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

[Greycap]

When I bought Project Cars 2, I was horrible, I think I had the AI turned down to almost 50% difficulty and I was having some fun races. I eventually worked that up to somewhere like 80-90% and continued to have fun races. Only a few times I found I had the difficulty too hard or too easy, but it was still a fun race and quite the battle.

In Project Cars 2, if I lost a race it was because I was in first, probably many times but just couldn’t hold onto it. Or the AI made a good pass or I felt the pressure and flubbed up.

In GT7 or any gran Turismo for that matter, if I lose a race it’s because I simply couldn’t catch the leader before the race was over. I don’t think I’ve ever been in first place and then lost first place during the race. And that’s the difference between GT7 and other racing sims.

Does PC2 give you rewards from doing well, or is the good race itself the reward? That makes a huge difference to the average gamer. Just about nobody wants to play a game that works on a credit winning system if they can't win the credits, they're two entirely different genres that happen to have car racing in common. And GT is obviously the wrong one for you, do everyone a favour and move to PC2, ACC or whatever without ever looking back unless you get some twisted kicks about keeping playing a game you know you hate and then telling everyone about it.

Look, they’ve been bragging up their physics since day one, yet keep tweaking it, if it was so good, why do you constantly fix and change it?

You keep bringing this up and I'll answer the same thing as before: there are three options. One, keep everything as it was at release, and have people complain because it's not being improved. Two, keep working on it and only release the game when it's fully finished, and have people complain because the release keeps getting postponed. Three, improve it by updates, and have people complain because things change.

You sure like to complain. No update is going to change that.

 

[Sir Crashalot]

The AI is bizarre

This describes it very well! I got absolutely frustrated over the last weeks trying to get at least somewhat realistic and enthralling custom races but it's just not possible, so I gave up.

 

[Alfa Romeo GT]

The big problem with having a field full of competitive AI cars is the average GT player, unfortunately. In the games where the AI races hard and fast the racing itself is the reward, but put that in a GT game and nobody's going to believe the amount of crying about it being too hard.

People want to win everything, they want it now, and preferably with as little effort as possible. Give them races where every overtake has to be earned by being smarter and faster than the AI and it's not going to end well, the overwhelming majority of players don't have the patience to hone their skills so that they can actually finish third instead of eighth, let alone win. They'll drop the series like it's hot and that's a problem because PD has to sell it to an audience as large as possible. They're in the business to make money, not an excellent simulation for a small niche of diehard sim racers.

I agree, but the problem is that even with customized racing and rubberbanding (boost) removed, the AI always boosts or slows down depending on your position.

And we even have this problem for Sophy in hard difficulty, especially in Le Mans, where she'll be restricted on the long straights.

I agree that the game should be designed for occasional / average players.
The problem is, what's the point of difficulty if you feel that the AI is playing with you rather than racing you.

There's nothing more enjoyable than being humiliated in acceleration because a Shelby G.T.350 controlled by a Sophy has much more torque than my s2000 on laguna seca, this is normal.

This meant I had to be much faster in the corners, which made the race very enjoyable with sophy since we regularly overtake each other...
Except on the last lap, when the ford lost magically all its horsepower ...

They have a gem in their hands and they don't do much with it.

 

[hawkeyez]

Does PC2 give you rewards from doing well, or is the good race itself the reward? That makes a huge difference to the average gamer. Just about nobody wants to play a game that works on a credit winning system if they can't win the credits, they're two entirely different genres that happen to have car racing in common. And GT is obviously the wrong one for you, do everyone a favour and move to PC2, ACC or whatever without ever looking back unless you get some twisted kicks about keeping playing a game you know you hate and then telling everyone about it.

You keep bringing this up and I'll answer the same thing as before: there are three options. One, keep everything as it was at release, and have people complain because it's not being improved. Two, keep working on it and only release the game when it's fully finished, and have people complain because the release keeps getting postponed. Three, improve it by updates, and have people complain because things change.

You sure like to complain. No update is going to change that.

PC2 was rewarding in the racing itself. They could have done single player a bit better. GT Legends is still the best for me, felt like I was working my way up to better and better car classes. You had to win championships to unlock the next class if I remember correctly. Gran Turismo has always been a grind. I do keep coming back to it with each release thinking it’ll be different for some reason.

GT7 has a lot of good things going for it. If I didn’t like the game, I wouldn’t be playing it. There are simply aspects of it that are frustrating. IF the AI was better or at least closer to how PC2 was with its difficulty and aggression sliders, you would have a hard time pulling me away from the game. And also credit earning wouldn’t be a grind because it would be an enjoyable race with the bonus of credits, rather than I better do some single player garbage to get my credits back up. Bleh, chase the rabbit.

We can discuss the physics all we want, we will butt heads on it every time. The update before this latest one, I felt ripped off on my wheel, everything was so feather light compared to how it was before. Why do I have an 11nm direct drive wheel and with everything cranked up it feels like I’m steering a boat? But only on some cars? Now the weight is back but they’ve added that goofy tire scrubbing effect. It just never ends.

My issue is, please just settle on something already and leave it because every time they change it, it feels like somebody went into your kitchen and completely reorganized your cupboards for you. I just got used of it or accepted it for what it was and it’s changed yet again. I’d rather them stick with something even if it wasn’t the best (it still isn’t) than have them chase their tail on it. Most games are like that though, gamers these days like their drastic updates and complain if the game hadn’t had an update change recently. I’m all for content updates, but when it comes to physics and how the game feels, just leave it alone, I’ll either like it or I won’t.

 

[Voodoovaj]

This describes it very well! I got absolutely frustrated over the last weeks trying to get at least somewhat realistic and enthralling custom races but it's just not possible, so I gave up.

What irks me is that setting the AI to "professional" still has them using partial throttle in the straights.

The custom race is completely optional and for pure entertainment purposes (payout notwithstanding). So, why is the difficulty setting so anemic? Why not, at a minimum, allow the AI to use full throttle? Why must they fall inline with one another?

Like, this is a choice, not a limitation. It doesn't matter what car they use, they use partial throttle. They drive slow. Is it a matter of keeping the accidents to a minimum?

 

[hawkeyez]

What irks me is that setting the AI to "professional" still has them using partial throttle in the straights.

The custom race is completely optional and for pure entertainment purposes (payout notwithstanding). So, why is the difficulty setting so anemic? Why not, at a minimum, allow the AI to use full throttle? Why must they fall inline with one another?

Like, this is a choice, not a limitation. It doesn't matter what car they use, they use partial throttle. They drive slow. Is it a matter of keeping the accidents to a minimum?

I suggested an idea awhile ago, they can obviously dial sophy difficulty up and down, so if they allowed you to qualify, analyze your lap time and have their AI run similar lap times that could possibly work.

Same as the PC2 difficulty slider only it’s done behind the scenes. Run the race at 88% but just can’t take first place, knock it down to 87% and it’s a battle but you win. Yeah it maybe feels a bit like cheating but it created some incredible races with AI.

Having AI match your qualifying times or an average of five laps would make for close racing no matter what your skill level.

Yes people could botch their qualify times, but that’s up to them. The rest of us can run our best and enjoy it.

 

[LSFDRX]

What irks me is that setting the AI to "professional" still has them using partial throttle in the straights.

The custom race is completely optional and for pure entertainment purposes (payout notwithstanding). So, why is the difficulty setting so anemic? Why not, at a minimum, allow the AI to use full throttle? Why must they fall inline with one another?

Like, this is a choice, not a limitation. It doesn't matter what car they use, they use partial throttle. They drive slow. Is it a matter of keeping the accidents to a minimum?

There's all sorts of things wrong with custom races.

I set up one on the Nurburgring a while back. I was in a lightly tuned AE86 against a field of similar class stuff. I sat and waited for a bit at the start line, was able to pass all of them trodding along with no pace, fully stopped at the Ausfahrt exit path and waited for all of them to pass, and then passed them all again before the carousel.

When I was sitting there they were probably going 20-30mph... just putzing along. This is on the hardest difficulty. I don't even know what the boost settings change because nothing seems to up the pace of the AI at all.

Same thing in a "multi-class" custom race. 3 laps of Nurburgring endurance in the Gr4 M4 against 9 other Gr4s and 10 Gr3s. The AI Gr3s dropped like 30sec off their pace in the second lap, and I easily beat them all in the M4. GT7s AI programming model just doesn't allow for any actual competition.

This is the main reason I've hardly ever done any custom races. The AI are so painfully, boringly slow that it is a waste of time for them to be on track at all. If I'm going to do a "custom" race I just do a Sophy race. They have their own bag of issues, but at least the AI put up somewhat of a fight and provide some entertainment.