Can someone explain why a stock car is supposed to be fun ?

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I find Gran Turismo handy when I really wanted to know how a car really handles like like in real life. It is interesting that they have been able to develop real-like driving physics into a driving game. You also get to learn how the car really handles like, which then gives you knowledge in what to do when tuning it.

Questions I find myself asking that lead to my enjoyment with driving the stock car:

• This car looks flashy, I wonder how it drives.

• Oh wow a rare car! I will never see this in my lifetime. I should own it and drive it in the game.

• This car is said to handle differently unlike what it was intended to be. What is it then?

• Oh my gosh a cute car!! I want to own of of these in real life!!

When I buy cars, I always make sure to test them at least before upgrading them. Some cars are so remarkable from it's default settings, I had to refuse to tune it, and it then will become my daily driver.

Then again it comes from the person who asks this.
 
What others said along this Thread is also my normal way of driving.
Buy a car test it bone stock.
There are a few Cars which are superb without even modding it (only thing I always do is change the Brakebalance).
Pagani Zonda (the one with the least amount of power), Honda Integra (slightly needs more power) and the Trial Celica are 3 of my examples of superb handling cars.

I do like tuning and racing with tuned Cars/Racecars but during GT5 I learned my love in driving stock cars from the Shuffle races (PD why you got rid of them ??).
 
I personally disallow tuning to level the playing field. The whole point of having performance points is to compare car's performances when STOCK. That's why we have the PP limit, too.

Unless we all use the same car, decide to tune it, then fine.
 
For single player:

- Ability to experience the unique characteristics of every vehicle
- Challenge to overcome potential quirks or unique characteristics in order to harness particular vehicle
- Exploring the both upsides and downsides of a particular vehicle in full, without using tuning to downplay or minimize any of both

For multiplayer:

- Maximum possible leveled playing field
- None have an advantage because of either tuning or parts-adjusting

While I was into heavy tuning in GT1, GT2 and GT3, since GT4 I have completely changed the way I play the game and went almost stock-cars exclusively. I have tuned cars here-and-there, but 99% of my vehicles are stock (oil change only).

However, if PD would improve online filtering and introduce some way to have all cars tuned with exact the same parts (but with prohibited adjusting) and/or to have them tuned and adjusted - but locked from changes - I would certainly love to do some small tuning to some cars purely because of the fun-factor.
 
Something is only fun if you personally find it fun. The whole matter is therefore subjective. However, I can tell you how I got into finding stock cars fun to drive & race.

In GT4 I was bored of the game & so started driving different cars on The Nurburgring, I really liked the Shelby Cobra as it was a challenge to tame that wild beast. This planted the seed. Then in GT5 Prologue I was mainly doing all tuning racing online, & I came up with the idea in 2009 to do some stock car races. In 2010 I started running them, & it was a right laugh, a nice diversion from all the tuned up cars I was racing. Then when GT5 came out I could no longer stand driving any tuned cars for 2 reasons: firstly it was because of the awful sound sample they started using for transmission whine, it grated on my ears so badly that I couldn't bring myself to install it anymore, & secondly because the physics model was so numb at launch that anything other than a tricky stock car had no feeling to it. After a few physics updates & then getting into Shuffle racing I've not looked back since.

I guess I've just become accustomed to cars that are a handful & have bags of character. I find most race cars to be a very dull & boring experience by comparison now, as tuning a car to make it faster usually means making it more stable & easier to drive. I get my kicks from taming a wild beast through driver input, not tuning. Also, I've never particularly liked tuning nor am I any good at it really :dopey:, & it's time consuming too. Not to mention all the mindless updates where PD fiddle with this & that ruining everyone's tunes in the process. I now find no reason to go back to tuning again.


👍
 
I personally find stock cars to be more fun, partly because I appreciate road cars for how they were made but also because when I do tune a car, I seem to make it even worse. Ideally, my preferred handling of a car is easy to drive at 80-90% of my limit, but you really have to concentrate at your maximum.
I love the Aston Martin V12 Vantage for this very reason. Also it is beautiful stock, when you add wings and splitters to it then the car doesn't look quite as sleek.
 
Which means everyone would have to be in the same car and there is no reason that car could not be a tuned car so long as everyone is using the same tune.
How do you police that?
There will always be someone who will know how to tweak the tuning to get a better power curve, or a better suspension grip on a certain track... And let's face it, not everyone's honest.
For pity's sake, sometimes people go through the trouble of leaving a lobby & rejoining between races, just to get pole position in Reverse Grid Order. :rolleyes: Sometimes people can be very petty. 👎
So how you going to stop people from using a different tune, customized to whatever track?
You think your close buddies wouldn't do that?
There have been psychological scientific studies done that show that even the most honest people will be tempted to cheat "just a little" if they know they can get away with it.
I definitely prefer driving stock. That way you have to learn how to handle each car's characteristics. E.g. if a car understeers a bit too much, you have to learn to handle that; if a car doesn't like you to touch the brakes when cornering, you have to learn to handle that, and so on...
I wonder if tuning a car is often about making every car handle almost the same - that it's about removing each car's individuality.
Yes, it does seem that way. Particularly with certain PP tuning. You max out a car, and it's unpleasant. You tune to a certain PP - and don't get me wrong, lots of the tunes in the tuning forum are great for making a car easier to drive or faster... but most of them seem to be trying to make every car feel like rubbing sandpaper across the tracks. :lol: :boggled:
 
Biggest problem with stock cars is that most of them have awful lsd settings, almost every single car has too high accel setting. Plus, there are a handful of cars in which the last gear is set to a 0.500 ratio which makes if effectively useless. Don't know why PD does this but it's been happening since GT1, cars like the Dodge Viper (actually, this happens with some american and british cars, haven't seen it in cars from other countries) with a ridiculously long 6th gear that gives it a theoretical top speed of 500 km/h and which of course can't be true to the real stock car.

So every time I try to drive a car in stock form I usually end up cursing at the lsd or the transmission and tuning them, and after that I figure in for a penny in for a pound and tune the suspension too :lol:
http://www.supercars.net/cars/441.html
On most stock transmissions in real life, whatever gear is the 1:1 ratio is your optimal gear to peak out on a straight due in large part that on most cars 5th on a 5 spd, and 5&6th on a 6 spd are overdrive gears. These overdrive gears can stretch a top speed, but most times drag is the limiting factor, not the gear. This is where stock cars are fun to master, in that each car has different ratio gear boxes, powerbands and handling. Now on race cars, 6th gear would be where you would want your 1:1 drive gear allowing you to use it to dial in your straightaway top speed.
 
But even if everything was identical your only testing driving ability on that day at that specific time. And even then your only testing driving ability with each persons specific experiences. Racing is pointless right?

I used to drive with a group of guys and one of them was very good, quite possibly the best driver in the bunch yet he struggled with any car that had oversteer. If he were to enter one of these races and the car choosen was a MR car he would loose everytime, where as if the car was Front engine AWD he would win every race. If tuning is allowed he would tweak the MR car to cut down the understeer and he would do much better where as I would tweak the AWD to induce more oversteer and I would do much better.

So as I said you are only testing the driver in a specific tune when you disallow tuning and not all drivers perform the same with different types of tuning. BTW all cars are tuned, even stock they still have a factory tuning on them it's just not meant for racing on the normal cars.

Again there is nothing wrong with racing in stock tuned cars but if you really want to test skill then then players should be allowed to drive a car that suits them and not be forced into a setup that they will not like.
 
I forgot to follow up, my bad (didn't think anyone would respond).

I just re-read the OP of mine and it sounded like I'm a hardcore grip addict, like a racing soft guy. I made it sound like I have to have the car being the best it can possibly be. I just wanted to expand a bit...(and this point really makes me realize how individual my opinion is)

I use CS and SH tires only (I'm talking if it's 600PP/Sarthe, we're still on SH). I used to use SS, (GT5) but they now have an absurd amount of grip. Power sliding (not to be confused with drifting) is what i need from a car in this game. On throttle over steer (with some over-correct) is how i rotate most cars threw an apex.

It's probably weird to hear that someone wants a car tuned to handle better, (purer) but will only use the 6th stickiest tires available. So, in other words, I support making cars more polite, more pure, more forgiving...but I hate grippy tires. It's like - I like to slide around, but it has to be the tires' fault, not the cars.

I just didn't want to sound like I'm the guy who is scared to 'have that mother slide out'. I need moments of non-traction on virtually every corner, in order for me to enjoy to the maximum.

*Edit - I meant to say that I saw a lot of people who said that a stock car is somehow 'best/most enjoyable, most real-to-life, right/proper feeling. It's again, my personal opinion that MOST street cars, when tuned, for me, feel most proper. It has a a lot to do with how aggressive you are able to drive said car. Somehow I cannot drive stock cars anywhere near aggressive(they feel, lifeless/without character to me). Whereas tuned, I feel like you can tune that cars' specific handling characteristic to the max, and now I can whip that mother into a turn plum sideways if I feel necessary, and the 'tunedness' will let the car...not settle down the car but...give the car manners.
 
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If you pick a boring car, it will be boring to drive. If you pick a fun car, it will be fun to drive.
Take any of the tiny, japanese turbo cars, rwd preferably, slide them around any track and tell me it isn't fun?
Most fun I've had in a while was when I took the Suzuki Cappuccino to the 'ring. Even though it took me 10minutes+, sliding around every bend and almost never needing to brake was a blast.
 
Because people can't be bothered to tune and want the terrible handling for everyone they race with, they want to cut down the variables and make it simple.
GT5 was much better in this regard because it was much more accessible to the casual gamer and no tuning lobbies were far more rare. And for a long time I saw the online community actually grow.

Now in GT6 the online community seems to be in decline already[for a variety of reasons, not just the handling to be fair] and I'm sure all the spinning cars have a lot to do with it.

tl;dr It's PD's fault because they don't know WTF they're doing.
 
I used to drive with a group of guys and one of them was very good, quite possibly the best driver in the bunch yet he struggled with any car that had oversteer. If he were to enter one of these races and the car choosen was a MR car he would loose everytime, where as if the car was Front engine AWD he would win every race. If tuning is allowed he would tweak the MR car to cut down the understeer and he would do much better where as I would tweak the AWD to induce more oversteer and I would do much better.

So as I said you are only testing the driver in a specific tune when you disallow tuning and not all drivers perform the same with different types of tuning. BTW all cars are tuned, even stock they still have a factory tuning on them it's just not meant for racing on the normal cars.

Again there is nothing wrong with racing in stock tuned cars but if you really want to test skill then then players should be allowed to drive a car that suits them and not be forced into a setup that they will not like.

I rather thought the mark of a really skilled driver would be to do well in any type of car.


Not just do well in a particular type.


Particularly not do well in only 4wd and poorly in MR. :odd: :odd:
That doesn't sound like a greatly skilled driver, from what I know. In fact, I daresay some would call that driver a newbie. :odd:
 
Stock is fun as when I fart about with all that dark magic of ramp angles, droop and jounce settings and (whisper it) tyre pressures I feel a bit dirty.

I quite like downgrading the tyres from Deluxe grip-o-matics (Sport grade tyres) to get more feel from a car of what it is like.

I've had a dash at some tuning. But generally I limit it to mismatched tyres to get a more drivable balance.
A Stock Ruf BTR with SM/SS tyres at the Willow Springs 8 lapper is about the pinnacle of my Tuning abilities.

I like to get a base time with a Stock car - maybe in the future I will see how much a splash of dark magic will improve my lap times.

I ran a Cizeta - Basically stock. I did my usual 5 seconds set up fix of mismatched tyres to soften the effect of worn tyres.
I then plugged in a bespoke Cizeta set up... And found it much less fun to drive and no faster.

Good set ups can only do so much I guess!
 
I find the car feels more natural stock,

and more to the point if everyone has exactly the same kit, then your not comparing tunes, your comparing driving skill alone.....

Not to mention car setups in GT5/6 are pretty much nonsense compared to a real setup.
 
How do you feel about cheating? Tuning is the same thing.

Any monkey can tune a car to match the way they drive, but it's the great drivers that can tune the way they drive to match the car. If you cant handle a car stock, whatever changes you make won't have an accurate comparison.

I can't tell you how many tunes have been posted here that actually make the car slower or more sloppy, despite the tall claims by the tuner.

Take the Oullim Spirra, for example. That car requires managing the grip at all four tires independently in order to extract the best. Sure you can tune it to be more manageable, but you end up neutering the experience, and slowing the car. Plus, by tuning, what have you learned?

Throwing money at problems very rarely works.
 
How do you feel about cheating? Tuning is the same thing.

Any monkey can tune a car to match the way they drive, but it's the great drivers that can tune the way they drive to match the car. If you cant handle a car stock, whatever changes you make won't have an accurate comparison.

I can't tell you how many tunes have been posted here that actually make the car slower or more sloppy, despite the tall claims by the tuner.

Take the Oullim Spirra, for example. That car requires managing the grip at all four tires independently in order to extract the best. Sure you can tune it to be more manageable, but you end up neutering the experience, and slowing the car. Plus, by tuning, what have you learned?

Throwing money at problems very rarely works.

Tuning is the same as cheating:confused: :lol::lol:

If "any monkey can tune a car to match the way they drive" then why have so "many tunes have been posted here that actually make the car slower or more sloppy". Kind of contradicting yourself there aren't you slick? :odd:

All the good tuners I know are also good drivers. All the great tuners I know are also great drivers and can drive the wheels off of anything because they instinctively and/or through training and real life experience know what is happening with the car. Tuners tune not because they don't enjoy stock cars, it's because they love the challenge of making them better than they rolled off the factory floor. Part of the beauty of this game is we can all enjoy it in whatever way gives us the most pleasure and there's really no need to speak disparagingly about the way one group or another gets their fun from the game. 👎
 
Can someone explain me why pimping your Clio to the MAX, including racing soft´s and racing it against poor racing cars while overpowering them, because of stupid PP system is supposed to be fun?
 
Can someone explain me why pimping your Clio to the MAX, including racing soft´s and racing it against poor racing cars while overpowering them, because of stupid PP system is supposed to be fun?
Something as tiny as a Clio on soft tyres is great fun because it's so bloody quick.

Different kinds of fun.

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