There are so many problems with this system, small and big, but fundamentally the biggest issue is that it’s transparently evident it isn’t a progression system.
I know it’s an outrageous statement to make when it’s so obviously trying to sell itself as one, but it’s just a time-gating system. I mean, where’s the progression actually?
There is no goal to career except do races. No reward either except a handful of cars. No story, no character progression, you’re not building a race team, no training, no driving licence, you’re not doing anything except do more races for the heck of it. (For the record I’m 100% fine with that. The point here isn’t the game needs any of that, the point is there is no tangible progression to career, not even a cosmetic one.)
More importantly, the car levels you gain aren’t tied to career, only to how many laps you do, in career or outside. The car point budget you can work with isn’t tied to career, only to how many car levels you have. You can just show up with a level 50 car to a career event, full aero, race tires, engine swap, and the game won’t flinch. It’ll only chastise you if you break the PI limit, but that’s it. It doesn’t care that your car is effectively already built.
So I ask again, where’s the progression supposed to be here? What I’m seeing is a system that hinders your ability to build a car across the entire game, but doesn’t even have any sort of meaningful career advancement.
I do have a clear idea of how to rip this whole system out and replace it with something that actually makes sense for a racing game, detailled here if you care, but this current system isn’t progression. It’s one of those gamified systems that’s just bars filling up on a player-actuated timer and doesn’t care whether you like it or not.