Oceania now split from Asia - horrible decision

How many people would you find online at that time before the update? I have never played in that timeslot before so I cannot comment.

5am in Eastern Australia would be between 1am in Indonesia and 3am in Japan. Not exactly prime time for a daily race, but that would not be a reassuring experience either.

 

I'm on the Aus east coast and typically I used to see fields of 8 to 10 in a pre sunrise race B.
Shocking sr spread though.
And if it makes any difference it was usually Blue Moon or Northern Isle I'd get up for.

 

That's the thing though, it's not just empty daily (weekly) race lobbies, even when its well populated its the massive disparity in DR/SR that annoys me.

Wasn't the whole point to earn your DR/SR so that you got paired up with drivers of similar standing, the idiot dive-bombers are corralled away from those who are there for a proper race. Whats the point now?

 

I thought this change was only supposed to apply to the FIA races. Those are usually very busy lobbies anyways so I support the change there.

However for daily races I think it's a poor choice.

Perhaps there should be an algorithm that splits the groups during high traffic times, and combines regions when the player base is low.

 

Another decision I could not understand. At least for races restricting regions may improve connections, but leaderboards should just be worldwide with options to filter by country. I mean the driving school/circuit experience/mission leaderboards are already worldwide anyway, so it's not like it's extra work for the servers.

When the leaderboards are universal everyone learns from each other and pushes hard until the end. As of now even the top AU drivers have no incentive to get faster and I find myself unusually high in the leaderboards. Great for pole position farming, bad for learning how to get quicker.

 

Tuesday night was running race c for a bit and one race started with 9 I think and finished with 5 and this was at what I thought would be a busy time about 7-8pm

 

I had my first race since the change last night ("Daily" Race C) but even thought it was 20 players the range of DR/SR between everyone is just too much. :/

 

Low latency traded with less players

Or you guys prefer playing at 1-2 bars againt Asia ?

 

Instead of uniting the world they made such a weird choise. I rather would race in a worldwide lobby with an even field (even with risk of laggy) as race in dead zones without players but with good connections everybody. We never will understand PD's decisions.

 

Your experience isn't necessarily my experience so I'm not saying you're wrong (wow that's a lot of negatives! I should really rewrite that), but I almost always had three bars (yellow) and virtually all the non Japanese players throughout Asia were the same. Lag was a very minor issue in my experience.

 

Taking a leaf from Assetto Corsa Competizione, in the latest update they have added advanced matchmaking options where the user can prioritise DR/SR (or the ACC equivalent of it), car/track combos, weather/TOD, latency/player number, etcetera when choosing multiplayer lobbies. It is amazing. Once again PD has their arse handed to them by a much smaller developer who actually takes time to think about things AND gives the power to the user instead of deciding for themselves and being more indecisive than a teen girl choosing what to wear before prom.

 

Well, I'm confused.
It sounds like you're talking about this ...
https://www.gran-turismo.com/au/gtsport/manual/#!/lobby/content01

So what does any of this have to do with a Regional breakdown of predetermined (Sport Mode) race events?

 

With a playerbase 1/3 the size of GT's, they need all the help they can get.

 

At this point i am not so sure PD cares about player base. It seems to me they are now focused on who is the best at driving within the gtsport univese.

 

I was referring to the official Sport Mode events, not the free lobbies. ACC doesn't have "official events" though (at least for now) so maybe it's not the best comparison.

For the FIA races they should keep to the regional breakdown obviously, but it would be nice if we could also set our own matching preferences in the daily races.

 

Does this mean Nations cup is now essentially Australia vs New Zealand?

 

I dont really play GTS anymore, but when I did do a few races I noticed probably about 90% of the grid was from Asia.
When I read the news about the areas being split up I knew without even looking that getting a full, evenly matched grid in the Aus/NZ region would be near on impossible. We just dont have the player base to be in our own separate region.

Oh well, if you guys get sick of small grids I can recommend iRacing... No regions, good netcode, and generally pretty good racing all day every day.

 

You mean the Nik Makozi cup?

 

Come on, there are plenty of good drivers to challenge him. The Wilk brothers, beau231, Speedy Chicken, TRL_holl01, CAR_Bass, VP_norfolkblue, and even NZ guys like sidawg, DoubleH, Lion-Face, with another dozen or so, are all able to put up a very good fight. Let's not forget MINT_GTR who should've been in Monaco.

The only thing that I'm afraid of is that Cody Nikola is probably going to be knee deep in university obligations having come back from the finals, and living overseas means it'll fit in right where the FIA time slots are, preventing him to race.

 

Of course you're right, I should have included a tongue in cheek smiley to my post.
Was more of a general observation that he seems to have been in a bit of a purple patch of late

Still it was a good question that I hadn't even thought of, I 'spose Oceana does have its own nations cup now?

 

TRLBeau aka Beau231 is easily the fastest Australian/Alien at present and has been for a while. And now becoming equally as good with racecraft as MintGTR. Beau231 is in a league of his own.

 

I beg to differ, Nik and Beau are only separated by little more than a tenth when it comes to hotlaps.

Proof is here (the current daily race C)

As for the racecraft itself I think they're both very good drivers, its just that Cody Nikola has been doing the FIA races, and Beau hasn't (he doesn't race too much in general as far as I know) . If he got more engaged in GTS, he would definitely be one of the guys to beat up there with Nik. They are equals...

What you're doing is boasting, and is actually not true. Yes Beau is an alien bit he's definitely not in a league of his own.

Edit: BTW Nik has been an alien since the age of 13/14, around the time he entered league racing with guys like TRL_IMMORTAL, LIGHTNING, EVOLUTION, AUGH, Fuvaros, DBRS001 (joined mid season) and Beau (quit the series after a couple of races).

@Apex2691 you seem awfully quiet all of a sudden. You don't have anything to say about this? Or is it something else?

 

No one's mentioned me in the list of best players... oh that's right, I'm a B/S pleb... never mind.

 

First race. I pitted on lap 5, as RS tyres were sending me into the walls. Had 15 second's worth of penalties at the finish.


The next race had 4 cars


No stopped with RM tyres. Let the two cars behind me go at one another. 2nd place Buggati was having tyre trouble. 3rd place Huracan was getting impatient. By lap 4 I passed for 2nd. All three cars pitted and I grabbed the lead, for half a second, at T1. Lead Huracan drove away on fresher tyres.

 

Speaking of Aussie aliens, where is Dan Holland these days? He used to be the top at everything back from GT3/4 days and early GT5P/GT5 days. It's funny that there always seems to be a new top alien every main game (holl01 then TRL_IMMORTAL and now LIGHTNING).

 

He was at the recent Nations Cup but didn't qualify for the final.... so he's still very quick. https://www.kudosprime.com/gts/stats.php?profile=2881975

 

He did qualify however wasn't at the final event for some reason.

 

This would have drove me crazy, prime example of why the split from Asia wasn't the greatest idea even for the lag and latency issues.

Almost like Aussies and NZs have to start a regional club or thread just to decide a time everyone can be on and race to have a full lobby on Daily Races

 

That's what I was figuring. It's become like a private lobby.

Just then:


One player dropped out at the start. I finished 5th,full throttle, no stop, 60.5 litres remaining, on RM tyres.

 

Proof is again beau was faster and probably did the time in 2-3 laps half pissed after a long day at work.
Beau also had absolute crap internet until about a year ago, and as such could not race as he would disconnect (always in lead) and is struggling again with his connection.
Nik is from wealthy family and his life is virtually devoted to the game. He has even traveled the world for the game.
TRL Immortal is a fast car driver, and supreme in those machines, Lightning and many early other "early" TRL's are as quick as beau or quicker. Some like TRLdoodle excell in road cars. But not Aug, etc I have many times been in lobbies with those guys and beau flogs them.
Why won't Nik Makozi race beau in ROOZ div1? He has often come into ROOZ practice lobbies and shown pace but was not same ballpark as beau.
No not boasting, which i have no idea where that comes from just I have known this for 2 and a half years. I practiced with Warrior and beau, beau was always faster. But the baton will be passed on as it always does.
TRL holl to Warrior to Mint to Beau to ??????