What About Game Play?

[Indio_I]

I know graphics, menus, photo mode etc are all important but IMO clean, realistic racing is the most important thing in a driving game/Simulator.

Im hoping that the real license and FIA approved racing series means that GTS will be set up to promote realistic, clean driving in a manner that's easily accessible in a quick match type environment. I've heard that advancing through the National and Manufacturers championships will be based on your placing, in a particular race, and your racecraft. This is great news IMO and I'm crossing my fingers for a comprehensive penalty system that forces a fair, clean racing environment, that can't be easily exploited.

What I know so far is that the automated referee system, for the day to day races, will drop the "Sportsmanship Rating" of all drivers involved in a collision.

Speculation on my part; Sportsmanship rating could be used to prohibit a player from competing, if too low, and/or a way of filtering the type of players you want to race with. Similar to a ranking system in other games. Personally I'm liking what I've heard so far anyway.

 

[ASH32]

I know graphics, menus, photo mode etc are all important but IMO clean, realistic racing is the most important thing in a driving game/Simulator.

Im hoping that the real license and FIA approved racing series means that GTS will be set up to promote realistic, clean driving in a manner that's easily accessible in a quick match type environment. I've heard that advancing through the National and Manufacturers championships will be based on your placing, in a particular race, and your racecraft. This is great news IMO and I'm crossing my fingers for a comprehensive penalty system that forces a fair, clean racing environment, that can't be easily exploited.

What I know so far is that the automated referee system, for the day to day races, will drop the "Sportsmanship Rating" of all drivers involved in a collision.

Speculation on my part; Sportsmanship rating could be used to prohibit a player from competing, if too low, and/or a way of filtering the type of players you want to race with. Similar to a ranking system in other games. Personally I'm liking what I've heard so far anyway.

I haven't read everything on GT Sport but does the system really work like that? If it does then the drivers who defend well (not on about blocking here, there's a difference) risk being run into a lot and will then probably get penalised, not sure this system will work very well at all if true.

 

[Indio_I]

If you change position once in every straight to defend your position then there shouldn't be an issue. If you are zigg zagging to keep the faster driver behind you, then you risk a collision which will drop your rating. It's not perfect but it's better than the current system in Quick Match right now.

 

[Johnnypenso]

I haven't read everything on GT Sport but does the system really work like that? If it does then the drivers who defend well (not on about blocking here, there's a difference) risk being run into a lot and will then probably get penalised, not sure this system will work very well at all if true.

The driver rating systems I'm aware of assign penalties to everyone involved in contact. I don't think you're going to see software sophisticated enough to assign fault. Over time everything averages out but it's not hard to have a catastrophic race here and there.

 

[SimTourist]

Nah, I'll get this game just to ram everyone. Clean racing is reserved for iRacing.

 

[Tenacious D]

Go trim your beard.

It sounds a little treacherous, having the game ding you for every incident. But if most people race halfway like me, Mr Gentlemanly, then the rating system should work okay enough.

Last weekend's events were peppered with wrecks and punts, but I'm thinking it's mostly from everyone having little or no time to get familiar with Sport's version of handling and grip. Hopefully. If you keep contact to bumps and grinds, and collisions rare, I doubt there will be a problem.

 

[sirjim73]

Go trim your beard.

It sounds a little treacherous, having the game ding you for every incident. But if most people race halfway like me, Mr Gentlemanly, then the rating system should work okay enough.

Last weekend's events were peppered with wrecks and punts, but I'm thinking it's mostly from everyone having little or no time to get familiar with Sport's version of handling and grip. Hopefully. If you keep contact to bumps and grinds, and collisions rare, I doubt there will be a problem.

I had one shunt in my race last week though the car in front had slowed a lot really early for a corner and caught me unawares.

From other's posts it seems its still almost impossible to assign blame automatically and get it right 100%, yet, but the software ability to do that cannot be too far off in the distance.

 

[Zuku]

Nah, I'll get this game just to ram everyone. Clean racing is reserved for iRacing.

Bruh...........

 

[Tenacious D]

That's dark humor, I'm sure. I think... I hope...

 

[Zuku]

That's dark humor, I'm sure. I think... I hope...

Just Savage is what that really is....still over how blunt that was.

 

[SimTourist]

Bruh...........

The problem has been in place for the last 15 years at least. And with a mainstream game like GT 90% is gonna be average Joes that don't give two ***** about some online etiquette. Can't expect much for $60. In iRacing you pay a small fortune for content so might as well make yourself useful. It's pretty much why I never play online in racing games on consoles other than NFS HP 2010.

 

[TenEightyOne]

It sounds a little treacherous, having the game ding you for every incident. But if most people race halfway like me, Mr Gentlemanly, then the rating system should work okay enough.

If it doesn't have any sense in apportioning blame then it could be open to abuse online just as we've seen with other games.

 

[Indio_I]

I know it sounds unfair but in real life racing accidents damages all parties regardless of who's to blame. To be honest if the penalty system is fit for purpose then driving clean should be the antidote for most unfair penalties.

As for the average Joe racing dirty!.. Hhmm well that's spot on unfortunately, but each game has it's own level of filth. Forza for me was impossible and left me running for my sanity, just search Forza Multiplayer on YouTube ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.... that's pretty much how I came to Gran Turismo and believe me it's a lot better. However if the GTS gets it right then clean racing should become the norm.... I hope.

 

[Zuku]

The problem has been in place for the last 15 years at least. And with a mainstream game like GT 90% is gonna be average Joes that don't give two ***** about some online etiquette. Can't expect much for $60. In iRacing you pay a small fortune for content so might as well make yourself useful. It's pretty much why I never play online in racing games on consoles other than NFS HP 2010.

Oh well yeah I agree with you just laughing about how blunt that was.

Tell you this best race ever had online was months ago on freaking GTA online. Which says a lot this is on pc btw.

 

[citroengt1]

One thing they have to fix/get it right is the dirt and snow driving.
It was horrible in GT5 and GT6.
GT4 had the best gameplay mechanic for rally.

 

[7HO]

I'm hoping that the sportsmanship rating is used to match people with the same level of sportsmanship. If they can achieve that then it will be a game for everyone and if @SimTourist was serious then he would be placed with drivers just like him and it would be a happy ram fest for all while the clean drivers would be placed with other clean drivers and again all are happy.

Chances are though this will be a system just like SR on iRacing and completely ineffective.

 

[Indio_I]

One thing they have to fix/get it right is the dirt and snow driving.
It was horrible in GT5 and GT6.
GT4 had the best gameplay mechanic for rally.

It sometimes feels like your driving a hovercraft, when racing on dirt or ice but the current quick match rally race is so much fun it's addicitive.

I'm hoping that the sportsmanship rating is used to match people with the same level of sportsmanship. If they can achieve that then it will be a game for everyone and if @SimTourist was serious then he would be placed with drivers just like him and it would be a happy ram fest for all while the clean drivers would be placed with other clean drivers and again all are happy.

Chances are though this will be a system just like SR on iRacing and completely ineffective.

Really? I too hope the sportsmanship system works as you described but I thought the Safety Rating in iRacing kept the drivers motivated to keep things clean. I've never tried iracing but from the videos I've seen it looks as though the drivers race pretty fair and clean.

 

[Tenacious D]

In my case, I had no problem racing in snow. I often thought it had too much grip, but far be it from me to turn down more grip in snow!

The gravel physics in GT5 and 6 though, definitely too slippery overall. If they could get something in-between DIRT and GT4, I'd be oh so happy.

 

[7HO]

It sometimes feels like your driving a hovercraft, when racing on dirt or ice but the current quick match rally race is so much fun it's addicitive.




Really? I too hope the sportsmanship system works as you described but I thought the Safety Rating in iRacing kept the drivers motivated to keep things clean. I've never tried iracing but from the videos I've seen it looks as though the drivers race pretty fair and clean.

Well compared to that live streamed GTS race iRacing is insanely clean so I guess it depends on your reference point but iRacing varies a lot, I'll explain.

The license system is easy, it only keeps out the worst of the worst drivers but then the most popular and competitive racing on iRacing is Rookies and anyone can race there. But look at GT3 for example. It is a B class event and not only can someone get to B class in just a few days but they can go all the way to A class in just a few days and they don't even need to do a single race to get there. You can literally get your license to A class by driving slowly by yourself around a track in Time Trials over and over. So anyone can grind their way to any license level. But even if you race the Safety Rating system is so easy and you can have multiple incidents per race and still easily hold an A license, you can literally crash every race and still hold an A license.

So it shouldn't be surprising that the racing in GT3 is no better than Rookies.

The other issue is that despite iRacing having a protest system they took avoidable contact out of it and iRacing statistics show that previous to removing avoidable contact it accounted for more upheld protests than every other offence combined. So if you can literally crash every race without losing a license and if avoidable contact is not something that can be protested that means you can bump and run at least one driver per race and no one will protest it because as long as you say sorry no one can prove that it wasn't accidental. And as you get to the more competitive higher level races pushing people out of the way becomes a common tactic because people get frustrated and draft makes people believe they are faster than they are.

This is because with draft a slower driver can easily hang onto a slightly quicker car but on many tracks that slower driver will never have the opportunity to pass. They think they are quicker than the driver ahead because they don't have to push their pedal all the way to the floor to stay behind giving the impression the car in front is slow and holding them up. Then they interpret their inability to pass as the car in front is holding them up so they push them.

Then there is the unintentional bump and run by the bad driver because of netcode. Even though iRacing has the best netcode there is and you can safely race with guys across the planet even with a ping of 300ms when it does get up that high there is a little bit more rubber band going on between corners. Depending on if you are on a home server or away changes your perception of the rubber band and unfortunately many drivers are unable to compensate for this and it also results in the bump and run in the braking zone. Again this also is more typical in a race that is bunched up due to similar pace but having pace doesn't make you a good driver.

I literally don't think about my safety rating. I have no idea what I am on other than I am on an A license. I've had bad luck in my most recent races and been involved in a crash in most of them and yet I am still on an A license. Every one of these recent crashes was a racing incident that was the result of us fighting hard all race for position but every one of these crashes was avoidable. In each of those races I would have finished better if I just followed the car in front but that would have been no fun so we raced and we went side by side for multiple corners and then perhaps netcode gave up on us or we came together slightly and unfortunately the toss of the collision engine coin saw me on the losing end each time with repairs required while the other guy got to drive away unscathed. Same guy in every race but we never learned and had a blast racing each other and it was some of the most enjoyable racing I have had until the remorse of crashing kicked in. I lost a lot of iRating in those races but that also will not effect me because I have more than enough for anything other than a Pro run. If I did want to run at Pros though I would need to get my iRating back up though I haven't been able to race much lately.

iRacing will not improve their SR system because of those few customers who already complain that iRacing is too hard to progress. Before I was a member it would have actually taken a year to get to A with just one promotion per season. And while I do not care that you can be promoted instantly what I don't like is how easy it is. It even effects my driving to be honest because I can take risks and it doesn't really matter. Honestly the biggest deterrent to unsafe driving on iRacing is the damage model but unfortunately despite all logic it actually favours the car behind so you can get away with subtle dirty driving and that is why I avoid driving against Europeans on iRacing because statistically in my races they are the dirties drivers.

 

[dissectional1]

I'm by no means an online player so I can't attest to the whole destruction derby scenarios against other people, but I believe it's definetelt easier to achieve cleaner racing against a human than against CPU controlled cars, due to faulty AI but also due to a factor I believe no one considers: the way the damage model structure is made. I have a hard time believing that the colision area boxes on any GT game realeased are properly defined... Just think about some penalties on some missions or tests where your car is clearly far enough from a supposed collision object and yet somehow magically you would get a penalty like you rocketed into a guardrail. Anyone ever noticed this?

 

[Tenacious D]

@7HO, this is why RaceRoom is as much sim racing as I think I will ever need. The physics are great, the bots aren't any stupider than an average mildly aggressive racer who takes occasional chances, and offline a decent PC can run more than 15 bots at a time. I can manage 23 easily with my i7.

So... GT Sport. This is definitely going to be an experience. Personally, I don't think there will be atrocious abuse of the system, but I could be wrong. Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones, but I've mostly suffered from mismatched competitors that either leave me in their rear view mirror, or me them. Not so much the punters.

I must admit to skimming some of your post because you manage to post longer essays than even I do! So I'm not sure if you're saying that a system as serious as iRacing is rife with abuse, or has the potential to be rife with abuse. I suppose we'll see if a bunch of Che Chou's show up to cause trouble. Who by the way was Turn 10's media and forums manager. He became notorious for trolling boards all over, and getting banned from most of them.

 

[7HO]

@7HO, this is why RaceRoom is as much sim racing as I think I will ever need. The physics are great, the bots aren't any stupider than an average mildly aggressive racer who takes occasional chances, and offline a decent PC can run more than 15 bots at a time. I can manage 23 easily with my i7.

So... GT Sport. This is definitely going to be an experience. Personally, I don't think there will be atrocious abuse of the system, but I could be wrong. Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones, but I've mostly suffered from mismatched competitors that either leave me in their rear view mirror, or me them. Not so much the punters.

I must admit to skimming some of your post because you manage to post longer essays than even I do! So I'm not sure if you're saying that a system as serious as iRacing is rife with abuse, or has the potential to be rife with abuse. I suppose we'll see if a bunch of Che Chou's show up to cause trouble. Who by the way was Turn 10's media and forums manager. He became notorious for trolling boards all over, and getting banned from most of them.

In the highest most competitive splits on iRacing driving standards are lower I have found. And at every other level you will find people that simply lack skill in online racing which due to things like ping and less information is harder than reality. All I am saying is the system iRacing has is too lenient so that results in lower driving standards across the board.

It isn't a serious system, not serious enough because like I said you can crash every race and still hold on to an A license which is the highest level except for the Pro license which you must win. To race in something like the Blancpain GT series you only need a B licence which is even easy to keep although most people have an A because like I said it is easy. And yet the driving standard there are no better than in the Rookie series and often worse.

 

[citroengt1]

A bit of off-topic nostalgia:

My PS3 is broken, and i don't have a GT4 game anymore.
Man i wish i could get home, turn on the PS2 and go race a Peugeot 205 Rally car on the Swiss Alps.
That track was really fast.

 

[7HO]

I'm pretty sure I'd watch Netflix or play a PC game.

 

[Indio_I]

@7HO, thanks for the detailed breakdown of the iracing penalty system. Honesty I've played every type of game/simulator online and each one has it's own level of cheating and exploitation of the rules. I've even seen it in MS Flightsimulator while flying on vatsim lol (￣▽￣) .I hope GTS has a system that will keep the frustration levels to a minimum.. If it does that then I'll call it a success.

As for gaming offline. I personally never do it. I like racing against people and that feeling of competition just can't be beat. In GT6 right now I'd say fifty percent of the races are intense and fair enough and the other half is frustratingly unfair. But even with that I would still encourage everyone to race online.. You just can't get that level of intensity racing for position with Ai.

 

[Imari]

You just can't get that level of intensity racing for position with Ai.

Not in Gran Turismo you can't, but there are other games in which you can definitely get a thrill having multi-lap battles with the AI for tenth position.

 

[MisterWaffles]

Not in Gran Turismo you can't, but there are other games in which you can definitely get a thrill having multi-lap battles with the AI for tenth position.

Like how in project cars you can fight for 30 laps in a battle for last place in a Renault Clio.

 

[7HO]

@7HO, thanks for the detailed breakdown of the iracing penalty system. Honesty I've played every type of game/simulator online and each one has it's own level of cheating and exploitation of the rules. I've even seen it in MS Flightsimulator while flying on vatsim lol (￣▽￣) .I hope GTS has a system that will keep the frustration levels to a minimum.. If it does that then I'll call it a success.

As for gaming offline. I personally never do it. I like racing against people and that feeling of competition just can't be beat. In GT6 right now I'd say fifty percent of the races are intense and fair enough and the other half is frustratingly unfair. But even with that I would still encourage everyone to race online.. You just can't get that level of intensity racing for position with Ai.

Look forward to November, if they do good it will be a new level of online racing for many with a rush many people may bot have experienced but on a similar level to real life racing.

 

[Samus]

Not in Gran Turismo you can't, but there are other games in which you can definitely get a thrill having multi-lap battles with the AI for tenth position.

I started GRID Autosport last week and I've had more fun and exciting races in that than I've ever had in GT. Yes they can get too aggressive at times but I'll take that as side effect any day of the week over the GT AI.

I put it on the hardest difficulty and I think it was 10-15 races before I actually won one, driving identical cars to the AI rather than a gimped one.

 

[Johnnypenso]

I started GRID Autosport last week and I've had more fun and exciting races in that than I've ever had in GT. Yes they can get too aggressive at times but I'll take that as side effect any day of the week over the GT AI.

I put it on the hardest difficulty and I think it was 10-15 races before I actually won one, driving identical cars to the AI rather than a gimped one.

Wow, you're doing much better than I did. I think it was race 22 before I won and it was reverse grid. Once I figured out which bots were the most aggressive I worked out a strategy to combat them while avoiding contact and it worked pretty well. The street courses were the worst for contact obviously.