Progressive system penalty

Last Friday in game chat conversation (M3s at Monza public server, top 3 were jumping all the chicanes):

- Me: Congrats cheaters, you are supposed to drive the chicanes.
- XXX/Steam sale guy: It's allowed (true, the server wasn't implementing the 5sec penalty, we all now is not useful at Monza) so it's fair (not true).
- Me: That's not fair racing and... what's fun about that? This is supposed to be a simulation...
- XXX/ssg: Same rules for all...
- Me: But I managed to follow you and I was doing every chicane (not my merit, they were going to the gravel every lap at curva grande after doing flat out the first variante)
- XXX/ssg: Yeah sorry, you are a good driver, I mean it, but the rules allowed us
- Me: Never mind goodnight (I was flattered because of the "good driver" thing, in fact I'm at best mediocre)

What I mean with this little, and real, parable is that realism is the fun of a simulator game, and players (with or without good rules) need to do some role playing to have that fun. Using exploits can be fun in mainstream games (or if you win money with it) but it gets boring quickly in a good simulator like AC. The emphasis should not only be put in the effectiveness/justice of the penalty system (it's just a game) but in the realism/immersion of its implementation (flags, drive-throughs, etc.) cause it's also a simulator and I'm sure it would help educate fair drivers. After all, I know I was the winner of Friday's night race and that's enough for me...

 

As server admin I'm 'allowed' to ban whomever I choose. I sure hope to see him soon.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

been reading this thread a while and thought I'd add my two pennies.

There is nothing more frustrating in this "SIM" for me than to make a mistake, accidentally run wide not gaining an advantage and get penalised with a loss of power for 5 seconds. It is not real and simply put is dangerous and not only spoils it for me it also has the potential to spoil it for others for reasons outlined many times in this thread.

For hot-lapping / qualifying it's simple - invalidate the lap like some others games do (Forza for example).
For racing, rather than a 5 second power loss why not apply a 5 second penalty at the end of the race?

I've run many leagues in Forza (before AC drew me back to PC SIM racing) where there are no in game penalties other than an invalidation of a lap. But, we have a stewards office that will allow racers to put in claims for incidents (collisions and other racers repeatedly extending track limits). Whilst this may be a bit of a manual chore for the stewards to look at replays, it's only if another racer has put in a claim or the stewards witness something when reviewing the race (we rely on racers being competitive, but professional otherwise why race in a league) and apply retrospective penalties. this for me is the best way to go, as racers know that they cannot get away with being reckless or cheating, but it's flexible and they won't be punished / penalised for leaving the confines of the circuit to avoid a collision or for making a mistake (running wide and not gaining an advantage).

I have always found that in-game penalties (especially for track limits) seldom work - just look at the Codemasters F1 series for example. In a league it is always better to have a stewards office (like real world racing) that can review and apply penalties accordingly.

However, a penalty system is required for public lobby racing - in which case my preference would be to add time at the end of the race rather than a dangerous 5 second power-cut.

 

Fatal flaw of adding time to the end of the race:
1. Cheaters cheat through the whole race
2. Rammers ram through the whole race
3. Complete race is ruined

Useless system again.

Flag system like Wally has designed with some tweaks is the best solution. It will deter rammers/cheaters, and soo they will have no more fun ruining the races and leave.

 

Since this discussion is heating up again I would like to re-iterate my stance:

Ideally the game would keep track of when going off track, flag these sectors and monitor the sector times posted. If the off-track sector time is slower then the average normal sector time, the driver would be cleared and able to continue without problems. If the driver is faster than the average normal sector, there could be a drive-through penalty imposed later in the race. In the beginning of the race, the sector could be held "under investigation" until enough "clear" sector times are recorded to compare times. Later in the race, the decision for a penalty or non-penalty could be taken right away.

This gives a player some discretion. After an error, if a player is convinced that he has lost time he can proceed as fast as he can in order to salvage his race. There would be no extra time loss incurred after an error which already cost time. This is a big annoyance when you already lose time due to an error and are then slapped with an extra 5 second no throttle penalty. If a player is unsure if he has gained time, he can get off the gas for as much time as he thinks he needs to make sure he does not register a faster than average sector time..

This system would lead to a quite fair penalty system, where only real time gain is punished, where there is no extra penalty on errors and where players can correct errors themselves by their own discretion so that they avoid penalties and race without cheating.

 

There is no penalty system out there that will stop wreckers / rammers or deliberate cheaters, not even Wally's, this is why most people that are serious about racing join a league or race in organised events.

A penalty system tends to negatively impact clean racers but I do understand why they may be needed in certain situations (public lobbies). If Wally's system is not going to penalise every deliberate cut or every bit of avoidable contact then it will also be a useless system - but please, I'm not actually forming a view on it, I am more suggesting that any system implemented needs to be realistic (sim'd).

 

I seriously don't have time to join a league. And really want to enjoy racing AC on-line.

 

No problem, he/she wasn't even the "inventor" of the scheme and was polite in the discussion. By the way thank you for providing this kind of indie (not GT3, not Spa, etc.) servers. Yesterday I had instead a very good, although I was mediocre as ever, race in that same server.

 

There isn't a racing game around that provides casual players with serious competition. Thems the breaks. If you want to "pick up and play" then that's the type of people you will be racing against.

 

Not true. Back in the day I raced competitively when I wanted with Grand Prix Legends on VROC. I've yet to figure out why it's so different now. I have great memories of Monza, Zandvoort, Spa and other awesome tracks. Racing with a lot of guys and girls (there was one who always drove the Eagle - Alison Hine). Memories...

 

But this isn't 'back in the day'. It doesn't cost $2.99 a minute to get online now; there are thousands more people added into the mix than there was back when there was only a handful of people hardcore (and wealthy) enough to play online.

The only time I play online anymore is when I am hosting a small lobby, and half the people in it are on teamspeak with me. We've had plenty of people that can't drive at all join, but so far, knock on wood, I haven't had to kick a single person. (probably also because I generally host 'track days' instead of actual races.)

 

I forgot about that! 56K was fast. And it wasn't cheap to get on-line. Plus (I just thought of this) there were no chicanes to cut in 1967

 

Sorry to notice that asking too much will certainly... never be implemented.
Maybe a pity, but public servers will mostly remain as they used to be.

Base rules as penalizing cuts, false start, exceeding pit limit speed ( when it'll be free to use ! ), overtake under yellow flag and driving the wrong way .... should be absolutely necessary for all servers.

Leagues have the advantage to have the Race Incidents reports for all other cases of not respected rules ... fair-play, waiting for the victim of a crash, and so on ...
and they always are analysed after the race by the Race Direction ... penalties according to the mistake are then given afterwards for the next race.

 

I would like to see the tracks set up with designated penalty sectors.
Off track penalties should only apply to the inside radius of the track.
You can't gain anything going over the line on the outside of a corner.
Unless your running wide to purposely cut the inside of the next bend.
in this case you don't get the penalty for the outside sector but you will for the inside sector.
You don't usually gain running off line on a straight so no need for a penalty zone therefore you don't get a penalty
for avoiding trouble in undesignated sectors.
Also if the power cut penalty wasn't implemented immediately but rather you were given a laps duration or 90 seconds to reduce your speed to 60 k for 5 seconds.
You could affect the self imposed penalty at a safe and convenient area.
If you refuse this option after the laps grace an automatic 10 second power cut would apply.

 

When I read that I thought someone knowing that no matter what he'll receive an automatic 10sec power cut, before that happening, he'd be free to ruin others race during those 90sec or duration of 1 lap, instead of himself slowing down to 60kmh to take the penalty.

 

That's true but you can't fix stupid

 

The simple fact of the matter is that truly fair racing requires some input from the drivers themselves. Without that, any kind of system will have loopholes.

 

In my opinion, an automatic slowdown is unrealistic (dare I say it, arcade, for a sim) and dangerous to following cars. I wouldn't use it.

There are two problems being solved here: unfair advantage gained by cutting, and wreckers. For wreckers, I have always favoured turning the wrecker's car into a ghost car for the session. If you spend too much time off track, too much time stationary, too much time going the wrong way, turn the car into a ghost. Or even better, automatically drop their connection from the session.

 

Running wide can be faster.

 

It can also be a lot slower