What happened to actual racing??

[Granadier]

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.

The problem I have with your argument is that you are taking your viewpoint, declaring that as the best option for “real racing”, and then complaining and saying that the lack of your minority viewpoint being included in the game is a blight on it in its entirety.

Side note: if you are good enough you can win with literally any car in the game. So I guess just git gud if you are tired of the meta?

 

[Groundfish]

Part of the position advocating tuning is based on the false premise that there’s a meta car that’s not beatable. Even last week with the METAtenza I saw many cars being used to podium and win that weren’t Mazdas.

 

[DesertPenguin]

Exactly. You can put a crappy driver in the best car and they'll still get beat by the best driver in the worst car.

 

[mef]

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.

Never felt I could trust tuning in GTS because we don't know how physical the game is. Some tuning was also allowed that is not possible in real life like extreme balance shifting, which made me think other things could be bogus as well. It didn't help that there was no way to record or log tyre temperatures or suspension data like use stroke, or detect if a car bottomed out.

So not allowing tuning prevents fake setups in the game that exploit the physics engine, and that is a good thing too.
Although I would agree proper physical tuning would be awesome, but it has to be physics based, not some fuzzy numbers.

 

[DesertPenguin]

but it has to be physics based, not some fuzzy numbers.

It is? I don't know a lot about cars but I'm pretty sure the suspension tuning options are all real things. Some might be named slightly differently but yea.

 

[mef]

It is? I don't know a lot about cars but I'm pretty sure the suspension tuning options are all real things. Some might be named slightly differently but yea.

It's not the naming of settings that matters as much as whether the physics engine is fully integrated, meaning aero, suspension, suspension pickup points, chassis flex, tyre model (huge point on its own) are calculated realistically without any 'fudge' numbers (like an overall grip modifier) to make the car drive in a particular way.

If you don't know about cars all this may matter little to you. I do track days in real life and the odd competitive time trial in my S2000. I'd like to think I can learn from tuning in sim racing but not sure GTS is the title for that.

 

[alx42]

It's not the naming of settings that matters as much as whether the physics engine is fully integrated, meaning aero, suspension, suspension pickup points, chassis flex, tyre model (huge point on its own) are calculated realistically without any 'fudge' numbers (like an overall grip modifier) to make the car drive in a particular way.

If you don't know about cars all this may matter little to you. I do track days in real life and the odd competitive time trial in my S2000. I'd like to think I can learn from tuning in sim racing but not sure GTS is the title for that.

Over my years of playing all of the Gran Turismos, they give the general population a good idea of what these tuning measures do to a vehicle (positively or negatively) only if the end user puts in the time and effort into the game. Yet over the last versions of this game, PD has made it more and more accessible for people to play. Which is not a bad thing. It's just not ideal for people that love to adjust vehicle settings and get the best out of a car, like myself and others.

So, you can learn a bit from Gran Turismo (or any other simcade/sim racing game), and use it as a baseline. However, your best bet is real life experience and talking to others that participate in the same events you do.

 

[NevilleNobody]

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.

It's as simple as this, it really is. Discussion ends here. The entire point of SPORT is ruined with tuning, it's meant to be pick up and play racing.

I would maybe allow front and rear downforce on Group 4 and faster cars as I find 99% of people understand the concept and the trade off is REALLY easy to understand, but i'd end it there.

 

[meekrab]

It's as simple as this, it really is. Discussion ends here. The entire point of SPORT is ruined with tuning, it's meant to be pick up and play racing.

I would maybe allow front and rear downforce on Group 4 and faster cars as I find 99% of people understand the concept and the trade off is REALLY easy to understand, but i'd end it there.

If we were to allow some limited tuning I'd rather have front and rear anti-roll bars be the modifiable component, but yes the point of the game is to jump in and drive against people of similar skill, tuning just benefits the person who has more time available.

 

[mef]

So, you can learn a bit from Gran Turismo (or any other simcade/sim racing game), and use it as a baseline. However, your best bet is real life experience and talking to others that participate in the same events you do.

I think that's accurate. It is just so tempting to use the game to attempt to understand what real life changes you could expect from particular 'mods'.

For example my real life S2000 has stiffer springs but stock dampers (not ideal) so I'm thinking to move to coil overs. I also know I don't have enough camber on stock adjusters to get the tyres into their right windows.

I'd love to use Gran Turismo to replicate my real life setup and test changes. It is just not quite there it seems. Effects of camber and toe are hard to judge because temperature read out is for an entire tyre, not inside middle outside (how you evaluate a tyre in real life to judge your alingment).

I'm sure I'm asking too much for the general GT audience but I just feel Gran Turismo made steps to be used in a more serious way by connecting real driving data to a game when they added data logging to GT6 and ability to import logging data (I think that may have been for Nissan GTRs only).
I wished there was more than that in the game.

Connecting the real life driving with virtual driving has always been a core GT experience to me --the most essential one having so many cars in game that you can drive your own car in game. I do hope GT7 will add features in this regard and have a more up-to-date carlist. Edit: For example Microsofts satellite mapping technology used to fly the entire planet in Flight Simulator 2020 is a tantalising technology. Imagine driving any car in GT7 on your local favourite back roads.

GT Sport is a great title, but it has deviated very far from what made Gran Turismo (famous) originally.

 

[NevilleNobody]

You can do all that in lobbies though, that's exactly what it is for. SPORT is meant to be pick up, turn a few qualy laps and race asap. It's aimed smack at the middle aged dad with wife, mortgage and other stuff to worry about, he has no time to get his dampers just right around seaside for goodness sake.

 

[ShiftingGears]

GT Sport is a great title, but it has deviated very far from what made Gran Turismo (famous) originally.

I think the issue is that in many aspects, the offline game hasn't deviated at all from what made GT famous. What was ahead of its time in 1998 is stale in 2020.

 

[Stencedaddy]

You can do all that in lobbies though, that's exactly what it is for. SPORT is meant to be pick up, turn a few qualy laps and race asap. It's aimed smack at the middle aged dad with wife, mortgage and other stuff to worry about, he has no time to get his dampers just right around seaside for goodness sake.

lets not act like lobbies are a viable alternative. usually they have 2 people in them or off track grip set to low instead of real. i look at the lobbies when i get on gt usually but there is rarely ones worth joining aside from Free runs.

 

[ThePotatoKing]

Although tuning does need time to get right and takes away from the whole "hop in and race" mentality, it is true that many cars would be way more viable with tuning enabled, especially the more demanding ones in terms of driving skills(Huracan, RS.01, 458) or the generally uncompetitive(SLS, Z4, Viper etc.). It wouldnt necessarily make them THE meta but at least you wouldnt be condemned to be stuck in the back of the field every time you use them.

It would also help if the game did a better job at teaching new players atleast the basic of setup, in the same philosophy the licences help you understand the basics of driving.

 

[NevilleNobody]

lets not act like lobbies are a viable alternative. usually they have 2 people in them or off track grip set to low instead of real. i look at the lobbies when i get on gt usually but there is rarely ones worth joining aside from Free runs.

That's 'cos everyone is playing SPORT because it's easily accessible

 

[Veinz]

Tuning or not, there will always be a meta car but at the same time you can make other cars more competitive with it.

Working on the setup is an integral part of racing. I would love to have the option to change settings, especially the rear toe or diff. I get that they took it out to keep it more casual but I really dislike when developers dumb down their games like this.

 

[05XR8]

I've learned alot of tuning from Best Motoring videos. In all my 49 years, I did look at racing magazines and saw technical info, but seeing the set ups in those BMI/Hot Version videos and being able to apply some exact numbers to the same cars in Gran Turismo, helped me understand these settings more.

Games are tough, just like the real world, many drivers are not engineers. In tiers where the driver has to concentrate on driving and the engineer figures what the driver needs from that particular car, for specific conditions at a specific track, that's too much for one person to compute.
In this game, say all players don't have access to other players that know how to tune, there leaves a huge gap to those than can set up a car and those that can extract the best performance from their standard set up.

I can tune cars in this game, but some tunes may not suit all players. So, again, it's pretty hard to tune cars for one size fits all. The way it is in GT, some can understand how certain cars behave, while others struggle. Tuning doesn't necessarily mean either player will improve with a specific car.

 

[TPMLEGACY]

I can tune cars in this game, but some tunes may not suit all players. So, again, it's pretty hard to tune cars for one size fits all. The way it is in GT, some can understand how certain cars behave, while others struggle. Tuning doesn't necessarily mean either player will improve with a specific car.

Everyone has different preferences for their own driving style, and how they like the car to behave, I think the “plug and play” nature of GT is fine the way it is, too much time spent on setups would alienate a large majority of casual players. Possibly letting setups in FIA Manufacturers races would push it towards a better trade off with BOP.

Many moons ago I was lucky enough to take part in a couple of endurance races, having 3 drivers with completely different driving styles and the way they want the car to feel, (one was from autograss and the other from ‘proper’ Formula E, Superkart) it’s a tough compromise to come to, but I think that’s kind of what we have with the fixed settings.

 

[05XR8]

Everyone has different preferences for their own driving style, and how they like the car to behave, I think the “plug and play” nature of GT is fine the way it is, too much time spent on setups would alienate a large majority of casual players. Possibly letting setups in FIA Manufacturers races would push it towards a better trade off with BOP.

Many moons ago I was lucky enough to take part in a couple of endurance races, having 3 drivers with completely different driving styles and the way they want the car to feel, (one was from autograss and the other from ‘proper’ Formula E, Superkart) it’s a tough compromise to come to, but I think that’s kind of what we have with the fixed settings.

Some standard tunes in GT are close to the real cars. Just as an example from a couple years ago
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/threads/2001-and-or-2008-porsche-carrera-cup.382018/

Some cars can be tuned to the real eorld, instead of PD's standard tune of .60 rear toe angle. Would casual players notice any changes? Probably not. Same as a general consumer that buys a car because of price, over the way it drives and doesn't know if it's fwd, awd or rwd.

 

[mef]

I think what PD have done with tuning in GTS works well for the intended purpose of the game --which is to evolve console racing to iracing-esque level of match making based on skills. it is easy to forget this did just not exist before GTS invented it for consoles. That is the main point, everything else in the game serves it.

My comments about tuning are more aimed about what I'd like in a future GT title that is more general about cars, not specifically online racing with FIA tie in etc.

The original formula of the single player mode of doing races after races may be somewhat stale but I think that is largely a presentation and pacing issue. With better presentation, the idea of winning races to get more cars, buy more tuning etc is still exciting I'd argue. After all isn't owning more cars what we all would like? I'd love to own what I can in GT6, that's for sure haha.

Edit: With match making having been solved the chances are high that PD will fuse online elements into the formerly offline career mode also, which could spice things up. I think the GT formula is fundamentally strong and will be evolved. Just wait and see I have faith PD won't just give us a procession of fully offline races.

 

[NosOsH]

If the bop were based on power/weight, most cars would technically be tunable pretty close to each other.
'meta's' would be much less of a meta because they simply have more power and better gearing than others and maybe because their suspension works better, or the dimensions of the car work better, or whatever factor it may be. Less because the car can literally pull 3-5 tenths on another car in its same class on a single straight.
Bop is literally broken in gr4 atm, and i wont touch it with a 10 foot pole, gr1 too as well as nclass cars.
At least with the pp system and tuning allowed, the class's would be dynamic and fun.
The only reason tuning doesnt work in gts is because the BOP is arbitrary and there is always a meta.

 

[MaxAttack]

Driver is way more important than setups in GTS, so we already have what you are looking for.

Many people make the mistake of watching world tour/top split streams and presuming racing will work the same way at their level - that their car won't be able to catch the car that's dominating top split based on its BoP.

That's not true at all - until you are in the tippy toppiest of splits, you are not against drivers that can keep a car at the grip limit for an entire race, quite far from that in fact. You'll notice the people driving the meta cars you watched in top split are 2, 3, 5 seconds slower than the alien - yet the aliens driving the non-meta cars are within a second and a half.

What does this mean? It means you can be quicker than whatever else. In fact I think there's a tangible advantage to driving lesser known cars. I've used the gr.3 Genesis quite a lot - it is not a car that excels at anything, and 2nd gear is dangerously drifty, however people aren't aware of the characteristics of the car and it can surprise people with its balanced performance.

I drive the NSX in both groups for the same reason - no one is prepared for how good of an all rounder the gr.4 is, it will outhandle the FFs and it will hang with any FR or MR just about anywhere. Easy car to drive, so easy car to race. The gr. 3 is more of a specialist deal, but people are more familiar with the R8, to which it is similar, even so the NSX will hang with any gr. 3 car and honestly leave a lot in the dust if managed properly.

So, IMO, you're asking for tuning to do something you can achieve alone with skill, and properly learning to drive your car of choice. I hate the gr.3 GTR - I always slide it, and I can't go fast in it because I haven't put in the time to understand it. Hopping over to the top16 meta car just doesn't actually make you instantly faster.

I'm mechanically inclined, a real car-head and student of engineering, and I hate tuning. It's tedious and laborious and I just wanna hit the track. I'm sure that's not an unpopular opinion. Just be happy they let you tune at all, and find a private league that allows it. All I use it for is putting 5 degrees of camber on the front of a road car, stiffening it within an inch of its life, locking the diff and sliding it around.

And drive whatever race car you want. Meta might dictate powertrain to a degree sometimes, but you always have a choice. Screw what the aliens are doing to save every .005 and just drive what you enjoy, I guarantee if you put time into and master that car, you can pass whatever else you come across.

 

[DoctorNuu]

I mostly agree with the idea that messing with the suspension details is not such a good idea because the (flaws in the) physics sim can be exploited.

However, I would argue that some simple settings actually could make for more interesting races.

• Downforce - top speed vs cornering
• Gear ratio - avoid some cars topping out at some very long straights
• Simple suspension stiffness setting - slow vs fast corners (would probably be ridiculed, however)

 

[alx42]

I think that's accurate. It is just so tempting to use the game to attempt to understand what real life changes you could expect from particular 'mods'.

For example my real life S2000 has stiffer springs but stock dampers (not ideal) so I'm thinking to move to coil overs. I also know I don't have enough camber on stock adjusters to get the tyres into their right windows.

I'd love to use Gran Turismo to replicate my real life setup and test changes. It is just not quite there it seems. Effects of camber and toe are hard to judge because temperature read out is for an entire tyre, not inside middle outside (how you evaluate a tyre in real life to judge your alingment).

I'm sure I'm asking too much for the general GT audience but I just feel Gran Turismo made steps to be used in a more serious way by connecting real driving data to a game when they added data logging to GT6 and ability to import logging data (I think that may have been for Nissan GTRs only).
I wished there was more than that in the game.

Connecting the real life driving with virtual driving has always been a core GT experience to me --the most essential one having so many cars in game that you can drive your own car in game. I do hope GT7 will add features in this regard and have a more up-to-date carlist. Edit: For example Microsofts satellite mapping technology used to fly the entire planet in Flight Simulator 2020 is a tantalising technology. Imagine driving any car in GT7 on your local favourite back roads.

GT Sport is a great title, but it has deviated very far from what made Gran Turismo (famous) originally.

The real life replication is off in GTS, however, you can play Project Cars 2 or Assetto Corsa to have a better virtual-to-real life experience (on consoles). For your example of changing suspension alignment, you can run the live data feature while you drive in PC2 to see how your adjustments are affecting the tire.

Off topic recommendation: I would only install coilovers if you plan to track the car on a consistent basis, or if your S2K is a not your primary vehicle. Reason being, coilovers are too stiff for the daily driving. You'll do just fine with stiffer springs and dampers to match.

 

[mirial]

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.

Maybe someone can correct me, but when you analyse everything, PD have neutered everything everywhere to even the playing field as much as possible. My first impressions upon release were that the attempts were random, but they were very aware after all. One of the patterns being that the more forgiving the grip, the more neutral the cars tend to be (N400 etc), whereas the less forgiving the grip (like a Gr.1 or Superformula) then the cars have horrendous understeer because of the rear-end.

When you introduce open settings, the gap will increase a lot because some setups will be better than others, but also faster drivers and beyond will set their cars up to be much better balanced as they will be able to handle cars much closer to the limit. With circuits which have many understeer corners, the alien driver will set his car up to be neutral for these, but will accept the dangerous handling elsewhere.

Also, they have kept the default ABS, which still acts like an ASM on corner entry as they are still possibly trying to level the playing field by eliminating you being able to rotate the car under braking.

 

[x5abotagex86]

Once upon a time I really enjoyed dipping my toes in tuning cars in GT3, once I was a comfortable driver. It was fun and rewarding, and time in = benefit.

Not saying I spent a lot of time doing it, but it was, to me, a part of the essence of GT and all its dynamics.

At a minimum, knowing the game for what it is;

I am still very surprised there’s not more of a focus on competitive tuning... branches... of Leagues/weekly races, at a minimum.

I think catering to this community much more, without requiring anything new from players, playing the game as is, is a miss opportunity.

Again at a minimum, it would reward experts and the dedicated / intrigue and encourage players / and build a better dynamic game that made the series what it is.

But, anything overbearing would be intimidating to me to play competitively., and I like the game how it is. Still very surprised at the continued... missed... opportunity

 

[sundaydriving]

.

 

[Razgriz2118]

As someone who generally doesn't have much time to play video games period, let alone try to tune a car to be competitive, prohibiting tuning in the Sport races is what keeps me going back to them because it's more "casual." I don't have to worry about being disadvantaged because of a setup. While I'd love to spend time tuning a car to perfection for a track, I simply can't commit the time to that, nor to the time it would take to become good at tuning. I'd like to be able to pick a car, knowing its general strengths and weaknesses, and go compete with it. That way, it's not another skill to test (skill of tuning), it's mainly a skill of driving.

 

[dnlnnhs]

A bit of a different topic, but I find the BoP adjustments made over the many game updates non-sense. These are all virtual cars. All numbers. PD could set every car to have the same exact specs - other than the virtual "skin" - they would all perform identically, leaving driver skill the sole factor. In particular the GR.1,2,3 cars.

Back on topic, I like having the ability to tune a car. I don't race much online but I often challenge myself by taking tuned cars against superior class cars (N200 vs GR.4's on the Ring in a Custom race for instance). Back on GT6 I did tuning for B Spec races - letting "Bob" do the hard work.

 

[Olepatude_SR]

After doing some investigation I have found that for the most part, BOP is a little bit of a joke, as @dnlnnhs and others before have pointed out if they wanted to make it fully "skill-based" every car would fundamentally be the same. Funnily enough, however, polyphony seems to almost agree with that ideology as every car runs near identical setups on EVERY TRACK (small camber changes and some deviance in natural frequency between cars). How can that be balanced? A car with an inherently stiffer platform will perform better at different tracks than those with softer platforms and this encourages people to jump to the Meta for each respective track. Also looking into power to weight ratios cars like the GTR GT3 and the Atenza have a significantly higher power to weight than cars such as the Alfa 4C or BMW Z4. I can appreciate an element of this is due to the physical dimensions of various cars. But if every car is running the same setup, how can they not have equal power to weight? The BOP system is a lazy excuse for people to "put driver skill over being able to tune". The way I look at it now, if you spend 15/30mins on the game when you log in working on tuning (in which you still need to drive the car), eventually, you will have some sort of base tune for each extreme of track type. Like with anything, these are just my opinions, but I don't think it can be stated enough that this BOP system is inherently flawed. Not as much effort has gone into it as people seem to think.

As a sort of tangent to this thread, I would like to see some changes in GT7 where there is a more intense organised online mode for those who wish to invest the time into setups and turn it into the Sim Racing E-sport that it's currently trying to compete with. Keep the current iteration of the sport mode for more casual players that don't have the time or the inclination to pursue such things, still have competitive E-sport circuits for both. Most leagues and online lobbies in GT Sport as it is now are tiresome and lobbies die after 1 or 2 races. It would even be nice to see team-based racing maybe if lobby sizes increase (which lets be real, on next-gen it should be grids of at least 25/30). Having a team of two or three and racing in an organised series operated by the game with up to 10 or 15 other teams respectively (fairly realistic) would be a game-changer and dish out incentives for drivers to do testing and commit to a car for a season, punish those who change their car every race, just create a bit more realism. Anyway interested to see people's thoughts.