LeGeNd-1
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This topic will likely bore you if you're not interested in maths/numbers/stats, but for those who appreciates patterns in numbers (like me 
), you might find these interesting.
Anyway, I got the idea to do something like this ever since I began grinding for cash at the Test Course. I noticed that the amount of money given for winning at a track is not related to its difficulty, otherwise the Test Course will pay very low (similar to Super Speedway probably), and short, technical tracks like Citta di Aria will pay very high. I suspected that PD got lazy (or rushed) and just correlated track length with prize credits, and I thought of compiling a list and plotting a graph. However, as so often is the case, time and other commitments got in the way
. Last week however I finally got the time to properly do it, and here are the results...
As I predicted, the prize you get is only dependent on track length. 100% perfect linear relationship. So much for cornering techniques...
And that would be that. Except I got a bit crazy and curious so I proceeded to investigate other numerical relationships. I've always been intrigued by the way the prize goes up when the number of laps increases, since for the first few laps it goes up quickly, then it took around 10 laps to increase. Is the increase proportional though?
No! Well, yes and no. As you can see there are clearly two scoring systems here. For laps 1-15 the increase IS linear, and quite fast too. From lap 16 onwards though, the prize only goes up every 15 laps, and the increase is NOT linear (it looks straight, but get a ruler out and you'll see it's not). The rate of increase goes down as the laps go up (i.e. negative quadratic curve). Looks like PD doesn't want to reward enduro lovers as much as sprint lovers. For good reason too; you wouldn't want to play the PSP for 5-6 hours straight would you?
My 3rd crazy idea is to plot credits against your finishing position. No personal motivations here, just out of interest.
At first glance it looks like the increase is exponential, but it's not. For 4th-3rd-2nd, the increase is linear. But for 2nd-1st it jumps twice as much as before. This means you are rewarded for a victory more than for gaining a place (up to 2nd). Good incentive there...
My final graph compares credits to rank (track level). Again, no particular motivation. I just want to see how much PD rewards levelling up...
Quite a lot, it seems! This is the only graph that exponentially increases the higher your rank gets. In fact, the increase in prize for A>S is ~5 times the increase for D>C! With Japan's society being so hierarchy-centred, I think it makes perfect sense for PD to do this.
So what conclusion can we get? Well, it seems that GTPSP puts high importance on levelling up and winning. The game also rewards you less for long distance races (this is in-line with Kaz's principle of designing GTPSP as a game for "short bursts"). Also, it looks like PD didn't bother rating the tracks in terms of their technical difficulties. The distance-credit relationship is mostly adequate though, as the 2 most difficult tracks ('Ring and La Sarthe) pays highest, and simple ones like Autumn Mini and Beginner's Course pays least. However, in a few cases it does create unfair payouts (e.g. CdA, Paris, GVE), or a blessing (Test Track
).
And that's the end of my ramblings. Well done if you've read this far without falling asleep. For most this is probably boring, useless and irrelevant. And that may be true, but for me it's an interesting little 'discovery' about how the credit system works in GTPSP. Instead of keeping this hardwork (well not really, but it is tedious) to myself, I thought I'd share it with the GTP community 
.
), you might find these interesting.Anyway, I got the idea to do something like this ever since I began grinding for cash at the Test Course. I noticed that the amount of money given for winning at a track is not related to its difficulty, otherwise the Test Course will pay very low (similar to Super Speedway probably), and short, technical tracks like Citta di Aria will pay very high. I suspected that PD got lazy (or rushed) and just correlated track length with prize credits, and I thought of compiling a list and plotting a graph. However, as so often is the case, time and other commitments got in the way
. Last week however I finally got the time to properly do it, and here are the results...
As I predicted, the prize you get is only dependent on track length. 100% perfect linear relationship. So much for cornering techniques...
And that would be that. Except I got a bit crazy and curious so I proceeded to investigate other numerical relationships
. I've always been intrigued by the way the prize goes up when the number of laps increases, since for the first few laps it goes up quickly, then it took around 10 laps to increase. Is the increase proportional though?
No! Well, yes and no. As you can see there are clearly two scoring systems here. For laps 1-15 the increase IS linear, and quite fast too. From lap 16 onwards though, the prize only goes up every 15 laps, and the increase is NOT linear (it looks straight, but get a ruler out and you'll see it's not). The rate of increase goes down as the laps go up (i.e. negative quadratic curve). Looks like PD doesn't want to reward enduro lovers as much as sprint lovers. For good reason too; you wouldn't want to play the PSP for 5-6 hours straight would you?
My 3rd crazy idea is to plot credits against your finishing position. No personal motivations here, just out of interest.
At first glance it looks like the increase is exponential, but it's not. For 4th-3rd-2nd, the increase is linear. But for 2nd-1st it jumps twice as much as before. This means you are rewarded for a victory more than for gaining a place (up to 2nd). Good incentive there...
My final graph compares credits to rank (track level). Again, no particular motivation. I just want to see how much PD rewards levelling up...
Quite a lot, it seems! This is the only graph that exponentially increases the higher your rank gets. In fact, the increase in prize for A>S is ~5 times the increase for D>C! With Japan's society being so hierarchy-centred, I think it makes perfect sense for PD to do this.
So what conclusion can we get? Well, it seems that GTPSP puts high importance on levelling up and winning. The game also rewards you less for long distance races (this is in-line with Kaz's principle of designing GTPSP as a game for "short bursts"). Also, it looks like PD didn't bother rating the tracks in terms of their technical difficulties. The distance-credit relationship is mostly adequate though, as the 2 most difficult tracks ('Ring and La Sarthe) pays highest, and simple ones like Autumn Mini and Beginner's Course pays least. However, in a few cases it does create unfair payouts (e.g. CdA, Paris, GVE), or a blessing (Test Track
).And that's the end of my ramblings. Well done if you've read this far without falling asleep
. For most this is probably boring, useless and irrelevant. And that may be true, but for me it's an interesting little 'discovery' about how the credit system works in GTPSP. Instead of keeping this hardwork (well not really, but it is tedious) to myself, I thought I'd share it with the GTP community .
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