Is GT7's overall understeering tendency just "wrong"?

[Meltac]

I'm conscious of the thread title being a little provocative... but as I said here before, I've never played a racing / driving game on any platform with so heavy tendency to understeer like GT7.

I'm not a race pro or car physics pro, so I've asked a few people (plus ChatGPT ). The result is pretty clear: In real life, normal road cars tend to understeering because it's much better to control than oversteering and thus safer, whereas sports and especially race cars (touring, formula 1 etc.) tend - if neutrality could not be reached - much more often to oversteering than understeering because it's often just "faster" (and pro drivers can control it).

In GT7 however one is forced to tune almost every sports or race car to not understeer when coming from stock. Why? Before the last update oversteering often was difficult to control, so the inaccurate game physics might have been a reason to add understeering tendency, but now it's much better controllable so IMHO there's no reason anymore to have so much understeering.

Thoughts?

 

[Nebuc72]

They want an accessible game to casual players. A lot of people were quite vocal about finding the previous physics iteration too difficult, and it looks very much like they've toned it back to make things simpler to drive.

Apparently they were very proud of the launch physics. Look how quickly that got simplified due to difficulty complaints.

 

[Meltac]

They want an accessible game to casual players. A lot of people were quite vocal about finding the previous physics iteration too difficult, and it looks very much like they've toned it back to make things simpler to drive.

Apparently they were very proud of the launch physics. Look how quickly that got simplified due to difficulty complaints.

Thanks. Hmm, so it's less "difficult" if your car runs straight out of a corner and crashes into the wall than if its tail would break out a little while you still can catch the corner in a "drifting" manner? No offense or anything, I just couldn't figure out while most games consider it better / easier having cars drifting through corners (oversteer) while only GT7 obviously likes players crashing into walls. (I haven't played yet ACC or PC2, though, no idea how these behave here).

 

[Nebuc72]

Thanks. Hmm, so it's less "difficult" if your car runs straight out of a corner and crashes into the wall than if its tail would break out a little while you still can catch the corner in a "drifting" manner? No offense or anything, I just couldn't figure out while most games consider it better / easier having cars drifting through corners (oversteer) while only GT7 obviously likes players crashing into walls. (I haven't played yet ACC or PC2, though, no idea how these behave here).

Launch leant very much into oversteer territory. People overwhelmingly didn't like it, and so the real Understeer Simulator was born.

It is, for better or for worse (worse I reckon) - easier to just slow down more so you dont drive into a wall, a very obvious thing you can see happening, than it is to countersteer to various degrees to save a spin.

 

[Talon16]

I would agree that cars in this game, road and race, fell extremely understeery. I've called this game The Real Understeer Simulator. Even though I have zero experience in a real GT3 car, it does seem over the top.

 

[Zero2Oblivion]

The understeer at times is comical. I've been trying to do the GR.3 4-chili race at Mount Panorama for awhile now, but since the last two updates, the competitive cars seem to understeer like the Titanic unless I slow right down, at which point I often get rammed by the bots.

 

[timekiller001]

I really loved the physics at launch. It was challenging but not too hard. At least for me, but I'm also on a wheel.
But it has to be mentioned that MR cars (at least Group 3) were really broken with those physics (and most of the times they are still lacking a bit today).
I still like them today as well. As to whether they are too understeery or not, hard to say. As said above, there are reasons for it.

That's the difference between GT and games like AC or LMU. GT has to cater to more of the mass market, whereas the others can specialize on being pure sims.

 

[Mafio]

I'm conscious of the thread title being a little provocative... but as I said here before, I've never played a racing / driving game on any platform with so heavy tendency to understeer like GT7.

I'm not a race pro or car physics pro, so I've asked a few people (plus ChatGPT ). The result is pretty clear: In real life, normal road cars tend to understeering because it's much better to control than oversteering and thus safer, whereas sports and especially race cars (touring, formula 1 etc.) tend - if neutrality could not be reached - much more often to oversteering than understeering because it's often just "faster" (and pro drivers can control it).

In GT7 however one is forced to tune almost every sports or race car to not understeer when coming from stock. Why? Before the last update oversteering often was difficult to control, so the inaccurate game physics might have been a reason to add understeering tendency, but now it's much better controllable so IMHO there's no reason anymore to have so much understeering.

Thoughts?

And you lost me.

"Im no astrophysicists, but according to reddit and chatgpt, Stephen Hawking had no idea what was talking about."

 

[Zero2Oblivion]

That's the difference between GT and games like AC or LMU. GT has to cater to more of the mass market, whereas the others can specialize on being pure sims.

But it seems to be going the other way - I can jump on ACC and know how the cars are going to handle, I know they'll respond to input.

The idea of GT is to be accessible to more casual players, that means more forgiving (hence simcade), but the current physics in GT7 seem to exaggerate the worst characteristics of cars, making them less accessible as you have to learn unorthodox methods to handle the cars.

What is really perplexing about this is that with the most recent updates, the road cars actually feel better to drive, but the race cars (that should be grippy due to downforce/race tires) are becoming harder to handle.

 

[Greycap]

It is, for better or for worse (worse I reckon) - easier to just slow down more so you dont drive into a wall, a very obvious thing you can see happening, than it is to countersteer to various degrees to save a spin.

Imagine driving for two, three, even four hours in a real race, trying to be as fast as possible, in a car that pushes slightly wide if you get a corner entry a bit wrong. Boring, perhaps. Then imagine doing the same in a twitchy mess that wants to spin out every time the other one understeers a bit and you won't make halfway through the stint because you're either in a wall or beached in a sandtrap somewhere after putting in a couple of degrees too much or too little opposite lock to catch it.

While oversteer may feel nice and entertaining, in real life the idea is to being the car home in one piece and be consistent while doing it. A slightly understeery setup is far better for that purpose than an oversteering one. When was the last time you saw a modern GT class race car routinely sliding into corners or out of them? I've watched top tier GT3 racing for years and it just doesn't happen, anywhere, ever.

 

[Fuzzi0n]

I have to admit I've not found the last few versions of the physics that bad for understeer, some cars will do it for sure but it's pretty obvious why it's happening. Plenty of stuff has lift off oversteer and as much power on oversteer as you want, sometimes too much. What I suspect is a lot of the problem is that the stock race car setups are extremely biased towards understeer, especially with the aero balance, and given a lot of people are stuck using those in BoP races I can understand the comments. Maybe part of it is driving style or the differences between input methods, there's a limit to what they can do given there's something of a compromise for people like me using a controller. I still think there's room for improvement, especially with bumps and cars bottoming out and doing weird stuff but I find the game quite enjoyable to drive.

 

[Scaff]

The vast majority of road-cars are set-up to understeer, simply because it's inherently safer for the majority of drivers, and oddly enough OEMs like customers to remain alive as long as possible, to buy as many cars as possible. That's not to say that road cars can't be provoked into oversteering, but that's the key term here, provoked, and certainly not all of them can be easily provoked.

Race cars are (within the limits of the regulations) generally engineered to be as neutral as possible, and then set up to match the drivers' preference. That preference may be towards understeer or oversteer, but in neither case is it generally anything more than a mild bias one way or another, because, as has been mentioned, too much in either direction results in slower lap times. As close to a neutral state, with each corner delivering the most it can, is almost always the fastest way around a circuit.

 

[Nebuc72]

Imagine driving for two, three, even four hours in a real race, trying to be as fast as possible, in a car that pushes slightly wide if you get a corner entry a bit wrong. Boring, perhaps. Then imagine doing the same in a twitchy mess that wants to spin out every time the other one understeers a bit and you won't make halfway through the stint because you're either in a wall or beached in a sandtrap somewhere after putting in a couple of degrees too much or too little opposite lock to catch it.

While oversteer may feel nice and entertaining, in real life the idea is to being the car home in one piece and be consistent while doing it. A slightly understeery setup is far better for that purpose than an oversteering one. When was the last time you saw a modern GT class race car routinely sliding into corners or out of them? I've watched top tier GT3 racing for years and it just doesn't happen, anywhere, ever.

Sure, I get all that - I just mean the inherent physics of the game lean towards exaggerated understeer, with it being difficult to provoke rotation. There's a clear difference between what the core game is trying to do, and what a car is doing when you've set it up to behave in a certain manner.

I understand why they've done it, I just think it's worse than a neutral approach (as I felt 1.49-1.55 was closer to). Launch physics I felt was too far in the opposite direction.

 

[Def-Infinity]

But it seems to be going the other way - I can jump on ACC and know how the cars are going to handle, I know they'll respond to input.

The idea of GT is to be accessible to more casual players, that means more forgiving (hence simcade), but the current physics in GT7 seem to exaggerate the worst characteristics of cars, making them less accessible as you have to learn unorthodox methods to handle the cars.

What is really perplexing about this is that with the most recent updates, the road cars actually feel better to drive, but the race cars (that should be grippy due to downforce/race tires) are becoming harder to handle.

I think its oversimplicity in the tire model that's causing that. The tires heat up and cool really fast and there isn't nearly as much play with slick tires as there is on ACC.

It's also possible that downforce is very simplified as well.

--
About race cars in particular...

Something I pay attention to is the difference between the weight distribution and downforce distribution. Just taking a peek at a few cars in Gr.3 for the Spa Daily (v1.55)...

High-Speed BOP

Car	Natural Frequency (Hz) w/ Downforce	Approx. Weight Distribution	Downforce (Distribution)	Approx. Balance Difference (R)
BMW M6 GT3 Sprint Model	F: 3.80 (425F) R: 3.40 (575R)	52:48	42:58~	+10
Toyota GR Supra Racing Concept	F: 3.60 (425F) R: 3.20 (575R)	52:48	42:58~	+10
Ferrari 458 GT3	F: 4.20 (375F) R: 3.60 (625R)	42:58	38:62~	+4
Porsche 911 RSR (991)	F: 4.20 (400F) R: 3.60 (600R)	46:54	40:60	+6
Lamborghini Huracan GT3	F: 4.20 (375F) R: 3.60 (625R)	42:58	38:62~	+4
Corvette C7 Gr.3	F: 3.80 (400F) R: 3.40 (600R)	50:50	40:60	+10

I personally prefer FR cars with a balance difference between +2.5 and +5. The balance difference is nearly 2x-4x my preference on the default setup, so it feels like it understeers way too much. My current understanding is that springs resist vertical loads, of which the rear is doing less of compared to the mass/downforce load on it, so it makes those issues feel much worse.

A more technical than necessary real-world analysis of aero balance can be found by KYLE.ENGINEERS, who was an aerodynamicist for the Mercedes F1 team.

 

[newmedia_dev]

I believe it's a gameplay choice and not inherently physics based one. For the majority of drivers maybe coming from other more gameplay orientated titles tend not to brake early enough and just whack on loads of steering angle at the same time or just mash the loud pedal.

The understeer mechanic is there to teach them less is more (also give more experienced players a little bit of latitude with things like trail braking etc)

Is it possibly exaggerated, most definitely yes, is it a characteristic that every car can have with some people behind the wheel, most definitely.

Just ignoring the minutia of the physics the actual math is simple to much inertia vs resistance. The game just wants you to better balance them how it wants at the expense of realism in this case.

Not on topic I also think it's why the rear LSDs don't perform anywhere close to real life on dry tarmac (more realistic but not true to how they do prior the update on wet tarmac)

 

[FluxWildly]

Launch leant very much into oversteer territory. People overwhelmingly didn't like it, and so the real Understeer Simulator was born.

I don't think the launch physics were overly oversteery in nature.

The issue was that a certain type of car (MR) would suffer oversteer worse than others but to the point of being completely unpredictable. Not only did you have the standard oversteer from too much steering input but you would also get it during lift off or braking, and trail braking was near on impossible. Snap oversteer was also a major problem and once a car started to go, there was no hope of correcting/save it and you were guaranteed to spin.

I agree that GT tends to understeer but I don't think its as a counter to prevent cars from oversteering.

 

[newmedia_dev]

Understeer is a user controlled thing.

Notice the bad habit of keeping the brakes ON AND TURNING MORE.

Understeer is fundamentally the by product of driving style, either to fast, too much power or too much angle. Now this is a game and not the real world so it could be better but it's not a massive stretch away from cack handedness in real life. Although real life is way more expensive.

 

[FluxWildly]

Notice the bad habit of keeping the brakes ON AND TURNING MORE.

That's a good point. I know I am guilty of holding the brakes on for too long at times and then wondering why the car isn't turning. Only then to release the brake and it magically starts to rotate🤯
I think a lot of people don't realise how early you can lift off the brakes and then equate that understeer to the physics model instead of their driving

 

[Tommy_D]

I don't find the game's physics to be understeer biased at all. If anything they are more neutral to oversteer biased, IMO.

Now, if you are saying this is more a problem with plowing on corner entry, that's your fault and not the game's physics. You can't mash the brake pedal, turn the wheel and expect the car to dive hard into the apex of the turn. You are demanding too much out of the front tires. You need to brake mostly in a straight line, then trailbrake on corner entry with smaller steering inputs. You can't expect full steering response when you have your foot still on the brakes. After that you can get on the gas and judge if the game is oversteer or understeer biased. Generally speaking, I find the cars track on their line very well, but if I get a bit too heavy with my foot the tires will spin up. If the car is RWD, then I get oversteer. If they are FWD it turns into understeer. If they are AWD, it all depends on the F/R bias of the center diff.

 

[newmedia_dev]

What a lot of people forget or are ambivalent to is that, regardless of the game physics you have to drive to what is in front of you, in this case a game.

What we don't see is every car suddenly oversteering or understeering in to every corner this goes for the AI and the fastest guys on the planet in TTs or daily QTs so the issue is not comparing apples to apples (a computer sandbox to real world) as that is never ever going to work for the player base accessibility, gameplay and just fun reasons to escape reality.

Genuinely I think that in a game we over push the cars way more than we would in real life and the forgiving mechanic to that is understeer. When mortality, cost or anything remotely real isn't a consideration we overdrive, and over driving finds this mechanic more than better "game driving"

 

[Pigems]

They want an accessible game to casual players. A lot of people were quite vocal about finding the previous physics iteration too difficult, and it looks very much like they've toned it back to make things simpler to drive.

Apparently they were very proud of the launch physics. Look how quickly that got simplified due to difficulty complaints.

I loved the launch physics, still my favourite version so far.

 

[Pigems]

The understeer at times is comical. I've been trying to do the GR.3 4-chili race at Mount Panorama for awhile now, but since the last two updates, the competitive cars seem to understeer like the Titanic unless I slow right down, at which point I often get rammed by the bots.

Then you’re using too much throttle, partial throttle is the key to controlling your car. They key to speed in general, it’s the partial inputs that separate the fast and the slow, and everyone in between.

 

[05XR8]

What a lot of people forget or are ambivalent to is that, regardless of the game physics you have to drive to what is in front of you, in this case a game.

What we don't see is every car suddenly oversteering or understeering in to every corner this goes for the AI and the fastest guys on the planet in TTs or daily QTs so the issue is not comparing apples to apples (a computer sandbox to real world) as that is never ever going to work for the player base accessibility, gameplay and just fun reasons to escape reality.

Genuinely I think that in a game we over push the cars way more than we would in real life and the forgiving mechanic to that is understeer. When mortality, cost or anything remotely real isn't a consideration we overdrive, and over driving finds this mechanic more than better "game driving"

That’s true, but there are certain physics that can be done to aid in sensations to help players feel cars better. Such as engine braking.

I use a controller.

In Assetto Corsa games, engine braking does lots to give me better sensation of plotting a line into, through and out of a corner. So much so that in tandem with the grip physics and also the sense of speed in the game, it feels realistic where cars behave more predictably for me to be confident in a car’s behaviour. I can pick a trajectory and know where I’ll end up.

In Gran Turismo 7, I feel it’s more forgiving to pick a trajectory and if I’m in trouble, I can alter that trajectory with multiple outcomes. The earlier games had a feeling of realism because holding that Left stick on full lock and hearing that long tyre whirring sound, the car stayed on its trajectory without need for adjustment.

 

[newmedia_dev]

In Assetto Corsa games, engine braking does lots to give me better sensation of plotting a line into, through and out of a corner. So much so that in tandem with the grip physics and also the sense of speed in the game, it feels realistic where cars behave more predictably for me to be confident in a car’s behaviour. I can pick a trajectory and know where I’ll end up.

In Gran Turismo 7, I feel it’s more forgiving to pick a trajectory and if I’m in trouble, I can alter that trajectory with multiple outcomes. The earlier games had a feeling of realism because holding that Left stick on full lock and hearing that long tyre whirring sound, the car stayed on its trajectory without need for adjustment.

All valid, I just think that you can drive round these things. Ultimately what we know as grip doesn't exist in the game, yes the marketing etc but it doesn't. What you feel or don't feel can't be compared to the real world or that frame of reference.

I agree it's not accurate, but I don't think more accurate physics will make any of us any better at the game. I use a DD wheel, loadcell and VR and I have some of the same issues but ultimately I'm learning to go faster in the game not my own car. The two things don't live in the same realities.