Forza Horizon 5: General Discussion

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I think the cause of this problem is that they're trying to make the game accessible to everyone at all skill levels. But I don't think it is necessary to give the player free cars and lots of money so easily to make the game accessible.
The game is accessible to everyone at all skill levels regardless. Accessibility is not about handing the player everything. Instead, it's about ensuring that as many people as possible are able to play. The game has plenty of settings in place to achieve this (though of course more are welcome), adding decent progression is not an issue of accessibility. It's an issue of game design. The game was designed to allow everyone to drive whatever they want, whenever they want, with the exception of the most expensive cars and playlist exclusives.

Whether this is a good thing or not depends on the player. Keep in mind that this forum is not likely to have many opinions from very casual players, who are the top priority for the game. To casual players who just want to get in a car and drive, it's great. There's a small sense of rarity because they won't be able to afford the more expensive cars right away, but there's still that freedom right away. They don't want to commit even 50 hours to the game, they just want to have fun their way, right away.

For those of us who have played previous games (remember: most Forza players started with Horizon 4 or 5 and have never played Motorsport) or actually do want to commit lots of time to a single racing game, it sucks. The game has not given us enough to do in that time, and instead handed us the tools and told us to do it ourselves. Cars have no sense of achievement, as they are handed out like candy on Halloween in a rich neighborhood. Money is meaningless, as finishing position has no effect on race rewards (it does for XP, not credits) and most of it comes from wheelspins anyway. We're left with a sandbox after about a week of playing, and then it's a 3 year wait for the next one. The games just do not have the longevity of previous titles and we're not happy about it. That doesn't matter for those who just want to play it for a while and drop it though, and as that describes the majority of players, it doesn't matter to the development company either. It's a waste of resources, from the view of maximizing profits and minimizing costs.

We've seen a shift in the way the games are designed. They're specifically catered to the masses, rather than enthusiasts. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as a whole, though it is a bad thing for many of us here. For me, it's as much of a time waster as RuneScape now. Just something to do when I'm bored.
 
left with a sandbox after about a week of playing, and then it's a 3 year wait for the next one
I thought they usually came out every two years. If they're switching to a three year cycle perhaps they could work on more than two expansions per game. But that'd hurt people in the wallet.
 
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YouTube is crawling with all these 'money making glitches'. Bloody insane. Money isn't hard to come by in this game. Whatever happened to the fun of playing a game to achieve things?
A money glitch just allows someone to get the cars they really want but can’t be bothered to get from the boring festival playlist or main story.

FH is a sandbox that makes you find your own fun with no real story or progression. Sometimes I just buy the festival playlist reward cars instead of doing another week of the same lazy PR stunts and championships against AI.

I’d love to chase leaderboard times or play more eliminator, but hackers ruined those and they’ve done nothing about it in a year.
 
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I thought they usually came out every two years. If they're switching to a three year cycle perhaps they could work on more than two expansions per game. But that'd hurt people in the wallet.
It is usually two years, but that was the case with Motorsport too. I think they've started getting more time as the games require more and more work. It's not entirely clear if this is the new permanent cycle, but with the state this game is in after 3 years of development (+ 1 year of updates) I'm not confident they can release them every 2 years anymore.
 
I think the switch to new console hardware, whilst also making a last gen version is probably what threw them off the usual cycle; I suspect Covid probably didn't help things either. I don't know if they'll revert back to it though. My guess is that the next entry will be solely Series X/S, and will run on a modified version of the new Motorsport engine. With that in mind, I don't see it being done in two years, unless they have wizards working there who somehow don't suffer from burnout.
 
I read somewhere a while back (an article or something) that fh6 has already started work on environmental design. They probably already have access to FMs new Forzatech with all the bells and whistles that entails. (The TCR Lynk and Co feels miles ahead of any FWD or race car in fh5, and those were miles ahead of any prior game. I'd even argue that for the unsavory weight shift in the porsches in fm7, which is now gone.) Along with the newly added RT and DLSS, DLAA, TAA and FSR.

I think it will be a 3 year cycle because of how they have spaced out the two expansions so far as well as the big "duos eliminator" update and the Donut Media Part 2 that are incoming. Also the rumours pre launch were indicating 3 expansions for fh5 (probably at the end of next year) namely, Nightfall, Ventura and Upside Down (Hot Wheels).
 
I read somewhere a while back (an article or something) that fh6 has already started work on environmental design. They probably already have access to FMs new Forzatech with all the bells and whistles that entails. (The TCR Lynk and Co feels miles ahead of any FWD or race car in fh5, and those were miles ahead of any prior game. I'd even argue that for the unsavory weight shift in the porsches in fm7, which is now gone.) Along with the newly added RT and DLSS, DLAA, TAA and FSR.

I think it will be a 3 year cycle because of how they have spaced out the two expansions so far as well as the big "duos eliminator" update and the Donut Media Part 2 that are incoming. Also the rumours pre launch were indicating 3 expansions for fh5 (probably at the end of next year) namely, Nightfall, Ventura and Upside Down (Hot Wheels).
Generally work on the next game starts either right after release or even before it (though that would only be the ideas phase). I would not be surprised if, a year after FH5 released, FH6 already has a good amount of progress. And hopefully it will be built on the new engine, but we'll have to wait and see how much of that new engine actually makes it into the game.
 
I suppose I should go to the auction house and sell a bunch of my duplicates. I must be in poverty since I don't yet have 50,000,000 credits in the vault.
 
I'll admit I did the big money challenge card a couple times. I got up to about 450 million credits and quit. That was more than enough. The only car I would like a duplicate of is the '73 Porsche 911 Carrera RS but as it's a barn find car, it can't be auctioned. I've already got my accolades for selling and buying a 20M credit car so I haven't bothered with the auction house.
 
On the discussion of progression and freedom and all that, while I do agree there is little progression in this game, I'm a little torn on how to implement that stuff anyways.

As much as I think the "stories" in these games are absolute suffering, I get that there is basically no progression feeling and I can see how someone would want more of that. The last time I got any of that was from FH3 where opening new festival sites seemed kinda like progression that wasn't just annoying/arbitrary. That being said though... I just don't see what story they could implement at this point that would make me want to suffer through the unskippable cutscenes, embarrassing dialogue, and nonsensical, repetitive tasks. It would basically require a complete restart with no douche-y music festival, obnoxious NPCs and so on, and I don't see that happening.

I'm one that sorta feels a big portion of the progression in racing games has to come from within though too. Getting faster, making less mistakes, learning to drive different kinds of cars, beating better AI, learning to tune/build better, and so on... But unfortunately the game provides basically no incentive to do any of that either outside of maybe Rivals (if someone gets into them) or maybe the weekly Trial I guess? Other than those, the "Highly Skilled" drivatars (or whatever the normal minimum difficulty for weekly things is) are easy to beat with basically any car with random upgrades thrown on it, so there is really no incentive to set goals and practice and improve.

With no narrative progression and no natural sense of progression or any incentive to improve, and you are left with the only real feeling of progression being ticking things off of a list, whether that be cars or events on the map.

A lot of racing games use faster cars as a sense of progression, and I know a lot of people complain about getting Koenigseggs and stuff right at the start in these games. While I suppose going faster like that makes sense it's not something I'm really that into anymore and I don't feel that works as well in these games as opposed to more motorsport-oriented ones.

Personally, I find all the racing is far better in C class than it is in S2 or whatever, and the freedom provided in this game means I can just do basically the whole thing in C or B class cars if I want, which I find far more enjoyable. If I was forced into S2 and X class and stuff in the name of "progress" I probably would probably play it even less.

Part of the issue though too is that the freedom is kinda fake... We have a lot of freedom to just play a lot of stuff as we like, but if we want to try the shiny new vehicles, we have to jump through hoop after tedious hoop with the weekly playlist stuff. If they really want to lean on the freedom thing, I'd rather they go even further and make it more free. Somewhere earlier in this thread I made an example of a new way to earn the weekly playlist points that wouldn't funnel you into the boring stuff they set for you and let you choose to earn your points by doing what you actually enjoy instead of the arbitrary set of tasks their RNG thing spit out this week, and I know that would really help my enjoyment of the game.

I dunno maybe I'm just getting too jaded for this stuff. I would still enjoy firing up the game and doing a race or two in a new car I've built up, but the AI isn't any fun and all my friends have stopped playing except for one, and they only do the weekly stuff and sign off too... Which means I'd basically just be hotlapping by myself and that has kinda lost its charm.
 
I think a bit of the trouble is that in terms of freedom you really have to seek out what you want the game to be instead of it offering more of the possibilities to you with more varied and tailored content. With a game like Gran Turismo I’ve often felt it does a better job (as corny as this sounds) of building a relationship with the car both from the number of events you’ll have to do with one as well as those events conveying the history and/or skills of the car. Older showcases, bucket list challenges, and even prizes such as winning the Alpine A110 in 2 and taking it for a spin through the french countryside evoked a similar feeling both by how they played more strongly into the location but also creativity in how the cars, across all classes, were presented to the player. When you build a game simply for retention via FOMO using cookie cutter events which can be molded to any class or car type, you lose some of that soul. One of the things that surprised me with Horizon 4 was while I felt the roads were lackluster I thought it was fantastic offroad and it became a joy to convert as many cars into their meta-tuned rally counterparts. Judging from the car list, which had almost everything notable from Group 4 to Group A/WRC and their body kits/etc., it felt like the game was aware of this too but never really gave a glimpse into this possibility, and you’d never really know from the story or weekly grind playlists. Before I ramble anymore, I feel like the best thing for the series would be to just slow down, and instead of throwing jesko’s at you immediately, turning everything into a “dude epic!” moment to appeal to the widest range of players at once, offering more vivid glimpses of the true freedom and special/local car cultures not only a game like this gives, but a Horizon game set in Mexico or Japan or Mauritania, etc. specifically gives you would lead to a progression from within like Morbid said to seek out these corners and niches.
 
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I'll admit I did the big money challenge card a couple times. I got up to about 450 million credits and quit. That was more than enough. The only car I would like a duplicate of is the '73 Porsche 911 Carrera RS but as it's a barn find car, it can't be auctioned. I've already got my accolades for selling and buying a 20M credit car so I haven't bothered with the auction house.
I did it too and got the rest of the cars I needed I’m at $137 million now.
 
I like the current sandbox style because I am a player who likes to find my own way to play.
However, as a player who has been familiar with the Forza series and other racing games for a long time, I sometimes feel that I would like to see more progression in the single-player mode.

This is my personal idea:
Improvements to offline content

- All courses must be raced in the designated class or category only the first time they are played. Winning a race will allow the player to unlock free race events (similar to what we play in FH5, events that automatically correspond to the car currently in use) and blue prints using that course.

- Some models are not available for purchase at auto shows at the start of the game. However, such models can be added to the Auto Show and purchased freely by unlocking them with Accolade/Wheelspin/Collection Bonus, etc.
In addition, the selection criteria for such models will be more satisfactory than at present.
Players will not have to work hard to obtain a Ford Ranger Raptor or Toyota Celica, but will need to put in a reasonable effort to unlock more real-world, rare, and expensive vehicles such as the Bugatti Veyron, Koenigsegg One:1, or Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe. Unlocking these cars requires a fair amount of effort.
However, players who do not wish to play the challenge can use the Auction House to quickly acquire such models, as they can be purchased even if they have not unlocked them.

- Improved collection and accolade rewards. No more wheel spins, random clothing, irrelevant emotes, and contemptuous slight cr places.
Players should be given rewards that are more challenging, brand-connected, fun and worth unlocking, such as clothing based on the manufacturer, emotes based on famous movies featuring that car, and rare models of that manufacturer.


Improvements to online content (playlist)

- Festival playlists give players better prizes.
There is no player on earth who will spend 15 minutes in a season championship for the desire of an auto show car that can be purchased for 20000cr.
These prizes are not necessary for beginners to veterans.
Instead, let's give players better prizes.
Cr, cars not available at the auto show, and playlist content from the past. Prizes should not be reluctant to give out.
Better prizes better motivate us to play the playlist.

- All exclusive cars added in the playlist will later be added to the auto show.
This is a change that has been requested for years now. The playlist prizes should only be early access rights to those cars.
Streamers, photographers, tuners, painters, and players who are not part of any of these groups... there are definitely many players who play the playlist for the purpose of playing new content early.
And players who happen to not be able to play, or who do not like playlists, will be able to access those contents in a few months.
This would make the game more friendly to players who started playing the game late.

- The "User-route Championship" is back.
These events, which were introduced in FH4, were controversial but always made the game feel fresh.
Let's bring back this championship.
However, it is necessary to have the tester players in the community and the author of the route check the content of the championship in advance.
Such a check from the players' point of view would make the event more enjoyable and reduce the risk of criticism of the creators.

- Gaining season progression points through more variety means.
The Forza series has always characterized itself as a game that can be enjoyed by a variety of players.
However, the current playlist is mostly biased toward racing, and the AI difficulty and challenge goals are above a certain level, making it hard to say that it caters to all players.
So let's add more variety of challenges and allow different players to earn points in the way they want.

For example, increase the number of photo challenges to 20 different types, for a total of 20 points.
And within those challenges, there should be difficulty levels from easy to challenging.
From very easy like "photograph a Corvette ZR1" to a little more challenging like "photograph a sheep with Ram in a specific area".
This way, photographers can have fun taking pictures and earn points, and players who didn't get points for PR stunts or trials can make up for missing points with these challenges.

Of course, these challenges will also be available for tuners and painters.

For example, how about a challenge for tuners to "upgrade a Ford SVT Cobra R to S1 class without swapping the drivetrain and achieve the target time"?
It would be nice to have a challenge for the painter to "create a livery for a Ferrari F430 and get 20 downloads or 5 likes".

And in addition to these, the current race-style challenge should also have a greater range of difficulty.

For every 5 points awarded for a championship, players can earn an additional 2 bonus points by playing on a harder difficulty level than the one specified.
And allow them to play on an easier difficulty level, although they will only get 3 points.
This will make these challenges more enjoyable for both players who want more difficult challenges and those who cannot meet those challenges on the current difficulty level.

Of course, these are just irresponsible wish lists that I, as one player, casually mention, not knowing the hard work required to maintain the current live services.
Maybe a similar proposal has already been made in PGG and they have decided they can't do it.
But like this I hope that this game will become a game that more and more players can enjoy.
 
Well, within seconds of starting the season the awful voices are back, and they've used the wrong audio file mentioning you would win the Ford Woody Wagon this week.

I do agree with that comment above alongside other points, since there's absolutely no desire for me to keep winning cars below 50K cr. It's borderline unacceptable.
 
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Well, within seconds of starting the season the awful voices are back, and they've used the wrong audio file mentioning you would win the Ford Woody Wagon this week.
I absolutely laughed out loud at that one; I pre-write a chunk of the season change articles where possible, and it really rather jumped out at me.

But then I've been getting ridiculous audio from all sorts of stuff recently. I did a Collectibles a few weeks back and got congratulated on my drift zone completion (which I did last November)...

Edit: Bwahahaha, they still have Horizon Mixtape telling you what the new season in S13 will be...
 
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I absolutely laughed out loud at that one; I pre-write a chunk of the season change articles where possible, and it really rather jumped out at me.

But then I've been getting ridiculous audio from all sorts of stuff recently. I did a Collectibles a few weeks back and got congratulated on my drift zone completion (which I did last November)...

Edit: Bwahahaha, they still have Horizon Mixtape telling you what the new season in S13 will be...
I've been getting that kind of stuff well before this update.

I don't think they anticipated people using Mixtape past that season, so they didn't record any additional dialogue for it...
 
Nice to have this little fella back ☺️

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Taken from reddit - but PG are "aware" of the credit glitch and are disabling the Auction House for now while they address it.
Neither car is new to the game, but both are only available as Playlist rewards, Forzathon Shop items, or Wheelspins, so it’s certainly worth picking them up — if only to flip through the surprisingly cash-rich Auction House…
Cracking Up Lol GIF
 
I'm glad I managed to get a few lucrative "wheelspins" on Super 8 and cash in pretty much all of my >500k dupes before the axe fell.

One'd hope all this boom activity on the AH might somehow help convince the Playground powers that be that removing the sellback option on cars wasn't such a good idea but I'm not exactly holding my breath waiting for this to happen.
 
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So many people did the glitch for nearly a week that they couldnt ban anyone.

Shutting down the auction house is fine, it sucks ass anyways and hopefully this forces them to rethink some things. It’s clunky and slow, inflated prices always creeped in, and it’s used to sell credits for real money on eBay.
 
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I'm actually looking forward to the Christmas Theme coming back to Horizon. I barely took photos of it because the game was still new at the time, but now, I'm all set for it! I've also been taking photos of each series we've been through for a whole year! Maybe before when the new Forza Motorsport comes out next year, I will post all of them here in this thread? :)

Nice to have this little fella back ☺️

View attachment 1208851
I'm glad that car is back. :embarrassed: I made a Circuit Build of it for C Class, and let me tell you it is freakin' fun! :D
 
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I'm actually looking forward to the Christmas Theme coming back to Horizon. I barely took photos of it because the game was still new at the time, but now, I'm all set for it! I've also been taking photos of each series we've been through for a whole year! Maybe before when the new Forza Motorsport comes out next year, I will post all of them here in this thread? :)


I'm glad that car is back. :embarrassed: I made a Circuit Build of it for C Class, and let me tell you it is freakin' fun! :D

I think I saved exactly one photo from Christmas 2021.

Happy Holidays 2021.jpg


If they bring back the tree I'll bring back the rotary. :D
 
I'm not happy about this series in general. This whole entire series is miserable. And I bet Series 15 will be no better. There is a very bleak future for PG if they don't do something fast. And they won't. Ever.
 
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