The penalty analysis thread

[gtpierre]

Right those are FIA official irl rules. GT Sport states in the video that it’s a non contact sport.
If I’m not mistaken at release this game at any contact penalized both cars, but everyone hated that so much they changed it.
Interestingly in FIA Blancpain gt it’s stated in the irl rules that a pro driver involved in an incident with an amateur will be more heavily penalized than the am which matches again your idea about severity of pen in game when it’s A vs D
So like in game for yourself running from the back, the game should be strict on pens unless you are in a room of all a or above.

As far as how to race re friendly nudge passing, whether it’s by design or not, the fact is in a slow car it’s not gonna give you a pen. I think in any car the ‘nudge’ is not penalized so that’s what happens. I’m prepared to race like that.
I’d say there’s a personal view of good and bad racing, but irl if you can track cut for example to save time every racer will cut if it helps them. In this game if a little rub is allowed, if I want to I will rub on by.
That’s racing. That’s maybe not by design but that’s what it is. You push as far as possible without getting a pen...

As said by Sven the comparison with real life FIA race is a bit useless, particularly when it comes to track limit.
Cutting the track can get you a huge penalty if repeated in FIA races. Passing through the pit gets you something like 15s loss minimum and you have to consider the tyre temperature that falls down and will affect the next lap or two laps.

Cutting the curbs also affects the car. In any FIA race that is over 1h, you can be almost sure that if you hit the curbs regularly, you will get a flat or the suspension will break. In endurance races, the teams actively communicate with the drivers to tell them to calm down with the curbs.

If we were getting a broken suspension after hitting 10 big curbs or going fast in the grass, and that we needed to pit to fix it, the track cutting would stop very fast. But gt sport can't be that realistic

I think I'm really gonna look for some league or private clean lobby because it's too rare to find clean drivers, and even if they are clean, the penalty system jumps on the first occasion to penalize someone.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

This video was posted in the fia race forum, so a plus room.


It’s very close but looks like the offending car registered as having made an overtake before impact as far as the game is concerned. So did the system see this as the victim bumping a car off track to gain position or is the system even THAT smart?

Question is does position changing influence the contact one car off penalty?

If you are ahead of the car you contacted and he goes off does the system do the same thing?

See my two Tokyo examples. The first is like this, dive clipping me then goes off (hits wall)
Second, car taps my rear then hits wall. I was always ahead and got the penalty.

Both same result, penalty for me. Position change had no effect. On Monza and Sarthe you also have the scenario where a dive clips you and skips the second part of a chicane (thus goes off) and you get the penalty. So a 'successful' overtake, leaving the victim with a penalty. Next week's race C will probably bring this up again at the chicane.

 

[nuu1212]

My scientific analysis: It's a piece of crap.
Just another demonstration of how software development constantly fails to adapt to the customer's real needs.
The likely scenario:
Developers with no idea of racing have implemented and modified a misguided algorithm based on ambiguous input from their boss.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

My scientific analysis: It's a piece of crap.
Just another demonstration of how software development constantly fails to adapt to the customer's real needs.
The likely scenario:
Developers with no idea of racing have implemented and modified a misguided algorithm based on ambiguous input from their boss.

That's rather unfair towards the devs. They have shown time and time again that they're trying to adapt and improve the system.

The problem is, any general solution is not going to work, and then there's lag screwing things up. Every corner and sequence of corners is unique. Braking point and turn in points change based on the car, tires used, tire wear, fuel weight, slipstream. Driving lines are different depending on the same things as well as different for defending, attacking, driving side by side.

So a statement like "To have the right to the apex you need to establish significant overlap before turn in point" carries a ton of problems. The turn in point changes all the time, overlap is uncertain with just a tiny bit of lag. Then what about consecutive corners where acceleration zones, braking zones and turn in / corner exit all start to bleed into each other.

The difference in braking points of the R92CP vs the Porsche hybrid at Mulsanne is over 50 meters. With uneven tire wear even bigger. So just the 'simple' distinction between a brake check (braking too early) and braking too late is already very complicated.

I thought I could do a better job at it as well, yet the more I look into it, the more I see the immensity of all the problems involved.

 

[Groundfish]

So really next question is contact and cars both go off...So far there is zero evidence that the system has any logic at all to assign blame. If there’s in contact and both cars go off do they both get pens?
I’m wondering also, the only adjustment possible to the system I can see at this point is how hard a contact is to trigger a penalty. Like a sensitivity adjustment.
It seems at lower ranks the system is less sensitive than at higher ranks, is that true?

So really, let’s say you are a player using daily races. You only want the cleanest races available. I have had the following experience, when I was at sr99 for say 7-10 races in a row it SEEMED like I was able to get to mid and bottom of the best lobbies when I raced. It SEEMED like when I had my last rage fit I was matchmade into being the ‘target’ ie a lone A driver in say a mostly b-c lobby...It SEEMED like being full 99 for an extended period of races brought the best matchmaking available...
@Sven Jurgens, YOU HAD A LOT of experience with an extended clean race streak. Did you notice any change in matchmaking or was it the same? Did you get into lobbies with an alien or two at the top more often?

Back to pens, it seems to me that in order to get blame assignment to work better, contact beyond the sensitivity setpoint threshold would have to trigger an analysis of the situation based on some rules right now it kinda seems like there really isn’t any algorithm in play beyond contact car off.

For fun or bonus points suggest what those rules ought to be...

Also @Sven Jurgens isnt it true that with a stable connection to host that effect of lag is almost nil due to host compensation? For example if you are playing with a steady 70 ms ping then the host will build that in to the created reality?
Unstable connection though...lol

 

[ASH32]

So really next question is contact and cars both go off...So far there is zero evidence that the system has any logic at all to assign blame. If there’s in contact and both cars go off do they both get pens?

Probably depends on who goes off first, the 2nd one will then likely get the blame and the penalty, wouldn't surprise me.

Also don't forget barrier penalties are separate, so hit one, even when spun off and that could be a 5 second penalty for that. Even barrier penalties are not consistent though.

 

[nuu1212]

Analyse this: I got a 5sec penalty here.


My view:
3rd takes a dive, where no clean overtake is possible.
Surprisingly, we make it through the first corner side by side.
I have the inside for the second corner, but he does not give up and bumps me.
He is in an awkward position with two wheels on the grass and loses it.

System's conclusion:
I have bumped him off => 5sec

 

[watto79]

My scientific analysis: It's a piece of crap.
Just another demonstration of how software development constantly fails to adapt to the customer's real needs.
The likely scenario:
Developers with no idea of racing have implemented and modified a misguided algorithm based on ambiguous input from their boss.

That's incredibly harsh on PD. They are the first developer who have attempted anything like this on console. Turn 10 are only just now trying and are having their own issues with it. The problem is an algorithm can only look at certain binary incidents (contact, exceeding track limits etc.) and then has to apportion blame. The trouble is in real life it's not as simple as that, and in a lot of circumstances there may actually be no blame.

Look at real life racing. They will have a team of adjudicators who will discuss at length who, if anyone, is to blame for an incident and then a majority decision will be made. An algorithm is not going to get it right every time no matter how clever it is.

My assumption with the penalty system is that at the moment the game can only detect and track a very small number of parameters. As I mentioned this is likely to be limited to contact by two cars, and then does one or both of those cars then exceed the track limits/touch a wall. No this is not sufficient for all incidents but it's a solid start.

Hopefully over time more parameters can be added to the program, such as player inputs before and during a braking zone. However this is not something simple to do.

PD have created a rudimentary penalty system that often works, and often doesn't work and for sure it can be frustrating when it makes an unfair decision. However wild assumptions and accusations targeting the developers is not going to help.

Remember, they did this on console first. I'd argue that IS adapting to customers (us) needs.

Keep the feedback constructive and PD will continue to adapt and improve the system as best they can. There is certainly room for improvement and I fully expect that the way PD continually update the game that they will continue to update and improve the penalty system.

 

[nuu1212]

And this blocking Frenchman, where I am blamed with a 4.0 sec penalty

His double blocking move looks pretty unsafe to me and it made me miss the breaking point.

Then there are complete fails like this one at 1:10

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I think when both cars go off DR difference plays a role, plus who goes off first is usually considered the victim. Of course also 'first to leave the road' depends on lag and track limits...

On my extended clean streak where I raced in full avoidance mode and slowly descended all the way down to DR.1, matchmaking mainly changed based on available players at the time. In off peak hours it will still be A(+)/S on pole, D/S at the bottom. During peak hours there were enough players to split the SR.99 base and at first I would be racing with A(+)/S to B/S and when getting below 20K DR, racing with B/S to D/S and sometimes even a full D/S room when I had reached the bottom. (Still not starting last with DR.1 lol)



Matchmaking is no mystery.
- Gather all players in 90-99 SR range.
- If not enough to fill a room, lower bottom limit until enough players are gathered (there is no limit, will go down to SR.E early morning)
- Create rooms from top to bottom DR, lastly sort on qualifying times (qualy time has no effect on matchmaking)
- Left over players will be matched with lower SR ranks (ie collecting players starts over by lowering the lower SR limit)

This means that if a 90-99 SR room has lower DR players left over, that they can be matched with A(+)/S players with 80 to 89 SR. (the next SR tier) In rare circumstances this can lead to a room with A+/S on pole and the rest all D/S.



There is no such thing as a stable (constant ping) connection. Lan play sessions only I'm afraid.

Since everyone is in a different location lag will be always be different for each player. Routing al traffic through a central server instead of one host helps if that server is centered between the players. After PD merged the servers again there were some races where I had the misfortune of getting to race on the South American server. All Canadians and US players had at most 3 yellow bars while Brazilians had 4 or 5 green for a change. It was a mess.

70ms is a lot, almost 2 meters at 100 kph. Even a bump with a speed difference of only 20kph makes a difference of 40 cm with 70ms delay. Kinda hard to say whether the other car had significant overlap or not at the time of impact. You could build in some upper limit, like always add 70ms lag for everyone to make sure all data is synchronized and arrives on time on each client. Yet add render time and display lag and you're looking at a NFS Shift 2 type laggy racing. That became uncontrollable at higher speeds due to the 120ms input lag.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

And this blocking Frenchman, where I am blamed with a 4.0 sec penalty

His double blocking move looks pretty unsafe to me and it made me miss the breaking point.

Then there are complete fails like this one at 1:10

First one, his first move to the left side could still be seen as recovering from the corner after he took a shortcut (and got a 0.5 sec penalty I see)
Then he defends to the right and is technically allowed to go back to the left while leaving a car width for you. However I'm pretty sure that should be done before the braking zone, he's still moving left at turn in, swerving in the braking zone is a big no no, very dangerous.
Since he was ahead you had the misfortune that the game detected him as going off first, thus you got the penalty.

The game unfortunately only looks at outcomes, not what happened before (apart from flagging cars that came from off road so you don't get a time penalty from track re-entries) This is definitely and area that needs improvement. Swerving in braking zones should be reason for a warning and/or penalty when accidents like this happen.

Second, agreed nonsense. Was it a DR.D driver? He gets ghosted quite a bit. Consistent with the 'rules' anyway. Contact, he goes off, you get a penalty. It sucks.

(Previous post) Hmm from this point of view the penalty looks deserved. You push him off the road not leaving any room.

I'm not saying his driving was any good, yet had you gone off (take a little shortcut) when he dive bombed you, he would have gotten the penalty.

 

[Groundfish]

Interesting.
See my ping is above 70, but when measured never varies, or I haven’t seen it vary. The octagon for me is all filled and green except I think the top part which is not all the way full.
I’ve had no trouble racing close at all.
I DO notice though, that if I practice in arcade and then switch to sport I’m off.
It’s necessary to me to always only play in sport, or as much as possible.
Game always tells me I have a good environment, but my ping is high.
In arcade my inputs are 1-1
In sport it’s like 1-70ms-1 or whatever.
So if I get my timing down in arcade I’m screwed in sport.
Sorry off topic

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Interesting.
See my ping is above 70, but when measured never varies, or I haven’t seen it vary. The octagon for me is all filled and green except I think the top part which is not all the way full.
I’ve had no trouble racing close at all.
I DO notice though, that if I practice in arcade and then switch to sport I’m off.
It’s necessary to me to always only play in sport, or as much as possible.
Game always tells me I have a good environment, but my ping is high.
In arcade my inputs are 1-1
In sport it’s like 1-70ms-1 or whatever.
So if I get my timing down in arcade I’m screwed in sport.
Sorry off topic

Try this site
https://www.megapath.com/speedtestplus/

I get 24ms ping to Toronto with 5ms jitter. 98 mbps down, 8.8 mbps up and see the effects of lag all the time in game.
Of course that's a high speed test server, closest to me. When I choose San Jose CA, my ping drops to 85ms.
When I try Amsterdam, 158 ms ping with 68ms jitter!!!

This one keeps going continuously (don't know where to)
https://ping.canbeuseful.com/en#ping
But you can see how it varies and I get the occasional lag spike as well.

Plus it's not only your ping and jitter you are dealing with. Everyone else's as well.

That your timing is different in Arcade and Sport has more to do with the physics. It's well known that it feels different between qualifying and racing. Display lag is a factor as well. When I switch tvs I have to adjust my braking and turn in points on high speed tracks like Sarthe. Just that little difference can mean braking on time or ending in the sand. Hence asynchronous clients are the way to go. Variable input lag would kill and high speed racing.

 

[nuu1212]

The game unfortunately only looks at outcomes, not what happened before

Yep, this is my biggest complaint. It also might be the hardest to find a working algorithm for things like this.

If an overtaking driver takes a potentially unsafe action (like a lunge),
the "blame" for this and consecutive corners should always be (at least partly) on him, IMHO.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I did my daily workout on race B this morning, and although Friday is still the cleanest day to race, there were still some incidents to analyze and this time I saved the replays for alternate viewing angles

First up, SR Down deserved?

A little tap on my rear bumped, I get SR Down while nothing really happens. Am I cutting him off here?

Second one, tapped on my rear again, this time I make sure I go off to trigger a penalty instead of getting a red S for another SR Down

Lag was involved, yet who was at fault here or just a racing incident?

Next race, a lag shimmy. I assume he got the SR Down here, I did not get anything.

I didn't save the replay here but seems pretty clear. Little lag spike interference, contact, yet forgiven this time (for me anyway)

Third race, lag punt.

I position my car to his inside to avoid running into his lag. Unfortunately he either moves over to block or turns in early. I can't tell since his telemetry is all scrambled no matter what view I try. Could I have done anything different here? At least my client detected no contact, thus no penalty.

Last one, Brazilian sandwich.

I'm focused on avoiding the laggy slowpoke on my left. The 4C doesn't like all the throttle corrections I'm making and I end up with some snap oversteer. Before I can correct, the next car is already on my right. He takes a shortcut, I get a penalty. Deserved?

In conclusion, lag sucks!

 

[Groundfish]

Yep, this is my biggest complaint. It also might be the hardest to find a working algorithm for things like this.

If an overtaking driver takes a potentially unsafe action (like a lunge),
the "blame" for this and consecutive corners should always be (at least partly) on him, IMHO.

Right remember that to have an algorithm you need to define safe vs unsafe via cars positions speeds etc.

I am in the same boat as @Sven Jurgens.
At first glance the problem seems simple to solve, but as of yet none of us on this thread can offer even one rule to add.

Imo the simpler it can be the better.

The other aspect we have yet to analyze is sr up and down.

I think that just means running without contact and staying within track limits.

It seems each contact results in sr down, and if contact leads to car off then issue penalty.

Sven’s last example shows it perfectly.

Is it possible to get a penalty if no car goes off track?

 

[kemmac]

Same area had improved and some had gone worst. For instance I was ahead of car and about to turn either side as car behind me come to brush me sideway. I get the penalty not other car. Also while driving ahead as car came fast to pass me ahead with sharp hit front of my car. I get penalty not the other car. That had gone worst. Car got penalty and force to decelerate while driving. Thats good. So technically I see penalty system see-saw improvement. What you think?

 

[ASH32]

If you hit someone or they hit you, doesn't really matter, hope they don't go off the track or hit a wall because that's when it starts handing out penalties for contact. The higher your DR and SR the harsher it is but even then it can give 2,3,4 or 5 second penalties and it seems kind of random which one it is.

Also if they have lag they almost have free reign to punt and/or the game just does it for them and there is very little chance of a penalty as at least one end (usually there's) does not actually register a hit so no penalty. This does mean you can hit a laggy car off too but you've got to get near enough to only hit it on their screen but not on yours otherwise it's still a penalty and since it's lagging it's a bit pot luck whether that will happen or not.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Today I've got some false negatives. I did a bunch of races on the daily B this morning, mostly clean, but still some contact.

First, pretty much a repeat of what started this thread with a few differences. I'm DR.B now, same as the other driver that hit me. I'm on the outside this time and the incident happened further off the racing line to the outside of the corner. The other went off, yet I did not get a penalty nor SR Down.


Here's a true false negative. I had a senior moment, zoned out for a second and completely missed my braking marker. I tried to avoid by going on the grass but couldn't thread the needle and and up dive bombing another player off the road. No penalty, clean sector

The only thing I can think of is that since I went off road first, a shortcut which was forgiven (green SR up arrow for the sector) for some reason the penalty system thought the other car deserved SR Down. He didn't get a penalty at least. I apologized after the race, we had a good clean race for the rest of the race.

Last a barge pass. No SR Downs where issued but really this kind of thing should not be allowed.

Lag was also involved though, some weird movements there.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

All right two more. That's the last for today as in my experience it's only going to get worse as Saturday moves on. Too much contact and the penalty system isn't doing much.

A lot of bumping without any penalties getting issued. A bump pass, ram, short cut, rammed off road and some nose sticking.

Notice how in the live feed I definitely feel the effects of getting pushed in the final turn, while in the replay it looks clean.

And lastly a repeat of what I had earlier, trying to avoid a dive in T1. Instead of sticking to trail braking I lift of the brakes for a bit while holding off on turning in to clear the dive. Then get nailed anyway when the car behind me doesn't return the no contact favor and instead accelerates into me. I get SR Down for my efforts to avoid a collision and end up backwards on the track.

The penalty system is way too lenient now and behavior is changing accordingly.

 

[ASH32]

I agree with the penalty system being too lenient and when it's not it's blaming the wrong player a lot of times. I only had one race from the back today for the daily mileage list but I've another dumb penalty video to make and post. There were lots of aggressive drivers on and I was surprised not to get more penalties in the end.

 

[kjeldsen]

*EDIT*

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Sven is the rule book on the games penalty system, he has done so many races he instinctively knows when what is going to happen before the games penalty system.

Perfect example on Svens analyzing and a clear flaw in the system:



I am getting a bit out of shape going into 130R so i lift a bit, the other car hits me, and get thrown into the wall, as do i because he freaking hits me from behind. Penalty 3 seconds to me and a race thrown away. Afaik he got nothing. It is by far one of the main flaws of the game. Hit someone from behind and make him get a penalty. Also going of track should simply ghost you until you are on the racing line and speed again..

Looks like he was insistent on going on your right, lost traction on the kerbs, oversteered into you and went off first. Consistent with the penalty system which can't recognize accidents. Even though it was an accident, the other car is still at fault for initiating a dangerous move. It certainly shouldn't penalize the victim.

 

[MortosDer]

I hit a guy on the rear and made him spin out of t2 at fia. Not even sr down. Granted, wasn't on purpose, my car just took off in 2ND gear and refused to move. But still, I deserved 5 seconds easily

 

[Groundfish]

I really like the idea of leave the track/ghost.

So where do we sit? False negatives? Or are they simply the effect of lag somehow disabling the system?

 

[MortosDer]

Going out of track is a trigger for penalties. I could see the ghosting thing being abused

 

[MortosDer]

I think we should look at top speed or revs when contact happens. At least on .the usual heavy breaking turns. Or hairpins. Another thing, the driver ahead decides breaking points for everyone else.

 

[MortosDer]

When the driver making a move goes to the inside, have a detection zone activated on the apex. On contact, the player closest to hitting said apex gets priority

 

[Sven Jurgens]

I really like the idea of leave the track/ghost.

So where do we sit? False negatives? Or are they simply the effect of lag somehow disabling the system?

If you look at Incident 6 up there, there was no (or very little) lag involved. A clear collision sound, affecting both of us dramatically, force of impact was severe and he went into the sand. Yet no penalty. I did cut the corner in a failed attempt to avoid which perhaps made the system see it as an 'accident'.

Leave track and ghost would be abused by people taking short cuts to dive through other cars...

When the driver making a move goes to the inside, have a detection zone activated on the apex. On contact, the player closest to hitting said apex gets priority

That's not how racing works though. Only when you have significant overlap before turn in do you have the right to the apex. Diving to the apex is not a valid strategy.

Before last summer the penalty system looked at where the contact occurred with the idea that the car ahead is 'right'. However dive bombs that bombed so fast that the contact with the victim is victim's nose to back half of dive bomber's car resulted in the victim getting the penalty and the bomber got a free pass for a shortcut. It was a popular move on Monza. Dive bomb T1 while getting clipped by the victim and skip the second part of the chicane. Free pass, victim got 10 sec penalty.

Dive bomber is also closest to the apex at the point of contact so that move would be back... That move still works btw, just got to make sure you hit the victim in such a way they don't leave the track and you get a free shortcut for the second half of chicane. The game needs to smarten up and look at braking on time and define turn in overlap to fix that. However braking points and turn in points and even overlap are very hard to define and change all the time depending on cars, traffic, lag, lines out of the previous corner in consecutive corners, tire wear.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

Daily workout, 3 races on Autopolis, 5 incidents.

First the classic car spins out, taps you before leaving the road and you get a penalty. Red S for the race.


Second (observed). Two DR.B drivers, one bumps the 3 bar connection in front of him off, no penalty.

Is it lag or was the contact not severe enough (for DR.B)

Third (observed). The red car doesn't take the corner tight enough, runs into the car beside him, over corrects and goes off.

The car leaving plenty room and driving a steady line gets 2 sec penalty.

Another observed penalty. Looks like a racing incident to me. Blue car is a bit too wide, grey car doesn't leave any margin for the blue car to recover and gets bumped off. Blue gets a penalty, however grey was the one who could have prevented it.


Lastly a false negative. I sneak through the inside of a car going wide, we make contact, he goes off, no penalty.

It was a DR.D driver, yet the contact was very soft, plus there was lag involved.

Sun is out, that's it for me today. Daily workout done.