Progression in racing games (possible rose tinted content)

lordrobs · 28 Dec 2018 at 11:04

I remember when I were a boy sitting playing Gran Turismo spending hours racing around in a Honda Beat or Toyota Vitz saving up for a sports suspension kit or performance air filter. Slowly upgrading my cars and building up a car collection. It was awesome.

Today it seems that most racing games go along the lines of - huge selection of cars at your disposal from race one and after race 1 "You've been awarded a McLaren P1". This is rubbish.

Are there any games out there that still respect the grind of the OG racers? I recently started playing Forza 7 and I seem to get 2 fully modified cars for every 4 races I complete. As such I lose interest real quick. I guess this is a result of the main selling point of modern racers being a car list with silly numbers of cars available?

Just to finish off my trip down memory lane I'm going to give an honourable mention to Import Tuner Challenge. The game was flawed in many ways but the car progression was spot on. I competed that game with three cars. The first two were tweaked, upgraded and improved throughout my journey through the game. The last... well that was a buy and mod straight away job because no amount of tweaking could get enough performance out of my S15 for the last couple of races.

d_brennen · 28 Dec 2018 at 11:13

I have fond memories of GT as well

chroniclard · 28 Dec 2018 at 11:16

Only have a passing interest in racing games but the progression of GT always kept me hooked.

KraniX · 28 Dec 2018 at 11:40

I guess the focus groups and feedback from players is that they want constant progression and need rewards dropping to keep them interested.

Part of the appeal used to be working hard to get whatever it was you wanted, when you finally got it you really had a sense of achievement.

I can see the benefit too though, not sure how old you are but if anything like me you don't have tens of hours to spend gaming and grinding like you did when you were 12, I'd like to see the end of a game or access the good stuff without having to make it a second job.

TonyTurbo78 · 28 Dec 2018 at 16:07

Games cater for the dumb 10 minute attention spam of the ZOMG generation these days. Games have gone down the pan big time.

Explosivo · 28 Dec 2018 at 16:36

MSR was the best racer ever

BGGLP · 28 Dec 2018 at 16:41

Explosivo said:
MSR was the best racer ever

On the greatest console ever made too!

KraniX · 28 Dec 2018 at 19:28

TonyTurbo78 said:
Games have gone down the pan big time.

Racing games or games generally? I've a huge backlog of amazing games which have been released over the last 2 years alone... Seems like a pretty good time to be a gamer.

almoststew1990 · 28 Dec 2018 at 20:52

I think racing games reached their apex (har har) with Forza 4. I recently bought forza 7 and it is terrible in comparison in terms of its progression etc. Forza 4 has the right balance in terms of rewarding skilled driving with credits and pricing cars just right in terms of grind requirements. Grinding with each manufacturer unlocks free upgrades for the whole manufacturer so well worth it to get free random engine swaps (I recall putting a corvette v8 in a daewoo matiz just for the giggles).

I especially like the list mode; I've never gelled with "story" modes in racing games. List mode isn't in Forza 7 so you jump around random cars and tracks willy nilly.

I always found GT2/3/4 to need a bit too much grind for me. Also the licences, jesus christ, how many times do I need to do a xxx metre sprint + braking! It's not even helpful if you use so different assists to the forced "semi assist" mode that the licences use!

I have fallen out with the GT series in general I think...

MagicBoy · 28 Dec 2018 at 20:57

Agree with Forza 4 being damn near the pinnacle of a racing game.

I use a PC to get my racing fix now, and iRace against humans.

233 · 28 Dec 2018 at 21:03

forza caters to the instant gratification generation

i'd love it if it was more grindy.

heres a metro get on with it

and after a dozen or so races you can now get a 106 gti and so on and so forth

PiKe · 28 Dec 2018 at 21:16

Dirt Rally although not 'new', does have a decent progression to it.

chrcoluk · 28 Dec 2018 at 21:40

you either get what has been said, or if there is a grind, its balanced bad to be excessive to encourage pay to win.

lordrobs · 28 Dec 2018 at 22:25

Explosivo said:
MSR was the best racer ever

I'd honestly put MSR way up there with my favourite games ever.

I lost track of when I fell out of love with Forza but 4 sounds about right. The automatic "homologation" of the prize cars in the new one is horrible. I know I can manually "upgrade" the car back to stock and fiddle with it myself but it just feels wrong and because the credits are dished out like crazy I can just max out a car on a whim. I'd have to have been playing GT for about 6 months to have that level of credits, I've been playing Forza on and (mainly) off for about a week!

wesimmo · 28 Dec 2018 at 22:29

One of the best license tests I think I can remember was one of the GTs where you had to do Nurburgring in a Mercedes Evolution?

Took me bloody ages but my god the lap of the house i did when I managed it.

PiKe · 28 Dec 2018 at 22:46

GT Sport does actually have the licenses now. I actually had to buy a car to participate in a daily race the other week!

mid_gen · 30 Dec 2018 at 08:52

Enjoyed GT back in the day, spent countless hours grinding championships.

But now I'm older I value my time more than to waste my life in a pointless gameplay grind loop. Getting a digital car unlocked isn't what I consider 'rewarding' anymore.

Thankfully there's vastly more choice in video games these days, you'll find options to cater to grind-lovers, and people with less time to spend.

lokiss · 30 Dec 2018 at 10:24

GT was the complete package, that was the beauty of it. Never before had a game given us a thousand options of cars and combinations, a unique product for the time. We see the systems it pioneered done as standard fair now, normally as Chroluk suggests.

Even after a few years away from the PS and the likes of GT with a PC, it felt so great returning to the well when my mother bought me an impromptu PS2 out of the blue for Christmas. GT3 was immense, same mechanics, same hooks. I think it's greatest strength was there were no cheats (I knew off anyway) no easy unlocks, so you felt that sense of achievement and want to get the car out on track to see the reward.

I think these days a lot of that has probably been replaced by achievement rewards. I was never super in to that myself, but recently I've come to see the merit in games where it takes real skill to get some of those.

Anyhow, cheers lordrobs, any excuse to ramble about GT is a good thing. It was and still is my favourite game release ever in the context of time, it delivered on everything it promised.

TALON1973 · 30 Dec 2018 at 22:39

MSR kept me hooked for what seemed years . So much fun. Played GT on ps2 a lot as well. Not played any racers as much as those.

Scort · 2 Jan 2019 at 11:53

Yeah, fond memories of the GT games on the PS - loved the scratch and sniff disc too

It did indeed feel like you were working towards goals for a purpose, but now you have games just handing you stuff left, right and centre. MSR and that knock-ff GT on the DC were also great fun, and [at the time at least] MSR was indeed the best racer imo.

I'm very lazy when it comes to racing games though - I can't be bothered with them after a while, have no interest in an form of career now, and just like to hop on - tune a car, then blat around circuits that I know. It's probably this 'mentality' that they are catering for these days - you get plenty of rewards, as not many people spend the time on grinding the game any more?

I have found the Roject Cars games to actually be the most [recent] rewarding racers to play - as although you have access to everything off the bat, and can only tweak the cars settings - you really need to learn the different series and tracks; in order to actually get anywhere. They are the thinking man's racer imo.

My personal favorite though, are the Forza games - indeed, they are the only reason I have an Xbone this gen, though I did find that F7 was quite a let down, and FH4 although fun; has plenty of annoying new things (spins for clothing.... clothing! In a damn racing game!). Last gen, I loved TDU, and that game had a decent feeling of achievement, when you were able to buy your first Ferrari F430 and go posing in it