Have Your Say: Career Mode - Must Have or a Distraction?

[Paul Jeffrey]

Have Your Say this Saturday morning! We want your thoughts on the inclusion of complex career modes in sim racing.

Some sims have them, some just throw you straight into picking car / track combos and going racing, but the question is do you really think modern racing games must have a career mode in todays day and age?

When I say career mode I'm talking about some kind of structured offline progression tree, either in the F1 2017 mould with cut scenes and R&D exercises, or more like the Project CARS style rise through the ranks from junior to top level driver.

So the question for today is:

Career mode in racing titles, are they really a must have feature or do the serve as a distraction that takes away from the main thrust of the game in question - racing.

Have fun debating folks

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

(Probably) unpopular opinion alert!

Personal I hate career modes of any kind, and all that cut scene nonsense and other "fluff" like unlocking cars / earning credits and other such set piece type things.

I'm old school. All I need outside of the physics / graphics / features etc is simply a couple of little things:

Championship creator tool (offline)
Single Race Weekend
Free Practice
Online Servers

Done, dusted and perfect!

Racing for me is just that, racing. One car on one track, taken online can satisfy me for years on end if the track and car are high quality. By the very nature of what a motor race actually is, you will never get the same experience twice, so why bother with all the fancy crap? Just go race and have some fun!

 

[Jusek]

All I need is custom championship mode. That way you can create your own career and you have all the freedom to choose your car, tracks and AI. A career mode like in Project Cars can be a little too restrictive. PC2 would be so much better if it had a custom championship mode.

 

[Enagee]

Days of career mode should be numbered...it mainly exited because it was the only way now we have internet there's not much excuse to be racing with AI for the rest of your live ...you must get to the stage where AI is not enough and bit too predictable ...
Offline is good for testing the waters and getting a feel...
With social media, fb , instagram, whatsapp, steam..its all about online ..if you dont now you will at some point.
Now a game can survive as online only but offline only would have a short life span. So far me career is not a must . iracers can survive with out . Hopefully with Esports we'll get more racing titles with more focus online and less career.

 

[Pierre Hox]

I like career modes in games because I have no creativity for custom championships and I'm unable to choose a car and a track, as a result, I will always race with the same car on the same track.... I prefer the game telling me what to do

 

[samcar304]

Its a must have for me because i like to be immersed and have a sense of journey/progression. Plus i prefer racing against AI as they are on demand. I can race at 2:40am in the morning and still have a full grid. I don't have to wait to race with other people and join underpopulated servers.

But i understand its not for everyone

 

[thatmotorfreak]

Offline player here, and forever will be. Career mode is a must, most of my childhood gaming experiences revolve around progression. I see online play as nothing more than novelty.

I still long for a game with a career mode like that of Gran Turismo and Forza (even though FM7 is now available on Windows 10; not gonna buy it right away though after reading most of the minor and major complaints brought up). A game where I can take everyday cars and build them to become race cars. NFS Shift comes pretty close, but the cars handle like boats and mods don't help it much.

 

[syonnecortie]

Career in simracing is a waste of hardware and time for me.

 

[Ole Andreasen]

I love career modes. I hardly ever play online, and I also like to be presented with options for cars/tracks, and well... I actually like the encouraging talks over the pit radio... I recognize that hardcore simmers might hate it - and that just - again - proves that I am not a hardcore simmer. I like the entertainment of racing games, and career modes provides me with that.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Career mode is useless in SIM racing, but important for racing games.
As a SIM enthousiast, career mode is totally useless to me.

 

[MarkR]

Varies widely depending on the game/sim and what it is trying to achieve.

Essential (I will play the career) in these types of games because gamification, the dopamine rush of unlocking and progression are well proven to work:

F1 games - as this was the picture chosen for the topic an accurate career mode is the main part of the F1 appeal. The F1 2017 car development aspect is as good as many stand-alone management games.

Forza Motorsport and Horizon series- as much about car unlocking and collecting as the racing. Forget just racing games, Forza Horizon is one of the best designed open world games around in any genre.

DiRT & WRC games - both offer excellent single-player modes.

The Crew through Wreckfest to Mario Kart - career and unlocking is part of the game mechanic for these car games.

Optional (I might play the career)

Project CARS series - good that it is there for those who want the play through, real series rules and chance to try different cars that might otherwise be ignored. For me, Project CARS 2 is the best current 'race weekend simulator' and works best with a group of similarly skilled friends. For pcars 2 career to be more playable the AI and game balancing need a more work and polish.

Not required

Assetto Corsa - (a superb online, hotlap and more recently vs AI game/custom champs to keep this balanced) career mode remains unbalanced with huge and unexplained difficulty spikes, the console versions are even more unbalanced and for example the special event challenge times are 1 second faster than the PC times with no reasoning as to why. Career mode progress wipe after a year added to many console players frustrations with the game. If a game is going to have a career mode more effort and attention to detail than this is required. Furthering the console woes is the lack of any kind of personal lap time recording, leaderboards or rivals type mode (gaps filled by apps on the pc version so it's not so noticeable there).

AMS - really leads the way in excellent realistic custom championships following real rules and cars. No career mode needed with this freedom.

Better than career mode - rivalry:

Since Need For Speed introduced rivals and leaderboards these modes have added more to racing games than any career could. Chasing friends times down is addictive and has helped me learn so much about numerous tracks and cars.

More competitive cars in the same class. Too many games have cars with nothing else to race yet almost all the famous cars were born from a fierce rivalry. If pcars2 made a set of iconic Touring Car championships series DLC with the correct cars and tracks for the year in question they could take my money now.

 

[DND]

Paul articulated his probably unpopular opinion perfectly in what I believe to be the essence of a proper sim. It is virtually impossible for a sim to offer 100's of cars that are authentic and relying on Mods is hit or miss, with more misses than hits, searching for your favorite series, cars or tracks. The latest disappoint for me was hearing that IMSA partnered with Forza, as I can now resign the hope of having my preferred series in a quality sim. The latest releases and a soon to be one more where the graphics seem to be the priority are cool but having rain drops and day to night does nothing when the experience is numbing. I have really enjoyed the leader board, and challenges of R3E. Even the best AI is relative to what you compare it to, and online has it's own issues. Taking a car out and trying to run consistently faster laps until you hit your limit has been quite enjoyable.

 

[Jebus]

If career mode is mandatory to advance in game (sim) then it would be distraction, annoyance even. If it's just one (skippable) part of the game to offer variety then it's just meh.

I haven't started career mode even once in AC.

 

[ShredatorFIN]

Not a must have, good driving feel is must have.

But of course "nice to have", also what career should offer is replayability. Randomized elements like weather and such. Dynamic career, instead of scripted linear one. But for good career you need good AI. Project Cars 2 falters on that one

 

[daemonicus]

If all the effort the developers focus on these career modes would instead be focused on making a championship mode more eventful and authentic with things like car testing, diving into setups, random failures, sorting things out on the fly with certain actions behind the wheel, a quality communication system with team/driver/crew, oh my what we would be going through with our seasons!

 

[darkgio6]

I only play career modes. I'm really enjoying F1 2017 with its weekend minigames. But there are other careers that are not as enjoyable like Project Cars 2 or Assetto Corsa. For those I go for practices, time attack or single races.

 

[Richard Wilks]

I love the argument "if it's a sim, it doesn't need it".

I am sorry, but considerations of what a "sim" is aside, if you are replicating say the F1 season, the more features that help the immersion and the sense that you are taking part in it, the better.

People seem to forget that back in the old days, such details made games like the grand prix series stand out from the rest.

The problem is these "sim" we have these days, where its more important car count that it is to actually replicate a full series to the best detail possible, including full rules, grids and tracks, but funny enough, i don't see the elitist "sim" crowd complaining about that and the fact that most of their sims are just a bunch of half assed "dream car" and "dream track" lists that don't simulate much at all in terms of real racing...

 

[BenCollins]

I'm too old for a career mode.

 

[Sky]

how to ruin a racing game:

1. lock all the cars behind a tedious storymode.

2. include cutscenes featuring an oddly proportioned scotsman with skin made out of kebab meat.

 

[delpinsky]

I love a career mode as close as possible to real life competitions. A career mode that can be "modded" with the introduction of fully licensed Series as DLCs or just with fictional names that can be edited (names, logos and graphics). So you can basically have something like Custom Championships all in one career mode, so to speak, growing up as more cars arrive from DLCs or modding community.

What I like of Codemasters F1 2017 are the cutscenes, the track full of mechanics and engineers before the race, the drivers interacting and so on. It makes you feel as you are into the real thing.

I'd love also to see individual AI drivers files/profiles, to create real life drivers behaviors where possible and so rivalries among drivers.