Suggested Improvements to the DR and SR systems

[mclarenLB]

So I have played an insane amount of Sport Mode at this point and there's a few relatively realistic, easy to program improvements that I would make.

1) Get rid of SR classes and bring back the numbers from closed beta!

Of course, the numbers from closed beta are in fact still working in the background (Manner Points), However I see absolutely no benefit to hiding them. I believe Kaz said that the actual SR value is now hidden as it makes players feel bad to see it decrease, which I totally get, but the tack on rankings do not solve this problem as it still comes up in BRIGHT RED if you lost SR at the end of the race?

So you add the SR ranks to cover up the Manner Points, but you still actively tell players at the end of a race if they went down? What purpose does that serve?

Either scrap the rank and make it so we don't have to look on a 3rd party website to see our actual SR rank above 80, OR stick to your guns and actually hide from the player when they went down in rank, because the current system is totally redundant.

2) 75,000 DR Cap... errr, Why?

Ok, ok, ok... I know what you're thinking, this is a problem for an absolutely tiny percentage of the playerbase... aaaand I'm only complaining about this because I hit it earlier today.... aaaand its only a problem for about 20 people right now... but please hear me out.

So this is an absolutely tiny, minuscule little problem right now, but as the player base are all slowly increasing their rank (Player count in S DR has doubled over the last month!), look at this from my point of view.

If a player with 75,000 DR signs up for a daily race right now... They have absolutely NOTHING to gain. In fact you are actually discouraging people from playing as the only possible way your DR or SR changes is going DOWN. What will happen to the top end player base when many people eventually hit this 75k cap? I'm pretty sure they will stop playing anything that isn't an official FIA race, which is really bad news for Daily race population...

Not only that, what happens when more than 24 players with 75k DR and 99 SR try to sign up for a Top 24 Superstars race? Are the drivers selected at random? Does the universe explode? Hopefully not.

Proposed solution? Two things... Remove that 75k cap. Obliterate it. Raise it so high to a point where no player will ever reach it. Secondly, Players above 75k should have something to play for, right? But if we add a new rank, it'll just eventually get swallowed like S rank has...

How about this, for players with 75,000 DR or more, wherever your DR rank is displayed, instead of displaying S, directly display that players world rank instead... That way we add COMPETITION into a COMPETITIVE game mode, makes sense?

We already know PD holds this information thanks to @jasguer and his amazing website, you could even add an in game DR leaderboard if you wanna get hyper competitive, but PD might see that as too discouraging towards newer players, we want new players to try and enjoy sport mode after all!

3) Add "250% Sport Mode Bonus" to all credits and experience earned in Sport Mode

For a game that is trying to push its online component, its pays REALLY BADLY and is pretty discouraging to a casual player. Driving around an Oval in an X-Bow being the best way to earn money is just wrong. Lets not nerf that though, some people like it, lets just add an alternate way to get Credits and XP and encourage more people to play Sport Mode. This would also make the impossible-to-do-without-completely-unnecessary-grind Level 50 XP requirement.... a bit less impossible.

4) Is 99 SR too easy to get? (Spoiler: Yes.)

A few final really easy peasy changes to SR to make it more likely that players at the top are clean players...

New players start at 30 (Down from 50)

Any players with less than 10 races logged are reset to 30, everyone else keeps their SR

If the player has more than 70 SR, all SR Ups increase SR by HALF the regular amount.

If the player has more than 90 SR, all SR Downs decrease SR by DOUBLE the regular amount.

Minor knocks no longer give an SR Down (i.e bump drafting)

That should make getting to SR 99 take a bit more clean driving and make it a bit more possible for players to drop SR at the top end, it should also ensure that players get matched with similar players more reliably.



Well there we go, that was meant to be a semi-short post but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There's probably a few spelling/formatting mistakes here and there, I'll try to clean up as many as I can.

 

[ChevapBH]

1 and 2 are complete non-issues. If you get to 75k play for fun. If you belong there you will return there if you lose some points. If you see the stats, you'll see that only a tiny percentage of players have SR S. Make it harder to get and you will have no one to play with.

 

[mclarenLB]

1 and 2 are complete non-issues. If you get to 75k play for fun. If you belong there you will return there if you lose some points. If you see the stats, you'll see that only a tiny percentage of players have SR S. Make it harder to get and you will have no one to play with.

Playing a competitive game just for fun doesn't hold up as well in this generation. Adding more extrinsic motivation is always going to be a benefit, You can't seriously tell me that players play ranked CS:GO or MOBA's at a high level for fun? Add competitive features or your competitive scene dies. I'm not necessary saying they are issues to every type of player, but none of these changes would hurt a casual player. I am saying these are quick to program improvements that would improve high level sport mode.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Minor tweaks won't help.

Penalties need to be permanent, ie stand until the end. For that they need to be assigned correctly first. No penalty for getting punted into another car that goes off track. That penalty should go to the person who started the chain reaction.

Second, for clear cases of hit and gain position, force the player to give back the position. Ghost and cut power if necessary.

As long as people can get away with corner cutting early in the race and overtaking people dirty, behavior is not going to improve. The only way to get it to change is for dirty driving to affect finishing position since that's all that people care about.


SR is already easier to lose and harder to gain at higher levels. It is still very easy to recover on daily C races though with 13 points per race to gain at SR.S. At SR.E you can even get over 50 points for clean daily C race.


And fix one more thing, fastest lap should not be awarded with a corner cut time penalty.

 

[mclarenLB]

Penalties need to be permanent, ie stand until the end. For that they need to be assigned correctly first. No penalty for getting punted into another car that goes off track. That penalty should go to the person who started the chain reaction.

Y'see this is why I mentioned 'easy to program', because in an ideal world there is so much that needs changing and everything you mentioned would definitely make the penalty system better...

However, you are essentially asking an AI algorithm to do the job of an entire race control team... It is absolutely possible, I just don't think it's realistic right now as no sim racing developers are anywhere close to making something that complex.

My solutions are honestly just band aid, but its favourable to nothing at all. I'm in favour of the permanent penalties though, that's nice and easy to add.

SR is already easier to lose and harder to gain at higher levels. It is still very easy to recover on daily C races though with 13 points per race to gain at SR.S. At SR.E you can even get over 50 points for clean daily C race.

I don't think its enough right now, if you truly do race clean, holding SR: S (even 99 manner points) is an absolute breeze, at the end of basically all my FIA races, I see blue SRs everywhere. People who go above 50 SR (the starting point) seem to pretty much skip Rank A and go to Rank S after only a couple of races, my tweaks mean you should have to do it a bit longer and a bit more consistently.

 

[Senna52]

I came in here expecting to disagree as most of these threads are pipe dreams. I agree mostly though, great post!

These would all work because they wouldn’t require any real changes to the system, just smart tweaks. Thanks for the thoughtful post!

 

[tofuhero]

1 doesn't seem like it really fixes anything; you can still see the number on kudosprime if you want.

2 feels a bit like a billionaire complaining that their $100 bills don't burn in the fireplace as well as they used to. Kind of pointless for the 99% rest of the GTS population. We'll never reach that cap, though I guess if it's easy for PD to fix then sure why not.

3 is definitely an issue. But I think there need to be more holistic changes there. I think something like GT League should be online. You sign up for a racing team, you have a pit crew that have names RPG style, you participate in Driveclub style mini-tournaments and such, and you get prize money based on place, and maybe bonus money for extra things you accomplish during the race like highest speed, fastest sector, clean passes. i.e. things that incentivize fast, clean racing.

4 I don't think it's about the point spread, it's about the SR system being too lenient, i.e. the ability to scrub off penalties, no black flags, not punishing habitual punters enough. Fix those things and the upper SR ranks will be more what they should be.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Y'see this is why I mentioned 'easy to program', because in an ideal world there is so much that needs changing and everything you mentioned would definitely make the penalty system better...

However, you are essentially asking an AI algorithm to do the job of an entire race control team... It is absolutely possible, I just don't think it's realistic right now as no sim racing developers are anywhere close to making something that complex.

My solutions are honestly just band aid, but its favourable to nothing at all. I'm in favour of the permanent penalties though, that's nice and easy to add.

I don't think its enough right now, if you truly do race clean, holding SR: S (even 99 manner points) is an absolute breeze, at the end of basically all my FIA races, I see blue SRs everywhere. People who go above 50 SR (the starting point) seem to pretty much skip Rank A and go to Rank S after only a couple of races, my tweaks mean you should have to do it a bit longer and a bit more consistently.

The points you can gain on a race depend on its length, so indeed FIA races can earn you a lot of points and will also allow you to drive quite dirty and still get a blue S at the end. It's a lot harder in sprint races where even 1 yellow flag penalty can erase any possible gains. It's unbalanced right now.

For example Monza GR.1 today, max gain is +5. Yet getting caught once in the mayhem in the first chicane can cost 14 points. It's pretty balanced for sprint races and if it was as hard to gain points on daily C and FIA races things would look differently. Why would longer races allow you more dirty driving? Most incidents happen in the first lap, then some in the last lap. In between it's usually fine.

 

[Robben]

The points you can gain on a race depend on its length, so indeed FIA races can earn you a lot of points and will also allow you to drive quite dirty and still get a blue S at the end. It's a lot harder in sprint races where even 1 yellow flag penalty can erase any possible gains. It's unbalanced right now.

For example Monza GR.1 today, max gain is +5. Yet getting caught once in the mayhem in the first chicane can cost 14 points. It's pretty balanced for sprint races and if it was as hard to gain points on daily C and FIA races things would look differently. Why would longer races allow you more dirty driving? Most incidents happen in the first lap, then some in the last lap. In between it's usually fine.

Also, the blue SR only means you gained... could be just 1 manner point or 2 which is a gain yes, but in the grand scheme of things is nothing.

On the other side... I gained 28 on Yama+Miyabi FIA race the other evening

 

[mclarenLB]

Just to re-enforce something, these aren't really fixes, they are improvements. Something doesn't have to be broken to apply an objective improvement to it

 

[Robben]

2) 75,000 DR Cap... errr, Why?

I agree with you that if I was 75k I would want to keep earning points (as you say: the currency of GT Sport is DR so if you cannot win any, what's the point?). However, I think the reason is that the points need to be distributed. I read somewhere else that points can only pass around amongst other players - there is no introduction of "new" points except for those generated by new players starting the game and the bonuses for levelling up to the next DR letter. So, if the top 20 racers were just absorbing all of the points there would be less to go around. I think.

 

[mclarenLB]

2) 75,000 DR Cap... errr, Why?

I agree with you that if I was 75k I would want to keep earning points (as you say: the currency of GT Sport is DR so if you cannot win any, what's the point?). However, I think the reason is that the points need to be distributed. I read somewhere else that points can only pass around amongst other players - there is no introduction of "new" points except for those generated by new players starting the game and the bonuses for levelling up to the next DR letter. So, if the top 20 racers were just absorbing all of the points there would be less to go around. I think.

The issue is participants for Top 24 Superstars are decided by DR points, what happens if 25 people with 75k sign up? Someone is gonna lose out there.

Also a guy who wins 20 races at 75k DR but then has 1 bad finish will have a lower rank than someone who just stops playing... That's wrong.

Finally, Everyone started with 1 DR, and the lowest possible DR is 1, which means DR points have and can be created (not transferred)

 

[Krypton78]

2) 75,000 DR Cap... errr, Why?

As you foresighted yourself, this is really an absolutely Alien- "Problem". Obviously you are fast enough to be a competitive for winning a FIA-Cup, maybe that could be a motivation for you?

No penalty for getting punted into another car that goes off track. That penalty should go to the person who started the chain reaction.

I think the problem is just the programming of stuff like this. It look easy for us to judge over a race-situation, but for a KI it is unbelivebable hard to understand whats going on, so the programmin is just to difficult I assume.

 

[Robben]

The issue is participants for Top 24 Superstars are decided by DR points, what happens if 25 people with 75k sign up? Someone is gonna lose out there.

Also a guy who wins 20 races at 75k DR but then has 1 bad finish will have a lower rank than someone who just stops playing... That's wrong.

Yeah, I do get that 👍

Finally, Everyone started with 1 DR, and the lowest possible DR is 1, which means DR points have and can be created (not transferred)

As I said: everyone gets 2000 points for simply completing 5 races. You also get "boosts" of a few thousand for levelling up. This is the only way points are manufactured. The points you win and lose in races are simply reallocated between racers.

 

[mclarenLB]

As you foresighted yourself, this is really an absolutely Alien- "Problem". Obviously you are fast enough to be a competitive for winning a FIA-Cup, maybe that could be a motivation for you?

Its also kind of a prediction, nobody hit S Rank for like the first 3 weeks of release, now there are 1000 S Rank players...

There are only 20 people at 75k right now, I expect that to continue to increase to the point where it likely will become a problem.

 

[mthomas_95]

After paying close attention to @jasguer's (great) website the past couple of weeks the number of players at the 75,000 cap has hovered between 15-20 worldwide, whilst more are getting to S it still represents less than 0.1% of players (less than 1% are even at A or above).

I suspect many regular players are now reaching 'their' level and are starting to plateau DR wise. As the 75k number has been pretty constant and the top 24 races have almost the same faces each week it looks like the system is doing it's job.

Absolutely agree on all the other points though. Daily Race C/FIA races especially are too easy to build SR in.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I think the problem is just the programming of stuff like this. It look easy for us to judge over a race-situation, but for a KI it is unbelivebable hard to understand whats going on, so the programmin is just to difficult I assume.

It's already in the programming though. If a punt is obvious enough you don't get the SR Down for it and it will forgive any resulting off track excursion. It just needs to go 1 step further to not penalize you for crashing into the car in front and transfer that penalty to the car that hit you instead.

Yesterday I got punted on Monza and most of the time it got it right by not giving me SR Down and not penalizing me for cutting the second half of the chicane as a result, sometimes even allowing me to keep the clean race bonus. However when there was a car in front of me that I got punted into, I did get SR Down plus a 10 sec penalty for sending that car into the wall, then another SR down as the car behind me crashed into me again as I was now stalled after hitting the car in front. Those kind of chain reactions cost me 10 to 14 points at a time, yet way less to the person that started the mess.

It's fine to make gaining SR as difficult for all the races as it is in sprint races and increase the punishment. However it needs to increase assigning blame correctly as well or PD will risk driving more people away from Sport mode. Every day we have new threads of unfair penalties, emptying out SR.S perp and victim alike isn't going to fix it.

Some cases are very hard though. On dragontrail a bump to my left rear at the apex send me me into the grass, bouncing me off the wall, careening back into the person that hit me in the first place. Karma, except I got double SR down and a 5 sec penalty. He got nothing.


Yet this pinball fest yesterday left me in the clear

Punted, knocked another car off track, hit again, no SR Down. Car behind me didn't get anything either though. No clue why the penalty system did nothing here, yet in the chicane it hands out penalties like candy to who ever gets turned into a wrecking ball by a car that doesn't brake.

It's improving yet there are still very easy to program cases that are missed right now. For example when you hit a backmarker that brake checks you on a straight, you do get punished. Or a car that swerves and blocks you while coming out of the pit. The system could use a bit more context to stop the obvious trolling.

 

[ASH32]

Its also kind of a prediction, nobody hit S Rank for like the first 3 weeks of release, now there are 1000 S Rank players...

There are only 20 people at 75k right now, I expect that to continue to increase to the point where it likely will become a problem.

One of the updates also contributed to this, they made it even easier to get to DR S, when if anything it was too easy before. I was made S by it when A previously for instance and complained about it here too.

You are right about the top guys not really racing dailies anymore too and if by lowering their rating means missing the FIA top 24 stuff and it may well soon enough, if the numbers at max continue to grow as they are, then they will definitely not race anything else. I like the idea of increasing the max point rating and giving the top guys a rank, maybe even give everyone playing a regional rank, or at least the top 50/100 drivers.

 

[DriftMethod]

I'm in no danger of reaching the 75,000 DR cap, so this is all academic to me.

I really don't think the cap is an issue at all. It's meant for matching as opposed to ranking. Take Formula 1 for example, they all have FIA Super Licenses which means they're qualified to race at the highest level of motorsports. From there, they have to win races and championships!

DR points don't mean a whole lot when comparing the very best drivers. It's really not a good way to rank drivers. You could be a "points chaser" by only entering races that you can reasonably expect to win (by looking at the qualifying times and only choosing cars/tracks that fit your skills.) On an unlimited points system, the highest ranked driver could potentially be someone who only races on ovals and has time to race them all day long. That only means they are the best at working the points system.

I think the top 24 FIA race should include the top 24 in the current Nations/Manufacturer Championship point standings that enter. Otherwise it would be basically impossible for anyone below S DR to win the Championship. I know it's unlikely anyway, but why take away their chance if they earned the points in the previous races?

As far as motivation, the upcoming official FIA races should be the motivation you need. Real recognition and prizes (or at least a trophy?). If you choose not to do any races, because you are worried about your perfect rating, then you can also challenge for top 10 in driving school tests and mission challenges. At least those aren't numbers pulled from an algorithm that may or may not necessarily mean you are better than other drivers.

 

[polizei]

I don't understand this fixation with SR and DR. It's like people going nuts over their stats in FPS games.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

It's not the stats, it's wanting to drive with other clean drivers of similar pace. For some reason I get matched with aliens again today and while not making any mistakes, clean race, I end +1 lap on Big Willow. That's not similar pace matching.

And SR is far too lenient on the daily C. After struggling to climb up on Monza in 11 races yesterday, only to be knocked down to 66 with two dirty A/S races on a row, it now only took 3 Big willow races to shoot to 99, 14 points then 16 points then maxed. And of course last one there are dirty drivers that still end with blue or neutral rating at the end. It's not working to separate clean drivers from people abusing the system.

 

[polizei]

It's not the stats, it's wanting to drive with other clean drivers of similar pace.

try a league... https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/board/gts-online-racing-leagues.427/

 

[mclarenLB]

try a league... https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/board/gts-online-racing-leagues.427/

Leagues aren't readily available at any time of day, a better matchmaking system will.

 

[polizei]

Leagues aren't readily available at any time of day, a better matchmaking system will.

he's in canada, so he's in an area with a large player base most times of the day, he's had the time to grind to lvl 50, and has over 1,300 races in 122 days, i don't think time is this posters issue. Not to mention, it was a suggestion, that if he wasn't finding the kind of races he wants in sport mode, there are other alternatives.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

he's in canada, so he's in an area with a large player base most times of the day, he's had the time to grind to lvl 50, and has over 1,300 races in 122 days, i don't think time is this posters issue. Not to mention, it was a suggestion, that if he wasn't finding the kind of races he wants in sport mode, there are other alternatives.

True, yet I do like the schedule of the daily races. Knowing exactly when a race starts is a how I managed so many races while doing every day life stuff in between. I did the whole lobby thing with GT5 for a year and now prefer a predictable always on schedule with full rooms over that.

Of course the daily race rooms might not be full anymore once it actually sorts the clean drivers from the not so clean ones At least Big Willow is very well behaved today, the fear of the desert must help. I still got pushed off at the start, bumped off, punted off once, and had a very laggy car causing chaos. Yet so much better than Dragontrail and Monza.

 

[Robben]

It's already in the programming though. If a punt is obvious enough you don't get the SR Down for it and it will forgive any resulting off track excursion.

Unfortunately not! I was divebombed on T1 at Suzuka yesterday by a guy who started with no Q time (and had clearly not spent any time in the R34), when everyone braked for the corner he simply carried on straight into me. That was my only contact in the race and come the end I got white.. he got blue

 

[GT_Alex74]

This aged well.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Well, PD 'fixed' one thing, the 75K DR cap

 

[mclarenLB]

Reading this back is so weird, but it did indeed turn out that:

Yes, a DR based Top 24 Superstars where all the drivers were 75k/99 was indeed randomly selected