GT Sport Update Brings Huge Mid-Season Balance of Performance Changes

[breeminator]

Okay, I tested the 4C with the BoP before this change, the new BoP, and with the opposite change:

Jag 17:58
Ford 17:59

Alfa old BoP 17:57 (slightly slower fastest lap than Jag/Ford, but better tyre wear makes it faster for the last laps)
Alfa new BoP 18:08
Alfa opposite BoP change 17:47

So I now think they couldn't have intended the opposite change. I did have reservations about the idea of weight having twice the effect of power, as I mentioned in my opening post, but I'd seen someone else suggest that to be the case in the past, and it did seem in line with the difference between the Alfa and Aston.

It's also worth noting that the new Alfa BoP has made the car much harder to drive, so I'm wondering if these BoP changes affect the weight distribution of the car.

So a more performance neutral adjustment would be somewhere between the new and opposite BoP changes.

 

[Adam41]

Looking at the values at face value sure.

But using the basis that 1% power change is more effective than 1% weight change, the 4C has been given nearly an increase in power double that of the Megane. It's also been given an increase in weight just over double.

I've heard the 4C changes might have nerfed it a bit too much, but at least Gr4 won't be dominated by these cars anywhere other than power tracks now.

@breeminator was that last test at Fuji? If so, the 4C should rightly be slower there. It's a power track.

 

[Pelikan]

I'm honestly wondering if PD have made a mistake with the changes to the Megane Trophy, 4C and 86.

You have to consider that the BoP takes into account tire wear performance. They added weight to mitigate the huge gains those cars had in that department.

 

[breeminator]

@breeminator was that last test at Fuji? If so, the 4C should rightly be slower there. It's a power track.

It's the full version of Fuji, so there's quite a lot of places where handling is important. I think it's a reasonably balanced track. There are tracks that are more handling-oriented, and tracks that are more power-oriented, I assume Windfire uses Fuji because it's a middle ground between the two.

You have to consider that the BoP takes into account tire wear performance. They added weight to mitigate the huge gains those cars had in that department.

I'm testing with 3x fuel and 7x tyre wear on RM tyres for 10 laps with no stops. These are the same settings PX7 Windfire uses for his testing, which he posts on YouTube. I'm slower than him, he did around 17:42 with the Jag, but I feel I'm consistent to within +/- 2 seconds total race time, and would expect a better driver to see similar relative performance between cars.

I've done some more testing, this is my full set of results now:
Jag/Ford ~17:58
Alfa:
Power Weight
104 111 17:57 (old BoP)
111 126 18:08 (new BoP)
119 118 17:47 (opposite BoP, i.e. +15% power +7% weight rather than +7% power +15% weight)
111 118 17:56 (+7% weight +7% power)

So a more reasonable change around that level would have been something like 111/119 or 110/118. Bear in mind that although the Alfa does a faster total race time at 111/118 than the Ford/Jag, it would qualify several tenths slower, so it needs a faster total race time to compensate for the fact it would need to achieve overtakes later in the race to make use of the better tyre wear to claw back positions lost due to the worse qualifying performance. Indeed even 111/118 would arguably be reasonable for this reason.

 

[Pelikan]

@breeminator I’m pointing out that the weight was added to those three OP handling cars to increase their tirewear. They were able to do much longer stints at similar pace.

 

[breeminator]

@breeminator I’m pointing out that the weight was added to those three OP handling cars to increase their tirewear. They were able to do much longer stints at similar pace.

Yes, so I'm saying my testing includes tyre wear. The faster total race times of some of the Alfa BoP options I listed are achieved by it starting off slower, but becoming faster as the race goes on, due to better tyre wear. So the total race time incorporates the effect of tyre wear. In an FIA race, the Alfa would do worse than the total race time suggests because it would start the race lower down the grid and need to overtake later in the race when it starts to have a pace advantage.

 

[Rangeraus]

Lago Maggiore GP is a pretty balanced circuit, if not more of a handling track in my opinion.

The 4C qualified and finished last or second last in every top split manufacturer race I looked at yesterday (and it wasn't close). This included World Tour competitors. The top drivers in other regions saved their DR and didn't bother entering.

I will be surprised if this car is semi-competitive anywhere with this current BoP.

 

[das89ca]

I have checked in EMEA - from top100 Alfa drivers only 2 were able to score points that were calculated in the total(so part of best 3 results from 9 rounds).

My experience was that the car is almost a complete disaster at this point. I qualified 17th(this was my mistake - because of the characteristic Alfa slide that was introduced in the 1.58 patch lost 0.5s). I was down to last after 1 lap and then struggled to keep up with the cars in front even in the slipstream. I finished 19th just because one of the cars in front got a 4s penalty in the last lap. Lago Maggiore is not my best track, but last time I was able to finish 7th in the Group3 car - so I am decent...

I will do one more try in a Gr.4 race - I still hope that the car was uncompetitive because half of the track you are ascending and the power is not enough. If I have the same experience I will just race Gr.3 races until the end of the season.

 

[RX8 Racer]

I made an account to chime in on my experience with the 4C Gr.4.

Quite frankly, the post-patch 4C Gr.4 is awful. I qualified at the back and pretty much stayed there for the entire race on both tries, my second try being marginally better than my first. On my second run, I finished 17th, my best lap was 5 seconds off the fastest lap and the other Alfa I saw finished 14th.

I also looked through the Alfa Asia driver standings. 12 out of the top 20 Alfa Asia drivers ran in both rounds 8 (pre-patch) and 9 (post-patch) and out of those 12, only 1 scored more points in round 9 (95 points) compared to 8 (35 points). The remaining 11 did significantly worse in round 9.

I guess I'll be focusing on Gr.3 for the rest of the season unless BoP swings the other way.

 

[breeminator]

I made an account to chime in on my experience with the 4C Gr.4.

Quite frankly, the post-patch 4C Gr.4 is awful. I qualified at the back and pretty much stayed there for the entire race on both tries, my second try being marginally better than my first. On my second run, I finished 17th, my best lap was 5 seconds off the fastest lap

I've now done over 100 laps testing different combinations of weight and power, and have definitely got better at driving the Alfa. I do think it has been excessively nerfed, but there are techniques you can develop to cope with its tendency to slide the back end. If it's at all borderline between which of 2 gears you should exit a corner in, use the longer gear, that can help a lot with getting a better exit. Also, some kerbs are best avoided, as the better line isn't worth it in terms of it tending to make the back end slide. I've got used to timing a little correction for certain places where I know the back end is going to slide a bit, where I quickly move the steering towards the centre a little, then back to where it was. With practice, you can anticipate when it's going to happen, and apply that correction, and the car will remain pretty stable. It definitely isn't 5 seconds a lap off the pace, so if you keep practising with it, you should be able to get better at driving it.

 

[Bloody Snake]

Damn, almost 3 years of updates for balance of performance grrrrrr...

This is exactly my thinking. After all these years. Why they keep changing the balance of the cars? If they just want fairness and equally, so no car could have an advantage, why don’t change it so that all the racing cars of the same class, have the same power and weight and be done with all these balance updates? That way, everyone can use any car and there will be more car variety in every race.

 

[JadepantherX]

This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:

GT Sport Update Brings Huge Mid-Season Balance of Performance Changes

This article was published by Andrew Evans (@Famine) on May 22nd, 2020 in the Gran Turismo Sport category.

With both Gr4 races this past week being dominated by FF cars, I would have hoped these changes would have solved that, but apparently not. I certainly hope all Gr4 daily races aren't dominated by FF cars. Seems to be after the recent few updates, and they made some adjustments to FF cars. Surely this wasn't there intention. Its obvious to me that the BoP doesn't really balance things, it seems very obvious that certains "brands" get favoritism BoP coding already. but FF cars dominating Daily Gr4 races...

 

[watto79]

I've now done over 100 laps testing different combinations of weight and power, and have definitely got better at driving the Alfa. I do think it has been excessively nerfed, but there are techniques you can develop to cope with its tendency to slide the back end. If it's at all borderline between which of 2 gears you should exit a corner in, use the longer gear, that can help a lot with getting a better exit. Also, some kerbs are best avoided, as the better line isn't worth it in terms of it tending to make the back end slide. I've got used to timing a little correction for certain places where I know the back end is going to slide a bit, where I quickly move the steering towards the centre a little, then back to where it was. With practice, you can anticipate when it's going to happen, and apply that correction, and the car will remain pretty stable. It definitely isn't 5 seconds a lap off the pace, so if you keep practising with it, you should be able to get better at driving it.

I don't suppose you'd mind sharing some footage of how you're driving it?

When I was sliding around in last place I very much felt like I was part of the problem, with every slide compounding the problem.

I know it's never going to be as competitive as it once was but if I can get my head around how it handles I could at least enjoy a race.

No worries if not

 

[breeminator]

Okay......... this is the result of a LOT of 10 lap races with different weight and power settings for the Alfa.

My best estimate is that each % of power change makes 1.60 seconds difference to total race time, and each % of weight change makes 1.33 seconds difference to total race time. So I agree with Adam that power makes more difference than weight, but it's nowhere near the double that PD has used in the BoP changes.

So here is an updated estimate of the impact of the Gr.4 BoP changes, expressed in terms of change in total race time for the race parameters given. The Alfa works out at 8.75 seconds slower than with the old BoP, which is reasonably in line with what I said earlier in this thread.

The conclusion is the same - for Fuji, at least, the Alfa stands no chance because you will qualify around the back of the grid, and your early race pace will be hopeless compared to cars like the Jag and Ford. Even for the last few laps, with a tyre wear advantage, you'll still be slower than the Jag and Ford, just by a smaller amount of time. On a track like Monza, I'd guess the Alfa would do even worse. I don't know if there are any extreme handling tracks where the Alfa would be competitive, I'll leave that to someone else to test. It still seems like a mistake, to me, to slow it down by so much.

@watto79 I'll send you a PM. I've had enough of driving around that track for today!

 

[Famine]

Okay......... this is the result of a LOT of 10 lap races with different weight and power settings for the Alfa.

Can you check the spelling on your spreadsheet and replace the image with a corrected one? I know the Lancer isn't great, but...

 

[ASH32]

The Alfa and Trophy dominated at Brands Hatch before, even with zero tyre wear, if they are anywhere in the bottom half of cars now then PD have clearly gone too far with these changes, that's what needs testing next if someone wants to.

 

[breeminator]

Can you check the spelling on your spreadsheet and replace the image with a corrected one? I know the Lancer isn't great, but...

Done. Sorry, that wasn't intentional!

 

[breeminator]

I downloaded Windfire's tests of the Megane Trophy and Viper Gr.4 from YouTube to be able to get accurate timings from them. The videos are here:



Car Total time Fastest lap
MT 17:46.67 1:45.33
Viper 17:45.41 1:44.85

The MT wasn't nerfed as hard as the Alfa, but even so, I'd argue it's now totally useless for Fuji. Looking at a top split race for the last Gr.4 Manufacturer race, the pole driver would have dropped to 12th with that size of qualifying time loss. The total race time is slower than the faster qualifying Viper, and they'd have the disadvantage of needing to overtake later in the race when their pace becomes better than other cars to actually achieve that race time.

If the game is going to take a "horses for courses" approach to BoP, where some cars are lighter but less powerful, and others are heavier but more powerful, then they need to perform similarly on balanced tracks. The lighter cars are expected to be useless on tracks like Monza, La Sarthe, or the Tokyo tracks with long straights, but they need to perform similarly on balanced tracks, and in return for being useless on high speed tracks, they need to dominate on handling tracks. If they are made to perform similarly on handling tracks, be fairly useless on balanced tracks, and even more useless on high speed tracks, then the only people who will pick them are low rated drivers looking to pick unpopular cars in the hope of making the manufacturer top 10 to get S rating.

 

[breeminator]

I don't suppose you'd mind sharing some footage of how you're driving it?

When I was sliding around in last place I very much felt like I was part of the problem, with every slide compounding the problem.

A better demo of how to drive it than I could ever provide:



His test results so far, since the BoP change:

I think skilled drivers will get closer to other cars with the Alfa than less skilled drivers. I got down to 18:00 with the Alfa after maybe 150 laps of practice. My 2nd 10 lap effort with the AMG was 17:54, so I was about 6 seconds quicker with the AMG. Looking at his AMG test with the old BoP AMG, I'd expect him to be around 17:46 with the AMG with the new BoP, so he got the Alfa a bit closer than I did, but it's still a total race time that is several seconds off the pace, and a slower fastest lap than any other car tested so far, so qualifying would be a disaster with it.

I take back what I said about the Lexus earlier, I hadn't realised how bad it is. I now see that when I've seen it doing reasonably well in races, it was because it was being driven by someone who would have done even better in something else.

 

[Famine]

One of these things is not like the others...

 

[breeminator]

FWIW I just tried a race at Brands Hatch Indy, first with the AMG, then with the 4C. I didn't spend hours trying to get really good with each car, I figured a large proportion of the player base wouldn't be any better with each car by race day than I was with my first attempt. My fastest lap with the 4C was 0.15 slower than my fastest lap with the AMG, and my total race time was 2 seconds slower with the 4C. So I think the AMG is probably faster than the 4C at pretty much every track now.

 

[das89ca]

So basically you are saying that the Alfa is slower than the AMG even on one of the purest handling circuits in the game.

Well, in that case - the Alfa is pretty much useless. It is outmatched in the handling circuits, on the power circuits you have no chance because the lack of power...

 

[GR33N]

Interesting topic, thank you to all the testers out there... But there is something I just don't get.

I've just switched form Alfa to Honda in Manu after the latest BoP update because I wanted to stick to MR drive, and after a quick test drive in both NSXs they seemed pretty solid in both categories.

Anyway, now I see on Famine's table that the Gr.4 NSX is apparently a debatable choice, with all these cells highlighted in red
In the same time I read in the FIA thread someone in an M4 (statistically faster) complaining about not being able to even follow an NSX on a straight line...

So, my question is: how relevant are all these stats when it comes to actual performances on track?

Edit: Just thought about the potential effect of aerodynamics in this game? Could it explain anything?

 

[breeminator]

Interesting topic, thank you to all the testers out there... But there is something I just don't get.

I've just switched form Alfa to Honda in Manu after the latest BoP update because I wanted to stick to MR drive, and after a quick test drive in both NSXs they seemed pretty solid in both categories.

Anyway, now I see on Famine's table that the Gr.4 NSX is apparently a debatable choice, with all these cells highlighted in red
In the same time I read in the FIA thread someone in an M4 (statistically faster) complaining about not being able to even follow an NSX on a straight line...

So, my question is: how relevant are all these stats when it comes to actual performances on track?

I think the tests where people do a full race with fuel use and tyre wear, such as the tests Windfire posts on YouTube, the tests I do myself, and pantherjag (wombleleader) also does tests like that for his strategy videos, these tests are very meaningful. The only difference I can think of for real races is slipstream, where cars don't necessarily have the same performance ranking as they do without a slipstream. For example, suppose a car is hitting the rev limiter at top speed without a slipstream, it won't be able to go any faster with a slipstream. Or suppose one car in top gear is in a region where its power is still increasing with revs without a slipstream, whereas another car is past peak power. These cars will respond a little differently to being in a slipstream, the one that gets a power increase from the extra speed will gain more speed than the one that gets a power decrease.

The Gr.4 NSX is an excellent car in my experience, you can do very well in most races with it. The Gr.3 NSX is solid but not as high in the ranking of Gr.3 cars as the Gr.4 NSX is in the ranking of Gr.4 cars. I'm not sure what exactly Famine's table is conveying.

M4 not being able to follow an NSX in a straight line - it's hard to comment without more information, but it's not generally true, as far as I'm aware.

 

[Famine]

Anyway, now I see on Famine's table that the Gr.4 NSX is apparently a debatable choice, with all these cells highlighted in red

I'm not sure what exactly Famine's table is conveying.

The only information in there thus far is Track BOP power, weight, and PWR, effective fuel range, and speed at 1km from rest (the full table also has 2km, the change from 1-2km, and Vmax on a flat straight) - as per the column headings. In principle you don't really need to pay attention to the power/weight/PWR columns at all; they're just... there and don't necessarily mean anything about the car's relative performance.

For the colour-coding light red is below average, red is well below average, light green is above average, green is well above average. The median values are listed at the bottom (with the Veyron outside the grouping, because it's not a Manufacturer Series car).

If you look up the NSX it has a below average 1km speed (134mph compared to 135mph median), and a well below average effective range (127mi compared to 135mi median).

I'm behind myself with sorting the tyre range out, but that'll go up next. I just thought it was interesting how efficient the Cayman was.

 

[breeminator]

If you look up the NSX it has a below average 1km speed (134mph compared to 135mph median), and a well below average effective range (127mi compared to 135mi median).

How are you working out the fuel range? Looking at fuel remaining at the end of Windfire's Fuji test, you have the Alfa with more range than the Citroen, whereas he has the Citroen at 46% fuel remaining at the end vs the Alfa 40%, i.e. the opposite ranking to yours.

 

[Famine]

How are you working out the fuel range? Looking at fuel remaining at the end of Windfire's Fuji test, you have the Alfa with more range than the Citroen, whereas he has the Citroen at 46% fuel remaining at the end vs the Alfa 40%, i.e. the opposite ranking to yours.

The simplest possible, most easily repeatable way with the fewest variables: hammering it out from the pits at SSRX at max chat and not letting up until the 50mph limiter cuts in.

The car has max fuel, you run it until it has no fuel, and the distance covered is how far it can go - no corners, no braking, no gearing worries. Although I did it at 50x fuel use because **** driving 3,800 miles in Gr4 cars on SSRX; it does mean that some cars that appear equal in value will be a mile more or less efficient than each other, but ultimately that's not a huge concern.

It give the best possible baseline value, and anyone should be able to achieve exactly the same results by doing exactly the same thing. As soon as you start introducing variables like braking, cornering, accelerating again, gearing, and anything else, you have things that can give you different results from the person that tested it (especially if they're loads better than you, like T-W is loads better than me). Perhaps the Citroen can get out of Fuji's corners in a higher gear than the Alfa, which makes it more efficient at that circuit (don't know, haven't checked)

I will be adding some further circuit tests in later - and I have the tyre tests to do, which cannot take place at SSRX - I just thought it was interesting that the Cayman could go so much further than anything else (with the Megane Trophy a distant second).

 

[breeminator]

The simplest possible, most easily repeatable way with the fewest variables: hammering it out from the pits at SSRX at max chat and not letting up until the 50mph limiter cuts in.

The car has max fuel, you run it until it has no fuel, and the distance covered is how far it can go - no corners, no braking, no gearing worries.

How does it remove gearing from the equation?

 

[NevilleNobody]

Of all the damn things to nerf, the Alfa, really? I mean really? So many other cars needed work and this is the one they crucify. Morons.

 

[GR33N]

Thanks for your answers, very informative posts here.