- 694
- Oregon
As someone who finds the weekly playlist boring (and has bitched about it in this thread many times), I do think a little more challenge/competitiveness in the playlist would make it more interesting sometimes. I don't think any exclusive content should be locked behind hard skill gates though, even if it is just cosmetic crap, but especially not something as important as cars in a car game. Obviously every game has to have some kind of minimum skill level (PG seem to have decided "Highly Skilled" drivatars are that for FH5) for challenges, but "hard mode" should always be an option that is more of a personal satisfaction thing or perhaps an efficiency thing than any kind of barrier to stuff.
I think a good compromise could be to basically keep the list as it is now, but raise the point rewards for completing tasks at a more difficult level. For example for the Rivals events, just putting a time on the board gets you 1 point each week just like it does now, but each week you have a top 50% (or whatever would be a good spot to set the goal at) time gets you a bonus point for that week, and if you can get in the top 10% (or whatever) you get another bonus point. This would encourage/reward people who actually try instead of doing 1 clean lap and then ignoring it for the rest of the month, and make Rivals more meaningful because the times on the board would be more representative of the playerbase, and it means some people would revisit their time and perhaps improve it... but it would also mean that people who don't have time or don't care to play Rivals could continue doing it just like they are now without losing out on anything.
Also, for the AI championship things, you get the 5 points or whatever they are worth now for beating them at "Highly Skilled" but if you can beat them at "Unbeatable" you get 2 bonus points or something. For the PR stunts, keep the difficulty as it is now, but add a "bonus" distance/time/speed that gets you an extra point. Maybe for those weekly things with 4 objectives for a specific car, they add a "bonus round" at the end that is a skill challenge for a bonus point or two.
It would reward people for trying a bit harder and challenging themselves and trying to improve their driving and/or building skills, but wouldn't change anything for the people who don't care about that stuff and just want to relax and check things off the list.
All that being said I still think the best way would be just to reward people points based on time played or have basically everything in the game pay out weekly points, so that everyone can get on the game and play whatever they think is fun to earn the weekly cars instead of being shoehorned into whatever RNG stuff is selected for the week. People who hate multiplayer/Trial wouldn't be forced into it, people who don't like PR stunts wouldn't have to do them, people who like painting could spend their limited time painting instead of running over test tube things, etc.
I wouldn't think that adding the old playlist cars to the Autoshow would make a big difference though. The "hardcore" players would still want to get the new cars as soon as possible and keep doing the playlist stuff each week, and a lot of the burned out players might actually come back to log in and get a cool car they missed when it is released in the Autoshow, instead of just uninstalling the game because they gave up on ever getting them.
I think a good compromise could be to basically keep the list as it is now, but raise the point rewards for completing tasks at a more difficult level. For example for the Rivals events, just putting a time on the board gets you 1 point each week just like it does now, but each week you have a top 50% (or whatever would be a good spot to set the goal at) time gets you a bonus point for that week, and if you can get in the top 10% (or whatever) you get another bonus point. This would encourage/reward people who actually try instead of doing 1 clean lap and then ignoring it for the rest of the month, and make Rivals more meaningful because the times on the board would be more representative of the playerbase, and it means some people would revisit their time and perhaps improve it... but it would also mean that people who don't have time or don't care to play Rivals could continue doing it just like they are now without losing out on anything.
Also, for the AI championship things, you get the 5 points or whatever they are worth now for beating them at "Highly Skilled" but if you can beat them at "Unbeatable" you get 2 bonus points or something. For the PR stunts, keep the difficulty as it is now, but add a "bonus" distance/time/speed that gets you an extra point. Maybe for those weekly things with 4 objectives for a specific car, they add a "bonus round" at the end that is a skill challenge for a bonus point or two.
It would reward people for trying a bit harder and challenging themselves and trying to improve their driving and/or building skills, but wouldn't change anything for the people who don't care about that stuff and just want to relax and check things off the list.
All that being said I still think the best way would be just to reward people points based on time played or have basically everything in the game pay out weekly points, so that everyone can get on the game and play whatever they think is fun to earn the weekly cars instead of being shoehorned into whatever RNG stuff is selected for the week. People who hate multiplayer/Trial wouldn't be forced into it, people who don't like PR stunts wouldn't have to do them, people who like painting could spend their limited time painting instead of running over test tube things, etc.
It would be interesting to see what the statistics change would be after a change to the formula. Even if they gave the car out for free just for logging in, wouldn't most people still sign in every week to get the car? Though I imagine there is a certain amount of time spent they want besides just logins, probably 20-30 mins based on current playlist difficulty.
I wouldn't think that adding the old playlist cars to the Autoshow would make a big difference though. The "hardcore" players would still want to get the new cars as soon as possible and keep doing the playlist stuff each week, and a lot of the burned out players might actually come back to log in and get a cool car they missed when it is released in the Autoshow, instead of just uninstalling the game because they gave up on ever getting them.
