My GT Vision

[mr_serious]

The following is my (long winded) opinion...

Sadly I think IGN were 100% correct when they said that GT5 was a 10/10 simulator in a 5/10 game.

Don't get me wrong, I am playing the game and have recommended it to some friends (although with some caveats) but certain elements of GT5, recent comments from Kaz and responses by players make me worry about where the series is heading.

Personally I think of GT as a racing game/simulator and for that there are certain requirements that must be fulfilled.

Good physics simulation, lots of cars, lots of tracks and good AI competition.

GT5 is absolutely great to drive, I love it!
The track list is reasonable.
There are quite a few cars, although an awful lot of bonkers additions and ommisions which we'll come back to.

We all know the AI is rubbish and always has been.


What I want to see in the future...

Simulation
Currently damage is apparently unlocked once you reach a certain level. This is crazy! This treats damage as a kind of reward that you get once you reach a level of skill where you shouldn't need damage to be a constraint on you winning the race. The first rule of racing is don't crash & damage you or your vehicle. It is the first lesson that should be learned. It can only be called a simulator if it also simulates the effects of bad or unskilfull driving. This is what should be learned in the beginner races in slower vehicles.

Levels and unlocking items
These are completely unneccesary in a racing sim in my opinion. Other games use them as a way of providing a reward to the players, a warm feeling and incentive to try that bit harder etc...

A well crafted racing game simply shouldn't need them. Money and well thought out race entry conditions and a really good AI fulfills those requirements.

If there is a decent AI then you get that feel good feeling when you beat them as well as prize rewards, which let you then purchase more desirable cars with which you can enter higher level races. The rewards and constraint system is already built in!

It's still nice to reward exceptional drivers with something a bit special, but I think that can be achieved with custom paint jobs or decals only available if you win all golds on license tests for instance.

AI cars
This is the crucial element. I wish PD would spend as much care and attention on this as they have the premium cockpits. If the AI was good and scalable to different levels of skill then the whole levelling and reward system would be completely unneccesary

Class system / tuning / AI
Currently it's very hard to match your car & tuning to what the event is going to throw at you. The power point system in GT5p wasn't perfect but at least it gave you a chance to match your car to the event.

Real manufacturers often attach an S for sports tune or R for race tune to the car names. GT6 should add a similar system to the tuning pages and tied into the events.

For example the European classic car championship in the beginner Series of GT5 lists the highest typical bhp as 147 (for the alpha Giulia) which is definitley not stock, so you need to tune your car to match, but you have no idea how mental to go on transmission, suspension, weight or drive train. Just matching to bhp isn't enough.

They could instead have European Classic Car stock Championship, S Class championship (with sports suspension, sports weight reduction, sports clutch etc...) and an R class championship with corresponding modifications.

Which brings me on to another point

Events
There just aren't enough currently. It is a racing simulator, so the number of events is critical.

Cars
First I am perfectly happy to drive most of the standard cars as well as the premium cars.

but currently the game is full of a whole bunch of cars I have no desire to race as well as ancient odities like the Kubelwagon. Now these are all very nice additions to a complete & compelling game, but currently there are a million variations of some cars and some standard cars which really should have been premium and a whole bunch of cars which seem to be missing altogether.

The priority should be to include as many desirable marques as possible & then add the crazy stuff later.

Customisation
It's not something that concerns me overly much but it would be a nice addition once you have sorted out the AI and the number of events and cars

Fluff & Nonsense
Photo mode, GT-TV, Free-Roam.

The free roam idea seems utterly crazy, that is a different style of game altogether it's not something that they should waste any time on, at least not in the context of GT.

Photo mode might be a nice addition, but only once you have a complete and fulfilling game experience. Until players can really customise their rides it mostly serves to show off the developers modelling skills. Maybe once customisation is in (after the AI works and there are a truly awesome range of tracks & cars, and the levelling system is removed) it might be a nice added feature.

So for the tl;dr generation

For GT6 please work on the following before doing anything else...

1) AI
2) Full damage simulation option from the start
3) Remove the xp level stuff - use winning & money as the reward/constraint system.
4) some kind of class / powerpoint system
5) Many, many more events
6) More tracks
7) More decent cars, fewer crappy novelty wagons.

I want GT6 to get back to the core values of excellent driving and to finally implement a decent AI & Damage system which we have been asking for since GT1

just my thoughts..

Agree? Disagree? Alternatives?

 

[rkk01]

Simulation
Currently damage is apparently unlocked once you reach a certain level. This is crazy! This treats damage as a kind of reward that you get once you reach a level of skill where you shouldn't need damage to be a constraint on you winning the race. The first rule of racing is don't crash & damage you or your vehicle. It is the first lesson that should be learned. It can only be called a simulator if it also simulates the effects of bad or unskilfull driving. This is what should be learned in the beginner races in slower vehicles

Pointless without good AI. Why would anyone want to incur (and pay for) damage caused by AI bulldozer drivers....?

Agree with pretty much all of that.

 

[MrDrWatson]

Completely agree, photomode is nice but pointless to me. I was expecting a huge amount of events since we get a huge amount of cars. And I was expecting an option to place the camera view according to our taste, closer to the roof of the car or closer to the hood of the car. I love the Gran Turismo series but it seems to me they are spending too much time/resources in extra non essential stuff.

 

[serverfull]

The following is my (long winded) opinion...

For GT6 please work on the following before doing anything else...

1) AI
2) Full damage simulation option from the start
3) Remove the xp level stuff - use winning & money as the reward/constraint system.
4) some kind of class / powerpoint system
5) Many, many more events
6) More tracks
7) More decent cars, fewer crappy novelty wagons.

I want GT6 to get back to the core values of excellent driving and to finally implement a decent AI & Damage system which we have been asking for since GT1

just my thoughts..

Agree? Disagree? Alternatives?

1) Agreed with AI but the only way to make it better is to take the iRacing route.

2) Disagree. As a console game to do full damage from the start as a sim is not a great idea. Most drivers that play this will not finish a race at all. Think about all the bump and passers...that would break your driving machine.

3) I am indifferent to this because Driving is the reason I play.

4) Same as 3 to me.

5)I feel ALL are being way to hard on GT for this. Look at SIMBIN stuff or iRacing. They all feature 16-20 courses. GT5 is a better value then them.

6) Yet again. The needed tracks are there. For a sim it isn't quantity but quality.

7)This complaining over ONLY 200 Premium Cars and having wagons and such is really getting old to me. Almost all Simulation games only have 16-32 modeled cars. Sure Forza has 400 but they aren't correctly modeled or sounded. Far from sim quality. GT5 went above and beyond with making 200 in the game PLUS included upscaled 800 other cars is crazy. That is a ton of varied vehicles to drive.

As a SIM GT5 is AMAZING. Ask people that play iRacing or GT-R Evo. Which are both great games and I play them.

 

[mr_serious]

2) Disagree. As a console game to do full damage from the start as a sim is not a great idea. Most drivers that play this will not finish a race at all. Think about all the bump and passers...that would break your driving machine.


7)This complaining over ONLY 200 Premium Cars and having wagons and such is really getting old to me. Almost all Simulation games only have 16-32 modeled cars. Sure Forza has 400 but they aren't correctly modeled or sounded. Far from sim quality. GT5 went above and beyond with making 200 in the game PLUS included upscaled 800 other cars is crazy. That is a ton of varied vehicles to drive.

2)I meant the full damage option should be optional, like it was in Geof Crammond's f1 for instance. We started playing that with all aids on and gradually turned them off as we improved. There was such an outcry when we went to the 'damage on' season, but within 3 races everyone was loving it and driving much better as a result. Edit: A great many of us have been playing racing sims for a long time and would like the option to by-pass the molly coddling and make mistakes punish from the start.

7) My complaint was not about the standard vs premium cars. But that they put a lot of effort into including hundreds of economy class run-abouts before a full range of Aston Martins, Mustangs, etc... My point is the way they have prioritised the content. Sure add those econo class vehicles, but should a racing sim have sooo many of them before they have implemented missed legendary classics or modern performance cars?

 

[serverfull]

2)I meant the full damage option should be optional, like it was in Geof Crammond's f1 for instance. We started playing that with all aids on and gradually turned them off as we improved. There was such an outcry when we went to the 'damage on' season, but within 3 races everyone was loving it and driving much better as a result. Edit: A great many of us have been playing racing sims for a long time and would like the option to by-pass the molly coddling and make mistakes punish from the start.

7) My complaint was not about the standard vs premium cars. But that they put a lot of effort into including hundreds of economy class run-abouts before a full range of Aston Martins, Mustangs, etc... My point is the way they have prioritised the content. Sure add those econo class vehicles, but should a racing sim have sooo many of them before they have implemented missed legendary classics or modern performance cars?

Then you would slowly get good enough to remove your own personal "lock" from the damage. I don't see how that is different then having it unlock as you actually get good enough for it.

I like having lower end modeled cars. I think they can release more great classics and newer models as DLC as time goes on. From a high proformance standpoint there are PLENTY of great premiums to drive and drive fast. No matter what cars they did model some peoples FAVS would be missing. Like I don't think Martins are good cars...at all. They can't hold a candle to the new R8 v10 and cost more I could care less to drive one (which I have done in person). That is all preference.

 

[mr_serious]

regarding damage: I think having the choice to have the most realistic option from the start is a no brainer - don't want it? turn it off. With the way it is at the moment you only have to look at the word on the intertubes to see how many people would have liked to have the option of damage right from the start. Artificially limiting options only benefits a subset of the players who don't mind this odd choice.

 

[dominic280378]

Excellent post.
I've been mulling the game over since I got it, trying to clarify how I feel about it, and how it could have been changed for the better.
Its pretty clear from the game that was released and the amount of time it took to produce that this was a troubled production that was released before it was finished (two updates in the first week, one a whopping 133MB is clear indication of this!)

So we know it was a troubled production, the main question now are:
1) who is to blame for the game being released unfinished?

After being in production for so long, I can imagine a meeting a few months ago where Sony ordered the game to be released this year before Christmas. Its hard to be angry with them if they did do that. 5-6 years and a rumored budget of 80 million, how much longer could they wait and how much more could they have spent?

2) Will anything be done to remedy the situation?

From the threads I've read on this forum a lot of people are holding out hope that the problems with the game will be remedied via DLC. I really can't see this happening. At the end of the day we've already spent our money on it, what is there to gain for Sony/PD by spending time and effort to fix problems that should never have existed? They already have our money! Its hard to see a lot of the problems could be fixed by DLC anyway.


3) What does the future hold in store for the series?

This is the big question for me.
The best descriptions I can use for GT5 is "unfocused" or "half baked".
It feels like the entire game is one rough draft of what it was supposed to be. How can this be the case after 6 years? If we waited another 2 would it be different?
I think the series needs to decide what it wants to do.

Is it a racing sim at the moment? not really, the AI is woeful and the way the classification for the races is done, most races are won by massive margins

Is it a driving simulator? Not really either. Its a driving simulator in a very narrow band (the handling is realistic but thats all, damage and other key factors are simply ignored or put in the game in rudimentary form)

Other key questions:
Why use leveling up and licensing? surely one or the other would do?
Why pay no attention to the skills we've learned in the other GT games?
Why is the interface for the game uniformly dreadful?
Why reward winning a tournament with a car to enter that championship? (I've just won the championship, I don't need that car now!)

Until all these are answered I'd seriously doubt we'll see any improvement from the series.
I'm sure Kaz is crying into his pillow right now, in his solid gold house with just some super models and his rocket car for company....(joke!)

 

[cwm33]

I don't want damage in the game, or at least the option to turn it off until the AI stops actively trying to kill me instead of pass me.

I would LOVE it if there were a lot more A/B Spec events. I'm not super huge on event restrictions though, and would love to see more "bring whatever the hell you want" events just to get more variety. Some of the one make or class races I found to be really fun, like the lambo/ferrari challenges, those were a good race! The yaris challenge? Stupid. VW Lupo challenge? I wouldn't piss on a Lupo in real life if it was on fire. Some actual A Spec RALLY events would be nice so that I could do them a few times to win some money. I've got probably 7-8 rally cars sitting in my garage, that I've WON (my 2000kms driven gift was a blasted rally car!) with diddly squat to do with the bloody things!

As far as the cars goes, I know that there are a lot of crap boxes in the game that got carried over via upscaling of old content, but they should have followed a simple formula when deciding which cars shouldn't have been modeled as premium cars.

if ( Horsepower > 200)
{
Make a premium model of this car.
}
else
{
Standard version is good enough.
}

Did the game REALLY need 2 Premium suzuki capuccinos? REALLY?

Also, you should be able to re-do the A/B Spec races to win the prize cars again, it would certainly help out with the pathetically weak prize purse that comes along with the races. That way I could re-do the Sports Truck race series and re-win the super awesome daihatsu midget! Can never have enough paper weights!

 

[serverfull]

Excellent post.
I've been mulling the game over since I got it, trying to clarify how I feel about it, and how it could have been changed for the better.
Its pretty clear from the game that was released and the amount of time it took to produce that this was a troubled production that was released before it was finished (two updates in the first week, one a whopping 133MB is clear indication of this!)

What shows you that this game was unfinished? If it was unfinished I highly doubt 133MB would be enough to make it playable. 133MB was more then likely the network code because Review copies didn't work online unit 2 days pre launch (the media embargo was up on the 24th). The fact that we are getting patches means they are still repairing things people don't like / bugs.

Any an development of this size there is going to be bugs that need to be fixed. They aren't releasing it and just walking away.

 

[mr_serious]

@Dom & cwm - thank you both for the chuckles

 

[mr_serious]

What shows you that this game was unfinished? If it was unfinished I highly doubt 133MB would be enough to make it playable. 133MB was more then likely the network code because Review copies didn't work online unit 2 days pre launch (the media embargo was up on the 24th). The fact that we are getting patches means they are still repairing things people don't like / bugs.

Any an development of this size there is going to be bugs that need to be fixed. They aren't releasing it and just walking away.

Let's not get into an argument about the current game. This thread is about what GT should be in the future. I'm glad you're happy with GT5, what would you like to see for GT6?

 

[serverfull]

Let's not get into an argument about the current game. This thread is about what GT should be in the future. I'm glad you're happy with GT5, what would you like to see for GT6?

Monthly Charge. And call it SIM. iRacing style.

 

[rkk01]

Monthly Charge. And call it SIM. iRacing style.

Well, that would kill it, dead.

Wrong platform for that sort of model. Sony are going to want to see volume, not a PC based hi-fidelity sim community type financial model.

 

[mr_serious]

He's just trolling, he's made his opinion known, best to just ignore him.

 

[serverfull]

That is what would make GT6 great. I think we need to face the facts that Driving games are slowly dying. That would include even Blur and Split Second which are much more twitch style racers.

So no I wasn't trolling but thanks for thinking my opinions are such. Don't worry yours are gold.

They need to make GT6 a serious game and not make it for the masses. GT never was made that way to start. That is where GT5 fails. They don't even require license tests anymore.

 

[dominic280378]

That is what would make GT6 great. I think we need to face the facts that Driving games are slowly dying. That would include even Blur and Split Second which are much more twitch style racers.

So no I wasn't trolling but thanks for thinking my opinions are such. Don't worry yours are gold.

They need to make GT6 a serious game and not make it for the masses. GT never was made that way to start. That is where GT5 fails. They don't even require license tests anymore.

I don't think its a case of racing games dying as such, its just a case where I can't see what vision PD had in mind when making GT5. I can't see what they had in mind to change between 4 and 5, its like they just continued on the exact same track they were on, which given the hardware and amount of disc space they had available, is pretty disappointing.