In regards to the grip, pre or post update, for me this game has a pornographic amount of grip
and has gone backwards in terms of driving physics from GT6 to GTS. They should remake the logo to real driving emulator
Regardless, all these arguments about what is better have one root cause. Perfect example is Project Cars. Most people just don't like the game because of the physics there. I was a bit disappointed in it too. However, when I got into the FFB wizardry, 3 months and some testing later, the game felt exactly like Assetto Corsa on my Fanatec CSW. Similarly, I was very disappointed in Project Cars 2, as the handling was unpredictable and weird. One afternoon of FFB tweaking later, I looked like Jeremy Clarkson testing the GT-86:
The game is amazing, best I ever experienced and absolutely realistic. Tested in real life BRZ. Digressing...
This is the problem of today's racing games. You read all the hype about how amazingly they did the physics simulation, then you run the game, select your exact wheel as you expect FFB to be tuned to it as well, aaand it's crap. No one takes the time to tweak the FFB for his wheel. The problem is when not set up properly, the forces will be out of the range for the wheel and you won't feel what you are supposed to, hence dull, unpredictable handling, as the forces will not match what is really happening and people start trolling the forums...
Sadly, GTS has gone the other way, they just dumped the reality and made it "fun" to drive (personally, FM7 is much more fun after tweaking FFB), locking it down for a handful of wheels with no options to tweak FFB and opening it to casual drivers. While most people will swear, it's amazing, I'd give a "meh" rating at best. Maybe I'm missing something, as my FFB is also out of range (tested with CSW v2 and G25 + CronusMAX) because not using a licensed wheel (thanks SONY, I'll remember that), but I'm not changing CSW for G29.
While I applaud your efforts to get the most out of your FFB in different games and I acknowledge it is more than most people do (even if I think 3 months is a really long time to dial in something that really isn't 3 months hard), there are some issues that stand out to me in regard to your perspective.
In regard to grip. Are you braking so much later in GT Sport than in the other games you are playing? Are your braking points unrealistic compared to real life braking points? Are lap times unrealistically fast? These are just a few questions that can be asked in relation to grip levels but there are plenty more. There are plenty of considerations in relation to grip. You have lateral grip, you have longitudinal grip, you have the slip curve and you also have perception of grip and grip loss which is communicated visually and by sound in the game.
Based on those things I don't agree with your assessment of grip and I'd take it further. Go and test the 86 in PCARS2. In good conditions that car has an insane amount of grip, it isn't realistic at all. Of course when it comes to grip that game is all over the place, sometimes it is right, sometimes it has an unrealistically low amount of grip and sometimes it has an unrealistically high amount of grip. I like that they have tried to model how wether and temperature effect grip but I think what they have currently is exaggerated. Also in PC2 they have race tyres that are extremely progressive in the way they lose grip and sure this is fun and easy to drive but I don't think it is realistic at this time.
But before we get carried away in regards to PC2 it is important to keep in mind they just released a Demo that according to Ian Bell contains some of the changes the update will bring and this demo drives differently to the game and grip is changed. So SMS think grip in PC2 isn't right and need changing among other things. Even in the demo I don't think it is right but I do anticipate some people will not like the changes, others will praise the changes and some who might have claimed PC2 was realistic before the changes will continue to claim it is realistic after the changes. Because in real life physics change all the time /s.
Mt assesment of Assetto Corsa is that it falls between PCARS2 and GT Sport in many areas and grip is one of those. I like Assetto Corsa, I want PC2 to be better than AC but at the moment it isn't and AC does lots of things really well. But I don't think grip or physics are perfect in AC and I'm really not a fan of the way the track builds grip. I don't find that realistic and in general I don't think the current tyre model of Assetto Corsa is their best and most realistic driving model to date and I think they have been better in the past. As far as physics go, the documented issue with the way cars lose and gain grip in relation to weight shift in corners is an unrealistic annoyance which effects my enjoyment of that game.
Now I'm the type of person who spends too much time in settings and I know I'm not average. Personally I was surprised by people praising the Jack Spade files for Project CARS 1, I tested them and did not think they felt good but I spent time myself to learn how the FFB worked and I got great results from that game. I'm one of the rare people who thinks Project CARS 1 is a really good sim after all the updates and after spending the time to set it up optimally. So yes I go the extra mile in regards to setting my games up however I will still think less of a game that doesn't have a good out of the box experience and isn't noob friendly and I think R3E is an example of a really bad initial experience, but that game has amazing FFB when dialled in and I would rank its FFB as some of the best I have experienced.
So I have spent a lot of time dialling in each game and now that I'm playing GTS I have further refined my FFB settings in each and I'm pretty happy with my settings. I'd rate GTS FFB as a good consistent experience. It feels great with a low powered wheel and great with a high powered wheel. I don't like that you can't dial out the deadzone as GT Sport's FFB is comparative to having a deadzone setting of 1 in PC2, that setting however does greatly reduce oscillation so I can see why they have implemented it in GTS. I just wish you had more choice. While GTS also feels great on a low powered wheel like a G29 this is an area where PC2 is very disappointing in comparison, PC2's FFB starts to work really well in higher powered wheels and I expect the experience is great with an OSW but their FFB isn't great with a G29. Another issue that game really suffers is the lack of curb modelling. It isn't that the FFB is bad at reproducing the feeling of curbs (well it isn't great at it either), the problem is the lack of curbs to reproduce because too often instead of having a raised curb where they should, PC2 has a painted curbs that are flat. Assetto Corsa has really good FFB, not as good as Raceroom but right up there. AC has very user friendly FFB settings that are capable of getting very enjoyable results. Ultimately I get a very similar experience out of all 3 games on my T-GT but with my G29 FFB only feels good in AC and GTS and is not as good in PC2. I have tried the T-GT in both modes on GTS. While I prefer the base FFB in GTS mode I'm still not sure I like the implementation of the vibration effects especially since the update. They feel odd an unrealistic and I was expecting a much better implementation.
But feeling in a game comes from more than just the physics, it comes from the graphics and sound as well. This is an area where GT Sport has taken steps to give a more consistent experience and it is an area that results in such a variety of user experience in other sims. Because things like sound settings, sound implementation, FOV, driver perspective, world movement, cockpit movement and camera/driver head movement all effect our perception of physics and perception of grip.
Interestingly when you dial in the three games they do have a lot of similarities. Interestingly most sims drive every similar. Knowing that helps weed out people who clearly don't know what they are talking about for me. Some people really lack the ability to objectively evaluate things like grip, when you hear people saying a game has too much grip but you are braking earlier in that game then other games it can make you scratch your head. I was just trying to explain to my son where my optimal braking point is at a particular corner. Interestingly even with the addition of grip that brake point is ever so slightly earlier than in any other game but now I can use the same brake marker in every game with only a slight adjustment in each. In the same car in each game I brake the earliest in GTS and although it was a long time ago and the game has gone through a number of updates since the game I could brake the latest in that car at that corner was iRacing. And yet we perceive GTS to have more grip.
Coming back to the 3 games again there is an area of a very big difference in the way the physics behave in each and again we can put PC2 at one end, GTS at the other and AC right in the middle. This is in relation to how each responds to bumps. In PC2 your steering is always bouncing all over the place, in that game less grip really ramps up the difficulty because of this and also driving with less FFB or with a controller you have an advantage in that the car is easier to keep straight. I think the response in PC2 is unrealistically exaggerated and is a key reason to why they need so much grip in that game because the grip balances the hyperactive physics. But this makes it challenging and engaging to drive which makes it fun. That is until you hit standing water which highlight this exaggerated bump steer response. Assetto Corsa falls in the middle here but I still find it slightly exaggerated at times. AC can be funny in this regard and be a bit inconsistent in the response but the issue with Assetto Corsa is how tyres lose grip. I haven't tested Assetto Corsa since the GTS update but I think AC might actually be perceived as the most slippery of the 3 to drive now where it was in the middle before the update. GT Sport falls to the other end of the spectrum. I'm not sure if the tracks are just too flat or if the physics are just unresponsive but this is an area where I think GTS physics fall on the other side of realistic on the easy side. Interestingly while I would prefer it to be realistic when we consider both as unrealistic I prefer the iRacing philosophy (even if they don't follow it) of it is better to not do it then do it wrong. So I do prefer it underdone than overdone but I would prefer it done right and I think none of them are right. I find for me the end result is I use more realistic driving techniques in GTS and I find GTS to provide the more convincing driving experience allowing me consistently better immersion.
I couldn't discern much of a difference in the hand of god effect last night. After spending a good deal of time doing TC ON vs. OFF comparison in BMW M6 Gr.3 on RH, I have drawn a few conclusions. With TC OFF, there is still some weird slide/catch behavior but it mostly behaves as you'd expect within the range of slip you'd consider yourself to be in control of the car. It's only when you would have really lost it that it tries to help you and it is noticeable. They're trying to keep people in the race, I guess.
The big revelation I've come to is that with TC ON, the car is much more likely to do the weird, sudden "step-out" slide. I think this is usually perceived as the "hand of god" because it is such an abrupt, unexpected slip that miraculously catches itself. But the initiation of the slide itself is bogus, not just the hand of god catch part. I believe PD has implemented this sort of slip/catch behavior as a way of punishing people who rely too heavily on TC. Come out of a turn hard on the gas, and it will step out even more abruptly than if TC was OFF, but catch the slide quickly such that it only costs you a few tenths. It rewards you for driving like TC is OFF, I suppose teaching you to be a better driver. This is as opposed to conventional (real) TC behavior, which could never produce an abrupt slip/catch effect like that.
I don't think I agree with your assessment and while I initially might have agreed with your observation over the implementation of TC, now I think it makes sense. I know it feels kind of odd to experience but it does make sense to me. First try high settings of TC and you'll see TC behaves more like race car TC now. At lower settings TC can be easily over powered, at higher settings it is far less intrusive than it was before the update. At lower settings it is almost like having almost no TC and mostly a safety net for small driver errors, this also makes it possible to be slower with poor driving techniques. With no traction control now it is up to you to feel the tyres and drive smoothly, as a result you do, be careless and you can still easily get sudden oversteer. But at lower TC settings you can easily over power TC and do it suddenly, this behaviour of the sudden overpowering of TC is abrupt and is a bit like popping the clutch. At low settings I think you simply don't get strong TC ever so you can't rely on it as it wont intervene enough in a big moment. Thinking of it that way you can understand why the result is so aggressive. To tone down that aggressive behaviour try more TC. In the past this would simply slow you down but race car TC doesn't behave that way in real life and now in the game it is more realistic than it was before. Now more TC acts to smooth out the application of TC.
The hand of god is something completely different. It is like super grip. At this point I'm not even sure if it is a thing or a result of the way the tyres heat and cool. I think the way the tyres heat and cool might contribute to it if they are not the primary factor for what we experience. So the hand of god is that magical correction of a moment when you are in a slide but you release your pedals and steer straight. The result of the hand of god is similar to the 2 foot magic save hax in other sims except simply releasing your pedals does it in GTS. So to experience the hand of god we can simply take out a FWD car hit the handbrake while reefing the wheel and when the car gets to a stupid angle just release the handbrake and steer where you want to go and drive out of it. You can do this over and over and it works every time. Of course in a FWD car you can exhibit something like this behaviour in real life but in the game it is too strong. The problem is more apparent in the way this correction occurs in RWD cars where the car is unrealistically easy to save from a massive angle. The thing is it is also unrealistically easy to lose control. And I suspect this is all related to the way tyres heat. Because the tyres overheat and lose grip far too quick, like the worst tyre model iRacing ever had quick. But unlike iRacing back then where the tyres would melt and take forever to cool down the tyres in GTS also seem to cool just as quick as they heat and there seems to be a relation between the response to overpowering the tyres heating the tyres quick versus sliding which doesn't seem to heat the tyres quick. If I am correct in my suspicions this wouldn't be a trivial thing to dial in and get right because it would need to be balanced carefully with grip response.
So I'm not sure if the hand of god we are experiencing is a feature that is designed into the game or if it is just the result of the physics being out. I have suspected it is a feature like the direction correction feature after a collision. Perhaps it is not and it is a symptom of the physics.
Speaking of physics and correction, have you deliberately ran into the back of a car at high speed? My son created a lobby for us to have fun in and test things. We turned damage right up and discovered it is woefully bad but other areas of the game seemed improved with damage turned up especially the ability to turn ghosting off completely being tied to damage. But in wanting to test the damage thoroughly we had some high speed collisions including the well known startegic move in GT of carrying too much speed into a corner with no brakes to punt the competitor off the track so you can take the win. The result is "what version of GT am I playing?". The result is I can approach the corner with as much speed as I want and if I hit the other car from behind my car instantly stops while the other car flies off the track. And this was with the most realistic settings the game offers. To add insult to injury there is hardly any damage in this game and you can easily drive away from a high speed crash.
