Any communication with the public is PR. I don't see why you are separating announcements regarding upcoming content as not communication? Just because they don't spend their time talking about stuff that's broken, doesn't mean they're not communicating. Also they do acknowledge the big issues.
The November stream literally opened with them talking about the bugs, issues and the bug fixes. Everybody complained about it saying that it felt like they were boasting. Most comments under the stream itself are regarding the stream talking about the bug fixes calling it lip services.
I agree that patch notes can be more detailed, especially balance changes. It makes sense to do it when T10 themselves call it a "CaRPG". And keeping documentation of balance changes is beneficial to the more involved player base.
But also don't need or expect, minor stuff like "fixed position of decal on Volkswagen TCR".
I don't see the point in expecting them to mope or moan about bugs or issues in these livestreams. Keep it short and sweet with new update content and headline big fixes, if any. Do you expect a chef to come out and spend 15 minutes of your time talking about how there was too much traffic in the kitchen or that stuff wasn't going right? This doesn't help them or anybody. They should instead put their head down and work on the fixes.
I would however expect them to announce a complementary desert or a about live music about to be played. I also do not want them to announce something whose arrival date is not known. For example FH4 and FH5 both announced the increase in save file size as well paintable brake calipers. The brake caliper stuff never came to FH4 and save file stuff came much later in both games. Is it not better if they they announce it when ready. What if you waiter told you every five minutes that you replacement meal is being worked on every 5 minutes till it arrived.
I clarified I meant communication regarding bugs/fixes/changes specifically. While I get they can't have a dialogue with everyone, I usually think of "communication" as something that feels more like it goes both ways or is a bit more organic than just reading announcements at people, and is something some other studios do a better job with. Technically yes though, the announcements are a form of communication.
The Forza Monthly opened with them taking 4 or 5 minutes to say "we are doing bugfixes" and read a few patch notes out loud, hardly very informative or insightful. Again, fellow MS studio Undead Labs does a better job in how they address and actually communicate with the community, answering questions from the live chat as the patch notes stream is happening and they are live demonstrating the changes, and often elaborating by clarifying why a change was made, what made a bug difficult to fix in a general sense, which reports were valuable for solving a bug and how/what to report to help out, what the plan is for the future of a change like whether it will be revisited and adjusted again with feedback, and so on. If they haven't fixed an important bug, they generally address it and explain what the hold up is or what still needs testing/etc, and no one sees that as "moping or moaning" that I've ever seen.
The game isn't made for children they have to keep things extra simple for, and their previous dives into more technical things like their tire model was received well, so I don't see why a just a little more insight into the bugfixing stuff and things being worked on in the pipeline would be considered "boring" or whatever. I agree they shouldn't promise things they aren't sure if they can deliver, but several studios have roadmaps they put out and/or do progress reports on features and upcoming changes and things, doesn't seem unreasonable to think something like that would be nice given the state of the game currently.
- An increase in XP earning rate depending on how high your Safety Rating is.
An interesting way to put more value in safety rating. While they are at it, why not further incentivize it by throwing in credit bonuses based on safety rating too.
I suppose for some it might make them afraid to lose their rating so they actually play multiplayer less though. I have a few friends who worry about it a bit too much and end up just avoiding the public lobbies.
Lag has been okay, but now de-syncing in multiplayer???
You mean when people can't see each other? We had a league race last night with 19 people, and over half the grid noticed they couldn't see at least one person, including one guy that could only see 4 out of the 19 cars on the grid, which is by far the worst we have ever experienced. Usually we only have one or two people who notice someone else missing.
It was pretty funny watching the guy go "gee this is bad I can't see anyone" as he's plowing through people at turn 1. As we were getting going again and laughing about it and explaining to him that he was murdering people, he then went "ah damn sorry guys I will get out of the way" and put on the brakes and pulled over on a straightaway in front of a bunch of people and wrecked them too.
It seems to only happen for the first race people do in the lobby, so to work around it we do a 1 lap race after everyone joins the lobby to sync everyone up, then set the correct number of laps and go from there with the actual race.
Not sure if it happens in public lobbies though... I would think the practice into race transition would sort it out but hard to know I guess. I've seen some people say they aren't going into public lobbies until it is fixed as they are afraid someone will report them for hitting someone they can't see and they will get banned, which... given the history of bans on Forza, is probably a reasonable worry.
Was actually a problem back in the FM7 days too. For a long time it was pit related, with cars disappearing for other people when the AI took over in the pitlane. They fixed that eventually, but it could still happen on race start but it was really rare, our group only experienced that twice ever (that we noticed anyways).