Did SPORT ruin Gran Turismo?

[Groundfish]

I am curious what others think about the franchise and even esport in general related to race games.
I only played ridge racer, then no gaming for years, then GTS, which I loved so much.
I am curious what others think.

 

[05XR8]

It did not ruin Gran Turismo and it did not make Gran Turismo better.

 

[MOPARbarrett5]

While to me GT Sport is the worst game in the series, it does have some good ideas that IF implemented well could make future games in the series better. Until major aspects of the main selling point of GT Sport work adequately, I don't think GT Sport is improving the franchise as a whole so for now I will say maybe, but it could go either way as time goes on.

 

[BigSarj]

I can't see how anyone could possibly think that it didn't make it better. It renewed my interest in the series and I can't be alone in that.

Esports is growing like crazy these days. Imagine Call of Duty never introduced online play. This is a natural progression for the number one racing title in the world. And I think, as it gets more popular, some people who just love to compete will raise an eyebrow towards the title and migrate from their strategy and shooter games.

For example, in Siege, a tactical shooter, the most dominant team that won multiple world titles is made up of players who all came from playing top down strategy games. There are those who like to expand their horizons and compete and if GT7 does things right, I can see sport mode taking right off in this upcoming generation. All GT7 has to do is be good.

 

[JTB10000]

Nah, I see it as a kind of reset for the series: a focus on consistent quality across all the cars, at least a small care for how all of them sound for the first time, realistic shifting that (kinda) works. There are many things that aren't great but it's not all bad. It's a good foundation idealogically (right word?) for GT7.

 

[XSquareStickIt]

I'm mixed with my feelings on Sport, but I'm leaning heavily towards Sport ruining the franchise.

The pros: Online racing. A large player base means well populated lobbies in daily races, which other sims struggle to even get close to. The strong emphasis on sportsmanship and E-Sports has made me into a much faster and safer driver than before. The fact that car settings are locked for almost all races means that people don't have to spend centuries finding an optimal setup for each event, and that pace is dictated entirely by skill. The graphics are gorgeous as usual, and the game sounds pretty good for the first time in the series. And in the GT6 days, if you told me Gran Turismo would allow you to customise your cars with license plates and liveries, I'd have laughed at you. Right now, the livery editor and the user generated content is easily half the fun of the game.

The cons: The AI still sucks, which means this game offers zero enjoyment offline in Single Player. The campaign races feel more like a chore than an achievement. The entire road car classification system is a terrible, tasteless joke. The credit economy is horrible. The tuning is stupidly simplistic. All of this can be forgiven if online racing was solid, but unfortunately, PD seems to have given up entirely on the penalty system after years of not getting it right. Consistent glitches such as the grid start bug, pit bug, FIA disconnections, the penalty system, and unfair SR drops and DR resets make Sport Mode feel more like a stressful job than fun for me, someone who's not an alien. I really applaud Kaz for not resting on his laurels and wanting to make something really different, to bring the franchise, and perhaps even racing sims as a whole, to the next level. The World Tours are all amazing to watch. I just wish the execution of it was better, and that there's more content for an average skilled person like me to enjoy.

Overall, GT Sport just feels... empty, to me. I don't look forward to booting it up at the end of every day at school or work like I used to with the older titles. It hasn't the charisma or charm of the older, more content rich titles. Sport Mode feels like it only rewards the top few World Tour material players, and no one else, whereas I can still boot up GT6 and spend hours on it running time trials on my own, testing different cars across vastly different tracks, tinkering with settings, etc.. I think Sport has shown me that I'm more of a casual racer than competitive, which may explain why I find Sport so unfulfilling.

The deepest impression Sport has left on me is unfortunately a very negative one. I bought a PS4 even before a Gran Turismo game was announced for it, just for Gran Turismo. I bought a Logitech G29 specifically because it was compatible with both the PS3 and PS4. To me, Gran Turismo has always been a constant in my life, and thus buying each instalment was a no brainer. During the open beta and at launch, the FFB and tyre models were so horrific for road cars I couldn't even drive a Mazda Roadster around without crashing. The game was empty and buggy. The final product felt like an open beta. I was so disappointed in it I almost gave my copy away to a friend. While those issues have been addressed via updates, each update kept me entertained for about a week before I ask myself, "okay, so what? What's next?" My faith in PD and the series has been shattered by GT Sport. I'm cautiously waiting for reviews of GT7 before I buy, and if the AI and penalty system still remain garbage, I'm probably not going to support the series any more.

 

[Stephan]

To me Sport has renewed my interest towards the series. I wanted to see them do a soft reboot and they did it with Sport.

The online aspect of the game also allowed me to improve my racing and eventually mature into a good racer. I admit that there are some infuriating moments such as dirty drivers, etc. but I used those moments to learn it and how to deal with it.

Overall, this game brought me back my interest in the series. The next game just needs to be balanced in terms of offline and online racing then they got it.

 

[Minivan]

I played GT1, GT2 on ps1 when I was a kid, and Sport is my first GT since then. And I remember I was thinking back then how it would be cool to race against other people. And I still think that way today.

I simply can not understand why people prefer to race with AI? Its boring, it has no nerve, no thrill, no excitement. yeah it may be difficult to hit some laptimes, I can see it. But I still can not understand how this is more fun than racing against living minds. You can have a whole spectrum of emotions during a single race in online lobbies. I cant even count how many times I laughed in tears during daily races, and how many times I were about to crash my console during fia races. What kind of emotions can you have in offline racing? Relief from torture when you finally hit that time?

online racing>>>>>any "sunday cup"

sorry for bad english

 

[Lazybike]

GTS is the only Gran Turismo game I've played.

 

[elston87]

Gran Turismo Sport is the name of the game. It was obvious what the game would be about with the marketing campaign: An online-focused multiplayer racing experience with an eSports aspect, although some people weren't too happy that they were lighting the past on fire instead of celebrating it and moving on, two infamous lines from a commercial being "It was just about collecting cars...now we burn it to the ground" which is what a lot of Gran Turismo's playerbase does and is what they enjoy the most about the franchise.

Nonetheless, I too was on the side of the fence that I wasn't going to really enjoy this game as this wasn't going to be a traditional experience that the franchise has put out for the last six installments, that is, until I actually tried it out, and all things considered about the game, I've came to enjoy it quite a lot. I never liked playing online against other players; I never did so during the PS3 era of Gran Turismo with one of the big reasons being that the physics changed dramatically due to the PS3 struggling to balance the load of graphics, netcode and physics all at once while playing online. You couldn't practice your skills offline then expect your car to behave the same when online; it really threw me off. Finally, in a new era with a console that's capable of handling all of the above, I can practice offline then take my skills online for a near-seamless and transparent experience. There's some differences here and there, but all the same it works out in the end.

Despite all the criticism with the penalty system and the Balance-of-Performance placements and adjustments, I really like Gran Turismo Sport as an online racing game. I can setup my wheel, turn the game on and get racing within minutes with Sport Mode. The fact that the cars are not allowed to be tuned in Sport Mode makes it fair and balanced, with the only differing variable between players being skill. The Daily Race picks for the week nowadays are recycled, but there's enough variety between car and course combination to keep things interesting throughout the weeks. The only kink apart from BoP and the penalty system I would say is the Sportsmanship Rating, as it is way too easy to maintain it at the highest rating possible. S-rated players should be expected to behave like real professional drivers on the course, but nowadays, even the nastiest, most-exploitative of players have an S rating and take full advantage of it to ruin the race for others.

In the end I still enjoy Gran Turismo Sport and its Sport Mode, and instead of just brushing online multiplayer aside as I did with Gran Turismo 5 and 6, I've now embraced it and welcome it more than ever, and I look forward to the (hopefully implemented!) improvements to it with Gran Turismo 7. They have a really great base going on here with Gran Turismo Sport; with just a few tweaks and adjustments here and there, it could turn out to be something really great by the time the next installment releases.

 

[BigSarj]

You know what's funny? I used to think I was fast until I went into sport mode.

Some people don't want to face the cold, hard truth: that there is more to squeeze out of oneself.

 

[jrbabbitt]

I don't know just yet, when I first started with GTSport I didn't want to do any online races and was intimidated because of my poor teaching skills. Now I am in the daily races about once, twice a week and looking forward to winning at least once.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

It made the online component much better. Lobby racing has its moments, but it's mostly a lot of waiting, problems and a lot of near empty rooms.

You can blame the focus on esports for a lackluster campaign, however the real damage was done by the gaas model, releasing a bare bones games and trickling down the content over the years. It ruined the reputation of Gran Turismo as the real driving simulator / car collector game. It's still lacking city tracks, dynamic time/weather, nascar, procedural rally stages, track editor and an offline mode.

Anyway the sport part has been ruined now as well, should be called GT Brawl.

 

[O604]

In my opinion not ruined. Just an inevitable evolution into online play. I don't think was an option for them (Sony) not to get into online racing.

Personally I don't like the ultra competitive aspect that Sport Mode has turned the focus to. But that is the nature of all competition. Anything popular will breed competition. Ultimately it's a good sign, not a bad one.

The GT fanbase is broad. There's probably a big enough market for both online and offline.

Heck, there's probably a big enough 3rd market too. Composed entirely of people who complain about GT.

 

[MoLiEG]

I don't own a PS4 and haven't played GTS. Despite that, I'd say it didn't ruin it. As for online mode, it seems to be the best the franchise has ever seen.

But OFFLINE mode? Let's be real, the franchise has been dead since GT5.

Bastly improving an area of your product while neglicting other(s) is not how to build your product correctly if you ask me... but hey, at least GT is not Madden or FIFA ... soooo I'm going to say Maybe.

 

[DriveSpark]

If PD had released another game like GT3-6 there would have been loads of criticism that it was the same old thing, stale, behind the times (with regards to online) and so on.

No, GTS isn't perfect, no game is.

Ultimately, you can't please all the people all of the time - take the penalty system for example, some liked the way it was a few weeks ago because you could race "robustly" and not get penalites for the odd bit of contact Others hated it because you could get taken out and the instigator wouldn't even get a penalty. You've only got to read the "Penalty system is still a piece of ..." thread to see its going to be virtually impossible to satisfy all.

Some moan about the lack of vehicles, but previously criticism of GT games was it had 37 Skylines and 23 MX-5s...

And so it continues... I do think it gets a bit trendy to bash GTS at times. Some criticism is valid but I do think it gets more than its fair share of undue complaints.

 

[kilesa4568]

I've just taken the game on its own merits rather than as a GT sequel but I've voted yes because the end product feels like a good and solid evolution of the franchise. If they offer a full fat career mode (with intelligent AI...) along with the ever popular sport mode in the next game, they'll have yet another winner.

 

[NevilleNobody]

We are all entitled to our own opinion but man, online is TOTALLY different to AI and a million times better. ZERO comparison for me, absolutely zero.

I also have zero interest in car collecting, modding etc i just wanna race tight and clean. There's a joke there but i'll wave it by.

 

[Abyss1]

I'm mixed with my feelings on Sport, but I'm leaning heavily towards Sport ruining the franchise.


The cons: The AI still sucks, which means this game offers zero enjoyment offline in Single Player. The campaign races feel more like a chore than an achievement. The entire road car classification system is a terrible, tasteless joke. The credit economy is horrible. The tuning is stupidly simplistic. All of this can be forgiven if online racing was solid, but unfortunately, PD seems to have given up entirely on the penalty system after years of not getting it right. Consistent glitches such as the grid start bug, pit bug, FIA disconnections, the penalty system, and unfair SR drops and DR resets make Sport Mode feel more like a stressful job than fun for me, someone who's not an alien. I really applaud Kaz for not resting on his laurels and wanting to make something really different, to bring the franchise, and perhaps even racing sims as a whole, to the next level. The World Tours are all amazing to watch. I just wish the execution of it was better, and that there's more content for an average skilled person like me to enjoy.

I sort of disagree. The offline Arcade mode is my favorite thing about this game. honestly i always see weird FIA stuff in real races too, although honorable, its sort of silly, sounds like you need real people to flag drivers in these games to make people happy and even that sounds sketchy

 

[jrbabbitt]

It made the online component much better. Lobby racing has its moments, but it's mostly a lot of waiting, problems and a lot of near empty rooms.

As for the empty rooms I agree, but I have a thought on that, I see quite a few rooms that were set up and these players are either drifts or they have the ridiculously hi speed cars and expect others to join and race. Personally I do not drift and when looking for decent racing I arrive with a decent race car (gr.3-gr.4) and I then see that the only car there is the 2,000 HP Tomahawk X, I cannot compete so I bail out looking for compatible races and not finding many....
Some so post a description of what type room is there like "F1 or Drift" and that's cool but when you enter a room with not a clue and you find the class of cars are out of your reach it gets discouraging.

 

[rhcpeppers]

GT5 was the only other Gran Turismo game that I played. I really enjoyed it for about 6 months or so, and then gradually lost interest. Granted, my internet connection was terrible at the time, so I never ventured into any of the online stuff that the game had. I didn't play any racing games for the next several years (I played a LOT of the PES soccer games during that time).

In December 2019, I got the itch to play a racing game again. I saw I could get GT Sport for $20 and picked it up as something to do for fun while I had some time off around Christmas. I stayed in the offline mode until March 2020 when I tried the Sport Mode for the first time. Wow! This was a game-changer and I was hooked. The intensity and competitiveness just ramped up several notches by racing against real people (and that was in DR D for several months but still a big challenge). 14 months later, I am still playing this game almost every day and it is now the ONLY video game that I'm playing. So while I can't make a good comparison to the previous GT games, it is one of the most fun video games I've ever played.

I know the game is far from perfect, and I agree with many of the shortcomings that people have pointed out on this forum. For me, the most fun comes from continuously trying to make small improvements and then testing myself against real people. I still use the offline player mode a lot, but it is primarily as low-intensity practice for online races coming up. So while I was wish it was more robust with better AI, I realize that it would still get stagnant at some point, and the real measuring-stick and fun comes from racing real people. I've also just ventured into some of the league racing from this forum in the past couple of months so that has added another layer of fun for me (only did dailies and FIA races up to that point).

I also enjoy the livery editing, replays, and photos much more than I thought I would. And even those have a little more meaning to me when I know that I am sharing them for real people that I'm actually racing with to see.

 

[Sven Jurgens]

As for the empty rooms I agree, but I have a thought on that, I see quite a few rooms that were set up and these players are either drifts or they have the ridiculously hi speed cars and expect others to join and race. Personally I do not drift and when looking for decent racing I arrive with a decent race car (gr.3-gr.4) and I then see that the only car there is the 2,000 HP Tomahawk X, I cannot compete so I bail out looking for compatible races and not finding many....
Some so post a description of what type room is there like "F1 or Drift" and that's cool but when you enter a room with not a clue and you find the class of cars are out of your reach it gets discouraging.

I did a lot of lobby racing in GT5 and GT6, when it works and you're with people you know it's great. However it was never as exciting as sport mode, always a big spread in speed and half full rooms at most. Sometimes it would fill up and then the track or limits changed and half would leave again. Oddly the 'penalty system' in GT5 worked much better than what we have now. Temporary slow down, self healing damage, much more of a deterrent than penalties to serve later, if they even work.

Sport mode cuts out the looking for a filled room part and races always start at a set time. So much time wasted by the host having a cigarette break or whatever lol. At some point I only started entering shuffle races rooms, full auto on a timer.

I had hoped lobby racing would have improved as well but it's still as problematic and with less options than GT6 had. It's like everything but sport mode has had cutbacks or was ignored, while the vast majority of the player base never even touches sport mode.

 

[Canucks_9419]

A game like this had to happen in this series, in terms of cut back content to focus on quality IMO. I absolutely loved GT6, but I'd be lying to say it wasn't completely bloated with things it didn't need. Anyone who can sit there and say they actually wanted 6-700+ upscaled PS2 gen car models in the PS4 Era is boldface lying and need to take the rose coloured glasses off to be honest!

The Sport mode itself has made me a better driver and I'm thankful for that. This is only their first go at making a full penalty system, so I do expect there to be a few changes for that next game, but I can definitely see these championships being a permanent fixture in a larger game!

 

[fisheye]

After playing Sport Mode for a while... Go back into Arcade Mode and run any race in Professional. It's way too easy and even boring to win 1st place every time.

 

[05XR8]

PD ruined the marketing for this game. Not SPort. Look at the original intro. There we see classic racing cars in various disciplines.messed The history of those scenes are not even explained to players new to racing. Many players didn't and don't know about GT4 and GT3 racing. It was the lack of educating players that ruined the experience of GT Sport for many players.

I lkiterally booted up the PS4, deleted my saves and restarted a new game. After setting up the screen prompts, the intro begins. Being it's Spec II, the FIA intro is shown. Rally cars spinning, are the first game images we see. Non-real life racers on the world stage. That's cool. Now, onto the game intro.

AMD Safety car. Classic race cars, JDM cars from the 1980s, more rally cars and AMG Safety Car. GT3 cars in full effect. Then, we get to see the various cars included in the game. It's clear PD marketed this as a racing game.
So, what's the first car you get? A road car(I also got a Gr.3 Genesis for my birthday).

There's no guidance with the game. Noone explaining what players could do. Very weird as PD collaborated with Niisan and Mercedes with GT Academy.

Sport made online racing easy for everyone. Had the etiquette videos made players drive at a few circuits to gauge where they should be placed, that would have made it much better. Those that have grievances with offline AI, it's not boring to race the AI. PD just haven't made the AI competitive. Boring isn't the right word. Frustrating is.

I said time and again how I was late to buy GT Sport. I wanted my offline Gran Turismo. Trying SPort Mode got me into playing online more than ever. However, that is manily due to the lack of polish offline recieved.

 

[LeGeNd-1]

As always with these things, it's highly dependent on who you ask. Fans of the original concept would probably say yes, but the younger generation who only cares about online would probably say no.

Personally, in terms of on track driving time GTS is probably the most played GT for me since GT1. And this is coming from someone who doesn't like online racing. If it weren't for sport mode, I'd have stopped playing the game after 1 year once I collected all the cars. So in that respect PD did do something right. Unfortunately, sport mode by itself is plagued by a lot of problems, and the structure of the FIA championship is lacking compared to other more established esport sims. If this game doesn't have a GT badge on it, they would not have gotten half of the viewership that the series has. But good graphics and marketing always sells.

In terms of the offline content, this is where sport mode has ruined the game. Or rather, it has taken resources away from developing it. GT League is as stale as ever, AI are still dreadfully slow and unaware, car tuning is lacking, physics is still riddled with weird quirks and road cars are just plain underappreciated in this game. Not to mention all the new fictional tracks have been specifically designed to promote close racing, at the expense of actual driving enjoyment (e.g. long straight followed by tight corner/chicane). Just look at what they did to poor Trial Mountain in GT7's trailer. Scapes and livery editor are a big plus, but not everyone is into those. It's hard to say if any of those things would've been better had sport mode not existed however. The franchise has been getting stale since GT5 and GT7 looks to be much the same old stuff just with a fresh new coat of paint.

So does sport mode ruin GT? I'd say it's a temporary band aid for now. It does rejuvenate the franchise and gets people playing, but at the trade off of losing original fans and expansion of the offline component. And if PD doesn't get sport mode in order, soon those new players will leave for other games too. PD's ideas are often sound, but their execution is often lacking. They always try to achieve too much and spread themselves too thin (e.g. see the underused WRC/NASCAR licenses in GT5). They say they're committed to FIA for long term, but who knows what will happen? Back in the day GT Academy used to run like clockwork every year but as soon as Nissan pulls out it disappeared overnight. When that happens, they will only have the original offline Gran Turismo experience to fall back on. If that experience has been neglected for years because of too much focus on sport mode, none of the long term fanbase will be there anymore.

 

[ScottPuss20]

GT Sport has been polarizing to say the least and I feel as though an opportunity was missed through this console generation. Sport Mode didn't really add much to the overall experience other than providing races on a regular basis. It was entertaining at times, but also extremely frustrating with questionable driving and penalties that made little sense. Eventually the novelty wore off and I stopped doing it completely. But the same thing has happened with many other games so it's to be expected. The small car and track list at launch wasn't ideal but we knew that PD had started with a clean slate. Thankfully the game was expanded rather quickly and that made me very happy; PD were actually thinking about the fans and making up for the lost ground. The steady stream of content was good but now that it's dried up, the game has become rather boring. There's no reason for me to play it apart from league racing because the career mode is crap and I can't be stuffed doing daily races. GT Sport will not be remembered fondly and I don't think any of us will go back to it if everything is carried over to GT7. GT Sport hasn't ruined GT but I can't help but think that it was made as a distraction, something to keep us entertained until GT7.

 

[AwfulDriver]

The GT Series has in the past released mini versions of their game (i.e. Concept, Prologue, Sport), which they use to improve/innovate on their major GT releases. I think PS4 was the only PS console that didn't get a major GT release. So I can understand why people are not thrilled about the lack of focus on offline stuff.

In my opinion, I think it's a great step forward and it should provide them with enough experience to continue moving the genre to the next generation of gaming (online/esport/VR). I assume that GT7 will have all the offline bells and whistles that major releases get along with the esport/online aspect of GT Sport.

Also, I don't see any issues with esports. Unlike other major esport games, racing has been an international sport before the video game industry existed and the game has always focused on competing with other cars similar to real motorsports (that I can remember). Only difference now, is you can choose to race between the games AI or several real people online.

I hope GT7 doesn't sacrifice on quality of immersion and simulation (sound, graphics, physics) in order to have 500+ cars like previous major releases.

 

[RACECAR]

As someone who's played Gran Turismo since the very first game (Hell, ever since the Playstation Underground demo that only had 3 cars and Clubman Stage Route 5 available), I fail to see how its ruined it. It was from the beginning never a regular Gran Turismo and honestly with how bloated and stale the old system got, this was a far different game that tossed it aside. Yes the AI are not exactly close to competitive as usual but again, the Ai wasn't the focus of the game. Hell, the campaign literally existed because people wouldn't stop moaning about there not being a regular offline mode (in a game that wasn't GT7). I agree this is a polarizing game (To be fair, this a polarizing franchise so it doesn't matter what they do, there's gonna be a reaction), but some of the negativity just feels like it goes beyond reality or reason. GT Sport hasn't damaged the franchise for me because frankly, it was already damaged with how stale it got after a while. I don't exactly have the highest expectations because I know to expect so much from PD is in itself the definition of madness.

So in short, Gran Turismo 7 hasn't been tainted by Gran Turismo Sport and it won't stop me from giving it a go whenever it comes out. I do hope GT Sport is the game that got PD to actually breath some form of new life into the franchise but I know well enough not to board the hype train.

 

[ii_Biggles_ii]

I think what changed is not the game or any online games but rather the access that people now have to online racing over the recent past which has just brought a lot of non car racing people online to race. I know as a racing fan since I was a kid I bought the very first car game I could get on the Sega Megadrive, I now know people who don't follow any motorsport who play racing games online now but they don't care about DR or SR, it is just win at all costs, thankfully I don't think any stayed in GT for too long but there are as we well know people like that playing GTS. You can't fault PD for developing and promoting the game as there here to make money and for everyone that quits the game more probably join and buy car rather that earn them, it's like any game on you phone or PC, pay to win = good business plan for PD. Window dressing is all there doing now in GTS so when GT7 is launched people will buy it and not move on elsewhere.