One of the first things I realized in the Hot Wheels expansion is how much harder it is to avoid skill chains being broken because of the barriers along the track, and that I had to learn to drive differently than I do on the mainland or at Blizzard Mountain.
And it’s then I realize that it’s not just my driving that’s been the problem. It’s not just slamming into the barriers that’s been the problem. It’s not just crashing into a drivatar that’s been the problem. It’s that the game is hyper sensitive to collisions.
If you get nudged by another car, it breaks the skill chain. If they decide to attempt driving through your car, it breaks the skill chain. It’s not up to you and how well you drive. It’s a lottery.
After twenty attempts at Roaring Reef Sprint, I finally manage to bank a 15,000+ skill chain and win the race. I manage to dodge the AI inexplicably slamming their brakes before the giant banked curve, stay ahead of them so I don’t get rear-ended, avoid earning more skills so that I can bank the chain, and not get so far ahead they rubber band past me.
The success doesn’t make me happy, there’s no sense of gratification for having succeeded. But I’m at least not $80 poorer, which I would have been if I’d followed my instinct to smash the controller against the wall. And at least my neighbors only got to hear so many different mentions of demons and their private activities.
Please Playground, for the love of innocent controllers and neighbors everywhere, fix this.
Just reread
You just need to be more careful and maybe slow down a bit
I have noticed its a bit more sensitive but its mainly because there’s more walls to hit
Driving in online freeroam reduces the drivatars to zero…just random traffic cars too
15 000 is really easy to get man, don’t be desperate !
It’s a matter of good start : don’t rush, do a clean start, follow the lead and slalom between the cars you’ll get at least 6000-7000 x3/4 in just 30 seconds.
I agree that the rubber band is heavy in HW though… it’s very frustrating in this aspect.
Why can’t we get 3 medals for successfully filling out the race registration form, and for go all that racing stuff.
Seriously though, I have lost plenty of skill chains to the side barriers or slipping off the edge. However, I think the car to car contact is somewhat forgiving, at least at the start where there is lots of contact. I specifically noticed this last night during a start where I had a pretty good skill chain going with lots of bumping going on. I let the pack rush on through the first turns, slowed down, banked 45,000 pts and used the remaining laps to catch up and win. On most tracks you can get 15,000 pts in the first few turns.
This was in S1 class, and like I wrote I did succeed after a lot of tries.
The problem wasn’t the walls. It was the AI competitors nudging me from the side or from behind that broke the skill chain. Light nudges that were counted as major shunts, presumably because of the overall speed being high. When I finally succeeded, I probably banked 50,000 points in the first chain. Not getting it ruined by the AI drivers wasn’t skill as much as luck.
In short, I managed to avoid hitting them without much trouble, but they did everything they could to hit me, and the rubber banding made sure they could. Over and over again.
To those who think it’s a silly complaint:
I have nothing against there being a challenge for those who want it, and overall Hot Wheels has been surprisingly easy. I just finished the last campaign race and only have 8 medals left to get. The only assists I’ve had to use are rewind and AWD cars, with AI set to Highly Skilled. I’d like harder challenges too.
But glitches, oversights and erratic AI behavior aren’t real challenges, just frustration.
I found car selection is a lot more important in the HW expansion, I tend to pick a car suited to the challenge try and get it done ASAP in the race and then play catchup if necessary for the win… If it’s a skill chain one I slow to make sure it’s banked before carrying on… for some of the timed challenges changing the stunt can have a big difference on lap times…
Really enjoying the expansion as it is…
Well apart from having top 200 drivers in your friends and drivatar list which made getting 3 medals on 7 of the events a bit frustrating so they have been temporarily “fired” and that made all the difference…
Just put it on an extremely easy difficulty setting. This way you can complete the challenge and still win the race. Seriously, with this tactic it should no problem for you to pass any of the challenges, if this is all you are after.
So long as you don’t get a rogue/runaway drivatar (how is it May and this still hasn’t been fixed?), lowering the difficulty usually works. It’s incredibly backwards though that their attempt to increase the challenge just results in many of us fundamentally turning the difficulty down just so we can enjoy the game.
I miss when the Forza mantra was “Pick your level of challenge and enjoy”, rather than “If you aren’t placing first, you aren’t having fun”
At least they are not having you do drift taps or midair passes like they did in Blizzard Mountain. I also like how the S2 objectives are all speed-related. In my opinion, they took a better approach to it in the Hot Wheels expansion.
The ones I’ve had the most trouble with are the drift skill ones. I have always sucked at drifting in Forza games (This dates back to FM4) and this type of medal had taken multiple tries. It’s hard for me to pull off 15 drifts AND win the race at the same time, on the HW track.
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