- 27
- Norway
Dear Kaz and Polyphony Digital family
We all love Gran Turismo series, don't doubt that! It's huge, great and incredably unique. Despite this, I personally think that GT has lost an important fundation, philosophy and balance to it's soul.
Though - The last GT-additions has become more and more messy, leaving stuff half-done, being half arcade/half simulator and it seems the developers haven't spent enough time trying to make it realistic, and suited for the hard core sim-racing fans.
You can't make the same game for casual gamers and sim enthusiasts!
Either, you give the game the ability to adapt to the person playing it, or you choose between making a arcade game or a simulator. You can't make a game that pleases both amateurs and experienced driving enthusiasts! It just won't work. And despite what the original plan was, this is what has happened, it's seems that the game can't decide what it is and who it want to apeal to.
You need difficulty factors and settings, giving experienced gamers a choice of a much challenging and useful gameplay.
Offline gameplay: Not main focus/priority, changed in favor of beginners, loss of time/ideas? I'm confused.
To be honest, the offline mode is boring, it seems like you try to please everyone - suited for beginners and at the same time expecting sim-racers to enjoy it. How can both these gruops play the same career mode? How can you please everyone this way?
Where are the AI difficulty settings and challenging gamplay factors, where's is the part of the game that make the same career mode exciting and thrilling for different skilled players?
Halfly done parts of the game: Perfectionism and too high ambitions? Too much work and too few developers?
I appreciate that PD brought standard cars to the PS3, I appreciate that they try to give us as much functionality as possible - be it old game content. I love how they care so much for their work and their fans that they release a game only to keep on improving it for several years. I have so much respect for PD and this make me want to support and follow the developer till the day I die.
This part, the half-done content, is some of the reason the game feels uneven and unbalanced - because it is. I am not saying I don't want this, but there got to be a better way that the game can move forward and feel balanced and complete in the end. Be it more 3D artists, more programmers, better priority list, wait with B-spec mode before everything else is done(just a thought) etc.
Perfectionism is good, it's why PD makes great games. But there are many things that the game lack. One example is the clutch behaveour in GT5 which is still here in GT6. Why? How is this possible? It's such an important detail. It's stuff like this that greatly ruins a great experience.
Back to basic. Fundamental ideals.
I think PD should focus on the parts of the game that hurts the otherwise great game. What we need is:
- bigger challenge
- more focus on realistism (real-time simulation, aids off and cars being true to themself (old cars, no driving aids eg.)
- dynamic weather, car damage and incidents
- fuel/tire/aerodynamic part damage (real-time simulation)
- choice of parts/tires/fuel/setups etc. (winners will be winners because of skill and tactic, not because of the lack of challenge)
- realistic racing features like manual pit stop driving+penalties/speed limits/flags/obligated pit-stops etc.
Especially career mode suffers. It does not feel real, you are playing agains dumb, robotic AIs with better car, with too little challenge from AIs, rolling start, no pit-stop, no need to watch out for worn out tires, filling fuel/oil, repearing car, planning the race and events. You start up with too much money and the AIs can't keep up with your game progress. There is no struggle: how to spend money wisely in order to progress.
There's no wrong with winning expensive cars, but if you can use it in every other event and win every race because of it, there's no fun in it. There's something special about building a car you bought dirt cheap and fighting your way up the ladder.
Above mentioned factors makes races exciting, it makes the game progress interesting. Today you only need to step on the gas and drive. For me, there is absolutely no reason the AI is even there, it's like driving alone anyway, just waiting till you can cross the line and get the price so you can move on. The AI's won't catch up unless I fell asleep.
Gran Turismo is a good game, don't take this the wrong way. I play it for the online part, because the career mode just hasn't got anything exciting for me. But my question follows, has GT series lost it's roots, why are these obvious faults not being worked on? The fan base is driving and car enthusiasts, still it seems you struggle to make the game suited for us. I believe it is because you want to apeal to casual gamers and/or have too much to do.
Thank you for the attention, please leave a comment - And to Kaz, I'd love to hear your reply to this! PD's communication with the fans is highly appreciated!
We all love Gran Turismo series, don't doubt that! It's huge, great and incredably unique. Despite this, I personally think that GT has lost an important fundation, philosophy and balance to it's soul.
Though - The last GT-additions has become more and more messy, leaving stuff half-done, being half arcade/half simulator and it seems the developers haven't spent enough time trying to make it realistic, and suited for the hard core sim-racing fans.
You can't make the same game for casual gamers and sim enthusiasts!
Either, you give the game the ability to adapt to the person playing it, or you choose between making a arcade game or a simulator. You can't make a game that pleases both amateurs and experienced driving enthusiasts! It just won't work. And despite what the original plan was, this is what has happened, it's seems that the game can't decide what it is and who it want to apeal to.
You need difficulty factors and settings, giving experienced gamers a choice of a much challenging and useful gameplay.
Offline gameplay: Not main focus/priority, changed in favor of beginners, loss of time/ideas? I'm confused.
To be honest, the offline mode is boring, it seems like you try to please everyone - suited for beginners and at the same time expecting sim-racers to enjoy it. How can both these gruops play the same career mode? How can you please everyone this way?
Where are the AI difficulty settings and challenging gamplay factors, where's is the part of the game that make the same career mode exciting and thrilling for different skilled players?
Halfly done parts of the game: Perfectionism and too high ambitions? Too much work and too few developers?
I appreciate that PD brought standard cars to the PS3, I appreciate that they try to give us as much functionality as possible - be it old game content. I love how they care so much for their work and their fans that they release a game only to keep on improving it for several years. I have so much respect for PD and this make me want to support and follow the developer till the day I die.
This part, the half-done content, is some of the reason the game feels uneven and unbalanced - because it is. I am not saying I don't want this, but there got to be a better way that the game can move forward and feel balanced and complete in the end. Be it more 3D artists, more programmers, better priority list, wait with B-spec mode before everything else is done(just a thought) etc.
Perfectionism is good, it's why PD makes great games. But there are many things that the game lack. One example is the clutch behaveour in GT5 which is still here in GT6. Why? How is this possible? It's such an important detail. It's stuff like this that greatly ruins a great experience.
Back to basic. Fundamental ideals.
I think PD should focus on the parts of the game that hurts the otherwise great game. What we need is:
- bigger challenge
- more focus on realistism (real-time simulation, aids off and cars being true to themself (old cars, no driving aids eg.)
- dynamic weather, car damage and incidents
- fuel/tire/aerodynamic part damage (real-time simulation)
- choice of parts/tires/fuel/setups etc. (winners will be winners because of skill and tactic, not because of the lack of challenge)
- realistic racing features like manual pit stop driving+penalties/speed limits/flags/obligated pit-stops etc.
Especially career mode suffers. It does not feel real, you are playing agains dumb, robotic AIs with better car, with too little challenge from AIs, rolling start, no pit-stop, no need to watch out for worn out tires, filling fuel/oil, repearing car, planning the race and events. You start up with too much money and the AIs can't keep up with your game progress. There is no struggle: how to spend money wisely in order to progress.
There's no wrong with winning expensive cars, but if you can use it in every other event and win every race because of it, there's no fun in it. There's something special about building a car you bought dirt cheap and fighting your way up the ladder.
Above mentioned factors makes races exciting, it makes the game progress interesting. Today you only need to step on the gas and drive. For me, there is absolutely no reason the AI is even there, it's like driving alone anyway, just waiting till you can cross the line and get the price so you can move on. The AI's won't catch up unless I fell asleep.
Gran Turismo is a good game, don't take this the wrong way. I play it for the online part, because the career mode just hasn't got anything exciting for me. But my question follows, has GT series lost it's roots, why are these obvious faults not being worked on? The fan base is driving and car enthusiasts, still it seems you struggle to make the game suited for us. I believe it is because you want to apeal to casual gamers and/or have too much to do.
Thank you for the attention, please leave a comment - And to Kaz, I'd love to hear your reply to this! PD's communication with the fans is highly appreciated!
