You know, I once thought that Tokyo East was good for cars up to Gr.3, but I rescind that statement. Even with Gr.4 cars, it's what I'd call one of the worst track designs (along with the entire series of tracks, even South) in GT's history. You can say that the lack of run-off areas "provides a challenge," but most drivers are on the lower-end of the bell-curve, so you get stuff where players don't give each other any space at all, and Race A this week ends up being a good place to tank your SR if you want to exploit the broken matchmaking for easy wins/poles.
You can call me salty, and why shouldn't I? GT Sport, at its very core, does a few things really nicely, but I'd say that it needs enough improvement at a basal level, insofar that I may as well wait for its successor rather than hope said improvements come in a patch. I don't even know at this point - I have too may suggestions to list here. If GT's appeal (and by extension, GT Sport) is truly its accessibility, then I can name a few places where GTS fails this goal, either by being unfair, overly-complex, or otherwise having frustrating game design elements. It's especially disappointing given how long GT has been around. I would've imagined that the staff at PD would've gained a lot of experience in game design by now, and learned some lessons in transparency to provide context and explanation to address fan concerns (outside of marketing events like the FIAGTCs) but who needs to improve your product when your budget is being covered by so many parties? PD being so close to Sony likely helps with each GT game's budget, especially since Sony wants them to be system-sellers. Then there's all the partnerships and publicity stunts that both make a GT game easier to reach profitable status and fool simple-minded audiences into thinking GT is something more than it is.
I do want to quit GTS (maybe even GT, and sim-like racing games as a whole) but I suppose I also want to potentially check out upcoming updates. But even then, if it's mostly just car and track additions - as nice as they are - then it won't address what I perceive to be some of the fundamental flaws at GTS' core.
There are just too many frustrating factors to GTS, the GT series as a whole, and PD. At this point, it just feels like a really, really glorified tech demo for various Sony products (whether it's the PlayStation itself, or their TVs) and a marketing vehicle for a bunch of sponsors like Red Bull and TAG-Heuer. You can say that I'm just "rage-quitting," and I'm not gonna argue otherwise. I feel like I have a lot to be frustrated about when it comes to GT. Games are not supposed to be stressful like GTS is. They're meant to be enriching, and I don't feel like I'm learning anything when I play GT. I'm not having fun, I'm not meeting people, I'm not being encouraged to be experimental and exercise critical thinking skills.
I don't feel like I am rewarded for improving in skill - in fact, I feel like I am being punished for improving. It's a Kafka-esque repetition of hovering around 26000 DR and never gaining poles/wins, despite what the trophy list ostensibly expects from players, let alone obtaining consecutive clean races. I'm not asking the game to blow me, but a win rate of under 2.5% between across 430 races doesn't sound normal for a racing game. It sounds like the symptoms of multiple broken systems. And there's no way for me to ask PD about this since they have no transparency, maybe a cryptic interview at some obscure conference or the FIAGTCs if you're lucky. No way to contact them. Nothing. It's honestly as if PD treats GT less like a game, and more like a passion project/tech demo for the PlayStation.
You can make fun of me, saying stuff like "u mad" but I'm just exasperated. It seems to me that PD isn't really a game developer. They're a tech demo developer. They don't make well-designed games, they make pretty games - ones that dazzle brainless NorCal tech investors and people who are otherwise too daft to know that there's more to a game than how well its animations/reflections/physics/lighting/particle effects are. PD may have impressive technology and visuals, but they seemingly continue to have serious difficulty with actual game design, and I think that's the only part of a game that truly matters the most. Everything else - graphics, story, music, etc. - can absolutely enhance the game design, but when you leave a lot of the game design to be desired, I think it can drag down the other elements a significant amount more, compared to if you did everything else well, but didn't do so well with something like the music. At any rate, if Kaz wants to play the Ferrari to somebody else's Lamborghini down the line, then that's his choice, as far as I know.
