Is Gran Turismo 7 Using Retention Manipulation in Online Racing?

[bliprunner]

I don't think PD help with some of their slipstream choices, it was hard to break away at Deep Forest, that much was true. So to some extent they are trying to keep things close.

However, remember that there are lots of aliens, streamers and S-rank drivers who are practicing and racing an incredible amount, using telemetry, studying every corner of the game. Plus you have the code-diggers. If there was manipulation of pace by PD they would very likely notice.

And from PD's angle, would it be worth the risk? Something like this would be a major scandal, upset their top players and fans, taint the World Series and the whole franchise.

Seems like a bit of a mad risk when safer methods of retention are available (ie, fix the penalty system, have more interesting races, use the weather more, etc)

 

[iWizardzZ_x]

Honestly if you don’t understand the topic of the post please don’t post a reply. If you’re not able to understand what is written in the post it’s best not comment. You only make yourself look stupid. To even have to explain it to you feels like a waist of time.

Your waisting peoples time posting this rage bait buddy. Very obvious your just posting this ignorant rabble on PD's behalf to distract us from the lack of tracks in recent updates or all the SUV and VGT's they add. You have no proof that this nonsense is in the game, sounds more like your making up excuses for your inconsistent driving. The gentlemen doth protest too much!

 

[eran0004]

Honestly if you don’t understand the topic of the post please don’t post a reply. If you’re not able to understand what is written in the post it’s best not comment. You only make yourself look stupid. To even have to explain it to you feels like a waist of time.

Sure. Or you can explain what you mean when you say the odds are in their favour. Are they gaining something when you recieve a low value prize?

 

[benjoi84]

As @PlanetJanet said earlier, there is a significant-enough dataset from the very public-facing YouTube community, along with countless hundreds of high ranking players who have millions of combined hours in the game that if there were some underhand things going on it would be highly unlikely that you (OP) would be the first to uncover it.

Classic "I'm so much smarter than everyone else" behaviour.

It's worth remembering that PD haven't really provided any technical help with some of the 'invisible' mechanics in the game, yet the userbase have collectively managed to figure out nearly everything going on behind the curtain, all by themselves.

 

[Hbc Hades]

The confirmation bias is strong in you.

 

[dude0702]

I could upload countless videos and breakdown throttle position braking points on comparison laps on the same line. And you will post dismissive comments highlighting any slight bias your brain can conjure up for drama and argumentative purposes. The proof has to come from PD.

Well, start there then! Right now you have a hunch that is based on your experience. That's valid, but not enough to convince someone who hasn't experienced the same thing (i.e. the rest of us). We will need something more if you expect us to change our minds.

As other have said, the burden of proof is on the person challenging the status quo, not the other way around. In this particular case, you're the one saying "things aren't the way they seem" and are expected to provide proof.

Side note: This is quite an interesting topic and I appreciate the fact you started the thread. Unfortunately, your dismissive behavior (up until this point) has negatively impacted the discussion.

 

[Pianista911]

Regarding quali vs race - don't forget the wind. It changes things A LOT. Same track, same car, same tyre and fuel level - the difference on a straight can be a few kmhs, depending of wind's direction an strength.

 

[Famine]

Huh. It actually took a little longer this time for mild pushback to result in abuse.

The exorbitant cost of specific cars with the chances of obtaining the required amount of money in game is made incredibly difficult to push players toward in game credits purchasing.

Was it a rough trip from 2022?

At launch, the economy sucked (and it probably will return to a sucky, if less so, state when the game goes offline). We wrote a big piece on it at the time. Since then, several steps have been taken to make credit-earning much, much easier - and without grinding unless you want a few million quickly.

Weekly Challenges basically give away 1.3m every week for five short races, Time Trials basically give away 1m a week (Silver times required, though they are pretty easy for most players) or 2m if you're a driver good enough to be A+ (or not; I can get gold most weeks, but usually don't bother if it looks like it'll take more than a couple of laps), official online series - ~8 series a year, though we're in a bit of a lull right now - are worth ~3m if you're a reasonable B driver (or ~6m if you're a reasonable A+ driver) for three or four races, and they keep giving away free cars for just clicking a button during live finals weekends, and around 3m just for logging in ten times during the Christmas/New Year three weeks. Oh and the "rigged" roulette is worth about 1.5m a month if you grab it every day.

You can almost passively scoop up 120m a year, or around 200m of credits and in-kind if you put a bit of effort into it, without touching a single grind race, and that's been the case since Spec II in November 2023. That's almost 400m to date, or a bit more than two-thirds (about 70%) of the cost of the entire car list. Add in all the free prize cars you can collect (plus My First GT), one of which is the seven-figure D-Type, and the 50m from Circuit Experiences and you're pretty close to it.

At launch, the publisher (SIE) definitely wanted to push people towards microtransactions (the publisher earns the money from MTX, not the developer), but even then there was evidence that the developer (PD) didn't want that by providing get-arounds that they knew the community would discover - and even after hamstringing the big one, provided a few more.


It could be easier and quicker - it always could - but since Spec II it's simply not been an issue, and it's weird that anyone who plays the game would still think that it is.

 

[newmedia_dev]

I understand your point. However I have had multiple races on this game and I am more than capable of achieving within 0.300 easily as a consistent race pace essentially from lap 2 after the tyres heat up and drop roughly 1 second when the tyres fall below half worn. And have matched if not beaten my qualifying time in a race on multiple occasions

There is one VERY big difference between qualifying TT and races.

Qualifying is done on your own and not in the lobby format.

Races are in a lobby where connection quality will vary for lots of technical reasons, lots of differences between each players connections this is more than enough to subtly change braking distances, braking input vs when it’s reflected on screen, same with throttle input.

These things alone are enough to affect your pace and it’s very very hard to drive round these things because no lobby will have the same stability of network connections.

These are all small millisecond things but they are enough to provide a lot of the perceptions you are having.

Recently there has been a lot less stability in lobbies which again will manifest itself in the ways you describe.

Sport mode player base is largely stable with numbers not seeing huge swings which would then negate the desire for PD to spend effort and money to implement a system that only 2% of the entire player base would ever experience with net actual value creation for PD.

If they did want to do that, surely they would just adjust match making to create wider lobby spreads?

 

[NAXEHT]

What’s your PSN?

 

[Lomic]

What’s your PSN?

Stop asking for evidence you narrow minded sheeple 🤣

 

[jrbabbitt]

Stop asking for evidence you narrow minded sheeple 🤣

Baaaaaaaaa🤣🤣🐑🐑

 

[Zero2Oblivion]

Ok people give it a few years and just like other games it will all come out in the trash. **** you people make me sick and are a good reason why the world is so ****ed. Simple people with simple minds.

I was casually reading along, being entertained by the tunnel vision of the thread up until this point, when for some reason you decided to insult everyone and make mellow dramatic statements.

The basis of forums is debate and discussion. Regardless of what point is made, there will always be opinions that oppose it. If you want to create a strong base for your opinion, conjecture won't do it, strong proof will.

Your thread has no proof beyond verbal account. This is why the opposition is having no problem disassembling your argument.

Another point of concern is the lack of consideration for opposing opinions. A few times through this thread you've shown some consideration that what other people have said may be true in part, when the opinion raised doesn't stand firmly against yours, but you're very firmly planted in the idea that what you think you're seeing in game is 100% true, and you won't budge from that.

Without proof, either in terms of perfectly recreated runs (100% recreated pixel-perfect route, braking, acceleration, fuel load, tire temps etc) with replays showing the timing differences, or access to the games code, your claims are open to opposition and you have to be open to the idea that you're just as likely incorrect as the people providing counter-opinions.

The world isn't ****ed because people don't agree with you. The world is screwed because far too many people think their opinions are true, and that they have the right to force their perspective on others without providing any justification or proof.