Points Distribution and Prequalification

Hi,

I was just having a look at the way the points are distributed in groups A and B. In group A you get 20 points for finishing 4th, which, considering the strength of the field in group A, is a pretty good achievement. However, for winning group B (with fastest lap) you also get 20 points. Now I'm not saying that winning group B isn't a good achievement, but considering in the last race at Suzuka only 3 people finished the race, it doesn't really seem fair to award the same amount of points that you would get for finishing 4th in group A. Does anyone else think this maybe needs to be rebalanced? Personally, I would make around an 8th-10th place finish equal to a group B win. That way, it would still be possible for group B drivers to make it into group A, but at the same time rewarding the group A results more fairly.

Anyways, that's just my opinion.

Let me know what you think,

Matt

Thanks for putting this on the table, Matt. I appreciate your concerns and I wish you guys can propose some better solutions.

This is my view on it:
points distribution is designed in a way to allow strong drivers that joined the group in the middle of the championship, to quickly ramp up, and join the Group A sooner.
This method allows groups to be a bit more variable and allow people with similar skills to compete together.
Fast guys in group B will pretty soon end up in group A.
Consistency is the key to stay in group A.
It will be easy for someone that drop down in group B to go back in A with a good result in B.

From the experience of the last 4-5 championships, in which we used this method, I think this method works pretty fine on the long term, because after an initial transient phase, you will see the strongest drivers always competing between each other, despite some slip off in some races.

We always had very close championship results with the victory assigned at the very last race with 3-4 drivers that could have won it.

Looking at the single race can seem to be unfair. Looking it in a wider way it will, in my view, the aim will be clear.

I think the points work quite well for moving people between the groups. However, it seems a shame when the number of participants leave just a few drivers in group B. My suggestion would be that if there are less than (n - I'd suggest 5) drivers in group B, drivers from group A are either encouraged to, or moved to group B to even up the numbers. The carrot for them is the possibility of a better result and more points. Obviously that leaves fewer drivers in Group A but on long races you are often driving lap after lap without sight of another driver so the experience would be much the same apart from the start. If that was the case then I'd suggest that the points difference between the groups was made even smaller.

that sounds as a great idea to me!

ive actually never liked the points system nor groups. more often than not, guys with less experience and speed are thrown into group A with the quicker guys which can (and has) cause problems due to the speed difference.

i believe we should have the two seperate groups which consist of drivers who have similar pace and experience. Group A for the quicker guys and group B for the less paced guys. this would also make for some closer racing as the groups pace will be similar.

the points distrubution will be the same for both groups as the pace will be relative, however i still think 30 / 28 / 26 / 24 pts (etc) is far too many. most of the time 3 or 4 drivers drop out of the race anyway which means completing it will get you almost 20 points anyway.

How about pre-qualifying for each race (like we used to do at gpchampionship)? In the week leading up to each race the server records each drivers fastest lap time and the top 15 are in group A, the next 15 in group B. This means that in each race the fastest 15 drivers will always be in group A. It also means that even if a driver starts in the middle of the season, he can race in group A if he is fast enough.

the pre-qualifying times would be taken from nkrank?

MikaRaymond wrote:the pre-qualifying times would be taken from nkrank?

At gpchampionship there was a pre-qualifying server that was password protected so only league drivers could join. The fastest lap times of each driver was recorded and ranked on the gpchampionship website. So I'm guessing it's using pretty much the same thing as nkrank, but you had to drive your lap on that server for it to be counted. I don't know how difficult it was to setup... but it seemed to work well at the time

rsr currently use something similar for the f2000 @ zandvoort link on the homepage. it only logs down the laptimes of people who have driven on that server, meaning it would be extremely easy to set a password and use that for pre-qualifying. i wouldnt know how difficult or otherwise it would be to allocate each individual driver to a specific group though. maybe just changing the order of allocated drivers?

Yep that was pretty much what was used. So if pre-qualifying ended for Zandvoort now then Maarten down to Paul (assuming everyone is allocated) would be the 15 drivers in group A and so on for the rest. So it looks like it can be done.. But everyone would need to be aware of it because if you don't post a lap time then you are going to be at the bottom of the list.

I quite like the idea of pre-qual but I think it potentially misses an important aspect. I'm not the fastest driver around but I'll often pass faster guys as they overcook it into a turn. Being able to turn in a fast hot lap isn't necessarily a sign of a driver who can run a decent pace for 40 laps. I'd suggest pre-qual was based on the times over 5-10 lap races/runs but that might be difficult/complex to implement or unfair on folks if they can't find a race in the run up. Ho hum ...

MikaRaymond wrote:ive actually never liked the points system nor groups. more often than not, guys with less experience and speed are thrown into group A with the quicker guys which can (and has) cause problems due to the speed difference.

i believe we should have the two seperate groups which consist of drivers who have similar pace and experience. Group A for the quicker guys and group B for the less paced guys. this would also make for some closer racing as the groups pace will be similar.

im slow..........very slow.......last race minus 4 second in qualy
soo I can t never fight in Group A. ???
....I know ..alien is faraway to my time.. i m a slow man..
but pilot like me exsist...is quite impossible to win in gA for me NOW ..but time ago was different in nkp..whit a full mode ..I was having a possibility to claim the podium...
now never..

the point sistem was create in a full mode sistem race long ago...
may be need to change some......
is not funny anymore for me fight like hell and having 4 second down every lap...
.is ready some race I think too come down in group B but the numbers of driver there is ridicoulus..

PS I never give up to race in NKP or RSR..

Personally I just think it is the fairest way to have the 15 fastest drivers at each track competing in group A. It also adds a bit of fun in between the races

Matt Dawson wrote:

MikaRaymond wrote:the pre-qualifying times would be taken from nkrank?

At gpchampionship there was a pre-qualifying server that was password protected so only league drivers could join. The fastest lap times of each driver was recorded and ranked on the gpchampionship website. So I'm guessing it's using pretty much the same thing as nkrank, but you had to drive your lap on that server for it to be counted. I don't know how difficult it was to setup... but it seemed to work well at the time

Pre-qualifying sounds as a great idea to me!

For slowest and not experienced driver like me is quite frustrating and stressful (because of the problem you can cause) racing against "Aliens".
In this way you should always race against drivers with quite similar skill level and then grown up in experience till you are ready for the category jump.
Moreover it's better for faster driver. If you look at last race in Snetterton Grupo B was faster than Group A because of the first race in the championship of 2 very fast driver (Rudy and Marteen). And they probably risk to have to race also next race in Group B because of the points in champ, so definitely better also for faster driver that could always race against driver of the same level even if they begin to race in a championship already started.

Very good proposal Matt!

Marco

then you will create a server for the aliens and a server for those a little slower and one for those who have no experience and is very slow. we form the "ghettos" where to place the drivers.

Graziano said I agree with what he says without a full mode you can not even compete for a podium finish was preferred when the rule of the 5 laps to go to esc box.

for me no need to change rules and scoring system for the race if I do not find it right that my race with no mistakes I am taken up by people who go to the first turn wall with this system of rules and it is so for example you forget of collisions in the red zone. I state that not one of the fastest on the track, but it has happened in my last race for the first few laps I was in first and then with 10 drivers that need to use "esc go to box" to restart the race and rhythm and then have always finished off the 10 right thing if everyone had perfect conduct of the race.
I do not think we need to change the score, but all abide by the rules that go

davide zardin wrote:then you will create a server for the aliens and a server for those a little slower and one for those who have no experience and is very slow. we form the "ghettos" where to place the drivers.
......

It's not clear if you are negative here speaking of "ghettos"
Anyway, is not a matter of creating "ghettos", is only to find a more logical way to divide racers into groups.
The system of prequalifying seems quite logical taking in account ability of each driver and how fast he is in that specific track.
From my point of view the classification based on points in championship (and when the same, time of allocation) is a way, not wrong, but less logical that the one proposed from Matt.
In this way also slower driver has the possibility to win, even if in group B (or C), so I think also Graziano should be satisified (at least I think, since I'm in similar position and I look positive at this proposal).


I agree Full Mode is very important, but uunfortunately at the moment, as far as I understand, not usable for bugs.

davide zardin wrote:for me no need to change rules and scoring system for the race if I do not find it right that my race with no mistakes I am taken up by people who go to the first turn wall with this system of rules and it is so for example you forget of collisions in the red zone. I state that not one of the fastest on the track, but it has happened in my last race for the first few laps I was in first and then with 10 drivers that need to use "esc go to box" to restart the race and rhythm and then have always finished off the 10 right thing if everyone had perfect conduct of the race.
I do not think we need to change the score, but all abide by the rules that go

If I understood correctly what you mean, that's another topic and cannot be solved changing point system or method of creating groups, but it doesn' t exclude to make this change. Anyway having groups with driver with similar ability could probably help a bit, even if not solve the situation.

- Errors can happen to everyone, but everyone should try to be more correct possible, mainly at the beginning of a race
- Full mode is surely a detterent for more "aggressive" racer (but not definetely the solution)
- Useful could be an analysis of crash after race and judgement and penalization of incorrect drivers (technical problem to have an objective report of the accident, something was tried here if I remeber correctly form gek. "Human" problem to find a judge or a judge college since we should probably find someone that doesn't race here etc.)

At the end is all mainly related with the correctness of everyone, accepting anyway that errors can be made also by the fairest driver.
The more the community expand, the more proabable is that inside "aggressive" drivers come.

So I see very important 2 aspects (in order of importance):
First: correctness and respect of everyone
Second: understanding when error happens, both for human as for technical problem

At the end it's a game, sometimes (by the way, here way more less than in other community with other suimulators) I see people that get angry more than real driver in similar condition even if error is clearly unintentionl and occasional, also this is lack of correctness

had made a league placing of the rules where if you went to or if you were forced to beat fae "esc go to box," you had to stand still 5 laps, then I managed to get the championship podium. with these rules is impossible for me to compete for the podium, if we want to do the pre-qualifying before the race for me is good but we need rules in the race for everyone.

it is true that the accuracy must be for all the first step, and that we can all make mistakes, but the points you get so you offsetting the rankings. I say do not change points in the championship, but reintroduced in the league rules.

Ok, I got it now. Sorry, read to fast before. You are speaking of championship podium, not race podium.

That's also another topic.
Racing with different groups is good because give more equilibrate race.
Racing in different group is complicate in campionship view because is not easy to balance the amount of point given in the different group.
Making 2 different classification for the championship (Group A and B) is impossible because you are not sure to race every races always in tha same group....

Not an easy task to find a correct balance in points system, but I agree with you that actual works quite well, so also from my point of view non need to change it.
In view championship could be also important, as you and Graziano said, the possibility to use Full Mode, hopefully kunos will have time to give a look.

Personally I don't like pre-qualifying, maybe cos @ a good event for me I'm just shy of Group A, & at a bad one battling to stay in Group B Also with GPC the numbers were a little higher, but with the current amount of competitors it would surely be the same people in Group B most of the time (if there was PQ). The system doesn't always avoid a slow coach making it into Group A either, I snuck in for the final GPC race last season, & was frankly a mobile chicane for other drivers (despite it being my most competitive race of the season).

I'm actually racing in ARS, joined at Blackwood and with 2 victories there (mainly because of lack of drivers in group B in that first races) I'm now almost sure to race next races in Group A, that is frankly a little bit too high level for me....
On the contrary Maarten and Rick, having raced together in Group B in Snetterton and having won a race each other will be probably forced to race next event again on Group B. And it's not only a matter for those two racing in a slower group, a secondary effect is that slower drivers of group B have no more chance of victory. And it's very descouraging.
With prequalifying this problem could be less evident, even if not totally solved.

Service communication:
I ask moderators, since this topic was originally on Point Distribution, could be better discuss the pre-qualifying topic in a dedicated thread? I find this an interesting topic to discuss.

Hey Guys,

where should i start ...

at first, we are all here to have nice race und of course nice battles on the tracks.
What I write now could also belong to gek's thread (In quanti siamo? how many are we?)

For me the most important part in a sim to have a propper handling (physics) of the cars (Netkar!!) and enough opponents. What i think we dount have in netkar. This is why i stick to Iracing in the last time ... sadly.

It is too boring to have an 1h race and you only see someone in the first few laps or when someone is lapping you. I love to have battles with 2 or more people whole the time. And this is very rare. Especialy with a max of 15 players or even less. This is what i love about the system of Iracing, you have many players and you race against players of your skill level. For me it is not importennt to win a race or to loose it, the RACE is importent for me, it must be full of racing against others.

Ok to come back to this topic here ... I think pre-Q. will give the races more tension. Because people of their same level competing together. If we will have pre-Q. i think we must think about where to split the groups. If we have always 5 people on group B and 15 on group A. It is not very interesting for people in group B.

Maybe we should split the Drivers in the middle. Or we should have something like the 107% like in the F1. And all slower people move to group B. But i dont know very hard to find something where everyone i satisfied.

I would also love to see something like NKworld back. I loved it and it gave racing more pressure and for me fun also.

2 last things to mention, i would be very nice if Kunos could look after the fullmode and maybe a few more people on the server, like 20 or even more ;-)

thats it for the moment.


greetings

I am all for pre-qualifying, that seems a fair way to race, and also good for people in group B because they will all have similar speed as well. I loved prequaly at GPC, and i would love that have it at RSR as well. You could qualify for a week or so, so everyone could get a lap in.

Anyway, that's all i wanted to say on the matter :-)

Maarten

Pre-qualy is a good idea, Like Maarten said, it would allow people to really get upto speed and move up to group A alot quicker (and thats the goal for alot of us in group B), but I also like the current setup for qualy as well, the thrill of 20 minutes of qualy, having to hammer out faster and faster laps, It makes me more focused on beating the guy infront of me or getting close to their times and usually I end up putting in my best lap times in that situation.

When I looked through the laptimes and results at the last All Series event, I noticed that some people in group B are just as quick as the ones in group A and some in group A are quite a bit slower than some in group B and this means that between the two classes the racing ends up quite spread out.

I think a pre qualy would allow people to be moved into a more competitive group for the race giving everyone closer racing, but then it would also end up effecting the scoring for the A and B classes...It's hard to say what would be better. It ends up all being a bit complex.

I just love the racing