Gran Turismo Sport: General Discussion

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I'm about to start the Gr.3 Endurance Series in GT League. Which car is the easiest one to drive? My speed shouldn't be an issue against the AI but the main reason I never compete in this class online is because I'm having difficulties keeping the cars under control. So the main thing I'm looking for here is stability.
 
Pancake90
I'm about to start the Gr.3 Endurance Series in GT League. Which car is the easiest one to drive? My speed shouldn't be an issue against the AI but the main reason I never compete in this class online is because I'm having difficulties keeping the cars under control. So the main thing I'm looking for here is stability.
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RC F, WRX, EVO, Mustang.
 
So, they should include a "GT" overlay, in that opening animation. If not the logo, what character could be used? Translator-San avatar? :lol:
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Or Jenkins
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andrea
So we are nearing the end of the PS4 life cycle. Would you say GT Sport has won you over? Or would you have preferred a traditional GT?
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I liked the concept and most* of the functionality of sport mode from the get-go, being in one of the first or second pools of players to try it in the closed beta way back when. The pick-up-and-playability and replayabilty is immense and stronger than just about any other racing game I can ever remember playing, aside from maybe only rocket league, if that can even be considered a racing game. I think it’s whole goal was to sell the viability of an e-sports platform in Gran Turismo, and it’s done that job very very well. The only dark side is the tumultuous story of the penalty system. I don’t think I need to go into it here, there’s a whole thread for it, it’s got problems, we all know that. But GTS is one of the better options for a good competitive racing platform, certainly if you look at affordability and approachability compared to the likes of iRacing.

Presentation was excellent. Menu music mixed with the car showrooms/scapes and museum history gave the game a presence and sense of grandeur, maybe a small thing and unimportant in the grand picture of functionality, but it’s probably my favorite menu of any game ever. The expansion to photo mode, cosmetic customization, and community features was immense and very welcomed. We lost aero/body customization, but the livery editor (IMO) very much made up for it. The decal uploader allowed you to creat literally anything, and the accessibility through community sharing made it extremely simple to drive your favorite race teams or colors, or just simply have the exact aesthetic you wanted, if that’s what you were into. Aside from the poor search UI and server storage limit, there was almost no downside to any of it.

The game even pre-league had elements, albeit toned back, of a traditional GT game. It had an offline campaign with license tests and missions, but it (primarily the mission section) was very short, possibly still underutilized even with the small amount of launch content there was. There were some cool ideas that were only used once or twice and could’ve been used more without seeming repetitive, or expanded on. More speed/slipstream challenges, maybe used in conjunction with very exit-dependent corners or sections. A few more endurance/fuel challenges would’ve been good (especially with the typical usage of Daily Race C), maybe one that highlights both speed and economy, where you need to set a lap/sector time but can’t get to the finish with normal fuel mapping and driving style with the allotted fuel, etc. A fair amount of fun, but lot of missed opportunities and very short. Circuit Experience was a welcome addition for both learning smaller portions of track at a time and being and being a quick way to get a fair amount of cars, but some sectors were a little long and didn’t provide enough section focus. I suppose it’s still better than a full lap though. Luckily the campaign was bolstered by the custom race function, and the fact that you could earn credits from arcade mode made the shortcomings far more tolerable. It allowed a lot more creativity, but also required fun to come from the imagination, not providing many templates to give you an idea of what to try.

Initial race classes (which were clearly the “highlight” content of the game) were fairly well filled, except for maybe Gr. 1. It wasn’t huge (but to be fair there aren’t usually a lot of different cars in any single modern real world prototype class), but primarily suffered from unclear identity, having a range of a few real-world prototypes, to VGTs that functioned as alternate-reg prototypes, Hypercars/GT1, or unusual concept machinery. This aside they had good representation from just about every brand available at launch and even with several imaginary PD creations they were very believable, and aside from Group B were used very well.

Problems arose with BoP and new additions to the roster. OP cars and drivetrain types were usually nerfed to an extent eventually, but a bigger issue has been that a lot of cars and brands got stuck in the uncompetitive zone and rarely if ever buffed, or even touched. But then you get new DLC additions that wreck things - I’m looking at you Megane Trophy - and didn’t really get sorted, or at least not enough, certainly not quickly. Gr. 1 also suffered from very weird era crossovers that really probably should’ve been split into multiple categories, but that’s more of an opinion discussion. What isn’t, is that we still have OP cars and cars that really can’t fight for upper positions, and we’re about to get a new car from Mazda. We’ve usually had new additions to 3 & 4 be OP and nerfed over time, but historically Mazda hasn’t really ever been a competitive manufacture in sport mode, and STILL hasn’t had its BoP adjusted between announcement and launch of the car. So balanced racing in any car of choice seems to be a theoretical possibility, but it has been an inconsistent and slow process of getting there and it doesn’t seem like PD are putting all the effort they could be. Which brings me to the next issue, IMO one of the biggest in GT Sport.

N Class/road cars are a mess. They were only well-implemented maybe once in the life cycle of GTS, and that was the closed beta, when there were only a partial selection of N300 cars to pick from. Since then, N classes have never been balanced, and only made worse with DLC following the same problems (albeit in a much more extreme manner) I outlined in the last paragraph. Part of it is from the utter lack of attempts to balance it, but another probably equally as large aspect is the parameters PD decided to use to distinguish the classes. Each N-bracket being determined solely by horsepower screws any hope for balance. The Toyota Tundra, essentially a motorized cathedral, is considered to be in a faster category than the KTM, which is basically a paperclip stapled to an engine in comparison. Had they at least based it on a power-to-weight ratio there’d be hope, but PD again further screwed it with chucking in weird race/semi-race cars, like the Touring MX-5, GRMN SF-R, and GT40. Those could’ve been saved by just carrying over the old PP system, just making the NXXX brackets be determinate of general performance range, not literal horsepower, but here we are. And then to make matters even more worsererer, a vast majority, like, at least 80% of DLC cars were in these road categories. And since PD wasn’t bothered to address the balancing, save for one make races in Race A, they basically went unused. So the game would get increasingly frustrating as launch content felt more and more dated with every update, but there was little to nothing new to use in highlight modes, and your attention was always being directed to the new stuff every month - literally cycling on the home screen.

Another frustrating car aspect was both tuning and other “unusual” cars. I already said my piece on balancing road cars, but just trying to race them in lobbies or arcade was hard cuz there was just no metric to know where cars stood against each other till you put them on the track. Luckily trans/diff/suspension were all still present, but the simplification of tuning weight and power to % sliders only made sense for BoP balancing (wow imagine if they used that) was was absolutely atrocious for anything else. It made road car’s essentially sidelined existence from sport mode hard to enjoy offline and in lobbies, and as I said earlier, it was the main car content coming in every month. And then there’s the economy, which didn’t allow any progression to enable good payouts for attaining expensive cars, and required endless grinding on repetitive boring races for literal days if you wanted to collect multiple multi-million cars. And the highlight mode (sport) was not only not the best money maker, it was far from it, which seemed to create this odd dichotomy of enticement - get the expensive cars, or play the meat of the game. Furthermore, sometimes you just simply weren’t allowed to put some cars on the track together - that’s right, now I’m gonna rant about Gr. X.

Group X as a concept is fine, it’s a great place to put unusual cars that don’t belong anywhere, like one-make race cars, open wheelers, unusual concepts, etc. But PD decided it was also the place for anything with an electric Powertrain, making a perfectly enjoyable Porsche Taycan and I guess enjoyable (if you’re into that sort of thing) i8 unusable with any other N cars. Furthermore, a handful of race cars were in there that were meant to race against similar-era cars just weren’t able to, like the XJ13/Ford Mk IV/330 P4. If you were lucky enough to get one you got the unfortunate experience of discovering you could pretty much only race it against itself unless you did the generic 3-lap quick race or the one league event it was eligible and competitive for, anything else required you to search for the other top 0.1% of players that Bernie fears so much that also we’re lucky enough to afford one and happens to be in a lobby. They could’ve put them in a class, maybe with the other 50s/60s touring/sports cars, maybe those as their own class, doesn’t matter. They could’ve called it Gr. Poop for all I cared, if they could race it’d be excellent, but they can’t. And as I outlined earlier, their price was near unattainable, so even in a weird world where you do end up with one in your garage, there’s nothing to do with it. As well there’s things like the P1 GTR or Zonda R, which are track cars... so they’re Gr. X? Why do these cars need to be separated from road cars? At what point is GT ever about casual road driving, it’s literally all racing in track. These can be N-class cars. So many design decisions result in that kind of way, where something is developed with a lot of care but has so little usability.


I think I’ve touched on most everything, I’m certainly rivaling my longest post if I haven’t done it here. Anyways, here’s what I think:

GT Sport expands on a lot of good things GT has done and brings them to better levels, often the best the series has seen (photmode, community, online racing). It’s fixed or improved bad things and QoL (car sounds, inconsistent quality of content, post launch support). It’s introduced new-to-series stuff (esports, livery editor, custom offline races, fuel map/other endurance functionality). But it’s also made missteps in a lot of new and unusual areas (economy, performance balancing, online saving only, server-based user content storage, daily reward system, wimpy campaign, uhhhhh penalties) that can make you feel a range of emotions from light frustration or confusion to absolute rage. It’s missing stuff we loved from the past but it’s added new stuff we’d hate to not see return in the future. I still have stuff I prefer in 5 and 6 respectively, but Sport has things on those titles. I think as a full package it’s earned its name as an entry in the GT series, certainly an odd step-uncle-in-law, but in your words, won my heart over. What I hope for going forward is game design and balance issues can be sorted and that then the essence of Sport can be merged into a traditional GT title. That’s all I can hope for and I think it’s very attainable.
 
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andrea
So we are nearing the end of the PS4 life cycle. Would you say GT Sport has won you over? Or would you have preferred a traditional GT?
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I think I hold a controversial opinion, but overall I'm not satisfied with the title. That's not to say I didn't enjoy GT Sport and what it offers, because I definitely did for the time I've spent on it, but I think they should have stuck to their initial scope of the game of making it a multiplayer-focused online racing game instead of backpedaling with content updates that added rather lackluster single-player content and car models that would only be used a handful of times (the BME E30 M3 was one of the most-requested cars on the GT5/GT6 wanted listed, they finally add it, debuting on the PS4 instead, and yet everyone just wanted to know what cars were coming next).

GT League is another round of Chase The Rabbit with rubber-banding to keep races close instead of genuinely challenging AI opponents. Rubber-banding is not a replacement for defending their position (they just stick to their racing line at all times), aggressive maneuvers such as lunging for an overtake or battling for a position that will cause players to adjust their driving style to defend the attacking car, and just overall faster opponents. No matter the odds, unless your opposition outright outclasses your own vehicle, then outdriving the AI is as easy as ever, which is why to make it challenging, the game's events have to start the opponent in 1st place 50+ seconds ahead of the player, who themselves starts last on the grid. It's tedious and gotten really old at this point.

Sport Mode has been all sorts of mixed signals for me since I started playing. There's been races I really enjoyed, and then there's races whose quality was so poor that it demotivated me to enter another race for a prolonged period of time. The penalty system was under years of tweaking and updating (and still continues to be) yet still gets most incidents wrong; the unbalanced sensitivity of the system promotes poor racing/driving etiquette and instead ends up punishing those who practice good sportsmanship during a race. The amount of times I've been punted off the course (sometimes given an unfair penalty after my car's position is reset) with the instigator driving away without punishment has been quite infuriating.

I would have liked to see PoDi devoted their resources to fine-tuning Sport Mode and the penalty system instead of adding new cars/courses/other content; if the game's initial premise and marketing campaign was all about an online-only multiplayer-focused racing experience against other players instead of the usual formula that Gran Turismo is known for, then I would have wanted them to stick with it instead of changing scope a few months after its release.

Scapes and the Livery Editor also count as content, but I'm not creative or artistic enough to get any real value out of these. The technology used for Scapes is really interesting (had seen nothing quite like it prior to this game) and produces some nice wallpapers you can use on other devices, but otherwise I've never really found the time nor motivation to get a good shot and take pictures. Same for the Livery Editor; other players have really stretched out the utility of the editor and have made precise and accurate replicas of all kinds of liveries, which is really amazing; I also like how easy it is to use and how quickly you can create a simple yet decorated livery in a matter of minutes, but as aforementioned my limited creativity can only take me so far when it comes to ideas.

The other single-player content, such as the Campaign, was enjoyable at first, but once you've completed the events, you're done with it. I wish there was incentive to go back and set new records, but sometime ago after the game's launch, the events became much easier because it seems like any sort of challenging element was removed. Wall contact and collisions with other cars no longer punish the player with penalties (one of the prominent examples being the Timed Rally challenges), so setting new records is kind of a moot point if improper driving is encouraged and defeats the purpose of the challenge. Disappointed with the Lewis Hamilton DLC as well, since the value of it can only be redeemed if you're skilled enough to beat the very-challenging times; it's not that I don't like a good challenge, but for $8, there should be some kind of incentive for players of lesser skill who decide to purchase it instead of just two million Credits and a Mercedes AMG GT3.

--

As much of a dedicated Gran Turismo fan I've been throughout the years, the next game is going to be a very hard sell for me I think, especially if it's going to be debuting as a PS5 exclusive. The cost to play one new game (price of the console + game + PS Plus renewal) isn't justified for me. Gran Turismo Sport is the only reason I own a PS4 and was the deciding factor for me to purchase and upgrade to a PS4 Pro to get the best experience out of the title, but otherwise, if it weren't for Gran Turismo, I wouldn't own a PS4, because most of my video gaming is done on a computer nowadays as most of the games I want to play are released for that platform. If the next game was cross-platform released for both the PS5 and the PS4, then I would buy it no questions asked (despite the controversy surrounding a cross-platform release).

Otherwise, I can say that I haven't been as invested in the franchise as I once was as a result of Gran Turismo Sport. My wheel has been shelved for months now (even before my Internet issues which are now resolved) and I've been kept busy doing other projects with my free time instead. It would take a considerable effort to reinvigorate my interest again.
 
andrea
So we are nearing the end of the PS4 life cycle. Would you say GT Sport has won you over? Or would you have preferred a traditional GT?
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I liked it a ton.

For once they changed it up which I was hoping to see being that it was the same stuff over and over again with the GT Mode. Didn't care that the traditional stuff wasn't present because in my opinion, it deserved a break for once.

Sport Mode was the thing I'm looking for in terms of online racing. Yeah it may have its flaws and such especially in the penalty system department but it really didnt matter to me being that I got enjoyment out of it...something that both GT5 and GT6 lacked where it lacked the fun factor which Sport managed to deliver for me.

And looking at the FIA events, this really got me into e-sports so much that it made me watch other e-sport racing events.

But the biggest thing I liked is that they finally gone for a quality over quantity approach which is something I've been looking for going into GT5.

So all in all Sport won me over by a ton and it also redeemed my interest towards the series after the two games which slightly disappointed me. Didn't matter if the traditional stuff wasn't present but it's the fun factor that Sport managed to bring to the table.
 
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I guess in some ways for me Sport has won in terms of keeping my interest.

My history with the series is a bit 'sketchy' I never really clicked with Gran Turismo 1, 2, 3 and 4 because I could never really understand how to drive and as a result I never really properly explored them.

All of that changed when GT5 came along and I 'clicked' and suddenly I found myself starting to enjoy racing and appreciating the older cars I had
in the game particularly Gr C cars and I played that game from release until 2013 when GTA V and online came along.

That was me with the series until GT Sport came along, initially I played but I wasn't really dedicating my days gaming to the game as would mix it with GTA Online as still had friends playing that and I was very frustrated with the flaws online racing had made me experience but towards the end of last year I became more focused on GT Sport because although Sport has it's online racing flaws and the penalty system now that I understand myself and have my racing style (videos elsewhere on GT Planet) I am having my best time with the game.

I also like the timed format of online daily races so you know when they are and you can be doing other things while waiting for the race to start.

The only negative I would say is that there is only so many times you can do the same types of online race before you start to fade so I don't play the game so much now for racing more livery design.

If the next GT came can capture something of Sport plus the originals campaign events and keep the livery editor I guess I will be there!
 
Bit early to be doing a post mortem but I do get that we are well on its way... if GT Sport was a patient then it has Covid 19...

You guys do touch on a few points... was a ps4 worth it for just GT Sport? Logically no.

Was an Xbox One worth it for Forza 5-6-7... AND Horizon 2-3-4? Well what do you think??? (if you're into that kind of thing)

The sore-est point for me will always be the terrible custom race grid restrictions.

We have 5 awesome Gr.C cars... why can we not race a Gr.C only grid?

We have 3 awesome 2008 spec JGTC cars... why cant we have a 2008 series?

We have a 330p4 and a GT40 MkV.... why cant we pretend we are Ken Miles or Chris Amon or Jackie Stewart at Le Mans???
 
I think I may just quit the championships. Something I can't stand is how it feels like in other online games with ranked multiplayer, you don't have to be the absolute best to win something, and said something is usually an in-game reward, like a rare (but not always exclusive) item. Now, I don't know if it's because of GTS' more austere approach, but it bothers me a bit that the only championships we've seen, and the only Time Trial that we've seen that expands on the Sport Mode Time Trial mode, all seem to involve real-world prizes, like a track-day with Red Bull or something.

I'd really prefer that if in the next game, both the daily races and the championships have more motifs to them. Perhaps some championships could still offer more substantial prizes, like the FIAGTCs, the GR Supra Cup, and the Red Bull Time Trial, but there could be some that offer in-game prizes, and even if you're not near the best, like one that follows the regulations of an event seen in the campaign of a GT game, like Boxer Spirit.

I also like the idea of winning in-game credits if somebody from your country/manufacturer wins in a given stage, but I also think this could be expanded upon. For example, all players that share my county could get some credits if I end up being the best in the state.

Given how busy PD likely is with GT7 - and a likely successor to Sport Mode - I don't doubt that the daily/weekly races in GTS could very well be semi-randomly generated via an AI or algorithm, as I would believe PD has the technology to do that. But it still feels a little disappointing that there are so many vehicles that go unused either because they're ineligible or inviable. For example, a Gr.1 race at Le Mans (no chicanes) with the Group C cars could be fun, as well as a race at Goodwood Circuit that only permits older cars, like that one World Tour event we saw once. Heck, even an event that only permits the two pickup trucks could be fun.

Am I going to quit GTS? Not really, considering there's still content being added. I think I'll at least do more circuit experiences and GT League rounds as they get addded. But I may consider really dialing back how much I play, and may only just do the daily races, considering that there are other games I want to play (or anime to watch, comics to read, etc.), and that I cannot help but to feel at least slightly disappointed with some elements of GTS and their missed potential. It just reminds me that a lot of GTS feels like a precursor to something more substantial, especially given the potential of the companion app, the livery editor, and other features.
 
Question: are the "R4M_" PSN people, and other "club" drivers who share prefixes on their PSN ID mostly self-associated, or is there some place these people gather up to form real clubs? Are the "R4M_" guys mostly just fans of SuperGT in most cases? I see a bunch, and I never understood if it was just fan-boy driven (nothing wrong with that) or if there were actual clubs/teams of guys that organized the more popular ones.

Silly question, just curious.
 
KosmoKazi
Question: are the "R4M_" PSN people, and other "club" drivers who share prefixes on their PSN ID mostly self-associated, or is there some place these people gather up to form real clubs? Are the "R4M_" guys mostly just fans of SuperGT in most cases? I see a bunch, and I never understood if it was just fan-boy driven (nothing wrong with that) or if there were actual clubs/teams of guys that organized the more popular ones.

Silly question, just curious.
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I hope there's a "club" or "team" feature in the next game - I think that'd be a real welcome addition.
 
KosmoKazi
Question: are the "R4M_" PSN people, and other "club" drivers who share prefixes on their PSN ID mostly self-associated, or is there some place these people gather up to form real clubs? Are the "R4M_" guys mostly just fans of SuperGT in most cases? I see a bunch, and I never understood if it was just fan-boy driven (nothing wrong with that) or if there were actual clubs/teams of guys that organized the more popular ones.

Silly question, just curious.
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There are examples of both. Some are e-sport "clans"/companies, like DNA
Others are self-added, anyone can add a R4M tag, while others are teams of people who likes to play together and help each other grow.
 
andrea
So we are nearing the end of the PS4 life cycle. Would you say GT Sport has won you over? Or would you have preferred a traditional GT?
Click to expand...
Won me over.

I bought it at release. Didn't have PS+ for the first few months. Cried myself to sleep for the first few months of Sports Mode. Started to really enjoy it nearly a full year after I bought the game.

I thought I was pretty hot stuff playing on my own in previous GTs. My first year of Sports mode was very humbling. But now if it did go back to traditional again, I'd miss knowing how I'd fare against others and find that component necessary now.
 
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Is there a common camera angle most of the good players use? I have been a 3rd person chase cam played for my entire racing career. I switched to the bumper cam in f1 2019 and now I use that in every racing game. Cockpit mode looks cool, but you can’t see enough. 3rd person chase cam looks WAY too slow compared to bumper cam now.
 
tonybarnaby
Is there a common camera angle most of the good players use? I have been a 3rd person chase cam played for my entire racing career. I switched to the bumper cam in f1 2019 and now I use that in every racing game. Cockpit mode looks cool, but you can’t see enough. 3rd person chase cam looks WAY too slow compared to bumper cam now.
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A lot of really fast players use chase, many others bumper. Cockpit is not bad, adjust camera back and up and it's better.
 
andrea
So we are nearing the end of the PS4 life cycle. Would you say GT Sport has won you over? Or would you have preferred a traditional GT?
Click to expand...
GT Sport falls short of greatness, despite having a heap of extra content being added. Then again the amount of content we had initially was paltry to start with. The physics, the sounds, the graphics are the best they've ever been but the offline gameplay was pathetic - nowhere near as engaging as the old games. Sport Mode did have some good moments, but that alone isn't enough to make the game a classic. Sometimes, I want to have some fun and not have to worry about other human drivers. I want to feel a sense of achievement and get a reward for my efforts, rather than receiving some pathetic daily workout prize I didn't truly earn. I don't feel like I deserve the car because I didn't complete an event. That's the heart of the matter and why I simply cannot compared it to the likes of GT3 and GT4. I know GT3 had a paltry car list but the gameplay was top notch. GT Sport pales in comparison, which is a real shame because a lot of improvements were made over GT6.
 
I was late to the game, but it hooked me from day one.
I am one of those guys who never ever played single player games since I got my first broadband connection. Not in cod, not in bf, not in anything.
I never played the other GT games, but GTS is by far the most engaging game I ever played since Q II.
 

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