Yes, the biggest issue here goes beyond that Shuffle was just a very interesting option of gameplay.
It's that Shuffle was the best option for casual players with limited time to participate in online racing on the fly.
And Kaz Yamauchi himself said that they recognize casual players:
https://www.gtplanet.net/kazunori-yamauchi-tamir-moscovici-interview-jff-2013/
In GT5, we do see how people are playing the game, and what we found was that a majority of the players are just casual players.
That being said, I can see why they may have left it out. On any given evening, there would be 20-30 'standard' rooms for every 1 shuffle room. Maybe PD thought it wasn't being used and gave up.
I have a hard time believing that's strictly true.
The fact is, that in those 20-30 standard rooms, there would be probably an average of 8 people at most. Many standard rooms running with no more than 6 people in them at any given time.
Whereas shuffle rooms have often been full to capacity for hours on end.
Even in my niche interest "Clean Lo PP Shuffle" - where we only ran low power cars, which low power is not exactly the most popular form of racing... but even I had people sending me messages regularly asking if anyone was going to get kicked soon so they could make it in!
And many pals I've raced in shuffle lobbies would stay the whole time I was running the room, and would eventually take over & others would run the room for hours afterward, and I know this because often I would get off, an hour later my spouse would sign on and go into my shuffle room, now hosted by someone else.
Granted, I always suspected the longevity of my rooms also had to do with the fact that I had my block list filled with repeat shuffle griefers, and when I'd make the room, they'd be banned for the duration of the room no matter who took over hosting. So that probably accounted for the rooms being easier to manage for the hosts who took over.
But still, I wasn't the only regular shuffle host I knew in my time zone - and others. My husband & I had about 8 different people on our friends lists who were regular shuffle hosts. And we'd often have to go through trying to join their rooms, to find one that actually had room. And nearly all these people allowed 16 cars, or at the very least 12.
I'm not saying other non-shuffle rooms never filled to capacity. But you have to admit, on any given day looking at the various normal setting rooms, you wouldn't see 10-14 people in each of those rooms. You'd see 4-6 on average.
I'm not claiming I know the numbers. Obviously I could be way off, and maybe in total, the number of players online at any given time in normal rooms did come up to a sum greater than the amount in shuffle rooms, overall.
But clearly, just because there were fewer shuffle rooms, even only 1 for every 30 normal, doesn't mean the ratio of racers in normal rooms to racers in shuffle rooms was 30 to 1.
I didn't do any shuffle racing in GT5 so forgive my ignorance, what exactly was it? Was it added in a later patch?
I didn't get GT5 when it first released. I think we got it in March or April 2011, because that's when it says I joined GTPlanet. My husband always visited this forum BEFORE that when we played GT4. (This was also before we were married too.) But I didn't sign up for an account here until I wanted to get involved with organized online racing in GT5.
So I can't speak about Shuffle before April 2011.
But when we got GT5, shuffle racing already existed.
It was really the first kind of racing online my husband participated in, after he completed most of the GTLife.
We had stopped playing GT5 for a period through late 2011 until Feb 2012, because we were busy getting ready to move, then we got married and we moved into the house we live in now.
Sometime during that period there was an update that added more options for setting up online racing rooms. Including more options for shuffle, like setting the Shuffle PP Base.
THAT is when I got into shuffle too. Because I like low power cars, and now low power cars were an option in Shuffle.
And the fact that Shuffle racing was updated with more options, gave me hope that PD was paying attention, and interested in continuing to improve the Shuffle racing mode. Which is why I fully expected some more options for shuffle racing in GT6. Or at the very least for it to carry over, and then at some point that they would improve options for shuffle racing.
Never did I expect it to be left out completely, with no word as to whether it would ever be an option again.
Which I can find NOTHING to indicate there are any plans for shuffle in GT6 at all.
And believe me, I've done thorough searches on the web, including in Japanese!! " シャッフル "
And all I could find is both in English, and Japanese... that people have been asking about details about Shuffle in GT6 for over a month now on various forums & web pages.
Quick DESCRIPTION of Shuffle Racing (for those who don't know)...
I didn't do any shuffle racing in GT5 so forgive my ignorance, what exactly was it?
Shuffle racing was online racing where you would join a room, and instead of picking a car out of your own garage, you would be assigned a car model for the race. Depending on the shuffle settings, most people would be in a different car (with some being in the same car, depending on the settings).
You would be given a different car for the next race based on your finishing position in the last race.
They had some kind of algorithm to decide that. So you would perhaps be given a slightly better advantage car in the next race if you finished poorly in the last race.
In other words, the cars would be ballpark matched for speed & performance - you wouldn't have a kei car competing against a new performance car or whatnot.
And mostly it was luck, because obviously some cars might be slower than others on one track, but perform better on another track. So it wasn't an absolute system of parity, you understand.
But it made for somewhat closer racing among varied abilities, more than a 1-make race - where you would always have in a group of people, some people who were just better and would always do better.
In other words, it was a way to have mixed model racing, without any rules you had to think about, without having to set up your own car, and allowed for even more casual and lesser experienced drivers to have a chance of close racing and winning or placing well, and giving more experienced & more serious players extra challenge even if they were racing against more casual drivers they would ordinarily easily beat in a 1-make race.
You can see how this Shuffle set-up would appeal to a wide range of Gran Turismo racers.
A savvy Shuffle lobby host could easily keep the Shuffle settings to keep the racing close, fun, and varied, no matter who was in the room.
It saved people pressed for time, or not wanting the bother, the problem of finding similarly skilled racers to race with, as well as the problem of tuning or getting cars in their garage ready for online racing.
And what's more - if you did have a group of people who were closely matched, you could set the Shuffle settings to make sure the cars were very close. A smaller number of cars would be assigned, but they would be much more evenly matched.
So Shuffle in GT5 has been an option to appeal to a wide array of tastes & scenarios.
Including people interested in DIRTY racing.
A lot of people mention the fact that it was a good option for CLEAN online racing. And that's absolutely true.
But it was also an option that dirty racing fans liked, as I have often seen "Dirty Shuffle" lobbies running - and often they'd be nearly full rooms.
I can see how people would like this if they wanted dirty racing... because even dirty racing involves a certain attitude or "rules" if you will. And casual dirty racers ALSO like not having to set up cars all the time to participate in dirty online racing.
Anyway, just trying to emphasize that it's not just about "clean racing" options. Dirty racers also like shuffle. (Not just griefers - though they like shuffle too unfortunately! LOL)