Is there something to be done about the "one-make" nature of Sport mode?

[Tekku]

So I'm close to 50 races in Sport mode now and something that has become apparent is that the daily races quickly become dominated by one or two cars. This is not strange concidering some cars excel at certain tracks and to maintain a strong competitive edge it's wise to pick a car with a good record. If we were to have a championship with a series of races then surely things would even themselves out by cars being optimized for different tracks. But as it stands we have one track with one category of cars and a predictable set of rules and dynamics that continues for an entire week, with permanent qualifying times to boot.

I initially didn't care much about this as I much preferred to race the cars I really liked. Especially the Silvia spec-R which has terrific handling and is a real joy to drive. But this week during the Maggiore race it has really started to wear on me that I just can't be competitive enough in the cars I want to drive. I think I did a 1.06 after almost an hour of practice with the Silvia and when I gave the WRX a chance I beat the time within two laps. On the straights the WRX's just have so much speed no matter how good I nail the corner exit and really get a great launch.

Is it impossible to counter the effect of one car dominating the entire week? Do people have some ideas in mind that could potentially change it?

 

[bduddy]

They're still working on the BoP, they took a small swing at it in the last update but according to Tidgney they weren't going to work on it too much until the effects of the new physics were apparent. But really, when there are thousands of people all trying the cars, it's going to be hard to prevent them from settling on one or two "best ones" unless they make all the cars handle exactly the same, which of course they shouldn't do.

 

[wowbaggerBR]

One think would be revising the class system so that you don't need to BoP some cars to oblivion (annihilating unique traits sometimes) in order to fit them into arbitrary (and sometimes idiotic) classes.

With a class structure similar to real world, you could have more variety in events and fields. A McLaren F1 has nothing to do with a GTE car, for instance. Or you simply can't BoP things so that Group-C cars are a match to a 2016 LMP1.

But that's common sense so... won't happen.

 

[Com Fox]

So I'm close to 50 races in Sport mode now and something that has become apparent is that the daily races quickly become dominated by one or two cars. This is not strange concidering some cars excel at certain tracks and to maintain a strong competitive edge it's wise to pick a car with a good record. If we were to have a championship with a series of races then surely things would even themselves out by cars being optimized for different tracks. But as it stands we have one track with one category of cars and a predictable set of rules and dynamics that continues for an entire week, with permanent qualifying times to boot.

I initially didn't care much about this as I much preferred to race the cars I really liked. Especially the Silvia spec-R which has terrific handling and is a real joy to drive. But this week during the Maggiore race it has really started to wear on me that I just can't be competitive enough in the cars I want to drive. I think I did a 1.06 after almost an hour of practice with the Silvia and when I gave the WRX a chance I beat the time within two laps. On the straights the WRX's just have so much speed no matter how good I nail the corner exit and really get a great launch.

Is it impossible to counter the effect of one car dominating the entire week? Do people have some ideas in mind that could potentially change it?

It's the nature of competitive video games. If you give each character/weapon/vehicle different statistics, one will always stand out as the superior choice and those who want to win will either go for that superior choice or alternative choices with a niche advantage. It's why tier lists exist for every competitive game

I dont think any BoP changes will fix that unless every car was to drive so similarly.

 

[NikNakTobasco]

No one wants to give up an inch by picking non metas. It makes sense as there’s the sacred DR on the line.
I’ve been doing a fair bit of lobby racing and everyone’s picking different cars. It’s quite refreshing to have some to and fro with some cars working well on straights and others through the bends. Obviously it’s because there’s no stakes at such.

 

[MIE1992]

I like the idea of having a narrow selection of cars with a PP limit, plus a possible power/weight regulation, even for Gr.4/Gr.3/Gr.B/Gr.2/Gr.1 races. (I recall that we saw at least some races like this in the beginning, like with the three starter cars or the European classic hatchbacks.) I'd personally make "all-inclusive" races - where you can use, say, any car in Gr.4 - a rarity, rather than something constant. I'm reminded of how in GTS, there were at least a few Daily Races that limited players to the Group C racers within Gr.1. Those sorts of interesting regulations would be something I'd make almost constant, with one-makes being limited to truly unique vehicles, like the Honda 2&4 Concept, the GT Kart 125, the F1500T-A, or the Red Bull cars.

In my ideal scenario, even SF19 races would permit both models rather than just one or the other - that is, aside from the rounds that may use the SF19/Toyota in the GR Cup, where only permitting one SF19 model makes a lot more sense.

 

[LSFDRX]

Unfortunately, this is much the way GTS was. The GR3 Supra was frequently the OP car in GR3, while the RCZ was useful in some circumstances. The Megane and Scirocco would normally dominate GR4, with the WRX being useful on tighter courses where early throttle was needed etc.

I agree with you though, variety is the spice of life, and all these Atenza races in 7 is getting a little old. I'm an against the mob kinda guy, so I like to use the GR4 Mustang a lot, but I really liked the Alfa in both GR4 and GR3, and there was very rarely a time when it was competitive. It just gets eaten on the straights.

The BOP definitely needs to be tailored to equalizing each cars laps times per individual daily race so that even though there are differing attributes, they can be equally viable options.

I also don't know what they're going to do about road cars and individual setups, because this leaves a LOT of room for certain people creating unbeatable cars, but I also still very much want tuned road cars to be a normal feature of daily races.

Guess we'll all have to wait and see what PD comes up with.

 

[Nuschel01]

BoP will never truly work if they don't move to a per-track-BoP