Forza Horizon doesn't value the player's time; many don't have any desire to play anymore

Forza Horizon Forza Horizon 4 FH4 Discussion
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I’ve been thinking of making a post like this for quite a while. Its been six-seven years since I was last active on these forums, so bear with me, as I don’t know the general sentiment is.

So, Forza Horizon is running into a major issue, and I’m sure many car enthusiasts and older players will understand this. The way that they’ve built this game is on a premise of time, it’s everything, but it doesn’t go on based on player interactions, it’s controlled by Playground Games. What is the problem? The problem is that the players don’t have much control of what goes on in the game. It’s not exactly dynamic, we are doing everything that PG wants us to, whether it’s the cars we want to drive, season we want, weather, races, you name it. The game is very restrictive. You could argue the fact of being able to make your own races and challenges, but it’s not the most intuitive system.

It seems that many aren’t exactly happy with the inclusion of seasons, at least from what I’ve read on the forums, on Xbox Live and elsewhere, It erodes away at the freedom of choice - one could argue that not having it at all is the better choice. Well, the seasons were placed there for that reason - to control the player base. My enjoyment of Forza Horizon 4 (the only FH besides 1 that I’ve played extensively) took a steep dive, and that was because I realized that the seasons were only implemented to keep player retention. Playground Games realized that they needed to keep players interested in the game, so they used the feature of seasons to have a way to lock cars behind challenges, lock races, events, give themselves a buffer to create content (ex: we’re finishing this car, it will be available next Spring), advertising new cars as free then locking them behind time-walls (eg: pay-walls)

The biggest issue is locking cars behind challenges, which those challenges are controlled by seasons and whether or not Playground Games wants people to have particular cars for that season. They give out bans for people going around the system with glitches to get the car the missed out on, so it forces you to grind and waste time trying to fight for these cars in the auction house, risking getting scammed by dishonest players, waiting around for months on end for a particular car to pop up through the will of Playground Games -the list goes on.

No one wants to buy a game only to find out that the car that they want to drive is ‘technically’ in the game, but they just have to be at the right time and place in order to get it. And if they want to get it, they have to jump through numerous hoops to even have it. This has led to me and other players devaluing the worth of what these cars and suggesting that “I’m not going to waste my time trying to get another skin and engine sound.”

This is where my gripe for car enthusiasts and older players comes in - we just want to hop in a car and drive it. What happened to the way cars were managed in the Forza Motorsport 2 days? What happened to being able to play the game, earn the credits and unlock the car through gradual time investment? I took a long break from FH4 and missed out on a few cars, cars I wanted in the game since its launch. I’ve uninstalled the game recently, but felt compelled to write this after speaking with another person about how this game treats the player’s time like it’s nothing.

Horizon will continue to sell and have new players, but I feel like the game is hemorrhaging its player base with the way that it’s being handled. Many game devs are starting to realize that people don’t want to be drip fed content over time, with exceptions to a few games. It’s looking like T10 and PG are going to be the last to realize this.

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I agree with all of this. I hope that one day it will all just unlock, but it doesn’t seem that way. I’ve got excited when I heard that Toyota was back, but that seems to only matter if you want to sit and play through all of the required nonsense for the next several months to catch the slow drip of new models. Not even messing with it at this point.

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all of my family have moved on to other games. i am the last hold out because of my hands. i could try farming simulator 20, like other family members. it has been many months since they played. i can’t blame them since the number of tunes is still regulated. i am the last and want to remain loyal, but it is getting harder to do so since family isn’t playing anymore.

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On the other hand, I ‘don’t’ want to be given the cars, and I ‘do’ want to do the seasonal events for them. I just like ‘games’ to actually be ‘games’. Give me the cars without doing anything, and I will not know what to do with those cars.

I don’t actually know where you are coming up with something to do with the cars? what do you do, just drive around in them? How is that fun?

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I’ve written walls and walls of text on this subject, fully agreeing with you.

More issues with the game:

  • Exclusives make availability scarce, which hurts painters
  • Many exclusives artificially boosted to fit into the competitive meta
  • We asked for more car culture, PG gave us Lego and battle royale
  • Seasonals meant they cut custom championships from the game
  • Seasonal events are frequently thrown in together and don’t make sense, contrary to unlock events in Forza Motorsport
  • Bugs that shipped with the game remain unfixed
  • PI system showing its age with many recent cars struggling to fit into the classes

Haven’t played Express Delivery yet. Too little, too late. The game evolved into a high budget Asphalt 8 instead of maximizing its AAA roots. Needs less Midtown Madness and more Project Gotham Racing/Test Drive Unlimited.

To OP: current state of community goes like this. There’s a bunch of vocal critics of the game. And then there’s a bunch of Playground idolizers, many of whom you’ll find on Discord but also another places (here for example), who defend the game to death and ridicule you for criticizing it. Not unlike in other communities. Since this forum is slow and seldom updated, I’m sure Playground would rather eliminate it and focus on their herd on Discord, the moderation of which became even stricter in recent times.

The Discord server even has a guy who tries to make the Team Games “relevant”. Non-coincidentally he’s among these “worshippers”. Lovely. The fact no good stuff is ever handed in these games anymore and the very low completion of Ranked achievement in TG should tell you all there is to be said about their “relevance” to the game.

“Driving around in cars” is basically what FH4 is. If you don’t find that fun, there’s always Forza Motorsport, GRID or Gran Turismo.

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Might dig this out along with the old 360 to see how this has aged, or maybe they could build a new version to go with the new xbox due at the end of the year.

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Have you never heard of a race? It’s a competition where you try to finish 1st instead of just driving around aimlessly in a car. I think that the seasonal events are better than having nothing to play for.

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Totally agree with everything in the OP. I’ve been saying these same things about FH4 since day 1 with the hope that PG would come to their senses and unlock the cars.

I still enjoy the core Forza gameplay enough to continue playing for the time being, but still really unhappy with the direction the franchise has gone.

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There was never any reason for the franchise to go in this direction either, that’s what irks me the most about it.

Leave trash like Destiny, Anthem and Fallout 76 to things like live service (AKA I can’t be bothered to release a proper game at launch) guff and epic/legendary/common tiered items, the predecessors were far better games than anything using a live service model could ever hope to be.

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I am shocked, shocked I say!

What do you purpose as a solution? I don’t think they are going to go back on adding new cars, and I prefer this to the cars just being something you buy with real money and then have magically appear in your garage…

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i am about to qui fh4…

i need 100 cars it take to long to do fl points or seazon percents…

i did not do the purple photo stuff for the ford fe star card…to much time…

it to much time not enough love

when i leave just put a car to rust

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Honestly, given the title of the post, I thought it was about the fact that, even being in a club, there is no more display of the amount of points one brings to his club over a week. On FH3 we had few week challenges on who would have the most points. Club leader board was somehow a thing on FH3

Concerning the need to achieve some activities to get access to some cars etc, I consider it being like the eternal system of every games with levels, reach level 1, you got simple gun, level 2 rifle, level 3, automatic etc. On the other hand we all come to FH with extremely different expectations, I came to meet people just driving around and being annoyed by the speedmeters flash sound. I can understand that.
Opening buying for real money the cars while some others will spend hours of game to get same, is simply pay to win. Nevertheless, there could be multiple ways to get the same cars, racing, grinding points, doing miles, doing stunts whatever. I agree that having only one way to get a specific car is removing any choice to player.

Having all the cars from start would be, for me, like being able to do final level at game start …

Went to Discord few times, either I am not using it correctly or this thing is just a revamped IRC where no one can discuss something seriously. But it would explain why we get non sense updates like the one leading to rolling, landing on 4 wheels and having the car position reset. The non sense, to be polite, of this update is like matching with the quality of discussion one can have on discord from what I experienced.

Consider FH fans willing to defend game no matter what, I have came accross fewer last few months. I consider myself fan of FH, 2K hours play, but not likely to defend non sense things. Sadly, the future I see for FH, is eliminator, all the rest gone. I see them finishing killing that game spirit as they intended to do at FH4 start ( no rivals, no FFA, clothes, , stuff, ramming, wall riding, corner bombing …) .

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My 2 cents: to me spending around 2 hours a week to do everything (including Lego land and Fortune island stunts), except PGG (2 and 1/2 hours every four weeks to get ranked) doesn’t feel like any sort of grind. I play MMO’s and I wouldn’t even try to compare how much time you have to spend there to get anything, in comparison to FH4. Or any other game, as you have to play it, to get something.
Problem here is how new content is delivered, or in better words, you’re very limited on how much time you get to acquire it.
To me it would be much better if they just added new cars to showroom, but with certain challenges (championships) to them, to unlock them. Either to be able to buy them for Cr or being free, but rather not for Forzathon points. I don’t really like Forzathon points as they are much bigger grind to get, than any weekly challenge, Cr is much better as anyone can get them easily, as they ate thrown at you everywhere.
So in short add cars to showroom with certain challenge (if it must be), but keep them there, so anyone can acquire them … sooner or later.

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Recently played NFS Payback (which Forza Motorsport copied with its Race Shop!) and the Derelicts (their Barn Finds) become available in the showroom once you assemble them all. The only temporary/unique cars were cosmetics like the boss cars.

We used to have this feature in Forza, buy cars you unlock… :frowning:

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probably the only comment i agree with on this thread

all the rest is " why do we have to play the game to get ingame rewards"

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Great argument talby, just the level I’d expect from you.

Sorry I mean great
argument talby just
the level i’d expect from you

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You can have almost everything you’d like in game from eBay… if you wouldn’t mind tipping a bit.

Players are here to play the game not get played by the game.

The opportunity is always there… on regardless, with the only difference being who’ll take the money.

Money can’t make everything possible, but there are indeed a lot of things money can make possible.

But have you considered why it has to be like this way?

How is this unacceptable?.. (and seriously, this is exactly the experience some players might expect)

Post-HTML5 veneering… one of those brilliant follies.

It’s up to the player to decide how the game is meant to be played.

If you enjoy the process, so be it.

But there are certainly players who would just prefer things be delivered without any “challenge”.

That’s where the mechanism should be improved, to cater more players’ likes.

Driving itself could be part of the core of a car game.

Like how I failed to understand how “The Eliminator” is fun…

You don’t seem to understand the leisure… regardless, I don’t seem to quite understand your desire for competition neither.

The point is not on the seasonal events themselves, but the fact that the game forced players to play them (by locking exclusive content behind).

So… Does such design make your gaming experience better?

Personally I prefer this option over grinding.

But sincerely I would like every car just available in the Autoshow, and the whole Cr. mechanism became completely cosmetic (which can go negative, and has no effect on the purchasing).

Coercing the way it’s meant to be played seems unlikely a good choice.

The only way to make things sure for you is making sure that you are knowledgeable enough for the situation.

Failing to realize the core of the game… such a mistake can be deadly.

There’s no problem if one just prefers playing the game in a different way (even just prefers to be played by the game, as an extreme case), as I’ve stated:

But do realize the key difference between mutual agreement and unilateral demand.

So a pirate copy of the game could deliver better experience than a genuine copy could then… quite funny.

Related:

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Where the game lost its way, for me, was when the playlist was introduced. Before then, the chores to obtain new cars were quite minor and quick. You just had to do a single event to unlock a new car, which yes, is still a bit tedious, but it was massively less painful than having to get to 50% playlist completion to obtain a new car.

Things actually seem to have improved recently, as there aren’t as many new cars coming along, and some have been linked to individual events rather than requiring 50% playlist completion.

The first week of this month was a bit painful, having to do an entire new Horizon Story, but it has made subsequent weeks quicker.

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Might be staying the obvious but it’s also a lot quicker to get to 50% if you put the time into getting ranked once. Last week I did the trial and the three PR stunts (which I did in the time I was waiting for the trial to start) and that was sufficient to unlock the Toyota - probably 15 minutes and I enjoy the trial anyway. Appreciate I actually generally enjoy ranked and some people hate it but the one event each month once you’ve qualified is pretty low maintenance.

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When I played with a controller, getting ranked was always one of the first things I did, but it’s not really an option with a wheel. I used to do a drift adventure each month, but there’s no chance of that with a wheel. I did a ranked team adventure with a wheel one month, and good lord that was bad, you’re just affected so much more than controller users are by any contact with other cars, or terrain unevenness, so I got spun into last place every race. Nonetheless, I was thinking about going back to doing it, and just not worrying about my plummeting rating. I just really hate that we can’t choose to only do road/street, as well. Ever since they got rid of freeroam rush from those, I’ve been waiting for them to be properly separated so we can choose to just do those, but you still always end up doing S1 cross country with freeroam rush.