Board Thread:Game Discussion/@comment-38264419-20190122174617/@comment-28169398-20190123170556

SlatBH wrote: In other posts, you have alluded to things coming in the future. I really hope these bring real improvements to game play and are not just new cars. I for one am not sure I can be bothered much longer playing 2 LTSs a week just to win/earn a new car.

What my concern at the moment is that FM are just churning out new series with no imagination. Even the upgrade trees don't vary, and this would be incredibly easy to change. Service times for cars all seem fixed at 3 hours. Why? It may be more of the same for a few updates. I think the coming content is more interesting, but that may just be my preference and as I said people may not agree. I think that both Matt Edmondson and Jay Dodd have addressed some of the changes on Reddit, so you may want to check out what they have said there.

I have provided my critique on how series are put together to the developers. I agree with you there. Take the LTS for the FERRARI FXX K EVO. The final cup was on Hockenheim National. You have an Italian, Track-Focused Hypercar and a brand new track and your last race for the Hero Car of the Update is not Monza Road or COTA GP? In fact, the LTS doesn't have a single full lap of Monza Road in the Evo. Even though they are not Special Events, putting them together with a storyline in your head would at the very least make them more compelling.

As for the upgrade trees, my guess is that standardization there makes it easier to match upgrade trees to revenue targets. And the 3 hour service time is likely the time that was found that allowed them to hit revenue targets for people making VIP purchases without either the service times being short enough that people would be more inclined to reduce with ad watches or just waiting, or too long that they are removed from play for extended periods of time for players who will neither watch ads nor buy VIP.

In all seriousness, how do you really change the game? This isn't The Crew or Forza Horizons. The Special Events storyline is okay, but they aren't the 5-10s and it isn't an open map world. You are pretty much stuck with circuit racing with, for the most part, real world cars. Some people have suggested added a "Hunted" event where you are in a slow car and you the goal is the defend against the pass long enough to minimize the distance you lose by, but that would require the addition of an onscreen mirror that works and would likely be a nightmare for the designers to optimize to get the playability correct. You can't really do serious drifting events without doing a major update to the car control in the game....

Another issue is the Macro econonomic downturn of the last several years... either manufactures aren't investing in developing new supercars or the ones that do make it very difficult for games to license the cars to game developers. You think that the developers wouldn't love the revenue that could be generated by bringing the Chiron to the game and you think they haven't been trying for years to get it?