Look, maybe there’s something to be said about your point about PD dangling the 100 wins in front of people.
Think of this. If there were a platinum trophy that said “win an FIA esports championship”, or “win GT acadamy”, something like that....would you lose any sleep over not being able to get it? Personally, I’d take one look at that trophy and say, “so ya, that’ll never happen,” and basically never give it a second thought - and I don’t think I’d be alone in this way of thinking.
The 100 wins though, at first glance, that seems much more achievable, seems like a platinum trophy that should be relatively easy to knock off. Maybe PD could have said 1000 wins, and then most casual players like ourselves would like at it, laugh, and move on. So maybe, for whatever reason, 100 is too tempting, or something.
At the same time though, some of management of the expectation of earning those 100 wins falls back on us, and maybe there’s a large portion of gamers out there (people like myself who grew up playing GT, starting last and finishing 1st in every race) who don’t have enough “respect” or appreciation for what it takes to get 100 wins against real opponents.
Here’s my kudos stats
http://www.kudosprime.com/gts/stats.php?profile=6732576#dr
I’ve only been playing for a month and a bit, but in 88 races, I have 7 wins, 2 poles, and 9 fastest laps. Just the achievement for wins alone, at the rate I’m going, it’s going to take me 1257 races to get 100 wins
. I get bored AF after 2 laps of qualifying, so that ones going to take probably 10x as long (yes I know if I work on quali my race results will improve).
The point is though, while I don’t consider myself fast by any means, I do know a thing or two about racing, and more often than not, I finish higher than I started. For me, that’s a win. If I can manage to finish higher than I started, or if I get punted in T1 manage to recover to where I started, or hold off a faster driver who dropped back early in the race - to me, those are all wins. A podium, that’s a win. And doing any of those, while having a clean race, double win!
Sure the game doesn’t track a lot of those stats, but my approach is, who cares! Perhaps it would be nice if it did actually. If there was a +/- stat, or a “clean overtake” stat, I’d be for that (and my stats would be pretty damn good
). So maybe the game could do a better job at tracking a wider variety of stats, because at the end of the day, there’s a hell of a lot more to being a complete racing driver than literally some “if you ain’t first, ur last” type of thinking
To relate some things back to our mmo experiences (and I know you’ll relate or at least be aware of this).
Look at the number of times the arguement, “the ranking system, and the inability for low ranked players to earn wins, is a major turn off for casual players, and thus a major part of the reason Sport mode hasn’t been as popular as it could/should be”.
So like I said before, on one hand, players can blame the system for poor match making and making wins too difficult, or they can manage their expectations, and be truely honest and humble about their abilities (let’s face it, we all like to be humble and say we’re slow, but deep down, we all still think we should be faster than the next guy). My point here is that, in a way, people’s unrealistic expectations of what it takes to earn wins online against a full grid of real opponents basically ruined the gaming experience for them.
Now, to relate it to the MMOs. How many people did you meet in your MMO days who basically ruined their own gaming experience by failing to manage their expectations (with the additional point being that this failure to manage expectations in the game actually leads a lot of people to then fail to manage their real lives...hence “the game is ruining my life”....been there, done that, I know from experience).
It doesn’t matter if it’s chasing that elite title that only 0.01% of players earn, or staying up to date with the latest arena gear, or even keeping up to date with the latest dps meta after a patch to make sure your pew pew deeps is l33t - it’s not any different from assuming you can jump into online racing an win 100 (or 1000, whatever number you want to pick) races just like that. And if I let the desire, the “want”, to achieve those things ultimately ruin the gaming experience for me, well, I’m the one who loses.
As far as your point about putting in your best effort in qualifying, only to end up 12th on the grid, and that being de-motivating. In WoW, ever had an experience that would akin to, your in a city going to town on a target dummy, testing you deeps. You just finished collecting the last piece of a set you needed, got everything upgraded or whatever, you go to the dummy, kill it, see some decent numbers pop up, you’re feeling pretty proud of yourself. Then someone wearing a goofy clown costume or something walks up to the dummy next to you and basically 1-shots the thing (and they’re a jumper, 🤬 I hate jumpers!). Now you’re standing their holding your limp sword, thinking “wtf was that??? What am I doing wrong”. Or some experience along those lines. Do you let that demotivate you, or to you flip the script on the situation and let it become your motivation to improve (while still staying grounded in regards to things like the pace of your improvement).
Like, when you were parading around with your max level gear and rare title, when some noob would walk up and start circling around you, checking out your gear and title, then going on google to see how to get them.....and then getting smacked in the face by the realty check of, “oh damn, that’s a ton of work”...is that motivating, or demotiving for them? I think only they can decide, for themselves.
The reason you're getting bumped back to D is because you're not good enough. 1200 races is a solid enough sample size to accurately assess your rating.
