Is there any significant difference in racing etiquette between the two regions?
In other words, can the difference one perceives be nothing more than a few individuals with lousy attitudes?
Or, is it like you have to mentally prepare yourself when switching regions, to expect certain differences in racing culture?
In GT Sport I had an Asian account, and it seemed to me like there was a bit more mutual respect on the track, than in the Americas.
That is a very very very good question and I've thought about it quite a lot and here is where I land.
In the sprint races it's a lot tougher/rougher contact wise and petulant children wise in the US but that is down to different player numbers and spreads being thinner I think.
In the daily C's it's much more gentlemanly on the most part.
A few things of note:
Generally car control and positioning differs a lot between the regions but again I think this is demographic and player base related.
Broadly and this is a sweeping generalisation is that race pace splits in 2 for the US lobbies (because of player spreads) so you have the consistent quick peeps and the other peeps.
So overall it's very similar but in Europe there seems "just" to be a broader spread of skills and less fractionally retaliation mentality.
Neither region is good or bad and I don't change my approach for either. 3 times this week I've had people message me saying that racing me was the best racing they experienced on GT, because we went contactless through the esses at DT and I did the switcheroo on the last corner.
Conversely i didn't have had that chance in higher EMEA lobbies because things were tighter and generally the understanding of race craft is a bit better. No weaving or blocking just picking track position and taking the defensive line with no running wide contact to the attacking car.
If we ignore the missile people muppets which are rife in all regions.
I'd say there is no difference between the lobbies just the spreads are thinner in the US ones.
The A+ are fast in all regions and the muppets are in all regions. I think in Europe we benefit a bit more with lobbies populated by the same people and you build a virtual raport with them so it's all good mostly...not all the time.
Controversially I would say that the lobby ratings aren't a one for one between the EMEA ones and US but again volume of players probably dictates the quality of racing and lobbies but crucially the points distribution, with shallower lobbies being easier (relative) to gain points because you can grab from a smaller closer pool.