Why GT4's car acquisition system was much better than GT5's.

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thelvynau
Hi Amar
I have read a few of your posts and as much as I try to see things from your point of view I simply cant...
Alot of what gt5 represents is out of date as much of a good game it is gt5 suffers from alot of flaws that shouldnt be in a 2010 to 2012 game.
Im glad you have a passion for this game and see it as a vision of motoring but I see it as falling short.
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Hi Lvynau,

No probs mate, we all have our own points of view. Glad to hear you've took your time to explore background of my postings, I am often victim of people jumping on the first ball here :)

First, many of my posts are very sarcastic. I am almost 20 years in driving games and I am also GT player since the first game. It is really my favourite game from many reasons and I am among those (few?) who actually love GT because what it has and what it innovates without actually bothering about where it fails. Why? Because in my personal opinion it does much, much better things in areas where it delivers then in areas where it "fails" (because that "fail" is in majority matter of mainstream perception).

It would take such long, long time to write down my personal overview of GT series and GT5, but plenty of my post history here and on some other forums can give a clear overview of my personal feelings towards Gran Turismo.

What is mostly appreciate about GT series is its very unique - at least from my perspective - sensation of ownership and responsibility towards vehicles which is present from the first game. Of course, majority of players do not appreciate that, but I do. Same as many players do not appreciate how Hideo Kojima handles MGS series fro instance and constantly have weird ideas about how MGS should become (by their own opinion) less "unique" and more "like great ________________(insert title here) game".

I simply do not care about that. I happen to think how I see everything from far wider picture and from perspective of historical development. From that perspective (again my own and very subjective) GT series is the most innovative driving series ever made and even today - 15 years after - it still innovates the genre in many fields that I personally find actually important and amusing.

It would take a book to explain it in full (maybe I should really write it :)) but basically it all comes down to this: Many games have something that Gran Turismo does not have, but no other game have what Gran Turismo has. And that is it.

From my perspective, GT5 itself is is showcase of astonishing platform built to develop in the future. I am sincerely amazed what PD managed to develop in *just* 15 years when you take into account how their team grow from 7 to 150 people and in the meantime they had to *master* 3 different platforms (4 if you count PSP) and work many things from over and over again. I can't find any other game that developed in such broad perspective and opened so many new fields within genre through its presence on the market (maybe MGS series only). That is the main reason why I love GT.

It does and delivers so much more than driving itself, resulting with unique foundation to cater all imaginable types of players that happen to love the same thing - cars. And as long as it unique, I will love it. In the very second when GT stops being GT and becomes just another driving game in the sea of driving games, I will probably lose my passion for it.

And at the end, there just can't be "One Driving Game To Rule Them All™". There never was and there will never be. You can get something from some game and something else from another. In my subjective and personal world, GT is the game that has the best overall package I have ever met in the genre. I will never understand people who expect GT series to become a "mad-sim-bro" PC simulator in veins of iRacing or to provide some options such as Livery Editor that we have in Forza for instance - and when it fails to "deliver" those, they are disappointed. I can't be disappointed, because only thing I expect from every new Gran Turismo game is to be - a better Gran Turismo game.

And guess what, in my personal and subjective world, GT has never failed in that particular area. In contrary, with every new game it just become much better and superior GT game than its predecessor. So, for me, it really is a vision of motoring. Personally and subjectively. And I wait for the day when other developers will actually become to make a groundbreaking games with unique features and not only recycling same formulas we have in genre for decades now.
 
amar212
Hi Lvynau,

No probs mate, we all have our own points of view. Glad to hear you've took your time to explore background of my postings, I am often victim of people jumping on the first ball here :)

First, many of my posts are very sarcastic. I am almost 20 years in driving games and I am also GT player since the first game. It is really my favourite game from many reasons and I am among those (few?) who actually love GT because what it has and what it innovates without actually bothering about where it fails. Why? Because in my personal opinion it does much, much better things in areas where it delivers then in areas where it "fails" (because that "fail" is in majority matter of mainstream perception).

It would take such long, long time to write down my personal overview of GT series and GT5, but plenty of my post history here and on some other forums can give a clear overview of my personal feelings towards Gran Turismo.

What is mostly appreciate about GT series is its very unique - at least from my perspective - sensation of ownership and responsibility towards vehicles which is present from the first game. Of course, majority of players do not appreciate that, but I do. Same as many players do not appreciate how Hideo Kojima handles MGS series fro instance and constantly have weird ideas about how MGS should become (by their own opinion) less "unique" and more "like great ________________(insert title here) game".

I simply do not care about that. I happen to think how I see everything from far wider picture and from perspective of historical development. From that perspective (again my own and very subjective) GT series is the most innovative driving series ever made and even today - 15 years after - it still innovates the genre in many fields that I personally find actually important and amusing.

It would take a book to explain it in full (maybe I should really write it :)) but basically it all comes down to this: Many games have something that Gran Turismo does not have, but no other game have what Gran Turismo has. And that is it.

From my perspective, GT5 itself is is showcase of astonishing platform built to develop in the future. I am sincerely amazed what PD managed to develop in *just* 15 years when you take into account how their team grow from 7 to 150 people and in the meantime they had to *master* 3 different platforms (4 if you count PSP) and work many things from over and over again. I can't find any other game that developed in such broad perspective and opened so many new fields within genre through its presence on the market (maybe MGS series only). That is the main reason why I love GT.

It does and delivers so much more than driving itself, resulting with unique foundation to cater all imaginable types of players that happen to love the same thing - cars. And as long as it unique, I will love it. In the very second when GT stops being GT and becomes just another driving game in the sea of driving games, I will probably lose my passion for it.

And at the end, there just can't be "One Driving Game To Rule Them All™". There never was and there will never be. You can get something from some game and something else from another. In my subjective and personal world, GT is the game that has the best overall package I have ever met in the genre. I will never expect GT series to become a "mad-sim-bro" PC simulator in veins of iRacing or to give me some options such as Livery Editor that I have in Forza for instance - and when it fails to "deliver" those, I will be disappointed. I can't be disappointed, because only thing I expect from every new Gran Turismo game is to be - a Gran Turismo game.

And guess what, in my personal and subjective world, GT has never failed in that particular area. In contrary, with every new game it just become much better and superior GT game than its predecessor. So, for me, it really is a vision of motoring. Personally and subjectively. And I wait for the day when other developers will actually become to make a groundbreaking games with unique features and not only recycling same formulas we have in genre for decades now.
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Even if I dont agree with your view on gt5 I do admire that you do put forth alot of passion to this game.
 
I could ony imagine what an online auction would look like...

Cars like the Supra RZ up for sale for 500,000cr... ugh, I cringe at the idea. Every online auction I've seen in a game has been a joke. BUT at least you'd have a better chance at getting exactly what you want but probably at 200-500% of the car's UCD price.

MustangRyan
The biggest problem with GT4 is that it was way too easy to generate credits, because you could continually win prize cars again and again from every event. GT5 actually fixed this, by making every prize car available only once per event.
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So you actually like grinding for cars? I can take cycling the UCD far into the twighlight hours of any night, but that is effortless.

I remember "vanilla" GT5 and prize money was some change and a pat on the back. Money WAS hard to come by, so much so people would damage perfectly good $50 PS3 controllers rigging it up with rubber bands and tape so the game would auto grind one of the events with a Redbull X1.

I know I don't stand alone in saying, THAT sucked. 500,000,000cr worth of cars in GT5 (probably a little more now) and you were left to chip away at it 75,000cr at time. Now that 500,000,000 doesn't include all the tuning parts either or duplicates. GT5 is better now with the XP bonuses but almost to the point that it's about even with GT4.

And the whole winning the prize car only once thing is pretty dumb too. I remember GT4 had a lot of cars that weren't available in the dealerships, UCD, or as a prize car so you'd have to win it... and if that particular car didn't come in the color you wanted it, you're screwed I guess. Pretty clumsy design there... IMO, ALL cars should be able to be sold. Who cares if people exploit the game! The point is to have fun with it.
 
I couldn't agree more with the OP! 👍👍👍
 
DEATHSARTHE
I could ony imagine what an online auction would look like...

Cars like the Supra RZ up for sale for 500,000cr... ugh, I cringe at the idea. Every online auction I've seen in a game has been a joke. BUT at least you'd have a better chance at getting exactly what you want but probably at 200-500% of the car's UCD price.
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Supply and demand my friend. If some chump is trying to sell his Supra for 500k credits, and I only need 10k to buy that Bentley speed 8 I desperately want, guess how much I will sell the same exact Supra for? If you guessed 10k you'd be right. Then that guy selling his for 500k is going to feel awfully silly when his car just sits in the auction house for years. Now a rarer car, say the Audi LMS Racer in a super pretty colour, now that could fetch some serious coin errrrr, credits. It's only worth what someone else will pay, and both the buyer and seller should be fully aware of the market. A market set forth by it's community.
 
Couldn't agree more with the OP!
Somethings were so perfect in past GT games
 
Wow, my post is back from the dead.


My idea for an online auction house would have it so that there would be a single unique page for every car. For example, a 97 Supra RZ would have its own page, with nothing but 97 Supra RZs listed in this page's database. On this page, everyone trying to sell a 97 Supra RZ would have their car listed (with details). Everyone wanting to buy a 97 Supra RZ would have their current bid (with parameters) listed.

For instance, this would be the sortable list with filters for color, miles, and switches:


------------------------------------------------------------------

ALL > Japan > Toyota > Supra > 97 Supra RZ

1997 Toyota Supra RZ​

Color - (pick from dropdown menu - Red, Green, Silver, Blue, White, Black, Orange, All)
Miles - Minimum = (input desired number), Maximum = (input desired number)
Switches - Minimum = (input desired number), Maximum = (input desired number)
Modifications - (check none or Mods OK)
Sort by - (price: high to low or low to high) (miles: high to low or low to high)

[CLICK TO SEARCH]


My sample search would be for:
color = Silver
miles = 0,0
switches = 0,0
sort = price: low to high


Search results:

For Sale:

1. Silver, 0 miles, 0 switches - 35,000 Cr. listed by amar212 - [Click to buy]
2. Silver, 0 miles, 0 switches - 36,750 Cr. listed by deathsarthe - [click to buy]
3. Silver, 0 miles, 0 switches - 38,999 Cr. listed by Rayzah - [click to buy]
4. Silver, 0 miles, 0 switches - 39,500 Cr. listed by thelvynau - [click to buy]

------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, let's assume you have a 1997 Supra RZ, 0 miles, 0 switches, unmodified, in Silver paint. You want to sell it. You go to the online auction house, and click [Sell a Car]. After clicking the button, you are taken to your GT Garage. You select the car you want to sell, and you are taken directly to the page for that car. When you get to that page, you have the option to list your car, or sell to a current bid:

Example:

------------------------------------------------------------------

ALL > Japan > Toyota > Supra > 97 Supra RZ

1997 Toyota Supra RZ​

Current listings for similar cars:

1. Silver, 0 miles, 0 switches - 35,000 Cr. listed by amar212
2. Silver, 0 miles, 0 switches - 36,750 Cr. listed by deathsarthe
3. Silver, 0 miles, 0 switches - 38,999 Cr. listed by Rayzah
4. Silver, 0 miles, 0 switches - 39,500 Cr. listed by thelvynau

Enter your asking price for your car here: [input number of Credits, default input value = 5 credits less than current lowest listing, but can be edited before submitting]


Current bids for similar cars:

1. Silver, 0 miles, 0-1 switches - 25,000 Cr. [Sell to MustangRyan]
2. Silver, 0 miles, 0 switches - 24,750 Cr. [Sell to djs]
3. ANY COLOR, 0 miles, 0 switches - 24,333 Cr. [Sell to C6.R]
4. Silver, 0-2500 miles, 0-100 switches - 24,250 Cr. [Sell to Tired_Tyres]

------------------------------------------------------------------


So, in this page, you would have the option to list your car for 34,xxx (assuming you want the lowest listed price) or sell right now for 25,000 to the highest bid (assuming you want the most money for your car).


The more people that listed the same car, the more likely the price would be to go down. After all the time that GT5 has been out, most cars would probably cost nearly nothing in a fully-functioning world-wide online auction house, except for maybe the absolute most rare of cars.
 
Such as FGT's, Veyrons, Red Bulls, Chaparrels, Diablo's and the tommykaira zz-ll, the rarest car in thr game, to name a few

There would have to be a feature that freezes the money you have bid with so ur not short when the auction ends.
 
ElementRacer
Such as FGT's, Veyrons, Red Bulls, Chaparrels, Diablo's and the tommykaira zz-ll, the rarest car in thr game, to name a few

There would have to be a feature that freezes the money you have bid with so ur not short when the auction ends.
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Your bid isn't tied to an end time, as the auction isn't for a single car. There could be 500 different Supra RZs listed at one time, or 500 people bidding for one. Your bid is your bid. When you place it, the money would be removed (maybe frozen when shared online, like cars). When someone clicks on your bid to sell you their car, they get the money you put up, and you get a car/ticket delivered to you. If you remove your bid (presumably because you found the car another way, or someone outbid you), the money comes back to your account.
 
I'm guessing it would be a good idea to implement a small tax fee/other kind of small charge, otherwise inflation would be mental. A person buys a car for Cr 50,000. Puts it straight back up for Cr 51,000. People would think this would be an easy way to make some quick money, so by the time 5 people have done this with the same car, the price has risen by 10%. This may not seem like much on these cars, but some of the rarest cars in the game (IE the Chaparral 2J which I believe is in the 18 million region) would be costing almost 20 million with this 10% rise in price. This would be a problem if the 20 million credit budget stays in place, as then the next person will try to sell it for 20 million. If this happened to every car in the game, then price's would be astronomical for cars which are really worth a mere Cr 50,000 .
 
All of the ideas posted here are great... But in all honesty, PD probably went with this unorganized version of the UCD to pad the game tremendously. Think about it, if we had the UCD system of GT4 I would probably already had finished collecting all the cars in the game a year ago.

They probably went this way to compensate for the lack of events in the game, I can do all of the A-Spec (except endurance), Licenses and Special events in around 2 to 4 weekends logging around 5 hours per day. Plus I think B-Spec is useless other than to get some money while you wait for the AI to finish racing for you. So it's just more padding imho.

I play GT5 every weekend at least once, it's the only time I can play. Plus if you add all the weekends I am busy and can't even go near the PS3 then it just means less time with the game. Thus effectively extending the time needed for me to finally get all the cars in the game.

I seriously think this is just PD padding the game since it's lacking in the events area. Although the game does have now a excellent seasonal races system which extends the replay value the right way. This isn't required and it's totally optional. Seasonals was added after a month the game was out to (probably) also compensate for the lack of stuff to do in this game... So in the end I don't think PD chose to go and deal with the UCD this way out of sheer laziness...

This is all my opinion. I'm not saying PD did these things on purpose or with these intents I'm stating, but it's what makes most sense to me.
 
gokartman78
I'm guessing it would be a good idea to implement a small tax fee/other kind of small charge, otherwise inflation would be mental. A person buys a car for Cr 50,000. Puts it straight back up for Cr 51,000. People would think this would be an easy way to make some quick money, so by the time 5 people have done this with the same car, the price has risen by 10%. This may not seem like much on these cars, but some of the rarest cars in the game (IE the Chaparral 2J which I believe is in the 18 million region) would be costing almost 20 million with this 10% rise in price. This would be a problem if the 20 million credit budget stays in place, as then the next person will try to sell it for 20 million. If this happened to every car in the game, then price's would be astronomical for cars which are really worth a mere Cr 50,000 .
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As long as more than 1 person is trying to sell the same kind of car, this wouldn't happen. Think about the example I made above with the Supras.

If you had a bid up for 25,000 Credits and someone sold their Supra RZ to you, the best you could hope to flip it for would be 34,995, because there is already a Supra listed for sale at 35,000.

As more and more cars get put up for sale, the price is going to go lower and lower (higher supply, and one that can grow infinitely). As people with cars already listed for sale get undercut on their sale price, they are going to remove their current listings and relist for an even lower price, in the hopes of having the lowest listing price available when someone comes along with the credits to spend and doesn't want to wait for someone to sell to high bid.

If I have a Supra RZ listed for 35,000, and you come along and list one for 34,750, I'm going to relist mine for 34,500. Eventually, someone else is going to list for 34,250, and before you know it, one of us is listing for 30,000 or just selling outright to the high bid of 25,000, just to be rid of the car.

Prices are going to move. As more and more people get involved, the selling prices will continue to go down. Plus, the bids will continue to go up, assuming the car has a high demand.

Eventually, both prices will settle pretty nicely around the actual market value for the car. For some of the 20M cars, I'm betting the bids and listings would meet at around 12M-14M Credits, and then would steadily decline over time, as more and more cars enter the market.
 
MustangRyan
As long as more than 1 person is trying to sell the same kind of car, this wouldn't happen. Think about the example I made above with the Supras.

If you had a bid up for 25,000 Credits and someone sold their Supra RZ to you, the best you could hope to flip it for would be 34,995, because there is already a Supra listed for sale at 35,000.

As more and more cars get put up for sale, the price is going to go lower and lower (higher supply, and one that can grow infinitely). As people with cars already listed for sale get undercut on their sale price, they are going to remove their current listings and relist for an even lower price, in the hopes of having the lowest listing price available when someone comes along with the credits to spend and doesn't want to wait for someone to sell to high bid.

If I have a Supra RZ listed for 35,000, and you come along and list one for 34,750, I'm going to relist mine for 34,500. Eventually, someone else is going to list for 34,250, and before you know it, one of us is listing for 30,000 or just selling outright to the high bid of 25,000, just to be rid of the car.

Prices are going to move. As more and more people get involved, the selling prices will continue to go down. Plus, the bids will continue to go up, assuming the car has a high demand.

Eventually, both prices will settle pretty nicely around the actual market value for the car. For some of the 20M cars, I'm betting the bids and listings would meet at around 12M-14M Credits, and then would steadily decline over time, as more and more cars enter the market.
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It is correct that the supply is infinite, but it is not all at once, it is over a very long period of time. The Tax may only be needed at the very start of the trading system, maybe for a month or two at max.

Some of you may know that the classic game 'runescape' has recently launched 2007 servers, in which everyone stared from scratch again. Now RS has no taxing method in trading between players, and items that were quite rare at the start of the new servers instantly began to creep up the price range. There is also an infinite amount of supply here, as these items can be made,found or given as a reward. So you would assume that prices will go down.

However, the first few weeks prices began to shoot up, for about 80% of the items in the game. People would buy item X, and a few minutes/hours later would see someone asking for the item they had bought. When they see people offering near the same amount on money that they paid for item X, they will think, if I ask for 1,000 more than I bought it for, I can make a 1k profit for doing no work. Easy money, right?

This would only need to apply at the start of the trading process, as the demand will be much greater than the supply for rarer/higher level cars in the game. If they look on the auction house and see 1 Supra for sale at 40,00, and you know that your Supra is in better condition (less miles, less switches and original color), you could ask for a bit more. Many people at the start of the game will be looking for a Supra (who wouldn't :p ), and would be prepared to pay that little bit extra for a car in better condition.

Over time better versions of the car would come out, less and less miles (from UCD) and more colors will become available, which will definitely drive the price of the other cars down. Then at a point in time you should see a stable market price, but at the start when the supply is much less than the demand for a cars, people will no doubt try to pick up a few cheap cars, then flog them on for an extra few grand, just trying to take advantage of the gap between supply and demand.
 
yeah i hate it with a passion, all the reasons you listed are my biggest problems with gt5. separate bspec, not being able to ff x3 bspec, standard cars, not enough aspec events, these are the biggest problems pd should have dealt with before releasing gt5. also more RM on more cars. and more tuning options, at least as much as gt4.
 
I miss the GT4 Arcade Car selection. I bought every single car just to have it in a big organised Car list in Arace mode.
 
A few months back, i took my old GT4 out of the box and went straight to Grand Turismo Mode. After watching the menus, the events and specially the NCD\UCD, i felt like that was a true game... GT5 feels so messed up... confusing... unfinished. But putting the old NCS/UCD system back in the game would highly improve its value and experience 👍

interpunct
All of the ideas posted here are great... But in all honesty, PD probably went with this unorganized version of the UCD to pad the game tremendously. Think about it, if we had the UCD system of GT4 I would probably already had finished collecting all the cars in the game a year ago.

They probably went this way to compensate for the lack of events in the game, I can do all of the A-Spec (except endurance), Licenses and Special events in around 2 to 4 weekends logging around 5 hours per day. Plus I think B-Spec is useless other than to get some money while you wait for the AI to finish racing for you. So it's just more padding imho.

I play GT5 every weekend at least once, it's the only time I can play. Plus if you add all the weekends I am busy and can't even go near the PS3 then it just means less time with the game. Thus effectively extending the time needed for me to finally get all the cars in the game.

I seriously think this is just PD padding the game since it's lacking in the events area. Although the game does have now a excellent seasonal races system which extends the replay value the right way. This isn't required and it's totally optional. Seasonals was added after a month the game was out to (probably) also compensate for the lack of stuff to do in this game... So in the end I don't think PD chose to go and deal with the UCD this way out of sheer laziness...

This is all my opinion. I'm not saying PD did these things on purpose or with these intents I'm stating, but it's what makes most sense to me.
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Also i truly agree with this 👍
 
There were many aspects of the game that were a lot better in GT4. GT5 could have been a much better game out of the starting blocks if PD would have taken a closer look at what worked well in GT4.
 
HoneyBadger
There were many aspects of the game that were a lot better in GT4. GT5 could have been a much better game out of the starting blocks if PD would have taken a closer look at what worked well in GT4.
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Yup!

GT4's A-spec makes GT5's A-spec look like crap. Because, frankly, it is.

Remove the silly leveling system that impedes us from buying the cars we want, when we want them.

Make it more difficult to acquire credits. I can appreciate grinding for money. I've been playing since GT1. There's nothing more gratifying than finally being able to buy that one car you were drooling over.
 
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Tvensky
I would be happy if all cars could be in museum mode! you can look but you cant touch :) buy those cars only in USD store like nowdays.. but be able to check them all out would be cool in museum.. even better.. it would be great if PD created virtual museum where you can walk around and see all cars like in real life museum.. and only some of them could buy.. the rare ones would be able to buy only after some time in USD. (Pity Dupe cheat spoils alot of that.)

and I would be happy if the old country style like in GT4 would be back dealerships - USA, German, Japan, UK, France, Italy etc. would be awesome!
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I was thinking that I love the part of GT5 where so many cars are hard to find and rare.

The current museum is worthless - I don't don't know anyone who is clamoring for museum card #834 (or however they are presented), although there probably is something like that in the marketplace here.

Putting all of the used cars there to be seen but not touched is genius.

Having a realistic used car dealership though, means that you can't just walk up and buy a 240z any time you want. You have to wait for one to arrive for sale.

My biggest gripe about the current UCD is that the selection is so small.
 
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