GT1 league drivers creating seal clubbing accounts to enter GT2/3 League

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dazdilly75

dazdilly75

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It seems that with the introduction of heavy damage, longer races and strictly GR3 in the Manufacturers Cup, (in GT1 league), many GT1 drivers are setting up new accounts, to race in GT2/3 league. I think this is morally wrong, and it takes away the experience from new drivers, navigating their way through the game. Levelling up in daily races is very different from doing so in official e-sports events. Less experienced drivers shouldn't be facing experienced GT1 drivers in GT2/3 league. How do you guys feel about this?
 
I am not sure everything PD could do to dissuade players from doing this.

In my own experience, I know it's happening but I don't know how much. In my region, during the Toyota GR series, I finished 3rd in GT3 while the person who finished in 1st was using an alt account and an A+ rated driver on their main account in GT1. They had another alt account in GT2 that finished very high. I knew it was the same person because the names were nearly identical, so not trying to hide what they were doing.

Fortunately, the rewards at the end of the series are based on the percentile of where you finished, so I still got the maximum reward.

But if it was super prevalent, I doubt I would have finished so high in my region.

This upcoming GTWS, I'll be in GT2. And maybe it's more common there.

I don't like the seal clubbing, but there isn't anything I can do about it.
 
If PD don't want smurfs, then GT1 shouldn't be exclusively less flexible, (incredibly) longer races with less variety. It's incredibly stupid game design to have such wildly different race settings avaliable for the same race - as if you are better suited for the GT2 format then you are essentially encouraged to drop down to partake in it.

What if you're busy on Saturday evenings and cant make the hyper specific GT1 time slots? What if you've a child that might require attention, or family that you want to spend time with instead? It's a long race, 90 minutes is a gigantic amount of time to have to sacrifice on a weekend evening and anything that could oppose that creates a gigantic waste of time.

Or.. they could tank their rating and hop on the GT2 race on Saturday morning, the race when they have downtime or the race when their family is asleep or preoccupied. It's not hard to see the appeal of doing so when GT1 now demands so much of you.

GT1 league is only A and above - It's not like this is exclusively the best drivers in the world duking it out for a spot on the world stage. A is achievable by pretty much everyone if you enjoy racing games and if you're pretty decent at them - and when you can get that rank from doing 7 minute Race B's every couple hours every other day, being thrown into the 90 minute endurance category is a pretty drastic increase.

Or.. you could drop to the half hour long race in GT2 league, it's right there. And hey, you do like to race Gr.4 cars, and you wouldn't be able to otherwise...

tldr; PD are pretty much softly encouraging people to 'seal club' by making the races so different and forcing people into a massively longer race that only so many people are suited for. If there's a more suited race format for them avaliable just by dropping a DR bracket, why wouldn't they?
 
Nebuc72
If PD don't want smurfs, then GT1 shouldn't be exclusively less flexible, (incredibly) longer races with less variety. It's incredibly stupid game design to have such wildly different race settings avaliable for the same race - as if you are better suited for the GT2 format then you are essentially encouraged to drop down to partake in it.

What if you're busy on Saturday evenings and cant make the hyper specific GT1 time slots? What if you've a child that might require attention, or family that you want to spend time with instead? It's a long race, 90 minutes is a gigantic amount of time to have to sacrifice on a weekend evening and anything that could oppose that creates a gigantic waste of time.

Or.. they could tank their rating and hop on the GT2 race on Saturday morning, the race when they have downtime or the race when their family is asleep or preoccupied. It's not hard to see the appeal of doing so when GT1 now demands so much of you.

GT1 league is only A and above - It's not like this is exclusively the best drivers in the world duking it out for a spot on the world stage. A is achievable by pretty much everyone if you enjoy racing games and if you're pretty decent at them - and when you can get that rank from doing 7 minute Race B's every couple hours every other day, being thrown into the 90 minute endurance category is a pretty drastic increase.

Or.. you could drop to the half hour long race in GT2 league, it's right there. And hey, you do like to race Gr.4 cars, and you wouldn't be able to otherwise...

tldr; PD are pretty much softly encouraging people to 'seal club' by making the races so different and forcing people into a massively longer race that only so many people are suited for. If there's a more suited race format for them avaliable just by dropping a DR bracket, why wouldn't they?
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I can see the logic in the GT1 to GT2 explanation, it’s when participation in GT3 occurs that I have issues with. It is also very common for regular GT2 drivers to tank in order to register in GT3, in which case your argument doesn’t hold water.
 
I can appreciate the push for more serious racing at the higher ratings, but can't help but feel they're going about this the wrong way. So many people in GT1 saying they don't want the time commitment for the ever lengthening races, and likewise people in GT2/3 who would prefer something more serious than they are being offered.

Rather than having GT1/2/3 split by driver grade, I reckon the GTWS seasons should be split by length: Endurance and Short. Go back to how it was in GT Sport and remove the league splits based on driver rating. You choose Endurance or Short on season signup and that determines which version you get. Anyone who previously would purposefully tank their rating from A/A+ to B or below so they can take part in (or go thrash) the GT2/3 leagues would have less incentive to do it.

Qualification for the GTWS finals would only be available via the Endurance league.
 
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Cherryturbo
I can see the logic in the GT1 to GT2 explanation, it’s when participation in GT3 occurs that I have issues with. It is also very common for regular GT2 drivers to tank in order to register in GT3, in which case your argument doesn’t hold water.
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Well the guys talking about GT1 into GT2/3, so I'm not commenting on people going from 2 to 3. I know there are people who smurf for the wins, and I don't condone that, but I'm not talking about them, just about how the format they are creating is encouraging it from the higher leagues (the topic of the thread)
 
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I agree with pretty much everything @Nebuc72 said. I do really like what PD have done with the endurance nature of the GT1 races and heavy damage. That potentially makes things very interesting and there's a lot less scope for people to come into those races "over practiced" on how the car handles as the race progresses. It's just frustrating that even in an exhibition season those races are limited to a narrow window of time on a single day of the week. If you can't make that time there's no flexibility, so I can't really blame some people for dropping into GT2.
 
watto79
I agree with pretty much everything @Nebuc72 said. I do really like what PD have done with the endurance nature of the GT1 races and heavy damage. That potentially makes things very interesting and there's a lot less scope for people to come into those races "over practiced" on how the car handles as the race progresses. It's just frustrating that even in an exhibition season those races are limited to a narrow window of time on a single day of the week. If you can't make that time there's no flexibility, so I can't really blame some people for dropping into GT2.
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Couldn't agree more, the changes are really interesting and align well with the group I race with's usual style. I still am at a loss as to why there can't be even just 2 more earlier slots for GT1 League, it would be near perfect with that being the case.
 
I really don't care if someone wants to ruin their chance of making it to a final. You can only go to one in GT1.
I am just here for the racing as I know my skill set and I am not World Final material. If I can race against better drivers, that just gives me better experience all around.
 
The vast majority of GT1 (A) league players do not have jobs that are related to playing this game, nor will they gain anything tangible from participating. Nobody is bankrolling their participation in GTWS nor will they get anything to show for it by doing so.

They could have found a better compromise. If they really needed only the top players to have longer races, they could have made another league to better represent that group. This can also coincide with making Daily Race D a real thing, representing the new longer format that everyone is able to participate in that doesnt require the commitment of making "X amount of time on X day".

There is no reason to try and force those GT1 league (A) players into the same commitments top-level competitive players are making, so don’t.

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Sort of unrelated:
A few months back (or at least it felt like it) I suggested an idea for an amateur series that did not use GT2/GT3. This is the reason for it.

Some natural GT1 drivers would immediately try to smurf into GT2 or lower for a much easier chance of getting into the finals, defeating the purpose of making it a GT2 only series. You can only really verify the skill of the first and second best group of players through the DR system, and that has a typical cut off at second split.
 
I can't decide which is worse, the A+ player who tanks their account to enter GT2, or the A+ player who creates a second account and actively maintains a B-DR rating to enter GT2.

I get the time constraint argument and all that, but just enter one or the other. Not both.
 
I've never had an alt account before, but this format of Manufacturers Cup is making me consider it - I really enjoy Gr4 racing!!

If I have time, I will most likely set up a second account (my primary account is A+ at around 60k Dr) just so I can do some of these races. If I have the time and can figure out how to do it, haha.

Needless to say, I'm not a fan of the one category series. It will make the decision for people's manufacturer much easier because they won't have to balance between two (or three) cars performance....
 
I doubt there will be many A+ drivers in GT2 simply because of the drop in quality of racing. There will be a few because some people just enjoy winning no matter what, but most enjoy a little bit of a challenge. Maybe if GT2 was A then there could be a bigger issue, but as it is there will only be a couple of seal clubbers.

To me endurance racing doesn't really work on GT7 simply because there aren't enough cars. After a few laps you generally just end up in your own bubble doing time trial laps, so tends to get boring. With 30+ cars you can run into traffic, but that doesn't really happen in GT7. All that happens is that people drop out so there is 10 cars on track by the end.

Same goes for heavy damage, nice idea to try and get people driving clean but all that happens is people will simply quit. Why continue to race if you are 30 seconds+ behind the nearest driver?

All that I can accept, but the 3 time slots for GT1 just wrecks me. I understand it ensures that top split has no weak races, but for all other A and A+ drivers it severely limits when or if we can race. I used to really enjoy a Saturday morning race before going about my day, but I doubt I will set aside a few hours on Saturday afternoon for these races. I simply have too many other things to do at the weekend.
 

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