Realistic Pricing and Limiting Cheating- Lessons Learned from GT4

[3-Wheel Drive]

I hate the autosave in GT4. With a passion. Even on "restricted", I'm restricted. I don't like loading when I lose to preserve win ratio, but when I can't tell even remotely the difficulty of a race, which costs me a win because the 1st place jackass has the same car as me but with 200 extra HP, making me lose horribly, I might. A-Spec points are only displayed once the race starts, and you get no specs of your competitors berforehand. The only way to judge difficulty is the Race Preview, which is worthless anyway, because the demo car that the stats appear for at the beginning usually ends up losing the race horribly to at least 2 of the 5 other cars, sometimes all of them. Then I end up overcompensating, slamming 200 extra HP in and winning the race by half a lap, blowing $50,000 for the uneeded parts and gaining a whopping 3 A-Spec points. Hooray.

And the fun doesn't stop there! If I buy a car, and it turns out to be a lemon, not agree with my driving style, and/or require tens of thousands of dollars to not suck, I'm stuck with the POS, thanks to autosave kicking in everytime I change cars! Can I try it out in Arcade Mode first, to prevent wasting $200,000 on a nice looking but lemony car? Probably not, thanks to poorly configured Arcade mode. If I want to race a car there, I have to own it in Simulation mode first (with the exeption of some), making testing cars to see if I like them before spending money next to impossible.

I love GT4, it's a excellent game, but it is not without its flaws. Autosave is one of them, in my opinion. I dearly hope this feature does not carry over to GT5. I admit, both cases I explained don't happen to me but once in a while, but they do occasionally, and it irks me every time. I really wish PD ditches autosave for the next game, or at the very least, give us the ability to turn it completely off.

 

[Dave A]

Perosnally I don't care about win win ratio or average position. I could have a 100% win ratio, but it'd mean restarting whenever I lose so although it's a 100% ratio in the game I still haven't achieved a 100% win ratio. And since the ratio has no bearing on anything in the game I don't see any reason to put yourself through restarting the console to preserve that win ratio. It's your own time and your wasting it, for what. With regards to testing cars, that's a bit pointless imo because I always either tune the hell out o the car, or stick the road tyre's on, both of whichchange the way the car handles significantly. But adding a simple test drive option in the dealers would sort that.

 

[JohnBM01]

Just a quick note... I would have a win ratio, but only for online races. Win ratio has to go. That's why I feel more comfortable doing races in "Tourist Trophy." I thought I could be able to have a smooth race in the 600cc or 1,000cc races... all to get no position higher than second. I had four straight silvers, so I withdrew my entry from the championship. One small record of mine- I have never lost a championship I've completed in GT4. In other words, I've never cleared a championship only to get 2nd or worse when it's done.

Do away with Win Ratio. It just adds pressure to have a good winning percentage. Any damage feature for GT5 will make winning tougher. So let's ease things up, PD. Only winning percentage that would suffice would be for online play. More comments are welcome now that this one is done.

 

[darkblu]

In that case, what do you think PD is trying to solve in terms of not cheating? You see that we can't load games anytime in the game. You'll have to live with bad race results unless you restart. Keep in mind that Autosaves can be restricted. What exactly do you think PD was trying to limit that qualifies as cheating? What SHOULD PD try to limit that qualifies as cheating?

the only issue i have with gt4's savegames is the way i can trade my own cars with myself - i can copy my savegame to my second card, load from my primary card, go to the car trading feature in the garage and voila - i have duplicates of all those rare trophy cars available for trading. an apparent solution to this is for PD to disallow trading between savegames of the same player (i.e. between working copies and backups)

otherwise i could not care less about the win ratio. never bothered to augment mine, and never took anybody else's for real either.

 

[JohnBM01]

Well, what about if you sold some car in the game and wanted to have it back in your collection from your backup save (assume the car can be received only once and thus, cannot be rewarded or won again)? What then?

 

[darkblu]

Well, what about if you sold some car in the game and wanted to have it back in your collection from your backup save (assume the car can be received only once and thus, cannot be rewarded or won again)? What then?

you revert to your backup before the sale. completely. otherwise what you effectively get is selective restoration of bits from the backed-up state mixed and matched with later game state. which is wrong, it allows for multiplying of objects (e.g. cars) within the game universe. IOW i can get a unique car, copy the savegame, then sell the unique car to myself, then copy my new savegame with the two cars, rinse, repeat, ending up with N used-to-be-unique cars w/o interacting with another player.

basically consider each player profile/savegame to be a unique game universe. now if there's a rule that states you can only have so many of this object in each universe, then you should not be able to break this quota w/o interacting with other game universes, i.e. other players. or IOW, if you sell to me your unique ferrari (heh), then that unique object moves from your realm to mine, but the total number of ferraris vis-a-vis the number of realms is preserved. not the case when i can trade with myself.

ed: doh, at the moment i posted this i realised a trade-with-self ban won't really cut it.

 

[3-Wheel Drive]

Perosnally I don't care about win win ratio or average position. I could have a 100% win ratio, but it'd mean restarting whenever I lose so although it's a 100% ratio in the game I still haven't achieved a 100% win ratio. And since the ratio has no bearing on anything in the game I don't see any reason to put yourself through restarting the console to preserve that win ratio. It's your own time and your wasting it, for what.

And I don't, usually, my win ratio is about 82%, and it will likely dip lower the more I play my new save game, but ther have been a few races where I've felt a little cheated, so I restarted. My argument was really more towards giving us more info before the race anyway, to let us know how the race will be and how much we should tune, if at all. Even just HP restrictions would give us a nice window to judge by, and would also prevent people from always gliding through races in cars that could lap the competition.

With regards to testing cars, that's a bit pointless imo because I always either tune the hell out o the car, or stick the road tyre's on, both of whichchange the way the car handles significantly. But adding a simple test drive option in the dealers would sort

Well my purchasing and tuning style is not like yours. For example, I don't always go stock, and I try to go with light tuning unless I want to max tune a car, not just to make it drivable. I also avoid normal tires, as I would put performance tires tires on my car(s) if I raced (even stock) in real life. That's just my style, so I would like some type of "try before you buy" system to suit me.

 

[Dave A]

Regards to your first point then I agree, more info would be better.

On the second point again, as I said adding a test drive option is a plus regardless of if I'd use it much or not, it's an extra feature for thoes that would usei it more like you.

 

[3-Wheel Drive]

On the second point again, as I said adding a test drive option is a plus regardless of if I'd use it much or not, it's an extra feature for thoes that would usei it more like you.

Exactly. Not everyone will use it, and some will use mor than others but it would be a great option to have for those who want it, and it wouldn't interfere for those who don't use it.

 

[Eric.]

That's kind of what I meant in my own anti VESA sort of way. The licences might just be what stops PD making GT a career type game.

No, it would just stop them from using real names. Instead they could call it Austrailian Touring Car Championship. They wouldn't be able to use the real season either I'd bet.

 

[CrazyBadger]

I think the resale of cars is total bull****. Lets say you buy a skyline and put every part on it, when you go to sell it you only get maybe 10k???WTF. I think the resale should accomadate modifications, they should use the system used in the first sega gt for xbox. You actually put your car up for sale(naming your own price) and wait till somebody buys it, I thought that was a very good idea.They should also integrate a system that puts prestige points to races. Then a driver could earn prestige that would let him enter maybe high end races or series that he couldnt before(kinda like the idea that you had to finish all the pro events to enter extreme ones) Also the prestige would up the value of the car. I also hated the fact that some cars didnt have prices, that was stupid too. So there could be prestige points to the race and then the a spec points for how your car is matched against the others. Some other things they should change is more cars per race, 8 or 10???The availability of sponsorships should also be included, you do test or challenge or maybe just a race or series of races to win/obtain a sponsor that will in turn pay you money for wins based on some type of ratio or difference of the race prestige and the a spec value(difficulty against competitors). Annnnnnd finally, they should have longer series of races, more like mini seasons...


anyways thats just my thoughts, hope they make sense and arent to gay for some of you hardcore racing simulators.

 

[CrazyBadger]

I think the resale of cars is total bull****. Lets say you buy a skyline and put every part on it, when you go to sell it you only get maybe 10k???WTF. I think the resale should accomadate modifications, they should use the system used in the first sega gt for xbox. You actually put your car up for sale(naming your own price) and wait till somebody buys it, I thought that was a very good idea.They should also integrate a system that puts prestige points to races. Then a driver could earn prestige that would let him enter maybe high end races or series that he couldnt before(kinda like the idea that you had to finish all the pro events to enter extreme ones) Also the prestige would up the value of the car. I also hated the fact that some cars didnt have prices, that was stupid too. So there could be prestige points to the race and then the a spec points for how your car is matched against the others. Some other things they should change is more cars per race, 8 or 10???The availability of sponsorships should also be included, you do test or challenge or maybe just a race or series of races to win/obtain a sponsor that will in turn pay you money for wins based on some type of ratio or difference of the race prestige and the a spec value(difficulty against competitors). Annnnnnd finally, they should have longer series of races, more like mini seasons...


anyways thats just my thoughts, hope they make sense and arent to gay for some of you hardcore racing simulators.

 

[JohnBM01]

Two things:

1.) You made a double post, CrazyBadger.

2.) Be careful using "gay" to describe something bad. I hated it in AOL chats and don't like using "gay" to use as an insult.

I appreciate your comments, but be a bit more respectful, okay?

 

[LeadSlead#2]

I think the pricing of cars in GT4 is rediculas. flat-out rediculas. or the prize money. well, neither is, but without sponserships, it's damn near impossible to get race cars.
IRL, teams usually don't use the same car all season, and if they do, they certainly don't use that same car next year.
my point? ummm.. is there any championship in GT4 that you can win enough money to buy a new race car? ummm... NO. and that's winning EVERY freakin' race! what happens if you finish 1,2,4,1,1,3,5,1,2,2? and only finish 2nd in the cup? the ONLY series close to life money-wise is the PD Formula cup, but even that's stupidly underpaying.
Look, NASCAR just raced at Infineon, and the winner, Jeff Gordon, won the most money, how much? $352 Grand. for one race. let alone the high paying races. but in GT4, in a Grand Prix series, you only get 100K for a win.
what do you get for 4th? Tony Stewart finished 28th. he got paid 220K(ish).
So, yeah, prize money in GT4 is stupidly low.

I say, screw the prize cars, they don't typically happen IRL, just give me cash, and I'll buy what I want, dammit.

Cheating? who cares? who loses when some kid makes a code to get all the cars in his garage? I don't. It doesnt affect me one little, tiny bit.
Let's not worry about people who want to take the challenge out of the game, because it doesnt affect us, and they probabley enjoy it. Hell, cheat codes can make great fun for me, after I complete the game, and I'm sure they have for others too. So let it go, and worry about making the game realistic, or at least, sensible.

 

[jimihemmy]

Pricing of cars is fine. They probably took into account the rarity of a car in today's market. If something was considered great at one time, but there are only a few of them around, they would be more valuable. Supply and demand.

The only problem is that anyone with GT4 can buy as many as they want.

As for resale value of a car, I think PD should at least take into account the modifications made to a car. Give us back 1/4 the value on the parts just like the car itself.
What I would really like to see is some sort of depreciation of the cars. Right now, no matter what you bought the car for, you can sell it for 1/4 the price paid. I would like them to account for mileage and age (how long you have owned the car) as well as give back some credit for the parts.

Even allow us to sell parts back and then be able to buy used parts (for use on the same kind of car)

 

[JohnBM01]

Sell back parts and buy used parts... interesting. Do you all dig jimihemmy on this? I had something on the "limiting cheating" aspect, but I forgot. Maybe I'll sound off a bit later.

 

[GM]

The prcing is getting better.

Proof.

In GT2, All racing cars were 500,000, 1,000,000 or 2,000,000, no matter what car, a Mini Cooper Rally Car would be 500k.

In GT4, at least the race cars are'nt fixed prices, the road cars are good pricing, race cars are'nt but getting better . . .

 

[Tornado]

If PD adopted Codemasters' copy-protected Save Game files, would it (1) limit cheating by not being able to use other Save Game files and (2) be a good idea for GT5? I personally would want things as is and be able to have copies of Save Game files in case a card is damaged or missing.

No and no, for two reasons that apply to both:

1. PD ruined any chance of people cheating when they made all traded cars revert back to stock configuration (this also destroyed pretty much any easy way for settings trade, becuase they also got rid of the ability to trade settings without cars).
2. There are quite a few people in the corrupt data club who would really dislike the fact that they are forced to not backup their save games. I've lost my data twice, and if I wasn't able to back it up every week (a lesson I learned from GT2), I would be restarting the game from scratch in Janurary and again in April.

In addition, the save system in GT3 was so much better in that it actually let you know that, yes, the game is in fact saving, that they should just adopt that one.

 

[LeadSlead#2]

@Jimihemmy - they do take depriciation. look at your cars listed by price. especially in the highest priced ones.
743,000
717,000
743,000
your list should look like this, they'll be mixed, as cars you drove, say, for the 24hr races, will have lost value, my numbers here arent exact, but point is, the more you drive, the lower they go, at least with LMP cars.

What about the fact that IRL race teams use more than one car a year? surly they don't build them with the prize money offered in GT4, so either don't make us pay for cars, or up the prize money.
better then either, add sponsership money. period. If I win with the Audi R8, I want them to get me new stuff I need, and things like that.

How about targeting less of a need to win, in GT5?
maybe make 2nd respectable, and still get money, and so forth?

 

[niky]

Actually, pricing is already pretty realistic. Rare cars like the Toyota do cost a lot in real life. In fact, many of the "muscle" cars are kind of cheap. They're basically giving you concours condition cars for just, what... 60k? In real life, anything that cherry would cost the better part of 200k.

The same goes for many of the 10km specials. A new old stock 300zx was going for about $40k just two or three years ago.

As for resale, PD's system is just half-realistic. Mods do not add any value to a stock street car. Say I've got a Civic. I buy it new for 20k and sink another 15k of mods into it. A used stock Civic would cost 7k, but seeing as how I've ruined it, I'd get only 6.5k. Now, if I'd sunk 30k of mods in, and added stuff that improved the car, like an LSD and a good streetable supercharger, I'd probably get 9-10k for the car, from an enthusiast, but only 7-8k from anyone else. And if I sink 100k of mods into it, and make it a fully race modified machine, I'd get maybe 25k-50k for it, depending on mileage.

The big problem is the unrealistic amount of money PD throws your way and the inabilityto trade modified cars. Of course, since that means that you can buy that rare win-only-once car off of yourself and the copy will now have 0 miles on it, it's all good.

 

[LeadSlead#2]

^^^ all correct.
But, even though the prize money is close, the pricing is close, for most (see M3 @75K!), but even with those two being right, you're missing all that endorsement money, the money that keeps race teams going, the money that pays for your 4.5 million car, and pays for your tires, and fuel.
No, it doesnt just pay it all, but it pays a lot more than the zero you get now, so yes, the price is right, bob, but my bank finances are wrong

 

[JohnBM01]

So I'm sitting here on my bed drinking down a Fruit Punch Powerade, have a demo game playing on my PS2, some other stuff on my bed, and I was thinking a bit. My copy of the May 2006 Automobile magazine has the Pontiac GTO.R in a small article. The race car costs $275K up front. But the section says, "Now, the fine print: a required spares package runs an additional $100,000, and prices don't include engine mangagement and data logging. Hey, nobody said racing was cheap. But if winning is job one, then the GTO.R is a bargain." So if this is true, then the car would be about $375,000 for the car and the spares. So imagine having to pay for the car itself, a set of racing tires, and whatever else... and ultimately come out to about the price you'd pay for a Honda S2000 LM Race Car or the Falken Skyline GT-R. And it isn't like you're having to do micro-management by having pay for a new set of new tires after shredding them in racing action. But let's do the numbers. Let's assume that the GTO.R is 275K Cr. This spare stuff is going to run by 100K Cr. Throw in a defeault set of Racing Medium Tires for about 22.5K Cr. And let's assume all the other stuff from engine management to data logging costs about 50K Cr extra. The end price you'd probably pay for all that stuff would be 420K Cr- about as much as you'd pay for a GT300 car or a DTM race car in GT4. But you don't have those resources in GT4. So some of the excess stuff would either be paid for already, or just not there and want to rip you a bad deal. I just thought of something like that for your discussing pleasure.

Here is another example of pricey cars. Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3 had some real expensive cars. I think you had about 40K to start out with in the game. But let's do some comparisons:

Toyota 2000GT: approx. 140K in GT4, 35K in TXR3
Nissan R34 Skyline: 55K in GT4, 65-70K in TXR3

Some cars are more expensive in games to prevent people from trying to take the easy way around. It took a nice amount of time in Osaka in "Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3." But when I had the money in Tokyo Xtreme Racer 3 and beaten a specific Osaka Wanderer, I ended up picking up the DeTomaso Pantera GTS in the game. My best car in the game in my early stages was the Toyota Chaser V. Despite the fact it was a pretty heavy car, it was a pretty powerful car as well. Nothing like some turbo add-ons for this wonderful Toyota sedan. This was my ride for when I took on that gang in Nagoya in which everyone had an Isuzu Vehicross as their ride. The Chaser V is a nice car to start out with in TXR3. The DeTomaso Pantera GTS got MUCH better with tuning. But it wasn't until you realize that mid-engined cars can be tough to handle with mad amounts of power and speed. Didn't stop a brother from getting the Ford GT much later in the game. That thing costs about 225K or 250K in TXR3. You pay no more than 200K in GT4. So it can be a matter of advancing through the game for some games. You are free to share your own opinions, now that I've shared mine.

 

[IMADreamer]

Actually, pricing is already pretty realistic. Rare cars like the Toyota do cost a lot in real life. In fact, many of the "muscle" cars are kind of cheap. They're basically giving you concours condition cars for just, what... 60k? In real life, anything that cherry would cost the better part of 200k.

The same goes for many of the 10km specials. A new old stock 300zx was going for about $40k just two or three years ago.

As for resale, PD's system is just half-realistic. Mods do not add any value to a stock street car. Say I've got a Civic. I buy it new for 20k and sink another 15k of mods into it. A used stock Civic would cost 7k, but seeing as how I've ruined it, I'd get only 6.5k. Now, if I'd sunk 30k of mods in, and added stuff that improved the car, like an LSD and a good streetable supercharger, I'd probably get 9-10k for the car, from an enthusiast, but only 7-8k from anyone else. And if I sink 100k of mods into it, and make it a fully race modified machine, I'd get maybe 25k-50k for it, depending on mileage.

The big problem is the unrealistic amount of money PD throws your way and the inabilityto trade modified cars. Of course, since that means that you can buy that rare win-only-once car off of yourself and the copy will now have 0 miles on it, it's all good.

That's what most people here are missing. The resale market does not like mods so it really doesn't matter how much money you sink into the car it won't be worth more. The enthusiast will pay a bit more but not enough to offset the cost of the mods. I am glad that mods don't add resale to the cars in GT4 because that would be unrealistic.