Forza Horizon 3's Progression System Was the Perfect Balance

[KnightOfRen]

Forza Horizon 3's progression system was the perfect balance that we needed in FH5.

This game has progression. You start off with one mid tier car (I'm not gonna talk about the GT350), and work your way up. Wheelspins were better balanced, and racing was a good source of credits. The game didn't randomly throw hypercars at you 20 minutes in. However, it wasn't so grindy that you get annoyed. The game still gives you good money from each race, and buying your dream collection is absolutely doable. You don't have to grind for days to get a C7 Corvette in this game. But you won't get enough money to buy 20 C7 Corvettes a few minutes into the campaign. You feel like you earn every car.

This is the system that Forza Horizon 4 and Forza Horizon 5 desperately need. However, these games are so lacking in progression that it isn't even funny. I can buy a Ferrari FXX K and I don't feel like I at all earned it. The ridiculous gift drop feature doesn't help with this. I think it's far too late to implement a system like this into 5 but perhaps FH6 can give us something similar.

 

[strela]

Did we play the same game? FH3 has the exact same progression as FH5. You unlock events by upgrading Festivals and you can complete the entire game with a single car. No restrictions at all. And you probably forgot but you got gifted a lot of cars right at the start. Loyalty rewards based on you Tier and if you played FM6 or FH2 you got 2 cars.
I'm not going to defend FH5 wheelspins reward but without them the grind for credits would be just too much. My garage value is over 700 mil and the tuning parts reached 60 mil right now. Without VIP you can get (what?) 40k for a lap on Goliath?
Progression is fine for the first couple pf hours. I put 1000 hours in FH5 and I completed the campaign in 20h. The start of a game is important but the end game is what matters the most for me.

 

[MagpieRacer]

Did we play the same game? FH3 has the exact same progression as FH5. You unlock events by upgrading Festivals and you can complete the entire game with a single car. No restrictions at all. And you probably forgot but you got gifted a lot of cars right at the start. Loyalty rewards based on you Tier and if you played FM6 or FH2 you got 2 cars.
I'm not going to defend FH5 wheelspins reward but without them the grind for credits would be just too much. My garage value is over 700 mil and the tuning parts reached 60 mil right now. Without VIP you can get (what?) 40k for a lap on Goliath?
Progression is fine for the first couple pf hours. I put 1000 hours in FH5 and I completed the campaign in 20h. The start of a game is important but the end game is what matters the most for me.

Agreed, whilst it was slightly more satisfying in FH3, I feel that may have been down to it being fresh at the time.

I still yearn for the simplistic but enjoyable plod through FH2, encouraged to use different cars and it was lengthy.

 

[KnightOfRen]

The start of a game is important but the end game is what matters the most for me.

Heh, how's FH5 end game working out for you, then?

As for the rest of your post, I'm gonna have to disagree.

The wheelspins were better balanced. In FH5 you can literally get a 2 million dollar car thrown at your face 20 minutes in and it doesn't feel rewarding at all. I'm currently replaying the game on a different account so I can't speak for the Loyalty Rewards, however this game makes it feel like you earn every car you purchase. Saving up for an R8 felt good. Now R8s are a dime a dozen because FH5's money grows on Mexico's trees. The campaign also lasted longer and was much more rewarding.

 

[ShawnPhillips]

Did we play the same game? FH3 has the exact same progression as FH5. You unlock events by upgrading Festivals and you can complete the entire game with a single car. No restrictions at all. And you probably forgot but you got gifted a lot of cars right at the start. Loyalty rewards based on you Tier and if you played FM6 or FH2 you got 2 cars.
I'm not going to defend FH5 wheelspins reward but without them the grind for credits would be just too much. My garage value is over 700 mil and the tuning parts reached 60 mil right now. Without VIP you can get (what?) 40k for a lap on Goliath?
Progression is fine for the first couple pf hours. I put 1000 hours in FH5 and I completed the campaign in 20h. The start of a game is important but the end game is what matters the most for me.

One Major difference though is that in FH5 once you open the festival ALL the races for that festival site unlock immediately. In FH3 it would unlock a smaller number of races and more races unlocked each time you upgraded the festival site. That lead to a better sence of progression as you where getting access to more race events each time you leveled it up.

 

[strela]

Heh, how's FH5 end game working out for you, then?

As for the rest of your post, I'm gonna have to disagree.

The wheelspins were better balanced. In FH5 you can literally get a 2 million dollar car thrown at your face 20 minutes in and it doesn't feel rewarding at all. I'm currently replaying the game on a different account so I can't speak for the Loyalty Rewards, however this game makes it feel like you earn every car you purchase. Saving up for an R8 felt good. Now R8s are a dime a dozen because FH5's money grows on Mexico's trees. The campaign also lasted longer and was much more rewarding.

End game works fine for me. Still doing the playlist after so many months. Actually I can't wait for the next Thursday to do some more things to unlock new cars.
But it's possible it's just me. I love to do Trials and Horizon Tour. Sometimes I jump and do some Eliminator or Playground games. Mostly I just try some builds for new cars in Rivals. I just love FH5 handling. And I love cars. Even when the map gets boring I can still drive so many good cars. It just works for me.
Without Playlist I would probably play older Horizons from scratch too.
I did went back at FH3 on another account without VIP and loyalty rewards. But I already knew how to level up fast and unlocked the Goliath in 4 or 5h. FH3 was my first Forza game. Because of it I bought every game for XBones and enjoyed every single game. Even FM5. It's a masterpiece and I'm not surprised it a favorite for many. For me both FH4 and 5 are offering something more due to the Playlist. Even if I go now to FH4 I would try the Playlist first. A little bit better than FH3. Am I a fanboy? Maybe. But than I love Project Cars 3 and NFS Payback too... Maybe I'm just weird.

 

[UKMikey]

FH3 left me with a mess of unfinished events all over the map. The progression in the newer game is working out just fine for me.

I prefer having a big garage than having vehicles walled off GT-style and the playlist encourages me to try cars I wouldn't otherwise use.

 

[KnightOfRen]

End game works fine for me. Still doing the playlist after so many months. Actually I can't wait for the next Thursday to do some more things to unlock new cars.
But it's possible it's just me. I love to do Trials and Horizon Tour. Sometimes I jump and do some Eliminator or Playground games. Mostly I just try some builds for new cars in Rivals. I just love FH5 handling. And I love cars. Even when the map gets boring I can still drive so many good cars. It just works for me.

There's a reason a lot of the community calls the Playlist, "The weekly chores list" to get the new car. If you like it, more power to you. But I speak for a lot of the community when I say that the playlist events get very stale, very quickly.

I don't think it helps that the map in FH5 gets so boring that many players just don't want to do events on it.

 

[UKMikey]

So... we should prefer a game that just stops as opposed to one which has weekly new content? Oooookaaayyy...

 

[skazz]

So... we should prefer a game that just stops as opposed to one which has weekly new content? Oooookaaayyy...

Yeah, the bias is a little silly.

If I look at FH3 content (which I'm still playing in parallel to FH4/FH5), you get 63 race events (use any car you like), and each race event has an associated championship (usually 3-5 races - proposed class offered but you can blueprint it to your own car choice if you like). Completing all of that along with the PR stunts gets you to 100% completion of the non-online game. That's basically just short of 320 races to complete the entire non-online game content.

FH5 has a few more events (~80 was it?), but no built-in championships. However, every week we will run 3 race championships and a few other races (usually 10-15 per week total) simply to complete the seasonal playlist. Unlike FH3 there are restrictions on the race class for the seasonal events which also encourages you to try out all kinds of cars. But basically, 15 weeks in to the game FH5 had provided more non-online unique events and championships than FH3 did in it's entire lifespan.

But then we have FH5 eventlab. The ability for the community to create unique race layouts with a wide variety of props adds massive longevity, especially given the size of the Mexico map and the fact that something like half of all roads in the game aren't even used in the built-in race events. 60km+ rally event across dirt tracks? Done that... Wouldn't be able to in FH3.

And finally we have online. FH3 and FH5 can basically go on indefinitely as long as there is player base playing them. I fail to see why one would disappoint more than the other there, since the number of unique race layouts is relatively similar...


So I conclude that KnightofRen is bored with the Horizon formula and looking back nostalgically at the FH3 experience.
I recommend reinstalling and booting up FH3 again, so you can remember how it really is. Especially the physics and driving experience, which are noticeably worse than FH5.

 

[Newbomb Turk]

It's not a problem of weekly new content, it's how they are presented. Attaching new cars to them was the icing on the cake, so to speak. Holding a carrot (new car) out in front of someone and telling them "if you want it, you gotta log in and do these tasks". It would be less annoying if said cars were "special" in some way, but most of what we're getting is recycled content from FH4.

 

[skazz]

But those new cars have absolutely zero effect on the game, which can be completely enjoyed without them... They are more of a bonus for playing than a slog - it all depends on your attitude I guess.

Let's compare to Forza Motorsport 7, which has Forzathon but you basically just get credits for completing specific events. Would you prefer that?

 

[Newbomb Turk]

Actually, trash all of the resurfacing cars, completely. I'd rather have a game that made me feel a part of something bigger. FH1 made you feel like a rookie (as you should) and slowly progressed you into a force to be reckoned with. It rarely handed out cars like candy (only 3 times, during the street racing events). Now, you're the "it" guy/girl from the previous game, luggage and all. Every turn is a hand out. To the point of $$ being worthless. Less than a week in, I had completed the "single player" campaign (If you can call it that) and had 80% of all the currently available cars. The second week, I filled my garage.
Now I log in once a week for roughly an hour to continue to fill empty spots in the garage.
Online is a crap shoot and meaningless without ranked, Eliminator is Fortnight with cars, the map is a barren wasteland with minimal other players, and it all seems so meh.

 

[strela]

FH1 made you feel like a rookie (as you should) and slowly progressed you into a force to be reckoned with.

How it made you feel like a rookie? Just because you were forced to use the Corrado for a few races? You got gifted better cars soon after. I think Impreza was gifted to you after 2 races. Other cars followed quickly after. Yeah you were forced to run slower cars and races gave you less money, but that also meant you probably never returned to do those early races once you unlocked better ones.
If that made you feel like a rookie I guess it is ok. But why did you felt like a rookie? Because all racing games makes me feel like I'm so much better than any everyone else and have to compensate by choosing harder difficulty and detuning my cars.

 

[UKMikey]

I don't get why Playground should artificially increase the difficulty level in their bestselling game. They want more players, not fewer and the old players seem to be sticking around for the most part. Perhaps those players for whom the game is too easy don't want other players to progress so quickly because then they themselves won't feel so special for having beaten the game when others can't.

 

[Newbomb Turk]

How it made you feel like a rookie? Just because you were forced to use the Corrado for a few races? You got gifted better cars soon after. I think Impreza was gifted to you after 2 races. Other cars followed quickly after. Yeah you were forced to run slower cars and races gave you less money, but that also meant you probably never returned to do those early races once you unlocked better ones.
If that made you feel like a rookie I guess it is ok. But why did you felt like a rookie? Because all racing games makes me feel like I'm so much better than any everyone else and have to compensate by choosing harder difficulty and detuning my cars.

It wasn't about the races, it was about what you were told (via the festival director). It's the experience that is missing. Yes, the races weren't very hard, even on "hard" difficulty. The later games in the series always came across like you were "king ****" from the moment you started the game. FH5 takes that narrative further by announcing you are the "returning Horizon winner" from FH4.

Plus the progression is still toned down. I did the showcase event 2nd, so the next car I had was the Boss 429. Honestly, if you look at the number of cars FH1 "gave" you, it's still far less than FH5 with the wheelspins in the same amount of time.

Oh, and the Corrado was a good car, even if it was "slow" as you say. I'm not a fan of the Uber cars anyways. I only used them when I had to.

 

[skazz]

The experience has just changed. FH4 and FH5 have been more about enjoying car culture and much less about the whole festival. I mean, just play through the Vocho, Made in Mexico or even Hotwheels stories and you can see where they put the effort. And looking back to FH4, we have the Top Gear, taxi, rental stories which were certainly good fun too.

To me this basically shows that PG, having researched their market, decided that a storyline with the festival simply wasn't an important element for their series. The amount invested in the stories has risen during the series, so apparently they get good feedback from the player base to keep doing that. Fine by me - I prefer it this way.

If you really want to play a driving game with an interesting story, try GRiD Legends: It's on Gamepass and has quite an interesting story element, complete with actors and video.

 

[strela]

It wasn't about the races, it was about what you were told (via the festival director). It's the experience that is missing. Yes, the races weren't very hard, even on "hard" difficulty. The later games in the series always came across like you were "king ****" from the moment you started the game. FH5 takes that narrative further by announcing you are the "returning Horizon winner" from FH4.

Did you forgot about being a boss already in FH3? FH4 and 5 are actually proper sequels. While FH2 did not provide any narrative at all and it's still a favorite for many. And frankly I never missed the story aspect in FH2.

As for the cars.... In the first Horizon you had 210 cars. Only the 250 GTO is worth 10mil. There are a few cars above a mil.
In FH5 you have 600+ cars of which dozens are worth 10mil. You even have a car that cost 30mil. They had to adjust the economy. Don't you think so too?

 

[UKMikey]

Did you forgot about being a boss already in FH3? FH4 and 5 are actually proper sequels. While FH2 did not provide any narrative at all and it's still a favorite for many. And frankly I never missed the story aspect in FH2.

As for the cars.... In the first Horizon you had 210 cars. Only the 250 GTO is worth 10mil. There are a few cars above a mil.
In FH5 you have 600+ cars of which dozens are worth 10mil. You even have a car that cost 30mil. They had to adjust the economy. Don't you think so too?

I booted up Forza Horizon 3 this morning as @skazz suggested and was surprised how small my garage was. I felt like many cars to which I would've insinctively turned to solve problems were out of reach in this game and didn't feel relying on roulette was a great solution for this (hint GT7). It was irritating having to go back to the nearest festival every time I wanted to change cars, too.

There were a couple of Midnight Battles I hadn't done and it was frustrating having to rewind four or five times every time the cheating AI scooted around each corner while I was still slowing down for the approach.

I also started three starring the speed traps I had left over and was further frustrated by hypercar Drivatards zooming in outta nowhere from the opposite direction to pile into my car every time I made an approach. 🎵 Mind blowing decisions causes head-on collisions 🎶 as the song goes.

Game certainly looked pretty (if a little rough on detail in places), but it was cancelled out by my comparatively miserable user experience so it's back to the copy-paste disaster for me.

 

[Newbomb Turk]

Did you forgot about being a boss already in FH3? FH4 and 5 are actually proper sequels. While FH2 did not provide any narrative at all and it's still a favorite for many. And frankly I never missed the story aspect in FH2.

As for the cars.... In the first Horizon you had 210 cars. Only the 250 GTO is worth 10mil. There are a few cars above a mil.
In FH5 you have 600+ cars of which dozens are worth 10mil. You even have a car that cost 30mil. They had to adjust the economy. Don't you think so too?

What economy? The current game doesn't have one. Like I said in a previous post, I had all of the cars that were available by the second week of play. The 30 mill car that you didn't need to spend a dime on. You almost don't need money at all in this game other than to do upgrades, or to complete 1 lame accolade of buying 400 cars from the autoshow. FH5 spoon feeds you everything without much effort and the "playlist" exists only to keep engagement up.

 

[Runoff1999]

What economy? The current game doesn't have one. Like I said in a previous post, I had all of the cars that were available by the second week of play. The 30 mill car that you didn't need to spend a dime on. You almost don't need money at all in this game other than to do upgrades, or to complete 1 lame accolade of buying 400 cars from the autoshow. FH5 spoon feeds you everything without much effort and the "playlist" exists only to keep engagement up.

Horizon 5 definitely has an economy of some sort, but I found it to be very up and down. When I didn't have every car in the Autoshow, credits, especially from Wheelspins, were often not helpful, and it probably took me two months of consistent playing and grinding to unlock everything in the base game. However, once I had everything, credits began to stack up quickly, and definitely not at the same rate as when I started.

 

[strela]

What economy? The current game doesn't have one. Like I said in a previous post, I had all of the cars that were available by the second week of play. The 30 mill car that you didn't need to spend a dime on. You almost don't need money at all in this game other than to do upgrades, or to complete 1 lame accolade of buying 400 cars from the autoshow. FH5 spoon feeds you everything without much effort and the "playlist" exists only to keep engagement up.

There is no way to get all the cars in two weeks without extensive playing or using exploits. Playing a game 12h a day for two weeks is not something I would call spoon feeds you without any effort. And if you used AFK farming method or used cheap cars for wheelspins than you obviously exploited the game. And if you're mad that exploits are bad than just avoid them in the future.
And I know it's weird but everything that any devs do exist only to keep engagement up. From releasing games early, DLC or bug fixes,.... Everything is there just to keep engagement on.

 

[Newbomb Turk]

There is no way to get all the cars in two weeks without extensive playing or using exploits. Playing a game 12h a day for two weeks is not something I would call spoon feeds you without any effort. And if you used AFK farming method or used cheap cars for wheelspins than you obviously exploited the game. And if you're mad that exploits are bad than just avoid them in the future.
And I know it's weird but everything that any devs do exist only to keep engagement up. From releasing games early, DLC or bug fixes,.... Everything is there just to keep engagement on.

Yes, it is possible. No I did not use any "assistance" or "farming". I did play a lot. Careful where you throw accusations.
I still don't even have the "buy 400 cars" accolade. Never needed to buy cars, unless it was necessary for a series of races.

 

[breyzipp]

The Forza Horizon games (all five of them) absolutely need a New Game+ mode! What I really miss in all of these games is that once you‘ve done the campaign there is no possibility anymore to relive the story, unless you start the game on a different Microsoft account. The atmosphere of the story / events / NPCs / Radio DJs etc is very different in these early hours of the game compared to end-game.

This New Game+ could be something that is accessible from within the game menu structure, and you can always jump in (and back out to your main game) as you desire. That way everything festival playlist, multiplayer etc related is not affected, the New Game+ is only for the singleplayer campaign. Things affected would be :

• complete reset of story and progression (within New Game +, not for your main game).
• complete reset of credits & XP
• complete reset of cars
• accolades, achievements, character customisation etc are not affected, this is all about replaying the story with zero credits and cars, building up your collection as you go.
• various settings / options possible, for example being able to disable wheelspins completely, reduce the event payout, etc
• non-autoshow cars from your main game are added to the autoshow of your New Game+. So for example if you recently unlocked the Audi E-Tron GT from the festival playlist, from that moment on the Audi E-Tron GT is available for purchase from the New Game + autoshow.
• auction house is not accessible from within New Game +

 

[strela]

Yes, it is possible. No I did not use any "assistance" or "farming". I did play a lot. Careful where you throw accusations.
I still don't even have the "buy 400 cars" accolade. Never needed to buy cars, unless it was necessary for a series of races.

I never denied that wheelspins are rigged. Anyone can prove it. I too finished the entire collection with 150/400 accolade. In those 150 cars there where 100+ Willys. Yeah I used those SWS to get other cars.
It was fast for me too. In FH4 I played for a year before buying the last car from the Autoshow. But after playing Horizon games for 5 years I'm not sure I want to grind that much. Even in FH5
I was lv500 by the time the collection was finished. So I played a little bit. It wasn't really handed to me. But since they came from WS it wasn't that exciting either.
If the next Horizon release with 200 cars I don't mind grinding for every car. 600 cars can become a problem if you want realistic prices.
Don't know where is the perfect balance, but I would never miss whelspins in future Forza games.

 

[UKMikey]

Whoops... tree'd again

 

[KnightOfRen]

The Forza Horizon games (all five of them) absolutely need a New Game+ mode! What I really miss in all of these games is that once you‘ve done the campaign there is no possibility anymore to relive the story, unless you start the game on a different Microsoft account. The atmosphere of the story / events / NPCs / Radio DJs etc is very different in these early hours of the game compared to end-game.

This New Game+ could be something that is accessible from within the game menu structure, and you can always jump in (and back out to your main game) as you desire. That way everything festival playlist, multiplayer etc related is not affected, the New Game+ is only for the singleplayer campaign. Things affected would be :

• complete reset of story and progression (within New Game +, not for your main game).
• complete reset of credits & XP
• complete reset of cars
• accolades, achievements, character customisation etc are not affected, this is all about replaying the story with zero credits and cars, building up your collection as you go.
• various settings / options possible, for example being able to disable wheelspins completely, reduce the event payout, etc
• non-autoshow cars from your main game are added to the autoshow of your New Game+. So for example if you recently unlocked the Audi E-Tron GT from the festival playlist, from that moment on the Audi E-Tron GT is available for purchase from the New Game + autoshow.
• auction house is not accessible from within New Game +

Interesting idea. Agreed that the atmopshere is totally different in the early hours (Which is part of why I wish the campaigns lasted longer). It seems insane that we still have no basic "new save" feature for Forza. Agreed on playlist cars being added to the autoshow if you own them as well.

 

[KnightOfRen]

What economy? The current game doesn't have one. Like I said in a previous post, I had all of the cars that were available by the second week of play. The 30 mill car that you didn't need to spend a dime on. You almost don't need money at all in this game other than to do upgrades, or to complete 1 lame accolade of buying 400 cars from the autoshow. FH5 spoon feeds you everything without much effort and the "playlist" exists only to keep engagement up.

Agreed! I had collected almost all the cars by the 2-3 week mark, and I never used the exploits. This game spoon feeds you everything and even when I buy my dream car, a 2 million dollar Ferrari Enzo, it still isn't rewarding at all, because you didn't earn it. That's what I think FH3 did better with this same general narrative. That game rarely spoon fed you cars or credits. The wheelspins were better balanced. FH5 will probably give you an Audi R8 from a wheelspin within the first hour of playtime, or just a million dollars. The games have eliminated progression in favor of giving impatient kids everything from the start and it will likely be the downfall of the franchise, assuming they don't fix it with FH6.

 

[Newbomb Turk]

I never denied that wheelspins are rigged. Anyone can prove it. I too finished the entire collection with 150/400 accolade. In those 150 cars there where 100+ Willys. Yeah I used those SWS to get other cars.
It was fast for me too. In FH4 I played for a year before buying the last car from the Autoshow. But after playing Horizon games for 5 years I'm not sure I want to grind that much. Even in FH5
I was lv500 by the time the collection was finished. So I played a little bit. It wasn't really handed to me. But since they came from WS it wasn't that exciting either.
If the next Horizon release with 200 cars I don't mind grinding for every car. 600 cars can become a problem if you want realistic prices.
Don't know where is the perfect balance, but I would never miss whelspins in future Forza games.

Mind you there was a change to the wheelspins a little ways in, but I wasn't affected by it as I was beyond the point of "needing" them. Within the pre-release (if you had pre ordered the game). The wheel spins were crazy chunky in their payouts, and early on, it takes less to level up. 1 WS per level from 1-200 (or the first *1 level) is a bunch of opportunities to land cars. Now I'm *2 almost *3 at this point. Don't forget the car pass and the initial 10 or 12 cars it gave you that essentially put the Drift Zones on easy mode.

Realistic prices is what everyone who plays GT7 started bitching about. Their Haggarty collection is purely a money sink (in game or otherwise). If you don't want to pay more real money, start grinding. Then they nerfed payouts and all hell broke loose....lol.

Edit: I just reinstalled FH3, totally forgot about the loyalty rewards we used to get. Had 39 million in rewards waiting for me...lol.