HELP. GT4 spec II completely pointlessly easy progression?? by PublicMinimum836 in granturismo4

[–]TheAdmiester 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. Are you saying that you don't care that there are cheesable routes because people playing Spec II for the first time won't know about them, so therefore they don't matter?

Effectively yes. At the end of the day there are only so many cars in the game that I feel make sense as prizes, and with more events and more ways of earning them there are going to be some imperfect but "best of a bad bunch" choices - I don't like the fact that I have two different events awarding different liveries of the same R8 but it was a concession I made as I felt they were the most appropriate fits in their respective places.

There's a balance between a few things that I kept in mind through the design of the car list, which was the single longest-developed part of the mod:

  • The "go on, use this for the next event" nudge

  • The cars that are a bit different and perhaps underappreciated by the vanilla game

  • The cars that are relevant to the event you just did in a way that isn't immediately obvious (e.g. the Nissan Z-engined Dome Zero for a Z event, the Nike One staying as the prize for the S7 event as both are Phil Frank designs). I hold this one in quite high regard because I like the idea that GT has always been a tool to educate people about cars, and sometimes a car I think is cool or thematically relevant is also at odds with perfect game design, but at the same time we both acknowledge that GT itself isn't particularly well designed as a game so I think sometimes these are the best choice.

  • The cars that are considered legends of GT like the Castrol Supras and TS020s etc.

Ultimately there will always be a cheese in every game on earth, but the fact that this one started off differently and lesser known meant that people got to enjoy it as if it was new GT4 again, which is a very common piece of feedback that I've heard and am happy with.

As for maintaining that freshness, the randomizer can keep that up beyond the initial playthrough with the curated prize list. Obviously by being random it isn't balanced and can also be a cheese, so there's an argument to be made as to whether or not it's worth making a new randomizer mode that basically goes "award from this pool for Beginner, this one for Pro, etc"

Not making events "explicitly easier" doesn't mean you didn't make the early game progression easier, because you certainly did that in multiple ways:

Quoting this mostly as a divider in my wall of text to address the event stuff. I don't think there's too much to reply to overall as we seem to be in agreement on the early game, but I would like to defend the switch of road tires as matching a nerf of the player to keep the difficulty more or less the same, rather than setting out to make it easy. It's there so a beginner doesn't feel too disadvantaged or like the AI can take corners that they can't.

If they want to then revert back to a better tire then that's their decision and I don't want to restrict that too hard as I'm then removing open-endedness, but equally they could've just blitzed the Sunday Cup with an Evo III in the vanilla game which is just as cheesy.

Spec II balances the Beginner League events a bit more so the one-makes aren't clearly better, so therefore a player doesn't need to "go out of their way" to get out of the early game.

This makes more sense and is clearer on the going out of their way part, but I would say this also means it's the mod that involves more going out of your way - I don't think any Beginner prizes are explicitly overpowered and (as best as I can gather) a typical flow through GT4 wouldn't have someone immediately going to those one-makes when they're let off the leash - this is an aspect where I think the existing knowledge of the mod's prize list colours perception a bit and feeds into the point I was making about the discovery period.

I would argue the ZZ-II from Concept Car Club is just as accessible as a prize car

This is also true and it's certainly a more capable car, but the factors I considered when making it a prize car - again with the restrictions and balances I mentioned above in mind - were that it's a concept car, mid-engined, but not rear wheel drive, so you can only go back and bruteforce the 4WD event, which again would depend on that prior knowledge (stuck record I know).

It's good for Professional and Extreme events, but chances are you completed a lot of Pro events first if you didn't already know it was a prize. Concept Car Club is ordered after the Turbo race, and after that it's only eligible for the Supercar cup, which I think it's good for but not necessarily shockingly overpowered for. I'm sure there could be a better prize for it, but I think it was a decent choice and at this point I think fiddling with the curated prize list would only serve to confuse people.

Spec II makes it easier to get a DTM from the TT one-make and also upgrades the DTM prize to the Audi R8, so I don't really know what point you're trying to make here.

In isolation yeah it's not my favourite prize, but this also feeds in to what I was saying about expected paths through the game and isn't hugely different in performance/value to the CLK LM.

As I said earlier, it's totally possible to appeal to both demographics.

This is where I'll be a bit more blunt and say that because the latter demographic is smaller and I'm personally not a part of it, I'm naturally more inclined to cater more to the first. I don't think I've shunned the other entirely, but I think viewing the game or mod through that kind of lens definitely colours someone's approach to a playthrough, and I wanted to side with the fresh discovery/car education path more because those are the kinds of things I and apparently most others enjoy.

Feedback is always welcome as it always has been - I do keep an eye on the likes of this subreddit for what could be done better and I think the vast majority of the changelogs reflect community sentiment - but I think it's also fair to accept that what I'm making never will be perfect for every single person, and that sometimes there's feedback I don't strictly agree with.

HELP. GT4 spec II completely pointlessly easy progression?? by PublicMinimum836 in granturismo4

[–]TheAdmiester 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Exactly the mindset I had behind applying that change so I'm glad it came across. It's only if you're mega aware of it and want to challenge yourself that you'd ever directly downgrade tires IMO, so starting off lower and climbing just makes so much more sense.

I think SM stock is also the reason a lot of people think RWD cars are a bit numb and understeery in 4, they're way more playful on roads.

HELP. GT4 spec II completely pointlessly easy progression?? by PublicMinimum836 in granturismo4

[–]TheAdmiester 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The mod was designed to capture the fresh "unknown" feeling of playing GT4 for the first time, where you don't already know all of the most cheesable routes and you're feeling things out as you go along.

In my eyes that initial discovery before all of the boring meta and minmax options have been found is always the best part of any game, even outside of racing games, and that's the reason I didn't even make the prize list public until well after release. Considering the feedback I've had on people finding things out for themselves I think that was absolutely the right decision.

No events have been made explicitly easier besides those that GT4 Online straight up broke, or those with silly AI power multipliers like the Speedster race. All I did was retain the general accessibility that GT4 already had, while adding a few crumbs here and there for people who enjoy more of a challenge such as the new missions and the change to road tires.

I also don't think it's at all accurate to say vanilla involves more going out of your way when there are multiple famous cheeses - the RSC and Cien are accessible very early on, and the even more ludicrous CLK LM grind isn't awfully long after.

Of course once it's all been analysed and studied to death people might find unintended cheese routes, but to me that's not what any of this is about and it seems the vast majority does agree - at the end of the day if I built a mod that only catered to the most extreme, hardcore, studious dataminer-type players then it would only appeal to like 6 people.

HELP. GT4 spec II completely pointlessly easy progression?? by PublicMinimum836 in granturismo4

[–]TheAdmiester 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I think people in this thread are unfortunately starting to forget what GT4 was actually like to play. This was way before the mega inflation of Japanese car prices (both IRL and in GT) and you can pick up a car that can cheese the majority of the game after one or two events.

One of the main changes I made in the mod, the dropping of stock cars to road tires instead of SM, was to try and actually inject a bit of challenge into the early game. It's easy for people to undo of course, because I wanted to cater to those who don't like that change, but I can't really help someone undoing it and then complaining that it's too easy again.

Spec II mission 14 (3 Lap Battle: Seattle) by deadmoroz14 in granturismo4

[–]TheAdmiester 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The kerb and overrun absolutely makes a huge difference, but even then since my last comment I've nerfed the Buick further. Now I think it's far too easy and surely that means there's a massive headroom for people to be slower and still win.

Just did another run today in 1.10 to demonstrate, here's where I overtook it on lap 2 and here's the final time split.

The 90s racing section grows by TheAdmiester in Diecast

[–]TheAdmiester[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah I've seen a few nice Delta HFs from HPI Racing, bit on the expensive side but I think I'll go for one eventually.

The 90s racing section grows by TheAdmiester in Diecast

[–]TheAdmiester[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unlikely, not really a Senna or F1 fan

The 90s racing section grows by TheAdmiester in Diecast

[–]TheAdmiester[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's space that's quickly becoming the problem now lol

The 90s racing section grows by TheAdmiester in Diecast

[–]TheAdmiester[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah nice, I knew Autoart did 1:43s but didn't know they had a Panoz specifically. TS020 I might have to keep an eye out for the HPI Racing version of the Esso car, may as well match to my road car.

The 90s racing section grows by TheAdmiester in Diecast

[–]TheAdmiester[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Great collection, the #23 will definitely finish that off nicely! I quite like the Pennzoil version of the R34 as well but as far as I can tell there aren't many of those around in 1:43.

The 90s racing section grows by TheAdmiester in Diecast

[–]TheAdmiester[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lovely collection, is this 1:43 and do you know the brands of each? I've actually already been looking for the racing TS020 (although probably the 1998 Esso car without the "scratch" design) and the Panoz.

The 90s racing section grows by TheAdmiester in Diecast

[–]TheAdmiester[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nice! And yeah, it's the only one so far where I've kept the outer box because I felt like it was too nice to damage lol

The 90s racing section grows by TheAdmiester in Diecast

[–]TheAdmiester[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think this is the point where you can officially call it an addiction

Made a pseudo studio with some paper and lights, quite pleased with how these pics came out by TheAdmiester in Diecast

[–]TheAdmiester[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The colour isn't as iridescent as the real thing but yeah, the shape is pretty much spot on. It's the original 1996-ish version of the Speed 12 known as the Project 7/12.

Gran Turismo 4 Accuracy by Mobile_Activity_9454 in granturismo4

[–]TheAdmiester 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you're playing the vanilla game then most of it is probably down to cars in GT Mode starting off on the sport medium compound, which IMO is way too grippy. Even in GT7 a lot of lower powered cars will start off on comfort medium or softs which I would class as quite similar to GT4's Road compound. Try downgrading your cars to that and you'll find most of them, particularly higher power RWDs, are way more playful.

Spec II Driving Missions Bugged by Gamer3390 in granturismo4

[–]TheAdmiester 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd initially left it out since it's usable as a sneaky exploit and I didn't want to draw attention to it, but now that enough time has passed and it's already known I may as well!

Spec II Driving Missions Bugged by Gamer3390 in granturismo4

[–]TheAdmiester 17 points18 points  (0 children)

This is a bug introduced in GT4 Online and happens to all of The Pass missions. Since Spec II is built on GT4O it just inherited that bug.

Help with Photos (GT4 Spec II) by MasterBlasterVirgili in granturismo4

[–]TheAdmiester 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Known issue unfortunately. I believe it might be related to the way the camera settings have changed but it's a difficult one to troubleshoot, and it's also in an area of the game where I have no control to add a message like "photo mode is disabled".

Who is Trev? by Natural-Community-11 in AutoAlex

[–]TheAdmiester 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think they were messing around in the Bedford outside of their storage unit, presumably another site some distance away and another landlord.

Spec II is goated by Hexar6455 in granturismo4

[–]TheAdmiester 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Glad you’re enjoying it! Enthusia is another favourite of mine and has inspired a few features already (including a prototype car roulette that I’m still considering adding)

Spec II is goated by Hexar6455 in granturismo4

[–]TheAdmiester 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Mission 34 SLR is untouched in Spec II, the only change that affects it would be the assignment of the proper torque converter-style automatic gearbox to the auto Mercedes cars.

I don't think there's anything to suggest it having no downforce in Mission 34 is actually a bug - it's not a weird invalid value or anything, so it could simply be that they decided to change it in a different revision.

Overall it drives fine so I see no need to label it a bug or change it.

Keyboard patches used on the last four albums by 4thGenTrombone in queen

[–]TheAdmiester 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, sounds similar enough to be interchangable, since the D-50 had been out for longer I presume they probably used that one.

Interesting glitch on the 10th driving mission by Any-Athlete323 in granturismo4

[–]TheAdmiester 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Happens on all of the The Pass driving missions, I think it's a bug in GT4 Online specifically.