What happened to actual racing??

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Olepatude_SR

Olepatude_SR

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olepatude
Bit of a rant here, but why has this game created a stigma that learning to tune your cars is somehow something to be frowned upon? I get that this makes the sport races more accessible but as someone that could take a car and increase its ability to perform why are these people being deterred from doing so by most people on the game. A good 60% of lobbies for the GR.3 class are tuning prohibited and so many leagues and series prefer to shy away from allowing users to tune their own cars. Yes its what the sport races utilize but why does that mean a separate racing series needs to share this? You don't see teams at leman complaining because their rivals could better tune their car. Tuning gives balance to some cars that would otherwise be such a hassle to drive regardless of speed and can allow people to use cars that aren't meta or top of the power curve for the track they are racing on (common example: Nissan GTR GT3, Literally any tracks). Maybe I am being ignorant to something, but as someone that is fed up of having to use the same cars as everyone else in the lobby to be faster or on the pace I am beginning to find the game monotonous. Discuss.
 
I'll give PD some credit here and say that their BoP isn't too bad.

With tuning a lot of people exploit the game to a certain extent. They will tune the car with what is IMO an unnatural and unrealistic setup. Ok it can be raced online in a short race, but I'm guessing it wouldn't work in real life.

For example back in GT6 I knew a guy who tuned his RX7 Spirit road car with 42 58 or there abouts balance (ballast). That's 42 front and 58 rear. He was super fast in that. I tried a similar tune and it was dangerous as hell.

That's an extreme example but how would it look if everyone started running unnatural tunes like that. I mean I'm pretty sure he had to add overall weight to the car to get that balance. That's probably why PD took the balance option away and put so much work into the BoP system.

I don't think it's perfect but I think it's more fair than tuning most of the time.
 
I mean, I think it could be fun to allow a limited group of cars and then allow tuning, (e.g. just the FF Gr.4 cars), but I think that should only be done sparingly, and I'm fine with just going by BoP most of the time. Hopefully they can fix the issue with reverse rake somehow having the opposite effect, too - though I'd imagine that'd be coming in the next game, if at all.
 
Olepatude_SR
Yes its what the sport races utilize but why does that mean a separate racing series needs to share this?
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Because the (majority) of people want to race against other drivers and prefer races which are about the best drivers not the best cars.

Even in your IRL example, eventually teams get success ballast because their car is too good, see Toyota at Shanghai last time. Arguably real life is also very much a constructors competition but there isn't much fun in having a Toyota constantly winning over Rebellion by at least 1 lap margin every single time.

The good news is that this is a game, so you are more then welcome to create your own league event and allow tuning :)
 
wowbaggerBR
Because tunning is not something easy for the majority of players and disabling it leads to a more even field in which what matters is your skill and concentration levels on the, you know, actual racing.
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Right okay but this is a racing game, racing isn't exclusively what you do on the track and tuning cars for different tracks allows drivers to better suit their car for specific tracks, it's also been a part of the game for as long as I can remember, something I've personally had a lot of fun learning how to do (Engineering student things I suppose). If this was your argument we would all be doing one-make races. Oh, wait... look at every sport race for people around C rating or higher with every driver using the most meta car for that track. Really fun that.
 
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JayRS200
I'll give PD some credit here and say that their BoP isn't too bad.

With tuning a lot of people exploit the game to a certain extent. They will tune the car with what is IMO an unnatural and unrealistic setup. Ok it can be raced online in a short race, but I'm guessing it wouldn't work in real life.

For example back in GT6 I knew a guy who tuned his RX7 Spirit road car with 42 58 or there abouts balance (ballast). That's 42 front and 58 rear. He was super fast in that. I tried a similar tune and it was dangerous as hell.

That's an extreme example but how would it look if everyone started running unnatural tunes like that. I mean I'm pretty sure he had to add overall weight to the car to get that balance. That's probably why PD took the balance option away and put so much work into the BoP system.

I don't think it's perfect but I think it's more fair than tuning most of the time.
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Won't deny that there have been times where I've done something wacky with setups on an earlier GT game, but PD has done a pretty good job of GTS and 9 times out of 10 doing things that make sense with a setup usually lead to a somewhat expected response. So I just don't get why the BOP System combined with driver tuning is seen as such a negative thing. If the BOP system works, in theory, a driver should be able to set near-identical times with most cars, is that not the ideal case scenario (obviously familiarity with cars helps and so too does how each car drives) But in this game the BOP system favours different cars considerably, in sport races at fuji, for example, the Huracan is faster than the rest of the roster, hard to drive but so fast, so if a set up would allow the Hyundai Genesis to keep pace and actually be used by people rather than being a thing people look at once and then throw-away.

Its more the lack of diversity in the game that sucks, seeing 10/16 people in the same car every time I do a sport race really sucks a lot of the immersiveness out for me, just don't see the point in having 30+ Gr.3 Cars if people only use about 5 of them.
 
Real race car drivers are not tuning their own cars. They have engineers for that who are incredibly skilled at eeking out every millisecond of performance from a car through its setup. The drivers know enough to know what impacts what and how the changes can make the car behave, but they usually are not the experts and aren’t making all these tweaks themselves.

Enabling tuning changes races from being about optimizing your individual driving skill to optimizing your ability to fully exploit the tuning capabilities available.

If tuning-enabled races are what you are after than there are private leagues that allow for that, and there are tons of incredibly fast drivers who participate in them.
 
MIE1992
It doesn’t help that the in-game descriptions for each setting leave a lot to be desired.
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I do agree with you there, the descriptions aren't "idiot-proof" (not saying people who can't tune are idoits) but I would imagine a lot of people playing this game have played an earlier iteration where you probably would have needed to set up cars because there was just a class filter and people had to make their own rules for competitive racing. But people don't want to spend the time learning the game. The way I see things is that the large part of the community who don't want to take the time to play the game to the fullest extent would get pissy for being beaten by people who utilize the games features. At least the game isn't pay to win, if someone won a race in a non-meta car in a top split because they knew how to set it up for the specific race/track combination at least it would be on merit rather than some sort of out of game advantage. All I'm saying is why make an inherently competitive game where people can't utilize their full knowledge of the game, just doesn't make sense and why GTS hasn't been as enjoyable as other iterations of GT.

Apologies just continued to justify my reasoning, wasn't a launch at youself @MIE1992
 
Okay so looking at some of the replies in here, it seems like people have missed the point to some extent.

1. Prohibiting tuning brings driver skill to the forefront.
I think certain spec series with heightened restrictions have proven that "levelling the playing field" never does that to the extent people want. The best drivers will always have the edge so a racing setup should not immediately put a backmarker in race winning contention. Tuning is an integral part of racing, understanding your car. It is a necessary skill in top forms of racing.

2. BoP serves the purpose better.
Balance of Performance only manages a car's power and weight. Not only that but it can sometimes prove to be a detriment to some cars' already mediocre handling. Tweaking a car to allow for smoother weight transfer or less aggressive torque provides a more balanced car and irons out mid-pack cars' flaws on top of BoP. Also if you believe that BoP alone levels the field in things like Sport Mode like additional tuning can then I believe the Nissan GTR GT3s want a word. And if you believe you can get a standard Viper or Genesis into the Top 3 in a full field then I tip my hat to you.

3. Tuning isn't accessible.
This is just false. While the in-game explanations of tuning are the least informative things in the world, the internet is your friend if you don't understand it. And for those who don't have time, good news there too, the internet is filled with amazing tunes to fit your needs, hell they're even on this site. If you would like recommendations, praiano and HSG Automotive have some perfectly solid setups ready to go in minutes if you go to their respective YouTube channels. You do not have to do everything alone if you're not well-versed enough.

4. The system can be exploited
This is true, it is possible to do some mental things with setups to trick the car into some kind of mythical beast, I have seen this happen. However, whenever I see people use this example it is never the norm, it's always a single example and always an exception to the rule as it has been with me. Tricked setups are not something that happens on the regular because quite frankly they're a pain in the backside to work on and get right. The vast majority of people you will come up against will either be setting up like you or have the same setup (see point 3).
 
@Olepatude_SR one thing I don’t think you are accounting for in this argument is that even if tuning was enabled it would just result in tunes being shared across the community for people to use. And so rather than a race full of meta cars that you currently dislike it would be a lobby of meta cars that have been tuned exactly the same which is the same result as what you are complaining about.
 
PD setups are garbage by default - see the ludicrous rear toe. Literally, take that toe off every car and they actually handle. No tuning racing is only good if the tune that is provided is good to begin with. With a better base (or hell even just the toe adjustment) we wouldn't need the FWD's to be super powerful OP on straights as they could actually turn. RWD wouldn't want to kill you at a turn.
 
One of the smarter moves PD made with GTS... fully behind it and also like that it means their developers can focus on other aspects of the game instead of the huge work that would go with that... think about the model dynamics, all the BoP implications, etc.. it's best this way.
 
Granadier
@Olepatude_SR one thing I don’t think you are accounting for in this argument is that even if tuning was enabled it would just result in tunes being shared across the community for people to use. And so rather than a race full of meta cars that you currently dislike it would be a lobby of meta cars that have been tuned exactly the same which is the same result as what you are complaining about.
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I completely get what you're saying but I disagree, I don't think there would be one truly Meta car in these scenarios, it would bring so many more cars into contention. Which would allow for more diversity in these races and give a sense of euphoria killing the meta car on that track. Or at least it would for myself and a large number of people I race with.
 
Olepatude_SR
I completely get what you're saying but I disagree, I don't think there would be one truly Meta car in these scenarios, it would bring so many more cars into contention. Which would allow for more diversity in these races and give a sense of euphoria killing the meta car on that track. Or at least it would for myself and a large number of people I race with.
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No, tuning would just make the variances between the cars even greater. A BoP would still need to be applied to allow for races to be anything other than one makes. Otherwise cars like the DBR9 GT1 and McLaren F1 would wipe the floor with every single car in the paddock. If you think the current BoP system is not updated enough and doesn’t even the cars out enough... :lol:

Look at leagues like Snail and IRS to get a view in to just how much of a massive investment it is to have close racing between many different cars when tuning is enabled. And IRS even sets their own BoP and has an actual race engineer (@Herimopp89) working with them.
 
I know this has probably been hammered home pretty clearly at this point, but if I want to do a quick race online and I just take the default setup on whatever car is being used for that race, I don't want to get smoked by some sweaty grease-monkeys who spend hours more adjusting numbers on their car and optimizing settings than actually racing. If everyone has the same car and setup, it's all down to skill at that point, which is my definition of "real racing"

It's the same way I wouldn't consider races like Formula One to be "real" racing, it's as much about good drivers as it is about how much money, manpower and time a team can throw at a car to make it competitive. Series like F2/F3/F4 are closer to "real" racing because everyone's running the exact same car, so it's much closer and more about individual driver's skills.

So yeah, if you want tuning, start/join a league with open settings or run a lobby. Me personally, I always steer clear of no BoP/open tuning lobbies.
 
meekrab
Allowing tuning exponentially increases the time commitment involved. I want to fire up my PS4 at 5:25 on Monday after work and jump into the 5:30 race C, not spend an hour researching setups from forums or youtube and which car is gud.
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Same here.
 
GTPorsche
Those series aren't prohibited from setup adjustments.
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I said it was "closer" to my definition of real racing that I defined in the previous paragraph than F1 is, not that it entirely met said definition. Something that would meet my exact definition would be something like a KTM X-Bow Battle RoC race where every car is identical in setup and it's down to the driver's skill completely.
 
Granadier
No, tuning would just make the variances between the cars even greater. A BoP would still need to be applied to allow for races to be anything other than one makes. Otherwise cars like the DBR9 GT1 and McLaren F1 would wipe the floor with every single car in the paddock. If you think the current BoP system is not updated enough and doesn’t even the cars out enough... :lol:

Look at leagues like Snail and IRS to get a view in to just how much of a massive investment it is to have close racing between many different cars when tuning is enabled. And IRS even sets their own BoP and has an actual race engineer (@Herimopp89) working with them.
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I mean that's primarily because these cars don't belong in a class with GT3 spec cars. You can still run BoP with tuning enabled so I don't see how the game's own system in line with tuning would be a bad thing? Everyone has their own preference on how they choose to play the game, most peoples is convenience I suppose. Might as well make the game with one car and everyone races that, it seems it would make most of you very happy.
 
Olepatude_SR
I completely get what you're saying but I disagree, I don't think there would be one truly Meta car in these scenarios, it would bring so many more cars into contention. Which would allow for more diversity in these races and give a sense of euphoria killing the meta car on that track. Or at least it would for myself and a large number of people I race with.
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I don't know if you played GT 6 much but I did. Tuning was pretty much always allowed in every lobby and in every lobby there was always a meta. We used to have to set so many rules to get even a partially mixed field (no protos, >a certain kgs, < a certain bhp and on and on) in some categories (400pp, 500pp, 600pp etc.).

Or you could open your own lobbies with whatever rules you like. :)
 
My issue with this thread already is that the point I'm trying to get across is that this game can be skill-based without the need for every race to be a one make. I agree entirely that close racing can come from a one make series, or series with spec components (chassis, engine etc.) however, my issue is that I don't want this when there is clearly a class system in place with a wide array of vehicles that just aren't used when compared to the very few cars that are meta on each track. Tuning (for those who wish to invest time and effort into it over the casual player) would allow for those who want to stray away from the meta vehicles and still be competitive, making races more than just a GTR GT3 one make races around 80% of tracks. One make races are fun, and very enjoyable, but what satisfaction is there in unlocking 30+ Gr.3 cars only for the first one you buy to be the one you spend thousands of miles driving purely because its the only thing that'll win races. The driving experience is just as important as pace and results and tuning allows players to make a car fit the way they want to drive. What's so wrong with that? Sport mode can do what it wants it's PD's baby, but that has had an inherent knock-on into the general multiplayer community (as you have all made evident) So much so to the point where the game virtually has to be played one way. Gr.3 lobbies especially, the preferred class of a large majority of players, there are so few lobbies that encourage tuning, when you set a lobby up, 75% of players leave these lobbies after the first race even when using the "Meta" cars, purely because they're so used to winning in that car and cant lose because a good race hurts their ego more than wiping the floor with cars that aren't usually that fast. I can understand a lot of players don't want to invest time into tuning, I can also appreciate that this game isn't real life. But GT was more than this before GTS and was still fun and a competitive game to play. So what changed? Tuners are sweaty, People that do sport races exclusively are elitist, so where does that leave people that want actual balance?
 
They should fix tuning in general, first, like that reverse-rake exploit, and make the settings more understandable. I know I can look around online for guides, but that shouldn't be necessary. Hopefully both of these issues will be addressed in the next game.
 
Granadier
@Olepatude_SR one thing I don’t think you are accounting for in this argument is that even if tuning was enabled it would just result in tunes being shared across the community for people to use. And so rather than a race full of meta cars that you currently dislike it would be a lobby of meta cars that have been tuned exactly the same which is the same result as what you are complaining about.
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Not gonna lie this has never been my experience. Cars like the GTR have butted heads with AMGs, NSXs, Subarus and the Atenza (which is mid-pack at best stock let's be honest here.) Meta is still meta but it's not outright dominant just because PD says so. Also literally nothing wrong with sharing setups.
 
Ba55line
Not gonna lie this has never been my experience. Cars like the GTR have butted heads with AMGs, NSXs, Subarus and the Atenza (which is mid-pack at best stock let's be honest here.) Meta is still meta but it's not outright dominant just because PD says so. Also literally nothing wrong with sharing setups.
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They should allow tunes to be another thing you can share via the in-game social media, just like a livery or replay.
 
Olepatude_SR
My issue with this thread already is that the point I'm trying to get across is that this game can be skill-based without the need for every race to be a one make. I agree entirely that close racing can come from a one make series, or series with spec components (chassis, engine etc.) however, my issue is that I don't want this when there is clearly a class system in place with a wide array of vehicles that just aren't used when compared to the very few cars that are meta on each track. Tuning (for those who wish to invest time and effort into it over the casual player) would allow for those who want to stray away from the meta vehicles and still be competitive, making races more than just a GTR GT3 one make races around 80% of tracks. One make races are fun, and very enjoyable, but what satisfaction is there in unlocking 30+ Gr.3 cars only for the first one you buy to be the one you spend thousands of miles driving purely because its the only thing that'll win races. The driving experience is just as important as pace and results and tuning allows players to make a car fit the way they want to drive. What's so wrong with that? Sport mode can do what it wants it's PD's baby, but that has had an inherent knock-on into the general multiplayer community (as you have all made evident) So much so to the point where the game virtually has to be played one way. Gr.3 lobbies especially, the preferred class of a large majority of players, there are so few lobbies that encourage tuning, when you set a lobby up, 75% of players leave these lobbies after the first race even when using the "Meta" cars, purely because they're so used to winning in that car and cant lose because a good race hurts their ego more than wiping the floor with cars that aren't usually that fast. I can understand a lot of players don't want to invest time into tuning, I can also appreciate that this game isn't real life. But GT was more than this before GTS and was still fun and a competitive game to play. So what changed? Tuners are sweaty, People that do sport races exclusively are elitist, so where does that leave people that want actual balance?
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Here is a list showing the GT 500 cars used during a TT event for GT 5. It was open for all GT 500 cars and tuning was enabled. Notice anything?

http://www.mygranturismo.net/rankings.php?sec=3&board=150

There's always a meta, tuning or no tuning, and people will always gravitate to it.
 

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