Gran Turismo 7 Turns 3: How It’s Changed

[Greycap]

I'm still waiting for "a return to the beginning GT games" or "getting back to what made the first GT's fun" or whatever he claimed before launch.

You'll be waiting forever. It's not that the game isn't fun, but your point of view has changed so much that it's simply not possible.

Case A: Give the current GT7 to someone who's the same age you were back in the GT1 days, with the same mindset you had back then, having never experienced anything like it, and they'll be over the moon.
Case B: Play GT1 yourself now, judge it with the same criteria as you would any current game with the exception of the graphics, with no nostalgia applied. It's not really all that great to be honest.

Most of us with nearly 30 years of GT experience tend to reminisce the old games with very rose tinted glasses as they were something groundbreaking back then. Looking at them now GT1 was a very short game without all that much content, GT2 had a lot of everything with just about no coherence anywhere, GT3 is praised for its looks but it was an oversaturated and overcontrasted mess with a lot of repeated content and far too oversteery physics. GT4 is basically GT2 v2 but polished to near perfection, GT5 took the coherence issues even further and GT6 improved on it mechanically but didn't really know what it was trying to be. Against that background GT7 isn't all that bad but it doesn't have the benefit of nostalgia to elevate it to a level much higher than where it would belong.

 

[Imbissbrunto]

You'll be waiting forever. It's not that the game isn't fun, but your point of view has changed so much that it's simply not possible.

Case A: Give the current GT7 to someone who's the same age you were back in the GT1 days, with the same mindset you had back then, having never experienced anything like it, and they'll be over the moon.
Case B: Play GT1 yourself now, judge it with the same criteria as you would any current game with the exception of the graphics, with no nostalgia applied. It's not really all that great to be honest.

Most of us with nearly 30 years of GT experience tend to reminisce the old games with very rose tinted glasses as they were something groundbreaking back then. Looking at them now GT1 was a very short game without all that much content, GT2 had a lot of everything with just about no coherence anywhere, GT3 is praised for its looks but it was an oversaturated and overcontrasted mess with a lot of repeated content and far too oversteery physics. GT4 is basically GT2 v2 but polished to near perfection, GT5 took the coherence issues even further and GT6 improved on it mechanically but didn't really know what it was trying to be. Against that background GT7 isn't all that bad but it doesn't have the benefit of nostalgia to elevate it to a level much higher than where it would belong.

I don‘t think the criticism against GT7 is purely based on nostalgia. I even agree to an extent with your points. However, at least imo the main issue is that GT7 is a great racing game but not a very good Gran Turismo title.

If this game had been made by a different studio and wasn‘t called Gran Turismo, it would be considered an amazing racing game since the game’s base (graphics, sound, physics and attention to detail) is damn near flawless.

The problem is that this game is a Gran Turismo main title (unlike Sport) which means we expect certain things from it, mainly a classic career mode with a steady progression through the ranks from starting out with a simple used car and ending up driving Gr. 1 prototypes.

GT7 abandonded this in favor of a weird and completely linear menu book system that leaves you with almost no choice. The older titles pretty much let you race events in whatever order you wanted to (more or less) whereas GT7 forces you to play the races in one specific way with cars in one specific order.

GT7 also lacks many of the iconic original tracks such as El Capitan, Hong Kong, SS7 etc. that hugely contributed to the unique Gran Turismo feeling in the older games.

In addition with the hugely expensive legendary cars, many of which you can barely use in any of the „career mode‘s“ races it feels like a disjointed experience.

It‘s by no means a bad game and some aspects of it are the best I‘ve ever seen in a video game (such as the livery editor and photo mode) but it is held back by these baffling decisions regarding game design.

 

[05XR8]

I don’t know. Gran Turismo 1 has qualifying and endurance races. Something players of GT7 are screaming for. If GT1 is like My First Gran Turismo in terms of let’s say locked in content, it’s a damn good game.
For only six cars on track, GT1 still holds up with how PD tried to balance the cars players ran against.

Maybe the way to compare GT7 to GT1 would be to only have GT7 DLC cars(102) and base it on servers down. Limit grids to six cars and the circuits that were originally in GT1 while including a couple Tokyo Expressway layouts. No use of PSVR2 and custom races.

As for Racing Modified cars, not sure GT7 livery editor qualifies. Might have to make concessions to add Gr.3 & Gr.4 of specific models in the car list. Comparing GT games just becomes iffy.

 

[equalitus]

What do you mean? You can buy engine swaps at level 50.

But we can't buy engines and put it in another car which means that we might have to get 500 tickets until we get an engine that we can put in a car we own to upgrade it more than buying turbo or NA upgrade, or there is something I missed?

 

[Famine]

But we can't buy engines and put it in another car which means that we might have to get 500 tickets until we get an engine that we can put in a car we own to upgrade it more than buying turbo or NA upgrade, or there is something I missed?

What you missed is yes you can absolutely do that. Here is an image from our last update article of me about to do precisely that:

 

[StarRacer]

I don‘t think the criticism against GT7 is purely based on nostalgia. I even agree to an extent with your points. However, at least imo the main issue is that GT7 is a great racing game but not a very good Gran Turismo title.

If this game had been made by a different studio and wasn‘t called Gran Turismo, it would be considered an amazing racing game since the game’s base (graphics, sound, physics and attention to detail) is damn near flawless.

The problem is that this game is a Gran Turismo main title (unlike Sport) which means we expect certain things from it, mainly a classic career mode with a steady progression through the ranks from starting out with a simple used car and ending up driving Gr. 1 prototypes.

GT7 abandonded this in favor of a weird and completely linear menu book system that leaves you with almost no choice. The older titles pretty much let you race events in whatever order you wanted to (more or less) whereas GT7 forces you to play the races in one specific way with cars in one specific order.

GT7 also lacks many of the iconic original tracks such as El Capitan, Hong Kong, SS7 etc. that hugely contributed to the unique Gran Turismo feeling in the older games.

In addition with the hugely expensive legendary cars, many of which you can barely use in any of the „career mode‘s“ races it feels like a disjointed experience.

It‘s by no means a bad game and some aspects of it are the best I‘ve ever seen in a video game (such as the livery editor and photo mode) but it is held back by these baffling decisions regarding game design.

EXACTLY!!!!!

 

[Junkerdenb]

The game currently is the best it’s been. The early problems with lag online have pretty much gone away. The physics and ffb are the best they’ve been.
I was lucky enough to go the World Finals n Amsterdam last year and it was amazing. The production values are through the roof for what’s a bit of a niche in gaming. It’s great to see the effort they make keeping the esports side of it alive.

I think there are some pretty easy quality of life improvements they could make:-

-Being able to sell parts.
-Invites to buy certain cars - either scrap them or make them available to buy with in game credits.
-Share tuning setups, or at least be able to set them in multiplayer lobbies.
-Rent cars in multiplayer lobbies ( like you can in Sport mode)
-Ability to assign points in multiplayer and carry results between races so we can do championships/ series.

 

[Imbissbrunto]

Tbh that‘s the main issue- PD seems to be focused more on Esports than single player. Which is very unfortunate for a game like Gran Turismo that most people have been mainly buying for the career mode from the start.

 

[ImbaSteckdose]

I bought it for multiplayer mainly but also find that lacking in a few aspects, compared to other non-GT games (I haven't played other GT games in any meaningful capacity):

• Paddocks still have connectivity issues and lag
• the Lobbies list doesn't have a filter or sorting option for nr. of players, who wants to scroll trough a long list of lobbies... I think every other racing game I've ever played had those
• Sport mode, imo the mode with the least barrier of entry, in terms of time and energy to decide on a race, only has 3 Daily races going. Why aren't there more? It feels a bit barebones, even though there's the large focus on Esports on the outside and in marketing

I'm hoping for multiplayer quality of life updates but I doubt it's going to happen, or it's turning out like the SpecII paddocks update that didn't fix these issues.

But GT7 is still the multiplayer racing game I've spent the most time on in recent years, because it works so well on controller and livery and customization options are so good

 

[Sir Crashalot]

However, at least imo the main issue is that GT7 is a great racing game but not a very good Gran Turismo title.

I suppose you mean online/Multiplayer? Because otherwise I absolutely can't relate. I enjoy many aspects of the game (collecting, driving, modding and tuning cars and enjoying the nice graphics) but the racing vs AI definitely lacks a lot.

 

[MIE1992]

I think the biggest critique I have at this point was that the invite system needs notable reform, if not removal altogether. Otherwise, I'm in for whatever PD has in store next when it comes to GT7.

 

[Imbissbrunto]

I suppose you mean online/Multiplayer? Because otherwise I absolutely can't relate. I enjoy many aspects of the game (collecting, driving, modding and tuning cars and enjoying the nice graphics) but the racing vs AI definitely lacks a lot.

No, I was talking about the mediocre career mode, which is pretty lacking for the reasons I stated above. From a technical point of view (graphics, physics and level of polish) Gran Turismo 7 is near flawless tbf.

 

[Cerebral303]

I am grateful for what we have but sad for the missed potential. There are some glaring omissions in terms of modes, tracks and cars, previous replies have covered this well.

 

[VXR]

Still no bleeping engine selling. C'mon already PD quit dragging your buttocks... The game is so old it's hardly going to put a damper in your precious MTX.

The ticket glitch that gave a large number of players inordinate amounts of engines and parts probably killed any post-launch plans to allow this, as people will have millions of credits sat there, and the MTX people probably wouldn't approve.

 

[HarVee]

The ticket glitch that gave a large number of players inordinate amounts of engines and parts probably killed any post-launch plans to allow this, as people will have millions of credits sat there, and the MTX people probably wouldn't approve.

That was near three years ago though. The number of players that sill have those engines are exceedingly small and were likely never the intended audience for MTX to begin with. Not having engine selling as a feature three years later because of one glitch, which was at the fault of PD and not the players, is just dumb and vindictive.

And if PD are still worried about MTX, they could limit it to one engine per day as they did with cars.

 

[jlbmel]

The ticket glitch that gave a large number of players inordinate amounts of engines and parts probably killed any post-launch plans to allow this, as people will have millions of credits sat there, and the MTX people probably wouldn't approve.

The glitch also allowed people to obtain hundreds of NSX cars and PD still implemented selling of cars.

 

[Sir Crashalot]

No, I was talking about the mediocre career mode, which is pretty lacking for the reasons I stated above. From a technical point of view (graphics, physics and level of polish) Gran Turismo 7 is near flawless tbf.

Was just wondering 'cause you said it's a great racing game. Sounded to me like the racing is the highlight of the game.

 

[Meythia]

From a technical point of view (graphics, physics and level of polish) Gran Turismo 7 is near flawless tbf.

Strongly disagree.
graphics: while cars look good, everything else looks bland. Propably too much focus on Scapes made them not look enough on track beauty. Low draw distance, lack of people at the track, quality of the offtrack surface. If you can name it, you can shame it.
physics: ever changed, ever updated, ever not all around good.

 

[Def-Infinity]

We still need a PC port. This is the most widely requested/demanded change needed. It would broaden the range of players and access and completely change e-sports, which is currently dominated by Iracing, which is soon coming to PS5.

Nobody ever thinks of the multiplayer lobby players...

They need QOL updates BAD... a blacklist/whitelist feature at minimum.

 

[Imbissbrunto]

Was just wondering 'cause you said it's a great racing game. Sounded to me like the racing is the highlight of the game.

I see! Well, I think the actual racing itself is very fun, especially with road cars.

Strongly disagree.
graphics: while cars look good, everything else looks bland. Propably too much focus on Scapes made them not look enough on track beauty. Low draw distance, lack of people at the track, quality of the offtrack surface. If you can name it, you can shame it.
physics: ever changed, ever updated, ever not all around good.

What racing game has better graphics than Gran Turismo 7?

 

[Meythia]

It is not about which better, it is about calling what it is: not good with the flaws mentioned.
Popping lights on and of because you come closer to an opponent car by 1 cm.
Barely any spectator model, sometimes even putting Dollies next to each other because of the low amount of variations.
Shadow draw distance visible on many tracks in "not edge cases".

Of course with nothing I dare to compare, this is easy to say, but in my opinion that could have been solved and I dont think the tradeoff would have been any less appealing.
Lights shouldnt be on/off that easily spottable, track element lighting works just fine.
But to me shadow draw distance is the biggest turn off of gaming graphics because it is omnipresent and can not be unseen.
Ideally I wouldnt notice the steps, and I dont care if the grid shrinks by 1 or 2 cars to compensate.

 

[Imbissbrunto]

That‘s fair, I also noticed certain textures popping up in the distance. It‘s probably a matter of taste in the end. I notice these things as well but they don‘t bother me that much.

It would be ideal if the game didn’t have this issue at all, of course. But since the cars and tracks are modelled so well it‘s a tradeoff I‘m willing to accept.

 

[GlamFM]

I think some of those issues stem from the fact that GT7 was not designed around a SSD because it has to work on a PS4.

A full on next (as in current) gen GT should have less pop in / LOD switches.

 

[rich1]

Strongly disagree.
graphics: while cars look good, everything else looks bland. Propably too much focus on Scapes made them not look enough on track beauty. Low draw distance, lack of people at the track, quality of the offtrack surface. If you can name it, you can shame it.
physics: ever changed, ever updated, ever not all around good.

Agreed about it looking bland. It's very, very vanilla. Sure, real world tracks tend to look boring- tarmac surrounded by grass- but the imaginary ones look much less interesting than back in GT2 days. Mostly very uninspired.

I think the game looks polished, but it certainly doesn't look 'wow'. My gf actually commented that the game didn't look very impressive.

I've been a GT fan since I started with GT 1. Unfortunately, GT7 has only made it to 5th place in my GT favorites so far.
1st place -> GT 3 and 4
3rd place -> GT 2
4th place -> GT 5
5th place -> GT 6 and 7
7th place -> GT 1

In my opinion, the variety of different car types and the need for driving licenses were a strength of the older parts. I really miss these in GT 6 and 7.

I hope that PD will put out a real cracker for their anniversary at the end of the month.

Let's hope that update finally gives us a career mode. It's baffling that it's been 3 years and the single player game is still a catastrophe.

By the way, for me:
1st place: GT2 waaaaaaaaay out in the lead
2nd place: GT1
3rd place: GT3
4th place: GT4
5th place: GT5
6th place: GT7
7th place: GT6

Make the games fun again!! Which does of course mean no more 20,000,000 cars that aren't available to win as race prizes.

 

[HarVee]

How about 20mil unicorn cars that can actually be used? 98 percent of them have no use in the career currently, and that begs the question of why one should bother to buy them if they can't even use them to recoup the credits they spend on them? It's definitely a bad game design.

If I am to rank the games, GT3, GTS, and GT6 all favor above GT7 simply for the fact that those three don't have the UCD/LCD. Cars shouldn't be locked behind FOMO rotation periods. They should be purchasable whenever provided you have the funds. There is simply no rationale behind having the UCD/LCD.

 

[AlexWilmot]

How about 20mil unicorn cars that can actually be used? 98 percent of them have no use in the career currently, and that begs the question of why one should bother to buy them if they can't even use them to recoup the credits they spend on them? It's definitely a bad game design.

You mean 98% of the 20mil cars can be used for cafe menu book 33, 36 or 39?

 

[rich1]

Hands up anyone that has actually purchased a 20,000,000 car? How many hours of Sardegna is that? Most of us could probably spend real cash to buy one and it would utilise less of our time. But we won't because the idea of spending money on a digital car is offensive.

 

[hyperspeed980]

You mean 98% of the 20mil cars can be used for cafe menu book 33 or 36?

Quite the disingenuous point. Should the people who clamored for X2019 or Gr.2 events before we got them have just sucked it up and detuned those cars to run in the WTC events instead?

Using this logic, you might as well argue that every car has races catered towards them because you can just do a Quick Race.

 

[Imbissbrunto]

I think some of those issues stem from the fact that GT7 was not designed around a SSD because it has to work on a PS4.

A full on next (as in current) gen GT should have less pop in / LOD switches.

That sounds very plausible!

 

[AlexWilmot]

Quite the disingenuous point.

Nope not at all, I literally can compete in those menu book championships with those cars without detuning them

Using this logic, you might as well argue that every car has races catered towards them because you can just do a Quick Race.

Not what I said, was referencing the 20mil cars not every car in the game

Edit: 20million credit car, no detuning, finish cafe menu 33

Man I’m soo disingenuous

Other 20million credit cars that can be used in the cafe menus without detuning:
McLaren F1 ‘94 - menu 36
Ferrari 330 P4 ‘67 - menu 39
Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe ‘64 - menu 33
Mercedes Benz W 196 R - menu 33 & 36

Slightly less than 20million:
Porsche 917k ‘70 - menu 39

Others can be used for menu 33 if you tune them up