Official GT5 discussion thread

[RobertR1]

Why can't "damage" be an assist like "Active Steering" with settings off. mild and full? At higher levels they could have made it impossible to turn it off.

This.

The reason is simple. The game was rushed and the plan is to piece meal it together with patches. My matchmaking example earlier really highlights the rush to market for this game.

Personally, they can bring the damage at a later date. Fix the performance issues first. At this point calling it a 60fps game is plain wrong.

 

[rabidrabbit]

This.

The reason is simple. The game was rushed and the plan is to piece meal it together with patches. My matchmaking example earlier really highlights the rush to market for this game.

Personally, they can bring the damage at a later date. Fix the performance issues first. At this point calling it a 60fps game is plain wrong.

But damage is already there, it's not like it's a feature that's completely missing and "piece mealed" later with a patch.
It's just that it is not there from the get-go like way some people would prefer it to be, but a feature that's introduced later.
It's a delibrate, considered gameplay decision, if it was rushed in the last minute, then wouldn't it be more likely it was an all-inclusive option in the main set-up menu, than a feature that's delibrately put later in the game.

I do agree on the frame-rate, GT3 and 4 taught me to expect pristine 60 fps from GT games. Though far from unplayable, or even affecting real gameplay that much, really, it does mean a GT game does not necessarily mean 100% polished experience any more.
Me personally don't play any games much online, so I don't miss those features. I tried online a couple of times, and got in to a race easily enough and had a lag-free experience with racers that seemed to be roughly on the same level as I. That might have been just luck, though.

 

[corduroygt]

This.

The reason is simple. The game was rushed and the plan is to piece meal it together with patches. My matchmaking example earlier really highlights the rush to market for this game.

Personally, they can bring the damage at a later date. Fix the performance issues first. At this point calling it a 60fps game is plain wrong.

I want an in-game resolution option, so I can race at 720p with 2xAA and hopefully get rid of tearing, without losing that neat/professional 1080p look of the menus.
They should just make GT5 a subscription service like WOW...about the only way they can keep up.

 

[BoardBonobo]

None of this is going to hurt GT5 because there is still that user base there. The rumored numbers going around right now are 1.8 million for the first week of sales WW, which is fantastic for them considering the astounding legs that the GT series has proven it has.

The 1.8 million figure is for the first two days, the weekly estimate is ~2 - 2.4 million. Which is good going in anybodies book and is on par with GT4.

 

[DonaldDuck]

For me it´s pretty obvious that the game has been rushed. But being rushed or not, the difference at this point is just between huge and absurdly huge, so the backslash happening during these days is not really fair.

The volume of content has simply no match. And the features, some of them are pushing the limits of a HW already compromised with the 1280x1080 affaire.

The polish is not uniform, and that´s the point that highlights the inmaturity of the game.

I´ve also thought of the late damage model as a trick just placed to gain time and make a comprehensive patch, but that´s a nonsense, because some people will eventually reach that level and will discover the damage, whatever it is. You cannot lie with this.

But another idea is that the progressive discovering of features as game progresses is due to the fact that some people could use the game in no legal ways. And if you cannot log in in PSN and download the patch you´ll need just weeks of play in order to obtain the full game.

But make no mistake... the early reviewers have not played the game in depth, it´s just impossible, and the best proof for that is just playing it. The game is so huge that is literally impossible to taste it in things like aggresive, complex AI, damage, online, in a couple of days. Im-possible. And that´s the problem... with those rough analysis.

But I imagine the situation... buggy interface (related with on-line inestability, now it´s sweet), uber-late features only discovered as a prize for dedication, this is enough to make reviewer (with a ultra tight scheduling over him) angry. And then him/her find the imported GT4 cars, the GT4 courses passed over, and the ammunition is there ready for use.

On top of that, the absurdly ambition of the project in the graphic department encourages compromises (shadow texturing, transparencies resolution) and a performance somewhat irregular. In other situation you´ll be positive on that, "the target let´s no more room for goodies", but now your perspective is plain negative.

You have the anger, you have the spots to focuse on, you have the phone of the boss showing in your mobile wanting the damn review and you take the straigh approach: GT5 is shit, and in gaming reviews nowadays shit is 8,5 points over 10.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The same goes for GT5. People will buy it because it's Gran Turismo, not because they've spent hours researching it. The number of sales that could be lost will be minimal. Afterall, Uncharted 2 blew the pants off of pretty much every game in 2009 critically, but it didn't explode in sales

High review scores do not make blockbusters. Likewise lower review scores are not enough in themselves to kill a game. No-one was even suggesting as much! It's not like the suggestion that not celearly explaining damage would mean GT5 flops! The point is that failing to communicate the features of their game will have a negative impact in selling GT5 units versus fully explaining the game. Do you not believe that? Do you think GT5 will sell the same number of units if it was a dire mess of a game versus a perfect game? A game with next to no features versus a jam packed title? Even if GT5 sells to all the existing GT fans on name alone, withholding features will mean less chance of attracting new buyers.

Unless you believe car damage will not add value to GT5 at all (at which point why include it if it's just wasted effort, same for many, many features like the course creator), then not advertising the high quality of damage present in game is going to result in less value and thus sales versus communicating a clear message.

No one's denying GT is a robust franchise, but I don't think it holds a unique position in that people will buy irrespective of content, quality, etc., any more than people would buy PS3's without any games for the platform because it's a PlayStation. Like every other game it needs to offer value, satisfy market demand, be marketed successfully, etc.

 

[KKRT]

This.

The reason is simple. The game was rushed and the plan is to piece meal it together with patches. My matchmaking example earlier really highlights the rush to market for this game.

Personally, they can bring the damage at a later date. Fix the performance issues first. At this point calling it a 60fps game is plain wrong.

Actually damage mechanical and advanced visual is already there, but its disabled and i can understand that. If You would have mechanical damage, rollover and advanced body deformation [and You cant switch it off], no one new to sim racers could complete carrier. Why? Because You have to repair body deformations and mechanical damage with credits and its very expensive.

Ps. How can I change camera in replay theatre? [select button doesnt work] And i know that You can, because Digital Foundry used bumper cam in replays, so its definitely possible.

 

[nightshade]

At max damage level (ie. lvl 40) the cost of repairing your car is insane, but that's the point....shouldn't one NOT be crashing cars when at level 40 ?.

If you give the same level of damage at lower level you'll have people crashing everywhere & repairing the cars easily (cause its a given that the cost of repairing would've been very low in earlier levels), if they kept increasing the repairing cost there'll be people complaining about increased cost...and if they don't increase the price then it'll be far too easy to repair a car in higher level, thereby negating the point of driving with perfection when in higher level.

 

[Nesh]

At max damage level (ie. lvl 40) the cost of repairing your car is insane, but that's the point....shouldn't one NOT be crashing cars when at level 40 ?.

If you give the same level of damage at lower level you'll have people crashing everywhere & repairing the cars easily (cause its a given that the cost of repairing would've been very low in earlier levels), if they kept increasing the repairing cost there'll be people complaining about increased cost...and if they don't increase the price then it'll be far too easy to repair a car in higher level, thereby negating the point of driving with perfection when in higher level.

Does the damage get unlock in level 40 for the arcade mode?

 

[Rotmm]

At max damage level (ie. lvl 40) the cost of repairing your car is insane, but that's the point....shouldn't one NOT be crashing cars when at level 40 ?.

Could you post some pics (either here or in the released game image quality thread) of some cars with lvl40+ damage. Cheers.

 

[tha_con]

Just to throw in my 2 cents on a few recent topics.

Damage - A lot of folks seem puzzled about the decision to gradually increase damage as the player gains more experience and gets to a higher level. For me, this is a far better and more elegant solution for implementation for many reasons. First, with regards to the GT enthusiasts and long time followers, it will allow them to adjust to the new changes. Granted, there are the hardcore who rarely crash or rub bumpers anyway, but there are also those who have played every game and still use other cars as "rails". Gradually introducing these changes will help them to become acclimated and, overall, become better drivers.

From the perspective of new fans and new gamers to the sim genre, it helps to gradually build their skill and teach them the basics of driving without instant punishment. If you hide the feature behind an "on / off" switch, then you're essentially robbing said player of the experience, IMO. By feeding them bit by bit you'll do better to teach them to drive, and teach them to use lines and overtake other cars instead of teaching them to use bumper cars.

This solution, for me, is much better than simply implementing something like a rewind or TONS of assists for players. It's obvious this is here to gradually make the game harder and ramp up difficulty, without making it painfully difficult from the outset. I say bravo, more games need to have gradually increasing difficulty (I may create a topic based on this, actually).

As far as reviews and what not, I think people are blowing it WAY out of proportion simply because this game has been much anticipated. I honestly believe that reviews are the least important part of getting a game to sell. Not to say they aren't important at all, but they aren't nearly as important as other factors. First up, word of mouth and hype. I think it's proven that games sell MUCH better when they have this astonishing word of mouth, and when their marketing campaigns are huge. CoD 4, for instance, wasn't a massive success out of the gate like MW2, or Black Ops. It took about a month for the game to really hit those absurd levels of sales, and it was word of mouth that did that more than reviews or anything else. Sure, reviews help pull in some early adopters, but the word of mouth sold it, and created a massive fan base.

GT, as a series, isn't much different. There will be a lot of people who will bite JUST because it is GT. The folks who bite and sell are the same people who maybe bite and buy Black Ops, and then sell if it's not like MW2, or Reach, or whatever else they want. This is a stigma of EVERY game. The blind buy always happens, and there are folks who give games a chance (or don't) based on their expectations. But for every 1 of them, there are 2 more willing to blind buy based on word of mouth or established appreciation for the series.

 

[patsu]

But make no mistake... the early reviewers have not played the game in depth, it´s just impossible, and the best proof for that is just playing it. The game is so huge that is literally impossible to taste it in things like aggresive, complex AI, damage, online, in a couple of days. Im-possible. And that´s the problem... with those rough analysis.

But I imagine the situation... buggy interface (related with on-line inestability, now it´s sweet), uber-late features only discovered as a prize for dedication, this is enough to make reviewer (with a ultra tight scheduling over him) angry. And then him/her find the imported GT4 cars, the GT4 courses passed over, and the ammunition is there ready for use.

On top of that, the absurdly ambition of the project in the graphic department encourages compromises (shadow texturing, transparencies resolution) and a performance somewhat irregular. In other situation you´ll be positive on that, "the target let´s no more room for goodies", but now your perspective is plain negative.

Instead of feeling angry, why can't they see it as an opportunity to establish their uniqueness, journalism and fetch more $$$$ ? After so many years in the business, can they not predict what other sites will do and make themselves stand out ?

If playing the game is the best way to find out GT5 is too huge to review within the time frame, why don't they post a multi-part review with a more authoritative and professional tone ? They played the game right ? Do they really need readers to correct them ? We want to know the full picture after waiting for so long. We are not so interested in the author's emotion state. It reflects on the immaturity of the reviewers and their organizations, in addition to the GT5's existing issues.

EDIT:

So, if someone can give me now a guidline with the title "How to get a F1 car in 30 minutes"...would be cool

Yeah well, I'm waiting to see which site can outdo fora like GAF and GTPlanet in the "game guides/strategies" area.

 

[Arwin]

Now that I am at Level 20, and have put in enough hours to sample most (though not nearly all) of the game to a fair extent, I have to say that as a single player game GT blows Forza 3 out of the water. The extent and depth of the Special Events and Licences is something that Forza 3 just can't match. I understand that Forza 3 gets high scores, because most of the things Forza does, it does very, very well. There is little to fault it. For GT5, that is not the case. But if you throw out the rotten fruit, there's still about four times the good fruit in there that you can find in Forza.

For the online stuff, again I will wait until the december patch for the final verdict, but there are some really nice little details in here that make a nice difference already. Apart from the community features which are very nicely integrated, if you enter a lobby with certain race restrictions, you can then very nicely select cars from your garage that meet the restrictions, but you also have the option to use the cars of other people in the room if you prefer to use those. I entered a room for instance with a Peugeot 207, and someone joined me with a Golf GTi that I didn't have yet. When I started my free run that GTi was then available for me to select.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Damage - A lot of folks seem puzzled about the decision to gradually increase damage as the player gains more experience and gets to a higher level. For me, this is a far better and more elegant solution for implementation for many reasons.

I think it's a reasonable solution too. What confuses me is why PD didn't clearly describe the mechanics of the game, to make people aware of the changes over time. Or at least, it's come out of the blue without anyone picking up on it. It's somewhat akin to Borderlands being sold as a shooter without ever explaining the RPG elements, and hiding the levelling so players aren't aware they're levelling - the end result is the clever design choices go unnoticed. Does it mention feature progression/damage in the manual?

 

[patsu]

This.

The reason is simple. The game was rushed and the plan is to piece meal it together with patches. My matchmaking example earlier really highlights the rush to market for this game.

Personally, they can bring the damage at a later date. Fix the performance issues first. At this point calling it a 60fps game is plain wrong.

As a few people mentioned above, the lack of damage at lower levels is more likely due to the increased difficulty. Kaz called it out on a few occasions. AI seems to follow similar unlock scheme.

Which match making issues are you talking about ? ^_^

It also looks like some reviewers are looking for a different type of racing game. I wonder if they are skilled enough to progress to GT5 higher levels. For a guy who doesn't usually buy a racing game, I'm also curious about the race team management aspect. It seems that I can exploit it to make more $$$$ to buy nice cars ? I can drive these cars myself right ?

 

[tha_con]

I think it's a reasonable solution too. What confuses me is why PD didn't clearly describe the mechanics of the game, to make people aware of the changes over time. Or at least, it's come out of the blue without anyone picking up on it. It's somewhat akin to Borderlands being sold as a shooter without ever explaining the RPG elements, and hiding the levelling so players aren't aware they're levelling - the end result is the clever design choices go unnoticed. Does it mention feature progression/damage in the manual?

It doesn't, and I too think this was a very good example of developers simply not communicating everything in the game.

There is a huge missed opportunity to use the in-game manual to describe these things. Instead, it's simply used to let you know what the icons on screen do and nothing more

This isn't new to GT though, and I think it's always been a great weakness of Polyphony. They do an amazing job explaining the history of cars, how different tuning mechanics work, and walking you through the different license tests so you can learn to drive...unfortunately everything about progression is pretty much left up to discovery

 

[nightshade]

Matchmaking in a racing game just doesn't feels right to me.

 

[patsu]

What do you mean and why not ?

Matchmaking may need more user data to perfect though. It is impossible/probably too difficult to get right from the get go. All they have are the super high level data from GT5 Academy. They can't tune the game based on those data alone.

Perhaps their Dec patch will address online performance better after gathering more data points from the real user base.

EDIT:

This isn't new to GT though, and I think it's always been a great weakness of Polyphony. They do an amazing job explaining the history of cars, how different tuning mechanics work, and walking you through the different license tests so you can learn to drive...unfortunately everything about progression is pretty much left up to discovery

That's the sense I get after reading more user impressions. There is another potential source for GT5 game guides. It's the "infinite zoom" PlayView system they showed. They should give us a free version that explains the basics.

 

[tha_con]

Matchmaking in a racing game just doesn't feels right to me.

I think it can work if done right. What they need to do for matchmaking is do it by car class, and rule out everything you have in your garage.

Basically, they need to divide the cars up into classes, and if you say "S Class" then you'll get super cars with very similar specs, and you can chose from those in the pre-game lobby. It needs to be isolated though, and I think doing some rotations here would be a good idea. Otherwise matchmaking will simply be broken.

Matchmaking is meant to be ultra-competitive, and they need to keep it that way with a level playing field. Hopefully they'll get it right!

 

[rabidrabbit]

Any news on the "Gran Turismo Anywhere" web portal?
This was supposed to be a kind of GT5 B-Spec that you can play on a web browser and other community features.
Haven't heard anything about it since it was first announced some time ago.
The official GT site has nothing about it.