Should GT7 have Story in Career Mode?

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Rouward

Rouward

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rouward
I always play GT series solely for career mode and less on mp, but I would like GT7 to have a story to keep the game interesting. It's rare to find racing game with a story like in classic NFS games (notably from Underground to The Run), R: Racing Evolution (though I only played 2P mode from my cousin long ago), etc.

My idea for GT7 is to keep the story very simple.
Beginning in the game, you are invited by Lucas Ordóñez to the race and tested you in the License Test to be able to race in many events. On each race, you gain a lot of fans and respect from other drivers. Later after obtaining Super License and earned enough stars (like in GT6), you are invited to 24H race at Nurburgring by Kazunori Yamauchi and help Schulze Motorsport Team win the race. You are given a choice to ride their car and command them in B-Spec. No matter what position your team finished, the game ends and the credit starts rolling. Lastly in the post-credit, Kaz thank you for participating in the event and you are eligible to race in any events for indefinite number of times.

How's my idea?
 
I think multiple ending won't fit the game as some player may disappoint for this. Most racing games has only 1 ending.
 
It doesn't need a story, it just needs to do a Grid and attempt to model a world of motorsport.

Becoming a driver for hire, earning sponsors, signing for teams, starting a private team, climbing the ranks from grassroots production car racing up to world-class GT, formula, stock car and rally series. GT almost follows this structure, but everything feels detached and sterile.
 
Ambivalent_
I'm against the story in career mode since I don't want a certain narrative being imposed on the way I progress through the game. Story mode would impact my race choices and limit my progress strategies.
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Yeah, that's how I feel about this, at least at the moment. I'd rather just have an open, narrative free sim mode where story doesn't impact the pathways I want to take.
 
While having a motorsports-based career is a great idea, many people who buy GT games aren't into motorsports like that, they just want to drive cars. GT is good at giving you the ability to do that, you don't have to go through many hoops and ladders to do so. The way GT6 does it's career mode is great, it just needs to be bigger and have more options.
 
jimipitbull
How many more chapters would the Senna tribute need to become a story?
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The OP is asking about the entire career mode in GT7, not one tiny little slice of DLC content in GT6. Do try to stay on topic.
 
Johnnypenso
The OP is asking about the entire career mode in GT7, not one tiny little slice of DLC content in GT6. Do try to stay on topic.
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The topic is story, GT7 career mode is the context.

My post was definitely on topic. There's a report button on the right hand side, use it if you have further issues

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I don't think a Racedriver-style story mode is appropriate. Mostly because I didn't like it. :P

But I do think a more detailed career mode would help. The fact that there are so many cars means that PD have to pace the game so that the average gamer gets to try out a significant number of the ones that interest the player. That means the career mode in its current form loses its challenge within about 2 or 3 "series", and cars are no longer things to bond with and make the most of, only to munch through to "complete" the game.

If, instead, PD offered an additional open sandbox mode, they could up the challenge in the career mode significantly. I'm thinking racing where the aim isn't necessarily to win, but just to do your best and improve over time, where there is a restricted timeline to follow and changes made to your car as you tease out "issues" and such; perhaps upgrade things like your garage, crew etc. to provide advantages on race day. The pace of progression could be much slower, and the sense of attachment to cars or series would be increased as a result. Obviously, this requires the tuning model be looked at.

I've always enjoyed the club-level-style racing at the early stages in the games more than the "higher-level" championships where you're practically a demi-god, so I'd love a mode that makes the most of that aesthetic and approach. I don't really like the artificial "rising star" massage-my-ego rubbish that a lot of games go for, either. I think it's much more interesting to look at it from the driver-run-outfit perspective, rather than the driver-as-implement perspective. :)
 
It certainly needs something radical as the series has gotten very stale. I would love to see a story mode or perhaps a free roam mode, these features will get me invested into GT like I used to be.
 
I don't want to see a story. All it would do is to force events upon you. Also, I prefer the illusion of myself being the main character of the game, I don't want some kind of A-spec Al to steal the show and my cars.
 
There's reasons why storylines do not work with circuit based racing games the way they do with NFS-style games. Look no further then Codemaster's games.

So no, GT7 does not need a story for career mode.
 
Story in Career Mode also is in NFS Shift 2, I think. There should be an Team Manager's comments in GT7 as this feature is in NFS Shift 2.

But I think that a story in Career Mode should be in GT7.
 
GranTurismoer
Yeah a free roam spin off GT would be great, it's probably the only thing that would get me to buy a GT again right now.
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I agree. Free Roam would be good because it would not only retract a career of street racer, but also a career of motorsport driver.
 
I'm not gonna lie, I love story-driven games (pun intended).

So would I be against a story mode in GT? No. I think it should be somewhat optional though, rather than something you're rigidly forced to follow. Kind of like how in open world games like Elder Scrolls you can just say screw the main plot and go do whatever, you should be able to say screw GT's story and go do whatever A-spec/B-spec races or free runs you want.

But here's the thing... does GT really need a story? No. Some people (such as myself) might like it, if it were actually interesting and not cheesy like most stories in racing games are, but most people who play GT probably wouldn't care for it, and thus it would arguably be a wasted effort. Plus, does Polyphony have a knack for storytelling? Not that I've ever seen them try, but that in and of itself is pretty telling... they clearly just don't do stories. So for the story to be any good, they would have to collaborate with another studio. Which would have pluses and minuses... the plus, aside from getting a properly good story, would be that Polyphony could focus on the meat of the game and leave the story to somebody else. The minus, not that I personally care about this too much, would be that such a collaboration would increase the development costs of the game.


In my humble opinion though, I think that there's certain things that simply must be avoided with any theoretical GT story:

1. No real people. We don't need to follow in the footsteps of professional racers or GT Academy winners. In fact, that brings me to...

2. No "climb up to the top"-type stories. Don't get me wrong... I see the appeal of this type of story. And really, this is more or less what you do in GT mode. But this type of story, when appiled to racing games, results in... TOCA. It's too restrictive a framework which results in shallow stories with uninteresting characters and cheesy dialog. I think they should go for a more unique angle for the story, maybe something related to car collecting/restoration, with some unique cars that can only be obtained by playing through the story mode... or at least can be obtained by playing through the story mode rather than purchasing the car with credits. Which brings me to my next point, which I warn is a bit of a doozy...

3. No racing. Racing is A-Spec's thing. Managing is B-Spec's thing. A theoretical story mode should therefore be just that: An adventure game-type story mode that happens to be related to cars, NOT A-spec races with cutscenes spliced in between. Okay, maybe I'm being a little extreme here... some occasional driving and/or racing intermixed with the story mode could be acceptable. But nonetheless I feel there should be a new story-oriented type of gameplay implemented, which should be the main type of gameplay for the story mode. For example: Negotiating a price for an old beat up car, learning about its history and restoring it to its former glory... this should all be done in an interactive fashion rather than just be some cutscene.

TL;DR: Professor Layton vs Pheonix Wright vs Gran Turismo, anybody? :lol:
(yes, I may be slightly off my rocker)
 
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The Stig Farmer
It doesn't need a story, it just needs to do a Grid and attempt to model a world of motorsport.

Becoming a driver for hire, earning sponsors, signing for teams, starting a private team, climbing the ranks from grassroots production car racing up to world-class GT, formula, stock car and rally series. GT almost follows this structure, but everything feels detached and sterile.
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Sweet, somebody already said for me! :) 👍

GT7 does not need a story. It needs a balanced ladder of different series. I would like to be able to start off in kart and work my way up to Indy Car. I would even like to start on short tracks and work my ways up to NASCAR. Same with every other race series! And.... then you guys can use your imagination and create your own story line. I often do this when watching Mr. Ed or Green Acres, and sometimes playing GTA. :P
 
kolio123
Sweet, somebody already said for me! :) 👍

GT7 does not need a story. It needs a balanced ladder of different series. I would like to be able to start off in kart and work my way up to Indy Car. I would even like to start on short tracks and work my ways up to NASCAR. Same with every other race series! And.... then you guys can use your imagination and create your own story line. I often do this when watching Mr. Ed or Green Acres, and sometimes playing GTA. :P
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Yeah sort of what like project cars is doing a balance like that will be good. I liked how gt4 was set out how they had the A spec and b spec points no levelling system you can lose or gain points I think. Also how they had races for each class so for Honda they'd have a Honda cup and a mitsubishi cup. It went on for each category.
 
Maybe not a dedicated story, but what I would like to see is some sort of feature chronicling the player's path through the career mode, sort of like GT4 did but more detailed. Juiced 2 had a really cool way of doing it that was split across the player profile as well as the car info screen, making things a bit more atmospheric as cars you used to greater and greater racing success had more and more detailed history and eventually even began appreciating in value (ironically making them harder to part with).



And while I only ever did it once, looking up a friend's profile info in the game and car history made for a more interesting "story" then I can think of any games short of R4 having.
 
No - it definitely doesn't need a story!

It's a game with broad appeal played in many different ways by a wide cross section and a story would almost certainly interfere with that and might even seem patronising or childish to some of the games audience.

It might be possible to have a story mode just as you currently have A spec and Arcade and used to have B spec, but I wouldn't want to be forced down a story path myself and neither would most of the people I know - of the people I know well who play GT6 (e.g. work colleagues, relatives, close friends) they all have a different way of playing - one just wants to race 550PP cars online round Nordschleife (he has very limited time and just wants a quick fix), one just wants to cruise in the super cars he could only buy if he won the lottery, personally for me the game is just practise for racing online against friends in the classic road and race cars which I lusted after as a boy.

I think the game really needs an event / championship creator so people can play the game they want not have a story forced on them or some ludicrously long career mode which would still be full of inappropriate cars. Obviously the AI would need to be improved and ideally have different levels of difficulty to suit casual and hard core gamers. Personally I would create period accurate events / championships using cars from my garage.
 
A story is a good way to introduce multiple career paths to the game. Perhaps the first race for everyone would be karts and then saloon cars. As you move up each tier you are allowed to choose a different set of options and at some point if you want to, you can focus on a specific career path. Open wheel, endurance racing, GT3/GT500 etc. and then your career becomes more focused with events catering to your discipline. It would be great if you were in career mode and it actually felt like a real career and not just a random collection of races like it is now. It doesn't need to be elaborate with cut scenes and a long build up, it could be just graphics on the screen and a picture or two.
 
I can't say that I'd particularly want a "story" in Gran Turismo but I do think that the career mode needs a massive overhaul.

The problem I have with it now is that it just seems to be a jumble of events that offer no real "desire" to want to enter them. It is mainly a case of; "what car do I need to enter this race?" - a Lamborghini, or a 1980's car, or a FWD car etc etc. "Ok, that's done, what's next?" - it gets old very quickly.

I would like to see a much wider choice of events to enter - why not have them only available to enter at certain times? Like an event calendar maybe? I'd also like to see more focus on the ownership of a car, perhaps making the events more detailed in terms of what modifications are allowed. For example, a 10-round series for 80's - 90's Japanese cars with power/weight/PP limit, no drivetrian mods but brakes and suspension tuning is permitted. The series could be open for registration for only a limited time but you are then free to complete each round at your leisure once you have registered.

Another possibility of having an event calendar could be that it would only show series or championships at your level. You'd have to start doing well or winning them to be presented with other options at a higher level. Perhaps if you were doing really well, you might be given the option of entering an event with a car provided by a manufacturer/team (like a sponsorship).. or your entry fee paid.. or something else?! Maybe completing a championship would be enough to earn your % completion but being a multiple champion, or winning in a different category could increase the chances of being offered a "drive" at a higher level!

I'm starting to ramble now but I guess my point is that I feel there are so many things that could be done to improve the career experience without needing a story.
 
I'm not too sure about this, if I'm honest. I don't think an actual storyline in GT7 is needed, and it'd feel really out of place for the franchise to implement. I do agree though, that GT doesn't always (if ever) have a clear-cut progression within the gameplay itself. I've seen quite a few ideas being thrown around, and what I will say next might in some way encroach or otherwise "rob" someone else's idea, so sorry about that if it has.

If there was a kind of "discipline" line for each type of racing (open wheel, rally, sportcars, touring, classics etc.) and then have cars that fit within those disciplines... that could be a way forward. Of course, I would like it to have a linear progression, much like the Ayrton Senna stuff, but more in-depth and across the spectrum of racing disciplines...

I think in GT5 they tried to do this, but I think there's moments in all the GT games where this has been tried... but the execution was rather lacking any kind of structure or impact. I think the best way to describe it is that they tend to go back and forth, rather than guiding you in a racing discipline long enough to actively learn the ropes properly.
 
Considering that likely 100% of GT fans don't think that GT needs a story, it will probably never happen. The closest thing would be the GT movie, assuming that actually pans out.

The only way I could see a story infiltrating the GT game series is if they decide to do an open-world game similar to Horizon. Which I hope they do. But... that's another thread. :P

In regards to the side-topic of game structure that's surfaced in this thread... I personally don't care how the races are divided, whether it's by type of race or just globs of random types of racing under a particular license class, as long as there's a lot of them... and a lot for each type of vehicle, not just a few paltry kart races, a few paltry rally races, etc.

That's been my main gripe with GT5/GT6... the single-player experience has been left to rot in favor of online. And online's all well and good, but I still want a meaty single-player mode to play through. It's truly sad that as great as certain aspects of GT5/GT6 are, I can't help but feel I'd rather play GT4 simply because it has a much more enjoyable single-player experience.
 

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