See, now that is what I would call
pro strategy. OP asked about a ladder for progression or whatever and honestly I think that the above strategy for doing the Special Event challenges will make the "cash grind" infinitely less tedious. Good call,
Stixhellfang! I haven't done many of the challenges (spent 95% of my GT5 time so far in A-Spec or Seasonal), but I've done enough of the challenges to know they pay you fat when you take 1st on one rated anywhere near your current level.
It might be kind of hard to do with like the Jeff Gordon or Top Gear events, but the 3rd place payout is WAY more than you'll get in any single race at your level - so think of it as the 1st player prize and with a 2x and then 3x bonus for grinding the track
But to answer that "ladder" question, I'd say you don't need anything near that complicated. I don't remember the exact levels you can get which cars / events at (hell I might be calling tracks by the wrong names or whatever), but I know that on Friday I was like level 11 or 12, and realized I was going to have to grind some $$$ and rating to see anything cool and interesting. I've pretty much followed the below formula during my 3-day-weekend and when I shut it down earlier I was 1/2 way through level 19 and feel like I'm finally "over the hump" that i had been dealing from what seems like lvl 8 or so.
So, starting from about there I did the following.
*
(Whether it's buying a car or entering an event, remember that these steps all have the same advice added on the end - "If you're not able to do this yet, keep doing what you're doing to make money and/or raise your level until you can.)
* Get a
Z06 so that you can grind
Daytona at the
Supercar Festival in Pro. Mod that car up to
600+HP with whatever $$$ you get, and for God's sakes make sure you got $36K for tires - a set of
Racing Soft makes all the difference.
* You get
$20,000 per 1st place race there, and you run 3 laps that should be < 50s each. I don't think you can beat twenty grand for under 3 minutes of racing, and the XP is decent too.
* I spent a lot of $$$ trying to tune cars that mostly ended up being disappointing to some degree, until I finally found one that worked for me. If you want to try a different car progression, you should see the
Choosing Your Car note below if you're interested in being able to play plenty of other events besides the grind.
* Snag a
Ferrari 458 Italia once you have a little over $300K. Having enough $$$ left for
Racing Soft tires to put on before you ever drive it would really make this a smart buy.
* I did "the grind" until I had enough money to buy all the tunes for the 458, and then I hit the
Grand Turismo World Championship. I
easily took gold in all five of those events and as a reward they bonus you a
Bugatti Veyron. I always thought this was kind of a goofy car (I am a Koenigsegg fan though), but you'll be good to go once you've got it.
* The Veyron will win you both tracks in the
Turbo Challenge on
Expert without a problem. And the first of those two tracks (I can't remember the name, haha) has been my "new Daytona" to grind on since the first time I ran it. You have to spend one or two minutes longer running the course, but now you're up to
$50,000 per 3 1/2 or so minute race, with corresponding increased XP compared to Daytona as well.
And that's it - The last 2 or so levels I've gotten have been done by grinding up $$$ and then buying+tuning cars to go back and smash some of the really basic events I couldn't do because I didn't have anything even close to the required "pre-1979 European Supercar" or whatever else - that I can now afford to go buy and use.
A note on choosing cars as you progress
Another thing to keep in mind is that the cars I mentioned at least open up a few cool events themselves besides being so strong in general. Make sure you consider the manufacturer, era, and nationality of a car you're thinking you might want to try out - after all, pimping out a 90's 350Z (Fairlady) that you can buy new from the Nissan dealer will mean you've got an awesome car, but the only really interesting thing that you can get in on now is the Japanese 90's Challenge.
I went back and did this one just a few hours ago, and blew away the competition in every single race using a 650+ HP VR4 I built. If I'd done that back when I could get into this race, I'd have had to wait until Japanese Championship on Expert to try anything else cool.
So the point is, if you don't go
Z06 ->
458 ->
Veyron for cars while you're progressing, remember to pick out a car that helps you get into at least a couple events with specialized requirements. Like the Z06 that gets you a win in American Muscle-car and Supercar Festival wins early on, or the 458 that gets you the Ferrari-only single-race event and a win in the GT championship. In a real short time GT5's opened up with a whole lot for me to do and enjoy.
It's kind of frustrating to have to "back-track" like that, but it's cool to be able to go back and play some of these events that I thought were just ludicrous when my level just had gotten to the rating required to do them. Sorry, couldn't afford $270K to buy and build a winning Sport Truck at like level 6 or whatever that Amateur truck series is, hahahaha.
... well I guess I could have afforded that... but I'd probably still be running that level 6 truck event to get enough money to be able to buy & tune a vehicle that I can legitimately race competitively in, hahahaha.
Anyways, good luck and have fun! GT5's a pretty cool game, all-in-all. A couple "quirks", but regardless of everything else it's time well spent for even the casual car/racing fan.
jmatthews80
