Until Kaz’s design leadership remains GT will never be a proper competitive racer.
There are really disappointments in the SoP, but why everything should be turned into insanely competitive racer (no, not talking about them should not improving AI, but making the game centered around that...)? Even if they do then GT can be accused as following the trend then?
To be fair, PD would be crazy to mess with their winning 'car museum' formula now, which so many people identify and love the series for. But personally, I do agree it's not the be and all of how to present motorsport, at least not as a whole. I much prefer PC 2's presentation, those samples and voice-overs go along way for me. I also appreciated the video clips that were part of Dirt 2's historic mode. (I'd love to see more of this in games and not just sterile voice-overs or text.) I also loved the clips in Sébastien Loeb Rally, the dubbing really made it like a european TV documentary lol. And of course FM4's intro.
But something not on your preference =/= those being actually bad though. It's like if people bash any racing games as bad due to not liking them (and racing can be one of the least liked genre), but it'd be those people's problem if they bash anything not on their preference as bad, not the producer's problem. Personally I've been into too many bombastic and overly talkative vocal-voice over type of presentation that I sometimes would want silent but still informative type of presentation (like for example watching foreign TV commercials), of which GT had the latter, but most other stuff has the former.
GT4 was off the back of a cutting edge series, but even back them the sounds were poor and the AI were terrible. All GT7 has is current tech but wity GT4 offline gameplay by the looks of it, also GTS physics were boring, maybe they're better than GT4s but alas that was of it's time.
I wonder why GT4 isn't now crucified for having a poor AI (other features don't matter). I mean sure it was an old game but there should be also old racing game in that era that has great AI?
All GT needs is decent AI, not even the best, just decent , and a well thought out career with no mind numbingly boring grinding. Something simple would be a good start like race this tournament to win a Ferrari 250 GTO so you can enter the tournament to win a Ford Gt40 which you need to enter tournament X to win an Auto Bianchi. Rather the standard GT method of "race this slow car gat cant win multiple times to win credits to tune it up so you can blitz everyone on the first lap.
Isn't this about the prize cars? GT League was wack yes of not having any rewards other than Cr. and having no championships but there's apparently 6 of championships at the GT World menu.
It's hard to say without seeing more of GT7's career mode, as what we saw didn't give me much information about the structure of volume and variety of events. GT4 had a very well fleshed out career mode for it's time, GT7 appears to be a load of single races attached to tracks. If there are only around 100 races it will be very shallow indeed.
However if there are over 100 events each contaning multiple races it could have legs. But do those events include championships? Qualifying? Proper grid starts? I don't know and I doubt they do as they weren't shown or mentioned.
I guess yeah 100 events sounds so few, but probably it can be about an event that contains multiple race, from what I count, GT5-GT6 has around 50-60 events, GT3 had 85, and that GT4 had iirc 129 (yeah... dunno why PS3 GTs cuts the numbers from GT4...). For the qualifying and proper grid starts... for qualifying or such, well, this is the menu screenshot of GT7's event in SoP, as it'd be listed here, apparently only having 3 menu choices there:
And yeah... it's a rolling start but it's apparently specified here (iirc GT League didn't specify which kind of start).
Fine - they've spent a lot of time & resources capturing "cloud movement" ... but why didn't they spend those resources WORKING ON THE AI & PHYSICS?
All the traditional elements of GT - the "car culture", amazing graphics, cool music - it's all good, but why does that preclude improving the AI to be more inline with other cutting-edge racing games?
Did they talk about the physics on the SoP though? Apparently yeah you're hardcore sim guy but GT isn't meant to be hardcore sim if your idea of satisfying the physics is to turn it like AC. While you're one of those that is really engaged at hardcore sims, doesn't mean the wide masses will too, which is why GT wasn't made as hardcore sim (doesn't mean there's no room of improvement but they did bring it up), but rather as semi sim as a starting ground for players.
I mean, even if some people think I hate GT with every fiber of my being, I don't. I can very easily play the older titles and gain enjoyment from them.
I'd love to have fun with a modern GT game again. And if Polyphony manage to do that, I will give them the full props deserved for that. But from modern history, habits of both the company and the man himself, and what I have seen with my own eyes? I don't have much hope, and it seems to be a common viewpoint.
Just that the GT older games contain the exact things like, menu picking type career mode, ****** AI, annoying licenses, barebones presentation, the duplicate cars/boring car selections, as well as terrible car sounds. While those are in older eras (for the justification for those older games), there are older games in that era that has comprehensive career, great AI, interesting presentation, and great car sounds right?
But if Polyphony manage to do that... there are still (always) holes that people can focus so they can improve. Still I wonder why in GTS before, people don't constantly bitch on Livery Editor over the inability to paint decals on a window or to group decals or such.
So much discussion about "racing game" vs "car collecting game"... This is no different than real life. I've run across several types of car people IRL.
Conclusion - there are different types of car people and it is just fine for each person to determine what brings them satisfaction within the car culture community. The GT series does a pretty good job of appealing to most of the categories above with the exception of street racers - who might gravitate to GTA. I think GT7 will expand its appeal relative to GTS which was more focused on racers and drivers, with some attention to collectors and drifters. Find the game that brings you the most satisfaction to your preferred car culture flavor.
It won't appeal to the "racers" either, if it's about competitive racing, for justified reasons of course with GT having lackluster AI constantly. Though otherwise the game does get described as "Whether you’re a competitive racer, collector, fine-tuning builder, livery designer, photographer or arcade fan – ignite your personal passion for cars with features inspired by the past, present and future of Gran Turismo™." which'd mean it takes part in car culture and automotive appreciation as well. But the genre of the game is still racing, and that can't be denied, though doesn't mean that any other car culture aspects like you list can be written off as "irrelevant" only because those isn't about racing.
This is going to be unpopular lol
I think PD has gone overboard with nostalgia when it comes to cars and tracks, not against old tracks, looking forward to them but to them, but you have to move forward at the same point and 50/50 split of old and new would be more preferable.
Bringing back Cars, no problem again but they bring back cars and cause the same issue as before, you end having to balance cars to race against.
You bring back the Castrol Supra great, but what an opportunity to put its peers cars in aswell, so now the super is going to be racing against Super GTs or Nearly upto date GT3s depending on what class you put it in.
They bring back the DTM Alfa why not take the opportunity to put the Merc, and other DTMs from that year.
The PP system might be great, but if it is not its back to one Makes Lobbies,
Who cares if it's an old feature? If it's a good feature, bring it on the game regardless if it's already used or not (I hate removing good/by choice features in video games). It's just a shallow thinking (and leaning too far on the opposite direction for "anti-nostalgia") if anything new is viewed as good and anything old is bad.
