Forza Horizon 4's Festival Playlist is a Step Backwards
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After reading these comments, I have to say that I disagree with majority, if not all of you. I don't want to troll anyone, and I totally respect everyone else's right to their opinion AND their opinion, nor am I drinking M$/T10/PG's cool-aide either. In fact I've been very critical about them, especially with FM7. So with out of the way, I'll get started.
The only argument that I agree with 100%, is the crappy servers and people not having reliable internet connection. Those are really a major suckage, if you have to rely on network play to earn a prize.
XBL Gold, I just can't see the issue. People have bought the console, right? They've also bought the game, right? I know, there's always birthdays and Christmases, but it seems that majority of people making an issue out of it are grown-ups. XBL membership is an 60€$£ extra/year. That makes a 5€$£/month. It's not that much.
Daily challenges. You don't actually need to do them daily. You have three days to complete one, so if you make it to the game three times during a season, you'll be able to complete them. And those challenges aren't really challenges, you'll pretty much get them done just driving or racing around.
Ranked adventures. Once you're qualified, you're good for the whole series. And for the next series, run one adventure and you're good again. I know it's an issue if you're just starting out and have to grind through eight (or ten?) adventures to qualify and get the achievement. But compare this to other games with network play, it's a similar situation. You need to play the game to earn the goodies. FH4 is still play-to-win, not pay-to-win game.
Playground games (not the publisher). This is something that I have a little issue with. What I've run into is that when a team loses the first round, most of people flee and there is one or two players left. And the fact that you have endure through all five rounds to finish the event, instead of it being best-of-five like free-for-all team adventures. In the end, people can't win every time, so if you don't, just try again. At worst I had to do a second round of games to win the prize.
The Trial. It's doable. Just pay attention to what kind of event it is, and pick and tune your car accordingly, and hope that other are people have done the same and/or can drive even a little. Like playground games, you just might have to try again.
I don't have time/It can't be done on one sitting. I'm 100% done with summer playlist, and 44%/36%/44% done with the rest. Once you've put in the effort for the first season, it'll get easier and you don't have to spend that much time to achieve the rest. I also happen to work full-time, I have family, I have hobbies, I have active social life, and yet somehow I manage to find time to play almost daily.
I don't see lowering the percentage or giving money or wheelspins for 100% achievement as a good solution. What am I going to with the money if can't spend it? I can't buy cars, because I'm about to run out of garage space. And the wheelspins give out duplicates that nobody wants buy in the auction house. While it's unfortunate that not everyone is able to get 100% prizes, I'm okay with the way it is.
And finally, if you happen to miss out on a prize, there will be another opportunity to earn it. Have a nice day, people, grandpa has to take off to work!
I can agree with most of this. I have done 100% summer and partially all other seasons now (the Porsche is a bit of a disappointment handling wise though, unlike FM7 where it is really fun to drive).
What I cannot agree with are the online challenges. It took me 4 attempts to do each and the playground event was the most frustrating event ever in a Forza game. It takes repetitions, experience, coordination and luck for teammates that are the same. And nerves, oh the nerves. My controller barely did not make it.
Also I do not agree about the prizes. There should be more money prizes at 75/100% completion. Maybe you don't have anything to spend it on, but with the whole game done, playing almost daily (from release), completing weekly challenges, collecting high level forza hub rewards (Level 11) and almost 50k design downloads, I have barely made 125M credits, with almost all 10M cars still not owned and another 130M+ to go, I might not ever get all the cars (the same as FH3, where I got the last 1M+ car after the Forzathons stopped and I was not playing the game anymore).
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I'm not FH4 specialist, but I think they insists on the result rather than the experience. You must win this or that with hard AI or online. If you're not skilled or disabled or unlucky it can be a pain in the ...
They should set up original events (endurance, PG created custom routes, specifically tuned cars) and reward you for participating. You would have the experience pleasure without the urge to win it
They should set up original events (endurance, PG created custom routes, specifically tuned cars) and reward you for participating. You would have the experience pleasure without the urge to win it
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EDIT: Reducing the amount required to 80% is a good start and may make some of my points below irrelevant.
To some people £5 a month is a lot of money! I'm fine with it myself but I can certainly understand why some people find this frustrating.
These were previously not required to unlock any cars, though. It's very easy to miss a 3 day cycle of these and while in the past this would just mean losing out on some points, you now risk losing out on that 100% completion.
I don't play Ranked Adventure myself so can't say what the big issue with these is but I imagine it's the same as most online games; people are idiots and it makes them a very frustrating play.
Some tweaks to this would make it much more viable as a completion goal IMO, especially as most people end up leaving. It needs a re-visit in general.
I bolded the part that matters here. Having to rely on others and/or sheer luck to make any progress towards a goal is terrible gameplay and really leaves people feeling deflated. If you fail because of something outside of your control it doesn't feel fair.
That's all well and good but not everyone has that much time, and the amount of time required to unlock a car has now increased significantly. I certainly don't have time to reach 100% and I don't have kids. I can't imagine what its like for parents who could previously jump on and unlock a car after playing 3 races. Now they're expected to grind for hours to get the same reward? It's completely unfair to change the goalposts so drastically once people have purchased the game.
If the percentages were lowered you would still unlock the new cars you wanted and everything else is just a bonus. Games are designed for everyone, not just the players who have invested hundreds of hours into them. Just because you won't benefit from bonus cash or wheelspins it doesn't mean we should deny others the chance to get them.
I think the main issue people have with this update is that the goalposts were changed so significantly. The amount of time required to unlock new cars has now increased massively and seemingly the only reason for it is to force players to spend more time in the game, even if they're not having fun. This is why I still believe this decision was made by management and not the game designers.
To some people £5 a month is a lot of money! I'm fine with it myself but I can certainly understand why some people find this frustrating.
These were previously not required to unlock any cars, though. It's very easy to miss a 3 day cycle of these and while in the past this would just mean losing out on some points, you now risk losing out on that 100% completion.
I don't play Ranked Adventure myself so can't say what the big issue with these is but I imagine it's the same as most online games; people are idiots and it makes them a very frustrating play.
Some tweaks to this would make it much more viable as a completion goal IMO, especially as most people end up leaving. It needs a re-visit in general.
I bolded the part that matters here. Having to rely on others and/or sheer luck to make any progress towards a goal is terrible gameplay and really leaves people feeling deflated. If you fail because of something outside of your control it doesn't feel fair.
That's all well and good but not everyone has that much time, and the amount of time required to unlock a car has now increased significantly. I certainly don't have time to reach 100% and I don't have kids. I can't imagine what its like for parents who could previously jump on and unlock a car after playing 3 races. Now they're expected to grind for hours to get the same reward? It's completely unfair to change the goalposts so drastically once people have purchased the game.
If the percentages were lowered you would still unlock the new cars you wanted and everything else is just a bonus. Games are designed for everyone, not just the players who have invested hundreds of hours into them. Just because you won't benefit from bonus cash or wheelspins it doesn't mean we should deny others the chance to get them.
I think the main issue people have with this update is that the goalposts were changed so significantly. The amount of time required to unlock new cars has now increased massively and seemingly the only reason for it is to force players to spend more time in the game, even if they're not having fun. This is why I still believe this decision was made by management and not the game designers.
Joey D
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Great, you have time to play the game. Many people don't have the opportunity to jump on the game 3 or more times a week. I get a few hours on Saturday or Sunday to play and that's about it. Between having a kid, a job, a second "job" writing for GTP, and doing everything else that one needs to do throughout the week playing a game sometimes just isn't in the cards.
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I think they were trying to solve the exploit that (PC) players were forwarding the dates offline to get the championship prize cars early?
This wasn’t the way. 👎
This wasn’t the way. 👎
Joey D
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Good call, I didn't even think about that and it does make a certain amount of sense.
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- NaughtyLittleBoy
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I despise any online mode with great passion. If playground games, The Trial and online adventures didn't provide any prizes and/or achievements, I wouldn't play them at all.
You're not missing out on anything (except some prize cars). 99.9% of time it's people intentionally wrecking and ramming others.
That's the big downside of public online play in any game, and I really, really hate it.
Yes, things were changed very abruptly, and it was a big change which ruffled some feathers wrong way. The idea of a seasonal checklist was a good one, unfortunately the way it was implemented was not so good.
Thank you for the good job you do with GTP. 👍
The whole structure is BS if you ask me. I don't have time to play these 'challenges' during the week. These new cars which they are touting may as well not be there as far as I'm concerned because I'm never going to be able to obtain them.
There should be an option to buy them on XBL Marketplace. Those that want to do the challenges, go ahead. But PG is seriously alienating a large part of its fanbase.
There should be an option to buy them on XBL Marketplace. Those that want to do the challenges, go ahead. But PG is seriously alienating a large part of its fanbase.
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I can imagine this being the case for a lot of players but it's likely unavoidable for this season, sadly.
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Well that's fun. Apparently I got hit with the "if you go offline it erases your Forzathon progress" "feature":
Everything else except the godawful online qualifying is done. I figured that can slowly be spread out over the few weeks.
Everything else except the godawful online qualifying is done. I figured that can slowly be spread out over the few weeks.
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I never really connected with this game in the way I had with the others. I don't live with my Xbox at the minute, but when I'm home I don't exactly rush to play it. It just doesn't grab me. Too many icons, too many race types I don't care for, too much rehashed content. Stale.
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Here's my thoughts. These aren't in any particular order:
-The online adventure needs a lot of work before they can be included in the playlist. This was, by far, the most aggravating thing I ever had to do in the playlist, even more so than the Playground Games event. And it has a lot to do with the quality of the drivers here.
-Get rid of free-roam rush in ranked adventures and have them available in private adventures. I don't think I've met anyone who actually enjoys them, especially if you have a spec tuned car for a certain discipline, like road racing.
-Qualifying for the adventures still is very time consuming, having to go through either 10 team adventures, or 10 free-for-all adventures. That's 50 individual events you have to do. And that's only possible after you've reached level 3 in Unranked Team Adventure. So if you haven't done a single online adventure, that's just more frustration to endure. Yes, you have all month to complete them, but most people just don't have the time to this. My current advice is this, get this out of the way as soon as possible, then you're set for the rest of the month with this.
*UPDATE* So I found out after you do reach level 3 in Unranked Adventure and do the 10 rounds to qualify, this is one time only. After this, each month, you only have to do 1 round to qualify each month afterwards. Still would like to skip it as online is a mess, as described in this post.
-The fact that PG did include a competitive multiplayer aspect to earning these cars is a major turn off for most people as they wanted to avoid the multiplayer aspect all-to-together, and I'm one of them, though I do like the Trial events, when done right (mid class with the right vehicle for the job, not offroading exotic Lamborghinis in S2 class). The competitive online nature in this game is an absolute mess from my experience, and very rarely did I run into a clean hopper. Rammers and wall riders still plague the online experience.
-*AMENDMENT* Have the match making match players with similar PI builds for the Trial events, with each class separate from each other. You do not have to max out your PI to participate in these races, and the AI will load in with PI that reflects each player's PI. This can alleviate some of the frustration that some players have with controlling their vehicles in the higher classes. So if the race calls for a maximum of PI in the S2 class, you can show up in an A class car and still race with other A class racers with the match making I proposed. People can still race in S2 if they so choose, but with other S2 racers. Unless an update changed the AI PI behavior, or limited the PI to a single class, this could in theory work. I just do not want to be racing in S2 the majority of these events.
-The infrastructure of the world wide web is relatively unreliable as is, then factoring in the different reliability of ISPs, location, and other variables means that online play is, well, unreliable to say the least. My internet connection isn't the best, however it's more than sufficient to play online. I can play other games online with minimal issues, but FH4 has a strange issue where collisions occur on their servers where as on the client, nothing is remotely close and my car just gets sent to the left or right for no other reason than the servers being unreliably inaccurate. Then there's the connectivity issues. Just trying to stay connected can be an exercise in frustration.
-AMENDMENT: Some people do not have Xbox Live Gold (which is required for online play) for various reasons, whether it's financially unavailable, can't get it in a region (i.e. poor ISP support), or just don't want it or care for it. This immediately makes obtaining the cars for those people impossible. I do have it, but at the same time, I can understand why people don't want it. So don't reply by saying that $59.99 a year isn't much, because there are much more important obligations in life that take precedence over any game, monetary or otherwise.
-ABSOLUTELY DO NOT: use any Cross Country events in the Trial events. I can not stress this point enough. A.I. have way too much of an advantage in these races. This is the only style of racing in this game that I have to reduce the difficulty, down to expert, to complete. Everything else I can race at pro or unbeatable. The A.I. is always set to unbeatable in these events. This week's Trial was super easy for me, so they're fine as events, just no cross country. Did I mention, I do not like cross country events against the A.I.?
-Playground games need to be worked on as well as they're frustrating to complete. I was able to complete it this week due to a mass disconnection on the opposing team. Yes, I was able to complete the others, but, again, they can be very time consuming, especially if you have a "below average" team. I actually could've skipped this one as well, as I already had the Hoonigan RS200. This is the only car this week that you can get by completing a single event. Also, best 3 out of 5 finish that actually finishes when a team scores 3 rounds, please?
-Daily Challenges- something that can or shouldn't be included in the Playlist. Not sure yet as they are typically easy to complete. Heck, I usually complete them without actually trying to. This may not necessarily require you to log in everyday, but they're just another unnecessary thing that you have to worry about. You do have 3 days to complete each one individually from each challenge's release.
-PR Stunts- just don't make them impossible or frustrating. The only one I couldn't do was the Mudkickers Showjump a few weeks back. Additionally, there was another danger sign (Outcrop Crest) that was almost impossible to complete, but found a work around for it.
-Wheelspin prizes don't work for me as well. In late game wheelspins, I keep getting duplicates for the cheapest cars in the game, and aren't worth the time and effort selling them in the auction house. Yet, there are still plenty of other cars (cheap, inexpensive, expensive, exotic, FE Edition, etc.) or cash prizes to win, yet the game keeps giving me Morris Minors (I have 5 of them from wheelspins alone). I had 22 wheelspins and 8 super wheel spins I used yesterday, and only managed to get 1 new car. So, the wheelspins are a step backwards on their own. And don't even get me started on the clothing prizes. Waste of time if you ask me. Wheelspins need to be exciting again, not dull and ridiculously predictive/repetitive.
-The amount of time you are asking people, especially casual players, has increased substantially. This is on the verge of being a "live-service" game, and that's an incredibly dangerous thing to do with all the controversy surrounding live-service models. The grind is there, the content locked behind said grind is there, the constant updates, while welcome for the most part, are there. The only things that are really missing are the micro-transactions, and loot boxes though some would argue that the wheelspins are a form of lootboxes. And, please do not include them at all. T10 got rid of the loot boxes in FM7.
I did manage to get 100% for this season, and got the Online Adventure Qualifying out of the way, but it wasn't all fun, and it wasn't done my way. The fact that the new cars are locked behind percentage tiers is annoying instead of unlocking them per championship, especially with "questionable" multiplayer interlinked with the tiers.
However, I do like having the ability to keep track of progress via a single menu, and I didn't even know that monthly rivals was a thing.
AMENDMENT: I just think PG and T10 should just drop the whole unicorn car thing, as well as the whole arbitrary rarity system as it does not reflect anything.
*Update* I have read the update that now you only need 80% instead of 100%. Too little too late I guess. It is a step in the right direction, however, I don't think this will completely take out the multiplayer aspect, unfortunately. I just want Playground Games (the event) to go away as well.
-The online adventure needs a lot of work before they can be included in the playlist. This was, by far, the most aggravating thing I ever had to do in the playlist, even more so than the Playground Games event. And it has a lot to do with the quality of the drivers here.
-Get rid of free-roam rush in ranked adventures and have them available in private adventures. I don't think I've met anyone who actually enjoys them, especially if you have a spec tuned car for a certain discipline, like road racing.
-Qualifying for the adventures still is very time consuming, having to go through either 10 team adventures, or 10 free-for-all adventures. That's 50 individual events you have to do. And that's only possible after you've reached level 3 in Unranked Team Adventure. So if you haven't done a single online adventure, that's just more frustration to endure. Yes, you have all month to complete them, but most people just don't have the time to this. My current advice is this, get this out of the way as soon as possible, then you're set for the rest of the month with this.
*UPDATE* So I found out after you do reach level 3 in Unranked Adventure and do the 10 rounds to qualify, this is one time only. After this, each month, you only have to do 1 round to qualify each month afterwards. Still would like to skip it as online is a mess, as described in this post.
-The fact that PG did include a competitive multiplayer aspect to earning these cars is a major turn off for most people as they wanted to avoid the multiplayer aspect all-to-together, and I'm one of them, though I do like the Trial events, when done right (mid class with the right vehicle for the job, not offroading exotic Lamborghinis in S2 class). The competitive online nature in this game is an absolute mess from my experience, and very rarely did I run into a clean hopper. Rammers and wall riders still plague the online experience.
-*AMENDMENT* Have the match making match players with similar PI builds for the Trial events, with each class separate from each other. You do not have to max out your PI to participate in these races, and the AI will load in with PI that reflects each player's PI. This can alleviate some of the frustration that some players have with controlling their vehicles in the higher classes. So if the race calls for a maximum of PI in the S2 class, you can show up in an A class car and still race with other A class racers with the match making I proposed. People can still race in S2 if they so choose, but with other S2 racers. Unless an update changed the AI PI behavior, or limited the PI to a single class, this could in theory work. I just do not want to be racing in S2 the majority of these events.
-The infrastructure of the world wide web is relatively unreliable as is, then factoring in the different reliability of ISPs, location, and other variables means that online play is, well, unreliable to say the least. My internet connection isn't the best, however it's more than sufficient to play online. I can play other games online with minimal issues, but FH4 has a strange issue where collisions occur on their servers where as on the client, nothing is remotely close and my car just gets sent to the left or right for no other reason than the servers being unreliably inaccurate. Then there's the connectivity issues. Just trying to stay connected can be an exercise in frustration.
-AMENDMENT: Some people do not have Xbox Live Gold (which is required for online play) for various reasons, whether it's financially unavailable, can't get it in a region (i.e. poor ISP support), or just don't want it or care for it. This immediately makes obtaining the cars for those people impossible. I do have it, but at the same time, I can understand why people don't want it. So don't reply by saying that $59.99 a year isn't much, because there are much more important obligations in life that take precedence over any game, monetary or otherwise.
-ABSOLUTELY DO NOT: use any Cross Country events in the Trial events. I can not stress this point enough. A.I. have way too much of an advantage in these races. This is the only style of racing in this game that I have to reduce the difficulty, down to expert, to complete. Everything else I can race at pro or unbeatable. The A.I. is always set to unbeatable in these events. This week's Trial was super easy for me, so they're fine as events, just no cross country. Did I mention, I do not like cross country events against the A.I.?
-Playground games need to be worked on as well as they're frustrating to complete. I was able to complete it this week due to a mass disconnection on the opposing team. Yes, I was able to complete the others, but, again, they can be very time consuming, especially if you have a "below average" team. I actually could've skipped this one as well, as I already had the Hoonigan RS200. This is the only car this week that you can get by completing a single event. Also, best 3 out of 5 finish that actually finishes when a team scores 3 rounds, please?
-Daily Challenges- something that can or shouldn't be included in the Playlist. Not sure yet as they are typically easy to complete. Heck, I usually complete them without actually trying to. This may not necessarily require you to log in everyday, but they're just another unnecessary thing that you have to worry about. You do have 3 days to complete each one individually from each challenge's release.
-PR Stunts- just don't make them impossible or frustrating. The only one I couldn't do was the Mudkickers Showjump a few weeks back. Additionally, there was another danger sign (Outcrop Crest) that was almost impossible to complete, but found a work around for it.
-Wheelspin prizes don't work for me as well. In late game wheelspins, I keep getting duplicates for the cheapest cars in the game, and aren't worth the time and effort selling them in the auction house. Yet, there are still plenty of other cars (cheap, inexpensive, expensive, exotic, FE Edition, etc.) or cash prizes to win, yet the game keeps giving me Morris Minors (I have 5 of them from wheelspins alone). I had 22 wheelspins and 8 super wheel spins I used yesterday, and only managed to get 1 new car. So, the wheelspins are a step backwards on their own. And don't even get me started on the clothing prizes. Waste of time if you ask me. Wheelspins need to be exciting again, not dull and ridiculously predictive/repetitive.
-The amount of time you are asking people, especially casual players, has increased substantially. This is on the verge of being a "live-service" game, and that's an incredibly dangerous thing to do with all the controversy surrounding live-service models. The grind is there, the content locked behind said grind is there, the constant updates, while welcome for the most part, are there. The only things that are really missing are the micro-transactions, and loot boxes though some would argue that the wheelspins are a form of lootboxes. And, please do not include them at all. T10 got rid of the loot boxes in FM7.
I did manage to get 100% for this season, and got the Online Adventure Qualifying out of the way, but it wasn't all fun, and it wasn't done my way. The fact that the new cars are locked behind percentage tiers is annoying instead of unlocking them per championship, especially with "questionable" multiplayer interlinked with the tiers.
However, I do like having the ability to keep track of progress via a single menu, and I didn't even know that monthly rivals was a thing.
AMENDMENT: I just think PG and T10 should just drop the whole unicorn car thing, as well as the whole arbitrary rarity system as it does not reflect anything.
*Update* I have read the update that now you only need 80% instead of 100%. Too little too late I guess. It is a step in the right direction, however, I don't think this will completely take out the multiplayer aspect, unfortunately. I just want Playground Games (the event) to go away as well.
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- 267
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- palqo
- DeliriousRex5
I had the same problem. I've started up my Xbox without network and connected after starting the game. It reset the whole season. Not the first time. This is reproducible. When I noticed this time however, immediate quit from game and delete of the local save. Started up again, synchronized from the cloud and everything was fine again.
Exactly this. I keep getting cheap cars not even worth selling too, but what I am more angry about is the cash prizes when I don't get a car or clothing. 2,5 or 7k spins are supposed to do what exactly? I'd say, there should not be a cash prize below 50k in the spins. I've completed the whole game, played reguralry from release and together with forza hub rewards, I have half the cash needed for all the cars, HALF. Where should I get the rest? And please don't tell me, "you won't drive all the cars anyway", that's not the point.
GTPNewsWire
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This is the discussion thread for a recent post on GTPlanet:
This article was published by Joe Donaldson (@Joey D) on March 26th, 2019 in the Forza Horizon 4 category.
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- Lux_Klonoa
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@Joey D minor note/question (ish) about the recent article, but:
"In order to get an 80% completion, you still need to participate in multiplayer events. This means you’re still relying on other people in order to complete the events."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you can get to 80% without doing the trial or playground games as long as you do the qualifying for ranked adventure, right? That means you just have to take part in, but not necessarily win, one ranked adventure (after doing about 13 other adventures, which is a bit of a slog but if you started a week ago you still have two weeks left to do them) a month, then you should be able to ignore all the multiplayer stuff, I think. I haven't been keeping track of what percentage each activity adds though so maybe I'm wrong but I feel like the playground games and trial are 6 or 7% each so as long as you did everything else you're ok.
"In order to get an 80% completion, you still need to participate in multiplayer events. This means you’re still relying on other people in order to complete the events."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you can get to 80% without doing the trial or playground games as long as you do the qualifying for ranked adventure, right? That means you just have to take part in, but not necessarily win, one ranked adventure (after doing about 13 other adventures, which is a bit of a slog but if you started a week ago you still have two weeks left to do them) a month, then you should be able to ignore all the multiplayer stuff, I think. I haven't been keeping track of what percentage each activity adds though so maybe I'm wrong but I feel like the playground games and trial are 6 or 7% each so as long as you did everything else you're ok.
