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But why without micro-payment? Is it to make good numbers? Are short-term numbers more important than sastisfied customers, when it comes to selling the next game? But it is risky. I try collect all cars, so I play on a weekly basis. If I am too frustrated and don't see the chance to collect all cars, I stop playing the game. So numbers are dropping, because too timeconsuming challenges frustrate players ...

FH4 was a no-brainer for me after FH3. If I buy FH5 will depand on the projected time I might have in the 6 month after FH5-release. What will be the next steep? Five daily challenges? Or six? Seven? The completly new way to play FH? Take your console with you the hole day? You can change the pace of the game, but I think, PG is at the point of oversteering it. Sure, there are people who do not complain, others are whining, but in the moment every single design idea drives more and more people go angry. And this idea seems to be one idea to much for lots of people.

Can someone point in me in the direction of an official explanation of the 100% monthly completion challenge and reward? I see the weekly seasonal challenges and their rewards in-game, and a regular thread on the seasonal topic every week.

but I see this 100% monthly challenge discussed alot recently, but I can't find an official explanation in-game or on the forum.

Edited by user Monday, March 11, 2019 6:52:32 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

You can see what the devs said about completion and rewards in the Series 7 Update livestream at this timestamp:
https://youtu.be/v0fQ5d_hFzc?t=627

It's not in the game yet; it will be added with the content update (probably) on Tuesday.

Edited by user Monday, March 11, 2019 6:57:32 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

In the case of Forza Horizon 4, I simply don't know why they'are pushing for a "live service" model. Normally "live service" models are tied with micro-payment because stronger "player investment" increases revenue. That being said, I'm still convinced that somewhere during the development of Horizon 4 "wheelspins for $$" was a consideration. The wheelspin-based progress literally screams "microtransactions".

What profit they get from having a higher "player investment" is something I'm wondering myself. Expansion and car pack sales? I doubt they are that high anyways. "Next Game" sales? Unrealistic.
The whole game is designed around it though (seasons, car pass distribution, Festival Playlist). So it has to have advantages.

So am I suppose to get only one car at the start like every NFS in a game that promotes freedom? Have you heard of car packs? $7 and gain access to all cars, no MP or challenges, does that sound lame to you? Now I even don't get that experience with it cuz I might not able to own it.



It's always better to go easy and simple than complicated and hard. Many will be satisfied that they at least get the car. People can always make their own challenges than relying on the game to create one for them, that's the freedom of this game.

This is also where the responsibility of players comes in. Understanding that a game gets longevity through goals. Easy to get means content gets consumed. In free roam games with diverse play, the player must understand there will be endgame challenges that could be beyond their skills. I do not believe in easier for easiers sake.

The hard part about setting a high difficulty challenge is matching it to target audience. For an MMO? A rare drop at an endgame raid. A combat game? Score threshholds. The difficulty being the pinnacle of what makes the game. But in something like a combat arena game, that top cap accounts for the different roles. World of Warship endgame objectives tend to have multiple ways to achieve that. Sink ten battleships with torpedoes. Multiple playstyles that can do that. And usually a few more objectives than required so players can keep within a range of what they know.

This is the type of game forza is. It is a game of many ways to play. So endgame stuff should account for this. Different routes of high difficulty to lead to a common end. It presents the challenge, while embracing the play diversity. Then you can also have unique reward for that unique play. However, playlist doesnt take advantage of this. It unfortunately homogenizes it. For a game like horizon which is supportive of both high skill niche play.

Ideally for this, we should accept if there is top tier rewards. Say some FI car only attainable by 500k in the drift zone. A car which drifters probably would have most interest in.

So for an active play award, you got skilled players, but who like their nice. Example road race who dont like cross country, or rally who dont like drift. Can do it, but doesnt enjoy. Or say a player who just has fun, but not skilled. Unfortunately, the playlist didnt quite embrace this on the skills side. A skilled player doesnt have award for skill, nor does it have benefit for a jack of all trades player.

However, over the weekend, many good ideas were shared, so it will be improved, am confident in that. Hopefully they will be able to at least somewhat implement a basic revision for series 7

I've already submitted a ticket on this, but I'll go ahead and add some more thoughts to this discussion as well.

Fundamentally, as has been alluded to by others, the problem of exclusive rewards in time limited events in a game is that they're always to the benefit of the developer and never to the benefit of the player. Developers benefit since it coerces players to be online during specific times so they won't miss out, and players lose out because it's disrespectful of their time and any real-life obligations they may have.

I have no problem with daily/weekly/monthly online events for players to engage in if they choose to do so, but the rewards should not be exclusive so players who aren't interested in these events or can't play them due to RL obligations, poor internet, health conditions, etc aren't punished for not playing when they were supposed to. As another poster mentioned, any time you have these sorts of time-gated exclusive rewards, you create haves vs have-nots and that breeds resentment and anger. Sure, IRL we can't get everything, but for a great many people games like this are an escape from the demands of RL, and to have the devs arbitrarily impose RL frustrations on a game simply makes the game not fun to play. As soon as a game ceases to be fun, what's the point in playing?

Multiplayer in general is in a similar boat. After a certain point in time the game servers will be shut down, and any exclusive content rewarded through multiplayer will be gone forever. If it's items that are only really useful in multiplayer (quick chat phrases and to a lesser degree horns) it's not as big of a deal, but if it's core content (vehicles) then you end up with a situation like FH3 is in now where all those exclusive cars are now completely unobtainable (for players who aren't hacking the game at least). On top of that, I personally just don't really enjoy multiplayer at all (and don't have suitable home internet for it anyways) and any exclusive rewards locked behind multiplayer feels like an attempt by the devs to coerce me into puffing up the numbers on multiplayer to make them look better. Not to mention that any skill-based multiplayer events with exclusive rewards has the same have vs have-nots problem as time gating.

At the end of the day, what I want out of Forza is what Forza used to be, and what brought me to the franchise in the first place. A singleplayer experience of being able to collect, drive and enjoy all manner of cars I'll never be able to afford IRL at my own pace, with the option to engage in multiplayer if desired but with no compulsion to do so. If this is no longer what Forza is about, then like the devs said following the Hot Wheels expansion there are other games to play and I won't continue to waste my time hoping this franchise will improve. Which is a real shame, because to get back to what Forza used to be would be as simple as putting all these exclusive vehicles back in the autoshow and removing the irritating prompt that always tries to trick me into going online if I accidentally push X after entering the game (and giving me the ability to manually select the season for offline play).

The whole reason I put so much time and energy into writing these posts and participating on the forum instead of just moving on is because Forza does so many things right, and it's incredibly frustrating to see how a few poor design choices have really brought the overall fun factor of the game down compared to previous titles. I really do want to see Forza succeed (defined by me as being an awesome racing game that's lots of fun to play), but sometimes it feels like the devs are doing everything they can to ensure it doesn't between the long list of regressions from FH3, microtransation-ready wheelspin-based progression and these timed/multiplayer only events with exclusive rewards.

Edited by user Monday, March 11, 2019 9:50:05 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I suspect it is essentially an exploit of the company's internal systems. What follows is speculation, but is how I suspect it works. Someone gets set targets based on metrics, and are paid more money the better those metrics are. These metrics cover things such as number of players playing particular elements of the game each day. The person setting targets based on these metrics imagines that better metrics mean the game is performing better, that people like the game etc. But what happens is an exploit occurs whereby the metrics can be improved while achieving the exact opposite of what was intended by the person using them to set targets. Players can be "strongly encouraged" to play in ways that improve the metrics, even if they absolutely hate the fact that the game is doing that.

The same type of exploit occurs in other ways in companies, e.g. by execs boosting their bonuses by making the financial figures look better at the end of the current year, even though they know that their actions might be harmful to the company in the longer term.

It's actually not easy to set targets for people that can't be exploited in some way, so it's not all that surprising that it's happening in some form, but it does seem to be getting a bit extreme in the case of FH4.

The time gating part? This is one that is evolving gameplay. Overall it should add to the experience. They are not one time things and reappear different times and different ways, and should be part of just regular play. It should also be understood that because people dont like playground games, those that do shouldnt be able to earn good rewards for that? Somebody top of rank shouldnt be able to earn something special?

There needs to be goals to strive for. It is vital to having a longterm health of a game. That means there has to be stuff difficult to get, or rare drops. This goes back to the first video games. Without it, the game is consumed fast and gone. Poof.

I am not a fan of drifting, so if there was a big drift reward? Okay. They get that, I get drift.

Everything buyable from credits just loses value. With AH, all are buyable unless underage and thus parental control kicks in.

At end of the day, stuff will always be obtainable to somebody. So there has to be a decision on what that limit is that keeps it fun, but also a value adding experience. At some point, it does need to be accepted that it isnt possible. It is impossible to build a game like that. There has to be rewards for achieving certain points of play.

So multiplayer components to an award, cars during trials, has to be. Rotate awards around so all players will get the chance at some point. With playlists, multiplayer isnt bad. The trouble comes in that it encompasses so much playstyle considerations without enough give for the players to bias to their play. Options to rectify discussed elsewhere.

If items awarded via time-gated events were guaranteed to become permanently available at some point so we don't end up with the situation that FH3 is now in I might be able to tolerate that, the problem is that FH3 has demonstrated that once they pull the plug on the weekly events, this content is gone for good so I don't really trust anything the devs say about future availability. People at the top should be able to earn something special, but this can be served equally well with exclusive cosmetic items that don't create the same problems as locking up exclusive cars does.

I don't disagree that there shouldn't be goals to strive for, but these goals shouldn't be time limited. The suggestion to add exclusive cars to the autoshow would be a quick and dirty way to return the game to the form of earlier Forzas, but it would be equally valid to add some in-game challenges to unlock the cars as well so long as they're not timed or dependent on multiplayer.

You mentioned in another thread that you come from an EVE Online background so I can understand your sympathy towards the multiplayer/timed events side of things, and that does make sense for MMOs and other games that are primarily intended to be played online. The problem from my viewpoint is that Forza is being shoehorned into this online game-as-a-service model when myself (and many other players by the sound of things) first got into Forza because it was a singleplayer experience free of these online frustrations. If Forza wants to reinvent itself as an online-first franchise, then my time with Forza is done since this isn't what I signed up for.

Long-term, maybe Forza Horizon should launch a free-to-play spinoff in the vein of FM6 Apex that does have all these online hooks and microtransactions for those players who enjoy them, and then release a traditional old-style (I'm saddened by having to say that) singleplayer-first experience alongside it as a separate game for those of us who would rather not participate in the online rat race and just want to enjoy our game in peace at our own pace.

Edited by user Monday, March 11, 2019 11:20:27 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Idea:

How about you let us have the option to spend some of our ridiculous amounts of Forzathon Points on an option to just buy a series/season objective completion. Say I don't want to do one of the championships, I spend 200FP-500FP (values depending on difficulty/time investment of the challenge) to have it marked as completed. Kill two birds with one stone, bring the population's FP down and people that don't want to or have time to do every objective/daily challenge can now have an option to just bypass it by using their banks of FP....

Just a suggestion.

They didn't think about people who can't play every [Mod Edit] day cause there's work 'in the way'. Miss one daily and your 100% is gone, jog on pal and retry next week ! Oh, you wanted the M3 GTR ? Too bad ! We'll prolly add it to the shop... One day.
It is so poorly thought it already annoys me and its nae even started yet. As Jadigafer7 mentioned above, how about another way to unlock them ? Let's say, 800 FP ? I have around 8000+ points that I cannae use cause there's [Mod Edit] all ta buy in the FP Shop.

Edited by user Tuesday, March 12, 2019 5:18:37 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I really hope all this feedback gets back up the chain and they realize how poorly thought out this system was, I don't think I have EVER completed every single seasonal objective, either from lack of interest, skill or time. I have done Online Adventure MAYBE once in the entire lifetime of FH4.

The idea isn't bad, but the execution is horrendous, absolutely horrendous.

At this point I may as well put all my other games in a box and focus only on FH4, yeah....not gonna happen....

Edited by user Monday, March 11, 2019 11:21:26 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Unfortunately Gamer, this is a point in the discussion where "you cannot please all of the people all of the time" comes into play. A core multiplayer aspect is vital to be competitive in a modern gaming environment as is an evolving play through the "game as a service". The service model does offer more longevity to the game as well. Properly executed, it offers more than just box and go.

So now conflict. Why do those that excel in multiplayer not have the option to earn good stuff? People dont like drivertars so just race other players. "Give horns and hats". Why is that okay? Because people dont like them or place value? Then why would that be a good grandmaster prize? And having it in both single and multiplayer? Unfortunately how can one have a multiplayer exclusive when it is single player unlimited supply?

So already we are at an impasse. There is no way to expand to the need for modern games to have a solid multiplayer experience while also having same catering to single player only. For hybrid events like this, the only way to bias one side or the other is to bring skill in. They have said that nothing is one time only and all will come back in a differently obtainable way.

Inevitably, all things end. So not hard for them to patch in the closing season an unlock all for sale. It is unfortunate if during active period there are parts that are not suited to a persons play.

With the playlist, the big picture isnt that there is multiplayer. That is modern gaming which done right is a benefit on the whole to the game. It isnt possible to meet the needs of everybody, it is a cold reality. The flaws with it do not lie in concept, just implementation. Suggestions have been made to make it more accomidating, but atsome point there has to be a barrier to make the reward have value.

It's interesting to think about what would happen if when the game first ran up, it offered the player a choice. Would you like to:
a) Have all content unlocked from the start?
b) Have all content locked, but progressively unlocked by playing the game in various ways?

I'd choose a) because I just want to be able to get on with playing the game without having to invest hundreds of hours to get started. But if some people like having to unlock content, they'd be free to choose b). I wonder what % of players would choose b), I suspect it would be less than 50%.

If the game offered that choice, not only would I have got a LOT more out of the time I've already spent playing it, I'd also not be quitting the game now.

I suspect, though, that the people who like to unlock stuff wouldn't be happy with the above choice being available because what it really comes down to is not that they enjoy having to unlock stuff, but they enjoy having something that other people don't have.

I think better options would have been you can unlock 100% of the content in offline/single player sessions, but it would only be usable in offline/single player sessions (you wouldn't be able to use it online or in a multiplayer session). If you want to be able to access cars during online/multiplayer mode, they must be unlocked in whatever PvP, PvE, or 100% completion challenge way that is thrown out there. That way people can still feel like they are "Flexing" to the multiplayer universe when they bring out their ultra rare/hard to obtain car to showoff in online mode, and people that aren't competitive PvP gamers, can "enjoy" the car in the privacy of their solo session. Heck maybe even the drivatars in solo mode could be equipped with quick chat phrases and as you pass in your "rare" solo session car, they will all go "Nice car!" or "I'd buy that for a dollar!" so you can get the virtual feeling of flexing off those rare car muscles to the drivatars.

How would I feel? Honestly? I would rather the having most stuff locked and need to progress. Getting cars in wheelspins for example feels cheap. Needing to play to earn cars gives me satisfaction. Else I am dropped in end gameand what? Then people complain about being out of stuff to do after one weekend is the result.

Separate online vs offline isnt really viable either. Cause you are just making it two different games. Two save files. Majority of players like a mix of online and offline. So much like the playlist presentation, it is forcing play. I get rare car in a solo mode. Now I need to earn it again in multiplayer? I like Trials and Forzathons, dont like team adventure but do like doimg championships solo. So what then?

Something has to be given up somewhere. You are asking online players to give up high tier multiplayer awards, and skilled players to give up getting nice stuff for the efforts of high difficulty challenges.

What are you giving up for their play?

Now the playlists I was against and raised concerns because there is only one way to achieve them which I felt in counter to the intention of the event and would become a toxic and negative game experience because it did not embrace the diverse playstyles in the game. But I havent been asking for players to give up the reward or satisfaction to achieving it.

It is unfortunate, but because there is a diverse range of players, it means that somebody will be left out. Multiplayer is the market and so it will have to be catered to. Gotta pay the bills.

I don't see anything wrong with someone having to earn the car through online/pvp means, if they want to show it off to people online. If they earn it online, it could then be automatically available to offline mode as well (so no need to earn it twice as you say). If they aren't willing to earn it online/pvp style, then they can go win it offline, which it will only be available for them to use offline, so that it doesn't dilute the exclusivity or difficulty of obtaining a rare car that people want to show off to the world. Who cares if people are given every car in offline/solo mode, that doesn't affect anyone. If you want to be able to brag about something or show off to people in online mode, you need to have earned it in the same PvP environment you want to show it off in.

Edited by user Monday, March 11, 2019 2:19:40 PM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Yes, I'm aware of that axiom, and a related one is that is that if you try to please everyone, you'll end up pleasing no one. Which is kind of the situation we're in now with broken multiplayer annoying those who enjoy online play, while at the same time players who would rather enjoy the game singleplayer are being coerced to play online to get all the content so now you've ticked everyone off. Executed properly, yes good multiplayer and even theoretically games as a service can extend the life of a game, but how many hybrid titles have done this properly? The only ones I can think of had weakly linked separate singleplayer and multiplayer modes like Mass Effect 3 where multiplayer made it easier to get the good ending, but it was still entirely possible to get it without touching multiplayer, with no exclusive content involved.

How do players who excel in multiplayer no longer have options to earn good stuff? I never said they couldn't earn good rewards, just that those rewards should not be exclusive to multiplayer. If you want to hand out 10 mil cars for doing well in multiplayer that's fine, I can still earn 10 mil credits offline and buy the car. Multiplayer rewards from what I've observed are more about showing off your rank, so having high-ranking cosmetics as exclusives still lets that player show off. If you provide more tangible exclusive rewards in multiplayer like an OP car, then you run into the problem where the elite players get an even bigger bonus on top of their skill over those trying to earn those same rewards, which introduces its own host of problems.

I don't have the same trust in the devs as you regarding what they've said about bringing content back. If FH3 and FH4 are any indication, if any of these vehicles do come back around there won't be any rhyme or reason to it so players won't be able to even plan ahead so they can have time to grab the exclusive content while it's available. Some cars in FH3 were available many times, others only twice (I don't think anything was only ever available once). Now the devs have zero plans for making them available again in FH3, so even if it's an easy patch there's no desire for the developers to do anything about it, which undermines the whole idea they're really committed to making these available long-term.

Modern gaming to me has largely negative connotations of shoehorning online features into games that don't really need them under the guise of improving gameplay, with the real purpose being to datamine players, combat piracy, and introduce these games as a service hooks to coerce players into logging in constantly whether they really want to or not. Could it be done in a way that's wholly beneficial to the game and the players? Probably, but all I've seen from "modern" game design is a decline in overall game quality.

I'm not disputing that there needs to be a barrier or challenge of some sort to make rewards feel valuable, but that challenge doesn't need to tie into the online aspects of the game so players are free to pursue it on their own time at their own pace.

At the end of the day, we play games to have fun. For me, forced online, multiplayer and time gates are not generally fun, regardless of how well implemented they are. If this is the new future of the franchise, then I'm no longer interested in Forza.

Pretty sure they can promote online multiplayer without giving everyone who can't compete against Unbeatable drivatars a boot to the head.

Yes, you don't need to earn something twice to use it offline and online. I am saying you have to earn it online if you want to use it online. If you can't/don't want to earn it online, you have the option to do something in offline so you can use it in your own solo session freely, you just won't be able to bring it into an online session because you didn't earn it the same way that everyone else in the online session earned it... By beating each other into a pulp and being the last one/team standing, as should be the PvP environment, you don't win you don't get a prize. Simple.



And this would solve the problem for people that don't like to be forced to play PvP, they can earn the car and enjoy it at their own leisure in their own solo session. This keeps the rarity of hard to get PvP vehicles in online mode something that can be shown off, while it doesn't lock anything away, because solo players can still enjoy the car for themselves, they just can't show it off to other actual people, which if they wanted to show off to actual people then they would be playing the one thing they are wanting to avoid.... Multiplayer.

This is a good argument for separate singleplayer and multiplayer modes. I've suggested a similar thing in the past, where singleplayer could be a career mode similar to FH1 with the ability to invite friends in for some coop, but otherwise independent of online. Multiplayer would be closer to what we have now in FH4 with a large shared map (with a better UI to make it easier for players to find proper races). That way you could have two separate sets of challenges and keep online exclusivity for those who want it without disadvantaging players who really just want to go solo.

This independence would also allow each player to have multiple singleplayer saves without wiping all their multiplayer progress like has to be done now.

Dailies are there for 3 days so you would need to miss 3 days
Each daily would take maybe 5 minutes max
A whole weekly shouldnt take more than an hour

The other stuff can be done in about an hour as well
Spread out over a week its not as bad as people are making out
Unless you only play an hour a week when obviously you arent playing the Game that seriously anyway and
Life is too short to stress out over 1 car that you will most likely never even use

I bet the whole thing doesn't even work anyway. It has been many months since getting 7/7 dailies actually gave out the bonus Forzathon points, so I'm guessing people will do all the dailies but not get that item on the Festival Playlist showing as completed.

Wouldn't hurt my feelings, especially if they gifted out all those exclusive cars as an apology.