Suggestions for how to add progression to the career

So, we've got a few more cars, a few more large tracks, improvements all around, but the career is still lacking in my opinion. Thinking about it our career boils down to the same formula that most racing games follow, with two exceptions:

1. No car upgrades
2. All cars unlocked at start

These are not necessarily bad things, I love instant access to my new DLC car.

I am asking for suggestions on how to improve the sense of progression within the career. There is little incentive to complete it, and it is basically a list of special events that are unlockable. The addition of series to the career was great, but I think Kunos can do better and add more.

As it stands the career feels like a skeleton waiting to be fleshed out. I don't think what I'm hoping to discuss in this forum boils down to making your own career, I think that we could come up with some really reasonable good solutions without compromising the core ideas of AC, providing a more coherent single player experience than just quickrace and hotlap.

Personally I would love to see the ability to choose from a set of cars for a career race or series, eliminating bloat content. Maybe take my one car thru many career blocks with different circumstances based on its class.

What do you guys suggest Kunos do about the sense of progression in the career?

 

I don't like unlocking per se but in career mode you need some incentive to push forward.

I quite liked GPL's career, you won races and race series and gained prize money. You bought cars with your in game cash to participate in different race series, you could sell cars to fund higher cost purchases. I found it introduced me to cars and track combos I'd never have driven otherwise. 60s American muscle cars were quite fun drifting round the tiny Nurburgring GP Mullenbach circuit for instance.

 

AC's career also introduces a player to interesting combos. It makes good use of all the available cars and tracks. All content is previously unlocked so I think virtual money prizes wouldn't work.

TOCA World Touring Cars (ps1 game) and Pcars seem to have good careers. In championship style, for different locations and car classes. In Pcars you can pick any type of series/class to race on, so you don't have to start from beginner stuff to more advanced. So there's several tiers from 8 to 1, 1 being with the most serious race cars LMP1, and then in each tier there are several car classes you can pick and then do a championship.

But the current AC already simulates championships. Some of those championships even have race weekend mode for each race event. Then you win point like in the real world, for example 1st gets 25, 2nd 18, 3rd 15, etc. Career is also moddable, the AC career generator mod is good one to ease the task.
In these championships, they even made descriptions for each race on how to setup your car, and other general tips on how to tackle the track you're about to race.

But in my opinion, maybe all the series could be unlocked from the start, is possible that some people get more bored with progression when there's not much to win with it. For example career progression in gran turismo is cool, because you race to unlock more cars and gain money to upgrade your car. In Assetto we can't do any of that, all the content is available from the get-go; so it could increase career usage by having everything unlocked. Then obviously the medal or points requirements to unlock next series become unnecessary.

Who knows.. maybe even we can come up with a nice modded career from scratch.

 

Put a trophy room in the game that grows with your progress and results. Make it so it can hold thousands of trophy's, ribbons, etc.

Watch how fast everyone gets addicted to populating that little room, upgrading it, showing off cars in it...

Just something that makes you feel like you are achieving something... That's all $10 plastic trophy do in real life does... But oh how special those little things are...

 

Unless modders somehow find ways to make animated cut scenes there really isn't much that can be done different to what we have IMO. And even if they do, in all likelihood it will be the same 'start from nothing and work you way up the racing ladder' that every other old school racing game used.

Don't get me wrong, a true story mode career that forces you to stick to a budget, and penalizes you for damage and bad finishes, along with multiple sponsorship choices as you progress and such would be great, but it would have to be modders doing it simply because of the time it would take to implement.

I guess something like that is what the achievements are supposed to be, but they need a complete rework also in order to be any kind of relevant.

 

love the idea of trophy room,

for me the best career mode ( and I can easily see how other people see it differently) is to replicate real career of race driver
you get hired by racing team in a series, if you do well, you stay with the team. If you don't you are sacked and looking for new team
if you get really good, other teams can be interested in you and hire you to higher series

BUT! you can start career in lower tier formula to go for Formula 1, no need to start with karts and go through GT cars , or start in amateur race series with almost road cars

from the games, the best career modes for me personally was F1 Codemasters, becuase it had all what I'm describing, on top of which that had all those small in-game cinematics, making it more authentic
projectCARS would be the second best

 

There are cutscenes... but they work as car presentation for what you'll be driving in the new series unlocked. In the files, those specific series have a video file inside. But idk if is possible to mod that far.

Yea trophy room for all your podium medals and championship trophies.

edit, just saw raceroom is adding custom championships. See the walkthrough video: http://www.virtualr.net/r3e-custom-championships

 

Just thinking better about it, more than Kunos redesigning the career at this moment in time, a custom championship creator would keep entertained better the offline racers. I know they aren't going to add this tomorrow, but by the time we have improved A.I and pitstops in single player, the custom championship creator would go along well.

 

I always enjoyed a championship, rather than just individual single races. A 5/6 race long championship at the minimum at the start for the Abarth 500, ranging to a 15race championship in the GTs would be epic. Maybe change the AI names about as you progress, to maybe provide some more realism and depth. For example:

As you start the season, you battle for the title with a guy called 'Carlos Martinez' in Fiat 500s. If you win the first championship you get picked to race in a higher level team in the next championship (say Guilettas) while if you lose you accept a place in the mid field team. The guys who do well in your first seasons advance too, building long term rivalries. You could progress up the ranks at the same rate as some guys, or faster than others - making it more realistic.

I just cant get invested in racing 'Hitsuo Yoshida' and 'Dominic de la Sarthe' everytime I race a different category of car. I'd rather rivalries could be build, adding to the realism. Not sure how something like this could be implemented though

 

The career is completely uninspiring. Where's the practice, qualifying rounds etc?
The career in Project Cars is looking much better, an actual calendar of championship events that emulate the real world much more closely. I don't care about trophies, rewards etc but we should at least have a proper championship structure to career not just a hastily thrown together bunch of quick races.

 

Ehem - may I remind of this:

http://www.assettocorsa.net/forum/index.php?threads/suggesting-a-proper-flexible-career-mode.22178/

I must agree with Plucka, the "career" there is now, is uninspiring. Completely.

 

I find driver psychology interesting. For example, some will accept nothing less than a formal online league championship. Some are content to test and analyze a single combo for weeks trying to squeeze every millisecond out of the track. Some desire a single player championship against AI. Some demand a career with money, progression, etc. Some are content hotlapping and testing but need a leaderboard for comparison/relevance/motivation. Some are open-minded to new forms of competition that don't exist in the real world. Ah well. What interests me the most is WHY people like this or that. After much introspection I know that what is important to me is context, comparison and connection to other humans and I'm completely open-minded as to how I get it and IRL is not important to me other than the laws of physics. Unfortunately, few others agree it seems. Also, I have absolutely zero interest in fantasy career modes because seems arbitrary to compete against AI other than to achieve a new personal best.

Edit - IMO the most critical ingredient to sim racing satisfaction is continual development of skills, knowledge and experience. I'll never forget the first time I drove hundreds of laps on a single day testing for a league race and it wasn't just to be competitive but instead my skills had simply reached a level where I had enough options available to me that there was simply endless things to try so every lap was an experiment and even when I settled on an approach to the lap then so much practice was required to complete a close to perfect lap. It was addictive and fatigue set in before boredom. Truly a milestone every sim racer should reach as a rite of passage into true sim racing joy....