Ability Points?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sven
  • 16 comments
  • 848 views
S

Sven

Messages
1,087
I had this interesting idea for Gran Turismo 4 involving ability points. Now, before you start yelling at me saying that this ain't no RPG, hear me out.

The idea is, you should get ability points that affect how well you shift. Full story:

When you start out the game, you do an AP qualifier, and it gives you a set number of points to start out with depending on your time, so that experiences players aren't unnecessarily handicapped. How would these points be used? Well, if you don't have a lot of AP, your shifting is lousy. It takes a good second to go between gears, and you might even occasionally mis-shift into the wrong gear, or neutral. As you get more experience, your AP goes up, shift times get shorter, and you miss fewer gears, until eventually you're shifting into the right gear with .1 second shift times. On the other hand, if you opt to use automatics, you never miss gears, but your shift times are constantly mediocre (unless it's a high performance car with a specially engineered automatic transmission).

My thinking behind this is that in real life, as people gain experience with a car, and driving in general, they gradually get better and better at using a stick shift, and actually cut down on their shift times and gear misses. This idea would give manual users another advantage over auto users in that their shift times will be lower. Ideally, AP would only apply to cars with an actual stick shift, and you wouldn't have to worry about it in paddle shifting cars. And maybe you could even buy a paddle shift system for your car to cut down on shift time.
 
Interesting idea but I'd be more in favour of a system that has a short learning curve for each car....... basically in the first 50 miles of driving a new car in your garage your shift times would be slightly slower (while getting used to the new car) but after that the shift times would be normal for the car.

In real life it doesn't take long to get used to driving a new car....... in fact I can't even remember the last time I miss shifted!
 
This is pretty stupid.. why should someone who doesn't know who to shift alll that right be forced to have a slower ability in the game. I mean yeah its sorta like real life since some people shift faster then others but cmon. You aslo have to remember how this would effect the drivetrain stuff like clutch upgrades etc. But aslo how would you determine in the test whats the best point to shift. Lots of people shift at different points, its personal choice.
 
Because me and plenty of other people use the right stick to accelerate and to brake. Overall it's a nice and original idea (it's not been mentioned here before as far as I acn remeber) but I don't think it would add any enjoyment to the game rather it might do the opposite in some cases.
 
Personally, I myself do not like the idea, since I shift late and quickly. There's also the matter of sequental gearboxes. Also, a shifting speed of .1 seconds is TOO fast. A sequental gearbox by a trained racer can only shift in about .3-.2 seconds.

There's also the matter about how the points are judged.
 
Really do not see the need for this post. Buy playing the game and using manual transmission you will beome better and better at it. When you buy the differnt drivetrain parts/upgrades it will change the shift points or you can fine tune them your self. Heck the game even flashes a light when you hit red line and its time to shift. Knowing when to shift and at what RPM's depends on the car and where you are on the track. I doubt very seriusly if you was to put 6 people in 6 identical cars that you would ever be able to have them shift at the same exact time. So I think it is fine the way it is now. If they ever put a clutch in or a "H" pattern gear shift then it would be fun, watch or should I say hearing people grind gears, stall out, leap and lurch forward etc. Oh that reminds me of when I was driving a semi this weekend, talk about having to work the clutch and accelerator. It had been ten years since I had driven one, ya know what they say cant findem grindem.

GRAB A GEAR LETS GO.
 
Many people don't want to use manual, though. I tried manual for about a week once and I did good with it and improved on many liscense tests but eventually, It became annoying. I did not want to enter a 10 lap race on manual and have to shift a million times and then do that 10 more times. I would like to concetrate on the driving and not have to keep loking at the tachometer. Good idea, Sven, but I think if you did that, the automatic crowd shouldn't be punished.
 
Here's another weird idea. Why not ask Sony to come up with a new Dualshock 2 that has a third analog which serves as a shifter, and make it exclusive to racing games (unless SOCOM wants to come up with some online hullabaloo for it)? Why not come up with the world's first controller to have paddle shifts, and again, make it exclusive to racing games?

If you want to make ability points worth a damn, however, maybe the more you'll be able... no. Maybe when racing you can... no, that might not work. Oh, I know! How about with ability points, you'll be able to... damn it to hell! ARRRGH! In other words... no. I don't think this will work, and even if it did, there is a such thing called practice. The ONLY way this will work is if GT4 had personal profiles and you set up your own character (I created a topic on profiles way back. Try to Search for it). But other than that, good thinking, but it won't work. Next reply (or rant)?
 
JohnBM01
Why not ask Sony to come up with a new Dualshock 2 that has a third analog which serves as a shifter, and make it exclusive to racing games (unless SOCOM wants to come up with some online hullabaloo for it)? Why not come up with the world's first controller to have paddle shifts, and again, make it exclusive to racing games?
Click to expand...

They already did this, and I own one.








Here's a picture for those who haven't seen it...behold....
DrivingForcePro.jpg
 
It's called a thread hijack.

Not a fan of the idea, this isn't an RPG where we level up our response times, next we'll be instigating delays in reaction times to incidents etc. Realism's great up to a point, beyond that, people don't care, we're just here to have fun.
 
Well, it was just a brainstorm of mine (those can be dangerous sometimes)...

But seriously, I shift like twice as fast in my real Celica compared to the Celica in Gran Turismo 3, and I was just wondering what could be done about that...I guess we'll just have to wait for a clutch wheel with a gate shifter...
 
Sven
Well, it was just a brainstorm of mine (those can be dangerous sometimes)...

But seriously, I shift like twice as fast in my real Celica compared to the Celica in Gran Turismo 3, and I was just wondering what could be done about that...I guess we'll just have to wait for a clutch wheel with a gate shifter...
Click to expand...

That would be great!!! Perhaps in GT5... :)
Ferrari 355 Challenge arcade machine have clutch pedal and a H form shifter, it gives great sensations!
 
The idea of being able to upgrade your transmission to say a semiauto and watch your shift times drop would be better, less loss of acceleration etc, rather than it being a user specific thing.
 

Latest Posts

Back