I load up FH4 once a week to do the forzathon stuff. I don’t play online, don’t even have an XBL gold account, just go online long enough to do what I can, then back offline. I bought FH4 because they advertised it as allowing single player, offline gameplay. Content is still locked behind online only events though. Why?
I’ve been trying to get some of the rarer cars (crown vic, capri fe… finally got the colorado a few weeks ago) but it seems impossible to get 80% on the playlist without doing online community activities. I can hit 50% every week, but never 80%, and the most I ever get at the end of the year is around 60%.
Not able to play every day (or every 3 days) for the daily events so don’t know what percentage they add to the total. I doubt it would be enough though.
So, is there any way for me to get to 80% on the playlist, without doing online only events?
No. PG have decided to replace the existing reward structure with one more closely tied to their key performance indicators. If you’re not playing the specific modes in which they want to drive player engagement, then your rewards are capped at 50%.
You can’t get the cars you want unless you enter the competitions to win cars like the photo comp, or the vinyl comp. You might snipe a car in the auction, but that takes a lot of luck. I have already won a Boneshaker, and a Capri FE in the vinyl comps so do that.
He can’t do auction house, he doesn’t have live gold.
OP, why don’t you have live gold? Unless you’re in some remote part of the world, you should be able to do Microsoft rewards, accrue points and get live gold for free. Just cashed in 3 years worth of live gold this month, free.
Having to pay a monthly subscription to have reasonable access to the content in and of itself is a problem even beyond encouraging key metrics (and throwing the whole concept of “play it your way” out the window).
This encourages the devs to wreck the optimal game progression and drag things out so you’ll have to keep your subscription going to be able to get everything.
The problem is that the game progression has already been tuned around dragging out the game to keep subscriptions going, so the progression experience is generally going to be worse (a lot slower and much more grindy with drip-fed content) than in a game that’s not tied to a subscription model. Instead of being able to complete the game in 40-60 hours like the older games, you have to log in weekly over the course of a year or more and ultimately put in many hundreds of hours to get an equivalent amount of content.
I can understand a subscription to play multiplayer because server infrastructure is expensive to maintain, but when solo content is gated behind multiplayer events (and worse, time gates), it becomes a major problem. Gold nominally costs $15 a month. Because the content is being drip-fed gradually each week and you can’t just do all the online content at once (or catch up on previous content you’ve missed), you have to effectively pay double the price of the old car packs each month for the 80% reward cars now and keep paying (and playing online to boost their metrics) to avoid missing out.
Also, you are paying for Gold whether you realize it or not. Those “free” points are tied to things that earn Microsoft money, so by doing those tasks to earn those points, you’re effectively working for MS in some capacity. Think of how many hours it took to earn those points, how much an equivalent amount of Gold subscription would have cost in cash, and see how much they’re paying you.
I see nothing wrong with getting your money’s worth. Id rather they keep this game interesting for a couple years then be done with it in a few hours, then waiting several months for a new release
For me, I place value on the quality of the overall experience. A game that is too short and doesn’t have enough content is a problem, but so is a game that’s too long and needlessly drags out what content it has, or worse, punishes the player for not playing all the time.
I have no problem with the fact that they have weekly challenges to provide something interesting new each week for players who really get into the game and play it exclusively for months on end, but I much prefer how they’re implemented in FM7 (once they unlocked all the cars). New spotlight cars are added to the game and given out to everyone each month, and they the weekly challenges provide interesting places to use the new cars and some non-exclusive rewards so you’re rewarded for playing, but since they’re not exclusive you’re not punished if you don’t feel like doing them or don’t have gold, and you can claim previous spotlight cars later even if you take a couple of months off from the game. This system does a great job of providing regular content to keep the game interesting while still respecting players.
FH4’s system punishes players for not playing each week and not having gold, which is awful game design designed to sell gold subscriptions and boost player participation numbers to make the devs look good to their bosses, not make the game better for players (despite what the devs might say on the livestreams about these “features”).
The reason I don’t have a gold account is because my internet quality is poor. I live in a rural area. The best isp we can get here is satellite, so ping speeds are too high to play online. No point in me paying for an online service (like XBL) when I can’t use it without becoming the lag king.
I can use the auction house without gold, and have done so several times. Bought my McLaren F1 there and have sold many duplicate wheel spin rewards there. The auction house is tedious though, at least for someone that plays offline 90% of the time. I’ve mostly given up on using it now and just use the “remove from garage” feature for the cars no one ever buys, like the Lotus Carlton and Renault Clio. I’ve won so many of those cars from wheelspins that it’s rediculous. It’s easier to just trash them than to waste so much time trying to sell them.
I do have several FE cars that I’ve won and saved that I plan on listing on the auction house someday. I always sell them for as cheap as possible too, since they’re duplicates that I won for basically nothing.
TBCH, I would’ve neven bought FH4 if it wasn’t advertised as offering offline single player gameplay. This is actually the first Forza game I’ve bought since FM3. I stopped buying them because of the direction the games were moving, towards online services. I love FH4 though, the intro gameplay for it was amazing and had me on the edge of my seat. The whole game has been really fun, imo, and I love the open world. I’ve played enough at this point to reach prestige 2 level 215, so I’ve clearly enjoyed the game. I just don’t like that certain content is blocked behind online only gameplay.
I bought the game for full price, bought the big bundle too that includes the car pass, vip pass and expansions, so have over $100 invested in FH4. Why can’t I get all the available content? I’m not sorry I bought FH4, it’s been a good experience, but I do feel cheated. I guess the blame is on me though, for thinking I could trust a game company to be fair to its customers.
You got all the content you paid for
The base game , the vip pass and its contents and the car pass and its contents …the only thing left is expansion #2
Anything else is free extras which it seems a lot of people would rather pay real money for rather than just jump a few hoops or actually play the game
Anyway you can still do 50% which gets you the new content
80% is rewards already in the game
Since they reduced it for everyone
Cheated was probably too strong a word. It’s more like FOMO I guess. I have really enjoyed the game, so my money was well spent, but I still want some way to earn the rare cars in a way that doesn’t require online competition. So far, it seems like they’re only ever made available through online play, which is impossible for me.
I bought FH4 thinking I would eventually earn all the cars without having to play online. It does say “Single Player” on the back of the case, right? If it’s my mistake for expecting what I paid for though, I can accept it, learn from it and move on. I don’t have to buy another Forza game.
What part of “all new content can be had at the 50% mark” do you not understand?" The 80% rewards are cars that are already in the game. New cars are awarded at 50%. Geez, some people just can’t read I guess