The main innovation of Gran Turismo Sport was the game of the same name with online races. This is nothing more than an attempt to create an analogue of iRacing on consoles: the game constantly hosts network tournaments with live players, and the most successful ones will go to the regional finals and will be able to get prize cups from the FIA! Sounds tempting.
But before letting you go on races with other players, you need to watch a couple of video lessons of “racing etiquette”. The basic idea is simple: treat other racers the way you want to be treated! It is strictly forbidden to ram and cut opponents, to close the overtaking trajectory to them – in general, you need to sacredly honor the principles of Fair Play.
For the network game, each rider has a rating of two components – a racer rating (overall performance in online races. The higher the occupied seats – the higher the overall rating) and the safety rating (how “clean” the player drives and complies with the rules).
All this is taken into account during matchmaking. The game selects opponents of a suitable level. If you constantly make blockages in corners, then the rating will decrease and you will have to race with the same “crazy Maxes” as you.
True, there is the following problem: penalties in races are not always awarded fairly. For example, a couple of times I was kicked off the track when overtaking along an external path, and the penalty was assigned to my car! Once, an opponent flew in from behind in a big swing when I braked before a sharp turn after a fast line. Bottom line: +5 seconds of a fine and a security rating lowered to level D … Obviously, the penalty system needs to be improved, and so far the chances of getting a penalty for contact with an opponent are 50/50, even if you have nothing to do with it.
It’s not yet clear what this will result in in the first FIA-sponsored network championships, which will start on November 4. I want to believe that Polyphony Digital will be able to provide the highest etiquette and true fair play there.
In addition to the championships, the weekly online races in three classes are always available in the game – just like Seasonal Events from the previous parts, only via the network with other players. Here you pass the qualification round, and then participate in the race with the start according to the occupied position. 20 cars are going on one track at once, so the races turn out to be hot. Races are held at intervals of 20 minutes, so there is always time to train and qualify. True, there are fears that three races in a week will have time to get bored, especially if you manage to win there quickly.
The network mode really conveys the emotions of a real race: for example, you can often see how the leader of the race is nervous and wrong under the pressure of the pursuers. There are also technical overtaking, and in some races there is such a tight fight that eight leading cars go with a difference of 200 thousandths of a second from each other! And if matchmaking fails you and gives you too strong or sloppy rivals, then you can create your own race with friends.
Also pleased with the technical aspects. For example, network races were never interrupted, and they didn’t throw them out of the game even on the first day of the world launch, which is a rarity for an online project these days. It’s enough to recall the infamous Driveclub launch to understand that Polyphony Digital were much better prepared for the huge influx of players on the servers.
The online focus of the project and the desire of developers to regulate matchmaking also implies the need for a permanent connection to the network to … save progress. The game is saved only when it is connected to the online server. Passing data is immediately loaded there after each step. If there is no connection, then GT Sport continues to record your records and accumulated rewards in Arcade Mode offline races, but there is one small “but”: they will be lost after leaving the current game! That is, on the next launch, all progress will be rolled back to the previous successful save. Therefore, if you see that the connection to the server is lost, then it is better to pause the game until it is “lifted”. For example, you can immerse the console in sleep mode so that the application does not close.
