I agree with the OP but PD could certainly have made grinding more enjoyable with a few little things that I believe to be easy, fast and cheap to make. With these solutions, GT5 is perfect for me, because they progressed in so much points that it's a shame nobody noticed them.
I'd love they read that.
a - giving credits per kilometers within category, or per A-spec level instead of fixed prices (like 500cr/km in beginner class up to 5000 cr/km in extreme) -> that way we could race on different races other than this same simple ring with the same few "I've found the one that could" car (GT 40, Corvette ZR-1 and the Viper).
b - putting 5 lap races for japoneese cars in extreme too --> that way tuning japoneese car at the end of the game could help you win some credits aswell, because now in last category, to race with japoneese cars, there's only 10 laps races which are too long to tune a car. I'm sure a lot of japoneese players noticed that problem.
c - allow A-spec -> B-spec -> A-spec on any endurance race/championship or allow saving in the race. --> Kaz during his irl 24h over the Nür didn't drive alone a 24hour race.
It's a gamedesign choice belonging to 80's in my opinion because you could save within a championship in most of the 90's F1 games.
If PD want to prevent cheating (reloading) there's ways : an automatic save, over the save controlled by the player, when the race starts or just after the pit and a "you're not quitting properly, lose the race ? yes/no" warning message during race. If the player tries to reload this save, the race is lost. The only way to quit properly is in inter-race or docked in the pits. You're not allowed to use the button of any event or race, but online. All other button are openned to you. You can't buy or setup your car (for the car, the game act like when it's locked when you put it online).
Kaz "theorically" could "play online" (aka irl race other guys on the southschleiffe) when he wasn't driving...
OK, as a software architect irl and a "soon" project leader it's not that simple to program, we all agree. But if I were in PD's staff I would do that for them
With ten programmer experts of the game it's made possible technically in an afternoon. OK. 2 days. OK. 1 week with quick QA... OK 1 month with no stress. It would be a certified sell argument and a huge addition to the game.
d - having personal best lap chronos on each race (online/offline) would be a great addition (like in Rage Racer for exemple).
Let's say the chronos are 32 bit numbers, PD have to find something like 0.5ko on the hard drive of the PS3 to store that, and the double +servers if you want the world #1 chrono, or your friends. Since GT is a time attack game (because you overkill the CPU), it's not really a good idea to leave this out.
e - permits have no uses. It's ok for online and offline races. If PD want me to pass them at least put some forbidden content if I pass them. Like events, practice tracks, cars or something. They had 71 tracks to unlock and they didn't use that. They prefered to give almost all the circuits but nobody can drive on 60 circuits at the same time, while discovering the game. They should have given 20 circuits and give 1 track for 3 bronze medals, or for 2 silver medals or per gold medal, balncing that when you have all permits in bronze, you have all the circuits.
They also should gave all 3 car for a gold licence.
f - IA, Physics, Damage, experience of the player with the CPU in general
must not be unlockable with A-spec level because :
* some 17 year old will try the game 10 hours and tell "ok the IA is blind and have glue physics, the game is suposed to be a simulator but it's a 1995 driving game simulator instead, so the game is ****". And if it's a videogame reviewer who have a huge pile of thing to test, blam, bad notation because unlocking that is unexpected. The problem is the IA is quite smart and have almost the same physics of the player in high level (or they patched it).
Why ?
PD's testers or test reporters worked too much against or too much with the developement team I guess. But not as critics or there was a problem of communication between them or probably there was a problem with Sony's release date - GT is a PS3 seller, discussions must have been tough. I think they could tell that, but the developement team didn't listen to them for any good or bad reason. Too bad for the beginers in this game. The IA is quite "patched" in A-spec level 25+, and physic on standart car seem not to be perfect as the premium cars but it's there (I guess).
f' - about the experience of the player, a small thing ruining my beautifull custom soundtrack. A really tiny thing.
They could have stopped cutting the music like barbarians when winning a race and fade it out ! Smoother transitions... The CPU's IA is cut somehow they had plenty of CPU to do that.
and about sound, they could use the PS3 volume levelling drivers, since in all my 100 mp3 list, there not two songs which are recorded at the same volume level.
f'' - about the experience of the player, not grinding : Best acceleration races (400m, 1km races) and records are gone. Top speed records are gone.
PD could modelize a straigth line in a desert like, say, the Salt Lake for that (few polygons, am I rigth ?), or even have a use of La Sarthe/no chicane or SS R7 with no graphic efforts. This data are capital data for tuners. For me, this capital missing thing is lazy stuff from PD. They could even make use of these tracks for special races. I don't really care if it's a green 3d plan, with an uniformed dark road and a plain blue sky even simplier than GT1. I would love so much that feature badly.
I still pray the holy road for that.
f''' - setup online sharing ? Selling them maybe ? Could have been fun. OK, selling them opens a big can of worm and yes it's difficult to program. But it would be the nicest addition PD could even make in the game. About setup, I'd to copy a setup on a car that I have to another car that I have with the sme parts. And about tranny setup gear by gear : I'd love this but it's not currently in my top 10 "would want in a patch list", there's Midfield and Apricot Hill before that.
f'''' - Better using man*days on that than using it on travelling in a 3D world I think.
There another Gran game, it's Grand Theft Auto for that, and no matter how hard PD do, they won't permit the same experience of city and level of detail than this game : it's HD now, arcadish driving but less than before, with good physic properties. And a huge, colossal budget.
What wants PD ? A story mode ? With a too much classic "please I want to be a star" scenario ?
I don't want to be tough... But it's not possible ! PD can't animate the walk realisticly (look at the drivers shaking their hands), it's not a realistic project in this second decade after 2000.
They should focus on their strong points and work their weak points instead of having irrealistic ideas like that : players won't buy GT because of that, or if they will, it will be half the budget of the game at the very least... ! They will buy because it's a "Real driving" simulator, not a "Simulator of real driving" !
The players will want online in the city, they will want police chases, then will want a huge panel of things players in GTA allready have, then they will want MMO... It's not GTA. It's GT.
h - Reward the endurance races per lap, not with a "you race 4 hours, here's 500k". Everyone and their grandmother could have made 500k over the level 1 races during 4 hours.
i - AT LEAST, the "Re-race" button from 1.05 is a GREAT addition. 3 thumbs up for that. But you see, it's not enough. Our next combat should be the tranny setting in the driving aid menu, and the one after that is that quick setting menu in the garage.
g - a travelling ticket (from Japan to USA tracks for exemple) could be fun and realistic but unfortunualty it helps grinding the same track. Small fee, maybe ?
PD could put an easy solution to points a and b by rewarding the same model races in practice mode :
- A 1st place price calculated with the formula "Raced kilometer * A-spec level of the player * 200 * weight to power ratio"
- Having opponents PP matching player's PP depending of the A-spec level of the player (or with a 0-100% difficulty control like in GT3 or 4 I forgot). So the 0-100% is a multiplicator in the formula.
With a fictional weigth-to-power 1 ratios, at 100% difficulty (same PP cars) :
- 22km Nür @ level 1 = 4400 cr
- 22km Nür @ level 5 = 22000 cr
- 22km Nür @ level 10 = 44000 cr
- 22km Nür @ level 15 = 66000 cr
- 22km Nür @ level 20 = 88000 cr
- 22km Nür @ level 25 = 110k cr
- 22km Nür @ level 30 = 132k cr
- 22km Nür @ level 35 = 154k cr
- 22km Nür @ level 40 = 176k cr --> a 25m cars mean 143 laps there and 1001 minutes of race. (25m is too much anyway)
With slower cars, the price comes up (but the time passed in the game too !).
This formula would give the player the opportunity to make good cr on any track with any of the 1000 cars in the game and therefore make a perfect use of the huge diversity of the game. Of course the indy ring or SS RR7 would be the best place to grind. But at least the player "don't loose" so much credit by racing on another track with a car that isn't the corvette.
Grinding shouldn't be easier, but more diversified. Maybe some 20m cars are not a good cap (10m should be the max imo because when you have the F1 and a LM car, nothing can be better in term of performance). Giving the choice to the player, make a use of the HUGE set of car and races in this wonderfull game. Let him free of choosing where he goes in the huge world PD set up for us.
PD have the solutions to provide to us, we have the ring with an american car.
Stop being a troll. GT4 in HD? Far from it.
