Progression Improvements Come To 'Need For Speed: Payback'

Ghost Games continues to provide updates for Need for Speed: Payback, and its latest addition affects your progression. Specifically, the studio increased the amount of rewards across multiple activities so that it takes less time for you to acquire performance improvements for your car.

According to the patch notes on the game’s Reddit page, the overall goal with the update is to make “the ownership of cars a much more enjoyable experience.” This includes increasing the amount of reputation and money earned from completing events and duels with Roaming Racers. Even if you didn’t finish in first place in races, you’ll still see an increase in reputation and money going into your winnings. The same increase in rewards also extends to bait crates, which are the catalyst for police chases.

Ghost Games said that the patch is “phase one” of gameplay improvements, and more updates on the way. The studio provided a sneak peek of what’s to come and mentioned that it will make changes to quality and overall level of parts that you see in tune-up shops.

The progression changes come as a result of the studio’s in-game data in addition to feedback from the players. However, you can also see it as a way for Ghost Games, an EA-owned studio, to learn from the recent controversy from DICE and Star Wars Battlefront II. Need for Speed: Payback also has ways for you to use real-world money in order to buy Shipments, which provide cosmetic items for your car, additional in-game currency, and Part Tokens (another in-game currency you can use to gain performance). However, it doesn’t seem like you need to get Shipments at all to progress through the game, and with the increase in rewards from events, you can still compete with other racers in the same class.