How should Polyphony Digital improve this game?

Dear motorsport fans in the Giant Bomb forums

Update: It's nearly about a month after the game was launched on the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4, I'm going to repeat as I bring up the complaints that I've heard so far are:

• Always needed an internet connection (Making it feel more like an MMO game)
• Grimy microtransactions (Must be Sony Interactive Entertainment manipulated Polyphony Digital for that)
• Players must keep grinding
• Highly expensive virtual legendary sports cars (In the real world, a lot of rare sports cars' prices will raise up, making them being collectible items)
• Most contents were recycled from GT Sport

However, it did get praised for some reasons are:

• Good gameplay and improved driving model for Simcade standards
• A decent roster of playable machines/cars and racing circuits/tracks
• Good soundtrack
• Good driving school mode
• Variety of mission challenges

My personal issues:

• Why is the race format still being so similar to Daytona USA and Ridge Racer during single-player career mode? Where players start from the back of the pack and outrun their opponents one by one before taking the checkered flag by the end of each race.
• Most of the single-player events, where players must line up in a single file rather than double file during rolling starts.
• There are rammers during online matches, oh well in racing games in general, players must deal with them.

Ok, let's jump straight to this topic, I would like to see you guys share your personal experience in this game and here are the improvements that I would like to see are (Via future updates):

• Remove the online DRM
• Switchable race formats (From Ridge Racer/Daytona USA style to more similar to the real world of motor racing)
• Having proper endurance events in the career mode
• Make legendary cars more affordable or being obtainable as prize cars
• Having mid-save during race sessions

So once when you completed the career mode, are you going to continue playing with it?

Sidenote:

If Gran Turismo comes to PC, either a port of this installment or a new entirely new one that focuses on the proper Sim Racing, I don't want it to have the same fate like this.

The problem is you can't really "fix" requiring an internet connection, they can patch it so the game works offline but that's only good if you can get the patch, the game is still going to become unplayable in the future and that's the core issue.
Gran Turismo was always a showpiece for the Playstation and the company, a labour of love, it's described as being a museum for car fans but despite being the latest and greatest installment GT4 is going to outlast it, the purity of the experience has been replaced by marketing greed.

They will probably reduce the cost of cars that's a given considering all the backlash, and the always online issue won't affect most people who don't want to play it again 20 years from now, it's just a shame it had to give up its purity for marketing greed.

In a future where gas powered cars are likely to be banned, this won't be the game to let you experience them.

More on foot sections

@cornfed40: Ah, a fellow Driv3r enthusiast.

It seems that most players who were anticipated for this were expecting that game is not going to require an internet connection since it got announced back in June 2020 until in Q3 or Q4 2021, then it's confirmed and the fanbase starts complaining.

Here is my theory of how did Gran Turismo become Sony Interactive Entertainment's property? the original game started its development back in 1992 for an unknown platform until in 1994, the original PlayStation was released and the producer decided to work it for that, searching for the publisher until Sony Interactive Entertainment picked it up then later it made an agreement to share the ownership with Polyphony Digital and become it's subsidiary as well.

Yeah, it totally makes sense why to have fewer new cars & circuits because of licensing and I guess prior to its server closure several years later, they might release a patch that makes the game can be completely played offline for every aspect of the single-player mode.

However, it's already confirmed that new cars & tracks will be added via updates.

For the gas-powered cars, I've heard that synthetic fuel is still under development for 2030 & beyond usage. Here is one of the articles that I've found:
Subaru BRZ Concept Racecar Testing Synthetic Carbon-Neutral Fuels In Japan | Carscoops

As far as the speculation that Sony pushed Polyphony to go MTX heavy, keep in mind that Sony first party games for years now have been more likely to have zero than an abundance of them, and that as far back as Gran Turismo HD (eventually canceled and repurposed as GT5 Prologue) Kaz was proposing a free-to-play game with tracks and cars sold piecemeal.

In any case, even having seen it play out over the course of a week I really don't think it's a huge deal unless you're an instant gratification sort. I've been following the subreddit and pretty much everybody complaining about the economy in the game seems to either have millions of credits in their account, meaning they are playing a lot (I have 23+ hours in this game and have not cleared 1,000,000 once yet) or they are wanting to platinum the game and have already reached the point where the only thing holding them back is the premium car collection.

The reason I'm a bit dismissive of those complaints is that even just a few hours with the game and you can tell how much of it is designed around rote repetition...just like the GT games of old. I've got over 70 cars in my garage, few of which I've driven further than four or five miles, but the handful of which I've eclipsed 100 miles with I've loaded up on tuner gear and have begun to really learn the ins and outs of, tinkering with various specs and kits to shave tenths of a second off lap times. While I understand that gaming has stoked this sense that you've gotta collect 'em all as soon as the game's out, I've also already got a game that's going to provide dozens and dozens more hours of gameplay. I'll get to the other cars eventually.

All that being said, I do see a pretty easy fix for Polyphony in part because they've done it before and more importantly they advertise it on the PSN product description. Let players sell the cars they don't want, and double the credit cap while they're at it! If players are here for the supercars rather than the road cars, let them sell their Honda Fits and and whatnot to earn credits toward those bad boys. This wouldn't even affect their goal of a simulated used and luxury car market with fluctuating prices, as they could still manipulate user sales in a similar way to try and manage how many of a given car is out there, same as any sports game's ultimate team mode. As for the credit cap, it just doesn't make any sense to sell cars for as many as 18,000,000 credits only to cap the player's wallet at 20,000,000 credits. Of the many predatory tactics this is one of the more insidious ones that most players won't run up against for a while simply because it takes so long to earn credits anyway, but one can easily imagine a scenario in which a player impulse buys a luxury vehicle they don't really want just because they're about to hit that cap and have little else to spend their hard won credits on.

...Alternatively, they could just massively increase the payouts after races, of course! When I've pointed out to some more furious players how it seems to me this game should be played (leisurely, with a focus on what you've already got) they'll point out that if I'm just gonna play for an hour or so a few times a week with a binge here and there, I can look forward to playing for over ten years before I've collected everything. While I could fire back with a "well, yea, I kind of expected/hoped this game could be a podcast game I kept close by for the entire console generation" I can also see how the people who've taken the time to run the numbers are not the sort of people who want to spend a decade to own all the Bugattis and McLarens in the game and if I were one of those people that number would sound pretty absurd.

Hmm, that would be nice for players to roam around their virtual houses & garages in Test Drive Unlimited 2 style.

@cikame: What are you trying to say with marketing greed and how is it different now than it was in the past? It's always been a playable commercial, which is a good thing and a bad thing. These games have always been marketing car porn and have never been about the purity of racing.

Sim racing games are also a genre where there's really no reason to go backwards. I'm sure 20 years, the real cars and tracks will look and feel realer and the loading times will be better.

@nodima: I understood.

Obviously the popular opinions of reverting, if not out right improving, race payouts and completely eliminating the always online aspect are two of my top issues like most people. I do have a few others though.

Number 1 is, make the arcade mode easier to access and not just be you using the stuff you've unlocked on the tracks you've unlocked. I personally like to play the "traditional" GT story style mode while dabbling in the arcade mode for fun, but people like my dad just want to go in, choose a track, pick from a selection of cars, and go. And when I told him about GT7 coming out he was like "oh cool can I give it a go" and just in the process of me explaining how I have to unlock all the tracks and cars just so he can mess around for a bit I could see him lose all interest. It also doesn't help that arcade mode is buried deep into the track selection at such a point that you may as well just choose an event. That way you might make some money at least.

Number 2 is that I would like to not have to go back to the world map for everything. Now I know this is normal in GT, but having the drop down menus in Sport was actually super nice. Being able to just jump to the thing you want was fast and snappy. It's not that I would never go back to the world map, but the fact I start on the map, have to go to the Cafe, get my objective after a bunch of dialogue, back out to the map, then load up the track menu just sucks. The main issue is the game trying to constantly be presenting itself, and I get it. It's a very nice to look at game, but even on ps5 I found myself feeling like I was spending soooo much time getting to what I wanted to actually do that I was getting bored. I don't even want to imagine just how long it takes on a ps4. Just adding the Sport drop down menu to the top of the screen would be hugely appreciated.

And 3rd is I feel make the used cars to brand central more of a progression. It took me a little bit to realise that "oh these cars are actually pre worn" and not just where you get some starter cars for cheap. After that I haven't gone back to the used cars to buy anything. Brand Central isn't outrageously higher in price for most of the cars I've seen, and they have nothing extra to worry about. Instead if the used cars was selling the low to mid end cars, and brand central had high to super, (and maybe once you beat the "story" also have the low and mid in there so it's all in one place) then the used cars would feel more worth while. I get what they were going for with the used cars dealership but in that respect, we really don't need that kind of "realism" in the game because it makes the used cars feel kinda useless unless you can maybe get a bargain by random chance. But hey, maybe this one is just a me thing. I'm willing to accept that

I love GT, I just hope they can get this game to a much better place for the future because as is, it's good but just so insanely flawed in the weirdest ways to me

I'm not sure I'd place much of the blame for the micro-transactions on Sony. Sure, they might have suggested or otherwise brought it up but given their history I'd say Polyphony was very much in the driver's seat (pun intended) when it came to all final decisions (always online included). Sony seems to:
1) Give studios lots of autonomy and space to do as they please
2) Historically haven't gotten heavily into either micro-transactions or always online
3) Don't seem like they demand returns on investments (see Media Molecule, free Returnal updates/DLC, etc)
4) Most damning, so much of the details in GT7 seems catered to pushing you towards micro-transactions that it's hard to see this as anyone's idea but Polyphony.

What can Polyphony do? Well there is lots they can do, but it seems unlikely they will do much. I had really high hopes for GT7, and I'll still end up getting it at some point in the future but I'm really disappointed with a number of the choices they have made.

1. The roulettes are just insulting. It's bad enough it seems like they are heavily weighted toward the worst item (lowest gold amount/brand "invites") but they also are just insultingly bad compared to GT Sport. Locking away specific tune items is just extra fuck you icing on the cake.

2. Payouts are generally not great, don't seem to be have much relevance to the duration or difficulty of the task, and are slap-in-face-followed-by-spit levels of bad for the online races. It really shouldn't be difficult for them to at least make an attempt at making all race payouts equal to the average difficulty/time needed if they truly believe in not wanting users to "grind the same event over and over". If you make one event way better than everything else then people are going to grind it when they need some quick cash.

3. Online seems to be a further drain on resources as they have quickly pivoted to specific car races and the more expensive gr3/4 groups where you can quickly blow a lot of cash just getting your preferred car/tires. Anyone more focused on the online is going to quickly have to either open their wallet or grind out the best event to even be able to enjoy online. God forbid they have a race with a specific car that costs $1mil+ in the future.

4. There is a lot of FOMO in the game: used cards "selling out", limited time "invites" for specific brands/cars, that all help push a user to pay up lest they miss their chance on getting their favorite car(s).

The biggest sin though seems to be the disconnect between the online races, all the new weather systems they've introduced, all the new tuning and customization of cars, and the need to spend money on all of it that just doesn't seem like it'll ever gel. I'd love to have dynamic weather in all the lengthy "C" races (or even potentially longer races) but don't see it happening because what do you do if a player hasn't bought all the different tire compounds to cope with the weather? Does a user have to spend all that money on inters/wets for every car they enter into a race just in case?

Sport mode really needs to just give some things like tires for free, but that seems to fly directly in the face of Kaz's "must grind or purchase" philosophy that seems to be the direction of GT7.

@mikebill1: @ev77:

I agree with you two guys about the flaws of this game.

@ragtagbag:

Add the cars from Wacky Races

For me, what I would want to see is more events to actually do after the Cafe menus are finished. Along with removing the online requirement.

Most of the disappointment to me is how barebones the game feels due to how linear and quick the Cafe is with nothing to do after. There needs to be a better system in place for rewarding open-ended player progression, not just an ultra-linear campaign followed by spamming the most efficient map hundreds of times.

If Polyphony basically stole a few of Diablo 3's progression systems (Nephalem rift system, optional seasonal progression) they could adapt the classic GT formula to that and have a banger "live service" style single-player campaign. It would also be fun if each season of the seasonal mode had a different theme and cars to collect so each time you play that mode it's different.

However, a proper offline single-player mode like a traditional GT game would be what I want to be added first.

Here are the great news articles about the future for this game!

• More events, greater rewards and new cars heading to Gran Turismo 7 in April | Traxion
• Massive Changes Coming to Gran Turismo 7 in Response to Fan Feedback – GTPlanet

Sony haven't pushed for the microtransactions. Polyphony Digital have been making games as a service since GT5. That game cost $60m to develop so you can see why they'd add microtransactions in.

On the flipside, the daily workout encourages people to dip back in. Maybe they get a car off a roulette spin but they're earning credits regardless.

Not to mention that GT5 spent over 5 years to develop plus I heard the developer had a very nightmarish time optimizing for the PS3 console so it resulted being not perfect, plus when the player uses 1st person's cockpit view (No matter what weather condition) then the framerate will drop below 60 FPS, sorry for the late reply.

@sombre: To me, the cars from Wacky Racers wouldn't even fit for this GT7, Forza Motorsport Reboot, and many other realistic racing games.

Well, lessee...make it more of a game and less of a Free To Play economy that you pay $70 to engage with?

Yeah, this game shouldn't have so many free to play elements in my opinion.