Why does PD put really bad backmarkers in a race?

  • Thread starter Thread starter SirBerra
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SirBerra
Is there any point at all in having certain cars run races and yet they are so far out of the running as to just merely get in the way? Not only are they slow, but also stupid.
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How quickly we all forget, eh?

GT is made to accomodate all kinds of players, from young children to experienced adults. GT is not designed just for us, but the many millions of others that have never signed into a forum, such as the Planet, or even thought of there being a GT forum.

Sure a lot of races have a few beetlebombs, but take Mission 34 as an example. How many of you passed the 5th place car on the first try? Eventually, most of us passed even the lead car, but it took you a while to get there, gradually passing each one. This isn't exactly the same as some events with stupid AI running down the pitlane or a Fiat 500 put in with much faster cars, but the basic idea is the same - it's a progression in learning a skill.

For a first time player with no skills at all (we have all been there once...), maybe PD figured doing something like this would make a few new players feel better that they didn't come in last, or whatever. Maybe it's someone's sense of humour showing through.

Until someone from PD explains why they did it, we're guessing.

Cheers,

MasterGT
 
If you want to see bad driving do motorland in a family cup in a fast raod car. The cars can't stay on the track for the life of them.
 
MasterGT
How quickly we all forget, eh?

GT is made to accomodate all kinds of players, from young children to experienced adults. GT is not designed just for us, but the many millions of others that have never signed into a forum, such as the Planet, or even thought of there being a GT forum.

Sure a lot of races have a few beetlebombs, but take Mission 34 as an example. How many of you passed the 5th place car on the first try? Eventually, most of us passed even the lead car, but it took you a while to get there, gradually passing each one. This isn't exactly the same as some events with stupid AI running down the pitlane or a Fiat 500 put in with much faster cars, but the basic idea is the same - it's a progression in learning a skill.

For a first time player with no skills at all (we have all been there once...), maybe PD figured doing something like this would make a few new players feel better that they didn't come in last, or whatever. Maybe it's someone's sense of humour showing through.

Until someone from PD explains why they did it, we're guessing.

Cheers,

MasterGT
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But GT4 already has beginner races (Club Cup or whatever), so beginners should just hang in that area for a longer time. As you proceed through the license tests you gain the skill to move to a more difficult races. If after you gain the Super License, a driver should do better than last place against a slightly slower car (not to mention some crippled feeb vehicle). I find that difficult to imagine that PD is giving those type of favors to the unskilled (wow, you beat a car spinning donuts in the middle of the track).

I swear, Mission 34 was so challenging to me that I spent hours for days running that race and finally kicked the tar out of that Gullwing. With that race, either you won or you LOST. Forget about passing the second through fifth cars. I only had my eye on the GW. If I couldn't see it, I was way out of the running. I'd say that the hardest license tests are definitely more difficult than any race in the game where you can use a much faster car than the AI can put up. Until I heard about 200 point A-spec challenges, I had just about given up on GT4 as being too easy.


The way I look at it, if I don't come in first, I might as well abort. I don't like Silver or Bronze at all. But in your support of your theory, I guess a six-year-old or Alzheimer's patient might not have the necessary skills to get out of last place. ;) I still think that GT2 had the best AI skills and I wish PD could have kept them.

Just to clarify, I'm not challenging your thoughts, I'm just adding a few more of my own.
 
Not to mention, what good is one slow back marker going to do when that young kid can't even get close to the other 4 cars...he's not going to win anything that way, and is then likely to over boost his car and fall into the trap of doing all the early races with over-kill...which teaches nothing for the latter races
 
<_Spike_>
I always liked ramming the back of the fiat with the Cobra (Shelby) when I came behind it nearing a hill...or a chicane...ping pong it off the walls and hitting it again whnever it ponged back into the road sideways...ah good times of entertainment can be had with mini-backmarkers
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That's what I end up doing whenever I'm in longer enduro races after I get bored out of my skull. Those cars are just so annoying. Take that, slimy backmarker. I've managed to send myself into the boonies on many occasions due to intentional high speed collisions. I'm an adult and am forced to become a child playing bumper cars to keep myself entertained in a semi-serious race. I don't even care about chassis damage since even at it's worst it's manageable. I never did this sort of child's play in GT2.
 
MasterGT
How quickly we all forget, eh?

GT is made to accomodate all kinds of players, from young children to experienced adults. GT is not designed just for us, but the many millions of others that have never signed into a forum, such as the Planet, or even thought of there being a GT forum.

Sure a lot of races have a few beetlebombs, but take Mission 34 as an example. How many of you passed the 5th place car on the first try? Eventually, most of us passed even the lead car, but it took you a while to get there, gradually passing each one. This isn't exactly the same as some events with stupid AI running down the pitlane or a Fiat 500 put in with much faster cars, but the basic idea is the same - it's a progression in learning a skill.

For a first time player with no skills at all (we have all been there once...), maybe PD figured doing something like this would make a few new players feel better that they didn't come in last, or whatever. Maybe it's someone's sense of humour showing through.

Until someone from PD explains why they did it, we're guessing.

Cheers,

MasterGT
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Excellent post.

I would only add that in many cases so-called "back-markers" are there because they just so happened to be randomly selected in the same group of five AI cars that include much better performing cars. If a player has a problem with it, most of the time they can reset the AI field of cars.



What makes GT4 so impressive is the vast amount of control and variables offered to each player. If you do not want back markers simply reset the randomly selected AI cars until you have five closely matched AI cars. In GT4 this can be done easily for most of the races in the game.

In fact, in some cases, resetting the AI cars until all you have are five so-called "back-markers", while at the same time selecting a car for yourself that performs at there level will often result in a far more challenging and close race then having run the same race aginst the best AI car and lots of "back-markers".

An example of this just came up for discussion in another thread:

Suggestions for the El Capitan enduro?

While there are five better AI cars in the selection pool for that race, they are not nearly as close in average finishing times as all but one of the remaining 12 AI cars.

The same can be said about a lot of races.

If you want a close competitive race, get to know your AI cars, and reset the field until you have five that perform at, or near the same level&#8230; yes, there are some races where this is not possible, but they are the exception, not the rule.
 
SirBerra
I still think that GT2 had the best AI skills and I wish PD could have kept them.
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Hmmm...I would say GT2 had some races in which the cars are more evenly matched. Take the GT Regionals, for instance. You've got your NSX, your Viper, Impreza, 300ZX, etc. but none of these cars dominates over the rest; in fact, they tend to trade places a lot. One car will lead, but it will boff a braking point, then another car takes its place. Is this what you mean by "GT2 has the best AI?"

I don't know about GT4 yet, but I noticed in the 3rd game that the cars are rarely matched up, which means one car will lead the entire race, and another will follow way behind, and then the other 3 cars follow one another. Which means you pretty much wind up competing against just one other car most of the time and the other 4 become backmarkers. I hope GT4 isn't like this all the time.
 
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Digital-Nitrate
Excellent post.

I would only add that in many cases so-called "back-markers" are there because they just so happened to be randomly selected in the same group of five AI cars that include much better performing cars. If a player has a problem with it, most of the time they can reset the AI field of cars.
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There is a valid reason why you see the GT40 in the 24Hr Sarthe II and the C5 Corvette in the 24Hr Sarthe as they are both outclassed in these races respectively, the key word is outclassed. As you know the 24Hrs of LeMans there are different classes racing on the track at the same time, hence the programmers had to have one of the GT class in the mix just to make it "real" as in dealing with the slower traffic in the race.
This came all too clear in both watching the classic film "LeMans" with Steve McQueen and also running the race in GT4, I had to deal with the slower GT40 and almost wrecked (sort of) and lost lap time and same thing happened in the film with more drastic results.
So I disagree with your statement that the car is randomly inserted in the race, it's designed to be there to add to the realism.
 
jrbabbitt
There is a valid reason why you see the GT40 in the 24Hr Sarthe II and the C5 Corvette in the 24Hr Sarthe as they are both outclassed in these races respectively, the key word is outclassed. As you know the 24Hrs of LeMans there are different classes racing on the track at the same time, hence the programmers had to have one of the GT class in the mix just to make it "real" as in dealing with the slower traffic in the race.
This came all too clear in both watching the classic film "LeMans" with Steve McQueen and also running the race in GT4, I had to deal with the slower GT40 and almost wrecked (sort of) and lost lap time and same thing happened in the film with more drastic results.
So I disagree with your statement that the car is randomly inserted in the race, it's designed to be there to add to the realism.
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6 year necro.:eek: And there weren't enough AI on the track in GT4 to simulate a multi-class endurance race.
 
Hyped
6 year necro.:eek: And there weren't enough AI on the track in GT4 to simulate a multi-class endurance race.
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But still the programmers still felt that there should be other racers besides the LMPs
I do not have a PS3 yet and therefore i still use my GT4 :)
 
jrbabbitt
But still the programmers still felt that there should be other racers besides the LMPs
I do not have a PS3 yet and therefore i still use my GT4 :)
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I know that they put random Oreca Vipers, BMW McLaren GTR's(I think these were used),and GT40's in the Sarthe 24 Hours races, but if you ever got a field with the Viper and the F1 GTR, they weren't even competitive with each other, making it useless as a multi-class race.

Another negative point is that if you had the two cars necessary for a multi-class competition, there is still the drawback of only having 6 cars on the track at a time. This would mean that there would be 4 cars competing for the first spot(which is never a close race anyways), and two cars that are uncompetitive with each other, much less the entire field, racing for fifth place.

A lot of people(me included) would've much rather had a competitive field of 6 than a competitive field of 4 and two random laggers in the back.
 
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You are right on those points, i was making the observation as to why there were slower cars in the "mix"
 
I agree that slower cars add flavor. Dodging slower cars is part of what makes it an endurance race. However, I also suspect that our designers have some soft spots: Both the GT40 (chassis #P1075 as painted in the game) and the Corvette C5R have pride of place; P1075 won Le Mans outright twice (yes, the same car), in 1968 and 1969, extending Ford's string to four straight, and the C5R was very dominant in it's class for several years. They owned the place, why shouldn't they be there?
 
Because while they would be effective in their class, they can't compete with the LMP's.
If GT4 had multi-class racing with 50 cars on track it would make things much more interesting.
 
I kind of wish that the game would have allowed you to select in which class you wish to enter, so you could choose to race LMP1 at Suzuka, or GT2 at Super Speedway, etc. etc. I also appreciate the introduction of the CanAm cars (2J and Toyota 7), but I sort of wish there were even more available entries for those classes.
 
A closely bunched field would be a disaster, the AI does not do well when a lot of physics and video is all happening at the same time, and your car is part of the mess.
AI also does not do well with cars like the GT40 or '05 Ford GT, which must be handled precisely. We don't let our B-Spec boys drive those cars, they can't.
Perhaps the only real answer to the the thread-question is: Because PD wanted to...
 

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