So ready for fair racing. I can't wait to climb up the fair-play ladder; slowly ease my way out of the firing-line to a respectable plateau of competitive racing greatness.
It shall be done.
For those who haven't played iRacing, let me tell you that the single most important thing added to GT with this release is the Sportsmanship rating system. iRacing has this and this is one of the main reasons you can have high quality racing experiences with complete strangers and not have to join leagues or race with only a small group of friends. There is nothing special about the average iRacing driver v. the average GT driver. The main factor as to why you get bumper cars online in GT and people trying their best to drive clean in iRacing is because of the sportsmanship rating penalty of of driving like a dick. It has nothing to do with the accuracy of the physics, damage, etc.
Without a sportsmanship rating, there is no incentive to not always try to get first place no matter how bad you smash your car. Cause it is a video game and you will never have to buy a new car or accidentally break your ribs, so without consequence, people naturally gravitate toward high risk behavior. This results in a shitty racing experience. Sportsmanship is that consequence. Drive like a dick, get forced to race against other dicks or even locked out of the higher class races. If you drive a Hyundai like a dick, why let you join in against people racing GT1 cars for you to only fuck up things even worse?
Right now, the sportmanship penalties are a little loose. IMO, they need to be really severe because they have to simulate that real world thought of... oh shit I don't want to fuck my car up and pay thousands of dollars, or maybe I wont do this insane pass with a 1% chance of success cause I would hit that wall and maybe die. Once you get that virtual equivalent of caution, people of all talents begin to race smart and have really exciting and rewarding racing experiences. I never got very good at iRacing but I still had some of my most thrilling online races ever in the lower class races.
...
Assuming they resolve the technical side of the online races, the sportsmanship system is what is likely going to make or break this game for setting a new benchmark in quality online racing on consoles.
Kaz seems to be approaching Gran Turismo Sport as serious evolution of the brand. I would be very,
very surprised if there aren't a list of mandated standards to be adhered to for the FIA partnership. We know of a few certainties so far:
- spec vehicle choices
- officially sanctioned circuits
- official time-keeping
- official events/race start times
- circuit marshalls
- driver ratings
I'm sure there a bunch more in the background to control how the game runs and is perceived to be by onlookers.
If anything this is going in to over-kill mode. iRacing has it's own systems in place that, over time, has fostered demands of drivers for a better experience. Gran Turismo Sport, not having a full-on Gran Turismo experience, has the same chance of creating a community that loves to race but it might not be as flexible.
I hope GTS does the same driver rating points system too where depending on the quality of people you are racing against, the more your efforts are rewarded. So if I am a D class racer and there happened to be a few A and B racers in my race, if I get 4th place in that race, it is worth more ranking points than if I got first place against a bunch of E class racers. This adds that final real life scenario of playing it smart when you know 3rd place is a good result and not going full kamikaze just to get first at all costs.
I absolutely agree here. A player who finishes well placed in a field of higher-rated drivers needs to be better recognised...
but that's not the FIA way. Maybe that's why iRacing can do it and, maybe, why Gran Turismo Sport may not be able to do it.
So, I hope that GT Sport will do that right and balance the car classes, weight and power restrictions for the individual cars and races correctly ("to enter this race you need to add 30hp and 50kg to your car, tires must be...").
I hope not because that sounds horrid. This thing is FIA approved so I would have thought vehicles absolutely need to be class-orientated. I expect the balance system would be needed for normal online lobbies, not official races.
Unless I'm completely misunderstanding your point.
So basically I will have to learn to drive a circuit perfectly under race conditions or else I'm being unsporting? I mean, that's a pretty high bar to set, isn't it? Don't get me wrong, if Polyphony intends for this to be a game that competes with iRacing, that's a perfectly valid stance to take. But like I said before, it probably means it's not a game for me, who even at the best of times makes mistakes once in a while.
(games are allowed to not target me, so I'm not casting shade on GT Sport here! just slight disappointment)
I guess this will sound harsh...but yes. It doesn't mean you can't make mistakes but it would be handy to know the logic based dependancies so we'll have an idea of what is bad form. A racing driver races knowing what behaviour is punishable. Also, will the system use telemetry to decide what was a mistake?
Regardless, there's always normal online mode too.
On a side note, how do Polyphony induce the most natural and organic looking motion even when GT's physics aren't professional simulation standard i.e. real simulators?
They've
always been good at it. For years it's been top-tier stuff. It's not the camera replay angles because no matter which angle they use...the cars look naturally placed on-track and look to behave how I expect them to.
Just wouldn't have thought it was possible if the physics determining a cars relationship with the tarmac is out by such a great margin people say it is.
