Not that it bothers me too much (I have a tuned Willys car that I used to 3star all Drift Zones so I can get the Arcades done easily), it’s mostly curiosity.
In case somebody doesn’t know, there are 5 types of Zones.
Wreckage
Chaos
Air
Speed
Drift
Now, from said group, one of the two zones will ALWAYS be Drift, while the other one will be random between the other four. Which is something I don’t really get.
Why did the Dev team decide that Drift would ALWAYS be one of the two options? Why not simply rotate both options?
It would be as if every single Trial out there had the same race, or if every single Trial decided to always be in S1 cars, or if all sessions had the same daily of “Get 3 Clean Races for not crashing into anything”. Dunno, just random tasks that always get repeated instead of everything being random/luck based.
Did I miss something inside the game that maybe explained why Drift is always an option? Did someone from Playground / devs just loved Drifting so much they wanted to make it a permanent choice for players? Or is drifting a core part of the Horizon games?
3 Likes
Good question, wouldn’t surprise me if it’s a bug 
1 Like
I’ve seen it be not always a Drift plus one. Just bad random luck you haven’t maybe. Could be Drift comes up more, but when I was specifically looking for Drift was it there ? No… of course not. lol
I’d say that you not having drift is the bug. Every single Forzathon I have taken part in since release (somewhere around 150-160), there has always been a Drift event and then the other event is a random choice of the other ones (Wreckage, Air etc)
1 Like
Could be… lol… or maybe my memory is the bug ? I’m sure I used to see a non-Drift pairing occasionally, but since commenting, not a one.
My take is that the Devs know Drifting is always fun and smashing pinatas might get old after a while, but ymmv. 
you say the devs know drifting is fun, but FH5 has convinced me that they hold the discipline in very low esteem. with the “drift” tires (they dont drift), lack of drift modes (open drift is a joke), changes since the update that make doing the drift zones for personal bests and leaderboards useless, removal of on/off road limitations to drift zones ( you can basically just run a road drift section completely without touching the road), removal of speed checks when going sideways to get points (you previously needed to go 25 mph to get points, now you can get points by literally doing a stationary burnout, or a donut), among a few other issues, drifting is basically DOA in horizon 5. 4’s system is the clear winner in terms of drift (especially after the update), and lets just say i didnt have very nice things to say about 4’s drift system too. and the lack of any real drift content has me not playing these days, and regretting the purchase. and this post will probably get blocked for moderation purposes, like every other post ive made on the subject.
Drifting is more popular, that’s the reason.
1 Like
How do they determine what is popular? Let us hope it isn’t by the logical fallacy of looking at how much time people spend on something.
They’ll have internal metrics from this and previous games that can derive it. You wouldn’t believe the amount of analytics that go on behind the scenes of AAA games these days, tracking everything you do and how you do it.
1 Like
Yeah you missed the point I was making. They can only determine how long people spend on something, not whether they enjoyed doing it. I hope you understand what I mean.
For example, they can see that I’ve spent hours playing the Playlist. Does it therefore follow that I must enjoy doing it? What do you think?
1 Like
When it comes to drifting, I don’t even think metrics is needed. Drifting is huge in Forza Horizon just by looking at the content created. I enjoy it, I just wish there was a bigger focus on creating your own car rather than having all these FD and drift specials which tend to be much better than regular tuned cars.
Analytics can be a double-edged sword. Data is data, but the “whys?” aren’t as straightforward. I remember they said Seasonal PGG was popular but, a couple months later, they removed the win requirement for the prize. I speak as an outsider, but IMO they misinterpreted the high number of short matches due to people quitting and finding new matches to join as a hint towards popularity, whereas many people found it to be a chore.
Also some stuff such as Eliminator were added probably due to Microsoft’s pressure to ride on BR’s popularity.
Before Arcades has been updated easier to finish, Drifting is the easiest one that we could finish. If two top-tier drifter or 3 great drifter can finish the Arcades.
Compared to drift, others require at least 5 to 7 members then you can finish it. Maybe this is the reason.
After updating, I have finished Drift Arcades in 1:30 for the quickest one. The average solo time around 2:30 to 3:00
Yup, its always drift + something else.
Probably because in FH4, players hated drifting, so again, they included even more of it in FH5. Classic PPGs move lol. They usually do the opposite of what players want.
The separation is probably for the best. Drifting is highly divisive. A lot of people really like drifting, and a lot of people really dislike it. Personally, I’m not a big fan of drifting, but I always do the drifting Arcade, because you can generate a significant amount of skill points at the same time.