RDRC Season 4 Rules discussion

[Rick Bamford]

This thread will be to discuss any rules you feel should be changed, modified or introduced for the forth season of the RaceDepartment Rally championship. This first post will contain the draft rules for the season as we make them.

Any and all rules can be discussed here, but make sure your posts and comments are constructive.

 

[Olli Kauppinen]

DNF rules should be rewritten. There was conversation about that a while ago, maybe best solution would be putting same DNF time for all stages, maybe compared to winners time +15min or always 30min. That way everyone who finished all stages would surely be at better position on session leaderboard then the ones who DNF'ed.

 

[Troy Ament]

I'm writing this as a response to Pete's last post in the S3 Comment thread.

So, If I’m joining RDRC to run in a professional Richard Burns Rally league what more would I expect than the Richard Burns Rally league to be a professional simulation of Rallying with all its damage and penalties simulated as close as possible to 'real life'.

If this is true, why are you not complaining that we are using Reduced damage and not Realistic damage? Surely if we were using Realistic, your "minor incident" in Round 3 would have forced a retirement, no?

Pete, I'm sorry to say it man, but I don't think DNFs are really the issue here.

Before I come off as an arrogant arse 'cause I'm leading, I might not make the next couple rally rounds, this isn't life or death for me, school is more important and I barely have enough time for that, there's no need to make a game the center point of my life. So sit back and have fun, if you're getting pissed off over things then step away for a while and do something else.

 

[Pete Mull]

I'm not going to be drawn into a discussion about what has gone before, it's water under the bridge. My main concerns are that the current set of rules don't contain a section on Penalties and that is probably the main cause of the bad discussions that took place in the other thread. I can't be expected to read back through all the discussions that took place prior to the rules being finalized, just the Rules themselves.

If you are going to have a non-emotive discussion about what is fair then I'm up for that. Perhaps we need a set of options for people to decide on following discussions that deal with the facts and not personal attacks on me or anyone else who feels they would like to express their opinion.

Once you have a set of options then surely it would be sensible to run a poll and in that way, get a consensus of the feeling of the current active membership of RDRC. It's not for anyone to rule anything in or out at this present time merely perhaps just state what they would like to see in the penalties section of the Rules.

I will get my thoughts together over the coming days and post what I feel would be reasonable and fair as a set of penalties and I would ask members to also do the same. Perhaps when sufficient time has passed then somebody could draw a summary of the options for members to vote on.

Pete

 

[Norman Biscuits]

Well, in the interests of getting some civilised discussion under way, here are roughly the three options I see people talking about:

A. Leave things as they are

It's a system that's proven and works. There's no extra effort involved, it's the system Rallyesim put in place. Each retirement gives the driver roughly a 5 minute penalty. This method provides the opportunity for a great comeback drive and maybe a few points.

B. 30 minute penalty per retirement

You'll see the overall finishing positions broken down into bands, based on number of retirements.
A driver with 2 retirements will never place above a driver with 1, etc.
The more retirements you have, the further down you're guaranteed to be.

C. One retirement = DNF

The skill/pyschological battle between pushing flat out and not breaking the car. Trippy stuff indeed.
Any other form of racing on RD, if you retire, you're out of the race.

With options B & C, there's zero incentive to continue if you retire.

Also, any step away from the Rallyesim format will mean it will be impossible to compare yourself to other people running in your sesssion (once retirements are involved).

I like aspects of all those listed above; although this is by no means an exhaustive list of options (super rally for example).

The most important thing for me, is settling on the option that keeps the majority of drivers intersted in the championship.

 

[Warren Dawes]

I'll stay out of any further debate over the Rules, (my thoughts have been presented before), however, I'll offer my thoughts on one aspect raised by Pete.

I don't fully support a process of deciding all Rules and Regulations by public vote.

I have experienced this many times elsewhere for leagues and in every case it has led to heated arguments, divided votes, and ultimately people leaving because their desire was outvoted.
Sometimes, total democracy doesn't lead to total harmony.

Also, there are key issues that the Organising Staff understand the best eg. some of the admin duties, workload issues, etc.

I believe the best outcome is to have final decisions made by the OrganisingTeam, after all, they are ultimately accountable for the success or failure of the league. I also believe in a thorough consultation process first, so Organisers should seek input to ideas publically, allow members to have an input (this allows for many new, balanced, views).
Then, after consultation, the organisers should be allowed to set the Rules and Regulations as they see fit, and to match the ideals that they have for the league. That way, they take ownership, have the authority to resolve problems, and keep things under control.
Once the Rules are set for the Season, we should all accept them (if you join), and submit suggestions/ideas for new seasons.

That is basically how I think this league has been progressing in the past, and I think it has served us well. Rick and his team have done a great job with a very new concept (at Racedepartment), it has been developing nicely as they learn and gain input from members, the participation numbers prove that. :yin-yang: eace:

 

[Troy Ament]

The most important thing for me, is settling on the option that keeps the majority of drivers intersted in the championship.

I whole heartedly agree. IMO the point of this championship is to have fun and see who is the fastest, if there's no fun then what's the point of running?

Of the A,B, and C you have listed I personally would hate to run under C, and B would be more annoying but not as bad. I find it fun to try and battle back after having a major off, plus it adds in an element of not being as reserved and throwing caution to the wind and getting some serious stage wins. It may not be "as fair", but IMO having the current DNF system is the most fun as a driver just wanting to run stages and have as much fun as possible.

While we're up for suggestions, I would love to see a mini-rally championship between this season and Season 4 using just Historic cars, like Group B, RWD Escort Mk2, etc., just like a 3 or 4 rally series to bridge the gap. It could be like a mix of the Rally Club and the RDRC, only 6 or 8 stages but with defined service stops and accumulating damage. Just something I'm thinking of, not really anything super serious but with a huge emphasis on fun.

 

[Alastair Walker]

I'd like to comment on the OVERALL Championship points table and possible changes to it for season 4.

Currently this championship really is for the grade 1 and 2 drivers with no one in any of the other grades able to realistically score points as you have to finish in the top ten overall to score any points and while I know the lower grades have their own championship table I think the "Overall Championship" points table should be just that, everyone from all grades competing for the title against each other.

My suggestion therefore is that whatever points your score in your grade during a round should go towards your "Overall Championship" points as well. This way someone in grade 4 can compete against the top drivers in grade 1 and it will come down to consistency of top place finishes. If there are any ties at the end of the season in the top three places overall they can be decided on a count back system based on the number of wins, second placing, third placing in grade and so on until you have a top 3 overall.

I have spoken about this with other drivers in both the grade 1 and lower grades and they agreed it would make the overall championship much more interesting and bring it back to everyone going for the one main championship title with consistent results deciding the overall winner. You should still keep the individual grade championships but make the overall for everyone.

Cheers Al

 

[Pete Mull]

I don't have a problem with the organizing team making the decisions based on the feedback that comes from this thread.

Having said that, I would comment on Norman & Al's posts as follows:

Option A will give inconsistent penalties particularly when BTB tracks are used - we've seen this in the past. Using a fixed penalty shouldn't create extra work particularly if the results are processed in Excel. I am happy to offer my programming skills to amend or write a new Excel Spreadsheet to accommodate whatever method is decided on.

Option B - A 30 minute penalty would seem a little harsh. If we are going to go down the fixed penalty route then perhaps 5 or 6 minutes is a more appropriate but as I have said above in respect of results programs, it's always possible to apply a time penalty to be added to the time of the slowest car in that car class.

Option C - DNF, Fail or Retirement for not completing a stage. I much prefer this option, it's consistent and it rewards also it fits in better with the way we run the Championship in groups of stages between services. Using this method means that a driver who completes a stage with a damaged can make the choice whether he suffers more time penalties on any following stages or take the penalty and retires on that stage to start off with a new car on any successive stages.

On Al's suggestion - Yes, I would like to see the Overall Championship open to all Car Classes (not driver grades) and the points awarded in the classes added to the overall points table for the Championship - this would make the Championship open to all competitors and not just to the guys in the fastest cars.

On my own account, I would like to see the driver grades removed from the awards as changes in driver grades during the Championship mean that drivers who have shown their ability are still running against drivers who have not yet progressed to that level of competence. If I driver qualifies for a higher grade then perhaps they should have the one off option of staying in the car class they are in or moving to the new driver grade car class and car but taking some or all of the points they have gained in the Championship with them and perhaps the car class points.

Pete

 

[Łukasz Demolin]

My suggestion therefore is that whatever points your score in your grade during a round should go towards your "Overall Championship" points as well. This way someone in grade 4 can compete against the top drivers in grade 1 and it will come down to consistency of top place finishes. If there are any ties at the end of the season in the top three places overall they can be decided on a count back system based on the number of wins, second placing, third placing in grade and so on until you have a top 3 overall.

I have spoken about this with other drivers in both the grade 1 and lower grades and they agreed it would make the overall championship much more interesting and bring it back to everyone going for the one main championship title with consistent results deciding the overall winner. You should still keep the individual grade championships but make the overall for everyone.

Cheers Al

That sounds like a bad idea. Especially if you really mean grades (not car classes), simply because a rookie driver with some with some luck/skill/wit allowing him to ace his grade round-after-round can't really be compared to, let's say, Sebastien, who might just happen to miss one round. Of course a Grade 4 driver in an N3 car can't win the championship - and he shouldn't be able to. That's what lower-tier car classes are for.

As for rule discussion in general - it's not a voting nor any final decisions are going to be made in this thread. All the input is read by the Team, then discussed again by all of the Organizers and the final decision is made by them. The thread is meant as a place to express your view about proposed ideas/upcoming changes to let the Team know if any adjustments might be required to avoid early-season drama.

 

[Rick Bamford]

Thanks Lukasz. No this is not a vote, this is a thread for new ideas and inputs that can be discussed by the team to make the championship the best it can be. If there is a vote or a debate it will be between the directing team and no-one else. But we will take into account everything said by the drivers in this thread.

Also, In the interest of being fair we should look at both sides here.

Lukasz has made one of my points. Weather you go on grade points or car class points it would basicly mean that a driver in an N3 or J class car and from grade 3 or 4 will win the championship. Where is the incentive for the top guys to turn up? The current system (and yes i am biased toward it as it was my idea) means that a driver that wants to win the championship has the chance to work their way up to the top level cars and fight for outright wins. If they prove themselves to be much faster than the others in their grade then they get moved : Tonsberg, Haarstadsveen as two examples. One event in the rookie class and they are grade 2.

Anyway, I'm just playing my advocate (lets see who gets that joke )here and providing a different view.

 

[Ian Bundell]

In regards to the discussion on penalties, i would like to not see any changes or option A.

This isn't real rallying, the championship rounds are already very well thought out in my opnion to offer a good level of difficulty which allows skill and speed to prevail.
I would much rather see the guy who's giving it a good go and trying to set some fast stage times be rewarded with a decent finish after a DNF than the guy who just pootles round at a pace anyone could do win because they've been able to find the time to practice the stages every day for 2 weeks.
As it is the guy who's fastest and most consistent wins, then it's a toss up between pushing for fast times and risking a DNF and just taking it easy and finishing. Going by this season's results so far it would generally appear that a reasonable pace with no DNF's is going to put you above those who do get a DNF which seems fair to me and brings in to question why the need for change.
Perhaps a WRC car with a couple of DNF's is still beating little N3 cars with none but surely that's not an issue as they're battling for their own graded championships anyway and considering the difference between the cars is to be expected.
If we were to introduce harsher penalties for a DNF then there would be little incentive to continue after having one and I think it would negatively impact the participation numbers overall as a result.

 

[Norman Biscuits]

In regards to the discussion on penalties, i would like to not see any changes or option A.

Option A is what we have now - no changes.
But just to reiterate, the options I posted are just general directions we could take, I'm not asking anyone to pick one.

Also, I fully agree with Ian's point about pootling around.

 

[Łukasz Demolin]

I would much rather see the guy who's giving it a good go and trying to set some fast stage times be rewarded with a decent finish after a DNF than the guy who just pootles round at a pace anyone could do win because they've been able to find the time to practice the stages every day for 2 weeks.

But it's almost the opposite. Harsher DNF penalties favor the guy who is giving it his best, not taking the risks when he doesn't know the stage, because he couldn't memorize it because he'd just ran all the stages 2-3 times. Of course he won't be able to challenge the fastest, best prepared guys, but that is a major part of rallying - finding and embracing your limits AND being able to read the road. Plus it's different than racing, where you remember every part of the track just to repeat all the corners when it comes to actually racing it; it's more important to know the car and be able to react to a different road using that knowledge, especially when the road is so bumpy that the car might react in 5 different ways to the very same corner.

BTW: I must understand the word "pootle" wrong, because last round (those few stages where I was on the road and not in a ditch) I was giving it all I had and still wasn't able to be competitive enough to stay in touch with the leading pack. Gotta work on my pootling pace .

 

[Nigel Atkins]

I don't fully support a process of deciding all Rules and Regulations by public vote.

I have experienced this many times elsewhere for leagues and in every case it has led to heated arguments, divided votes, and ultimately people leaving because their desire was outvoted.
Sometimes, total democracy doesn't lead to total harmony.

Totaly agree with you there, a questionare via pm would have been better.

Anyway heres a few of my thoughts.

I think the current penalties are already ok and the default times for the BTB stages should stay as they are, but need to be posted along with the stage list as you need to run the stage online to see these times and i think it does add a bit more pressure to these stages.

If the penalty rules are changed, then i would like to see more stages per event upto 24 stages over 2 days.

Also a shakedown stage before SS1

 

[Troy Ament]

Option C - DNF, Fail or Retirement for not completing a stage. I much prefer this option, it's consistent and it rewards also it fits in better with the way we run the Championship in groups of stages between services. Using this method means that a driver who completes a stage with a damaged can make the choice whether he suffers more time penalties on any following stages or take the penalty and retires on that stage to start off with a new car on any successive stages.

Pete, the Option C Norman brought up means that if you DNF on one stage, you are out of the rally and cannot run the rest of the stages, the part I have bolded does not hold true in that scenario.


On the overall championship, I like the way it's set up right now, if you're fast enough in a J-Car or P-car to get in the top 10 you deserve the point. The only thing I'm wondering is if there shouldn't be a separate A1 and A2 championship, rather have both those car classes run for the overall, similar to how modern WRC is if that makes sense.

I'm not so sure I'm a fan of having the Grade Championship, I understand the Grade is there to allow people to move up when their results show they are ready, but you run into the Apples to Oranges example when comparing a J-Car to a P-Car when it comes to computing points.

 

[Senad Subasic]

Totaly agree with you there, a questionare via pm would have been better.

This actually seems better to me; more ideas brought up, more eyes reading it all, and more feedback on everything. Best ideas will survive to be discussed within the team, and it lessens the chance of something unpredicted coming up in the future.

As far as I'm concerned, I don't see the point in artificially changing the default stage times. Chiefly because times given out by rallyesim would be pretty much useless, and you couldn't figure out how you relate to everyone else. That's a pretty important thing to me.

If things would not stay as they are, instead of adding times to default stage times, I would prefer that retiring from a stage means retiring from all stages until the next service. Kinda realistic, and would give a decent penalty in most DNF cases.

 

[Ondrej Kapal]

I mentioned it few times before. For me, it is the easiest way (and the best way) to solve the retirement question. DNF from stage = DNF from rallye. We can include some special scoring, like in Czech or Poland championship, for each leg independently and final place to motivate those, who retires from one stage to continue. This option to continue with taking at least some points for one leg after DNF is called superrally. I dont know how it is possible to make it technically, if it needs more sessions (more work) or what, but it actually would solve everything. And it is very well working system in real. Makes the championship more interesting and more unstable for drivers which takes more potential championship winners.

Otherwise I 100% agree with Łukasz. The system I described might be very hard to organize and I understand it can be unlikely welcomed. But basically, rally is sport different to the others. I don't like the fact we can score, or finish the rally with retirements. If you run a championship in the singleplayer, you are out of the show after 1 retirement too - the game was just designed to. Being able to drive fast times without mistakes, drive 110% without going off the road is rally.

This might be harsh for the newcomers, new to this simulation and it can set bad feelings of the community and the game. We have already Rookie/Junior class and my idea would be to have these classes (both or just one of them, doesnt matter) excluded from this DNF rule to motivate new guys to stay in the championship, but the class will be scored separately, without possibility of scoring overall (the N3/R3 cars are able to).

My 2 cents.

 

[Pete Mull]

It's not always the case that people driving slowly on a stage are doing so because of their lack of pace, it could be that they have suffered damage which is making the car very awkward to control and perhaps they've have other slight off's while attempting to make the very best of a bad situation.

Is it not true that in the three stage run between services that if you are forced to retire then your car is fixed for the next stage and you can continue at your quickest pace. If you have minor damage that affects the cooling, gear box or steering then you can choose to continue or take an optional retirement. I would ask the organizing team to take this into consideration when making their decisions on the fairest penalty options.

Knowing the stage maximum time penalties would certainly help drivers in this situation and certainly know how the online system works would be most helpful.

 

[Senad Subasic]

If not during your own practice, you can see default stage times when you're driving in the rally.
Click on any stage in the stage list, and any driver with 'retired' or 'skipped' (which is always the case at the start of the rally) will have the default time.