So where IS the "sport' exactly? Apart from user created lobbies.

[Sloppy Shades]

For a racing game that is supposed to be all about the online experience, the FIA endorsement and getting our minds out of the old school (ie its always there when you want to play it) career idea, where IS it?

Massive launch after 4 years wait.

Lets forget the off-line experience, cos that is not what this game is supposed to be all about.

What we have is:

1) Daily races. Ahem. Well technically we play them in the daytime maybe but there's only been 3 of them that I have noticed, and they are all like bumper cars online versions of the good old Autumn Ring mini.
No-one who wants to keep their hard earned SR rating would go near such a shunt-fest. They havent changed daily, it states clearly that they will change 'every Tuesday'. Seriously? You HAVE to be kidding me?
We have to wait a whole week (in between server down time) just to race in garbage mini races that dont last more than 10 minutes? Then we can only play the same 3 races over and over all day and night for
7 whole days?!? THIS is supposed to be the QUALITY content. OK theres more I hear you say...so...

2) The Tournaments. I see 3. None start for over a week. You cant even enter 2 that Ive tried yet, server was down before i had a chance to try the other one. They should have started DAY ONE. Dont care if they were rubbish, let us
get used to the idea. Sounds fun. Except I have to commit days in advance for a time and date when I HAVE to race or thats it I'm out.

3) The lobbies. Best part of the online game yet WHEN servers are online. I have met a couple nice racers already. BUT...why is the best content at launch of a MAJOR game studio release dependent solely on what us guys can set up
via lobbies? Geesh how hard would it have been to set up some default lobbies, with you know maybe ONE PD employee acting as some kind of dungeon master and moderating it? I'd be up for that.

Please dont say "give them some time!" They have had 4 years to work out this format that is being forced upon us. I like the idea but not the implementation. I'm writing this of course because I had to stop my Mission battles as we are offline
..
Once again I come to race after a hard nights studio work...I am happy I left Project Cars 1 on the PS4 because I am going to load it up now and RACE. On or offline, dont care about shunters. Thats what I paid my money for.

 

[CodeCmdr]

The daily Sport events are definitely lacking:

- Event 1: The N300 Honda Civic is no fun at all to drive. At first, it was an open N300 race, but the downgraded BMW M3 was dominating it, so I guess Polyphony changed it to Civic-only.
- Event 3: Group 3 racing on that tiny oval track is stupid. I don't bother with that anymore.

So that only leaves 1 daily Sport even that's actually fun, but it's only a 4 lap race on the short version of Suzuka. I wish PD would add more daily events, especially ones with fuel/tire wear and more laps.

Lobby races aren't as much fun because they don't impact DR/SR, so people just quit and don't bother finishing the races when they fall behind.

 

[ShiftingGears]

I'm yet to see a full lobby, which is a bit concerning, given the limited number of choices available so far in the Sport section.

 

[Sloppy Shades]

I started my own lobby yesterday. Put SR as S minimum. NO takers. Lowered it to E. NO takers. Joined a lobby with E minimum. 3 of us had fun. Indeed WHERE are the people? I guess everyone and his dog are starting their lobbies. 10000 lobbies 30000 racers? Where are the MILLIONS?!? Does anyone bother practicing in a lobby? It's crying out for qualification. That would be so much fun! At the moment if you start a lobby you can actually just set the order yourself. So good racers were putting themselves last on the grid (both of them haha). Anyone interested in starting up a nightly 20 lap race for gtplanet people? Or 3 on the ring? WHEN the servers are up of course.
It's sad but I think its down to the actual players to rescue this game from oblivion. NO-one would be sadder than me to see Gran Turismo Sport to be dumped in the desert next to E.T....

 

[Downhill Dino]

Most people are probably playing Sport mode, like me. Not much point in lobbies when there are Ranked races set up for you. I hear you though, I would like to see some open lobby activity but I'll probably only being using them for organized races from here.

 

[Suzumiya]

I wish they could have done longer races that are a part of a series. Maybe you'd have an N300 series with shorter sprint races like what we have now, a good length GR4 series that lasts 25 minutes, then a GR3 and a GR1 series that lasts 40. I know that the race lengths are too long for a casual audience, it doesn't have to be exactly like this, but there has to be an incentive to come back every week. You can probably earn a variable amount of points in that series in your division based on how good the drivers are around you, and at the end of each season, the higher you place, the bigger the reward is, and a big reward at that for completing maybe a 3/4 of the schedule.

It's basically iRacing, I know, but it would really really flesh out the game and I would be able to look past the rather numb physics for this, but at the moment... it's not enough. Having to wait for tournaments in a couple of weeks and doing these short and tight races for a whole week will turn people off, and there's not much choice either.

The FIA stuff you can probably qualify for and you'd have to work to be in the division where it's streamed to the world by doing these series, slowly raising your rating to be eligible to run in the top division or split.

At the moment. It's just not enough.

 

[ShiftingGears]

The limited sport races are a concern - if participation drops because there isn't enough variety, then the house of cards falls over. Such is the risk of building a game centred around online racing.

 

[VBR]

I ran nightly evets in GT Prologue, I ran Shuffle lobbies in GT5, & I ran loads of stock & spec rooms in GT6. In GT5/GT6 I had lots of options at my disposal to set up the room how I wanted. Most of the stuff I relied on has been taken away from me in GT Sport. I guess many the serious onlne racers are still playing GT6. So glad I didn't buy GTS!

 

[RC45]

For a racing game that is supposed to be all about the online experience, the FIA endorsement and getting our minds out of the old school (ie its always there when you want to play it) career idea, where IS it?

Massive launch after 4 years wait.

[snip]

Please dont say "give them some time!" They have had 4 years to work out this format that is being forced upon us. I like the idea but not the implementation. I'm writing this of course because I had to stop my Mission battles as we are offline

[snip]

Exactly - after 4 years the presentation and format concept still isn't ready?

That means it will never be ready.

I bet Kaz is already thinkign of the 'next great thing' - he has already forgotten about GT:S.

The limited sport races are a concern - if participation drops because there isn't enough variety, then the house of cards falls over. Such is the risk of building a game centred around online racing.

Bingo. Online racing is a niche at best, league online racing is a super narrow niche... not enough to build a global franchise around.

 

[Hoodie1878]

User created lobbies are a nightmare if trying to create something private for friends, room codes not recognised and friends can't see your private room. Only way so far is to create a public room with limited player count and get your friends to jump in quick.

Anyone sussed out a better way? Insane you cannot just invite your friends!