Sound Off! Improving Rally Racing in Gran Turismo

[JohnBM01]

The following is a Public Service Announcement from GTPlanet member JohnBM01, or just simply, John:

"...just get rid of rally racing." -???
"Rallying in GT is a joke..." -???
"...just don't make it part of 100% completion." -???

In the wake of problems plauging society, a new problem has arisen- rallying in Gran Turismo. People are hating and loathing GT rallying. They talk about how it's just not fun, interesting, or even "cool." Let's work together to improve rally racing in Gran Turismo 5. Offer your opinions in John's latest "Sound Off!" called "Improving Rally Racing." We need Gran Turismo, Gran Turismo needs us, and we need you. Together, we can make a difference for rally racing in Gran Turismo.

The preceding has been a Public Service Announcement from GTPlanet... ah, you know who this is.

-end of chessy announcement

Rallying in Gran Turismo has been long debated. I think it's time that we function as a Gran Turismo community and look for ways to enhance rally racing so that people don't complain as much. This is a GT5 continuation of my GT4 thread on improving rally racing. I see absolutely nothing wrong with the concept of rally racing in GT4 no matter what others dare say. What would you suggest to improve rallying in GT5?

I thought the inclusion of the Grand Canyon rally course was a step in the right direction in terms of traditional rally courses. The Grand Canyon rally course would have probably been better off a point-to-point rally, but at least it's where you can see traditional-style rally racing on narrow and twisty roads. The canyon did offer that element of shock if there was no invisible wall to save you from falling down the Grand Canyon. Excluding the 5-second penalty, the course is pretty nightmarish, yet a step in the right direction for rally courses in GT. The next step would likely be to have traditional point-to-point rallies in addition to Rallycross events. The series still needs to mature in all the right places in order to be an undisputed favorite among racing game fans.

I also believe that the inclusion of Chamonix and Cathedral Rocks were also in the right direction. I somewhat think the feel of the cars off-road weren't like in "ToCA Race Driver 3," which I felt more comfortable with after playing ToCA RD 3 a lot. I now think of GT4's rallying as being more heavy in the turns. You don't really get the sense of control like when you do something like carve corners in the three United Kingdom rally stages in ToCA RD 3. I said that the Mitsubishi Lancer you use in the Mitsubishi Motors rally events has the most beautiful handling among all rally cars in that resepctive game. I look back to GT4, and now I think the cars sort of feel heavy in the turns with not as much control as one would like. That even includes the wonderful handling of the Peugeot 206 WRC. So I would agree that rally dynamics have to be improved in GT5.

What more would you suggest? Please note that "just get rid of rallying in Gran Turismo" is not going to count. This is for people who think rally racing can be improved in Gran Turismo and want to offer suggestions to make it better. This thread is not for the ones who just want rallying to be eliminated, thus killing off racing variety. So what do you suggest?

 

[Tenacious D]

Gee... I love Gran Turismo's rallies. Maybe a fan of Richard Burns Rally could come along and offer up how a car should behave on gravel.

The only thing I'd change are the 5 second penalties - off the island! - and the invisible walls which are MUCH too close to the track. I'm not in favor of having a Grand Canyon plummet to your death, but definitely get rid of the trackside force fields.

 

[Kylehnat]

1) GET OTHER CARS OFF THE TRACK! Rallying is against the clock, not directly against competitors. GT4 has some really neat rally tracks, but racing these courses with another car present is ridiculous. Passing is darn near impossible on tracks like Grand Canyon, Chaminoix and Citta di Aria, and even more frustrating with the 5-second penalty. Take away any form of qualifying, and you've got little chance to win in an evenly-matched car.

2)Point-to-point, please. Rally stages aren't laps. Enthusia's touge course (Dragon Range) is one of the most amazing experiences in any racing game I've ever played. Surely the boys at PD can pull off something similar.

3)Night courses. The only thing scarier than rallying is rallying at night.

4)More courses. Point-to-point courses make for shorter races, so we'll need more of them, naturally . GT4 has a good variety, but it gets repetitive after you've raced them for the 3rd time (and backwards, as well). Space shouldn't be an issue on the GT5 disk, so put as many rally stages and racetracks on there as humanly possible.

 

[Tenacious D]

Hrm... I like rallying against another car. Roaring down an empty road is cool and all, but I really prefer competing against another driver, and when you pull around that guy for the lead in Gran Turismo, you know you've pulled off a feat. Maybe they could do both, or it could be optional.

 

[James2097]

They have a LOT to work on for GT5, online, damage, the PS3 initiation, better graphics (longer dev time to create all the new content because it has to look so much better).

I just think they should sacrifice rally, just don't have it. GT is only good at tarmac stuff. Or have a COMPLETELY different physics model for the dirt parts, cause the too vaugue, non-diggin' in tires skitting across the dirt really suck.

 

[Canadian Speed]

1) GET OTHER CARS OFF THE TRACK! Rallying is against the clock, not directly against competitors. GT4 has some really neat rally tracks, but racing these courses with another car present is ridiculous. Passing is darn near impossible on tracks like Grand Canyon, Chaminoix and Citta di Aria, and even more frustrating with the 5-second penalty. Take away any form of qualifying, and you've got little chance to win in an evenly-matched car.

2)Point-to-point, please. Rally stages aren't laps. Enthusia's touge course (Dragon Range) is one of the most amazing experiences in any racing game I've ever played. Surely the boys at PD can pull off something similar.

3)Night courses. The only thing scarier than rallying is rallying at night.

4)More courses. Point-to-point courses make for shorter races, so we'll need more of them, naturally . GT4 has a good variety, but it gets repetitive after you've raced them for the 3rd time (and backwards, as well). Space shouldn't be an issue on the GT5 disk, so put as many rally stages and racetracks on there as humanly possible.

In addition to these points, we need a co-pilot in there giving us directions instead of getting them from the HUD.

We need damage to incur in the races so that we have to take time to repair them between legs of races. With time being the penalty for various damages that may have occurred.

We need weather conditions to come into play along with lighting conditions and time of day. Maybe even temperature… Like melting snow on longer races starting in the mourning and moving into the afternoon.

Also, and this can apply to any facet of GT. They need to get the physics to the point where we can flip cars and do proper donuts. That way, judging jumps and potholes come into play much more. Get rid of invisible walls and barricades for these kind of races… They’re all about freedom, risk reward and hazards.

If they keep the multi car set up, as it appears they are going to from the Vision teaser, they need to get rid of the 5-second penalty. Instead, have proper racing warnings and flags if this is to be the case.

 

[Mt. Lynx]

Loose the 5-second penalty and have damage instead. Also timetrial only, no other cars present on track! More tracks, and point-to-point please! Drop the invisible barriers, and let us go off track! And please let us have proper grip on gravel! The griplevels on gravel in GT4 is not realistic at all. Well, maybe for a normal tyre, but a specifically made graveltyre produces more grip than that.
Otherwise, I like the rallying in GT4 and if the only thing changed for GT5 would be the drop of the penalties, I would be happy!

 

[Dimitrov]

I would like to compete in LONG rally stages. When you start, automatically the computer sets other cars competing 500m, 1000m, 1500m ahead. Or that can be 1 minute difference for each car.

The moment you start +1min, other car starts, and so on.

A 185 Km point to point track with, say, 63 competitors.

 

[Tenacious D]

What he said.

Darn it, Christmas never comes! 24 hours and counting...

 

[Whiteout]

i think that the cars do handle a little on the icey side, but i love the races reguardless, i feel like im there when people run out of the way and all that good stuff.

i do wish that they had others on the course like yourself, and of course it would allways be nice with some damage and car breakdowns.

 

[JDM'er]

1: Proper point to point Stages Real ones from international WRC level to local rallies in old Escorts

2: Classes break it up into classes that way its fair

3: Rally Cross that would be similar to what we have now around a track

4: Special Stages in stadiums and the like

5: Changing weather

6: up hill and down hill tramac and gravel stages

7: Tempartures and attiudites (Sp) there isn't as much HP at higher levels because the air is less dense

8: Dust and such like that can damage the car

9: Night time rallying

10 : Service Areas with timers

 

[Magikrio]

1) GET OTHER CARS OFF THE TRACK! Rallying is against the clock, not directly against competitors. GT4 has some really neat rally tracks, but racing these courses with another car present is ridiculous. Passing is darn near impossible on tracks like Grand Canyon, Chaminoix and Citta di Aria, and even more frustrating with the 5-second penalty. Take away any form of qualifying, and you've got little chance to win in an evenly-matched car.

2)Point-to-point, please. Rally stages aren't laps. Enthusia's touge course (Dragon Range) is one of the most amazing experiences in any racing game I've ever played. Surely the boys at PD can pull off something similar.

3)Night courses. The only thing scarier than rallying is rallying at night.

4)More courses. Point-to-point courses make for shorter races, so we'll need more of them, naturally . GT4 has a good variety, but it gets repetitive after you've raced them for the 3rd time (and backwards, as well). Space shouldn't be an issue on the GT5 disk, so put as many rally stages and racetracks on there as humanly possible.

In addition to these points, we need a co-pilot in there giving us directions instead of getting them from the HUD.

We need damage to incur in the races so that we have to take time to repair them between legs of races. With time being the penalty for various damages that may have occurred.

We need weather conditions to come into play along with lighting conditions and time of day. Maybe even temperature… Like melting snow on longer races starting in the mourning and moving into the afternoon.

Also, and this can apply to any facet of GT. They need to get the physics to the point where we can flip cars and do proper donuts. That way, judging jumps and potholes come into play much more. Get rid of invisible walls and barricades for these kind of races… They’re all about freedom, risk reward and hazards.

If they keep the multi car set up, as it appears they are going to from the Vision teaser, they need to get rid of the 5-second penalty. Instead, have proper racing warnings and flags if this is to be the case.

I can agree with everything you guys said above 👍 I love rallys, but I think that if there still is the 5sec penalty then I think the AI should be able to get it also, becuase I find if Frusturating when the AI ramms me right into a wall, and I get the 5secs of doom and he flys away

But other than that, I hope there is damage and point-to-point rallys in GT5.

 

[JohnBM01]

You want the AI ramming into you and you get the penalty? Play "ToCA Race Driver 3." Anything about "given" penalties to GT4 is fraudulent and incredulous in my view.

 

[Magikrio]

You want the AI ramming into you and you get the penalty?QUOTE]

I dont know if you mis-read or mis-understood, but I think I was talking about how frusturating it is when the AI ramms into me then -
1) I get a penalty 👎
2) They go zooming off without a worry of every getting a penalty 👎

I also do recall that once I rammed an AI into a wall, sure I got a penalty but he just blew by me more than 50 km/h or 20?mph. Thats what I call Frusturation

 

[The Vanishing Boy]

-> After I saw a video of Vision GT. I saw 5 rally cars on Grand Canyon and I said "NNNNOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!"

-> I should say that no more secondary cars on rally races and make it a timed event.

-> If you guy know the distance system from Initial D on which how many meters are you in front or behind of the AI/Player in which who is a ghost. (:

-> Point-to-point rally races was featured back on GT2 with its Pikes Peak Int'l Hill Climb, why not bring those type of tracks back?

(:

 

[Jim Prower]

Dirt and Snow tires on Tarmac need to be fixed. I'm pretty sure my dirt tires wouldn't serve up loads of understeer in real life. besides, it's tough to go from Drift to Grip in less than 5.0 Milliseconds.

 

[dylansan]

Just get rid of the 5 second penalties!!!!! In real life cars don't get 5 second penalties, they crash, so just include damage instead!!!

 

[JohnBM01]

I was kind of thinking of something. I would have the cars on the track, just don't race against them. There are rare cases in traditional rallying where you'll see another car in your way while you are trying to complete your own rally. One PS1 game called "Mobil 1 Rally Challenge" had a sort of Arcade Mode in which you raced against four other cars on the track. Worrying about narrow roads in addition to traffic made things tough. That is something I would NOT want for GT5 if it were to include traditional rallying.

I guess my response to this is to enhance the rally physics. Even with TCS and ASM off, the cars still seem heavy in the turns. This is why I consider the best rally car to be the Peugeot 206 WRC. It was my favorite in GT3 as well. The car seems to be set up in a way which seems almost perfect around any course. Also impressive are ANY of Lancia's rally cars. You can take the Delta or Delta S4 for some hardcore handling ability. Or you can take the Lancia Stratos Rally Car and also take it to circuit racing. The car is strapped with a Ferrari engine and can be a wonderful car to race with. I'm always skeptical of rear-wheel drive in off-road use while taking corners. I'm sure anyone can still make this machine handle at its finest. I'd look to WRC competitors like Peugeot, Citroen, Ford (Europe), and I may even introduce Skoda to the GT series. And let's not forget the wonderful Seat which won the rally championship in 1994 with Didier Auriol piloting it to victory. Rally America needs some love too. Get as many real rally cars so that gamers can have ready-made rally racers to take to the track if people can't build their own car in GT5. And I know I'm talking about cars, but I'd even include some Dakar "cars" and even some of those CORR-style racing trucks. They are off-road machines too. I just wouldn't race a super powerful machine for anything other than hillclimb races. A starting hill climb would be the classic Goodwood Festival of Speed. The ultimate challenge would be the Pikes Peak Hill Climb. I'm not Mr. "Stupidly long tracks," but this is an American challenge that would be awesome. This would instantly get GT gamers back into love with this track. My recommendation- the Escudo is nice, but the Toyota Tacoma Pikes Peak is even better. It's about 1,000hp of pure Toyota power which damn near cracked the 10-minute mark with Rod Millen trying his luck. Costa di Amalfi was a nice hillclimb event, but I'm talking about REAL hillclimb events.

I do sort of think the off-road physics can be enhanced so that cars can freely slide without feeling too heavy in the turns. It's always nice to fly over a jump in a rally, and I'm sure PD won't disappoint if they can find exciting configurations. The best-case scenario is that PD can find solid rally action without having to get into a tug of war with licensing. This would be the ONLY issue I'd want to see some sort of large environment with a lot of roads used for rallying. There can be specially-made courses transformed from regular mountain roads, narrow willage streets, peoples' neighborhoods, and that sort of thing. Like, take Speed Channel's recent look at the Targa Newfoundland. Many of the roads were peoples' neighborhoods! That would be like looking at your neighborhood while watching an Impreza enter opposite lock around your nearest intersection to drive down more neighborhood streets. There is also the chance of doing certain courses backwards or taking different routes. Use your imagination. The fewest stages I'd probably want to see is three or six, and the maximum can be ten, 15, or even a whopping 20 stages! I think it's doable, just don't make things ridiculous or stupid.

Your turn.

 

[AzNBoI_5o4]

I think the invisible walls should be ELIMINATED because you can run the people over in the audience YAY.

 

[Jim Prower]

I think the invisible walls should be ELIMINATED because you can run the people over in the audience YAY.

Absolutely not. We're not talking Grand Theft Auto here.

That's not even funny if it were meant to be a joke.

 

[Canadian Speed]

Relax!!! People do get hit in rallies. I doubt that the racers get to continue though...

 

[Dimitrov]

Relax!!! People do get hit in rallies. I doubt that the racers get to continue though...

Time to review my HAVOC Vhs tapes.

 

[Jim Prower]

Relax!!! People do get hit in rallies. I doubt that the racers get to continue though...

Let's try and keep the "E" rating, guys. It's a freaking Video game.

 

[Canadian Speed]

Yet bumping people off of a track at 150MPH is okay!? I see where you're going with the crowds/rating things... But not every section of all rallie tracks are crowd ridden, so not having people and invisible walls would be a great added feature... And if those stupid fools at Grand Canyon want to get in our ways... It's their poorly pixelated lives in their poorly pixelated hands... LOL!

 

[Jim Prower]

I Agree with you about the walls...to a point. sure, it'd be more realistic, but at least move the crowd back so they can't get run over. besides, what's to stop someone from taking off cross-country?

How about we move the invisible walls (and crowds) back? that way, we can have some terrain that'd be bad to run into, (Tree, cliff) but you wouldn't have the temptation of "Dukes of Hazzard"-style shortcuts.

 

[Chris1990]

Yeah the invisible walls are seriously annoying. OK, they stop people like my brother racing to kill spectators or jump off cliffs but they make the courses too narrow. Yes I like a challenge and I know that it is up to you to overtake the car in front but have you ever tried passing another fast car driving defensively on Grand Canyon (2P not AI) cleanly. There are very few places where two equal cars can get through without body contact or invisible walls coming into play. If damage is to be incorporated along with bigger rally grids and the problem isn't rectified, a few people might find their races ended fairly early.

 

[Mt. Lynx]

They don´t have to move the spectators back, even if the invisible walls are removed. The race can simply end if you hit a spectator, just like it would do IRL! That would make the rallies even harder, but IMO more fun and more real.

 

[Canadian Speed]

That's what I was thinking... Along those lines... Hit someone and it's like going off the track in a licence test...

 

[JohnBM01]

Jim Prower has a point. Sometimes to be realistic and fair, you have to be unrealistic. Some of you take this realism thing too far. If there was traditional rally stages, there would be some stages cancelled simply because of too many spectators. Some of you just think too much about realism, thus killing your experience.

Now on to Chris1990. Get rid of invisible walls so players can go off course and run over people? That's the stupidest s:censored: I've ever read. I bet you also want to be able to *intentionally* drive your car off of the Grand Canyon, destroy your car, and have your driver (and co-driver) die all the way down? A game like Gran Turismo has to be as realistic as possible, but you also have to be as sane as possible. This is not Carmageddon. This is not Burnout. You may as well say that gamers should be able to throw their car (literally) into the crowd and killing people like the 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans. There is something I DO agree with- don't make a pure rally course like a race course in which you have to pass the other guy to win, but I think the rally event should be based on time. Maybe your opponent can be off the line in about 10 or 15 seconds, then you go off. It's almost rare that you see passing go on in rally racing. So I'd save the passing for rallycross.

I think PD should adopt and designate rallycross and traditional rally stages. Rallycross stages should be wide enough to allow passing without fail, and traditional rally courses should be narrow and make passing difficult. The old game "Colin McRae Rally 2" has the designation almost perfectly. That game even included time cycles, which is also good for rally racing. It can be morning when you start off, then things begin to brighten up as you're along.


---UPDATE---
In talking about hitting spectators with your rally car, are you sure you want stupidity like this: { http://hallpass.com/media/hitbyrallycar.html }? Are you sure you want to condone this? Then of what all the "fanboys" will be saying, like "dis game s cul. U can actully run over ppl! OMFG!!!" (intentional misspelling).

If you want that, then enjoy making an ass out of yourself.

 

[Nilis]

I don't know about other people, but I find the long powerslides much more satisfying than the tight corners and narrow passages in Grand Canyon. Not that those courses are bad, just the ground terrain doesn't feel all too "slippery." Something to throw out are the five second penalties as well. Not only do they make passes difficult, but when I get slammed in the rear by my competitor, it's five seconds AGAINST me.