5 ways in which GTA Online improved since its release

GTA Online has been around for more than 12 years now. The game was released back on October 1, 2013, a few months after GTA 5 was released. Though it was not the first multiplayer title or expansion by Rockstar, it was definitely the most ambitious because of its hype and scale. Hence, when GTA Online eventually released, it was quite broken.

Over the years, Rockstar has massively improved GTA Online in many aspects. Here are some ways in which it improved.

Note: This article is subjective and solely reflects the writer's opinion.

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5 aspects in which GTA Online improved since its release

1) Loss of cash after dying

There used to be a massive penalty for dying in the game (Image via Rockstar Games || GTA Wiki)

Back when GTA Online first released in 2013, players used to lose a whopping $5000 when they died from any cause. This was a massive death and revival penalty, which annoyed players. Hence, many quickly deposited money into their bank accounts through ATMs.

Now, however, the game only takes $500 as a death and revival penalty, which is a lot less than usual, and can easily be earned back, even if players die several times.

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2) Fixed payouts in missions

Most missions had fixed payouts (Image via Rockstar Games || GTA Wiki)

In the early days of GTA Online, the payouts from every contact mission were fixed, based on a player's rank and difficulty level. This meant that a few missions became more popular than others. Players started grinding missions that were easier and faster to complete, and still received the same amount of money. This resulted in an unbalanced gameplay, where other missions were hardly played.

Soon enough, Rockstar fixed this issue in update 1.16 by bringing time-based payout. This meant that the payouts were no longer fixed; they increased with difficulty, player's rank, and also with the amount of time that the player spends in that mission.

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3) Loss of character due to unstable servers

Many players used to lose their GTA Online character when the game came out (Image via Rockstar Games || Reddit/BraunholdTheBold)

Since GTA Online was the first major multiplayer title by Rockstar, they had to create massive servers to accommodate millions of players. Back then, their servers were not stable enough. This resulted in players experiencing disconnections.

One of the worst outcomes was that a few of them even lost their character data. Players would simply log into GTA Online, only to find that the server they were joining was unreachable, and that their character had been reset.

In recent times, the game's servers have been more stable than ever, and almost no player has lost their character data. Even the server outages are quite rare.

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4) Purchasing apartmentswase a lot harder

Even purchasing regular apartments felt expensive (Image via Rockstar Games || GTA Wiki)

When GTA Online was new, there were no lucrative businesses, heists, or contact missions that rewarded players with millions of dollars. The game had a handful of contact missions that offered a few thousand dollars. Apart from that, players had to rob stores and do other small freeroam activities to earn.

As a result, even getting a regular apartment in GTA Online was difficult. This resulted in players always spawning either in their last location or in a random location.

Today, getting an apartment is extremely easy since players already start with some cash in their pockets when they first start GTA Online. Furthermore, there are many great missions that do not require any property and can reward players with millions of dollars in a few hours.

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5) Buggy mechanic who delivered cars

The mechanic used to personally deliver cars, but he was quite buggy and annoying (Image via Rockstar Games || GTA Wiki)

Currently, if players want a personal vehicle, they can call the mechanic for it, but the car would simply spawn near them. This was not the case when the game first came out. Previously, there was a mechanic NPC that would personally drive the vehicle to the player's location and leave.

However, the mechanic's NPC was quite buggy. Often, it would not leave the car and simply drive off, and would even pull the player out of their car and fight. Hence, Rockstar eventually decided to remove the NPC and simply spawn cars near players.

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Edited by Akshat Kabra