Gran Turismo 7: Latest news and discussion thread

[Techlet]

I have to disagree, it does not have a barebones single player content. You can race any of 430+ cars against any others on any track in the game over any number of laps or minutes with different settings, time cycles, and weather on many tracks. There are literally millions of combinations of single player races that you can do.

That's just the skeleton on which the game is built. The bare bones.

The devs dangle all of these features in front of you but barely make use of them themselves. Custom Races do not make up for the complete lack of a meaningful career mode. There's currently still only one Event at Bathurst - a whopping 2 lap race that only 4WD road cars from Japan are allowed to enter with no weather or time cycles. Similar story at Monza, but look at what was available for it in GT Sport:

Then you look at the tracks themselves and ask, "why is there no rain at Watkins?"

When you go to a Michelin-starred restaurant, the last thing you'd expect is to get handed a bunch of raw ingredients and told there are literally millions of combinations of dishes that you can make.

When you go to a concert, you're not shoved up onto an empty stage and told there are literally millions of combinations of notes that you can play.

 

[wheelhp]

The devs dangle all of these features in front of you but barely make use of them themselves. Custom Races do not make up for the complete lack of a meaningful career mode.

Exactly. Nothing more needs be said

 

[Vitesh Patel]

I really wish we get an update or another glimpse at the road map for GT7.

Just an update on when we can expect the endurance races they mentioned, more single player races and championships.

There's so many racecars I want to drive, but no where in single player to race them (in an environment where I'm earnings a good amount of credits).

It's silly of me to think there'd be a blog post, now that it's TGS right? Maybe with a shiny new trailer? Granted didn't expect to see it at Sony's State of Play but some news would be great.

 

[RACECAR]

I wouldn't expect a road map of any kind, Kaz just does not do that kind of messaging at all. It was a miracle in itself when he got a twitter account, but that's as far as it goes.

 

[05XR8]

Exactly. I only had the UnOfficial PlayStation magazine with demo discs and for the past ten years, gtplanet. It’s a map with no directions. PD’s idea of an open world.

 

[TonyLomas]

That's just the skeleton on which the game is built. The bare bones.

The devs dangle all of these features in front of you but barely make use of them themselves. Custom Races do not make up for the complete lack of a meaningful career mode. There's currently still only one Event at Bathurst - a whopping 2 lap race that only 4WD road cars from Japan are allowed to enter with no weather or time cycles.

(I've truncated your post here just to save space)

I don't see Gran Turismo as having a career mode. It's not like Project Cars where you start in Karting and work your way up to F1 or Le Mans.
The Cafe Menu is the tutorial, teaching you how to drive, get licences, modify your car, take a scapes picture etc.

Your 'career' is whatever you want it to be. Make liveries for people, take photos, race online, do an online world championship, grind for money and be a classic car collector, smash lap times and online records against your friends, or play single player against the AI in arcade or custom races.

It doesn't have a racing career, the same way it doesn't have qualifying and free practice. It's not that sort of game.
To say that there's no single player game is just wrong.

Yes there could be more cafe tutorials, or more tracks, more rain, more time cycled tracks, more cars, more licences, more missions, more more more.

But I'll never be convinced it's half a game or the bare bones of one. Of course it has problems, mainly that the payouts are so poor and there are still bugs. But there is a lot to play with.

Maybe it's just me, perhaps because I had Lego as a kid, I could enjoy building a car and then play with it. Maybe others only ever had die cast cars already built.

 

[Rizla]

I wouldn't expect a road map of any kind, Kaz just does not do that kind of messaging at all. It was a miracle in itself when he got a twitter account, but that's as far as it goes.

I sometimes get the feeling Kaz's fabled road map looks a bit like this...

 

[Techlet]

I don't see Gran Turismo as having a career mode. It's not like Project Cars where you start in Karting and work your way up to F1 or Le Mans.
The Cafe Menu is the tutorial, teaching you how to drive, get licences, modify your car, take a scapes picture etc.

Well, yes. That's the problem.

All we have is a glorified set of tutorials. GT7 is not a Lego set. It's a bag of random bricks.

Other mainstream racing games like PCars or Grid or Forza or past GT games have fully realized career modes alongside the free form stuff.

 

[evldave333]

(I've truncated your post here just to save space)

I don't see Gran Turismo as having a career mode. It's not like Project Cars where you start in Karting and work your way up to F1 or Le Mans.
The Cafe Menu is the tutorial, teaching you how to drive, get licences, modify your car, take a scapes picture etc.

Your 'career' is whatever you want it to be. Make liveries for people, take photos, race online, do an online world championship, grind for money and be a classic car collector, smash lap times and online records against your friends, or play single player against the AI in arcade or custom races.

It doesn't have a racing career, the same way it doesn't have qualifying and free practice. It's not that sort of game.
To say that there's no single player game is just wrong.

Yes there could be more cafe tutorials, or more tracks, more rain, more time cycled tracks, more cars, more licences, more missions, more more more.

But I'll never be convinced it's half a game or the bare bones of one. Of course it has problems, mainly that the payouts are so poor and there are still bugs. But there is a lot to play with.

Maybe it's just me, perhaps because I had Lego as a kid, I could enjoy building a car and then play with it. Maybe others only ever had die cast cars already built.

Its more that the game is 95% GTS & thus boredom kicks in real fast, it is just not differentiated enough from its predecessor. No matter what the career was in the game there is only a few new cars and tracks, if you mastered GTS its a real problem. Anyone new to the franchise GT7 is truly a dream come true. It's fair to say based on where the game is now it's been a cynical cash in for long term fans. Its likely we already own 95% of GT8 so no need for day 1 purchases anymore.

 

[TonyLomas]

Its more that the game is 95% GTS & thus boredom kicks in real fast, it is just not differentiated enough from its predecessor. No matter what the career was in the game there is only a few new cars and tracks, if you mastered GTS its a real problem. Anyone new to the franchise GT7 is truly a dream come true. It's fair to say based on where the game is now it's been a cynical cash in for long term fans. Its likely we already own 95% of GT8 so no need for day 1 purchases anymore.

For me the custom mode is a game changer as it has never been available before. We've had the Sunday cup and many of the other events for 25 years, I've always wanted to make my own event. Choose which cars can race each other. It's even better with the ability to have different tuning and liveries. You can for example make Max Verstappens car faster than Lewis Hamiltons and make Charles Le Clare have a car with a lose back end. Previously, we just had classifications and a One Make race, which was actually a one model race. You couldn't even race all the Honda's against each other.

Otherwise, yes it's an iteration with slightly better graphics, sound etc. But unfortunately, that's the way of a lot of gaming these days. Fifa games just add a bit of polish to the graphics and some new obscure feature, Call of Duty campaigns are getting smaller and smaller. Because the graphics, sound and physics is so advanced, there's little time for new or good original content.

 

[Techlet]

If we're at the point where graphics and sound and physics (effectively the basic skeleton of a game) are so advanced that they can't be improved from game to game, surely this should give the developers more time to focus on the actual content?

This is of course assuming that a studio the size of PD can only work on one thing at any given time.

 

[evldave333]

For me the custom mode is a game changer as it has never been available before. We've had the Sunday cup and many of the other events for 25 years, I've always wanted to make my own event. Choose which cars can race each other. It's even better with the ability to have different tuning and liveries. You can for example make Max Verstappens car faster than Lewis Hamiltons and make Charles Le Clare have a car with a lose back end. Previously, we just had classifications and a One Make race, which was actually a one model race. You couldn't even race all the Honda's against each other.

Otherwise, yes it's an iteration with slightly better graphics, sound etc. But unfortunately, that's the way of a lot of gaming these days. Fifa games just add a bit of polish to the graphics and some new obscure feature, Call of Duty campaigns are getting smaller and smaller. Because the graphics, sound and physics is so advanced, there's little time for new or good original content.

A real game changer would be a track editor, with a facility to share in a similar vein to liveries (perhaps with the incentive the most popular gets full integration and polish from PD). Obviously this wont happen, as this would not bring PD money which seems to be the main overriding objective.

 

[kjb]

For me the custom mode is a game changer as it has never been available before. We've had the Sunday cup and many of the other events for 25 years, I've always wanted to make my own event. Choose which cars can race each other. It's even better with the ability to have different tuning and liveries. You can for example make Max Verstappens car faster than Lewis Hamiltons and make Charles Le Clare have a car with a lose back end. Previously, we just had classifications and a One Make race, which was actually a one model race. You couldn't even race all the Honda's against each other.

Otherwise, yes it's an iteration with slightly better graphics, sound etc. But unfortunately, that's the way of a lot of gaming these days. Fifa games just add a bit of polish to the graphics and some new obscure feature, Call of Duty campaigns are getting smaller and smaller. Because the graphics, sound and physics is so advanced, there's little time for new or good original content.

The thing that is lacking in the custom races is the ability to make your own championship like in AC. Grid Legends even allows you to create a mini 4 race championship

 

[dkstz]

Similar story at Monza, but look at what was available for it in GT Sport:

View attachment 1192807

That made me kinda sad... A sour taste.

What is PD doing anyway? Looks like they're not even committed to GT7, to keep it fresh and alive.

Why??

 

[RACECAR]

I sometimes get the feeling Kaz's fabled road map looks a bit like this...
View attachment 1192944

If I'm honest, this is all I see:

 

[SnakeOfBacon]

From March 25, all we know to be planned for GT7, at no particular time is:

- Increase the payout value of limited time rewards as we develop as a live service. (?)

• Further World Circuit event additions. (There's definitely been some, but still less than half as many races as GT Sport)
• Addition of Endurance Races to Missions including 24-hour races. (Actual 24-hour long missions? With one-time three-tier payouts like the Human Comedy, but 24 times as devastating if you come 2nd?)
• Addition of Online Time Trials and awarding of rewards according to the player’s difference with the top ranked time. (Added in June, a good feature. Maybe Online Drift Trials can return?)

-Make it so cars can be sold. (Not yet)

And assuming by pattern, three cars every month, alternating new locations and new layouts every second and fourth month.

I want to make GT7 a game in which you can enjoy a variety of cars in a lot of different ways, and if possible I would like to try to avoid a situation where a player must mechanically keep replaying certain events over and over again.

We will let you know in time about the update plans for additional content, race events and features that will constructively resolve this situation.

PD will let us know, in time... Although this lower quote was from a week before the former, so maybe those five points are all of the update plans we can know about.

On the plus side, it's likely less than two weeks until the next silhouettes! '__'

 

[ScottPuss20]

I wouldn't expect a road map of any kind, Kaz just does not do that kind of messaging at all. It was a miracle in itself when he got a twitter account, but that's as far as it goes.

Someone needs to go in there and make a roadmap for Kaz because he's clearly unable to do so.

 

[Galvston]

Sometimes I wish I hadn't bought it yet, and got it towards the end when the game is much better. But I love GT, and I'm actually liking watching it's evolution through patches. But GT7 could be something else with it's potential. I'm still dreaming about that C-Spec copypasta from back in the day, something about having a city to drive around, would be nice

 

[McLaren]

Otherwise, yes it's an iteration with slightly better graphics, sound etc. But unfortunately, that's the way of a lot of gaming these days. Fifa games just add a bit of polish to the graphics and some new obscure feature, Call of Duty campaigns are getting smaller and smaller. Because the graphics, sound and physics is so advanced, there's little time for new or good original content.

Then, they can hire additional people as a first-party, AAA studio or do what they've started doing in recent years, outsourcing.

If they can't do that, they need to start organizing their priorities better so the game feels fresh & keeps players engaged.

 

[Rizla]

If I'm honest, this is all I see:

View attachment 1193100

Some kind of road legal periscope is in order here, you might have stumbled onto a gap in the market.

 

[KaiB]

Its more that the game is 95% GTS & thus boredom kicks in real fast, it is just not differentiated enough from its predecessor. No matter what the career was in the game there is only a few new cars and tracks, if you mastered GTS its a real problem. Anyone new to the franchise GT7 is truly a dream come true. It's fair to say based on where the game is now it's been a cynical cash in for long term fans. Its likely we already own 95% of GT8 so no need for day 1 purchases anymore.

what to say about simulators and more serious racing games..., they all the same in the same tracks with the same cars...
Most of racing games dont have near the features GT have, not only concerning races itself, but number of cars and tracks, Liveries,scapes and so on...
In Gt its very easy to edit liveries and tune cars etc, in many games people can only adjust setups and liveries are very limited or complicated to "implement".

 

[Imari]

Your 'career' is whatever you want it to be. Make liveries for people, take photos, race online, do an online world championship, grind for money and be a classic car collector, smash lap times and online records against your friends, or play single player against the AI in arcade or custom races.

It doesn't have a racing career, the same way it doesn't have qualifying and free practice. It's not that sort of game.
To say that there's no single player game is just wrong.

So basically you think making your own career counts as a career. Hm.

I mean, doing your own thing is always an option in pretty much any game. Most of the PC sims get a hard time for being only sandboxes with very little curated content for the player. That's great for people with the time and inclination, but it tends not to be great for casual players. The ones that make up the majority of Gran Turismo's playerbase.

Given that GT has historically had pretty robust levels of curated content, you can hardly blame people for expecting the same in the latest GT game. Some people just want to play, and not spend hours making their own content so that then they can play. It's possible to cater to both these playstyles, and GT has done so relatively successfully in the past.

A real game changer would be a track editor, with a facility to share in a similar vein to liveries (perhaps with the incentive the most popular gets full integration and polish from PD). Obviously this wont happen, as this would not bring PD money which seems to be the main overriding objective.

The funny thing being they did it before, and then dropped it never to be seen again. It was pretty fun even though it was janky af, and an upgraded version of the track editor on PS4 or 5 could potentially have been pretty stunning.

 

[Artremis]

what to say about simulators and more serious racing games..., they all the same in the same tracks with the same cars...
Most of racing games dont have near the features GT have, not only concerning races itself, but number of cars and tracks, Liveries,scapes and so on...

What? This isn't true at all. I'll give you that the pure car count, even excluding fictional models in GT7, is higher than for most other sims but a lot of the other games have both more varied racing classes and more tracks (especially in cases like Assetto Corsa or rFactor2 to a lesser degree where there's endless high-quality car / track mods).

 

[ICEYOU3]

I wish we could swap liveries in the garage or during events 😕

 

[dkstz]

I wish we could swap liveries in the garage or during events 😕

That would be nice. Changing cars as well...

 

[05XR8]

The thing that is lacking in the custom races is the ability to make your own championship like in AC. Grid Legends even allows you to create a mini 4 race championship

Just add the full events of a race weekend to that. Practice and qualifying are a big part. Modes we’ve had in past games.

 

[Nathan88]

So basically you think making your own career counts as a career. Hm.

I mean, doing your own thing is always an option in pretty much any game. Most of the PC sims get a hard time for being only sandboxes with very little curated content for the player. That's great for people with the time and inclination, but it tends not to be great for casual players. The ones that make up the majority of Gran Turismo's playerbase.

Given that GT has historically had pretty robust levels of curated content, you can hardly blame people for expecting the same in the latest GT game. Some people just want to play, and not spend hours making their own content so that then they can play. It's possible to cater to both these playstyles, and GT has done so relatively successfully in the past.

It’s always worth remembering the vast majority of casual players will never come close to completing all available content. That goes for most AAA titles, not just GT7. As someone who’s surpassed 100hrs, I still have all Missions and most Circuit Experiences to complete. Then again some don’t consider these part of the career. For me I consider it all part of the single-player experience. Including Time Trials, Livery Creator, Tuning and so on.

It wouldn’t surprise me if PD add another 30-40% more content over the titles lifespan. Some people may feel hard done by that. But as someone who’s going to get 200-300hrs use out of GT7. It’s hard for me to feel hard done by. A £70 title that deliver 20-30hrs entertainment is already value for money in my eyes.

 

[snc]

It’s always worth remembering the vast majority of casual players will never come close to completing all available content. That goes for most AAA titles, not just GT7. As someone who’s surpassed 100hrs, I still have all Missions and most Circuit Experiences to complete. Then again some don’t consider these part of the career. For me I consider it all part of the single-player experience. Including Time Trials, Livery Creator, Tuning and so on.

It wouldn’t surprise me if PD add another 30-40% more content over the titles lifespan. Some people may feel hard done by that. But as someone who’s going to get 200-300hrs use out of GT7. It’s hard for me to feel hard done by. A £70 title that deliver 20-30hrs entertainment is already value for money in my eyes.

Have similar opinion (over 200h in gt7), Caffe could be better (new added were improved little) but golding all Licenses, Missions and Circuit Exp was briliant exp.

 

[Imari]

It’s always worth remembering the vast majority of casual players will never come close to completing all available content. That goes for most AAA titles, not just GT7. As someone who’s surpassed 100hrs, I still have all Missions and most Circuit Experiences to complete. Then again some don’t consider these part of the career. For me I consider it all part of the single-player experience. Including Time Trials, Livery Creator, Tuning and so on.

It wouldn’t surprise me if PD add another 30-40% more content over the titles lifespan. Some people may feel hard done by that. But as someone who’s going to get 200-300hrs use out of GT7. It’s hard for me to feel hard done by. A £70 title that deliver 20-30hrs entertainment is already value for money in my eyes.

Right, and that shows why having lots of content is important. It's not so that there are hundreds of hours of gameplay for each individual player. It's to cater to a wider range of experiences and styles of gameplay. If most people are only going to play 10-40 hours no matter what, then you're trying to give them the best 10-40 hours you possibly can.

That means making sure that there's 40 hours of content that they think is absolutely awesome. But also you need 40 hours of content for each other player type too, and that's how you end up with a game with hundreds of hours of content. It's not necessarily intended that players do all of it, it's just a by-product of making a game that caters to a wide range of interests.

This is what has historically separated games like GT and Forza from the "hardcore" sims. The "hardcore" sims are designed to specifically cater to one or two sorts of players at most. If you're not that sort of player, don't play the game. GT and Forza attempt to broaden their appeal to include pretty much everyone, and that's what makes them different and special. But that requires lots of content, and an implicit expectation that the vast majority of players will never get anywhere close to completing all of it.

A modern MMO like FF14 is a perfect example of this. There's ridiculous amounts of content to the point that nobody is really expected to complete it all, even though some people do. The point is that it lets you find what you like and be presented with an excellent curated game experience that suits you. You like crafting? There's a levelling system, an economy, and quests and challenges all based around that. You like story? There's a main story, and hundreds of side quests for you to pursue. You like raiding and hard content? There's regular releases of more top level fights. You like roleplaying? There's a fashion system, and endless emotes and poses, and housing, and so on. You like exploration? There's quests, vistas, XP for full exploring zones, hidden content, etc. You like PvP? There's multiple game modes for PvP. Whatever you want to do, there's probably systems in place.

Just because there's more content than most players will complete doesn't mean there's enough. It has to be enough to appeal to all the major player types they expect to play the game. I'd say at the moment, it's not meeting that requirement for some people. You may have got value because the game caters to your interests, but that's not the case for everyone and a game like Gran Turismo really should be aiming for that.

 

[GTboyz]

Right, and that shows why having lots of content is important. It's not so that there are hundreds of hours of gameplay for each individual player. It's to cater to a wider range of experiences and styles of gameplay. If most people are only going to play 10-40 hours no matter what, then you're trying to give them the best 10-40 hours you possibly can.

That means making sure that there's 40 hours of content that they think is absolutely awesome. But also you need 40 hours of content for each other player type too, and that's how you end up with a game with hundreds of hours of content. It's not necessarily intended that players do all of it, it's just a by-product of making a game that caters to a wide range of interests.

This is what has historically separated games like GT and Forza from the "hardcore" sims. The "hardcore" sims are designed to specifically cater to one or two sorts of players at most. If you're not that sort of player, don't play the game. GT and Forza attempt to broaden their appeal to include pretty much everyone, and that's what makes them different and special. But that requires lots of content, and an implicit expectation that the vast majority of players will never get anywhere close to completing all of it.

A modern MMO like FF14 is a perfect example of this. There's ridiculous amounts of content to the point that nobody is really expected to complete it all, even though some people do. The point is that it lets you find what you like and be presented with an excellent curated game experience that suits you. You like crafting? There's a levelling system, an economy, and quests and challenges all based around that. You like story? There's a main story, and hundreds of side quests for you to pursue. You like raiding and hard content? There's regular releases of more top level fights. You like roleplaying? There's a fashion system, and endless emotes and poses, and housing, and so on. You like exploration? There's quests, vistas, XP for full exploring zones, hidden content, etc. You like PvP? There's multiple game modes for PvP. Whatever you want to do, there's probably systems in place.

Just because there's more content than most players will complete doesn't mean there's enough. It has to be enough to appeal to all the major player types they expect to play the game. I'd say at the moment, it's not meeting that requirement for some people. You may have got value because the game caters to your interests, but that's not the case for everyone and a game like Gran Turismo really should be aiming for that.

Agreed, I feel like GT4 managed to do that.