New Online Racing Penalties Leave Gran Turismo’s Top Drivers Fuming

[sonnyboychris]

at some time you have to abandon the old hardware to make the game you want, not the game the shareholders want.

Sony would never allow PD to do this. There's no way Sony would ignore an installed userbase of 117 million PS4's compared to an installed userbase of 38.5 million PS5's at the time of GT7's release. It's simple math.

Anyway, who already decided to pre-order GT8?

Please don't do this. That's just enabling PD to deliver another half-hearted effort without consequence. Wait a few days after launch for reviews from gaming-outlets/journalists whose existence isn't impacted by Sony/PD's good graces. Wait until there's confirmation that the penalty system has been fixed. Wait until there's confirmation that FFB isn't neutered and that a proper next-gen physics system is in place. Wait to see if any news cars and tracks are in the game. Wait until we've confirmed that a malicious monetary system hasn't been forced into the game by Sony AGAIN. Just be patient and vote with your wallet.

 

[Meythia]

That's just enabling PD to deliver another half-hearted effort without consequence.

In all honesty, I dont think there should be another GT on PS5 AND PS4, I dont even think a PS5 only release would be enough to pull out any additional qualities of the game, not even on the please-dont-do-it PS5Pro.

 

[Famine]

You’re right, divebomb isn’t the right word because he didn’t actually go to the inside of the white car.

Instead, he just straight up ran into the back of the white car. At no point was he ever in a position to pass the white car, and was completely unprepared for the white car to be going extra slow due to both being offline and staying tight to defend the left apex. He didn’t plan for that and never adjusted by slowing to avoid hitting the white car.

I think you're being exceptionally unfair here - although nowhere near as unfair as the disqualification.

The Italian driver was planning for the French driver to go to the outside (as usual), taking a legit undercut line courtesy of a 15-20km/h speed advantage through the chicane, and the tap cost him 3km/h (about 1.8mph) while accelerating the French driver. There was only one reason the French driver didn't go to the outside: the Spanish driver, who caused them both to be going 15-20km/h slower through the chicane in the first place (allowing the Italian to close the gap) after steaming up the inside, was still fractionally overlapping.

That tap moved the French driver slightly further out and into the Spanish driver, causing the Spanish driver to run slightly further out and partially into the gravel.

They went in 1-2-3, and came out 1-3-2 - although the off-track cost the Spanish driver another place to a second Italian driver.

In fact the reason stated on Twitter for the DSQ was that the Spanish driver went from the lead (which he only had briefly, due to the actual divebomb) to fourth as a consequence of the contact on the French driver from the Italian. The contact that precipitated it was the Spanish driver's lunge (for which he was not punished) on the French driver; nothing else would have happened if not for that primary contact - which was the only reason they were going slowly enough through the chicane to be caught.

Finishing fourth after trying to divebomb for the lead in the final corner I think qualifies as fair enough (and pretty lucky). Getting disqualified for the most minor of accidental taps on another car that didn't affect that car at all, but caused a secondary contact on the car that had done the divebomb looks heavy-handed, especially as the divebomb caused a more significant change of line and was unpunished.


And that's not to **** on Pol Urra, who has been excellent previously, because I don't think the divebomb was that bad either and he received natural justice for it: went for a gap, didn't work out, didn't hoof anyone off, nobody died, and he lost a couple of spots. I certainly wouldn't call for him to be disqualified for it...

... unless you think Bertani deserved the punishment, in which case Urra's was worse and caused the second incident.

 

[mad4pancakes]

No, the consensus is they needing a reporting/protesting system. Except what happened now is seemingly the possible consequence of having something like that, without actually having that (at least directly in-game).

I think it would be nice to have a protest/reporting system, but realistically that probably doesn't scale well to a game with a playerbase as large as GT7. Look how many days it took for these punishments to come down. I have no idea how many people are active on Sport mode daily, but you need actual people reviewing protests to handle those fairly. People would absolutely abuse that feature to file frivolous ones so it definitely cannot be automated. It would be a large expense for PD to add dedicated staff solely for reviewing player protests, and I think there are simpler solutions that could be implemented.

 

[Ande3200]

Please PD, do what’s best for your franchise, roll back the focus on E-Sports, and cater for the overwhelming majority, the single-player community.

E-Sports had a short-lived boom but it’s back to catering for a niche of a niche. GTWS does little to enhance the reach of the franchise and the cost & logistics of live events can no longer be justified.

It’s time to focus resources on improving the single-player experience. I accept there will continue to be an online aspect of the game. But PD would be better served bringing high profile streamers onboard - they are the ones who demonstrate & articulate why online racing can be fun.

GTWS is all about the top 5% of players and does not represent the spirit of Gran Turismo.

I 100% agree. I think pd should focus more on single player as well because thats what gt7 desperatly needs.

 

[TomBrady]

Good.

PD should also bring back the very sensitive penalty system from the later GTS days while they're at it

Seriously. That's what annoys me. They had a system that kept people racing mostly clean but now as long as you don't rear end someone, you get away with almost any contact.

I mean correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what it seems like to me lately. People get away with nudging someone out of the way in order to get past. Even hard nudges. As long as it's on the side and not the rear, they get away with it.

Especially with the go kart racing which is a ton of fun, but because the impacts aren't as hard, the penalty system doesn't even seem to register collisions except for full on forza style punts. I've got multiple clean race bonuses in karts even despite big collisions happening, and I thought as far as clean race bonuses go, even if you didn't get penalized for it you still lose the bonus for any collisions at all right?

That's another thing they could fix after doing 2 weeks of go kart racing in the daily races. It should adjust how it calculates collision penalties based on the mass of the car itself instead of just the overall force of the impact. Or how the impact affects the direction or position of the car.

But honestly, the way GT handles collisions in general just seems off. Like it seems harder to dislodge a car from its position than it probably would be in real life or in other more hardcore racing sims.

Eitherway I think GT should give players instant consequences for driving dirty or for simply making mistakes and colliding with other cars and/or objects. The safety rating isn't enough.

There's many reasons people race cleaner in iracing. The safety rating is one, but I'm not sure it's even the biggest reason. I think the way that sim handles damage could be the biggest reason. If you hit something, you will have serious damage that needs to be repaired in the pits. That alone would force everyone to race more safely and cleanly but iracing also makes you wait for repairs depending on the severity of the damage, and you can total your car and your race is over.

Does iracing also have time penalties like GT Sport for collisions with other drivers or just for cutting the track? It's been a while since I did iracing so I'm not sure.

But both the mechanical damage, and time penalty angles give drivers instant consequences for not racing clean and I think those are essential for maintain an online racing community.

I do not care what any ignorant American says, rubbing IS NOT racing (not saying Americans are dirty racers or ignorant, I just really hate that saying and it came from America). Maybe in oval racing, but it does not work like that in road racing. It's an excuse for people who lack the skill to pass cleanly.

Sorry for the long response

 

[Yard_Sale]

I had 4 races today. All of them except my last race on my main account (where I qualified 9th), I was towards the front. All of my races except one (where P1 and myself checked out), I got taken out resulting in heavy damage to myself, and no penalties or damage for the perpetrator(s).

I got taken out on my main account too, but luckily it was on the lap I was going to pit for tires anyways.

This dude dived me from a mile back. I mean, he was so far back I didn’t feel the need to cover the inside. He apologized afterwards, which is fine, I suppose. But he didn’t give me my spot back when he knocked into me…or did he give the spot back to the guy he did the exact same thing to 3 laps later.

 

[Lux Klonoa]

Sony would never allow PD to do this. There's no way Sony would ignore an installed userbase of 117 million PS4's compared to an installed userbase of 38.5 million PS5's at the time of GT7's release. It's simple math.

Care to explain why Sony didn't block Guerilla from making a PS5-only expansion for Horizon Forbidden West, then? =/

 

[Rash-182]

Am I the only one B - S on this thread? Those kind of moves are the awful reality of us peasants who try to race clean and get destroyed time after time.

I really don´t get why PD can´t ghost any car which is clearly unable to get the turn or goes straight to other player´s car. At the engine (game engine) level it´s not hard to calculate that.

Even so... you got a "Magnussen" on F1 and it is what it is.... And you can see any real gt race and it´s carnage as well... I don´t get it.

I can tell you that B lobbies are much cleaner than A's. In B, people are generally fast enough and try to keep things clean, whereas A is full of tryhards.

 

[jrbabbitt]

It's the basic idea that PD enforced the penalties LATE that bothers me most. It is like winning Lemans and the next week after the ACO and Rolex stops by your flat to repossess the trophy and watch stating about a penalty on track a week prior nullifies your win...

 

[tankuroded]

It's the basic idea that PD enforced the penalties LATE that bothers me most. It is like winning Lemans and the next week after the ACO and Rolex stops by your flat to repossess the trophy and watch stating about a penalty on track a week prior nullifies your win...

Oh wait...

 

[MetalApe]

Oh wait...

I thought that was going to be a link to this...

 

[Kriptical]

Personally…

It feels as if marketing took over the con sometime around august of last year and have been slowly driving things into the ground. This is just another example of it.

Thing is..with online getting the shaft since last august(tracks, cars, and wheel sdk's) it feels so long since anything cool has happened im not even mad anymore. In fact, for the first time since psvr2’s release, i haven’t logged in for almost two weeks,as opposed to 1-3+hours a day for a solid year.

The behavior out of sony really has been boggling…

 

[sonnyboychris]

Care to explain why Sony didn't block Guerilla from making a PS5-only expansion for Horizon Forbidden West, then? =/

That's easy.... The expansion dropped 3 years after the PS5 released. At some point you have to cut the umbilical cord and force the stragglers to upgrade to the new hardware. Also, it's a single player game... There's no userbase to split in terms of having a different experience online. We can use GT7 as a prime example of that... The PS5 can render more cars than the PS4 but that'd destroy match making in Sports mode.

What I'm describing is situational strategy utilized by Sony to achieve different goals. There's no "gotcha" in this, it's completely situational and unique to each game and it's time of release.

 

[Nebuc72]

Personally…

It feels as if marketing took over the con sometime around august of last year and have been slowly driving things into the ground. This is just another example of it.

Thing is..with online getting the shaft since last august(tracks, cars, and wheel sdk's) it feels so long since anything cool has happened im not even mad anymore. In fact, for the first time since psvr2’s release, i haven’t logged in for almost two weeks,as opposed to 1-3+hours a day for a solid year.

The behavior out of sony really has been boggling…

I get the sentiment with the game flopping around like a fish out of water.. but what does any of that have to do with online specifically?

Last I checked you could use tracks, cars and race on the wheel offline as well. Where is the relevance to online? Both sides of the game are suffering pretty equally.

 

[Kriptical]

I get the sentiment with the game flopping around like a fish out of water.. but what does any of that have to do with online specifically?

Last I checked you could use tracks, cars and race on the wheel offline as well. Where is the relevance to online? Both sides of the game are suffering pretty equally.

Some stuff…which would have benefitted single too:

Psvr 2: zero updates

Tarmac tracks: zero updates

Cars: zero modern race cars, except that gr4 breaking ff mazda, which remained meta for months.

Wheel: i can only speak for their treatment of the Fanatec sdk: nerfing the max output(roughly 15-20%) and condensing the dynamic range taking the 15nm wheel which took it from believable in vr(relatively) to just another toy.

Stewardship: no attempt at moderating the, from the side attack. I can’t go two races in B or C(im always full bar S) without someone trying to pit me on a straight…and at this point, its entirely normal to expect to be used as a bumper in the corners. By normal, i mean about every third corner.

Whereas single player gripes seem to be:

The economy takes too long and its too hard to make money. You can put all of the, wheel of despair, comments into this basket too.

Creating custom races doesn’t make me feel as cool as when pd does it(can wrap the lack of endurance races into this)

The one single player gripe i can totally get behind is the, chase the rabbit thing. Its profoundly lazy and serves to condition people to be 💩’s when they do venture online. For a company claiming to foster car culture i find this and their attention to wheel sdk’s most confusing.

Apologies if this is a bit hamfisted. First coffee and all

 

[mad4pancakes]

There's many reasons people race cleaner in iracing. The safety rating is one, but I'm not sure it's even the biggest reason. I think the way that sim handles damage could be the biggest reason. If you hit something, you will have serious damage that needs to be repaired in the pits. That alone would force everyone to race more safely and cleanly but iracing also makes you wait for repairs depending on the severity of the damage, and you can total your car and your race is over.

Does iracing also have time penalties like GT Sport for collisions with other drivers or just for cutting the track? It's been a while since I did iracing so I'm not sure.

Yes the damage does play into it, although in the lower series you do get a fast repair that takes no time once you do pit.

There are no time penalties for collisions, just black flag slowdowns for track cuts.

 

[sswishbone]

It's the basic idea that PD enforced the penalties LATE that bothers me most. It is like winning Lemans and the next week after the ACO and Rolex stops by your flat to repossess the trophy and watch stating about a penalty on track a week prior nullifies your win...

That happened to Rebellion for tapping the gearbox with a pole in the pits at every stop to keep it going. Promoted Jackie Chan's LMP2 team to a 2-3 overall result only behind Porsche from LMP1

 

[GOTMAXPOWER]

That happened to Rebellion for tapping the gearbox with a pole in the pits at every stop to keep it going. Promoted Jackie Chan's LMP2 team to a 2-3 overall result only behind Porsche from LMP1

From memory (so I'm probably wrong) tapping it with a stick every time they started the car was legal but they then cut a hole in the bodywork so they could poke it without taking the engine cover off which was a illegal modification. That was a great race, I think most of us were hoping the Oreca would hang in the last few hours.

 

[sswishbone]

From memory (so I'm probably wrong) tapping it with a stick every time they started the car was legal but they then cut a hole in the bodywork so they could poke it without taking the engine cover off which was a illegal modification. That was a great race, I think most of us were hoping the Oreca would hang in the last few hours.

Yeah that sounds right actually, considered aerodynamic interference or something. Real shame Porsche were able to claw it back, ironically probably the closest we've come to a real life Gran Tutismo driving mission 🤣

 

[tankuroded]

Crossposting from the GTWS thread: Papo is alleging that his DQ was because of a report from "a third party that has nothing to do with the crash":

Rumor has it that a third party that has nothing tho do with the crash reported me for convenience and that they will purposely take away my points. This is turning into the worst garbage. And I'm not going to give names but I already know very well [who is behind this]!

 

[Mudda Chod]

I do not care what any ignorant American says, rubbing IS NOT racing (not saying Americans are dirty racers or ignorant, I just really hate that saying and it came from America). Maybe in oval racing, but it does not work like that in road racing. It's an excuse for people who lack the skill to pass cleanly.

I feel that your disdain for the famous saying is over zealous and unsubstantiated.

There are many forms of racing where rubbing is common, and actually adds to the overall appeal. The Nordic RallyX series is an obvious example (although maybe not considered "road racing" a distinction that you have added). The Australian V8 Supercars and of course the GT3 (Touring Cars) series often have minor contact between cars which goes unpunished, as judged by the race officials. None of these series are American, yet they all follow the "Rubbing is racing" mantra.

In my humble opinion, minor contact (sometimes referred to as "rubbing") that does not fracture the rules of the event, is not deliberate, and does not significantly affect the aggrieved driver's ability to continue to race competitively; is definitely part of racing!

Obviously in open wheel racing such as F1, the almost certain damage should exclude all contact, so perhaps your wrath would be better directed specifically to open wheel events. However even then it should be tapered by the many examples of wheel to wheel contact in F1 that fit entirely into the description above, and have gone unpunished by the race officials, and even not disputed by both teams involved.

I do hope you reconsider some respect for the "Rubbing is racing" mantra, and perhaps even delve into a few of the unholy Stadium Super Truck races to whet the appetite for destruction (although being an American based series)

 

[ShiftingGears]

This is idiotic from PD.

How hard would it have been to communicate this prior to the commencement of the season that the driving standards that they tacitly endorsed by leaving completely unpunished through nearly seven years of sport mode would be cracked down on mid-GTWS season?

The answer is that it's not hard from a competent business that handles its operations proactively and plans accordingly, however PD is clearly not in this category.

 

[GTalaune]

Can't Sony and PD use their initiatives in creating a racing agent (Sophy) to adapt it to become a steward agent? It would be pretty cool

 

[sonnyboychris]

it feels so long since anything cool has happened im not even mad anymore.

This statement stuck out to me because one of the worst thing for a brand is for your audience to become apathetic.

If they love the game, that's self-explanatory. If they HATE the game, that's fine because they care and are still invested. But when too many people become apathetic, that's when you start to lose costumers.

I don't think GT is anywhere near that level (yet) and it may not matter because (like EA Madden) they have the market largely to themselves and people will buy it regardless.

 

[bduddy]

Can't Sony and PD use their initiatives in creating a racing agent (Sophy) to adapt it to become a steward agent? It would be pretty cool

Making decisions about racing incidents is a very, very different challenge than going as fast as possible, or even just going to a specific speed and racing fairly like the more recent Sophy implementation. I'm sure they're trying but people will still complain about it no matter what.

 

[appu]

Making decisions about racing incidents is a very, very different challenge than going as fast as possible, or even just going to a specific speed and racing fairly like the more recent Sophy implementation. I'm sure they're trying but people will still complain about it no matter what.

Sophy likely already contains a lot of useful data about wrong and right way of racing, since Sophy has been trained to avoid contacts.

Forza Motorsport 8 uses AI for stewarding and it is subjectively already better than non-AI stewarding.

 

[Meythia]

Sophy likely already contains a lot of useful data about wrong and right way of racing, since Sophy has been trained to avoid contacts.

Forza Motorsport 8 uses AI for stewarding and it is subjectively already better than non-AI stewarding.

You are looking at Sophy (AI) as if it was a child told to do something instead of looking at it what it is:
a system of decision making based on how rewarding each decision is with no knowledge of what it actually does.

 

[bduddy]

Sophy likely already contains a lot of useful data about wrong and right way of racing, since Sophy has been trained to avoid contacts.

Forza Motorsport 8 uses AI for stewarding and it is subjectively already better than non-AI stewarding.

That's really not how AI works in terms of "useful data". And I highly doubt there's any meaningful "AI" in Forza in the modern sense, they've been prattling on for years about "AI Drivatars" and it's the same old nonsense game after game.

 

[Nebuc72]

That's really not how AI works in terms of "useful data". And I highly doubt there's any meaningful "AI" in Forza in the modern sense, they've been prattling on for years about "AI Drivatars" and it's the same old nonsense game after game.

Whilst I don't think Sophy will work as a steward, FM8's AI is very good. It's a solid challenge, and they actually detect the players prescense through corners.

Not perfect, of course, nothing is, but I know what I'm picking if I had to choose between GT7's AI and FM8's.