Credits

[elsjoerdos]

Hi,

I'm just new to the game.
Coold someone tell what is the use of the credits?

Thnx

L8ter

[snewham]

with the S2 Alpha release there is curently no use of credits because they wanted the game to be tested freely without any restrictions.

but,

in the final release of S2, you will have to have a certain amount of credits to unlock a specific car / track. .e.g 400 for FXR and 2,000 for FO8 etc.

[ladaraider]

with the S2 Alpha release there is curently no use of credits because they wanted the game to be tested freely without any restrictions.

but,

in the final release of S2, you will have to have a certain amount of credits to unlock a specific car / track. .e.g 400 for FXR and 2,000 for FO8 etc.

oh really? are they? 2,000 is pretty much..

[snewham]

no that is just an example. Real credit amounts haven't been released yet but I imagine something around that figure wouldn't be too far out.

[XCNuse]

2k doesnt sound much to me.. how many did you need for the LX6 in S1? like 800 or something?.. probably more

[snewham]

I wasn't telling them how many it was going to be I was just trying to give them an idea of what credits are used for.

[-wes-]

oh no.. I thought the credit system was gone for good!
Its also possible to cheat the system, I'd rather you would have to beat a time at a track with each car, nice and easy like 1:20 in a gtr at blackwood.

Or just get rid of the restrictions and let people practice with the good stuff.

[snewham]

Well I think that something like the GT4 system maybe present as there are currently lessons on driving a car in S2, although you don't have to take them to driv any of the cars.

i think u may have to do a certain amount of them to get a car. We will have to wait and see :P

[Krane]

in the final release of S2, you will have to have a certain amount of credits to unlock a specific car / track. .e.g 400 for FXR and 2,000 for FO8 etc.Are you sure? I was under the impression that the credit system is gone and all cars are available from the get-go :scratchch

[tristancliffe]

I think the credits will return (or some form of system to stop noobs getting into FO8's).

[Woz]

I think the credits will return (or some form of system to stop noobs getting into FO8's).

Make people pass the tests in the car before they can use online.

[StewartFisher]

Make people pass the tests in the car before they can use online.
That seems like the best idea to me. I dislike the credit system because I prefer hotlapping to actual racing.
2000 credits to get the FO8 would mean 42 race wins...no thanks!
I can see why restricting the cars online is a good idea but offline people should be able to use the game as they want.

[Bob Smith]

Make people pass the tests in the car before they can use online.
Yes, it's the only fair way. Since credits from any car count towards unlocking any car, you could unlock the LX6 without ever driving the LX4, any rear drive car or even anything other than the GTi. Quite how this prepared you for the onslaught you would have received upon trying to drive the LX6 is beyond me.

[Gunn]

This has always been a tough call, but a reasonable concern of course.

I have always thought that instead of credits, the only way to ensure that an experienced driver is behind the wheel is by how many miles/Km they have completed. My thinking is that if they have completed a lot of online miles that they by default must have gained some skills along the way (in 99% of cases perhaps :P ).

There may be better methods but I can't yet think of one.

1. Driver must complete X number of miles either offline or online, whichever seems fairest, in a particular car before he can take the faster class out on to an online track.

2. This does away with the situation of eventually having zillions of credits and no use for them.

3. As an added bonus, the mere goal of attaining more miles, at least online, will encourage online racing activity in general. This may lead to more racers being online in general at any one time, which would be cool too.


* Feel free to constructively shoot my idea full of holes. :)

[Infiniti]

*Shoots holes in Gunn's idea* Its not a bad idea, that way ppl cant just download some file. ex: credits... I think that it wouldnt work cause people that just drag, all they do is learn to get off the start and drive straight with setups that would do you no good in a race. I think that either credits get keyed into lfs world, or people have to complete the lessons, bronze and above. Just like Gran Turismo, i loved the game cause you have to get different liscense to drive the different cars and events. and that can probably be stored on lfsworld right? so nobody can just download skills, this sint matrix :nana:Anyone else care to opinionate on this?

[00Ja_mprinda]

snewham (member.php?u=44795): are you sure with this credit reseting? Who told you about it?

[DasKlee]

This has always been a tough call, but a reasonable concern of course.

I have always thought that instead of credits, the only way to ensure that an experienced driver is behind the wheel is by how many miles/Km they have completed. My thinking is that if they have completed a lot of online miles that they by default must have gained some skills along the way (in 99% of cases perhaps :P ).

There may be better methods but I can't yet think of one.

1. Driver must complete X number of miles either offline or online, whichever seems fairest, in a particular car before he can take the faster class out on to an online track.

2. This does away with the situation of eventually having zillions of credits and no use for them.

3. As an added bonus, the mere goal of attaining more miles, at least online, will encourage online racing activity in general. This may lead to more racers being online in general at any one time, which would be cool too.


* Feel free to constructively shoot my idea full of holes. :)

i'd also prefer these thougfhts to the old credit system - although i wouldn't restrict the online miage to single cars but rather to car classes. being forced to actually drive a car you do not like isn't good from my point of view

a certain ammount of milage on the slow cars (UF1, XFG, XRG) to get to the TBO class, and a certain ammount of milage there to move on to the sportscars (LX, FZ5, RAC) and the MRT - then GTR2 (XFR, UFR) and the FXO - then GT1 (FZR, FXR, XRR) and finally the FO8

or a sytem only focussing on the mileage without forcing to take certain cars to drive the miles (e.g. 1000 miles - TBO - 4000 miles - sportscars/mrt5 - 8000 miles GTR2/FXO...)

[PistonHead]

This credits things is a turn off for me if it comes into play. All those people who been playing ages will no doubt get the cars straight away and not have any work to do, whereas the people that only have been playing for a while get penalised. I think these credits should be used to unlock a few more new high performance cars or new tracks that dont exist in S2 Alpha presently, that way the experienced players get a new challenge and the lower level drivers can keep mastering the existing cars and have something to look forward to once they get the required amount of credits !


PH

[durbster]

I know this has been discussed millions of times before I'm going to add my bit anyway :)

There are huge problems with forcing people to gain experience, mileage, credits or any other system before allowing them to let loose with the big toys.

One problem is that not everyone who installs LFS is a complete novice. I've been playing sims for years, particularly GPL, and so to me the credits system was incredibly annoying. I was so happy to see it gone from S2 alpha and I really hope it doesn't return. When I uninstalled S1 to reformat my PC I never reinstalled it because I simply could not be arsed to go through it all again.

I understand that not everyone who installs LFS has sim or racing experience but the bottom line is that you cannot control users like this, it's counter-intuitive. If your average user finds out that he/she has to gain 1,000 credits before they can drive a car that they want to drive, then the vast majority will not gain those credits by developing their skills, learning racecraft and building up their experience, they'll just find the quickest and easiest way of doing so.

I've seen a lot of people say, "well it only takes 15 mins," but that's 15 minutes of doing something that many people don't want to do. It's not a nice way to introduce a great product.

To illustrate this, I wonder how many people on here gained their credits by developing their skills in the lower class of car, and how many just found a quick way of getting loads of credits?

I would guess that the number of people who have used the credit system responsibly is miniscule. Finally, the other problem is that the sort of person that would take the time to use the credits responsibly, is probably not the sort of person that will end up causing a huge mess when they go online anyway.

Edit: First post here, what a miserable bugger I am :D

[the_angry_angel]

I must admit, last time I forgot to backup my credits in S1, I used LFSTweak and set the AI to be really heavy and gave myself an obscene top speed and just raced on SO Classic for about 5 minutes.

Durbster is right - its tedious and could potentially keep some new users away. How many of us actually did all the driving school stuff? I'm guarantee its less than 5%.

[tristancliffe]

I haven't done ONE test yet.

If tests or credits are used to unlock cars (highly likely) then perhaps the cars you are allowed should be stored on LFSW (but not accessed each time), so that you don't have to redo them (or hack LFS) when you reinstall.

[snewham]

I haven't done ONE test yet.

If tests or credits are used to unlock cars (highly likely) then perhaps the cars you are allowed should be stored on LFSW (but not accessed each time), so that you don't have to redo them (or hack LFS) when you reinstall.

basically,

I think it should be based on online credits and not credits on the game. Last week I had to reinstall LFS and I now only have 1200 credits soo.. that will be bad for me if it is based on offline credits.

[durbster]

I haven't done ONE test yet.

If tests or credits are used to unlock cars (highly likely) then perhaps the cars you are allowed should be stored on LFSW (but not accessed each time), so that you don't have to redo them (or hack LFS) when you reinstall.

But what about the people coming from GPL, GTR, rFactor, GeneRally or possibly even those who race in real life? Basically, what about people who are already sensible, responsible and good enough to use the top cars?

Surely a significant portion of the LFS community have migrated from other sims.

[Fetzo]

having to unlock the cars is just a waste of time.
winning races against the AI or taking some tests won't teach ppl how to race.
they will do everything they can to make it easier. there is always a trick.
And racers who don't need that are bored by that, because they just want to race online.

its nice the way it is.

[-wes-]

Case in point:
I downloaded the battlefield2 demo, If you have played it or the full game you will know you are forced to sit and watch 30seconds of ads before you get into the game :doh:

I would NOT have bought the full game if I hadn't found a way to remove them, I know the game was distributed by EA games:Its in the bin! and that is was programmed by dice. I refuse to be forcablly told EVRY time the game loads, its annoying.


Many people will be put off by credits or tests,this isn't real life you don't lose anything by being crashed.
Is it really so hard for you guys to use the vote kick system properly? :chicken:

[petrichor]

I also come from a sim background and hate having to unlock cars. :smash3d:

I would like to make the point, however, that it is easy to pass the driving tests by driving cautiously, and that the tests does not predict anything about someone's online racing behavior. Even if you can drive the figure-8 without spinning out in an FO8, you still have a long way to go before you can run a race under pressure and still maintain throttle and brake control when racing for position. If the tests (which I still object to) are meant to weed out the inexperienced, then the only sensible requirement would be finishing X number of online races with <Y% of damage.

Maybe if more people start out with the 'in order to finish first, first you must finish' mentality, the attitudes will change ever so slightly for the better. And maybe I won't get taken out by as many people under full brake lockup in T1, L1. :scratchch

[ayrton senna 87]

i think that you should have to regain credits.. for experienced players its little hassle to complete a licence compared to the trauma (yes, FULL on mental trauma) which can come from being taken out by some IDIOT every single race...

absolute noobs would be less likely to want to carry on playing the game, but in my opinion the money the devs would lose from noobs not being able to play would be out weighed by people coming from GTR and other sims.

example, a GTR player reads the PC Zone mag and thinks to himself, "**** like im going to buy that, with all the idiots" instead, the game wouldnt get bad reviews based on the idiots and more good players would come...

[Nitemare]

i think it's pretty obvious, that the unlocking by credits will be replaced by unlocking by completing driving school... why else would they make it?

i think that system is good... newbies will have to learn to control cars and pass clean in school so there won't be so much wreckers... and people who already have experience will have no problem with completing whole school in an hour or so.. most test can be done on "quick" rank at first try, and some of them are fun too! i especially liked the mrt5 autocross course...

[Bob Smith]

I think the lessons are very good, there needs to be a way to maintain a certain quality of driving online. So IMO all the cars should be available for offline/LAN play, but to use a car online you have to have passed all the tests for that car. It doesn't take long and it's fun.

[Slartibartfast]

Besides just number of laps, perhaps the HLVC system can also be incorperated. I've seen plenty of cats online who can't finish a single lap in the FO8, yet run it for a half hour on public servers anyway. (I wouldn't mind seeing black flags attached to the HLVC system.)

On the other hand, it's about having fun. Go to your local skatepark. There you will see hundreds of skaters who attempt the most insanely hard tricks over and over and NEVER land a single one. Ever! That's how they spend thier afternoons, and they'll be back the next day to not skate again. Why? Because they're having fun.

Some people prefer to ride 3 minutes at a time and land as many tricks as possible, flowing and getting weightless. Some prefer to ride 8 seconds at a time and look like the guy on TV for 0.3 seconds before thier skateboard goes flying across the concrete.

Who's having more fun?

[Gunn]

Who's having more fun?
The guy on TV.

[mrodgers]

How many times are we going to discuss this. I've said it before. I do not want any kind of unlocking system. I didn't have to deal with it in S1 since I was never licensed for it, just demo. But now we have access to all the cars and have our favorites. If I have to unlock with credits when S2 is fully released, I'll be quite upset. Nowhere have I ever seen where the credits are stored or how to back them up. So therefore when I have to unzip a new version of S2, I start over again with my credits. We've been racing with GTR cars and Formula cars for how long now? And when S2 is fully released we all have to unlock the stupid things? And for the driving tests, I agree, this is what will probably be the new unlock system. I really don't want to have to waste my time doing stupid tests that doesn't prove a thing about how I'm going to behave online to reaquire my GTR car. How many new people do you think will be turned away from here because they have to race a field of unintelligent AI cars without a single incident to race something better than a little econo hatchback? I think any unlocking system is a bad idea. This is an online racing simulator, not a PS2 offline racing game.

[thd]

having to unlock the cars is just a waste of time.
winning races against the AI or taking some tests won't teach ppl how to race.
they will do everything they can to make it easier. there is always a trick.
And racers who don't need that are bored by that, because they just want to race online.

its nice the way it is.

That avatar is pretty damn cool :D

[Woz]

How many times are we going to discuss this. I've said it before. I do not want any kind of unlocking system. I didn't have to deal with it in S1 since I was never licensed for it, just demo. But now we have access to all the cars and have our favorites. If I have to unlock with credits when S2 is fully released, I'll be quite upset. Nowhere have I ever seen where the credits are stored or how to back them up. So therefore when I have to unzip a new version of S2, I start over again with my credits. We've been racing with GTR cars and Formula cars for how long now? And when S2 is fully released we all have to unlock the stupid things? And for the driving tests, I agree, this is what will probably be the new unlock system. I really don't want to have to waste my time doing stupid tests that doesn't prove a thing about how I'm going to behave online to reaquire my GTR car. How many new people do you think will be turned away from here because they have to race a field of unintelligent AI cars without a single incident to race something better than a little econo hatchback? I think any unlocking system is a bad idea. This is an online racing simulator, not a PS2 offline racing game.

If the cars you unlocked are stored with your online profile what is the problem with having to unlock a car, you will only have to do it once. Its not like you are forced to run through all the different car tests, just the ones for the cars you want to drive.

Anyone who is experienced will be fine and should be able to do the test without isssue for any car they want.

Noobs will be limited to cars they CAN control and so the whole online experience will be better.

If anything I feel the same should be applied to the demo as well as this might actually clean up the demo servers a little and make peoples first experience online less like bumper cars.

This gets my thumbs up as the credit system was always wrong in that you could get the credit needed to unlock any car without ever having been in that car.

Many in this thread have said its a sim so you should have access to all cars but even Simbin have changed their mind with GTL and have an unlocking system in their new sim