Change my Mind: The used car dealership is a pointless waste of time.

[shenfrey]

Sounds like you're missing a job and a car payment.

; )

 

[MidnightRun85]

I quite like the idea of when you're first starting out in the game, you want to start racing and you "only" have 30k credits (or whatever amount they allocate) and you have that tough decision - do I get the Honda Fit Hybrid, or take an old Integra Type R in the used car dealership for similar money... After the first few days though, it loses it's appeal and no longer really serves much purpose, aside from collecting cars that aren't always readily available.

 

[Famine]

And again, the realism argument doesn't make sense.

It isn't really a realism argument, per se. There's certainly a realism aspect to it, but it's not about realism.

It's about car culture and specifically Japanese car culture. GT has, since the start, been about Kazunori Yamauchi trying to recreate an idealised version of being a car kid in Japan - originally in the late 1980s/early 1990s.

You don't hit 17, do your driving test, then go and buy a £4m Pagani Zonda (well, some kids do, but that's not the norm); you pick up a £3,000 Honda Civic, slap an air filter, a Satan's anus exhaust, and some sticky tyres on it, and hit up Route 5 with your mates.

Then you watch Best Motoring and get a hankering for an R32 Skyline GT-R or an NA1 Honda NSX, so you build your Civic up to get faster and faster to win races to get more money to buy a Fairlady Z or a Mazda RX-7, and lather, rinse, repeat. Your mates have an Accord Aerodeck, a Mitsubishi FTO, and a Subaru Impreza - and the guy with the Scooby has an uncle who's into dodgy crap and has an imported Corvette C4.

At that point the fantasy/RPG part of GT kicks in. You get your race licence and skip up the motorsport ladder with your skills at Grand Valley in your race-modified Z, and someone gives you a GTO LM to race against some Americans and British guys, and then you can buy any car you want... so you get that GT-R you always wanted (and a few others )


It's not really realistic to pick up a £3k Civic with 65,000 miles on it and then go race it professionally for £2k a time, but if you look at it through the lens of being a Japanese car kid it sort of makes sense.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

Sounds like you're missing a job and a car payment.

They could add that to the game. You can take out a loan to buy cars, but then you would have to make timely payments or your car could get repossessed and the credit score would get decreased. Then you could take on a second job to make the payments, but you would have no time for racing.

 

[Darla Starch]

They could add that to the game. You can take out a loan to buy cars, but then you would have to make timely payments or your car could get repossessed and the credit score would get decreased. Then you could take on a second job to make the payments, but you would have no time for racing.

GT7+Job Simulator crossover confirmed?

 

[MidnightRun85]

They could add that to the game. You can take out a loan to buy cars, but then you would have to make timely payments or your car could get repossessed and the credit score would get decreased. Then you could take on a second job to make the payments, but you would have no time for racing.

They could add a bank, and then loan shark companies, to hook you into a never-ending cycle of financial troubles and add a bar where you can go to find dodgy "we need a driver" jobs to pay off your finance... Oh, wait, this is spiralling into another "GT" title...

 

[Quakebass]

PD has the opportunity this time around to make the UCD more than just a nostalgic exercise given the return of a (seemingly) decent depth to tuning and GT Auto/vehicle maintenance. The point of the UCD should (much like buying used is in the real world) be to offer players significantly cheaper versions of cars vs showroom-fresh models, but with risk of higher wear or modification. It’d be really cool if the listings in the UCD could sometimes come with mods or liveries or some damage that you could choose to keep or revert to factory condition at your eventual expense. The only game I’m aware of to do this was NFS Porsche Unleashed back in 2000.

This allows for a lot more player agency navigating the campaign, with cheap and fast options to blast through event requirements, or expensive higher quality and choice of spec for collectors or fans of specific models. Plus, I just think it’s really cool to never really know what GT’s RNG would throw together for “previously owned” cars.

It seems like brand central could be for new cars within the last 10-ish years dealer-fresh, and Brighton Antiques for older cars in immaculate condition (not sure if you’d be able to select factory colors). I have no clue if that’s how they’re going to implement UCD, but it seems PD largely have the tools to do so as I described above and it would be (IMO) one of the best ways to do it.

Primarily keeping a cheaper option for buying cars makes it not pointless in the grand scheme of the game’s design.

 

[kjb]

They could add that to the game. You can take out a loan to buy cars, but then you would have to make timely payments or your car could get repossessed and the credit score would get decreased. Then you could take on a second job to make the payments, but you would have no time for racing.

Might as well add driving children to school and not being able to race until the weekends IF you can get a babysitter or convince your significant other to take the children to soccer practice.

 

[HyperSpeeder]

PD has the opportunity this time around to make the UCD more than just a nostalgic exercise given the return of a (seemingly) decent depth to tuning and GT Auto/vehicle maintenance. The point of the UCD should (much like buying used is in the real world) be to offer players significantly cheaper versions of cars vs showroom-fresh models, but with risk of higher wear or modification. It’d be really cool if the listings in the UCD could sometimes come with mods or liveries or some damage that you could choose to keep or revert to factory condition at your eventual expense. The only game I’m aware of to do this was NFS Porsche Unleashed back in 2000.

View attachment 1090173

This allows for a lot more player agency navigating the campaign, with cheap and fast options to blast through event requirements, expensive higher quality and choice of spec for collectors or fans of specific models. Plus, I just think it’s really cool to never really know GT’s RNG would throw together for “previously owned” cars.

It seems like brand central could be for new cars within the last 10-ish years dealer-fresh, and Brighton Antiques for older cars in immaculate condition (not sure if you’d be able to select factory colors). I have no clue if that’s how they’re going to implement UCD, but it seems PD largely have the tools to do so as I described above and it would be (IMO) one of the best ways to do it.

Primarily keeping a cheaper option for buying cars makes it not pointless in the grand scheme of the game’s design.

You could actually make money in this game restoring cars, it was quite fun!

Also, there were quite a few variants exclusive to used dealer and, if you missed them, they were gone forever after a while. From the top of my head, the 1959 356A Convertible D, the 914/4 1.8, the 944 Turbo Cabriolet and the 964 Turbo 3.3 were all used cars only. It was not worth rushing the game if you wanted to acquire all the cars.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I harp a lot about a lack of immersion in the Forza Horizon games and it's things like the used car dealership in the GT series that actually induce immersion...just one of the little touches that makes the non-open-world GT series feel more immersive to me, a little "closer" somehow, than the open world but more anodyne/arms-length FH series.

 

[Tenacious D]

It’d be really cool if the listings in the UCD could sometimes come with mods or liveries or some damage that you could choose to keep or revert to factory condition at your eventual expense.

This is what I was going to post. The special or "unicorn" cars in previous Gran Turismos were what had me pouring over the UCD every virtual week or ten days. And prior to the Paint Shop / Livery Painter, the unique colors.

Along with all the other good suggestions, this would help give the Used Cars some good reason to be browsed. And it's not farfetched to see such special rides for sale, as this happens in real life. Someone goes pro, and they sell their 350Z autocross / hobby racer tuner to fund racing parts or expense. Oh look, a Corvette that has a seriously upgraded engine. A used race car that's nothing more than a nostalgia piece taking up garage space as a racer moves up the professional ladder to higher or international leagues. And then there are the serious unicorns, like those sneaky carbon fiber race cars available every 700 days or whatever in GT4.

And the best part is, it's there to be ignored if you so choose. But as for the ownership thing, when I had to spend my hard earned credits for a car, it sure as tootin' was my car.

Frankly, I'd prefer it if the true gems linger for a month or so, so I can save up for them - which is moot because I bought the 25th Anniversary Edition with the bonus credits, but I digress.

 

[05XR8]

What's cool about Best Motoring is, long ok at Tsuchiya. Has his old AE86, bought a them new, NSX-R. In between, he was a street racer/legend turned motorsport star.

Opens his Kei-Office tuning business. Look at the Drift Bible video with the cars featured. I used to buy those cars and tune as close as possible to those specs. The UCD isn't useless. It's a place/feature to make do with what's available.

So what it's a silver Integra, when I really want the Championship White. I'll just ride this one, until the color I want surfaces. Enjoy what you find and use your imagination for your own immersion. The UCD isn't useless to me.

 

[Dave A]

They could add a bank, and then loan shark companies, to hook you into a never-ending cycle of financial troubles and add a bar where you can go to find dodgy "we need a driver" jobs to pay off your finance... Oh, wait, this is spiralling into another "GT" title...

Or you could just drink yourself to game over.

 

[05XR8]

What I also like about the UCD is finding cars I've owned and still own. If PD include a 2008 Demio Sport, FPV GT(I had an XR8 though) and EP3 Type R(Si, when I was in the states), sweet!

 

[Stoobert]

Then you buy the car and the suspension is busted oil keeps leaking and the wheel keeps pulling right. 😂

I remember in GT2 (I think it was) when you had the damage model and it would pull to the right. I would SO love for a beater yard where you did get cars or parts in various states of bad that could be repaired or replaced.

It would be fantasic imo if there was a system so that if you scrapped a car with tuning parts applied to it, car and/or parts became available at the junk yard for a discount too.

What I also like about the UCD is finding cars I've owned and still own. If PD include a 2008 Demio Sport, FPV GT(I had an XR8 though) and EP3 Type R(Si, when I was in the states), sweet!

I had a brand new 2003 Civic Type-R (EP3) - was an absolute hoot to drive. Was driving down the road near my mums house before Covid hit and the EXACT car flew past me. Was tempted to try and drive after it to buy it back off the owner, but alas I don't live in England anymore and the missus would have killed me.

 

[LeGeNd-1]

It isn't really a realism argument, per se. There's certainly a realism aspect to it, but it's not about realism.

It's about car culture and specifically Japanese car culture. GT has, since the start, been about Kazunori Yamauchi trying to recreate an idealised version of being a car kid in Japan - originally in the late 1980s/early 1990s.

You don't hit 17, do your driving test, then go and buy a £4m Pagani Zonda (well, some kids do, but that's not the norm); you pick up a £3,000 Honda Civic, slap an air filter, a Satan's anus exhaust, and some sticky tyres on it, and hit up Route 5 with your mates.

Then you watch Best Motoring and get a hankering for an R32 Skyline GT-R or an NA1 Honda NSX, so you build your Civic up to get faster and faster to win races to get more money to buy a Fairlady Z or a Mazda RX-7, and lather, rinse, repeat. Your mates have an Accord Aerodeck, a Mitsubishi FTO, and a Subaru Impreza - and the guy with the Scooby has an uncle who's into dodgy crap and has an imported Corvette C4.

At that point the fantasy/RPG part of GT kicks in. You get your race licence and skip up the motorsport ladder with your skills at Grand Valley in your race-modified Z, and someone gives you a GTO LM to race against some Americans and British guys, and then you can buy any car you want... so you get that GT-R you always wanted (and a few others )


It's not really realistic to pick up a £3k Civic with 65,000 miles on it and then go race it professionally for £2k a time, but if you look at it through the lens of being a Japanese car kid it sort of makes sense.

Yes, I'm aware of what Kaz is trying to achieve here. It's just that, at this stage of my gaming life, having gone through GT1/2/5P/PSP/5/6/Sport, I'm over the whole used car thing. GT6 and GT Sport made me realise how much I enjoy just having all cars in one place, brand new, and able to chose colours for all of them. I don't miss the UCD at all despite having grown up with it in GT1 & GT2.

And if we want to improve attachment and sense of ownership, wouldn't it make more sense for Kaz if we are able to port our garage from previous GT games? My KTM X-BOW in GT Sport had over 50,000 km of blood, sweat and tears from grinding credits at Blue Moon Bay. I'd rather have that than pretend browsing the UCD for a discount X-BOW with "imaginary" 25,000 km.

So you see, Kaz wants us to believe we live in a living, breathing GT world that imitates reality. But a veteran Gran Turismo player for 23 years always has his memory, bank balance, license and garage wiped every few years and has to start from scratch again. Talk about immersion breaker

I'm not gonna lose sleep over it, but putting the UCD in the game is just a low hanging fruit for all the nostalgia fans. Improve physics to catch up with latest sims? Nah, that's too much effort. Make a good AI? Nope. Working penalty system? Nope as well. Make a trailer with scenes from GT1-4 remastered - you get the whole fandom frothing. It's too easy when you're riding on 25 years of brand recognition

 

[Imari]

• Used cars should look used as also said in some post above: they could come with different/used rims, maybe a random sticker? And other details... a bit of history? Even if random or just data/words/numbers thrown around. (this car was owned from an Oklahoma lady that only used it for shool runs. - buy yes, imagine translating all that...)

For this I'd look at the sort of stuff that goes through Japanese auction houses. There's a pretty standard form that goes through specs, condition and history that would probably be a good basis, and it fits with the Japanese theme of Gran Turismo.

How to Read a Japanese Auction Sheet - Prestige Motorsport

How to Read a Japanese Auction Sheet in English and how the auction grading system works ~ full details in our Japanese Auction Guide

prestigemotorsport.com.au

I harp a lot about a lack of immersion in the Forza Horizon games and it's things like the used car dealership in the GT series that actually induce immersion...just one of the little touches that makes the non-open-world GT series feel more immersive to me, a little "closer" somehow, than the open world but more anodyne/arms-length FH series.

I guess it depends on what's immersive to you. I like making SUVs into dropped cruisers and driving them around the windy roads from one mansion to another, or making horrendously expensive classic road cars into lifted rallycross machines and fanging them around dirt tracks or taking them mountain climbing. I find the immersion in the cars I can make and the journeys I take them on.

I'm looking forward to GT having a more expansive tuning mode that allows greater customisation. Doing wacky stuff to cars that you shouldn't is fun. Nobody asked for a Porsche Cayenne driftmobile, but it's still fun.

 

[05XR8]

C’mon. How fun is this?


Find an old Altezza RS, customise it with roll cage, sport suspension. Tune the engine, transmission. Add nice wheels and sports tyres and take to the track(that’s the only place we can go my way). Might cost less than a 993 RS CS for similar performance… but in a family sedan.

 

[dacc10]

Tuning has nothing to do with the UCD, as anyone can buy the car from a normal dealership (at full price of course) and tune it to hell. The savings in the end would be minimal, specially for lower end cars. In the end, these arguments won't make a case for the existence of an UCD. The real questions should be:
-are all the cars in the UCD, UCD exclusives, or will they show up in the normal dealership?
-how much is the cut in price for a car in the UCD?

With this, I think they should make all the cars from UCD, available in the dealership, giving players the choice of either buying the car new at full price, or buying it used at somewhere between 30-50% the cost (could change depending on the km/miles on the clock). With this, then maybe add some random wheels to the used car, and maybe a different paint/stickers, to give these cars some uniqueness. Make it about "choice". Also not all cars would show up in the UCD, some would be exclusive to the Antiques, others for the normal dealership.

Find an old Altezza RS, customise it with roll cage, sport suspension. Tune the engine, transmission. Add nice wheels and sports tyres and take to the track(that’s the only place we can go my way). Might cost less than a 993 RS CS for similar performance… but in a family sedan.

The 993 costs, in GTS, 500.000 Cr. Of course it will be cheaper to tune any cheap car to it's level of performance. The 911 (991) GT3 RS costs in GTS roughly half of the 993, and is a much better/faster car. You could go even farther, a GT-R '17, costs under 100k, how much would it take for the Altezza (which is not even in the game yet), to get to the same level? Then we could have the original R35 GT-R, which could cost just 70k. The point is, if people want to compare the performance/cost ratio, atleast do it properly

 

[o000o]

Actually I'd want if used cars can have other random traits other than damages or dents or such, like fitted tuning parts. For inverted part, I'd also want for players' sold car to appear on UCD, anyone else's (including your car on your account's UCD). For players, I'd want if selling cars take into account not only for the car value, but also the car's mileage, maintenance record (ex: oil change), and the upgrades or parts that is currently equipped into the car (intercooler, wheels, etc.).

 

[dacc10]

I'm fine with a simplystic aproach. For used cars to have so many different traits (be it damage, aftermarket parts, etc), then it's a must to be able to buy them brand new, without any of that. But all those variable, might end up being too complex and time consuming from a developer point of view.

 

[Strittan]

I for one love it. I can’t wait to browse the used car section for my next build. It’ll be almost like an RPG, which I think is great.

 

[mwoodski]

What's cool about Best Motoring is, long ok at Tsuchiya. Has his old AE86, bought a them new, NSX-R. In between, he was a street racer/legend turned motorsport star.

The fact he STILL has that AE86 is also incredible, and it's still blindingly quick.

 

[civicgsir]

Since it is an online only game, why not something similar to the Forza Horizon Auction House?

A place where players can sell their cars as well as random ones from PD?

I also agree with what @OHM_fusion posted. If implemented and done right, it could be something new and cool.

I think intricate tuning parts with specific brands is a lot better than broad stroke tuning. That way the used cars have identities and an actual history.

 

[OldSilentHill]

Everything you said is correct, and makes perfect sense. But let's not forget one thing:
it's just a game.

No, Gran Turismo is not just a game.
It's a game, yes, but not "just a game" to many.
Let's not forget that.

Wonder how it’d work if people sold their car and whatever data is collected, is applied to a used car of the same model in the UCD. Not as the exact same car, but with that car’s data. Had another thought of a players actual used car and the price varies by its use.

Say, a player that has won many FIA or Daily or Lobby or Career races with that car. A car with zero mileage. A car that has been with a player the longest. A car that was driven cleanly in x amount of races. A car that had many changes(livery, tuning, customisation, oil changes).

It's actually a wonderful idea. The game could have its very own money inflation. I'd love this.

There's no such thing as UCD crowd.

It's one feature that some may enjoy, some may not. As is any other feature in any game ever. With the difference that this is not a game breaking feature. It's already in the game, and what people should really discuss about it, are the prices in the Used Car Dealership.

In GT4, it was useful since it was the only way to get a decent car for a low price in early game. In GT7 could/should be the same, plus the nostalgia. It's not a must have, neither it is a car deal breaker.

Fixed.

 

[Pulsar-NX]

Used car shopping was one of my favorite parts of the first 4 games. It's a major part of the OG GT experience and I'll want it in 7.

 

[snowgt]

For all the talk about car collecting, GT7 sure seems to be a frustrating game to play...

• Want to buy a certain car? Sorry, too expensive ... you have to grind for a month to get it.
• Want to buy a car and have the money? Sorry, only available in the UCD, and it's coming around only every 300 game days or so.
• Want to have a car in a certain colour? Sorry, only the colour in the UCD available. Original factory colours not available either.

Especially for people that actually love to collect all cars in the game and actually have them in your favourite factory colour, that's a nightmare...

(I admit I'm assuming UCD behaviour from previous experiences)

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

Since it is an online only game, why not something similar to the Forza Horizon Auction House?

A place where players can sell their cars as well as random ones from PD?

I also agree with what @OHM_fusion posted. If implemented and done right, it could be something new and cool.

I think intricate tuning parts with specific brands is a lot better than broad stroke tuning. That way the used cars have identities and an actual history.

The problem, IMO with Forza's auction house is the shear volume of it. I think it's a particularly badly implemented mechanic in that game, so I'm sure it could be improved, but when the supply of used cars available feels infinite they start to feel less like tangible things and more like copying files especially when most of the cars listed on the auction house are just wheelspin duplicates in the default color. There are more Ferrari 250 GTOs on the FH auction house at a given time than have ever existed in real life, for instance. There may simply not be a way around this with an online game, but better curation (something Forza lacks almost completely) could be a start. I'm offline oriented so I much prefer the RPG feeling of the GT UCD.

For all the talk about car collecting, GT7 sure seems to be a frustrating game to play...

• Want to buy a certain car? Sorry, too expensive ... you have to grind for a month to get it.
• Want to buy a car and have the money? Sorry, only available in the UCD, and it's coming around only every 300 game days or so.
• Want to have a car in a certain colour? Sorry, only the colour in the UCD available. Original factory colours not available either.

Especially for people that actually love to collect all cars in the game and actually have them in your favourite factory colour, that's a nightmare...

(I admit I'm assuming UCD behaviour from previous experiences)

This actually sounds great to me. When you finally do earn/find it, it actually feels special. The diametrically opposed version of this is that you have every car available from the start...in that case nothing is special. There's probably some reasonable middle ground.

 

[hamishl]

One thing I'd like to see in GT7 that could feed into the used car dealership is improved prices for selling cars in your garage. My thinking is that rather just give you 1/4 of what it costs new, drop the amount after you purchase a car, drop it further as you add mileage, but (and this might apply only to certain cars) increase it as you win races, as would happen with real life historic race cars, for example. Maybe the prices could fluctuate over time (so your 250 GTO might be worth what it costs new at one time, a little less after a few days game time, maybe a little more than new a few days after that).

Then, the cars you sell could cycle through the UCD and Brighton Antiques later in the game (obviously with lower prices because you keep beating them in game ). And if the other cars in the UCD came in various levels of modification (and maybe some with special tunes attached) that would also affect prices.

Overall I always enjoyed looking through the UCD to see what's in there and buy cars that catch my eye, but then I like to sit looking through what's on eBay as well - just without the buying! It's definitely better when what is in the UCD isn't necessarily available new though.

 

[HyperSpeeder]

The problem, IMO with Forza's auction house is the shear volume of it. I think it's a particularly badly implemented mechanic in that game, so I'm sure it could be improved, but when the supply of used cars available feels infinite they start to feel less like tangible things and more like copying files especially when most of the cars listed on the auction house are just wheelspin duplicates in the default color. There are more Ferrari 250 GTOs on the FH auction house at a given time than have ever existed in real life, for instance. There may simply not be a way around this with an online game, but better curation (something Forza lacks almost completely) could be a start. I'm offline oriented so I much prefer the RPG feeling of the GT UCD.

The AH in Forza came back because people who played the 360 games wanted the feature to come back.

Back in the day, the AH was used to auction exclusive creations (paints/tunes), not cars. The car only had value with a unique paint. You could buy a car from the Autoshop, but not "that" car.

In FH3, it was not implemented differently from older games, but the way people used it was much different. The AH, to this day, lets you set higher buyout prizes if you're a content creator, but most people who auction cars gamed their way to Legend and use it just as a way to flip exclusive cars and farm money. This is because, starting with FH3, Playground implemented Forzathon and other mechanics to drastically increase the number of unicorns ("Exclusive" and "Hard to Find"). So what gains value in the AH are very rare cars and, most importantly, cars in popular demand.

The AH in Forza has tons of issues related to legacy features as well as the cross-platform play which greatly favors PC players using macros to speed up the searching process. I'm pretty sure the market was also flooded with hacked PO cars, forcing Playground to ban their auctions.

It's the kind of feature that could be really great, but was very badly implemented as you said. Forza doesn't care, because one of the biggest sources of player engagement is the AH and the flaws actually help the engagement metrics.