I think PD just got a bit too carried away with the RPG aspect in GT Mode.
Thing is, in a game like World of Warcraft, there's not a terrific amount of skill or dexterity required, specific to the actual gameplay itself - hence macro-ing. So having the ability to become Über through grinding, it's necessary for MMORPG developers to slow down the rate at which players can level.
But with GT, the true effectiveness of the player is not determined by their in-game level, or any particularly effective bit of kit they might have been fortunate enough to loot: it is determined by the player's skill at balancing all of the controls available to them - just like *REAL* driving, in fact...
OK, I get that there was an element of start-crash-restart grinding to get All-Golds in GT4... But that was only ever for the absolute completists with a lot of time on their hands. But to get up to about 85-90% complete, was no real chore at all - not a *GRINDING* chore at least. It was easy enough to get the cash you needed, with the speed-uppable B-Spec driving; and easy enough to buy and improve the cars needed to complete all the events.
But with GT5, it's like the worst kind of 10-year old MMORPG, where gaining the necessary credits/XP needed to advance, totally guts the enjoyment of the *ACTUAL DRIVING* (which is still as good as it ever was).
I'm an average-to-fairly-good driver. But most of that is down to innate ability rather than actual game-playing experience. I'm average-to-fairly-good in NFS & Forza too. I'm not noticing that I'm getting especially better, because of the hours I'm having to spend grinding my way through GT5.
Once I'm familiar with a circuit, once I've established my lines and my breaking points, my lap times and point finishes have much more to do with how tired or alert I am, how many interruptions I endure from the family, and whether or not I'm "In The Zone" that day. It has little or nothing to do with how much time I've spent grinding to advance through GT mode.
Fact is, many people are just going to use B-Spec and disproportionately powerful cars in A-Spec, to earn credits and XP - just like they did in GT4. All PD have done in GT5 is make the whole process far more dispiriting and take far longer than necessary.
Before I got hold of GT5, I was anticipating that PD would, if anything, de-emphasise the GT mode, because they'd rather have people hooking-up online, where the *REAL* tests of skill must take place. But instead, I found that they've turned the wholly enjoyable elements of previous GT's, into yet another merciless grinding operation.
I imagined that Id chug my way through the off-line GT mode, before taking my skills on-line and finding my *TRUE* GT skill level amongst all the other human drivers out there.
Way Im feeling now, with all the bugs and shortcomings in the Game, I can see my interest tailing off much sooner than I ever anticipated.
If this game had come out a year after GT4 as a launch game for the PS3 for example I would have been well pleased with it as a stepping stone in the GT canon. Id have been happy to play it, in its current state, whilst I waited another couple of years for GT6.
As it is, Gran Turismo now feels to me like another excellent recreational/entertainment franchise that has been totally torpedoed by 🤬 accountants and money-men.
Peace
