[Russell Sobie]

Knowing the evaluation system and adjusting for it is called 'gaming the system'. It doesn't produce better drivers or races, it just changes their focus away from what it should be; the racing.

Auto manufacturers do this with safety and emissions regs all the time, and it necessarily results in cars that are LESS safe and LESS efficient. It's the inevitable consequence because they make cars to suit the tests, and the tests can never perfectly reproduce real-world outcomes.

When what you are doing is playing a game, "gaming the system" is actually what you want your players to be doing. No one prevents soccer players from knowing that putting the ball in the back of the opponent's net is the way you make your score go up... so why should this be any different? You don't have to reverse engineer much to figure out that doing good in races makes points go up. People are just curious as to how much and why how much. The fact that it is secret just makes it seem like it has obvious ways to exploit it using poor behavior... which is what most people here are intimating.

I guess I'm arguing that creating a good algorithm for a video game points scoring system that isn't exploitable is entirely possible to do without keeping the exact algorithm being secret. But again, since all these points do is give you a better pit slot and an infinitesimal amount of Internet bragging rights, I don't think knowing exactly how it works or not is all that important, especially since we already have a pretty good idea.

If you want worse racing, then by all means reverse engineer the ratings system and share with everybody. But make no mistake, it will make things worse.

I think it's already been done as accurately as it can be without Henrique coming in here and laying out the math... and I don't see anyone scrambling to behave "badly" to the detriment of other drivers in order to maximize their point gains. I shudder to think what would happen if everyone tried to win races without hitting anyone in the process! Things would be so much worse!