|
 IN THE BEGINNING On October 17, 2017, Polyphony Digital released Gran Turismo Sport on the PlayStation 4. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. Many gamers declared the series officially dead, as GTS stripped out much of the more gamer-friendly fluff like car collecting and the racing-RPG aspect of buying cheap pieces of crap to beat very rudimentary and unskilled AIs in 3-lap sprints in order to get a quick and easy serotonin bump. What they failed to recognize, however, is how that style of gameplay has spawned a generation of incredibly lovely players with no sense of racecraft or knowledge of motorsport, which was the opposite goal that series producer Kazunori Yamauchi originally had for the Gran Turismo franchise. Right up front, if car-Pokemon and single-player racing against AIs is what you want out of a racing game, Gran Turismo Sport is simply not for you. I don't mean that in a mean way, it's just not. If you just want to buy a car and cruise around and slam into things, GTS doesn't want you anywhere near it and both it and you would be happier if you'd just find something else to play, and that's perfectly fine. There's a reason GTS is often called "iRacing Lite," as it actively and rather blatantly cribs on most of what iRacing does, but simplified down significantly to be more console-friendly. The Sportsmanship Rating system is practically a straight up lift, and the Driver Rating is very similar to iRacing's "iRating" system. Both games also revolve almost exclusively around official organized multiplayer races. When it was launched, GTS had very little single-player content, and what was there was mainly geared towards helping players improve their driving for the flagship Sport Mode. Unfortunately, most gamers didn't get the memo and seeing that GTS failed to check off as many feature-boxes as other games, took a poo poo on it and went on to play the more arcade-style Project Cars or Forza 7 instead. Which, again, is fine. That's exactly what they should have done. However, amongst the player base that actually enjoys the online competitiveness of GTS, it's developed something of a cult following. The SR/DR rating system, while certainly not perfect, has significantly helped to clean up online console racing. The system does a reasonably good job of matchmaking drivers of similar skill levels while pushing you to improve as a driver to be cleaner and faster on the track rather than rely on overpowering your car in order to win. Basically, if you're at a rating plateau, you have no one to blame but yourself. ONE YEAR LATER Some of this has changed over the past year, though. There is now a single-player campaign mode that is, for all intents and purposes, the same thing that's been included in previous GT games, containing over 40 single-player events and championship series. There's still no CarPG, and most of the tuning is now done via simple sliders instead of purchasing individual components. According to Kaz, you can blame your stupid kids for that. Kazunori Yamauchi posted:"Twenty years ago, when we did the first Gran Turismo, people knew what happens when you change an air filter; people knew what increased compression ratios do to your car. But the new users don’t have that knowledge anymore because they’re not as interested in the cars, so we’ve simplified that area [of the game] so you can do the exact same thing you were doing in the past, but it’s more user-friendly for people just getting into cars." The amount of content added over the past year is enough that, were GTS released in the state it's in today rather than how it was a year ago, it's a safe bet that it would've been reviewed at least a little better and would probably enjoy a larger overall playerbase. 85 cars have been added, for a total of 255, and the new 9 tracks with 26 layouts offer a total of 26 tracks with 54 layouts. More content is still on the way, with another track announced just today. RATINGS EXPLAINED Sport Mode revolves around the SR and DR rating systems. These ratings are only changed through Sport Mode racing. The Single player content will give you more XP and credits, but have zero bearing on your ratings. SR is your Sportsmanship Rating, and is the same as the Safety Rating in iRacing. This rating refers to how clean you are on a corner-by-corner basis. This number goes down when you make mistakes -- or, as the Etiquette video you're required to watch to play Sport Mode says, when you do something that "makes you look bad." This means cutting corners, hitting walls or other cars, losing control of the car, going off-track, etc. When racing, if you see a green SR icon, you gained SR. If you see an orange SR icon, you lost SR. The ranking goes from D to S, with S being the highest. Your SR is important to keep up, as you cannot progress in DR beyond your SR rank. Getting to and maintaining an S rank in SR is both fairly easy and should be considered a minimum requirement if you're going to take Sport Mode at all seriously. Your SR will fluctuate, but it is very easy to increase, so if you wind up taking a hit and dropping to A or B, just keep racing, it'll be back up in no time. DR is your Driver Rating. Your goal should be to work towards the vaunted A+ ratings, but unlike SR, is very challenging to raise. When we talk about 'plateauing' your ranking, DR is generally what we're talking about. DR is a tiered system, where your letter rank raises with your overall score: A+ – 50,000 – 75,000 A – 30,000 – 49,999 B – 10,000 – 29,999 C – 4,000 – 9,999 D – 1 – 3,999 (E – 1 – 1,999) (Rookie rating -- once you leave E, you don't go back) DR is increased by cleanly finishing at a better position than your rating indicates you should. When you enter a Sport Mode race, you are assigned a car #; this number refers to what your DR rating is amongst the field you'll be competing with. You are expected to finish at that position or higher in order to gain DR. If you don't, your DR will decrease. Example, if you start the race as Car #5, but your qualifying time puts you at position #8 at the start of the race, you need to gain at least 3 positions to increase your DR. Finishing 6th will lower your DR. If you're the #1 car, then you're expected to win. No pressure, right? To view your current rating in numbers, you can use the Unofficial GTS Companion App for Android or iOS or you can use Kudos Prime; you'll need to get your user profile # by logging into https://www.gran-turismo.com and copying the 7-digit number in the URL (for example: https://www.gran-turismo.com/us/gtsport/user/profile/1514563 is mine) and plugging it into the URL on Kudos (ie, https://www.kudosprime.com/gts/stats.php?profile=1514563 - also mine). THE GOOD For starters, GTS is really, really pretty. Especially if you have a PS4 Pro and 4K & HDR. The cars are gorgeous, the tracks are beautiful and detailed, and as always GTS excels at lighting effects. The driving feels fast and fun, even if a bit exaggerated at times. The cockpit views are incredibly detailed and usable. Some of the new fictional tracks are truly great additions to the series, especially Maggiore and the recent addition St. Croix. Some of the older fan-favorites are missing, and the suspicion is that the FIA affiliation is the reason we may not see some of them in GTS. Since GTS is affiliated with the FIA, the official online races are about the best you can get on a console. Once you get around mid-B DR with a high SR, the races feel clean and somewhat professional, with only a few idiots instead of field full of wanna-be demolition derby drivers. If drivers are given enough penalties, they're disqualified and disconnected, and a recent update also allows you to report drivers who are deliberate troublemakers. The official Gran Turismo TV YouTube Channel also shows races of the top GTS players and pro racers, which are honestly every bit as exciting to watch as real racing at times. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTDUA-q7qTo&t=3870s GTS also sports what is arguably one of the best livery editors in a racing game. The ability to upload pretty much anything as an SVG makes recreating famous liveries and inventing just about any fantasy livery you can imagine a breeze. You can create and apply your own numberboards and class decals for your own racing series if you want. THE BAD There are a few negative points that are almost always brought up, so we'll just address them now. 1) Recently, PD changed the Daily races into Weekly races. This is both good and bad; the good is that they tend to be cleaner towards the middle of the week because people get more practice in, but being stuck with only 3 events for 7 days inevitably leads to burnout. Especially when they stick a crappy car on a crappy track that no one wants to do anyway (looking at you, VW Beetle on Tokyo Expressway, wtf?!). Ideally, they could easily have both - make two races Daily and have one or two races be weekly. No idea why this isn't happening. 2) Since launch, there have been Wet and Intermediate tires available. There is no wet weather at all. Period. Is it coming? Who knows?! They've been pretty quiet about this topic, other than there'll be no dynamic weather. 3) Also no dynamic time of day. Now, what's there looks amazing, but there's a distinct lack of night racing. Including on Circuit de la Sarthe. I mean, wtf, really? 4) Microtransactions. This always gets brought up but it's a total non-issue. Yes, you can pay a buck or two for a car, but it's never required. The game itself is pretty generous with credits if you just play it, so there's little reason to pay for anything unless you're just really, really impatient. Additionally, the most expensive cars in the game aren't even available through MTs, so you might as well just play the game and ignore them. In fact, you can turn off the MT menu entirely in the settings and pretend they don't exist (you absolutely should do this). 5) Ghosting. Since the console community is still a console community and thus full of assholes, even some of the higher-ranked races are populated by people who just want to show up and see how many people they can wreck. To combat this, GTS has gotten really aggressive about ghosting cars who are even slightly out of the racing line. This sucks because it messes with drafting and actual close-quarter racing. Hopefully they tone it down, or at least give lobbies the ability to turn it off entirely, for real this time. 6) "Simcade." Yeah, GT bills itself as the "Real Driving Simulator," which is really eye-roll worthy. Compared to sims like iRacing and Assetto Corsa, GTS is pretty far from being a "Simulator." The overall driving and physics engine is a lot less realistic than what one would expect out of a simulator, but that doesn't mean it's a straight out arcade-racer. The same skillsets and concepts of racing still apply to GTS, they're just less pronounced and at times less important overall (see #5). PD and Sony love their GT-to-real-racing-driver marketing gimmick though, so it's probably not going anywhere anytime soon. 7) VR Support. Yeah, it's there, and racing in VR is amazing and definitely the wave of the future, Dude. But you only get to use it in Single Player and time trials, making it more of a "Hey look, neato" feature if you already have PSVR rather than a reason to get into VR. OUR COMMUNITY If you're wondering why I'm bothering to post a second thread for a year-old game that's been mostly panned, it's because 1) I don't feel like GTS is the same game it was a year ago, and 2) we have a very active GTS goon community that we'd love to see grow even more. We have an average of around 6 people racing every Saturday and Monday nights. Saturdays are a regular GT series, and Mondays are a One-Make series. We also run one-off events, like the 2.4 Hours of Le Mans. Drivers of every skill level are welcome, the only requirement is that you own a copy of GTS and show up! If you think I missed anything or need something added, let me know! 
TremorX fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Oct 19, 2018 |
#
?
Oct 19, 2018 21:24
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 04:52 |
|
|
Seriously join our goon league. We have prizes and cash! I won my avatar in there.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2018 21:25
|
|
|
poo poo is a ton of fun. Really got me into racing again.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2018 02:41
|
|
|
Yeah it's surprisingly really fun to just log on and race and go for the perfect line. We've all helped each other improve in the league and it's been a blast getting together.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2018 02:52
|
|
|
I waited a bit from launch to pick up GT Sport, but it's been the game I've played the most in this past year. I spent much of the post-Christmas vacation time last year playing Sport Mode dailies and working on the single-player content, and once the goon racing picked up, I joined in heartily. TremorX is absolutely spot on -- this game is not a CarPG, or Car Pokemon, and it's all the better for that. It's more focused -- on the art and sport of racing on a track. On racing with similar cars, and of driving cleanly but fast. It's one of the few racing games I've really enjoyed racing against the public on, the ranking system works well and does pretty well to encourage good behavior and penalize bad behavior. It works well and is being adopted by other games for a reason. [edit] Ineffiable posted:Yeah it's surprisingly really fun to just log on and race and go for the perfect line. We've all helped each other improve in the league and it's been a blast getting together. says the guy who keeps winning 
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2018 14:17
|
|
|
Just consider it me pushing you guys to keep racing faster and cleaner each time. People have beaten me because they did cleaner races and most of the time when you guys do faster qualifying times, it helps me push to try and beat that time. And I can set times that you guys are encouraged to try and beat. We really all keep pushing each other! Also TremorX has the best school of battling lessons. We've learned a lot about attacking and defending from him.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2018 18:15
|
|
|
Man I am struggling with turn 2 on Red Bull Ring -- the sharp right hander at the top of the hill. I either cut it too hard and spin out on exit, or go too wide and use too much runoff. I really like the track but it's deceptively tough to turn good times on.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2018 21:57
|
|
|
Red bull ring is deceptively simple but challenging. You usually just never have to perform these tight turns on most other tracks. On other circuits you have more road.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2018 22:42
|
|
|
I need to get some practice on that tonight. I reply like how GTS has extra features that help you learn the track and the apexes like the brake cones and those weird apex blue things. It really helps remind me to use the entire track in a turn.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2018 22:58
|
|
|
I like racing cars. Preferably with goons instead of
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2018 01:28
|
|
|
Do you need PS+ to join leagues? I picked this up recently after platting Driveclub ages ago and needing to scratch that itch, and while I tend to stay away from online racing I'd like to contribute terrible times to leaderboards 
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2018 12:04
|
|
|
I think you need ps+ to join us in racing online but probably not for scores stuff.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2018 15:09
|
|
|
Great race last night you butts. I really really need to work on my throttle. I'm losing like 2 or 3 seconds due to over steer out of turns.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2018 18:07
|
|
|
I don't play this game but I've been watching Super GT recently and he makes great, fun vids mostly about this game. Never cared much for racing games but watching him race with actual technique made things click in my brain and now I kind of want to get in on it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2018 18:16
|
|
|
Det_no posted:I don't play this game but I've been watching Super GT recently and he makes great, fun vids mostly about this game. Never cared much for racing games but watching him race with actual technique made things click in my brain and now I kind of want to get in on it. Omg do it! We race cleanly and you can ask any of those guys about who's probably the most improved. It's me. I'm the most improved.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2018 20:38
|
|
|
Mercedes posted:Omg do it! We race cleanly and you can ask any of those guys about who's probably the most improved. **Improvements may require $500+ in equipment like steering wheel and racing chair.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2018 22:53
|
|
|
Or not. The controller setup is really friendly but flexible — first time I’ve been able to really train brake and modulate brakes in a racing game. That actually reminds me of my favorite part — in other “sim-ish” racers (Project Cars, Forza, etc) there’s a lot of emphasis placed on your car setup. Some of that is still there, but the top racing cars use locked setups in the online races (“Balance of Performance”). The benefits are twofold: first, it helps keep a wide variety of cars close for online racing; and second, it forces you to improve your driving instead of find the fastest suspension setup. There are a few small adjustments you make in-race (brake bias, traction control) and they are REALLY helpful to dial in how you race.
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2018 23:19
|
|
|
I don't think I know how to use the brake bias to any benefit...
|
|
#
?
Oct 21, 2018 23:41
|
|
|
Basically if you need to shorten your braking distance, bias it towards the front. If you need more oversteer through a corner, bias it towards the rear. 2 is about the most I ever use in either direction.
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2018 03:13
|
|
|
I use it to take pressure of the front or rear tires when one is losing too much traction.
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2018 03:31
|
|
|
That, too. Front bias creates understeer, rear creates oversteer. Rear bias also helps rotate the car more when trail braking. It’s something you can adjust quickly to change the attitude of a car even in BoP races, so definitely don’t overlook it!
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2018 03:43
|
|
|
Exactly. If the car has too much understeer coming into a corner, moving the bias back and helping the car rotate will do wonders. Same if it’s too squirrelly under braking. Keep in mind the +/- is based on where the car starts. Much of the time, GT3 cars will start with a real rearward brake bias, so moving it forward a little can help tame it. The other to play with is traction control, but that’s as much comfort as it is raw speed. Some tracks I use 2, others I can get away with 1 (on the gamepad). Sometimes in our long races I’ll start at 1 and move to 2 to help the tires late in a stint.
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2018 04:22
|
|
|
With the newer tire model I haven’t been using TCS for driving at all. I only use it to launch off the grid then immediately cut it off. It just feels like I can be more consistent without it. The only assist I use is weak ABS, because I still struggle being consistent with the brake pedal.
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2018 07:59
|
|
|
TremorX posted:With the newer tire model I haven’t been using TCS for driving at all. I only use it to launch off the grid then immediately cut it off. It just feels like I can be more consistent without it. The only assist I use is weak ABS, because I still struggle being consistent with the brake pedal. Using a pad it seems like at Red Bull Ring, TC1 is “power oversteer on corner exit possible” while TC2 is “more consistent but might bog down,” so you can understand how and why it’s cutting power to perform traction control, but up to the driver to learn how to get around the problem. I wound up using TC2 and just being careful not to bog it down, for consistency’s sake.
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2018 08:23
|
|
|
For being four wheel drive, the GTR really is unforgiving when it comes to TC0
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2018 17:57
|
|
|
Mercedes posted:For being four wheel drive, the GTR really is unforgiving when it comes to TC0 Yeah the audi r8 2007 is awd and super stable at TCS0 What a fun car.
|
|
#
?
Oct 22, 2018 23:34
|
|
|
Mercedes posted:For being four wheel drive, the GTR really is unforgiving when it comes to TC0  the GT-R we use for Gr3 races is rear-wheel only. All-wheel drive is banned in most forms of circuit racing (as opposed to rallying). So the street car and Gr4 car is AWD, but the GT-R GT3 for Gr3 is RWD.
|
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2018 00:33
|
|
|
harperdc posted:
WELL THAT EXPLAINS A poo poo TON OF STUFF Jesus loving Christ. That's why I don't like driving the Gr3 as much. Mercedes fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Oct 23, 2018 |
|
#
?
Oct 23, 2018 13:35
|
|
|
A couple months ago I moved to a new country and I have no friends or life outside of work. I bought a sim rig to replace the one I had back home, and have mostly been goofing around in time trials. But since I’m in Europe I also have reliable, low-latency internet... I’d like to join the goon races, but since I’m 6 hours away from the US it’s a tricky proposition. Are there any EU guys to race with? Can we have some races of our own? And then maybe a Ryder cup of cars where American and Europeans battle for supremacy?
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2018 10:25
|
|
|
Hello Spaceman posted:A couple months ago I moved to a new country and I have no friends or life outside of work. I bought a sim rig to replace the one I had back home, and have mostly been goofing around in time trials. But since I’m in Europe I also have reliable, low-latency internet... I’m also interested in this. I’m Thomas_TCS Ghetto Blaster fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Oct 25, 2018 |
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2018 17:54
|
|
|
I would be extremely down for some EU races
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2018 17:57
|
|
|
Ghetto Blaster posted:I’m also interested in this. Scarf Ace posted:I would be extremely down for some EU races Well my dudes, three’s a crowd. Add me on psn (hellospaceman) and let’s see what we can do.
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2018 18:04
|
|
|
Feel free to join our discord and get some meet up times going in there. I'm also down to join if you guys play at a weekend time that I can make it (east coast USA so I could play in the afternoon for European night races)
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2018 18:14
|
|
|
Eugoons add me too. Empire_of_ravens I would definitely be down for some afternoon/night races in a Sunday or something
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2018 18:45
|
|
|
Hello Spaceman posted:Well my dudes, three’s a crowd. sick, i think we used to play gears of war on 360 ages ago. added you and mercedes
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2018 19:10
|
|
|
Add me to join in our existing series, too --- BeefsteakFatlip
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2018 19:58
|
|
|
I'm in Japan so the time may work if it's European afternoons PSN - harperdc
|
|
#
?
Oct 25, 2018 23:21
|
|
|
Guys. Our group's getting bigger!
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2018 01:22
|
|
|
I’m in Barcelona now does that count? (Ok I fly back to LA Sunday). Seriously, I would be interested in Sunday morning 9am racing Pacific which would be 18:00 CEST (assuming there isn’t an F1 GP on)
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2018 21:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 25, 2024 04:52 |
|
|
Yeah I think we need to get a poll going and see what our best availability time is for an European focused (but American welcomed) group.
|
|
#
?
Oct 26, 2018 21:26
|
|