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

[Scaff]

I must confess I have never been driving a race car. My apologies for not knowing what techniques are being applied there.

No problem at all, just be wary of making statements of fact when you're not aware of the actual circumtances.

I had been under the impression that touring cars where basically heavily pimped / tuned road cars. At least most of them look like that.

The vast majority are not, and haven't been for decades, almost all will have sequential gearboxes fitted, making left-foot braking and trail braking the norm.

So I thought the mechanisms would also be basically the same as in road cars.

Even where they are (i.e. still have an h-pattern), both trail braking and left-foot braking have a place and are extensively used.

I have not been talking about F1 / super formula and that sort of racing categories - these are not focus in GT7. I knew that those cars work differently.

Pretty much any racing series will see drivers making regualr use of left-foot and trail braking.

Also, the majority of cars in GT7 are road cars, not race cars, agreed? So, it would be obvious in my opinion to focus on road cars when it comes to physics and driving techniques. Sure, you CAN use left foot braking on a road car - but would you?

Yep - at times I do, particularly when I've driven road cars on track.

I do not know the rules in your country, but where I live it's prohibited under penalty. Everybody is tought to use right foot exclusively for both throttling and braking. LEFT FOOT NEVER EVER TOUCHES THE BRAKES is the motto - regardless of whether you run with manual or automatic transmission.

It's not illegal in the UK, here's (an old) video of Chris Harris explaining why it can be used in a road car. Keep in mind that it's also not exactly a basic skill, but rather one that is more suited to drivers who are already competent in driving.

Also, everybody's just upset about me not knowing how race cars work

I'm not upset about you not knowing, just needed to correct inaccurate claims.

but nobody's commenting on my "real" points !?? :

GT7 does have cars set-up to understeer on base set-ups, which I would agree with totally, as Kaz himself has already explained. What they should do is look at what other titles do to manage this, which is provide race cars with three base set-ups to pick from, Oversteer, Neutral, and understeer.

Even still today, the physics simulation in Gran Turismo is the cutting edge in driving simulation.

 

[CMB350]

Sure, you CAN use left foot braking on a road car - but would you?

I know Scaff and other have covered it already, but I left foot brake in my tracked road car. I’ll do it in slower corners after I’m finished downshifting and already gone back to the throttle with my right foot. It’s just another driving technique to have and be aware of.

I do not know the rules in your country, but where I live it's prohibited under penalty. Everybody is tought to use right foot exclusively for both throttling and braking. LEFT FOOT NEVER EVER TOUCHES THE BRAKES is the motto - regardless of whether you run with manual or automatic transmission

I used to left foot brake in my first car when I was 16. It was just more comfortable for me. I right foot brake now, but could still do left foot if I needed to for some reason.

 

[Meltac]

I don't hate the latest change but stock cars generally still understeer. As Kaz also says, experienced drivers can adjust the setup to remove the understeer, which is fine but changing setting for every car is pretty time consuming.

Thanks! At least someone confirmes !!!

GT7 does have cars set-up to understeer on base set-ups, which I would agree with totally, as Kaz himself has already explained. What they should do is look at what other titles do to manage this, which is provide race cars with three base set-ups to pick from, Oversteer, Neutral, and understeer.

Thanks and yeah this is basically what I meant in the first place. There might be good reasons for the behaviour that I described as "understeering", both in real life and in the game. But as GT7 is basically still a game, PD could IMHO do better at this point.


Couple of years ago I've had a driving safety training. I went there with my R32 (VW, not Nissan), my boss who payed the training came with his AMG SL55, and his wife had a Volvo V50. All three vehicles where 4WD. We drove on a circuit consisting of dry and wet tarmac and some sections with special surface emulating snow and ice. On emulated ice, all cars heavily understeered already with slow speeds. On snow we had both under- and oversteering, depending on speed, steering angle and braking activity. But when braking and abruptly steering on wet tarmac (for circling around obstacles), both the R32 and the SL55 oversteered, whereas only the V50 understeered. One of the trainers was a former race car mechanician and amateur racing pilot, and he said that's normal behaviour for those cars. Just saying...

 

[Tommy_D]

What they should do is look at what other titles do to manage this, which is provide race cars with three base set-ups to pick from, Oversteer, Neutral, and understeer.

Yeah, I don't think it should be so "pre-programmed" like this. I get what you are saying, but I feel like a HUGE miss by all the sim racing titles is that when a racing driver is in a race car with a pit crew and team, etc. the driver is not the one doing the manual wrenching on the car to get it set up. The driver is working with the team, they are reviewing data from the sensors and working together to get the cars set up to feel the way the driver wants.

What I would love is if the game, or your pit team, asked you after doing some test laps how the car felt. You could have options to select based on the questions being asked and the suspension/aero/traction control/etc settings all get adjusted automatically based on your responses. You go out again and drive. The same questions, or slightly altered questions come up and based on your answers some more fine tuning to the car gets automatically done. A couple sessions like this and you could have the car dialed in for your race. Could you have the ability to manually adjust things yourself? Absolutely! I actually think this feature should not be part of the road car events as you generally would not have a team/pit crew for this type of race in real life.

All these racing titles do a piss poor job of explaining what the different suspension/aero/differential/etc adjustments actually do that most people end up adjusting things arbitrarily in hopes that it makes the car better. How many people do you see on this forum talk about using a "praiano tune" on their car? It's because they have no idea how to set up their car and the game does nothing to teach anyone how to do it properly.

 

[Scaff]

What I would love is if the game, or your pit team, asked you after doing some test laps how the car felt. You could have options to select based on the questions being asked and the suspension/aero/traction control/etc settings all get adjusted automatically based on your responses.

This is exactly what Project Cars 2 did (as well as giving three base set-ups for those who wanted a starting point), and I agree it should be far more common in titles.

 

[Meltac]

This is exactly what Project Cars 2 did (as well as giving three base set-ups for those who wanted a starting point), and I agree it should be far more common in titles.

Just out of curiosity: Since you're obviously still, or again, playing GT7 - isn't PC2 that good, after all? Or why did switch back?

 

[Pigems]

Many thanks guys for your posts. It's an interesting discussion, and I appreciate all the recommendations.
Let me comment on a couple of your quotes:


Thank you for being polite and not calling me an unskilled ignoramus (or even worse)

But I don't "abuse" anything. The tuning setups are part of the physics, as they directly affect the car's driving behavior. You can't say gt7's physics model is half-way realistic but changing some car settings is abuse.

Ok you have much more driving experience in this game than me, so I would like to believe me. But then please tell me, why in almost every movie with car racing / persuit scenes they drift / slide through corners when going fast, thus oversteer. If understeering was "standard" they all should just crash into the next building instead of cornering. Just movie special FX?

I get what you mean. However, in real life there's no "overlap" between brake and throttle. You use the same foot (right one, normally) for throttling and braking, and that's for a reason. Only in some go-carts you use the left foot for braking.

I only don't understand why most of you wheel-pedal-people always do it the "wrong" way, braking with the left foot. It's just not the way you do it in a real car. That's also why I assigned the brake to R1 instead of L2 - I wan't to use the same finger for throttling and braking. Everything else is just the wrong wy in my opinion.

R2 = throttle, R1 = brake. These two are not on/off but provide gradual input, but of course it's much more difficult to control partial input than with pedals. Especially R1 feels like on/off.


I'm using the braking zone indicators as an assist (those fat red horizontal stripes). They usually start very early and stop a little before the apex. I even sometimes use auto-drive braking which respects those indicators. That way I almost never release the brake very late, and I start the full turn only after releasing the brakes, and I throttle gradually. I've also been practicing trail braking for a while. So I honestly don't think I'm doing anything completely wrong. Not perfect, most probably. But not fully wrong. And still I feel that most cars tend to understeer, at least with stock settings.

And for all those saying that the physics are realistic and there's no amplified understeering in the game: Have you every driven the Jaguar VGT SV? In that car, steering as almost impossible at all unless you're very, very slow. I could push the stick full left or right, and almost nothing happens (and I'm not braking at all). Now tell me that this is real behaviour!

Plain and simple, we brake with our left foot because it is both faster and gives you much more control of the car. Point blank, end of discussion really, it’s just better. And outside of cars that have a clutch, I’m pretty sure race car drivers use both feet, seeing as speed it the main point of racing.

Normal road driving yea, you use only one foot, but racing isn’t normal road driving.

 

[newmedia_dev]

Just out of curiosity: Since you're obviously still, or again, playing GT7 - isn't PC2 that good, after all? Or why did switch back?

I think you are a time sink.

We can debate physics, we can debate techniques and we can debate tuning.

But you are not taking on board that you may actually have to work on the way you drive.

You talk about tuning out the understeer yet don't really grasp why it's happening in the first place.

You spout utter nonsense, it is not illegal anywhere in the world to use advanced driving techniques. What you were told is from a driving instructor and honestly it makes me genuinely question your driving experience. With this in mind, I feel like it's your lack of actual driving experience that is what is fuelling this. Otherwise it's starting to feel like trolling.

 

[Meltac]

I think you are a time sink.

We can debate physics, we can debate techniques and we can debate tuning.

But you are not taking on board that you may actually have to work on the way you drive.

You talk about tuning out the understeer yet don't really grasp why it's happening in the first place.

You spout utter nonsense, it is not illegal anywhere in the world to use advanced driving techniques. What you were told is from a driving instructor and honestly it makes me genuinely question your driving experience. With this in mind, I feel like it's your lack of actual driving experience that is what is fuelling this. Otherwise it's starting to feel like trolling.

Why so offended? What you quoted from me in your latest post was a simple question. Which you didn't even answer. As I said, it was just out of curiosity, mainly because I've heard a couple of times that PC2 is an alternative to GT7 with many similarity but also certain major differences. Nothing that should offend you. One is permitted to ask questions in a forum like this one, or not?

I already said before that my driving style / experience is most probably not perfect. There is much room for improvement, yes. But if you say that I "spout utter nonsense", then you are the one that starts offending, not me. Sorry.

I haven't said that it was "not illegal anywhere in the world to use advanced driving techniques" or anything even close to that. I also haven't questioned the reasons for understeering happening. And I have said that this driving instructor was a former race car mechanician and amateur racer, so he probably knew more on the topic than many guys in this thread (and me, of course).

You're just turning my words against me here. I don't think that's fair, or respectful, or even constructive.

That's it for me here. Consider me gone. Thanks again to everybody who contributed constructively to the topic. Bye.

 

[newmedia_dev]

live it's prohibited under penalty. Everybody is tought to use right foot exclusively for both throttling and braking. LEFT FOOT NEVER EVER TOUCHES THE BRAKES is the motto - regardless of whether you run with manual or automatic transmission.

What does the word prohibited mean in your country?

yes. But if you say that I "spout utter nonsense", then you are the one that starts offending, not me. Sorry.

You can't be offended at what you said and it's repeated and questioned back to you.

I don't think it's fair and constructive to basically ignore anything that has been posted and not stop once to ask "have you guys got any tips on how I can improve the way I play the game, here is a video of how I drive currently"

You have lots of words and debate but don't want to help yourself.

 

[snc]

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.

Yeah because day 1 physics was realistic ;d Cars would be banned in Europe if reals cars behave that way ;d