Controls, assists, and "the real driving simulator."

  • Thread starter MIE1992
  • 10 comments
  • 1,656 views
4,296
United States
Connecticut
Ridley-X4
To summarize this post, I think having assists and controls more in-line with each actual car model would add to the immersion of Gran Turismo, and further propel it to being "the real driving simulator."

To begin this topic, I would do away with the many of the options in menu which apply to all cars. I believe these options can be accessed simply in the pause menu, when you're on the road. The omitted options would be such as TCS and ABS, but also the option to pick between automatic and manual. Why all these omissions? Because I'd make these work on a car-by-car basis. We can sort of see this in the settings menu for each car in Gran Turismo Sport, where it will list if the car has an automatic transmission, a manual, sequential manual, or CVT.

On this same topic, I think it would add more character to each car if the controls were not generalized, but instead, also worked on a car-by-car basis, in which you map your own layout for each car. This would ideally prevent wasted buttons (see: mapping wiper and light functions for driving the F1500T-A), but also would dovetail with what I mentioned on using real-world transmission types. Let's use a Mazda Miata as an example. I would force players to map a button for the clutch, shifting up, and shifting down for their button layout when driving this car. This would be in addition to other essential functions such as the reverse gear and handbrake.

Some functions would have the option to be automated, such as the wipers or turning on the headlights. Hopefully, the next game will return to having dynamic day/night and weather, so the wipers and headlights would activate when the conditions develop insofar they would be needed. While I do find it cute that PD has allowed us to use turn signals or enable hazard lights, I don't think they're necessary, though I wouldn't necessarily remove them - I'd allow them to be mapped if there's remaining real estate on the controller. I would say the same of toggling hi-beams/low-beams and flashing your lights; while I'd say these are slightly more useful, I wouldn't deem them as essential as say, shifting up or down, so I'd allow players to go without them at their own discretion. However, I would deem the overtake button to be essential, as I'd say anybody who does not map it would be at a profound disadvantage when using a car than can use it, such as the SF19.

As for assists, this would also be based on the actual functionalities of that car in real life. This would work on a couple levels: being able to modify something in the settings, and on-the-go, via the Multifunctional Display. As a result, you would not be able to adjust fuel mapping, brake balance, TCS, and whatnot from most cars as-stock. However, you could buy a part that allows you to do adjust these metrics, with some metrics allowing you to buy another part to adjust them while driving, such as the brake balance or TCS. Meanwhile, some parts don't have a "settings menu only" equivalent, and can only be adjusted on the go when bought, such as the part for fuel mapping.

I'm unsure if the cars of Gran Turismo Sport have various assists and whatnot as part of the competitive approach, but it somewhat challenges my immersion. For all the things Polyphony Digital seems to pay attention to, such as modeling or handling, I feel like there's more that can be done to make Gran Turismo more immersive without necessarily making it as realistic as a more orthodox racing sim, such as iRacing or Assetto Corsa.

I really wish I could talk to someone either with PD, or has connections to PD - maybe someone from GTPlanet? I feel like I admittedly don't have what it takes to be a developer or game designer, and yet I have too many ideas for various videogame series that I really like, such as Gran Turismo. Even if these suggestions aren't implemented, I simply want to know that I've been acknowledged somehow, or maybe hear why these suggestions/ideas I have may not work. I admit there's a lot I may not know, and there could be some factor that would prevent the implementation of these sorts of things. But I just don't know what to do, otherwise.
 
Take a look at what Project Cars does. It allows you to run authentic assists that the car actually has in real life. For a GT3 car that's both ABS and TC, whilst for a Sauber C9 it would be no assists at all. If you always want ABS and TC on, you can configure that yourself and all cars will run with the desired setting. You can also choose to disable all assists if you want. Also if the car has adjustable roll bars, fuel map or brake bias in real life, that's exactly what you'll get in the game. No settings to go through, it's all configured for you. Honestly, I feel as though Project Cars will address many of the issues you have with GT Sport. I highly recommend it if you want a more realistic experience.
 
Enthusia: Profesional Racing does this with "Recommended" assist setting. It basically sets the assists to those of real life car counterparts.

For the assist idea I can see the potential for next GT title atleast. It also to show that even actual racing drivers uses assists.
 
They say the devil's in the details and your list of details sounds like a time and money pit for a developer.
I can't say I agree. I'm not asking them to develop something - I'd say this is more of a design decision than anything that requires a notable amount of coding. Especially since I feel like they might be making progress towards this, with how the transmission type is listed in the settings menu.

Take a look at what Project Cars does. It allows you to run authentic assists that the car actually has in real life. For a GT3 car that's both ABS and TC, whilst for a Sauber C9 it would be no assists at all. If you always want ABS and TC on, you can configure that yourself and all cars will run with the desired setting. You can also choose to disable all assists if you want. Also if the car has adjustable roll bars, fuel map or brake bias in real life, that's exactly what you'll get in the game. No settings to go through, it's all configured for you. Honestly, I feel as though Project Cars will address many of the issues you have with GT Sport. I highly recommend it if you want a more realistic experience.

What about what I mentioned about transmissions? Namely being able to map a button for the clutch on the controller, and then the game differentiating between manual, sequential manual, automatic, and CVT models.
 
I admittedly don't have what it takes to be a developer

I can't say I agree. I'm not asking them to develop something - I'd say this is more of a design decision than anything that requires a notable amount of coding.

As someone who has written code as part of my work for nearly 30 years now, please take my word for it that what you are asking for would require a large amount of coding. It's a significant development of the underlying data structures, work to populate the larger data structures, UI work to allow the user to interact with the data structures, and coding in many areas of the game to make use of the new data. For comparison, consider that Playground Games were asked to allow brake calipers to be painted in their own colour in FH4, and they initially said they were going to do it, but then changed their mind because it would be several man months of work just to allow that one part of each car to be painted in its own colour. Suppose it takes 1 hour per car for someone to do the work in the CAD model to group all the elements together so it knows which parts must be given that colour. When you have 600 cars to do it to, you're looking at 16 man weeks of work.

Even setting aside the considerable amount of work needed, there are conceptual problems with some of what you're suggesting. For example, forcing people to use a button for the clutch - how is that not immersion breaking? I hate that FH4 has cars that aren't competitive without using a button for the clutch, as I find it completely artificial to have to change how I hold the wheel to keep pressing a clutch button, as well as physically dangerous, as the FFB can injure your thumb if you have it stuck out like that.

That's not to dismiss the whole concept of what you're suggesting, I think there is definitely value in trying to make the experience of driving specific types of car match real life, e.g. making GT3 cars have useful traction control like they do in real life, and maybe not permitting it for N class cars that don't have it in real life (but care would need to be taken that it doesn't make cars OP if they have terrific TC in real life).

Are you aware that you can try your hand at programming for free? Visual Studio Community is free for personal use, and lets you do full blown C++ development. Get yourself a copy of "The C++ Programming Language" by Stroustrup, and away you go. If you find it hard to do even the simplest of things, then that's just how it is, I'm afraid. I recently spent about 150 hours making a change to some software I'm working on, when the change could be described in just a few sentences of plain English.
 
Even setting aside the considerable amount of work needed, there are conceptual problems with some of what you're suggesting. For example, forcing people to use a button for the clutch - how is that not immersion breaking?

It wouldn't be immersion-breaking because the actual car would require using a clutch to shift. You'd only need to map the clutch for when you're driving those sorts of cars, like the Mazda Miata. You wouldn't need to map it for a car with a sequential manual, automatic, or CVT.

I hate that FH4 has cars that aren't competitive without using a button for the clutch, as I find it completely artificial to have to change how I hold the wheel to keep pressing a clutch button, as well as physically dangerous, as the FFB can injure your thumb if you have it stuck out like that.

Ideally, there would be rulesets that allow some lesser-used cars to be competitive. I think Gran Turismo is a bit like Pokemon - not everything needs to be competitively viable, and there shouldn't solely be an "anything goes" sort of competitive ecosystem; specialized tournaments and rulesets allow different things to be viable. For Pokemon, there have been special rulesets like the Little Cup, or the more dynamic regulations for the 2019 and 2020 VGC seasons. In Gran Turismo's example, there should be more online events that correlate to rules seen in the campaign, such as being limited to cars with boxer engines.
 
It wouldn't be immersion-breaking because the actual car would require using a clutch to shift. You'd only need to map the clutch for when you're driving those sorts of cars, like the Mazda Miata.
But the actual car has a clutch pedal and pattern shifter, not a button on the steering wheel and paddles?
 
But the actual car has a clutch pedal and pattern shifter, not a button on the steering wheel and paddles?

You don't think that's an acceptable substitute for when you don't have an pattern shifter and clutch pedal?

EDIT: But I think you make a point I didn't consider, being the hardware constraints on the user's end. Maybe a compromise could be that the clutch could be automated (as it is now when driving such vehicles), but otherwise, you wouldn't need to worry about shifting in the new Supra for example.
 
Last edited:
You don't think that's an acceptable substitute for when you don't have an pattern shifter and clutch pedal?
No, IMO it feels completely unrealistic, having used that setup a fair bit in FH4. I'd rather just use the paddles so I can at least hold the steering wheel like I would in real life. Try driving a Gr.1 car around Interlagos, for example, where you're changing gear quite a lot, and try pressing a button on the wheel every time you shift, and see what you think of how it feels.
 
No, IMO it feels completely unrealistic, having used that setup a fair bit in FH4. I'd rather just use the paddles so I can at least hold the steering wheel like I would in real life. Try driving a Gr.1 car around Interlagos, for example, where you're changing gear quite a lot, and try pressing a button on the wheel every time you shift, and see what you think of how it feels.

Perhaps I'm thinking too much about this in the context of using a DualShock. And maybe I'm taking this whole "immersion" thing too seriously in general, haha.

But it still bothers me a bit, when they've even listed what transmission the car has IRL in the settings menu.

EDIT: Is there really nowhere on a wheel that’d make using a clutch more ergonomic? I know it may be nuts to suggest it, but maybe PD could work with their wheel partner in designing a wheel that makes using the clutch more ergonomic if you don’t get a pattern shifter and a three-pedal setup.
 
Last edited:
Back