revisiting the License tests

[jeffgoddin]

Breezed through them the first time not caring about golds, just went back to gold them so I could finally get a look at these exclusive prize vehicles.

So, what were the toughest ones for you?

I still have I-A to do, and don't plan on golding the Specials. IC-4 was the first one to really piss me off, took maybe two hours total to get that Camaro around those blind corners, after getting to within 0.011 second of the gold in the first 20 minutes... Then the Alfa Rome test in IC-9 was my second serious challenge, though I dispatched it in less time than IC-4. The Mustang in IB-5 was annoying for a minute, but not as much as the Skyline in IB-7. The S2000 in the high speed slalom of IB-8 was perhaps the most painful, as every unsuccessful attempt (and there were many of them) ended in a BANG! FAIL! quite abruptly, though again it didn't take as long to pass as IC-4.

It was also interesting to note that PD evidently developed some courses for use just in the license tests. The tests on courses I knew were all pretty easy to gold, but more than half of the tests are on track that doesn't appear anywhere else. I especially wish that section of downhill/uphill from IA-2 was available for racing! Also makes me wonder why PD has never developed a touge uphill/downhill race series, since they obviously have considered the physics of uphill/downhill weight transfer, traction, etc...

Oh, and by the way, I've been golding with just the D-pad and in AT, so don't let anybody tell you it can't be done or requires an absurd amount of skill, I'm definitely not the best driver out there... can't even manage MT!!!

 

[HEAVYSET]

I'm always torn between having fun and being satisfied with silver, or torturing myself going for gold. Especially when sometimes I gold first try. All that does is entice me to try for all gold. And whether the car is worth it or not, the allure of a free prize car is strong.

I'm a long time fan of this series. I buy into the notion that the license tests teach the skills necessary to do well in the game. But I often question if gold is a lesson or demonstration of luck. Watch the in game PD demonstration vids for some of the tests and you'll be shaking your head in disbelief like I do. Often, the player doesn't follow the line, so why is it there? They take wild lines with tires smoking. If you drove every corner as wild as needed for some of the golds your tires will be used up after one lap. Look at license A-2. Seems simple. One of those braking tests but while taking a gentle left sweeper. The demo driver actually spins the car to a stop!!! What exactly is being taught here?

I firmly believe silver is good enough. It rewards smooth driving, not erratic. Even better, if you can beat silver with a time halfway between silver and gold, by driving smooth, you have all the skill you'll ever need.

But then there is that prize car nagging you, and the golds you get when you aren't even trying. It makes you think you can get them all. But the difficulty curve is all over. You can get some golds in a few tries or less, but then spend 3 hours on one test. What's worse is when you keep missing it by less than a tenth. You're amazingly consistent, but consistently late.

On one hand, I feel like a quitter if I don't go for all gold, while on the other, I feel smart making efficient use of my time for settling for silver and getting on with the game. Everybody likes the euphoria felt when they finally get the gold, but think about how much effort was put into it and how much frustration you endured. And then the only reason you got the gold was because of one less revolution of wheelspin or an immeasurable amount more or less steering or braking input. Dumb luck, in other words.

I golded all the tests in GT3 once. I have a bunch in GT2 so far. Had a bunch in GT4. I would be proud except when I admit I spent way too much time on them. If I was good enough to get golds with no more than 10 minutes invested for each, that would be something to be proud of. But trying to get gold for 3 hours plus is psychotic. It goes beyond a never quit attitude, it borders on insanity.

I have a few more licenses to get in GT2. I'll be starting GT3 again sometime. Messed up a save in GT4 so a restart on that beckons. And I recently bought a PS3 and GT5. After putting my thoughts down here and reading them, I decided to settle for silver.

 

[Parnelli Bone]

I'm always torn between having fun and being satisfied with silver, or torturing myself going for gold. Especially when sometimes I gold first try. All that does is entice me to try for all gold. And whether the car is worth it or not, the allure of a free prize car is strong.

Yup. Same here. I get one gold, I have to have the rest. GT2's off-road license tests were so easy, too, which means I usually silvered or bronzed everything in that license bracket. But after the one gold, it's like ah...

I'm a long time fan of this series. I buy into the notion that the license tests teach the skills necessary to do well in the game. But I often question if gold is a lesson or demonstration of luck. Watch the in game PD demonstration vids for some of the tests and you'll be shaking your head in disbelief like I do. Often, the player doesn't follow the line, so why is it there? They take wild lines with tires smoking. If you drove every corner as wild as needed for some of the golds your tires will be used up after one lap. Look at license A-2. Seems simple. One of those braking tests but while taking a gentle left sweeper. The demo driver actually spins the car to a stop!!! What exactly is being taught here?

Hey, at least the driver is obviously human. I've always pictured the license test demos were being done by whoever was on-hand at PD, sitting around with nothing to do. And any other PD employees who are dawdling standing around cheering him!

There was also one license test where if you watch the demo, the driver clearly uses the handbrake (green bar) during the test as he rounds a tight corner. I think it might be one of the tests at Mid-field where the tighest turn is, but that could be wrong.

By the way, are the license test demos in GT2 actually golds? I forget. I'm doing GT5 nowadays, where all the demos are silvers I'm noticing. This leaves the "gold" part totally up to the driver to figure out, and the driver can't rely on any tips from the demo in this regard to get from silver to gold.

I firmly believe silver is good enough. It rewards smooth driving, not erratic. Even better, if you can beat silver with a time halfway between silver and gold, by driving smooth, you have all the skill you'll ever need.

Yes, I've always mentioned that if a driver can consistently silver license tests, he/she is mostly ready for competitive driving (rather than blowing away the Ai using overkill). Golds are just for the ego, really.

But then there is that prize car nagging you, and the golds you get when you aren't even trying. It makes you think you can get them all. But the difficulty curve is all over. You can get some golds in a few tries or less, but then spend 3 hours on one test. What's worse is when you keep missing it by less than a tenth. You're amazingly consistent, but consistently late.

On one hand, I feel like a quitter if I don't go for all gold, while on the other, I feel smart making efficient use of my time for settling for silver and getting on with the game. Everybody likes the euphoria felt when they finally get the gold, but think about how much effort was put into it and how much frustration you endured. And then the only reason you got the gold was because of one less revolution of wheelspin or an immeasurable amount more or less steering or braking input. Dumb luck, in other words.

I golded all the tests in GT3 once. I have a bunch in GT2 so far. Had a bunch in GT4. I would be proud except when I admit I spent way too much time on them. If I was good enough to get golds with no more than 10 minutes invested for each, that would be something to be proud of. But trying to get gold for 3 hours plus is psychotic. It goes beyond a never quit attitude, it borders on insanity.

I have a few more licenses to get in GT2. I'll be starting GT3 again sometime. Messed up a save in GT4 so a restart on that beckons. And I recently bought a PS3 and GT5. After putting my thoughts down here and reading them, I decided to settle for silver.

👍 Nothin' wrong with that!

 

[HEAVYSET]

The demo runs in GT2 are actually better than gold. I've seen some that were nearly a full tenth quicker.

I like the tests. You can ignore the tests and run full laps of a track thinking you know it very well but then run a section of it in a test and find out how wrong you may have been running it. Sometimes I find that I was too tentative through a tricky section. I especially like tests that use the same section of track but with different cars. FF, FR, MR. They show better than anything else the different ways you need to drive each.

GT4 and GT5 awards prize cars for all medals. With GT2, logic says if you aren't going to bother with gold for its prize car, then why bother with silver as it doesn't award a prize, but like I said, I think the experience silver gives you is invaluable.

 

[Parnelli Bone]

True on the silver comment. Can't tell you how many times I've seen folks whining about "why they have to bother with licenses". In GT5, the tests are not even required for entering races any more, really!....the XP system has taken over that job if I'm not mistaken. Which means lots of lazier newbs aren't learning how to drive the best competitive racing lines anymore.

But the tests teach so much. I was doing some races at Trail Mountain last night and when you the part just before the first tunnel, there's a license test dedicated to that area that I believe actually started in the first GT, and appears again in other GTs afterwards. It runs thru the first tunnel, thru the 2nd, and enters the 3rd and goes halfway up the backstraight. The Ai (in GT5) does the entire area mostly in a way I would never dream of, simply because what I've learned painstakingly thru the tests is so much more efficient.

 

[jeffgoddin]

I forget which one, but there is definitely one license test where the demo only silvers. Could have been the Alfa at Rome.

And yes, it's funny to imagine the guys at PD standing around watching each other go for gold. Who knows, maybe some of these demos are from Kaz himself!

It's my feeling that bronze level is all you should go for to start the game, and you should only go back pretty much after you finish the game to go for golds. If you're into the game a ways and feel like you're just not getting something, at that point it's great advice to go back to the tests for silver, because yes, you do need to understand the fundamentals and be able to put them into practice to silver. But all gold is obviously a ridiculous exercise meant to stand as a final challenge in the game that the Escudo can't get you through, and your reward, some nice prize cars you can't get anywhere else (well, except you can get a 3000GT LM, and you can get a GT-One... not exactly the same but close enough.)

 

[karelpipa]

True on the silver comment. Can't tell you how many times I've seen folks whining about "why they have to bother with licenses". In GT5, the tests are not even required for entering races any more, really!....the XP system has taken over that job if I'm not mistaken. Which means lots of lazier newbs aren't learning how to drive the best competitive racing lines anymore.

thats something i cant understand, GT1 learnt me how to drive way before i was able to drive a real car, i think GT very helped me years after in real car to learn a way to feel the car and comunicate with it.
Its a pitty, that in GT5 the licences only gives you a few XPs, licences whose completing was mandatory to have permit to racing were something else apart from other racing games, but times are changing..

 

[Parnelli Bone]

thats something i cant understand, GT1 learnt me how to drive way before i was able to drive a real car, i think GT very helped me years after in real car to learn a way to feel the car and comunicate with it.

Heehee, that's great. Back in 1981, there was a game called "Enduro" made my Activision on the Atari 2600. That was my first racing game. I would have been 14 or 15. But I used to sneak drives in my parent's Peugeot, starting when I was 13! They'd go away on vacation for a couple weeks, I'd take a covert drive around the neighborhood!

Its a pitty, that in GT5 the licences only gives you a few XPs, licences whose completing was mandatory to have permit to racing were something else apart from other racing games, but times are changing..

At least they didn't get rid of the licenses in GT5. They're still there, they're just not mandatory anymore. And the only time we have to deal with lazy no-talent drivers is when we're online, and most of those drivers are not going to enter a room we'd enter: in effect, a room without Skid Force Recovery, Active Steering, and Boost.

 

[gtoneroadcar]

I wish I had as easy a time golding the B and A licenses. I can't believe B-3 (the braking test with the R34) took me almost two hours.

IC-4 is an entirely new level of hell for me. I've been trying almost non-stop for the past two days to get the Gold, but the closest I got was 20.219, and all subsequent attempts to shave that one-nineteen thousandth of a second have proved to be fruitless.

What am I doing wrong?

 

[CMICK64]

IC-4 is hell for me as well. I just can't do it for some reason. I've watched the demonstration to see if I was doing something wrong but it hasn't helped me all that much. The closest time to the gold I've gotten so far is a 20.244 and I just can't shave that little bit of time off. It's pretty frustrating.

 

[jeffgoddin]

IC-4, damned Camaro around blind corners. If I recall, I think I finally got through with a strategy that put me into the wall just enough to not fail after the first corner.

 

[CMICK64]

Wait, so you hit the wall on purpose?

 

[jeffgoddin]

You go through the first corner just a little too fast to completely miss the wall, yes, but if you don't hit it too hard, you don't fail. It slows you down just enough, and points you in the right direction a little, so you can get around the second corner close and gas it to the finish. As I said above, it took me hours to get this one, the first to really piss me off. To gold, you need to go faster than you think you can through both corners, by getting your turn in just right and apexing just inches from the inside wall of each corner. Crazy hard to do both corners right in the same run!

Edit: but seriously, don't worry about golding the I-C, the 3000GT isn't that special, you can win a very similar car. Go for the I-B for the del sol LM edition, 590hp or so of lightweight mid-engined amazingness. One of the best cars in GT2 for sure. Still don't have the I-A myself to try the FTO...

 

[gtoneroadcar]

But I like 4WD and the '99 3000GT sounds good. That test in which the demo driver uses the e-brake is IC-7... and I golded that without using the damn thing before my PS2 shut off without warning.

I actually got all gold on my other save, and I don't like the del Sol that much.. hell, I'm only on day 3 of my Simulation. I'm trying to get these cars as early as possible... the S licenses didn't take me this long to Gold!

OCTOBER UPDATE: Finally golded IC-4 using jeff's "technique," but now IC-9 is proving to be the heartbreaker. And you can't use the technique there because that damned Alfa Romeo is front wheel drive. Being .008 (eight ten-thousandths of a second!!!) off is some garbage.

 

[jeffgoddin]

Congrats with on your gold! For the Alfa at Rome, check for me and I believe the example given only yields silver. Took forever, no real advice that I can recall, but after no more than a few hours I finally made it through fast enough for gold.