gravel and take a win, credits and DR points by cheating.
IMO DR should reflect race results, rather than pace.
Fix the SR and matchmaking and the best racer will get the highest rating, not always the fastest.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Agreed.

To be fair, you've just spiked into low A+ 3 times as SvennoJ with little more than the boost it gives when ranking up, and although it was a meteoric rise each time it took a few days - which for you is 100 races or so! (OK, OK, quite a few anyway, you average 14 a day). What if your true and fair DR level is well into A+? Then the system would be working correctly, would it not?

It's a valid point about people making the most of favourite combos, but I don't think it can be used to artificially boost someone's DR massively above where they would be if forced to run every track. It possibly doesn't help at all if their favourites happen to be the same as a lot of other player's favourites as well.

I think my 'true' DR is somewhere a bit below 40K, at least that was my average when I still qualified for each race. (prior to day 220 ish) Without qualifying it goes up and down much faster, yet even with qualifying 'weird' things happen. There is this magic border where the top 99 SR room gets split in A+/S to B/S and B/S to D/S. One day while I was getting back up, one race I would start top 3 in B/S to D/S room, gain points, so the next race I would start bottom 3 in the A+/S to B/S room, and although having faster pace (better people to draft) I would lose points and be back top 3 in the B/S to D/S room. This went on for 6 races until the entries changed enough to brake the cycle.

Except I'm pretty sure it doesn't always apply that logic... maybe you could do a test sometime with one or two other drivers at similar rankings, at some time when you're pretty high DR (say, high DR A with SR S). If you're right, all of you with that ranking should appear in the same room before any lower DRs are chosen, every time. The only time it wouldn't happen is if there are multiple rooms at that SR/DR level.

I'm about 99.9% sure that's how it works. I can always race with other 90+ SR racers on here, no problem to get into the same room. And every time a lower SR player needs to fill up a room it's always a high DR player. I always see A/A added to rooms of B/S to D/S, never a D/A player in an otherwise B/S to D/S room.

Err, hello, I know it's supposed to be a ranking! It does make sense to slightly increase your ranking if you can consistently beat players who are somewhat close to you in ranking. To a reasonable degree, I think this is already balanced - even with a very mixed field the more frequent slight gains offset an occasional upset with a large-ish loss. My last races were mostly gaining 20 or so points with a) the risk of losing thousands and b) a more common loss of 140 or so points just by coming 3rd instead of 2nd (in a mixed field). Continuing to race like that wouldn't be worth the effort just for grinding DR; it wouldn't work.

I think I understand your idea a bit better now... so the ranking would be across all entrants for a race slot? OK. But DR difference isn't used if only looking at the player's DR, it takes two to difference (whether that's individuals or an average).

edit: I quite like the idea, but not sure how the math can work out. What you get for each race slot is that the player would be at some position overall - let's say faster than 80% of all entrants. However, the math would have to work regardless of the makeup of those entrants. Sometimes you might have no A+ DR drivers at all to reference against, and even when you do they are hugely outnumbered by the rest. If we abandon DR differences completely, then we have a completely different system, but OK. We could probably assume a bell curve DR distribution without it being too far out, even for small numbers of players. In fact, we'd choose the curve that we wanted players to distribute over. So the result of the calc for each race slot could be essentially an absolute DR level, and the DR change applied could move the player towards it by some filtered amount.

In the end of course I'm not saying it's perfect as it stands. Just that it's generally good enough, for now... of course if SR and matchmaking (and participation) were all massively improved then it would become worth looking at. It doesn't really matter how DR is worked out while matching produces races with DR A+ down to DR D.

By using a larger sample, ie everyone that enters a time slot, the hope is that that balances out the effect of being a vulnerable A+ in badly matched room. You can take all entries in the world to do the math instead of per region. 24 time zones should balance things out further, although it would be a bit weird to be ranked against players you will never see on track.

Essentially what you're trying to make is a sorting algorithm based on race pace. After each race you have a sorting order of all players that entered that race which you now compare to the current sorting order (DR) and then adjust DR with the latest results. My idea is to gain points from players you beat that had higher DR (previously sorted above you) and lose points to players that beat you with lower DR (previously sorted below you). Anyone that beat you that already had higher DR has no effect on your rating as well as the opposite.

How many points should be exchanged per player, I don't know. But I do think it would be more fair to do it this way (for example 5000 points divided per total entries as the base amount per exchange) than 'stealing' 160 points from players that where unlucky enough to enter up in lobbies with much faster players sporting the wrong DR (after a reset or new account). In this system they would 'steal' fewer points from many more players.

Absolutely disagree with this point. Qualifying is where outright pace is reflected.
It should never be possible to improve your DR if you have not had a clean race.
It just leaves scope for “gaming” any system.
How can someone be rated as a “better” driver because they push others off track, or cut corners etc?
I appreciate that many have a real focus on their DR above almost all else, that in itself massively cleans things up if you need a clean race to increase your rating.
It eliminates the potential reward for the guy who is right behind you at the last corner being able to push you into the gravel and take a win, credits and DR points by cheating.
IMO DR should reflect race results, rather than pace.
Fix the SR and matchmaking and the best racer will get the highest rating, not always the fastest.

DR is not something to improve, imo it should reflect your pace. You can not game your pace by driving dirty, you can only game victories by driving dirty and thus gain DR in the current system. When it's based on pace, all that ramming and punting and pushing and blocking will only slow you down.

SR needs to be overhauled as well so that fast dirty drivers can race other fast dirty drivers instead of getting matched with slower drivers trying to have clean races.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

DR is not something to improve, imo it should reflect your pace. You can not game your pace by driving dirty, you can only game victories by driving dirty and thus gain DR in the current system. When it's based on pace, all that ramming and punting and pushing and blocking will only slow you down.

SR needs to be overhauled as well so that fast dirty drivers can race other fast dirty drivers instead of getting matched with slower drivers trying to have clean races

^^^^ This^^^^^ 👍👍👍👍

 

[Dmac72]

R is not something to improve, imo it should reflect your pace. You can not game your pace by driving dirty, you can only game victories by driving dirty and thus gain DR in the current system. When it's based on pace, all that ramming and punting and pushing and blocking will only slow you down.

SR needs to be overhauled as well so that fast dirty drivers can race other fast dirty drivers instead of getting matched with slower drivers trying to have clean races.

Fair enough, but then would that not mean there is no actual ranking that reflects winning races?

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Fair enough, but then would that not mean there is no actual ranking that reflects winning races?

Actually that is the way it is now, an A+ DR ranked driver may have logged a total of 10 wins while a D DR ranked driver may have 100 wins.
Nowhere within the DR ranking does the finishing positions or wins reflect a winner or loser with the exception of manner points, it never has.

In the above scenario would you rank the D driver higher than the A+ driver in world rankings because he has more first place finishes even though the A driver was the faster of the two?

Or would you rank the A+ driver on top because he was faster than the D driver? It still comes down to pace and the level of competition faced for the driver rankings.

 

[Dmac72]

Actually that is the way it is now, an A+ DR ranked driver may have logged a total of 10 wins while a D DR ranked driver may have 100 wins.
Nowhere within the DR ranking does the finishing positions or wins reflect a winner or loser, it never has.

In the above scenario would you rank the D driver higher than the A+ driver in world rankings because he has more first place finishes even though the A driver was the faster of the two?

Or would you rank the A+ driver on top because he was faster than the D driver? It still comes down to pace and the level of competition faced for the driver rankings.

Well I would have the one with 100 wins ranked higher that the one with 10 wins to begin with.
In every racing series I have ever followed it is the guy who has the better finishing positions who gets more points. Not the one who had faster lap times over previous races.
So yes, if a D rated driver is winning races cleanly against A+ drivers then I believe he/she should be rewarded with an increase in ranking.
If it purely about pace, then have a time trial ranking as well.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

So yes, if a D rated driver is winning races cleanly against A+ drivers

Well I would have the one with 100 wins ranked higher that the one with 10 wins to begin with.

The Elephant in the room, nowhere was it stated those 100 wins were against A+ drivers!
Nowhere does PD to my knowledge post stats that would tell you the level of the competition to a particular finish.

Now again D driver with 100 wins be ranked higher? Maybe all 100 wins were against D drivers, Maybe the A+ driver won 9 against D drivers and one against an A driver they still higher?

Or can you not actually rank the drivers by wins under the current system and information would be the best answer for this scenario?

 

[Dmac72]

The Elephant in the room, nowhere was it stated those 100 wins were against A+ drivers!
Nowhere does PD to my knowledge post stats that would tell you the level of the competition to a particular finish.

Now again D driver with 100 wins be ranked higher? Maybe all 100 wins were against D drivers, Maybe the A+ driver won 9 against D drivers and one against an A driver they still higher?

Or can you not actually rank the drivers by wins under the current system and information would be the best answer for this scenario?

But you pre-suppose that a player with 100 clean wins would be lower rated than a guy with only 10. That would never be the case if they were rated on results rather than pace. The one will 100 wins would deservedly be the higher rated.
I have on a couple of occasions explained at length my thought on penalties, driving standards and rankings and they are all geared towards encouraging clean, fair racing. I am well aware that others may not share my view. That’s great. The more ideas that are floating about the better. Maybe PD will test some out and improve what we have. I believe the entire system of both DR and SR needs revised and would be much harsher in terms of penalising or disqualifying poor driving in races.
I have no problem with a time-trial or race pace speed rating, but for an overall driver rating in a racing sim, then results surely should be the top measure.
Pace gets you on pole. Racing is something different.
I would also point out that on neither measure would I rank that highly.
My game time is limited, pace less than it once was and I win maybe 1 in 20 or 1 in 30 races.
I’m only looking to improve what is currently there.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Well I would have the one with 100 wins ranked higher that the one with 10 wins to begin with.

But you pre-suppose that a player with 100 clean wins would be lower rated than a guy with only 10. That would never be the case if they were rated on results rather than pace. The one will 100 wins would deservedly be the higher rated.

What you say would be true if the same racers were facing the exact same competition. Again pace, skill sets, race craft all come into play not only for the driver but also the competition he races against.

Basically what you are saying is in real life if a moto 3 rider had 100 wins and V. Rossi in Moto GP only had 50 wins then the MOTO 3 rider would deserve to be ranked higher than Rossi even though Rossi had his wins against the best riders in the world while the moto 3 rider raced against those that their dream was to Maybe race Moto GP.



There have been plenty of cases where the driver with the most wins failed to win a series championship due to not being consistent in the finishing order.

2006 Moto GP, Rossi had 5 wins, Melandri had 3 wins and Hayden only had 2 wins but yet Hayden won the 2006 World Championship.
Should Rossi and Melandri hold the top two spots in the World Championship because they won more races that year? Or did Hayden's consistency along with his fewer wins deservingly give him the top spot?


Wins are only one aspect of racing and do not always dictate the best driver, level of competition faced is another and comparing two or more drivers to be ranked the differences in those variables is really a big deal for accurate ranking results.
Wins may be a good measurement of a drivers overall success over their entire career but it does not translate always to an accurate driver ranking against other drivers that may have faced either harder or easier or different challenges.

Need to compare apples to apples and trying to compare race results from completely different classes of racers and saying the results are the same and equal between them is apple to oranges and basically cannot be considered period for accurate ranking purposes.

Actually PACE is what the fast top guys have that the slow guys want more of to be faster!

 

[breeminator]

Fair enough, but then would that not mean there is no actual ranking that reflects winning races?

Choose stat type Wins here:
https://www.jasonguernsey.net/gts/leaderboards
Check out some of the profiles on K' and weep (the meta is to continually tank your SR to reset DR and win against weak opposition).

 

[Dmac72]

What you say would be true if the same racers were facing the exact same competition. Again pace, skill sets, race craft all come into play not only for the driver but also the competition he races against.

Basically what you are saying is in real life if a moto 3 rider had 100 wins and V. Rossi in Moto GP only had 50 wins then the MOTO 3 rider would deserve to be ranked higher than Rossi even though Rossi had his wins against the best riders in the world while the moto 3 rider raced against those that their dream was to Maybe race Moto GP.



There have been plenty of cases where the driver with the most wins failed to win a series championship due to not being consistent in the finishing order.

2006 Moto GP, Rossi had 5 wins, Melandri had 3 wins and Hayden only had 2 wins but yet Hayden won the 2006 World Championship.
Should Rossi and Melandri hold the top two spots in the World Championship because they won more races that year? Or did Hayden's consistency along with his fewer wins deservingly give him the top spot?


Wins are only one aspect of racing and do not always dictate the best driver, level of competition faced is another and comparing two or more drivers to be ranked the differences in those variables is really a big deal for accurate ranking results.
Wins may be a good measurement of a drivers overall success over their entire career but it does not translate always to an accurate driver ranking against other drivers that may have faced either harder or easier or different challenges.

Need to compare apples to apples and trying to compare race results from completely different classes of racers and saying the results are the same and equal between them is apple to oranges and basically cannot be considered period for accurate ranking purposes.

Actually PACE is what the fast top guys have that the slow guys want more of to be faster!

So call it a speed rating and have a time trial leaderboard.
The fastest guys should still win most races and still get their ratings higher than slower ones. Apart from those who are either only quick on an empty track or those who can’t race cleanly.

Choose stat type Wins here:
https://www.jasonguernsey.net/gts/leaderboards
Check out some of the profiles on K' and weep (the meta is to continually tank your SR to reset DR and win against weak opposition).

Some folk get a lot of track time in. Lol

 

[Sven Jurgens]

But you pre-suppose that a player with 100 clean wins would be lower rated than a guy with only 10. That would never be the case if they were rated on results rather than pace. The one will 100 wins would deservedly be the higher rated.
I have on a couple of occasions explained at length my thought on penalties, driving standards and rankings and they are all geared towards encouraging clean, fair racing. I am well aware that others may not share my view. That’s great. The more ideas that are floating about the better. Maybe PD will test some out and improve what we have. I believe the entire system of both DR and SR needs revised and would be much harsher in terms of penalising or disqualifying poor driving in races.
I have no problem with a time-trial or race pace speed rating, but for an overall driver rating in a racing sim, then results surely should be the top measure.
Pace gets you on pole. Racing is something different.
I would also point out that on neither measure would I rank that highly.
My game time is limited, pace less than it once was and I win maybe 1 in 20 or 1 in 30 races.
I’m only looking to improve what is currently there.

Luck is as big a determining factor in winning a race as pace. I've had victories simply by getting lucky in matchmaking, first place crashing or getting disconnected, the cars in front of me crashing each other out, the cars chasing me crashing each other out holding the field back, laggy connections messing things up in my favor, even starting the race all by myself counting as a victory

I sit at 538 victories, all cleanly obtained, but most after getting punted down the SR or DR ladder or getting lucky. If you take victories away from dirty drivers, I would get even more victories. My DR increased by 30% when the penalties got super strict, see my avg DR suddenly change from 35k to 45k at around day 120. I didn't suddenly get 10K better, all the faster people at the front were too busy serving penalties

DR should reflect race pace for matching people with similar pace together.
Qualifying determines starting order. (Qualifying pace is not the same as race pace)
Victories are just that, victories, they do not affect your pace rating.

People with the highest pace should also get the most victories. As it is now, people who can manipulate the system the best get the most victories. The only way to fix that is not to allow the wolves to hide among the sheep, but match them with other wolves. The current system favors sandbagging.

The only 'real' victories are those in the top lobby. Matchmaking has to divide rooms up some way, which means someone is either on pole one room down, or starting last one room up. A good chance at victory in the one room and a big DR increase, or a surefire way to end in the back half in the other room and lose DR.

Winning a race will always be the best as that also means you had the highest pace in that race. Not necessarily the fastest lap yet you completed the race in the least amount of time, and thus rank highest in pace as well. Perhaps some small tweaks are needed to prevent someone with 3 fast laps in the middle to out pace the winner who was more consistent all race long. Removing the outliers might be a bit too simplistic, finish time divided by laps should always work. That would also give the one starting on pole a bit of a head start since race time starts counting for everyone at the same time. A good qualifying time is still rewarded in that way.

Anyway those are my thoughts to make it less a game of (manipulated) chance and more one of skill to rank higher and get victories. Or rather get more closely matched racers together in a room instead of large gaps opening up in a 7 lap race where half the field gets timed out.

(Of course that all depends on overhauling the SR system to be less re-active or more based on your incident history)

 

[VFOURMAX1]

The fastest guys should still win most races and still get their ratings higher than slower ones.

Generally the fastest guys will end up at the top side of the DR rankings as DR measures that speed and pace that put them taking more top 5 or 6 finishing positions than positions lower than that which adds to their DR points totals.

One thing that you will not find that currently determines their placement at the top of the leader board is the amount of total wins they may have since they started playing the game on their statistics board.

It will be exactly what you have right now, I would guess it would probably be surprising at the number of racers that since making the A to A+ ranking levels have never won a race one since obtaining their highest ranking.
Why you see some guys keep rotating to DR D they want to keep winning.

 

[Dmac72]

Generally the fastest guys will end up at the top side of the DR rankings as DR measures that speed and pace that put them taking more top 5 or 6 finishing positions than positions lower than that which adds to their DR points totals.

One thing that you will not find that currently determines their placement at the top of the leader board is the amount of total wins they may have since they started playing the game on their statistics board.

It will be exactly what you have right now, I would guess it would probably be surprising at the number of racers that since making the A to A+ ranking levels have never won a race one since obtaining their highest ranking.
Why you see some guys keep rotating to DR D they want to keep winning.

Under my suggested method no one would tank their rating because it would take 100 or more races to get from D to A+.
I doubt I’d get past C.

 

[VFOURMAX1]

Under my suggested method no one would tank their rating because it would take 100 or more races to get from D to A+.
I doubt I’d get past C.

What I have found is a persons comfortable, consistent natural "pace" does not take a high amount of races to settle into.
Personally I am a mid DR B and SR S and find that to be a pace I enjoy racing at. I really have no desire to go forward or backwards in DR as it is as fast and challenging enough I can have the fun I want and remain in control and consistent at the pace where I am.

Back some time ago there was a "grip" bug in the game so many started second accounts to check their games out myself included. Starting on a brand new day one account I think it took me about 15 races or so to take the second account to the same DR B and SR S level as my main account. It was very easy and natural to take this second account to the same level as my first account and at that point I knew the game actually had me ranked exactly where I should be no question.

The reason I bring this up is to show just how fast a person could take an account to the "natural" level and grinding it out over 80- 100 races would be unneeded. I have never tanked an account on purpose and I strongly think DR letter rankings should be permanent once achieved. Level within the letter range could vary within the allowable number range of that designation.

The system they have can work if they apply all facets of it correctly, the only addition may be to add in an "incident" counter to trigger different levels of punishment for dirty, careless or out of control driving.

Better lobby matching alone fixes a lot. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater and start over, just fully utilize the tools already at your disposal and actually the changes would not need to be as drastic as many think but firmly enforce the rules to obtain the results and separate the clean and dirty drivers.

 

[Groundfish]

Dr can’t stay once achieved. Say you only race one track.
People sit there and farm boom dr super high based on one daily....
That doesn’t mean they really are that DR across classes and tracks...

 

[VFOURMAX1]

People sit there and farm boom dr super high based on one daily....

Everyone has favorite tracks and tracks they are faster on. The exact reason that DR should be a persons natural controllable pace.

A person should not race ANY track in an online race in my opinion they have not taken the time to learn and can run a reasonable consistent pace on and know the braking zones and so forth.

There are some tracks I will not race on and I have no interest in wanting to race on. That still does not change what my DR ranking should be across the board. Once people understand DR is not meant to be a target but your actual skill level then if you get better, more consistent it goes up if not it stays where you are.

Dr works sort of like BOP on the cars, its not geared differently towards each track but sort of is a blanket coverage over all of them, the tracks and DR work under that overall blanket coverage.

A person needs to get faster on an individual track then I guess practice is the word, the skill sets and pace you have exhibited on your favorite track indicate apparently you have the needed skills to learn the new track as well.

 

[Groundfish]

Everyone has favorite tracks and tracks they are faster on. The exact reason that DR should be a persons natural controllable pace.

A person should not race ANY track in an online race in my opinion they have not taken the time to learn and can run a reasonable consistent pace on and know the braking zones and so forth.

There are some tracks I will not race on and I have no interest in wanting to race on. That still does not change what my DR ranking should be across the board. Once people understand DR is not meant to be a target but your actual skill level then if you get better, more consistent it goes up if not it stays where you are.

Dr works sort of like BOP on the cars, its not geared differently towards each track but sort of is a blanket coverage over all of them, the tracks and DR work under that overall blanket coverage.

A person needs to get faster on an individual track then I guess practice is the word, the skill sets and pace you have exhibited on your favorite track indicate apparently you have the needed skills to learn the new track as well.

Of course, but that’s not what happens because what players do is as I said.
I actually think the system works pretty well.
A sport is a sport. It’s called sport mode for a reason.
The improvements needed are all sr related imo.

 

[Krypton78]

I admit I didn't read the most of the previous posts but here are my thougts:

There is clean overtaking or not. To keep it clean, both participiants has to be civilized people, racing is a no-contact sport in my point of view (what Max Verstappen did was BS btw, shame on the stewards they didn't had the guts to penalty it). Now what should the programm do now? Obviously after almost 2 years it is still not possible to make it capable of proper judging. For example a spanish (sorry to say it and for all the fair spanish drivers, but why is it never a swedish/ norwegian or whatever guy?) person tapped me under total intention right perfectly on the rear to let me spin, saw it on the replay how he does control the brakes to manage it. Anyway, he gots away and my race and DR dies. And that in a top A/A+ SR 99 Lobby, so there is no way to escape this, apparently you can't say if I get good enough I'll race against fair people. My time is pressious, I dont have the time to play all day so I wouldnt bother. So why should I take this game serious anymore?

Anyway, before this gets more and more a frustration post, here are my thoughts which could be easy done and help maybe:

- extend SR range to 150 or even higher. The top Division is then 140 to 150. If that means due to same players divided in to many SR-groups and therefore the Lobbys are to much uneven on DR, well I would love to race against Dr/B or less if I know that they are fair und do everything to avoid collisions. What do I have of a full Lobby of DR A/A+ when the half are ignorants?

- as it is obviously not possible to program it better, they should move the philosophy back to punishing harder, similair to what was once before. For ramming somebody off 5 secs are a joke, it should start with 10 secs to ruin him just as he ruined others.