Forza Horizon 5: General Discussion

[Wolfe]

Some of the team who worked on FH5 did a phenomenal job. Others should not even have a job in the industry, apparently. It's not easy to definitively rate the game with its contrast, and not in an on-the-fence way -- what's good is great, while what's bad is so bad that I'm still dumbfounded by the contrast.

It seems too trite to attribute it primarily to AAA greed and bean-counting or something, spoiling a better creative vision. I don't get what happened.

 

[breyzipp]

The game is excellent, I mean there were bugs and still are, but I feel like they’ve done a decent job of ironing them out for the most part.

Really? I agree that the game is excellent but I more feel like we’ve had a few emergency hotfixes / updates to fix the most crucial bugs and issues that were still possible for the team to work on before the holiday season break. But a lot is left on the table to fix.
I think that the updates for Series 4, 5, 6 and the first expansion will carry along a lot of fixes as well. Once we are in Q2/2022 I think the developers have this bugged release somewhat under control.

What was also new for Playground games was a November release AND a bugged release, in contrast to other FH games that launched in september and in a much better state. The window they had now between the release of the game and the holiday season was really narrow to do much of bug fixes. I think they also underestimated in what state the game was launched.

 

[AudiMan2011]

The Playlist just feels like an even bigger chore than ever since PG appears to be tripling down on their live service approach, especially with more forced multiplayer objectives.

There's lots of areas where PG's complacency is blatantly showing all across the game; from the unoptimised performance to Horizon Adventure being a cover-up for the same mistakes that dogged Horizon Life races in FH4.

The game is still good when things come together, but it's only incrementally better than FH4.

 

[Famine]

It's the typos that piss me off - there's even one instance of the actual game name being spelled "Horzion".

If anyone at PG is reading, I'm an excellent proof-reader (I did proof and sub motoring stuff for the Press Association after all; a proof-reader who knows the specific subject matter is worth their weight in platinum) and freelance, and my rates are very reasonable.

Well, depending on how deep the client's pockets are, and if Microsoft is paying...

 

[RYAN]

My main gripe with the game is that I dont think the Map is nowhere close in variety and design to the UK and Australian one's but I still enjoy the game immensely. I don't quite understand why people complain about having to "grind and work" to unlock the cars every week. All you have to do is literally play the game. If you dislike playing the game that much than why bother at all? It takes me less than two hours to do the majority of the playlist most weeks.

Maybe if they gave multiple paths to get the max points for a week though. Maybe have more Seasonal Championships so you can do more of those if you dislike playground games/Online modes Etc. Then Vice versa, If you do like Online modes make it possible to earn more points through doing those activities.

More variety in challenges and events will be a great improvement though.

 

[DivitLad]

I've got 430 odd hrs in the game, I just love zooming about in the cars messing arround with the boy racers

 

[WanganDream]

My main gripe with the game is that I dont think the Map is nowhere close in variety and design to the UK and Australian one's but I still enjoy the game immensely. I don't quite understand why people complain about having to "grind and work" to unlock the cars every week. All you have to do is literally play the game. If you dislike playing the game that much than why bother at all? It takes me less than two hours to do the majority of the playlist most weeks.

Maybe if they gave multiple paths to get the max points for a week though. Maybe have more Seasonal Championships so you can do more of those if you dislike playground games/Online modes Etc. Then Vice versa, If you do like Online modes make it possible to earn more points through doing those activities.

More variety in challenges and events will be a great improvement though.

I am a playlist hater, and the reason is simple.

1: We are practically forced to play multiplayer if we need a new car.
2: It's limited to a week.
3: It specifies race types, classes, and cars.
4: Some of the "challenges" are simply a time wasting grind.

The current relationship between Forza and playlists is like a buffet.
They claim "all-you-can-eat", but in reality, we are forced to eat a certain amount of a certain dish if we want to have dessert.
And without this, we could use the time and stomach space for our favorite dishes.

In fact, I spend many hours freely playing this game. It's not painful at all.
I enjoy taking photos, tuning and painting. It is a wonderful experience.
However, it is completely different while playing the playlist.
I buy cars for the playlist that I don't need and do extreme upgrades for PR stunts. And I will never drive that car again.
Then I do a boring 100 mile drive for a few points, or rewind to break 50 lanterns in the desert.
Then I fire up FH5 on my PC and play a bit of multiplayer, which I don't even want to play.
This is not fun at all, and I feel that I am wasting valuable time that could be better spent enjoying this game or playing other games.

 

[MOPARbarrett5]

So I just made a Cincinnati Bengals livery and I don't see any option to make the livery public. I assume that is because it uses someone else's uploaded vinyls? If that's the case, it's a bad decision by the developers given how much I and many others have used others uploaded vinyls for their own liveries in GT Sport.
At least I still was able to upload a picture.

 

[strela]

I have been on the official forum more lately than ever before and I noticed one thing in common regarding Playlist.
A lot of people hate the playlist because it forces you to play the game in a certain way. A lot of people also want a story or a carrier mode that will force you to play a game in a certain way designed by the developers.
A lot of people hate the playlist because it forces you to play the game to obtain exclusive cars. A lot of people also remember the old games always had this mechanism. Even in GT2 you need to gold every licence to get a one time LM edition car. Racing games need this type of reward system.
A lot of people say that the game is boring anyway and that the Playlist is the only thing that is bringing them back.
A lot of people only play the Playlist because they finished the single player stuff.

Locking cars behind gold is wrong I will always say it. But the Playlist or similar weekly activities are needed. Online also works much better with it than without it.
Almost everyone from my friends list has 3 times the amount of hours played on FH4 compared to FH3. Most of them stopped playing FH4 when S39 started. That was the first Playlist without an exclusive car.
So I'm pretty sure if the next FH will scrap the Playlist I will see similar drop on the hours count.

 

[ClydeYellow]

I have been on the official forum more lately than ever before and I noticed one thing in common regarding Playlist.
A lot of people hate the playlist because it forces you to play the game in a certain way. A lot of people also want a story or a carrier mode that will force you to play a game in a certain way designed by the developers.
A lot of people hate the playlist because it forces you to play the game to obtain exclusive cars. A lot of people also remember the old games always had this mechanism. Even in GT2 you need to gold every licence to get a one time LM edition car. Racing games need this type of reward system.
A lot of people say that the game is boring anyway and that the Playlist is the only thing that is bringing them back.
A lot of people only play the Playlist because they finished the single player stuff.

Locking cars behind gold is wrong I will always say it. But the Playlist or similar weekly activities are needed. Online also works much better with it than without it.
Almost everyone from my friends list has 3 times the amount of hours played on FH4 compared to FH3. Most of them stopped playing FH4 when S39 started. That was the first Playlist without an exclusive car.
So I'm pretty sure if the next FH will scrap the Playlist I will see similar drop on the hours count.

A lot of people just love to hate on the newest, shiniest thing. Back in the FH4 days, the community seemed to have collectively decided that FH3 was where the series had peaked. Now that FH5 is out, suddenly the honour goes to FH4 - and the general consensus on aspects of FH4 that were constantly and almost unanimously panned, like the map's general uniformity and having an entire season of snow driving, did a complete 180.
This is not to say that there aren't issues with the current state of the game, or with the way the Playlist has been implemented, of course. But a lot of people are simply jumping on the outrage bandwagon.

 

[UKMikey]

There's an interesting divide between the game's industry singing the praises of FH5, warranted, and generally being very positive about the game, and then the general reception of the game for those who play racing games a lot (who may also be in the games industry, or may not be) being much more critical of the game, especially once launch rolled around. It really just underlines how much of a tight rope act Playground is on when it comes to appealing to the casual or even non-interested racing game player (which they have succeed with, in droves) and generally pleasing the hardcore racing game player or fan of the series (which I think is clear that they have not)

I didn't think it was any secret that Horizon was their casual focused game. It seems a bit unfair to expect T10/PG to focus more on hardcore racers at the expense of "cazhies" when they have a supposedly more serious racing game in the pipeline that's presumably not aimed at the general public.

 

[PJTierney]

So I just made a Cincinnati Bengals livery and I don't see any option to make the livery public. I assume that is because it uses someone else's uploaded vinyls? If that's the case, it's a bad decision by the developers given how much I and many others have used others uploaded vinyls for their own liveries in GT Sport.
At least I still was able to upload a picture.
View attachment 1108622

If you make a design using anyone else’s assets you can’t share it.

This is due to user-generated content being part of the game’s economy.

 

[Wolfe]

I am a playlist hater, and the reason is simple.

1: We are practically forced to play multiplayer if we need a new car.
2: It's limited to a week.
3: It specifies race types, classes, and cars.
4: Some of the "challenges" are simply a time wasting grind.

The current relationship between Forza and playlists is like a buffet.
They claim "all-you-can-eat", but in reality, we are forced to eat a certain amount of a certain dish if we want to have dessert.
And without this, we could use the time and stomach space for our favorite dishes.

In fact, I spend many hours freely playing this game. It's not painful at all.
I enjoy taking photos, tuning and painting. It is a wonderful experience.
However, it is completely different while playing the playlist.
I buy cars for the playlist that I don't need and do extreme upgrades for PR stunts. And I will never drive that car again.
Then I do a boring 100 mile drive for a few points, or rewind to break 50 lanterns in the desert.
Then I fire up FH5 on my PC and play a bit of multiplayer, which I don't even want to play.
This is not fun at all, and I feel that I am wasting valuable time that could be better spent enjoying this game or playing other games.

Very well said.

As I said another time, the playlist ought to be an endgame carrot for players who already have already completed the game and are looking for something to do. It feels like filler, while you have better things to do, because that's the function of a gameplay mechanic like the playlist by design. It's pulled right out of MMORPGs. The way they've tried to make it more front-and-center and a place of promotion is painful to behold.

 

[Nacho Libre]

I would love to have been a fly during the sales pitch meeting of the original Forza Horizon, but seeing how the racing games market has evolved from the 2010's until today, it's easy to see that they sensed that the more "sim-like" games were peaking in sales, as GT5 would go to sell about 11 million units and FM4 less than half of that (data from Wikipedia and VG Chartz), and considering the sales drop-off by their later versions (GT6 sold less than half of it's predecessor, and FM5 even less, and honestly, part of it was self-inflicted). Thus, expanding to other market was the right move.

Forza Horizon started as a spin-off and now is a top dog, and a banner franchise, while the next FM will probably be a niche technological showcase piece (although, thanks to Gamepass, will surely reach more players than it's eventual sales would reflect.)

 

[Milouse]

This Week Shop:

This week Car Pass car has a buggy upgrade:

Forza Horizon 5 | kudosprime.com

Manufacturer: Audi, Model: TT RS, Year: 2018, Class: A 748, Weight: 3307 lbs

www.kudosprime.com

3: It specifies race types, classes, and cars.

That's exactly what i want: reasons to explore cars of my own garage.

 

[Eunos_Cosmo]

I would love to have been a fly during the sales pitch meeting of the original Forza Horizon, but seeing how the racing games market has evolved from the 2010's until today, it's easy to see that they sensed that the more "sim-like" games were peaking in sales, as GT5 would go to sell about 11 million units and FM4 less than half of that (data from Wikipedia and VG Chartz), and considering the sales drop-off by their later versions (GT6 sold less than half of it's predecessor, and FM5 even less, and honestly, part of it was self-inflicted). Thus, expanding to other market was the right move.

Forza Horizon started as a spin-off and now is a top dog, and a banner franchise, while the next FM will probably be a niche technological showcase piece (although, thanks to Gamepass, will surely reach more players than it's eventual sales would reflect.)

This is an interesting point of discussion RE popularity of racing titles. IMO GT and FM both either stagnated or went downhill (in terms of quality) after GT5 and FM4 respectively, so I think there are potential alternate reason they didn't sell very well aside from changing trends, though I'm sure that was part of it as well. I know I avoided buying GT6 because it looked terrible, same with the XO FM titles.

It could also be that FH is just a more cost effective title to develop, to the point where promoting it over FM just makes sense.

It will be interesting to see how GT7 performs, as a test of your theory. I could see it going either way, but the game certainly has more momentum than GT6 or GTSport had. FM8 is too vague at the moment to make a prediction.

 

[Justuxful]

Just a heads up, the rear Audi Sport bumper will appear when you install the front Audi Sport bumper.

It automatically installs the rear one once you install the front one, so y’all can still have the full kit on it.

I’m really happy that they included the Audi Sport kit, hoping they’ll do it for future new RS cars too

 

[RYAN]

I am a playlist hater, and the reason is simple.

1: We are practically forced to play multiplayer if we need a new car.
2: It's limited to a week.
3: It specifies race types, classes, and cars.
4: Some of the "challenges" are simply a time wasting grind.

Like I said in my post, I would prefer if there would be multiple paths to getting max points. Do more SP if you prefer that or More MP options if you prefer that. I don't like that I have to play modes I dislike (mainly playground games) to get full points and would prefer to do another Trail or Seasonal Championship instead.

If you see anything other than the recent Bentley challenge as a grind/waste of time it would seem to me that you have more of a problem with enjoyment of the game as a whole, Irrelevant of the playlist content.

 

[Populuxe]

I decided to get the Trial out of the way first. I used my Hoonigan Porsche. That was a mistake. I was thinking road races, but these were cross-country. We barely won the first race, lost the second, but won the third. I was mostly useless in the first two races but managed third in the final race.

The car pass Audi remains locked to me for some reason.

The Super 7 weekly prize is a wheelspin. However, at least in GT4, whenever it said “wheelspin”, that was a substitute for a prize I already had. So you might want to check it and see if it says wheelspin for you, too.

 

[breyzipp]

Trying to claim my Audi TT RS but then this happens. 😔 Didn’t have this problem with any other car pass car before and I always claimed them on release day. Already fully shut down my console, waited half an hour, rebooted it again and… nothing. It’s already almost 22h CET here now, this car was supposed to be released at 15h30.

 

[queleuleu]

I feel like this might spark some decent debate:

Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb's Top 10 of 2021


I generally trust Jeff's word a lot, he's been a veteran of the games industry and has been around the block more times then you and I have had hot dinners, plus he seems to have a good eye on the general winds of the game industry's changes (The entire Kane and Lynch debacle transitioning to Giant Bomb) but seeing this comment about FH5 does bring up an interesting paradox that I noted in the pre-release hype build up, and also now:

There's an interesting divide between the game's industry singing the praises of FH5, warranted, and generally being very positive about the game, and then the general reception of the game for those who play racing games a lot (who may also be in the games industry, or may not be) being much more critical of the game, especially once launch rolled around. It really just underlines how much of a tight rope act Playground is on when it comes to appealing to the casual or even non-interested racing game player (which they have succeed with, in droves) and generally pleasing the hardcore racing game player or fan of the series (which I think is clear that they have not)

Forza Horizon is like the Uncharted of racing games for me. The first run is amazing and awesome moments then it lacks depth for me. I've spent 100 euros for the premium edition and I don't even play it anymore. I just can't find the motivation. It looks great, plays great but something's missing IMO.

 

[PaulGrey]

I decided to get the Trial out of the way first. I used my Hoonigan Porsche. That was a mistake. I was thinking road races, but these were cross-country. We barely won the first race, lost the second, but won the third. I was mostly useless in the first two races but managed third in the final race.

The car pass Audi remains locked to me for some reason.

The Super 7 weekly prize is a wheelspin. However, at least in GT4, whenever it said “wheelspin”, that was a substitute for a prize I already had. So you might want to check it and see if it says wheelspin for you, too.

Go into the Time settings in the Xbox. 2 weeks ago I just had to go into the Time settings and then back into the game and the car was then released. Last week it happened again and when I went into the time settings, the Xbox had me listed under a different time zone. Once I changed it back to the correct time zone and went back into the game, the car was able to be released. Hope this helps.

 

[Populuxe]

Hope this helps.

I'll let you know when I get home from work.

 

[RYAN]

Fortunately I don't seem to have the same issue as quite a few people are suffering while trying to claim the Car pass content. Hopefully PG can sort this out as it seems to happen to more and more people as weeks go on.

I wasn't that looking forward to the new Audi TT, But I enjoyed taking it for a spin. I took a drive stock like always which was fine but then I upgraded it and was happy to see fully upgraded with the stock engine it sits neatly at S1/900 with semi-slicks.

I also like how some of the new cars have included aftermarket bits. The Subaru had that Varis kit and the Audi has the nice Audi Sport one with the swan-neck wing.

 

[breyzipp]

Go into the Time settings in the Xbox. 2 weeks ago I just had to go into the Time settings and then back into the game and the car was then released. Last week it happened again and when I went into the time settings, the Xbox had me listed under a different time zone. Once I changed it back to the correct time zone and went back into the game, the car was able to be released. Hope this helps.

I gave that a try and it didn‘t help for me. Time settings were already correct (I never mess with those). But for the sake of it, closed FH5, changed my time 1 hour back to the UK GMT timezone, then back out, back in and back to CET Euro time. Still the same problem.

I now vaguely remember I had a similar issue in FH4 as well at some point. The car simply unlocked the day after and I think PG even confirmed it was a known issue. So I’ll leave it like that for now and check again tomorrow. No big deal, I’m sure it will get unlocked at some point.

 

[PaulGrey]

I gave that a try and it didn‘t help for me. Time settings were already correct (I never mess with those). But for the sake of it, closed FH5, changed my time 1 hour back to the UK GMT timezone, then back out, back in and back to CET Euro time. Still the same problem.

I now vaguely remember I had a similar issue in FH4 as well at some point. The car simply unlocked the day after and I think PG even confirmed it was a known issue. So I’ll leave it like that for now and check again tomorrow. No big deal, I’m sure it will get unlocked at some point.

I just got home and fired up FH5 to see what it would do this week and it just released like it should with no further steps.

 

[breyzipp]

I made a quick tune for the 2015 Audi TTS Coupé which turns out to be dominating the AI with ease in the seasonal championship “Earn your Stripes”. That one requires S1-class Modern Sports Cars yet again on dirt racing.

I deliberately kept the PI level at the bottom of S1 class (S1 803) as I expected it to be harder if you use a tune at the top of S1 near 900 PI. For single player it doesn’t matter since the AI drivatars scale towards your own PI anyway.

I came in 1st place with ease in all 3 races. The share code is 313 307 593 if anyone is interested.

@Populuxe @PaulGrey the clock just ticked past midnight (it’s the 28th now here) and I’ve been able to claim the car pass Audi TT RS now. Hopefully it works for Populuxe as well after work. 🤞

 

[Milouse]

Locked car from Car Pass is in the official known bug list since today:

• DLC - Car Pass - Car pass cars say unreleased when they are already out. (Date Added:01.26.22)

Regarding the official bug list, i reported two day-one bugs two weeks ago and they are still not in the bug list 🙄
( 1. Always wrong acceleration label and value in tuning browser when game unit set to metric)
( 2. Wrong icon on perk (IDENTICAL ICON ON 2 DIFFERENT PERKS) )

 

[RYAN]

Ahh that feeling when you do your least favourite out of the way and leave the nice chill stuff for the end 🤗

 

[breyzipp]

Ahh that feeling when you do your least favourite out of the way and leave the nice chill stuff for the end 🤗


View attachment 1108791

Haha, that is exactly my strategy as well! First quickly do all the annoying and “dependant on other players“ events, afterwards go enjoy the single player stuff at my own pace. ☺️

I had to give the new 2019 Audi TT RS a quick try before bed. I really like the car! Beautiful car both exterior and interior, nice engine sound (also in the tunnels in G-town), and indeed as already mentioned it’s great we get the Audi Sport performance parts as visual upgrades as well. But that Forzavista bug... let‘s hope it gets fixed soon.
Also the fact that Audi already announced it won’t design a new model TT anymore means that the 2019 TT RS (= Mk3) will be the final model in its highest performance. That’s definitely a keeper for many Forza games to come. I hope some day they add the Mk1 TT as well so we have all 3 generations in the franchise.

More info on those Audi Sport performance parts for the 2019 TT RS can be found here :
(I always enjoy comparing game stuff with real life stuff ☺️)