Yeah I still don't think they understand what people actually like about GT games, to be honest. There's nothing in Sport mode (and in lobbies, even) that ever consistently appeals to what many people loved about online in the early GT's.
I have all these road cars, all these touring cars, all these GT500 cars, and so on, that I just can never use in a good race because everything is forced to be competitive in this little groups that stay the same for an entire week.
In GT5, you could hop into online, join a shuffle race, and race something new somewhere new consistently whenever you wanted. In GT6, there were swaths of online events and lobbies for you to choose from, and even quick races had variety that went past "Road Car. Gr.3. Gr.4" because you'd see it limited to cars within a certain HP, or cars with a certain drivetrain etc. On top of these, you had the seasonal events too. Always something fresh to keep people playing.
In GT7 this week we have a BMW M3 race, at the same track all week. There's just no variety any more, and it kills me. Online lobbies are broken most of the time, but even when it works you can't limit it to road cars! I tried to host a road car lobby and half the people that joined used a car with an exploited suspension or tried to race a Gr.3/4 car until they changed or got kicked.
I really feel like they forgot what the DNA of Gran Turismo was all about. You see this in the cafe too. I fell in love with cars and their history because of the fact GT let me race whatever I worked for, wherever I wanted. In GT7, they expect you to fall in love with cars because they force you to learn about their history, and you race whatever they want you to race, wherever they want you to. It's fundamentally the wrong way around, and this design is reflected throughout the entire game.
It's not even a hard fix. Make Race A rotate daily (or hourly, or hell, make every race slot a random combination!) and the problem is solved. As of right now they have done absolutely everything wrong with it. They've given it (mostly) boring combinations with small grid sizes and it doesn't mean anything for your SR/DR so most people don't even bother. You can see this with the qualifying numbers, as
@Leon Kowalski was showing. I saw someone post a photo of a race A lobby in the Discord that popped with 4 people in it earlier.
They need to funnel players into racing something that's consistently different, and therefore consistently fun. It's really not hard. I genuinely think if 1 person out of 90% of the playerbase got directive control of the game, half the surface level issues would be fixed within an hour. Penalties, SR problems, variety problems, event problems - they could all be fixed insanely quickly by someone who is passionate about fixing them, and by someone who knows what GT is about. I feel like PD don't right now. Competitive races are great, but you need something to supplement that.
Sorry for the essay lol.
