Kazunori Yamauchi IAmA @ Reddit (FINISHED)

[Squach240]

The people defending this hurt my head.

 

[Akira AC]

Nope.

How come?

Why not? Are there not 16 real NASCARs that could be modelled? I thought fields in NASCAR were more like forty.

Common sense, why would they model more than 3 models that NASCAR use, and then map 40 liveries when the game can handle 16 cars at once?

And I know there's more than 16 of either of these.

16 Pikes peak cars, where are you coming with this?

There's very, very few cars for which this is true.

If depends of the term "few", you have several classes of Karts, X2014 Junior, X2014 proto, X2014 fan car, Senna F1 and F3, each one with a set of liveries and their own racing category. The rocket 07 doesn't have an event but it would a category on it's own, and is usually used as an only-type race online.

A few standards met this criteria like the PD F1, same for defunct cars like the F2007 and the F10.

Right now, yes.

I'm saying that they should have designed their premium car list in this way from the beginning. They've dug themselves a hole now, and the only way out is to plan what cars they need and start making them. They make about two hundred cars between games (apparently), and I think that's enough to make a damn good start. GT6 premiums + 200 is enough to make a very good car list, if the cars are chosen well.

And yet again, you don't explain why having the 500+premium is better than the 500 standards +500 premium other than eye candy.

They didn't dug themselves with anything content related wise, they still have grids that use 3-4 standards of the same class (see the GT500 and GT300 classes), that said (and FM suffered from this as well despite everything) you can't ignore the fact that it automatically affect the grids by making some races that have 8 different models while other races just become a 3 model races. FM base itself on D to R Classes, meaning that they would have to spread it's content to fulfil criteria from this classes, is not bad design but a limited design since it doesn't gave room for odd cars with independent characteristics that doesn't belong to the mentioned classes (Lotus F1 in FM5 is something that I haven't yet tried and the exception to this, but I highly doubt it has it's own competitors and races in the R classes races, same for the Indy car, and I highly doubt they have their own independent event within the game's career mode).

GT6 bases itself on the pp system, which is similar to the D to R system but a bit more liberal, the pp system allow certain content balance by selecting the criteria of the event, say a 400pp FF car event will take anything from 380pp cars to 400pp cars, depending on the car you race with it will alter this parameter, but it will still have around 10 different models to use in a race, removing the standards only means removing closer competition and including anything with a wider difference difference (now it wouldn't be cars between 380pp to 400pp, but 350pp to 400pp and it would increment depending on the available content for such event), having more parameters per race means less cars that met the criteria for a race, and thus a wider difference between the cars, so removing the standards will affect the game in a big way no matter what.



I like all the cars to be the same quality like everybody else, but remove these cars and compromising functionality just for the sake of eye candy is something I can't ignore, then get told that they are completely bad is just one point of view, not factually true.

 

[Johnnypenso]

GT6 bases itself on the pp system, which is similar to the D to R system but a bit more liberal, the pp system allow certain content balance by selecting the criteria of the event, say a 400pp FF car event will take anything from 380pp cars to 400pp cars, depending on the car you race with it will alter this parameter, but it will still have around 10 different models to use in a race, removing the standards only means removing closer competition and including anything with a wider difference difference (now it wouldn't be cars between 380pp to 400pp, but 350pp to 400pp and it would increment depending on the available content for such event), having more parameters per race means less cars that met the criteria for a race, and thus a wider difference between the cars, so removing the standards will affect the game in a big way no matter what.

I like all the cars to be the same quality like everybody else, but remove these cars and compromising functionality just for the sake of eye candy is something I can't ignore, then get told that they are completely bad is just one point of view, not factually true.

The PP system is a terrible way to pick cars and fill up the grid if you actually want close racing. Even at the same PP cars can be 3 or 4 seconds apart in a 1:30 lap. Take cars at 380PP vs. you at 400PP and you could easily have a 5 or 6 seconds per lap difference in the field, a 25-30 second gap in just a 5 lap/7'30" race and that's assuming equal skill between you and the AI.

A far better way to do this IMO is have a much narrower range of cars and introduce liveries into the game for GT7. I'd much rather race a field of 2 or 3 different Evo's and Subby's in a 16 car field in a 4wd street race with each car in a different livery, than having cars on the track 6 seconds off the pace and essentially not even in the race.

A generic, "oh this car is the same PP so let's stick it in the race", is simply lazy game design and shouldn't be acceptable for GT7. Each race, each series, should be hand tailored and tested to produce close and tight competition, and allow the user a difficulty slider to determine how hard or how easy the bots are to outpace, pass etc.

Having a properly designed offline game mode that focuses on racing first and foremost can eliminate the need for standards to fill up grids simply because some PP levels may be lacking in Premium cars.

 

[Squach240]

A far better way to do this IMO is have a much narrower range of cars and introduce liveries into the game for GT7. I'd much rather race a field of 2 or 3 different Evo's and Subby's in a 16 car field in a 4wd street race with each car in a different livery, than having cars on the track 6 seconds off the pace and essentially not even in the race.

Eliminating the Performance Points in general would be great. You won't see 2 to 3 different evo's or sti's. You'll see 1 or 2 particular cars that people round up for a class. Forza suffers this. And boy is it dull when you use something "out of the normal"

 

[Tenacious D]

The PP system is a terrible way to pick cars and fill up the grid if you actually want close racing. Even at the same PP cars can be 3 or 4 seconds apart in a 1:30 lap. Take cars at 380PP vs. you at 400PP and you could easily have a 5 or 6 seconds per lap difference in the field, a 25-30 second gap in just a 5 lap/7'30" race and that's assuming equal skill between you and the AI.

Briefly on this, the PP system is a good idea. It just needs work, because in its current form it doesn't seem to function effectively as a rule to determine similar track performance. Forza's PI system works similarly, perhaps a bit better, but has its issues too. Still, we need some kind of yardstick to base car and mod performance with. Hopefully, PD will iron something out.

With single player races though, this definitely needs to be hand built, and the cars homologated (for the board, performance matched) so their laps are within rough parity.

 

[SCER]

The PP system is a terrible way to pick cars and fill up the grid if you actually want close racing. Even at the same PP cars can be 3 or 4 seconds apart in a 1:30 lap. Take cars at 380PP vs. you at 400PP and you could easily have a 5 or 6 seconds per lap difference in the field, a 25-30 second gap in just a 5 lap/7'30" race and that's assuming equal skill between you and the AI.

I'd say it's a good idea implemented poorly. The equivalent systems provided close racing in both NFS Shift 2 and Forza 4.

 

[sparkytooth]

The PP system isn't a fundamentally terrible idea, it just needs more things taken into account within it's equation.

I would also suggest adding in a classification system within the PP system.

 

[ScottPuss20]

The PP system isn't a fundamentally terrible idea, it just needs more things taken into account within it's equation.


I would also suggest adding in a classification system within the PP system.

That would make things easier

 

[Imari]

I like all the cars to be the same quality like everybody else, but remove these cars and compromising functionality just for the sake of eye candy is something I can't ignore, then get told that they are completely bad is just one point of view, not factually true.

You keep using the word eye candy as if it's some sort of derogative.

I understand that some people don't notice the standards when they're playing. But you should understand that for others of us they're a poke in the eye, distracting at best, a complete immersion breaker at worst.

I think of it a bit like screen tearing. There are some people that just don't notice it at all, and hardly notice when the game drops frames down to 30 or so. Good for them, I wish I could be like those people but I can't. I see it. I see it, and a little part of my brain goes "oh for 🤬 sake, this again". It pulls me right out of concentrating on my driving and starts me thinking about the game itself, which is not the experience I'm after.

Now imagine that with standards. Some people don't notice that the car that just passed them is boxy and pixellated. Some people don't notice that the track they're driving around is straight off the Playstation 2. And that's fine, but there's people for whom it's a significantly worsened experience, because it takes them straight out of immersion and reminds them violently that it's a game.

Now, were the game to be designed such that there was a switch you could push and play through the single player without ever seeing a standard car or track, I would be willing to accept them in the game. But that would require PD essentially designed two single player careers, and I don't see that ever happening. They've not shown dedication to offering options so far, and that would be going above and beyond as far as options go.

As such, I believe that a game with a (relatively) low amount of high quality content will ultimately prove more satisfactory to more of the userbase than a game with a high amount of content with extremely variable quality.

Obviously, there's the people like me who are keen on only having the best. There's the "casuals" who bought the game on the bullshots that Sony posts who won't be disappointed when they find out that two thirds of the game isn't like that at all.

The people who are keen on having the widest selection of cars possible will be disappointed, but I've already tried to explain how I think with proper management of the car roster that disappointment can be minimised. Likewise, proper management of the car roster can avoid problems of needing duplicate cars on the grid.

If numbers are really important, PD can easily get up into the thousands again simply by making each specification level of the cars modelled. Generally there's few differences visually, so making the entire range of R32 Skylines shouldn't take much longer than making the first one. Rinse and repeat for every other major car range. That's what they've tried to do with the standards, and why there is so many of them. If they're really serious about it, they should start copying this over to the premiums.

I agree that losing content is never good, but I think it's overall a better compromise than continuing to use old assets.

 

[Zelalem]

You keep using the word eye candy as if it's some sort of derogative.

If Gran Turismo 7 finally has realistic car sounds for premium cars, then we will hear those standard cars too.

 

[Robbks]

Briefly on this, the PP system is a good idea. It just needs work, because in its current form it doesn't seem to function effectively as a rule to determine similar track performance

Do we actually know how the PP rating is calculated..?

Surely the physics engine can deal with weight, power and torque (both power/ torque bands aswell as peak values)
This gives a rating of straight line performance

And it should know how much mechanical grip the car has due to suspension and tyres,
Which gives a rating of how fast the car can use the power on corners.

Straight Line Acceleration rating + Cornering Speed rating = PP rating.