Kazunori Yamauchi: Driving Simulators Shouldn't be Difficult

based on a question in this article: should new players be able to tame supercar beasts with minimal effort?

My response to this goes out to a mix of yes and no. As Kaz himself stated, driving is not hard. Does that mean every car is easy to drive? Again, yes and no. It's easy to DRIVE a car, it's not always easy to push a car though, especially if the car is a supercar. Some make it easier than others, with options such as traction control (TCS) or Anti-lock brakes (ABS), making the car more stable and easy to predict and control, but everything does have its limits and quirks. Driving a Lamborghini Aventador, with its AWD system, from my knowledge, would most likely be a bit more of an easy vehicle to drive than say a Ferrari 488, which an MR monster delivering all of that power to the rear wheels alone. But the matter at hand which is what people will be looking at is, is it easy to push a car to its limits? Simple answer, it's not. Depending on the car, you'll deal with over or understeer, if you are not experienced enough, but the overall driving at a decent speed theoretically shouldn't be too terribly difficult if you have a basic understanding of how to drive and what you are driving.

On another note, when it comes to race cars, such as the Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 or BMW M6 GT3, two cars of which Kaz himself has raced in, these are vehicles which are made to go fast, stick like glue to the track, etc. etc., which is where the "easy" factor can possibly come into play. But in the end it does fall into the same situation of, if you push it too hard, you're more than likely to mess up and possibly wrapped around a tree or pole. In GT Sport (the beta at least), I've seen that if you push a car hard, it will step out on you, or understeer in terms of AWD and FF cars, but in the case of oversteer, the cars can be caught relatively easy, but not at all times, which is fairly similar to what you see in real life videos. Not all slides can be saved before it becomes a spin, but most drivers can actually catch a slide with decent ease without abusing the wheel back and forth to get the car pointed straight again. Not saying it doesn't happen, but more often than not you only see them pull the wheel back and forth maybe once or twice, and only by a little amount at that. With other racing sims I've seen, such as Assetto Corsa or PCars, you almost have to fight the wheel like a madman to keep control of a car if you step it out ever so slightly, and if you're on a pad you are almost always going to lose that battle. To my knowledge, that doesn't seem correct. It shouldn't be the easiest thing in the world to save a slide, but it shouldn't also always be the hardest thing ever.

To wrap it up, I'm not saying that GT's physics are the best, nor am I saying any other game has the best physics. It's all up to the driver's interpretation and their style of driving. Some will see GT as more true to life, which may be true, or may see games like AC to be more true to life, which again, could also be true. Everyone has their own sense of realism when it comes to racing sims based upon their experiences, both on the real world tracks and in the virtual world's tracks, so let your mind tell you what feels better and more realistic, not what someone else tells you.
 
Dhalism
if it's not difficult it's an arcade, not a simulator.

It's one thing to expect a GT car to be accessible and another say an LMP
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Modern GT cars and LMPs are surprisingly easy to drive. While they do require a great amount of talent to get the maximum potential out of them, they will not beat the driver up like the old Group B/Group C/ Group 5 cars of the 70s and 80s. Engine, suspension and tire technology has evolved in a way everything has a much smoother delivery and feel, making it less difficult to get the maximum out of the car. Getting the most out of, say, a Porsche 962 in a game should evidently be harder than doing the same thing in an R18 or 919.

Science, it gets stuff done.
 
I agree with Kaz, but I also ask how much of Project Cars and Assetto Corsa's difficulty come from the physics models, or from their controller settings being, well, garbage compared to Gran Turismo and Forza?

I won't doubt Assetto Corsa has best the physics model, but me finding the proper controller setting for it is as easy as figuring out Organic Chemistry.
 
For me the easy/arcade part of Gran Turismo has always been how forgiving it is when things go wrong. Contact with barriers doesnt damage the car as much as it should, and collisions with other cars hardly upsets either vehicle aka bumper cars.

IMO the biggest difference between GT and PCARS etc is not driving physics difficulty, but the amount of safety nets GT keeps around the driver when things go wrong
 
Driving any car in the real world is not difficult and so it shouldn't be in a game. Driving any car to it's absolute limit however is difficult in the real world and that should be represented in game.

None of the games I play with a wheel, AC, PCars, Forza, GT, RFactor 2, Automobilista, the list goes on, are difficult. But some of them are too easy at the limit.
 
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Playing pCars and AC on an DS4 show clearly to me that something went wrong on that front of feedback/control on the edge. At this point I'm really pleased by the feeling of control that GT Sport gives. For the first time I'm able to finish a lap on the Ring without a wall close encounter and actually look to catch up the good guys... one day ;)
 
GT sport is already a very good SIM in my opinion. They just need to low the driving aids affixed in the actual physics engine, mostly the one that contend an eventual drift. This is still too strong. If they could be desconnected , it would be very good option , perhaps according to the DR of each player ??!! Why not a forced cockpit view for the higher level ?? Project car driving sensation and FFB is weird . Assetto is very good but on PS4 at least there is some problems like passing over low kerbs (inducing more grip on inside tires that make you spin without reason) and also too much inertia over weight transfer and tire grip. The most important for me, the fun factor is 100% with GT sport.
 
Exactly!
Driving on a track in real life is so much easier than the games that the Sim community says that is Sims.
Nobody can understand this except the guys that make tt in a real life track...

And take an example..
Once have a conversation with a friend and tell me how good is the trial physics....
Trials have very good physics but is far away of the real life physics..

The same is with the Forza series!
It's feels good all is working good but those physics is far away from the natural movement of a car in real life..

Gran Turismo doesn't simulate exactly a real life car but give you this special thing that others games doesn't give you...
I Have a
Opel tigra A 2litre track day car (also 12.2sec 400drag strip) and I have a 1 to 1 replicated in GT6
Guess
It's feels more than 80% the same...
I don't tell only for the cars behavior but the feeling on the wheel...
 
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Raise your hand if you've driven a real car with a game controller!.....

If the engine supports that form of input first, and the 'minority' of wheel peripheral second, then they are making an easy-to-drive car game for thumbs. Which does not exist in real life.

Therefore, it is The Real Fiction Driving Simulator.
 
For me it's a yes and no. I understand what Kaz means by 'driving should be easy' (because there's sims that often go too far with the physics, so that it feels unrealistic again), but 'driving' doesn't automatically mean pushing the car to its limits, and pushing to the limits shouldn't be as easy as that every n00b could do it. GT often feels somewhat lifeless - it's a bit like driving on railroad tracks, on which you don't feel the weight shift of a car. Also, mid-/rear-engined cars often act a bit unpredictable in GT - something I haven't ever experienced in Assetto.
 
GT has too much handholding for the casuals to be a competent simulator as well as a borked aero and tire model. Plus, the harder something is to master, the more rewarding it will be once those initial difficulties are conquered.

If GT really wants to take itself seriously against the competition then it should go the DiRT 4 route of having the option of both proper hardcore simulation handling and casual "gamer" handling modes.
 
PzR Slim
Driving any car in the real world is not difficult and so it shouldn't be in a game. Driving any car to it's absolute limit however is difficult in the real world and that should be represented in game.
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Allow me to demonstrate this with video:
An amateur drive Formula renault 2.0 group B Barcelona track.He is not driving on the limit and the car is not difficult to drive:




Now the same car on the same track but driven by a professional driver Côme Ledogar which makes 5 seconds faster lap than the amateur driver and the car does not look so easy to drive anymore:




And that's what happens when the amateur tries to drive too fast:

 
Lol Kaz, all good real race drivers starts when they are under 10 years old by driving karts and level up later on . Each car they drive is completely different. They need about 15 years to be on the top. U really thinking when u drive a good balanced car, cause u have the money, that ur are a good driver, cause u stay on the track ? Yes its easy when you go slow. All real race drivers are training on SIM , not you I guess. And the difficulty of SIM is real, not artificial, u making it artificial easy to sell more games whit shiny cars .
 
I agree about the physics....to a point....

Take Project CARS, for example. PC1 was (is) challenging to drive at 10/10ths and the tendency for uncontrolled oversteer made some cars a nightmare. I bet with the new physics and tire model improvements SMS have made for PC2, the cars will actually be easier to drive compared to PC1. But that's no necessarily a bad thing.

However, that being said, I do not have much faith that GTS will surpass the sim physics of PC, AC, or others. Just saying Kaz's opinion on the matter doesn't equate to 'dumbed down' physics in GTS compared to GT6.
 
super_gt
Allow me to demonstrate this with video:
An amateur drive Formula renault 2.0 group B Barcelona track.He is not driving on the limit and the car is not difficult to drive:




Now the same car on the same track but driven by a professional driver Côme Ledogar which makes 5 seconds faster lap than the amateur driver and the car does not look so easy to drive anymore:




And that's what happens when the amateur tries to drive too fast:

Click to expand...


So, it depends, open wheels cars are not that easy to drive (even in GT the Open wheel cars are more sensitive) but touring cars as GT3, DTM are not, specially when GT3 was created with the mindset of create a category easy to drive with powerful cars based on street legal ones.

Personally I found annoying in Project cars that my car feels like driving in ice all the time, even the Clio!
 
-Fred-
Modern GT cars and LMPs are surprisingly easy to drive. While they do require a great amount of talent to get the maximum potential out of them, they will not beat the driver up like the old Group B/Group C/ Group 5 cars of the 70s and 80s. Engine, suspension and tire technology has evolved in a way everything has a much smoother delivery and feel, making it less difficult to get the maximum out of the car. Getting the most out of, say, a Porsche 962 in a game should evidently be harder than doing the same thing in an R18 or 919.

Science, it gets stuff done.
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have you tried the porsche lmps in assetto corsa? cars that are that fast and sharp are not easy to drive, especially without ABS
 
mastretta_mx
So, it depends, open wheels cars are not that easy to drive (even in GT the Open wheel cars are more sensitive) but touring cars as GT3, DTM are not, specially when GT3 was created with the mindset of create a category easy to drive with powerful cars based on street legal ones.

Personally I found annoying in Project cars that my car feels like driving in ice all the time, even the Clio!
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In GT everything is way too easy to drive,even the open wheel cars.
In Project CARS 1 is the opposite,correcting the oversteer is more difficult than in real life.
 
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schmeichelEU
Lol Kaz, all good real race drivers starts when they are under 10 years old by driving karts and level up later on . Each car they drive is completely different. They need about 15 years to be on the top. U really thinking when u drive a good balanced car, cause u have the money, that ur are a good driver, cause u stay on the track ? Yes its easy when you go slow. All real race drivers are training on SIM , not you I guess. And the difficulty of SIM is real, not artificial, u making it artificial easy to sell more games whit shiny cars .
Click to expand...
So what's wrong with that? He's making the game more open to casual players, thus making it more appealing to the masses, thus generatinga lager amount of income. Isn't that what GTS is suppose to be? An easy going sim-type game that easy for anyone to pick up and play but still retains some realism? I really don't see what's wrong with this.
 
im 50/50 on this sims should not be difficult but at the same time they should have a basic level of realism for example damage etc etc but at the same time thats what i like about GT all of you most keep in mind that not everyone has money to buy a wheel or can use one like me
 

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