Would you want a full leaderboard system in GT

[dojOdRiFTeR]

Online win %

 

[Feldynn]

While it does sound a bit like he's saying online / multiplayer is an annoying requirement that he has to do I think that with this interview, as with the other one where he said "GT isn't a social game", there is something that's just lost in translation.

I think he simply means that the core selling feature of the game is it's simulation style, not that multiplayer isn't important but because most games have that these days anyway it's the simulation aspect of GT that sets it apart from other games.

Would we all be here talking about GT if it wasn't a simulation style racing game? I don't think so , we'd be here talking about some other simulation style game instead because that's what "we" are looking for in a game.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Anyone else concerned with what Kaz said in the interview below.

"Yamauchi: Online play is a feature that all games are going to have automatically now. Of course, Gran Turismo is going to have that as a feature. But when you think about it, what’s really important to a Real Driving Simulator isn’t that kind of competition. Online features are something that we have to have, but that’s not going to be the part of the game that will be the deciding factor for most people. The basic simulation is still the core of the game."


Sounds like Kaz includes online features because he has to rather than wants to!

If GT6 does not have leaderboards then its a travesty. If I was responsible for developing GT6 I would have leaderboards for everything i.e driving licence tests, single player events, stock car leaderboards. Obviously with the vast amount of cars it would be difficult to have leaderboards for every car which is why a PP limited leaderboards is a good idea.

Just want to echo others by saying Forza 2 was the best in the franchise. For example I went through the career mode around 5 times because I wanted to improve my times and yet on FM3/4 I didn't even finish the career mode. Having leaderboards for the single player mode on GT6 greatly increases the replay value.

I find Kaz attitude rather odd considering he participates in real racing when laptimes are very important. Take F1 as an example sometimes the qualifying session is more exciting than the race!

@Ivor.

He sounds so out of touch with the marketplace and user base of today's society. Shame really.

Nice to see you back btw. Did you sell your G25 after ? I thought you were pushed over the edge after GT5 lol.

Kaz is 100% right that the core of the game is the offline simulation. There were never more than a few hundred lobbies open at any one time in GT5 around the world, probably never more than 10,000 people racing online at any one time. That's only 1% of the install base and although I have no figures to back it up, I'd bet that less than 10% of GT5'ers ever made it online. The core of the game is still offline, but of course that doesn't mean offline should be given the short end of the stick.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

Don't forget that there are also private lobbies in GT5 and those do not show up it the count. Who knows how many of those there are at any given time.

I think the comment made by Kaz is missleading to a degree. It seems like he may not be focused on online play but what he was actually saying was that the physics and simulation was the most important thing. This does not mean offline mode nor online mode but all modes, it is the core of the game like he said.

It is clear from the additions made to GT5 online mode via updates that there is a focus on online play.

 

[WRT IVORBIGUN]

@Ivor.

He sounds so out of touch with the marketplace and user base of today's society. Shame really.

Nice to see you back btw. Did you sell your G25 after ? I thought you were pushed over the edge after GT5 lol.

No mate still got my G25 as I decided to keep hold of it just incase GT6 finally delivers. I hope it does because these days I want more than grinding away on single player events combined with the odd online race.

My idea of perfection is Gran Turismo graphics, physics combined with Forza 2 style leaderboards including the tournaments.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

I had forgotten about the FM2 Tournaments. I wonder why they did away with those. They were pretty cool. I wonder if it were due to those who couldn't drive whining that they could not qualify for them?

 

[Ills1999]

It sounds as though Kaz views the social aspect with much distain. Pretty much expected for a gen-xer.

 

[oink83]

If I was responsible for developing GT6 I would have leaderboards for everything i.e driving licence tests, single player events, stock car leaderboards.

If this was in, they definitely need an "opt-out" option that has been discussed earlier in the thread. It means every time you post a new best time, or if not that, then every time you leave an event, you wait a few seconds for your times to be posted online.

I would hazard a guess that close to a majority of people have no interest in leaderboards, and so this is just tedious waiting, especially given the new supposed speed of navigation with GT6.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

If this was in, they definitely need an "opt-out" option that has been discussed earlier in the thread. It means every time you post a new best time, or if not that, then every time you leave an event, you wait a few seconds for your times to be posted online.

I would hazard a guess that close to a majority of people have no interest in leaderboards, and so this is just tedious waiting, especially given the new supposed speed of navigation with GT6.

I would not expect it to slow down by any noticeable amount unless it was also posting a long replay and even then if it is a single lap replay of the ring should only take 2-3 seconds to upload it. Forza has been doing this all along and it is not a problem.

I also think that the majority of people do have interest in leaderboards. Who doesn't like to see how they compare to the rest of the people who play the game? Who doesn't enjoy trying to beat their friends times on their favorite track.

Perhaps you should try it, it adds lots of re playability to the game and everyone I know is into it some will spend all day on a track in the same car just trying to shave another 1/2 second off the time and move up on their friends list.

I've seen one person posting that it is about seeing if you are faster than a stranger but for most of us it is 1: Are you as fast or faster than your friends and 2: out of the millions of people who play the game where do you stand on lap times on any given track in any given type of car.

It is a very good feeling when you go out on a track and post a time that moves you up the leaderboards especially when you start getting near the top and once you start to like it then it is hard to imagine any racing game without it. For that matter most online games have some type of leader board even when they have nothing to do with racing, some of them are just dumb but they have it anyway.

I remember 1 day on Forza 3 I saw that someone had moved into the #1 spot on the leaderboard with a different type of build on a car than what others had been using. I build the same car a slightly different way and then gave the setup to 4 of my friends. We went out and raced 1 race and had positions 1-5 on the board when we were done. The guy who was #1 came out the next day and spent about 5 hours working on yet another build of the car and ended up back on top in the end. Was a lot of fun for all of us.

We need this in GT

 

[Imari]

If this was in, they definitely need an "opt-out" option that has been discussed earlier in the thread. It means every time you post a new best time, or if not that, then every time you leave an event, you wait a few seconds for your times to be posted online.

I would hazard a guess that close to a majority of people have no interest in leaderboards, and so this is just tedious waiting, especially given the new supposed speed of navigation with GT6.

Why does the game have to wait for something to upload? XMB has background downloading, and background uploading isn't exactly a revolutionary concept. When there's a time or something worth uploading, dump it in a queue and let it be uploaded when the PS3 is idle. While you're browsing the UCD or something.

Design solutions can be found for just about every objection to leaderboards. I can see having a switch to turn them off for people that don't want their name on them for whatever reason. I suspect if it defaults to on, you'll find that few people care enough to actually switch it off, but an easy option like that is no problem.

I suspect if leaderboards were included in a meaningful and accessable way, a lot of people who disparage them might actually find that there's a lot of enjoyment to be had.

 

[WRT IVORBIGUN]

If this was in, they definitely need an "opt-out" option that has been discussed earlier in the thread. It means every time you post a new best time, or if not that, then every time you leave an event, you wait a few seconds for your times to be posted online.

I would hazard a guess that close to a majority of people have no interest in leaderboards, and so this is just tedious waiting, especially given the new supposed speed of navigation with GT6.

I don't agree with your comment about no interest in leaderboards. This might be the case for those who have not played Forza and remained on GT because they haven't enjoyed the fun and challenge that leaderboards bring. If I use FM2 as an example the leaderboards had huge number of entries and were extremely competitive.

Let me use a single player event on GT6 which has a leaderboard as an example. Firstly you have extra motivation to re-run the event for credits as you try to improve your overall time and beat your friends. Secondly this is an entirely different to hotlapping because the time posted on the leaderboard is your race time after say 9 laps. This means you have to be consistently fast but you cannot push too hard as you don't want to come off and make your race time invalid.

I might not be popular saying this but I feel some of the GT community are stuck in the past and play racing games like I used to back in the 1990s. The days of writing your laptimes on a piece of paper are long gone and should now be placed on a leaderboard. Even if you're unable to compete with some of the best in the world its still great fun competiting against your friends.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

Yep, I really liked the career leaderboards in Forza 2. I ended up running all the events a few times to improve my times. I think I probably ran the Maple Valley endurance race at least 5 times. Once they were removed in FM3 and 4 I did not even bother to complete the offline mode. Maybe 40% in FM3 and maybe 10% or less in FM4.

Coming from GT4 to FM2 there was 2 things I loved about FM2 aside from the sound and graphics of the next gen console and that was 1: Online Play and 2: Leaderboards. No racer is complete without these 2 features.

 

[eran0004]

Sure, why not. I think it should be sorted by car rather than performance points though, so that it doesn't turn out the same way as the seasonal time trials did, with everyone using the same car.

 

[JDmsz]

Gran Turismo 6 leader board should just have the online percentage wins. But people could cheat with that online. All you need is some friends you know, do 2 Laps and they'll let you win every time. It's almost like spamming.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

Gran Turismo 6 leader board should just have the online percentage wins.

Why should it "just" have a leader board for % of wins online? This is a fairly meaningless stat as you can run by yourself and win every race. Not that it would not be cool to have a way to keep track of wins, losses and podiums but to say that a game should have just this as in in place of hot lap leaderboards is just about the strangest thing I have heard on the matter.

Forza 2 used to show on the gamertag number of races, number of wins, number of podiums, overall hot lap ranking and overall time trial ranking so you could see these stats on the players in the lobby with you if you selected them. Was very cool, no idea why they removed it in FM3, would be cool to have in GT6 but leaderboards are a must.

 

[oink83]

I would not expect it to slow down by any noticeable amount unless it was also posting a long replay and even then if it is a single lap replay of the ring should only take 2-3 seconds to upload it. Forza has been doing this all along and it is not a problem.

I also think that the majority of people do have interest in leaderboards. Who doesn't like to see how they compare to the rest of the people who play the game? Who doesn't enjoy trying to beat their friends times on their favorite track.

Perhaps you should try it, it adds lots of re playability to the game and everyone I know is into it some will spend all day on a track in the same car just trying to shave another 1/2 second off the time and move up on their friends list.

I've seen one person posting that it is about seeing if you are faster than a stranger but for most of us it is 1: Are you as fast or faster than your friends and 2: out of the millions of people who play the game where do you stand on lap times on any given track in any given type of car.

It is a very good feeling when you go out on a track and post a time that moves you up the leaderboards especially when you start getting near the top and once you start to like it then it is hard to imagine any racing game without it. For that matter most online games have some type of leader board even when they have nothing to do with racing, some of them are just dumb but they have it anyway.

I remember 1 day on Forza 3 I saw that someone had moved into the #1 spot on the leaderboard with a different type of build on a car than what others had been using. I build the same car a slightly different way and then gave the setup to 4 of my friends. We went out and raced 1 race and had positions 1-5 on the board when we were done. The guy who was #1 came out the next day and spent about 5 hours working on yet another build of the car and ended up back on top in the end. Was a lot of fun for all of us.

We need this in GT

Yes what I said about about the majority not interested in leaderboards, was based somewhat on the amount of online participation in time trials. Most TT's get less than 50 thousand entries, out of millions of people who have the game, so in that respect, most people don't actually bother competing for times on leaderboards. I'm not trying to say competing online is not fun, I'm just saying given the figures, most dont use it.

Also, I would hope it doesn't slow it down, but just going off how GT5 does it, after each TT you do, when you come out of it, you have to wait some seconds for it to upload, so by the same system, it would require waiting around after doing any timed event.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

Yes what I said about about the majority not interested in leaderboards, was based somewhat on the amount of online participation in time trials. Most TT's get less than 50 thousand entries, out of millions of people who have the game, so in that respect, most people don't actually bother competing for times on leaderboards. I'm not trying to say competing online is not fun, I'm just saying given the figures, most dont use it.

Also, I would hope it doesn't slow it down, but just going off how GT5 does it, after each TT you do, when you come out of it, you have to wait some seconds for it to upload, so by the same system, it would require waiting around after doing any timed event.

Keep in mind that a lot of us had pretty much stopped playing before PSN went down. Also remember that the time trials are only available for a short period of time so there could be 3 times or more people who would post there but did not do so in that small window of time. Also the time trials are very limited as to what you can drive sometimes even down to a single car or model type and not everyone has or wants to build a car to that spec and try to compete in an event that will be gone in a few days anyway. Some people just would not like to drive that type of car or that specific track and others figure whats the point no one will even be able to see my time next week.

If there was a real leaderboard you would see a lot more entries on it. Personally I never saw a place where it showed total number of entries on the GT time trial leaderboards.

I'd be willing to bet that if they placed a TT online that allowed us to run DTM cars on HR tires around the ring and left it up for a while there would be a lot of entries on it

Personally I would like to be able to take whatever car I want to whatever track I want and attempt to post a fast time. I may not drive in a TT that has me in a Prius around London. But give me a Ford GT on Nurburgring and I'm all over it, as would be the case with about 500 cars in the game and several tracks.

 

[Johnnypenso]

Why should it "just" have a leader board for % of wins online? This is a fairly meaningless stat as you can run by yourself and win every race. Not that it would not be cool to have a way to keep track of wins, losses and podiums but to say that a game should have just this as in in place of hot lap leaderboards is just about the strangest thing I have heard on the matter.

Forza 2 used to show on the gamertag number of races, number of wins, number of podiums, overall hot lap ranking and overall time trial ranking so you could see these stats on the players in the lobby with you if you selected them. Was very cool, no idea why they removed it in FM3, would be cool to have in GT6 but leaderboards are a must.

One could easily make online win% very meaningful in a couple of ways. One is a minimum number of entries for the race to even qualify towards your win%, which would prevent the single racer or two buddies racing and padding their stats. 5 or 6 would be a good start.

You could give more credit to winning vs. a larger field.

You could have the game determine a "strength of field" number and weight your results based on that too. Could be as simple as a weighted average of the winning percentages of the various entries.

Yes what I said about about the majority not interested in leaderboards, was based somewhat on the amount of online participation in time trials. Most TT's get less than 50 thousand entries, out of millions of people who have the game, so in that respect, most people don't actually bother competing for times on leaderboards. I'm not trying to say competing online is not fun, I'm just saying given the figures, most dont use it.

Also, I would hope it doesn't slow it down, but just going off how GT5 does it, after each TT you do, when you come out of it, you have to wait some seconds for it to upload, so by the same system, it would require waiting around after doing any timed event.

TT entry levels were low but it was later in the games' life cycle and the TT's had limited appeal in my opinion. Same cars over and over for so long. Leaderboards in GT6 could involve a huge number of car/track combinations, preferably at least one version of stock cars on stock tires. This would provide a huge variety of challenges throughout the game. You could pick you favourite car and challenge a number of tracks with it. Pick your favourite track and challenge with a number of cars. Challenge your friends list. Challenge yourself to improve. Possibilities are endless, unlike the TT's which were limited in scope and often with poor car selection if you wanted to have a chance at fastest lap.

 

[Goudvis]

Yes.
Statistics in general are cool, addictive and not so hard to implement.
Best, average lap times for each car, for example?

 

[amar212]

I still do not understand why majority of posters acts like the Seasonal Events bi-weekly Time Trials in GT5 do not exist?

 

[Spagetti69]

I still do not understand why majority of posters acts like the Seasonal Events bi-weekly Time Trials in GT5 do not exist?

I think people would like the option to use any car on any track at any time. Well I would.

 

[eclipsee]

At least they might use the cars of the arcade mode for permanent leaderboards, bi-weekly time trials is not enough as they have date of caducity, if they could be permanent that would be another story though.

I really miss the GT5P leaderboards.

 

[DCP]

Yes please, same like GT5 prologue style with a bit more info, and also, cars must be run in completely to enter.

 

[RoadRunner99]

I think people would like the option to use any car on any track at any time. Well I would.

Exactly 👍.
I'd like to have the 'GT5p like' leaderboards back and always on, with stock cars. If not all, a reasonable set of them (e.g. 300).
Friends Leaderboards are very welcome (like the last GT academy)

Current time trials allow tuning. I am ok with them but I do not really have time to work with tuning... so using stock cars would be perfect with me and my friends

 

[Imari]

I still do not understand why majority of posters acts like the Seasonal Events bi-weekly Time Trials in GT5 do not exist?

Because they're a tiny band aid that only exist so that PD and Sony don't get sued for false advertising. See where it says leaderboards on the back of the GT5 box? Yeah.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

Yeah with the existing time trial setup maybe if I log in every couple of weeks and check them for I don't know say 5-10 years maybe I would get lucky and find the car I want to drive on the track I want to drive but odds are that would be the one that I missed entering and even then would not get to post a time in the car I want.

As leaderboards go the current TT events are a joke.

We need a full blown leaderboard and not just for unmodified stock tuned cars but one that allows us to tweak and tune for best performance in a given range of PP as well. Upgrades and tuning are a large part of the game and should be included.

On the existing TT events it really is not worth it to tune the cars as you will only be able to use it in that TT for at most 2 weeks and then it is closed. On a full leaderboard though many of us would tune lots of cars for lots of tracks and run them a lot.

I know my friends and I would probably play the game much more and much longer if we were able to do this.

 

[Timppaq]

This would be one of the most important things in gt6 for me. Gt5p like stock tt leaderboards. Tuning if included should b one a totally different board.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

Yes, definitely need to be separate boards for tuned and untuned if both are there and would be great to have both.

If we could only have one the tuned option would be the better of the 2 in that it would allow you to tweak the cars and could spend a ton of time trying to get various cars on the board. This would also be the smaller of the 2 in terms of data as the untuned board would need a separate section for every car x every track layout so we would be talking about over 70,000 sections to do every car on every track as stock.

In the case of tuned cars though it could be broken down by PP into say somewhere around 10-20 sections so you would end up with 750-1500 sections or there abouts.

Now if as some people have said they should be separated by wheel/controller, tire type, assists then those numbers would be multiplied by the number of separations so in the stock cars boards that number could get really huge but still using a proper database engine on the server with proper relational tables and well written code it should not be that big a deal to implement them all into the game

 

[klondike]

I really hope for leaderboards.

I actually sometimes think GT5 P was a better game just because they where in and also the online lobby system was way better.

There should be leaderboards for each car/track not tuned, and also seperate leader boards for tuned cars, and ways to filter for tyre selection/PP/wheel/Controller and stuff like that.

Also there should be a way to see how far your friends are on the carrear mode, and licenses, and compare your times and acomplisments with eachother.

Also someone mentioned that there arent many people using the online lobby race feature. Well maybe it is because its so badly designed that no one has the patience to use it.

Most og the time it takes ages to join a lobby, only to see that the car/track that was anounced in the lobby before joining has been changed to something else, You cant even see the full settings before joining the game. Then 80 % of the time after joining the host is not there to start the race, and even if he start it, most of the open lobby's are full of idiots driving into eachother at the first corner on the track.

There should be a lot more options in the lobby. And everyone should be able to see it from outside the lobby before spending like 5 minutes to join a lobby only to see there is no host or the cars/track/PP/tyres anounced has been changed to something completely diferent than was anouned before you joined the lobby.

We should be able to see. Car/Track/PP/Tyre/laps/Aids allowed and so on from outside the lobby. and there should be some ranking system so that only people with roughly same skills drive against eachother. Make it a filtered option.

Unfortunetly I have litle hope any of this will be implemented. Because Kaz/PD seems completely out of touch with what people actually want. There are a lot of talk about many things but to me it dosent seem like GT6 will be much more than a tiny upgrade from GT5.

I dont see any words/proff on livery editor, or leadersboards or better online lobby systems. All we get is a lot of jabba jabba talk about how they have so high ambitions to make the best driving game ever, and they will make the best ever physics and some secret features, and they are working on stuff, and maybe it will get it and so on. But the reality is most likely none of it will.

 

[GTP_Plato]

The leaderboards as Kaz put it were "in the process of evolution" if I remember correctly, he said this a short while after GT5 was released.

Maybe they're ready now

Big disappointment if they don't show up this time round.