Gran Turismo World Series (Nations Cup Exhibition Season: Jan 22 - Feb 1)

[Nakano219]

Slightly off-expectations pick, but I wonder if the NSX GT500 might be a decent shout for Saturday?

It's a naturally aspirated MR car, which are both traits you want in the rain in this game, and we know it's good in a straight line at current BoP, which means it should be decently well suited for Red Bull Ring.

 

[benjoi84]

@Talon16 your point about casual players wanting to just log on anytime really rings true with me. I'm a steadily (sometimes clinging to) A rated driver and frequently I encounter the odd B driver, and without tooting my own horn, I usually despatch of them without too much fuss. So I know there's a definite skill gap which means I'm not thrilled about the prospect of dropping into GT2 just to open up more chances. A lot of this is irrelevant because I hardly ever make the slots due to work commitments, but that would be remedied by having more opportunities to jump on.

@Moose78 totally agree with your points, too. Plateau'd is indeed the expression. Whereas I do work quite hard to keep my rating, I'm not too interested in fine tuning my driving enough to rise up towards A+.

 

[bliprunner]

Slightly off-expectations pick, but I wonder if the NSX GT500 might be a decent shout for Saturday?

It's a naturally aspirated MR car, which are both traits you want in the rain in this game, and we know it's good in a straight line at current BoP, which means it should be decently well suited for Red Bull Ring.

I just tried it, along with the RCZ, the BRZ and the Renault. All on Wets.

The NSX is really smooth and easy on the power, no TC required, but had a few low speed oversteer moments when changing gears and after the third spin I decided not to risk it.

The BRZ I wanted to try as it feels very planted in the dry, but it was twitchy as hell and a total deathtrap, even with TC2. Felt quick but completing one lap was a challenge.

The RCZ was quite fast and possibly a solid option, managed to get into the 1:40s, but then the Renault smashed it on lap one and seemed more stable on power, very confident of getting to 1:39 with the Renault. Both on TC1.

Of course I am getting used to the wet track now so need to loop back to the Merc, some of the wider turns you can pick up 0.5+ just by driving off the normal line.

 

[Famine]

Nobody going for the RX-Vision

 

[stpatty]

If it were up to me, we'd get rid of the lettered tiers entirely and switch to numerical DR ratings. For the GTWS races, we could reduce it to two leagues:

1. GTX -- consisting of, say, the top 100 drivers by DR from each region, with limited time slots and stricter rules
2. Everyone else

The way the credit rewards are allocated would need to be adjusted so lower-rated drivers could still hope to get a decent payout for participating. Maybe the way to do that would be to increase the race rewards like we've seen recently in some of the Daily Races where the payouts were multiplied 10x their normal amounts.

I find the arbitrary letter tiers -- and the corresponding GTWS leagues -- really frustrating. As someone who has plateaued at the low-A level, I feel forever doomed to be at the bottom of GT1 with measly bronze-level awards, whereas if I were just a slightly worse driver, I could be dominating GT2. And it all depends on the arbitrary choice of where PD draws the line.

Like many things, the league system seems like an idea someone thought of, put it in GT7 to start with and just left it with no refinement or thought for how things might change in the future.

That said, the only time I was ever bothered by my standings place was when I was chasing an S rank in GT Sport, so it's never affected me. It's easy to see the problems (and solutions!) though.

 

[Talon16]

Nobody going for the RX-Vision

 

[afc5150]

I enjoyed my run from Q12 to P6 at Sardegna last night in GT1 slot 1.

Unfortunately it was at the expense of some of my friends here on GTP including @Moose78 who made a tiny mistake that cost him a couple of positions as I was a few seconds behind him at the time.

I did pick up some minor front aero damage around lap 8 or so on my 12M first stint that slowed me down slightly.

Was catching 4th and 5th at a rapid pace as they had run out of tires but could only get to within a second of them at the end.

Enjoyable race for me, and a decent enough haul of 138 points.

On to the soggy A1-Ring this weekend. Hopefully see a few of you low DR-A guys out there again.

 

[Skyrocket44]

I'm gonna start my report here because half the people in the lobby haven't understood the implications of permanent damage. What happened here was Raybrig Guy made a run and was quarter-to-quarter on Castrol Guy who was taking an angled approach into the intersection, and they both braked after the 100 board. Castrol aimed for inside me from 0.7 seconds back, Raybrig feathered his brakes for some reason, and Castrol kept turning in and ended up smacking my diffuser. Everyone from Malboro Guy backwards came out of lap 1 injured, mostly from the KoD. Speaking of, I don't care how much faster you are or if your mugshot can be seen in the game - if you're 17-for-18 at the Kink and I finish ahead of you, I'm a better driver. Accuse me of Mickey Mousing, but SOMEONE failed a respect check, and it wasn't me. (except for qualifying. I took front damage on the out lap and only managed a 1:34.7 for 10th.)

Otherwise, the race was a solo affair for me, and letting obviously faster drivers pass me. I stopped on lap 12 into clear road, so I decided to swap from the radar to brake balance to at least speed things up a bit. 0 for the chicane onto the road section and church, -5 for everything else. I stole the fastest lap as well during that time (1:33.340). There was an Italian in front of me who pitted on lap 11, so I thought if I could keep my pace up, I could snooker a position from him if he falls victim to dead tyres at the end. He made up a few spots to some M runners, but a Brit with a wrecked front end and expiring M's got sacrificed to the windmill gods at the Kink. I lost about 14.5 seconds to my wing damage, but it could have been a lot worse than 6th and 144 points.

I also learned the that the post-race pit penalty is two minutes instead of one.

 

[IngRobNy]

I just tried it, along with the RCZ, the BRZ and the Renault. All on Wets.

The NSX is really smooth and easy on the power, no TC required, but had a few low speed oversteer moments when changing gears and after the third spin I decided not to risk it.

The BRZ I wanted to try as it feels very planted in the dry, but it was twitchy as hell and a total deathtrap, even with TC2. Felt quick but completing one lap was a challenge.

The RCZ was quite fast and possibly a solid option, managed to get into the 1:40s, but then the Renault smashed it on lap one and seemed more stable on power, very confident of getting to 1:39 with the Renault. Both on TC1.

Of course I am getting used to the wet track now so need to loop back to the Merc, some of the wider turns you can pick up 0.5+ just by driving off the normal line.

Just tried the RCZ now and did 1:43.363, I'm almost 1 sec faster than the fastest lap I did with the lambo, tried the M6, BRZ and the Nissan Pennzoil, but I'm slower than the lambo, so I'm going for the RCZ this saturday.