Racing or Driving - The Future of Gran Turismo

  • Thread starter Thread starter machschnel
  • 117 comments
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What should a Gran Turismo game focus on?

  • The driving aspect

    Votes: 24 11.9%

  • The racing aspect

    Votes: 94 46.8%

  • Mix of both

    Votes: 83 41.3%
  • Total voters
    201
M

machschnel

Messages
926
Messages
machschnel
Isn't it time Polyphony just drop all pretense of being a "racing game"?

* Average AI
* Rubber-banding
* No flags
* No qualifying
* No practice
* Random grids
* Rolling starts that aren't rolling starts....

I've said it before, but Gran Turismo is at it's best when hot lapping - the physics, the graphics, the day/night/full weather effects..... the feel. Racing against AI, to me, won't allow you to experience the best this game has to offer, which is a shame when you consider the whole offline career structure is based around it. How you'd set up a race-less career mode isn't an easy question to answer, but it's certainty not an impossible task.

The Real Driving Simulator needs to play to it's strengths - it doesn't need to become iRacing/GTR/etc, in fact, it needs to go the opposite direction and do away with racing all together, becoming a time trial/test drive type game. At the moment, "racing" in Gran Turismo feels more like missions or tasks ie. overtake x amount of cars in x amount of laps. I think a change is needed and I believe moving the focus towards the driving aspect of the game would be hugely beneficial.
 
It's been a racing game since GT1, it's likely to stay that way. I don't know why the idea that it's not a racing game persists, just because it has a specific slogan. Removing the racing will make the game die, as that's why it sells. This was basically solidified by the second game, but then as Azure Flare brought up they added online (with an obvious racing focus since it's a racing game) which removes concerns about AI.

The AI problem is overblown anyway. The AI isn't what it is because GT isn't a "real" racing game, the AI is what PD deems is acceptable. Rubber banding goes hand in hand with it.

Flags and qualification are necessary for true simulation of racing, but for just racing.

The real question for GT is not about whether it should be a racing game or driving game but whether it should become a capable simulator or remain just a realisticish racing game.
 
Exorcet
It's been a racing game since GT1, it's likely to stay that way. I don't know why the idea that it's not a racing game persists, just because it has a specific slogan. Removing the racing will make the game die, as that's why it sells.
Click to expand...

There is no racing though, it is more an overtaking game. I guess it does depend on your definition of racing, but without flags/rules/etc and AI that actually take spots back (I can't remember this ever happening) how could you call it racing? Racing in the sense that there are other cars on the same track as you maybe...


Exorcet
they added online (with an obvious racing focus since it's a racing game) which removes concerns about AI.
Click to expand...

Of course it removes concerns about AI - there is no AI online! Offline exists and is a lot of players preferred mode, any concerns regarding it and it's problems need to be addressed directly.


Exorcet
The AI problem is overblown anyway. The AI isn't what it is because GT isn't a "real" racing game, the AI is what PD deems is acceptable. Rubber banding goes hand in hand with it.
Click to expand...

Semantics. Why do PD, the perfectionists, deem it acceptable? Especially considering there should be an obvious racing focus since it's a racing game, no?
 
machschnel
Isn't it time Polyphony just drop all pretense of being a "racing game"?

* Average AI
* Rubber-banding
* No flags
* No qualifying
* No practice
* Random grids
* Rolling starts that aren't rolling starts....

I've said it before, but Gran Turismo is at it's best when hot lapping - the physics, the graphics, the day/night/full weather effects..... the feel. Racing against AI, to me, won't allow you to experience the best this game has to offer, which is a shame when you consider the whole offline career structure is based around it. How you'd set up a race-less career mode isn't an easy question to answer, but it's certainty not an impossible task.

The Real Driving Simulator needs to play to it's strengths - it doesn't need to become iRacing/GTR/etc, in fact, it needs to go the opposite direction and do away with racing all together, becoming a time trial/test drive type game. At the moment, "racing" in Gran Turismo feels more like missions or tasks ie. overtake x amount of cars in x amount of laps. I think a change is needed and I believe moving the focus towards the driving aspect of the game would be hugely beneficial.
Click to expand...

Hate to say it, but this sounds like PD logic. PD logic = something isn't quite right, so the solution is to get rid of it all together or dumb it down to the point its a shell of its former self.

Gran Turismo 3 had qualifying and a few races outside of endures that required pitstops. It had fast competitive AI at times. Just because they've continued to take steps back since then doesn't mean they should give up on the whole racing concept altogether. That's like how they quit on trying to get the endurance races right. You'd think a 10 year old could fix GT5's endurance issues like imbalanced fields. However PD's solution is to neuter them into nothingness.

But just for fun, if they were to abandon the career mode all together I'd like to see GT7 as an online only or heavily online oriented game. Like iRacing. If there is a list of races to be run, make them available only online. So the Sunday cup is made up of real online drivers, and not AI. And since its online there will be a practice session, along with qualifying etc.
 
machschnel
Isn't it time Polyphony just drop all pretense of being a "racing game"?

* Average AI
* Rubber-banding
* No flags
* No qualifying
* No practice
* Random grids
* Rolling starts that aren't rolling starts....

I've said it before, but Gran Turismo is at it's best when hot lapping - the physics, the graphics, the day/night/full weather effects..... the feel. Racing against AI, to me, won't allow you to experience the best this game has to offer, which is a shame when you consider the whole offline career structure is based around it. How you'd set up a race-less career mode isn't an easy question to answer, but it's certainty not an impossible task.

The Real Driving Simulator needs to play to it's strengths - it doesn't need to become iRacing/GTR/etc, in fact, it needs to go the opposite direction and do away with racing all together, becoming a time trial/test drive type game. At the moment, "racing" in Gran Turismo feels more like missions or tasks ie. overtake x amount of cars in x amount of laps. I think a change is needed and I believe moving the focus towards the driving aspect of the game would be hugely beneficial.
Click to expand...

Nail on Head :cheers:

But... I would like to give PD one more, just one more chance to get the racing bit correct along with sounds. If not i am out after 7.

6 isn't ever gonna gives us what we really want so i just enjoy it for what it is. I should have no reason to keep going back to Forza 4, but offline.. GT just wont give me what i want.

GIMME WAT I WANT !! (Mr Mackey voice)
 
If PD can develop super intelligent AI, kaz will become even more popular and his reach will be beyond the game industry.

Who ever can code AI as competitive as human being will indeed become in high demand.

If PD can do so, they would have done it already.
This kind of effort would probably require more resources than to make the next GT7. Are the investors really interested in that kind of venture or would they prefer the current way of profits.

Op, your priorities may not match those of the investors.
Kaz may read your thread and may want to satisfy you, but he also have directives to make margins in a given time frame, which might not allow him to pursue his own desire.

Whatever the answer to your question might be, it doesnt really matter, because ultumately, kaz is the one with the vision. And i believe his vision is even beyond that question.

Right now, there is probably more interests from the car manufacturing industry to use a common virtual platform to test and validate their cars... so maybe the answer is the driving simulator.
 
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It would please the most people if PD just improved the AI and made the time trial section more important (by having qualifying races before offline races, making the license tests more rwarding etc.) The racing doesn't need to be cut completly.
Also, I'm not an expert on this but I think the reason PD made the AI easy to beat was so people could get enough cars quickly to be competitive online and race more competitive people. Which in a way that problem of the AI being slow is fixed by the AI being slow if that makes any sense.
 
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machschnel
There is no racing though, it is more an overtaking game. I guess it does depend on your definition of racing, but without flags/rules/etc and AI that actually take spots back (I can't remember this ever happening) how could you call it racing? Racing in the sense that there are other cars on the same track as you maybe...
Click to expand...
Flags aren't required for racing. For recreating most real life motorsports, it is necessary, but for vanilla racing it isn't. Mario Kart doesn't stop being a racing game just because it's very different from the 24 hours of Le Mans.

The AI are very much racing AI as they do attempt to finish ahead of you. If they aren't very good, that's unfortunate, but it's not something that makes GT any less of a racing game. The only way to progress through GT is to race, and pretty much all the options in the game are centered around racing.




Of course it removes concerns about AI - there is no AI online! Offline exists and is a lot of players preferred mode, any concerns regarding it and it's problems need to be addressed directly.
Click to expand...
You could look at online racing as being a way of addressing the AI. It provides a replacement for them. Along with that, the only option you have online without using your own imagination is racing. Maybe track day. Turning GT into a driving game would require taking out most of the game. With that being the case, I don't see how it is just a driving game.




Semantics. Why do PD, the perfectionists, deem it acceptable? Especially considering there should be an obvious racing focus since it's a racing game, no?
Click to expand...
If PD are perfectionists why isn't the AI perfect? Being perfectionists doesn't mean they can purpose not shoot for perfection in certain areas.

As for why the AI are the way they are, I suspect it has to do with the difficulty of coding AI.
 
I'm not bothered by the AI, I enjoyed the career mode just fine, actually had some fun in career mode for the first time since GT 4. I would like to see more focus on the online racing aspect and leaderboards. The game would be so much better with more attention in this area.
 
Exorcet
It's been a racing game since GT1, it's likely to stay that way. I don't know why the idea that it's not a racing game persists, just because it has a specific slogan. Removing the racing will make the game die, as that's why it sells. This was basically solidified by the second game, but then as Azure Flare brought up they added online (with an obvious racing focus since it's a racing game) which removes concerns about AI.

The AI problem is overblown anyway. The AI isn't what it is because GT isn't a "real" racing game, the AI is what PD deems is acceptable. Rubber banding goes hand in hand with it.

Flags and qualification are necessary for true simulation of racing, but for just racing.

The real question for GT is not about whether it should be a racing game or driving game but whether it should become a capable simulator or remain just a realisticish racing game.
Click to expand...


Great thread BTW. My first experience with GT was with GT5. My initial impressions were that it was a "Driving" game designed to show off the "beautiful" cars. Users took the cars and attempted to organize races with them. If you're telling me GT1 was a racing game then it seems the series has gotten off track. They've gone for the bigger effect (more cars/more tracks) and eventually and especially without other enhancements that wears thin. I think you're right. The series may need a reboot.

To be racing one thing it dramatically needs to see a decrease in are these rolling starts. How many real races have rolling starts? Few, if any. Start us off the grid and let it be a dogfight a challenge. We don't want to walk away from the AI and win by 30 secs. We don't want to have to catch up from 30 secs down either. Everything else is fine (for now). Just make the career mode races more realistic with better AI, like OTHER SERIES do (Grid/F1).
 
Not being cynical. This is where I feel the series is at, particularly after reading the extended interview with Kaz.

They have to keep producing the "next" one to keep making money. Imagine how long it would take if they had to go from scratch? A decade. Easiest way to keep producing is to start with a platform (GT5). Add about 150 cars and 5 new tracks with variations; tweak the AI, enhance online, and you have GT6. If you were to start from scratch there's no way to get a new title out every 2-3 years without expanding the staff ten folds or more.

The focus needs to change. With GT7 I'd like to see another 150 new cars and 5-10 new tracks with variations. But I'd also like to see the career mode racing improved dramatically.
 
People should remember that the quality of the AI affects everything else in the offline gameplay.

I believe that PD want to make a racing game, unfortunately someone at PD doesn't want to rewrite the AI from scratch in order to achieve the core requirement for offline racing: competition.

If the AI was rewritten to be competitive and be able to scale it to an individual's skill level (ie be able to set the AI levels to Easy, Average, Pro, Elite, Real etc.. )

Then we would be able to have Qualifying or set your starting position, proper grid starts and get rid of rubber banding.

Once the racing is competitive and exciting you don't need artificial rewards systems, like levels (or stars as they are now called) to get people to continue playing, because each race will be different & thrilling and make you want more.

Real racers lose many more times than they win because only one person in the field can come first. So why do they keep on racing? Because competitive on track dueling is the reward. The finishing positions are the bonus goal.

I truly believe that the AI code they are using is the same as that written for GT1, I suspect written by Kaz himself. I'm sure it has been repeatedly tweaked over the years, but the same old flaws always crop up again and again. So instead of rewriting the AI, they change the gameplay.

  • Rolling Grid starts,
  • No qualifying,
  • Start from the back (many seconds behind the pole sitter)
  • Leveling systems
As a Software Engineer with many years of experience, I can tell you that it is easy to become attached to code you have designed. I suspect that Kaz wrote the AI himself, loves it & is unwilling to ditch it & let someone come up with something new and so the gameplay is changed to accommodate the world's worst racing AI ever created.
 
You need to keep in mind that most video games, GT6 included, are made so that the general public can progress through at least the majority of the game. Most of the people on this forum are diehard GT racers. What seems easy to enthusiasts like most of us, is not so easy to the average person. I have friends that bought GT6 and cannot get better than bronze in most of the license tests and actually find the game quite challenging. When you've played every iteration of Gran Turismo since the beginning, it's easy to forget that it's not so easy for everybody.
 
BDoggPrelude
You need to keep in mind that most video games, GT6 included, are made so that the general public can progress through at least the majority of the game. Most of the people on this forum are diehard GT racers. What seems easy to enthusiasts like most of us, is not so easy to the average person. I have friends that bought GT6 and cannot get better than bronze in most of the license tests and actually find the game quite challenging. When you've played every iteration of Gran Turismo since the beginning, it's easy to forget that it's not so easy for everybody.
Click to expand...

Difficulty levels (on a decent AI) is all that is required to solve this problem. The GT series is the only "racing" game I have ever played in 25 years without being able to set a difficulty level. Crazy!
 
The current trend of starting off the back of a single file rolling start grid that is always sorted with the fastest cars at the front is wearing very thin. This is a bigger issue than the AI imo. If there were proper side by side standing start grids the AI could be improved without making it impossible to win. As it is with the rolling starts if the AI were as good as we are wanting them to be we would never catch the leaders! The proof of that is already in GT6 - the AI is improved a little over GT5 - the result is AI cars that have to give up and let you win on the last lap!
PD always seem to cater to the lowest denominator also - trying to make the game accessible to the casual/beginner gamer and making it far to pedestrian for the more advanced/hardcore gamer. A simple global difficulty selector could fix that issue but maybe that's too logical. :lol:
The series is long overdue for an overhaul of it's racing implementation but sadly I'm not too confident of it happening anytime soon. :(
 
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mr_serious
People should remember that the quality of the AI affects everything else in the offline gameplay.

I believe that PD want to make a racing game, unfortunately someone at PD doesn't want to rewrite the AI from scratch in order to achieve the core requirement for offline racing: competition.

If the AI was rewritten to be competitive and be able to scale it to an individual's skill level (ie be able to set the AI levels to Easy, Average, Pro, Elite, Real etc.. )

Then we would be able to have Qualifying or set your starting position, proper grid starts and get rid of rubber banding.

Once the racing is competitive and exciting you don't need artificial rewards systems, like levels (or stars as they are now called) to get people to continue playing, because each race will be different & thrilling and make you want more.

Real racers lose many more times than they win because only one person in the field can come first. So why do they keep on racing? Because competitive on track dueling is the reward. The finishing positions are the bonus goal.

I truly believe that the AI code they are using is the same as that written for GT1, I suspect written by Kaz himself. I'm sure it has been repeatedly tweaked over the years, but the same old flaws always crop up again and again. So instead of rewriting the AI, they change the gameplay.

  • Rolling Grid starts,
  • No qualifying,
  • Start from the back (many seconds behind the pole sitter)
  • Leveling systems
As a Software Engineer with many years of experience, I can tell you that it is easy to become attached to code you have designed. I suspect that Kaz wrote the AI himself, loves it & is unwilling to ditch it & let someone come up with something new and so the gameplay is changed to accommodate the world's worst racing AI ever created.
Click to expand...

TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU! If he thinks sales are bad now....don't rewrite the AI code for GT7 and you'll see REALLY bad sales.
 
CTznOfTime
If PD can develop super intelligent AI, kaz will become even more popular and his reach will be beyond the game industry.

Who ever can code AI as competitive as human being will indeed become in high demand.
Click to expand...

Drivatars..
 
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BDoggPrelude
You need to keep in mind that most video games, GT6 included, are made so that the general public can progress through at least the majority of the game. Most of the people on this forum are diehard GT racers. What seems easy to enthusiasts like most of us, is not so easy to the average person. I have friends that bought GT6 and cannot get better than bronze in most of the license tests and actually find the game quite challenging. When you've played every iteration of Gran Turismo since the beginning, it's easy to forget that it's not so easy for everybody.
Click to expand...

Not forgotten. They have levels of AI difficulty in Arcade mode. Give us the same type of difficulty in Career mode. Other games do it.
 
machschnel
Isn't it time Polyphony just drop all pretense of being a "racing game"?

* Average AI
* Rubber-banding
* No flags
* No qualifying
* No practice
* Random grids
* Rolling starts that aren't rolling starts....

I've said it before, but Gran Turismo is at it's best when hot lapping - the physics, the graphics, the day/night/full weather effects..... the feel. Racing against AI, to me, won't allow you to experience the best this game has to offer, which is a shame when you consider the whole offline career structure is based around it. How you'd set up a race-less career mode isn't an easy question to answer, but it's certainty not an impossible task.

The Real Driving Simulator needs to play to it's strengths - it doesn't need to become iRacing/GTR/etc, in fact, it needs to go the opposite direction and do away with racing all together, becoming a time trial/test drive type game. At the moment, "racing" in Gran Turismo feels more like missions or tasks ie. overtake x amount of cars in x amount of laps. I think a change is needed and I believe moving the focus towards the driving aspect of the game would be hugely beneficial.
Click to expand...

I don't think they should go the opposite direction. I think they should just improve the AI.
 
mr_serious
Difficulty levels (on a decent AI) is all that is required to solve this problem. The GT series is the only "racing" game I have ever played in 25 years without being able to set a difficulty level. Crazy!
Click to expand...
There is a difficulty setting for the AI in amongst the options somewhere.
Having said that the first thing I did was set it to max but it is still easy, but I just try to use a massively under spec car to even it up.

Online racing is where it's at for me anyway, unfortunately the only advice I can give is to ditch the offline mode and find a decent group of guys to race with like GBRC.
 
jimantonic
There is a difficulty setting for the AI in amongst the options somewhere.
Having said that the first thing I did was set it to max but it is still easy, but I just try to use a massively under spec car to even it up.

Online racing is where it's at for me anyway, unfortunately the only advice I can give is to ditch the offline mode and find a decent group of guys to race with like GBRC.
Click to expand...

That only works in arcade mode and sadly the AI in GT doesn't really scale very well anyway. It is simply very out of date & unrealistic.
 
CTznOfTime
Who ever can code AI as competitive as human being will indeed become in high demand.
Click to expand...

It's not about making AI as competitive as human beings, it's about making the game playable. If the grid consists of 15 Vettels, 99% of all gamers is going to end up dead last in every single race. If the grid consists of 15 amateurs, then 99% of all gamers is going to end up first in every single race. If the AI is somewhere in between, you'll still have the same problem, for some it's going to be too easy, for some it's going to be too hard and for some it's going to be perfect (until they improve their skills, then it will be too easy).

To make it playable, the AI needs to adjust to the skills of the gamer, something a human driver wouldn't do. Rubber banding is one method of doing so, an option to select difficulty level is another. Personally, I'd prefer to have an option. It will not be perfect, but better than rubber banding I think.
 
The AI settings are only in arcade races and not career mode races. Opponents / AI do appear to improve as you progress into the upper tiers of the career mode but I want my Sunday Cup to be just as challenging as any Super License races.
 

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