GT Academy USA Round 2 Marred by Corner-Cutting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQK3eWW55Bs

Well, that didn’t take long. After the first full day of competition, GT Academy USA’s second round has been thrown into dispute by “corner cutting” at the Indianapolis Road Course. Watch the video above to see for yourself exactly how it’s done, without any automated penalty or nullification of the lap enforced by GT5 itself.

This shortcut is worth as much as 2 or 3 seconds, making it impossible to out-drive the corner-cutters with a clean lap and, once a few of these impossibly quick replays were posted to the leaderboards, dozens of other participants have followed along.

Needless to say, outrage is spreading among “clean” participants, both here in GTPlanet’s forums and on the official PlayStation Community boards. The implications are huge: with only the top 16 drivers from each region moving on to round 3, taking advantage of this shortcut will most likely be the only way to progress. However, it remains unclear whether you may do so at risk of disqualification –  confusion is building, and Sony has not clarified their position on the issue.

To be fair, the official rules only explicitly mention “corner cutting” in round 4 of the competition, which will involve live, head-to-head racing at the national finals:

Sponsor may have one or more race judges on site to monitor contestants during competition. The race judges (whose judgment on all race matters is final) may monitor races and may issue warnings for behaviors that violate standard rules for professional racing. Examples include:
– A slower driver that is holding another driver up can be asked to move over. Failure to comply would result in a warning.
– Any driver that is overly aggressive or hits another driver
– A driver deliberately cutting a corner
– A driver not moving over when asked

Each contestant is allowed two warnings. A contestant receiving three warnings will be disqualified from the race. Certain flagrant behaviors may also result in immediate disqualification.

Sony may believe the in-game penalty system will be sufficient to disqualify “dirty” laps in rounds 1-3.

GT Academy participants are dedicating hundreds of hours to this competition, and deserve clear communication with exactly where SCEA stands on this: either they will be reviewing laps and disqualifying players / taking some other action, or a “valid” lap will be determined solely by the in-game penalty system.

My own attempts to reach out to SCEA have gone unanswered, but I encourage you, the community, to make sure they are aware of this issue in the following ways:

Feel free to share a link to this page or the video above to emphasize your point, but, as always, please be as professional, courteous, and friendly in your communications as possible. I will be closely monitoring this situation and will post further updates on the status of this issue as they develop.

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Comments (92)

  1. Greyum

    All that horn blowing is pathetic. Never, ever have I accidentally triggered the horn when controlling the car with a pad.

  2. LR-Diesel

    If there was only 10-15 laps allowed for these events then people who spend hundreds of hours wouldnt be at the top.

    It would show true driving skill with only be allowed to drive 10-15 laps.. Not thousands
    Also dont allow people to load ghost replays to mimick the top drivers

  3. Carbonkid

    What I’m even more disgusted is it’s downshift from 3rd to 2nd. That should damage the engine, but nothing happens.

  4. kenkwilinski

    GT Academy USA Round 2 Kicks off At Indy, Toscana
    GT Academy January 31st, 2011 by Jordan
    The second round of GT Academy USA kicks off today. Good luck to everyone who everyone who made the CUT last week!

    25 Comments

    THIS SAYS IT ALL!!!

  5. markyy

    Why is it only USA participants? Why not around the world or even the whole North America? If Canada can participate, it would be awesome. Who knows? I might be the youngest driver to win that competition. LOL

  6. GmrElite

    Why play the game, if all your gonna do is cheat like that. shit i should have signed up. man i would have had all those lamers thrown out.

  7. gerard o hara

    surley sony can watch back the replays of the quickest times and just disqualify the cutters ??

    in prologue/gt5 gt academy you could always watch the top laps

  8. Tiranasta

    While this is bad driving and should be against the rules, since it is not strictly so I would be inclined not to fault those who take advantage of it. It is not ‘cheating’ if it is not against the rules, and Sony should not take action. The fault lies with Sony for not including it in the rules.

  9. RedBaron

    Thing to think for polyphony: Would it be easy the same way in reality to use terrain part of the track surrounding? No, because there is possibility to damage something, make tyres dirty and slipping and there wouldn’t be flat texture but real terrain with holes and guttering.

  10. Todd

    why is it if my 4 wheels accidentally touched the grass my lap is immediately invalidated, while his is not? is it because he’s using the horn?

    1. Silver

      hahaha, I’m happy, PD figu’ de merd…

      GTAccademy change track!! choose Monza, it’s more easy cutting hahahaha

      no comment, ridiculous!

      Silver

  11. ucwepn

    Maybe because the game didn’t detect corner cutting the offenders can fight a disqualification stating that the game permitted it? Its not right IMO

  12. OldF@rt

    Gawd, that is totally blatant… If the competition’s to have any credibility (particularly as the winner will be driving a real megabuck race car and you don’t want something trying this with the real thing…) they have to do something to stop it.

  13. j8mie

    LOL

    As soon as I saw that they were using the Indy Road Course I knew there would be problems with corner cutting.

    Why does it take Sony so long to sort these things out. All they need to do is watch the replay of the top 16 times and if any of them are corner cutting disqualify them.

    Why are Sony so slow…..

  14. yourmom

    It’s funny, all the outrage over this, yet many GTP members cheated in order to get this far in the first place by using the runoff on the Cape Ring.

  15. Robotron2084

    this certainly needs to be fixed or deleted…but such is the nature of online competition.its appears to be within the rules of the track,so i dont blame peeps for going for it…it’ll be very interesting to see what becomes of this.

  16. Sayba2th

    Maybe I got a bung wheel but my GTDF is just sitting there as it handles nothing like a real car when I use it. So what if you use a pad you still gotta chose the correct driving lines braking points ect. – this however is no excuse for CC’ing, if you gotta result to that then you must have some real self esteem issues. Will be most excellent for them to be embaressed on a larger scale. Exposure for how much you suck to the wider community will provide me with some fantasic entertainment. Once again the LAME ass loser brigade is in full effect.

    1. kenkwilinski

      I agree about the control pad. The controller is a PS device and GT5 is exclusive for PS. And quite funny how all these expensive wheels cost soooo much and people find out later they are not compatible. If GT is to be a driving simulator maybe there should be a driving simulator console ( w/ all wheels compatible) ???

    1. kenkwilinski

      What’s with the hostility against Americans? Were the cheaters only American? And why is it safe to assume only Americans cheat? Don’t you think everyone everywhere across the world has the capacity and capabiility to cheat whatever and whenever they want?

  17. GrahamTurismo

    LMAO! Moron DS3 user… let him do it. Then when he makes it to the final round with all his slick thumb skills and and they put him it a real car it will make for some hilarious footage trying to watch the idiot wrestle a real car around the track.

  18. GTP_CWR

    Which is why I have decided to NOT compete any more. I made it to round two…Forget it if Sony allows that garbage.

    1. Dave-o

      I still sympathise with those drivers who are normally clean who realise there is no way to compete unless they follow suit. It’s a gamble – stay clean and hope SCEA disqualify the cheaters, or cheat yourself and post a quick time?

      The point is the uncertainty is unacceptable and is reponsible for causing good drivers to stray.

      From my point of view (and I am a clean driver), if the game permits it, and it isn’t expicitly forbidden in the rules (which appears to be the case) then it isn’t cheating, and SCEA would be morally wrong to disqualify people now, as sad as that is.

      It would be like selling lottery tickets and then announcing before the draw that it was a mistake to issue tickets with the number 7, so if you happen to have one of those then too bad for you.

  19. Spike10h

    LOL. Maybe PD wil just post an announcement saying it’s ok to cut corners rather than fix the problem. It would at least make the race more interesting.

  20. Robert

    I was really dissapointed in this competition to begin with. It seemed that everyone that moved on, did nothing more than drift through the tracks and bieng that I don’t drift I didnt move on.
    But here we go, it was just a matter of time before the real personalities of those who made it through began to show.
    These are not the type of people that I personally would like to see represent this communtiy on a national tv show.
    Let these people cut corners then when this round ends disqualify all of em and put the fasted of the people who ran it clean through.
    Its just what I want to see, some 13 year old kid make it to a TV show when he doesnt even have a drivers license.

    Nice work Sony.

    1. Madman Apex

      well technically dont you have to be 18?? but yeah you are completely right. the people running the GT academy need to watch all the replays for any kind of cheating.

  21. brainfade

    this absolutely marres the online gameplay aswell… noobs endup winning by cutting the 2nd chicane at monza which goes unpunished… this is why i dont bother playing anymore, if im going to race fairly, be the quickest driver and then be beaten by a talentless noob who cuts the chicanes and corners then i wont bother this game at all… i think my money would be better spent on another game

    1. kenkwilinski

      I feel the same way sometimes. I was a noob (as I’m new to GT) but I learned quickly how not to drive like a moron. IT’S CALLED USE YOUR BRAKES RIGHT (or downshift) & U WON’T NEED TO CHEAT!! Simple solution: LEARN IT, LIVE IT!!

  22. X-Power

    Although I don’t live in the USA, I think what this person is doing is disgraceful and unfair to clean drivers. In a real-life race he’d be disqualified for this behaviour. His driving isn’t particularly good either, he’s torturing the tires and mis-timing his downshifts, in real-life he’d have wrecked the engine and destroyed the tires. People like this don’t deserve to get through to the next round and I hope Sony take action against them.

  23. BubbleBelly542

    Ummmm maybe don’t post videos like this that give people (bad) ideas? I don’t know seems good to me…

  24. Geo_212

    I say people with pads shouldn’t be able to enter this competition… but that’s just me, no offense to pad-players :)

    On-subject, if you cheat at something like this, you’re just plain pathetic. You could never compete with anyone if you’re cutting corners, and you should really be ashamed of yourself! Try cutting corners in a REAL race with REAL cars and REAL penalties and see where that gets you in the race. *cough* YOU’LL LOSE *cough*

    1. SNOBBYmuch?

      roflmao….(Thinking of all the rich stockbrokers, railroad tycoons, politicians, cattle barrons, oil magnates, professional athletes, etc, who’ve ever got caught cheating in some way to get ahead….)
      Wow that’s a stupid statement.

  25. BWX

    This is just one example of a larger problem PD has. Fixing stupid mistakes in GT5, and extremely poor communication with the community- even on a subject as important as this. Even if they do finally make a statement to clarify the rules, it is late. They should have done it before.

  26. Big Ron

    I think that is really interesting. When I remember correctly, in practice mode you get imediately punished for cutting corners.

    So I am wondering in what mode they are driving.

  27. Samelborp

    I don’t like the driving… doesn’t seem realistic at all, besides the obvious cheating, aren’t the setups fixed?

  28. Ace

    This driver will not make it very fear because thay are using a Controller and in the rules it said you can not use a controller in the final rounds

  29. jbthbt

    Hopefully since there are fewer participants they’ll review the laps on an individual basis. I’d think they should be concerned about putting through someone without sufficient skills to the later rounds. That being said…. those guys made it to round 2 which was better than I did.

    1. kenkwilinski

      If I knew how to cheat (cause I don’t) I would have been in round 2. It just looks like they have 164 cheaters competing now so who cares let them have their cheater races

  30. Panjandrum

    This really illuminates the terrible way GT5 handles penalties. How can they PD not see this and realize that not only should each of these contestants be summarily dismissed from the competition, but that there is a desperate need to fix their game, fix their game, fix their game!!!

  31. guidance is internal

    It would suck if you got eliminated for driving a fast clean lap. This situation makes cheating a MUST for everyone that wants to advance.
    Sure, you can say, “I’m above this, I put in a clean lap”, but in this case, morals wont get you to the next round.

  32. Simon

    They put whacking great barriers up at Monza and Nurburgring but they don’t think people will cut that section of Indy and put in any penalty system? It should really be extremely simple, 4 wheels off the track = disqualified. Really, how hard is that?

  33. Derek

    You could do this (sort of) in prologue. I think it’s a glitch that doesn’t penalize you if you’re out of control when you cut the corner. I could do it at Suzaka, coming into the chicane after the back stretch. This looks like the same sort of lapse in the penalty system.

    1. Bernd

      Guess, you meant Fuji. The tricky chicane just before the uphill-section. Fuji had many occasions to drive over grass without being penaltied – and other parts, where you were punished for driving on the grass with 2 wheels only

  34. notmychoice

    Thank you jordan! I know internationals aren’t competing but this is absolutely ridiculous and if everyone on GTP gets together we’ll really make some waves.

    1. Toolboy

      They also run the risk of being internationally humiliated as it will be common knowledge that driver x is a cheater, that is the only way they could get into GT Academy!

      Dig your own grave you massive losers!

  35. MrSkyline

    lame, but no matter what game, you’l always have people that can’t win by playing by the book and change to other tactics.

    to all corner cutters:

    you are Lame with a capitol L.

    1. popup

      I feel sorry for them. If they pro’s lowered themselves to using the same tactics, these ‘people’ would be back in last place again looking for another cheat.

      Let us donate crayons for them to draw with and have some real fun being cool. Nice Dragon Timmy.

  36. GregTheStig

    This REALLY needs to be changed. I’ve got 2 friends in round 2 and I know they’ll be disgusted when their clean driving is bested by cheaters.

  37. Dracwolley

    Maybe PD wants us to have a little off-roading skills as well.

    Seriously now, thanks for bringing these cheats into the spotlight, so that hopefully PD or Sony will notice it and bring it to an end.

    1. Tvensky

      Corner cutters have to be disqualified for 100%! (of course I feel sorry for those who drived “fair” all the time, and then had to cut corners just to get the competition and win..) still I would just leave GT academy attemts, or drive “fair” anyway! Thumbs up for fair drivers!

    2. VBR

      Very disgusting indeed! Imo, PD should take a leaf out of the GT Planet clean/dirty rules & make all corner cutting/using run off areas on every track in the game illegal. In any Time Trial that would mean having your times invalidated if 2 wheels left the track.

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